The first suicide comes over APNet at 2:59 on Friday morning.

Allison Talms, late resident of Grand Fork, New Jersey, 16 years old, head of the student council, daughter of Dorothea and Peter Talms, sister of Christie and Michael, all state champion in volleyball, blonde hair, blue eyes, fun-loving, animal-loving, high as a kite on Ecstasy, jumps from the top of a forty foot tall building, a perfect girl making a perfect swan dive, the last feeling she has is the cold air in her watering eyes before the pavement jumps up to meet her and her body explodes.

Time of death: 12:01 a.m.

---

A gunshot wakes me up as I peel my face away from the keyboard. A, S, D, F, Z, X, C, and V have made a honey comb shape on my cheek. My instant messengers are going crazy. It�s now three o�clock in the a.m. and I have 78 e-mails. Seventeen people are trying to talk to me.

Still adjusting to the waking, I load up the AP page. Someone has died or someone has gone to war or George Lucas did something else to Star Wars. I can�t say I�m not excited to know what�s going on; I only wish I was awake enough to give a shit. Regardless, I have to update our news website to compete with the other ad-grabbing sites that take away our money and readers. The site isn�t loading fast enough. Someone�s fucking with the cable.

Another gunshot. A companion shot.

I get up and move to the large picture window in my living room and look down at the city below. People are screaming and the police are trying to stop some kind of riot from going on. It�s a small issue down there, ten stories down, but every issue is news, so I watch, just as the people on the sidewalks. Another gunshot and suddenly one policeman is firing into the crowd. I swear to myself and go out the sliding glass door to the balcony. People are lying dead in the streets, others are holding their bleeding heads and screaming. I�m watching this as a bus comes roaring down the street, slamming into parked cars before ramming directly into the crowd of people and police officers. Bodies fly out the way. A pair of red skid marks appear as the bus slows to a stop. A police officer limp/runs to the bus and starts firing up into the driver�s side window. After a few moments and ten bullets, a black arm flops from the window and hangs.

Someone is breathing heavily and muttering, �oh my god, oh my god, oh my god�.

Wait, that�s me.

I run to the AP line and start reading.

There have been an estimated 200 murders in the last three hours and another estimated 300 suicides. I try the phone, but it�s dead.

I wait around until six a.m., having drank 2 full pots of coffee and considering some Earl Grey to wash it all down when I hear the sound. Not the gunshots, they�ve been a constant since 3:00 a.m. Soon afterwards, the shots began in the apartment complex, but they�ve died down mostly. Not the screaming, because the screaming never stops.

It�s the sound like a train siren. I walk slowly out to the balcony again with a cup of coffee and regonize the sound when it�s far too late. I have heard it only once before in my life and I�ll never forget that day. The �siren� gets louder and louder and I wonder if it�s my building that is being targeted.

The siren ends as Wall Street explodes to my far right. I had been looking in the wrong direction. The buildings are rocking, smoking, and red and black fire/smoke roars up from the streets. It�s not the only plane crash. There will be many more for the rest of the day. In fact, by tonight, every plane will either be grounded or destroyed, killing thousands, millions.

I grab my laptop and shove it into an Airwalk bookbag and throw in my wallet, keys, a couple bottles of water, and a few cans of pop.

I leave my apartment for the last time.

I don�t know what�s happening, only that when I leave the house at 6:30 a.m., there have been over 1,400 confirmed suicides and 600 homicides. This is the last figure I ever read.

I�m running down the corridors of my apartment complex. Behind every door is the sound of the TV going, some news channel giving the most current status of �the situation�. I hear very little noises, except when I reach the first floor. The closest door to me is open slightly and two people are fighting. I see a stream of blood slowly moving towards me from inside the apartment. It crawls, snake-like, towards the crack the open door has left. The two people inside are fighting and screaming. Maybe crying. Someone has died and you can hear it in their voices.

The male voice sounds as if he�s had enough. The woman asks why and the man says he�s had enough again, this time louder and positive. There�s a scream from the woman and I throw the door open.

A young girl, probably twelve, is trying to pull the blade of a French knife from her father�s neck. He�s gurgling, blood pumping from his jugular and soaking her pretty sun dress. She holds the black and red knife away from her father and watches as his eyes turn and look at her�s. She�s crying, but then smiles.

�Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,� she whispers with her grin.

I try to scream at her, but it�s too late. She grips the knife in two hands and stabs into her chest. Over and over again, like a needle being poked into a pin cushion, she�s stabbing and stabbing until she�s on the floor in spasms.

I vomit all over her mother, who lies blue-faced and dead from slit wrists near the doorway.

----

Parkway is full of people, running from other people, who are running from other people. A body falls from the sky, slamming into the middle of the street. A few seconds later, another one almost folds a VW Bug in half. Police are calling over loudspeakers that it�s okay. It�s normal to have bodies falling from heaven.

Another bus comes and rams head-on into a car. There�s a smashing as the fronts of both vehicles crumple in on each other and glass and metal fragments tinkles on the concrete. A body is smashed inside the car, bright blood against the glass of the driver�s side door that, miraculously, hasn�t shattered.

I run, the same direction as most of the other sheep. I�m not going very far, but every step that hits the concrete is a happy moment.

Sean�s apartment is on Thurgood. I come to the front of the building and break off from the crowd as I walk inside. Moments later, the entire crowd is fired on by National Guardsmen.

Sean doesn�t seem to be home. It�s still mid-morning and I�m sitting against Sean�s door. I don�t care when he comes back, I just want him to be here. He�s the only one I trust myself to be around at this point. Something horrible is happening and people are killing others and themselves. If I knew what it was, I�d know what to look for, but for now, I just know that Sean is the only person I can talk to.

After an hour of sitting outside his door, it opens and out walks Sean, naked, with a t-shirt covering his genitalia.

�Well,� he says, taking a drag from his cigarette with one hand on his balls, �Are you going to fucking sit out here all day, like?�

I go inside and the smell of piss is the first thing to test my senses. Then, I see Naomi. Naomi is sitting in front of a fan, naked from the waist down. Her legs are spread and she seems to be drying herself off. Her eyes are baggy and a needle is still in her arm. Sean walks up to her, drops his t-shirt on the ground and pulls the needle from Naomi�s arm. He rubs a hand through her hair and she kisses his arm.

Sean looks down at his girlfriend�s black pubic hairs and looks back at me, �Wanna fuck or something?�

I decline, asking for a rain check, though I�m staring at the wide-spread legs and getting an obvious physical reaction.

They�re both high and have no fucking idea what�s going on.

We make our way down to the parking garage, Naomi and Sean now fully-dressed.

Sean is determined that there was a plague over-night, like The Stand. Sean is slightly British, if you can call an American raised on BBC and Douglas Adams �British�. He�s smart, but not smart enough, and worse of all is addicted to nearly every drug available on the streets of New York.

Naomi is his girlfriend and I�m still not sure where he met her. She literally showed up one day in our life and never left. She�s pretty in that exotic Mediteranean way and smart when she�s sober, which is rare. On those rare days when she�s herself, whether it�s for another job interview or a family gathering, I could almost fall in love with her. Every time. Naomi doesn�t have an opinion because Naomi is still completely stoned.

We make our way to Sean�s car, a little, rusted out Geo and throw our bags inside.

Rush, rush, rush, let�s go, let�s go, let�s go.

�Give us a fuckin� minute,� Sean hisses, checking his oil.

I�ve been in a hurry since I left this morning.

�Can�t well be out of town and the car breaks down, can we?�

�Let�s get something to eat,� Naomi says.

I start to walk away, fuck them, fuck you.

The car starts and I turn my back. Sean drives towards me, full speed. I panic and move to dive to the side, when he suddenly stops. He taps his silver ring against the inside of the glass and grins with his cigarette between clenched teeth, then flips the bird to me.

I go to get in when someone calls out to me. I turn, half in the car, when a man in a sharp business suit comes wheezing through the garage. His feet echo loudly on the pavement and his ragged breath echoes.

He goes to speak, but can�t. His jugular is probably pounding against his larynx.

What does he want?

�A ride..,� he says, �A ride, can I get...a ride...just...� He breathes deeply in and let�s it out. �Can I just...get...a ride?�

No, he can�t get a ride. There�s only room in this little piece of shit for three people and all our baggage. We�re going far away from the madness of this city. Some serious shit is starting and we need to be away from it all. We�ll go somewhere quiet if we have to. That�s what they always do in the post-apocalyptic movies. Maybe we�ll go somewhere in Nebraska. Or Kansas. Or maybe I�ll go back to Tavern, Minnesota.

�It�s no use, is it?� he asks.

I don�t understand.

�My luck is out. There�s nothing left. You�re just here to tempt me.�

Tempt him?

The man pulls a gun out of his coat and fires directly at me. He fires three shots, each one with a face like a statue, then puts the gun to his own head and an explosion of blood and brains suddenly sprays from one side of his head. He drops and I look down.

�Are you okay?� Sean screams, his high now officially gone. He feels me over, but there�s nothing. I�m safe. He missed. The car, however, isn�t safe. Luckily, he didn�t get the wheels, but he shot out the tail light, the back window, and missed with the other.

We get back inside and Naomi turns back to me and says, �We�re lucky, I guess.�

2bcuntinued...