Geoff North - How the World Ends

“I’m sure you have.” She ruffled the girl’s dirty hair. “I’m not all that worried about a zombie Apocalypse, but I don’t want you guys getting sick. I want to get out of the city where the air’s cleaner.”

Michael drank a quarter of his water. “I don’t think the air will be any cleaner anywhere we go. That grey snow is everywhere, and when it rains, my skin stings.”

We’re leaving the city because I don’t want anyone to murder you , she thought. We’re getting out as fast as we can because I think that big lunatic is still after us. “Just trust me on this, okay, Michael? Let’s see what things are like in the next town.”

“Next town isn’t for fifty miles, and I bet it’s snowing grey shit there, too.”

“We’ll see about that,” Angela replied, “and please don’t swear.” Angela thought she’d seen Roy the security guard poking his big bald head into cars the night before while the twins had slept in the minivan. She couldn’t swear to it since it had been dark at the time, and he was in the opposite lane—the one heading into Winnipeg, not the one leading out where they were hidden away. Odds were it hadn’t been him, but Angela wasn’t taking any chances. Roy had killed over a hundred people in the North Kilpatrick Shopping Mall—the children’s mother among them—and the crazy bastard had said he would find them. 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! Those had been his exact words, and Angela believed every one of them.

You bet he’s still after you, girl. He’s going to find you, and he’s going to keep his promise. You should just wait where you are and let him get it over with.

Angela’s stepfather wouldn’t shut up inside her head. The more frightened she became, the more hopeless things seemed, the louder he got. “He’s not going to find us.”

“You’re talking to yourself again,” Amanda said.

“Sorry.” She took the girl’s hand and the three continued walking west.

He’s got guns, remember? I’m sure it will be quick and painless. Stay where you are and let him catch up. Let him end your worries with a bullet between the eyes.

“Can I see one of the guns?” Michael asked.

Angela was rubbing the skin between her eyebrows. “Guns? Why do you want to see one of the guns?”

“I just want to hold one… see what it feels like.”

They had two guns. One they had taken from Roy after Michael incapacitated him with an oversized golf driver swing between the shoulder blades. Angela had picked the other from the waistband of a teenager she had murdered with a knitting needle through the heart. “It feels like a gun, cold and heavy. There, now you know.”

“You know what I mean, I want to hold it on my own. One of us should know what we’re doing in case we need to defend ourselves.”

“I’m perfectly capable of defending all three of us, and you’re too young to be handling guns.”

Angela and Michael hadn’t gotten along all that well since the three had been stuck together. He was continually challenging her, testing her ability to look after them. Angela had never had children of her own, and the twins had never been without a mother up until a few days ago. They were both adjusting, Angela realized. She would have to patient; their parents were gone, and she would have to fill the void as best she could.

“Leave her alone,” Amanda said. “She’s kept us safe. She’s kept Roy away.”

Michael didn’t say another word. He trudged on beside his sister as they made their way to the city’s outskirts, silently stealing from cars and trucks along the way. Sometime just before noon the lines of stalled traffic became more backed up. They were getting close to the airport. The drivers and passengers had left their vehicles and headed for the towering ruins of collapsed hotels ahead, or so Angela thought. They had probably believed it would be safer to take cover in the concrete and steel structures, that the bomb’s effects wouldn’t be so devastating this far out from the city’s center. The buildings here looked as destroyed as any Angela had seen further back. She started to wonder if more than one bomb had dropped. Perhaps she was leading the children into an even more lethal zone of radioactive fallout.

A group of four people were heading towards them in the opposite lane. Two adults, a man and woman, and two children—both girls—not much younger than Michael and Amanda. The man called out to them. “They’ve got a shelter set up in the parkade under the Sandman,” the man called out. “Lots of food left and plenty of mattresses to sleep on.”

“Why are you leaving?” Angela called back. “Where are you going?”

The man’s face went blank. His wife answered for him. “We’re going home.”

Angela looked back the way they’d come, towards the smoking grey city center. “Back there? You won’t find anything. Most of it’s gone.”

The two groups stopped walking when they were side by side and faced each other with the road’s concrete barrier separating them less than thirty feet. “Not all of it,” the woman said. “She looked at her daughters and smiled reassuringly. “The girls want to see their grandparents. We’re going to get our car and make sure they’re alright.”

“None of the cars work,” Angela replied. “I think all the onboard computers have been fried.”

The woman gave her a look that said, you think we don’t know that already, you stupid bitch? Can’t you just play along and keep your stupid mouth shut? “Our car will work. Edward here is a whiz with that stuff.” She smiled at her daughters and they smiled back. Edward stood there and remained looking vacant. He didn’t appear like much of a whiz of anything, Angela thought.

They know when it’s time to die, girl. They know when it’s time to give up and let go. You should do the same. Why don’t you go and crawl back into that hole you came out of?

Because I’ve found someone to look after—two someones. I’m going to care for them and keep them safe… more than you ever did for me.

I looked out for you more than you’ll ever know. I’m still looking out for you. There’s a way out of this, Angie… you’re just too dumb and stubborn to take it.

Angela didn’t answer her stepfather, and she didn’t say anything else to the family of four. She waved goodbye instead and the twins followed her along the curving exit road towards the half-collapsed string of hotels to their right.

“You think they’ll find them?” Amanda asked.

“Find who?”

“Their grandparents.”

“Maybe.” They probably wouldn’t, and if they did, Angela figured the little girls would likely be disappointed.

The first hotel had been a Hilton, Angela could tell by the massive collapsed H sitting atop the rubble blocking the front entrance. They went past it; Angela had never stayed at a Hilton in her life—she couldn’t afford it on her secretarial wage, and she had no one to travel with, and nowhere to go. The Sandman, Edward the mechanical whiz had said. Lots of food and plenty of mattresses. The three walked another quarter mile, past two more hotels until they came to the Sandman. The sign was still attached to the building, the trademark green letters looked almost a sick, dull purple against the backdrop of grey sky beyond.

“I don’t want to go there,” Amanda said. “It looks scary.”

“They all look scary,” her brother added, pointing back down the silent street.