How To Lose Weight And Survive The Apocalypse

Chapter 5

All the news reports had stated that the nanobots were too small to feel or see; part of the terror they wielded was that their threat was invisible, like a horror movie monster that was never revealed on screen.

I didn't see them coming, but I felt them, a slight thickening of the atmosphere. The sunny sky seemed to dim, but it was still bright sunshine all around me. Then, a low vibration in the air, like a silent speaker cranked to maximum volume. No sound, more of a feeling.

A shiver ripped through me, and I watched as the electronic sign on the other side of the carpark advertising half-price AusPuss brand cat food at the Pet Me Superstore blinked off. The traffic lights at the carpark exit flashed yellow three times, then nothing. Several cars collided in the intersection, not fast, but enough to emit a crunching noise that echoed towards me.

One by one, each of the fluorescent shopfront signs flipped off, and people in the carpark shrieked in fear as they realised this was actually happening; it wasn't fake news or a global prank. Some vehicles shuddered to a halt, mostly the late model ones. A man jumped out of his Tesla and kicked its tyres before howling in despair.

I looked down at my phone just in time to see its screen fade to black for the last time. It didn't feel like running out of battery; it felt like watching a friend die. My trembling fingers slid the phone into my pocket, unwilling to just toss it aside after all the time we'd spent together.

All around me, the terrified behaviour of people had escalated, but other than the blackened traffic lights, everything else looked normal. Electricity outside during the day time didn't seem like such a different world. A few hours from now when night fell, it would be a different story.

Hot and sudden tears fell down my cheeks as hunger slapped me fiercely. I wanted a final normal meal, something hot and fatty and familiar. I had no idea what my next meal would even look like, but it probably wouldn't be microwaved.

I wept for the world. And for myself, but since I was part of the world too, I figured that was okay.

Simon ambled back over, a carton of vodka beneath each arm. "You should see it – thought I'd have to punch on to get this lot, but the place cleared out when all those idiots realised they would have to walk home because their precious cars are shot to-"

"Shut up, Simon," I said, not softening the edges of my tone. "The world just ended. Have a little respect."

"The world didn't end. People will keep eating and screwing and shitting and drinking-"

"People are dying, right now." My tears fell faster. I'd never allowed myself to cry in front of my team before, but this was unstoppable, as if the nanobots had broken my emotional tap. "Hospitals will be filled with people dying horribly right now because machines stopped breathing for them, or their pacemaker failed, or the lights went out in the middle of surgery. There will be car accidents that people didn't survive, ships lost at sea filled with people who can't make it back to shore."

Raging at the injustice of it all, I threw my wrath in his direction. "The world just changed forever, and there will be people who starve or drown or bleed out or be killed by other people or kill themselves. Take a goddamn moment and acknowledge it."

He stood over me for a moment, then lowered both of his boxes to the ground and squatted in front of me. "Love, I know all that," he said in a tone so gentle, I didn't recognise his voice for a moment. "But the world won't end. People will keep going. Yep, some of them will die, and that's how it's always been. But not us, not today."

"I just want to take a second." I couldn't hold his stare; my eyes dropped to the open boxes he'd brought, where a bag of pork rinds caught my attention.