Until the End of the World (Book 2): And After (28 page)

“Colorado,” John says, after he sits at the dinner table. He looks like shit—maybe I should share that with him, it seems to be the thing to do. He picks up a forkful of corn salad. “Colorado’s gone. Off the air. So is Arkansas.”

“Big Bend, then Gila, Utah, Colorado, then Arkansas…” James says, and sets down his fork. I can practically see the gears in his head spinning as he continues. “They’re moving northeast. It’s probably the mountains. But they might swing due north now that the land’s opened up. And, shit, they’ll be here before the winter if they keep coming this way.”

“Who’s moving northeast?” Maureen asks. “Lexers?”

James nods. “We’re losing Safe Zones in geographical order. Like a pod or pods are moving north and east. The Rockies might have forced them east. I think Lexers will choose the path of least resistance, if they’re not after something. But there are mountains to the east after Arkansas, and north through the Dakotas is flat. Let’s hope they head north.”

James carries around an amazing amount of information, like the computers he loved so dearly. And he’s a walking, talking map, apparently.

“Hmm, let’s say—fifteen hundred,” he says to himself. He shakes his head. “No.”

“Share with the class,” Penny says.

He uses his long fingers to tuck back his hair. “Sorry. Assuming that it’s a pod and if—and it’s a big
if
, because they can walk faster—they walk at one mile per hour, twenty-four hours a day, for fifteen hundred miles, straight here—”

“Two months,” Penny says. “They’ll be here in two months.”

I don’t question the math; these two are math whizzes. The cold starts in my chest and runs to my fingers and feet.

“We’ve got the trench,” Ana says. She looks around the table. “Right?”

“We do,” John says. “But it might not be enough, depending on the number.”

I look out the picture window at the leafy green mountains. They seem so sturdy. “Maybe it’ll take longer, even if they do come this way. They’ll have to get over the mountains. If we have an early freeze it will slow them down, maybe, at least at night.”

“If they are coming, when would they be within six hundred miles?” John asks.

James thinks. “Forty-five days, give or take.”

That’s early September. All we need is for them to move a little slower, if indeed they exist, and not hit us until November or December.

“There’s no Safe Zone after Arkansas,” Dan says. “Not until Pennsylvania and New York.”

There are other pockets of people, we know because we’ve heard of them, but they don’t have radios. Dan gulps from his glass of milk; I thought only nine year-old boys drink milk with dinner. I’ve been at his tent every night for the past weeks. I go after Bits is asleep and leave before dawn so I’m there when she wakes. I swear I won’t go back, but when the farm is quiet, I leave my bed for his. We didn’t sign up for night duty this week, without even discussing it. Dan catches me staring and lowers his cup to the table, eyes locked on mine. I busy myself with my napkin.

“So we won’t know anything concrete until they’re close enough for Dwayne to do a flyover,” John says. “We’ve got enough fuel for two runs. Maybe one in early September and another in mid-to-late September. I’ll have to talk to him about it.”

“Why wouldn’t they have sent out a distress call?” James asks. “It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, Colorado knew we wanted to know what was going on.”

“People do strange things when they’re scared,” John says. He puts his hand over where Maureen’s rests on the table. “Or there could be bad weather. They could have had tornadoes, electrical trouble, who knows? Let’s not jump the gun.”

We pick at the rest of dinner in silence. The tables around us are full of talk and laughter, but they won’t be once people know. Bits giggles at Hank and Henry’s table. I wave and force myself to make a silly face. She’s so perceptive, and if she knew she might not sleep at all.

I help clean up dinner and get the kitchen ready for breakfast in the morning. I wasn’t on kitchen duty, but there’s a bonfire in back of the barns tonight and people wanted to get a jump on the festivities.

“Go ahead,” I tell Shelby, “I’ll close up.”

“Are you coming?” she asks.

“I don’t think so, but thanks.”

“Okay, well, if you change your mind. I think Dan’s coming.”

I freeze. “What?”

“I thought you and Dan…” She shrugs. “You know. I’m on the west fence a lot.”

“Oh,” I say. “Right. Well, we hang out sometimes.”

“Cool. Maybe I’ll see you later.”

She takes her blond hair out of its ponytail and leaves with a wave. I watch her go with a sinking heart and lower my forehead to the countertop.

“What’s so awful?” Dan’s voice floats out of the dining area, and I scream in surprise. He leans against the doorframe with an eyebrow up. “Wow, you’re easily startled.”

“Why the hell are you lurking around in the dining room?”

“I wasn’t lurking, I was waiting to walk you home.” He moves closer and pins me against the counter. “My home.”

I push him off and cover my face. If Shelby knows, then who else knows? I’ve become the girl I make fun of. If Nelly finds out, he’ll never stop torturing me. Everyone must think I’m so cold-hearted that I jumped right into Dan’s bed. Or tent, as it were. I press my lips together to stop their trembling.

“Hey. Oh no, don’t cry.” Dan puts out a hand. “Why are you crying?”

I can’t tell him. He pulls me to his chest and smoothes my hair. I breathe deep, wanting to be comforted, but his scent is all wrong.

“Come,” he says.

I follow when he pulls my hand. I shouldn’t go, but I want to. Things are easy with Dan. In his tent we laugh and talk about nothing of great importance. I feel safe and desired. It’s only when I’m out of the microcosm of his tent that I regret going. He leads me through the flap, and I perch on the edge of his mattress. I’m already loosening up at the thought of what comes next—the mindless feel of our bodies connecting, a few entertaining words and then blissful sleep.

He removes the knife on his belt and kneels in front of me. “Do you want to talk?” I bite my lip and shake my head, then lean forward to kiss him, but he pulls back. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t want to talk,” I say. “Do you?”

I grab a fistful of his shirt and pull him closer, giving him no time to respond to my question. His mouth is hesitant at first. I don’t ask why because I don’t want to know, and after a minute he doesn’t seem to care.

***

I pull the sleeping bag up to my chin and turn on my side to face Dan. “So, how are the cabins coming?”

Dan’s drawn up the plans and is in charge of building the long cabins that will replace the outfitter tents. The tents kept people warm during last winter, for what we hoped would be the only winter. But now that we know we have years to go, the tenants need a modicum of privacy.

Dan’s head is propped on his hand, and his other traces circles on my stomach. “They’re fine. I wish I could say I was excited, but it’s basically framing things out and telling people where to put nails. Nothing like what I used to do.”

“So, what’d you used to do?” I ask. There’s so much I don’t know about him. “How did you become a carpenter in the first place?”

“My dad. I used to help him in his shop. He’d get these wood deliveries where they’d dump a whole bunch of wood out front. I’d help him stack the pieces by type and size. They were rough and dull, but he’d run his hands along them like they were already beautiful things. Like he could see what they were before he even started. And one day I realized I could see it, too.”

I know what he means. Sometimes a blank canvas looks like that; I just have to fill in the spaces with what I can already see. “So what kind of things did you make?”

“We made furniture, boxes, bowls, whatever we saw in the wood. We sold at a lot of galleries. My favorite things were these carved boxes I made. We were more woodworkers than carpenters, but we filled in the quieter periods with general carpentry. My dad could do anything.”

His voice is soft and eyes faraway. I run my fingers along his tightened jaw. He kisses my fingers and holds them there. It feels more intimate than what we’ve just done and a nervous clatter starts up in my stomach.

“I’d love to see one of those little boxes—I love boxes,” I say, in order to cut through what’s quickly becoming a moment I can’t handle. “My mom used to build stuff, more utilitarian things like shelves and bookcases, but they were always pretty. The one time I tried to build a table, it looked like a baby deer. She laughed her ass off.”

Dan snorts. “How can a table look like a deer?”

“You know, all spindly legs and wobbly? Like Bambi.”

“You see things differently, you know. I guess that’s why you were a painter—are a painter.”

“I was a painter. Then, after my parents died, I stopped. I started again last summer.”

“So what’d you paint?”

“Whatever struck me. It could be a landscape, or the kids I worked with in Brooklyn, or something beautiful, or something so ugly that I wanted to show its beauty. And the kids and I did murals in the neighborhood.”

“Maybe you should do a mural here. In the restaurant or something.”

“I was thinking that. I have it all planned out—unicorns and a rainbow, with mountains in the background.” His smile becomes forced, and I shake with laughter. “I’m kidding! I like unicorns as much as the next girl, but really?”

“I thought you were serious, Dingbat,” he says, and gives an exaggerated wipe of his forehead.

“Well, you would’ve figured it out when I got to the part about the robot battle in the background, right?”

“I’d like to think so, but you are kind of strange.” He laughs when I push his chest. “So, were you good?”

“Some stuff I was really proud of, but some stuff I hated. I guess other people thought so.”

“So they wanted your paintings?”

“Yeah.”

Dan runs his fingers up my side. “Maybe you’ll paint me something one day. That corner of the tent is kind of bare.”

“Maybe you’ll make me a box to put my treasures in. We can trade.”

I’m already thinking of what I could paint for him. Not what I want to paint, which is the ambulance on a dark night, siren lights illuminating the cables of a bridge. Bold strokes, blurry and murky and bright at the same time. I think I could convey the fear, the rush, the terror he must have felt as he sped out of Boston and left everyone behind. I won’t paint him that, but maybe I’ll paint it for myself one day. Future generations—if there are future generations—will want to know what happened. They’ll want to see, just like we want to see what came before us.

“It’s a deal,” he says. “So, tell me something else I don’t know about you.”

“You know everything, I’m sure.” I remember Shelby’s comment. “Everyone here knows everything.”

I roll onto my back and look at the mesh of the tent’s roof. Dan turns off the lantern and moves next to me. “I took off the rain fly so we could see the stars. The Perseid meteor shower starts every year in mid-July. It hasn’t peaked yet, but if you watch long enough you’ll see them.”

I stare at the sky until a tiny trail of white zings through the stars, followed by another.

“Make a wish,” he says, but I don’t answer. His hand finds mine and squeezes. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I wanted this to be uncomplicated and secret, but it’s not. Nothing here ever is. I haven’t even told Penny. She and I may have cleared the air, but I’m still nervous about her reaction.

The mattress bounces when he faces me, but I continue to watch the sky. Two more meteors shoot past. “What about us?” he asks. “What we’re doing.”

“We’re hanging out. Right?”

“Well, how do you feel about it?”

I tear my eyes away from the stars. I can only see his silhouette. “I don’t know. I guess…I have fun with you?”

I wait for him to press me further, praying fervently that he won’t. He switches the lantern on and shrugs. “I’m having fun, too. You’re okay with that?”

“That’s all I want,” I say. “Really.”

I don’t know what Dan is like with any of the other girls he’s been with. I certainly can’t ask, but I assume he must be as nice to them as he is to me. Otherwise they’d hate him, and none of them do. I don’t want there to be any confusion, though. He leans forward and kisses me slowly. My body responds, although my heart is silent.

The fifty Lexers that fell in the trench last night have to be finished off, which is like shooting fish in a barrel. I stand ten feet from the edge. I’m not taking any chances—all I’d need to do is trip and then I’d be dinner. The trench is five feet deep; deep enough that they can’t escape, but not deep enough to keep their hands and heads below ground level. To get close enough with something short is to get within arm’s reach, which is why I have my trusty crossbow.

A long spike would do, but even though my arms are strong, driving things through bone isn’t easy. And when it gets stuck, it can take tremendous effort to get it out again. This is easier, and we can retrieve the bolts when we’re done. I’d go as far as to say it’s fun, if you don’t think about it too much. It’s become an impromptu target practice out here today. I pull back the cocking string, unclick the safety and line up the sight on the eye socket of one with long auburn hair. I’d bet her eyes were green once, but now they’re a yellow-gray rimmed with black-edged eyelids. Her arms are stretched out, filthy fingers making troughs in the dirt beside the trench. The bolt twangs and hits her square in the eye.

“Nice,” Ana says.

“Thanks,” I say. I hand the crossbow to Peter. “Take a shot. They’re great. We used them at the quar—Day Which Shall Not Be Named.”

Peter laughs and smacks Ana on the backside. She punches him in the arm. “It’s okay to talk about it. She’s not doing it again. Are you?”

“I promised,” Ana says. “Except in certain emergency situations. On an as-needed basis.”

“Which must first pass my approval,” Peter says. Ana sucks her teeth and glares. “I’m kidding.”

“Would you shoot the damn crossbow already?” a familiar voice says.