Notes From the End of the World (8 page)

The number is 1-888-DIGNITY.

Everything is a commercial. Even the end of the world.

***

***

November 14

Cindy

I decide to take a run, against Mom’s wishes. If she has it her way, I doubt I’ll be allowed to leave the house at all, except to go to school. Especially after Audrey’s deal. I tell myself that she’s just gone to a friend’s home; that she’s fine.

It’s better to think that way than to allow the bad thoughts in.

So, I plug my iPod into my ears, my heart thudding like a bass drum in my head just before I press play. I miss the four-times-a-week soccer practices, and cross country isn’t happening due to the danger, but I need running for release. Even more, I need the time to just allow my mind to go blank.

There are three boys, maybe ten years old, teasing a Shambler at the lesser-used entrance of our neighborhood. I recognize one—it’s Noel Freeman, a chunky little piece of work whose dad is a county councilman. His sister, Jenna, is in Audrey’s class, but, believe it or not, she’s actually too bitchy and snooty for Audrey. Mrs. Freeman is one of those moms who always wear an expression that can make you feel like you’ve done something wrong even if you haven’t.

Either way, county councilman is the smallest amount of power I’ve ever seen go to anyone’s head.

The Shambler’s wearing tan coveralls with the legend “Palm Dale Water and Sewer” emblazoned on the back. When he turns around, his front a bloody mess where something has gotten at him and relieved him of most of his vital organs. His formerly dark complexion has gone the color of modeling clay. Noel and one other kid are whacking at this man with golf clubs, and I’m happy that all I can hear is the thin, mechanical sound of Blondefire and their shallow but mesmerizing music. I keep on running. I don’t care about those kids any more than I do the Shambler. If he takes a chunk out of one of them, so be it. They’re asking for it, anyway.

Chapter 11

November 15

Nick

How is a person supposed to react to seeing zombies being maintained in a green field surrounded by electric fence? How is a person supposed to react to seeing his grandmother in that field?

We board a bus that reminds me too much of the transport bus that carries tourists from the Disney hotels to the parks—crowded with stupid-faced people (and maybe they think I’m stupid-faced, too) kids that are crying too much, handicapped people, old people who look so helpless that I can’t stand to look at them.

It’s stuffy in here and smells of B.O. and illness. I stand, holding onto an overhead strap, having given up my seat to an overweight woman who says her brother is out there and “waiting to see her.”

I nod and let her sag into the seat beside Mom. Mom smiles a tight smile like she’s proud that I’m being a gentleman when I know in her heart she doesn’t give a shit.

We start away, the bus’s engine wheezing, my mind drifting to things even more useless than this. Audrey. Why should I even care what happens to her? But part of me does. Even stranger, I find myself thinking of Cindy. How’s Cindy doing? Cindy called the morning after Audrey was attacked. She knew Tommy would tell everything because Tommy Barker was a piece of shit. She wouldn’t tell me anything other than Audrey should be okay. They’d know in a few days.

A few days?

The N-Virus has an incubation period of only a few hours, according to the news reports, so that’s weird in itself.

Worse than that, Audrey was cheating on me with that guy? Now, I have to wonder what a loser I must be.

Somewhere in the darkest parts of my brain and my heart, I want to see Audrey out there in the Pastures. I would have her trade places with Grandma in a moment. Grandma never lied to me. Audrey made lying to me a habit.

The fields are this insane, fake-looking green, like a photo that has been digitally enhanced. It’s too fucking tranquil.

I don’t notice the television monitors hanging in the front and the rear of the shuttle until they flash to life.

A male announcer comes on-screen, looking so polished and perfect that he might be digitally enhanced, as well. In a deep, but sympathetic tone he begins his pitch.

“Welcome to the most humane way to handle the transformation of your loved ones. The Pastures provides the care you crave for your partially-departed as they enter the final decline. View and visit in the safety and comfort of our top of the line shuttle transports. Purchase the dual package, which includes transformation pasture space and final cremation, and get a 15 percent discount. Most insurance plan accepted and payment plans available.”

What a waste. The creep reminds me of those hypocritical preachers that come on late at night out to empty the pockets of gullible old people. “For a $100 donation, I’ll be sure to include your name on my prayer list tonight.” Give me a break.

The shuttle rounds a sharp turn and someone nearer the front gasps. Everyone starts shuffling around, getting to their feet, elbowing through to get a good look through the barred windows.

There they are—Shamblers staggering around in ultra-clean green grass fields, wearing what they died (the first time) in. An old man in loose pants and a bloody shirt lurches along, arms outstretched, head waggling like he’s raging at something only he sees. His white hair billows out in the breeze like dingy cotton. A woman begins weeping, loud and wet, and a man mutters to her, something comforting, I assume.

I look at Mom, who stares straight ahead. I wonder if she really needs to see Grandma like this. I don’t want my memories of my lovely, funny grandmother reduced to this—something out of the
Dawn of the Dead.

“Can we stop for a moment?” a grandfatherly man asks. He’s seated midway back and starts toward the front of the bus.

Another man, dressed in a dark suit with a white carnation on the lapel stands, his hands up. “Sir, I need to ask you to take your seat.”

“My wife…” the older man says.

“Who the hell is that guy?” a middle-aged guy says. He's flabby enough to burst out of his pink Lactose golf shirt.

“I’m the funeral director, sir,” the dark suited man answers. “I’m afraid we cannot stop. Please view through the side windows.”

The guy looks a lot more like a cop than a funeral director, with his buzz cut and wide chest. More than that, the gun belt that peeks out from beneath his jacket when he moves is a dead giveaway.

“This is just like the fuckin’
Kilimanjaro Safari at Disney World,” the flabby golfer mutters. His wife places her hand on his thick bicep and he quiets.

The old gentlemen returns to his seat looking defeated. He watches a woman that could be my own Grandmother through the window, her gray hair crazy, and her pale blue dress covered in filth. A tear rolls down his wrinkled cheek and I look away.

The funeral director/cop guy eyes the golfer dude, way too anxious to make a move on him.

As we rounded the next easy turn, I saw her. My lovely, beautiful grandmother. The woman who kissed my knees when I wrecked them on my skateboard and made cookies even when mom said I couldn’t eat sweats. Out there in the Pastures like a fucking animal.

She turns, alerted by the rumbling growl of the bus and stares our way, not really seeing through her white eyes. Her head jerks from side to side like she’s having some sort of fit. Her lips are drawn back, exposing her large, perfect dentures and I wonder why they won’t remove the teeth of the infected that are being kept in a “living” state.

She limps toward the electric fence, barefooted. I guess she wasn’t wearing shoes when she changed.

I can no longer bear seeing this. Mom removes a tissue from her purse and dabs the corners of her eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder and she looks up, forcing another small, exhausted smile.

“At least she’s not suffering,” she says.

I nod. But I wonder if that’s really the case. Do they not feel anything? If so, why not just let them go quickly, in case there’s really some sort of afterlife waiting for them?

***

Chapter 12

November 18

Cindy

I need to stop eavesdropping. It used to be a comforting thing, listening to my parents chatting about their day in the waning hours of evening. Pleasant things, sometimes things that were inappropriate to share with a couple of teenaged daughters (and let me make this clear—I never listened to them doing anything but talking. I’m guessing that’s why iPods were invented.) But since the N-Virus, there hasn’t been any pleasant talk coming from their bedroom. Things are spiraling downward and it’s going so fast, Dad isn’t going to be able to stop it. I used to think Dad was Superman. Now I know he’s just a regular guy trying to hold his shit together. Trying to hold us all together.

He believes he failed Audrey although he managed to get his hands on the vaccine. Mom thinks so, too, although she tries to hide it. She’s always been shitty at hiding things. You’d think a real estate broker would be able to lie better than that. She should at least try. For his sake. But I can hear it in her voice. There’s disappointment hidden in her words.

Or maybe it’s my imagination.

“The vaccine seems to be working. Maybe we caught it in time,” Dad says.

“Can you get more, do you think? Will she need more? What if one us need it, too?” Mom questions.

“Don’t worry. I’ve cashed in everything,” Dad tells her. “The college funds. I’ve cashed in our life insurance policies. Our retirement. I’m getting another drop in two days.”

The college funds
. My heart breaks. This thing just keeps getting more and more real. It’s so real that even college is no longer priority. The world is really ending. Otherwise Dad and Mom would never touch our college money.

“Is this going to devastate us?” Mom asks. It sounds like she is crying a little.

Dad doesn’t respond for a couple of moments. Finally he says, “How can it devastate us? We’ll all be alive and together. That’s more than a lot of people are getting. Besides, it’ll buy us time. There could be an actual cure in the matter of weeks. We just have to hang in there.” He pauses and I imagine him kissing Mom in the middle of her forehead like he sometimes does. Like he’s kissing the worry away. “Just a little longer.”

All Dad wants is for us to be alive and together. Has it gotten to that? Have things gotten so real and horrible that simply being uninfected is the most important thing in the world?

I move away from the wall and go downstairs for a glass of milk. When I flip on the kitchen lights, Audrey’s there, sitting at the table, in the dark. I jump like an idiot.

“Holy crap, Audrey. What are you doing?”

“Don’t feel very good,” she says. “I keep drinking water, but I’m still so thirsty.”

“I don’t feel so great, either,” I tell her, thinking about our now nonexistent college funds.

I take out the plastic jug of milk and pour up a half-glass, finishing it up. That’s it—all the milk, and I wonder if we’ll be able to get more. Shipments of fresh foods to the nearest Food Lion have been more infrequent. A world without a cold glass of milk would really suck.

It’s the little things, you know. Milk. Fresh apples. Maybe we can move into the country, get away from everyone, and farm.

I sit down across from my sis. She does look sick. Her skin is sallow and it looks like bruises beneath her eyes. Maybe it’s the fluorescent lights, but in any light, Audrey’s never looked less than ready for a photo shoot.

“Maybe it’s the vaccine,” I offer. “Could be some sort of side effect.”

She gulps more water, leaving oily smears on the side of her glass. “Probably. Either way, I think I’ll skip school tomorrow.”

“I doubt anyone will notice,” I say, meaning a lot of people are skipping school lately.

“Speak for yourself, little sis. I’m the reason people come to school,” Audrey says, but even her tried and true conceit comes out so hollow that I can’t come up with a decent retort.

We sit there a little longer and something gnaws at me. It’s like everything I do with my family may be for the last time. I keep Dad and Mom’s conversation to myself.

***

November 19

Audrey has no idea Tommy snapped a shot of her mangled leg with his iPhone and posted to Instagram. When I get to school Monday, everyone already knew what’s happened. The only question is, has Audrey turned?

I stop Nick in the hallway on the way to first period, but he has already gotten the lowdown in homeroom. I’m not sure what the driving part of the story really is—that Audrey has been bitten or that she’s cheated on Nick.

Nick doesn’t seem to be surprised. In fact, he’s strangely calm.

“You know, I’m around. If you want to talk,” I tell him.

“Not much to talk about, is there?” he says with a shrug that tells me he’s hurt and trying to hide it.

“I don’t know. Is there?” I ask. I glance around, thinking people might be trying to listen, but the halls are quiet. There’s about a third of the student body there this morning. Everyday it grows thinner. Are all these people sick or dead or in-between?

Nick pushes his hair back from his beautiful face. “Okay. We’ll get together later. At the field.”

I nod and start away, but he grabs my arm. “Wait, Cindy.”

“Yeah?”

“She not…one of them, is she?”

“No.”

Not yet.

***

After school, I find Nick sitting on the highest bleacher alone. The wind blusters his hair widely and he looks like a boy from one of those magazines. Except for his expression—mouth a tight line, jaw clenched. He waves and I come up, not especially graceful.

“I thought we’d have a better chance if a Shambler discovers us out here. I haven’t seen one who can climb very well,” he says.

“Seen a lot of them lately, I assume?”

“More than I want to see. My grandma turned last week.” The tone of his voice gives away nothing, but his throat works hard like he’s holding in a sob. Or a scream.

I touch his hand. “I’m so sorry, Nick. I had no idea.”

“Someone getting the N-Virus is hardly big news lately. They sent her over to the Pastures. They said it would be fine, but it was horrible. Those poor people. They’re monsters. They’ve become monsters and they’re keeping them around just to pacify the living.” He squeezes my hand back and his blue eyes glisten with tears when he looks at me.

“I’m still having nightmares,” he whispers. “Is Audrey like that?”

“No. No!” I tell him. “Not at all.”

“Why? She was bitten, according to that asshole. I saw the photo—he sent it to me like he was proud or something.”

“Well, she’s okay.” Part of me wants to tell him that she wasn’t bitten—it’s all a joke. A bad, tasteless fucking joke and he’s the target. Teenagers aren’t above that sort of behavior, you know, but I can’t lie to him again. “She was bitten, but she hasn’t contracted the N-Virus.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You have to,” Nick says. “I need to know she’s not going to be one of those
things
.”

“Nick…”

“Tell me, Cindy.”

“Why does it matter, anyway? She cheated on you with a douchebag. You shouldn’t even care what happens to her.”

“I don’t know why,” Nick nearly shouts, staring straight ahead now rather than looking at me. “Audrey has always been … above it all. Above us. She’s sorta untouchable, you know? If this gets her, it will get us all.”

I nod. He made his case. “My dad was able to get an experimental vaccine. It seems to be working.”

Nick smiles. “So there’s hope for those of us who are left.”

“There’s always hope. We just can’t give up.”

I grab my backpack and pull out my lunch bag. Mom made up her famous “funky-chunky chicken salad,” which is usually fresh avocado, roasted chicken and whatever else she deems worthy being including in her gourmet delicacy, stuffed into a whole wheat pita. Today, it’s canned chicken and pre-packaged guacamole. Not exactly inedible, but not the same, either. I offer Nick half. He takes it, mutters a thanks and takes a hearty bite.

“Not bad,” he said. “Better than mystery meat.”

Agreeing, I remove two bottles of water from the bag next and hand him one. We sit, eating in silence in a row on bleachers that overlook an overgrown soccer field that may never be used again. Overhead, white clouds float by like fat ghosts. The sun is like a caress, a reminder that summer and normalcy was only a few months behind us. There are no sounds around us. I find myself missing the low chaos of track practice or football practice or even cheerleading. Band practice is canceled for the time being, so the missed notes on trombone no longer echo from the music room, followed by Mr. Wigg’s bitchy comments.
Nice one, Leslie. Now try and play the song the rest of the band is playing, how about it?
Yes, I even miss that.

The constant hum of traffic on the highway beyond the fields is now only a whisper. Looking up, I spot a lone aircraft that appears to be some sort of military jet. My heart jumps in behind my ribs, but I don’t say anything to Nick.

I hadn’t felt like eating at lunch and opted for the seclusion of the library instead. I can still access the Internet on a regular basis there. At home, the connection has become iffy so I’ve missed things—those “secret” things that aren’t covered by the cable news networks. Apparently, our dear president / dictator / whatever decided it’ll be a good idea to send as many Shamblers to their final death as possible by drone-bombing a particularly afflicted part of Detroit this morning.

I wonder if they made provisions for the uninfected to get out first. My gut is telling me no. Could they decide to do that sort of thing to Palm Dale?

Phalanx is probably pretty easy to get, if you’re the President of the United States. He doesn’t even have to buy it illegally.

We sit out there a while longer. Nick removes his pad from his satchel and sketches a fairy with transparent dragonfly wings and my face. I blush because that’s my standard reaction around Nick Thatcher.

Just as he’s shading in the shadows beneath Fairy Cindy’s ample breast (thanks, Nick!), someone calls, “You kids need to get yourselves home!” We both glance up, startled. There’s a security guard standing at the bottom of the bleachers. “I don’t want to tell you more than once. You know it’s dangerous these days.”

“It is getting late,” I say, stuffing the wads of wax paper and used napkins back into my lunchbag.

“You need a ride?” Nick asks.

I shake my head. “I brought Audrey’s car.”

Just before I start away, he tears out the drawing of the Fairy Cindy and gives it to me. “Be careful,” he says. He jogs toward his Jeep on the other side of the parking area before I can respond.