[ WP ] Every single imaginable apocalypse happens simultaneously .

**Part 1: ** 
 I noticed it on the drive home from work. Thinking back, if I had been more of a news nut, if I had n't been hip deep in the Andersen account, I might have noticed it sooner. But then again, the world always seemed to be on the edge of collapse. Financial ruin, horrible diseases popping up in horrible places, militarization of domestic police, the deteriorating mental condition of the latest generation, mass murders and other monstrosity. Spouting doom was big money, and so prevalent that I had become... I guess the word is'inured'. Sounds right. I'm not going to spell-check. Too busy dying. 
 
 Anyway, I noticed it on the drive home from work. Of course, at the time it was just strange, an anomaly. Even a little comedic. I was pulling into the subdivision when I caught movement in the rear view. Focusing on it, I saw two cats, one ginger, one gray, running after the car. Really bounding after it, tails straight up. At the time I chuckled to myself, thinking that these cats were behaving more like dogs. But then a child shrieked somewhere in the distance -- a normal suburban sound, probably some kids splashing in a pool, I thought -- and the cats quit their humorous pursuit of my vehicle shortly before I stopped at an intersection. I did n't know it then but that shrieking child, probably now dead, had saved my life. 
 
 I pulled into the drive, to the spacious three bedroom clonebox I would own in twenty years barring a predictable economic downturn. My wife's silver Camry was parked in the drive, which was weird. Jenna worked at a local middle school, a limping place called Galvenstone, and usually did n't make it home until six. It was five now. 
 
 I got out of my pickup and felt the hood of my wife's car. Stone cold. Why had she stayed at home? 
 
 Now that I thought about it, Jenna had been incommunicado the whole day, which was odd, but not in a way that I had noticed at the time. I always kept *Google Talk* open in the background, and she usually messaged be around noon to idly chat during her lunch break, but that had n't happened today. 
 
 *You should have messaged her yourself, * said a small, unhelpful voice in the back of my head. *Always making her take the initiative, what a horrible husband you are. * 
 
 I usually listened to that voice, because I thought it made me a better man. But the rising gorge in my throat prevented me from doing anything other than walking past Jenna's Camry, to the front door. If she had been sick, she would have called me. Was today an off-day? No, and she would have mentioned it anyway. Or had she mentioned it, and I had n't been paying attention? I was usually good with that stuff, but sometimes I got sidetracked by a work email and did n't really process what she was saying. It was nobody's birthday, it was n't our anniversary... maybe someone had died? 
 
 Yeah, that's what I thought as I worked the key in our front door. *Someone must have died. * She got the call after I left but before she had. And now she was a wreck, all knotted up inside herself. Because something awful had happened, something so bad that she could n't tell me over the phone or IM, because that would n't be appropriate. God, had dad had another fall? 
 
 That was what I was thinking when I got the door open. *Had dad had another fall? * That was the last coherent thought I had. *Had dad had another fall? * a product of human sapience, a sentence that was left dangling, to sink into the pitiless void of shock and madness. 
 
 I opened the door, thinking *Had dad had another fall? * and saw Jenna. I saw her spread out, covering far too much of the throw rug she had picked out for the entrance. I saw meat red, I saw bone yellow white, I saw brain pink, all mixed up with her pale skin and blond hair. 
 
 Time passed. I became aware again. I was sitting on the couch in the living room, phone in my hand. Someone on the other end was saying something. A pre-recorded message. I spread my fingers and let the phone tilt out of my palm. *Had dad had another fall? * I wondered. The phrase had fallen through the darkness of an emptied mind until it had hit bottom. It was down there, at the bottom of my skull, rolling in place like a cold, spastic tarantula. Because I knew what color my wife's bones were. Because I had seen the ridges of her brain, teased apart by whatever force had ripped off the top of her skull and 
 
 I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. 
 
 *Had dad had another fall? * I came awake wondering that. It was dark outside. The house lighting had turned itself on. I focused on the bloody footprints running from the front of the house to where I was sitting. Browning stains in white sponge carpet. Kid-friendly carpet, Jenna had called it, when we bought the house. 
 
 There was a tap sound. Probably twin to whatever had woken me up. The sound repeated. Hollow reverb. Had to be from the front window, the one looking out into the street. I got up and walked over, thinking *Had dad had another fall? * all the while. I knew where my wife was. I knew I had to tell someone. But I could n't. I could n't even think about it. 
 
 I got close to the window, my night vision kicked in, and I recognized the small creature perched on the sill outside. It was Chunky Monkey, the rotund gray Maine Coon that lived next door. I did n't actually know what Chunky Monkey's name was, I had christened him in passing comment to Jenna as we pulled out of the driveway and saw him perching on out trashcans, and the name had stuck. The obese cat was tapping on the window with his paw. Boing boing boing. I had never seen a cat do that before, but then again, cats are supposed to be sensitive to human emotion. Maybe it had smelled the blood and... 
 
 I was thinking all that waaaay in the back of my head. But up front was *Had dad had another fall? * still knocking around. My effects to understand Chunky Monkey's behavior were barely conscious, and might as well have been conducted in a foreign language. But then the cat placed its paw flat on the window and dragged its claws downward, leaving a trail of gouges in the heat retaining laminate I had paid an extra fifty dollars for. 
 
 Then Chunky Monkey turned and walked across the windowsill, and I could see that its sides were wet. It painted the bottom of the windowpane red with the side of its body. I turned away and vomited. Everything dying. Dad had had another fall. And Jenna. And Chunky Monkey. And, lets be honest, me too. I was in a dark place, a dark tunnel, and I could already see the light at the end of it and the light was burning bloody red and I knew that nothing was ever going to be okay, nothing ever, and nothing was every going to be okay because dad had fallen, and Jenna's bones were yellow white where they were n't stained red, or pink where the blood had slid off because of that slime that seemed to cover her bones and her brain was open and she was spread out, all of her spread out in a circle, every part of her split open and unmaking her and. 
 
 *Nothing is okay. * I finally managed this thought. Nothing was okay. Nothing was okay. Something bad. Something. 
 
 Chunky Monkey jumped off the window sill. I could see things outside. Orange yellow light on the horizon. Like flames. Like the flames at the end of my tunnel. My fault. This was my fault. Something had slipped out of my head, some darkness. And it was still slipping out. How else could the hell waiting for me, the Nothing is Ever Going to Be Okay, show up outside? Oh god, it was coming. It would be here soon. It would burn me up until there was nothing left, and I deserved it, and I welcomed it because I had n't been there for Jenna, and my life was over, and diving into the darkness festering in my own mind seemed good and right, even if it meant a literal hell, even if it meant I would boil for ever and ever because I deserved it, because Jenna was dead and I was nothing and. 
 
 I had the briefest sensation of motion on the other side of the glass, and then Chunky Monkey punched through it like a furry cannonball, bounced off the carpet, turned and then dove at me with a primal shriek that sounded like nothing I had ever heard an animal make before. It sounded almost human. But I was given no time to reflect on any aspect of Chunky Monkey's behavior, save the fact that he was now fastened on my leg, biting into my thigh. I would have screamed, and I'm sure I tried to, but no sound was coming out. I was all screamed out. So this particular action sequence played out much for quietly than you might expect. Just me grunting and whining and the cat hissing at me, when it was n't sinking its teeth into the top of my thigh. I punched it in the head several times, but it did n't seem to phase the creature. I had to lever its front paws away from my body and yank C.M. off my thigh by the nape of its neck, and the bastard thing still manages to gouge out corkscrews of flesh where its hind legs had been dug in. 
 
 I have never hurt an animal in my life. I have never thrown a cat across the room so hard it punched a divot in the plaster. I have never kicked a cat as it rebounded from said wall divot and lunged at me again. It was all automatic, just a burst of reflexes and motion prompted by the lizard hindbrain that demanded survival and despised pain. I observed these actions, but they were n't me. My wife was dead. I was with her. 

