Нэнси Кресс - The End Is Nigh

Johnny held her and patted her back, shushing. He told her they’d be okay, and other comforting things he didn’t believe.

“What do they expect us to do with all of these people, without food, without doctors?” Kelly asked, drawing back into her seat.

“I think they expect us to let them die.” Johnny watched as another vehicle slowed in front of the empty parking lot, then drove off. “That’s why the soldiers left. It’s spread too far; we can’t take care of this many people, so they want them to die.” Johnny rubbed his eyes. He was so tired they were burning all around the edges. His head had this dull achy feeling that wasn’t quite pain, but was still unpleasant. Another couple of hours and he’d take his father to the drive-in. It was Stripes tonight. With each day that passed, Dad was more out of it. Most of the time Johnny felt like he was alone at the drive-in.

“Why don’t you come out to the drive-in tonight? You need to rest or you’re going to—” he was going to say get sick , but he bit back the words.

“How are you even showing movies, with the power out?” Kelly asked, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“The place came with an old generator. Power outages are a great time to sell tickets, because no one has anything else to do.”

Kelly laughed dryly. “Assuming people can move.”

“Right.” If they could move, Johnny would invite everyone to come out and watch Stripes for free, and for one night his Dad would think his goddamned drive-in was a success.

He sat up ramrod straight in his seat. “Wait. I just got an idea.”

A plume of dust followed the Ford Taurus as Johnny cruised along the drive-in’s back aisle, to the very last spot. He swung the Taurus into the spot, the front rising on the hump until the screen was framed inside the windshield. He turned off the engine, then twisted to look at the car’s four passengers. It was an older couple, in their seventies, and two kids, two girls. Grandparents raising their grandchildren, maybe. Or maybe the girls had just been visiting. It smelled bad in the car—really bad—but Johnny smiled and tried to ignore it. “I’ll be back with food and Cokes later. As soon as the sun goes down we’ll start the first show.” He looked at his watch. “That’s about an hour from now. I hope you enjoy the movies.”

Kelly was waiting in the aisle. “That’s it.” She pressed her fists into the small of her back. “God, my back is killing me.”

How many people had they carried to their cars? Too many to count. On the tail end of three endless days of feeding people, Johnny was so exhausted he’d traveled beyond tired, into a manic, hungover netherworld.

There was just one last trip to make.

“ Holy shit ,” Johnny’s dad shouted when they pulled into the drive-in. “Holy, holy shit. It’s packed !” He looked at Johnny, and for the first time in days Johnny was sure his dad knew who he was. “I told you. Didn’t I tell you? It’s catching on.”

“You told me, Pop.” He caught Kelly’s eye in the rear view mirror, and they exchanged a smile. “I didn’t believe you, but you were right.” Johnny pulled up in front of the snack bar. He felt like laughing and crying at the same time. “Kelly and I are going to run concession orders right to the cars. People don’t want to get out, on account of the virus going around.”

“Oh, okay,” Dad said. “Smart idea.”

Johnny led him into the snack bar, where they had a hundred boxes of popcorn lined up and ready to go, dozens of hot dogs turning on spits in the warmer. His dad’s steps were so tiny, so tentative. When had he lost that broad, assured stride Johnny had known since he was a kid?

They kicked things off with E.T . Kelly started feeding people in the front row, Johnny in the back, figuring they’d meet in the middle.

They hadn’t had the time or space to bring all of the afflicted to the drive-in. Ninety percent of the town had it now. But they’d done what they could.

Heading back to the snack bar for another armload, he passed Kelly. She looked exhausted, but there was a fire in her eyes as she smiled at him.

“Can I ask you something?” Johnny said.

Kelly paused, swept her hair out of her eyes.

“If things ever get back to normal—” he paused, realizing how inappropriate his words sounded as they stood surrounded by people suffering from a horrible disease.

But Kelly smiled. “If things ever get back to normal, yes.” She headed off toward the cars.

Johnny turned, imagining the two of them sitting together at the Outback Steakhouse in Pine Grove, and for a moment he felt light, and hopeful.

As Dad filled him up with a tray of Cokes, popcorn, Snickers and Milky Way bars, ice cream and hot dogs, Johnny could see the confusion was back, but Dad was smiling, and whistling.

A little before three a.m., Johnny’s dad dozed off on his stool behind the snack bar. Johnny loaded him in the Mustang and took him home, then turned right around and headed back to the drive-in. They showed movies until the sun came up, then left all those poor people sitting in their cars and went home to get a few hours’ sleep.

“ Holy shit. This is unbelievable ,” Johnny’s dad cried.

If his mind had been clearer, he might have noticed they were the same vehicles, in the same spots as the previous three nights. “ Another full house!” He patted Johnny’s thigh.

Kelly was already there, stirring huge pots of “kitchen-sink soup” over open fires, a waist-high pile of discarded soup and vegetable cans behind her. It had taken them six hours to gather the cans from people’s cupboards, another to open them all.

An hour into the night’s feeding and watering, Johnny and Kelly paused in the second aisle, out of his dad’s earshot.

“What are we going to do tomorrow?” Johnny asked. Most of the fresh food in town had turned. The nearest grocery store was outside the quarantine.

“Did you try the Red Cross?” Kelly said.

“Yeah. They aren’t allowed into the quarantined areas.” Calls to the authorities had resulted in awkward explanations about limited emergency response resources, and shock and consternation when Johnny explained how many victims they were trying to keep alive. He’d been right: the plan was to let most of the victims to die off.

“I guess it’s whatever we have left, then.”

Johnny didn’t ask what they’d do after that. According to the radio, the virus was still spreading. There were infected zones from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. It didn’t look like the quarantine would be lifted any time soon.

On the drive home, Johnny’s dad wet his pants. He didn’t seem to notice; he just went on muttering something about a cold can of Pabst and a mad, mad world. There’d been a movie called It’s a Mad, Mad World . Johnny had seen it when he was a kid. Maybe his dad was watching it in his head.

“Dad, look —another sellout crowd.” Johnny tapped Dad on the shoulder.

“What?” Dad looked around as if waking from a dream. “A what? Oh. Right.” He laughed. “That’s good. What are we showing?”

“ Spaceballs .”

“Oh yeah? Is it any good?”

“It’s hilarious,” Kelly said from the back seat. Her nose was plugged from crying, but she kept her tone bright.

There was nothing for his dad to do—not a crust of frozen pizza left in the snack bar. They sat him in a lawn chair in the front row. It was a perfect drive-in night: just a nip of crisp fall in the air, the leaves on the trees beyond the screen whispering on a light breeze.