Dear Cassie

It's been 216 days since the world ended and I miss you.

I love you so much. I miss you so much. I miss waking up to see you. I miss the way you smelled, I miss your touch, I miss the way you walk, how in those cold mornings you would hop out of bed, trying not to touch the wooden floor with your bare feet, whispering about how cold it was.

In the mornings now, I open my eyes and I don't want to wake up. I want to stay in bed all day. I want to dream about you. I miss you so much.

I started driving to work this morning and I came across a section of the city that had been claimed by the woods. Some men were sectioning it off with road blocks. I stopped and asked them when it happened.

"Just last night," one of them said. "The trees sprouted up within hours. I think we got everyone out in time."

Behind him, I could see the trees, their black leaves reaching up towards the sky. Were they somehow related to the black flowers? The house we found wasn't in one of the sections claimed by the woods. It was in one of the normal streets. But perhaps that's how it starts. Black flowers lead to black trees. Perhaps there are black roots underground that stretch beneath the city, waiting to climb upward and drag us all down.

I turned the car around and found another way to work.

It's been 216 days since the world ended and I miss you.

Dear Cassie

It's been 215 days since the world ended and I miss you.

I work two jobs now. The first is just my regular job, greeting customers and waiting tables and wiping down booths. People still go out to eat, even now. Especially now. Even though we close before the sun sets (which is around five these days), we still get lots of people coming in and waiting for an open table. Waiting to have their order taken, to be served food, to talk and eat like there was nothing wrong with the world.

My second job involves looking for supplies. We still have electricity -- I've heard about other cities that aren't so lucky -- but some supplies are still low. If you are physically fit and twenty to forty years old, then you are automatically supposed to be a part of a supply team.

My supply team is assigned the northwest side of the city. It's a large area, but we go from house to house -- checking to see which ones are abandoned, which ones still have people in them, and which ones belong to the dead (we call in a different team to deal with those). It's tough sometimes, but we only work for a few hours each morning -- nobody works at night.

Today, we found something new. There was a house on Primrose that had already been checked a few months ago, but we decided to check it again to see if anything was left behind. Two of us opened the front door, checking to see if there were any squatters.

There weren't any people, but something was there that hadn't been before. They grew from every crack, every broken floorboard. They grew out of the plaster walls and on the brick fireplace.

Black flowers.

We shut the door and marked it with a piece of red tape. We weren't sure who else to notify -- there was no dead inside (at least none we could see from the front door, none of us were willing to walk inside), but it was something we hadn't seen before. Eventually, we just told our superior and he told his and up the chain it went. I'm not sure what they're going to do.

I can't help but think about The War of the Worlds and the red weed. The choking red weed that the Martians bring that grows on everything. Are the black flowers like that? Will I wake up one day to find them invading the house, growing on everything?

Will I wake up one day to find them growing on me?

It's been 215 days since the world ended and I miss you.

Dear Cassie

It's been 214 days since the world ended and I miss you.

I thought of a happy memory. It's the night when you first stayed over at my place. We fell asleep on my bed, your arm over my chest. But the next morning, when I woke up, I realized that I had forgotten to shut the window and all the cold air had rushed in. We were freezing and struggling to cover both of ourselves with the one blanket I had. You put your fingers -- cold, but getting warmer -- over my face and laughed and then tugged the blanket away from me. "I guess you're going to have to get a bigger blanket," you said. "I guess so," I said.

(I can never leave the windows in my apartment open at night now. Too many things might be able to slip inside.)

I saw Peter today. I hadn't seen him for a month or so and I asked him what he was doing. "Got a new job," he said and when I asked what it was, he just replied, "Surviving."

It's been 214 days since the world ended and I miss you.

Dear Cassie

It's been 213 days since the world ended and I miss you.

I saw one of the Bookmen today. I had heard stories about them. One of my coworkers said they saw one at night, looking in windows. I didn't believe him until today.

He (I assume it was a he) was wearing a suit and was walking upright, although how he was walking, I have no idea. His face wasn't there -- it was an open book, the pages flipped open. He would occasionally stop and turn one. I couldn't see the words and I'm not sure I would want to read them.

I'm not sure I'm describing it correctly. It wasn't like someone glued a book to his face. It was like his face was removed and there was a book there instead. Maybe the book was made from his face. Maybe the pages were his flesh and the spine...

God, I threw up after seeing him.

The worst part? He was outside, walking during the day. He moved slowly enough so that everyone could see him coming and find some hiding place. I knelt under the counter at work. He looked in our window. I'm not sure how he looked without eyes -- maybe there are eyes on every page? But he looked into the window and I hoped to hell that he couldn't see me. The pages rustled against the glass and then he was gone.

I don't know what would have happened if he saw me. Maybe nothing. But I can't help but think that perhaps he had a real face before and then something happened to turn him into a Bookman. I'm not sure if that's more or less comforting than the alternative.

I'm sorry for being morbid again. I'll try to think of some happy memories tomorrow.

It's been 213 days since the world ended and I miss you.

Dear Cassie

It's been 212 days since the world ended and I miss you.

It's been difficult adjusting. So many people died. I would walk down the street (in daylight, of course) and there would be bodies. People would get together and clear them from the street, taking them away to be buried or cremated, I'm not sure. But I sometimes they missed one -- one of our neighbors died and there was nobody else in his home and nobody to check up on him. And the body just...stayed there. Eventually, people noticed the smell. The smell of rot and decay.

I'm sorry. I know you'll never read these letters, but I'm making them too morbid. I can't help it. Even though the sun still rises and the world still spins, it has, for all intents and purposes, ended. It used to be that we didn't know who pulled the strings, but now we do. Now we know the secret of life.

I mean, that's what "apocalypse" means, doesn't it? Unveiling. The reveal of the things behind the curtain. I guess everyone just thought that once the world ended, it would, well, end.

But it hasn't. Everything just keeps on going. The world spins on, even though the end has come and gone.

I'm sorry, Cassie. I shouldn't be so pessimistic. I should try to remember our times together. I should try to be better, to live as long as I can. For you. For my parents. For those who still live. And for those who died.

It's been 212 days since the world ended and I miss you.

Dear Cassie

It's been 211 days since the world ended and I miss you. I miss your laugh. I miss your smile. I even miss when you were mad at me and your face turned red and sometimes you exploded over the slightest thing. When I was late. When I forgot something. Or even when you forgot something and you were mad at yourself.

I wish I could go back and hold you and tell you not to be mad. I wish I could tell you it wasn't worth the time, that there was so little of it left, that we shouldn't waste it.

I can see the giants out on the streets. I can feel their thunderous footsteps.

It's been 211 days since the world ended and I miss you.