Hold it right there, partner: If you have not read any of the stories in the series leading up to this one, you will be lost. This "episode", while as close to canon as I can make it, has ties to the others in my set. If you read this without reading those, you will find yourself confused as ever. If you have read the previous publications, then carry on. If not, I advise you turn around and do so. Moving on...

Happy End of the World Day, everyone! I hope you guys are enjoying the apocalypse as much as I am. ;)

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry this took so long. I had a million things to do and fix before I could post it, but now it's done and up! It's not as good as I wish it was, the subject of trying not to step on canon's toes with John's death and The Demon being the most difficult thing in the world, but it'll do. (Also, I just want to say that if something doesn't make sense or feel completed, it's because this is a series and there's planned continuity for things to come.) So, uh, yeah. Enjoy! And, as always, this is viewable on our Tumblr page, 11785!

PROLOGUE

Cedar Grove Apartments
Pierre, South Dakota
Monday, November 20, 2006
11:57 PM

Bryan Jackson popped the top on his tenth beer of the night, kicking back in the shabby recliner positioned in front of the big screen TV he had bought with his last paycheck, and propping his feet up just shy of blocking his view of the Monday night rerun of WCW Nitro.

He had had a really crappy day at work, with his boss telling him that he needed to get better at his job or they were going to have to find a replacement, and with his buddy letting him know that the weekend off they were planning to spend down at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, catching a Vikings game, was canceled because he suddenly had to do a double shift on Sunday. As soon as he had clocked out for the day at six, Bryan had started in on the twelve pack sitting in his fridge, something he had been saving for the trip to Minnesota with Dan, and had tuned into the wrestling marathon one of the provided sports channels he paid extra for was showing, something that barely took his mind off of his disappointment.

At thirty-five years old, Bryan hardly ever got to have fun, with his ex-wife calling for child support payments every month, his job hammering at him to do more work for less cash, and the world beating down on him whenever something good came out of all the crap that was piled on top of him. His whole life, Bryan had had it rough, with his parents divorcing at six, Bryan living in a roach motel with his mom at eight, and ten years later, repeating the same thing with his then-girlfriend, Leanne. At eighteen, Bryan had had it all figured out. He was going to go to college, get married, and have The Life, but it didn't work out that way. Barely making rent at the pest-infested apartment he and Leanne had lived in until their first child, Bethany, was born, Bryan had quickly given up on ever making it out of his situation alive, feeling stuck now that he had both Leanne and Bethany to take care of.

By the time he was twenty-two, Bryan had developed a drinking problem that had cost him his wife, his child, and the somewhat-nice place they had moved into with help from the government. Leanne had left him the night he had come home drunk, waving his fist around and smacking her across the face, and had automatically received custody of their kid once the divorce went through. With his record, having been pulled over for a DUI twice in the past six months before Leanne left him, Bryan had had no hope of ever winning the battle that had ended as quickly as it had begun, with Leanne taking off for Tennessee to live with her parents and only calling once every four weeks to make sure Bryan had made out the child support check that was supposed to act as a filler for his absence in Bethany's life.

When Leanne had first left him, Bryan had been between jobs—his career at Dominos finished as soon as the shift manager found out Bryan had been taking home some of the stale pizzas the company was going to throw out anyway. He had had to scramble for work in order to make the six-hundred-a-month cut Leanne wanted as funding to take care of their girl, eventually finding something at a warehouse out in the boonies of Pierre, some storage facility that handled bulk electronic equipment for the big-box stores around South Dakota. It was a lot of physical labor for almost no dough, getting paid the state minimum wage of five dollars an hour for heavy lifting that was worth at least twice that, but it was something, and something was better than nothing.

On the odd day off that Bryan got to experience, the company he worked for not unionized and able to make him work as many days a week as they wanted, he often sat around drinking. In fact, whenever he wasn't working, he often sat around drinking. In his chair, on the bed, in the kitchen, on the patio, in his car, wherever he felt like it, sometimes cracking open a six pack out in the parking lot of the 7-11 he shopped at because he couldn't wait to chug down a cold one. Life was too hard to spend a minute sober, especially a minute that he had to himself. He had too much on his plate to spend it thinking clearly. The more drunk he was, and the quicker he became intoxicated, the better.

Knocking back the rest of the Miller in his hand, Bryan got ready to leave his recliner to get another beer out of the fridge, pushing down the footrest that rose above his head and sitting up. As he wobbled unsteadily toward the blinding kitchen, reaching his hands out for support and to make sure he didn't ram into any walls by accident, Bryan yanked open the cooler and grabbed yet another can from inside the box, tossing his empty one into the corner of the room and not caring that it hit a pile of yeast-filled aluminum that made his home smell like a brewery had mated with a bakery. Opening his drink, Bryan took two pulls as he staggered back into the living room, the sound of his wrestling match on the TV filling the entire apartment with the excited cheers of fans and yelps of announcers at a level that was much too loud for anyone within a mile radius of the television set.

Taking a seat just as Booker T hit Ric Flair with a chair, Bryan relaxed into his recliner, placing his beer on the stool that doubled as an end table next to him, and grabbed the arrowhead he had been playing with for the past few hours since he had been off work. He had found the thing in the parking lot, making a joke by asking John Walkingstick, the only Native American Bryan had ever met, whether or not he had lost it, then proceeded to carry it around in his pocket for the remainder of the day, forgetting about it until he came home, the thing falling out as he placed his wallet on the counter. Though John hadn't found the joke particularly funny—pointing out that arrowheads originated in Africa, not with the Indians—Bryan still thought the small stone spear was cool, picking it up from where it had fallen on his kitchen floor and not able to put it down all through the night.

Flipping it over and over again in his hand just as his show was coming to an end, Bryan continued to watch as the grand finale was about to begin, almost every wrestler on the show coming out through the doors and heading for the ring, the announcers and crowd going wild as Chris Jericho, Diamond Dallas Page, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Sting, and Eddie Guerrero all stormed the stage to take down the overly-confident Flair, who seemed to be giving a speech about how he was going to kick every one of their asses directly before they all appeared. As the fans held up their signs and chanted their favorite wrestler's name, Bryan sat up in his recliner, having seen this episode of Nitro years before, but forgetting the end result. He knew Flair was going to get it, that jackass always did, but he forgot how.

However, before he could become wrapped up in the smashing and grabbing that was happening on screen, a knock on Bryan's door ripped him from the action, tearing him away from the set as he lumbered forward to see who was there. Standing angrily, with his arms crossed over his chest, was Bryan's landlord, Paul Schmidt, the scum's greasy hair and stained tank top looking even worse in the night as it did during the daytime. As sweat dripped down the man's forehead, even though it was less than forty degrees outside, Mr. Schmidt scowled deeply, his disapproval of the loudness of Bryan's television obvious in his slimy expression, the man's eyes darting for the set as though trying to convey his message without opening his mouth to say exactly what he was thinking.

"You mind turning that thing down?" Schmidt said after awhile, Bryan standing, leering at him drunkenly, a mischievous smile plastered on his face.

"Yeah, I mind," Bryan said, slamming the door and turning toward the TV, hitting the "volume up" button on the remote to rub it in Schmidt's face that he couldn't tell his tenants what to do just because he owned the building. Bryan paid rent. He wasn't about to be dictated to what he could and couldn't do inside his own home.

Taking a seat back in his recliner just as Nitro began to go off, the show always ending a few minutes early to allow time for sponsors at the end of the broadcast, Bryan started to flip channels, his television set buzzing at the exaggerated sound level, a level that was probably too much for even the state-of-the-art Zenith he had bought not that long ago to handle. Turning the arrowhead over in one hand while he used the other to decide on what show he wanted to settle on next, Bryan spaced out as the channels became a blur, sleep finally getting to him, though the alcohol was taking hardly any affect. While he was staggering and having a problem walking straight, Bryan wasn't feeling his usual, thoughtless self. Instead, all he felt was exhausted, his body feeling drunk while his mind felt fine, though tired.

Ignoring it as he turned the television off, finding that everything good was ending in order to make room for the infomercials that were about to take over the airwaves, Bryan chugged the rest of his beer and threw it into the pile with the rest, not giving a damn how crappy it made his kitchen look, the stack of cans matching his mood. It was a Monday night and he had work in the morning, but was nowhere near ready to go to bed. Most of the time, Bryan drank until he passed out in his recliner, waking up whenever he felt like it, usually hours late for his shift, and rolling in at noon rather than when he was due to start at nine. Though that could partly be the reason why his boss was telling him he needed to get better at his job, Bryan also knew that there were other guys much worse than him that needed replacing, and that even though he knew he was hours late, Dave wasn't about to throw him out on the street, not without a firm warning. The one from this morning had been in passing, though still aggravating, but not an ominous threat like he knew would arise should his boss ever seriously consider trading him up with someone who would probably arrive at work on time.

Pattering around his apartment for a few minutes while he rolled the arrowhead over in his hand, Bryan walked unsteadily back and forth from one end of the living room to the other, his feet not seeming to cooperate with his mind. Eventually giving up to sit down again, Bryan put the arrowhead on the end table and rubbed his hands through his hair, sleep calling for him the longer he stayed awake. By the time he resigned to go to bed, actually planning to snooze under the covers for once, it was only a few minutes before midnight, Nitro apparently ending earlier than usual tonight as opposed to every other time.

Leaving the living room for the bathroom, and grabbing the arrowhead as he went, Bryan flipped on the lights and put the stopper in the sink, turning on the water to wash his face and brush his teeth before sleep could overpower him. As he focused on his task, staring into the water gathering in the basin, Bryan's mind strayed to Leanne and Bethany just like it did every night before he passed out drunk as a skunk. Most of the time, he would just give the room a vocalized "screw them" before he blacked out, but tonight he actually thought about the two girls that had once been in his life and were now miles away. Bethany would be fourteen by now, probably in high school and with some boyfriend Bryan would never approve of, whereas Leanne was probably a nurse like she had always talked about. If he had to guess, the two of them had probably moved out of Leanne's mother's house and into a nice apartment out in Nashville, Leanne always saying she wanted to live in some quaint part of the city Bryan had never been to or heard of.

Shutting off the water as Bryan scrubbed at his face with a washcloth, he stared into the dirty sink, the idea that his house would be clean if Leanne had stuck around, if he hadn't ruined it for both of them, causing him to feel an ache in his chest. Stopping to drop the rag in the bowl in the middle of what he was doing, Bryan rinsed off his face and closed his eyes to keep the soapy water out of them, reaching blindly for a towel to dry his skin before water got everywhere. He knew he was a disappointment to everyone he had ever met, and was getting nowhere in life, instead wasting every minute as inebriated as possible in order to deal. While when he was wasted, he didn't care about any of it, tonight he was strangely sober even after drinking nearly an entire case of Miller, everything getting to him and making him want to do nothing more than grab that arrowhead out of his pocket to flip over in his hand. Though it was a weird urge to have, the small object gave him something to hold onto and mess with while he thought, and it was better than nothing.

However, before he could dig into his jeans for it, something in the mirror caught Bryan's eye as he tossed the towel away, a figure dressed in black standing behind him, empty eyes staring at him through the glass and baring into his soul. Turning around and pushing himself against the sink as though it would offer him protection, Bryan tried to shout to scare the man glaring at him away, his voice coming out as though strangled. The stranger before him, Bryan quickly realized, didn't seem to be normal, with pale skin and a dark stare that scared him, the man clothed entirely in heavy garments as though he were dressed for a funeral. An aura hung around him that was frightening, one that told Bryan that something about this guy wasn't normal, the fear that surrounded him and pierced Bryan being more than just the utter dismay that someone was in his house and standing right in front of him.

"Ge… get…" Bryan sputtered, attempting to tell the man to get out, a sly smile breaking the stranger's face in half as though amused by what Bryan was stammering.

Suddenly, as though in one swift movement, the intruder closed the two feet of space between them and shoved himself up against Bryan, his cold hand clamping itself against Bryan's face and forcing his mouth to open wide. Pushing his other fist past Bryan's lips, Bryan could feel strong fingers wrap themselves around his tongue, causing him to panic and try to push away, the effort becoming futile as the man kept his grip firm.

"Bo. Lop! Hees!" Bryan begged, hoping the stranger would understand.

Not seeming to comprehend, nor hear, him, the man tightened his hold and pulled, pain like Bryan had never known ripping through his body as blood squirted everywhere, the man remaining in place while Bryan buckled over, screaming in agony as red gushed in a flood out of his mouth and onto the floor. Standing over him, the man in black held onto Bryan's scarlet and still-slippery tongue, reaching into his blazer's breast pocket for a handkerchief to wrap it in, and slithering the body part into his coat after a long moment, grinning down at Bryan's violently twitching form as he remained on hands and knees, tears streaming down his face as his skin turned a pale gray.

Within a matter of seconds, the man was gone, Bryan noticing only because he had tried to blindly grab for his pant leg, hoping to beg for mercy or for his intruder to call 9-1-1 to get him help, and had felt nothing but air. Instead, Bryan was left alone in his apartment again, with no one to call for help and with no way to articulate what was going on as blood poured out from inside his mouth and to all over the floor. He was going to die. After all those years of hardship and disappointment, Bryan Jackson was going to die without ever knowing a moment of happiness or excitement.

As the blood became too much, Bryan could feel the exhaustion he had felt prior to entering the bathroom mix with the panic he was feeling and the weakness the gushing red was causing. Reaching up for the doorknob, knowing that he had to get someone's attention before he passed out or died on the spot, Bryan tried to get to his feet, only for blackness to swallow him completely and for his body to collapse underneath him, Bryan Jackson hitting his head on the corner of the sink before collapsing lifelessly in a puddle of his own blood.