by Nancy Isaak
“So it can just, like go off at any time?” I asked.
“Pretty much. We’ll have to be really careful with it.”
“Is it loaded?”
Jay pulled out the gun’s magazine and looked inside. “Yup…totally loaded.”
“I wonder where she got it.”
“We can ask her when she wakes up,” said Jay. Then she grinned. “I don’t know about you but I’m feeling a whole heck of a lot safer now.” She placed the gun on the top shelf of her shopping cart. “We’ve got a real weapon now.”
* * * *
Jay was right; having a gun did make us feel safer.
Even with the sun setting as we walked home—Jay and Lily pushing their carts, me pulling Jude in the wagon—we weren’t really scared. Don’t get me wrong—we were still nervous and wary.
But we had a gun!
When two coyotes passed down Thousand Oaks Boulevard—directly opposite from where we were traveling in the middle of the road—Jay did nothing more than place her hand on the butt of the gun. For the first time since ‘whatever’ had happened—we actually felt like we were in a position where we could protect ourselves.
* * * *
As we walked, Jude’s legs kept slipping down the sides of the wagon, dragging along the ground. It was frustrating, because I kept having to stop to lift up her legs and redistribute her weight.
“Boy, she’s got a lot of candy bars in her pockets,” I said, at one point. “Think that’s making her weigh more?”
“Even at school, she eats a lot of junk,” Jay noted. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jude eat a salad or a piece of fruit.”
“I wonder if that’s why her skin is so bad. My mom says that junk food causes a lot of skin problems.”
(Jude always seems to have blackheads around her nose and forehead, and her cheeks are dotted with pimples.)
“My dad says that too much sex gives you acne,” Jay added, grinning.
I burst out laughing. “I’m pretty sure that Jude-the-Rude doesn’t have pimples because she’s having too much sex.”
“Wow!” said Jay, pretending to be offended. “That’s really harsh…very judgmental.”
“Waddahell!”
I looked behind to see Jude, struggling to sit up in the wagon. She looked pale and was gulping air.
“Oh-oh,” frowned Jay. “I think she’s going to puke!”
And, sure enough, Jude leaned over the edge of the wagon and vomited all over the road. It was nasty and—because I’m a sympathetic-vomiter—I began gulping air, too.
Jay—of course—merely laughed, pulling Lily back out of spew-range.
* * * *
For almost a minute, Jude leaned over the side of the wagon, gulping and spitting. And, frankly, it took about that long for me to get a hold of my own urge to vomit.
When I was finally in control, I bent down and touched Jude on the shoulder. “You okay?” I asked.
Jude didn’t just startle—she freaked out!
Screeching like a banshee, Jude scrambled out of the wagon (barely missing the puke!) and took off running.
“Oh-oh,” Jay said again. “Better get moving, Kaylee…you’re the runner.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Jay just grinned.
Luckily, Jude wasn’t moving very fast. The older girl was still a little drunk and having difficulty keeping her balance. Her run was more of a few quick steps—stumble to the ground—push herself up—few more steps—stumble back down again. Still, Jude was heading into Chumash Park, it was getting dark—and the gun was back in Jay’s shopping cart.
“Jude!” I yelled, as I ran toward her. “Come on, Jude…it’s okay! It’s just me.”
But Jude just kept on stumble-running—moving farther into the park, in among the trees. It looked like she was heading toward the bathrooms, a place I really didn’t want to be anywhere near when it got dark.
Cursing her, I put on a burst of speed and easily caught up.
“It’s me, Jude,” I said, jogging beside her. “Look at me…it’s Kaylee.”
Jude didn’t respond, just kept stumbling along, panting. Gently, I reached out and touched her shoulder, causing Jude to squeal, almost as if she had been burned. I withdrew my hand quickly, but kept jogging beside her.
“Please, Jude,” I begged. “Please stop running. We have to get home because it’s getting dark now. Please stop. I don’t want to leave you here…I don’t want to leave you alone!”
For the first time, Jude turned and looked at me.
Really looked at me.
And slowed down.
“See, it’s just me,” I said, holding my arms wide to show that I wasn’t a threat. “It’s Kaylee—from school.”
Jude finally stopped.
She stood there, leaning slightly to the left, as if she was struggling to stay upright. “Barbie?”
“Yeah,” I smiled. “It’s me…it’s Barbie.”
“Skipper?”
I pointed behind us, to where Jay and Lily waited in the street with the carts. Jude took a long time looking at them. When she finally turned back to me, her eyes were filled with tears. “Not alone?”
“Not anymore, Jude,” I said. “You’ve got us now.”
The tears began to flow down Jude’s face, then. She reached out and poked me in the shoulder—as if checking to see if I was real.
“Ouch!” I said. “A little gentler, please.”
“But…I hate you,” Jude grumbled. “Hate both of you.”
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Kind of ironic, huh?”
She turned to look back at Jay and Lily once more. “Sailor Moon?”
“That’s Lily. She’s lost everyone, too.”
Jude returned her gaze to me. There were tears falling freely down her cheeks.
“Why?”
It was just one heartbreaking word—but I knew what Jude was asking.
“I don’t know why,” I said, honestly. “Jay doesn’t either. It just happened. We woke up and we were alone. Then we found each other.”
“You found me.”
“We found you.”
“Didn’t leave me.”
“Of course not.”
“I think…”
“You think what?” I asked.
“Think…the others did.” Jude looked me straight in the eye. “The other girls…they left me.”
The other girls...
A deep chill ran down my spine.
* * * *
When we finally got back to the Sitipala townhouse, Jude had sobered up enough to tell us about the ‘other girls’. Because of the alcohol-addled state she had been in, Jude wasn’t completely certain if she was actually remembering or dreaming what had happened.
But somewhere in her hazy, boozy memory, Jude has a visual of three girls coming upon her in Ralphs.
She said that they had laughed when they saw her and that one of them had kicked her foot. When she had moved and groaned, they had jumped back. Jude didn’t know if she then passed out again or if the girls had simply disappeared for a while. But it was sometime later before she realized that they were back again—standing over her, food baskets on their arms.
Jude said that one of them had asked the others if they should help her. But another one of the girls had said that they should just leave Jude right there where she belonged—lying with the trash.
Then they had walked away.
Laughing.
That was all that Jude had been able to remember—except for one more important detail; one of the girls had been wearing a yellow and blue sweater—the colors of Agoura High.
* * * *
If it wasn’t a dream and truly was part of Jude’s memory, then that means two very important things:
One—there are other girls alive.
Two—they left Jude to die.
* * * *
My mom always says that—inside the gentle and the kind—there is a righteous anger waiting to emerge when they le
ast expect it.
What she means is that most good people don’t want to get mad, they don’t want to get angry, and they don’t want drama and confrontation in their lives. But sometimes—through no fault of their own—these good people are faced with a situation where they can either walk away and continue living their quiet, gentle lives—or they can rise up and rebel with righteous anger.
Without a doubt—Jude is a massive bully at school. She’s mean and pissy and has scared the crap out of Jay and me on numerous occasions. But that someone would just leave her—lying drunk on the floor—and walk away laughing; to know that Jude might die, possibly choking on her own vomit…
Well, that fills me with a righteous anger.
If I had any misgivings of adding Jude-the-Rude to our little family before, hearing her horrible story of the others chased them all away.
Without a doubt, Jude has a home with us.
She is now our sister.
…after her bath.
JOURNAL ENTRY #11
It’s been seven days since Jude joined us.
She’s still kind of pissy and, every once in a while, the bully comes out. I have to say, though—she’s really been trying to be nicer.
Of course, Jay and I are still ‘Skipper’ and ‘Barbie’ to her. That said, Jude has slipped on occasion and actually referred to me as Kaylee. When she catches herself doing it, however, Jude scowls and stalks off.
It’s pretty funny.
Lily, in particular, has taken a real liking to Jude. She follows the bigger girl around like a puppy, tugging the true puppy—Pugly—behind her. It’s kind of ironic—with Jude being so huge and lumbering and Lily so tiny and fragile. Still, the two have definitely bonded; Jude is extremely gentle with the girl and her dog.
At nights, when we’re sitting around—just talking—Lily and Pugly always seem to find a spot on Jude’s lap. (And I’ll admit that I’m a teensy bit jealous that I’ve lost ‘my little girl’ even before I had a chance to be a faux-mother. But I can deal—I’ll get over it.)
One of the nice things about having Jude around is that we don’t feel so scared anymore. I don’t know if it’s because she has a gun (yes, we gave it back to her), or because of her violent history—but what I do know is that Jay and I feel that we have someone prepared to fight for us.
And if it came right down to it—Jude knows that we would fight for her.
* * * *
We’re sleeping in two different rooms now.
Frankly, it had been cramped with just Jay and me in the Sitipala’s secret room; add in Lily and Pugly and Jude and it became ridiculous. We were bumping into and crushing each other every time we turned over.
So Jude, Lily, and Pugly are now sleeping in Jay’s old room. Meanwhile, Jay and I are sleeping in her parents’ room. Which is kind of weird in itself, because the Sitipala-elders have two separate beds. I don’t know if it’s a Pakistani-thing or a marriage-thing. The only other time I’ve seen married people sleep in separate beds are on those old black and white television shows.
Meanwhile, we’re using my old townhouse for storage. Jay spends a lot of time over there, organizing the food and making sure we’re eating the perishables first. It’s kind of OCD, but I get it—Jay’s just being responsible.
We’ve also made three more trips to Ralphs and Vons over the last week.
Jay’s in charge of those expeditions—she makes the list of what we need and Jude and I go and get it. Sometimes Lily comes with us; sometimes she stays with Jay—who definitely does not want to come back to the stores.
I think that Jay is taking a little ‘time off’ from the end of the world.
* * * *
Now that we know to look for them, we are definitely seeing signs of other people surviving the event. A few times, Jude and I thought we saw someone in the distance. However—when we went to investigate—we found no one.
They’d either already left or it was our imagination.
Also, the sign that Jay and I had put up at Ralphs has been taken down and ripped into little pieces. There was a certain viciousness to that; it definitely unsettled Jay and me. In fact, that’s probably one of the reasons that Jay doesn’t want to go shopping with us anymore.
Ironically, Jude never saw our little sign. If she had, she would have known that she wasn’t alone. Jude said that she probably wouldn’t have gotten drunk, either. (Notice that Jude used the word ‘probably’ and not ‘definitely’.)
The two bikes that Jay and I had ridden to Ralphs that first time are also gone now. (I can’t say stolen since they didn’t really belong to us in the first place.) And when we went back to the bike store to get some for Jude and Lily (Jay and I still had our bikes from Jacob’s garage), the front window had been shattered and there were bike parts scattered on the sidewalk out front. It kind of offended me that someone would do that because—duh!—the front door was unlocked.
All they had to do was pull on the handle—so dumb!
* * * *
Speaking of bikes, Lily is surprisingly adept at riding one. While the rest of us struggle to make it up any hill, our little girl rides circles around us all, whizzing this way and that.
Because Lily is such a speed-demon, Jude has taken to carrying Pugly in her bike basket. On our trips through the neighborhood, I regularly turn around to find the older girl carrying on a quiet conversation with the little dog. (Don’t ask me what they talk about. Every time Jude sees me watching, she shuts up and gives me a nasty scowl.)
* * * *
We’ve managed to explore most of the surrounding neighborhoods on our bikes.
A few days ago, we even went back to the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station to see if anyone had responded to our note. (It was still there, but no one had written on it.)
Lately, we’ve been talking about making the trek down to Malibu—to where my dad lives on Point Dume with the Boob-Bimbo. We’ve been thinking that it might even be a good place to live.
As much as we all love Agoura Hills—when summer comes and the weather gets hotter—we figure that a lot of the water will disappear here in the Conejo Valley (no more irrigation—this is Southern California after all—it’s a desert, folks).
My dad’s house actually has a small creek running through the property. Living there, we’d have a ready source of water, for when the bottled water runs out. Also, Jay thinks that it might be more comfortable for us if we were living down on the coast. It’s always a good ten degrees cooler there and—let’s face it—you’ve got the ocean and the beach.
On a more selfish side—I kind of like the idea of being able to go ‘shopping’ in some of those Malibu stores. One of the upsides of being left behind is that there won’t be any snotty salespeople wondering whether us ‘Valley-kids’ can actually afford the super-inflated prices.
We can take whatever the heck we want now!
* * * *
Until we decide where we want to live, we’ve set up our hibachi out on the townhouse patio, alongside a barbeque that Jude carried over from a neighbor’s. Jay is becoming quite good at cooking Indian food over the fire. Her mom would be so proud to see her daughter flapping naan dough back and forth between her hands.
Meanwhile, I’m the stew and chili girl. Give me a couple of cans of beans and apparently I can make you a chili that you’d swear has meat in it.
Jude hasn’t figured out what she can cook, yet. She’s always willing to help, however—stirring a pot, cutting up onions, that sort of thing.
And it’s amazing the amount of candy that girl keeps showing up with. I don’t know if she’s ‘sweets-hunting’ through the townhouses, or if she just keeps going back to Ralphs and Vons when we’re not looking. Whatever Jude’s doing, there is always an assortment of M&Ms and Kit Kats to snack upon.
* * * *
And we’ve got lights set up all through the townhouse now!
They’re really just an assortment of candles inside some glass lanterns we found at CVS. Sti
ll, it’s nice to be able to see where you’re walking in the middle of the night. (I still can’t get over how dark it is when there’s no electricity.)
Having lights in the townhouse also lets us have board games after supper. I, of course, slay everybody in Monopoly. Jay has got the upper-hand in Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit. Lily always beats us at Candy Land.
Jude simply loses—at everything.
She told us that it was because she just wasn’t that smart. Before the ‘thing’ happened, I would have believed her.
These days, I’m not so sure.
Jude doesn’t know that I’ve seen her, but I’ve watched her puzzling over Jay’s Rubik’s Cube. She’s been taking it slow, but Jude is definitely figuring it out; she’s already completed the top two levels and only has the bottom one left to finish. (I—on the other hand—have never made it past the first level.)
* * * *
Because Jay thinks that we’re in the midst of the Leonid’s Meteor Shower, we’ve decided to carry our hibachi down into Chumash Park, so we girls can have supper there and watch the light show in the sky. This is kind of a big deal because—before Jude (and her gun) came into our life—there was absolutely no way that we would have spent time outside in the dark like that.
Now, however, all of us are looking forward to the night out.
We have plans to make some Jiffy Pop popcorn, lie on our backs, and watch the meteor show. I guess for four girls at the end of the world—this is as close as we can get to going to a movie.
