with a bang |
I wake, nostrils filled with thick, hot smoke.
A bright orange glare sends panic surging through my veins — the thought of a building folding neatly into itself in a crackle of embers, coming down on me, coming down on us. I worm out of the covers, fingers searching desperately for a warm body. "Michael," I cry, "We need to get out. Fire."
Michael is up in seconds, eyes alert, chest taut for a few breaths. "Annie, there's no fire." He says, voice unbearably gentle. "Just a dream again."
I take another deep breath, the crisp California morning air rushing into my lungs. The sun is rising over the distant mountains, gleaming violently against the Volkswagen's windshield, swallowing the quiet night and stars. There is no smoke, no fire. "No fire," I repeat absently, dragging my gaze from the ugly light.
Michael meets my eyes with the same curious look he gets each time I flinch away from a loud noise, from his palms resting gently on my shoulders. Each time I glance behind me walking down an empty street under the starless sky, eyes searching for a terror that is no longer there. I wait for a question that he does not ask.
His fingers seek mine, each one an anchor to this world. Wordlessly, we clamber back under the covers and pull them over us, a brief moment of respite from the silent world waiting for us outside.
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The decision to never stay in one place too long was made easily, mutually. If we were the last people on this planet, we'd do enough sight-seeing to make up for all the people who weren't so lucky. See Mother Nature reclaim what was once hers, all that. But nature works real slow, so mostly, we travel aimlessly in the evenings, sleeping through the blistering California heat with the AC whirring; avoiding cities, towns, until the very last can is gone from our stash in the trunk. Then we drive by some supermarket, wading through a stench of death that’s grown so strong even Michael’s arms pressed against mine can no longer offer comfort against.
Some places I recognize, back from when I lived in California. We’ve gotten dangerously close to where I once lived, where Roy once lived — but I don’t let myself linger on that thought. The town where I might have once called home is now stone scorched white and wood charred black; burnt remains of the fallen strewn across the pavement. I swallow bile and try not to look too closely, afraid that I might recognize the ribbons of flesh on their tattered skulls.
Michael takes one look at my face and suggests that we drive away; far, far away. I let him lead me back to the car.
But there is still beauty, even in an empty world. Street lights have started flickering and dying, all of them, plunging the night into absolute darkness. Without their light, the stars now shine brighter than I've ever seen.
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Sometimes, things are good.
Living is no longer about finding canned tuna on the bottom shelf of gas stations and more about opening my eyes when the sky is a cloying orange smear, meeting Michael’s gaze, the liquid blue-green a reminder that I am no longer alone. It’s the click-click of his pocket knife when he gets bored, the palm of his hand on my back, the low rumble of his laughter.
At night, we drive, stars streaking across our windshield, the moon a sliver against an infinite darkness, wind in our hair. Nothing plays through the radio anymore, of course, except a mournful howl of static; but music lives on, through our lips and tongues and throats. We sing songs that used to blast across radio stations before our worlds went to shit, voices hoarse from disuse, swallowed by the quiet night air.
In a world of decaying bodies, it’s a small comfort to have a warm one sitting in the passenger seat. We hurtle through the world, the engine of the Volkswagen ripping a seam through the midnight interstate, fast and alive.
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He finally asks, one day, his voice every bit as comforting as when it was just a pop of static through the radio. Asks me why I flinch away from his touch, why I jerk at loud noises — habits that have become so much a part of me that I don’t even notice anymore.
I want to tell Michael that the smoke from these crumbling factories smell like the only home I’d ever known. Tell him about Roy’s trembling little hand in mine, the shouts from outside our bedroom door, the inevitable crash-thump-slap, and crying. The orchids strewn across the hardwood floors in a streak of soil — and that it would be “your mother next” splattered on the ground, if we didn’t comb through our pockets and find the money he wanted for another cigarette, another beer, another round of poker.
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Then, when we finally made a stand: blue-and-red sirens flashing outside, the blustering fury he flew into before he was dragged away in handcuffs — in chains, like the animal he was. Roy and I moved out, as soon as we could, from the house where we had too many times spent nights shaking behind locked doors.
I turn to meet Michael’s gaze, but the words are stuck in my throat. I don’t know what he sees in my eyes, but he doesn’t ask again.
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The cut across my wrist has not healed. I keep it covered, only unravelling the bandages when the night is deep and Michael has fallen still under the covers beside me. I don't want him to see. I don't want to have to explain that once I decided the world would be better off without my tiny, undeserving presence, and I without the world. That I still don't know if I've lost that thought.
Whenever I can, I run the cut under soapy water, cursing the sting and praying in the same breath. Of course, the prayers don't work. A week in, the cut has grown hot to the touch, a sickening yellowish-pink. I rifle through the first-aid box in the trunk when Michael isn't looking, squinting at the tiny bottle labels until I find the word "infection". I offer one last prayer as I swallow a pill. Both get stuck in my throat.
I keep my wrist covered after that, ignoring the dull pain and creeping heat. If the apocalypse couldn’t get the job done, at least this would.
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Sometimes, things aren’t so good.
At first, we try to save things, the way Michael did. We raid every Barnes and Nobles for my favorite childhood books and every Gamestop for his favorite game titles; words that would never again inspire, code that would never again be run. But the trunk fills up too fast, leaving too little space for food and water.
Throwing these things out — things that used to define us — takes more out of us than we have the strength to afford. Eventually, we stop collecting.
The futility of it all is still a blow to the gut, sometimes. The realization that we have nothing to live for; that we would inevitably die and leave the world completely empty. Seven billion people — “we’ll remember them”, Michael had once said, but what good was that? What about after? Millennia of civilizations and technology, of knowledge and human lives. Gone.
Billions of people who wanted to live, and Revelation spared the one girl who didn’t. It was almost funny.
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“They deserve better than us,” I say to Michael, one day, the same cold kind of hollow in my chest when I first broke down to him, over radio waves and whispers. I wish I can swallow the words as soon as they leave my mouth. Deserve better than me, I meant. Me. You deserve better than me.
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This time, he doesn’t offer any comfort in return.
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We don’t realize how far we’ve driven until the monstrous “Welcome to Los Angeles” sign looms over the horizon.
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Remains of neon signs perch on gas stations and casinos, twitching haphazardly under the blistering Nevada sun. Flames lick at the sickly yellow mountains, dancing violently from one charcoal shrub to another. Night time in the City of Angels is drily brisk, with little hint of the afternoon hellfire. We find the remnants of a theater - “Cirque de Soleil” weaved with gold and crimson into forlorn black banners hanging from towering pillars.
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I remember coming here once when I was little, remember the dancers and acrobats that flitted around on the floating stages. The circus is no place for the dying, and the theater is empty of both the dead and the living. We stand on the edge of the stage, peering down into the pit over which the acrobats danced. It’s a long, long way down. It wouldn’t be difficult to take one more step and—
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“Let’s go,” Michael says, firmly. “There’s nothing for us here.”
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Back outside, in the cold night air, the shame comes, cold, fast and violent. I swallow it and move on.
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“You okay?” Michael asks me one day, after I’ve lost my train of thought three times.
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“Yeah, just… too hot. Cali, y’know,” I offer as explanation, wiping the sweat from my brow. “Why couldn’t we have met up in Oregon or something, bet they don’t have 106 degree summers.” The heat, I repeat to myself. Not the dull pain in my wrist, not the throbbing heat pulsing up my arm.
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Michael shrugs it off, as he does with most things I say, now. Our supplies have dwindled, and it’s never a good day when we have to forge into towns. The bodies don’t bother me anymore, there are thousands, millions; and each day, they become less recognizable as the loving, breathing beings they once were. After Michael got taken down for three days by dysentery, we’d stopped dragging the bodies off the road as we drove.
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And so we hit Castaic, tires streaked with gore and our hearts with guilt.
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“Wait, stop the car,” I say, gaze falling on a passing house. “There were words on that wall.”
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“Probably some religious sack trying to spread the word of god,” Michael says, without looking, sarcasm thick on his lips. But he brakes, regardless. The words shimmer in the heat as we squint at them. My veins are pumping with an unfamiliar adrenaline as I read, slowly, cold fear and hope settling in the pit of my stomach.
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Survivor Camp: Camarillo, Ventura. 2 hours south of 101 interstate.
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Other people. The world is not empty. “There are others, Michael .” I turn my gaze to meet him, a smile pulling at my lips for the first time in weeks. “We’re not alone. We’ve got to find them, it’s just a two hour drive-”
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Michael eyes are cold, no longer the sky but a lake frozen over. “You can go, if you want,” he says. The chill that settles in my stomach could have put out the inferno we left behind in Santa Clara.
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“What about you?” The world is spinning, and it’s not just because of the fever, or the ringing in my ears, or the dull throb in my wrist. Michael’s silence is answer enough, and I can barely hold back my frustration. When I’m gone — when I’m dead, where will that leave him? “Why the fuck are you doing this? It’s our best chance of survival. We might find survivors, people like us-”
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“Or we might not,” he shrugs. "What's the point?"
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How long had the lake been frozen over; and how hadn’t I noticed? “How is that fair?” I manage.
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“You know what’s not fair? We could be the last people in the world, and you’re stuck with me.” Michael’s voice is dangerously low, a tone I had never heard before. He trembles, as if the confession had taken the life out of him.
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What do you say to that? The whole time I was wallowing — the weight on Michael’s shoulders had been piling just as high. I try to answer, but the words are jumbled with the cloying heat in my skull. The world keeps spinning, faster, a smear under my eyelids. My palm rests on my wrist, and even that sends streaks of pain up my arm. I stumble, staring down at my palms, which are shaking without my permission. “Stop that,” I say to them, out loud.
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“Annie?” Michael’s voice is a muted buzz in the background. He’s walking towards me, but the strength leaves my legs and my knees meet concrete with a thud. I press two fingers against my throat, and promptly lose count.
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“It’s fast,” I tell Michael, helplessly. My hand slips from my neck, jamming my wound against his chest as he puts his arm around me. I can’t help the grunt of pain that slips through. “Jesus fucking Christ-”
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“What’s going on?” I don’t like the pitch that Michael’s voice has taken — a suppressed note of alarm.
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“S’ not the virus-” I promise him, words slurred through clenched teeth. “Infection.” I offer my wrist to him, shivering. Jesus, when did it get so cold? It’s not even September. Where were the fires when you needed them? “I… got cut awhile ago. It’s kinda gross,” I warn him as he tears into the bandages. “I’ve been taking uh, penicillin? But it’s not really been healing properly-” There are black spots in the world now, and I blink, try to wave them off with my good hand. They don’t go away.
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“Concentrate.” Michael’s panic is only betrayed by his clipped words. How long has it been since I’ve heard so much emotion in his voice? “Annie, concentrate on me.”
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“Concentrate your face,” I mumble. The bandages are all off now, and I hear Michael hiss mutedly in panic. I turn my head to try and see — I can’t, clearly anymore, but my arm is a streak of red and yellow. Everything is burning, now — how is my skin not scorching his? I try to keep my eyes open, searching for him. I can’t find them. “Michael—”
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“I’m here,” he whispers.
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“I don’t want to die,” I tell him.
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When I come to, the world is dark and smudged at the edges, but my arm no longer feels like a furnace, and the IV drip above my arm is empty. The sheets beneath me are soaked in sweat, the dusty hospital room glowing under the faint orange streaming through the windows.
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A familiar silhouette is slumped over my bedside, fingers entwined in mine. “Michael,” I whisper, shaking his hand gently. He jolts to consciousness, tired eyes wide and bright.
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“Oh, god,” he breathes, voice wary and relieved and very, very small.
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“No, just me.” I joke weakly, then double over and throw up onto the tiles.
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The next few days are a blur.
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Michael changes the dressing on my wound — “saw how to do this on YouTube once. Maybe there is a god, after all” — every day, brushing off my complaints at his fussing. I swallow the pills that he gives me, and eat what I can keep down. The fever fades, and my strength returns. He bristles when I try to thank him, and so I keep conversation light until I can walk up and down the stairs without crumpling to the floor.
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“Michael, I’m as well as I’ll ever get,” I say, one day. “We need to get back on the road.”
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He hesitates, reluctance battling with reality. “The survivor camp-”
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I wait for him to continue, but he does not. “Do you uh, wanna go?” I say, lamely, as though asking about some Italian restaurant for dinner; not this, not a choice that could change our lives.
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There is something strange in Michael’s eyes. “I do,” he says. “For a moment, I thought I lost you. It… put things into perspective.” His words are clipped, but I understand everything behind them. “There are things worth going on for.”
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Before we head off, Michael leads me to the top of the hospital. “It’s closer to the stars,” he offers, by way of explanation. He lays a phone gingerly on the floor — I don’t ask where he found it — and takes my hand.
"May I have the honor?"
"Yes," I breathe, "You may."
The music explodes behind us, and Michael takes me with it. Every beat, every note rings through the cool air, demanding a carnal waltz. And we deliver. The crumbling buildings, the overgrown fields, the cloying red glow and dark swathes of smoke over the horizon melt into a blur, all now miles and miles away. Michael’s face is impassive, all the stars in the universe blazing in his eyes. We dance, faster, fiercer, never to stop.
By the time we finish, trembling, breath heavy, the sun has spilled over the city in a burning smear of orange and pink. The fiery brilliance has devoured the quiet night, the star-speckled sky, but I am not afraid. Never again.
Our worlds could end tonight, tomorrow, the day after; but if they do, we’ll damn sure go out with one hell of a bang. Michael’s hand is warm in mine as we walk towards a new beginning, a new understanding. The desire to live is pumping hot and fast and unfamiliar through our veins. Neither of us know what to do with it, but we'll learn.
We walk, for the first time, with hearts ablaze and eyes as bright as the stars we left behind.