Until the End of the World Box Set

by Sarah Lyons Fleming

  Ana, Nelly and Penny sit in the cab of the truck. Nelly has a clean shirt in his pack, and before we leave I watch him bury the old, bloody one under a carpet of leaves. We lay Bits in the truck bed with her head in my lap, and I stroke her hair as we rumble up the road.

  “It’s going to be at least two hundred miles from here,” James says. As he closes the map, I notice the hollows under his cheekbones and eyes. “The truck doesn’t have enough gas. And at this speed it’ll take us until night, if we don’t have to stop.”

  “Truck’s diesel,” John says. “As long as we can find another diesel and a container of some sort, I can puncture the fuel tank from underneath. Easy enough. The hard part’s finding one, and with fuel still in the tank. Otherwise, we’ll need a new vehicle.”

  The sun is blazing, so I hold my jacket over Bits’s face to keep it from getting burned. Her face twitches until, at last, her eyes flutter open. She closes them, struggling to forget, to sleep, but the tears slide out. I wipe away the tracks they make.

  She sits up and inches into my lap. I wrap my arms around her, just barely able to hear her whisper, “Peter.”

  “Oh, honey.” I brush her hair away from her ear. “He loved you so much. He loved all of us and wanted us to be safe.” I don’t know how to explain, but she nods like she gets it, like the old soul she is or has become.

  We pass through a few small towns. Pretty towns with ugly groups of infected, so we don’t stop to look for a new vehicle. The isolated houses we pass have no cars in their driveways, or they’re useless. The truck kicks up dust that covers our skin and crunches in my mouth. I’m drinking the last of my water when we slow. A jumble of cars litters the road. There’s no way around. One side of the road is trees, the other a drop-off to a stream.

  Nelly hangs out the window. “Should we go back?”

  James consults the map and shakes his head. “Did you see all the Lexers in that last town? There was a huge group after we passed. No way should we go back through there.”

  “Then we’ll move them,” John says. “I can pop them into neutral from underneath, and we’ll push them to the side.”

  It takes longer than expected. Two hours later we’re shoving the second to last car into a ditch, when I notice Nelly wince.

  “You should relax,” I tell him. “I think you need stitches, but at the very least you shouldn’t be pushing thousands of pounds around. How does it feel?”

  “It hurts a little.”

  I can tell he’s trying to play it down. “Let me see.”

  I try to lift the bandage, but he moves his arm away and does it himself. The wound is bright red and puffy around the edges.

  “It’s getting infected,” I say. He pulls his arm back nervously, and I look him in the eye. “With a regular, run-of-the-mill infection, Nels. There’s some amoxicillin in the first aid stuff. I’ll go get it.”

  By the time I find the bottle and hand him two pills, the last car has been moved. We fill our water bottles at the stream and rinse off the dust. The cold water soothes my sunburn. Ana’s face is blank as she rinses herself off; she hasn’t said a word since the woods. Penny shoots her worried glances but says nothing. None of us is okay right now, so asking seems ridiculous.

  Bits and I sit in the cab with Nelly. We stop twice more to move cars, and since traveling at night is too dangerous, it’s obvious we won’t get to Kingdom Come Farm today. The thought of Kingdom Come used to fill me with equal parts excitement and dread, but now I’m just numb. It doesn’t seem possible we’ll even make it. I obsess over all the obstacles we could hit, but I can’t think this way. We have to get there, if only because of Peter. I won’t let him die in vain.

  Hot tears escape and race down my cheeks. I close my eyes to stop them and slide my ring along the chain. I concentrate on the bump of the ring over the links until I’m in control again. Bits is curled up next to me, and the pressure of her body is like a blanket. I feel sleep steal over me, and I’m so tired I give in.

  The truck swerves and I’m thrown against the door. My eyes fly open, ready to fight whatever’s in the road, but there’s nothing.

  “Sorry!” Nelly yells out the sliding back window to where the others grip the truck bed in surprise. Sweat runs down his flushed face, and his chest rises and falls way too fast.

  I lean over Bits and put my lips to his forehead. I can feel the heat before I even touch him. “Nelly, you’re burning up! Pull over.”

  He wipes the sweat with a bandana. “It’s hot outside. I thought it was just that.”

  He pulls onto the shoulder. After he puts the truck in park, he leans back and closes his eyes.

  James speaks through the back window. “What’s going on?”

  I walk around to the driver’s side. “Nelly isn’t feeling well. He has a fever.”

  John stands next to me. “How’s your arm?”

  Nelly opens his eyes and blinks to focus. He fumbles with the edge of his bandage and lifts it. It’s worse. The wound itself is puffy and purple. A pink streak moves out of it and up his arm. It resembles sunburn, but I know it’s not. That streak means it’s infected, and now the infection’s moving.

  “Okay,” John says. “You need more antibiotics. Cassie, get him some?”

  I find the bottle of amoxicillin and spill four into Nelly’s hand. “Take them all.” I hand him the water. “You need to really knock the infection out.”

  Nelly does what I say and turns to John. “It may be the virus.”

  John nods and rests a hand on his shoulder.

  “Stop,” I say, angry. “It’s just an infection.”

  Nelly turns to me matter-of-factly. “Cass, remember the man on the Thruway? Remember the bite on his arm?”

  I nod. His wound had these streaks too, traveling out from it like roads on a map. Penny comes up behind me and gasps when she sees Nelly’s arm.

  “It looked like this,” he says to John. “All my joints hurt. Just like they said they would on the news.”

  “Let’s not jump the gun,” John says. The only thing that gives away his doubt is the way his hand runs over his eyebrows. “That can describe any major infection. Let’s see how these antibiotics help. You rest while I drive.”

  Nelly insists on riding in the back so he can stretch out. Penny builds a makeshift tent by draping John’s shirt over two packs to keep the sun off his face.

  We circumvent several larger towns that are probably too dangerous. Nelly’s asleep in minutes. I want to peek under the shirt to make sure he’s okay, but I don’t want to disturb him. His chest rises and falls. Whether or not there’ll be a next breath is all I can focus on. It’s supplanted the empty feeling, but it’s definitely not an improvement. John spies an old cabin on a hill in the late afternoon and turns up the overgrown drive.

  “I thought we’d stop for the night,” he says. “It’s about as safe as we’ll get. I don’t want to keep driving only to stop somewhere that’s full of infection.”

  Nelly sits up and I rush over to him. “How do you feel?” I touch his head. It’s still way too hot.

  He gives a weak smile. “Not much better, darlin’. But I might be hungry.”

  I help him into the cabin. There’s a main room with a rotting table and two chairs by the glassless front window. The wood stove is orange with rust. The smaller room has glass in its window and a cot mattress on the floor. A couple of moth-eaten wool army blankets rest on rough-hewn shelves. They don’t smell great, but they’ll do. I drag the mattress to the main room. Nelly sits on it and leans against a water-stained wall.

  Bits kneels next to him and holds out her little water bottle. “Nelly, do you want a sip of my water?”

  Nelly recoils slightly, but she doesn’t notice. “No thanks, Bits. Make sure you don’t drink out of my bottle.” He looks around in alarm. “Where is it?”

  “In your bag,” I say, and place the small pack next to him. “No one drank out of it.”

  He puts his arm over it prot
ectively. James carries what little we have inside and sets it on the table.

  “What do you want to eat?” I turn to Nelly, but his eyes have closed. “Bits?”

  She looks over the food listlessly as I open an MRE pouch. Her eyes light up when I pull out Reese’s Pieces and a pouch marked Fudge Brownie.

  “You can have them.” She sits by Nelly, candy in her lap, but doesn’t eat it. “Is something wrong?”

  “I thought Nelly might want some. Whenever I’m sick I like sweet things. I’ll wait for him to wake up.”

  The hopeful look on her face makes me want to cry. The only store-bought candy she’s had in a month, and she wants to share it. “You’re so sweet. But you go ahead and eat that, honey. There’s more for Nelly if he wants, okay?”

  She lifts the brownie and takes a bite. I spoon something into my mouth that tastes like apple pie filling, but I don’t care enough to check. The sun is going down, and we’re drooping like flowers from heat and exhaustion and mourning. Penny bustles around in an attempt to clean and organize our stuff. She tries to be cheerful, but it’s a relief when she finally gives up.

  James blinks from the strain of looking at the map in dim light. “There’s over a hundred miles to go and only an eighth of a tank of gas. We’ll work on that tomorrow, I guess? Depending on how Nel feels.”

  Nelly sighs. His eyes are red-rimmed. A drop of sweat falls off his nose when he shivers. I grab a blanket and tuck it around him.

  Nelly speaks through his chattering teeth in little bursts. “I’m just going to say it. I think I’m infected. I don’t know how long it takes from one little scratch, but you can’t sit here for days while it runs its course. You need to get going tomorrow.”

  “Jesus, Nelly!” I say furiously. Like I’d just go on my merry way. “If you think for one second I’m going to leave you here, you are out of your fucking mind!”

  Everyone looks aghast. Even Ana, who sits in the corner staring into space, has looked up.

  “Nel, you must be delirious,” Penny says in her soft voice. “We don’t know what it is. And even if we did, we’re not going anywhere.”

  He nods as his teeth clack together. I give him six more tablets of amoxicillin in the hope that it makes a dent. There’s a pouch of electrolyte juice mix in one MRE, and I use the enclosed heater to warm it. Nelly’s hands are so shaky I need to steady the cup for him. It’s like now that he’s admitted to thinking it’s LX, he’ll let us see how bad off he really is. Either that or he’s going downhill fast.

  108

  Once Nelly began shivering so badly that it scared even him, he let me crawl onto his mattress. He’s hot as a furnace, and even though I know his chill is inside, I try to warm him. My arms feel miniscule around his broad trunk, but it seems to help. He finally drifts into sleep with only an occasional tremble.

  Bits and Ana sleep under the other blanket. James has Penny wrapped in his arms like a teddy bear. John takes first watch. He sits with a flashlight and checks our weapons. Maybe Peter was right: John knows what to do. We never would have gotten those cars off the road today without John’s expertise. I shut my eyes and see Peter on the dumpster, so I open them and stare into the darkness until they close in exhaustion.

  Nelly’s worse when I wake for watch just before dawn. His face is red and his breathing’s labored. When it’s light I force him to wake and take the last of the amoxicillin. He can barely swallow, and he turns his eyes to watch me without moving his neck. A few more pink streaks have joined with the first. They’re at his biceps now.

  “Can you eat?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. He won’t drink either, no matter how much I coax.

  “Cass.” He blinks to hold back tears.

  I know he’s working on some sort of goodbye speech, but I can’t hear it; I’ll die if I have to. I tuck the blanket under him. “Nelson Charles Everett, if you’re about to declare your undying love for me, then you can just save it until you’re better.” I grab his good hand and give a choked laugh.

  “Can’t you even be serious now?” he asks, but he manages a small smile. “I’m on my deathbed here.”

  “No, I can’t.” I point at him. “I learned from the master. And it’s not a deathbed. It’s a disgusting stained mattress. You can’t die on it, it wouldn’t be fitting.”

  He gives my hand a weak squeeze and drifts off but opens his eyes a moment later. His bright blue eyes have gone icy, and he turns to me with a wince. They remind me of the hazy eyes of the infected. A knife of fear stabs my gut, but when he smiles he’s the same Nelly.

  “Love you, darlin’.”

  I smile and try to keep the despair out of my voice. “Love you back.”

  109

  When Ana wakes she sits outside on the grass and ignores Penny’s attempts to talk. She’s not in shock, at least not the medical kind. If she were a store she’d have a Closed for Business sign in the window. Penny and James offer to search for a replacement for the truck. I don’t like the idea of her out there. Penny feels Nelly’s head, and when she stands her eyes are puffy and resigned.

  “Pen, maybe you should stay here and I should go.” I touch her sleeve. “You aren’t…” I don’t want her to go, but I don’t want to leave Nelly, either.

  “I can shoot okay.” She shrugs, but her hand strokes the earpiece of her glasses. “I don’t want to sit here while James goes.”

  “You’ll look for more antibiotics? Stronger ones?” I’ve already clarified this a dozen times, but I figure once more can’t hurt. “And be careful?”

  She nods as she ties her hair back in a bun. Since Ana’s hair incident, I’ve taken to winding my hair into two buns when we’re somewhere dangerous. Nelly calls me Princess Leia, and James makes all kinds of nerdy Star Wars jokes that I don’t get.

  She smiles. “Hey, I thought Mother Hen was my job. You just take care of Nelly.”

  I try to smile back. “Okay.”

  We hug tight and then they’re gone.

  110

  It’s been several hours, but there’s still no sign of Penny and James. Bits picks wildflowers; I sit in the doorway where I can see her. It seems like everyone is disappearing.

  Nelly hasn’t spoken since dawn. He’s lapsed into unconsciousness, and the streaks are moving fiercely to his shoulder. A sheen of sweat covers his face. His features look sharper, the skin moving away from the bones, like an old man. I pat his good shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, Nels. You’ll be okay.” I feel like I’m lying.

  He breathes heavily. Peter might have gone through this, except he was all alone, desperate for a drink, for a gentle hand. I can only hope that he was eaten so thoroughly there wasn’t enough of him left to turn. I would never say it out loud to the others—it’s such a sick prayer—but I have a feeling they think it too.

  I rifle through every backpack again hoping that something that will cure Nelly has magically appeared. Of course, there’s nothing, so I stomp around. Bits comes back in with a handful of flowers for Ana, who gives her a distracted smile.

  “Cassie,” John says in a gentle voice. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay. It’s not fair!”

  We survived all these months and now look at us. We’ll never be in the clear. John nods his head in agreement, in acceptance, which makes me angrier.

  “Why are we even trying?” I demand. “What’s the point? Peter’s dead. Nelly—” My throat closes.

  John sits on one of the rickety chairs watching me while Bits huddles next to him. The tears come, and I wipe them away angrily.

  “I don’t get it!” I yell.

  “Everything happens for a reason—”

  I cut him off. “How do you know that? That everything happens for a reason? How are you so sure? Because I’m pretty sure there’s no good reason for all of this.” I wave my arm to encompass the whole world. I pick up the empty, useless amoxicillin bottle and throw it as hard as I can. It hits the wall with a sad little thwack.
I look for something better to throw, but everything is too precious to destroy. Instead, I slam the water bottles into a line. I stack the food and arrange the weapons by the door as loudly as I can. Everyone jumps at the louder noises, but I don’t care. Nelly doesn’t budge, and that’s the only thing I care about. Here I am, allowing another person to die right in front of me. I won’t do it.

  “There’s a hiking trail on the map that cuts through to another town. I’ll find a pharmacy or something. I can take one of the bikes. I’ll get something stronger for the infection.”

  John’s eyes are full of pity. “Cassie, it’s too dangerous to go on a fool’s errand when James and Penny will be back.”

  “It’s not a fool’s errand, John! They’ve been gone for hours. What if they don’t come back?” I feel awful as I say it, but it’s true. Ana closes her eyes as I continue.

  “Amoxicillin is the weakest antibiotic in the world. There are others: Erythromycin, Cipro…” I can’t think of any more, so I stomp my foot in frustration. “I’ll find something. I can’t just sit here waiting for help that might not come. I’m not going to let Nelly die. I won’t!”

  “We don’t know—”

  “That’s right, we don’t know! It could be a regular infection. We need something stronger.”

  “You’re right, Cassie. It could be a treatable infection. But I don’t want you risking yourself to find out it’s not. Wait a while longer. Please.” He raises and lowers his palms in an effort to calm me. “I know you’re angry. We’re all angry. It doesn’t seem fair, honey. But we don’t know what God has in store for us, what His plan is.”

  I can’t believe that this might be someone’s—or something’s— plan. That all of this is some sort of test. Some fucked up experiment designed to watch us fail.