Geoff North - How the World Ends

Angela lowered the gun and Roy ran the last ten feet towards her. The gun in his right hand rose up over his glistening head. His eyes clamped shut, as if in sudden agony, and the gun dropped from his fingers. He fell to his knees, howling, and Angela saw Michael standing behind him, clutching the grip of a driving wood like a baseball bat.

Amanda lunged out from the clothing racks and grabbed up the gun Roy had dropped. Her eyes met Angela’s and pleaded for the woman to run. Angela dropped the gun she was holding in her sweaty fingers back into the pocket of her dress. Roy was roaring like a bull having its testicles squeezed; he crawled towards Angela on his knees, raking his big hairy arms through the air. His fingers grabbed at her dress and tore the bottom half away. “Not so fast,” he gasped between wails. “You have to pay for those clothes… then I’m going to kill you. I’m gonna bash your fucking head in with my—”

Michael hit him with the 1-wood a second time. The big yellow head made a wet smacking sound into the fat between his shoulder blades as loud as the gunshots. He fell forward onto his face and howled.

Good job, girl. You just turned those children into homicidal maniacs.

They haven’t murdered anyone.

Not yet.

They ran for the window, Amanda holding one of Roy’s guns in both hands, pointed to the floor, her brother still gripping his driver, and Angela between them, clutching the stolen jackets, hoodys, and track pants. Michael went ahead and smashed more of the jagged plate glass out of the frame, hastening their escape faster.

They staggered out into the grey parking lot, its white-painted stripes still half-filled with cars, trucks, and vans that would likely never be driven again. Amanda tugged at the remains of Angela’s dress. “Where’s your car?”

“I… I walked here. I don’t have a car. I don’t even know how to drive.” The three moved between rows of vehicles, testing door handles here and there, not actually considering what they would do if they found one unlocked.

Roy crashed out through the last bit of window glass Michael hadn’t managed to clear. “Get the fuck back here and pay for all that shit!”

They watched from fifty yards away as he stumbled about in circles, crunching glass shards into dust under his black shoes. “He can’t hurt you now,” Angela whispered. She had led them further away and hidden behind a minivan. “We’re safe here. I don’t think he could run all that fast after the hits Michael gave him, anyway.”

Amanda grinned up at her for the first time. “And he’s outta bullets, right?” A shot rang out, and the rear-view mirror on the driver’s side of the minivan exploded, spraying the girl with crystallized glass dust and bits of plastic.

A man doesn’t pack that much fire power and not carry extra ammunition. Angela could hear the condescension in her dead step-father’s voice. She could feel his contempt.

They moved further back, slipping between the rows of cars. “Over here,” Michael insisted. Angela and Amanda followed him to a three-foot high cement barrier and climbed over. They were now in a ditch strewn with garbage and dead grass. “He won’t look for us here. We’re not even in the parking lot anymore.”

Angela could see traffic lights off to the left. A semi-trailer had tipped over, and the backend of a Volkswagen Beetle was sticking out from beneath it. More vehicles were parked up behind the crash, the doors left open on most, the owners long gone. Behind them was a highway; its four lanes lined with abandoned cars and buses. She lifted her head slowly over the barrier and risked a peek back into the mall parking lot. She spotted Roy a few seconds later, wandering among the rows, moving farther and farther away. “I think you’re right. I think we’ll be safe here for a little while.”

Amanda and Michael poked their heads up and watched the big monster weave his way among the vehicles. They watched as he tried door handles; most were locked, but some opened up. He would stick his big sweaty scalp in, and pull it back out again, like a foraging bear. Eventually he worked his way back to the broken windows of the sportswear store. He stood there for five more minutes, staring out over the quiet rows of metal and rubber. He started shooting his gun all around him. Bullets flew into parked cars, blowing out windows, ricocheting off fenders, and flattening tires. Roy re-loaded the gun and did it again. “Don’t think this is over! I’ll find you thieving fuckers! You’ll pay for the stuff you took, and then I’ll fucking tear out your throats with my goddamned bare hands!”

He tucked the empty revolver into the waist of his pants and vanished back into the mall.

Amanda had started to cry. “He’s gonna kill us. He’s gonna hunt us down and kill us… just like he did to Mom.”

Angela hugged the girl. “No he won’t. Roy can’t find us out here.”

Michael was sitting up against the concrete wall. “What are we supposed to do now? Where are we going to go?” He stared out at the ominous bank of black and green clouds moving in from the west.

Angela couldn’t answer him. They remained silent and watched the clouds build over the ruined skyline of their city. Even Angela’s step-father had nothing to say.

“I am a scientist.” The more he said it, the realer it became. “I am a scientist .”

Louie Finkbiner walked along the underground corridor repeating the words over and over. The florescent lights above flickered, and Louie quickened his pace. They said this place was built to last. They said it could withstand anything. That was the third time this morning the lights had done that.

Louie had wondered the first time if it was just coincidence, that a single bulb or perhaps the ballast he was sitting under simply needed replacing. That had happened in the washroom while he was on the toilet. He could see it happening there; washrooms weren’t considered essential areas. It happened again when he went to the cafeteria for an early lunch. There had been no one working there at the time—kitchen employees had been evacuated to the lower levels four days before—and Louie had to make his own sandwich and heat his own bowl of soup. The lights had flickered there, too, but not just the ones above his head—they had flickered throughout the entire cafeteria.

“It’s not important,” he said to himself. “They dropped a fricking thermonuclear warhead on the city. Of course things aren’t going to run perfectly after that… It’s to be expected.” He was half-jogging by the time he made it to the elevator. He inserted the security card into the slot next to the door and waited for the little green light to grant him access. It did, and the door slid open noiselessly. Louie stepped in and inserted the card into another slot on an inside panel. It made a satisfied buzzing sound and the touch screen menu appeared directly above. There were ten subterranean levels in the Winnipeg Disease Study Center; level 1—the floor immediately below the surface—was inaccessible. It likely no longer existed, blasted into oblivion along with everything above it. Louie was on level 2, where workers took their breaks and ate their lunch. He needed to travel further down, past levels 3, 4, and 5—to the extra-secured floors where all the nasty stuff was stored.

Louie had stolen the security card from Tom Braden when news arrived the bombs were on their way. It wasn’t actually stealing; Tom’s card had dropped to the cafeteria floor during the big rush. Louie had planned on returning it to him once they were all safely tucked away in the emergency living quarters of level 10. But Louie had hung back. He hadn’t gotten into the elevator with Tom and the others. Someone with a security level as high as Tom’s had obviously gone with them because Tom hadn’t returned to search for his card.