The End of All Things

by Lissa Bryan

  Carly fell silent. If Justin hadn’t found her, she would have been one of them. She would still be sitting in her apartment, numb with shock and grief.

  Justin chose not to dock at the pier where the ferry would have docked and Carly saw why as they passed. There were dozens of bodies on the dock, people who had undoubtedly been waiting for the ferry to evacuate, waiting for a boat that never came. The gulls on the bodies took flight as they sailed by, and Carly looked away. Birds, apparently, were immune to the Infection. Nature was not respectful of the dead.

  “I haven’t seen any dogs or cats,” Carly noted. “We used to have a couple of bears that came into town and ate from trash cans. I haven’t seen any, and you’d think without the Fish and Wildlife people chasing them off, they’d be scavenging in town.”

  “From what I’ve seen, it looks like many mammals weren’t immune, though I’ve seen some rabbits and squirrels. Domestic animals seem to have fared the worst. I’d guess it was because of their close, continual contact with humans. In a way, I suppose it was a mercy since they wouldn’t have anyone to take care of them any longer.”

  Carly thought of dogs and cats trapped inside their houses, of farm animals waiting in their pens and pastures for their owners to take care of them, and she had to agree. At least they didn’t have to endure a lingering death from starvation.

  Justin docked the boat and Sam jumped out as soon as it came to a halt, as though he were grateful to be back on dry land. Justin lifted Carly out, and then she helped him get the bikes up to the dock. They had to unload the wagon again and then repack it once they had it on the dock. By the end of that process, it was late afternoon, and Justin suggested they stay in town and move on in the morning.

  They found a little motel nearby and Justin came back from the office with two room keys. His eyes kept flicking around, watching their surroundings intently. She didn’t know what he was looking for, and that concerned her. Sam picked up on his tension and remained alert, his ears swiveling like little satellite dishes, listening for sounds that might indicate danger.

  Their rooms were adjoining, something that made Carly feel relieved. Just a few days ago, she’d been terrified of the Biker Guy, and suddenly she was afraid to be without him. Justin carried in their bags while Carly scooped out a bowl of food for Sam and filled his dish with clean water.

  Carly went into the bathroom and tried the taps. She squealed with delight when water flowed from them and ran into Justin’s room to announce she was taking a shower.

  “It’ll be cold,” he said, warning her.

  “I don’t care. It’ll be such a relief to get all of this grime off me.” She’d felt gross for days, since the water in her apartment stopped working, even though she wiped herself down every evening. The shower was icy but felt wonderful, and Carly washed as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to use up all the water, not when Justin still had to shower. She dried off, picked up her clothes, and gagged. She knew they were clean, but they reeked. They smelled like death, and she couldn’t bring herself to put them on.

  She wrapped herself in towels and went back into her room. “Justin?”

  “Mm?” He poked his head through the adjoining door and did a double take to find Carly wearing only white towels.

  “I can’t wear my clothes. They smell awful.”

  He nodded. “You were used to the smell. You didn’t even notice it, but you were in a building with hundreds of dead people.”

  “Ugh! I can’t . . .”

  Justin considered for a moment. “Tell you what, why don’t you wash your things out in the bathtub, and I’ll go out to that store down the street and see if I can find anything clean for you to wear in the meantime. Okay?”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” Carly chewed on her lower lip. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be left alone there.

  “I won’t be long,” he said, and he gave her a reassuring smile. “If you get scared, all you have to do is shout. I should be able to hear you down the block.” He went into his room and fished around in his bags until he came up with a T-shirt and shorts for her to wear. A faint odor clung to them, but it was tolerable.

  “Give me all of your clothes,” Carly said.

  Justin playfully grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and whipped it over his head. “Yes, ma’am!”

  Carly swatted his shoulder. “Not the stuff you’re wearing. The stuff in your bags. It stinks a little, too.”

  Justin put his T-shirt back on. “Carly, you don’t have to wash my clothes. I’ll do it myself when I get back.”

  “I can at least start them soaking. I really don’t mind. Maybe some bleach . . .”

  “No, don’t use that. We need it for purifying water. I’ll get you some vinegar while I’m out.”

  “You’re putting bleach in our drinking water?”

  “Just a little. A few drops per gallon. I’ll show you when I get back. Which reminds me, don’t drink from the taps. Use our bottled water. I’ll be right back. Put on the slide locks and don’t open the door for anyone.”

  “I won’t.”

  He laid her small gun on the night stand. “Be careful with this. It’s loaded and the safety is off. All you have to do is aim and shoot, okay? Don’t hesitate to use it if you have to.”

  “Are we in danger?” The idea of being alone in the world was terrible, but so was the idea there might be dangerous people lurking around. Like many people, she lived in her own little bubble where crime was something that happened to others. With her dad downstairs and a police officer living down the hall, Carly had always felt safe. But currently there were no police officers, either to protect people or to arrest criminals. They were on their own.

  Justin hesitated. “My spidey-sense is tingling. I think there’s someone here, watching us. Maybe they’re just as afraid as you were when you first saw me, but let’s be cautious.” He slung one of the rifles over his shoulder and wore it along with his pistol and knife.

  “I’ve changed my mind. Don’t go out, Justin.”

  “I’ll be fine, Carly. Don’t worry.” And with that, he gave her a swift hug and went out the door. Carly flipped the slide lock and engaged the deadbolt. She watched him through the window until he disappeared around a corner, then she sat down on the bed and opened her bag. She took out the Lord of the Rings DVD and traced her finger over the raised lettering on the cover.

  She and her dad had watched it during that period when her mom seemed to have just a slight cold. Gloria had gone to bed, but Carly and her dad couldn’t sleep.

  They had been watching the news all day. She remembered having the same feeling of shock and disbelief watching the Twin Towers fall when she was eleven. She’d been home with the flu that day and watched the whole thing live. This was so much worse, probably because the horror was sustained with new images every day, day after day. There was footage of hospitals so crowded the doctors had only a few inches of space to walk between the Infected—lying on cots, lying on blankets, and lying on the bare floor. There were piles of bodies outside, stacked like logs. Mass graves were dug by bulldozers. There were riots, looting, and cities ablaze with no one left to fight the fires. Roadblocks were put up to try to fight the spread of the disease, but people stubbornly streamed around them. There were not enough National Guard or regular troops left, not enough police. Not enough anything.

  Once upon a time, the government might have been able to control the flow of information, but today’s media was too widespread, too interactive for that. Thousands of people were filming the Crisis with cell phones, iPads, and cameras, uploading the video to the Internet, and sending it to news organizations. The Internet went down at one point, and people accused the government of sabotaging it, but tech buffs all over the country had an “Undernet” up and running within days. Pirate radio stations informed people how to use it.

  Carl heaved himself off the sofa and went into the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He poured an i
nch or so of the liquor into each and handed one to Carly. She wasn’t much of a drinker, and she’d certainly never drunk with her dad, but she took the glass from him and sipped from it until it was empty. Carl refilled it, along with his.

  The television showed scenes of looting and senseless destruction. One man stood in the front window of an electronics store hurling televisions to the sidewalk out front, smashing them for the apparent fun of it. He was probably Infected, his mind burned away by the fever, but at the time Carly couldn’t understand what she was seeing. There was just a constant barrage of nightmarish images her mind tried to deny. Police officers beaten to death when they tried to hold the crowds back. Refugees streaming from cities, weaving between stalled and wrecked cars. From interviews they gave to reporters, many of the refugees had no idea where they were going. They were compelled by instinct to flee from the specter of Death. Some were following rumors there were places in other parts of the country where the Infection had not spread.

  Some communities attempted to isolate themselves. One mayor was lynched after he had tried to seal off his town to prevent the Infection from entering. He was killed by enraged townspeople who wanted to bring their families there, where it was “safe.” They didn’t understand or accept that bringing others in would destroy that safety.

  “Things fall apart, Sugar Bear,” Carl said, and his voice held a hollow note she had never heard before. “The center does not hold.”

  He flipped the channel, and there was a preacher behind a pulpit, his face burning red and his eyes bleary with fever, raving that the president had released the virus to kill Christians. On the next channel, a talk show host was insisting the virus had been released by religious zealots trying to bring on Armageddon. An “analyst” on another channel declared it could only be the work of terrorists, and they needed to start bombing immediately before it was too late.

  The president himself was on the next channel pleading for peace and order, and begging people to obey the quarantine orders. He swore the government and the CDC were doing all they could to stop the spread of the Infection and find a cure.

  “He’s in the bunker,” Carl said.

  “How can you tell? What bunker?”

  “The curtain in the background, see how it’s folded at the edge there? The cinder block wall behind it? There’s a bunker in a secret location where the top government officials are supposed to be moved in case of emergencies just like this. We used to call it the ‘Bug-Out Bunker.’ ” Carl refilled their glasses again.

  Carly’s hand shook so hard she sloshed some of the liquor out of the glass. She set it on the end table before she spilled it all and dropped her face into her hands. Her dad rubbed comforting circles on her back until she managed to get herself under control again.

  “Hey, why don’t we watch a movie, Sugar Bear?”

  “Okay.” Carly’s voice didn’t sound like her own. She liked the idea, liked the thought of being able to escape for just a little while.

  “Go put something in. I’ll make us some popcorn.”

  Carly had grabbed the first one off the shelf and put the disc into the player, not knowing what she had chosen until the first scene began. And so they had watched all three Lord of the Rings movies because Carly didn’t want to go back to watching the news, and when the movie was over, she’d feel like she had to. She had laid her head on her father’s shoulder, and they’d watched the movies as things fell apart all around them. But for a few, precious moments, they escaped reality.

  Carly put the DVD back into her pack. Her father had been looking forward to The Hobbit. They’d never get the chance to watch it together, and that thought made her throat tighten. Sam, sensitive as always to her moods, hopped up beside her on the bed and laid his head on her thigh.

  A large shadow crossed in front of her window, and Carly gasped. She ducked down behind the bed. The shadow moved away, and she heard something clatter, like metal on concrete. It wasn’t Justin. He wouldn’t lurk outside, moving back and forth as though he were searching for a good hiding place.

  Carly picked up the gun and gritted her teeth. She had never thought she’d be able to kill anyone in cold blood. It just wasn’t in her nature. But imagining whoever was out there setting up an ambush for Justin made her willing. Carly crept over to the door, crouched low. Sam joined her, crouching himself, his ears pointed forward like horns, and when that clatter sounded again, he gave a soft growl. She had to stand to flip the latch, but she sank back down. Deep breath. You can do this.

  Carly opened the door in a flash and held the gun out with both hands, prepared to take the shot . . . and found herself staring into the face of a curious horse. Carly was so surprised she lost her balance and fell back onto her ass. The horse lowered its head and snuffled at her. At her side, Sam sniffed back at the horse, and the horse recoiled a bit, its instincts telling it the smell of a wolf meant danger. But it appeared the horse’s fear was outweighed by the desire for companionship since it didn’t retreat.

  Carly stood and the horse turned its massive head to look her over with one of its large, soft brown eyes. She reached out and stroked its nose. “What are you doing here, horse? I thought none of you survived the Infection.” She supposed if some people were immune, the same would hold true for animals. And this poor horse must be lonely.

  “Are you a girl horse or a boy horse?” Carly peeked beneath it. “Ah! A girl horse.” The horse’s brown coat was shiny, with white socks on all four legs and a lightning-shaped streak down the center of her face. She wore a red halter which had the word “Cloud” stitched on it. “Is that your name? Cloud? You don’t look like a Cloud to me.”

  The horse pushed forward with the obvious intent of coming inside and making herself comfortable.

  “Oh, no you don’t. No horses on the bed.” Carly took hold of the horse’s halter and pulled her out of the room, just in time to see Justin coming across the parking lot.

  “What the fuck?” he said succinctly.

  “I found a horse!” Carly chirped. “I think I’ll name her Shadowfax.”

  The horse lipped at Carly’s fingers. Carly giggled and stroked her neck.

  “Carly . . . you named her?” Justin looked dismayed. “What are you going to do with her?”

  “She can come with us.” Carly gave Justin no room for argument. Just like Sam, Shadowfax wouldn’t survive on her own, and Carly couldn’t bear to abandon her to a lonely, miserable fate. “Maybe if we find a saddle, I can ride her instead of the bike.”

  “Have you ever ridden a horse before?”

  “No. But how hard can it be?”

  Justin rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Why not? She can pull the wagon, so you don’t have to hook it up to your bike.”

  “Horses need to be taken care of, Carly. If she’s going to follow us on the roads, she’ll need shoes or her hooves will split.”

  Carly looked at the horse’s feet. She saw a hint of silver metal below each hoof. “I think she has them.”

  “Right. But what if she throws a shoe?”

  “I don’t know, Justin, but we can’t just leave her here.” Carly crossed her arms and glared at him.

  “Aw, Christ . . .”

  She could tell he was wavering and had to suppress a grin. “And horses eat grass, right? She’ll find plenty of that along the road.”

  “I’ve been around horses, some. Not much, but enough to know they need more than just grass.”

  “How do wild horses survive, then?”

  Justin swore under his breath and turned the wagon around. “I’m going to the goddamn feed store.” As he walked away, she heard him mutter, “. . . Pied Piper of the Apocalypse . . .”

  Shadowfax stayed in the small grass lot beside the motel all night. Carly got up several times to check on her, peeking through the curtains to make sure she was unharmed. In the morning, Justin slung the bags of feed onto Shadowfax’s back and tied
them in place.

  “She can carry her own food,” Justin said in a tone that dared Carly to argue.

  “I don’t think she minds,” Carly responded cheerfully, still secretly gleeful over her victory in keeping the horse.

  They climbed onto their bicycles and set off down the road, Shadowfax and Sam following behind them. Shadowfax seemed a little leery of Sam, but Sam seemed to like her, and a couple of times he tried to engage her in chasing games. Shadowfax didn’t speak canine, so Sam’s play bows and yips didn’t mean anything to her. She plodded on behind her new human herd.

  It was a lovely day for travel. The sun shone brightly through the trees, and the birds sang as though the world was still the same. In the woods, Carly could pretend it was.

  They passed cars stalled on the road, people who had tried to flee for the countryside and had gotten stuck in some sort of traffic jam. At the end of the line of cars, they saw the accident that had caused the traffic jam. It was not much more than a fender bender, but apparently, the people had waited for the police and tow trucks to come as they would have when the world was normal. Carly wasn’t the only one who hadn’t understood or accepted things had changed. The opposite side of the road was empty, but the cars hadn’t tried to take advantage of the clear lane. She wondered why none of them had decided to simply drive down the other side of the road, but she supposed they had obeyed the law up until the very end, just as she had written checks for the things she took from the store.

  Carly was very careful not to look inside the cars. Justin, however, stopped on occasion and took something he felt would be useful. He found a rifle, a gallon of water, a case of canned food . . .

  At her look, he said softly, “Carly, they don’t need it anymore.”

  “It still feels wrong.”

  Their route went along Tanani Bay, and when they reached their destination, there was a pier with a ferry boat sitting idle in the dock. The ferry was large, with an open back that allowed for cars to be driven onto it. Justin loaded the bikes, the wagon, and one reluctant horse, who didn’t like the way the vessel shifted beneath her hooves.