Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

“Terrorists,” he hazards, with the air of one making conversation.

I shake my head. “Aliens.”

He thinks about it.

“We probably had it coming,” I posit.

“I don’t think it’s a great idea to stay in Vegas,” Ben says, with no acknowledgment of the non sequitur.

“I’ve been thinking that too.”

He glances sidelong at me. His face brightens. “I was thinking of heading to San Diego. Nice and temperate. Lots of seafood. Easy to grow fruit. Not as hot as here.”

I think about earthquakes and drought and wildfires. My plan was the Pacific Northwest, where the climate is mild and wet and un-irrigated agriculture could flourish. I figure I’ve got maybe five years to figure out a sustainable lifestyle.

And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living off ceviche. Or dodging wildfires and worrying about potable water.

I don’t say anything, though. If I decide to split on this guy, it’s just as well if he doesn’t know what my plans were. Especially if we’re the last two people on Earth.

Why him? Why me?

Who knows.

“Lot of avocados down there.” I can sound like I’m agreeing to nearly anything.

He nods companionably. “The bike is a good idea.”

“I’d be a little scared to try cycling across the mountains and through Baker. That’s some nasty desert.”

Mild pushback, to see what happens in response.

“I figure you could make it in a week or ten days.”

That would be some Tour de France shit, Ben. Especially towing water . But I don’t say that.

• Tour de France.

“Or,” he says, “I thought of maybe a Humvee. Soon, while the gas is still good.”

He loses a few points on that. I wouldn’t feel bad at all about bullet pointing Hummers, and I don’t feel nearly as bad about bullet pointing the sort of people who used to drive them as I probably ought to.

“Look,” Ben says, when I’ve been quiet for a while, “why don’t we find someplace to hole up? It’s getting dark, and the dog packs will be out soon.”

I look at him and can’t think what to say.

He sighs tolerantly, not getting it. I guess not getting it isn’t over yet either.

“I give you my word of honor that I will be a total gentleman.”

You have to trust somebody sometime.

I go home with Ben. Not in the euphemistic sense. In the sense that we pick a random house and break into it together. It has barred security doors and breaking in would be harder, except the yard wasn’t xeriscaped and all the

• Landscaping

is down to brown sticks and sadness. Which makes it super easy to spot the fake rock that had once been concealed in a now-desiccated foundation planting, turn it over, and extract the key hidden inside.

We let ourselves in. There used to be a security system, but it’s out of juice. The house is hot and dark inside, and smells like decay. Plant decay, mostly: sweetish and overripe, due to the fruit rotting in bowls on the counter. Neither Ben nor I is dumb enough to open the refrigerator. We do check the bedrooms for bodies. There aren’t any—there never are—but we find the remains of a hamster that starved and had mummified in its cedar chips.

That makes me sad, like the dog packs. If this is the Rapture, I hope God gets a nasty call from the Afterlife Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

We find can openers and plates and set about rustling up some supper. All the biking has made us ravenous, and when I finish eating, I am surprised to discover that I have let my guard down. And that nothing terrible has happened.

Ben looks at me across the drift of SPAM cans and Green Giant vacuum-pack corn (my favorite). “This would be perfect if the air conditioning worked.”

“Sometimes you can find a place with solar panels,” I say noncommittally.

“Funny that all that tree hugging turned out useful after all, isn’t it?” And maybe he sees the look on my face, because he raises a hand, placating. “Some of my best friends are tree huggers!” He looks down, mouth twisting. “ Were tree huggers.”

So I forgive him. “My plan had been to find someplace that was convenient and had solar, and if I was lucky its own well. And wait for winter before I set out.”

“That’s a good idea.” He picks at a canned peach.

“Also, the older houses up in Northtown and on the west side of the valley. Those handle the heat better.”

“Little dark up there in North Vegas,” Ben says, casually. “I mean, not that there’s anybody left, but it was.”

I open my mouth. I close it. I almost hear the record scratch.

I’d have thought it was safe to bullet

• Racism.

But I guess not.

I don’t say, So it’s full of evaporated black people cooties? I get up, instead, and start clearing empty tin cans off the table and setting them in the useless sink. Ben watches me, amused that I’m tidying this place we’re only going to abandon.

Setting things to rights, the only way I can.

He’s relaxed and expansive now. A little proprietary.

I am not quite as scared as I ever have been in my life. But that’s only because I’ve been really, really scared.

“It’s just us now. You don’t have anybody to impress,” Ben says. “You’re free. You don’t have to play those games to get ahead.”

I blink at him. “Games?”

He stands up. I turn toward the sink. Knives in the knife block beside it. If it comes down to it, they might be worth a try. I try to keep my eyes forward, to not give him a reason to think I’m being impertinent. But I keep glancing back.

I look scared. And that’s bad. You never want to look scared.

It attracts predators.

“Nobody can hurt you for saying the truth now. And obviously,” he says with something he probably means to be taken as a coaxing smile, “it’s up to us to repopulate the planet.”

“With white people.” It just comes out. I’ve never been the best at self-censorship. Even when I know speaking might get me hurt.

At least I keep my tone neutral. I think.

Neutral enough, I guess, because he leers again. “Maybe God’s given us a second chance to get it right, is all I’m saying. Don’t you think it’s a sign? I mean, here I meet the last woman on earth, and she’s a blue-eyed blonde.”

The little tins fit inside the big tins. The spoons stack up.

• Ice cream.

Though I could probably make some, if I found that cow. And snow. And bottle blondes are still going to be around until my hair grows out. I don’t have any reason to try to change my appearance now.

Ben moves, the floor creaking under him. “If you’re not going to try to save humanity, what’s the point in even being alive? Are you going to just give up?”

I turn toward him. I put my back toward the sink. I half-expect him to be looming over me but he’s standing well back, respectfully. “Maybe humanity has a lifespan, like everything else. You’re going to die eventually.”

“Sure,” he says. “That’s why people have kids. To leave a legacy. Leave something of themselves behind.”

“Two human beings are not a viable gene pool.”

“You don’t want to rush into anything,” he says. “That’s all right. I can respect that.”

And then he does something that stuns me utterly. He goes and lies down on the sofa. He only glances back at me once. The expression on his face is trying to be neutral, but I can see the smugness beneath it.

The fucking confidence .

Of course he doesn’t need to push his luck, or my timeline. Of course he’s confident I’ll come around. He’s got all the time in the world.