The Earth's End

by Tara Brown

  The question is crazy.

  Not just because I’m not even twenty and he’s only a few years older. But also because we haven’t gone to college or bought a house or chosen a career. My parents can’t help me decide my life and I’m positive things like me shouldn’t reproduce with things like him.

  His eyes are wide, my silence tormenting him.

  “Yes,” I say after a minute.

  He exhales relief and nods. “Okay, you were scaring me there for a second.”

  We sit and stare at each other for a heartbeat or two, maybe both of us watching the candlelight flicker in the eyes of the other person.

  He loses all the fear and smiles, it’s his sweet smile. The one that has no agendas behind it. My favorite.

  “I love you too.” I lift my hand for him to put the ring on. His fingers twitch when he lifts it out of the wooden box and slides it on me. Of course it fits perfectly. He’s that stalker.

  “Should we do it tomorrow?” he asks impatiently as if that’s even an option.

  “No.” I gasp, pulling my hand back. “Spring. We need to prepare for it. I’ll need a dress and shoes and bridesmaids.”

  He recoils a little. “You’ve never seemed like the kind of girl who would care about that stuff.”

  “You wish.” I lift my eyebrows and tilt my head. It’s a look my mother gave my father every time he said something stupid. “I was never a girl who planned her marriage and wedding, but I still want to do it right.”

  “Okay, but does it have to be a full public spectacle?” He sounds worried and it’s adorable.

  “Absolutely.” I grin. “You wanted to be king. Now you’re going to get a king’s wedding.”

  “To be fair, the bots wanted me to be king. I just went along with it,” he lies.

  “I’m going to tell you something my mom told my dad once. A wedding is about the bride. The groom is there to look nice, fill a spot, and give the lady what she wants.” I can’t even get it out without laughing.

  “That’s terrible.” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me, fitting me into his body perfectly. “Your mother didn't really say that?”

  “She did.” I laugh again, pulling back. “She was a savage.”

  He reaches and tilts my chin up, staring at me and making the moment serious again. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Saying yes.” He lowers his face and kisses me. It’s not intense or crazed, it’s sweet and soft. It’s exactly the sort of kiss you give when the snow is falling outside, the candlelight is fading, and there’s been a proposal.

  As the reality of us getting married hits me, desire sweeps in. I climb into his lap and kiss him with fervor.

  I’m getting married.

  It’s crazy.

  The world ended.

  And then it started again, as though the last few hundred years since the industrial revolution were just a season, and this is a new one.

  My family ended, except for Joey.

  And then it started again, filled with people I love with my whole heart.

  My childhood ended. And abrupt death.

  And now, my adulthood begins.

  And it starts with him.

  The End

  Gotcha!!!!!

  You didn't see that happy ending coming, did you?

  Until next time (insert a slightly evil winky face here).

  Tara

  Also, if you liked this book, check out The Born Trilogy!

  Here is a sample chapter!

  Born

  Chapter One

  They say the world is built for two, but in the silence of the old cellar, two feels like a long-lost dream. It's an ice cream cone on a boardwalk with the sun above and the sea below. It's the wind rolling around you gently, persuading you in all the directions at once and mixing sand over your feet as your toes dig in. It's a perfect place that none of us tries to remember.

  What’s the point in remembering when there’s no way to go back, and no matter how hard we work to move forward, we’ll always be stuck in the muck we’ve made.

  Besides, in any mind left functioning, the world was built for pain. Perhaps once there had been a place where love and companionship were something to push your life toward.

  This isn't that world anymore.

  To me, that world never existed anyway. The world has always been a selfish place where love is fleeting and people are fickle. Once upon a time, true love accidentally happened to the fortunate. They polluted and corrupted it, and like everything else, it got sick.

  I've seen it. I've seen it and in the end, when it's taken away, the people who protest or cry the loudest are the ones who have taken it for granted the most. The ones who have abused it, but didn’t even know they were doing it.

  I size up the cellar I’ve been hiding in, lying low in the shadows that have become my world. It’s time to move on. In the four days I’ve been here, I’ve barely moved at all. My body is tense from it but that’s my rule, and now because of it I can breathe easier knowing I'm probably safe. I always end a supply run with a quiet few days in a cellar or basement.

  There are rules in the new world. Rules you have to make up as you go along because everything changes. I don’t like change but I force myself to adapt. Except where other people are concerned. If there’s one thing you want to avoid in the new world, it’s other people. Other people make you weak—I’ve seen that too. When you love someone, you’ll make stupid choices that are more like risks. Those risks get you dead, but in the new world, dying doesn’t mean you stay dead. Nothing’s a guarantee anymore.

  Everything about the new world is already a risk, and I wasn't born to this world. I've had to learn how to move around quietly in it, how to sit still, and how to be one with the things that shuffle along, waiting for someone to make a poor choice. When everything goes the wrong way, you have to close yourself off from it.

  I have mastered that. I’m the master of not caring.

  I know what I need to do to live. I have lain amongst the dead. I have run through the woods in the dark, my eyesight clearing like a wild animal’s might. I have embraced the darkness.

  I have learned how to live without. Not just things but people and comfort.

  Because that’s the new world.

  I have one place that reminds me of the girl I was supposed to be. That place is all I have left of the world before, and so I treasure it and keep it secret.

  I creep out into the beam of dust lingering in the air, sparkling from the sunlight that found its way down two stories into a dark cellar. I lift my fingers into the light, letting it touch me and make just one spot tingle with warmth. The beam of light almost makes me smile. I admire its determination at finding its way into the darkness, no matter what. No matter how hard I try to ignore it, that gives me hope. Hope I must shake my head at, to bring my thoughts back around, to take my first step toward the stairs and leave this dark place.

  The explosions never destroyed this home in any way. It’s far too high on a lonely mountain, in a range of lonely mountains. The stairs are in one piece which has become a bit of a novelty. Thankfully, the old farmhouse is just too far from any major center to have even been aware of the problems, at least maybe in the beginning.

  The blood smears on the white siding outside prove that the horror of the infection has touched every inch of this world. Even a lonely place such as this.

  The hardwood creaks under my first step. I hold my breath and hope the creak went unheard. I take a breath and execute the second step slowly, allowing my body weight to shift onto it softly. I hesitate taking the third, giving the sounds space and distance of random noises a farmhouse would make. My heart beats like it might attempt to get free from my constricted chest. I wait a moment longer—it's another rule: never leave when you feel it's safe. Always wait one more second. Safe is an illusion, and once you believe the illusion, you lose everything.

  I put my feet to the far sides of the stairs, whe
re the nails attach the boards to the frame. Shallow breaths make sounds in the new world, in the borderlands anyway. I have not ventured out of the borderlands. I don’t know what the rest of the world looks like, just what I’ve heard from people in the towns. They say the cities are demolished but still crawling with the infected that didn’t die. The roads are blocked with cars that didn’t make it out of the cities in time.

  My car is there somewhere, lost along the dead highway with the remains of those I left behind.

  But here, there’s a silence that could drive you mad. No electricity, no cars, no phones, no buzz. The world sits quiet as if sighing and taking a long inhale after what seemed like forever with mankind and the noise pollution. I swear to the God everyone used to pray to, the earth is taking it all back. Mother Earth probably just wants us gone—us and our evil.

  I don’t think there’s any good left in us anyway.

  Every decision I make out here pushes me one step further away from good. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself out here. I get lost in surviving and forget to just be a girl. A girl Granny and my dad could be proud of.

  Thank God for Leo and home. I’m at peace when I’m home, but here in the open world, I’m one of them. One of what is left, that scrambles to survive, most of the time separate from anyone else. We all understand the hard truths of this place. The good die and the strong do what they have to, to survive. The best we can hope for is a place that brings us peace.

  I focus my thoughts back to the task of getting home—getting back to my peace.

  I peek through the cellar door and try to keep my anxious heartbeat low and my breath quiet. My body needs to make some noises, but others can be controlled.

  The house is simple and plain, but it’s a typical farmhouse and they’re the best houses. They always sit a long ways off the road, not that roads matter. And farmhouses always have canning and pickling reserves that would outlast any human. They always have safety supplies and extras of everything. Farmers lived the longest, just like my father always said they would. The farmers and the people who were already bad. Seems like that’s all that’s left in the world. If I could just meet one person worth knowing, I might not be so dead inside. But that could make me weak. Dying for someone else would negate all the things I have done to stay alive.

  Leaving the basement always brings the same thought to my mind. I wish this place could be my peace, my place that makes me calm. It has everything and it’s centrally located to the towns at the base of the hills. Supply runs would be so much easier if I could live here. Two supply trips a year is rarely enough, but if I travel any more than that, I’ll be caught.

  I have come close so many times.

  And that’s the reason I stay at my place. It’s too far for anyone to care about one girl at the top of a mountain.

  I tiptoe into the country kitchen, and as always, I’m amazed at how pristine it is. All the dishes are put away and the counters are clear. It reminds me of my granny’s house. Everything is still in its place, just as it was the first time I came here. Now though, layers of dust have found their way into the home, along with the bits of weeds growing through the cracks. With no busy little granny to buzz around dusting and tidying, everything shows its years of abandonment. Vines creep up the sides of the house like all the houses. As always, I stand against the doorframe and put my hand at the top of my head as a measurement. I turn and note how much higher it is than the mark I once foolishly put there.

  That mark was put there by a little girl who didn’t know anything. She knew loss but that was it. For every inch I have grown, I have learned something else I wish I didn’t have to know.

  I turn away from the mark, pushing away the memories of the little girl, and remember who I am. I walk low to the ground toward the back door. I can't help but laugh inside at how I still feel safer leaving through the back door, even though there’s no front or back. There are only doors. They don't go anywhere anymore because there’s no direction.

  Nothing goes anywhere. Everything just is, and dead is just as awful as undead.

  I carefully position the heavy pack on my back. It contains jars full of heart and soul and survival. Each jar is like a kiss from the old lady who canned and pickled her own farm-fresh vegetables. I assume there are no preservatives, no added salt, and no colorings. There aren't any labels to contradict it. For all I know, she was using MSG in everything. I smile at the letters MSG; they meant something to me once. It meant we couldn’t eat in that restaurant because my dad said it would make me sick and weak willed.

  That was before.

  I fight back memories of nice old ladies and the world before. I have been to many worlds in my life and being nineteen feels more like fifty most days.

  I harden my heart and my instincts sharpen as the hate surges through me. I need to get back to him and we need to get home. I take a deep breath and creak the door open as if the wind has taken it and is playing with it. I close it again and open it as if the wind coming off the brown dry fields is playing with the door.

  My animal eyes focus on the dirt yard. Nothing moves beyond the dust dancing in the light. I should be waiting for night to travel, but I’ve stayed too long this time. I need to get back. Things only live so long without being tended to. I know this well. My garden has died many times before.

  The old barn doors in the loft swing in the soft breeze, their creaking noises slipping out into the dry air. I listen for the other noises that should be here. The long brown grass sways adding a crunching sound to the soft trickle of the pebbles scuttling along the dusty driveway. Everything moves in sync with the wind.

  I had to learn how to spot this. I learned it from him. He sees everything all at once, a hunter’s instinct. When I met him I had the instinct of prey, but he has taught me to be like him.

  I pull the door open and cringe. This is always the worst part of the walk home, leaving this house. If I ever got my wish for anything in this whole world, I would stay here and make it mine. But I understand what happens to people who have things in this world: someone kills them and takes what they have.

  It doesn’t matter what I want.

  I close it off and let the mean settle in. The mean is what gets me home and keeps me safe.

  My eyes squint in the intense light of the sun as it tries to blind me. My pack feels like a ton of bricks, but I take my first steps, desperate for it to be over with already. I don’t jostle the pack too much. I don’t want to break any jars. I have learned that pickle juice is hard to get out and backpacks are even harder to find. That’s a trip to the towns or to the old subdivisions on the borders of the cities. I’ve taken that risk before.

  Going across the gravel and dirt driveway to the field is the worst. It's wide open to the yard. I scan the area, walking with my shotgun in my hand. At home I practice regularly with my rifle and silencer, but on the road I bring the shotgun.

  It's my lucky gun. The cold thick metal of it makes me feel strong, though I know what strength is.

  Strength is not pulling the trigger. At this point, I have yet to prove my strength to myself. I always take the coward’s path. Just like my dad told me to.

  My boots crunch along. I step softly, but some noises are unavoidable. The noise will last until I reach the huge wheat fields. Then I’ll be a whisper in the wheat, like the wind.

  I enter, not looking back.

  When I reach the field, I know the rule.

  My legs groan under the first steps. My arches ache at the push in the beginning, but after the first quarter mile, I start to warm up and my legs enjoy running.

  My back is the biggest issue. The pack is so much heavier than I’ve trained with. I grip the shoulder straps tight till my arms can’t stand it for another second. Even then I push it until I reach the forest.

  I run deep into the woods, always on the same side, never the same path, but always the same destination. The branches whip past me, the edge of the forest being the thickest and
the light penetrating the least. As the forest clears I see him. He's smiling like always. He's calm. He doesn’t run and jump. He waits to ensure I’ve brought nothing with me. He’s seen them before. He knows how bad it can be. Together we’ve seen the people get swarmed and taken, usually women. Like I said, the bad people seemed to live through the hard times, somehow ready for this life of survival before the world ended.

  “Leo,” I whisper, out of breath but desperate to say one thing. Being alone in that basement for days makes me lose my senses sometimes.

  Instead of the warm greeting we both want, I turn around and hold my shotgun. I walk backward as Leo saunters over to watch the forest. We sit behind a tree and wait. After a few minutes I put the pack down and climb one of the huge trees. The thick branches are rough against my hands. The skin softens up over the spring when I don't have to chop wood. Spring ain’t what it used to be. It’s hot and heavy in the new world.

  “Not ain’t, Emma. Isn’t is what a lady would say.” I smile when I whisper it. It’s what she would have said. My granny had a thing for the word “ain’t.” She had a thing for sounding educated.

  I sit on a branch and look through my binoculars from the viewpoint.

  I have a view of the entire field of brown hay from here. In another weak moment I let myself imagine living in the farmhouse one day and harvesting the hay. Peering through the small holes of the binoculars, it’s easy to get caught up; they don’t let you see the rest of the world.

  My eyes strain. I try to find even a single strand of the long grass moving in a way to signify I’ve been followed. The farmhouse sits motionless and alone, and I hope it will sit that way until my next visit. I wait before I pull the binoculars from my face and let the breeze sway me on my perch.

  I wish for a second that I could fly away into the white clouds that appear the way they always have. They don't know the world has ended and that they don't need to make shapes for us anymore. There’s no us. Past the farmhouse everything moves just as it should. No one has followed me. I climb down, tired and eager for my own bed.