The End Boxset: Postapocalyptic Visions of an Unstoppable Collapse (7 page)

Mrs. Crabtree raised her arms to signal the class to order. “That’s enough, class. You heard what Mr. Wright had to say. Remain in your seats until you have permission to leave. As soon as we can, we will contact your parents to come get you.”

Lock down? What were they taking about? Could a school do this? Were they prisoners now? Kiya tried to figure out these questions with the same ease as her math assignments. Only this time there were no easy answers, only more troubling questions.

Chapter 10: Brian and Tobias: In the Woods

Tobias and Brian came to a clearing in the road, at least a mile past the school. They stopped for a moment as if thinking the same thing. “Why are all these people standing outside their cars?” Tobias asked. It looked like a mild traffic jam, but there was no accident. Cars were just stopped on the road, the passengers outside, befuddled and annoyed. Tobias looked to Brian.

“Holy crap, your face!”

“What? What’s wrong with it?” Brian asked.

“It’s—I don’t know—messed up.” Tobias answered.

Brian felt the lumps on his face. Tears welled in his eyes, but he tried to hold back from completely bawling in front of both Tobias and the people who were wandering around. The fire still illuminated in the distance. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but we need to get some place safe. If a cop sees us or something, they’re going to take us right back to school and call our parents,” Tobias said.

Brian could hold back no more and started uncontrollably sobbing. “Dude, no,” Tobias said.

But the emotion was beyond Brian’s control. He tumbled to the ground weeping and just sat there, as tears rolled and the sobs continued in full force. Tobias placed a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Come on man, we have to get moving.” “I can’t—I can’t help it, okay?” Brian shouted back. “Everyone in school saw it. How can I ever go back there? And my mom? Of course she’s going to know what happened. Why—” Brian stopped for a moment, “Why couldn’t you just throw your trash in the garbage like everyone else?”

Tobias took a step back. “So it’s my fault then?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“I agree. It probably was my fault. But if you expected me to jump in there or do something, you’re insane. What could I have done? It would have been both of us with lumps on our faces,” Tobias said.

From a distance, people began conversing about their inoperable cars and how nothing was making sense. A couple was talking to another, while a man next to them opened the hood to his Ford Taurus trying to investigate the problem. Every single person seemed to have their cell phone out, examining them deeply, as if they were foreign objects. Foreign only because, this time, they didn’t seem to be working. “Forget it. I’m not going to argue with you. I just want to go home,” Brian said wiping his tears away.  Tobias extended an arm to help Brian get off the ground. Brian took his arm and rose up. “Okay,” Tobias said nodding, “Okay, you want to go home?  Call your mom or whatever and have her come get you.”

“I don’t have a cellphone,” Brian answered.

“Huh?” Tobias remarked in disbelief.

“I don’t have a cellphone. She told me I’d have to wait until my birthday.”

Tobias dug into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and handed it to Brian.

“Here, use mine.”

Brian took the cellphone, it was blank. He tried to turn it but nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” Brian said.

“Did you dial the right number?” Tobias asked.

“I mean its dead or something. There’s no power,” Brian quipped.

Tobias grabbed the phone. “Let me see.”

Tobias looked at the screen, perplexed. He tried to turn it on as well, but nothing. “Maybe I forgot to charge it,” he said. He started to put the phone back in his pocket, but couldn’t resist trying again. “This is insane, man,” Tobias said holding the phone out in front of him. He gave up and placed it back in his pocket. He looked to Brian. “The first thing we need to do is get away from all these people. We can go to my place if we cut through the woods. When my mom gets home she can drive you home. You’ll get home and no one will know anything happened.”

“What about my face?”

“We’ll put some ice on it.”

Brian thought to himself. He wasn’t sure what move to make. His day was rapidly going down the toilet, and it didn’t seem that things were going to get much better from here on out.

“Hey boys!” an elderly woman called from a distance.

Startled, Brian and Tobias turned to face her. She was walking away from her Buick, currently parked in the middle of the road. She was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt and seemed old enough to be their great-grandmother. They remained in place as a result of their curiosity as she neared. 

“I was wondering if either of you had a phone. I need to call a tow truck,” she said.

She apparently wasn’t the only person having car trouble that day, as about thirty other people littered the road hovering around their cars and viewing the blaze in the distance.

Tobias spoke first, “Sorry ma’am, my cell phone doesn’t work. It’s dead.”

Her eyes went from affectionate to disappointed almost immediately.

“Oh,” she said, “I see.” She walked away from the boys back to her car to presumably wait for help that would never come.

Tobias leaned within an earshot to Brian. “I’m telling you man, we need to cut through the woods.”

The road ahead went on for miles. These were miles of uncertainty the two boys didn’t want to risk. All they could make out were people and cars. Cars that weren’t moving. It’s like everyone just stopped driving and decided to walk instead. Brian had a quick thought about all the crap his mom had been talking about through the years. He remembered her talking about the end of times. How she was always planning and planning and trying to teach them how to grow food and all that other stuff. This couldn’t have been what she was talking about. This looked more like one big traffic jam.

Brian followed Tobias as they veered into a path towards the woods. Once they became concealed behind the trees and bushes Tobias sighed in relief. “So far so good, man. We’re away from all those people. Just follow me and we’ll be at my house in no time.”

“How do you know the way?” Brian asked, trying to keep up. All he could see was his friend’s back. “Huh?” Tobias asked while looking ahead.

“I said how do you know the way?”

“I’ve went through these woods before. This isn’t the first time I skipped school.”

As the path turned less into a path, becoming more of just uncharted wilderness, their noisy footsteps echoed with leaves and sticks cracking from the ground. Brian had to avoid hanging vines and branches. It became irritating. He wished they had just stuck to the road.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

Tobias stopped dead in his tracks and spun around to face Brian. “Yes,” he said, “I know what I’m doing. Quit your whining and pick up the pace!”

Brian didn’t respond, but something triggered inside of him, for the second time that day. He charged towards Tobias and pushed him.

“Shut up!” Brian shouted.

Tobias stumbled backwards then fell onto the ground. He jumped up, shocked and angered, and then pushed Brian back. “Eat shit!” He shouted back. Brian charged again at Tobias, this time pushing him even harder. Tobias, on guard this time, tried to maintain his balance, but still went backwards, right into a large spider web. He thrashed around in a panic trying to get the sticky web off him. Brian saw his opportunity and then tackled Tobias to the ground.

“Stop, you asshole!” Tobias shouted. “You pushed me into a spider web!” He let out a girlish scream. “There’s a spider on me.” He said, pleading with Brian to stop.

Brian moved off Tobias. He sat up on his knees and started to laugh as Tobias rolled on the ground moving his arms in a flailing motion to get the spider web off.

“It’s not funny!” Tobias’s frantically ran his hands through his head trying to brush off the phantom spider.

“You scream like a girl,” Brian said, laughing.

Tobias sat up and glared at Brian, not amused. “I’m serious. That was the funniest scream I’ve ever heard.”

Tobias couldn’t help but to laugh a little himself too. “What? I don’t like spiders.”

For a moment the boys just sat there in the woods, trying to catch their breath and laughing at each other. “That senior tried to throw you into a trash can. Now
that’s
funny,” Tobias shot back. Brian conceded that it was pretty funny and their laughter continued. “At least I didn’t scream like a girl,” he said back. This time, their jubilance was uncontrollable.

In the distance an unsavory-looking bearded man observed the boys. He carried nothing, but a pistol in his hand. He moved in closer to inspect the commotion.

Brian helped Tobias up and dusted his back to remove the rest of the spider web. Their laughter came to an end and they knew they would have to keep moving. Suddenly, behind them, there were footsteps. Brian spun around, unexpected panic hitting him. Tobias turned as well. In front of them stood the man—a crazy gleam in his eyes—who looked like a drifter. The immediately noticed the pistol in his hand. He stared at the boys for a moment before speaking.

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

Neither boy responded. He raised his pistol slightly.

“I asked you a question. You boys speak English?”

They collectively froze at the sight of the gun aimed towards them.

“Cat got your tongue?” The man continued.

He lowered his pistol and wiped his dirty forehead.

“Have it your way then. You know it’s not safe out here. It’s not safe anywhere. The world is coming to an end. Nothing left. You heard that explosion, right?”

Not surprisingly, the boys didn’t answer. Their eyes didn’t leave the pistol, as the man waved it around while speaking.

“That was a terrorist attack. It’s only the beginning. Won’t be much left of this world after today, I imagine.”

Tobias decided to interject, “We’re just trying to get home. That’s all.”

“Home?” the man laughed. “There’s no home left for any of you. Might as well join me and get it over with.” The boys looked at each other than back to the man.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to confuse you bright young gentlemen. The problem is that you interrupted me. I wanted to do this earlier, but I just couldn’t. My wife, on the other hand, God rest her soul, she was ready. We made an agreement, a pact.” The man wiped away some tears that were forming.

“She was able to do it, because she had guts. Me, I was a coward. I just couldn’t do it. She told me to do her first. So I did. Then I was supposed to go after. Then we’d be together, but I just couldn’t do it. I failed.” The man attempted to muffle his sobs with his hand. “I can’t do it!” he shouted.

The boys noticed his slight distraction and started to move away. The man jolted his head up and aimed his pistol aimed directly on them.

“Don’t even think about it!” he shouted. He noticed the boys were nervous and shaking, so he tried to lower his tone.

“I don’t mean to give you boys a scare, but you can do something for me.” He went immediately for Tobias and pushed the pistol into his young hands. “I want you to shoot me once, right in the head. I can’t understand it, it’s like my body won’t let me. But you, you can do it for me!”

The man pushed the pistol into Tobias’s hands. He noticed resistance as he yanked Tobias further.

“Come on, now. You can do it.” The man held Tobias’s hand to his own forehead and beckoned him further. “Just squeeze the trigger. That’s all I ask.”

The man’s voice grew more desperate. He shook Tobias hand violently, trying to get him to pull the trigger. “Do it! Send me to my wife! Send me to the next world! Deborah I’m coming!”

Tobias started to cry. His attempts at pulling away from the man were futile. Brian stood frozen, but then made an attempt to pull Tobias away. The man noticed as the flames in his eyes grew. He pushed Tobias away and then pointed the pistol at Brian. Tobias rolled onto the leaves and dirt.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He demanded from Brian.

“Nothing,” Brian answered in fear.

“Didn’t your mom ever teach you about charging a man with a gun? If you got the guts to do something like that maybe
you’re
the one who can do me in.” The man tossed the pistol to Brian.

“Pick it up.” He said.

Brian looked down at the gun, but wouldn’t touch it.

The man thought to himself for a moment. “Okay, we can do it your way.” He rushed over to Tobias and got him into a headlock. It was like the scene at the high school replaying itself right before Brian’s eyes. Was the man a reincarnation of the jock?

“You have five seconds to put a bullet in my brain before I snap your friend’s neck like a twig.”

Tobias struggled and kicked, trying to release himself from the man’s arm grip.

“One…,” the man counted.

Brian lunged at the gun, picked it up, and pointed it at the man.

“That’s better, two…,” the man continued.

“Let him go,” Brian said.

“Three…,”

“Let him go!”

“Four…,”

Brian aimed the pistol squarely at the man, wavering. He had never shot a gun before. He only hoped the bullet would guide itself where it needed to go. The man closed his eyes in relief while holding onto Tobias. A loud metallic blast followed. Then silence.

The man opened his eyes, wondering if he was dead. Instead he saw Brian standing with the pistol pointed upward. In his shock and confusion, the man’s grip loosened on Tobias. Tobias immediately pulled himself away and ran next to Brian. It took a moment, but the man soon realized he was still alive. “No…” he said. “You were supposed to pull the trigger. I wanted to see my Deborah!”