It’s repetitive work but comforting. The thought of this food sustaining us in the dark hours of February does make it less arduous, like my mom always joked. I can almost feel her here with me, canning tomatoes like we did every fall. It doesn’t escape me that I’m living the life I wanted, with Adrian, and my heart gives a little hiccup. I know my parents would be glad to see it, too, barring the fact that there are hordes of undead roaming the world.
Bits stands next to me and helps to peel. Maybe I’m creating those same comforting memories for her, even in the midst of the end of the world. She has many mothers now, and we all love her fiercely. She’s our hope for the future, the reason we want to create a future. I smile at her, and her face lights up. Maybe all the horror she’s seen hasn’t completely destroyed her childhood. I hope it hasn’t.
A radio sits on a window ledge next to one of the cook stoves. We have them everywhere in case there’s an emergency and we have to head to the fences. The crackly voices on the radio announce things that need fixing, requests for help and even the occasional wisecrack. I find it amazing that humor has survived and that everyone here works to get along. I have a huge family now.
Almost every day there’s a radio call that people are at the gate, people who heard the broadcasts and made it here. But so many fewer than we’d hoped. We get one and two at a time. Last week there was a whole family, kids and all, and we rejoiced that they were alive, one intact family among millions of broken ones. I thought of the Washingtons and desperately hoped they were another exception to the rule.
The reports say it’s gotten worse out there, and people won’t be able to make it here in the winter. That means many will be dead by winter’s end from cold, hunger or infection. My thoughts are so loud that I miss the last radio call over the clanging of pots and jars.
“What did they say?” I ask. “I think I heard my name.”
“It sounded like it could have been. I think there’s someone at the gate, but I’m not sure,” says Mikayla, a bubbly caramel-skinned girl, who was here studying organic farming practices when Bornavirus hit.
Mike, down at the first gate, continues on the radio, “He’s headed up to the second gate now. Looks like Rambo, but Shelby says his jeans used to cost four hundred bucks.” He laughs good-naturedly. “Nice guy, needs a bath and a nap.”
My heart races. I think about stopping to call back on the radio. To clarify. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be told I’m wrong. I want to believe for one minute more.
I grab Bits’s hand and turn to everyone. “I think it’s someone I know.”
“Go!” they shout, smiling.
Everyone dreams of the day when the someone at the gate may be for them. I grab our sweaters and look for my shoes in the pile by the door. I can’t find them, so I give up. Bits looks at me like I’ve lost my mind as I drag her out the door and run across the gravel driveway. I know that Ana and the others may not have heard the radio just yet. I don’t want to raise their hopes, but I can’t stop myself.
I turn to Bits. “Go get Ana. Tell her to come to the gate.”
She nods, her eyes wide, and takes off for the garden. I continue down the driveway, where the trees are dropping their leaves; shades of orange, yellow and red litter the road. My feet slap the ground, and I can hear my breath. I haven’t run like this since before we got here. I was running for my life then, but now I’m running with hope.
I race past the second gate and wave to Maureen. I come around a bend, and there he is. He walks with Dan, who’s probably telling him about the farm. I stop, panting, as he looks up. His shirt is dirty and creased, his hair flops in his eyes and his jeans are more brown than blue. A pistol sits on his hip, a rifle on his shoulder and a machete hangs from the other hip. Rambo, indeed.
“Peter!” I yell, and run to him.
His teeth are white against his smudged face when he smiles. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him so happy. That’s not true, I do: In those pictures of him as a kid. He’s a dead ringer for that kid now, minus the freckles.
I almost knock him down when I reach him. His pack thuds to the ground as he hugs me. I can’t believe it’s him. It’s Peter, who was dead; we all knew he was. I remember his face when we pulled away, how for an instant he’d looked happy, and I hug him tighter. I don’t realize I’m crying until I try to speak. “How?” I croak, but I can’t say any more than that.
“There were people in the building. Upstairs. They dropped down one of those ladders you hook to the window.”
That curtain in the window. It wasn’t just the breeze. I shake my head at his luck, our luck, and cry harder.
Peter’s eyes gleam. “When’d you turn into such a crybaby? Last time I saw you—crying. Here we are again—crying.”
I can’t stop my tears, but there’s no way I can let him get away with that. “Must’ve been the same time you found a sense of humor.”
He laughs. “That’s my girl.”
Then, finally, the tears stop, and I beam at him. “Not anymore. Your girl is up in the gardens, on her way down. We’re all here. We all made it because of you.”
I know he was afraid to ask, and the final bit of worry leaves his face. I want to tell him about how we got here, about Nelly, how Ana helped save him. But there’s time for that. Time. That’s something we don’t take for granted anymore.
Pure joy bubbles up, and I see it in his face, too. He laughs and spins me around and around like we’re ballroom dancing but stops short as Bits and Ana come around the bend. Bits flies into his arms with a scream of joy and wraps her appendages around him like an octopus.
He kisses her on the nose and inspects her face. “Bits, you got so many more freckles! I see one named Morris right there.”
Bits’s smile is blinding, and her tomato-stained hands hold on tight. “Peter, I missed you so much!”
Peter hugs her close. “I missed you, too, baby girl. So, so much.”
The rest of our group, and Adrian, have made it down the road. They hug Peter and ask a million questions at once.
I introduce Adrian, who shakes Peter’s hand with a smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m glad you made it here.”
Peter flashes me that gigantic grin again. I wink back and look for Ana. She stands apart, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that keeps the sun out of her eyes in the garden. She’s always out there, when she’s not trying to rope me into some sort of exercise or finding Lexers to destroy. She chews her lip and stares at Peter, uncertainty all over her face.
Peter whispers something in Bits’s ear. She jumps to the ground with a nod and smile. Peter makes his way to where Ana stands and stops a few steps away. Then, in a gesture that’s almost courtly, he holds out his hand.
“You know,” he says, with the hint of a smile, “I never did get that dance.”
Ana laughs and reaches for his hand. Her hat hits the ground when he pulls her to him and waltzes her around. Peter hasn’t forgotten the steps at all, but Ana keeps up, just like he said she would.
“Dance party!” Bits calls out, her voice echoing through the trees.
She takes Adrian in one hand and Nelly in the other and dances like she hears music. My dad used to grab my mom and dance her around the house, me and Eric, too. If we protested, he’d say, There’s always music playing somewhere. You just have to listen.
I have to believe that still: that there’s music playing somewhere out there. That somewhere else people are dancing. And, as Nelly spins me around, I think I can hear the faintest tinkle coming from far off. Penny and I link arms to skip in a circle and then cry with laughter when Nelly and Adrian copy us. Bits has roped Dan into the party, and he swings her through his legs and throws her in the air.
We must look ridiculous out here, dancing on a dirt road. But I don’t care because we can hear the music, and it’s getting louder. It drowns out the moans of the broken bodies that wander the world, unaware they’re destroying everything they once loved. It soothes t
he pain of the broken families and broken hearts we all have now.
James lands on Penny’s feet with every step, but I can tell he hears it, too. Even John nods along. Adrian catches me and holds me close, twirling Bits to Nelly as she squeals with delight. I’m full of happiness and hopelessness at the same time, laughing and crying at once. I don’t even know which tear is for what. Adrian smiles and brushes them with his thumb.
The hopelessness begins to recede. I mourn for the way the world was, but I have faith it will go on. When I was a kid and promised to love my parents until the end of the world and after, it was meant to be silly. It was impossible. When the world was over, it was over. But it turns out that’s not true. We may lose this after all; humans may become a mere blip on the radar screen of history.
But I’m not so sure about that, because the world has already ended, and we’re still here.
THE END
The world may be over, but the series isn’t!
Turn the page to read the story of Peter’s journey in So Long, Lollipops, followed by the final two books of the series.
So Long, Lollipops
Until the End of the World, Book 1.5
For the readers who let me know Until the End of the World meant something to them. Your words meant a whole lot to me.
And for my parents, who fully support my craziness.
1
It wasn’t the brightest idea to watch the pickup drive off, not with all the zombies at the foot of the dumpsters he stood on. But Peter knew he was going to die. And since he had only hours—or minutes—to live, he wanted to spend those last moments happy. Well, as happy as you could be surrounded by zombies.
But he was happy, which was mind-boggling, especially when you considered that he’d spent more than half of his life unhappy. He’d spent the last eighteen of his thirty years miserable, in fact, until he’d been saved. And now, as he watched the people who’d saved him jump the curb and swing out of the parking lot, there was happiness in the knowledge that he’d saved them back.
The minute John had pulled them behind the dumpsters and out of view of the Lexers in the alley, he’d known: either none of them would escape or all but one of them could. Bits sat between Penny and Ana, face pale, blue eyes frantic. She’d looked at him like he had the answers—the way a little girl looks at the daddy she believes will never let her down.
And although he supposed he’d already known, in that moment he realized he was the closest thing Bits had to a dad. He’d held her hand during the nightmares that plagued her. He’d cuddled her and teased her and named all of her freckles. And he loved her so much that when he imagined losing her it felt like looking into a black hole. Isn’t that what black holes did—suck all light out of the space around them? That’s exactly what would happen if Bits was gone. He knew Cassie understood; if he was Bits’s dad, then Cassie was her mom. He needn’t worry as long as Bits was with her.
It had made the decision easy. Maybe once—a few months ago, even—he would have weighed his life against another’s. Calculated pros and cons. Made a deal. He was good at deals. He’d spent years making them; he’d learned all about them at Harvard Business School. But there was nothing here to negotiate. It was refreshing. He was flooded with a resolve so strong, so sure and clear, that it was painless.
He didn’t regret it, even as the torn, rotten hands scrabbled inches away from his boots. The racket they kicked up brought more down the alley. The Lexers on the other side of the fence, the one everyone had escaped over, struggled against the chain link now that his family was gone.
It may have made the decision easy, but he was still scared. He was really fucking scared. The hilt of his machete was slippery with sweat. He considered putting his gloves back on, but what was the point? He moved forward and drove his blade into the middle of a face. Another one down. There were so many, though. And they would keep coming, no matter how many he finished off. He couldn’t win; it was all a matter of how long he wanted to live.
There was no way he was going to let them take him. He already knew that when the time came—when he was too tired to stand, or they got too close, or some tall basketball-player zombie was able to reach across the dumpster and get a grip on his ankle—he’d finish himself off with a bullet in the mouth. If there were any brains left in his head, he might become one of them, and that was not going to happen.
The dumpsters gave him a platform that measured around six by seven. Behind him was the brick wall of the building, and the other sides—well, those were all zombie. He drove the machete into a neck, then an ear. All that trench digging and wood chopping had made his arms feel tireless; he could do this for hours. So he would. He would fight until all he had was enough strength to pull the trigger on his last bullet—the one meant for him. He laughed, not that it was funny. Maybe he was losing his mind.
“Can’t really blame me,” he said to the hissing mass. “Can you, you stupid fucks?”
Cursing was good. Cursing made you angry. Anger gave you more strength. The machete flicked out again as he bent forward. The alley echoed with groans and filled with the smell of decay.
Actually, if he kept killing them, they might pile up and become a convenient staircase that allowed the ones behind to reach him. But the only other option was to watch them until he couldn’t take it anymore, and then blow his brains out. Every Lexer he killed was one less monster in the world, one less threat to Bits, so he dismissed the thought.
There was an old lady at the far end of the dumpster. Her wrinkles had become deep cracks, and the tissue that peeked out, the tissue that should have been pink, was gray and veined with black. She reminded him of his grandmother, who’d been such a bitch. After Mom and Dad and Jane had died, she’d raised him in much the same way she’d raised Dad. And, if the fact that Dad had limited them to an annual visit was any indication, she hadn’t been a candidate for Mother of the Year.
“They’re gone, Peter,” she’d say. “No sense talking about it.”
So he’d learned to keep his mouth shut. But one day he’d tried to bring up how he knew that Jane hadn’t died immediately in the crash, how he knew she’d been trapped in the fire. How every night in his dreams he watched her die, saw her begging for him to help her, to open her seatbelt. Just one little click, and she’d be free. He hadn’t been in the car because he hadn’t wanted to go, hadn’t wanted to hang out with his nine year-old sister somewhere his twelve year-old friends might see. Or worse, be seen by a twelve year-old girl.
He needed someone to tell him it wasn’t his fault.
Grandma cut him off. “You made a decision, Peter. Choices have consequences.”
He’d taken those words to heart. He’d wanted absolution, but instead he’d gotten agreement.
Two steps down the seam where the dumpsters met, and the old lady was finished off. How about that decision, Grandma? It felt great. Years of therapy in one machete move.
“Hey! Up here!” a voice shouted.
Okay, now he was going crazy. He was even hearing voices. Real voices, not groans and hisses.
“Up here! Look up!”
There it was again. High-pitched and carrying over the Lexers’ low noises. He should look up, just in case he wasn’t going insane. If it was nothing, then he’d go back to killing as many Lexers as possible before that bullet. He pressed against the wall, as far out of their reach as he could, and looked up. There was a face looking down from the second story window. It was hard to tell from his vantage point, but it looked like a teenage girl.
“I’m throwing down a ladder!” she yelled. “Hold on!”
This wasn’t part of the plan. Not that it wasn’t a welcome change; as plans go, his had really sucked.
She reappeared and yelled, “Watch out!”
Peter caught a flash of short blond hair as she hooked a fire escape ladder to the windowsill and released the bottom. The chains that held the metal rungs clattered and rang. The dumpsters raised him a good five
feet off the ground, and the bottom rungs hit them with a hollow bang. Peter watched in astonishment. It was unbelievable that he was being rescued from what had been a hopeless situation.
The blond head leaned out. “It’s secure!”
A hand on his boot woke him from his stupor, and he swung his machete through the bones of the wrist and shook off the amputated hand. He slung his machete over his shoulder and reached for his daypack against the wall. The ladder swung as he climbed to the window, and the chorus of moans reached a crescendo, almost as though they were complaining.
He risked a downward glance and muttered, “So long, lollipops.”
He planted his boot on the window ledge, and then he was in a small office. The girl stood close to the door, past two desks and a few file cabinets. She was about sixteen. Chin-length blond hair. A tiny nose. Wide eyes and rosebud lips. She looked like a little pixie. She smiled, but the pistol she was pointing at him was dead serious.
“So long, lollipops?” she asked with a cocked head. “That’s what you say to zombies?”
Peter watched the gun and thought about his answer. She might be tiny, but she looked like she knew her way around a weapon. “I say that with my...little girl. Instead of So long, suckers.”
“That little girl who went over the fence? That’s your daughter?”
“Sort of.”
“So long, lollipops,” she said again. A little giggle escaped. “I like it. So, I’m thinking you’re a good guy, since you basically, like, volunteered to die for your friends. But I want you to take off your weapons anyway.”
Until the End of the World Box Set Page 38