Until the End of the World (Book 2): And After (36 page)

“Yep,” I say, and hop in the passenger’s seat.

We pull out of Kingdom Come on the morning run to the lookout. It takes less than ten minutes to get to the trail that leads to the top of the mountain. I spot a few Lexers in the woods, tripping their way over downed branches and rocks. Then I spot another ten, fifty feet down the road. They’re moving toward Kingdom Come, or at least in a northerly direction.

“Small groups,” Dan says. “Good.”

He turns up the hill. A squirrel sits on the grass that borders the dirt road, munching on a squirrel snack. At the last moment, it darts in front of the ambulance. There’s a tiny thump as we plow it down.

“Crap,” Dan says. He slows to a stop and looks in the side view. “I think I squished him. I don’t want him to suffer.”

I follow him out of the ambulance. The squirrel is indeed squished, with his paws up by his head. Dan lifts it gently by its tail and moves it to the side of the road. A lump rises in my throat at the pathetic sight.

“What’s wrong?” Dan asks. I shake my head because only an idiot cries over a squirrel during the zombie apocalypse, and if I speak, I’ll cry. “The squirrel?”

“Yes,” I say. It comes out as a sob, just like I knew it would. “No. Why the hell did he run out like that? We’re the only car for a million fucking miles, and Squirrel Nutkin has to run in front of us?”

I take out a bandana and blow my nose. Dan looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. “Well, he’s a squirrel. He doesn’t know about cars.”

“Everyone dies. They keep dying, and we can’t help it. But Squirrel Nutkin didn’t have to die.”

Dan gives me an understanding nod, but he still looks baffled.

“I’m tired of it,” I say through my tears. “I’m tired of the smell. Of the bodies. He didn’t have to run out in the road like that, and he’s all cute and furry—”

I stop when Dan moves to the back of the ambulance. He grabs the folding shovel and digs a hole in the dirt by the side of the road. After a few shovelfuls, he lifts the squirrel into the hole and then replaces the dirt.

“Come here,” he says.

I take his outstretched hand. He clears his throat and looks down. I start to thank him for burying the squirrel, but he speaks before I say a word.

“I’m sorry,” he says to the tiny mound of dirt. “If you’d run out a little sooner, I could’ve stopped in time.”

I wipe my face one last time. It was stupid to lose my shit over a squirrel, of all things. And although what Dan’s doing is sweet, it’s insane to be standing out here in Lexer country over a squirrel grave. It’s also kind of funny. I put my handkerchief to my mouth to stifle the laugh that threatens to burst out. Dan must think I’m crying, though, because he squeezes my hand.

“Oh, Squirrel Nutkin,” he says, “we’ll never know why you decided to run across the road.”

He may not mean to, but he sounds like a Southern preacher, and that does me in. I duck my head as a snort escapes. It’s followed by giggles, and then I can’t help it, I’m doubled over and struggling for air.

Dan drops my hand and crosses his arms. “Are you laughing at me?”

“I just…you were so serious. And…and…you called him Squirrel…Nutkin.” I hold my stomach and collapse into laughter again.

“That’s what
you
called him! I didn’t make up that name. I was trying to make you feel better.”

“I know.” I force a giggle back down. It wasn’t in the way he intended, but he did make me feel better. “You did, see? Thank you. That was so sweet.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Hey, I’m done now, promise.”

He examines my face warily. “That’s the last time I invite you to a squirrel funeral.”

I don’t crack a smile at his joke, and he frowns. “Am I allowed to laugh?” I ask out of the corner of my mouth.

“You are a pain in my ass, Dingbat.”

“Well, you are a wonderful person. Thank you.”

He scratches the back of his head with a shrug. I can see how pleased he is by my comment, though, and I like it. I think maybe he’s worn me down just a little. And maybe he was partly right—I didn’t want to let him in. Another person loved is another person to lose, and I’m afraid there’s a limit to how many people we can lose before our hearts are destroyed. But maybe if they’re overflowing there will always be someone left to help us through.

“We should get up there,” Dan says. “What’s wrong?”

I’ve been staring at him, and now I look away. “Nothing at all.”

“Okay.”

We ride in silence the rest of the way to the trail and hike to the top. There’s nothing to see but the occasional Lexer in the distant fields. Only a few trees have begun to change color, but the gold of the rising sun has made them vibrant.

“Isn’t it pretty?” I ask.

“Uh-huh,” Dan says. He sounds distracted, and I turn to find him watching me with an expression I can’t read.

“Did I really make you feel bad?” I ask. “I’m sorry.”

“No. You made me feel good.”

His hair is gold, his skin is gold—everything about him is lit by the sun. I want to run my thumb along his golden jaw. I want to kiss him. My heart pounds when I imagine leaning forward and taking him by surprise. I’m a second away from doing just that when he speaks.

“Let’s go. We wasted enough time with Squirrel Nutkin’s service. They’ll start to worry.”

I tell myself it was just that the moment seemed perfect, but the urge follows me through the trees and into the ambulance. He starts the engine. It’s now or never. I don’t want to regret not saying something.

“I meant what I said—I think you’re a wonderful person.” I face him and take a breath. “Thank you for waiting until I was ready.”

It’s as close as I can get to saying what I want to say. I can’t make any promises. I can’t promise that I’ll love him, especially the way I loved Adrian, or that it will be easy—but I can promise that I want to be here right now. I want to try. I run my gloved palms along my jeans and hope he caught the past tense of my last words.

Dan’s no dummy, though. He drops his hand from the gearshift and turns to me. “What?”

“Thanks. For waiting.”

He doesn’t move when I lean forward; maybe he wants it to be my decision. I close my eyes when my lips touch his, and I know it’s the right one. His taste is familiar now. I’ve missed it. Everywhere else he’s ever touched clamors to be included, and I climb onto his lap. His hands run down my back, around my waist and to my neck. He grunts in annoyance when he fails to open my jacket on the second try. It’s ridiculous how many layers I wear out here, and there’s no way they’re coming off easily in the front seat of an ambulance.

“Cassie, Dan, where are you? Check in,” the CB squawks.

Dan groans and holds me to him when he leans for the handset. “All clear. We’re coming back now.”

“Okay, see you in ten.”

He hangs it up and leans back, eyes closed and hands tight on my waist. “I have laundry, anyway. And then I’m on the afternoon run.”

“And here I have the rest of the day off,” I say. “Too bad.”

Dan opens his eyes and his lips curve. “I’ll see you tonight, though?”

“Yup.”

He’s going to see a lot more of me tonight. I press my forehead to his before I return to my seat. He backs onto the road and starts for home, hand on my knee. I lace my fingers through his, fluttery with excitement and fear. But it’s a good kind of fear, like just before you jump off the high dive into warm blue water.

Once we’re through the gates and standing in the lot, Dan asks, “So what are you doing on your day off?”

“This and that,” I say. The truth is I’m working on his painting. I found a photograph of Fenway Park in a book and a small board to paint it on. It’s almost finished, and I want to give it to him tonight even though it won’t be dry.

He brushes my lips with his. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Yes, you will.” I watch him walk away. I can’t wait.

***

I’ve dragged the table to the door of the cabin, so the light is decent enough to paint by. Fenway Park is empty, and the early morning light streams onto the grass. You can just see the Green Monster, which is a silly name for a scoreboard, but those sports fanatics are all crazy. It looks timeless, glowing and magical, which is just how a little boy would have seen it all those years ago. I stick my brush into the turpentine for the final time and admire it for a while. A shadow comes up the steps and blocks the light.

“Hey. Oh—” Dan says.

It’s too late to cover it, so I smile and say, “For you.”

“Really?”

“No, I painted Fenway Park because I love it so. Of course it’s for you. Careful, it’s wet.”

Dan bends over and inspects it for a full minute, until I start to wonder if I’m wrong, if it’s horrible. His eyes are moist when he finally looks up.

“It’s—” he begins. He screws his mouth to the side and looks away with a shake of his head. It must be the kind of day where squirrels and paintings can bring you to tears.

He cries like a guy—a few tears, a couple of sobs and hands that clutch me as though he’s sinking. Then he’s done, although he doesn’t move out of my arms.

“You know,” I say with a rub of his back, “you made me tell you a hundred times how great that box was. And here I spend every spare second on this and you don’t even thank me?”

His shoulders jump when he laughs in my ear. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now, why were you sneaking up on me?”

“I thought you might want to come on the midday run to the lookout.”

“Why on Earth would I want to do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The company?” He nudges me back against the wall and kisses me softly. “Thank you. I love it.”

“I’m glad. And I’d love to come with you. Let me get my gear and Princess Leia myself.”

“Nice. You don’t happen to have a gold bikini laying around, do you?”

I laugh because it’s a
Star Wars
reference I actually get and duck out from under his arms to get ready.

Twenty minutes later, Dan pulls into the driveway of the abandoned house. He glances at the clock and then at me. “We’re early.”

This time neither of us waits for the other. In the silence I hear the breeze and the clicking of the engine cooling and something else I’ve never heard out here before: A low hum. A distant crowd.

Dan stops inches from my lips, his face slack. My desire is replaced by a steady beating of dread. We jump out of the ambulance to the trail, and then we run.

My parents once took me and Eric to a march on Washington. Even having grown up in New York City, I had never seen that many people at once. We walked, en masse, through the streets to the National Mall. A hundred thousand people moving in unison, all bent on a common destination.

What we see when we reach the peak resembles the news footage we watched later that night. A mass of people, moving slowly. Voices that merged into a low hum. But these are no longer people, and the hum is the drone of thousands of moans. There must be tens of thousands of Lexers. West of the quarry is packed to the woods behind the fields, and more spill out of the trees as the front line moves forward. I can’t even see the weeds that cover the fields. The east has a pod or two, but there’s a dark mass a mile or so back. We don’t need binoculars to know we’re fucked.

“Holy shit,” Dan murmurs.

We slip and stumble back down the trail. Dan starts the engine and calls into the radio until Oliver answers.

“We have thousands of Lexers coming our way. Thousands, Oliver. We need to evacuate. Now.” He hands me the radio and backs onto the road.

“Are you sure?” Oliver asks.

“Yes,” I say, “Oliver, tell John three blasts. Three blasts. Call Whitefield and the others.”

Dan takes the corner to the main road so fast I’m thrown against the door. But he wasn’t just turning, he was swerving to avoid a group of Lexers in the road. He tears east, toward the farm, and I look in the side view mirror. The road is clear, but the Lexers to the west had already reached the southern woods and could be only minutes away. They’ll block the road, and if we’re caught in it we might not escape.

“Shit!” I thumb the radio. “Oliver!”

“John’s going for the air horn now,” he answers.

“They can’t head west. We have to head east. Tell them to go east!”

“Okay.” I hear a blast over the line. “I’m going now. Out.”

“Oliver!” I scream. I wanted to make sure he called Whitefield, but he’s gone.

Dust trails behind us when Dan screeches to a halt at the first gate then races up to the farm. I jump out in the lot and run to the VW. Penny, James, Ana and Maureen wait outside, bodies tense. The first few vehicles pull down the driveway, and the school bus lets out a burst of air and follows. I breathe a sigh of relief as it disappears; most of the farm is safe.

“Where’s Bits?” I ask.

“We’re waiting for her and Peter,” Ana says. “We’re picking up John at the front gate.”

Peter rounds the corner of the restaurant and moves to the van. “Okay, we’re clear. Everyone’s out.”

“Where’s Bits?” I ask.

Panic rises when he looks behind me into the VW and his chin drops. “She was here! I put her in the van and told her not to move.”

He looks again, like he might have missed her the first time, and turns to me with giant, dark eyes.

“Sparky,” I say.

“I’ll look here,” he says.

I run for the cabin, but Sparky is curled up on Bits’s cot, completely unperturbed. I throw her in her box, grab my extra bag and run outside. I hear the others calling, and I do the same.

“Bits!” I scream. “I have Sparky! Bits!”

There’s nothing but the noisy silence of the rustling leaves and grass. If we hadn’t seen what was coming our way, we would have been lulled into thinking it was a beautiful fall day. I hold Sparky’s carrier to my chest and sprint for the van.

Ana stops in front of me, panting. “Bits is in the big bus. Mike saw Josephine take her and Jasmine. He thought she was supposed to be there.”

It doesn’t make any sense. Josephine knew we had the job of checking the farm; we were to be the last ones out. It doesn’t matter why, though—all that matters is that Bits is by my side. Dan paces outside the ambulance with Mike and Rohan, the only other people left. There are supposed to be others in the ambulance, but maybe they were too scared to wait until Dan and I got back.