Notes From the End of the World

by Donna Burgess

  He leans close and kisses my nose. “We’re drunk.”

  I smile. “So?”

  “So, I should get home.”

  Nick kisses me again, the way a guy who has no plans of leaving might kiss. But in a moment, he’s gone, vanished through the window and into the unpredictable suburban night.

  ***

  ***

  January 18

  Cindy

  It’s around 10 o’clock when something flashes past my bedroom door. Knowing Mom’s been “asleep” for hours, and Dad is likely at the hospital under the guise of helping people, something in the pit of my stomach does a funky flip-flop when I realize who (or what) it is.

  I put aside the sketch pad half-full of drawings that Nick gave me the other night, but I keep the pencil in my fist as I slip out into the dark hallway.

  “Audrey?” I half-whisper, which is stupid since Mom’s not waking for anything (except maybe another glass of wine), and Audrey isn’t answering. I flip on the light. I haven’t seen Audrey for nearly a week. Dad places sedatives in her raw ground meat—beef, turkey, pork—whatever we can get our hands on—and slips it into the door quick like he’s feeding a raging lion. Once he knows she’s out, he enters her room and jabs the useless Phalanx into her vein like he can’t see what she’s become.

  There’s a slug’s trail of black-red blood and ooze on the hallway floor and along the walls here and there. It stinks of decayed meat, and I would puke if I’d eaten anything tonight. With Mom in her state, and Dad staying away as much as he does, I get away with not eating most nights. The muscle tone in my legs has diminished, and my clothes are looser, but nothing major. Yet.

  Something in my brain tells me to go as light as I can stand on what little food we have left. Besides, I can’t eat when I’m scared, and I’m scared nearly all the fucking time lately.

  Just like now.

  My hands shake, and I call Audrey again. The pencil is sweating in my fist.

  Then I hear her moaning. Not those fake zombie-groans like on The Walking Dead. It’s more of a mournful weeping sound, if wild animals could weep. That’s the sound I’ve learned come from the Shamblers—that sad moaning and screaming. Enraged, frustrated, starved screaming.

  I’ve become used to both coming through the walls of Audrey’s bedroom.

  There’s a dull thumping noise, and I realize she’s stumbling down the stairs. Part of me wants her to get outside. That would take the weight of taking care of her off my back. A cop or a soldier would take her out and this would all be over.

  At least Audrey’s chapter would be finished.

  I jog down the stairs, careful not to kill myself on the slick mess my sister’s leaving behind on the floor, and see her crooked, spidery shape silhouetted against the wintery moon glow pouring through the kitchen windows. At first, I can’t tell whether she’s facing me or looking outside.

  “Come on, sis. Let’s get you back upstairs.”

  She groans softly and turns toward my voice. Her face is hidden behind a thick, tangled veil of dark hair.

  “Audrey?”

  Her head jerks again and again as if there’s a broken hinge in her neck. In the quiet of the house, there’s the faint splatting sound of blood or waste leaving her body. Her odor is rancid enough to make my eyes water, and I try to breathe through my mouth—something I’m growing more accustomed to.

  Then for a few moments, Audrey becomes perfectly still. The jerking stops. The groaning stops. There’s only that dripping sound.

  I mouth is so dry, and my heart is pounding like something is going wrong with my body.

  I open my mouth to speak to her again, but she suddenly drops her head back, turning her face to the ceiling.

  She shrieks.

  The shrillness of her voice is inhuman, like a siren blaring directly into my ears.

  I drop the pencil, and do not have enough wits to grab a kitchen knife or any other thing to defend myself. As she takes a clumsy step toward me, I thrust a kitchen chair toward her, making her stumble, and tear out of the kitchen and into Dad’s office.

  The gun is in his desk drawer and the thought flashes through my mind. I can’t allow my face to be ripped off, but still, she’s my sister. I leave the gun alone, and crawl under the desk, pulling Dad’s heavy leather chair in behind me.

  Shamblers aren’t smart, and they aren’t quick. She may never realize where I am. I just pray Mom’s doesn’t stagger down for a glass of water, or Dad doesn’t walk into the house and into Audrey’s hunger-crazed arms.

  I pull my knees up and press my face against the soft flannel of my pajamas, fighting the need to cry, and biting back the scream that’s building in my throat.

  How the hell did she get out? Did Mom leave her room unlocked? Maybe she has a reason that’s only evident to people who are drunk and hopeless.

  Either way, blaming Mom isn’t helping me right now. Something crashes and shatters on floor. The funk of Audrey’s decaying body grows stronger.

  I bite my bottom lips, drawing a thin taste of blood and try to make myself even smaller under the desk. Audrey screams, and the sound is like she’s swallowed broken glass. How has Mom not heard this?

  She’s at the desk now—I can make out the shape of her body against the scant light coming in around the windows. She’s become the color of ash, dressed in panties and one of Dad’s Blue Devil t-shirts. Her icy toes brush my toes as she pushes toward the desk, stupid and unaware of the chair that’s between us. I yank my foot away, biting back a cry. I never imagined how cold she’d become.

  I’ve heard they can smell the living. I know I can sure as hell smell the dead.

  A wheezing sigh and she then tugs at the chair. Maybe she’s not so stupid after all. But I grip it with everything I have to stop her from pulling it away, exposing my safe spot.

  She tugs at the chair once again and this time, she almost snatches it from my grasp. Screaming, she begins shoving it hard back toward the desk. Frustrated and angry, she sounds like a wild thing. I can’t say animal because no living animal has ever sounded that way.

  “No! Audrey?” Mom’s there. God, I hope she’s not too close.

  A door slams. More hard thumps and shuffling, followed by a breath of silence.

  Suddenly, I’m staring into the dead eyes of my older sister as she tastes the floor.

  ***

  Weeks ago Dad learned it was best to keep a super-octane sedative in one pocket of his labcoat. In the other pocket, he carries a 9mm in the other. I don’t know where he got it and I don’t care. I’m afraid to think of how many times he has used it lately. Saving people and killing them at the same time, I suppose.

  But it was the sedative he used on Audrey because that’s the only way a dad can react.

  “Cindy?” Dad calls.

  “I’m under the desk.”

  He removes the chair and takes my hand and I notice we’re both trembling. I can hear Mom weeping somewhere in the corner, still hidden in the shadows. I fall against his chest, suddenly woozy and exhausted.

  “Meg,” Dad says. “Get these lights on. That sedative will wear off soon enough. We need to get Audrey back up to her room.”

  ***

  Back in my bed, I can’t fall asleep. I’m still too jacked up over almost dying only an hour ago. I press my head against the wall, doing what I know I shouldn’t be.

  “What the hell happened, Meg?” Dad’s never raised his voice to any of us. Even now, his voice is even, his anger contained.

  “I don’t know. I took her a little food, and peeked in at her for a while. I guess I forgot to lock it back. I just forgot, Ben.”

  “Well, you’d better get it together. Our other daughter was nearly killed tonight because you cannot go an hour without a drink lately.”

  “But everything’s fine, now. We’ll get another lock. A better one.”

  “What good does any kind of lock do, if you leave it unlocked?” He sighs. “We’ve done all we could. It’s time
to make the call.”

  “What do you mean?” Mom sobs.

  “I mean Audrey is gone. We need to allow her some dignity. We can’t keep her here like she is.

  “Although I’d prefer to just put her down, I’ll call The Pastures in the morning.”

  Mom mutters some response, but I cannot make it out. I’ve heard all I needed to hear, anyway.

  I pull away from the wall, press my face against my pillow, and wonder why I cannot find any more tears for my sister.

  Chapter 18

  January 21

  Cindy

  “Call 1-888-Dignity,” it says on the side of the van, just like Nick had mentioned. It’s a harsh-looking prisoner transport wrapped with too-bright images of rolling hills and a big live oak. So tranquil that you almost forget your family member has become a raging zombie.

  The undertaker for The Pastures refers to himself as a “transition director.” His name is Melvin Erwin (“just call me Mel”), and he’s packing heat under his black jacket. Dad makes all the arrangements as Mom sits silently, dry-eyed and out of it. Dad has given her Valium. That scares me a little since she can’t stay out of the wine.

  Mel goes over some different packages, all of which are somewhat costly as compared to just putting the infected person down, if you ask me. I don’t mean to sound heartless, just realistic. Dead is dead, and the ability to walk and eat doesn’t make them any less dead. Mel also goes over memorial services, suggesting the home service, considering the dangers of being “out and about at the moment.”

  “Thank you, but no. We’ll have a private remembrance here. There’s no need for anything more. There’s so much death. Funerals have become pointless,” Dad tells him. “Just see to our daughter. Make her as comfortable as possible.”

  When they wrap things up, Mel takes out his cell. “We’re ready,” he says, the puts the phone back into the breast pocket of his jacket. In seconds, four heavily-armed, heavily-armored, muscle-bound dudes in baseball caps with “The Pastures” logo appear at the front door, ready to escort Audrey to her new home.

  Apparently, they are extremely efficient with what they do. Within ten minutes, Audrey emerges down the stairs, strapped to a hospital gurney, dressed in the dark purple frock she loathed but kept because Grandma bought it for her. What irony—Audrey set for the rest of her days in an outfit she hates. She’s barefoot because even the best “transition director” can’t keep shoes on the living dead. Her hair is a mad tangle, and her eyes are as pale as her flesh, staring upward to the ceiling. Her lips have been completely chewed away. She smells so bad that I want to get out of there, but I force myself to stay. She’s shackled at the wrists and ankles, despite being belted to the gurney. She’s been dosed with some sort of tranquilizer, I assume, as she’s quiet and barely moving.

  Mom approaches, wearing a loopy, somewhat inappropriate smile, as the men move toward the front door. “Can I say goodbye to her?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Mel answers, “but I must request that you do not touch her.”

  “But she’s strapped down. She’s handcuffed,” Mom argues.

  “Meg. Please—” Dad begins. He places his hands on her shoulders, but she shrugs them away.

  “It’s for your own safety, Mrs. Scott. I realize how difficult this must be, but the tranquilizers have only limited effect on those in this stage of infection. And every case is different. She may wake at any moment.”

  Mom gives Mel a look like she’d be just as happy to see his head explode.

  “Meg. Say goodbye,” Dad whispers.

  I move closer and take Mom’s hand, but Mom pulls away from me just as she did Dad. Maybe this should've hurt my feelings, but it doesn’t. Audrey was always her favorite, anyway. I came to terms with that sometime around my tenth birthday when Audrey told me that Mom had shared that little tidbit with her when they we out shopping together.

  Mom then leans close to Audrey and says something I can’t make out, then heads upstairs without another word.

  I can’t think of anything profound to say, so “See ya on the other side, Big Sis” pops out of my mouth. My face grows hot even though there’s nobody there for me to feel embarrassed in front of. I then head to the kitchen, leaving Dad to say his own goodbyes.

  ***

  The house becomes like a tomb once Audrey is gone. Not hearing her screams isn’t any better than hearing them. I listen to music and try to sketch, but my mind’s everywhere, and nothing I think of is positive. I text Nick about what’s happened, and he responses with a sad face followed in a few minutes with “OK if I come ovr ltr?”

  I need him more than he realizes, and more than I am able to express to him just yet. Sure, society is falling all around us, but I don’t want to come across as needy.

  Dad gave Mom another Valium, and she’s sleeping in her black go-to-funerals-and-fancy-party dress, sprawled across her bed, uncovered, still wearing her shiny black pumps. Her normally perfect makeup is smudged, making the little lines around her eyes stand out. She looks old. Old and worn out.

  After a moment, I decide to crawl onto the bed next to her, feeling a little strange because we’ve never been that close—it was always Mom and Audrey on one side and Dad and me on the other. I reach out and take her bony, cool hand in mine. I don’t think I’ve held her hand since I was ten, and feel bad for not being a better daughter. She hasn’t been able to speak to Grandma in weeks, but she’s hanging in there. We can’t help but think the worse, so, I’ll hand it to her. Maybe the wine is her way of dealing. Looking at it now, I realize that drinking isn’t any worse than Dad running away to hide at the hospital to escape the hell of watching his family come apart.

  I stare at the ceiling, listening to her shallow breathing and my heartbeat in my ears. The winter sun pours in the window, and for once, I wish it was raining. Raining it more fitting for a day like this. Sunshine is too ironic, like nature’s way of reminding me that none of us mean as much as we’d like to believe. When we’re all gone, the sun will still shine, and the birds will still sing.

  After a while, I feel Mom stir, and I turn my face to hers. She touches my cheek, and pushes my hair back from my eyes. “I’m sorry I haven’t been much of a mother lately.”

  I squeeze her other hand gently before letting it go. “It’s no big deal. I don’t think I’ve been a very good daughter,” I say. “Or sister.”

  “You’ve done all you can, Cindy. We’re all just tired. I’m tired. Tired and numb and hopeless.” Mom turns her face to the ceiling and sighs. We’re all going to end up like Audrey. Or Grandma.”

  “We don’t know that Grandma—”

  “We do. Let’s not pretend.”

  Now the tears do come. I may have run out of tears for Audrey, but Mom saying this about Grandma makes it real. Of course, we all knew it was the most likely scenario when we could no longer get in touch with her. Her house was empty when Dad and I went over there to check on her. Untouched like she’d just stepped out to the supermarket or the post office.

  Dad took what food was left there—he made me promise not to tell Mom. That day, I decided to believe she’d been taken to one of those FEMA camps, and was safe and sound there.

  “Your father is playing with fire,” Mom goes on. “If he continues going to the hospital, it’s only a matter of time until he becomes infected, as well.

  “I never knew there could be anything worse than death.”

  I roll over and hug Mom. The smell of wine is a perpetual cloud around lately. “We have to be strong, Mom. And smart.”

  “Audrey was both of those things,” she whispers as I pull away. “It’s only a matter of time for the rest of us.”

  I go back to my room, unwilling to hear any more, close the door behind me, and move to the window to look out. I would love go outside and run, or feel the solid impact of a soccer ball against my laces. I would love to feel the sharp chill of the January air in my lungs and the too-bright sun on my face.

  I woul
d love to get out there and smell the cleanness of the ocean instead of the stink of death that hangs constantly in the air like a warning.

  Everything out there looks …off. The neighborhood is nearly empty—there’s maybe a dozen families left in Sawgrass Flats. The lawns are brown and ignored. The silence is broken at irregular intervals by helicopters beating the air or gunshots.

  My God, I’ve become so used to those noises that I barely notice them anymore.

  Chapter 19

  February 9

  Nick

  I’m trying to draw because the internet is down again, but my mind is blocked of everything but ugliness and dull, constant dread. Lines bleed from the end of my pen, creating chaotic scenes—a monster with a skull face and the figure of a hot girl. Behind her are swirls of smoke, but nothing definitive or familiar. I tear the page from my tablet, wad it up and toss it onto the floor, then collapse back onto my bed. I consider finishing the last of the weed I have hidden under the paints and brushes in my art bag, but decide I’ll save it for when I sneak over to Cindy’s. She could use it, after everything she’s been through. Besides, why waste it out of boredom? Who knows when I’ll ever get any more?

  Mom’s been freaking out because Miles hasn’t been home in three nights. She spoke to him on his cell the first night and he claimed he’d be back the next morning, but nothing. No more calls, texts. I’m torn between thinking he’s dead (or infected) or else, he’s taken off for somewhere safer, leaving Mom and I to take care of his screaming brat, who must be napping because the house is eerily silent.

  That silence is quickly broken with a crash. I jump, my heart pounding, and sit upright on my bed, looking around. Micah is shrieking at the top of his lungs now—Mom’s break from his wailing is over.

  But what the hell was that sound? I go to the window, but there’s nothing to see out there but weeds taking over the back lawn and our pool that’s turned green with algae and ridden with dead leaves.