We Are the Ants(15)

“If only getting rid of your herpes was as easy,” I said.

Adrian stood, but Marcus pulled him back. There was a dangerous gleam in Marcus’s eyes, a flicker that scared me. “Fuck it. I’m feeling charitable. Space Boy can stay. Maybe he can phone home and convince the aliens to join the party. If you do, ask them to bring ice. We’re running low.”

I had no intention of remaining at the party. All I could think about was how I’d been so wrong. I never should have come. Once Marcus was done torturing me, I planned to leave and never speak to him or anyone else again.

“But first,” Marcus said, “you have to take a shot.”

From where Marcus’s friends sat and stood on the patio, drinking and smoking and judging, I felt their contempt. It burned through my skin, melted the fat from my body, chewed through my muscles until I was nothing but a -skeleton—-bleached bones held together by duct tape and the tattered remnants of my pride.

Jay Oh flicked a bottle cap at me that bounced off my chest and skittered across the table. “What would aliens want with a jizz stain like him? Aren’t there better people to abduct?”

“Better looking, certainly,” Marcus said, which earned him a kiss from Natalie. He kept his eyes on me while she sucked his lips.

And I stood there and took it because I was an object. We were all objects to Marcus McCoy.

Marcus began chanting, “Shot, shot, shot!” and it was taken up by the drunken horde surrounding me. Adrian set up a round of shots, sloshing a dark brown liquid into the glasses, spilling some over the sides. Marcus watched me with a manic, sweaty grin.

Adrian finished pouring and rolled his eyes. “Space Boy’s a little bitch. He won’t—”

I grabbed the nearest shot glass and threw it back. The liquor tasted like pureed licorice and blood. I shivered as it hit my empty stomach. When I finished, I downed a second shot. “Thanks for the drink.” I tossed the glass onto the table and left.

Their laughter hounded me, but I refused to look back. The world was going to end, and none of this mattered. I tried to convince myself I was all right.

But I was so far from all right.

? ? ?

I was too drunk to walk home, and I couldn’t find an empty room to hide in, so I ended up sitting by the edge of the lap pool, obscured by fake rocks and palm trees. The pool was far enough from the house that I wasn’t worried about being found, but still near enough that I could hear their laughter. I couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t escape being Space Boy.

The moon was hardly a scratch in the sky, but underwater lights illuminated the tiled bottom of the pool. All the way down to the deep, deep end. It had to be eight or nine feet. I bet I’d sink. It would have been easy to roll over the side, fully clothed, and let the weight of denim and cotton drag me to the bottom while my last breaths escaped my lungs. The world was spinning around me, so maybe the alcohol in my blood would prevent my survival instinct from kicking in, and I could drown peacefully without all that unnecessary flailing and screaming.

It didn’t matter why the sluggers had chosen me, only that they had. Hell, why wait for the world to end at all?

Diego was wrong. Pressing the button wouldn’t give me choices. Only this. Only humiliation. Loneliness. Death was easier. I could lean forward and let my weight carry me into the water. Gravity would do the rest. Everything would end, and all I had to do was let it happen.

The moon grew brighter and multiplied the shadows. They encircled me, blotting out the light. I shook my head to clear the vertigo. I needed to piss, but I didn’t want to go back inside. I could always piss in the pool.

My breath caught in my throat, and the hairs on my ears rose. I tried to look around but couldn’t. I tried to call out, but no words escaped my lips. I was paralyzed.

Oh, I thought as the moon’s light blinded me, and the shadows grasped at me with green-brown fingers, I didn’t expect to see you here.





World War III




North Korea fires the first missile. After years of threats and insane posturing, it’s Fox’s early cancellation of Bunker that provokes North Korea’s supreme leader to action. He demands to view the finale, but is ignored. If Fox won’t resurrect Firefly, they’re certainly not going to bring back Bunker.

The North Korean missile detonates prematurely, but the aggressive act puts the world’s nations on high alert. The leaders of the European Union recommend diplomacy. China and Russia deploy their military forces to strategic positions throughout the world while suggesting that the US capitulate to North Korea’s demands.

Dennis Rodman travels to North Korea as an unofficial ambassador on a mission of peace but is taken into custody the moment he disembarks from the plane. A video of him being torn apart by a pack of starving house cats is the most popular video on YouTube for seven hours, before it is displaced by an elderly woman who inhales helium and sings Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Despite stern warnings from the United Nations Security Council, North Korea fires a second missile, striking Osaka, Japan. Thousands die. Japan and the United States declare war on North Korea. The joined forces of Russia and China advise that retaliatory attacks against North Korea will not be tolerated.

The United States Armed Forces invade North Korea on 29 January 2016 at 20:03 GMT. Russia responds by launching a nuclear missile at Universal Studios Florida, proclaiming that if they can’t visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, no one can. The United States obliterates Moscow and urges all patriotic Americans to boycott vodka.