The Girl at the End of the World (9 page)

I didn’t like how quiet it was even though I’d had some time to start getting used to it, but once I shut the lights off the quiet seemed so much worse. I lay there and tried not to think about it, tried to think of other things, but there were so many images in my head, so many terrible things I’d seen just since this morning when I’d woken up to find my neighborhood about to go up in flames.

A quick succession of recent memories flew through my mind then, and I sat up, reaching for my phone to use it as a flashlight. The phone in one hand, I dug through the backpack, sifting through as though the things in it were in geological layers. Underneath the things I’d taken from Jen’s house were the few items I’d taken from home, and under all that was the photo of my mom and dad and me and Anna that I’d taken from the mantel.

There we were—all four of us, happy, with the whole city spreading out behind us from our vantage point outside the Griffith Observatory. I looked at it not out of nostalgia, not because I was looking back at the world that wasn’t there anymore. No, this time I was looking forward.

Holding onto the frame, I lay back down and turned off the phone’s light. I remember that I fell asleep almost right away then, exhausted but also relieved because at least now I had a plan.

Chapter Seven

The road to the observatory twisted up the hillside, mostly free of abandoned cars or those occupied by the dead. With just a few clouds in the bright blue sky and a little breeze coming through the trees, it would have been easy to mistake the day for any other where cars filled with tourists and hikers and families out on picnics would have been threading their way along the road, a typical SoCal day in paradise.

We had had it so good, and sometimes had even remembered to be grateful. But even when you didn’t take the time to appreciate what you had, it was still okay: short of a major earthquake, everyone knew that California would still be there the next day with its beaches and mountains, Mickey Mouse and all the beautiful people. There was always more time to be thankful, more time for everything.

But the beautiful people were all gone now.

And some of them had started to smell.

I’d spent the last couple of days in Pasadena, finding a motorcycle shop and learning to ride after studying eHow and YouTube videos.

I’d picked out a little Honda, not one of the big ones and nothing fancy. I just wanted something that could maneuver through the jammed streets and get me out of trouble if any found me. It hadn’t been too difficult learning how to ride; figuring out how to time the clutch had been the hardest part. Before long I’d mastered the motorcycle shop’s parking lot and the alley behind it, working out a little obstacle course of abandoned cars and bodies on the ground. I even picked out a helmet, letting myself go the silly route by opting for gaudy purple with big pink flowers.

When not practicing on the bike, I’d spent time gathering and organizing supplies in the sporting goods store, working on my archery skills, and planning my move to the observatory. It wouldn’t be possible to bring everything I’d need in one trip, so I loaded a backpack with the essentials, and then loaded three more with all the rest of my gear in order of descending importance. After some thought, I packed the gun and ammunition into the high priority pack even though I hadn’t yet found the nerve to fire the thing. Then, telling myself I’d be back as soon as possible, I headed out one morning and actually felt a little sorry to go. The store had come to be like my new home, the manager’s office my new room.

I had studied the maps in the store and brought one with me, having memorized several possible routes to get me from Pasadena to Griffith Park but expecting that I’d need to make adjustments to my plan along the way. I must have looked a sight on that little bike with my oversized backpack and flowery helmet, a bow and arrows bound to the back fender with bungee cord, and a respirator strapped to my face. The mask had nothing to do with spores but rather with the smell that had begun on my second full day alone.

The people who’d died from the fungal infection weren’t so much the issue. I’d had the chance to observe quite a few bodies in various stages of decay, and it looked like the fungus didn’t just stop when the host was dead and the spores scattered on the wind. The host bodies began to shrivel and dry out, like the fungus was taking all the moisture from them, and they didn’t seem to smell at all. I realized soon enough that the bodies were being eaten, and by the time I set out on the motorcycle, it wasn’t unusual to see some of the dead people’s limbs reduced to bone and more stalks sprouting randomly from the bodies as the fungus reproduced and reproduced again.

The fungus made short work of its victims. It was the other people who were a problem, though. The ones who’d died in accidents or were the victims of infected people who’d turned violent before dying—those were the bodies that stank. Them and the people who’d died naturally from heart attacks and other ailments in the hours of crisis when emergency services had been unable to help everyone.
And, of course, the suicides.

I’d gone into a restaurant in Pasadena after practicing on the motorcycle for most of one morning, hoping to find something canned that I could eat quickly and then head back to the sporting goods store. A man had hanged himself in the main dining room, a belt around his neck and the other end tied to a ceiling fan. Flies buzzed around the body, and the smell made me gag. I turned and ran, no longer thinking about food.

After that, I noticed the suicides more readily, having seen them previously but not having noticed the difference between them and the corpses that the fungus feasted on. The first several, I contemplated for some moments, wondering about what these people’s last minutes had been like, how lonely or scared they must have been. That their corpses hadn’t sprouted stalks told me they hadn’t been infected before taking their own lives, and I wondered at the possibility that some of them could have been like me, immune. If so, they’d just given up before learning they could have survived. Or maybe they’d already figured that out and had opted to die rather than go on alone in a world without friends and family.

Which made me wonder why I hadn’t killed myself, too.

Honestly, the thought hadn’t occurred to me once since I’d left my house. I’d been too busy trying to figure out what I was going to do to stay alive to start pondering the possibility of bringing it all to an end.

The suicides made me angry. The odds were that one of them,
at
least
one of them, could have survived like I had, given me someone to talk to and make plans with. I know I was thinking just about myself then, not about the suffering or fear all these people had gone through before making their final decisions. But I’d had fear and suffering, too. My decisions had just been different.

At any rate, they all smelled, and by the day I left the sporting goods store, I needed a respirator to keep it from getting to me. I suppose I would have gotten used to it before long, but I also worried about disease. I didn’t know what sorts of illnesses I could pick up from being around so many dead and decaying bodies, and I didn’t want to find out. That was another reason to get to the observatory. I’d still be around millions of dead people, thousands upon thousands of whom had died from things other than the fungus, but at least I’d be above most of them and maybe able to breathe a little easier. Still, I knew I couldn’t stay in the city forever; the observatory would just be my next step, one of many I’d have to make along the way, and all of them made on my own without any help or supervision.

When I’d come here before with my family, the road had been lined with parked cars and mini-vans and SUVs. Now it was just about empty, a narrow strip of pavement winding its way up the hill with views of the city spreading about below me when I’d round some of the turns. There were a few cars to navigate around, and I told myself I could come back later and move them out of the road. At the top of the hill, the parking lot was also mostly empty—but only mostly, and I put on the brakes as soon as I hit the flat expanse of asphalt.

I hadn’t been the only one to think of getting up above all the chaos. There were five cars parked here—all looking random and nothing to worry about. And there was also a medium-sized motor home, an old Winnebago, all angular and oxidized with no hubcaps but still the big “W” logo on the striped sides. It sat at the edge of the parking lot, not in any of the marked spots but rather blocking the road, its front tires up against the curb. Someone had parked it there with no regard for anyone else coming up the hill, and I knew that meant they’d been assuming no one would be coming—either because the occupants had gone a little crazy from the fungus pressing into their brains, or because they were immune like me and had set up their base camp here in the hills.

I killed the little Honda’s engine and flipped down the kickstand. Climbing off, I slipped the straps of my backpack over the handlebars and carefully unfastened the bungee cord that held the bow and arrows to the fender. I wasn’t ready to shoot anyone with it, doubted I had good enough aim to even hit the side of the motor home if it came to that, but I was counting on anyone still inside the Winnebago not being willing to take a chance on my accuracy.

Notching an arrow, I walked slowly toward the old camper, listening intently for any sign of life. Up here, all was silent, but a cool breeze blew up from the city, and it made enough noise to mask any sounds that might be coming from the motor home. I was approaching with the wind at my back, so if I made a noise, the breeze would carry the sound to anyone inside, but if they made a move I wouldn’t be likely to hear it. I should have stopped, backed away, and approached from the other side of the parking lot. But I was here now, and there were no signs of life yet, so I kept on, maybe a bit foolishly.

Ten feet away from the hulking old camper, I stopped. Someone sat in the driver’s seat, looking out at the view. I just froze, holding the bow tightly and waiting for something to happen, waiting for a sign of life, waiting for the head to turn toward me.

Nothing happened, so I inched
closer, reminding myself to breathe and trying not to blink. A few feet closer and I relaxed just a little, letting out a long breath and loosening my grip on the bow just a bit. Stalks protruded from the driver’s face. 

The motorhome’s main door was open, but a screen door was closed. I approached, reached for the handle, and just listened for a few seconds. Then I pulled at the respirator so it dropped below my chin. “Hello?” I said quietly. “Anybody in there?”

No reply, no movement, no rustling.

“I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to know if I’m alone or not, okay?”

Still nothing.

“I’ve got a weapon,” I added, hoping I sounded believable.

The door opened with a squeak after I clicked the button on the screen door’s handle. Then I climbed the steps and went in. It was dark inside, all the curtains pulled shut with the only light coming through the windshield and the driver’s compartment. I just stood there for a few seconds to let my eyes adjust. When I could make out faux wood cabinets and a stovetop and fridge, I turned toward the back of the motorhome.

The body was where I thought it would be, sitting at the little table all the way at the back, slumped forward. The table would fold down, I knew, to form a bed out of the seat cushions. That would have made a more comfortable final resting place. As it was, the woman who’d died here had her arms under her head, her upper body halfway across the tabletop, the stalks poking out toward a window. When I got closer, I could see that she’d been old—gray-haired and wrinkled, probably somebody’s grandma.

I left her and went to the cab. The old man sitting in the driver’s seat had died with his seatbelt on and the Hollywood sign in full view on the next hilltop. A perfect place for tourists to meet their ends. I wondered which one of them had died first.
Probably the wife
, I thought. Maybe here, maybe down below. And then the old man had sat and looked at the Hollywood sign and the trees and the hills until it was all over.

Leaning over him, I saw the key still in the ignition and gave it half a turn. The instrument panel lit up showing three-quarters full on the gas tank. That was good. I immediately started thinking about loading the motor home with the supplies I had gathered in Pasadena and using it to head out of the city when the time came. It was a good idea, but it would be hard to find a route out of Southern California that wasn’t already clogged with people who’d died trying to do the same thing. On the way here, I’d passed Interstate 5, now literally a parking lot filled with cars and corpses.

Still, I thought, there might be some use for the Winnebago. I took the keys and left the old couple there, planning on coming back later to drag them into the bushes. Then I went back to the motorcycle and rode the rest of the way across the parking lot, up onto the sidewalk, and past the statue of James Dean that my mom had gone on and on about.

Before me were the steps leading up to the entrance, and at their top an ornate black door hung open, ready for visitors. From the bottom of the steps, I could see that the lights still burned inside the building. That was good. I didn’t like the thought of searching it with a flashlight. Taking another deep breath and gripping the bow and arrow once more, I walked up the steps and poked my head through the door.

All was quiet, and no bodies lay on the floor in the main hall. Glad of that, I walked in and carefully toured the first level, ignoring all the educational displays about gravity and the phases of the moon and looking instead for any sign that I wasn’t alone. The place wasn’t that big, and after a few minutes I’d covered both of the ground floor wings; I remembered that there was a downstairs with more exhibits and a cafeteria and that upstairs were observation decks and access to the dome and the telescope. If anyone was hiding in here, it would be downstairs or else in some of the employee-only areas.

But to get downstairs meant going back outside, and when I slipped out one of the rear doors, I found myself on the lower observation deck…the same one where I’d posed with my family for the picture now in my backpack. No other tourists crowded against the rails now; no little kids begged for quarters from their parents so they could look through the big telescopes at the city that spread out as far as anyone could see. It was just
me and the breeze.

I felt like a ghost, returned to some earthly haunt, stuck there and confused at the changes all around. A ghost might not have understood that the change was in itself, that it had passed on and no longer belonged here. In my case, I understood the change, and it was hard to take.
Ghosts are better off,
I thought as I walked to the wall at the edge of the deck.