Until the End of the World Box Set

by Sarah Lyons Fleming

  He’s as crazy as I am. I’m thankful that he doesn’t make me feel like a freak for liking all of this.

  “Cass’s parents planned for an emergency,” Penny says. She and I used to come down here and search for interesting treats, like a treasure hunt.

  Peter’s voice comes from behind. “I didn’t realize your parents were hoarders.”

  I imagine all the ways I could kill him. Maybe he doesn’t realize he’s insulting them. Maybe.

  “They. Weren’t. Hoarders,” I say. “They were preppers. Hoarders take stuff they don’t really need, and they don’t share it. My parents grew a lot of this food. They also gave it away. They donated to food banks, and they kept enough in reserve to feed us through a hard winter if something terrible happened.”

  I think about telling him how my mom was so poor growing up that sometimes she went without. That she would hunt for squirrel after school so there was dinner when her dad got home from work, dirty and exhausted. That the last thing she would ever do would be to let others go hungry when she had food. But he doesn’t deserve an explanation, to know these things about my mom. And, anyway, I think even if I told him he wouldn’t understand. Peter’s never had to go without.

  I spin around. He’s watching me with a bored expression, like he’s letting me talk but doesn’t believe a word of it. “And imagine that, something terrible happening? No, I don’t believe it ever could. How about you?”

  My hands tremble with rage as I glare at him. He breaks eye contact first. So this is how it’s going to be. Nothing I do will ever be right. At least I know where I stand.

  51

  Our meager belongings are put away and a pile of smelly laundry sits in the corner. The house is warming up nicely. Peter sits at the table and eats crackers and peanut butter with homemade jam. I notice the hoarded jam is going down easily.

  “Should we go see John?” Penny asks.

  “He was visiting his daughter last week,” I say. “He was planning to call on his way back and come to see me in the city.” It’s the world’s worst timing, to be away from his supplies right now, but at least he’s with Jenny.

  I head out to the solar shed. The hole in the bottom of the door is not a good sign. Inside, the batteries are strewn everywhere. One of the windows is broken and wires are chewed. Fluffy mouse nests are tucked in the debris, but something larger must have come in and then chewed its way out the door, maybe a raccoon or porcupine. The little fucker must have gone bananas in here. Power would have been nice, but there are plenty of lanterns and the kitchen stove’s two LP tanks are full.

  I hear something in the woods as I leave the shed. My holster’s back in the house, machete, too. It was stupid to go outside unarmed and alone. I grab a piece of metal tubing and creep over the dead grass to the house.

  I pick up speed at the sound of snapping branches until I hear a joyful bark that stops me short. It’s John’s dog, Laddie. He’s gray around the muzzle and limps on cold mornings, but he dances around me with a doggy grin.

  “Laddie!” I kneel to hug him and get a slobbery lick on the lips. “What are you doing here? Where’s your dad?”

  He sits and his tail sweeps away the leaves behind him. I hope John’s okay; he never would have left Laddie here by himself.

  “Hello the house!” a voice rings out.

  John strides out of the path between our houses. He looks much better than he did when I last saw him. Caroline died a year ago of a massive heart attack in her sleep. It hit him hard, and it seemed like he was trying to follow her to the other side. His broad frame is still on the thin side, now that Caroline isn’t here to feed him, but his eyes sparkle and his teeth flash under his salt and pepper beard.

  “John!” I run into his bear hug and relax in his wool-shirted arms.

  He grasps my shoulders and holds me away from him, his eyes moving up and down. “You’re okay? You made it here?” he asks, like I might be an apparition.

  “I’m fine. We’re all fine. Nelly and Penny and her sister and, well—come in and meet them. Why are you here? Why aren’t you at Jenny’s?”

  “The day I was leaving Jenny called and said the kids had a virus and I should postpone a week or so.” I gasp and he shakes his head. “No, no, they had bad colds. Fevers, runny noses, coughing. Thank God.” But worry crosses his face anyway. “I last spoke to them on the weekend. I tried to call you, but service in New York was down. You know Jenny, she’s like her mom, already battening down the hatches. They’re pretty rural. I pray they’re okay.”

  “Oh, John, I hope so.” I cover one of his calloused hands. “But I am so glad to see you here, I really am. Come inside.”

  52

  John’s booming laugh fills the house as he hugs Penny and Ana, shakes Nelly’s hand and is introduced to everyone else. His questions about where we’ve been get right to the point.

  “An Army buddy of mine who’s high up at the Pentagon called me last weekend,” he says. “Said there were rumors this was a bioweapon gone wrong. That it’s ours, something called BornAgain. He didn’t know how it ended up all over the world. He called me on a secure line from somewhere underground, and if that’s not an indication of how bad this is, then I don’t know what is.”

  He runs his hands through his white-streaked hair. “Told me to sit tight and wait it out. I asked him, ‘Wait out what and for how long?’ He said he wasn’t sure on either count. The party line was a month, but they’d picked that as an arbitrary number. Far enough away to scramble together some sort of military response and near enough that people wouldn’t panic when they heard it.”

  My heart falls. I’m one of those people who heard it and felt relieved. Sam believes it, too. I’ll bet the National Guard did as well.

  John notices my expression and I explain. “They told Sam the same thing. If everyone’s operating under the assumption that we only have to stick it out for a month, they won’t be as careful.”

  Penny and James nod frantically, both thinking of their mothers, I’m sure. Earlier in the week I saw Penny holding James in the trees while his shoulders heaved. When I asked later, she said he’d tried to get his parents to take Bornavirus seriously, but they said he was being his wacky old self. He’s sure they’re dead, or infected.

  James doesn’t give the impression of being the toughest guy at first glance, but I think he’s sturdier than most. He held it together the whole way here; I never had to wonder if he was okay. We were all scared, but it didn’t stop him. He’s different, and he’s smart.

  A light goes on in his eyes. “I was reading some conspiracy theory websites and site said something about a bioweapon. At the time everyone had a theory, so I just skimmed it. I wish I could remember the details.”

  He closes his eyes and puts a hand on his forehead like an old-timey mind reader. “It said the mutation of a military virus caused Bornavirus LX. Something having to do with soldiers killed on the battlefields being able to continue to fight. Life after death. BornAgain, I guess. I dismissed it as complete craziness at the time, but…”

  “It might be true,” John finishes. “And the infected are going to last a lot longer than thirty days, from what my buddy said, or didn’t say.

  “He always ribs me about my food storage, and when he asked how I was set for food, I thought he was joking. I laughed and told him I had years of food and plenty to grow more. ‘I know, John,’ he said. ‘And thank God you do.’ The way he said it, all quiet, made my blood run cold.”

  “Years?” James asks. He drops his hand from his forehead and widens his eyes. And now, finally, I can say I’ve seen him look frightened.

  53

  Unfortunately, John doesn’t have any idea about the solar. He’d planned to have my dad help solarize his house, but the plans died along with him. He does, however, have lots of stored fuel and a generator. He’s been running it for a few hours at night to keep his freezers frozen. And the best part is that he has a clothes washer. He even insists on taking o
ur laundry back with him, so we can settle in.

  “Eric took your generator for the winter,” John says.

  Eric and Rachel rent a house that’s notorious for winter power failures, so that doesn’t surprise me. John told me Eric called after the bridges blew and said they were leaving. They planned on hiking here if they couldn’t take the roads. He told John to keep an eye out for me, although he wasn’t sure I’d made it out. I do my best to imagine them trekking through the woods safely, but they have hundreds of miles to go. Even though thinking about it makes my stomach twist, I obsessively picture them hiking along a trail, filling their water bottles, enjoying the views and snuggling in a sleeping bag under the stars, while I trace a likely route along the map in my head. Maybe if I will it hard enough it’ll be true.

  “We have heat, a stove, lamps and water,” I say. We’re probably some of the luckiest people in the world right about now. “I think we can cope just fine. Plus, we get to send out our laundry. It’s just like the city.”

  John bellows out a laugh.

  “But you will have dinner here, right, John?” Penny asks. “We’ve got to fatten you up a bit.”

  “A little home cooking wouldn’t go amiss. And a little company, too. Both my freezers are chock full of meat. I need some help eating it. I’ll take out some beef to thaw for tomorrow.” He flings the bag of laundry over his shoulder, like a lumberjack Santa Claus. “I’ll get going and start this up. Be back with what’s clean for supper.”

  54

  I yank a brush through the snarls in my hair. Even the short shower we were allotted before the hot water ran out felt wonderful. I watched a week of dirt and grime swirl down the drain and allowed myself to think of Adrian. As of a year ago, he was somewhere in northern Vermont. If he’s still there I’d bet close to a hundred percent that he’s okay. If I know him he’ll be building fortifications and gathering people around him right now.

  It heartens me that I’m closer to him, although at this point the distance may as well be a million miles instead of hundreds. I just want to know if he’s okay. There are people who say they would know if someone they loved was dead. I’m not so sure, but if it’s true, then he’s still around. I can feel the pull of him all the way down here.

  I dress in jeans and a shirt that have been here for years and head down the hall. Ana, Peter and Nelly are sprawled on the couch and overstuffed chairs, covered by a motley assortment of clothing. We’re going to need more clothes soon, in the correct sizes.

  There’s a pot of water and canned tomatoes simmering on the stove. James hums and stirs the sauce while Penny puts the spaghetti in. It looks so normal and domestic, except that James’s high-water jeans are cinched tight and Penny’s got on a tie-dyed skirt of my mom’s. I stifle a laugh and try to help, but they shoo me out. The sun is going down. I set the table and add two solar hand-cranked lanterns. I put two oil lamps on either end of the couch.

  There’s a knock and John enters with a bag and sets it down. “Got half of it done. I’ll get the rest later.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Ana says. “I can’t wait to get out of these.”

  Personally, I think she looked kind of cute in a cuffed-up pair of my mom’s khakis. It hurts my feelings that she isn’t grateful for the clothes she has on, even though it’s probably ridiculous. She paws around in the bag and heads down the hall. I follow and tap on the door.

  “Yeah? Come in.”

  “Hey, Ana.” I close the door most of the way. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  Her look is unfriendly. “I guess.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Ana throws my mom’s shirt in the corner and puts on her shirt. She unbuttons the pants and stops. “Peter told me what you said to him. I mean, I knew you didn’t like him that much, but I can’t believe you would do something like that.”

  I think back. I broke up with Peter and berated him for acting selfish, but I’m not sure what she means.

  I cross my arms and lean back on the computer desk. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Peter told me how you told him not to come with us, just because you guys agreed to break up. That’s why he didn’t come when we had to run. I can’t believe you would be so selfish.”

  She pulls my mom’s pants off and tosses them on top of the shirt. My brain repeats everything she just said, and I listen carefully because either I’m living in an alternate reality or Peter is. And in this alternate reality Ana is calling me selfish. Heat rushes from my stomach to my face.

  “That’s not true,” I sputter. “I broke up with Peter, back in Brooklyn. He said he wasn’t going to come with us at the Safe Zone, even though I told him to. I’ve tried to be nice to him. Now he’s lying to you. And, of course, you believe him.”

  Her lower lip juts out as she shrugs and zips her jeans. She doesn’t care, just like she doesn’t care about the clothes that lay in a heap. Why take care of clothes that aren’t hers, that have only been worn for a couple of hours? She gives no thought to John trudging through the woods with our clothes, being nice enough to clean and fold them, to use his stored gasoline to run his generator, and all the other small—but also huge—things that make laundry possible here.

  I pick up and fold my mom’s pants and shirt carefully on the daybed. I want to smack Ana. I find it impossible to believe that she’s completely unchanged by this past week, but the old Ana stands before me—selfish, entitled Ana.

  “Whatever,” she says. “We just have to be here for a month, right? I’m sure we can get along until we can all go back to our lives.”

  She gives me a nasty closed-mouth smile. She hasn’t been listening at all. I’m not quite sure what she thinks will be left in New York in a month, even if the infection has died out.

  “Fine, you believe what you want to believe, Ana.”

  I hug my mother’s clothes to me. My mom always said pretty is as pretty does, and Ana looks so ugly to me with that tight face and misplaced self-righteousness. I head for the door, but then I stop and turn back. I want to wipe that smile off her face.

  “But if you ever throw something of my parents’ on the floor again, like it’s trash, I swear I will beat the living shit out of you. I really will.”

  My knees knock as I stalk out. I lean against the hallway wall and take a breath. I can’t believe I just threatened Ana with bodily harm, and that I meant every word of it. But I still don’t care, because the look on her face as I left was worth it.

  55

  “Home-canned green beans are actually pretty good,” Nelly says, as we finish up dinner. He looks at Penny and James. “Thanks, guys.”

  Everybody looks exhausted. It seems like a few days ago that we’d passed through town, even though it was this morning.

  “You all need to go to bed,” John says. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. Laddie’ll let us know if anyone’s coming. Tomorrow we’ll start work on an early warning system for your house. I’ve already done mine.”

  “What’s that?” Penny jokes. “Like cans with rocks in them strung on wire?”

  “Pretty much,” John says with a laugh. “There are some high tech things you can buy if you want to take your chances in Albany, so for now we’re going with barbed wire and fishing line.”

  A little while later I tell Nelly about Ana as we lie in my bed and watch the moon graze the trees.

  “I can’t believe Peter’s lying about it,” he says.

  “I know,” I say. “I can’t even look at him.”

  Angry tears well up in my eyes, and I go silent so Nelly won’t hear them in my voice.

  “I wish you would let me talk to him, Cass.”

  “I don’t want to start any more problems. Maybe it’ll blow over. Maybe some time will help.”

  “Peter isn’t striking me as the kind of person who rises to the occasion. But I won’t say anything yet, I promise. You can’t let him treat you like this, you know.”

  I sigh and roll over on m
y side. “I know, I know. I told you I’m not strong, didn’t I?”

  He exhales. I think he’s gone to sleep, but then he speaks. “I do like this new leaf you’ve turned over, though.”

  “What leaf is that?”

  “The one where you threaten to kick people’s asses. I would’ve liked to have been a fly on the wall for that one.”

  “Quiet, you,” I say, but I smile. And although a few minutes ago I felt like I would never be able to relax, I drift off to sleep.

  It’s early morning when I wake. I’ve seen a lot of sunrises recently. I have a feeling there are many more in my future, since we’ll be conserving batteries and lamp oil. I love the underwater blue-gray light before the sun finally makes an appearance. When I watch the day dawn, I feel more in tune with it, like we’re old friends, instead of being thrust into it midway. For the first time in years, my fingers itch to hold a paintbrush, to blend the colors until I find that perfect shade of blue.

  John’s got a fire going in the living room, and there’s hot water waiting in the kettle. He remembers I like tea in the mornings, bless his soul. I sit at the table where he’s scratching out something on paper.

  “What’cha doing?” I ask.

  “Planning out your perimeter. We’ll string up the early warning system, also known as the tin cans,” he smiles at this, “a ways out, but close enough to hear. The barbed wire will go inside that line at chest height. It’s supposed to catch anything that gets through the cans and hold it until we can get to it. The hill behind the garden’s steep, so we’ll save that for last. It’s the best we can do with what we have. Depending on how this all plays out, I think we may want to dig trenches, too. We’ll see how it goes.”

  He reminds me of my dad, sitting at the table as steady as a rock, working on some sort of plans. It makes my chest tighten. John is the closest thing I have to a dad now. “John, you’re awesome. Thank you so much.”