“If anyone needs help, my number will be posted. I’m only a call away!”

My english teacher would repeat this like a mantra at the end of every class as students urgently poured out of the room like a school of fish. I can only hope he means it now in a world where, ever since that fateful news broadcast, cruelty has become the norm.

“Come on! Come on, Mr. Green! Pick up!”

The ringing is loud, repetitive, perpetual. Around the corpses I pace, circling them with shaky steps.

“Come on!” I shriek into the phone with desperate hopelessness. When the next ring comes, I’m prepared to slap my phone down when I hear a quiet, “Hello?”

“Oh thank goodness!” My relief is short-lived when I take a misstep and make a splash in the puddle of blood next to me. It splatters against the edges of my overalls and I recoil is disgust. “It’s me, Maeve.”

“And you’re okay? You’re not hurt?”

The tears begin to pour. “My parents are dead! The neighbors broke in and stole everything and I didn’t know who else to call!” Sobs break out, and I’m weeping into the speaker like a baby. “I’m sorry!”

“There’s no need to apologize. You don’t have to worry about crying in front of me.” There is no flicker of deceit in his attempt to comfort me. I can almost feel his arms around me, pulling into him as he pulls me away from strife.

“Could you please pick me up?” I beg. “I have no one else. It’s deserted in my neighborhood and I’m too scared to walk out in the open to search for anywhere else to stay.”

“Sure. Send me your address and I’ll be on my way.”

I hang up, and let out a slow, long breath. In this purge, at least I’m not alone. Not anymore. When I send him my address, I patiently sit by the window, but it doesn’t take him long to get here.

“The bodies are…they’re in the living room. I can’t handle blood right now.” My stomach clenches, the nausea growing with every second the coppery stench wafts in my nose.

“That’s okay. Don’t worry about them now. You’ll be safe with me at my place, okay?”

“Mhm.”

I get into his Jeep, and when he’s focused on the empty, dead road ahead of us, all morbid thoughts are gone when I look at him. As of thirty minutes ago, all laws were lifted. We are free from jurisdiction, and he can perform any criminal act against me at any moment, and not harbor guilt. But on the ten minute drive, he doesn’t pull a knife to my throat. No gun is held to my temple. He cares for me. He wouldn’t dare hurt me.

We’ve been driving for hours.

Of course he wouldn’t dare hurt me.