Andrew awoke on his stove, curled up with his knees at his chest. He sat up and rubbed his hand over the side of his face, tracing the curved indents left there by the stove top element. The throbbing in his skull was only slightly outmatched by the urgent and pressing need to urinate.

Or vomit.

He wasn't sure which, but of one thing he was certain – it would be a sprint to the washroom. In his current state, Andrew thought he might not make it, or worse he might trip over his coffee table on the way, hit his head and get a concussion, and depending on what end of him needed to empty itself either piss himself or throw up all over his apartment floor.

Fortunately, he managed to sidestep the table and lurch through the washroom door just in time to discover that he did indeed need to vomit. Well, it was 50-50, he guessed. Between the violent convulsions, he pondered whether or not he would have had the dexterity to undo his fly anyways.

After awhile, when he was certain the worst of it was over, he peeled off yesterday's clothes, poured himself into the tub and ran a hot bath. The heat of the water turned his skin bright red, and soon he was sweating. The smell of alcohol seeping out of every pore was nauseating, but lucky for him he had nothing left to throw up.

Briefly, the Suit's voice popped into his head, but he quickly took a detour from that train of thought. He wasn't quite ready to ponder his situation or consider the new requirements of his – he didn't know what to call it: mission? assignment?

Of course that sounded very cool and covert, but Andrew Price was a pragmatist and he harboured no grand delusions. His whiskey-soaked mind recoiled from the subject altogether and he started to think about the liquor store just around the corner from his apartment complex. At this point, he figured, a little hair of the dog couldn't make things worse.

After he dressed again in fresh clothes – well, relatively fresh - he turned on the news to hear a bit of banality for a change. Somewhere in Portland an elementary school had raised enough money to bring over some impoverished Third World kid on an exchange and blah blah blah. Traffic was flowing again on such and such route after a brief flurry of snow caused white-out conditions and a few fender benders yada yada yada. Two people reported missing and police had no leads but did not suspect foul play at this time and on and on and on.

That last story gave him a twinge, but he ignored it as best he could. People had been going missing all over North America more and more frequently in recent months, most without a trace, but that wasn't really news. People only cared if they were found, all maimed and traumatized, or dead and dismembered. Anything short of a serial killer with a bizarre MO didn't catch people's attention.

Andrew supposed that was a sign of how well guys like him were doing their jobs, desensitizing people to murder and crime and all sorts of depravity. If people knew what was coming, surely they'd appreciate his good and noble work.

Right, and the undead might go vegetarian and pose no problem to the great smorgasbord of humanity. As his fat stepfather used to say – wish in one hand and shit in the other, see which one fills up first.

Prick.

He switched off the television, donned his parka and left the apartment, not bothering to check the mail on his way out. All his bills were online and he didn't have any family to speak of, at least none that would write him. That and a sign that read no junk mail and the result was that he never received anything by post. His mail key hung by his door, unused now for longer than he cared to remember.

Out on the sidewalk, Andrew braced himself against the cold. Lately, he'd only been leaving the apartment for more alcohol, more coffee, and to meet his agent to pass along more manuscripts. The latter were doing well enough, with slightly above average sales in grocery stores and gas stations. Andrew price was a man of the people – his novels reached them on their level, drawing them into a nightmare landscape in which ordinary citizens with ordinary lives were called upon to do heroic deeds against insurmountable odds.

At least, that was how the copy writers at his publisher's portrayed him. Somehow, Andrew thought, slovenly and solitary alcoholic with a taste for pornography and a tendency towards misanthropy wouldn't sell quite as many books. What the hell, he figured. As a writer he was in good company. He wasn't the first word-slinger to hit the bottle and hide away from people in an ivory tower.

Of course, his tower didn't have the glamour of ivory. Not with all the empty whiskey bottles and dirty laundry. But that didn't matter if nobody ever came over. Except the Suit, that is, but he was nobody too. No name. Total anonymity. Andrew was certain a guy like him didn't even exist on paper. Even if he gave a name, it was likely fake. Suit suited him well enough.

Andrew ducked into Starbucks and joined the queue. Standing in lines for something so pedestrian as a coffee was a fascinating pastime. This was the sort of tableau he liked to describe before an outbreak in his novels. People going about their business, never expecting the coming violence. He would stand in lines and make mental notes of what people say to one another in passing, how they sit, what they read, a thousand little idiosyncrasies that disappear once the panic starts. Once people look up from their bagels and lattes and put down their newspapers. Once the screaming starts and people start running.

He paid careful attention to the quiet, cultivated the space between words spoken aloud. The cars rolling by, the susurrus of low conversations, the canned music playing over wall-mounted speakers. Easy listening. Andrew Price was a connoisseur of tranquillity and quiescence, an aficionado of the little things.

And yet, knowing it all had to end made him impatient. Knowing that lines in coffee shops would end and morning papers would end and Britney Spears would end. This all made him anticipate the end. He wanted to get on with it. He wanted his responsibility as a writer to end, and his responsibility to himself to be complete.

Andrew awaited the simplicity of desolation like a child awaits Christmas morning. And for Andrew, every day felt like Christmas Eve. Too excited to sleep, so eager for the morning that it seemed always just out of reach. Tantalizing...

"Sir?"

The barista had perky breasts and a blue piercing sticking out of the side of her lip. It made her sound just a little funny when she spoke – the piercing, not the breasts.

"Huh?" Andrew was still feeling muddled by the alcohol leaking out of his system. "Oh yeah, I'll have a large breakfast blend, to go please."

"Cream or sugar?"

"Nah, thanks."

Andrew handed her his Starbucks card and she swiped it through her machine.

"Balance is $3.27. Do you need a receipt?"

Andrew shook his head and dropped his gaze when he realized he was fantasizing about a girl who couldn't have been more than twenty-two. Not the usual sort of fantasy. Since he'd been approached by the Suit, picturing girls naked didn't hold the same fascination. No, he'd been imagining the perky young barista with the piercing doing the zombie shuffle – the sort of foot-dragging walk he'd seen so often in horror movies.

He looked around and all he could see were walls dripping with blood, patrons with missing limbs, ribs exposed, guts trailing on the ground in long loopy ropes.

The girl poured his coffee and set it on the counter in front of him. He snatched it up quickly and headed back out into the cold. The coffee took the edge off of the chill and soothed his turbulent stomach. He passed the liquor store, no time for that now, and caught a cab across town to the office of his agent, and sometimes friend, Whit Carver.