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Warning for Groundhog Day!AU, character death, and a tiny bit of foul language. Also, a slight bit out of character. The word count is 2,314 words. I hope you all enjoy the first chapter of The End of the World (As We Know It).


Darlin' you got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go? If you say that you are mine. I'll be here to the end of time. So you got to let me know. Should I stay or should I…. I reach out with my hand and thwack it against the blaring alarm. Don't ask me why I chose The Clash for my morning wake-up alarm. I don't know it just sounded like it would be loud enough to wake even the heaviest of sleepers. Which was a lie. I look over expecting to find my girlfriend, Sam, still asleep only to find her space in bed empty. She was probably downstairs cooking breakfast or something like that. Her father usually did that for her mother, brother, her, and sometimes me. Sam must have inherited that trait from him. I couldn't help but think this ever so hopefully because the only other reason she could be missing is that she went out.

Going out was one of the most dangerous things in this new world of ours. One had to be careful not to make any noise or they'd attract the dead ones to them. If the dead ones heard you and you weren't quick enough or didn't have a weapon you were as good as dead.

"Sam!" I called, rolling out of bed and yelping at the cold of the hard wooden floors on my feet. "Sam!" I slipped my feet into the warm fuzzy slippers that Sam had scavenged out of a shop window during our first Christmas after the world ended.

I couldn't smell the scent of cooking food but that didn't mean anything. The kitchen was on the other side of the house. I pulled on my robe and wrapped it tightly around me shivering at the cold seeping in from outside.

This was rather odd to me because the generator should still be going. I had made sure that we had refilled it before it got too low. I wondered what could have happened that the generator would have given out like this.

"Sam!" I called, shuffling down the hall and feeling my heart pound in my chest. Did she know how much she was scaring the ever-loving sugar honey iced tea out of me? "Are you cooking breakfast?"

I stumbled over a discarded object that her brother Anthony had left before everything went to hell in a handbasket. I kicked the tablet out of the way and cringed when it hit the wall cracking the face of the tablet. I would have to buy him a new one once the world got back to the way things used to be.

I made my way slowly to the kitchen and my heart leaped for joy when I did smell the scent of food cooking. I was about to say something when I opened the kitchen door and found Mr. and Mrs. LaRusso, along with their son Anthony sitting around the table. Mr. LaRusso noticed me first.

"Tory, is Sam with you?" he asked, looking behind me as though just the act of saying her name would conjure her. If that was the case my heart wouldn't be trying to simultaneously burst out of my chest and throat.

"I was hoping she was down here with you guys," I said, feeling I was about to throw up. "She wasn't here when you guys got here?"

The LaRussos shook their heads. Anthony seemed oblivious to what was going on. I wished that I could be that blissfully ignorant of the situation. But I knew perfectly well if she wasn't upstairs and I knew she wasn't or down here she was outside.

"You don't think she went to…."

"I hope not. I told her we would make a trip out to the store tomorrow. We could afford to wait until tomorrow."

Mrs. LaRusso put a reassuring hand on my shoulder trying to comfort me. I wouldn't be comforted until sam was standing here. But I guess she was just as concerned as I was so I gave her a smile I hope was reassuring and didn't show my anxiety.

"What's everyone looking so concerned about?" Anthony asked, looking at the rest of us as though realizing that something was wrong for the first time.

"Sam's missing," I said, wanting to throttle the kid right where he sat.

"No," he said, digging in his pocket for something. "She left this on the counter over there." He held out a sticky note in a shade of pink which Sam usually used when she was just stepping out back to check on the….

"You have got to be kidding me," I cried in frustration and raced towards the back door.

I opened it to find Sam tinkering with the generator. I stumped over to her trying not to look angry. She was only trying to help. She was only trying to help. She was only trying to help. I said this over and over and over and over again in my head like a mantra.

Sam must have heard my footsteps because she dropped what she was doing and picked up the bow staff she usually took on such trips outside. She whirled around and seemed relieved to see me and not some undead person there. She lowered her bow staff and went back to work on the generator.

"Do you want to explain what's going on here?" I asked, folding my arms over my chest. "I was scared to death when I woke up and you were gone."

"Didn't you see the note I left on the kitchen cabinet?" Sam asked, looking up from the wiring she was fixing. She wasn't an expert but she'd learned a lot about generators from reading books during the first few days of the apocalypse.

"I didn't see it until your brother showed me," I said, rolling my eyes at this answer. This was always her answer. Every time we started this particular time loop over.

"My parents and brother are back?" she asked excitedly, not noticing the angry look on my face. "Are they in the kitchen? I bet they are and Dad's making some of his famous Banana-rama pancakes…."

"He did make pancakes but that's not the point…."

"Let me just finish up here and we go and get some breakfast," Sam said, fiddling around with the wiring some more before she was finally happy with it. She flipped the switch and the lights went back on in the house. Her smile almost made my anger leave but then I thought about waking up to find her missing and it came flooding back. "Something must have gotten…."

"I don't care," I shouted, throwing up my hands and looking at her angrily. "Do you know how afraid that both your mother and I were?" She went to open her mouth but I held up my hand. I was going to say my peace and she would have to listen. "I was afraid that you'd gone to the store by yourself and something horrible had happened to you. I was afraid that you were somewhere turned into one of the dead ones. Do you know how scary that is for me? Do you know how much that would hurt me if you were gone?"

"Tory, I didn't go to the store," she said, trying to comfort me but not realizing that was the wrong thing to say.

"I didn't know that," I cried, trying to keep my voice even and not yell. Yelling would attract the dead ones after all. "I didn't see your note until your brother showed me."

"I thought that if I weren't in bed you'd check the kitchen first," she said, sounding guilty. This was something she always said during arguments. Trying to make me out to be the unreasonable one. "You know if I'm not in our room that I'm usually downstairs making breakfast for us. That's why I left the note on the counter by the coffee pot."

"Well, it wasn't there," I said, cocking my head to the side and watching her see her reaction. "It was in your brother's hand."

"It's not my fault that Anthony found the note before you did," she said, standing up and brushing the grass off the knees of her jeans. "Why didn't he share the note with Mom and you sooner than now?"

"How should I know? He's your younger brother."

"It's not my brother's fault that you didn't find the note," she quietly told me, looking towards the fence's door.

"Well, it's not my fault either," I said, following her gaze as a thumping sound started to come from the other side of the fence. The sound was followed by the groans of a dead one. I mentally cursed and grabbed Sam's hand and started to drag her back to the house.

"But the…."

"Leave them," I shouted, continuing to drag her. "That door's not going hold very long if he attracts more them."

"How do you know it's a he?"

"Not the time."

I looked towards the house where the door was just opening. I raced as fast I could dragging Sam with me towards the open door and safety. When we were finally safe and inside I collapsed panting to the floor.

"Power's back on," Mr. LaRusso said, filling the coffee filter with coffee grounds. "Who wants some coffee?"

No spoke. Both her mother and I were looking at Sam in a mixture of anger and fear. This was the first time this particular scenario had played out. But it probably wouldn't be the last time.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, putting the coffee on and leading Anthony out of the room.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" Mrs. LaRusso asked, looking at her daughter in the sort of way a scared mother would look at their child.

"Mom, I was out back," she said, throwing her hands up in the air. "I wasn't out of the yard. I didn't go anywhere off-limits. I was in the backyard fixing the generator. That's all. You're both acting like I had opened the gate and invited a whole pack of the dead ones into the yard with me."

"That's not true," I said, trying to calm down and remember that Sam was only trying to help. "But how many times do I have to ask you to leave your note on the bedside table next to the alarm? I almost never see your note until…."

"Would that make you feel better?" she asked, sounding angry herself. "Do I have to ask your permission to do everything around here?"

"I didn't say that," I said, resigning myself to the fact that the argument wasn't going to wind down any time soon. "I was just saying…."

"You don't trust me to take care of myself." She turned to look at her mother. "Neither of you do."

"That's not fair, Sam," I said, looking between the two LaRusso women. They were both bullheaded when they wanted to be. I knew this better than anyone besides Mr. LaRusso maybe. "We aren't saying you can't take care of yourself. We're just saying that when you go missing like this it's a bit concerning. That it would make at least me feel better if you left your note on my bedside table. Is that too much to ask for?"

"Is a little trust in my own ability to take care of myself too much to ask for?" she countered, folding her arms across her chest.

"Alright," Mrs. LaRusso said, holding up her hands to quiet the argument before it got too full-blown. "Why don't we go with a compromise?"

"A compromise?" Sam asked, looking at me to see if I agreed.

"A compromise?" I asked, looking at Mrs. LaRusso in concern that she was losing her mind. What kind of compromise could she come up with to handle this situation?

"Sam, you can start leaving your notes for Tory on her bedside table as she asked you to," the older woman said, looking at her daughter. "Tory, we can both start giving Sam the benefit of the doubt in regards to her actions. She's only trying to help. Can we all agree on this compromise or not?"

"I can if Sam can," I said, looking at Sam hopefully. Perhaps this was finally the time we ended the loop.

"I can agree to that," Sam said, grinning.

"Then let's all shake hands and have some breakfast," Mrs. LaRusso said, watching as Sam and I shook hands with each other and then shook her hand. "Daniel! Anthony!"

"Mom, Dad's fighting a dead one that broke through the glass door in the living room," Anthony said, grinning like this was the coolest thing he'd ever seen.

I watched as the LaRussos raced off to help Mr. LaRusso. I was just about to go off and help too when I felt teeth sink into my shoulder and the cold grip of death take hold of me. Just as my eyes were starting to slip closed….


Darlin' you got to let me know. Should I stay or should I go? If you say that you are mine. I'll be here to the end of time. So you to let me kn….. My hand slammed down on the alarm before the line was even finished. I rolled to my side to find a pink sticky note on my bedside table letting me know that Sam was in the backyard fixing the generator and her family was downstairs waiting to make breakfast.

Quickly dressing I raced downstairs with one thing in mind. Preparing to fight off the encroaching horde of dead ones. And if not that how to keep them from getting inside the house and killing us all.


I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of The End of The World (As We Know It) as much as I enjoyed writing it.