Page 3 of The End of the World As We Know It

“That’s perfect,” he said.

She laughed. “It’s Entenmann’s, Officer. Let’s not go over the top now…”

The way she saidOfficerlifted him out of the muck, fueled his upsides. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Wasn’t entirelyoff. He ate hisstale cake. If they were married, would it be like this? Could he love that baby? The key right now was to stay calm, to eat the cake slowly and let the sugar hit. Maybe this was the start of something. Abel was pure of heart and body. He didn’t have a violent streak, or a dead chain-smoking brother, and he’d never forced himself on a woman, never knocked her up just to limit her options.

Mrs. Blanchard reached for a button on her sundress. “Do you mind?”

And then it was there. Her breast. Loaded with milk. Abel felt his body build aBridgeto her County and it was hard not to smile, not to whip it out as she covered herself. There was nothing wrong with his pecker. He was notoff, and the quiet in this kitchen was special. Theirs.

Maybe her prick husband would wreck his car on the way home. Maybe that baby would back off, let Abel have a sip, too.

“So,” she began. “You know that thing I said?”

“What thing?”

“I changed my mind. You don’t need to talk to Rona.”

“Are you sure? Because I can do that.”

“Nah,” she said. “I’m good. It’s good.”

After Abel dropped off his car at the station, he couldn’t go home. Not right away.

He wastoohappy.

One of the rookies was in the parking lot crying—her aunt was dead—and a few of the others were with her, making plans to mourn, to drink. Abel wasn’t invited, and for once in his damn life… he didn’t care.

He got into his car.Vroom.

Everything made sense. Of course he would find the love of his life when most people were all doom and gloom. Lately it felt likeeveryone knew someone who was sick, and Abel was lucky, lucky that he didn’t love anyone or care about anyone except her.

Mrs. Blanchard in her peach dress.

He stopped at a bookstore and boughtThe Bridges of Madison County.He picked up some more of that cake that she fed him, and he left the box open so the cake would dry out.

Life was good. He read two pages and he had to unzip. He imagined the call on the radio.

Domestic disturbance.

He imagined himself speeding legally, breaking down her door and killing her husband. Right in front of her. He imagined her worse than she’d been today, bloody and beaten.

He came harder than he had in years, but after he was done, when he went for tissues, he avoided his eyes in the mirror. There was something wrong about what just happened. The way he wanted her like that, bloody and beaten, hateful.

The next two days were empty.

No call from nosy neighbor Rona. Too much chaos at work with everyone keyed up about the superflu in a way that wasn’t fun, not anymore. The calls came in, but they were never from Rona, which meant that Mrs. Blanchard was either safe or dead. How those things became one and the same. Safe. Dead. And the nights were no good, either. His pecker was getting nasty, vile. Sometimes Mrs. Blanchard was tied up, and not in the fun way. Sometimes she was full of bullet holes and Abel was kissing those holes, sucking the blood out of them, sticking his pecker in those holes.

It didn’t feel good, knowing there might be an afterlife, knowing his father might be up there eating popcorn, shaking his head at his sick, perv son.

On the third day, Abel bought two boxes of tissues at the market.The broad at the register sighed. “I should stock up,” she said. “That superbug, it’s something isn’t it?”

Abel took the long way home. He drove by the body shop, where he saw Kip Blanchard in real life. A monster. Filthy as he seemed in the framed wedding portrait hanging in their foyer, the photograph that Abel had tried to avoid noticing. Smoking and laughing and holding court for the other guys. Mean guys. True grime. Hair growing out of Kip’s white T-shirt, grease on his shirt, on his hands. Kip held a cigarette between his lips and mimed taking a woman from behind. Foul. Abel thought of the devil, the white bandanna on Kip’s head like a satanic mark, a signal. Abel didn’t do a drive-by at Mrs. Blanchard’s. The street was too small. He tried to be a good boy. He tried one story in his head where Mrs. Blanchard was in her peach dress and the husband was dead on the floor. Bloodied. Stabbed fifty times, maybe sixty.

His pecker didn’t like that, so back he went to the other way. His juices squirting all over her bloodied corpse, bringing her back to life, his pecker in there doing CPR on her heart.

On the fifth day, Rona called.

Mrs. Blanchard opened the door. Jeans and a sad ratty T-shirt. Probablyhis.Abel wasn’t one of those guys who liked it when women dressed like men. And he was heartened to feel his muscles tense up when he spotted the blood on her forehead.