The End of the World as We Knew It

by Nick Cole

  The sky began to turn blue in the east, and I could see the silhouettes of low and jagged mountains.

  The big box store looked cold and forlorn.

  I felt tired.

  I entered the store.

  There was hardly anything left.

  Every piece of lumber, pallet of bricks, can of paint, and tool was gone.

  There was no sign that anyone had put up a defense, and I wondered if the store had gone belly up in the tough economic times that had occurred before the pandemic. Times that now seemed like some lost golden age.

  I found a packing blanket lying on a dusty countertop, and shook it out. I climbed on top of some risers to a long flat space where overstock had once waited to be moved to the floor and sold and then installed in someone’s tract home castle.

  If any of them came in, I would be safe up here.

  I went to sleep and when I woke a few hours later, I lay there listening to the birds play in the skeletal rafters above.

  Somewhere, today even, I might find Alex.

  I blocked out the ash piles and the skulls and the mass graves at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel.

  November 19th

  I left the empty big box store as the heat expanded the creaking metal roof. It sounded too much like one of them moving around. Stuck on the roof forever.

  Outside, I found an iron blue sky and a burning sun. It was hot for late fall. Still, it was California on a map that must exist somewhere.

  I went west toward a big interstate off in the distance.

  A sign told me it was the 10. I knew from one business trip to LA that the 10 ran right through the heart of the city. So I would walk west along the freeway until I reached Los Angeles.

  I passed roadside sprawls of urbanized warehouses. Huge long-stretching blocks of massive white box-buildings, empty loading bays, doors thrown open, ash piles inevitably.

  When I entered the no man’s land that lay between these places, I began to breathe again. I had waited through those long stretches of warehouses for some mass of shambling Infected to come lurching out of the dark openings, rumbling, arms outthrust toward me. But in the emptiness between those places I felt safe, and when I saw a jackrabbit I felt almost normal.

  How long will that last? How long will survivors fear abandoned places? How long will these places remain alone and unconsidered?

  At four o’clock I heard shooting.

  The sky had turned orange, and a cool wind blew off the desert, drying the sweat between my pack and my back. I stood listening to the shooting on top of an overpass. To the north lay an industrial sprawl where gun shots seemed to bounce off the alleyways that were like canyons between the massive buildings.

  When I finally spotted the source of the gunshots, I ducked behind the concrete rail of the bridge.

  It was my first reaction.

  Didn’t I want to be rescued?

  I did.

  I peered over the barrier and watched them.

  There were three men. All with guns. They were near a large off-road truck. Beyond them, a figure twisted wildly at the end of a rope hanging from a tall light post near a warehouse.

  The dark shadows of the men in the orange light of the fading day showed them to be reloading their guns, their bodies jerking in distant laughter. The hanging figure, a man maybe, seemed to dangle and flail above them, reaching out claw-like hands toward the shooters.

  They began to fire their guns into the dancing corpse. Sudden silhouettes of blood spray indicated hits, while the corpse was flung side to side as if performing some hip new dance. Suddenly it stopped as its head jerked backward.

  The men shouted in anger. One threw a hand into the air. The other two held out their hands and the man with his hand in the air shouldered his gun and reached into his pocket, handing each of the others something.

  It didn’t take much to figure out what that was all about.

  I didn’t want them to see me. Not those kind of men.

  I heard the distant roar of an engine and the sound of wheels churning up dust as the engine gunned louder and louder. I peeked over the barrier and saw their truck turning in a wide circle, raising a front of dust that covered the dangling, motionless corpse.

  They drove off into the city of warehouses, and for a while I could hear their vehicle until its sound was faint and then finally gone.

  I didn’t want to find out what I now needed to know.

  Was the corpse an infected? Or was it some traveler like myself? A loner caught by Low Men.

  Stephen King’s Low Men.

  I came down off the interstate and made my way across the weed-choked field, hearing its dry crunch beneath my tennis shoes. When I made it to the light post, I looked up.

  The dust-covered corpse was black with necrosis. Its pants were torn, its claws once hands, hung slackly downward, stretching toward the earth. He was well dressed. Or, had once been. The slacks and shirt were business casual. The shoes dress loafers. He looked Hispanic. Clean cut.

  I should have killed the woman corpse from last night.

  I should have... put her down. Is that right? No one would want this. No one would want the past weeks and months of this disease. No one would want to end as a play thing for the worst kinds of games man can invent. A game to play while the world ends. He who gets the headshot pays. The fun stops with the headshot. So whatever you do, don’t shoot it in the head. Let it dance, boys. Let it dance.

  I would have cut him down. I would have burned him. But I had nothing to cut with and I had nothing that would burn. So I left him there.

  If someone had left Alex, or what was once Alex, like this, then I would find her. I would cut her down and I would burn what was left of her. After that, I could let go.

  I feel very alone.

  Where is Newport Beach?

  November 20th

  I am waiting for the bus.

  Last night I heard vehicles racing around after midnight. I had climbed on top of an overturned semi lying across the interstate. That was where I slept, badly. It was pretty cold. The night sky was crystal clear and I could see stars like tiny pieces of breaking glass exploding away from me in the blue velvet of deep night above.

  Later, it must have been before midnight, I saw headlights in the fields to the north and watched them as they traced the empty streets in a slow convoy, playing their radios loud and gunning their engines. It was like they were trying to draw out the infected. But I didn’t hear any gunfire, so they must not have drawn any. After a while, they congregated in an area a mile or so away from me, and their headlights all went off at once. They started a bonfire.

  I thought about them all together, waiting in the darkness, together and not alone.

  At first light, after what felt like just a few minutes of sleep, I splashed some of my remaining canteen water on my face and got down off the trailer. I walked across hard dirt and uneven fields toward where I had seen the fire. I knew I was close when I smelled smoke in the air and, shortly, the aroma of coffee.

  The vehicles were all off-road trucks formed into a wide circle. As I approached, I could see at least one person standing on the roof of each, scanning the horizon. I started to shout and run forward, waving my hands. When one of them raised a rifle and aimed it at me, I shouted, “I’m human! I’m not sick.”

  As I got closer, they lowered their rifles.

  “What’s yer name, boy?” asked a kid younger than me, carrying an assault rifle.

  “Jason. Jason...” And this is the odd part.

  I couldn’t remember my last name.

  I hadn’t used it in so long, I’d almost forgotten it.

  “You ain’t sick, Jason?” asked the kid.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Got any bites or scratches? Might as well start taking your clothes off, we have to check. It’s the law and all.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Take off yer clothes. We got to inspect yer body. Gotta check for bites, sc
ratches, and the rash. You can tell the infected. Git a rash almost as soon as they come down with it. You got a rash?”

  “No. No rash.”

  “Well, we’ll see. Start taking ‘em off and don’t worry, we ain’t perverts.” He spat a stream of thick brown juice off to one side of the vehicle he was standing on. “Jes bein’ safe. You want coffee while we check?”

  “Yeah, I could use some coffee and something to eat, if possible?”

  “Yeah, we got it. Git them pants off too.”

  As I stood there, naked at dawn with twenty men and women watching me, a doctor, at least they called him “doc”, and his assistant, came out to check me. The assistant handed me coffee and some fried dough rolled in cinnamon and sugar.

  It was the best thing I ever ate.

  I’m not kidding.

  I have eaten at the finest restaurants in New York and London. But standing there in the breeze, drinking real hot coffee and chewing sweet, fried dough made me feel human for a moment. I started to cry a little, and when I did, I realized how alone I had been out there in the dark.

  “He’s clean,” shouted the doctor, and turned to head back into their perimeter.

  “You can git dressed. I s’pect you’ll want to come with us, Jason No Last Name. We can drop you at the supply rendezvous this morning and you can catch the evening bus into LA. Ain’t you gonna git dressed?”

  I said I would as soon as I finished my coffee and donut-thing. They told me it was called a churro.

  So I’m waiting for the bus at the supply rendezvous which is really just a fortified gas station. They have buses pulled around the perimeter and sharpshooters at all four corners.

  Riley, the kid with the assault rifle, told me it had gotten pretty quiet out there in the last few weeks. They were mostly in the “clean up” phase now. They didn’t suspect many of the infected would migrate across the Mojave Desert and into the populated areas of Southern California. Now they were just cleaning up strays and those that had gotten themselves trapped somehow.

  “Found one trapped in a women’s restroom at a Mickey-D’s last week. Must’ve been there the whole time. Imagine that,” said Riley. And I did.

  “Where’d you come from?” he asked me.

  “New York.”

  “New York?”

  “All the way.”

  “How?”

  “By train.”

  “Train?”

  “All the way.”

  “Where’s the train?”

  “Derailed out in Riverside.”

  “In Riverside?”

  “In Riverside.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone derailed it.”

  “That’d do it. Why was you on a train?”

  “New President sent us here to reconnect with the West Coast.”

  “Ain’t no President here in California. We got a board of Governors.”

  “How’s that working?”

  “Sucks far as I can tell.” Then, “What happened to New York?”

  “I don’t know. I was stuck inside my building most of the time. I climbed to the top of it, sixty-five floors, and when I got there I was... there was a helicopter in the sky. They came and got me.”

  “A helicopter. Ain’t that something?”

  “It was.”

  “Then you came west?”

  “I did.”

  “On that train?”

  “All the way.”

  “That’s something.”

  “I guess it is. Do you know where Newport Beach is?”

  “Yeah, it’s out by the ocean. Just follow this freeway and when you get to LA, go south on the Five. It’ll take you down to Irvine. When you get to Irvine, head west on any of them roads and you’ll end up in Newport. Simple.”

  “Sounds like it. How’d you survive?”

  I thought, maybe in California they talk about it.

  About surviving.

  But I don’t think they do.

  Riley looked out upon the vast expanse of scrub and highway for a long moment.

  “Some days I remember. Some days I don’t know how. Some days I don’t know why. I got a four year old daughter named Savannah back at base. I had to. It was just me and her. So, you know, I had to.”

  I understood.

  Remember when I told him about surviving in the Tower?

  Remember when I paused as I told him I got to the top of the building?

  I was going to throw myself off the roof.

  I didn’t have a Savannah.

  Sorry Alex.

  I can hear a diesel engine in the distance. I think it’s the bus.

  November 21st

  It’s about ten o’clock at night and I’m sleeping in a van, an old Volkswagen minibus. It’s part of a welfare hotel for refugees until they get their feet under them. I’m on level eight of a parking garage located beneath the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on the highest of Los Angeles’ seven hills.

  I think they used to hold the Oscars here.

  Not in the van. Up in the Dorothy Chandler.

  Crazy, huh?

  I got into Los Angeles late last night. The bus picked me up out in Riverside and then took forever to get to Union Station. The freeway was impassable from the wrecks and traffic jams of two months ago. Long silent trains of cars seemed forever frozen on the highway. You see a lot of broken glass. It makes you wonder.

  When we encountered these impassable barriers, the bus detoured off through a break in the highway and trundled along side streets. The driver, smiling, seemed to know where he was going as we jounced along listening to Mexican music.

  In the early evening, the bus labored up the last streets east of Los Angeles, crawling along narrow ravines through old neighborhoods where gabled houses stood guard in the twilight. Occasional dim lighting smiled wanly through the gloom. Then all of the sudden, we’re pulling through a makeshift wall into the flickering orange and neon-lit streets of downtown Los Angeles. The skyscrapers beyond the station are dark, but the streets around them are illuminated at odd intervals by running generators and light poles.

  Most of the other passengers seemed to know where they were going, and soon I found myself standing alone as the driver exited the now silently ticking bus.

  “No place to go tonight?” he asked, his Mexican accent thick and singsong all at once.

  I shrugged.

  “Hungry?”

  I nodded.

  “Follow me.”

  We crossed the street and went down the block toward the edge of a brightly lit area I thought would be busier, but was strangely lacking in human presence. At the end of the block, I saw thin light spilling out onto a street corner. The signage above the building was dark, and I could barely make out the darkened Philippe that must have once burned bright and hot in the 1950’s Los Angles nights of neon and chrome.

  At the front door, the bus driver, Alphonso as I would come to know him, said one word.

  “Chili.”

  Inside it was quiet. The floor was covered in sawdust and dishes were being cleared from long tables, as though a large group had only recently eaten and left.

  We ordered two bowls of chili with onions. Cheese was unavailable, we were told curtly by an older woman wearing a vintage waitress uniform complete with a paper cap. There was pie though. So we ordered pie and two cups of coffee. When it was time to pay, Alphonso held out large multi-colored bills and laid them on the counter. I caught the words “Republic of New California” printed on them.

  We ate and Alphonso read a newspaper that was little more than a single printed sheet.

  The chili was good, and when we finished the pie, Alphonso put down the sheet and looked out the window onto the dark street.

  “The Dodgers are going to play an exhibition game on Saturday.”

  I said nothing.

  “Imagine that,” he continued in his thick accent. “I spent six weeks at Dodger Stadium trying to survive just one more day. It was very bad. Now there
will be baseball again.”

  He sighed as he finished his coffee.

  “I love baseball,” announced Alphonso. “One year I watched every game the Dodgers played.”

  I nodded approvingly.

  “It wasn’t a very good year for the team. Still, it felt like I had accomplished something. I felt like a real fan.”

  “So,” I began, and then had to clear my voice. I hadn’t really been using it much lately. “Will you go Saturday? To the game?”

  For a long time, Alphonso stared out the window and I began to wonder if he’d heard me.

  He sighed again, which seemed to be his manner. As if the world and all that was in it were a weight that must be constantly expelled.

  “Yes,” he said simply. Then, “I will go. I must go.”

  There was more to the game on Saturday for this man than just the score and perhaps seeing a home run go out over the left field fence.

  I thought of Carmichael and his Monday Morning Meeting Bat.

  I knew that somehow Alphonso’s going to the game would be an act of defiance. I saw him sitting in the bleachers, not really watching the game. Merely remembering those six weeks that were the end of the world. He would sit and he would cheer when he must, and buy a hotdog if they had them, and maybe even a beer. In the end, as the light faded and the fans returned to their bunkers, no longer fearlessly roaming the night streets as they once had, Alphonso would smile, congratulating himself that “they” did not beat him. I don’t know how, but for a moment I felt I could read his mind, and that was exactly what he was thinking. That was his dream, or simply, that was what he knew he must do to go on living.

  We left and walked through the rubble of what, Alphonso turned tour guide, told me had once been the historic district. Bricks lay scattered in great sprays across the streets and soon, as we neared the brightly illuminated and silent freeway, we crossed over into downtown and walked up a hill, passing a modern new cathedral where candles guttered in the courtyard. I could hear mumbling, as if from many voices, and occasionally, soft weeping.

  “Many people are praying for... well you know, they are praying,” whispered Alphonso.

  At the top of the hill, we turned and crossed the street into the parking garage beneath the Pavilion. At the entrance, we were stopped by a smiling guard.