by Tara Brown
As if choosing for me, Stan climbed off the bunk with Westley and strolled past me, pausing to shake, and then carried on to sit in the navigator’s seat.
Milo gave him a scratch behind the ears and said something softly about him being a good boy.
My gaze drifted back to the bottom bunk where West’s eyes met mine again. He patted the mattress like he had before. The view of him inviting me to sleep next to him was enticing but the betrayal to Owen made my stomach ache.
Deciding it didn't need to be anything more than friends, like it always was with us, I walked over and climbed on. I snuggled in next to him, noting how warm the mattress was where Stan had been lying.
We rolled on our stomachs and stared out the small window at the head of the bed, where the pillows were.
“This was my bunk the few times we went camping. Liz demanded the top,” he whispered, smiling.
I didn't say anything back, so as not to interrupt the happy memories he was obviously reliving. His smile widened and his eyes glistened, not like he might cry but what he was thinking about made him emotional.
“My parents go this week too.” He scowled, losing the glisten and emotion.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered back.
“Me too.” He stared into my eyes, deeply, and for a second I thought he might kiss me again. But he didn't. He lifted his hand and put it over mine, squeezing once and turned back to the window to stare at the nothingness.
I leaned on my arm, closing my eyes and trying not to notice the way his deodorant and body odor had suddenly filled the small space. Or the way he made my heart flutter. Or that I liked it.
17
Breakdowns and bunkers
Celeste
West’s smile gave away his hand.
“I fold,” Zoey said as she laid the cards down on the table and sat back, eating the last gummy worm. She was a slow eater, one of those annoying people like Audie who savored her snacks, eating them intentionally in front of you.
Owen rolled his eyes at Westley. “Dude, poker face—ever hear of it?” He slapped his cards down.
Milo giggled and took a Skittle from the pile, folding.
I folded too, knowing for sure this was going to be bad. The glint in those beautiful eyes of his was victory. All victory.
Westley laughed and dropped an amazing hand, a royal flush, pulling the rest of the Skittles toward him. “All mine!” He scooped some of them into his hand and started to drop them into his parted lips.
Zoey, Milo, Owen, and I watched him eat and chew. I suspected we all noticed the way his jaw flexed and his eyes closed in pleasure. He had the most enviable eyelashes I’d ever seen on a guy. Thick and dark and curling upward. I wondered if every single one of us was developing a little crush on him. I was, even though his heart predictably was lost to the Bella Swan girl. Though, the more I got to know her, the more I liked her, and Bella Swan.
A noise followed by curse words drew our attention to the front of the RV.
We’d broken down last night, something Rozzy was trying to look at. She wasn't a mechanic but a foster family she had lived with for a while had a shop, and she’d helped out there for a bit. She was our best bet.
Owen was smart, witty, and played football. But he wasn't mechanical.
West was one of those strong silent types who suited the heavy lifting kind of help but said he never cared for mechanics. And Zoey might have been useful had she read a book about it, but she hadn’t.
I didn't have a single mechanical bone in my body, and Milo was somewhere between Zoey and me.
We were doomed. I was waiting for the inevitable, Rozzy calling it quits.
Until then, we were spending the sunny but cool morning around the table playing Skittles poker.
It was a strange time and place.
“What if these are the last Skittles on earth?” Owen asked.
“Not a chance.” I scoffed. “Have you ever been to a Costco?”
“What’s that? Some sort of newfangled store?” Owen added a lot of twang to his accent. “I ain’t never heard of no Costcos.”
“Oh my God, seriously?” Zoey sighed. “Ignore him. This is why his mom never let him have sugar. It makes him hateful.”
“You’re hateful, Zoey Lynn,” he mocked her.
Their banter was so much like siblings, I didn't understand how she had ever mistaken this for love. Brotherly love, yes. Obviously. Owen adored her in a way that melted my heart. In fact, I was starting to love Zoey because I caught glimpses of her through Owen. The way his hand naturally drifted to hers the moment she lost control of her fingertips. The way he smiled with his soul every time he looked at her. Every person in the world needed a friend like Owen to look at them with that pure, unalterable love.
“They changed the green ones,” Westley managed to say through his mouthful. “They used to be lime and now they’re green apple. I don't know how I feel about that.”
“I still like them the best.” Milo shrugged.
“Purple are the best. Everyone knows that,” Owen argued.
“I have to go with Owen on this one. Purple are the best,” I agreed.
Owen grinned at them all like it was a win. “Celeste, the smart one, agrees with me,” he bragged.
“Shut up, Owen,” Zoey said as she popped a couple from the pile into her mouth.
Westley drank his Skittles back with a soda. “As much as this has been a lot of fun, we need to start walking and find another vehicle before the sun goes down. It’s cold here.”
Eyeing the RV, I realized I would miss it. A toilet and food and beds. We were leaving behind the last of luxury and heading into the unknown. I’d done that once already and it hadn’t turned out great.
We’d run from groups of creeps, cars filled with people shooting guns, gang fights. But then we met these guys. Our luck seemed to change. I hoped we would stay this lucky the rest of the time we had left.
“We can’t bring anything but some food and water. That’s going to suck,” Owen groaned. “There is nothing here but corn fields.”
“That last town, Salina or whatever it was called, had a sign that said it was just over four hundred miles to Colorado Springs. That’s not too bad. We’re past the halfway point.” Milo tried to sound upbeat but four hundred miles would take us ten or twelve days of walking, if we were lucky. And that was if we had supplies.
Rozzy was wearing biker boots. Zoey had on Chucks. And I was wearing a cute pair of Sketchers I wore for roaming around the city. We were not prepared to walk that far, not to mention that was not how I wanted to die. On the side of the road with sore feet and a sweaty back.
“Why are we going to Colorado Springs?” I’d been sleeping a lot and missed the conversation where they’d decided this.
“That's where the Cheyenne Mountain air force base is,” Owen said with a smile. “Zoey’s dream destination.”
He and West laughed, making Zoey’s cheeks glow.
“Cheyenne Mountain?” I furrowed my brow. “You mean NORAD?” How the hell had I missed this conversation? It was genius. Of course, Zoey had thought of it.
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I was thinking that if this ends and we don't die, or some of us live, maybe they would have a lot of supplies there. We could survive easier if we had supplies. And it’s protected.” She shook her head. “It’s dumb, I know.”
“I think it’s genius. And maybe some of us will live,” Milo said with a weird glint in his eyes.
“I think so too, Zo,” West agreed, though his finding the whole thing humorous was obvious.
“I’m trying to get to Spokane, so it’s all in the same direction. If Rozzy can’t get this running, then we’ll all go that way and separate in Colorado Springs,” I offered. “And if we don't die, by some miracle, I’ll come back to you. We can stay safe there.”
As if on cue, Rozzy came aboard, defeat in her eyes. “I can’t figure it out. I’m sorry, guys.”
“It’s not your faul
t. The damned thing is still under warranty, it shouldn’t have an issue. But we better get moving so we can find shelter before nightfall.” Westley got up from the table and pulled out all the water bottles and sodas and started filling bags, separating them so one bag didn't weigh too much. I shoved the last of the candy and bags of nuts in with them.
Owen got the chips and apples and put them in too.
Milo grabbed the map and offered Stan a can of tuna on the floor while we all finished.
It wasn't cold yet, but I put on a bunch of layers as did Zoey. I could guarantee she read it in a book.
We looked around us once more, all of us depressed at the loss of this amazing ride.
We left as a group, a weirdly assembled crew of odd and odder.
The sound of our feet on the gravel was loud, seeming to echo around us.
The power lines above our heads used to make a sound. I didn't recall exactly how it sounded, but I knew it was a buzz. There was a distinct absence of a buzzing and noise and life. It made me uncomfortable.
“You know, I Googled world population when this all started, and it said roughly thirty-two percent of the world’s population is under twenty-five. If everyone in their forties died this week, that means there’s, again roughly, just over a third of the world left. Two thirds is gone,” Owen said, his voice creating a needed noise. “That's pretty crazy when you really think about it.”
“It’s surreal.” I laughed at myself as I said it, “Not to be the girl that calls everything surreal, but it is. It’s something I can’t wrap my head around. My siblings will die in five days. Milo, Roz, and I are gone in less than two weeks. It’s been happening for almost two months and I still can’t grasp it.”
“No, me either. It doesn't feel real,” Owen agreed. “We have less than three weeks.”
“And now, randomly, we’re walking through Kansas after abandoning our RV.” I had never imagined saying that sentence.
“Yeah, the walking is gonna make it feel real, real fast.” Owen took my bag and shouldered it, so he was carrying both mine and his. West had already done the same for Zoey. “We need to find a car.”
“Yes, we do. Indeed,” I said the word “indeed” and thought about Anderson Cooper.
He was gone.
Anderson Cooper was dead, and I was walking in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wheat fields on all sides. It was a weird week. My feet crunched on the gravelly road and I glanced at Owen. “Why aren’t we on the freeway anymore?”
Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the road we were on wasn't exactly paved and it wasn’t exactly gravel. It was something in between. “We should’ve stayed on the freeway. There were probably more abandoned cars there.”
Milo offered me a nervous stare before checking with Owen, unsure of what to do.
“Did something happen while we were all sleeping?” Rozzy stopped walking and stared at Milo, Owen, and West.
“Seriously, what happened?” Zoey asked, obviously not in on this either. “You said you were gonna get back on the freeway. But you didn’t.”
Owen shuddered as if reliving a moment he wished he’d never seen. “When you guys were sleeping after we got gas, we did get on the freeway. But then we saw a group of people all walking in the dark and this trucker came driving on the wrong side of the freeway, coming toward us and the people. He didn't even try to miss them. He stopped after he’d gone through the crowd and people got out of the truck. They had guns—”
“We sped past them and took the exit when we couldn't see them anymore. We stayed on the back roads. Westley’s dad had a map so we used it to navigate through the back roads,” Milo cut him off but it was too late. We could picture it all. All three of us grew quiet. I was sorry I’d asked.
“That’s so gross,” Rozzy spoke first. “I bet they were young, huh? Young punks trying to act tough.”
“No.” Owen raised his eyebrows, his tone sober. “They were in their thirties. The people on the road were—young.”
“Oh.” Rozzy swallowed a lump in her throat.
We all turned and started walking again but no one spoke.
Stan didn't even bark.
What was there to say after something like that slipped out into the world with us?
18
Small towns
Zoey
After a few hours of walking, we started seeing houses in the fields more and more. Eventually, we entered what appeared to be the outskirts of a town called Lincoln. I’d never heard of it. But I’d also never been this far west in my life. And thus far, I wasn't impressed. Milo stared at the sign for a second, seeming confused. “I swear I’ve heard of this place.”
It didn’t come to him, that was obvious in his perplexed expression.
It was fields and more fields, and even more fields. There were no great forests or mountains. No rolling hills like back home. Just fields. Nothing to help him spark that memory.
We walked the lonely dusty road, not seeing a single vehicle we could possibly steal. Not one dead person pulled over or crashed. Not even what Rozzy called a blueberry, something I hoped we never saw. There were some farms, but Milo suggested we steer clear of them. Farmers had guns and dogs and would shoot before asking questions.
The sun ventured overhead, passing the time and keeping an eye on us.
We went by an industrial-looking area with a rusty old Help Wanted sign that was tilted to the right and swaying, making an eerie groaning and creaking. The wind was cold and the layers I’d put on weren’t helping. My feet ached—stupid Chucks—and my back was sore from the backpack I’d taken from West after an hour of him carrying two.
The only thing that didn’t suck was that Westley’s hand brushed against mine, checking on me, reminding me not to drift into my own mind. I kept offering a smile, a polite one that I hoped convinced him I was fine and not needing him to constantly take care of me. But it was a lie.
Owen crossed the road and started toward where the city center sign pointed.
We all followed.
After a block, houses popped up out of the trees, and we were in a regular suburb. It reminded me of Marion. Older houses with single carports and loads of thick white horizontal siding.
“We should go and take a car from one of these houses.” Milo turned in a circle as he walked, scanning the area.
“No.” Celeste narrowed her gaze. “We need to figure out what kind of place this is first. Small towns are weird. They could be watching us right now. Waiting to see if we’re thieves.”
“Small-town people are creepy about stuff,” Rozzy confirmed.
“As a small-town person, I can verify that information is accurate.” Owen nudged me. “You getting tired of walking yet?”
“Yeah. I wish I’d worn actual walking shoes.” We peered down at my all-black Chucks and nodded simultaneously.
“Chucks are comfy,” Owen defended them since it was him who made me buy them.
“They are but they’re not workout shoes.”
“You and I both know you don't work out.”
“I am today. This is the most I’ve ever walked in my life.” I couldn't fight the smile on my lips. “I should have taken Elaine’s shoes.”
“Trust me, these are the best shoes in your house.” He always made fun of Elaine’s sense of style. Or lack thereof. She was a nineties girl, through and through.
“Those clogs she wears nursing seem pretty comfy.”
“Well, we can hit up a mall in Colorado Springs.” Owen nudged again. “They’ll have something.”
“Yeah.” Rozzy grinned. “We could see if there’s a swimming pool too and do a quick swim. Get clean.”
“You want to go into the city?” I asked in horror. The story they told us about the trucker stuck with me.
“Yeah, but we’ll be super careful,” Owen said as if that was obvious.
I couldn't argue, even if it scared me. I did want some more clean underwear and the idea of being in water was pretty
tempting. Scrubbing myself down sounded like bliss. And maybe if we were lucky, there would be a bookstore or a library. I couldn't carry any, but what I would give to smell the shelves filled with books again.
“Man, what I would do for a hot shower and a sandwich and hot chocolate right now,” Celeste moaned, walking like her feet were sore too.
“Yeah,” Owen said, increasing his pace a little. “At least it’s sunny.”
“I think I’m getting a burn”—I brushed a finger against my cheeks—“either sun or wind.”
“Zoey, we are far too fair to be out in the sun like this. We both need a hat. Even if it’s cold, we can still burn.” Milo shaded his eyes from the sun.
“Here.” Westley reached into his bag and pulled out his blue ball cap with the big red A on it. I stopped walking to take it, but he didn't hand it to me. He swept my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ears and nestled the hat on me.
For almost a full moment I got lost staring into his dark-blue eyes. The way his thick lashes framed them made the color richer. He smiled and maybe he was doing the same thing with my eyes, though my lashes were nothing compared to his and my eyes were plain brown. Then he blinked and turned to Milo, pulling a second hat from the bag. It was beat up but when he passed it to Milo, he seemed grateful.
“Oh thank you, Westley.” He nestled the hat on his head and we started walking again.
“Come on, we need to keep going.” Owen wrapped a huge arm around my shoulders and led me away from temptation. Not for my benefit, but his own.
As we marched along, everyone started to talk about the things they missed and things they didn't. I picked up my pace and went ahead, not wanting in on the conversation. I knew the things I’d miss and didn't need to be reminded.
When we got to the middle of town, I wondered if there had been any people here, even before the world ended. There were no broken-down cars, rundown signs, dead people, or garbage.
