The Girl at the End of the World

by Richard Levesque

  I didn’t find much that was worth my time in any of the houses. I did raid a couple of people’s libraries, carting a small stack of books back to the observatory and setting up a lounge chair on one of the observation decks. There, I worked out an absurd imitation of the California Dream: lying in the sun with a book and a million dollar view as the days wore on around me. All that was missing were the servants and the millions of people in the distance going about their daily grinds.

  The generators at the observatory had died by that point, and I was surprised when I walked into one hillside mansion to find the power still on, a big chandelier still shining its light on the expensive furniture. At first, I didn’t get it, but when I walked outside again, I noticed solar panels on the roof, which also explained the few sources of light I could make out when I looked down at the city at night.

  On the ride back up to the observatory, I toyed with the idea of moving down the hill and using the solar house as my home base instead of what I’d come to think of as my hilltop fortress. Before I was halfway up the winding road, though, I’d decided against it; I knew nothing about solar technology, what it took to maintain it. For all I knew, it would last for years, and then again it might crash in another day. I was fine where I was. If I needed electricity for some reason, it was an easy trip down the hill to access it—at least for now.

  That afternoon, before cracking open the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I’d been reading, I stood at the concrete wall of the observation deck and tried to find the solar powered house with my binoculars. They were pretty high end, and I could see a lot of detail as I scanned the area. After a couple of minutes, I gave up; there was too much in the way for me to spot the house or even be sure of the exact area it was in.

  I set the binoculars on the wall and looked out at the city. Some fires still burned, but nothing else seemed to have changed. It was like I had a panoramic photo of Los Angeles to stare at every day.

  And then I snatched the binoculars up again, almost knocking them off the wall before getting a grip.

  I’d seen something move down in the city. Not just the movement of a tree swaying in the breeze or the shadow cast by a passing cloud. Something more deliberate than that. Something manmade.

  It took me a few seconds to orient my vision with the binoculars and pinpoint the area where the movement had been, lifting the binoculars to my eyes and then pulling them away again as I checked and double-checked the area. It had been several miles away, the details lost in the haze of the smoky air, but I would have sworn there’d been a vehicle moving through an intersection.

  “What the hell?” I whispered, desperately scanning left and right to find the trail of the thing I’d seen.

  And then, faintly, I picked up the sound of an engine almost lost on the breeze, but there nonetheless. Faint and far away and probably growing more distant.

  The desperation that overcame me then was stronger than anything I’d felt for a week or more. I wanted to shout and call out, wave my arms like people used to do in shipwreck movies when a freighter would show up on the horizon. We’d read Lord of the Flies in school, and I kicked myself now for not having thought of setting up a signal fire for just such an occasion.

  Turning impotently, I started a frantic search of the observation deck for something, anything to get the attention of whoever was down there in the city I’d thought of as dead or dying for days now. Of course, there was nothing. I could have run into the building and found the gun and fired it, but it would be impossible for someone down below to connect the distant gunshot with the Griffith Observatory. I wished for a flare gun, but even that wouldn’t have driven someone’s gaze up here.

  “Damn it!” I shouted and kicked over the lounge chair.

  Then I turned back to the wall and picked up the binoculars again, my cheeks wet as I held the lenses to my eyes. I think I scanned the city for at least an hour before giving up. The sound of the engine had long faded to nothing.

  I didn’t feel like reading after that. I didn’t feel like anything—not eating or even sleeping. I just wanted to be turned off, wanted to forget everything that had ever been and not think about anything that was to come.

  Inside the observatory, I took one of my flashlights and went into the planetarium, moving through the dark with my beam of light before randomly choosing a seat along one of the aisles. They were soft and reclined almost all the way back. Visitors used to crowd in here several times a day to watch the laser show on the rounded ceiling. Since moving in, I’d considered using the planetarium as my bedroom; the seats were more comfortable than the mat and sleeping bag I used in the office behind the cafeteria. I’d decided against it though, feeling a little wary about being too comfortable when I slept. I told myself it was because I needed to stay vigilant, but really I think I worried that I might wake up and, for a fraction of a second, forget where I was. It wouldn’t do to wake up and think I was home again, like Dorothy after Oz, only to find that it hadn’t been a dream after all.

  Now I didn’t care about that. I just lay back, shining the light up at the ceiling for a few seconds before turning it off and letting the total blackness of the planetarium swallow me up. If there were ghosts of ushers or scientists or James Dean in that place, they would have heard me crying in the dark for a long time.

  *****

  Before going to sleep that night, I put three powerful battery-operated lanterns along the wall of the observation deck and let them blaze into the night. It wasn’t as good as a signal fire, but it was something, and I remember sleeping decently, even hopefully.

  The next day, though, brought a little perspective to the situation, and I took the lanterns down; their batteries had died, but I didn’t even want them glinting in the sun. With the new day, I realized it might have been a good thing that I hadn’t been able to get the attention of whoever had been driving through the city. That there actually had been someone, I was sure of. No hallucinations here. Not yet anyway. What I was unsure of, though, was how trustworthy any other survivors might be.

  In my heart, I wanted to believe that anyone who found me would be a good person. Odds were that it would be an adult, someone ready and willing to help out a teenager in trouble. But what if it wasn’t? What if I’d gotten that person’s attention and it had put me into the middle of a bigger nightmare than the one I was living now? What if I’d run into someone like Jack from Lord of the Flies? It was tough to imagine, and I didn’t really want to believe it, but I had to acknowledge that it was possible. No, I finally told myself, it was better that it worked out the way it had—with me aware of someone else in the city and them clueless about me. I had the upper hand this way. Any meeting would be on my terms, my decision, my timetable. I regretted those lanterns now and hoped no one had seen them or thought anything of them.

  I ate in the cafeteria and then gathered a few things before heading out. I’d learned how to siphon gas from the Winnebago’s tank to keep the motorcycle going, and now I hopped on with a backpack full of supplies. Kicking the engine to life, I rode across the grass, the parking lot, around the motorhome, and then down the hill. Within a few minutes, I was navigating around dead cars and dead people to work my way back to the solar powered house from the day before. It hadn’t taken me long to learn how to get around the area, practically having memorized all the macabre obstacles in the streets and thinking no more of them than I would have considered stop signs or railroad crossings.

  When I got to the solar house, I went in and made myself at home, setting the backpack on the bar at the end of the kitchen and pulling up a stool. I’d only brought a few things: my phone, my laptop, and the satellite Internet system I’d taken from the sporting goods store, still in its box. I found a cold soda in the fridge and then opened the box, pulling out plastic-wrapped components and pages of instructions. It was confusing, but I read through it all and began connecting parts together with the cables inside the box.

  As I worked, I had only
real goal: to try and check in with the Australian TV station again to see if the disease had hit that continent as hard as it had hit everywhere else, or if they’d been at least partly spared thanks to being one of the last places the spores had reached. If things didn’t look safe there, I’d try New Zealand, and after that I’d search for smaller islands. Somewhere, somewhere, there had to be people who’d been spared, groups of people, people who could still make a go of it and move on into the future. I wanted to find them.

  And if I did, it would be off to a library or bookstore for me. Just as I’d learned to ride the motorcycle, I told myself I was going to learn to sail. Every day as I looked out at the city from the observatory’s deck, my eyes eventually went to the strip of ocean at the horizon. I thought of the email I’d gotten from the Australian and looked at the water, knowing there’d be good-sized boats just waiting for me. I didn’t know a thing about boats, but I knew kids younger than me had sailed solo around the world. All I needed was to teach myself what to do and how to do it. It would be dangerous, I was sure, but I was up for it. As I’d been thinking since getting to the observatory: LA couldn’t take care of me forever.

  But all my big plans for overseas communication fell flat when I got to the section in the satellite instructions on setting up an account. You couldn’t just transfer data from the satellite; you had to have everything set up beforehand. In the old world, a wealthy camper would have established an account and then gone off into the middle of nowhere, hooked up the equipment, and then been charged a ridiculous amount of money per byte downloaded. I had no doubt that I could have set up an account with a dead person’s credit card, but I needed the internet up and running to be able to set it up. And that wasn’t going to happen without the satellite account in place beforehand.

  I could have kicked myself for not thinking to try this when I’d first found the equipment, when the phone systems and everything else the Internet ran on was still functioning. But it was too late now.

  I slammed my fist down on the countertop and then threw the half-full can of soda at the wall, screaming as soda sprayed across the kitchen.

  “Damn it!” I cried. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  I almost picked up the laptop to slam it down, too, but somehow stopped myself. There might still be something I could do, something I hadn’t figured out yet. Destroying the computer and then finding out I still needed it would just be one more reason to hate myself, one more mistake I’d regret. So far I’d been lucky: none of the mistakes I’d made had gotten me into serious trouble. One of these days, though, I knew my luck was going to run out. Why help the bad luck along by doing stupid things?

  So instead of throwing a bigger tantrum, I took a few deep breaths and began re-packing my backpack.

  Call it old training, but I felt bad about the mess I’d made with the soda. The kitchen looked awful now, so instead of leaving I grabbed a sponge from beside the sink and wet it, taking a quick minute to wipe most of the splatter from the tiles and cupboard doors. Then, more old training, I rinsed the sponge, turning on the hot water the way I’d always done, just automatically.

  In a few seconds, it was running warm, and then hot. I hadn’t had running water at the observatory in days, and forget about anything warm. The water heater in this house must have run off of solar power like everything else. While no new water was likely flowing into the pipes, there was still water in the tank. I dropped the sponge and went to find the bathroom.

  Minutes later, the room was steaming, and I was having my first hot shower since the crisis had begun. On the bathroom counter, I’d found a dock and plugged my phone in; now my music blasted into the bathroom as I washed my hair and conditioned it and then just stood under the shower, letting the water pour over me. It felt luxurious, indulgent. The nicest thing I’d done for myself in…forever, it seemed. The moment I felt the water begin cooling, I turned it off, not wanting to ruin the memory of hot water on my skin. With the faucet off, I just stood for a moment, listening to the sound of the last bit of water dripping from the showerhead. Such a simple sound, one I’d never thought needed appreciating before. But I hadn’t heard it for a while now, and I doubted I’d hear it again for a long time, if ever.

  Then I got out and dried off, got dressed, and found a blow dryer for my hair. That felt weird: using some dead woman’s blow dryer and brushes and mirror to make myself feel close to normal one last time. But not weird enough to stop me. When I was finished, I wrapped the cord neatly around the handle and set the dryer down on the vanity counter. Looking in the mirror, I saw the same old me. I gave myself a half-smile, letting my dimples come to life again, and headed out, telling myself I’d be back. It’s funny what you assume sometimes.

  I was only a block along Los Feliz, heading back to the road into Griffith Park, when I realized something was seriously wrong. Some of the cars left in the middle of the street—cars whose positions I’d just about memorized while zipping around on my little Honda—had moved during the time I’d been at the solar house. I don’t mean they’d moved. I mean they’d been moved. Violently.

  I sat on the Honda, the engine idling under me, and looked at the black marks on the road where the tires had rubbed, looked at the dents and scratches in the fenders where the cars had been pushed…but by what? Turning my head, I could make out what looked like a cleared path of cars along the street for a good distance behind me. In the other direction, the path continued, stopping at the entrance into the park.

  Trembling, I thought about the flash of movement I’d seen from the hilltop the day before and the lanterns I’d foolishly set out on the wall overnight. A beacon. It had drawn something, all right. Something powerful. Someone had a powerful vehicle or some other force to be reckoned with, and they’d used it to come looking for the beacon, to come looking for me. The solar powered house had only been a block below Los Feliz, and I should have heard the commotion from there with everything else so quiet…but maybe not with the shower running and the music blaring and the blow dryer blasting hot air and a stream of noise at my head.

  Mistake after mistake after mistake. Tears of frustration filled my eyes as I thought of the observatory and everything I had stored there, set aside to get me through, to ensure my survival for just a little longer. Someone was going through it right now, someone with enough power to get rid of obstacles, a fifteen-year-old girl included. The thing I was most upset about losing—because I did think of it as lost now—was the framed photo of my family. I imagined someone picking it up, looking at it, and tossing it down, the glass cracking.

  The thought made me so angry that I kicked the Honda into gear and sped down the road toward the park entrance. Not worried about stealth or safety, not concerned about someone on my observation platform watching me through my binoculars or even through the scope of a high-powered rifle, I tore around corners, going up and up the winding road I’d gotten so used to over the last few weeks.

  I slowed as I neared the top, though, and thought about walking the rest of the way up to the Winnebago and beyond. It wouldn’t do to go flying headlong into an ambush. Nothing good could come from that. But at the same time, I knew that if someone was up here, they’d come expecting to find the observatory occupied. With the place empty, they’d be counting on my return at some point, and the sound of the little Honda’s engine would have carried up here from a long way down. They knew I was coming. If I tried switching to stealth mode now, it wouldn’t do any good.

  Even so, as I cleared the last corner and caught sight of the motor home at the top of the hill, I did stop the bike for a few seconds. The Winnebago looked untouched, unmoved.

  Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe whoever or whatever had rammed those cars aside down on the street had just kept going, passing the entrance to the park and moving on toward Hollywood. All the cars that blocked the road to the observatory had already been moved out of the way—by me. So there hadn’t really been any sign of another person or a movin
g vehicle since I’d turned off Los Feliz. Maybe I’d just assumed they’d come up here after pushing all those cars aside. Or maybe they had found the Winnebago too big an obstacle, and then just turned around and went back down the hill. I’d missed the whole show during my luxurious shower, and now they were going to leave me alone, all because of the blockade I’d stuck at the top of the hill.

  I didn’t really believe that, but there was still a moment’s hope.

  Giving the Honda more gas, I finished the climb and then got off the bike when I reached the motorhome. Pulling the gun from my backpack, I looked carefully at the old camper. It hadn’t been moved, and no new dents had appeared on its side. Whatever had pushed the cars aside down below had left the Winnebago alone, and I was grateful for that. Still, I decided it was best to walk the rest of the way to the observatory.

  Ducking around the Winnebago, I just stood and surveyed the area for a moment. Nothing seemed changed. There was no sign of people; nothing had been moved in the parking lot. And yet I felt vulnerable just standing there, knowing there was still a chance someone had gotten into the building before me. So, sticking close to the edge of the sidewalk that rimmed the hilltop, I started running, trying to duck as I went to make myself a smaller target should someone with bad intentions be watching from inside the observatory.

  Still no signs of life from the building. I stopped at the statue of James Dean, hiding behind it for a moment and waiting, listening. Nothing. Maybe they really had chosen to leave me alone. I couldn’t believe it, though. The old Winnebago across the road couldn’t have been that intimidating.