Instructions for the End of the World (18 page)

When I try to tell him about how both of my parents are gone, that Nic and I are living alone—I don't know how many shots I've had—four?—my words seem to get stuck on my thick tongue, and I start to laugh.

“What did you say?” he says, laughing with me.

“My parents. They're gone,” I finally get out.

“Gone where?”

“I don't know.”

“For how long?”

I shrug, and my shoulders feel so loose they might go rolling across the floor. “A month maybe?”

“So you're on your own? That's cool.”

I look at him and think about all the ways it could be cool that it's not. But I don't say anything. Instead, I scoot closer and lean forward until my lips are on his and we are kissing.

He smells like sweat and tastes like salt and tequila, and once we have started kissing we don't stop. Somehow we end up on the mattress, and he's on top of me, and this is the best I've ever felt in my life.

But at some point I realize there is no stopping what's happening. His hands are all over me, and clothes are coming off, and my thoughts move like molasses.

I'm fourteen,
I manage to think.
I'm a virgin.

Then our bare bodies, slippery with sweat, are pressed together, and I know there's something I should say about condoms or slowing down or birth control or I don't want to do this, but no words come out, because part of me does want to do this.

Part of me is on fire, and decisions aren't being made. There is this force pulling us along toward being closer and closer until he is pressed between my legs and I feel the sharp pain of his body pushing into mine.

No condom, nothing between us, and I cry out because it hurts way more than I thought it would. And it doesn't stop hurting as he keeps going, and somewhere on my lips is the word
stop,
but I don't think I ever really say it. Not out loud anyway.

He's up on his elbows and looking at me as he moves, and I feel as if I'm some task he's been given, a chore he has to complete, and there's no stopping until it's done.

Stupid tears drip down my face into my hair, but maybe it just looks like sweat, because he doesn't notice.

I'm a virgin,
I should say.

No, I
was
a virgin. Not anymore.

He shudders and collapses on me, and then I am stuck there thinking about pregnancy and STDs and dying just because I was too stupid to mention condoms. To have one just in case. But who knew this was going to happen?

“Sorry,” he says. “I meant to pull out. Guess I got a little carried away.”

NICOLE

I hear a car coming up the driveway, and I look to see headlights and the shape of Pauly's van in the near darkness. It stops out front and Izzy gets out of the passenger side and slams the door. The van pulls away.

She comes in looking awful, her hair a mess, her face pale and blotchy, her eyes squinty and weird. And she's not walking straight. She keeps listing one way and then another as she passes me and goes into the kitchen, where she flops into a chair and puts her head on the table.

I go in after her, pour a glass of water, set it beside her.

“Are you okay?” I can smell alcohol on her, so I'm guessing not.

“No,” she says.

Izzy's story comes out in little bursts, not all at once. I'm surprised she's being so honest. Surprised she's willing to talk. She tells me about the barn, the drinking, then what came after.

“Did he force you?” I ask.

“No. I mean, I never told him to stop.”

“But you were drunk.”

I sit down at the table, put a hand on her arm, and she doesn't pull away. This isn't how I would want her first time to be.

She starts to cry.

“It's okay,” I assure her. “You're going to be okay.”

“He didn't use any protection,” she says.

My stomach pitches, and I watch her face crumple like it did when she was a little girl. She still seems like a little girl to me, too young to deal with grown-up situations like this.

I hate my parents for making this a summer we're facing alone. I hate that I didn't protect Izzy, and I hate that I was the only one here to do it.

“We can go to a clinic and get you checked out, okay? And there's a pill you can take, you know, to make sure you aren't pregnant after the fact?”

I don't even know what I'm talking about, because this is not something I've ever dealt with. Is the morning-after pill even legal in California? I've heard about it, but I don't know. I've never needed to know.

“What if Mom and Dad find out?” she croaks.

“They're not here. How would they?”

She sniffles. “You're not going to tell them?”

“I guess if they want us to take care of ourselves, then how we do it is none of their business,” I say slowly, only deciding it's true as the words form on my tongue.

After I've helped Izzy wash up with a gallon jug of water in the bathtub, after I've put her to bed, I stand alone in the living room, staring out the window into the darkness, feeling more alone than I've felt since we came here.

I've convinced my sister we're going to be okay. Or at least I think I have.

But will we?

I go to the bed and take my rifle out from under it. I run my hand along the cold barrel, cradling it close like a baby. Holding it calms me. You can't help but feel more powerful holding a gun. You can't help but feel like you can take care of yourself, if you know what to do with it. Maybe it's partly a delusion, but for once I am grateful for my dad's relentless focus on being prepared for disaster.

I wouldn't shoot a person unless I had to—unless there was no other choice—but I could fire warning shots. I could scare the hell out of some stupid boy who doesn't know a firearm from his own ass, if he ever dares to come near my sister again.

 

PART THREE

Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape

September 3

Everything I thought I'd learned from Dad means something different than he intended. SERE was one of the first prepper acronyms he ever taught me: Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.

Survival, I know now, is the story you tell yourself to get by.

Evasion is all about avoiding the enemy. But what if the enemy is the person you're supposed to depend on? What if the enemy is inside your own head?

Resistance isn't a gun in hand, ready to fire. It's knowing your own mind. Knowing how you will bend, and how you won't.

Escape is not always physically possible, but no one can control where your thoughts go. No one can make you believe what you know is wrong.

 

Fifteen

NICOLE

By the last week of August, wildfires are still burning in the bone-dry hills to the north, closer than any have been this summer, and a shift in wind could send them in our direction. Some people are voluntarily evacuating already, but with the river between the fire and us, I am sure we are safe. All we have is the radio for updates, and I keep it on until late at night, not sure what news I am listening for.

Izzy has been different since the incident in the barn, more subdued. I feel like a whole other person, too. I trust no one now, and it's as if this house is our rickety fortress against the world. I don't want to leave it, and neither does she. When I'm getting water, a sense of panic overtakes me, growing stronger the longer I'm away from the house and subsiding only when I've returned and locked the door. I sleep with the rifle under my pillow, hyperaware of every little sound, waking again and again throughout the night, more exhausted with each morning that passes.

I don't know what I'm waiting for, what danger I think is lurking. It's not as if Kiva has come around here, and even if he did, I don't really believe he's much of a threat.

It's something unnameable that I fear, some danger I sense lurking at the edge of the forest, some predatory force that knows our vulnerability and is waiting for the right moment to invade.

Izzy's period came two days after the thing with Kiva happened, and she hasn't wanted to go yet to the doctor for STD testing. I haven't had the energy to push her, nor have I wanted to hire a cab or to ask someone to drive us. It all just feels like too much to deal with.

I've asked her to stay away from the kids at Sadhana Village, and she surprises me by obeying. She worries me, even, because like me she barely wants to leave the house at all.

I am making beans and rice for dinner, for what must be the hundredth time this summer, when I hear a knock at the door. I know without looking that it's Wolf. He's the only person who doesn't drive to visit, and I never heard a car pull up.

I have avoided him since the incident with Izzy and Kiva. It's not like it was his fault, but I can't shake the feeling that what happened to her could have happened to me—maybe
should
have happened to me, if it was going to happen to anyone.

Maybe I wanted it. When we were making out in Wolf's tree house, I probably would have let him do anything, I thought at the time. But he was a gentleman. We only kissed, and kissed some more, and even lying there with him, he kept his hands in places that didn't threaten to get us carried away.

But now that it hasn't happened between us, I think it never will. Whatever I felt for Wolf is crowded out by fear for my sister's well-being. I understand now what it means to flirt with danger, and really I'm not a risk taker. I'm not the kind of person who chases thrills.

I turn off the stove burners and wipe my hands on a towel, my heart thudding at having to see Wolf now. When I open the door to him, he looks better than I remember.

“Hey,” I say.

“Long time no see. Where've you been hiding?”

“Just here.”

“I've stopped by a few times and knocked but didn't get an answer.”

I shrug. I must have been out in the woods, and no way would Izzy have answered the door.

“Listen,” I finally say, preparing for the excuse I've rehearsed in my head. “My dad's going to be back soon.”

“He is?”

“I don't know when exactly, but he must be seeing the wildfires on the news. When he does come back, no way is he going to let me hang out with you, so we might as well just stop seeing each other now, before things get any more complicated.”

Wolf's careful gaze makes me doubt my own words, but I don't waver. I just stare back, determined not to let him sway me. Inside, though, I feel like I'm dying.

“Does your dad have a thing about guys with long hair or something?”

I shrug. “Honestly, I'm just not allowed to see guys at all.”

I know I've never sounded so lame in my life, but I figure it'll be hard for him to argue with the truth.

His expression doesn't change. He just nods. “I understand, living under his roof and all.”

“Thanks,” I say, relieved he doesn't argue.

He turns and starts to walk away, then stops and looks back at me. “Some rules really aren't worth following. If you ever want to say hi, you know where to find me.”

I close the door, my chest hollow and tight, my heart thudding stupidly like a bird trapped in a too-small cage.

This is for the best, I know. It's the least complicated way to go, and mostly I'm relieved when he disappears down the driveway. But I also have a nagging sense that something has just gone horribly wrong.

ISABEL

The night the wildfires jumped the Yuba River, we only found out later what had happened. We didn't think the fire could cross a river, and we didn't know about the overnight change in wind direction that sent the flames racing toward us rather than away.

WOLF

The sounds of sirens and helicopters too close to the village wake me at dawn. Men's voices yelling commands are the next thing I register. The word
evacuate
enters my half-awake consciousness, and I open my eyes to look at the clock on my nightstand, but it is only a blank now. I attempt to switch on a lamp, but there's no light. Electricity must be out.

Fire, I realize. The odor of burning forest is more present now than ever.

I think of Nicole and her sister, with no car, no adults around, and now possibly no electricity. Who's going to tell them to evacuate? I sit up so fast my head spins, and I look around to see that my roommates, Kiva and Pauly, are a little slower to wake than I am. Probably sleeping off hangovers.

“Guys!” I shout. “Wake up!”

Kiva moans and rolls over. Pauly mutters something and pushes up on one elbow.

“What's going on?”

“I think we're evacuating for the wildfires.”

“Shit,” he says, and pushes himself out of bed.

Kiva's bed is on the other side of his, and Pauly grabs the blanket and pulls it off the sleeping lump. “Come on, man. Get your ass moving! We have to get out of here.”

NICOLE

I dream of someone pounding on the front door, and then I wake up and realize it's not a dream. There are other sounds, more distant—helicopters flying nearby, I think—and the acrid smell of the forest fires, as if it's just outside my bedroom window.

I jump out of bed and look to see what's going on. Pauly's van is in the driveway, and I see Kiva standing next to it, looking up at the house. It's barely dawn, and my groggy brain can't put together why he would be here now, but a jolt of fear shoots through me.

“Open up!” calls whoever is pounding on the door. “Nicole! Izzy! It's Wolf! We have to evacuate!”

The fire won't cross the river,
I think.
No way we are in immediate danger.
I know the evacuation is just a precaution, and I know I can't make Izzy get in a van with Kiva. No way.