The Girl at the End of the World (12 page)

Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I felt my palms grow moist as well. I didn’t know what to do. Worried about all the mistakes I’d made until now, I wondered if my luck had finally run out, if I was making another mistake, a big one, that wouldn’t be revealed to me until it was too late, far too late.

At the same time, I wanted desperately for him to be all right. Just seeing and hearing him made me realize how lonely I’d been, and I knew the silence of the observatory would be horrible if the next five minutes worked out badly and I had to send him away—or worse—and ended up alone again.

He had crossed the parking lot now and began making his way across the expanse of lawn. I stayed silent, just shifting my weight from leg to leg, watching his progress.

When he got to the foot of the steps, he stopped and smiled at me. He had kind eyes and looked sort of boyish in spite of the scruffy beard. Actually, the wiry hairs made him look more boyish, as it wasn’t a proper beard; he needed a few more years for it to look right. His hair had probably needed cutting before the disease struck. Now it wanted to drop down in his eyes, and he casually pushed it aside so he could keep looking at me.

“Nice place you got here,” he said, cracking a smile.

“Thanks.”

“So…you gonna invite me in?”

I shook my head. “This is fine for now.” I nodded toward him. “Why don’t you sit down?”

He raised an eyebrow at me and then sat cross-legged at the base of the steps, looking up at me. I hesitated a moment and then sat down, too, keeping the gun in my lap, one hand on it.

“I still don’t know your name,” he said.

“Scarlett.”

He thought about that for a second, then nodded. “Hi, Scarlett. Nice to meet you.”

I still wasn’t sure if it was nice to meet Chad or not. I wanted it to be, though, so I said, “Same here. How old are you?”

“Does it matter?” I just raised an eyebrow at that. He smiled, kind of foolishly, and brushed the hair out of his eyes before answering, “Seventeen. You?”

“I just turned fifteen. Before … you know.”

He gave me a grim nod. “How long have you been up here?” he asked.

“Couple weeks.”

“Almost since the beginning.”

I nodded. “Have you seen anyone else?”

He hesitated a moment. “Since…?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“And you just happened to see my lights?”

“They were pretty bright. There hadn’t been any lights on the hill before. From down there, it just looked like a big black wall at night. And then those lights last night. I had to come see. Why’d you decide to put them up?”

I didn’t answer. “What about before?”

“Before the…disease?”

I nodded again.

“I lived in Hollywood.
With my dad. Hollywood High, the whole deal.”

“Your dad rich?”

He shook his head. “No. Yours?”

“No.”

We talked for a while then, me pulling answers out of him and only giving him bits about myself when I felt like it. His story paralleled mine in quite a few ways. He talked about being out with his friends on Hollywood Boulevard the same evening I’d been at Dodger Stadium, about someone having an attack on the sidewalk in front of him, about how freaked out he and his friends were, about how he couldn’t pull himself away from the Internet and TV all that night, and about how he was the only one out of his group who’d still been alive the following afternoon. He’d watched his father die that evening after they’d argued about staying in their apartment or trying to get out of the city. After that, he hadn’t been able to bear the apartment and had left to try and find a new place. He’d opted for a mansion in Hollywood at the base of the hills and had set himself up with supplies not unlike what I’d gathered for myself.

“It’s nothing like this, though.” He looked past me toward the observatory’s entrance and then glanced around at the wide expanse of lawn behind him. “Looks like you picked the best spot in the neighborhood.”

I tried to read that, tried to tell if he was asking if he could come up here for good, share the space with me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. The company would be nice, more than nice, but I still wasn’t sure I could trust him.

“
You been up here before?” I asked.

He nodded. “My dad and me used to come up here a lot when I was little. Haven’t been here for a while, though. It’s funny I kind of forgot about this place when I was looking for somewhere safe to stay.”

“It is pretty safe,” I agreed, not sure what else to say.

“Can I see your set-up?”

“Not much to see. I’m pretty much camped out in an office behind the café. And I’ve got a little patio set up on one of the observation decks. It’s not bad. Nothing great.”

He nodded, waiting for me to invite him in. Then he tipped his head toward me. “Any chance we could…” I blushed, sure he was going to proposition me. “…lose that gun?”

I’m not sure what my expression conveyed; maybe shock, maybe relief, maybe surprise or amusement at the absurd difference between what he said and what I’d been expecting. At any rate, I didn’t know how to respond.

I picked the gun up from my lap, hefted it a second, and gave him a look. His eyes didn’t leave the gun; he watched it expectantly, like a little kid who’s asked for a toy or a dessert and now waits to see what the adult is going to do. Only now, he didn’t want the toy; he wanted it to go away and waited eagerly to see what would happen. He looked harmless, completely harmless.

I popped the safety into place and leaned forward, tucking the barrel into the back of my pants. Then I stood up.

“For now,” I said, smiling just a little.

He got up, too.

“Come on,” I said.

Second-guessing myself the whole way, I led him around the side of the building rather than through the main entrance. We went down the concrete steps and were soon walking past the entrance to the café.

“That’s Scarlett central?” he asked.

“That’s it.” I didn’t want him in there, not now. I didn’t feel comfortable yet being inside with him, or letting him see everything I’d gathered at the sporting goods store or since. Instead, I kept going, rounding a corner and leading him up another set of concrete steps to the deck where I had my lounge chair and book. I’d show him the view, I told myself, and where I’d set the lanterns the night before. I could offer him something to eat or drink and maybe we could talk a bit. But then I’d ask him to go. Just because we were the last two people in Los Angeles didn’t mean we had to be instant companions. He could come back. Maybe eventually the idea of companionship or safety in numbers would override my uncertainty, but not yet.

He walked beside me up the steps, keeping our little conversation going, asking if it was creepy up here at night.

“Sometimes,” I said, thinking of the bats that fluttered around just after dusk. But I never got the chance to explain.

With one foot on the platform at the top of the stairs and the other lifting off the last step, I was thrown off balance when he pushed himself into me, not just leaning hard but really knocking into me. For half a second I thought he’d just tripped, but then I realized it was a tackle.

I went down onto the concrete with him on top of me, hitting first my elbow and then the side of my face on the rough surface. I think I cried out, but I might not have. A thousand things raced through my head—about what he was going to try, about how I’d blown it again—but rather than panic, I managed to focus and fight.

Protecting and then reaching the gun: nothing else mattered. I tried rolling out from under him, shoving my arm and hand between us to reach the gun, but he was stronger than me and was turning me on my back with the gun underneath me. I managed to get my other hand up under his chin and tried squeezing at his throat, but he jerked his head away from me.

“Just stop it! Just stop!” he was saying. “I don’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to do this.”

I didn’t answer, just struggled under him. He had straddled my stomach and was trying hard to pin both my arms to the concrete, but I thrashed under him and tried scratching at his face. Finally, I got him a good one, raking my nails across his cheek and watching the red marks trailing behind my fingers.

It really hurt him, and for a second I thought he’d let me go, but then he redoubled his efforts and actually bent down closer, getting his face right next to mine. Enraged, he shouted, “Stop fighting me! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

And then he had me, both arms down, my shoulders pinned to the concrete like they used to be when I played wrestling with Anna and she never let me win.

He got his wish. I stopped fighting him, just lay under him breathing hard and waiting for him to make his next move. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t go easy. The second he relaxed his hold on one of my arms, I’d be swinging my fist at him again.

“Just listen to me,” he said with heavy breaths. A bead of sweat dropped from his forehead onto my cheek. “Just listen. I’m sorry. Okay? I didn’t want to do that. But I was afraid if I just told you…you’d have that gun on me again.”

He paused, his eyes darting as he watched my face for a response.

“Told me what?” I said.

“I haven’t been living in a mansion. Or, I was at first. But then I got caught.”

I wrinkled my brow, trying to understand. Though he was breathing hard, his tone wasn’t aggressive. He didn’t sound angry or crazy or like he wanted to hurt me.

“There’s a man. He says his name’s Donovan. He’s not…like us. Not immune. He’s one of those survivalists. A prepper. Whatever you call it. When the disease hit, he was ready for it. Has this suit and mask and filters. And weapons. He has this bus he’s outfitted for getting through just about anything. He caught me…and Dolores.”

“Who?”

He shook his head, looking frustrated that he was going to have to tell the whole story. “I got sick,” he said.

My expression must have betrayed my confusion and instant worry.

“Not like that. Not the fungus. I just got sick. Maybe food poisoning. I don’t know. I remember going down to Sunset to try and find medicine, but I must have passed out. When I woke up, Dolores was there. She’s immune, like us. She helped me, took care of me. I don’t know what would have happened to me without her. A couple days after she’d helped me get better, Donovan caught us when we were coming out of a store. Must have seen us go in ‘cause he was waiting when we came out. Had a gun pointed right at my head. What could I do?”

“What do you mean?”

“He took us. Put us in his bus. Shackled us in. He’s…he’s collecting us. Says we’re going to save him.”

It sounded crazy, like the woman Debbie’s delusions about angels. Chad’s fixation was more paranoid but no less crazy. I doubted he was being driven crazy by a fungus pressing on his brain; if it hadn’t gotten to him yet, I doubted the disease was hitting him now. At least I hoped not, given what that could mean for me. Still, maybe all the time alone had freaked him out. Or he’d been crazy before the disease had even struck.

But the part about the bus rang true. It explained the cleared path on Los Feliz, the fleeting movement I’d caught in my binoculars, the distant sound of an engine.

I decided to humor him, hoping he’d relax his grip. “So he sent you after me?” I asked.

He nodded. “Said he’d kill Dolores if I didn’t come back.”

“She’s still in the bus?”

Another nod. “He’ll do it. I think. That’s why I had to…”

“Attack me.”

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t just tell you.”

“He saw my light last night?”

Chad nodded.

“And drove up here in that bus?”

“He saw the motorhome blocking the road and turned back. He didn’t know who’s up here or how many, but he said if it was just one person, I was supposed to…subdue them.”

“And if it was more than one person?”

“Just check everything out and get away again.”

“By morning?”

He nodded.

I just lay there quietly for a moment, trying to read him. “So what do we do now?”

“You give me your gun,” he said.

“And we just…become part of his collection?” I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“He’ll kill Dolores. And then he’ll come after us.”

“I don’t know Dolores.” I felt cold saying it, but it was true. Chad’s expression turned to one of disbelief as I spoke, and I didn’t care. Let him think I was a monster. Letting him think I was a nice girl from Pasadena hadn’t gotten me anywhere, after all. “A lot of people have died, Chad. You noticed? One more…sorry, but I’ve got to think about myself here.”

“You don’t know what he’s like.”

“He doesn’t know what I’m like.”

I don’t know where that came from, but it was true. I was ready to fight for my freedom, and if somebody got hurt—or worse—in the process, I really didn’t care.

Chad, on the other hand, was different. He was stuck on saving this woman, Dolores. Stuck on being the hero, even if it meant sacrificing me to his captor. Maybe it was something he’d picked up from his father, or too many movies.