Chrissy walked alongside of him, and Joe swore that he saw an excited look on her face, one that appeared genuine, like she was actually eager to see his reunion with Jennifer.

“What is this music?” Joe asked again. It was increasingly bothersome, almost drowning out his words completely.

She opened her mouth to answer, but Joe cut her off.

“Oh, right. You already told me. It’s this End of the World Party, reaching me here all the way from New York.”

She nodded, but Joe didn’t even register it as he sprinted across the yard that was riddled with massive chunks of debris and wreckage. He even hopped across gaping chasms in the earth, without any hesitation at all. But as he neared his car, he grew disheartened, because he didn’t see her yet—neither standing beside it, nor sitting within it.

He reached the car, and then turned back to Chrissy, who had kept up with him easily.

“Damn it, Chrissy, where is she?”

The Goth cheerleader slowly neared. “I honestly don’t know,” she replied, her eyes open wide, her expression gleaming with truth.

Frustrated, Joe slammed his fist onto the roof of his car, leaving a dent on the metal. Then he heard her moan just a second later.

Time stood still and Joe felt himself sinking as he ran back to the trunk and threw it open, his world blurry with tears and still filled with that sonic, searing music. The sheen in the sky glowed brighter like an alien sun and Chrissy neared him in her shredded cheerleader uniform.

He pulled Jennifer from the trunk with an intense, scary desperation that he’d never felt before. As quickly as he could, he removed the silver duct tape that bound her wrists and ankles, and then, slowly, the piece covering her mouth. All along her eyes were wide in abject terror.

Jennifer cast her stare at him, then at the psychedelic sky, and finally at Chrissy’s drunken, lazy-eyed expression. She was equally afraid of everything. She’d lost her jean jacket but she still wore the sham cheerleader uniform. It was mostly still new, but the bright colors now bore fresh stains of grime and even grease, like she’d worn it while crawling on the floor of a dirty garage.

Joe felt a helplessness like none other as the terror in her eyes did not relent, even as he set her gently back on her feet and pleaded with her.

“Jennifer, it wasn’t me. It was him. It was Eddie. God, I would never…”

The music was louder, and it became tough to hear his own voice. Joe realized that the end of the world might come like this—not with fire and brimstone, but as an acid trip instead. People had it all wrong. The world ended not with a cataclysm, but instead when they all went mad.

“Joe!” Chrissy yelled, her shrill voice cutting through the drowning music. It was as though she’d suddenly found her cheerleader lungs that were quite accustomed to yelling.

He looked at her and saw that her face was intense, like she’d finally sobered up from whatever drugs she was on.

“What?” he replied, his voice lost in the thick waves of distorted music. It seemed to stream from the alien sun in the sky, like it was a dastardly transmitter. He could hear it more clearly now, like the station was fully coming into tune—the thumping drums and pounding keys, and the deep bass that vibrated his spine.

The two cheerleaders looked at him.

They were soldiers, he realized, though their uniforms were unconventional at best. And the school was not a school but a house of horrors.

Jennifer, bright and sunny Jennifer, had big eyes that were full of tears and terror. He imagined he might look the same way.

Chrissy was dark and glowering—her mocking cuteness had long since departed and she was grim.

The sun was a grease slick in the watery sky. The music was dragging him down.

The Goth cheerleader slapped his face.

“Wake the fuck up,” she said.