End of Days

by Susan Ee

  I rush over and press my hands to his wound. ‘We got you, Obi. You’re going to be just fine.’ He doesn’t look at all like he’s going to be fine. His eyes tell me that he knows I’m lying.

  He coughs and struggles to breathe.

  He’s been lying here, watching the whole drama unfold with my sister, and patiently waiting for us to find him while we carried the other wounded.

  ‘Help them,’ he says, staring into my eyes.

  ‘I’m doing my best, Obi.’ I can’t press hard enough to stop his bleeding.

  ‘You know the angels better than anyone.’ He takes a labored breath. ‘You know their strengths, their weaknesses. You know how to kill them.’

  ‘We’ll talk later.’ No matter how hard I press, the blood seeps between my fingers and out of the sides of my hands. ‘Rest now.’

  ‘Get your sister to help with her monsters.’ He closes his eyes and opens them again sluggishly. ‘She listens to you.’ Breath. ‘People will follow you.’ Breath. ‘Lead them.’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t. My family needs me—’

  ‘We’re your family too.’ His breathing slows. His eyelids droop. ‘We need you.’ He puffs out his words between breaths. ‘Humanity. Needs. You.’ His words are barely a whisper now. ‘Don’t let them die.’ Breath. ‘Please . . .’ Breath. ‘Please don’t let them die . . .’

  He lies still and stares blankly into my eyes.

  ‘Obi?’

  I listen and feel for another breath, but there’s no sign of life.

  I pull back my trembling hands. They’re covered in blood.

  He wasn’t even my friend, but my eyes sting with tears anyway.

  It feels like the last linchpin of civilization just broke.

  I look around, noticing for the first time that everyone around me has stopped to watch Obi. Everyone has tears shining in their eyes. Not everyone may have liked him, but everyone respected him.

  No one had realized he was lying there among the other injured until we found him. Now the people carrying the injured, the ones giving water to the thirsty, the ones handing out armfuls of blankets – all are frozen and staring at Obi, who lies on the blood-stained grass with his empty eyes staring at the sky.

  A woman drops her pile of blankets. She turns, her face crumpling, and walks away, stooped and shuffling like a broken person.

  A man gently puts down an injured woman on the main building steps. He turns and walks dazedly away from the battle scene.

  A boy my age pulls his water back from an injured man propped against a building wall. He screws on the top of his water bottle while looking thoughtfully at the next injured man beside the first. He walks away as the second man reaches out to him.

  As soon as the first few stop helping, the others stop doing their own work and begin leaving too. Some are crying, others look scared and lonely as they walk off the school campus.

  The camp is unraveling.

  I remember something Obi said to me when I first met him. He said that attacking the angels wasn’t about beating them. It was about winning the hearts and spirits of the people. It was about letting them know there’s still hope.

  Now that he’s gone, it’s as if the hope went with him.

  52

  It doesn’t make me feel any better to have to tell them to evacuate. I had assumed I could just tell Obi and he would tell them. But now it’s on my shoulders.

  I gather everyone into the school yard with the help of a few people. For the first time, I don’t worry about being out in the open or making noise, because I know the hunt won’t start until sundown. Despite the number of people who left camp, we cover most of the yard. We catch a lot of people as they’re preparing to leave.

  I could just tell a few people and let the word spread, but I don’t want to risk a mass panic full of confusion about what’s happening. It seems worthwhile to take twenty minutes to have a final, civilized meeting and let them know what’s going on.

  I climb slowly onto a lunch table, even though I know we should be in a huge rush. There’s something about telling people that they’re about to die that stiffens my muscles. Half, maybe most, of the people here won’t be alive by morning.

  It makes things worse that there are still dead bodies in the yard. But I don’t expect this to take long, and it’s pointless pretending that a bunch of people didn’t get killed.

  I clear my throat, trying to figure out what to say.

  Before I can begin, a new group of people walk toward us from the parking lot. It’s Dee, Dum, and about a dozen freedom fighters, all streaked in soot and looking around at the bodies spread on the ground.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asks Dee. His forehead creases. ‘What happened? Where’s Obi? We need to see him.’

  No one says anything. I guess everyone expects me to answer.

  ‘The camp was attacked while you guys were gone.’ I try to figure out how to tell him about Obi. I lick my lips. ‘Obi . . .’ My throat dries up.

  ‘What about him?’ Dum sounds suspicious, like he knows what I’m about to say.

  ‘He didn’t make it,’ I say.

  ‘What?’ asks Dee.

  The fighters look around as if asking for confirmation from the crowd.

  Dee shakes his head slowly in denial.

  ‘No,’ says another fighter. He backs away. ‘No.’

  ‘Not Obi,’ says another fighter covering his face with soot-smeared hands. ‘Not him.’

  They look dazed and overwhelmed.

  ‘He was going to get us out of this mess,’ says the first fighter. ‘That bastard can’t die.’ He sounds angry, but his face crumples like a little boy’s. ‘He just can’t.’

  Their reactions shake me.

  ‘Calm down,’ I say. ‘You can’t help anybody if—’

  ‘That’s just it,’ he says. ‘We can’t help anybody, not even ourselves. We’re not enough to lead humanity. Without Obi, it’s over.’

  He’s repeating the words I’ve been saying to myself in my head. It makes me angry to hear the defeat in his voice.

  ‘We have a chain of command,’ says Martin. ‘Whoever’s below Obi takes over.’

  ‘Obi said Penryn should lead,’ says a woman who helped carry the injured with me. ‘I heard him. He said it with his last breath.’

  ‘But the second in command—’

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ I say. ‘The angels are coming. At sunset tonight, they’ll hold a hunt that’s a contest for the largest number of human kills.’

  I wait for a response, but no one seems surprised. They’ve been beaten, abused, and traumatized. They stand there in their rags, skinny and malnourished, dirty and beaten, looking to me to give them information and a direction.

  They’re in stark contrast to my memories of the perfect bodies and the gold and glitter of the angel gatherings. Many people in the audience are injured, bandaged, limping, and scarred. Their wide eyes are a window into their desperation.

  A wave of anger hits me. The perfect angels with their perfect place in the universe. Why can’t they leave us alone? Just because they’re better looking and have better hearing, better eyesight, better everything than us doesn’t make them worth more than us overall.

  ‘A hunt?’ asks Dee. He looks at his soot-streaked brother. ‘So that’s why they did it.’

  ‘Did what?’ I ask.

  ‘They set a line of fire to the south end of the peninsula. The only way out is across the bay or by air.’

  ‘We saw it through the surveillance cameras,’ says Dum. ‘We went down to try to fight the fire, but we spent half our time avoiding angels. It’s completely out of control now. We were coming back to tell Obi.’

  The implications hit me.

  The bridges are in pieces from the earthquakes. Even if we manage to gather all the working boats and planes, only a tiny fraction of people would be able to get off the peninsula before sunset.

  I’d assumed that because the hunt wouldn’
t start until tonight, we’d be free to run until then.

  ‘The fire is moving up north,’ says Dee. ‘It’s like they’re corralling us.’

  ‘They are,’ I say. ‘They’re herding us for their hunt.’

  ‘So we’re sitting ducks,’ says someone in the crowd. ‘That’s it then?’

  ‘The best we can do is run and hide and hope they don’t find us?’ There’s an edge of anger in their voices.

  Everyone starts talking at once.

  An anxious voice rises above the noise. ‘Can somebody take this girl?’

  We all look at the man in the crowd who yelled out his question. He’s a skinny man with bandages across his shoulder and arm. Two girls about the age of ten stand beside him.

  He pushes one girl behind him and the other in front of him. ‘I can’t feed and protect her if we have to go back out on the road.’

  Both girls begin crying. The girl peering around behind him looks just as scared as the girl being pushed forward.

  Some of us watch with quiet sympathy while others look on in horror. But even the most compassionate hesitate to step forward to take on the responsibility of feeding and protecting a helpless kid when everyone is either predator or prey.

  Not everybody looks like their heart is being wrenched, though. A few watch the girl with cold, crafty eyes. Any second now, one of them will step forward to claim her.

  ‘You’re giving away your daughter?’ I ask, stunned.

  He shakes his head. ‘I’d never do that. She’s my daughter’s friend who came with us on vacation to California just before the angels invaded.’

  ‘Then she’s your family now,’ I say through gritted teeth.

  The man looks around at the faces around him. ‘I don’t know what else to do. I can’t protect her. I can’t feed her. She’ll be better off with someone else. My only other choice is to just abandon her. I just can’t keep my family alive and her too.’ He wraps his good arm around the crying girl behind him as if wishing he had hid her before he caught everyone’s attention.

  ‘She’s your family too,’ I say. I’m so angry that I’m shaking.

  ‘Look, I’ve kept her alive all this time,’ yells the father. ‘But I can’t do it anymore. I don’t even know how I’m going to keep me and my daughter alive. I’m just desperate and doing what I need to do to try to protect me and mine.’

  Me and mine.

  I think about the dying man Paige found in the department store. What happened to his people? If we scatter now, are we each going to find ourselves dying alone in a dark place with no one to care if we’re eaten alive?

  The only thing that man had left was a crayon drawing made by a kid he loved. It dawns on me that in that moment, that kid, Paige, and the dying man were part of a spiderweb connection that spelled family. That’s what saved the man from being eaten alive. That’s what reminded Paige to fight for her humanity.

  I finally understand what Obi was telling me. These people – these vulnerable, bickering, flawed people – are my family too. I want to curse Obi for making me feel this way. It’s been hard enough trying to protect my sister and mother. But I can’t watch my own people splinter off and die and maybe tear each other to pieces while they’re at it.

  ‘We’re all your family.’ I echo Obi’s words. ‘You’re not alone. And neither is she.’ I nod toward the trembling girl standing in the middle of the yard with no one beside her.

  ‘Take a deep breath,’ I say, trying to sound the way my dad used to sound when I was freaked out about something. ‘Calm down. We’ll survive this.’

  People look at me, then at the rest of what’s left of the Resistance. There’s a whole world of emotions swirling in the crowd.

  ‘Yeah?’ asks one of the fighters. ‘Who’s going to save us? Who’s crazy enough and strong enough to hold everyone together while we ram our heads against this impossible enemy?’

  The wind flaps the jackets of the dead around us.

  ‘Me.’

  Until I say it, I hadn’t really believed it.

  At least they don’t laugh. But they stare at me for an uncomfortable amount of time.

  I shrug. It’s awkward talking about yourself. ‘I know more about angels than just about anyone else alive. I have an . . .’ I remember I don’t have Pooky Bear anymore. ‘I’ve made friends with . . .’ Who? Raffe? The Watchers? They’re going to hunt us like animals. ‘Anyway, I have one hell of a family.’

  ‘You have brains, and you have a family,’ says a man with a gash on his head. ‘That’s your special power?’

  ‘We can all go our separate ways and die alone.’ My voice becomes firm, and I try to inject steel into it. ‘Or we can stay together and make our final stand.’

  Whether I want to or not, I’m going to lead what’s left of Obi’s Resistance.

  ‘Instead of scattering and hiding, we’re going to work together. The healthy and strong will help anyone who has trouble moving. We’ll collect as many boats and planes as we can, and we’ll begin getting people across the bay as soon as possible. We need volunteers to drive the boats and help get everybody across.’

  I doubt that there are any planes available and, if there are, that anyone will be brave enough to take to the air while there are angels around. But some of these people might know how to pilot a boat.

  ‘We can’t get everyone across before sunset,’ says someone in the crowd.

  ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘We’re going to keep ferrying them for as long as it takes, because some of us will create a diversion and keep the angels occupied.’

  ‘Who’s going to do that?’

  I think about that for a minute before answering.

  ‘Heroes.’

  53

  It doesn’t take long for people to decide whether to stick around and help or to take off and take their chances solo. A third of the people leave after they hear me in the yard. But the rest stay, and that even includes some able-bodied people who could have left.

  The healthy ones who stay behind help the injured into cars. Even if they can’t be moved very far, we need to move them out of here, because this is the first place the angels will come tonight.

  We’ll have to leave the dead behind. That bothers me more than I can say. Even the Fallen managed to give Beliel a burial ceremony.

  ‘How far away is the fire?’ I ask the twins as we walk into the adobe-style building that Obi used as his headquarters.

  ‘The south end of Mountain View was starting to get smoky when we left,’ says Dee. ‘We can check out the surveillance videos and see how far it’s gone.’

  Surveillance videos.

  ‘Can we make an announcement through the surveillance system?’

  The twins shrug. ‘We could probably make an announcement through the laptops and cell phones that we use as cameras. We’d have to talk to the engineers to make sure, though.’

  ‘Are any of them still here?’

  ‘They never left the computer room,’ says Dee.

  ‘Can you get them to set that up? Let’s get the word out,’ I say as we walk down the hallway to the computer room. ‘People need to know what’s going on.’

  The computer room is cluttered with piles of portable solar panels, cables, cell phones, tablets, laptops, and batteries of all sizes and shapes. The trash can is overflowing with empty instant-noodle packages and energy-bar wrappers. Half a dozen engineers look up as Dee-Dum begins explaining what happened in the school yard.

  ‘We know,’ says one bleary-eyed guy wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Godzilla crushing Tokyo. ‘We watched it through the cameras around the yard. A couple of the guys left, but the rest of us want to help. What can we do?’

  ‘You guys are the best,’ says Dee.

  It doesn’t take long before the engineers are ready for me to make an announcement. As the last of the camp abandons Paly High, we record my speech so that they can loop the message.

  ‘The angels are coming at sunset tonight,’ I
say into the mic. ‘They’re hunting as many people as they can. The south end of the peninsula has been cut off by fire. I repeat, the south end of the peninsula has been cut off by fire. Go to the Golden Gate Bridge – we’re sending people there to help you cross. If you’re willing and able, come to the East Bay Bridge to distract the angels and give the others a chance at life. We could use all the fighters we can get.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘For you gang members out there – how long do you think you can last on your own? We could use some good street soldiers.’ It hits me that I sound like Obi. ‘We’re all on the same side. What’s the point of you surviving today when tomorrow they’ll just come and wipe you guys out? Why not band together and have a real shot? At the very least, let’s go out with a bang and show them what we’re made of. Come join the fight at the Bay Bridge.’

  I steel my voice. ‘Angels, if you’re listening, everyone will know you’re shameful cowards if you go after the helpless ones. There would be no glory in that, and you’ll just embarrass yourselves during the blood hunt. The real fight will be at the East Bay Bridge. Everyone worth fighting will be there, and I promise we’ll have a good show for you. I challenge you to come find us.’

  I pause, not sure how to end it. ‘This is Penryn Young, Daughter of Man, Killer of Angels.’

  That phrase, Daughter of Man, will always remind me of my time with Raffe. Raffe, who will be hunting all of us tonight along with his buddies who I thought could be my friends too. But that’s like a child expecting a hungry lion to be her fuzzy pet instead of being her killer.

  I think I sounded confident, but my hands feel frozen and my breath comes out trembly.

  ‘Ooh, I like the killer of angels title,’ says Dum, nodding.

  ‘Are you sure this will work?’ asks Dee with a frown. ‘If they go after the Golden Gate—’

  ‘They won’t,’ I say. ‘I know them. They’ll come where the fight is.’

  ‘She knows them, man,’ says Dum. ‘It’s cool. They’ll come after us at the Bay Bridge.’ He nods, then frowns as the implications hit him. ‘Wait a minute . . .’

  ‘Are you sure that people will listen?’ I ask.