On the first day of the brown cloud and the last week of humanity, he marveled at how completely things had broken down. Before the power went out, he checked his favorite news site and found a note about the lack of updates:
"We are going home to be with our families. We wish you the very best."
Jerald never understood what killed him. He knew there was a brown cloud approaching on the horizon. Dark brown, the brown of dried shit on chocolate corduroy. He knew that once the cloud reached him, there would be a crack and anything with lungs would die.
All of this was gathered from the streams of people the cloud sent screaming away from it, ravaging everything in their path. They were mad with terror, and Lord help you if you were in their way, or had something they wanted. Jerald saw one woman crying and dragging parts of what had once been a child. She was carrying the filthy pieces in a toy wagon, a trail of blood following her like an accusation. There was no name for these people. Phenomena are always named after the fact. There was no after the fact.
One of them lodged with him and tried to steal all of his food. The man didn't know what the cloud was, but he knew he would drive himself into the ocean to avoid it. He got a nailgun blast to the temple for his trouble. Jerald didn't bury him, he just boarded up the room he was in. The cracking grew louder and the cloud moved closer. There was little time.
He stood at the edge of his property, watching it approach. When it arrived, it was worse and better than he imagined. He only heard the beginning of the crack, he was dead before the end of it.
Within a week everyone on earth was dead. Not one person knew why it had happened, for what reason.
Explanations are a luxury.