I decided not to go up to the main entrance. That might be what anyone who’d just gotten here might expect. No, I ran down the stairs along the side of the building and into the cafeteria area where I’d made my base. Again, all looked undisturbed. I went back to the office where I’d been sleeping, quickly surveyed the scene, and then slipped the photo of my family into my backpack after determining that no one had been here either.
The same held true for the rest of the building. For almost an hour, I swept through it as carefully as I’d done on the first day, checking every room and hallway, cautiously rounding every corner inside and out with my gun in my hand and telling myself I might actually have to use it.
Nothing. There was no one there. Just me.
I sat down on my lounge chair after completing my search and took some deep breaths. Feeling worn out from being on such high alert the whole time I’d searched the building, I wanted nothing more than to sit, to be able to read my book and feel the breeze and have everything be like the day before, but I knew I couldn’t do that.
Someone else shared the city with me, someone who’d figured out how to harness a powerful vehicle where I’d opted for a little trail bike, someone who pushed things out of the way where I went around them. And that someone knew I was up here. Of that I was still certain. Maybe they hadn’t opted to raid my fortress, but they’d been nearby and hadn’t been worried about keeping their presence a secret. Maybe they’d leave me alone. But I doubted it. I felt like I was now a player in a huge game of chess; the rearranged cars on Los Feliz having been my opponent’s latest move. And now I was left to figure out what it meant, what the strategy could be, how the next three or four moves would go and how best to counter them.
I had no idea how to start figuring this out, though: I’d always been lousy at chess.
“Hello?”
The voice came from down the hill, a man’s voice calling out.
I wanted to jump to my feet and run to the edge of the observation deck so I could peer over and see, but I forced myself to stay planted to the lounge chair.
“Anybody up there?”
My heart pounding, I slid off the chair and into a crouch. With the gun held tightly in one hand, I slunk my way over to the wall, careful not to expose myself to whoever was coming up the hill. Several hiking trails led up to the observatory, and I guessed that my visitor was on one of these. My position above him and behind the thick wall that bordered the observation deck gave me a complete advantage over the man, but that didn’t make me breathe any easier.
“I don’t want to hurt you or anything. Not trying to scare you, okay? You want me to go, I’ll go.”
To call out, or not to call out? Let him know I’m here, or make him keep guessing?
I couldn’t decide, which was a decision itself. Stuck between choices, the result was not calling out, keeping him guessing.
“I saw your light last night.”
He sounded young, not threatening. I knew that didn’t mean anything, though.
The longer I waited, the closer he’d get. Whichever trail he was on, it would end at the top of the hill soon enough, and then he’d be exploring the observatory. I wouldn’t know where he’d be. Right now I did know. I decided to hang onto whatever advantage that gave me.
“What do you want?” I called out, still keeping myself below the top of the wall.
There was a moment’s pause from him, during which I had to wonder if he’d heard me, if I’d been loud enough. Then I heard him say, “I just want to find out who’s up here. I thought I was all alone till I saw your light.”
“There are other lights left on. You go looking at every one?”
“No. Yours is the first new one I’ve seen, though. The first new anything I’ve seen. You must have thought someone would come looking.”
He had me there.
“I wasn’t sure,” I called out.
“What’s your name?”
I didn’t want to say. Not that it made a difference. I could have given him any name I wanted. I just didn’t like him knowing anything about me. Or thinking he knew.
“You first,” I yelled.
“Chad,” he said right away.
“Chad what?”
“Chad Maxwell,” he answered without hesitation. Probably not a lie.
“Are you alone?”
He actually laughed at that.
“Well, yeah, I’m alone,” he said after a second. “Never been more alone in my life.”
“How’d you move all those cars down below?” I asked.
“Cars?” he asked. “I came on foot.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I didn’t like that answer. Could there really be two people who’d seen the lights? This Chad person and someone else who had the power to move those cars out of the way on Los Feliz? It seemed doubtful to me.
“Where have you been staying?”
“I found a house with solar power and got enough bottled water and canned food out of a grocery store to get by on. Not as good a spot as what you picked.”
“So what now? You want to try and take it from me?”
“No.” He sounded confused, maybe even hurt. “I just wanted to see who’s up here. I mean, we’re neighbors now, right? Even if I’m half a city away, we’re still neighbors. I figured it made more sense to see if we could maybe help each other rather than both of us just going it alone. You know?”
Slowly, I stood up, just high enough to be able to see over the wall and ready to duck again if anything seemed wrong. He stood on the bare hiking trail not far below the deck—not a man, I saw now, but a kid, like me, with sandy hair and a scruff of beard, cargo shorts and a striped t-shirt with a hole in the sleeve. His hands were empty, but he had a backpack on his shoulders.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked as I held my gun up for him to see.
He put both hands out in front of him, palms facing me in an effort to keep me calm. “Just some supplies,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.
Slowly, with one hand, he slipped the pack off his shoulders and bent to open it.
“Don’t shoot me, okay?”
I didn’t say anything, just watched, glad he wasn’t taking an aggressive tone.
From the backpack, he drew a bottle of water, a hat and sunglasses, and some small packages, probably energy bars. Their foil wrappers glinted in the sun. Then he tipped the bag upside down and shook it gently to show me that nothing else was coming out.
“See?” he called. “Just supplies. Nothing scary. I promise. I didn’t come up here to try and hurt you. Or take away your…observatory.”
I thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. “All right. Come up.”
Trying to keep an eye on him, I watched him re-pack his things and begin up the trail again as I went along the edge of the observation deck toward the side of the building that had access to the main entrance. I wanted to be out front when he got to the top of the trail.
It took him several minutes. The trail didn’t come straight up to the observatory but must have deposited him somewhere near the road and the Winnebago. When he rounded the side of the old motorhome, I tensed a bit and gripped the gun a little tighter, wondering if I could actually use it if I felt threatened. So far, he seemed all right, but I couldn’t be sure. He might have been telling the truth, and he might not have. The phrase those cars didn’t move themselves kept running through my head, keeping me focused.
He must have read my mind, as he stopped halfway across the parking lot, raised his hands over his head for a moment, and then slipped off the backpack, letting it drop to the asphalt without giving it a glance. Then he started walking again.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I felt my palms grow moist as well. I didn’t know what to do. Worried about all the mistakes I’d made until now, I wondered if my luck had finally run out, if I was making another mistake, a big one, that wouldn’t be revealed
to me until it was too late, far too late.
At the same time, I wanted desperately for him to be all right. Just seeing and hearing him made me realize how lonely I’d been, and I knew the silence of the observatory would be horrible if the next five minutes worked out badly and I had to send him away—or worse—and ended up alone again.
He had crossed the parking lot now and began making his way across the expanse of lawn. I stayed silent, just shifting my weight from leg to leg, watching his progress.
When he got to the foot of the steps, he stopped and smiled at me. He had kind eyes and looked sort of boyish in spite of the scruffy beard. Actually, the wiry hairs made him look more boyish, as it wasn’t a proper beard; he needed a few more years for it to look right. His hair had probably needed cutting before the disease struck. Now it wanted to drop down in his eyes, and he casually pushed it aside so he could keep looking at me.
“Nice place you got here,” he said, cracking a smile.
“Thanks.”
“So…you gonna invite me in?”
I shook my head. “This is fine for now.” I nodded toward him. “Why don’t you sit down?”
He raised an eyebrow at me and then sat cross-legged at the base of the steps, looking up at me. I hesitated a moment and then sat down, too, keeping the gun in my lap, one hand on it.
“I still don’t know your name,” he said.
“Scarlett.”
He thought about that for a second, then nodded. “Hi, Scarlett. Nice to meet you.”
I still wasn’t sure if it was nice to meet Chad or not. I wanted it to be, though, so I said, “Same here. How old are you?”
“Does it matter?” I just raised an eyebrow at that. He smiled, kind of foolishly, and brushed the hair out of his eyes before answering, “Seventeen. You?”
“I just turned fifteen. Before … you know.”
He gave me a grim nod. “How long have you been up here?” he asked.
“Couple weeks.”
“Almost since the beginning.”
I nodded. “Have you seen anyone else?”
He hesitated a moment. “Since…?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“And you just happened to see my lights?”
“They were pretty bright. There hadn’t been any lights on the hill before. From down there, it just looked like a big black wall at night. And then those lights last night. I had to come see. Why’d you decide to put them up?”
I didn’t answer. “What about before?”
“Before the…disease?”
I nodded again.
“I lived in Hollywood. With my dad. Hollywood High, the whole deal.”
“Your dad rich?”
He shook his head. “No. Yours?”
“No.”
We talked for a while then, me pulling answers out of him and only giving him bits about myself when I felt like it. His story paralleled mine in quite a few ways. He talked about being out with his friends on Hollywood Boulevard the same evening I’d been at Dodger Stadium, about someone having an attack on the sidewalk in front of him, about how freaked out he and his friends were, about how he couldn’t pull himself away from the Internet and TV all that night, and about how he was the only one out of his group who’d still been alive the following afternoon. He’d watched his father die that evening after they’d argued about staying in their apartment or trying to get out of the city. After that, he hadn’t been able to bear the apartment and had left to try and find a new place. He’d opted for a mansion in Hollywood at the base of the hills and had set himself up with supplies not unlike what I’d gathered for myself.
“It’s nothing like this, though.” He looked past me toward the observatory’s entrance and then glanced around at the wide expanse of lawn behind him. “Looks like you picked the best spot in the neighborhood.”
I tried to read that, tried to tell if he was asking if he could come up here for good, share the space with me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. The company would be nice, more than nice, but I still wasn’t sure I could trust him.
“You been up here before?” I asked.
He nodded. “My dad and me used to come up here a lot when I was little. Haven’t been here for a while, though. It’s funny I kind of forgot about this place when I was looking for somewhere safe to stay.”
“It is pretty safe,” I agreed, not sure what else to say.
“Can I see your set-up?”
“Not much to see. I’m pretty much camped out in an office behind the café. And I’ve got a little patio set up on one of the observation decks. It’s not bad. Nothing great.”
He nodded, waiting for me to invite him in. Then he tipped his head toward me. “Any chance we could…” I blushed, sure he was going to proposition me. “…lose that gun?”
I’m not sure what my expression conveyed; maybe shock, maybe relief, maybe surprise or amusement at the absurd difference between what he said and what I’d been expecting. At any rate, I didn’t know how to respond.
I picked the gun up from my lap, hefted it a second, and gave him a look. His eyes didn’t leave the gun; he watched it expectantly, like a little kid who’s asked for a toy or a dessert and now waits to see what the adult is going to do. Only now, he didn’t want the toy; he wanted it to go away and waited eagerly to see what would happen. He looked harmless, completely harmless.
I popped the safety into place and leaned forward, tucking the barrel into the back of my pants. Then I stood up.
“For now,” I said, smiling just a little.
He got up, too.
“Come on,” I said.
Second-guessing myself the whole way, I led him around the side of the building rather than through the main entrance. We went down the concrete steps and were soon walking past the entrance to the café.
“That’s Scarlett central?” he asked.
“That’s it.” I didn’t want him in there, not now. I didn’t feel comfortable yet being inside with him, or letting him see everything I’d gathered at the sporting goods store or since. Instead, I kept going, rounding a corner and leading him up another set of concrete steps to the deck where I had my lounge chair and book. I’d show him the view, I told myself, and where I’d set the lanterns the night before. I could offer him something to eat or drink and maybe we could talk a bit. But then I’d ask him to go. Just because we were the last two people in Los Angeles didn’t mean we had to be instant companions. He could come back. Maybe eventually the idea of companionship or safety in numbers would override my uncertainty, but not yet.
He walked beside me up the steps, keeping our little conversation going, asking if it was creepy up here at night.
“Sometimes,” I said, thinking of the bats that fluttered around just after dusk. But I never got the chance to explain.
With one foot on the platform at the top of the stairs and the other lifting off the last step, I was thrown off balance when he pushed himself into me, not just leaning hard but really knocking into me. For half a second I thought he’d just tripped, but then I realized it was a tackle.
I went down onto the concrete with him on top of me, hitting first my elbow and then the side of my face on the rough surface. I think I cried out, but I might not have. A thousand things raced through my head—about what he was going to try, about how I’d blown it again—but rather than panic, I managed to focus and fight.
Protecting and then reaching the gun: nothing else mattered. I tried rolling out from under him, shoving my arm and hand between us to reach the gun, but he was stronger than me and was turning me on my back with the gun underneath me. I managed to get my other hand up under his chin and tried squeezing at his throat, but he jerked his head away from me.
“Just stop it! Just stop!” he was saying. “I don’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to do this.”
I didn’t answer, just struggled under him. He had straddled my stomach and was trying hard to pin both m
y arms to the concrete, but I thrashed under him and tried scratching at his face. Finally, I got him a good one, raking my nails across his cheek and watching the red marks trailing behind my fingers.
It really hurt him, and for a second I thought he’d let me go, but then he redoubled his efforts and actually bent down closer, getting his face right next to mine. Enraged, he shouted, “Stop fighting me! You don’t know what you’re doing!”
And then he had me, both arms down, my shoulders pinned to the concrete like they used to be when I played wrestling with Anna and she never let me win.
He got his wish. I stopped fighting him, just lay under him breathing hard and waiting for him to make his next move. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t go easy. The second he relaxed his hold on one of my arms, I’d be swinging my fist at him again.
“Just listen to me,” he said with heavy breaths. A bead of sweat dropped from his forehead onto my cheek. “Just listen. I’m sorry. Okay? I didn’t want to do that. But I was afraid if I just told you…you’d have that gun on me again.”
He paused, his eyes darting as he watched my face for a response.
“Told me what?” I said.
“I haven’t been living in a mansion. Or, I was at first. But then I got caught.”
I wrinkled my brow, trying to understand. Though he was breathing hard, his tone wasn’t aggressive. He didn’t sound angry or crazy or like he wanted to hurt me.
“There’s a man. He says his name’s Donovan. He’s not…like us. Not immune. He’s one of those survivalists. A prepper. Whatever you call it. When the disease hit, he was ready for it. Has this suit and mask and filters. And weapons. He has this bus he’s outfitted for getting through just about anything. He caught me…and Dolores.”
“Who?”
He shook his head, looking frustrated that he was going to have to tell the whole story. “I got sick,” he said.
My expression must have betrayed my confusion and instant worry.
“Not like that. Not the fungus. I just got sick. Maybe food poisoning. I don’t know. I remember going down to Sunset to try and find medicine, but I must have passed out. When I woke up, Dolores was there. She’s immune, like us. She helped me, took care of me. I don’t know what would have happened to me without her. A couple days after she’d helped me get better, Donovan caught us when we were coming out of a store. Must have seen us go in ‘cause he was waiting when we came out. Had a gun pointed right at my head. What could I do?”
The Girl at the End of the World Page 11
