Until the End of the World Box Set

by Sarah Lyons Fleming

  I spin around. Her face is puffy with pregnancy and grief, but her brown eyes are bright. “You even washed your hair,” I say. “Want to come in?”

  “No freaking way. I’m cleaner than you, anyway. Ha.”

  We wouldn’t let her help with cleanup, and she didn’t sweat her way through hundreds of Lexers two days ago. That baby is making it to Alaska. She laughs at my attempt to wash my armpits while not getting wet. I give up once my arms are clean and splash her as I walk out.

  “Coño!” she yells, and wipes the droplets off her face. “But I’m still cleaner.”

  “Well, at least I don’t have to squeeze the equivalent of an eight-pound ham out of my nether regions in the next few months.”

  She throws back her head, her laugh mixing with the calls of the birds above, and her eyes are moist when she flings my towel at me. “You win.”

  9

  The pickup pulls over near Winnipeg, where we’ve planned to stop for the night before venturing into the city for fuel tomorrow morning. Zeke steps out and points to a thin stream of smoke rising from a group of trees to the west. No house is visible, but two silos sit at the edge of the overgrown farmland. “Looks like people. We’ll have to pass, so let’s be on our guard.”

  “Should we stop?” Nelly asks.

  Mark taps his chin. “Most people I met on the way to Vermont were sociable, if somewhat desperate. It could be helpful to get some details about Winnipeg.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Zeke says. “They might not want to share details, seeing as how we plan to take what they might think of as their gas.”

  “Winnipeg was a city of 600,000,” Mark says. “Getting gas while staying alive is going to be difficult. A little insider knowledge might prove useful.”

  Zeke points to Kyle, Shawn, Peter and Nelly. “Okay, we’ll drive the pickup behind the RV. If they look friendly, we’ll circle back while the RV waits up ahead.”

  “Maybe I should go in the pickup,” Jamie says. “I don’t know—me, Mark, Margaret and Cassie? They’re much less likely to feel threatened by women than men.”

  I take in Zeke, who’s a teddy bear but looks threatening if you don’t know him. The others are no better. A bunch of grubby guys are bound to set off anyone’s alarms. I don’t love the idea of being shot at, to put it mildly, but it’s a better plan—I know I’d be more frightened of a truck full of men than women.

  “Okay,” I say. Peter shakes his head. I shrug and wait for him to offer a better idea, but he only tightens his mouth.

  “Sure,” Margaret says. She’s in her early forties, lean and ropy, and always wears a low ponytail, the ends still dyed auburn. Her face has settled into lines that make me think she hasn’t had an easy life; she doesn’t talk about life before Bornavirus enough for me to know for sure. In fact, she barely speaks. She’s the kind of lady you know at a moment’s glance not to fuck with, but she gives off a live-and-let-live vibe that keeps her from being scary. Perfect for meeting new friends—or enemies.

  “Right, they won’t shoot at women, they’ll just ra—” Nelly stops at Peter’s head tilt toward the kids.

  “This is the biggest city we’ve been to in the past year,” Jamie says. “It’s huge. We need some help.” She quiets Shawn’s protest with a scowl. “We’ll be in a truck. We’ll be out of there before anything happens.”

  “No.” Peter shakes his head like he’s the final decision maker. I may not want to do this, but to be told I can’t is irritating. “We’ll figure it out ourselves.”

  Zeke nods like it’s been settled. It was his plan to begin with, but because they don’t want the womenfolk to go, it’s off the table. I understand their concern, even if I do find it a bit surprising. Chivalry hasn’t completely died out in the past year but, at least in our group, chauvinism has taken a back seat to survival. And we need to do something besides stand here and wait to be murdered.

  “I think Zeke’s plan was best, but Jamie’s right, too,” I say, even as I want to smack myself for arguing in favor of being one of the first people killed. “Kyle, remember what you said about strangers shooting first and asking questions later? Wouldn’t you be less likely to shoot first if you saw women?”

  Kyle thinks for a moment, then nods. He talks more than Margaret does, although ninety percent of those words are to Nicki.

  “That’s all I’m saying,” Jamie says with a sweet smile. I swear she bats her eyelashes. “I’m not suggesting we go in there guns blazing or anything. And you’ll be just down the road. I won’t be worried if you guys are there.”

  Zeke tugs on his beard. “I guess it’s not a bad plan.”

  Jamie gives me a subtle eye roll when the others agree. Shawn looks half-pleased with the idea of rescuing us, but Peter watches like he’s not buying it and then says with a sigh, “I’m driving the pickup.”

  Once Peter, Mark, Jamie, Margaret and I have situated ourselves in the truck, guns in laps, we follow at a steady pace a short distance behind the RV.

  “This is a stupid idea,” Peter mutters. “You promised you wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

  “We’re in Canada, home of the nicest people on Earth,” I joke, although my nervousness grows with each passing second. “What could go wrong, eh?”

  Peter pretends he hasn’t heard me. The fence that surrounds the house and trees has small wooden doors set at eye level, perfect for killing Lexers, keeping watch and, I suppose, shooting us. The razor wire at the top doesn’t exactly scream welcome. The RV speeds past. We go a bit slower, and we’re halfway there when one of the small doors swings open. Peter hits the accelerator hard enough to give me whiplash. I expect to see the barrel of a shotgun in the side view mirror, but it’s a square of white cloth waving at the end of a stick.

  “Wait!” I say. “It’s a truce flag.”

  Zeke’s voice comes through the radio. “Looks like they want to talk.”

  The flag hangs limply out of the hole by the time we reach the RV. “Could be a trap,” Zeke says out the window, “but I think we should check it out. It’s almost dark and they know we’re here. They could sneak up on us tonight.”

  Peter doesn’t say a word before pulling the truck around and heading back to where the flag has resumed its waving. He stops on the opposite side of the road and rolls down his window, pistol in his hand out of eyeshot. A head appears in the small square.

  “Hello,” a man’s voice calls. He sounds happy enough to see us.

  “Hi,” Peter says. His voice gives away nothing. No fear or happiness at the sight of another human being in a world full of zombies. I want to request that he act a bit friendlier, but he’d probably shoot me.

  “Where are you heading?” the voice comes again.

  “West. Alaska.”

  “How many are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Shouldn’t go through Winnipeg at night. Too dangerous. We don’t have much to spare, but if you need a safe place until the morning, you’re welcome to stay.”

  “I think we should take him up on his offer,” Mark says from the back

  I nod at Peter’s glance. There’s only one way to know if they’re as welcoming as they say, and that’s to let down our guard. I have a good feeling about this place. Staying behind a fence would be safer. Peter reverses the truck. For a moment it looks as though he’s decided against taking them up on their hospitality, but then he pulls ten feet from the door. A man with a thin face peers out at us, his sloped eyes friendly when he smiles.

  “Name’s Thomas.”

  “Peter.”

  “That’s a long drive.”

  “We had to leave the Vermont Safe Zone. The Lex—zombies are coming up north. Thousands of them.”

  Thomas’s eyes leave Peter’s face for the south before they return. “I’d like to hear more about that. We’ve only had a few visitors in the past year.”

  Peter watches him for another beat, then puts the radio in my lap and says, “Tell them to come.”

/>   10

  When Thomas swings open the wooden gate, it becomes apparent that this is no ordinary enclosure. The outside resembles a privacy fence, the type you’d find around any suburban home, but the inside is lined with metal of all types. Everything from highway signs to sheet metal has been screwed into the wood. Rocks have been mortared into walls along the fence, and every three feet or so there’s a thick brace made of wood or metal. I’m still apprehensive about their motives, but it’s comforting to be inside a barrier again.

  Kingdom Come’s trench must be packed with enough Lexers to walk across. I’d like to believe that they didn’t pull the fences down, since there were no humans left, but the livestock would have been irresistible—we’re the preferred snack, although animals will do in a pinch. The grass must be trodden, the barn fences destroyed. I’m sure they’re trampling Adrian’s grave. It shouldn’t matter, but it makes me angry to think they’ve probably claimed his resting place as well as his life.

  The gate swings closed behind us, followed by the loud latching of several bolts. I force myself to stay on high alert once we’ve hit the dirt. They have a couple of acres fenced off, with a small barn and several tiny sheds within. A large garden sits to the right of the house, dark shapes of low, bushy fruit trees behind it, and the familiar clucking of chickens settling for the night fills the air from our left. I move Bits behind me in case I need to draw my gun and shush her when she barrages me with questions. I would’ve preferred she stayed in the RV.

  Thomas turns at the opening of the house’s door. A woman who looks to be his age—forty or so—with shoulder-length brown hair and a round, pleasant face stops on the top step and watches us with her hand on her collarbone. When she sees Bits, Hank and Nicki, she perks up and makes her way down the stairs to join Thomas, who says, “This is my wife, Jessica.”

  “We appreciate the offer of a place to sleep, ma’am,” Zeke says. “We’ll stay in the RV and be out of your way in the morning. Name’s Zeke.”

  “We have room in the house,” she says. “It’s the floor, but it’s warm.”

  “Don’t want to be any trouble, ma’am.” Zeke’s Southern manners are so gracious that he could be giving a courtly bow wearing a seersucker suit instead of boots and a motorcycle jacket.

  “Don’t call me ma’am again, Zeke,” Jessica says, and her wide, friendly smile erases my final bit of uncertainty about their motives.

  An elderly man with wispy white hair that has lifted from its comb-over comes to the doorway. “Why don’t you come inside? It’s cold out here,” he says in a gravelly voice.

  Just inside the foyer, stairs rise to the second floor. To the left is a dining room with a large table, the kitchen off it to the rear. The scent of food loaded with spices makes my mouth water. I’ve been able to ignore my hunger much of the day—we’re going without lunch now that our travel time has increased—but now I’m famished.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” Thomas says. “I have to check on the chickens and then we’ll talk.”

  He gestures toward the living room that takes up the right side of the first floor. The flickering lamps give off warm light, and a woodstove by the far wall throws off gloriously abundant heat. A piano sits in the corner. I wonder if they ever play it or if it sits silent now. My dad used to say that there was always music playing somewhere—maybe this is one of those places.

  When we enter, a dozen people rise from the various couches. One, a blond teenage boy, checks out Ashley before examining his own feet. A man holds a pregnant woman’s arm protectively. Most are somewhere in their twenties through forties, a mix of men and women. They introduce themselves and we say our names before standing in silence. Maybe they feel as uncomfortable as I do, having invaded their space.

  “Well, let them sit. Were you all raised in a barn?” the old man, Gerry, says after he’s lowered himself into an easy chair. He waves us in. “Sit down.”

  I guide Bits and Hank to the wall near the stove. Penny sinks onto a couch cushion. The pregnant woman, Robin, perches beside her and tucks her dark hair behind her ears.

  “When are you due?” Robin asks. “I’m due in a few weeks.”

  “Mid-December.” Penny compares their stomachs and groans. “Oh God, I’m already as big as you! Are you positive you don’t have another three months?”

  The tension in the room dissolves at Robin’s laugh. Quiet conversations begin, and I listen to the pregnant ladies commiserate about morning sickness and impending labor. I can only comprehend so many of the joys of pregnancy. The baby part is cool, but the getting there seems like a pain in the ass. Literally, according to Penny. I’ll have to take her word for it.

  I shove the thought of Adrian and our never-to-be-born children out of my mind. I have Bits and now Hank. It’s enough. It’ll have to be enough. After Dan, I feel like anyone I touch is doomed to die; I’d rather be alone than wait for the next victim. And I certainly won’t have any more children if I can help it. Not in this world.

  Peter kisses the top of Bits’s head after she scoots into his lap. I have my little family. The fact that it’s an adoptive, platonic co-parenting family doesn’t make it any less than the conventional kind. For the first time in days I feel safe. Content, even, if I don’t think about what’s ahead of us or what we left behind. Just for tonight, I’ll try to stop worrying. But I can’t stop my hunger. Whatever they’re cooking in the kitchen is pure torture.

  “I’m hungry,” Bits says, more fact than complaint. “When are we eating? What are we eating?”

  “What do you say we talk after supper?” Zeke asks Thomas, who’s just returned. “We’ll go and fix our meal while you have yours.”

  “Don’t waste your fuel,” Thomas says. “You’re welcome to use the stove. One thing we do have is plenty of LP and wood.”

  “Thank you,” Maureen says, and turns to me. “Cassie, want to help?”

  Maureen and I search the RV’s pantry for something quick and easy. We save the cold stuff like MREs and canned goods for times when we won’t be able to cook. There are boxes of pasta, packages of ramen noodles and bags of rice, flour, sugar and oats. The amounts are depressingly small. I place five packages of noodles, a few vegetables from our meager stock and all of our containers in a cloth bag to bring inside.

  Maureen stares into the cabinet. “We’ll make it work.”

  With doubling the travel time to account for stopping at night and any difficulties that may arise, we’re limiting ourselves to far fewer calories than we need. We’re on a strict diet, and none of us needs to be on a diet.

  “I know,” I say, although I don’t.

  Maureen’s hand tightens into a fist on a box of pasta before her head drops. Her sob is raw, the kind that’s impossible to hold back. I wrap my arms around her shoulders. I know how much she cared for John, and he for her. She’d found love again, only to have it taken—again.

  “I’m okay,” she says.

  “You don’t have to be. I’m not.”

  “You are.” She swipes at her cheeks. “John knew you would be.”

  “I don’t want you to think I don’t care that he’s—” I say, and realize I don’t know what he is. He’s very likely roaming the woods of Vermont, looking for something to eat. John deserves better than that. We all do, but he was so kind and loving that it breaks my heart to think he may have become something to fear.

  Maureen takes my hands. “Don’t ever think I don’t know how much you loved him. We just go on the best we can. We have to.”

  I blink to stave off tears. That’s what she said to me the day we first arrived at Kingdom Come. And here we are, searching for a home again. “He loved you so much,” I say. “Enough to admit it to me, even.”

  John’s love was huge, just like his heart, but he wasn’t known for his willingness to discuss it. The fine lines around Maureen’s eyes turn up. “And I loved him. John used to say, ‘The Lord is near to the broken-hearted.’ It’s from Psalms. I remind mys
elf of that every day. And when I do, I can feel God. And John and my husband and daughter.”

  I look for signs from those I’ve lost—there aren’t ever any. It doesn’t mean I think they’ve ceased to exist, just that I can’t be certain they’re somewhere better.

  She takes a shaky breath. “And I am okay. Don’t you worry about me. It’s my job to worry about you.”

  “How about we worry about each other?”

  “Deal. Let’s get dinner on.”

  “You relax,” I say. “Enjoy the couch and fire. You’re always bustling around, it drives me crazy. I look lazy in comparison.”

  For the first time in days, I hear Maureen’s throaty laugh. “You’re such a stinker. But I think I will. Thank you, sweetheart.”

  Jessica offers a broad smile when I enter the kitchen. “What do you need? Thomas said you’d be cooking in here.”

  “Just a large pot,” I say. “Thank you. Oh, I’ll be right back, I forgot water.”

  “Help yourself, we have no shortage of water. There’s a well behind the house.”

  She points me to a large container with a spigot and then dishes their meal into bowls. It’s some sort of grain with beans and what look to be chunks of squash and tomato. It smells of cumin, onions and garlic, which is to say it smells delicious.

  I fill the pot with more water than needed. It won’t have caloric value, but warm, weakened broth feels more filling than plain water. Jessica leaves to bring food to the rest of her household. I chop carrots and zucchini and ignore the mushrooms that practically scream my name from a basket on the counter.

  Nelly enters and watches me chop. “Need help?”

  “Yeah, run out to the store and get us some steaks.” I dump the veggies in the pot to wait for them to come to a boil.

  Nelly groans. He could easily quadruple the calories he’s getting on our new diet. He must be starving. “I’m killing and eating the next animal I see. I don’t care what it is.”

  “Well, while we’re waiting for that to happen, you can set out bowls. It’d better not be Sparky. Bits would never forgive you.”