- - End of All Things, The (27 page)

“I’ll keep an eye out for them.” Justin erected a spit and suspended the rabbit over the fire. “Guess what? Next one, you get to clean.”

“Ugh.” Carly shuddered.

“
There’s no crying in baseball,
” Justin said. “And there’s no being grossed out in an apocalypse.”

That evening, Carly gagged and grimaced her way through cleaning the young raccoon Sam brought them. Justin said it was a perfect animal for her to practice on as it was large, and they weren’t going to eat it anyway. She perforated the organs in a couple of places—any one of them would have tainted the meat and rendered it inedible, but Justin declared it a good first try. He brought her a bowl of bleach-purified water and the container of antibacterial soap, and Carly spent a good twenty minutes scrubbing the blood from beneath her fingernails.

Sam seemed insulted they hadn’t eaten his catch, so he took the bloody corpse from Justin with a huff and went over to lie down and eat it himself.

As their dinner cooked, Justin showed her their progress on the map, and she was surprised to see they were near the U.S. border. They’d been traveling for a month and a half, and it seemed like Canada was endless. She couldn’t believe they’d actually completed half of their journey. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep on going?” Carly asked. “Another month and a half and it will only be the middle of October.”

Justin shook his head. “We’re going to be traveling slower now since there are more cities in our path. We’re going to have to take side roads and sometimes leave the roads entirely.”

She tilted her head. “We can’t ride the bikes through a field.”

“We’re going to have to do a lot of walking, Carly. I’ll load up Shadowfax as much as possible and pull the wagon myself until the terrain gets too rough, but we’re probably going to have to carry a good bit ourselves.”

Carly took a deep breath. “All right, then.” 

Justin smiled at her, pride gleaming in his eyes. “We’re not going to make it as far as I’d hoped, but I’d like to try to make it through North Dakota before we hole up. It just depends on how much progress we make.”

They retired to the tent to snuggle inside their joined sleeping bags after dinner instead of playing their usual card games or reading. They zipped the tent flap closed and heard Sam’s indignant huff on the other side of the nylon. 

Justin drew back from a sweet, passionate kiss and traced his fingers over her cheek. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this until we have a backup,” he said reluctantly.

“There are other things we could do, you know.” 

He grinned and blinked his eyes at her with exaggerated innocence. “Such as?”

“Shall I demonstrate?” 

“Please do.”

Carly smiled wickedly and disappeared beneath the sleeping bag.

In the morning, Carly found Justin in front of the campfire, doing some sort of elaborate martial arts dance. For such a large man, he moved with incredible grace, probably the product of years of training.

“Whatcha doin’?” Carly asked as she emerged from the tent, still in the tank top and pajama pants she had donned last night. She’d woken earlier than usual this morning. Usually, she slept until Justin woke her, so she’d never seen his early morning routine.

“
Tai chi.
” 

“Mmm. I used to get those from Starbucks.”

“You’re thinking of chai tea,” Justin said automatically and laughed. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”

“Yup.” Carly grinned at him. He arched out one leg and followed it in a turn—a flowing motion that reminded her of a slinking jungle cat.

“Smartass. Get yourself some coffee. Breakfast will be ready soon.”

She eyed the pot sitting on some hot embers. “We’re not having oatmeal again, are we?”

“Yes, we are.”

Carly grimaced, but said nothing.

“Oatmeal is a good, hearty breakfast. Sticks to your ribs.”

She poured herself a cup of coffee and took a sip. “That sounds like a terrifying medical condition. Do you do this
tai chi
every morning?”

“Whenever I have the chance.” Justin’s smooth, slow movements were almost hypnotic. “It’s very good for you. Improves circulation and keeps you limber.”

“I’m limber enough.”

Justin cast her a naughty grin. “Yes, I think you are.”

Carly blushed and ducked her head.

He finished his routine and took his seat in the chair beside her. They sat in companionable silence for a moment. Carly took off her necklace and pulled the soda tab off the chain. She tossed it into the fire and fastened the chain around her neck again.

“I need to get you a new symbol,” Justin said.

Maybe a ring?
The thought popped into her head unbidden, and she ducked her head to hide anything her face might reveal about her thoughts. Fortunately, he was involved in dishing out their breakfast and didn’t notice.

They crossed the U.S. border at mid-morning. Both sides had long lines of cars, frozen where they’d waited to be allowed to cross. Carly kept her eyes carefully to the side of the road, so she didn’t notice what Justin did.

“These cars have already been looted. There’s nothing left.”

“Perhaps the occupants took their stuff with them when they got out and walked.”

“Maybe some of them, but most of them are still sitting in the cars.”

Months after the Crisis
. Carly remembered the flies and pressed the back of her hand over her mouth as nausea swept through her. Before they had approached the border, Justin had stopped them. He got a jar of menthol jelly from the medical supplies, and dabbed a smear of it on her upper lip. She hadn’t understood why at the time, but as they passed the line of cars, she did. The menthol numbed her nose so she couldn’t smell anything.

They passed through the border guard station. Justin reached into the pocket of his duffel bag. “Good thing I have this with me.” He held up his passport and then tossed it down on a pile of them lying near the door.

“Wait, Justin, don’t.” Carly picked it up and put it in her back pocket. “We may need it someday.”

Justin sounded a little amused. “For what?”

“Well, the government will start up again one day. We’ll want to be able to prove we’re citizens.” Carly didn’t have a passport—she had never needed one—but she had her birth certificate and driver’s license sealed in a plastic bag, buried deep within her pack.

Justin nodded. “You’re right in one respect, if survivors gather together, they’ll form a government, but it won’t be the same government we used to have, Carly. The United States is dead.”

He spoke with such finality that she stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“The survivors will be forming something like the Kingdom of Springfield, if anything. Democracy is a luxury for wealthy civilizations. In this new world, where we all cling to survival, strength will determine the ruler, not a tally of votes.” Justin’s voice was indifferent, as though he were delivering a lecture to a class of students, not talking about the fate of their society.

Carly, who had been raised to revere democracy and the Constitution, was horrified. “So, we’ve devolved back to warlords and fiefdoms?”

“It’s what I’ve seen in every nation when the centralized government went to hell,” he said, and his voice was grim. “Society has been stripped to its bare bones. There’s nothing to stop the strong or more aggressive from preying on the weak. People will band together under a strong leader and hope for safety in numbers. And the criminals will band up as well.”

Carly tilted up her chin. “We can still be Americans if we want to be. We’re starting over and this time, maybe we can get it right.”

His eyes held a touch of pity, which irritated her. “Maybe.” 

“I don’t understand this, Justin. You served the U.S. and its government, shed your blood for it, judging by your scars. I would think you would
want
the government to be restored to what it was.”

“And perhaps my familiarity with it is one of the reasons why I’m not so eager to see it restored.”

“You’re such a pessimist,” she retorted. That offhand tone of his was really starting to irk her, but it occurred to her that he might be trying to feign indifference to hide how he really felt. She watched him more closely, but if it was a mask, it was firmly in place, and she didn’t catch a glimpse of any other emotion.

“I prefer
realist
. Successful self-governance requires a civic-minded populace willing to personally sacrifice for the greater good. It goes against human nature. You say maybe we can get it right if we try again, and I say we did very well in the old days. With basic survival uncertain, we’re not going to improve on the system any time soon.”

Six months ago was
the old days
, as hard as that was to believe. Carly glanced up and saw a tattered and faded American flag flapping listlessly in the breeze.

“Did you bring the cookies?” the man asked her.

Justin cocked his revolver. “Back the fuck off.” His harsh tone should have been more than sufficient warning, but the man was too far gone to pay any attention. 

The man had rushed out of a house along the highway when he saw them, his face crumpled in anxiety. Justin had already shoved him away once, but he was intent on Carly. He grabbed at her again, and Carly darted behind Justin. 

“They should be here by now!” The man’s agitation seemed to be increasing by the moment. “Why didn’t you bring them?”

He was filthy—his clothes spattered with vomit, his hair matted to his head. He was probably in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he had the Infection. “I ordered them two months ago! You should have brought them!”

Sam jumped between them, his legs splayed and his head lowered as he snarled. The man swiveled his head to look at him and confusion replaced the anxiety.

“I had a dog. I can’t find him.”

“We haven’t seen him,” Justin said. “Why don’t you go look for your cookies and your dog over there?” He pointed to the woods behind the house from which the man had emerged. The man wandered off, successfully distracted.

Justin and Carly remounted their bikes and increased their speed until the house was a dot in the distance behind them.

“It’s terrible,” Carly said. “There isn’t anyone to care for him or for others like that poor woman with Jeremiah. I wish there was something we could do for them.”

“Shooting them would probably be the kindest.” Justin’s tone was grim.

“That’s awful!”

“But the truth. They’re not going to get better, Carly. Without anyone to take care of them, they’ll freeze or starve. And some of them may hurt others, like that man in Fraser.”

“I can’t believe compassion has died, too.” Carly kept her eyes on the road and blinked hard to force back tears, “It’s like everything that made us good has dried up and withered away, and all that’s left is the basic, animal drives.”

“That’s not true, Carly. Our society has undergone a setback, that’s for sure, but there are still people who are good.” He gave her a faint smile, and Carly smiled back. Pessimistic about human nature he might be, but Justin tried to look on the bright side for her sake. “Think of the number of times we’ve traded. Most of the people we’ve met have been decent people trying to survive under difficult circumstances. If society manages to rebuild itself into a civilization again, it will be through the efforts of those people and people like you, who want to help others.”

“What about people like you?”

Justin hesitated. “I’m not really sure how to answer that question. You’re one of the builders. But I don’t know what my role would be. ‘Town Pessimist,’ perhaps?”

As he’d intended, Carly smiled. “I think you’d be one of the leaders.”

Justin snorted.

“No, I’m serious. You said people would gather around a strong leader for protection. Well, you’re a strong leader. You know all of this survival stuff, and you’ve been in the military, so you know about battles and defenses. You’d make a very good leader.”

“I’m not patient enough, and I’m not compassionate, like you, Carly.”

Carly held back a snort of her own, just barely. Justin saying he wasn’t patient enough was like the Pope saying he wasn’t Catholic enough. “Well, maybe I could be your vice president and help you with that.”