Page 20 of Doomsdate

That’d get me followers.

Had it been me on that app, I’d never have scored a date with Maisie, and Sandeep knew that. But somehow, in person, it didn’t matter. She brought me out of the fog I spend my days in, luring me not with some artificial presentation of her interests but by the emotions she provoked within me. Empathy. Delight. And, eventually, a scorching, mind-bending desire that came out of freaking nowhere. I exhale harshly as I exit her building. I haven’t kissed a woman since Louise died, haven’t even considered it, to be honest. Not that a few haven’t tried. There’s a whole cadre of women out there who find grief-tortured widowers attractive. But those tender-eyed women who’d press their numbers into my hands at faculty functions, or bars, and, that one time, in the checkout line at the grocery store were just as muted and gray as the rest of my life, barely distinguishable from the surroundings.

But Maisie walked in through the door in wild, vivid Technicolor, immediately set off from the rest, and she grew more so with every awkward remark, every blunt statement, every embarrassed blush, until I found it hard to look anywhere else. She caught my attention the way nothing else has in years.

And she’s a doomsday prepper.

I shove my hands deep into the pockets of my peacoat, bracing against the bitter winds picking up. The sirens that sang out during our doomed dinner are eerily silent now, as if all the first responders have gone on collective strike. A keen feeling of unease brews in my belly.

The screech of tires ahead makes me glance up. A Chevy Spark veers onto the sidewalk, braking abruptly, and a man jumps out from the driver’s seat.

I blink. Jaxon? My Lyft driver?

Grinning with relief, I start to yell for him to give me a ride home, but my voice dies in my throat as Jaxon pulls the passenger out of the back seat by the collar and begins to club him with that shiny metal baseball bat.

Three decisive strikes, then Jaxon jumps back in his car and peels away.

Jesus! I run for the man downed on the sidewalk. “Sir? Sir!”

It’s an older man, seventies maybe. His coat is covered in vomit, the skin beneath his spectacles gray and bruised. His head is dented in from Jaxon’s bat, and I hold a hand to my mouth as the gag rises in my throat.

His eyes flick open. They are strangely bright.

I take a step back. “Uh, sir? Are you all right?”

He stares at me blankly. He’s confused, probably damn near brain-dead after the beating he just took. I lean down, tentatively offering my hand to help him up.

The stranger answers by baring his teeth in an open-mouthed snarl, then grabs me by the lapels of my coat. He comes at me with a wild headbutt, gaping mouth aiming for my nose. I shriek as his bright eyes loom closer, a freaky, silvered blue that consumes the entire space between his wrinkled lids. I twist out of his reach right before he takes a chunk out of my face.

“What the fuck, sir!”

I take off running as the old man scrabbles after me. Despite the lies Sandeep spouted to Maisie in the app, I don’t work out. I used to play an extremely mean game of pickleball with Louise, but I haven’t lifted or exercised regularly in years, and I definitely don’t run. Yet that’s what I’m doing right now down the dark streets of downtown Durham, chased by an old guy who may be an X-Man? Unclear. My beat-up leather oxfords aren’t meant for this, and my heels scream in protest as the skin tears and bleeds. I cut down a dark alley, hobbling up an old fire escape. I yank the ladder up after me, but it refuses to budge more than halfway. The groan of rusty metal echoes horribly between the brick buildings, and I scoot back into the shadows on its platform, horrified that I’ve just put myself in a corner I can’t escape. But the X-Man doesn’t clock the noise’s source. He disappears down the main thoroughfare. My pulse hammers in my neck.

That…that wasn’t normal. That man. His eyes. He tried to—was he going to bite me?

Everett: I just got…I don’t know. Assaulted? By an X-Man? His eyes were crazy glowing bright, and I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think he was breathing.

Everett: Sandeep? You okay, man?

Everett: Sandeep?

The little red flag on my call button screams 17. I’ve missed seventeen calls from both my parents and Gemma? What the fuck is going on?

I open up my text messages and start scanning through what I’ve missed.

Gemma: Where are you?

Colonel Hank Greer: Son. It is imperative for you to call your mother.

Gemma: Why aren’t you answering your phone?

Colonel Irene Greer: Your father and I need to debrief with you by 2200 hours. Comply.

Gemma: You’re not sick, are you??? Mom and Dad are going apeshit!

Colonel Hank Greer: You are upsetting your mother!

Wow. Dad used an exclamation point? This really is serious.