by Susan Ee
I look around and see that there are more people here than I realized. Small movements of clothes, hats, bags, and weapons shift all around us in the trees, the cars, and the wreckage of ships washed up on shore.
People are hiding nearby, listening, watching, ready to disappear at the slightest sign. A few yell questions out to us from their hiding places.
“Is it true that the dead are rising?”
“Are there really demon monsters coming after us?”
I answer the questions as best I can.
“Are you Penryn?” someone yells from behind some trees. “Are you really an angel killer?”
“Hell, yeah!” says Dum. “Come see for yourself tonight. You too can be an angel killer.”
Dum nods his head toward the car. “Go on,” he says to us. “I’ll spread the gospel about the talent show here and catch up.”
Dee grins. “Do you have any idea what the betting pool will be like tonight?”
“It’s gonna be epic,” says Dum as he struts into the crowd.
I follow Dee back into the car. The woman from Apple and the Colonel stay to oversee the evacuation while the rest of us go to the Bay Bridge to prepare for battle.
“What are the chances that our men just grabbed the boats and took off?” I ask. My stomach turns at the thought as we drive through the city.
“I’m guessing at least half of them will do us right. We picked guys who had family among this crowd.” He nods at the people standing by the water where Dum is already circulating in the crowd, getting the word out about the talent show.
“By random luck,” says Dee as he drives around a fallen electrical pole, “we happen to have stowed away the grand prize on the other side of the Golden Gate.”
“What grand prize?”
“For the talent show.”
“Duh,” says Sanjay in a good impression of Dum.
“We wanted it away from people who knew about it,” says Dee. “But in the end, we couldn’t have planned it any better if we had known what was about to go down.”
“What’s the grand prize?”
“You haven’t heard?” says Dee.
“It’s an RV,” says Sanjay, sounding bored.
“What?” Dee glares at Sanjay through his rearview mirror. “It’s not just an RV. It’s a custom-made, bulletproof, luxury recreational vehicle. And that doesn’t even describe it all.”
I raise my eyebrows and try to look interested.
“Fear not, my little padawan. You will understand the awesomeness of the Tweedle Twins when the time comes.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll at least be entertaining.” This time, rather than sounding like Obi, I sound like a patient mom. I crinkle my nose at that.
Dee holds up a set of keys. “Of course, the winner has to survive the talent show and then tear the keys out of my cold dead hands.” He grips the keys and makes them disappear.
“But there’s no doubt it’ll be worth it,” I say.
“See?” says Dee. “That’s why she’s the leader. The girl knows what she’s talking about.”
But I don’t. When we reach the East Bay Bridge, there’s nobody there.
My shoulders sink as I see the abandoned streets and empty waters. My announcement is looping throughout the peninsula, and everyone who was at the Resistance camp knows to come here if they’re willing to fight. I didn’t expect a large group, but I’m devastated that no one has shown.
“No time to stand around,” says Dee as he gets out of the car. “The guys have already started dropping off the supplies.”
I look to where he points. There’s a pile of lumber waiting by the water. “And that must be our ride now.”
Dee nods at a ferry moving our way. It used to be white once upon a time, but it looks like someone threw dark paint all over it to try to camouflage it.
“Well, at least there will be four of us in the fight.” I try to sound extra cheery.
“Three,” says Sanjay. “I’m just here as the expert. Guys like me, we’re lovers, not fighters.”
“You’re a fighter now,” I say, pulling him toward the water.
BY TWO O’CLOCK, Dum comes back with a smug grin, strutting like he just accomplished something big. There are also enough people now who have come out of the woodwork for us to have a real working crew. Lumber, hammers and nails, stereo equipment, and lighting are all being ferried and put together on the island chunk of the Bay Bridge that we’ve selected for our final stand.
By three o’clock, the first gangs roll up to the shore. By this time, there is a respectable number of refugees and freedom fighters. We’ve collected some of Obi’s old citizen soldiers who heard our announcement.
“Better to go out like a man than run like a cockroach,” says one bearded guy leading a bunch of others with gang tattoos as he struts into the group.
If the other survivors weren’t already scared, they’d be at least a little afraid now. These are the guys the rest of us avoided on the streets.
Although the new guys may have decided to join the good fight, as soon as they come, they’re more interested in establishing who’s boss. People get shoved, told to leave the shade for the gangs, tolerate food being snatched on the way to their mouths.
Everyone is exhausted and afraid, and all they seem to want to do is fight each other. Honestly, I don’t know how Obi managed all this. I wish I could figure out a way for all of us to run and hide, but we can’t do that with this many people in all their various conditions. So once again, I’m back to the last-stand concept.
I don’t like the sound of that phrase, last stand. Did I inherit the Resistance only to see it go down on my watch?
As new gangs walk into our area, they begin clashing with the other gangs. If it’s not the color of their shirts or the shape of their tattoos, it’s some other seemingly random choice of who’s on whose team as the gang population gets bigger. Some are divided down racial lines while others are split among regional lines—the Tenderloin gangs versus the East Palo Alto gangs, that kind of thing.
“This is an explosive combination. You know that, right?” asks Doc who has volunteered to be the field medic despite his arm still being in a sling. We all know he would have been rejected by the Golden Gate crowd had he gone there. There are too many Alcatraz refugees there to leave him in peace.
“We don’t need to keep it together for very long,” I say. “They’re healthy fighters, and we’ll need them tonight.”
“When Obi asked you to take over, he might have meant that maybe you should take over for longer than you’re considering.” Doc sounds like one of my old teachers, even though he looks more like a college student.
“Obi knew exactly what he was doing,” I say. “He asked me to keep people from dying. If they bruise each other while I’m trying to keep them alive, that’s just something we’ll have to deal with.”
The twins nod, looking impressed at my tough love attitude.
“We’ll take care of it,” says Dee.
“What are you going to do?”
“What we always do,” says Dum.
“Give the masses what they want,” says Dee as they walk over to two growing crowds facing off with each other.
The twins walk right into the middle of the face-off with their hands in the air. They talk. The crowds listen.
A large man struts forward from each side. One of the twins talks to the two large men, and the other twin begins taking notes as people from the crowd call out. Then everyone steps out into a circle, leaving the two large men in the middle.
As if on cue, the combined crowd begins shouting and jumping for a better view. They’ve closed the circle, so I can’t see what’s going on inside, but I can guess. The twins have started an official fight and are taking bets. Everybody’s happy.
No won
der Obi kept the twins around and put up with their antics.
By four o’clock, we have as many talent show contestants and audience members as fighters. I’m so busy I hardly have time to think about Raffe. But of course, he’s always in the back of my mind.
Will he do it? Will he kill humans in order to be accepted back into angel society? If we have to fight each other, will he hunt me like an animal?
The end of the world hasn’t exactly brought out humanity’s finest qualities. Raffe has seen people do the worst possible things to each other. I wish I could show him the other side—the best that we can be. But that’s just wishful thinking, isn’t it?
There are familiar faces among the volunteer fighters. Tattoo and Alpha from Alcatraz are there. Their real names are Dwaine and Randall, but I’d gotten used to thinking of them as Tattoo and Alpha, so I keep calling them that. Others are picking the names up, and if they don’t stop it soon, they’ll become their permanent nicknames.
It seems that half the group goes by nicknames. It’s as if everyone feels like they’re different people now, and so they shouldn’t have the same names as they did in the World Before.
I look up when people step aside to let a man in a suit and chauffeur’s hat walk up to me. Everyone stares at his exposed teeth and the raw meat where skin should have covered the bottom half of his face.
“I heard your announcement,” he says in his tortured way. “I’m glad you made it out of the aerie alive. I’m here to help.”
I give him a small smile. “Thank you. We could use your help.”
“Yeah, as in right now,” says Sanjay, waddling by us, trying to hold up his end of a stack of wooden planks. My ex-driver rushes over to help.
“Thank you,” says Sanjay with much relief.
I watch them load the planks onto a boat with easy camaraderie.
I feel like I have a lead submarine in my stomach when I think about all these people who will probably die because they believed me when I told them this was worth fighting for.
THE SUN FLASHES off the dark water of the bay below us. Even though it’s still afternoon, the sky has a fiery tinge with dark tendrils reaching across it. In the distance, the fire on the south end of the peninsula billows smoke into the air.
It’s not quite the reddish glow of the Pit, but it reminds me of it. Instead of being suffocatingly red, though, our burning civilization is ironically beautiful. The sky is alive and in motion with the reflected colors of the fire in hues of maroon, orange, yellow, and red. There are plumes of dark smoke shifting through the air, but instead of blotting out the colors, the sky blends and absorbs it, darkening some while contrasting with others.
Here on the concrete island that was once part of the beautiful Bay Bridge, the excitement is palpable. It throbs from every direction in the crowd—and it is a crowd now—as people mill around on the broken connection between San Francisco and the East Bay.
Everyone is helping set something up. Shirtless gang members show off their tattooed muscles as they climb to the highest points on the suspension bridge. The different gang factions race to fasten an enormous set of speakers and spotlights. The winner of the race claims some victory over the others for a prize that Dee and Dum have made worthwhile.
An impromptu stage is being built while people practice their talent show performances all around it. Crates have been stacked and are being nailed together for a fast and sloppy set of stage stairs.
Men in gray camouflage walk past me with their rifles. They wear large headphones around their necks and night vision goggles on their heads. I have headphones around my neck as well, but not the goggles. And instead of a rifle, I carry a pair of knives. There are plenty of guns, but the bullets are reserved for the experts.
A couple of them wear elaborate tentlike camouflage with bits of random stuff attached to it that makes me think of swamp monsters.
“What are they wearing?” I ask.
“Ghillie suits,” says Dee-Dum, walking by, as if that explains everything.
“Right, of course.” I nod as if I have a clue what that means.
I look around to see if I can be useful and find that everybody has their task and is busy doing it. Dee is handling the details of the show while Dum is organizing the audience, which is practicing the escape drill. The Colonel and the other council member who I’m starting to think of as the logistics lady weave through the throng, directing projects and keeping people on task.
Doc is handling the makeshift med station, which people avoid unless they’ve really hurt themselves. I admit, even I’m a little impressed with Doc’s dedication to people, even if I’ll always think he’s a monster for the things he did.
On the broken edge of the bridge where the rebar sticks out into the air, my sister sits with her legs dangling over the edge. Two of her scorpion-tailed pets lie curled up beside her while the third flies in loops in front of her. Maybe it’s catching fish. They are the only ones with space around them, as everybody gives them a wide berth.
I feel sick about having her here when I know she’ll be in danger. But as hard as I tried, both Mom and Paige refused to leave me. It twists my insides to have them be part of the fight, but on the other hand, I’ve learned that when you separate from people you love, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever see them again.
Raffe’s face pops into my head like it’s done a thousand times today. In this memory, he has a teasing look in his eyes as he laughs at my outfit when we were at the beach house. I shove the memory back. I doubt he’ll have a teasing expression when he slaughters my people.
My mom is nearby with a group of sheet-draped cult members. They all have amnesty marks on their shaved heads.
My mother tells me they are committed to making up for their sin of betraying me, but I wish they weren’t here at all. Still, if they want to show their commitment to the cause, sticking with my mother is a good way to show it. It keeps them out of the way, and I’m pretty sure my mom is making them pay their penance.
It looks like the only group that could use my help is the stage crew. I pick up a hammer and get on my knees to help build the stage.
The guy next to me gives me a rueful smile and hands me some nails. So much for the glory of leadership.
I don’t know what all those power-hungry people like Uriel are thinking. As far as I can tell, a leader ends up doing all the worrying and still needs to pitch in for the regular work.
I hammer, trying to settle my mind and keep from freaking out.
The sun is beginning to set, adding a golden glow to the water. Wisps of mist begin creeping over the bay. It should be a peaceful scene, only my blood feels like it’s freezing by the second.
My hands feel cold and clumsy, and I keep expecting to see vapor from my breath. It feels like I don’t have enough blood in my body, and I can feel my face turning pale.
I’m scared.
Until now, I really believed that we could pull this off. It sounded good in my head. But now that the sun is setting and things are coming together, I’m freaked out by all these people who believed me when I said this was a good idea. Why would anybody listen to me anyway? Don’t they know I can’t plan worth two pennies?
There are far more people here than there should be, and they continue to swell the ranks as ships continue to ferry them to our broken bridge. We don’t need them all, just enough to make the angels believe that coming here instead of the Golden Gate Bridge is worth their time. But we put the call out, and more and more people are arriving. It never occurred to us to put a limit on the size of the audience, because we thought it would be a miracle if we had three people who showed.
They know the angels are coming. They know this is our last stand. They know we will most likely be massacred.
And yet they keep coming. In droves.
Not just the able-bodied—the injured, the childre
n, the old, the sick—they’re all here, crowded onto our little island of broken concrete and steel. There are too many of them.
This is a death trap. I can feel it in my bones. The noise, the lights, a talent show for chrissake, at the apocalyptic End of Days. What was I thinking?
Despite the crowded conditions, the audience maintains a respectful distance from the curtains and dividers that have been set up as a makeshift dressing area beside the stage.
Dee thunks onto the stage and bounces on it. “Good job, guys. I think it’ll hold for a few hours. Good enough.” He cups his hands over his mouth and calls out to the crowd. “The show starts in ten, people!”
It’s a little odd that he doesn’t yell to the dressing area but rather to the crowd at large. But I guess he’s right—everyone here is performing tonight.
I work my way up to the makeshift stage, feeling the panic. The last time I was on a stage, the angels went berserk and decided they were going to kill everyone and feel righteous about it.
This time, I’m in front of an equally charged crowd of humans. But the emotion they’re charged with is fear and barely contained panic, not bloodlust like the angels.
In front of me is a standing-room-only crowd with hardly enough room to maneuver. The only thing that limits the number of people is the dimensions of the concrete island we chose.
People are too close to the edge of the broken bridge, where the rebar hang like dead arms reaching toward the dark water. They have children sitting on their shoulders. Teenagers and gang members are hanging off the suspension cables that rise to the sky and disappear into the wispy fog gathering above.
The thickening mist has me worried. Very worried. If we can’t see them, how are we going to fight them?
THERE MUST BE a thousand people here. I can tell from the twins’ expressions that they didn’t expect such a large showing either.
“I don’t understand,” I say when I reach the twins onstage. They’re dressed in matching patched-up hobo outfits complete with clown faces and exaggerated bed-head hair. They each hold microphones that remind me of huge ice cream cones.
