The Girl at the End of the World

by Richard Levesque

It didn’t take me long to realize how impractical Anna’s Nissan was going to be, or how I’d pretty much wasted all that time loading the car so carefully. There’d been a few cars in the middle of the streets in Jen’s neighborhood, but they’d been easy to avoid, with me driving slowly and cautiously, still feeling shaky behind the wheel. But when I got out on the main street, with the intention of getting over to Colorado Boulevard, I found it to be just about impassable.

  Cars were everywhere. Not parked. Just there. Some had crashed into each other. Some had gone up onto the curbs and sidewalks or crashed into homes and businesses. Some were just abandoned in the middle of the street.

  There were dead people in many of them—men and women and children with stalks growing out of their faces. More dead people lay in the street.

  At first, I just stared in disbelief. There were so many of them. And no one was around to do anything about it.

  No one was around.

  Just me.

  Some people hadn’t died from the disease. I saw more than one who must have died in crashes before the disease had gotten them. They were just dead, sitting there behind their steering wheels. I hadn’t been ready for that, ready to see dead people who were…regular, like me. Had some of them been immune, too, and just unlucky? I tried not to think about it, tried just to watch the road in front of me and thread my way through the cars and bodies.

  After a few blocks, I gave up, having already driven across one lawn and cutting through two parking lots to try and get through. There were just too many cars.

  I navigated into a parking lot and brought the car to a stop.

  Now what? I thought.

  I was in front of a dentist’s office. There were probably dead people inside. There would probably be medical supplies, too, but I didn’t know what I might need or what to do with any of it, so I put the thought out of my head.

  Even though I was all alone out here, I decided to protect all the supplies I’d gathered, popping the trunk and then moving all the canvas shopping bags I’d filled at Jen’s. The quilt and pillow I left in the backseat. Then I locked the car and headed out, intending to walk the mile or two to Colorado Boulevard with only my backpack and phone. I wondered about taking one of the knives from the backpack and holding it close as I walked, but everything was so quiet that it didn’t seem necessary.

  I hated that walk, hated being so close to all those people who’d just been trying to get away. How many more streets were there just like this one? How many bodies? And in how many other cities could the same thing be found? And what were the odds that some other survivor was wandering out there, thinking the same things?

  That was what I hated most—thinking. I hated wondering if I was all of a sudden the only person left alive. Anywhere. I trembled at the idea, more than at the sight of all the bodies.

  I didn’t want to believe it, knew that chances had to be good that people on other continents were fine, or at least some people. There had to be people on islands, sailors on submarines…people who were immune or just lucky, people who hadn’t been exposed yet and now knew to avoid contagion.

  That was what I hoped, what I had to believe. What choice did I have?

  I didn’t have much of a plan beyond making it to the main boulevard. I’d had a vague sense of what to do when I’d struck out from Jen’s house, but the impassability of the streets had changed that. There was no point in planning anything that had to do with driving. That new skill I’d only just started playing with was now useless.

  When I finally reached Colorado Boulevard, I realized that if I’d somehow managed to make it this far by car, I’d have needed to abandon the Nissan then. The street was clogged, cars pushed together, some still running with their owners dead behind the steering wheels. Even the sidewalk was blocked in places, cars’ front ends pushed through storefront windows. These I had to walk around or climb over; in most cases, climbing was easier. I didn’t want to start walking out into the street and the maze of cars, fearful that I’d find my way blocked. The last thing I wanted was to be hemmed in among the smashed fenders and dead people.

  As I walked, I couldn’t help thinking about where I’d spend the night. It was early evening now, and though I still had at least another hour of daylight, I knew the time would pass quickly.

  After walking a few blocks, I glanced across the street and saw three things in quick succession. The first gave me a little hope. The second brought a rush of elation. And the third terrified me.

  The first thing was simple enough—a sporting goods store. I thought of tents and sleeping bags and all sorts of outdoor and survivor gear. Food even. Lanterns, batteries. Everything I’d need if I was going to be on my own for a while.

  With one foot off the curb and heading for the store, I stopped, stock-still.

  I was no longer alone.

  A woman was walking along the other side of the street, having almost reached the sporting goods store. Why she hadn’t seen me moving along ahead of her, I couldn’t say. Maybe she’d only just started down the street. Maybe she’d just come out of a different store or restaurant or some other place where she’d been hiding. And maybe she’d been so focused on what was in front of her and on weaving her way among the dead bodies and crunched cars that she hadn’t thought to look more than a few feet in front of her.

  At any rate, she was there. I wanted to call out and wave. But I worried that I might scare her away. She looked to be in her twenties, in jeans and a pink t-shirt, her blonde hair a mess. She looked like she’d been through hell. I probably looked the same. She moved along slowly, warily, and I knew a call from me would make her bolt. Then where would I be? I certainly didn’t want to have to chase her through the streets just to have someone to talk to. But what choice did I have?

  “Hey?” I called out, hoping the word came out softly, not threatening or surprising. My voice sounded feeble and squeaky.

  But before I could get up the nerve to call out again, I saw the third thing. A man came up fast behind the woman, running full speed across a clear stretch of sidewalk. I don’t know how he moved so quietly and quickly at the same time, but he did. Neither the woman across the street nor I had any clue he was coming until he was right on her, tackling her.

  The woman fell with her attacker, barely able to gasp out a scream before he was on top of her.

  I screamed as well. “No!” Then I shot into the street, dodging around cars and hopping over a few to try and get to the other side, not sure of what I’d do when I got there.

  When I reached the sidewalk, I saw the man had one arm around the woman’s throat and the other under her stomach. He held on tight as she tried to wrestle her way out of his grip, attempting to thrash from side to side, but he didn’t show any sign of weakening.

  “No…. no,” the man kept saying while the woman writhed beneath him.

  She said nothing, just grunted in her struggle to free herself.

  “Hey!” I shouted, not sure what good it would do, hoping just to scare him off.

  The man barely glanced my way, hardly even seeming to see me. Then he buried his face in the woman’s hair and kept saying, “No…no.”

  I’d never really been in a fight before. I’d never taken karate class or anything like that. I’d never hit anybody in real anger or self-defense.

  Even so, I didn’t think twice. I took another three steps, planted myself right beside the struggling pair, and then I placed a well-aimed kick right in the man’s side.

  He shouted then and half rolled off his victim but still didn’t let her go.

  My toes hurt where I’d kicked him, but I saw my advantage and did it again, this time getting him in the stomach before he had the chance to roll back down and protect himself.

  Again, he shouted and grimaced in pain.

  “No!” he yelled.

  And now the woman under him managed to break his grasp and wriggle out from under him. She barely looked at me and then started running.


  It was the last thing I had expected. I’d just saved her life, and now she was abandoning me to face her attacker on my own.

  Thinking back on it now, I guess I might have done the same thing if I’d been in her position.

  I didn’t know what to do besides run after her, so I kicked the man again, getting him in the ribs this time and feeling his body lift just a little with the blow, and then I tore out after the woman.

  Half a block along, I started catching up to her, and when she had to run into the street to get around a delivery truck that had run up onto the sidewalk, I cut around another car behind the van and was right at her side.

  “Wait!” I said with barely enough breath to get the word out.

  She looked at me for a second, nothing but fear in her eyes. I knew she wanted to bolt again, but she was just as winded as me. So I was relieved when she just stood there regarding me and breathing hard.

  Blood streamed from her nose, and her chin had a nasty scrape on it. Her t-shirt had been torn at the collar in the struggle, a big flap hanging down across her chest. She stood up straight and tried pulling the flap up, but it just fell again.

  “You’re bleeding,” I said.

  The news didn’t seem to surprise her.

  Slowly, so as not to scare her, I slipped my backpack off and looked inside to see if I had anything she could clean herself up with. The only things useful for something like this had been left back in Anna’s car. I shook my head incredulously when I saw the kitchen knives I’d taken from home at the bottom of the backpack. It hadn’t even occurred to me to pull one on the man. I still wonder if I would have dared use it. Even so, I promised myself right there not to be caught off guard again.

  There were other survivors, and some of them were going to be dangerous.

  “I’m Scarlett,” I said.

  “Debbie.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I kept waiting for her to thank me for saving her, but she must have been too shaken up for gratitude to have gotten past her fight-or-flight filter.

  “I think so.”

  “Did you know that guy? Was he following you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean…I don’t know. I didn’t even see his face.”

  I looked back in the direction of the sporting goods store, half expecting the man to be pursuing us. There was no sign, but that didn’t give me much comfort. Rather than running after us, he could have been stalking us, prowling along among all the cars.

  “He was probably sick,” I said. “You know? Like, getting sick in the head from the…fungus.”

  “Probably,” Debbie said. “Or maybe he was an angel. They have wings, you know?”

  “I…”

  And then, there was just nothing more to say.

  I wanted to cry as I watched the blood flow from Debbie’s nose.

  I thought I’d found someone, someone like me, another survivor.

  But she wasn’t bleeding because that man had hurt her.

  She had the disease, was just a few hours behind Jen’s family and all these other people who’d been trying to get somewhere safe on Colorado Boulevard. She had been wandering along on her own, having hallucinations or delusions about angels when she’d been attacked. As good as anything else to spend your last moments thinking about, I told myself.

  I’d saved her from one thing, saved her from having her last moments being spent in agony and fear and victimization.

  But I couldn’t save her from this. There was no arguing with the blood.

  “Do you want to rest?” I asked. “Maybe catch your breath in one of these cars?”

  She considered it for a moment and then nodded.

  I glanced around, looking for a car without a body in it. There were several. A lot of people must have just abandoned their cars when they saw the street was jammed. Some lay in the road. Others had wandered off to who knows where. They’d all ended up the same.

  I chose a black BMW with its driver’s door hanging wide open. The back doors were unlocked, and I got in first, sliding over to let Debbie get in with me.

  “Only for a minute,” she said. “I need to find the angels.”

  “Okay,” I said. I looked down at her hands and saw a wedding ring. “You’re married?”

  She glanced at the ring. “I think so.” Then her eyes shifted back up to me. “You’re not…you’re not an angel, are you?”

  I smiled. “I…I don’t know what I am. Would an angel know she was one?”

  “I think so. But maybe not.”

  She looked both sad and hopeful.

  I felt terrible for several reasons. One, I knew I was about to watch Debbie die. Another, I could maybe make her feel better in these last moments, but it would mean lying to her. And lying to her about being an angel was something I felt really bad about. Finally, selfishly, I felt awful because I was about to be alone again. I hate to admit it, but that was the main reason I didn’t want Debbie to die.

  I took her hand. She seemed to have no inclination to get out of the car again. Squeezing my hand, she smiled at me, no trace of fear on her face now. I hoped she had no memory of the man who’d attacked her.

  “Are you an angel?” she asked again.

  “I think so,” I said.

  She smiled broadly. “I knew it,” she gasped. “I knew it.” Tears rolled from her eyes now. “I didn’t want to be alone. I knew you’d come.”

  I squeezed her hand back. “You’re not alone,” I said.

  Her tears kept falling.

  “Does it hurt?” I asked.

  “Some.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Can you make it stop?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Okay,” she said. Then her eyes opened wider. “Oh! Oh! It’s working.”

  Her head dropped forward and her hand went slack.

  “Sorry, Debbie,” I whispered.

  I opened the door and scooted across the seat, leaning over toward Debbie and then pulling her so she could lie on her back. Then I folded her hands across her stomach and got out of the car, turning back to pull the torn shirt so it covered her as much as it could.

  I took out my backpack and closed the door, leaning against it with my back and waiting for the popping sound. I didn’t want to see it. But I didn’t want to leave Debbie, either. I’d told her she wasn’t alone, after all.

  When it was over, I took a deep breath and walked away from the car, trying not to think about it.

  *****

  The whole time I’d been sitting there with Debbie, I’d been listening for any sign of her attacker. There’d been nothing. With luck, he was already dead. The way he’d kept repeating “No, no,” told me he’d been fixated on something, just as Debbie had been with angels or the man at the stadium with foul balls. Physically, he’d been attacking Debbie, but with the growth pressing up on his brain, who knows what he’d been imagining as he wrestled the poor woman to the ground? It certainly hadn’t seemed like any kind of sexual attack. At any rate, I wasn’t about to let the possibility that he might still be lurking on the street keep me from the treasure trove that was the sporting goods store.

  The sun had set and streetlights were coming on, but it wasn’t dark yet. I looked in my backpack and pulled out a flashlight, shoving it into my back pocket. Then I selected the Swiss Army knife and pulled out the biggest blade. It might not be as lethal as one of the kitchen knives, but it was more easily manageable. Besides, I didn’t really think I’d need to use it.

  I headed back along the sidewalk, reaching for the flashlight pretty quickly and shining it into every shadow I approached. If the man was still alive and still functioning well enough to stalk me, he wasn’t going to be so easy to spot, and more likely would be somewhere out on the street skulking among the cars and waiting for the opportunity to strike at me. But he might just as well have been in the last stages of the disease and holed up in one of the shadowy spots along the sidewalk, not really a danger to me, but not s
omething I wanted to be surprised by.

  A little farther along, I saw him. I just stood there for a few seconds, barely letting myself breathe. My grip on the knife relaxed just a bit.

  He lay on his stomach, his arms stretched out in front of him. The stalks poked out from under his face, reaching along the sidewalk toward his hand like another set of limbs. Seeing him dead like that, I felt sorry I’d kicked him, sorry his last moments had been spent hurting because of me while I’d helped make Debbie’s at least a bit peaceful. I knew my regret didn’t make any sense. I’d had to kick him, had to get him off Debbie. In the end, they’d have ended up the same way regardless of my presence here on the street. But I hadn’t known that then. I’d thought I was saving a fellow survivor, starting on a new path in this new world. Now it was just the same as it had been—terribly quiet with death all around me.

  I walked past him, not bothering to prod him to make sure he was dead. There wouldn’t have been any point. Then I walked into the store, still holding the knife but shoving the flashlight back into my pocket.

  It was weird, like I had walked into a different world. Outside, all was chaos and silence. Inside was the world as it had been. Florescent lights still burned, music still played over hidden speakers, and the smell of new things just about overwhelmed me along with all the bright colors of the shirts and helmets and kayaks on a rack along one wall. Maybe the weirdest part were the advertisements and promo posters—huge images of smiling, energized faces peering out at me from high up on the walls and atop just about every rack of clothing, people biking and swimming and playing soccer, doing all the vibrant, exciting things the store promoted and living the happy, active lifestyle all the images and products promised. And now they were all gone, their smiling faces on the posters and signs like gaudy memorials for nameless people who’d go unremembered now and forever.

  I looked around at all the survivor gear: water-purifying tablets, hand-cranked flashlights, thermal blankets. There were maps of all the local hiking areas and others of Yosemite and the John Muir Trail. There were also more energy bars and supplements than I could even consider. The teenager in me liked the gadget displays—the GPS systems and all the gear for phones and tablets; there was even a little satellite system so you could get a signal out in the middle of nowhere. It had cost thousands of dollars the day before, but it was free now. Everything was.