Notes From the End of the World (10 page)

A barrage of commercials start up, always much louder than the actual programs—McDonalds, Walmart, iPod. I’m not sure why they still play these stupid ads. Nobody is eating at McDonalds, and Walmart has sold out of nearly everything anyone might need during a zombie apocalypse. Unless you can stop zombies with cheap makeup or knock-off jewelry—they have plenty of those things left.

Finally, a overly-happy pop tune starts playing, overlaid with vocals of a female who sounds like she’s about twelve years old. “Don’t you forget about me,” she sings and I recognize the song from one of those 1980s teen flicks I watched with Mom last summer. A montage of children playing, a smiling mother, an active grandfatherly type, flickers across the screen.

“Remember, your loved ones retain their uniqueness, that thing made them “them” even after the transformation,” a jovial announcer chimes in over the music. “At The Pastures, the transformation process is made easy for everyone. At The Pastures, you never have to say good-bye—until you’re ready.”

We all fall into a morbid, uncomfortable silence. Mom refills her glass. I glance at Audrey who shovels a heavy forkful of casserole into her blush mouth.

“The Pastures is the only long-term care facility of it’s kind in the area. Plus, some insurance plans are now being accepted. Just call 1-888-D-I-G-N-I-T-Y. The Pastures is safe for all concerned.”

The squeaky-hipster chick vocals start up again.

I frown and look at Dad. He’s thinking the same thing I am: “Do we really need a sales pitch?”

“That song reeks,” Audrey says. “It’s as lame as these dumb shows.” Then she looks at me. “You going to finish that?” She nods toward my plate where a few bites of casserole remain.

“Go ahead.” I shove the plate across the coffee table.

“Maybe I’ll purge later,” she whispers.

“You’re a regular Lifetime movie,” I say.

“Bitch,” my sis counters.

“Dead bitch,” I respond. That’s one I’ll regret. I know it.

Chapter 14

December 9

Cindy

I’m heading out to the car to wait for Audrey when the screaming starts. I just make back into the main entrance of the school as the droves reach the front stairs.

Mr. Carlton and Mrs. Belle are waiting at the entrance.

A drove of Shamblers swarm the parking lot just as school is being dismissed. Nobody knows where they came from or why there are so many, but they just keep coming—people of all ages, all colors. Children. The elderly. Most of them are dressed rather formally—the ladies in smart, modest dresses, the men in trousers, dress shirts, ties. Like church clothes. Or funeral clothes.

But the one that will stick in my mind when I close my eyes tonight is the little boy. Dark-haired, sweet-faced, in a short-pants suit. His tie has come loose.

Blood stains his mouth like chocolate syrup and paints his tiny square teeth when he snarls.

A girl, whose name I never learned, is attacked as she gets into her car. An old man pulls her head back by the hair and tears into her throat, her shrill screaming dissolving into a wet gurgle. Her blonde hair goes rust-colored in a matter of seconds. Her ultra-cool hippie blouse changes to a hideous mess of splotchy red.

It’s terrible to die that way.

She has a brand new leafy green Beetle. Her parents love her.

Love doesn’t help anymore. My parents love me just like they love Audrey, but that’s not enough.

In a moment, she’s gone, vanished beneath a mass of writhing bodies.

These are our neighbors.

Those who are outside, flee to get back in. Some make it. There are others stuck inside their cars while the Shamblers pound stupidly on the windshield and the windows. Thank goodness their brain capacity has diminished so much that they no longer understand tools.

Melissa trips on the stairs, coming out of her silly high heels (who the hell wears heels to school during a zombie outbreak anyway?) and Mr. Carlton bursts through the doors. He snatches her up the stairs just before a girl of about six clamps down on her ankle with a set of decidedly Jack o’ Lantern teeth.

“Get the door! Now!” he shouts, getting Melissa, and himself, through just in time.

Hands press the cool metal, and the thick glass and the heavy doors weigh nothing. Maybe a dozen of us shove those double doors closed, catching the little girl zombie halfway in.

Her head pops like an overripe melon (geez, what a cliche!).

Someone screams. Crying builds and echoes in the hallway.

“We killed her,” Emma Sanford howls. She does some kind of weirdo dance around what’s left of the kid.

I looked across to the other door. Nick stares back, his beautiful face strangely blank. Then his eyes touch mine for an electric moment.

He moves closer and whispers, “Why don’t you come with me to the art room. We might be here for a while.”

***

The art room is located in what is essentially the basement of the school. All of the fine art rooms are stuck in the dungeon. I guess that indicates what Palm Dale High School thinks of creativity. The football team has a brand new locker room and equipment. The levels of importance in the B.Z. (before zombies) years were jocks, academics and then creatives. Of course, there were levels within those categories, too. For example, the varsity football team ruled over all jocks, with baseball players next, and basketball players after that (depending on which team enjoyed a better previous season). Golf, tennis, and then soccer, followed by track. And, of course, female athletics were behind all of those. The brains also ranked in this order—mathetletes, the science nerds, then literary geniuses. Creatives were all tossed into the “we pretend to be impressed, but you’ll never get anywhere with that” category.

The art room is as silent as a tomb (bad comparison, but sue me), every little sound echoing. Nick flips on the overhead fluorescents and the room seems to warm a little. The oily-chemical smell of paint and the sharp, acrid stink of mineral spirits hangs heavy in the air.

“I’m thinking of quitting school until this is over,” he says. “I don’t think it matters now.”

I don’t know why, but this hits me like a punch in the stomach. It’s bad enough not to see him outside of school, now that he and Audrey are through. But now he’s going to stop coming to school, too?

“No, it doesn’t,” I say, making a pretty sad attempt at sounding nonchalant. “But don’t you want to maintain some sense of normalcy?”

“
Normalcy
,” Nick whispers, laughing. “You sound like you’re in college already. Missing a few days while the worlds ends isn’t going to hurt you.”

I shrug, more flattered than I probably should be.

Nick goes over to the window. “We can see from here.” He shoves a narrow table closer to the outside wall, just below the long set of high windows that line the side of the room. I let him help me up although I’m perfectly capable of climbing onto a table. His fingers trail across my ass and I pretend not to notice, then he leaps up next to me. The view is decent, if looking at running feet is interesting.

Muffled cries, some intermittent screaming, groans and enraged grunting. Pounding and scratching on the front entrance doors, just above and to the left of where we are watching. It’s a real symphony of horror, those sounds.

“I wonder how long we’ll be here,” Nick says.

“Maybe the police will come,” I answer. “I just hope those things can’t get inside.”

“From what I’ve seen, they aren’t any stronger than they were when they were alive. It’s just when there’s so many…”

“Like a swarm of bees,” I say.

“Or a pack of wolves.”

My phone buzzes inside my jacket pocket and I check it. A text from Audrey.

ur not dead, r u?

I reply:
n

Audrey:
I am—almost. LOL.

I close my eyes and sigh. It’s not funny and she knows it.

“Audrey?” Nick asks.

“Yeah. I’ll find her. It's not like she’s leaving without me.”

Nick smiles, hops off the table, and then puts out his hand to help me down. “I’ve stored some of my painting here,” he tells me. “Want to see them?” He seems like he’s about to share a secret, excited and shy at the same time.

“Sure.”

I follow him to a far corner that’s enclosed by tall shelves loaded with paints, markers, all sorts of papers and art history books. Behind the wall of shelves are dozens of canvases in all sizes, leaning against the block wall. Nick sorts through them, until he finds the ones he’s looking for.

Finally, he picks up three small, square canvases. The first one is a portrait of a forty-something man, smiling. He’s handsome behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. His hair not quite neat and his tie loose, but he looks genuinely happy. This could be a painting of Nick in twenty years, but he corrects me before I can say anything.

“My dad.”

“You look alike.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “He was always positive, you know? Up. He never looked at the dark side of things.” He laughs. “If we got stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire, he’d make a game out of it. ‘Look at that bird, Nicky.’ or ‘I wonder if we change this thing faster than Jeff Gordon’s pit crew.’ It was dumb sometimes…”

“That’s not a dumb way to be, Nick.” I sigh, thinking of the bleakness we now live in. The only positive is living through another day.

“Well. Either way, I find myself wondering if Dad might’ve been the lucky one. He never had to see this…”

“Don’t think like that,” I say.
That was dumb—what am I going to back that up with? Don't think like that—we’ll all be fine tomorrow?

Nick looks at me like he wants to hear reassurance that I cannot offer. He places the paintings back into the corner without offering to show the other two.

I start to say something else, suddenly the snap of gunfire echoes from out front of the school, making both of us jump.

“Shit,” Nick says. “The cops are here.”

“It’s about time,” I respond, although I’m in no particular hurry to leave.

He jumps back up onto the long table to get a better look out the window and turns, his hand outstretched. “Coming?”

“I don’t need to see.”

A man’s voice blasts through a bullhorn, mechanical and lifeless. “STAY INSIDE THE SCHOOL UNTIL THIS AREA IS CONTAINED. ANYONE LEAVING THE BUILDING WILL BE SHOT.”

Nick cups his hands around his face to cut the glare from the window and I take him in—his shaggy hair and his perfect body in those jeans—his back pocket is ripped and hanging halfway off. He’s beautiful. Too beautiful to die a raving monster.

Of course, so is Audrey.

And in that case, so am I. And grandma, Mr. Carlton, the little boy we saw at the mall, and everyone else in Palm Dale.

I used to think we were untouchable, but we’re just like everyone else. Always breathing what might be our last breaths.

“Oh my God,” Nick whispers, his voice shaky with horror.

“What?” I’m almost afraid to hear his answer.

“I think they’re shooting
every
one.”

“What do you mean?” My throat wants to close up.

“They’re shooting kids, Cindy. Kids who aren’t even sick. And teachers. They’re not stopping to check. They’re killing everyone who’s outside! They were serious.”

I’m about to call Audrey when she crashes through the door to the art room.

“Bitch! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

***

Later, as Audrey drives home, I can't help noticing how her face isn’t exactly the right color anymore. Her skin flakes around the cheeks and the chin. Audrey was always the last person to have skin issues. Plus, she smells a little … funky, like gym shorts left in a locker too long. The medicine isn’t working. Dad’s used all of our money on a piece of shit vaccine that isn’t going to save Audrey, or any of us, in the end.

I don’t say anything about it, and she doesn’t ask me why I was hanging out alone with Nick. Fair enough.

“You know, when the National Guard showed up this afternoon, they shot Chloe Marshall in the back of the head. She wasn’t even infected. Only too stupid to get back inside.”

She turns on the radio. Nothing but news, static, news and that scary-weird emergency signal. I look out the window and watch the community I once loved pass me by.

***

Cindy

Audrey weeps like her heart’s splitting in two, and I cannot sleep because it comes through the walls like water through a sponge. My sister, the tough one of us. The badass. The one who doesn’t give a shit. She’s dying and she knows she’s dying. Does she wonder what’s on the other side?

I know she’s afraid. Why can’t she just admit it?

I climb out of bed, the floor cold under my feet. Do Dad and Mom not hear her, or do they pretend not to, just like they pretended not smell pot on her clothes, or notice her coming home an hour after curfew. Noticing doesn’t make them bad parents, I want to tell them sometimes. It just made them parents.

I rap on her door, timid because she’s always blown up if I entered her room without asking.

“Audrey? You okay?”

There’s this small whimper—something that couldn’t possibly come from my sister.

I open the door and pad into her room. Has she changed more? Will she leap on me and rip out my throat?

The smell is rotten, cloying. My eyes water, and the darkness becomes runny in front of my eyes.

“Audrey?” I whisper again.

“I wish I had longer,” a small voice says from the shadows of the bed covers.

I cannot see her.

“I’m so cold,” she says.

I climb into the bed next to her, afraid of her, yet afraid of what it’ll be like without her. She’s part of me. When she goes, it’ll prove I’m nothing special. I can go at any moment, as well.

I snuggle against my sister’s back, her body icy through Dad’s silly oversized college t-shirt.
I stoke her hair and try not to notice how brittle it’s become.

“I’m not ready to turn,” Audrey says, her words drowning against her pillow.

“I’m not ready for you to turn,” I say. “You gotta hang on. We’ll get through this. Keep taking the shots and keep fighting.”

“Tired of fighting,” she whispers.

I have nothing else to say. We lie there, silent for a while. Finally, I notice her breathing has become heavy and deep, and I leave her alone. When I get back to my own bed, I cannot sleep for the rest of the night.