Until the End of the World Box Set

by Sarah Lyons Fleming

  I clutch the box so hard it dents. I want to tear this fucking bathroom apart, to smash the mirror and kick in the shower door. I want Ana to be here. I want Maureen to have been able to keep her promise to John. I wanted Ash to have birthday cookies. The MRE desserts that I’d wanted to surprise the kids with are gone. Shawn, who always had a joke, who loved Jamie with all his heart, is gone. So many people are gone that I can’t even mourn them properly. It would take every hour of every day to do it. I want to hold on to them, to think of them, but I would never get any living done if I gave them all the time they deserve. Especially now, when we’re barely living as it is—barely surviving.

  I hug Ana’s bag to my chest and sob. I cry over the things in my dead friend’s bag and for all the things we’ve lost so far. I don’t know why I thought saving my tears for Alaska was a good idea. It was stupid as fuck. There’s no point in saving things for later if later never comes.

  34

  The sun rises over blood-stained asphalt and two holes dug by the side of the road. It’s too dangerous to find a new vehicle in the dark, so we used the night to dig these graves. Maureen and Shawn are lowered in while Mark says some fitting, eloquent words. I watch Zeke throw the first shovelful of dirt over Maureen’s body, and then I can’t watch anymore. Jamie stands over Shawn’s grave, face swollen. She spent all night with Kyle and Adam, insisting she had to do something. We made Nicki’s cast, which turned out serviceable if somewhat lumpy.

  The force of the bullet that passed through Adam’s shoulder knocked him off the roof, and he’d managed to roll under the RV before losing consciousness. He’s pale and in pain, but Jamie and Zeke think he’ll be okay. They think Kyle will be okay, too, although he still hasn’t fully woken.

  “For whatever the opinion of a dentist is worth,” Zeke had said, but he’d smiled.

  He’s not smiling now. My knuckles are smashed from Bits’s grip on my hand, but I don’t mind. I don’t mind when Hank leans into me so hard that I stumble. I held them for hours last night in the pickup, until Bits no longer looked at me as if I’d abandoned her. Until the color returned to her face and she would smile at one of my jokes.

  Once the graves are filled, we walk to the vehicles. We’re heading around Grande Prairie to a used car lot that sold RVs, according to the phone book, because we have two people who need to lie down. Whether or not we find one, I won’t set foot in this one ever again. I’ll ride in the pickup’s bed before I do that.

  I hug Ash to me. She says she’s okay, but she isn’t. Twitch had barely had time to touch her, but Jamie says he said plenty of things a sixteen year-old shouldn’t hear. After I’d dug out one of her new tank tops and gave her a shirt of Ana’s, she asked for another. I scrounged up one of Maureen’s, and she put the layers on one by one, zipped her jacket and wrapped her arms around her waist like a shield.

  We check Boss’s pickup for anything useful we might have missed in the dark. Peter accidentally knocks the lid off a cooler and steps back with a gag. I catch a glimpse of a blackened arm and the smell of the men before I rush to the side of the road and throw up my tiny breakfast. Another thing they’ve stolen from me. I may not be hungry, but I’m livid that they’re dead and still taking our food.

  I flinch when Peter touches my back. He dug graves and cleaned up all night, barely speaking to anyone except Barnaby, who stayed by his side. Everyone gave him a wide berth; the set of his face and shoulders made it clear he wanted us to.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I wipe my mouth and keep my eyes on my breakfast. “I’m fine. Thanks for the clothes and my red shoelace.” I kick out my boot. “I think I’m going to start a new trend.”

  It’s the wrong answer, I can tell by his harsh exhalation. I look up to find him squinting at me in the early morning light. He lifts his hand and lowers it, then splays his clenched fingers by his thigh. If I tell him how angry I am, how I can’t shake the powerless feeling from last night, it’ll make him worse. I need Peter, not this angry person I barely know.

  “I’m clean,” I say, and force a smile. “Cleaner than all of you. I know you’re jealous.”

  Peter watches me with a frown. “What did he—”

  “He didn’t get far. I don’t want to talk about it.” What I want is a hug, but I don’t want to have to ask for it. “I’m fine.”

  He chews his cheek and turns away. “We should go,” he says over his shoulder.

  I watch him walk to the pickup. If he looks back, I’ll muster the courage to tell him everything. I’ll ask him to hold me for a minute before we go. But he doesn’t.

  We find an RV north of Grande Prairie, in amongst a couple newer RVs we can’t get running no matter what we try. No one says that Shawn would be able to, but Jamie stands with her hand on his toolbox and tears in her eyes. The RV that does start is almost thirty years old, with fake wood grain cabinets and brown-striped upholstery. It has a full propane tank and needs water, but water hasn’t been a problem so far. The fluorescent numbers on its windshield that advertise a “Low, Low Price!” don’t make me confident in its ability to take us the last thousand miles.

  They’d found enough gas last night to get us to Whitehorse and were on their way back when they heard voices on the radio. They thought they were picking up other survivors until they heard Penny’s voice and found Barnaby limping along the road, possibly following their earlier trail. They parked as close as they dared and ran the rest of the way on foot, Barn straining on his rope leash until Peter let him go to take down Auburn.

  I ride in the pickup. I don’t like the idea of sitting in any RV right now, no matter how different. James drives, with Penny riding shotgun and Peter in back with me and the kids. Penny put on a shoulder holster this morning after breakfast, and I saw her slide one of the men’s knives into her pack before she’d zipped it up.

  We tire of playing I Spy and start on a round of Twenty Questions. I’m doing my best to be cheerful for the kids, but Peter doesn’t bother to pretend. His voice is flat and he curses loud enough to make Bits bury her face in my side when we have to spend an hour backtracking. He stands watch at a pit stop, and when I offer him coffee in lieu of lunch he waves it and me away.

  We stop at a Walmart in Dawson Creek. We have no choice but to risk our lives for food now. Besides what they ate, the wheat berries were soaked in Maureen’s blood on the floor. It’s left us with salsa and tiny amounts of rice, flour and pasta. It’s astounding how much food those men consumed in so little time.

  I step into the parking lot. Peter walks to my side and says, “Stay in the truck.”

  “Why?” I don’t ask why he thinks he’s in charge, although I’d like to. I cross my arms when he doesn’t answer. “I don’t want to stay.”

  “Do what you want.” He shrugs and walks to where Zeke and Mark stand blinking in the sunlight.

  I join the group and try to catch his eye, but he studiously avoids my gaze. Margaret puts a hand on my arm—I don’t think Margaret has ever touched me. I’ve spent the day acting normal in response to all the troubled looks. We all had a bad night. Maureen is dead. Jamie lost her husband. Adam has a bullet wound. I’m not going to complain when I’m still alive and practically untouched.

  “What’s the plan?” I ask, and pat Margaret’s hand with a big smile.

  “We’ll look for food and then skedaddle,” Zeke says. “C’mon, sugar, you can be my partner.”

  “I’ve been waiting a year and a half to hear those words,” I say. Zeke’s chest rumbles with a laugh and he takes my arm as we near the doors.

  The Walmart has skylights; it’s nice to not have to peer into complete darkness for once. The food section is full of debris from the fights that must have ensued when people got desperate. Freezer doors hang open and one aisle’s shelves are on their side. Everything edible is gone, including pet food and birdseed, but we do find some overlooked fuel stabilizer.

  We decide to try the hotel across the street whose sign to
uts a deluxe continental breakfast, as it’s the first hotel we’ve seen with undamaged doors and windows. Peering through our cupped hands on the glass reveals a lobby that’s untouched except for the ten Lexers that wander around the check-in counter and couches. The day’s newspapers sit on a table with a sign that says they’re free for the taking. Carafes of coffee also advertise themselves as complimentary.

  A Lexer moves to the door, stumbling over the body of one who didn’t make it past thawing. The others follow suit until the doors rattle with their fists and faces. More enter from the hall, but we can take them if we let them out slowly.

  “I’ll pry the doors,” Zeke says over the pounding. “Y’all want to get them?”

  He leaves and returns with a crowbar. I’ll take zombies over living people any day. They have no interest in our flesh besides eating it.

  Three come out at Zeke’s first heave. Peter jumps in front of me and takes out mine so quickly that I almost hack him in the back. I move near Mark, but Peter does it again with the next few that emerge.

  “You’re in my way,” I say to him after Zeke lets the doors shut.

  He ignores me. I change position and get close to the entrance when he tries to follow. If he wants to block me, he’s going to get eaten. He steps to the side with a scowl. I want to kill something, and God help me, it will be Peter if he tries that again. I can’t tell if he’s trying to protect me or infuriate me, but I can protect myself just fine.

  The doors stick open with Zeke’s next grunt, and then there are too many for Peter to concern himself with my whereabouts. I drive my spiked end into the eye of a hotel employee still wearing a nametag that says Jackie. I turn to the next one, grab the back of its hair and dig into the base of its skull, like I tried to do to Whit. A man with a bathrobe still knotted around his waist gets the blade in his forehead. I push him to the side and look for another, but they’re all down.

  My breath is easy. I feel like I’ve barely moved a muscle and almost wish there were more, but I’m not crazy enough to really want it to be so. I grin at Zeke, who crinkles his eyes like a biker Santa Claus and says, “Normally I’d say ladies first, but you’ll pardon my manners this time.”

  There have to be others in the building, but so far the coast is clear. The breakfast area has a wall of windows and counters that hold cereal dispensers and drink machines. Margaret throws open the door to the storage room.

  The packaged pastries are green fuzz, but there are five-pound bags of waffle mix in the low cabinets. Small containers of syrup. Mini boxes of cereals full of sugar and loaded with vitamins to make up for it. Hot chocolate mix, tea bags and coffee. Packets of oatmeal and sugar and even powdered creamer. I jump up and down silently at the treasure trove.

  “I’ll go get the bins,” Peter says. “Cassie, you want to help?”

  I startle at the sound of him addressing me. He follows me past Mark, who’s keeping an eye out in the hall. I give Penny and the kids a thumbs up as I jump in the truck’s bed and hand empty bins down to Peter.

  “We have it,” he says. “Stay out here.”

  I lean on the edge of the pickup and narrow my eyes. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “I’m not trying to get rid of you, Cassandra. You’re not needed in there, so why go?”

  I’m not arguing in the middle of zombie-infested territory, so I take a page from his book and ignore him. “Do you want me to take a bin?”

  “No.”

  I stride ahead into the lobby and stop short at Mark’s holler and the clatter of plastic bins hitting the floor behind me. Two Lexers have come from the manager’s office, although everything in there looked dead when we checked it. One knocks Peter to his back and the other drops to its knees. I run and kick one so hard that it slides along the slick tile. I puncture the other in its forehead and turn to the first, but Peter’s already up, machete smashing its skull. We stare at each other, wheezing, and I think this is where he’ll stop being angry at me or the world or whatever it is he’s pissed at, but his shoulders harden. “You could have died.”

  The tears come, but I turn away before he can see. “You’re welcome,” I say, glad he can’t hear them in my voice.

  35

  I watch a small factory milling with Lexers until it’s out of sight of our vehicles. Even up here, with nothing for miles around, they’ve taken over. We won’t make it past Fort St. John today, so, well before the city, we stop at a house hidden from the road by shrubbery. It has a For Sale sign and is furnished just enough to give potential buyers an impression of the rooms’ purposes. The fridge is clean and kitchen spotless.

  Inside the RV, Nelly sits on the couch and smiles through the worry evident in every line on his face. “Adam’s sleeping, but he’s okay. I made him drink some syrup and oatmeal soup,” he says before I can ask.

  I smooch him on the lips. He rubs it off, but his eyes sparkle. “You look a damn sight better than last night. You okay, darlin’?”

  I wave away his question. It’s embarrassing to think about what I must’ve looked like, barely dressed and bloody, which makes me angry that I feel any shame at all. The only people who should feel ashamed are lying on the side of the road with their throats sliced. “How’s Kyle?” I ask.

  “He woke up for a few minutes. He was babbling and didn’t make any sense. Nicki’s sleeping next to him.”

  The only thing we know to do with head trauma is leave it alone and hope it sorts itself out. Jamie sits at the dinette with her head in her hands. It’s a different kind of head trauma for her, but the treatment is the same. I touch her shoulder. “I’m going to make dinner. The house is all clear if you want to lie down.”

  “I’ll sleep in here so I’m close to Kyle and Adam,” she says, head down. “They need heat.”

  I hug her even though she might want to be left alone. She squeezes my arm before she nods and lets go. The kitchen in the RV is different, but I get a vision of Maureen’s dull eyes and pale skin, the kids in a terrified pile on the couch, Boss’s brains scattering across where Jamie sits. My hand shakes when I dump waffle mix into a bowl.

  “Maybe I should use the camping stove,” I say. “Since you need the heat tonight.” I rush out the door and drop onto the RV’s steps. I’ll go back once I’ve collected myself.

  “Want help?” Margaret asks. She never helps with the cooking, preferring to sharpen blades or clean guns.

  “I’m going to cook outside. I just have to get the pans and waffle mix.”

  “I’ll get it.” She puts her hand on my shoulder as she steps past.

  I set up the stove on the house’s front porch and add filtered water to the mix. My breathing has returned to normal by the time Bits and Hank hover over me. “We’re having wafflecakes,” I say. “These are gonna be the best wafflecakes you’ve ever tasted right here.”

  “And the only,” Hank says, but he laughs along with Bits.

  “Will we get a big one?” Bits asks. “With syrup?”

  “Not one,” I say. “You’re going to eat as many wafflecakes as your little hearts desire. And you can drown them in syrup. We’ll fill up a tub with syrup and you can get in and eat your wafflecakes while you swim in it.”

  Peter is in the pickup’s bed arranging things, head cocked as if listening. I pour batter into the pan. The smell of browning flour and sugar is so wonderful that I want to cry.

  Hank hesitates and then asks, “Shouldn’t we save it?”

  I can see how badly he doesn’t want to, and I want to do anything that might bring an ounce of pleasure into these kids’ lives. “Not today. There’s plenty and we all need a big meal. I’m tired of saving things for later.”

  “Me, too,” Bits says, and swings on the porch rail. “I’m going to eat five.”

  “Ten,” Hank says.

  “Well, I’m going to eat twenty-seven,” I say. “How many are you going to eat, Peter?”

  Peter glances over. “I’m not very hungry.”

 
; I flip the wafflecake and consider throwing my pan at him, but instead I say to the kids, “More for us, right?”

  Penny is my partner for the first cold watch shift of the night. But we had the presence of mind to take a couple of carafes from the hotel and now we have copious amounts of hot coffee and hot water in which to brew tea. I’ve only allowed myself creamer and sugar in one cup, but as long as it’s warm, I’m happy.

  Penny pours herself coffee number two and pats her stomach before she gets back under our blankets. “Sorry, kid, but you’ll have to deal.”

  “She’ll be fine,” I say. “Maybe a little hyper, but fine.”

  “Maybe it’ll make her run fast. That’s what you want with zombies, right?” Penny’s joking about zombies. Penny never jokes about zombies. I watch her carefully, but she takes another sip of coffee and leans back, eyes closed. “You’ll teach her what she needs to know.”

  “Of course.”

  Penny’s eyes open. “And you’ll teach me this winter. Maybe I didn’t have to learn on the farm, but I don’t ever want to be caught out again. You’ve seen how terrible I am at this stuff.”

  “I saw you last night. That wasn’t terrible. He might’ve shot me if it weren’t for you.”

  Penny’s cup trembles in her hand, but she looks pleased to have had a part in bringing them down. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t even think—I just jumped him. It was really stupid.”

  “It’s only stupid if it doesn’t work,” I say with a grin. “Otherwise, it’s genius.”

  “You sound like my sister.” Penny takes an extra long sip of coffee after the words slip out.

  “That’s not so bad, is it?”