THe Salesmen

The day the apocalypse began, Michael Wanhope slept through the first act. Before he even opened his eyes he knew he was definitely going to be late for work. The real question was how late was he going to be. He was praying that it wasn’t past nine, that way there was still a chance he could still slip into work without his manager noticing. Slowly but surely Michael pulled his eyelids open and rolled himself over so that he could look at his phone with minimal effort. It was quarter  past eleven. “Fuuuuck.” It was quarter past eleven. 

Michael buried his face in his pillow and let out a long wailing groan. He needed that job, it was part time but he still really needed it. This hadn’t been the first time he’d slipped up either, and the last he’d been late he got chewed out for it. At the very least it would happen again this time. Micheal spent the next few minutes continuing to mumble into his pillow, repeating various versions of the two phrases “it's over” and “I’m so screwed.” Finally reality confronted him and Michael crawled out of bed. He tried to keep his mind off the whole thing by focusing instead on basic routines. Showering, brushing his teeth, grabbing a bite to eat, the whole shebang. Still, he was to put it mildly, shitting his pants. He really really really needed that job he couldn’t afford fuck up now and yet he had. He was sure his brother was going to make sure he’d never hear the end of it. While he paced back and forth in his kitchen while sweating profusely he was hoping maybe he could come up with some kind of excuse for his manager. Preferably one that was a deal more believable then the last one. “Lost tooth brush in washing machine” was not and would never be a viable excuse even in a universe where it could have happened. Still, he needed to salvage this mess, somehow. 

He had his head in his hands while pacing back and forth in his kitchen desperately trying to decide whether or not he should resign himself to his fate, make breakfast and live with the consequences. Or, if he should just bite the bullet and head to work. But before he could do either the door bell rang. Michael was almost positive he hadn’t been expecting anyone. It could be Robb, but then again he was probably at work. Sighing, Michael turned off the stove and walked to the door. Out of curiosity he chose to look through the peephole first. On the other side a clean shaven older man in a dark blue suit with graying black hair and the world's most obvious comb over was standing in the hallway, swaying slightly from one heel to the other. Michael pulled his head away from the peephole, he was sure he’d never met the man in his life. Still, he seemed somehow familiar. Maybe… maybe if he had another look he might remember. Again he pressed his face against the peephole. It was much darker than before. Something had cast some kind of shadow over his view of the hallway, something outside shifted, and soon he realized what he was looking at. The man on the other side was doing the exact same thing he was, his eye pressed so close to the glass that Michael could see clearly the veins in the whites of his eyes and the crows feet he had at the edges. Startled, Michael backed away from the door and then the man spoke. 

“Mr Wanhope? Mr Wanhope! I was wondering if I could get a word, there's something important that we need to discuss. I promise it’ll be worth your time!” 

Michael went to open the door, hesitated for a moment before finishing the motion. As the door opened the man on the other side jerked away from the peephole and seemed to pretend that he hadn’t been doing exactly what he just had been doing. He was much taller than he had appeared through the looking glass, somewhere around six foot four to six foot five he towered over Michael. Now that he had a better look at it, the man's suit was somewhat ill fitting, even a little uncomfortable. His eyes were as black as his hair and creased by the smile he wore. And he smelled. He seemed clouded at all times by this strange stench, like detritus that you’d find on a forest floor. With a look somewhere between concern and confusion Michael finally spoke.

“Can I help you?”

“Wrong question Mr Wanhope. The real question is how can I help you!” The man made a finger gun with his free hand as he finished his sentence and pointed it at Michael. There was a moment of silence before the man seemed to realize that he had neglected to introduce himself. “Uh...oh yes-Jared Sunderland!” he exclaimed, shaking Michael's hand vigorously. Letting go of Michael's hand he gestured inside “do you mind if I come in?” 

“Whatever you're selling and or asking me to reconsider about my relationship with God I’m not interested”

The man seemed almost offended at the insinuation but he maintained his smile regardless. “Mr Wanhope, you’ve got me all wrong. I wouldn’t waste your time like that. After all, like I said, I'm here to help you.” Again he made the finger gun with his free hand. It was less accurate in its aim that time though. 

“Listen, as interesting as this has been, I'm very busy and you’re wasting my time.” 

He gripped the door handle and made an effort to close the door before the man calling himself Sunderland caught the door with his shoe and shoved his face into the space remaining between the door and the door frame. “Look, Michael,” he said, smiling uncomfortably, “I promise this won't take up much of your time, we both know you're not getting to work at this rate.” 

Michael furrowed a brow and loosened his grip on the door. “Scuse me?” Michael loosened his grip on the door handle, allowing Sunderland to gently force his way into the apartment. “Now I know you were in the middle of eating something so if it's all right I’ll just wait over there and you can finish your meal.” 

“Listen you crazy fuck you’ve got like five seconds to get as far away from my apartment as you can before I call the cops.” 

Sunderland's face grew a touch serious but Michael felt that he was still oddly calm. “Mr Wanhope-.” he lifted a hand as if to caution Michael.  “I promise you that won't be necessary, now if you’d simply allow me inside to explain everything.”

Michael, ignoring him, began to dial Nine one one. Again Sunderland barely reacted though he did back a couple steps away from the door. He stared at Sunderland with those ink black eyes of his, blinking intermittently. The phone rang and rang but nobody ever answered. Michael began to sweat, he muttered a “what the hell?” under his breath, put his phone away then turned back to Sunderland. 

“If we could continue this inside Mr Manhope?” Sunderland smirked as if he’d won some kind of battle.

Anger overcame his fear and Michael all but shoved the man back into the hall as he forced the door shut. Michael breathed a sigh of relief and walked back into his kitchen, and there he was sitting comfortably at his table with his brief case on his lap. Sunderland smiled childishly, stood, placed his brief case against a wall and walked over to a petrified Michael. 

“Like I said Mr Wanhope, I’m happy to wait!” he smiled.

Michael's apartment was, according to almost anyone who had ever seen it, shockingly bland. Not messy or drab, just spare and empty. His brother had offered to help decorate when he first moved in. Michael had turned down the idea, thinking that it should have been something that he should handle on his own, it had been nearly a year since then. The only thing that brought the place alive was a single small fish tank placed on a small table against a wall near the front door. Michael had wanted some kind of pet to keep him company at home. He felt a dog might be too much, a cat he wasn’t really sure about, so he settled for a fish. Actually figuring out what fish would be best turned out to be much more complicated than deciding on the issue to begin with. So, on the advice of some beleaguered pet store employee he bought a betta fish. Shaggy was, contrary to the name, actually quite beautiful. She was pitch black, dotted with shades of dark blue. The spines on her fins were longer than the fins themselves, Michael thought it made her look like she had hair, hence the name. She spent most of her time floating listlessly throughout the tank, weaving and bobbing through the plastic vegetation in slow motion. That was what Shaggy had been doing as the man called Sunderland, with his hand behind his back, bent half of his lengthy body forward like a giraffe drinking from a watering hole to peer into Shaggy's miniature world. All the while Michael leaned over a plate of cold eggs, picking at them with a fork. He continued to do this for another minute or so, occasionally looking up at Sunderland with escalating concern. Giving up on the eggs Michael approached Sunderland. The man Michael thought, was entirely too interested in the fish, pressing his face nearly completely against the glass like a child pretending to be interested in something. As Michael approached the man, Sunderland had begun waving at Shaggy, wiggling his fingers, which was just very weird. Michael tapped the man's shoulder. He looked up and straightened himself, somewhat embarrassed. 

“Mr Sunderland…” Michael paused. “What are you doing here, who are you and what do you want from me?” All of a sudden Sunderland looked quite sad, his black marble eyes glistening ever so slightly. 

“Mr Wanhope…Michael…uhm…” Sunderland paused, scratched his head before continuing “There’s.. Really no way around this. You're gonna die - you and a lot of other people as a matter of fact.” As if to reassure Michael, Sunderland's expression pivoted to something brighter. “But!” He pointed his index finger to the sky. “It doesn’t have to be that way, at least not for you.” Sunderland turned around, reached to the floor and picked up the brief case he’d brought with him, opened it and began fiddling with its contents. “Now, I can imagine this might be a little overwhelming but don’t panic, I'll walk you through everything and this will all be over with fairly quick-.” 

“Is this some kind of joke? Is this a prank, what the fuck are you talking about?” 

This seemed to startle Sunderland, causing him to hold his brief case closer to his chest, arms tucked in like some kind of dinosaur “Like I said I know it's a lot-”. 

Visibly angry, Michael cut him off:  “get out of my house, I want you out of my house! I don’t know who the fuck you are or how the fuck you got in here but you’re bat shit crazy, or on drugs, or both!?” 

Sunderland put one incredibly long arm forward as if to caution Micheal. “Mr Wanhope, please just have a seat and we can get this sorted.”  

“I don’t want to get this sorted, I want you to get out!” 

Sunderland began backing slowly towards the door, stopping as his back was about to strike against it. His expression had changed, it was more placid now, emotionless. “There is a good chance that in the very near future you will change your mind, in the event that this happens and understand that it will happen you will need to contact me when it comes to that, use this.” He placed a coin on a nearby table, tipped a nonexistent hat on his head, and left. 

For a long while Michael stood there in the entryway of his apartment, unsure whether or not he should try and call the cops again and make some kind of report. Instead, he told himself he would do something about it later, he was still too worried about losing his job. he realized that he’d forgotten to feed shaggy and decided to preoccupy himself with the activity. While Michael watched Shaggy mindlessly gulp down pellets of fish food he finally thought of a half plausible excuse for his boss. It wasn’t till some minutes after that he finally remembered the coin. Again he wanted to forget about it but curiosity got the better of him. It was larger than he had remembered and for whatever reason octagonal. On one side there was a cricket, chewing on what looked like… Meat? Michael wasn’t sure. He flipped the coin over, on the other side was a face in profile, it was Sunderland's. He was smiling.