Instructions for the End of the World

by Jamie Kain

I stifle a sigh. “Yes, sir.”

  I have heard all this before, in various forms. It was stupid of me to start such a conversation, knowing it would lead straight to nowhere. Maybe because Izzy is so much more girlie than I am, he sees her as this incomprehensible and fragile creature, in need of a bodyguard.

  He doesn’t know her at all.

  * * *

  When we get back from the grocery store, I help Dad unload enough food to last at least a month. He works in grim silence, and I wonder if he’d been hoping to come home and find Mom back. In the kitchen, he has already assigned cabinets for each type of food, to be lined up in careful rows, so I do my best to put everything exactly in its place.

  When I have nothing left but a giant bag of dried rice and no empty canisters in which to empty it, I look for Dad to ask him what he wants me to do with it. I know from past experience not to let it sit in a pantry and get infested with moths. After searching the house, I find him in his newly set-up office. He is flipping through the pages of a binder on his desk, then pausing to write something on a page.

  “Um,” I say to get his attention. “What should I do with the rice?”

  He frowns up at me as if he hasn’t understood the question, and the vague look in his eyes sends a jolt of fear through me. He never looks anything but self-assured. Now, though, he seems a little frail, and older than I’ve ever thought of him. I can see streaks of gray at his temples that I’ve never noticed before, and there are deep lines around his mouth and eyes.

  I think of the way he’s changed in recent years, the way his opinions have gotten more extreme, his actions less predictable, and I suppress a shudder.

  “I’m going to be gone for a while,” he says. “You’ll be in charge here until I come back.”

  His words take a while to sink in, and I stare dumbly, unsure what to say.

  He glances up at me from the binder, looking tired and distracted. “Well? Any questions?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find your mother.”

  “For how long?”

  “For however long it takes to find her.”

  “So … me and Izzy are staying here?”

  We don’t even have phone or Internet service yet. It’s all part of Dad’s plan to live off the grid, but his envisioned solar power panels are nowhere near being installed. At least he bothered to turn on the electricity with the local power company for the time being. I guess I should be thankful for that.

  “That’s right. You’ve got enough food to last you, and I’ll leave you with some cash and the hunting rifle.”

  “But—” slips out of my mouth before I can stop myself. It’s my father’s least favorite word.

  He gives me a sharp look. “You’ll be fine,” he says, but I can’t tell if he’s trying to convince me or himself.

  Questions crowd my thoughts, but before I can form any of them into words, my dad snaps shut the black binder and holds it out to me. I can see now it’s the household binder, which contains every detail he considers necessary for the proper running of our family. It’s a strange document he created for my mom, my sister, and I years ago, which we never look at unless forced to but that he refers to at any opportunity.

  I take the binder, the weight of it awkward in my hands, and clutch it to my chest as if I am drowning and it will keep me afloat.

  Me and Izzy alone in this broken-down house, in the middle of nowhere, does not sound like a good idea. But this is another one of his challenges, I know. He wants me to prove I can do it. He wants me to show that I can survive, no matter what the circumstances.

  I stare out the window beyond his desk, as if I might find some answers there, written in the sky. I can think of a million reasons him leaving us here to go look for Mom is a bad idea, but then, I know he can’t just sit around waiting, either. It’s not his style.

  “Where will you look?” I finally ask.

  “That’s not for you to worry about.” He squints at me as if I’m slow-witted.

  More questions occur, like how will we get in touch if something happens? Dad doesn’t have a cell phone, because he believes they’re unnecessary crutches and make it too easy for the government to track our every move, and being the good daughter I am, I opted not to get one, either. Izzy has a cell phone, but the reception here only works occasionally, if she goes and stands outside in the driveway, and even then it’s weak and spotty.

  “You two keep working through the chore list,” he says. “With any luck I’ll be back in a few days or a week.”

  With any luck. I try to imagine keeping Izzy out of trouble for a whole week. I guess it’s possible, since we live so far from everything, but how will I survive a week alone with her?

  Or more than a week?

  I can’t let myself ponder that.

  My father is not the kind of man you argue with when you are his daughter. He is so sure of his own rightness that any voice to suggest otherwise is as comprehensible and convincing to him as a fly buzzing around his head. It is no more than an irritant to be swatted away, or preferably, crushed.

  I have known this for as long as I can remember, though it’s only recently become an idea I can put into words.

  “Where’s Isabel?” he says, brushing past the desk and picking up, I notice only now, a suitcase that has been sitting next to the door.

  “In her room, I think.”

  “Isabel,” he yells into the hallway. “Get down here.”

  Izzy comes slinking down the stairs, her feet clad in purple thong sandals, her denim shorts and tank top just this side of too skimpy on her newly curvy body to pass Dad’s approval.

  She blinks at us but says nothing.

  “I’m going to look for your mother. Your sister’s in charge while I’m gone. You’re to do whatever she says, you understand?”

  Izzy’s mouth opens, her expression horrified. “What?”

  “You heard me. I don’t want any sass.”

  “I want to go too,” she says.

  “You’re staying here to get the house fixed up. You’ve got a chore list to work through so when your mother and I get back everything’s ready for her.”

  I can’t imagine what he means by getting the house fixed up. Are we supposed to ignore the stains on the walls and ceiling, the broken, duct-taped windows, the creepy haunted house vibe, and just set up housekeeping as if this place is normal? Or are we supposed to pull out our nonexistent handyman skills and fix everything?

  He explains nothing. Instead he says, “All right then,” and walks down the hall and out the front door, suitcase in hand.

  Izzy and I follow behind, dumbstruck.

  I stand on the front porch and watch him drive away, his truck leaving a cloud of dust on the parched gravel road, and I keep thinking he will change his mind, realize how crazy it is to leave two teenage girls alone in the wilderness for however long he’s going to be gone. But then, when has he ever changed his mind about anything?

  Pretty much never.

  I turn and see the expression on Izzy’s face. Already, I suspect, she is imagining the vast possibilities for trouble she can get into with her newfound freedom.

  “We’re staying right here,” I say, which is kind of ridiculous, since we don’t have a car to go anywhere and we’re probably five miles from town.

  Where would we even go?

  She shrugs. “Suit yourself, but if we’re here alone? I’m going to find out what people do for fun around here.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re going to stay here like Dad said and help me.”

  I realize I sound like the biggest dork on earth, but what else am I going to say?

  The truth is, I really have no idea how to control Izzy. For her entire life, she’s been this hurricane force I have to live with, always wary of what havoc she might wreak.

  She rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

  “Not whatever. If you don’t do what Dad said, I’ll be sure to let him know exactly how you be
haved while he was gone.”

  “You tell Dad and I’ll make sure you live to regret it,” she says in a fake-sweet voice, then turns and walks back inside.

  For the first time, I miss Mom. We are not the closest mother and daughter pair, and I know I disappoint her by taking my father’s side, but still. How could she have left us here like this, with no explanation, no good-bye—nothing?

  My fingers itch for my journal and a pen, because I want to write out this riddle, put it on paper, where I can arrange and rearrange my thoughts until they start to make sense. I guess I got the writing habit from my dad, the doomsday author, though he doesn’t even know I keep a personal journal, aside from the survival skills notebook he makes me keep. It’s my one rebellion, the only place I can say what I want without his approval.

  I have never been good at getting inside my mother’s head. Some things about her are so familiar—her warm jasmine scent, her voice, her wide cheekbones—and some are as foreign to me as if she is an alien being. My mother is not the type to talk about her feelings, or her past, or anything about herself, really. She issues orders, asks us about our day, explains how to do things. But she herself is a closed book, I realize.

  But now I have to wonder about this other side of my mother, the one willing to pick up and leave without saying good-bye, the one who is, unlike me, brave enough to stand up to my father. Maly is my mother’s name, and for the first time in my life, I see that she is a whole separate person who is not just a mother. The side of her we’ve been oblivious to all this time, the side with hopes and dreams and interests that have nothing to do with our family, is the side I’m starting to wish I knew.

  Maly, I think, is possibly a more complicated person than any of us noticed.

  When I realize I’m still clutching Dad’s household binder, I fling it to the ground and go inside.

  PART TWO

  You’re on Your Own

  Every prepper fantasizes about being put to the test. There is no point in prepping if you don’t really believe the world is going to end, right? There is always the fantasy of the heroic deeds, the adventure, the feeling of living on the edge. I see this in all the prepping magazines my dad leaves lying around the house, the websites and message boards he leaves open on the computer.

  But I’ve always wondered about this fantasy and its potential for disappointment. After all, if we really want to live like that, why not pack up and move to the far reaches of Alaska right now? Why wait?

  And I see, this is exactly what my dad finally did. He’s saying to us, and to the rest of the world, why wait? Why not start surviving the apocalypse now?

  Five

  WOLF

  I have been dreaming of the girl from the woods, Nicole. Although I don’t normally remember my dreams, I remember this one clearly because I’ve had some version of it every night since I met her. She is stalking me in the woods, and after she shoots me in the leg and bends over me to see if I’m still alive, I kiss her.

  It’s not a complicated dream, but it is a vivid one, and it makes me want to see her again for reasons I’d rather not explain to myself. I wake up from it sweating, dry-mouthed, heart racing, weirdly aroused, and fearful at the same time.

  I tell myself it’s the recurring dream that keeps her in my thoughts, because I don’t want to think about that strange girl with the gun. I don’t want my mind to be full of nothing but her, the way it threatens to become. It goes against my Thoreaulike aspirations of simplicity and solitude. Henry never mentioned having girl crushes during his time at Walden Pond.

  I am doing afternoon kitchen duty—and enjoying the rhythm of it—when Laurel finds me chopping vegetables for dinner. I like to chop, and even though my current task is dicing onions, my eyes are unaffected by them. Light slants in through the windows over the counter, and it glints off the chef’s knife as it moves.

  “You,” she says, leaning against the butcher-block counter next to me and crossing her arms over her chest. “Where have you been?”

  “For the last hour, here.”

  “I mean, like, all the time. You’re on another planet.” I look up at her for a moment, catch the pout in her eyes that she’s kept out of her voice.

  Laurel is a high-maintenance friend. She always wants more than I can give. I used to try to please her, used to like the way she seemed to need me, but I’ve learned the hard way not to.

  “I’ve been here and there.”

  An irritated silence follows as she watches me chop. I’m good at it, and the white flesh of the onion quickly dissembles into a pile of quarter-inch cubes. Then I grab another and start the process again.

  “I had a talk with Annika,” she says.

  I say nothing. I don’t want to talk about my mother or anything else. I come early to kitchen duty so that I can work alone, without the noise of other people’s chatter.

  “She says she’s worried about you.”

  “Hmm” is the sound I make.

  I mean it to sound bored, to discourage her from further comment, but she interprets it as an invitation to say more, I guess.

  “She thinks you’re suicidal, like your dad.”

  If I didn’t know Laurel so well, I might interpret this comment as some attempt at helpfulness. Or kindness.

  But we have grown up together like trees intertwined at the trunk.

  Siamese twins of parental neglect.

  “She shouldn’t worry,” I say to the pile of onions.

  “I worry too. You’re acting depressed.”

  “I’m not.”

  She places a cold hand on my arm that’s doing the chopping. I pause and look at her. Her blond hair is caught in a green batik cloth and hangs over one shoulder almost to her waist, and her gray-blue eyes reveal nothing. In her left nostril glints an ever-present silver ring.

  “She told me she wants you to go with her to an AA meeting.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “She means as her family support person, or whatever.”

  It’s not like Laurel to play intermediary between my mother and me, but then, nothing is normal about Annika since she came back. Maybe she really did instigate this.

  “Why don’t you go for me?” I offer, and go back to my chopping.

  “She wants you, not me.”

  “Then why isn’t she asking me herself?”

  “She thought you might be more willing if I asked you. She thinks you’re mad at her for being gone so long.”

  I say nothing.

  “She made me pray with her,” Laurel says, as if this is some kind of scandal.

  “We live at a spiritual retreat center, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “No, this was like … praying to Jesus.”

  I am trying to decide what to say to that when the subject of our conversation walks through the kitchen door, which jingles every time someone opens it.

  Beside me, Laurel goes deathly pale, probably worried my mother overheard her last comment.

  “My two favorite people!” Annika says, seemingly oblivious. “Just the ones I was looking for.”

  I focus again on my chopping, as if it will deliver me from this place, but Annika sweeps in close and I can smell her beeswax scent.

  “Did you ask him already?” she says to Laurel.

  “Yes. He’s being noncommittal.”

  “I was afraid of that. I realized it’s really my job to convince him, isn’t it?”

  Laurel stares daggers at me, but I have no idea why.

  “Darling,” Annika says. “It’s family night at my recovery group tonight at six. I need you there.”

  I drop the knife onto the counter, pick up the heavy oak cutting board, and brush the huge pile of onions into a bowl for the cooks who will be here shortly.

  But this kitchen is already way too crowded.

  I stalk to the back door without saying a word and leave, not taking the time to wash the onion scent off my hands, banking on the hope that my mother is too proud to f
ollow after me, begging. That’s why she sent Laurel in the first place, probably. But I have misjudged her, and she does follow, running to catch up with me. At least she is alone now when she stops me in front of the yoga center entrance.

  “Wolf, just hear me out.”

  “I’m busy,” I say. “What do you want?”

  She tilts her head to the side, squinting her eyes at me. “What are you up to these days that has you so busy?”

  I shrug, not willing to tell anyone here, and especially not her, about the new tree house.

  “You are almost grown up,” she says. “I want to spend time with you before you’ve gone off living your own life.”

  Now she wants to spend time with me. I choose not to point out that, for most of the past seventeen years, spending time with her son has been the last thing on her mind.

  It’s a little late for that, is what I feel like saying, but I don’t. Silence is often the best strategy. It’s hard to argue with.

  “What? You think you can stonewall me?” she says.

  “No,” I say, edging my way toward the barn, where my bike and its trailer full of roofing material is parked. I’ve managed to convince anyone who ever asks that I have been hauling discarded wood and stuff that I find on our property to a guy in town who builds chicken coops with recycled materials.

  But she reaches out and grabs my arm as I try to slip past.

  “Wolfie, please.”

  “Please what?”

  “I don’t ask you for many things. Go with me, just tonight, okay? I need you there.”

  The thing I hate most about myself is that I want to feel needed. I especially want to feel needed by my mother. I don’t want it with my brain, not with the part of myself that understands logic and reason. I want it with some primitive, lizard part of myself, deep down where logic and reason don’t count for shit.

  My chest gets this crushed-in feeling, and at the same time that I want to wrench my arm free and run, I stay there. I don’t say yes, but she knows she has me.

  “Meet me in the parking lot around five thirty, okay?”

  She gives my arm a motherly squeeze, and she looks, for once, vulnerable. I nod and finally break free.