- - End of All Things, The (2 page)

She’d named him Sam, after Frodo’s loyal friend in
The Lord of the Rings
, the last movie she and her father had watched together. And Sam had kept her going when giving up seemed like a much more attractive option. She couldn’t leave him with no one to take care of him. Until Biker Guy had arrived and set up camp across from her building, she had seemed to be the only person left in Juneau.

Two days later, they were out of food again, and Carly was faced with the prospect of trying to make it out to the store.

Sam swatted his metal bowl with his paw, and then stared down at it with a hint of expectation, as if rattling it would make food appear. Perhaps, in his little doggy head it did, because Carly had always filled it whenever she heard the bowl clatter on the floor.

Carly went over to the window to peek out at Biker Guy
. Still there
. Yesterday, she had gathered all of her courage and gone down to the lobby door again, but he had met her there with another
Hello
, and she’d panicked and darted back upstairs.

He was looking up at her window. He waved and reached down beside his bucket to pick up something that looked like a large white sheet of poster board. He held it up, and she could see the words he’d painted on it in black: PLEASE DON’T BE AFRAID. I WON’T HURT YOU.

He dropped the top poster to reveal another beneath it: I JUST WANT TO TALK TO YOU.

Carly thought that was highly unlikely.
Whatever this guy wants, it isn’t just a scintillating conversation.

He held up another sign: I’M REALLY A NICE GUY. HONEST.

Yeah, like he’d tell me if he wasn’t.

He grinned as he held up the last board: SURRENDER, DOROTHY.

Carly had to giggle, but it faded as she realized it was the first time she’d laughed since the Crisis. She retreated and let the curtain drop. Indecision gnawed at her. She had to get food, and that meant confronting Biker Guy, whether she liked it or not.

She decided to wait until the middle of the night, when he’d hopefully be asleep and wouldn’t see her leave the safety of her building.

Carly slept during the afternoon and evening, setting her wind-up alarm clock for after midnight when it would be dark. Well, as dark as it ever got in Juneau during summer, anyway. She sat up, and Sam, who slept at the foot of her bed, thumped his tail against the mattress. She could see the question in his eyes.
Out?

“No,” she replied. “I can’t take you with me.” He was around three months old, knee-high with big, clumsy paws. He was still vulnerable, and it tore at her heart to think of someone hurting him. She told him to stay and went into her closet to change into dark clothing. She took her large canvas shopping bag, the steak knife, and her dad’s nine iron.
As the old saying goes, God hates a coward
, she reminded herself. 

Carly patted her pocket to make sure she had her keys and then shut the apartment door behind herself. She crept down the stairs and approached the lobby door. Biker Guy was nowhere in sight. His fire had burned down to red embers. She took a deep breath and pushed the lobby door open a crack. She waited, looking around the dark and silent street. No movement, no sounds. Carly pushed the door open wide enough to allow her to slip through. She froze again, but nothing happened. So she set off down the street, walking as quickly as stealth would allow, with the nine iron over her shoulder like a soldier carrying a rifle.

The grocery store wasn’t far, but then again, nothing in Juneau was very far from anything else. Carly gagged at the smell of rotten meat, spoiled produce, and sour milk. The stink hadn’t dissipated at all since her last visit over a week ago, before Biker Guy had trapped her in her apartment building.

Her lantern was by the door where she’d left it. Carly picked it up and turned it on before she put it into the child seat of an empty cart, along with a fresh pack of batteries in case the lamp began to dim. Being in the dark in there was a terrifying thought. 

Carly went to the dog food first and heaved the largest bag of puppy food they had into the cart. There was still plenty of that left, though the selection of human food left was slim. Troy Cramer had shown video footage of grocery stores all over the country cleaned out by shoppers or looters at the height of the Crisis.

Carly didn’t take time to make selections based on her preferences. She grabbed whatever cans were still on the shelf and dumped them into the cart. She’d been back in the stockroom on a previous visit. It was empty except for a few cases of bottled water.

A dark feeling of unease was stirring within her. What was she going to do once it was
all
gone? She doubted if what was left would last until the end of the summer
. But surely things will be back to normal by then.

There was a gas station up the street. She wondered if she should check it to see if there were more groceries there, but it made her feel uneasy since she was already breaking quarantine to come here and the gas station was even further away.
And after that’s gone, then what?
Carly didn’t know. She’d expected the Crisis to be over by now and for things to be getting back to normal, and she wasn’t prepared for the world to be out of order for the long term.

She swallowed back a gasp when she heard something—a foot crunching down on the spilled rice that she had seen in the next aisle. She realized then she had left her golf club by the door when she picked up the lantern. She pulled the knife out of her pocket, her hand shaking. 

Another step and a small sound, like a moan or a sigh.

Time to go.
Carly pushed her cart toward the front of the store. Before now, she’d been diligent about writing down the UPC codes of the products she took and always left a check to cover the cost, but not today.

“Mother?” She recognized the voice of Merle Campton, who owned the automobile service garage. His mother had been dead for years. “Mother?”

Carly knew better than to answer. She hurried past the darkened dairy cases.

“Mother!” Merle’s boots clomped on the tile as he ran after her.

Her cart hit an unseen obstacle, and the jolt knocked the knife out of her hand. Carly looked around for it, but it must have skidded under a shelf as she saw no sign of—

“
Mother!
” Merle appeared at the end of her aisle and ran toward her.

“No, please, Merle, it’s Carly Daniels! Carly!”

Merle’s eyes glittered with eagerness. He ran toward her with his arms outstretched. Carly backed away, her own arms stretched out to ward him off. Her foot tangled around an empty rack of potato chips, and she fell with a short scream of surprise.

Merle’s face was the brilliant red of the Infected, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He was grinning merrily as he bent over to grab her. But the grin disappeared when Biker Guy swung the nine iron into the back of Merle’s head. Merle fell like a sack of potatoes onto his side, out cold.

“Important safety tip,” Biker Guy said, “weapons only work if you keep them with you.”

Carly tried to blink back tears. “Is he . . . Is he dead?” She reached over to check him for a pulse.

“Jesus! Don’t touch him!” Biker Guy lunged forward and grabbed her hand before she could make contact. “He’s one of them!”

“I
knew
him!” Tears spilled down Carly’s cheeks against her will.

Biker Guy glanced down at Merle. “If he’s not dead, he’s going to wake up with one hell of a headache. If he is, I’ve just saved him from a lingering and painful end.”

He used his grip on Carly’s hand to pull her to her feet. She tugged her hand from his and dashed away her tears. “I hate just . . . leaving him here.”

“Ultimately, it makes no difference,” Biker Guy said.

Carly didn’t want to admit the truth of that statement.

Biker Guy propped the nine iron on his shoulder. “What’s your name again? Harley?”

“Carly,” she said, correcting him automatically. He must have heard her shout it at Merle. “Carly Daniels.”

“I’m Justin Thatcher.”

She stuck her hand out for him to shake, an automatic courtesy. He took it in his own massive paw and gave it a gentle shake. “What were you doing here?”

“Shopping.” Justin gave her a small smile.

“In the middle of the night?”

“Yeah, just like you are. What a coincidence.”

Carly flushed. It was rather obvious she’d been trying to avoid him. “Thank you for helping me.”

He handed her golf club back. “Told you I was a nice guy.”

Carly grabbed her cart. “Yes. Thank you. Bye, now.” She rammed the potato chip rack aside and hurried up the aisle.

“I’ll walk you back,” Justin said.

“No need. Thank you.”

She could hear a smile in his voice. “No trouble. It’s on my way.”

Carly stopped at the register and pulled out her checkbook. She wasn’t going to itemize as she had on her previous visits; one hundred dollars should more than cover it. She clicked her pen and began to write.

“What are you
doing
?” Justin asked. He leaned on the conveyor belt beside her and grinned.

“Paying,” Carly said shortly. She signed the check with her loopy signature and slipped it through the slot in the cash register’s till. His grin faded when he saw the list Carly had been keeping on the shelf beside it.

She knew what he was going to say, and she didn’t want to hear it. She quickly stuffed the cans into her canvas tote. She put her arms around the bag of dog food and tried to lift it out of the cart, but the position was awkward.

“Let me get that.” He lifted it easily and tucked it under one arm. “You have a dog?” he asked. She knew why he was surprised. There didn’t seem to be many dogs or cats that survived. She hadn’t seen one in weeks.

“Obviously. Why else would I be buying dog food?” Carly pushed her empty cart up to the front and tucked it into the row with the others.

He shrugged. “Because there isn’t much food for people left.”

Carly blinked. “So you think I would eat dog food?”

“It’s food. It’s not like it’s dirty or anything. The FDA monitors it just like food for human consumption.”

“Gross,” Carly muttered.

“Before this is over, I’ll wager you’ll eat worse things than dog food.”

Tears stung Carly’s eyes. “Stop it.”

He nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

They walked in silence back to Carly’s apartment building. “I’ll take that.” She tugged at the bag of dog food. “Thank you.”

“You sure you won’t let me carry it up for you?”

The thought was alarming. “No, uh, that’s not, um, necessary. I’ll get it.”

He transferred the bag to her, and she staggered slightly under its weight. She tried to fish her keys out of her pocket, mentally kicking herself for not doing so
before
he handed her the fifty-pound bag. He watched with an expression of slight amusement as she struggled and juggled and tried to keep her tote from slipping off her shoulder.

“Need some help?”

“I’ve got it.” She managed to work a hand into her pocket and then promptly dropped the keys. He bent to pick them up, and she panicked.
He had the keys to her apartment now!

But all he did was unlock the lobby door and hold them out to her. She snatched them from his hand and darted inside, where she felt safe. He stood on the other side of the glass door and watched as she charged up the stairs as quickly as she could.

Carly was exhausted and out of breath by the time she reached the third floor hallway. She set down the bag of food with a grunt and dropped the tote beside it. She braced herself on the doorframe for a moment to rest. She used to use the Stairmaster at the gym. She shouldn’t be so tired, but then again, she hadn’t been eating much these days and that could explain why she felt so weak. She grimaced at the bag of dog food. She wasn’t that desperate yet.

Carly unlocked her apartment door and dragged the bag inside instead of lifting it. Sam danced around her in circles. He was obviously praising her skills as a hunter. She tore open the top and scooped out a bowl of it. She had learned from her dog-training book that owners were supposed to give dogs the same food all the time in order to avoid upsetting their stomachs, but Sam seemed to be thriving on his varied diet.

She put all the cans away, except for a can of ravioli she opened and consumed on the spot. Both she and Sam finished eating at about the same time, and they settled into their spots on the sofa together. Carly stroked Sam’s fur absently, thinking about Justin, the Biker Guy. He’d had her at his mercy in the store after he’d hit Merle, but he hadn’t tried to hurt her. Instead, he’d offered to carry her groceries.

It made her nervous because she wanted to trust him. Her father had warned her about that before he got sick. He’d said there would be bad people out there who would pretend to be nice so that she would let her guard down. He’d warned her to always be cautious, always be vigilant, and to trust no one. She was on her own, just her and Sam. That thought made her feel small and lonely, made her want to hide in her little apartment, where she felt safe from the huge world outside. But that safety was an illusion. The door to the lobby was glass; it would only take one rock to break down that barrier. And her apartment door was made of thin metal over a foam core—meant for insulation and sound-dampening, not for security. One well-placed kick and it would fail.