A Civilized Apocalypse

The thing he loved about her was the way she killed people. No hesitation. No second guessing. No mess. Well, some mess, that was to be expected, but no unnecessary mess. He respected that. But what he most loved was what came with it.

She said she was sorry. Always. Sometimes during the killing. Sometimes after. Sometimes just before. Circumstances dictated, you’ll understand. But she always said sorry. And she meant it. She really believed it wasn’t their fault they had to die, at her hand or anyone else’s. She didn’t blame them. So, she said sorry. Sorry that it had come to this. Sorry for the world that made this necessary. Sorry that this is what it took to get our civilization back. Sorry. Just sorry. It was very Canadian. After all that had happened, she kept that. And he loved her for it.

He did not say sorry. Not always. Truth be told, he didn’t always feel it. And he said it even less. More often than not, he found himself blaming those he killed for letting themselves get infected. When a few shots in the arm could prevent it, and yet they refused. How crazy is that? How could he say sorry then?

But not her. Rick tried to understand, looking into Jill’s pleading eyes, but couldn’t quite get there. Sometimes he worried his attitude meant he was in the early stages of infection himself. She even apologized to that prick Damon after he turned. Like he wasn’t half way there all through high school anyway. Rick only prayed that she’d say sorry to him if it ever came to that.

Not that he’d care by then. The infection made you sociopathic. So lacking in human empathy that you lost any care for others. Slowly at first, as your hair started to turn red, then all at once. To the point where you’d kill over a can of beans or minor insult, your hair bright red by that time. So self-absorbed that no one else’s life mattered, and could be snuffed out over any minor slight. Or just for kicks. Or no reason at all. One infect stabbed a guy for trying to get on the bus first. Then calmly climbed aboard and sat down, his red hair tucked up under his toque. Not a pinch of emotion on his face. That was how it went with them. The only emotion they felt were wrongs against them. It stripped them of their humanity. It made them deadly. Unpredictable.

Jill was on the bus that day. That’s how Rick knew about it. No one on the bus knew what to do. They all avoided eye contact. One woman hid the No Votes for Infects pamphlets she’d been handing out. Jill stayed calm. She surveyed the situation and rang the bell for the next stop, then stood up and walked to the door at the back of the bus. Calm as a summer day. The desperate eyes of the other passengers watching, afraid she was abandoning them to an infect. As she approached the guy, she saw a strand of red hair peeking out from under his toque, and knew. She pulled her gun from her shoulder strap as she passed and put it to the back of his head. Rick could picture it. So smooth it would go unnoticed. Even to an infect. The last words the guy heard were, “I’m so sorry.” The first words Jill heard after were the relieved thank yous of the other riders. Jill sat back down and waited for the bus to reach her actual stop.

“It’s kinda scary how easy this is getting,” Rick said after Jill told him about the bus while they pursued their favourite bookstore.

“True, I guess, but it’s the only way we get through this without a complete collapse,” Jill said, pulling a Medieval history book off the shelf. “We weed out the infects, and all that’s left are those on the needle and immunes.”

“Well, that’d be a lot easier if some people - already complete assholes, mind you - weren’t out there actually trying to get infected. They want to be infects.”

“No one wants to be an infect,” Jill said, her voice rising.

“Some do. I swear. I saw a post last week for an infect party. ‘Have a drink and get infected.’ They’re crazy.”

“Or desperate. What’s going on in someone’s life that they think being infected is better than the life they’ve got?”

“Easy for you to say. Women have a natural resistance.”

“Resistance. Not immunity.”

“Sure. Whatever. Just saying you’ve got more time to wait out your so-called ‘civilized apocalypse’,” Rick said, immediately regretting the air quotes.

“You can be a real jerk sometimes, you know that?” Jill said, slamming her book back on the shelf, her voice shaking. “There are days, by the way, when I check the colour of your hair.”

And with that, she walked out of the store.

“You just don’t get it,” Jill said as she pushed through the door.

Rick stared at the door. He’d really done it this time. Definitely struck a nerve. Maybe all the killings were getting to her. Not just hers, everyone’s. At first, the killings were discreet. In private, hidden. Then it was “don’t ask don’t tell.” People knew who killed who, but never reported killing an infect. That all changed the day the junior minister of the environment stood up in a cabinet meeting and shot the prime minister mid-rant about how everyone there needed him and they’d be nothing without him. His wig fell off as he hit the floor, revealing bright red hair. The junior minister was hailed as a hero. It was pretty much open season after that. You could kill an infect on a bus or standing at a urinal and people would love you for it.

An early sign was victimhood, just as the first few red hairs appeared. When you start to lose empathy and can no longer see others’ suffering. Everything becomes about you as a victim. Of whatever. You start looking for ways to be victimized. It defines you.

“So that’s the kind of day it’s going to be, is it?” Rick’s Dad had said to him.

“What kind of day?” Rick asked, looking at the sky, thinking his father thought it might rain.

“The kind where everything I do is wrong.”

Rick wracked his brain. What had he accused his father of doing wrong? What slight? Couldn’t think of anything. His father always had a thin skin. Had all his life. His mother said dad was bullied as a kid, and it left a mark. Maybe this was nothing. Sure, he’d suggested his father try a different soap to wash his truck, but that couldn’t be it, right?

Right?

He went to Jill’s place and told her about it. Head hanging as they sat on the edge of her bed. She hugged him, then got up and walked out of the house, leaving Rick behind. She hadn’t said a word. Not one word. Not until she got to Rick’s place, found his father in the living room and said, “Sorry.” It was her first kill.

Rick’s first kill was his boss. Until that day, he wasn’t sure he could do it. He’d been in a meeting with his boss and a few others, his boss on a tirade about “loyalty” and “respect.” Demanding, not giving, and threatening to fire anyone who didn’t oblige. Textbook infect behaviour. The boss was working himself up into a frenzy, pausing only to run fingers through his trademark jet-black hair, which the guy swore he never dyed despite his advanced years. That’s when Rick saw it, a hint of red when the sunlight hit the boss’s hair just right. A smile crept onto Rick’s face.

“What the hell are you smiling at?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

Within an hour, Rick followed his boss into the men’s room put a bullet through that red-tinged black hair, and definitely did not say sorry. He walked out thinking about other people at work he might like to see infected.

Jill said she was proud of him, and promised not to tell anyone. It was early days, so you only told people you trusted. And Rick trusted Jill. Had done since they met in high school. It was at the mall and he dropped his wallet while trying to put it in his pocket. Hadn’t noticed and would have gone home without it. Jill picked it up, tapped him on the shoulder and handed it back to him.

“So, is this how you pick up girls?” she chided, her friends giggling behind her.

“Um, no,” he said, stumbling for words, lost in her eyes, her face framed in dark brown hair.

“That’s a shame. Cuz it works.”

They’d been pretty much inseparable after that. Especially once the infection started to spread. An apocalypse had a way of bringing people together, even a civilized one. Unless you had to kill them. When Marcy, one of the giggling girls from the mall, was infected, they killed her together. Jill said sorry to her one-time best friend. Rick hugged Jill and told her he was sorry for what they’d had to do. Jill shook as she sobbed in his arms, but knew it was the last loving thing she could do for the girl who hadn’t missed one birthday party since kindergarten.

Rick lay in bed thinking about that day, how the love for her friend pushed Jill to do the hardest thing he could ever imagine. Something that would have sounded impossible just a few years ago, but now was so normal. Rick thought – no, he knew – he wouldn’t have made it this far without Jill. He’d have got the infection from his father, or gone to one of those damned infect parties. If it was coming for him, might as well get it over with.

Jill killed with love, even if she didn’t know the person. He killed out of obligation, or to made Jill happy or to help build a better society, or something like that. Sometimes he liked it, but not always for the right reasons. He smiled as he thought about his boss, then shook the memory out.

He flipped through his phone, hoping for distraction, and stopped on yet another interview with the guy pushing a civilized apocalypse – a mediaeval studies professor, of all things.

“So, you’re saying society doesn’t have to collapse with an apocalypse?”

“It didn’t with the plague. I mean, it changed society in massive ways, or course. Millions died after all – but humanity as a whole came out of that crucible stronger.”

“How so?”

“Old structures died, or began to. We made discoveries about the importance of hygiene and made great advances in medicine and science in its wake. We got calculus when Isaac Newton went into isolation. The very foundation for the Age of Enlightenment was laid on the waste of the plague.”

“And you’re saying we can do that again.”

“I’m saying, it’s worth trying.”

Rick had heard this same argument a million times, and was in no mood for it now. He needed to get out. Go for a walk. Get out of this slump. He made his way to the front door, checking his hair in the hall mirror, Jill’s warning fresh in his mind. Jill’s friend Becky was on the porch when he opened the door.

“What the hell did you do?” she demanded, startling Rick. “Jill is really upset. Whatever you did, you need to fix it. Now.”

Becky, another of the giggling mall friends, never really liked Rick. But she loved Jill, especially after what she did for Marcy, who’d lost her humanity by then, and wanted to see Jill happy. And if that meant Rick, so be it.

“What could I say to her? She was pretty mad. It really scared me.”

“Oh, boo hoo. Get over yourself. You just march on over there and say you’re sorry,” Becky said.

“I’ve never seen her like this.”

The entire walk over, Rick practiced various ways of saying sorry, unsure what exactly he was apologizing for. They’d talked about the civilized apocalypse idea before, and it was always okay. Just not this time. As he walked the last block, he hoped to find inspiration in the moment, knowing he rarely did.

“Yes?” Jill said curtly as she opened her front door.

Not inviting me in, Rick thought. Okay. I can deal with this. He looked at her. Anger across her face, but something else in her eyes. Hurt? Sure. But more. Pleading, like she was asking him for something. An apology, he guessed. The one Becky demanded. They’d obviously talked.

Jill was wearing the ballcap he’d bought her that blistering day at Wonderland. A good sign, maybe?

“Just get it over with,” she said.

“I, I mean, I’m…”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she said, exasperated as she crossed her arms and turned her back. Her ponytail cascading from the back of the cap.

Her red ponytail.

“I love you and I’m sorry,” Rick said as he pulled out his gun.

This time, he really meant it.