by Holly Hook
“So do you do art?” I asked. I was mostly just doing it to keep the topic off me. I didn’t want to tell her about my mother, even though I was sure everyone in our small high school knew about it. Word spread about everyone very quickly.
“Just on my own. I’d like to do paintings. I’m not that great at drawing. Sketches, mostly, but that’s it. My parents hate that I want to paint.”
“Sorry about that,” I said.
Gina’s eyes were tearing up. “I guess I can paint all I want now.”
I didn’t know what to say to that because it was true. Gina had the entire world opened up for her and it was the worst thing ever. “They might be alive,” I said, scrambling for anything to say. I was realistic, but I wasn’t going to tell someone who was crying that their parents were probably swollen bloody corpses by now. “They could have been in their basement or something when the second pulse came through. Or in a store with a lot of brick. We don’t know how far the radiation went into the ground. We made it. Others must have, too.”
Gina sniffed and turned away. “We live in the trailer park.”
I remembered the one just outside of town, the dusty one where a lot of the older people lived and maintained nice, postage stamp lots. I forgot that a few families lived in there. “We don’t know for sure where they were,” I said.
We don’t know how far the disease has progressed, the doctors told my mother.
I was them now, offering false hope.
I knew what Gina was feeling and I hated it. I wanted to hug her, but either one of us could be dead in a few days or months. Making friends wasn’t a good idea right now.
So I zipped up my backpack. “I shouldn’t sit out here all night,” I said.
“It’s fine. Someone in that building has a bad case of gas,” Gina said. “I think I’m staying out here until the sun starts to come up.”
“If we risk sleeping, we might get caught out here.”
“It’s a risk I’m taking,” Gina said, plopping down into a seat. “This is way better than the floor. I hope this isn’t the seat with a huge wad of gum stuck under it.”
“Good luck with that.” I settled back and closed my eyes. “My dad’s in New York.” I don’t know why I told her that, but I had to tell someone, anyone.
“Maybe he’s still alive,” Gina said. “As soon as we find a running car, we need to try to find our folks. I don’t care what it takes. I have to know for sure what happened. The suspense is worse than the truth.”
I also knew what that was like.
Gina twisted in her seat. “You know what? Let’s walk up the road a bit.”
“Walk up the road?” I asked.
“It’s dark. We can get away with it. We walk a couple of miles, and then we come back. See if there’s anything we can find.”
Gina and I climbed out of the bus a few seconds later. The flashlight was still bright and cheerful, but I knew it wouldn’t last long.
“I don’t want to waste all these batteries,” I said.
“There was another full pack in the desk,” Gina told me. “I don’t plan on staying out here any longer than another day at the most. I’d rather risk it to get to civilization.”
We found the gate, which remained smashed. Someone had driven through it, all right. When the guard died, he had forgotten to lift it to let anyone out. Maybe he wasn’t expecting anyone to come out. The guy was still slumped and swollen inside the booth and the bugs still bumped against the dusty glass. We hurried past and I kept my gaze on the dust ahead, focusing on the swirling patterns it made on the road.
We stepped onto the road.
“Left,” I said.
Gina and I walked through the dark silence, following the yellow dashes in the middle of the road. There was no traffic, no cars, no headlights. Stray crickets chirped, the survivors of the radiation. Maybe they were sick, too. There were fewer of them than normal.
“Maybe the bugs were shielded,” Gina said, echoing my thoughts.
“Could be.” My shoes scraped against the pavement and I looked back. The visitor center was a dark square against more shadows and darkness. I didn’t want to get too far away. The crickets stopped as if they sensed our presence. “The only way to know if it worked for people will be to get back to Colton.”
We walked in silence for fifteen minutes, then thirty. Wasn’t fifteen minutes one mile? So we were two miles from the Visitor Center.
Gina pulled out her phone, which was still dead. “I wish I had a watch,” she said. “Someone back there must have one.”
“It would be good to know how many hours it would take to walk forty miles,” I said. “Let’s see. I think we’ve gone two. Rough estimate.”
“You sound like an engineer.”
“I’m doing my best,” I said. “So, four miles in an hour. That means we’d have ten hours to make it to the first town. If we hurry, we might make it in eight.” The thought of all of us walking that entire way tomorrow night was terrifying. This was if my judgment was right.
“Wait,” Gina said. “There’s a car up ahead.”
I lifted the flashlight. Red taillights reflected back at me. It wasn’t a car. Not exactly. What stood there was one of those big industrial tractors with the shovels on the front. It was parked on the side of the road as if the driver had needed to pull over. The glass chamber rose above the rest of the machine. CAT. Black letters stood out against yellow. It had a government license plate.
I ran up to it. This hadn’t been here when the bus rolled down the road earlier today. Someone had driven it out here and not made it very far.
“Stop,” Gina said. “What if there’s someone inside?”
A groan came out from the cockpit of the machine. I couldn’t think of a better word for it. I stopped like Gina wanted me to and another groan came out, weak and barely there.
Someone was dying inside and I had the feeling I knew who.
“Hello?” I asked. I got no response. I shined the flashlight up onto the glass chamber.
I caught a flash of a white coat, pulled over a head that was resting on the steering wheel. An arm dangling out of the entrance, almost scraping the yellow metal of the machine. The figure’s back went up and down, trying to suck in breath after breath. Another groan.
Dr. Shetlin.
The horrible story played itself out in my mind. The EMP hadn’t wiped out whatever this thing was. It had been shielded somehow. Maybe the government had put something special around the motor or the starter--I'd heard somewhere that they did that sometimes. Dr. Shetlin hadn’t had a choice but to hop in and bust down the gate. Nothing else would start. She had pulled out of the parking lot in this glass box, not knowing that deadly UV radiation was now beaming down from the sky. She had made it two miles before the rays became unbearable and her skin was on fire. Then she had turned off the engine, pulled the coat over her head and waited for the end. Maybe she had even thought the other radiation was killing her and there was no point in going back.
“Dr. Shetlin!” Gina shouted, running towards her. She climbed up onto the machine and stood there for a second before reaching for the white coat. I kept the flashlight shining on them both. Was the beam getting a bit weaker?
“Don’t,” I said.
Dr. Shetlin took another breath. She wasn’t responsive now. Then she waited ten, fifteen, twenty seconds before taking another.
“Get down,” I said to Gina. “There’s no use at this point.”
“How do you know that?” Gina asked. “We need to get her help.” Her tone rose with every word. She was bordering on panic. Before we had only seen bodies unless you counted Mr. Ellis. I didn’t remember if Gina had stood around to watch that. This was something new.
“There is no help,” I said. “Back up. I’ll take a look at her.” My mind went numb. All of this became a movie and everything inside of me turned off. It was easier that way. Always easier that way. I motioned for Gina to get out of the way and she hopped do
wn with what looked like total relief. I took her place and put my hand on Dr. Shetlin’s back.
She was still breathing, but I felt a rattling sensation under my palm. The noise came next as she finished sucking in her breath. Our tour guide was in shock or something. I had never seen shock, but it was my best guess.
I pulled back the white coat and bit in a scream.
Dr. Shetlin had turned into a diseased human lobster. Her skin had gone the shade of open wounds and sores. Blisters and peeling skin were present across almost every inch of her body like armies of gigantic, twisted bacteria. She groaned again but made no move to lift her head from the steering wheel.
The sun had claimed another victim, only faster. Much faster.
“Oh, my god,” Gina managed behind me.
And the smell.
I can’t describe it.
Dr. Shetlin was covered in what might be second degree burns. I wasn’t a medical student but didn’t those blister really bad? Mom got one once frying something in the pan when I was ten. She had to get a bandage put over it and she said it hurt so bad that it kept her up at night. The pain was an unrelenting burn that didn’t let up.
And this woman lying here was covered in them. She had spent the last several hours in unimaginable pain.
“We have to get her out,” Gina said.
“Moving her might make it hurt worse,” I said. “We’d better not.” I backed up a bit.
I hoped she was fully unconscious, but her eyes were closed in a grimace. Even passing out wouldn’t mask pain like that all the way.
I swallowed. I searched for a hand to hold, but the one dangling out of the seat was just as fried and blistered as the rest of her. Dr. Shetlin took another labored breath. The gurgling was still there. The end was close.
I settled for putting my hand on her back. She didn’t seem to mind that or she couldn’t feel it with the pain that was already consuming everything.
“Dr. Shetlin,” I said. “You can go. Don’t hang on and torture yourself like this. We’ll find a way out of here.”
Another breath.
Twenty-six seconds.
Another.
Five.
And then nothing.
Chapter Seven
That was the second death I witnessed.
The third, if you counted Mr. Ellis. But I hadn't actually seen him die.
I felt like the Grim Reaper. That would be my next drawing, the tormented little girl slowly morphing into Death herself. She’d stare in horror as her clothing turned into a black cloak, her hands into bones and her face into a skull.
“Is she gone?” Gina asked.
I didn’t need to take a pulse. “Yes,” I said. “Now we can get her out.” I needed my sketchbook, but right now we had to take Dr. Shetlin out and give her to the dust. There would be no digging graves out here in the desert. People would have to lie out here and fall prey to the bugs that were left.
Gina sighed. She had helped move the bodies out of the visitor center along with the rest of us. Maybe by now, this was just another one.
It was slow work. Dr. Shetlin was heavy and we had to balance on the crane. At last, we were able to pull her out and drag her to the side of the road. It wasn’t dignified, but there was no more time for that. No more need for that.
“Good,” I said. “Now we need to see if this machine starts.”
“Shouldn’t we say something?” Gina asked. “Now that the sun’s down?”
“There’s nothing to say,” I told her. “People die.”
“You’re pretty young for a cynic.”
I felt the frustration bubbling up inside of me. I wanted to yell at Gina and call her everything imaginable. It wasn’t like we were going to be friends but I knew it wasn’t right to do. She hadn’t done anything wrong. So instead, I held the dam back and gave her the right answer. “The apocalypse turns you into one, I suppose.”
“I agree,” she said. “Let me see if this thing starts. Then we can drive it back and pick everyone up.”
She hopped in and grabbed the keys, which were still in the ignition.
The crane started, roaring at the night.
“Yes!” she said. “Yes!”
I had never heard anyone so happy. I wanted to do a dance. For once something was going right. “How fast can this thing go? That’s important.”
“We can reach speeds of fifteen!” Gina said, tapping the speedometer.
I did the math in my head. “So we can get to town in about three hours if this thing has enough gas.”
She squinted at the gas gauges. “It has half a tank. I don’t know how much this guzzles down, but we have the issue of getting everyone on this thing. One trip would be best. I have no idea how you would gas this thing up.”
“Well, gas is free now,” I said, eyeing the machine. I couldn’t see anywhere you could pour in fuel, but we could worry about that later. “Should we get this moving?” There was only one seat. Gina was in it. I could theoretically sit on the hood, but the tires were so huge that one of them might grind my leg off and besides, Gina needed to see.
“I don’t know,” Gina said. “Maybe. Victory is ours. It’ll give us a chance if this can last three whole hours. You might have to ride in the giant scoop.”
I faced it. It was lined with dust, probably from excavating land around the Huge Collider. It was hard, climbing into it, and I felt trapped in a big metal bin once I made it. It wasn’t going to be a comfortable ride.
Gina took a while figuring out how to get the machine to move. We backed into the sand, barely missing Dr. Shetlin’s still form, and finally managed to turn around on the road. Gina gunned it and the machine roared down the road, going faster and faster until I could feel a slight breeze blowing against my face.
I stood up in the giant scoop. This was actually kind of fun. A headlight shone above me, illuminating the yellow lines on the road. After what felt like less than ten minutes, the visitor center emerged from the darkness, fence first.
David was the first to walk out. The noise had woken everyone up.
“Hey!” I shouted, waving at him while he stood there, mouth falling open. Gina pulled up close to the building and stopped. “How do you like our ride?”
“Do you find it sexy?” Gina added.
“Where did you find that?” David asked.
I took a breath and I told David what I saw. Gina remained silent, letting me do all of the work. I wasn't describing anything new to me, after all, but with each word I relived every horrible detail of Dr. Shetlin in her final moments. Moments that were, unlike my mother's, full of pain.
The look on David's face got graver and graver as Gina kept the flashlight shined on the front of the Visitor Center. Everyone else had come out now, woken up by the sound of the motor. Mina blinked sleep from her eyes--how could anyone sleep through the end of the world?--and Tony stretched, making his shirt stick to his pecs. David moved in front of him. "She was burned to death?"
"Sort of," I said. "She was covered in these blisters and the smell was horrible. I think she went into shock from it. That's what got her." I had never seen anyone in shock, so I was grabbing at straws. "We can NOT go out in the daytime. Gina, can you turn off this...whatever it is?"
She did and the Cat died. The headlight stayed on for a few more seconds and then it, too, went out, leaving us in darkness. Only the flimsy little flashlight remained lit.
"How far did Dr. Shetlin make it?" David asked. He looked between me and Gina and the machine.
I was standing in a dirty metal shovel. Gina was riding somewhat in style. Heat rushed to my face. This was awesome.
"Two miles," I said. "She got two, maybe three miles down the road before she had to stop and cover herself. Dr. Shetlin must have been out for just a few minutes before it got bad."
David cleared his throat. "It's a good thing we put the bodies on the shadowy side of the building. My skin is still on fire."
I hadn't thought about it, b
ut mine was still tight around my elbows and pulling whenever I flexed my arms, sending pain waves under my skin. My face wasn't much better. I wrinkled my nose. It was sore. I wanted nothing more than to have some of that lotion they made for sunburns. If we got to town, I was so rubbing that all over me.
"Why did the two of you go out?" David asked. His tone went from wonderment to something a lot darker.
"You're not our leader," I said.
"Look," David said. "We need to keep this group together if we're going to survive this. That means someone has to give the orders. I'm the one who knows some things about that. I'm just trying to make sure we all get out of this without breaking out in blisters and you guys are making it difficult."
"You wanted us all to sit here all night," I said. "Now we have a way to get out of here." It must be pushing midnight by now. There was no way we were reaching the town before the sun came up even with this thing.
David studied the machine. I could tell he was thinking. He even brought his hand up to his chin like he was contemplating something. “How are we going to get all of us on this thing?”
“Well,” I said, feeling stupid. “There’s room in this giant shovel for maybe five people if we stand.”
“I’ll sit on the roof,” Jerome said. He wasn’t joking.
“There are ten of us,” David said. “There’s one seat.”
“And we have six covered,” I told David.
“I can sit on your lap!” Gina said. “How about that?”
David grimaced. How could Gina be making jokes right now?
“Wait,” Alana said. I hadn’t even realized she had come out. She moved up to David and stared him down. “Can this thing tow a car? Or a van?”
I saw the light bulb turn on above his head. “Maybe,” David said. “There are cords in the other building. We’ll have to put one of the vehicles in neutral but the thing is, they aren’t going to start. You have to start a car to change the gears. Everything here is in park. But it’s the only way we’re going to get out of here. We need to move everything into the warehouse. Does anyone here know how to work on cars?” he turned in a circle until Mina finally raised her hand.