Then, I waited. Whoever had been in my apartment might still be next door, and that meant they’d heard the mirror breaking. I stood there, my knife in my hand, trying to ignore the way those scratches on my arm were itching like mad. When I finally got tired of waiting, I crawled through. I won’t lie, either. When I was squirming through that hole, I felt sure somebody would come running into the bathroom to kill me. Maybe an infected with open sores all over their body and foam pouring out of their mouth, red eyes full of blood. Even with my knife hand free, I doubted I could keep one of them from stretching me out like that woman on the stairs. I wanted to try, though. Wanted to stab and stab until whoever it was became one giant, bleeding wound.
No one appeared, though. Even when I sprawled on the bathroom floor and wrapped a towel around my hand (like an idiot, I cut my palm on the broken mirror), I didn’t hear so much as a whisper or a squeaking floorboard. That scared me even more, because maybe it meant somebody was hiding. There was no way they couldn’t have heard me coming.
I checked the entire apartment though, and I didn’t find anything. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I did find a man crumpled on the floor. His face was a wet ruin, a bloody splatter decorating the wall with a smear beneath it. I figure he bashed his face in until he collapsed, but I don’t know where he got the energy. He’d already torn open his own belly. When I found him, he still had both hands in his guts. It amazes me what The Complex can do once it gets in your system.
Okay, so I don’t know who was in here. They’re not getting back in, though. I put my medicine cabinet back in place and then covered it with duct tape, securing it to the wall. No way is it budging now.
Back to work, I guess.
JANUARY 3RD, 12:11 PM
THE NETWORKS ARE GONE. Fox News went out last. They probably had the most guns. The last person they had on camera was obviously infected with The Complex. She was crying blood, red tears following the scratches on her cheeks, and she had one hand beneath the desk, working like crazy on something. When she lifted her hand to run it over her face, it was slick with red. She sucked some off her fingers after smearing the rest across her face. Then she (I’m really not sure how this is possible) broke her own neck. All at once, she started shouting, “I’m in charge, here! You don’t exist!” Then, she grabbed the back of her head with one hand and her chin with the other and gave everything a hard jerk. I heard something pop, and she just slumped behind the desk.
So I guess Fox is still on, but it’s just a camera pointing at an empty desk. Not exactly thrilling news. Fair and balanced, though.
The roof cameras tell me about half the city is on fire now. I couldn’t see too many people still up and moving, but that might just be the way the cameras are positioned. Can’t see anybody out the ports either, though. Kind of shocking that it’s happening so fast. Yeah, I knew it would be fast, but this is almost superhuman in its speed.
Hand itches almost as bad as my arm. Trying not to scratch. Want to hit something.
JANUARY 3RD, 4:52 PM
MY ARM IS BLEEDING, I’ve scratched it so much, and there are black trails running up to my shoulder. Not good. I know what these signs mean. They mean that, even with the mask and all the other precautions, I have it. I’m infected with The Complex. No, I never really believed I’d be immune, despite the things we did to build our immune systems. I thought it would take longer than this, though. Three days? What a waste. Document the end of the world, The Last Year…and only get three days of it.
It’s not right, and it’s not fair (or balanced!), and I hate it.
The Complex is taking longer than usual, but I don’t know how long I’ll really have. Usually, it’s a matter of minutes, maybe thirty or forty-five to take you from first exposure to homicidal maniac. I woke up with this thing on my arm, though. Can’t even convince myself it took cutting my hand to get it. So how long is this going to take? How much will it hurt?
I’m scared. So scared I want to scream.
Happy New Year.
JANUARY 3rd, 6:22 PM
HEAD HURTS. NO, IT’S splitting. Feels like there are bees in there. Or razors slashing, slashing, slashing. My mouth is dry, and my guts are in knots. This is how it feels. It makes me wonder what the rest felt like. Maybe they went through all of this in those first thirty minutes after exposure. Or maybe it only took five. Maybe there’s so much more coming after this, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take or what’s going to happen.
The walls are cracking. It’s so slow, so tiny, that I can barely tell it’s happening, but that is what’s occurring. These tiny spider web cracks are working their way from floor to ceiling, and…
Okay, this is weird. I know how it will sound. It’s true, though. I swear, I’m not making this up.
There are shadows in the cracks, and they want to get out. If I stare at the cracks long enough, I can see the shadows reaching out like tendrils. They’re still small, but they’re getting bigger, reaching farther, trying to open the cracks wider and get through. Because they want me, I think. I’ve thought about it as I watch them, and it’s the only explanation that makes sense. The shadows want me.
Jesus, what did we do?
6:41 PM
VOICES NOW. THEY FILL my head. I can’t make out the words. They’re garbled and guttural, but I think they’re angry. There’s no shot at seduction, no attempt to put me at ease. Just syllables like crags. Every moment, they grow louder, angrier, and I’m beginning to wonder if they’re not in my head but maybe in the room with me. Maybe they’re coming from the shadows, which have now punched holes in the wall and whip through the air like they’re trying to snatch anything unlucky enough to get too close. At least now I know what the banging was. It was those things trying to punch through from somewhere else. They were knocking down my illusions, knocking them down so hard they’ll never rise again.
And there’s water on the floor. I don’t know when it showed up. I think maybe it’s been there for a while, and it just took me forever to notice it. There’s a few inches on the floor, brackish and brown and thick with terrible things that move. I can feel them squiggling their way past my feet, can hear them splashing as they cross my floor.
I tried to tell myself none of it’s there. Over and over again, I wanted to think it was my imagination, that The Complex had driven me mad, was driving me faster and faster. I can feel them, though. And I can hear them. And no matter how much I might wish I was just crazy, I think I know the truth. I don’t think The Complex is a drug or a virus anymore. I think it’s a doorway. I think it opens you up and lets you see things the way they really are.
Blood’s running down my face, welling up in my eyes and then spilling. I can taste raw meat in my mouth, and I want to taste more. My veins have turned black, and there are more shadows now. They’re reaching out from the scratches in my arm and the cut in my hand. A thick one like a jungle snake is in my throat, choking me as it fights to wrestle free of my belly.
7:01 PM
THEY WERE RIGHT. THEY were always right. The world is a horrible place. It’s just that no one can see it. But now The Complex has opened their eyes. It’s opened mine.
This is The Last Year. God help us all.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
AJ Brown lost his sanity some years ago when he penned his first story based on a nightmare he once had. From that point on, he wrote anything that wished to be written, the stories telling themselves more than him. Some of his works have appeared in Necrotic Tissue, Allegory, Bards and Sages Quarterly and Dark Distortions anthology among others.