Actual Apocalypse

(One of those) Crazy Girls

"It's quiet, real quiet." May scanned the room again, to find not a soul in sight. "How is it on your end?"

Patrick sighed. "Well, no one really stays this late, this time of year." May heard a shuffling noise over the phone, and then a robotic disembodied voice said something about coffee. "Fucking machines..."

"How much more work you got to do?"

"Not much...can you come over to my building?"

May sighed noisily and rolled her eyes and in mock horror replied, "Really? I'm a small vulnerable woman Patrick, who knows what could happen?"

"You're literally walking over from one campus library to another, you'll be fine." 

May checked the time on her watch, it was getting close to two in the morning and she didn't feel awake enough to argue, plus she was lonely.

"Give me ten minutes and buy me a tea." 

"Sweet, see you soon. Love you."

"Love you too." 

May ended the phone call and looked down at the mess of highlighted and annotated papers in front of her. Dissertation writing was proving harder than she'd thought. It felt like everything she wrote down made no sense. For a moment she wondered if it was worth it, staying in a university until two in the morning when she had work the next day in the late afternoon. She wondered if any of it was worth it.

She gathered her things and tried to remember the last time she saw another student. Then May remembered it was November and a Friday night. People had better things to do then sit in the sub-basement section of the library. May threw on her coat, gathered her things, tightened the loose lace on her Doc Marten and began walking. 

Reaching out for the door to the stairwell, May found it stuck. She looked through the glass and saw tape around the steps. 

"Broken again?" May hit the door lightly with an open hand before walking over to the lift, she pressed the button and waited. She decided to dial Patrick again and he answered almost immediately. 

"On your way?"

"Yeah," May hit the button for the lift again, much more aggressively this time. "The stairs are fucked again so am having to wait for the lift. I should be there in about a thousand years." 

Patrick let out a short chuckle. "Why can't you just work in the business library...you see May our lifts WORK."

"I like my little spot, in my little library."

"Oh you like the cold, tiny room with no windows?" 

"Yes, no one bothers me," ding, "ah, lift has arrived. Be there in ten, make sure I have a tea ready."

"See you soon."

As soon as the phone call ended May walked into the lift and hit the button for 'Ground-Entrance'. She got her student card out of her pocket and put her headphones in. She kept her head down as she walked out of the lift and toward the terminals to get out. She always felt too awkward to make eye contact with the library receptionists. She scanned her card and walked through one of the barriers and left the library. Blasting her iPod up to deafening volumes in the process. 

May breathed in the cold air and began her walk to the buisness building.

 
She mumbled lyrics to herself "...I'm not one of those crazy girls...I'm not one of those...." and ignored the flickering lampposts and darkened windows, convincing herself that years of horror film marathoning was beginning to play tricks on her. It wasn't until she got to the bridge separating the two campuses that May paid attention to the feeling in her gut. Slowly but surely she began to pick up her pace, a strange unease had set in. She kept her earphones firmly in her ears but made sure to mute the song.