The Reverse of Everything

by Tara Brown

  “Someone here cares to clean up and pay respect to the dead,” Celeste said softly, scanning the area.

  “Car dealership,” Westley muttered and motioned his head to the side.

  A Ford car lot was on the right as we passed a bank and an intersection.

  “Dealership cars never have gas in them. This place is a ghost town,” Milo commented quietly.

  Owen shook his head. “Nope. They’re here. They’re all peeking out their windows. We just can’t see them.” He glanced at a parts and services store across the road. An outline moved in the window.

  “Oh shit.” I swallowed hard and forced my eyes back to the dealership. “Maybe we shouldn't be here.”

  “We’re not here to hurt anyone. They’re just scared of strangers.” Owen sounded as if he might be trying to convince himself.

  We walked to the doors of the dealership to find them boarded up with a note on the door.

  “Sorry, we’re closed. We want to be with family. God bless,” Westley read the sign and turned back to us. “Do you think he means God bless in the sense that he doesn't care if you take a car?”

  “He sure as hell didn't!” a man shouted at us, stepping out from around the corner with a shotgun in his hands. He had four other men behind him. They were all in their thirties. “You young punks think you can just take whatever the hell you want. Well, not in our town.” He cocked the gun.

  “No, dipshit. We’re six lost kids, trying to get home to our families,” Rozzy lied so fast it made my head spin.

  “What she means to say is we don't want any trouble. Our RV, which was ours, it belonged to his family, broke down about a four-hour walk that way.” Celeste pointed behind us. “It’s on that ancillary road that leads to the highway. We’d be willing to trade it for another vehicle. If one of you gentlemen is handy, you can get it running. It’s worth a lot of money.”

  “A hundred grand,” West confirmed.

  “We’re trying to get to Colorado. We weren’t going to steal or hurt anyone. We just thought if there was a car here no one wanted—”

  “You better shut that bitch up.” The man glared at Westley, Milo, and Owen. “You always let a colored bitch do the talking for you, boys?”

  “What did you say?” Something in me snapped, and I took a step forward. My hands remained up but suddenly so was my back. Stan growled and came forward with me, his haunches lifted. “How dare you speak that way to her? The world is ending, and this is how you want to spend it? Disappointing and rude? How pathetic. Apologize, now!” I did what Rozzy had said. I stared him down and envisioned his face being smashed on the concrete.

  He stormed right to me with hatred in his eyes. “You little bitch.” He spat his words and the last thing I saw was the butt of the gun coming at the brim of my hat.

  19

  Smoking guns

  Celeste

  The shot rang in my ears long after the gun went off.

  Zoey dropped to a crouch as the man in front of her paused. His eyes lowered to his chest as he parted his lips to say something, but nothing came out. He checked himself for bullet wounds, not seeing the one he had.

  He was in shock, I was in shock, Zoey was definitely in shock.

  No one moved until Rozzy sprang into action, lifting her gun on the other men. “Drop your weapons and back the fuck up!” She moved forward aggressively. West was next to her, his gun up too.

  The men’s eyes were wide as they dropped their guns in the gravel, clearly not thinking about the fact we had the same number of weapons out.

  Stan growled and barked at them all, keeping them backing up from us. Milo grabbed at Stan’s collar though I suspected the dog would drag him forward if he wanted to.

  The man whose ear was bleeding because I was a piss-poor shot, lifted a trembling hand to his head, lowering it and gasping when he saw the blood. His eyes got that innocent look, the one Rozzy told me about. “You—you shot me.” He was stunned.

  “Yeah, I did,” I shouted over Stan though I was stunned too. “You’re a racist and a bigot. You’re lucky I’m a bad shot.” I tried to sound brave, but I was certain a little pee came out. What was I doing holding a gun on someone, a gun I’d just shot?

  “You racist sack of shit.” Rozzy lifted the rifle as if she might smack him in the face like he was going to do to Zoey. “You were gonna hit a hundred-pound girl with her hands in the air?”

  “Zoey, come here!” West barked at her. He sounded like Stan.

  She got up, backing up and pressing on Owen and Westley’s chests as they stepped forward, their gazes both hardened and fierce as they started to realize what was going on. West held his gun up one-handed and wrapped his arm around Zoey, and I had a bad feeling about where this was about to go. He and Owen would defend her, and me, and we would end up killing people or dying.

  “What in Sam Hill is going on here?” An old lady—a genuinely old lady—ran over. She had six dogs and countless cats following her as she jogged toward us with a baby on her hip. It was like something from a weird dream.

  “You’re—” Zoey started.

  “Old,” I finished.

  We all stared at her. She had to be sixty.

  “Yes, yes. I’m old. It’s a miracle. Is there a reason y’all are shooting at each other in my town? I’m the oldest, that makes it mine.” Her eyes were fierce and every one of us, men included, cowered to her feisty tone. Except Rozzy. She didn't kowtow.

  “Helen, it’s fine—”

  “The hell it is!” she snapped at the man who was at the back with his hands up and a terrified look on his face.

  “Well, Helen, your friend there was gonna hit her, this tiny unarmed girl, with the butt of his rifle, in the face while her hands were in the air. And he called our other friend here something racist that I will not repeat, after we tried to explain we meant no harm. We’re just trying to pass through town and hoped that perhaps you lovely people had some vehicles you might not need, not for us to steal but to trade,” Milo spoke firmly, clearly offended, maybe more than I was.

  “He’s not my friend. He’s my friend’s turd of a son.” The old lady glared at the bleeding man. “Parker, I suggest you and your moronic gaggle find something useful to do with the last five days of your lives, before I find you something to do,” she barked at the assholes, which made her dogs start to growl and lunge forward, almost like her attitude controlled theirs. Even the cats hissed and scratched at the men.

  They scrambled, leaving their guns behind.

  “How are you—?”

  “I don't know,” the old woman answered Owen as he began to ask the question she had certainly been asked a million times.

  “I’m one of a few. Apparently, we’re immune to it.” As she spoke, the animals calmed. The cats rubbed against her ankles and the dogs milled about, sniffing us.

  Stan was doing the same to them.

  “And don't ask about the animals. I don't know. I never had a pet a day in my life, but the day everyone else in their sixties died, they just started showing up outside my house. Kids and dogs and cats. A pig with a bow. A parakeet. For whatever reason, I lived when everyone else died, and now I’m some kind of magnet for pets and kids.” She didn't sound jolly or sweet or grandmotherly.

  “One of a few? You’ve met others like you?” Milo asked.

  “Yes. Some in their fifties and sixties. Not many. A few. All with the same problem I have here.” She pointed at the animals.

  The baby cooed and giggled as if on cue.

  “Now, enough about me. What the hell are you doing here?” she cut back to the chase.

  “We need a vehicle to get us the rest of the journey. Our RV broke down outside town, that direction,” I repeated myself.

  “They got plenty in there and ain’t no one gonna miss them.” She pulled a key from her pocket and walked around the side of the building to a different door. “This was my son’s dealership. He was the mayor.” The way she said it, how her tone softened
, made me think perhaps he had passed. “He was in his forties, actually forty-two.” Her voice cracked as she unlocked the door and led us into the dealership. “There’s a vending machine over there. It’s been unlocked.” She pointed to the right and we were already scrambling.

  I grabbed a bottle of water and started drinking. I’d drank my water bottle empty an hour ago, and all I had left was soda but it made me thirstier.

  She came over to us with two sets of keys in her hands. “Take these. There’s a gas pump around the side. We can fill up before you go.” She handed me and Milo a set each.

  “You’re an angel,” Milo offered with a slight bow.

  “No, I am certainly not. And now I’m thinking this is why I didn't get to go. I never believed in God. I swore. I was selfish and rude. And lived in sin the last decade of my life. With a woman, no less. So here I am. My girlfriend is dead. My kids are dead. My grandkids are going to die. And I’m going to be stuck behind. So there. What a miracle. Now get going before Lyle and Parker and their friends come back with reinforcements. Lord knows I have my hands full with them, I don't need you here riling them up more. Five more days and they’re gone too.” She sighed, sounding relieved. “Pretty soon you’ll all be gone, and I’ll finally get some peace and quiet.”

  “Thanks.” I lifted the keys.

  “Of course. What am I going to do with thirty brand-new trucks?” She waved her hand at me and walked to the side door. “Oh, you should take these too.” She hurried back behind the desk and brought out two new boxes and handed them to Owen and West who grinned like school boys, which they were.

  “Walkies!” Owen high fived West. “Damn, these are the CB ones too. High quality.”

  “Where are y’all going?” Helen asked curtly. I wanted to mock her time being so valuable, but the baby was likely making that true.

  “West. Colorado,” Rozzy answered. “They wanna see NORAD or some shit. A bunker.”

  “That’s smart.” Helen nodded. “The air force base in Colorado Springs is calling on the radios for young people to come there and be safe. Food, water, electricity. They got it all. You should go there.”

  “Cool.” Rozzy sounded unaffected by the possibility of power.

  “All right. Let’s go.” She hurried us to the trucks, which apparently were freaking sweet rides, according to Owen and West. Owen demanded he drive one. Rozzy and I decided on girls’ truck and boys’ truck, forcing poor Milo to ride with them.

  Owen gave us a walkie-talkie, the stupidest name of anything ever invented, and strolled back to the truck, already speaking into the stupid thing. “We need call signs, over and out.”

  “Yours can be Moron One and West can be Moron Two, and Milo can be Hostage, over and out,” Zoey said and put the walkie down.

  Milo gave us a soulful look as they pulled out ahead of us, suiting his new call name to a T.

  We all waved at the old lady and got on our way.

  Zoey drove, mostly because my fingers still trembled from pulling the trigger.

  I didn't want to talk about nearly shooting him when Rozzy pressed, that was one of the aftereffects Rozzy had said I’d have. It terrified me how the world didn’t slow down until the second I pulled it and then I had to continue reacting. I couldn’t be in shock, I still had to fight. I swallowed down that fear, hardening myself.

  My parents would have been disappointed.

  That saddened me.

  But there was just under three more weeks to go. And then this surviving would be over.

  “I knew there would be survivors,” Zoey randomly said something she had written in her journal. It was one of the things that drove her to keep the house clean, in case they needed it. She hated the idea there were people with nowhere to call home. I attributed it to her father leaving and not coming back.

  “I didn't think there would be survivors, I can’t lie,” I admitted. I’d disagreed with that statement when I read her journal. “What do you think the cat and dog and pig thing is?”

  “I don't know.” Zoey glanced at me and in the rearview at Rozzy. “What do you guys think?”

  “I could entertain that perhaps the old lady was right. She was a bad person and she got left behind, but all the politicians are gone. And all the powerful people. So that can’t be it.”

  “Yeah, good point,” Rozzy agreed with me.

  “It’s just so weird she lived. Her. Some random lady in the middle of nowhere.” I said it but realized in my heart of hearts there was no way that was how it was. There was no random. This world event was precise to the month and day. People died according to their age in an incredibly formulated way. Whoever was doing this, God, aliens, or Mother Nature, it was calculated. Which meant the old lady was too.

  We drove for hours, moving much faster with the trucks than we had with the RV. Rozzy and I dozed, both of us tired from our days on the road already.

  I woke to the walkie fuzzing on. “Moron Number Two here, we need to stop and sleep and take a piss and all that fun stuff. Over.” West’s voice came across with an obvious smile we could all hear.

  “Okay. We’ll follow you,” Zoey said.

  “Delay my last. We might have a plan. Just follow us,” West said, sounding excited. “Over,” he added. No doubt because Owen made him. Owen was way too excited about having the radios. The ham in Zoey’s attic was making all kinds of sense.

  “He is so freaking cute, I can’t even stand it.” Rozzy offered Zoey a smug stare as she yawned.

  “He’s the town hottie. Him and Owen both.” Zoey’s voice was soft even though she was blushing. I hadn’t expected her to come to life and defend me as she had. I thought it would be Rozzy getting us in trouble, not the bookish girl. “You guys don't care where we stop, right?”

  “No, what we care about is your lack of tea. Are you going to date one of those hotties or what?” Rozzy leaned over the seat and grinned. “Spill, sister.”

  “Uhhhh, Roz.” I tilted my head, certain there was a confused squint that matched the one on Zoey’s face. “Owen’s not your type.”

  “Well, he might be, but you are not his type,” Zoey joked.

  “Oh shit. Him and Milo? What are the damned odds that two of the cutest boys at the end of the world are both gay? So are we all secretly crushing on West then?” Her cheeks were flushed with color.

  “Oh yeah,” I agreed with that.

  “Even Milo who is too old to be crushing. He told me earlier he thought West was an incredibly handsome young man. And he said it all adorably.” Rozzy laughed.

  “No,” Zoey lied, not convincingly enough.

  “You know he’s strung out on you, right?” I asked her, bold-faced and brazen. Like Rozzy would have done had she clued in.

  “No.” Again she was not convincing. “He’s just really nice.”

  “And you’re just really dumb for a smart girl,” Rozzy went there. “He is the hottest guy I’ve ever met in my life, which is saying a lot. And if he likes you, you have less than three weeks to enjoy that. You need to—”

  “Owen loves him. He has since we were little kids. I can’t.” Finally, the truth slipped from her lips. The truth I already secretly knew.

  “Is Westley aware of this?” I asked, pretending it was news.

  “No. No one knows. Marion isn’t exactly a forward-thinking place. More like those guys back in Lincoln. And Owen’s dad was a mean man,” she said softly with a sigh, as she pulled into a long dusty driveway after the boys’ truck.

  “Girl, Owen can’t ‘shotgun’ West because he likes him. West isn’t gay. That’s not how shotgun works.” Rozzy was adamant. She even folded her arms over her chest. “I can shotgun Angelina Jolie all I want, but that doesn't make her gay. Or mine. It doesn't work that way. You cannot ‘hoes before bros’ a person who isn’t into your gender.”

  “Agreed.” I nodded along with Rozzy.

  “Do you have boyfriends?” Zoey asked, changing the subject.

  “Hell no. I was dati
ng a bit before this whole end of the world thing kicked in. But then it just seemed like what’s the point?” Rozzy shrugged.

  “I was so close to dating. I went on a couple of coffee dates with a guy named Darius.”

  “You went for coffee with Darius?” Rozzy’s lips spread into a wide grin. “He is so cute.”

  “Right, but then the nineties died and his dad was like, ‘You need to come home.’ So he did. And that was that. We texted a bit, but it never went anywhere.” I sighed and stared out the window at the darkening sky. “I think it might have been something amazing too.”

  “Oh, girl, that’s shit. That’s totally shit.” Rozzy wrapped an arm around me and snuggled in. “At least we got each other, boo.”

  I smiled, fighting the sensation Zoey often described in her journal about the world fuzzing out and feeling like gravity was gone. I needed to be grateful that I had people to die with and people to mourn me when I was gone.

  Because in the end, that was a lot to be grateful for.

  20

  Homestead

  Zoey

  “What’s the plan?” I asked as we sat in the trucks, staring at the dark house we had followed the boys to.

  “Go inside and sleep. I thought it seemed kinda obvious. Over.” Owen was sticking to the radio rules a little hard for someone who just got one.

  “Fine.” I clicked off the radio and turned to Celeste and Rozzy. “Maybe they know the house?” I wasn't sure, none of us were, but we were way too tired to worry about it.

  I climbed out of the truck, swallowing my uneasiness as the scent of a new place smacked me in the face. The wind was sharp, colder than before. The last town made new places scary. Racists. Bigots. Guns in my face. I regretted leaving home. But maybe we were on our way to a new home.

  We’d driven two hundred of the four hundred and fifty we had to go.

  Tomorrow would be a single short day of travel and we would be there. I couldn't wait. The road trip had turned into something I hadn’t expected. Though I wasn’t sure what I’d imagined would happen with a bunch of young people in an RV traveling the dying world.