The End Has Come (18 page)

“You said that two percent of the population had the right combination of cytokines and specific enzyme expression.”

“Yes.”

“What degree of the population has one of the two, and what percentage of them showed resistant traits before succumbing?”

“I don’t know, but I could get you the figures.”

“How many people are left?” This was the big question: this was the one without which nothing else mattered. Too few, and we might as well be like Nikki, like Rachel, like the black dog — we might as well go into the gray, and let the softness have dominion over all.

Colonel Handleman smiled slowly. “Enough.”

This wouldn’t make amends. This wouldn’t bring back what had been lost. I had allowed Rachel to eat the melon, I had allowed Nikki to steal the juice; I had done this to the world. It was only fair and just that I should have to set it right.

I picked myself up from the bleach-covered floor, watching Colonel Handleman all the while. “I’m going to need some clothes,” I said.

“That can be arranged,” she replied. “Welcome to the cleanup crew, Dr. Riley.”

“Thank you,” I said.

There was work to do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seanan McGuire
was born and raised in Northern California, resulting in a love of rattlesnakes and an absolute terror of weather. She shares a crumbling old farmhouse with a variety of cats, far too many books, and enough horror movies to be considered a problem. Seanan publishes about three books a year, and is widely rumored not to actually sleep. When bored, Seanan tends to wander into swamps and cornfields, which has not yet managed to get her killed (although not for lack of trying). She also writes as Mira Grant, filling the role of her own evil twin, and tends to talk about horrible diseases at the dinner table.

Exhibit 42: “Jessie’s quilt.” An extremely rare early 21
^st
Century Australian memento quilt. Artist unknown. Various fabrics.

This textile work is unusual firstly because it has survived such a tumultuous period in history, but also because it appears to have been primarily assembled from fabric cut from children’s clothes, rather than from the purpose-produced craft fabric widely available in Australia in the early 21
^st
Century. Due to the variety of fabrics used, the age of the quilt and the item’s likely early history, it is extremely fragile.

It has been assembled by a combination of hand- and machine-piecing and is hand-quilted. An embroidered inscription on the back reads “For Jessie, love Mum, 2017.”

• • • •

I realize I’ve been sitting in my car, in my driveway, staring into space for at least ten minutes. It’s a perfect day. The sun is shining. The garden is flourishing. There’s the possum box in the tree by the gate, with the possum asleep inside it. I can just see her ears from where I’m sitting. Her baby will be curled up at the back.

I hear jubilant shouts from the back garden, and Jessie stumbles into view, laughing. She’s soaked to the skin. She turns and hurls a water bomb at her little brother.

I look down at the bags of shopping on the seat beside me. I spent the last bit of money in my account on cans of baked beans and packets of pasta. There weren’t any matches. Gavin has been stocking up on petrol. At the checkout, I caught myself assuming I’ll have the opportunity to shop again when I get paid next week. Then it dawned on me: This is it.

• • • •

Twelve blocks make up the quilt, each constructed using three distinct fabrics in a traditional nine-patch pattern known as Wandering Star. The three fabrics in the first block are: A cotton flannelette printed with a pattern of pink rabbits; a pink and white striped cotton terry cloth; and a cotton/polyester fabric in lilac that has been machine smocked and machine embroidered with small, pink roses. All three are typical of early 21
^st
Century infants’ clothing.

• • • •

I can’t send them. I can’t let them go. When I think about it, I can’t breathe. These little people I’ve raised and loved. I’ve patted them to sleep until my hand is numb. I’ve worried about how long to breastfeed them, spent hours pushing organic vegetables through a sieve. I’ve read to them or sung them songs every night of their lives. I’ve attended their soccer games and harangued them to do their music practice and their homework. I’ve found lost library books and made emergency dashes to school with forgotten lunch bags.

I have spent the last eleven years looking after every aspect of their lives. And they trust me to do just that. To keep doing that.

How can I send them away? Who else is ever going to do even half of what I’ve done for them?

• • • •

Block three comprises three cotton fabrics: a fine, blue denim, with remnants of decorative patches applied to it; a white cotton poplin with red polka-dots; and a pink cotton knit fabric that appears to be stained with colored paint.

• • • •

I lug the bags inside. Gavin is sitting on the couch watching the TV, but not in a relaxed way. He looks alert, as though he’s about to hear something critical. Some news anchor is interviewing a scientist again. My fingers itch to turn it off. There’s not going to be anything new.

Ever since the news broke a week ago, there’s been endless rehashing of what will happen. Fireballs and blast waves. Megatsunamis. Global quakes. Rains of fire and clouds of ash hiding the sun for years. This guy is usually the one with the fun facts. Now he just looks gray. His is the face of the bearer of unbearable knowledge. He’s got kids.

Gavin turns to watch me come in the door. His face is serious.

“They’ve announced ground zero,” he says. “It’s going to come down forty K north of Bathurst.”

So close.

“The Government is telling us not to panic,” says the TV interviewer earnestly.

“Panic is futile,” says the scientist. “It won’t stop the impact.”

• • • •

Block four is something of an enigma. Many of the other blocks in the quilt are made of fabrics that have a generally feminine quality to them. Block four is comprised of three fabrics with an overall masculine theme. The first is a soft, pale blue polyester/cotton velour. The others are: a black cotton flannelette with a pattern of skulls-and-crossbones in bright colors; and a cotton drill in a blue-toned camouflage print.

• • • •

The next news item is about the Government’s negotiations with key allies to take the children. They announced that last night.

That’s how bad it will be. Until I heard about that, I had fantasies of survival. A comforting triptych of flight, resurgence, and ultimate triumph playing out in my head.

I make tea for me and coffee for Gavin, wondering how long fresh milk will continue to be part of our lives. I take the drinks over to join him on our much-beloved leather couch, worn to scuffed softness from its years of service to uncareful children. I’ll endure the horror of the news for one more chance to sit quietly next to my husband drinking hot tea while the kids yell happily in the background. I lean into the solid warmth of his shoulder, his thigh against mine, and stare at the talking heads on the screen.

How can the outlook be that grim?

“Is it really going to be any better anywhere else?” I ask. Gav shrugs. The TV flashes up hotlines for parents who want to arrange billeting for their kids in the U.K., Canada or the U.S. Just the kids, though. The world is only prepared to take the children. They won’t let the rest of us off this doomed continent.

Gav shakes his head.

“Once it hits, the whole world is going to turn to hell,” he says.

What are my two kids, not even teenagers, going to do on their own? Who knows if they’ll even be together?

All I can think about is the footage they play of those tiny, forlorn human beings from the 1940s, rendered in black and white, leaving the ships clutching their cardboard suitcases and staring about with big, frightened eyes. The stories they tell of brothers and sisters who never saw each other again, children who were never reunited with their parents. I remember watching the official Government apology, so many years later, to the abandoned, the abused and the forgotten. The children who languished in cold institutions, or were delivered into the hands of the unscrupulous. Why should it be different this time? There are so many reasons to think it will be worse.

Nate runs past the window carrying a giant, pump-action water gun. His seven-year-old grin is gap-toothed, and his hair stands up in wet spikes.

I can’t send them.

I don’t even have anyone overseas. No relatives outside Australia. No one to take them in and love them even a fraction as much as I do. No one who will fight to feed them once the skies have darkened and the fields and orchards are burning.

• • • •

Block six is strikingly rendered in red, black and white. These fabrics appear to have been cut from a school uniform; the name of the school is partially visible on the pieces of red cotton knit. The other fabrics are a polyester/cotton gingham in red and white, and a black cotton drill. This block has been ornamented with a red, satin hair-ribbon stitched across the star.

• • • •

“Jess said her teacher wasn’t there today,” I tell Gav while I make dinner. “Nate’s teacher was, but he said another year three teacher didn’t turn up and half the kids weren’t there anyway.”

“Yeah, they said they’ll close all the schools by the end of next week,” says Gav. “I want to leave before then, though.”

“Should we send them to school tomorrow?” I ask. I don’t know whether to try and act normal for them, or just keep them home with me and . . . and what? Hug them all day?

“Yeah, send them,” says Gav. “It’ll give us a chance to pack. Sort through some stuff.”

For a moment I want to protest. He’s so fucking practical. You’d almost think he wasn’t fazed by this whole End of the World thing. When they announced it, he just went straight into operational mode, focusing on getting us ready to go. But I know he’s right about tomorrow. And it might be the last chance for them to hang out with their friends.

“Tina is sending her kids overseas,” I say.

I don’t know why I’ve mentioned it. I can’t stand to think about it.

“I saw her at school today. She got them both tattooed.”

“What?” He gives me an incredulous look.

“Their names and birthdays,” I explain, “with the other one’s name and Tina’s and her husband’s names underneath.”

“Jesus,” says Gav.

I thought she was crazy at first, but now I wish I’d done it too. When I drove past, the tattoo parlor was closed.

Gav puts his arm around me, and I realize I’m staring into space again, my eyes full.

“We’re not sending them anywhere, baby,” Gav assures me. “They’re staying with us.”

But what can we do to keep our kids safe anywhere? What if we don’t send them with the rest and something happens to us?

God, I want them to know how completely they are loved, how much I wanted a different life for them.

• • • •

The backing fabric is a cotton sheeting fabric in a floral print. It has been identified as a Laura Ashley duvet cover from a children’s range produced in 2008.

• • • •

Once the kids are in bed, Gav starts getting out the camping gear and piling it in the hall. If I ignore what’s on television, I can almost imagine we’re just planning a weekend down the coast. But we’re not. In a few weeks, there won’t be a coast anymore.

The reality is, no place on Earth will be unaffected. There are places — New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, any Pacific island you care to name — that will be obliterated almost as surely as the east coast of Australia. Everywhere else is going to burn and starve.

So very few got away. Eleanor went to her sister in London before they closed the borders. She left straight away, took almost nothing. Their beautiful house stands empty. Renovated just last year, filled with antiques and electronics . . . all useless now. I suppose it will all just burn, unless it’s looted first. I doubt I’ll ever see her again. My daughter will never play with Isabelle again — the best friend she’s known since preschool. They’ll never again sit in the tree house together, with bare feet and icy poles, singing along to pop music playing on Jessie’s iPod.

• • • •

Block seven is known as the “Green Block.” A logo of a tree or clouds, surrounded by the words “Green Team,” has been screen-printed on two of the fabrics: an apple-green cotton knit and a basic undyed calico. The third fabric is a lightweight blue denim showing ingrained grass stains.

• • • •

There was supposed to be a P&C meeting at the school tonight, to plan the Sustainability Fete next month. I remember it when I go to put out the recycling and the rubbish. I have no idea if anyone will come to collect the bins tomorrow. I stand out on the street in the dark, wondering what it was all for. All those efforts to save the environment. The Great Barrier Reef, the Murray-Darling River Basin. What a joke.

• • • •

The fabrics used to construct block eight are: a plain, light blue polyester/cotton, a bright blue synthetic knit that appears to have come from a uniform for a football club, and a white coarse-weave cotton printed with a design based on the artwork of young children. Names are visible in two of the white pieces: Jessie, age 5, and Isabelle, age 4¾. This block is ornamented with a number of Australian Girl Guides achievement badges.