by Aiden Bates
When he and Glenn caught each other’s eye tonight in their room, Kevin thought their big friendly feast might have processed through some of the bad feelings, maybe started the closure process on Alex’s death. Kevin shut the bedroom door behind him, saw Glenn looking at him through their dresser mirror, and the look held. He walked up behind Glenn and reached around to slip his hand in between the panels of Glenn’s robe and into his shorts to stroke him. Glenn closed his eyes, and his face finally smoothed away from those worried lines of frown and concern that have been there since Kevin came home, even in the man’s sleep. Kevin brought Glenn off and hoped there would be some extra form of relief with that for Glenn, some lasting relaxation that Glenn could keep and build on, but as soon as it was done, Glenn lapsed back to sadness. He turned and hugged Kevin, kissed him on the cheek to thank him, but then went straight to bed and his fitful dreams. Kevin couldn’t fall asleep himself, and came downstairs for some coffee, ready to just start the morning if sleep was going to be too much to hope for. That is when Jeff came home.
“Hey,” Kevin says, pushing out another chair with his foot. “How was your date?”
“I got laid,” Jeff blurts out first. Kevin smiles; Jeff never holds onto a secret like that for long, he’s always so proud of himself.
“Yeah, do you think you’ll see the guy again someday? Or is this just another notch on your bedpost?”
“I’ll see him again if he’ll have me, for sure,” Jeff says. “That is if we all live longer than a week—you won’t believe the weird crank call he got at his house.”
Jeff unspools a very unlikely story, telling Kevin about the call he got, and how scary it was. Kevin believes him, because even after a long, quiet drive back to Vermont, Jeff still looks pretty shaken. He’s almost decided it really was some joke, but he can’t quite dismiss it yet.
“It was the gunshots,” Jeff says, tugging on his already high and frazzled hair so that it stands up like a Bride of Frankenstein sort of deal. “They sounded so real, that’s what really got me believing it, for a minute.” Jeff is tapping his foot and he hasn’t yet had a sip of coffee—he’s nervous because he still believes it a little.
Kevin believes it a little bit too, but not because of the gunshots, anyone can make a lot of gun-sounding noise over the phone, it’s the code Jeff told him, Tango Alpha ZZD, that sounds … worrisome.
Kevin decides to jump on his phone and call around. He knows people who know people in the government, surely if that code is real someone will know it is, and if it’s not real, someone will quickly be able to reassure him and Jeff both. The problem is, as the sun rises on his sleepy little New England home in the woods, he can’t get anyone on the phone. It isn’t the early hour that’s doing that either—some of these people do not keep natural daylight hours, and he’s calling a few people in other countries, other time zones, and none of them can come to the phone right now. Why? They’re planning for a trip, or they’re on their way and won’t be able to return the call any time soon. Where are they going? South America. Are they all on vacation? Not exactly. That’s what makes Kevin start to worry, that is a pretty unusual coincidence.
If only Alex were here to talk with now! With their heads together maybe they could have figured out what’s up, but then again Alex was out of security clearance, and suddenly Kevin starts to really wonder why. This couldn’t possibly be why, could it? Surely if Alex knew something like this he’d tell his dearest friends about it, wouldn’t he? Or maybe it really was so bad, so inevitable, and so soon, that there was no hope at all for survival. Is that why he killed himself?
Now this news is Kevin’s story to tell, somehow, though Jeff is the one who took the phone call. When the rest of the house starts to rise, they can tell that Kevin is upset, and they avoid him like he’s some hysteric who might have to be corralled at some point. Kevin is on his laptop, trying to get through with his password in to schedules, into where people are, what they seem to be planning, what’s the chatter on the web? How could something like this ever be so secret that he doesn’t notice a hint of it, but some random guy inside gets too close to a phone line that can call out and manages to tell Jeff, of all people? That can’t be real, can it?
But the further he searches, the more it’s clear that something’s lining up right now. Too many important people are headed to too many specific places. One rendezvous is in South America, one in Cape Town, Africa, one in Australia. It’s like people are trying to fall off the world!
And that’s what Kevin has to tell his friends, when it’s already hard enough for himself to believe. How’s he ever going to convince them before they overpower him psychologically because they don’t want it to be true so much? He’ll have Jeff on his side, but no one believes in him very much—he’s their goofball. The fact that this whole conspiracy started with Jeff getting some unlikely phone call in an age of cell phones would be enough to dismiss it whole cloth, but something about the sound of it bothered Kevin, and now he’s slowly amassing evidence that terrifies him more than he can even fully encompass. He could sit here for the next few days and make a whole researched presentation to convince his friends that this is real and the world is about to pull the plug on itself—some self-inflicted biblical cleansing flood but with a wave of poisonous weaponry instead of water—but how much time do they have left for Kevin to pitch them the truth? Jeff said that the call said next Sunday. That is very biblical indeed.
Before he can convince the others, Kevin has to convince himself. He gets up from the table where he’s been doing all this research, where his friends have been watching him get more and more nervous, and he leaves the room. He goes upstairs, just half-way up, to look at the pictures he and Glenn have hung there of their kids, their family. The question he has to ask himself is what’s the best way to meet the end of the world? Go on a mental vacation from reality, except it as inevitable, just live until the very end, or fight? He decides his kids are way too young to give up. He would give up if it were only him, or just him and Glenn, just them and their old school crew. Maybe that is what happened to Alex, maybe he looked around and thought to himself: Better for them not to know, but as for myself? I quit.
Kevin could quit on his own behalf, but he won’t force it on his kids. He takes two pictures off the wall: one of the old crew from graduation day, and another of him and Glenn and the kids, their family unit. He’s got to give that life-affirming presentation right now, and he’s got to do it fast. There are only so many days left to give surviving the end of the world the old college try.
6. Greg Wants a Baby
Greg along with the others follows Kevin into the dining room, and listens to his break-down of what he knows. It’s actually quite strange to see Kevin this way—it’s easy to forget he’s a bit of a government goon when, of course, he never acts professionally with his friends and family, but now he’s got some sort of debriefing to give them. He sets up the pictures he’s taken down from his wall so that they’re facing the rest of the group. Everyone else stays standing and gawking as Kevin sits with his back to the window.
“I think I know why Alex killed himself,” he begins. That’s when everyone else takes a seat for story time.
First Jeff reads from a piece of paper he’s been working on, trying to write down the exact words and codes he heard on the phone call, in the exact order he heard them. What he reads does not sound at all powerful, though he swears it didn’t sound fake over the phone, that it really scared him. Greg and the others would be happy to dismiss Jeff as a Nervous Nelly, but Kevin is not only far more believable just day-to-day, he’s serious right now, and he looks scared. More scared than Jeff even, and he says it’s because of that code, Tango Alpha ZZD.
“Now I haven’t heard of this exact project, but that’s the form these designations take in real life, and I can’t get anyone on the phone who can confirm or deny that this is designation of any real and operating project, but it’s because they’re all headed t
o the end of world, most likely literally. All the higher ups I can think of, the people with the highest security clearance, they’re all on vacation to southern South Africa, the bottom of South America, and the lower tip of Australia. I think they’re all headed to Antarctica, and there would be only one reason to go down there en masse: they know something planet-altering is coming, and they’re saving themselves.”
Glenn is staring at the picture of his kids, but he reaches to grasp Kevin’s arm with one hand and Greg’s hand with the other. He’s ready to believe this. Greg doesn’t want to yet. Neither does Sam; it’s clear he thinks this is somehow Jeff’s doing, an elaborate prank, even though … Kevin really was on the phone with people who would never go in on a prank with Jeff, and Kevin’s no prankster.
“If Alex knew something like this was coming, everything he did starts to make sense. Why he walked out of work, why he was suddenly so irretrievably devastated, why he didn’t want to keep going. I might have done the very same, suspecting what’s becoming more clear to me the longer I think about it, and I might not have told you guys at all. I might have lied, and let you be happy, and just spiked my own dinner the night before the end, so that I would sleep right through whatever bomb they’re planning to detonate, but … I’ve got the kids to think about. I know Glenn feels the same way I do. We didn’t start a family because we wanted to quit eventually, we started a family because we believe in the future, no matter how hard the future gets, and it looks like it’s going to get nasty.”
The entire group looks at Greg fleetingly—it’s gotten around what Greg was hoping to do this weekend. Everyone knows he wants to believe in the future too, and they all look like this news is going to rend Greg the most. Kevin and Glenn have already met their children; Sam and Jeff have never wanted any, but Greg? Greg is losing out on something extra with the end of the world, and as soon as he believes it he’s going to be devastated.
That is … if Greg ever believes it, because right now, though he can believe Kevin and the evidence before him intellectually, theoretically, he doesn’t believe it for real, not in his heart, and to protect his heart, his brain is going almost pleasantly numb. This is just one of those waking nightmares, when you’re aware you’re dreaming and only scared because you can neither control the dream nor escape it. No control, no escape, that means this must be a dream. It is not allowed to be Greg’s reality, not yet.
Kevin goes on: “I’m switching gears with this research I’m doing. I’m going to look for fallout shelters and panic rooms nearby, I’m going to find a place to take a stand. If you’re with me, you can help—we’re going to have to start making systematic supply runs in the surrounding area. You can all use my credit cards if you want to, money is no longer a concern of mine and might never be again in our lifetimes, the new value is on food that doesn’t go bad, and water that isn’t contaminated by what’s about to be done to our atmosphere. If you’re willing, I’ll have assignments within the hour. If you’re not going to believe me … good luck, and know that I love you.”
Kevin gets up after that, kisses Glenn on the cheek, and then swiftly leaves the room. He gathers up his computer and takes it behind a closed door to formulate his plan, and now the rest of the group is left here, staring at two pictures: of themselves as practically children, and of two actual children that Greg knows Glenn is ready to protect in any crazy way imaginable. It’s almost funny to Greg—if he had a kid of his own, he’d be ready to believe this too, but since he doesn’t, all he has is hope, and he wants to hold onto that, the hope that this isn’t real and that his future won’t be so bleak.
Glenn turns to hug Greg immediately. Greg doesn’t even move. Sam and Jeff look at each other and shrug. End of the world, who would have guessed, huh? It’s that easy for them to shrug and say, Oh, well, is it? Glenn has started to cry, that’s the only reason Greg doesn’t just stand up to leave, to go outside and start chain-smoking until the world makes sense again. He won’t move away and let Glenn drop to the tabletop, to sob alone with these two insensitive dolts, but Greg won’t accept any comfort from his sweet, dolt-friends either. Jeff is always quick to want to comfort people (thinks it might get him laid usually; he’s as optimistic as a dog who smells food, always ready to be—to get—lucky), but it’s mostly Sam’s comfort that Greg is surprisingly prepared to refuse. He was the one Greg wanted to have a child with at the start of this weekend, and Sam was gentle about that, but now when he tries to be kind again by reaching out to squeeze Greg’s shoulder, Greg shakes his head like, Don’t you dare act like this is real to me. Glenn can sob all he wants to, he’s always been their most sensitive friend, but Sam? He’s a goddamn actor, he can act like he doesn’t believe all this if he really wants to help Greg.
When Greg looks at Sam with those thoughts in his mind, his face accusatory and offended, Sam just nods, presses his lips together, and turns away. He at least has the foresight to drag Jeff with him, to leave Greg and Glenn alone with all of this.
“Kevin will take care of you,” Greg tells Glenn. “I know you’re sad, but you know if anyone can keep you safe, it’s Kevin.”
“I know that,” Glenn says, finally releasing Greg’s wrist and wiping at his eyes with the collar of his shirt. “Greg, sweetie, you’ll stay with us, won’t you? Our kids can be your kids if we survive this disaster, it really does take a village to raise a child, you know?”
“Don’t do that, don’t call me sweetie.” That’s what Glenn calls his children. Greg is being infantilized, he can feel it. “If you really believe this stuff, what should stop me from going into town and fucking every random stranger who’s willing? Just really roll the dice that I might come to the fallout shelter with you guys disease free and pregnant? What would stop me?”
“I’d stop you, Greggy,” Glenn says, wiping his eyes thoroughly dry and standing up. “Come with me right now to go see the kids, they’re at Kevin’s mother’s house. We’re not going to let them in on what’s happening, but we’re going to go see them, and it’s going to put both of our heads on straight.”
“Fine,” Greg says snippily, but he does go put his shoes on and grab the presents he was going to leave behind for little Thomas and Malakai—Greg loves those kids, especially Thomas. Malakai is such a cheeky, rambunctious force, sweet of course, but often exhausting, so much so that he even manages to tease and bother his older brother more than he’s ever teased in return. Thomas reminds Greg of himself when he was little, sensitive and bookish and the reason he knows he wants to have one of his own. How wonderful to find bits of yourself in someone so small and new, how amazing that kids have got such personality practically hard-wired into them? Malakai’s gift is food in a container that looks like a cartoon character so he can play with it until it’s destroyed (that’s always what he does with his toys, consumes them utterly), and Thomas’s gift is a copy of Peter Pan with a deceptively thick back cover so he can hide things from his brother in a secret compartment carved there. Greg knows they’ll both be happy, he knows them that well. He wants to know his own baby that well. Will he ever?
Glenn comes back from Kevin’s office with a shopping list and a stony demeanor. He says they’ll go on the first supply run before visiting the kids, for the kind of stuff you’d need in any storm or natural disaster (though apparently what they’re preparing for now is not that—the world bombing itself is an unnatural disaster). Water, gasoline, dried and canned goods, winter supplies like matches and fuel. They’ll start there and spend the rest of the week thinking about it, or else regretting what they didn’t know to get forever, assuming they live to be sorry.
Greg still doesn’t want to believe it. The world looks way too calm and normal, it’s fighting against the information Kevin gave them. Here are people doing their normal grocery shopping, and it’s Glenn and Greg who look crazy and dazed, wandering around buying supplies like there’s about to be a snowstorm in the middle of spring, Glenn with red eyes because he’s been crying, and Greg
moving around at the same speed and focus he has when he’s working on less than four hours of sleep. Why should the danger be real? Why can’t it just be normal again? Suddenly the problems Greg had yesterday are problems he would love to embrace again.
He doesn’t have a baby yet? Worst case scenario, go adopt a set of siblings like a big-hearted hero. He doesn’t like that he went from criminal defending to corporate prosecuting? Nobody holds on to every ideal from their younger days, but even so it was always a choice: if he really didn’t like it anymore, he could change, quit, he had all the options in the world yesterday, and now what does he have? Nothing that can’t be snatched from him in a few days—all his options gone forever.
Greg is standing in the frozen food aisle trying to decide what he’s going to do. He’s got a plane ticket for later tonight, will he take it and go home? He could. He could go straight home and then leave for real, like Alex did, alone by his own hand. He could go find the guy from his office with a cocaine habit and ask for his dealer’s number, try every drug he was always so careful to avoid when he thought he could stay smarter and healthier for longer in his life if he abstained … all that care is out the window now! If he chooses to believe it all, of course.
It isn’t until he and Glenn are standing in the checkout line behind someone with a baby that Greg believes it at last. Greg didn’t notice the little tyke at first, because the baby is swaddled in a wrap across the parent’s body, but once Greg sees its wide-open eyes goggling around, mouth open like the kid is tasting the air, just staring in wonder at the vast store around it, and then in pleasant recognition up at the parent who holds it … that’s when Greg loses it. He believes what Kevin says, and in believing that he knows that this baby, like his own will no longer be, and he feels tears start to drizzle down his face. He gasps quietly, through his nose, because he’s amazed, in a sense.