More Stories from the Twilight Zone (12 page)

“I
still
don't understand,” the counselor had said.

Candy had looked at him with disgust, then said simply, “You haven't heard? The world is ending December 21, 2012. So why shouldn't I enjoy this last year?”

Since that point, Elliot and Candy had argued many, many times over her belief. He had kept asking her what if she was wrong, what then? She had flatly said time and time again that she wasn't wrong.

He had demanded over and over for her to explain how she could be so certain.

“The Mayan calendar is ending on that date,” she always said, as if that explained everything. “I just know my life, your life, will end that day. I can feel it.”

Now, as he unpacked from his last trip, she sat in his bedroom on his dressing chair.

“Tomorrow's the big day,” Candy said between bites of the maple bar and sips of the vodka-tonic. A large smear of chocolate
streaked her cheek, but she didn't seem to care. She hadn't been out of her bathrobe in weeks, and he doubted from her sour smell that she had even taken a shower in that amount of time either. He had been in Europe the last two weeks and had only gotten home a few hours ago.

“So,” Elliot asked, repeating a question he had asked every time she said something about her insanity, “what happens if the world doesn't end tomorrow?”

“Oh, it will,” she said before taking a huge bite of the maple bar, chewing twice, then washing it down with a large gulp of vodka.

Elliot just shook his head. How could a woman he had loved so deeply, still loved, actually, gone so far off track? He had read a dozen books about insanity and nothing about Candy's seemed to even fit a pattern. He could even remember the night it had started. Back in 2009 she had come to bed late after watching a History Channel special on how the world was supposed to end on December 21, 2012, the last day of the Mayan calendar. She was both excited and agitated at the idea, and he had listened only halfheartedly to what she said that night.

Over the next few weeks after that, she never stopped talking about the topic, even on a trip together to London, one of her favorite cities. At one point she had stood looking up at Big Ben and asked, “Isn't it a shame that all of this will be gone in three years?”

He had changed the subject, hating even talking about predictions of any future. That was for those crazies who believed in that mumbo-jumbo. He was a believer in right now. The present. Today. The future would be what the future would be. And Candy, up until that point, had been as down-to-earth as he was.

Not anymore. She was as crazy as they came.

He turned from his unpacking and looked at the mess of a human being his wife had become. “I guess tomorrow we shall see, won't we?”

“That we will,” she said, smiling. “I plan on spending the day on the deck, watching the world end over the ocean. Would you like to join me?”

“Thank you, dear,” he said, turning back to his now almost empty suitcase on the bed so that she wouldn't notice how disgusted at her he felt. “I'll do my best to make it back from the office in time.”

“With the world ending, why bother to go into the office at all?”

He shrugged, keeping his back to her. “I just like the routine is all. It's comforting.”

“Well, do hurry home,” she said. Then grunting, she hefted herself out of the chair and waddled down the hall toward the kitchen.

He had no intention of being home tomorrow, end of the world or not. He'd deal with her the following day, after her fixation had been proven wrong.

Then maybe he could help her, get her the help she needed.

 

Elliot Leiferman: December 21, 2012, near Death Valley

 

The car hit ninety easily as he took the Jaguar down the straightaway out onto the desert road headed toward Death Valley. The old highway was almost never used anymore, and to even get on it he had had to move a road-closed sign, but he loved the freedom of the straight pavement and the speed at which he could safely drive without worrying about any patrols stopping him.

Thunderclouds threatened in the low hills in the distance, but the cab of the Jaguar kept him comfortable from the intense heat and safe from the blowing sand. This morning Candy had been like a schoolgirl in her excitement. How anyone could be excited about the end of the world was beyond him, but for weeks the news reports had gone on and on about the Mayan calendar
coming to an end today, and this morning's headlines were
END OF THE WORLD?

The entire thing just annoyed him.

It was not only stupid, but it had cost him the woman he loved. He wanted this over and done with, he wanted to help Candy get healthy again, stop drinking, lose weight, become the woman he had married.

But that wasn't going to happen until he got home tonight and the world hadn't ended. Then he could start helping her recover for real and maybe even get to the root cause of why she had believed the end was coming anyway.

The Jaguar's smooth ride ate up mile after mile of the old road, taking him deeper and deeper into the desert. Even at this time of the year, the temperature outside was a baking ninety degrees and he had the air-conditioning holding him in comfort. He had come to learn that there were real advantages to having large amounts of money—the beautiful home in Malibu was one, this car was another.

He loved this car, and lately had taken more and more long drives in it when home, just to get away from Candy.

He looked out over the expanse of desert around him, letting himself relax into the drive. Wouldn't it be funny if the world actually did end today while he was in the desert? He snorted to himself and snapped on the radio, letting it search for a radio station.

Normal music playing, no alarms, nothing different.

Nothing was ending today.

He let the miles drift by as he thought about all the wonderful times he and Candy used to have and the hope that starting tomorrow, they could rebuild that old life once again.

The sun was starting to touch the horizon; the day was nearing an end. Candy was going to need him later tonight. He had no doubt she would pass out from all the drinking, but at least he could be there to take care of her. For the first time in a year, he
felt he wanted to. Something that she had believed in deeply was about to not happen and she would need help getting through that.

He let the car slow down to under sixty and glanced around at the vast expanse of nothingness. Amazing that in such a crowded place as California, there could be so many thousands of square miles of nothingness.

At that moment he noticed a faint light on the dashboard. He slammed on the brakes and came to a stop in the middle of the old road.

The gas warning light was on.

Oh, God, no.
He had no idea how long it had been on, but it was unlikely he had enough gas to make it back to the roadblock. That had to be seventy or more miles back, at least.

It had never occurred to him to get gas before he left. His thoughts had been on Candy and the end of the world, not his wonderful car.

He swung the Jaguar into a quick three-point turn on the narrow old road, and started back west into the glowing orange of the sun as it sat over the Pacific in the far distance.

He had to stay calm, think this through.

At that moment the finely tuned car that had run so smoothly for so long sputtered, caught again, then sputtered and shut down.

He was out of gas.

On a closed old highway near Death Valley.

Oh, God, oh God, oh God, what have I done?

The steering was heavy in his hands as he took the car out of drive and coasted to a stop.

At the last moment he eased the car off to the side of the road, letting the Jaguar come to rest in a very shallow ditch, its front bumper resting lightly against an old wooden post of a long-gone fence. No point in taking a chance that someone else out speeding on this old road would plow into his car in the middle of the
night. He just hoped that bumping the old fence post hadn't scratched the bumper.

He snapped out his cell phone and looked at the signal.

Nothing.

And he'd never bothered to have a tracking satellite system installed, even though the dealer had suggested it. He had never figured it would be needed in his drives around Malibu.

He glanced around.

Death Valley.

A closed road with no traffic.

Nothing within seventy or more miles of him.

God, oh God. What can I do?
His stomach twisted as if he were about to be sick.

He couldn't let himself panic. He had to think this through. If he panicked, he was as good as dead.

He pushed open the door and let the hot wind of the early evening blow dust into his just-cleaned car. In front of him, the sun had set.

He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Five thirty.

Six and a half more hours for the world to survive, to prove he was right and Candy and all the other doomsday shouters were wrong.

He unbuckled his seat belt and climbed out of the car, standing in the middle of the road in the fading light and looking in both directions, fighting down the panic that threatened to choke him at any moment. His only hope of getting out of this stupid mess was to stay calm.

No point in trying anything until daylight. Even with the sun just barely set, he could feel a bite to the air. It was going to be a long, cold night.

He went back to the Jaguar and checked for anything that might help him pass the time more comfortably. Nothing. He
kept the Jaguar's trunk clean enough to eat out of, and he had not thought to bring either food or drink with him.

He had on light slacks, a light shirt, and not much else.

He went back to the car, buckled himself back into the driver's seat, reclined the seat just slightly, and shut the door.

He had no idea just how cold it got later that evening. But it was already colder than he had ever experienced or imagined possible.

 

Elliot Leiferman: December 22, 2012, near Death Valley

 

The cold had drained Elliot more than he had ever imagined it could. His stomach was threatening to claw its way out of his body from hunger, and his lips were chapped from no water and the extreme dry air.

At sunrise, he'd managed to stagger out of the car and back onto the road. Then he had started walking back toward the roadblock at the same pace he used on the gym's treadmill, a steady four miles per hour.

After an hour his speed had slowed and he knew, without a doubt, that he had no chance of making that walk clear back to the roadblock. The intense cold of the night was already being replaced by the hot, dry heat of the day, and the constant wind and blowing sand seemed to suck every ounce of moisture from his body.

His only hope was to return to the car and pray that someone either spotted him from the air or happened to drive by. Even if Candy noticed he was missing and reported that to the police, no one would know where to look. He'd never told anyone he used this old highway to take drives on.

He barely made it back to the car, again snapping himself into his seat with his seat belt and leaving the door open for ventilation.

Yesterday clearly hadn't been the end of the world, at least not
for Candy. But it might have been for him unless he got very, very lucky.

That night, after a long, very hot day, the night again got bitingly cold and thunderstorms echoed through the desert, sending flashes of bright white light to show him the vast wasteland and how hopeless his situation really was.

A flash flood also washed out the bridge near the roadblock that night, making it impossible for any car to travel the old county road again.

The next morning he again started the walk out, but this time turned around after just a mile, almost too weak to make it back to the car.

He slept off and on through the rest of the heat of the day and into the biting cold of the night, his seat belt holding him in place. The hood of his car and that fence post leaning against the bumper of his Jaguar became his entire world as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

By the third day, Elliot's strength was gone. He could barely keep his eyes open as the intense heat of the day drained what will to live he had away.

His mind escaped the constant of the old fence post, drifting back to the good days with Candy, the fun they had had, the trips they had taken.

Candy had been right.

If he had just listened to her, drunk with her, eaten with her, gotten fat with her, enjoyed the last three years as she had done, he wouldn't be sitting where he was, dying from the heat and thirst and hunger, staring at an old fence post.

He had caused the world, as he and Candy knew it, to end on the last day of the Mayan calendar.

He had caused it by not believing it could happen.

Yet it had. The world had ended.

“I'm so sorry, Candy,” he managed to whisper through cracked, dry lips.

As he slipped off into his last sleep, the sun beating down on the top of his Jaguar, he asked one last question, hoping somehow that Candy could hear him all the way out in Malibu.

How did the Mayans know?