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

  I release Toby’s hand, pry myself up and lather my hands at the sink. Dan removes his blood-splattered shirt and takes the soap I offer when I’m done. Dan’s leather jacket sticks to my bare skin, and when I pull it off something heavy hits my side. I remove his silver flask and wiggle it in the air. “You want?”

  He turns it over in his hands in contemplation until his entire face is alight. “Not this time.”

  I laugh; it’s the laugh of having cheated death, of being alive. I touch the spot on the back of my head, and my fingertips come away wet with blood. Dan spins me around for a look. “That one tore out a chunk. It’s small, but I bet it hurts like hell.”

  It’s starting to, but it’s no match for the relief I feel. “It’s fine, nothing a ponytail won’t cover.”

  He pulls me close by the nape of my neck. “I prefer the buns.”

  They’ve stopped the vehicles. The others spill into the RV, but Dan doesn’t glance at them. I think he’s going to kiss me, right here, in front of everyone. A dalliance in a tent and off the farm is one thing, but we’re not a couple, and I’m not going to be the new girl visiting The Love Den. I feign ignorance and turn away.

  Ana flings herself into my arms. “I thought that one had you, I really did. Maybe you should cut your hair.”

  She flips her hair with a grin. I smack her lightly and point at my wrinkled dress. “Don’t ever ask me to play dress-up again, Banana. I swear I’ll kill you.”

  Ana laughs uproariously. Peter squeezes me tight and whispers, “I would have told Penny you were sorry, but I’m so glad I don’t have to.”

  The thought makes my knees weak and the room blurry. “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER 55

  We come back with solar panels and enough sugar, in real and candy form, to kill us all. We bring the RV—I think that John and Maureen might want to shack up together and, with the addition of a wood stove, it’ll be the perfect place. I find Dan waiting when I step out of the RV. Somewhere between the field and the solar store he’d switched vehicles. I’ve made it a point not to ignore him, to treat him the way I always do, but today he’s the one who’s aloof.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” he asks.

  Bits stands with Penny in the gravel lot behind the restaurant. I want to run to her, but I follow him around the back of the RV. He traces the seam of the window frame with a finger. “Just so you know, I won’t say anything about…us. Neither will anyone else. In case you were worried.”

  “Thanks,” I say evenly, not wanting to sound too relieved.

  “If you want to hang out, you know where to find me,” he says, and studies the trees. “I’d like to.”

  “Hang out?”

  Finally, he looks at me, and his mischievous expression returns. “Yeah, you know, play Parcheesi or something.”

  “Ah, Parcheesi.” I shake my head slowly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Maybe not. No big deal.”

  He leans against the RV, hands in pockets, and shrugs. I’m not being entirely truthful—I do think it’s a bad idea, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.

  “I should go see Bits,” I say. “But thanks, Danny. You saved my life today, when that one had my hair.”

  “You got him yourself.”

  “Yeah, but you kept the others away. You gave me your jacket. So, thanks.”

  “You would’ve been okay,” he insists. “I shouldn’t have set up the tent so far away. I almost killed us both.”

  “Would you just say, ‘You’re welcome?’ ” I hold out my arms for a hug.

  “You’re welcome,” he murmurs into my neck.

  His lips brush just behind my ear. I stay a moment longer than necessary before I break away and round the corner of the rig, my neck still tingling. Peter kneels in front of Bits, listening to the latest Sparky news. I kneel beside him and reach for her. She stares at me accusingly, the tip of her nose raw. She might have cried for the past three days, all because of me.

  My heart drops and my arms fall when she doesn’t move into them. “I’m sorry, Bits. I’m sorry I scared you and said mean things. I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I’ve been really sad, and I know that’s not a good excuse. I don’t have an excuse, I just hope you can forgive me.”

  Bits’s chin trembles. I lift my arms again, and she hugs me tight enough to cause lasting nerve damage, but I’ll gladly take it over any damage I might have caused her had I not come back. I’ve let this little girl flounder for the past months, thinking she had the farm to make her feel safe. But Bits is smart—she knows that a school protected by the sheriff, a log cabin surrounded by barbed wire and a farm bordered by fences only afford her so much safety. Her safety lies with me, with Peter and the others. With feeling loved as well as protected. I’m so glad I figured that out—or had it screamed at me by my best friend—before it was too late.

  I glance at where Penny stands with James. “How’re you feeling, Pen?”

  “It moved,” she says, and rubs where her stomach has become more pronounced. Maybe it happened in the past few days or maybe I hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t wanted to because I was so jealous.

  “The baby? Really?”

  “No one else can feel it yet, though.”

  “I sat there for forever,” Bits says. She pulls out of our hug and purses her lips. “It was so annoying. Every time I took my hand off, she’d move, and then I’d put it back on and she would stop.”

  “It’s probably too early, anyway,” I say with a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll feel her soon.”

  There’s really somebody moving around in there; a little person, like Bits. I should’ve known that Penny would be terrified. “I’m sorry, Pen.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” she says.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. You were right.”

  “But I’m sorry for the other stuff. I had no right to tell you what to do.”

  “You had to take over Nelly’s job, since he isn’t here.” I stand and speak my next line into her belly. “We got you some really cute clothes, so you’d better be a girl.”

  “This poor kid. He’s going to have a complex,” Penny says.

  We both have tears in our eyes, and we sink into each other and laugh the way we always do when we cry at the same time. I rock her side to side while making whooshing noises. “Whoa baby, hang on! Think she’s dizzy?”

  Penny giggles and pushes me off. “No, you maniac, but I am. Let’s go eat.”

  We walk to the restaurant, Penny on my arm and Bits’s hand in mine. I know the pain of losing someone never completely abates, but that warmth—the happiness at having these people to live for—is also here to stay.

  CHAPTER 56

  John stands beside the wide trench that now surrounds the farm and rubs his beard. “I didn’t think it would ever be finished.”

  It runs like a dark brown scar across the grass and borders the woods on the east and west sides of the fence. They’ve included a ladder every so often, in case someone not dead falls in. It’s ugly, but it’s beautiful to us because it should catch a pod. And the large pods are growing. The other Safe Zones are reporting that no groups fewer than thirty have been spotted in recent weeks.

  “We can go even wider,” John says. “But that means more fuel. That excavator burns through fuel like you wouldn’t believe, when it’s not breaking down. Thank God Shawn can repair it.”

  The racket it made called plenty of Lexers up for a trial run of the trench. And between Lexers, breakdowns, removing the extra dirt, shoring up the trench walls to avoid collapse, tree roots and boulders, what should’ve taken a week or two turned into over two months.

  “We need more diesel to have on hand. I hate to send you out again.” He looks tired and the wrinkles under his eyes are more pronounced. Like Zeke, he’s taken up leadership and it’s wearing on him.

  I put my hand on his arm. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Nothing a little rest won’t fix,” he says. “I w
as worried when you were out there, didn’t get much sleep.”

  “I’ve been back for three days, you goose. You should go to your new rig and relax.” I wrap my arm around his side. “You’ll need it, if you’re sending us out again.”

  “I hate to do it.”

  “It has to be done. I’m not looking forward to it, either.”

  It’s true; I don’t want to go. I’d like to see Nelly, but that’s it. No more zombie hunting for me. I’ll let the trench capture them and kill them in safety.

  ***

  I haven’t done guard in the past few nights because I thought that maybe I’d finally sleep. But as it turns out, optimism is purely a daytime outlook. Bits is sound asleep for the fourth night in a row with Sparky nestled on her chest, rising with each gentle breath.

  I read the same line of my book over and over and finally toss it to the side. Ana, Liz and Jeff are on guard at the main gate tonight, and maybe one of them would appreciate sleep. I use my windup flashlight to find my clothes and leave a note for Peter, who’s here if Bits needs something.

  I walk along the graveled paths, past the other cabins and laundry. The grass is still green, mainly because of the rule of You Must Not Walk on the Grass. Otherwise, this place would be a dust bowl. I round the restaurant, shuttered tight until my morning breakfast shift, and see Dan walking toward me.

  I’d thought I’d timed it well; he was off guard an hour ago, but he must have stuck around to chat. He still sits with us at dinner, and we joke the same as we used to. But I get all flustered when he looks at me across the table like he’d rather have me for dinner.

  “Hey,” he says, and stops a few feet away.

  The solar powered lights throw off enough light to see facial expressions, but only if you’re standing on top of one. His voice sounds happy to see me, although his body language yells uncomfortable.

  “Hi,” I say. We stand for another minute in silence. “So, you just got off guard?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “You on?”

  “No, I was just…bored.”

  “Stupefyingly bored?” He moves closer, and now I can see the smile on his face before his eyebrows lower. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  I flap my hands dismissively. “No. I mean, yeah. It’s much better, though. Just not right now. It’s fine.”

  “You can sleep in my tent,” he says. “Just sleep.”

  “Okay.” It comes out before I think about it. Even Dan looks surprised. “If nothing—”

  He holds two fingers in the air. “Promise.”

  I walk beside him while he tells me about the Lexers who fell into the trench this evening. You can hear them; a series of thumps every night. It’s made watching the fences boring, but as Peter says, boring’s good. We thread through the pants, shirts and towels on the clotheslines behind the laundry.

  Dan’s hand touches my waist to guide me past a flapping sheet, and my pounding heart overrides the ache in my chest. Loneliness is stronger at night, in the same way that things are scarier. Maybe I can have it mean nothing for a little while longer, so I don’t have to sleep alone. I was lying when I said I wanted nothing to happen. I hope he was, too.

  ***

  I creep out of the tent for my shift, leaving Dan asleep on his mattress. It doesn’t escape me that I’m the girl leaving the Love Den, but at least I know the score. I have three weeks, and by then I’ll be ready to sleep alone.

  In the restaurant, Mikayla stands at the stove. “I missed you! I was so happy to see you were on this morning.”

  “I missed it,” I say, and stow my gear by the door.

  “You look good.” Mikayla tilts her head. “No, really. You weren’t looking so—”

  “Yes, I looked like shit,” I say with a laugh. “Why does everyone feel the need to mention that to me?”

  “Cass! You know that’s not what I meant. You look different, happy.”

  “I got a good night’s sleep.”

  And I barely got through the tent door before Dan kissed me and his hands were everywhere, the liar. I start on breakfast. I think I might even do art class afterward.

  CHAPTER 57

  “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.

  CHAPTER 58

  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.