by J. D. Palmer
“Yeah, I know.”
We say goodbye to our temporary home and head out. The brothers lead us north down Sepulveda Boulevard. There is a mall along the way and we swing in to get new gear. The parking lot is empty.
“We picked the right day for shopping.”
John cracks a sympathetic smile at my joke. Beryl shakes her head. Whatever. My sense of humor rarely meshes with anyone else.
A lone car in the parking lot has a silhouette in the back seat. A toddler. I’ll have to work on keeping my mouth shut.
The inside is deserted but for the hundreds of rats. They scurry along walls and inside kiosks and the bodies inside have been picked clean in places and then abandoned for an easier target. Bare yellow bones in a wasteland of rat shit and dried bodily fluids.
Without words we go our separate ways. Even at the world’s end we still have our own styles. I pick out a new backpack and two pairs of shoes, one to wear and one to tie to the outside. A shirt that will breathe and a pair of pants and a sweatshirt for the night. I wonder why I bother. It’s not like there won’t be clothes and shoes and whatever else we might need littered along the road for the next hundred miles.
I swing into GNC and grab some vitamins. I worry about my health more now after my neck. Everything we took for granted before is gone because, well, we had everything before. I wonder if any of us will need stitches and I look for a med kit.
Beryl has brand new clothes. She favors black and she covers up, even with the heat. I’m not going to say anything. She gives me a bandana as she ties a red paisley one up around her head. Mine is of an American flag. Is there an America anymore?
“Har? Beryl?” We turn. John and Steven stand on the level above us. “Will you come up here?”
We head up the frozen escalator, herding five or six rats ahead of us. The brothers seem ready to go, new clothes on and new bags packed. John hands out some water and some food. “We found some things that the rats didn’t touch.” Something is off. John seems nervous.
“Also, we found some flashlights and batteries. Here.” Again they distribute stuff to us all. I can tell Beryl is getting suspicious, she moves a few paces away from me.
John slowly looks at both of us. “I know you don’t trust easily, either of you. I don’t know if you fully trust us… yet.” He slides a hand slowly behind him and pulls out a gun. I see Beryl go for hers and I put a hand out.
“No. Wait.”
Beryl listens and I know in that split second that I have never commanded that amount of trust with anyone before. I see it for how precious it is. I have never given that amount of trust either, but should Beryl speak I would try.
John holds the gun up, and then places it on the ground. He looks behind him and, with a scowl, Steven does the same. Then places another. Three guns on the ground.
“We found these. We won’t keep them unless you want us to.”
I know that trust has begun to be built. I see that the wariness in Beryl’s eyes has diminished, especially since the incident with the dogs. I know the tension in my shoulders has faded.
Somewhat.
I try to see us through their eyes. Two skittish animals. Survivors of an unknown war. This feels like overkill on John’s part. This asking of permission. But maybe it’s wise. Maybe best to treat us with kid’s gloves until we get used to each other.
No surprises. No loud noises.
I look at Beryl. “This is her decision.” I hate to put her on the spot but eventually I can’t be the only one to put more than a toe in the water. After what seems like an hour she nods her head. The men put the guns in their waistbands and we stand there awkwardly.
“Anything else guys? Or are we ready to go?”
Steven steps forward. He pulls a notebook out of his bag. “We’re the last people. We should document this shit.” He holds out the notebook and a pen to Beryl and I’m surprised to see her looking shy. She slowly takes it, uncaps the pen and scribbles in the book. She hands it back to Steven, who writes, and then to John. When they give it to me I see she has written “Day 1.” They’ve all signed their names beneath it. I sign mine and feel cheesy and maudlin and somehow close to these strangers.
And thankful for it.
We walk.
The slow curve up onto a freeway full of cars that now serve as coffins. An odd, futuristic style graveyard stretching as far as the eye can see.
I am glad that we have a journal, of sorts. Something to mark our passing. Something that, should I not make it home, will tell someone, someday, that I tried.
We get to what the brothers call Skirball Pass and stop for a break.
Thank god.
I look out over the city that I don’t know. The skyscrapers of downtown bleed thin streams of smoke into the sky, a thin grey streak reaching up to blend in with a large mass of dark clouds moving in. There is a rumble, and I look back at the group. “Rain?”
I am assured that this is not normal for Los Angeles, but the brothers start giving skeptical looks to the thunderhead moving in and soon we are moving more quickly as a storm of epic proportions rolls in, the clouds far too large, far too heavy to be normal.
We move off of the freeway and hustle, as much as I can, up a steep frontage road that curves up and onto Mulholland Drive. Thick trees and hedges form a wall and we are forced to walk a long loop around and onto a new road before we can see any access to buildings. There is a loud blast of thunder off in the distance. The others are terrified.
This must be very rare.
Maybe that’s what happens when mankind disappears overnight. Mother Earth has grown used to the fumes, intoxicated with methane and carbon dioxide and who knows what other pollutants. An unwilling addict that was forced to quit cold turkey. That there are withdrawals, however manifested, shouldn’t be a surprise.
I doubt the weather will resemble anything close to normal for a long time.
We walk into a gated community, the guard station empty, and up a sculpted road. We pass a Jewish Temple, the parking lot is gated and has been chained shut. A car inside the lot is parked lengthwise in front of the gate as further deterrent. A hastily penned sign is attached to the window of the car. Yeshuat Hashem k’heref ayin. I do not know what it means. We stand staring at the structure as rain begins to pelt the ground around us. If anyone is inside they do not make themselves known.
We stop at the first house that looks accessible, trudging around a gate and up a cobbled driveway past sculptures of warped and twisted stars and rays of sun and other celestial objects until we reach two large oaken doors. They are locked, and again I wonder at a society that died alone and terrified but was still more afraid of their neighbor.
I fall into the old routine I learned with Stuart, first banging on the door to alert any animals inside. I cringe as I realize I immediately brought my gaze to the ground. Still the obedient dog. There is a pinch on my shoulder blade and I turn to see Beryl. She just looks into my eyes and gives me a nod and I am, to a small extent, fortified.
I lean on her too much.
The doors are thick and we have no crowbar so I skirt the edge of the house to find a window. I don’t respond to the questions from the brothers. They’d probably insist on breaking in themselves to keep me from straining myself.
Too late.
I’m tired of feeling feeble, tired of the worried looks, tired of being taken care of. Tired of being tired. I’m also afraid that, should I stop moving, I won’t be able to start again.
A small window is open a few inches and I pop the screen and shimmy through. I am in a girl’s bedroom. Books line a wall. Harry Potter regalia is on the dresser and shelves and beside the bed. The blankets are flowery and purple and there is a lump beneath them. There is no smell. I prod the lump and it’s just a twist of the blankets. I’m getting too used to this.
I walk through an ornate house hung with priceless paintings. Little glass figurines of turtles are everywhere. I go room to room. I know the others a
re getting drenched outside and are probably wondering what’s taking me so long. I want to find the people first.
They are in the master bedroom. As soon as I open the door a wave of fetid stench punches me in the nose, the eyes, the gut. The woman’s bloated corpse is in the bed. There are tissues and bowls and tea cups and pills scattered on the bedside table. I stand at the foot of the bed, the bandanna around my mouth. Something small and white moves in her mouth and I retch. Perhaps I’m not as used to this as I give myself credit for.
There is no way I can move this body out.
There is a creak behind me. I whirl around, fumbling for my gun. A man is hanging in the closet, a belt wrapped around his neck. His face is black and bloated and red eyes stare out at me. One hand is caught up in the loop as if he changed his mind at the last minute. The belt gives another creak as an invisible wind swings the man slowly to the side.
I close the door behind me, hands shaking with the adrenaline still coursing through my veins.
I let the others in and tell them not to go upstairs. They nod, no need to ask why.
We find towels and dry off and congregate in the living room. The view is spectacular. We can see the entire city spread out before us. A high-rise cemetery for the damned, the city as dead as the people in it. My buddy told me when he picked me up at the airport that there are more people on the 405 freeway at rush hour than in the state of Montana. What a horrifying thought.
Without lights the freeways look like rivers, winding and diverging and eventually disappearing into buildings that spring up like an infant mountain chain, sharp and new and untouched by winds or time.
The storm swirls above the skyscrapers of Downtown L.A. The plume of smoke whispers up and joins a last gasp of smog in the dark mass of clouds gathering above. Winds howl and lightning darts in and out of the buildings, a lovers tongue swooping and racing and ravishing buildings already ravished. A new fire burns. We watch in silence as the city slowly lights up one last time.
We eat a canned meal, cold, none of us having the energy to cook. John finds a couple bottles of nice Scotch and we pass them around as the storm flashes and rumbles. The brothers talk of their time in the city, almost giving a eulogy of sorts, and Beryl writes down some of their stories in her notebook. She sits in a window seat, hair silhouetting a face in turn silhouetted by the gleam of the distant fire. Steve puts out his cigarette and gestures at her.
“Yo girl give me that notebook.”
She gives it to him and he begins to sketch her, deft hands capturing a portrait of a girl less mournful than the one we have been traveling with. “Doing tattoos… I had to sketch things out for people all the time.” She examines the picture and does not seem displeased.
I feel her slow progression past trust to a possible friendship. Tension is gone, at least for the moment, and peace reigns in the room even as the world continues to fall apart outside.
Chapter 15
Slowly a routine institutes itself. The brothers make breakfast. Beryl and I are responsible for dinner. We snack throughout the day, raiding houses or stores at midday when the sun is high and the heat radiating off of the pavement is unbearable.
Muscles get used to hiking. John pretends to need a break often, knowing now that I will try to keep going past my limits. I’m thankful, I guess. Pride and worry and stubbornness warring with gratitude and logic.
We get stronger. We are still thin, but a steady diet has taken the knobbiness out of knees and elbows. It’s not painful to see the outline of Beryl’s collarbone through her tank top. And we both have more energy now, slowly resting less and less throughout the day.
We talk, sharing stories about our past and speculating about the future. There is no bullshit between us. If the end of the world has done anything it has done that. If we disagree we say it. If we don’t like it we say it. Life now is too precious for anything less than the truth amongst friends.
Steven chooses his words carefully, spending time to think about whatever topic we might be on before he weighs in. John jumps from subject to subject, many times working himself up. He is smart, but idealistic, and he’ll often make a grandiose statement only to be met by silence. It’s good though, to have someone optimistic, though how you aren’t a cynic when mankind is at its end is a mystery to me.
We begin to see the decline of all things civilized. Sewage bubbles up and pools in lawns and yards and streets. A pack of dogs follows us for the better part of the day. Steven fires his gun at them and they scatter, reforming and following moments later. I begin to admonish him, “don’t shoot, bullets are… We shouldn’t waste them.”
Don’t let me turn into him.
Chickens seem to be everywhere, competing with pigeons and rats and seagulls for scraps. I see a pig, although no one believes me. John stops me and points out a pair of mountain lions hunched over a body. A fresh body. We don’t say anything to the others, not to shield them, but to retain the small fragment of hope that we have kindled. We now walk with guns out and loaded.
We make it through “the valley,” as John calls it, and he says we are officially out of Los Angeles. It doesn’t look much different to me, perhaps more open land hiding behind the buildings that still line both sides of the freeway. It’s as if the city is a greedy, gluttonous monster scrabbling to keep you inside its lair. To a boy from Montana this still feels like the city.
But John says we have escaped and I’ll take it as a victory. A small step in the right direction.
The congestion of cars eases up and Steven is the first to suggest that we find a vehicle. I look at Beryl, “you know how to drive?” She shakes her head. “Well shit, now will be a good time to learn.”
Finding a car is easy, finding the keys is not. Not unless we want to take a car with a body in it. Finally we find an old Chevy pickup sitting in front of a beat up apartment. John returns from inside, jingling a set of keys triumphantly. It’s old school, a bench seat that sits three, so Steven rides in the back.
It’s slow going, we still have to dodge abandoned cars and debris, but damn it feels good to be off of our feet. John and I take turns driving as we break free of buildings and enter the desert. We veer off of the 405 and onto the 14, angling in as straight of a line north as we can. We run out of gas at the top of a hill and are forced to strike out again on foot. Much to everyone’s chagrin. I plan on stopping at the first place we find to discuss getting through the desert.
“To what part of the north are we heading?” John asks.
I guess it’s okay to tell them.
“Montana. You still want to come?”
His face belies a shock. I doubt he thought that we would be going so far north.
“Montana? Well. That’s a drive.”
I can’t figure out if he’s disappointed, or just shocked.
“If you want to stop somewhere just let me know.”
He shakes his head. “The destination isn’t important. I just want to find others. Help rebuild. Besides, I’ve never been to Montana. I hear it’s nice.”
“The summers are,” I say, imagining the clear road ahead covered with snow. Coated with ice. The window frosted and the stale smell of hot air from the defrost.
I can’t wait.
He examines the atlas, mumbling to himself and scribbling notes in the margin. I catch Beryl’s eye and she gives me a little smile.
Progress is something you can’t see, you can only feel. Another mile down the road, another step closer to… something new. And another step away from that horrible place. I sense us leaving the ugliness behind, distance giving us a chance to start a new chapter in our lives.
A better chapter, maybe.
I keep thinking that the world ended. Perhaps that’s not the right way to look at it. Perhaps this is a new world, one that has ushered us into our true selves. I wonder what I would be doing if this hadn’t happened.
I know.
The road plays tricks with us as we trek along, small hills
suddenly becoming arduous hikes. The brothers begin snapping at each other, even John’s unending positivity running dry. We approach a small town and I know that we need a car or else we will have to stop for the day. Beryl freezes, fumbling for her gun as she points. There is a lone figure off in the middle of a barren field. He has his back to us and is digging.
We approach silently, not trying to be stealthy but not trying to alert the person to our presence. Guns are out. Except for John. He walks with his hands out and a confident smile on his face.
As we get closer the man senses us and turns. Long black beard streaked with gray below a lined face. His shirt has long dark stains of sweat and the black pants are faded and dusty. He reaches down and picks up a rifle though he doesn’t aim it. We all freeze.
I see the long trench he is digging and figure the only reason someone would be out here digging in the sun would be if he was digging a grave. A body lies on the far side. The silence stretches and I feel like we are imposing. I hold up a hand and give what I hope is a friendly wave.
“Sorry about interrupting you. We saw you and…”
The body moves. A face purple and swollen rotates its head towards us. Bloody lips part to reveal broken teeth.
“Oh thank God,” the man on the ground rasps, “save me.”
The other man swings his rifle up and aims it at me. “This ain’t none of your business. Move on.”
The man on the ground puts out a hand and starts to gasp out another plea for help before a kick to his gut silences him.
“What are you doing?” John asks calmly, politely, as if asking an artist what he is creating.
“Move along.”
I see Steven take a few steps back. Beryl pulls on my sleeve and I slowly follow. There is no need for unnecessary violence. Only John doesn’t move.
“Just tell us why.”
The man chews his gums for a second as he looks from me to John and back again. “It don’t matter. It don’t fucking matter, not anymore. And I don’t have to justify this to anyone. I don’t. So get along now.”