We were three blocks from the apartments when Mike sprained his ankle. There was a lot of ankle to sprain; Mike was six foot four and not dainty – the ankle had seen some shit in its time, and was built for it. So when it crumpled under him he dropped mouth open, already starting to wail.
“Leave him,” said Joel.
“What?” goggled Simon.
“He’ll slow us down. Like this, he’s a distraction. They’ll come to him and leave us alone. Keep walking.”
“But we can’t leave him,” whined Simon feebly.
Joel pointed his pistol at him. “One,” he said.
“C’mooon.”
“Two.”
“Ohokayfine.”
We left Mike there. And we didn’t look back.
The sky above was the colour of flatulent gods. Thunder let ‘er rip some miles away, but there was no rain, just this godawful sweaty air that smelled like rotten toast.
“I’m hungwy,” said little Ellie.
“There, there,” said Ellie’s mother. I didn’t know her name, but she looked like Ellie’s mother would. The same big damp eyes and the trembling limbs.
“Will they geddus?”
“No, no, no” soothed Ellie’s mother. “We’re safe now. We’re just going to go for a little walk.”
“You two shut up,” said Joel. “You’ll attract attention.”
“She’s-”
Joel pointed his pistol at her. “One,” he said.
Ellie learned faster than Simon.
Two more blocks and we hid in the shadow of a dumpster, staring at the intersection. Eight lanes of open air, making us sitting ducks – so said Joel, who was also the entire and only reason any of us were alive right now. We listened.
“I say we cut the kid’s throat and let ‘em bleed out a hunnerd yards back and across the road,” said gimlet-eyed Garry. His adam’s apple was flexing and rippling like a wrestler’s arms behind his camo-print jacket, and he fondled the barrel of his rifle in a very unseemly way as he spoke.
“Wouldn’t work,” said Joel. “Street’s too narrow to avoid attention.”
“Why don’t you all uhhhh….stay here…and I’ll uh. Go ahead and get aw get help, get help, that’s what I said, I’m sure of it,” said shifty Jenny, who’d already soaked through both her shirts and her jacket with terror sweat.
Joel pointed his pistol at her. “One,” he said.
“Oh jeez that’s not necessary,” simpered Simon.
“Two.”
Jenny collapsed to the ground in blubbering terror and pissed herself.
“Good. Now, here’s what we’ll do-”
“Aw, poor Jenny,” said Simon, and he bent over and helped her up and slammed the nearest parked car with his ass, sending its alarm off full-force.
“Fuckshitlizardspit!” hooted Garry. He pointed his gun around wildly and fired at anything moving.
“Go!” ordered Joel. And we all went, except for Simon, poor stupid, well-meaning, innocent, naïve, dead-man-walking Simon, who was wedged ass-first in the parked car, wailing hysterically and doomed.
“Oh that’s not good,” I said.
“Works out for the best,” said Joel. “He was going to do something stupid sooner or later. This just means he didn’t take anyone else down with him. Being soft out here gets people killed.”
“Augh!” said Ellie’s mother.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Stubbed my toe!”
“Look at me,” said Joel. When she looked at him he bashed her in the head with the butt of his pistol. She fell over, swearing.
“Leave her. Kid, if you try and follow us I will shoot you.”
“Huh?” said Ellie.
“Kids are dead weight. Slow us down. Stay with your mother, kid. Good luck.”
“Huh?!” said Ellie.
She didn’t follow us though.
We stopped for breath at the park. I was astounded by the natural beauty of the place, and wondered what strange new shapes it would take now, with nobody to tend it.
“I’m gonna forage for berries,” said Garry. And ten minutes later he turned up with a fistful of rotten crabapples.
“Eat ‘em,” he told us. Joel shoved his into his face without chewing. I fidgeted with mine.
“Now,” said Joel.
“Now?”
“Now. You need the calories or you’ll slow us down.”
I was beginning to think Joel wished he was a racehorse or an Olympic sprinter, but I ate the apple under threat of pistol and we moved on.
“Stick ‘em up,” said Garry.
We turned around. He was pointing his rifle at us, steady-handed, wild-eyed.
“I ain’t going another step with you bozos,” he said. “Pass your packs and get your ass outta my sight. Only the fit survive. I know all about how to dig a trench and piss in it and to scavenge like a raccoon and fight like a bear and howl like a wolf and live like a roach. You’re a soft girl and a dope. You’re gonna get yourselves killed. I’m really just doing the job nature intended.”
He belched twice and threw up, spitting rotten apple cores everywhere. Joel stepped up, bashed him in the head with the butt of his pistol, and took the rifle.
“We move on,” he said authoritatively. “Nobody sleeps until we’re out of the city.”
“Me,” I said.
“What.”
“It’s just me. You and me.”
“Oh,” said Joel. He counted us again. “Right. See, this is what happens when you have to make the hard calls. Don’t fall behind.”
“Okay.”
The bridge was clogged tight with cars. Their lights were on, their engines were breathing warm gases.
“We’ll go over their roofs,” said Joel, slinging the rifle on his back. “Quick hops. Don’t fall behind.”
“Excuse me,” asked a woman, “what the hell are you doing with that gun? And you’re stowing it upside do-”
“Another survivor,” said Joel. “You can come with us or stay here and die, the choice is yours. Don’t fall behind.”
“Die from what?”
“What?” I said. “It’s the end of the world! We all heard it on the radio.”
“Well….sort of,” said the woman. “I mean, yes? But like, it’s more like a moving deadline than a single event.”
“Speak clearly,” said Joel.
I shit myself. From the apple. I tried not to draw attention to it. Joel might think I’d slow us down.
“Stop interrupting me to give instructions; it makes you look like an asshole and slows me down. Look, the world’s not really ending, just getting steadily shittier and shittier until the various structures and institutions of our societies that we think of as fundamental wither and occasionally cease to exist.”
“Who did this?” demanded Joel.
“It’s sort of complicated. A lot of it was burning stuff. I think some of the worst came from methane. Y’know. Cow farts. Too many cheeseburgers.”
Joel’s eyes narrowed. “So… the cows did this.”
“What? No. Well, yes. But only because of everyone else. Including you.”
“Got it,” said Joel, unbuckling his eighth pistol. “Authoritative decision time. The rest of you will have to make it alone. I’ve got to make the hard choices. Don’t follow me, and stay on the left side of the road.”
Then he shot himself eighteen times in the head. I think he just meant to do it once but his finger sort of stuck after the first bullet.
“The left?” I said.
“I think he meant to like… Move with the left-lane traffic closest to you. For safety.”
“Ah. Wow.”
“Yeah. No offense buddy, but I’m gonna call the cops. Maybe stand right here and keep your hands in plain sight and just explain to anyone who asks that you just followed the guy around, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I could do what I was told. Again.
And that just left me, the lone survivor. Standing on the street with a backpack full of granola bars and water bottles and a pretty unattractive sunset that was mostly blocked by big ugly buildings.
Well, uh, I guess that taught me something about the human condition. Maybe?
I mean, maybe I was the real monster.
Or something?
The sun set and I sat there feeling like a dumbass for a good ten minutes before the police arrived. The rest of my evening was really long and boring and I kept waiting for the denouement.
When I woke up the next day, the next year, the next decade, I still was.