The End of the World as We Know It, by Dave Housley

A contemporary check-in with the Reality Bites characters... set during an alien invasion.

Dave Housley’s The Other Ones was another of my favorite novels of the last few years, and this story fits right in with what I love about so much of his work—including Commercial Fiction, eighteen brief stories inspired by television commercials produced by America's favorite brands, and Looney, a paranoid-influenced collection of stories about a bunch of goddam cartoon animals. Call it pop culture ekphrastic or fan fiction, fed through classic short storytellers like Cheever and Carver. Pure Housley.

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“Absolutely perfect,” Vickie says. She finishes her wine and grabs the box on the table, squirts malbec into her cup as the credits roll – our names in some Nineties grunge font I had to fight the production over. “It’s so good, Lelaina.”

“We could have been, like, reality TV stars,” Sammy says. “Like Puck and Julie and that racist girl.”

“We were so fucking young,” Vickie says, looking out over the lights of DuPont Circle in the distance. “You guys how did we get so fucking old?”

There is a pause while we all swallow more wine. Troy lights a Camel Light. I stretch my back and push at the spot where it hurts. “I pulled something in my back emptying the fucking cat litter last night,” I say.

Vickie rummages through the box full of old DVDs. She places The Breakfast Club next to the laptop, then puts Singles on top of it. “Can anybody guess this theme?” she says.

“Hmmm,” Sammy says. “Maybe same one as always?”

“This is like a fucking McDonald’s commercial up here,” Troy says. He lurches up out of his camp chair, waves out at the lights. “Like a fucking commercial,” he says again, and I wonder how much he’s had to drink already. We are sitting on the roof of Vickie’s apartment and it really does look like something from a commercial, or something from one of the cheesy eighties movies. It is a perfect summer night: warm and breezy, and from here we can see the lights of DuPont Circle a few blocks away, Connecticut Avenue receding down toward the White House and the Mall in the distance.

“I mean,” he says. “This is the nicest place we’ve done this in…how many?”

“Twenty…” Vickie says.

“Twenty-nine. This is twenty-nine,” Sammy says.

“How did we get so fucking old?” Vickie says again.

We all take another sip of wine. Troy taps another cigarette out of his pack and stares at it. Sammy looks at his phone and I rub at my back. Twenty nine years. The first one would have been back in the shitty apartment in Austin, the one I couldn’t move out of because of the whole tv thing falling apart. Since then it’s been a different apartment in Austin, Austin suburbs, Alexandria Virginia, Vegas, back to the DC suburbs, and then finally here at Vickie’s post-divorce condo in DuPont Circle.

“It’s such a good documentary,” Vickie says. “I’m so sorry it just…it wound up like it did.”

“Everything worked out fine,” I say. She frowns and reaches an arm around me for a half-hug. On her face I see pity and love and time.

“I can see like three Starbucks from here,” Troy says.  

“Another movie?” Vickie says. She holds up The Breakfast Club. “So glad I saved these. He got the dog and I got the ironic bag of random Eighties and Nineties shit.”

“Fair trade,” I say.

“I really miss Jasper, though,” Vickie says.

“She got my dignity and I got…these Camel Lights,” Troy says. “Sweet lady justice.”

Vickie gives me a look. Sammy shakes his head and pretends to be tapping at something on his phone. That feeling in my gut starts up. I move over and pretend to be reading the back of the Singles DVD.

“I just…,” Vickie whispers. “I mean, not tonight, dude, okay?”

“I know,” I say. “I just…fuck, I know.”

“It’s always been a little much, yeah?” she says. “I guess it was cooler to be like that when you were all young and greasy hot and now…and now it’s just…come on, I don’t need to hear the fucking Big Gulp speech again, or the libertarian thing, or whatever the fucking kind of internet rabbithole he’s off on now.”

“He’s had a hard time,” I say. “He’s…”

“A hard time, huh?” Sammy says.

“I fucking like Gail better,” Vickie says.  

“Okay,” I say. “Just let me…”  I fill my cup from the box and join Troy by the railing. I put an arm around him and he leans in, presses his hand against mine and squeezes. I wonder if we will hook up tonight. Since he and Gail got divorced we’ve been something more than friends, not quite boyfriend girlfriend, too old to think of ourselves as friends with benefits.

He holds the pack of Camel Lights toward me, and I shake my head. “Picked a hell of a time to stop smoking,” I say.

“Did you?” he says.

I think about telling him no, I’m quoting a movie. I’m doing the thing we do. But there’s nothing less cool than telling somebody when you’re quoting a movie, so I just wave at the pack and he hands me a cigarette and the lighter. The cool scrape feels good in my lungs and I exhale out over the railing. Down on the street, people move back and forth. Bikes, cars, scooters, the regular bustle of the city at night. There is a rumble in the distance, thunder or heat lightning or a news helicopter.

“This is kind of perfect,” I say.

“Like a fucking McDonald’s commercial,” he says.

“Come on let’s be real. I mean this is really actually nice,” I say. I take another drag on the cigarette. “Maybe like a tampon commercial. Like a commercial for some drug that makes old people better at going on vacation, or playing frisbee with their grandchildren.” The rumble gets louder. “It is supposed to rain tonight?” I say.

Sammy holds up his phone. “Not according to the internet.”

“It’s like an Applebee’s commercial,” Troy says. “Starring Ryan Seacrest.”

The city never gets really dark and I can still see the clouds, behind them something like  lighting swells, blinks on and off, on and off. “You see that?” I say.

“Ryan Seacrest’s baby back ribs,” Troy says. “Just seventeen ninety nine for all you care to eat.”

“Over there,” I say. “The clouds. There’s like a spotlight or something.”

“Cloudy,” Sammy says, holding up the phone. “Chance of rain two percent.”

“A dollar ninety nine for the all you care to drink Fanta fountain,” Troy says.

The lights have come out of the clouds and now they are…lights. Lights moving across the sky, further down in the city. Moving steady and sure in straight lines. “Hey I’m serious,” I say. “Look.”

“There would be like a disgusting dessert,” Troy says. “I bet Ryan Seacrest is one of those guys who is still overcompensating for being a fat little kid.”

The lights are coming down slowly, methodically. There is a shape to them, something more than just lights.

“What the fuck is that?” Vickie says. Something in her voice gets even Troy’s attention and we all look out at the lights moving down out of the clouds.

“What the actual fuck is going on right now?” Sammy says. He is holding his phone out toward the sky. He turns around so his back is to the lights, runs a hand through his hair. “Hey guys,” he says, but not to us, to some real or imagined audience in his phone. “I’m in Washington DC right now looking at, um, not quite sure what I’m looking at.”

“This is…there has to be some explanation,” Vickie says. “Leilana what is happening? We have to…” She squeezes my hand.

“I’m looking out over DuPont Circle toward the White House,” Sammy says to his phone. “Some kind of lights in the sky.”  

Vickie hugs me. “I love you,” she says. “You’ve been a good friend, Leilana.”

“Vickie don’t…” I start. “Let’s not…”

More lights. They are coming into focus now. They are shaped like zeppelins. There are so many of them, more coming down through the clouds all the time .

Vickie runs over to our little party area, starts throwing DVDs into the backpack, filling up a garbage bag with anything she can grab. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she says. She picks up the box of wine and puts it back down. She flaps her hands. Sits down. Stands up again. She runs back to the railing.

“This is like a fucking movie,” Troy says.

“Yeah like War of the fucking Worlds,” I say.

My phone is beeping and vibrating, beeping and vibrating, like a small animal that has been frightened awake.

“Leilana I’m kind of freaking out,” Vickie says.

Troy holds his phone up to me. Onscreen the headline just says ALIENS ATTACK.

Sammy is a few feet away. “The lights are getting…fuck!” he says, as a zap of what looks like lightning comes out of a ship. There is a crackle in the air. Fire erupts at the place where the lightning connected. Then there is more lightning, hot white lasers zapping out of every ship, buildings burning, the air filled with smoke. I hear sirens and shouting, what sounds like an air raid siren.

Vickie is crying, her shoulders heaving, sobs rolling out in waves. Her hands are shaking. I am frozen. I want to run, to hide, but I can’t move a muscle. This must be what it’s like to be in shock. Am I in shock?

“Is this, like, the end of the world you guys?” Vickie says. Her voice is trembling, teeth chattering.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it…” Troy sings.

“Not now, Troy,” Vickie says.

“Not what now?” he says.

The streets have immediately become chaos, cars beeping, people shouting, everybody trying to get away as fast as they can. It is as if we are standing in a diorama that has been tipped on its side, everybody falling in the same direction, away from the city. Down Connecticut Avenue the zeppelins hold their position, a football field away from the skyline, shooting down toward the street and the buildings and the people.

“I don’t know what to do,” Vickie says. “I love you. I love you guys.”  

Sammy stops talking into his phone. He turns back toward us. “I didn’t think…” he says.

“Holy fucking shit,” Troy says softly.

Down on the sidewalk people are running out of the metro station with horror movie looks on their faces. A young woman leans against the Starbucks and cries.

 “Does the news….I mean, shouldn’t there be some kind of protocol for this or something, like what are we supposed to be doing right now?” Sammy says. He is no longer talking into the phone. He is crying quietly, tears creeping down his cheeks.

Vickie has gone quiet. She sits in her camp chair. She is holding her phone but not looking at it, as if she has been frozen in mid-text.

“Okay,” Sammy says. “Remember after 9-11 we had the bugout bags, the plans to go up Georgia Avenue into Maryland and then to Vickie’s parents house?”

“This is it,” Vickie whispers.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel…” Troy sings lightly.

“I’m going,” Sammy says. “Come on you guys.”

“I don’t know,” I say. There is a sound like an electrical zip mixed in with the shouting and the car horns and ambulances, a high hum like static on an old radio. The zeppelins are getting closer, moving up Connecticut and Eighteenth Street. The sky is filled with smoke.

My phone beeps and vibrates. My mother calling, my sister texting. “If this is just in DC,” I say, “it might make sense to try to get up to Pennsylvania or something.”

Troy holds up his phone. “It’s in LA too. New York. London and Chicago and Paris.” On the phone, a picture of the Statue of Liberty missing the iconic torch, a zeppelin shaped spaceship beaming something onto the crown. “They seem to understand, like, symbolism,” Troy says.

Vickie is leaning over the railing, staring down into the street.

“Vickie,” I say. “Come on back over here. We can do what Sammy said. We can go to your parent’s house.” 

She types something into her phone and then places it gently on the ground. She pushes it under the fence, and then she steps toward the roof and we are all running, grabbing at the place where she was, but she is gone. There is a scream and then people are moving around her body as a pool of blood grows on the sidewalk.

I feel like the oxygen has been sucked out of my body. This can’t be happening. “Vickie Vickie Vickie…” I say. I remember Superman flying around the world, reversing time so Lois Lane would be alive again. I remember Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio on the bow of the Titanic. I remember watching the footage of the twin towers pouring smoke on the monitors of my first assistant director job.

Troy sits down in the chair. He takes out another cigarette. The zipping sound is getting louder, the shouting is blending together to make a white noise of chaos. He hands me a cigarette and I take it. “We should have run as soon as we saw it,” he says. “We should have done a lot of things, you know?” He is speaking softly, nearly whispering. His face is completely blank. The cigarette smolders in his hand.

“We should at least get inside,” I say. I look around and realize that Sammy is gone. I’m not sure whether he followed Vickie over the side of the building or if he’s right now moving up Georgia Avenue, planning to walk into Maryland and keep going as far as he can get.  

“I always thought a fire would be the worst way to die,” Troy says.

“We could follow Sammy,” I say. “Try to make our way to…” but the zeppelins are getting closer. The air is thick with smoke. People are still shouting in the street. The zeppelins shoot thin lasers. Zap fire smoke. Zap fire smoke.

“I mean its fire, number one worst way. Then any slow building medical issue, your cancers and the like, close second,” Troy says.

I realize I’m crying, my breath coming in thin gasps. I don’t know what I pictured but this is not it. “When I thought I had cancer,” I say.

“I was told that quicksand would be a much bigger threat in my adult life than it actually turned out to be,” Troy says.

I don’t know if he heard me or not but the second half of the thought is that I told Vickie and Sammy and not Troy and I have been trying to get that fact out of my mind ever since. We never even figured out what it was between us.

“That’s just some meme,” I say.

“You thought you had…” he says.

“Come on.” I stand and walk to the edge of the roof again.  Below it is complete madness. The zeppelins are getting closer. Behind them the city is on fire, everything burning and smoking. My mind is playing a reel of flashbacks. As close as I’ll ever get to my Oscar’s moment. My sister and I jumping off a rope swing. My mother smoking in the back yard, the sound of her laugh, a high tin tin tin, when my aunt says something funny. Vickie and Sammy and Troy goofing around on the rooftop of our dorm. Troy doing one of his monologues over a super big gulp or a beer or a bottle of bourbon. The last night Troy and I had together, too much wine and a failed plan to actually go out to a bar, see some music like the old days.

For a second I want to tell him everything. I wish things had gone differently with us, with me, my career. I wish I had really tried L.A. or New York. I wish there had been more time for us to figure out whatever it is between us now that we’re both finally single, now that we’re both finally supposed to be grown-ups. I wish there was more everything. I wish lots of things but now we’re here on this roof and the zeppelins are getting so close I can see rivets or stitching on their sides. “What the fuck was it all about?” I say. “What did we even do?”

“We were latchkey kids. Nobody gave a shit about us,” he says.

“There are fucking spaceships shooting laser beams and you’re talking about fucking Gen-X memes,” I say. “Troy…” and then he takes out another cigarette, runs a hand through his greasy hair the way I’ve seen him do a thousand times. It has never gotten gray and we all suspect he has been dying it but he refuses to admit it, a nick in his armor that I could never quite rectify with the person I thought I knew, thought I admired, maybe even thought I loved.

The zeppelins are brownish, with some kind of writing on them. They aren’t shiny and silver like the spaceships on television and movies. They are pockmarked and beat up, like they have been through something. A metaphor in there somewhere. We don’t even get cool space invaders. Now we can feel something else, the building shaking beneath us.

He turns to me and the building shudders beneath our feet. The zeppelins are so close they throw shadows onto the rooftop. He puts a hand over mine and squeezes.

“I loved being young,” he says. “Being next, you know? Full of potential. Anything could have happened.”  

The zeppelins are almost on us now. They shoot out a thin white beam at the Starbucks on the corner and it goes up in flames.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it…” Troy sings.

“Anything could have happened,” I say.

STORY:
Dave Housley is the author of four novels and five story collections, most recently the HAD chapbook "Looney" and the novel The Other Ones. He is one of the founding editors and all around do-stuff people at Barrelhouse. He is the Director of Web Strategy at Penn State Outreach and Online Education. You can find him at housleydave dot com.

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ART:
Matt Mitchell is a poet, critic, editor, and semi-regular artist in Columbus, OH. Find him online @yogurttowne. 

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On Friday, we’ll feature an interview with Dave about this story, revision, following through on “weird, maybe great/maybe dumb ideas,” and more!