R. Allinson: The Last Day on Earth

Tim’s neighbour, Olivia, had often joined them there after school. She’d been a year below them. Lucy hadn’t seen her for years, but it still felt a bit empty being in that spot without her.

“What happened to Olivia?” she asked.

“Hah. I was just thinking about her. She did the whole London thing, then ended up moving up to Edinburgh with her Scottish boyfriend. Her parents are still next door. Her Mum keeps checking in on me. Wonder what it’s like over there at the moment? The UK, I mean.”

Lucy shrugged. “Probably similar to here. Nothing works. Thrown back into the Dark Ages. Kinda screwed if you don’t have convenient rural relatives. But colder and wetter.”

“Yeah, I’d hate to be stuck in any of the cities. Not that it matters in the end though, does it?”

“Dad reckons we might survive.”

“What?”

“Yeah… I know, right. He’s got Granddad’s old bomb shelter all stocked up… he’s been listening to Jim Schmidt.”

Tim snorted. “Mr. Schmidt was my Year 9 science teacher. Did you ever have him?”

Lucy shook her head. “Nah. Missed out. I had Norton instead.”

“Old dragon,” Tim muttered. “Schmidty told us one time that there was a high likelihood that that the moon landing had been faked.”

Lucy laughed. “Yeah, you shoulda heard Mum when Dad said he was getting his info from Mr. Schmidt.”

Tim grinned, then frowned. “What if him and your Dad are right?”

“I dunno, Tim. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow, but I’m not holding my breath. I think I’d rather be pleasantly surprised.”

“I haven’t exactly been planning on living much past tonight. I don’t have any supplies or anything.”

“You can come hang out in Dad’s shelter. I’m sure they’d be cool with it. Besides, if we’re going to single handedly carry on the human race, I’ll need someone to breed with. I think Mum and Dad are a bit past it.”

Tim screwed up his nose.

“No thanks.”

Lucy punched him playfully in the arm.

“Nothing personal. Vaginas are scary.”

“You were all set to let Lucy Whitmore have her way with you.”

“I would have politely turned her down. I think. Then updated Facebook and Twitter with the fact that Lucy Whitmore finally wanted to bang me. If the Internet still actually worked, that is.”

“You know it was surprisingly easy to sever my addiction to the Internet once it wasn’t actually there. A couple of years ago I promised some idiot guy that I wouldn’t go on Facebook for a week. Do you know how hard that was? I felt like I was missing out on so much. And when we’d go camping, I’d be fretting about all the emails and statuses I was missing out on… it’s a lot easier when you know for a fact there are no statuses or emails whatsoever because everyone’s in the same offline boat.”

“I never liked Facebook anyway.”

“Besides the point, Timothy.”

“I never asked you. Where were you when you found out about dear Cecilia?”

“Work,” Lucy said. “Jess called me. I didn’t believe her at first…”

“I didn’t even find out ’til the next day. I had the day off. Spent it playing Call of Duty and ignoring my phone. Beth turned up at my place the next day and dragged me here. I honestly thought she was crazy at first. Then I saw how crazy everyone else was being and thought that maybe I was the crazy one, not them.”

“Dad came and got me. Kinda. I got to the petrol station at Little River, then sat there waiting for half a day with everyone else trying to fill up, then they tell us that they’ve run out… thank God mobile phones were still working, otherwise I would have had a very long walk…”

“We only just made it back here. Pretty much just coasted into the driveway. Bikes and peddle-power for us after that. No handy horses or motorbikes here.”

“That’s what you get for not having a family history of paranoia,” Lucy laughed. “I’m pretty sure Dad could supply the whole town for at least six months on the amount of petrol and gas he’s got stashed away. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Hah. Who am I going to tell? And what can they do now?”

“True. We never got much trouble out on the farm, surprisingly,” Lucy said.

“You’re lucky. I get someone here nearly every day. Hence the locked door.”

“Guess so. I suppose we should be thanking the Council for not maintaining our road after all. It looks like nothing’s down there. Used to drive Mum nuts, she’d wash the car but as soon as she’d actually drive anywhere it would be filthy again.”

“Is that why you never washed your car?” Tim laughed.

“You wouldn’t have known if I did. But yeah, I learnt quite early on that car washing was a futile endeavour,” Lucy said defiantly.

“But you moved to Melbourne six years ago.”

“Old habits die hard.”

Lucy threw the pebble she’d been fiddling with into the water, startling a pair of ducks who had been frolicking in the water.

“Seriously, you can come back with me,” she said, looking at Tim sideways.

Tim bit his lip and looked out over the creek and trees.

“Thanks… but no thanks.”

“But—”

“No, I’m serious. I’ve actually thought about it. I want to be alone. I have a joint I’ve been saving, and a bottle of scotch that belonged to my Dad that Beth had been saving for who knows what, and I’m going to drink it and get high and that’s how I want to go.”

“But—”

“Save it, Lucy. Seriously.”

“Okay.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“If you change your mind, you know where to come.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

After a while they ran out of conversation, even though Lucy kept trying to think of something else to say to prolong the moment before she’d have to say goodbye to her oldest friend. Tim called Napoleon to him, and they trekked back up to his house. He offered her the backpack but she told him to keep it.

He walked her out to the tree where Lightning was grazing.

“Good luck,” Tim said as he hugged her tight.

“You too,” she whispered.

“I’ll come bug you tomorrow if I can.”

“Good.”

Lucy gave him a quick kiss, and then mounted up on Lightning. She looked down at her friend.

“I love you, Tim.”

“You too, kiddo.” He smiled back up at her, and then slapped Lightning on the rump.

Lucy caught one last look behind her before Tim went back into the dark house.

Two months ago…

Lucy didn’t go into work the next day. She woke up feeling groggy and hungover; Jess was snoring softly next to her fully clothed and drooling all over her favourite pillow. She didn’t remember going to bed. Staring up through the skylight at the bright blue sky, she wondered if yesterday had really happened, or if it had just been a disturbingly vivid dream. Her best friend’s presence lent weight to the possibility that yesterday was real.

She held her arm up and looked at her watch. 10:00am. She should have been at work two hours ago. She rubbed her aching head and licked her dry lips.

She rolled out of bed and gulped down the glass of water that was sitting on the desk. A faint buzzing caught her attention. It took her longer than usual to realise it was her phone. She rummaged through her handbag, but not quickly enough to answer the call. She looked at the screen in disbelief. 143 missed calls. Mostly from her mother, a handful each from Steve, Mitch, her friend Katie and two from her cousin Rosie.

After quick glance in Jess’ sleeping direction, Lucy took her phone downstairs. Mitch was sleeping on the couch, so she went into the kitchen and called her mother. The first call didn’t connect, but the second try went through.