Until the End of the World Box Set

by Sarah Lyons Fleming

  “Done,” I say.

  Peter leans on the crib rail with a rounded back. I know he slept last night because I was up every hour to check on the kids, but he looks haggard. “I wonder what happened to the baby,” he says, keeping his eyes trained on the crib mattress.

  I picture the baby I put out of its misery in Vermont. I hope this one didn’t end up like that. But she probably did—another reason to get Penny to safety. I don’t have an answer, so I lean beside him and stare at the yellow and green quilt.

  “I never thought I’d have a normal life,” he says in a quiet voice. “I mean, I thought it’d be normal—my grandmother’s version of normal. A wife I didn’t like much, probably. Parties. Kids I’d never see because I’d always be working.”

  “That sounds terrible.”

  “I know. Then it all changed, and I was kind of okay with it. It wasn’t going to be normal, but it would be different. I’d have all the things I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Time. Love. A family.”

  “You still have a family,” I say. “And we all love you.”

  “I know. I guess I just thought things were going to be a certain way and now they’re not. They can’t be.”

  “You’ll have the other things again.”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s what you said to me after Adrian. Were you lying?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Good. Because you can’t go around spouting off profound things like that and then take them back.”

  His shoulders jump with a small laugh. “Was I right?”

  “Yeah. Well, I can see how it could happen.” I don’t mention how just when I believed it could happen again it was ripped away. Somehow I don’t think that would be helpful. “You, of all people, will get there. Promise.”

  “Why me of all people?”

  “Because you’re an optimist. I would’ve jumped off a ledge by now if you weren’t here.”

  “You’d all keep going,” he says. “Just like we’re going now.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same.” Even with how close we’ve become, we’ve only ever joked about our failed relationship. I feel weird bringing it up because there are things I’d rather not remember—how frustrated he made me, how I wasn’t always nice to him, all the nights we spent in bed—but I want him to know how important he is. “Remember the night we met?”

  “I have a vague recollection,” he says. “Wasn’t it at a bar or something?”

  I elbow him. “When you said that losing people was like having the roof torn off your house?”

  “You remember that?”

  “Of course I do. You were right, it does feel that way, but now we’re all here to shelter you.” I drop my head with a groan. “God, that was so corny. It sounded much better in my head. You know what I mean.”

  “I do. Sorry again I was such a jerk, as long as we’re reminiscing.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  “That I was a jerk?”

  “No, that I was.” I nod when he shakes his head. “I had my moments, Petey. Anyway, maybe we’d keep going now, but who would talk me down off the ledge?”

  “Nel?”

  “Are you kidding? Nelly would shove me off the ledge. Nope, it’s your job, whether you want it or not. The pay sucks, but the benefits are immense. Probably more like immensely annoying, but too bad.”

  “I’ll take it,” he says, and puts out a hand to shake on the deal.

  “You’re hired. I’m always here if you want to talk.” I squeeze his arm and start out of the room.

  “Cassandra,” he says. “Thanks. For saying all that.”

  I’m gratified to see he has a bit more spark in his eyes. “I meant every word.”

  14

  The next houses are the same in terms of food. I’ve found a dress for Bits, who may have forsaken Barbies for superheroes but still loves to be fancy, along with some more appropriate attire. I have clean underwear and wool socks. And Penny now has clothes she fits in, with room to grow.

  “I can breathe. I swear the heartburn is better already.” Penny twirls in her new maternity jeans and blousy shirt. She squeals when Peter hands her the jar of antacids. “Did I ever tell you I love you?” She kisses Peter on the lips and crunches on a few.

  “Hey!” James says. “All I had to do was get you Rolaids and a shirt?”

  Penny gives James an even bigger kiss and takes a book from the cabinet above the couch. After two ungraceful attempts to get into the cabover bed, I give her butt a push and climb up after. Jamie and Shawn are asleep in the bedroom. I assume they’re sleeping, since the RV isn’t a rockin’. A person or animal covers every inch of floor or seating, except for Nelly and Adam, who keep watch from the roof. I’m trying not to worry that it’s been two hours since the others left. There are five gas stations nearby. They might have had to visit a couple before they found fuel.

  Ashley strokes her ponytail while she reads a book in the corner. I know her mind must be moving a mile a minute, but she’s wearing that teenage nothing-can-touch-me veneer. The same goes for Kyle, who stares out the window from the sofa with Nicki in his lap. I had a personal mission to make him laugh his ass off one day, but the chances of that have gotten slimmer now that there’s even less to laugh about.

  Bits and Hank have left a sheet of scrap paper up here. I fold it carefully and launch my paper airplane at Kyle, then snort when it hits him in the temple and drop my head.

  “Where’d it come from, Daddy?” Nicki asks.

  I hear Kyle mumble, but other than quiet voices and the rustle of Bits’s and Hank’s papers, it’s silent. “Cassie,” Kyle says. I cringe at his commanding voice; he can’t have that little of a sense of humor.

  I raise my head and screech when five airplanes come for me, three wielded by Bits, Hank and Ash. I make a decent airplane, but these are sleek and fast enough that I’m going to have a divot in my forehead for the rest of my life. I grab one and admire it, then look down to where Kyle stands with Nicki wearing a broad smile.

  “You chose the wrong guy for a paper airplane war,” he says.

  “These are some fine planes,” I say. “But you’ve won the battle, not the war.”

  “You think you’re going to win with these tired old planes?” Kyle holds up my plane and points to where the tip has bent on impact.

  I set his planes in front of me and prop myself on my elbows. “Lesson one in the art of war: Use your enemy’s own weapons against them.”

  I launch them at him one by one until I hear a low chuckle from where he’s folded over Nicki. He straightens and shakes his head. “You’re crazy.”

  It wasn’t quite laughing his ass off, but I’m getting somewhere. “Just wait. It’s gonna get wild up in here.”

  There’s a scraping from the roof and Nelly’s voice comes through a skylight. “Zeke and Margaret are running our way.”

  Kyle’s face reverts to its usual hard expression, and I’m on the floor by the time he’s opened the door. Zeke’s face is red as if on the verge of a heart attack. Margaret breathes easily, although her hair has escaped its ponytail.

  “Tony…under the truck…surrounded,” Zeke pants.

  Nelly looks behind them, his hands gripping his rifle. “Mike and Rohan?”

  Zeke bends double, hands on knees, and shakes his head.

  “They were at the truck, watching one way,” Margaret says. “We were at the other end of the lot. We didn’t hear anything until the screaming. They came out of nowhere.”

  “Could Mike and Rohan be under the truck?” I ask.

  “Rohan, maybe. But I saw Mike—” The corners of her mouth arc downward.

  The thought of Mike and Rohan being eaten alive makes my stomach lurch, as does the guilty relief that creeps in. Relief that the people I care about most are still alive. Peter and I might have been joking about sticking like glue, but I’m not anymore.

  “Let’s go,” Kyle says.

  He has th
e key turned in the ignition before we’re all in. Bits and Hank have abandoned their papers at the sight of Zeke and Margaret. I sit beside Hank and watch Bits across the table, where Peter has seated himself. “We’re going to help them,” he says. “It’s okay, we’re safe in here.”

  In a perfect world, I’d have the kids in another vehicle, fully-gassed and heading out of Winnipeg as fast as was safe, but we can’t leave Tony and Rohan. And we need the pump and the pickup’s fuel tank. If Tony’s under the truck, we’ll lead them away and have him follow us. If he’s dead, we’ll have to get the truck ourselves.

  “Is the tank full?” Shawn asks.

  “At least half,” Zeke replies. His breathing has returned to normal, but he still looks dazed. “It was going for a few minutes before they came.”

  Kyle follows Margaret’s directions onto a wide road littered with bodies. The wind ruffles what’s left of the corpses’ clothing and swirls plastic bags and wrappers in tiny tornadoes. The gas station is set behind a grassy field at a wide intersection, with a drugstore behind it and a supermarket across the street. It could mean food, and probably does, given that a pod of Lexers streams from the broken glass in front. They may have been trapped in there for over a year with only the noise of the pump, and maybe Mike’s screams, giving them enough incentive to break out.

  “Jesus,” Zeke breathes.

  Kyle pulls into the station. The pump lays on the concrete near the ground tank. The pickup’s hood is up, with the wires that run the pump still connected to its battery. In order to drive the pickup anywhere, we’ll have to disengage the pump and reattach the truck to its battery.

  Lexers wander, except for the one who lies tangled in the pump’s suction hose; it winds over one leg, then twists around and down the other to the ankle. Even if we get the truck out of here, without the pump we’ll be forced to siphon using rubber tubes in deep underground tanks—incredibly time-consuming if not impossible. The hose must be cut if it can’t be untangled, but finding a new hose might prove difficult. This particular hose is reinforced to withstand the vacuum of the pump, as well as equipped with some sort of anti-static metal so we don’t blow ourselves to hell. We need this one intact.

  The Lexers advance on the RV. Barnaby raises his hackles and starts his relentless barking that, for once, isn’t unwelcome. We need them to come toward us in order to give Tony a fighting chance. Bits crawls under the table and puts her hands over her ears.

  “Tony!” Margaret yells out the window. “We’re leading them away. Get in the truck!”

  We don’t expect an answer, as that would be deadly for him. The one tangled in the hose attempts to rise, the pump rattling along the concrete, and lands near what’s left of Mike’s body. Mike’s abdomen is hollowed out, his face a hole where hands or teeth cut through to brain. Only his pants and the long dark hair make him identifiable. I send this morning’s oatmeal back down with a forceful swallow.

  We wait until Lexers pound on the RV, but Tony doesn’t emerge. The ones from the supermarket have reached the road. They only need two minutes to reach us. Three if we’re lucky.

  Shawn races into the living area from his vantage point at the bedroom window. “More pods coming. Are the truck keys in the ignition?”

  Zeke nods. I join Jamie at the door and hear Bits sob, but I can’t think about that right now. Whoever does this has to be fast, and the loads of stupid things I did this summer have made me faster and stronger than ever. I pull out my axe and ignore the sweat dripping down my back.

  “We’ll get the pump,” I say, and point to Peter and Nelly.

  Shawn looks to Jamie. “We’ll get the battery.”

  “Let us out behind the pickup,” Nelly calls. “Try to block the ones from the street.”

  Kyle swings around the pickup, where we jump out and keep low while he pulls to the pumps. Between Margaret’s calling and Barnaby’s howls, the Lexers are focused on the RV.

  The zombie in the tubing drags itself forward at our approach. I kneel to unwrap its limbs after Nelly’s machete goes through its head. There’s no slack where the rubber wraps around his ankle, and the remainder is trapped under his torso. The pickup’s hood slams and Jamie’s boots pound past. I don’t look up; they’ll tell me when I need to run. The dead Lexer wears a heavy boot, the knotted lace locked with dried mud. I’ll never get the loop wide enough to fit over it. The sound of blades hitting flesh and the meaty thud of bodies hitting the ground nearby tells me that we’ve become more interesting than the RV. There’s no time—this foot has to go. I lift my axe and bring it down on the Lexer’s shin with a crunch. Nelly’s machete follows my axe, and he flings the severed foot away while I slip the hose free.

  “Done!” Nelly calls.

  He tosses the pump in the truck bed and jumps in. I use the tire to launch myself after him. Jamie heads for the passenger door and Peter lands beside me just as the few coming our way hit the truck. But that’s not all that’s coming our way—all the Lexers from the supermarket plus two more pods are closing in—close to a thousand altogether. The RV moves across the grass to the street. Shawn bumps over a body and races after it.

  I look down to see the pump inching toward the tailgate. The end of the hose in the ground tank has threaded itself under Mike’s body as we passed. All of this, and we’re going to lose it anyway. I dive and clutch it to my chest, feet braced against the tailgate, as Mike moves an inch, a foot, and then rolls to the side. The hose whips out of the hole, throwing up droplets of gasoline.

  We roll behind the RV, passing stores that must have something in the way of food inside. They might be the only places between here and Alaska that do, and a thousand reasons why they’re untouched follow us down the road.

  Jamie knocks on the back window and gives us a thumbs up. Nelly returns the gesture and leans against the metal. His cheeks are two spots of pink from exertion. I offer a weak smile and force my fingers to release the pump. There’s a momentary high when you’ve survived something so risky, but I’ve had enough of that high to last several lifetimes.

  Peter puts an arm around my shoulders and I close my eyes while we leave Winnipeg. I’m tired, too tired to look back to where we just left one person dead and two a mystery. We’re down to seventeen, and I don’t think the Lexers are finished with us yet.

  15

  Someone—or someones—has beaten us to every gas station two hours northwest of Winnipeg. There’s no dearth of stations along the two-lane roads we travel, but they’re empty of food, empty of fuel and, thankfully, fairly empty of zombies. The truck’s tank is only half full and we’ve already dipped into it for the RV.

  “It has been over a year,” James says, although he looks as disappointed as everyone else. “Imagine all the people who left Winnipeg? Most of it was probably gone the first week.”

  “Which means a trip into more populated territory,” Mark says. He flips through the atlas and points to several smaller towns. When I look close, I see they’re a lot smaller than Winnipeg but still have enough streets to give me pause.

  “We could give Yorkton a try,” Mark continues. “There should be enough daylight to find fuel and a stopping place up north. Three hours until Yorkton, wouldn’t you say?” James sits opposite Mark at the dinette, and now he turns the atlas his way, studies it for a moment and nods.

  No one’s spoken of Mike, Rohan and Tony. There’s nothing to say, which may seem cold, but the quiet of the RV speaks volumes. I sit on the kitchen floor and braid and re-braid Bits’s silky hair. It soothes her, the way it does when Peter rubs her brow after a nightmare. Ashley slides down beside me and sighs.

  “Hey, you all right?” I ask.

  She gives me her profile. “I’m used to losing people.”

  Her words are flat. She lost her parents at the beginning of Bornavirus and then Nancy, her surrogate mom, outside of Kingdom Come. I can tell Ash is shutting down, battening down the hatches, and I’m afraid she might never come back if she does. I hope t
hat these kids aren’t damaged beyond redemption for what’s happened in their formative years.

  “I’m not used to it,” I say. “No matter how many.”

  She folds her arms. “You’re not crying or anything. Even after Ana and John and—” She stops with her mouth open in apology, but I smile and tuck her hair behind her ear.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m used to it. I’m choosing to focus on other people. Like you and everyone in here.”

  “I don’t want to be sad.”

  “Me neither. You know what I’ve decided?” She shrugs like she couldn’t care less and rips a hangnail off her index finger. “I’m not going to cry until I get to Alaska. Then I’m going to let it all out. It’s going to be great.”

  “Sounds amazing.”

  I ignore her sarcasm. “We’ll have a cry party. A sobfest. You can come if you want. We’ll have refreshments.” I say the last part in a sing-songy voice.

  “Cassie’s Cry Party?” She turns her head, but the swell of her cheek gives away her smile.

  “Only a select few are invited.”

  “I want to come,” Bits says. “Except I don’t think I can not cry until Alaska.”

  “You’re still invited. You have to let out the tears or they’ll rust your insides. Then we’d have to make you drink motor oil. It wouldn’t be pretty.” Ash laughs when Bits does, and I turn to her. “Same goes for you.”

  “How about you?” Ash asks.

  “I’m good. I drink a capful of oil every morning.”

  She rolls her eyes but scoots closer to lift Bits’s hair. “You want a fishtail braid, Bits? I can do a really cool one.”

  “Yes, please,” Bits says. “Cassie can only do boring braids.”

  “Well, excuse me for living,” I say. “Ash can be in charge of braids at the party.”

  Ashley smiles and carefully pulls the brush through Bits’s snarls. “Are we having lunch today?” Bits asks.

  “Yes. Let’s let Ash decide. Should we have rice, rice or rice?”