Until the End of the World (Book 2): And After Read online

  “Cassie, I know I said I was staying with you tonight, but can I stay at Peter’s again?” Bits asks, spaghetti dangling from her lips.

  “Suck up that worm, baby bird,” I say. She slurps it up and licks the sauce off her lips. “Sure, as long as it’s okay with them.”

  Peter nods. “Sure. Any reason why?”

  “Well, when will I be able to feel the baby move?”

  “It’ll be months, Bits,” Penny says with a laugh.

  Bits frowns but then shrugs and swings her feet that don’t hit the floor. “Aren’t you supposed to read to babies? I could read to it if you want.”

  “I bet it’d love that.”

  “Her,” Ana says. She twirls pasta on her fork. “Not it.”

  “You’re going to be disappointed if it’s a boy,” Penny says.

  “She’s not, so I won’t.” Ana swings a leg up onto Peter’s lap, completely confident in her prediction. This baby wouldn’t dare be a boy now.

  Dan stops at our table with a plate loaded with spaghetti and a mound of meatballs. “Hungry?” Adrian asks him.

  “Just a little. You’re going to Whitefield in the next couple of days, right? I was wondering if you could bring a letter there for me.”

  “Sure. Just drop it off at the house.”

  “Love letter?” Nelly asks. Dan smiles but says nothing.

  “A girl in every port,” I say. “How do you find the time?”

  “Granted,” Nelly says to me, “there are ninety-nine point nine percent less girls than there used to be, but still.”

  Dan eats a meatball and chews slowly while we tease him. He swallows and points his fork at us. “Chicken coop plans, people.”

  “Well, we were right about it being for chicks,” Nelly says.

  Dan laughs and moves to his table, where he commences eating with a gusto that may rival mine. The talk turns to Whitefield, the Safe Zone in New Hampshire. The 157th Refueling Wing of the Air National Guard evacuated to the tiny airport last year. We help them with their farm in trade for fuel, but it isn’t all about barter. They’re our closest neighbors, and we help each other out the way neighbors should, even if we are eighty miles apart.

  “I want to get that moss there,” Adrian says. He explains what we found today, and the faces at the table turn hopeful when they realize what it could mean.

  “Are you going?” Nelly asks me.

  “Yep. I’m sure you’re going.”

  I wink at him, and he shrugs. “I have to. They need help with the cow inseminations.”

  Adam lives in Whitefield. Nelly’s never been serious about anyone he’s dated and, true to form, refuses to admit he likes Adam. He dodges my inquiries by saying that he doesn’t have much choice, since Adam’s the last gay man on Earth. But I know they would have hit it off even if the world hadn’t ended, and I’m pretty sure Nelly’s in love.

  “Right,” I say. “What do you know about cow inseminations that they can’t read in a book? For instance, are cows more likely to get pregnant in the winter or summer?”

  “Summer.” It’s obvious he’s guessing. He grew up with cattle on his parents’ farm, but unlike his brothers, he never had much interest in them.

  “Ha!” I yell. “Winter!”

  “I had a fifty-fifty chance.” Nelly narrows his eyes at me. “What the hell do you know about cow inseminations?”

  “That’s the only thing. I heard someone say it one day. So, are you coming to Whitefield, or do you want me to bring a love letter for you?”

  “I’m coming,” he mumbles.

  I pinch his rosy cheek, glad I’m not the only one around here who blushes.

  CHAPTER 6

  I read on the bed while Adrian organizes himself for the morning. His jeans and shirt are draped over a hanger and he’s set out his hunting knife and the random things—a lighter, little pliers and a spool of wire—that he always carries in his pockets. It’s hard to not feel lazy when you live with someone so neat. I look at my various piles and try to feel inspired, but I’m dead inside when it comes to organization.

  When Adrian’s done, he sits on the edge of the bed and squeezes my ankle. “We always said we’d have a baby sometime around now.”

  I toss my book to the side. “The idea of a baby is nice. The reality is very different.”

  “I know. We’ll have one someday. A little pink baby with freckles, like you.”

  “Only someone who hasn’t spent their whole lives burning and peeling and getting sun poisoning would wish that on a child.”

  “I like your pinkness.” His hand travels up my leg and under my shirt. When it gets higher, he asks, “What’s going on here?”

  I kneel and pull my shirt over my head. This lacy purple bra—which still had the tags on, because wearing a dead person’s sexy underwear just feels weird—cost me four laundry shifts and assorted other favors, but Adrian’s face makes it worth it.

  His hands move under the straps. “I like it.”

  “You were supposed to. You should see the matching underwear.”

  “Yes, I should,” he says. I strip off my pants, and he runs a finger down my stomach and hooks it in the top of the purple lace. “You’re so hot.”

  I stick out my tongue and cross my eyes, and he tickles my side. “Especially when you do that. Any guy here would love to be with you. You know who has a crush—”

  “Could we not discuss the legions of apparently invisible men who are dying to get in my pants? There’s only one person I want in my pants.”

  Adrian isn’t the jealous type. It was a little weird when Peter showed up at the gate last fall, but it was worse for us than for Adrian. He was over it in days, while Peter and I tiptoed around for weeks and tried not to look too friendly. The lack of jealousy would almost be offensive if it wasn’t because he knows he has nothing to worry about.

  “I’m just trying to get a rise out of you.”

  “Well, I was trying to get a rise out of you.” I turn to crawl under the covers. “But, obviously, you’d rather discuss other things, so I guess I’ll just go to b—”

  He drags me into his lap and says, “It looks like we’ve both accomplished what we wanted.”

  I can feel what he means. He pushes me onto my back and props himself on his elbows so his face is only inches away. I use my toes to inch his pajama pants down. “Hi, gorgeous,” he says.

  “That’s why I don’t take your compliments, you know,” I say. I press my chest against his warm one. Even with the furnace going, this purple outfit isn’t cutting it. “You throw them around like confetti. Blah blah blah gorgeous. Blah blah blah beautiful. How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”

  “So, what, I should tell you what’s wrong with you?” Adrian runs a thumb along my cheek, lips curved, and his smile widens at my nod. “Fine. You’re a slob.”

  “That’s more like it.” I run my hand down his side and around to his stomach. His dark lashes flutter and he lets out a hiss of air as it moves lower.

  “Your hair is insane in the morning.” He ruffles it with a hand and twines it through his fingers. “And your breath isn’t much better.”

  “Hey! Try waking up next to yourself.”

  I laugh and attempt to roll out from under him, but his arms are immovable. He raises a bored eyebrow at my struggle, and I stick my feet on the backs of his bare legs in retaliation.

  He clenches his teeth and growls. “And your feet are fucking freezing. Good enough?”

  “There’s got to be more than that.”

  His mouth moves along my neck, and I sigh when his teeth graze my earlobe. “There’s plenty more. But I’m kind of busy right now.”

  I move against him, and not because I’m cold. The furnace could be broken right now, and I don’t think I’d be chilly. “So, get in my pants already.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The white plane waits on the runway just outside the east fence. It looks huge on the ground, but feels tiny when we’re up in the ai
r, like the flick of a finger could knock it out of the sky. We would drive the eighty miles to save on plane fuel, but the roads are still blocked with a winter’s worth of snow.

  We load the veggie starts from our greenhouse into the cargo area. It’s too early for planting, so we’ll transfer them to Whitefield’s tiny greenhouse. Months of canned and dried fruits and vegetables have us all eager for something fresh, and these will produce a bit earlier than the ones they’ll sow directly in the ground.

  I choose a seat close to our pilot, Dwayne. He twirls the ends of his bushy mustache while he and Jeff, Dwayne’s sort-of copilot, run through whatever pilots do. Dwayne’s been teaching Jeff to fly and help to navigate. The plane may have state-of-the-art GPS, but since the satellites went out of whack in no time, it’s completely useless.

  Adrian sits across from me, legs bouncing. Nelly and John squeeze into seats next to us and buckle in as we roll. The trees that circle the fallow field flash by, and then the rumbling under the wheels ceases. I look down as we gain altitude. In a few months the fields outside the fence will be filled with oats, wheat and corn. The vegetable garden inside the fence will be lush and green. But for now, Kingdom Come is a mottled white and brown. Smoke rises from stovepipes and people stroll in groups of two and three. Everyone gets along for the most part—there are petty jealousies and problems, of course, but most of the time we remember how lucky we are.

  Together, Kingdom Come and Whitefield have just over two hundred-fifty souls. Moose River Safe Zone, in Maine, has five hundred. They’re pitiful numbers when you think of how many people the Northeast used to hold. I know we’re not the only ones; there have to be people out there who’ve found places to hole up, who’ve survived the cold and the Lexers. Maybe they’ll chance traveling when the snow melts and before the Lexers start their endless roaming.

  Nelly sips from his murky looking bottle of mint tea—the closest he gets to his beloved Pepsi these days.

  “We’ll have to go back to Whitefield again soon,” I say to him, raising my voice above the drone of the engine. “To bring the chickens once the snow’s gone. You could stay for a while.”

  “Yeah,” he says, pulling the brim of his baseball cap down so I can’t see his face. “I was thinking about it.”

  I yank off his cap and arrange his hair in a good messy way, instead of the crazy messy way his hair prefers. “There, now you look handsome. Adam likes you without a hat.”

  “How do you know?” he mutters.

  “Because he told me.” Nelly’s mouth opens. “Yep, I know all kinds of things. Adam loves me.”

  Nelly looks irritated with my teasing, so I poke him in the chest and continue. “And do you know why Adam loves me? Because I love you, and so does he. So we love each other. He does love you, you know. And he’s awesome, so don’t screw it up.”

  He fights to keep his frown in place. “How do you always redeem yourself just when I want to kill you?”

  “Love you, too.”

  We chat until the plane banks left for a landing. Whitefield isn’t completely surrounded by mountains like we are, and the towns surrounding it were larger, so they have more unwanted visitors than we do. But they also have real soldiers and a lot more ammo. The fact that I’m considered a soldier of sorts at Kingdom Come may surprise Nelly, but it astonishes me. You do what you have to nowadays, and although I’d rather paint or read, I can’t do either of those if surrounded by Lexers.

  Smoke pours from the stovepipes of the hangars and buildings, and the snow has finally melted on the runway and concrete surfaces of the airport. Everything outside the fence lies under an undisturbed blanket of snow. The plane hits the runway, and we slow to a stop in front of the main hangar. The large hangars that have been converted to living space sit behind four smaller hangars that house the communications, weapons, storage and mess hall.

  We leave the soldiers to unload the plants and head inside the communications hangar. The wall to our left is all radio equipment. A couple of uniformed soldiers sit at stations wearing headphones. Whitefield mans the radios at all hours. We do, too, but we have one or two people sitting at our small station in the building with the solar equipment. This place broadcasts daily.

  Whitefield can afford to blow through gasoline for their generators, since they scored a tanker full of fuel last fall. That’s what the soldiers do—head into previously populated places for all the things that make life easier. We’re lucky they share so readily with us, although the oats and corn that we gave in trade came in handy over the winter.

  People scribble furiously in the row of desks on the right side of the hangar. They keep track of communications from Safe Zones all over the country, as well as Whitefield’s food and fuel supplies. Will Jackson gets up from his desk nearest the glassed-in room in the back, once the airport’s office but now called Command. Will gives the impression of being four feet wide and seven feet tall, with the biggest laugh I’ve ever heard.

  “Cassie, a pleasure, as always,” he says, and envelops me in a hug that makes me feel like a tiny elf instead of five foot seven. “How’s it going?”

  I smile into his uniform shirt, somewhere down by his navel. “I’m good, Willie. How’re you?”

  Will’s laugh rings out, and he releases me. He’s nothing but kind to us, but being on his bad side doesn’t look like much fun. I’ve seen him reduce men bigger and angrier than him to tears. He’s tough but fair, and if you don’t love him, you have to respect him. But I love him.

  “Come on into Command,” Will says.

  The room, with its long table and chairs, reminds me of the conference room at the non-profit where I used to work. Instead of inspirational messages, though, giant maps of the United States, Canada and Mexico are tacked to the wall, peppered with pushpins. The red pushpins are Safe Zones that still stand. The green are the ones that have lost contact with Whitefield. The black are those that are known to be gone. There aren’t many to begin with, but it looks as though there are more green pins than a few weeks ago.

  Adrian goes still, eyes locked on the wall. The pin in Idaho, where his mom and sister are, is green. No contact. Three weeks ago it was red. I take his hand and in my most hopeful tone, say, “It’s still green.”

  Will comes up behind us with a sigh. Adrian pulls his eyes away from that lonely green pin.

  “I was hoping to have better news for you today,” Will says. “We haven’t heard anything in two weeks. But all that could mean is they lost power. Maybe a generator died, or they ran out of gas. They don’t need fuel to live. I know they had supplies laid in for the winter. I’m not worried.”

  There’s no doubt in his voice. Will has a wife and two kids in Boston. He fought his way home, but they weren’t there. He still talks about them in the present tense. Adrian nods. There’s nothing more to say, and everyone looks away to give him a private moment.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Adrian squeezes my hand twice, our code for I love you. I do the same. He blinks—a long, slow blink—and then takes a deep breath. “So, what else is going on, Will?”

  There’s nothing to do except move on. To file it under Fear or Grief or Overwhelming Sadness. To only let it out when you absolutely need to, and then, only in small doses. You laugh and joke about the terrible things, even when those jokes are in awful taste. At least that’s what we try to do, but it’s not always that easy.

  I sit at the glossy brown table between Adrian and Nelly. I wish there was a big box of donuts, like my old boss Julio would bring in. Right now I’d take one with rainbow sprinkles and a Boston cream. My stomach growls at thought of all that processed sugar.

  Nelly hears it and shakes his head. “Didn’t you just eat?”

  I rub my stomach. “Baby’s hungry.” His eyes widen until he catches Adrian’s grin, and then he shoves me.

  “This reminds me of work,” I say.

  “Mm, Julio’s donuts,” Nelly says. “I’d kill for a glazed.”


  “Rainbow sprinkles,” Adrian says. This is why we’re perfect for each other.

  “So,” Will says, and points at the maps, “we’ve lost contact with some other Safe Zones, too.”

  We were so busy looking at Idaho that I didn’t think about the green pins in the bottom of the map.

  “All south of us,” he says. “Southern Louisiana and San Jose de Morilitos in Mexico. Morilitos had lost contact with two Zones south of them before they went dark.”

  “Could be they’ve run out of fuel to power the generators,” John says. He steeples his fingers on the table and glances at Adrian. “If people have a choice between vehicles and radios, they’ll choose vehicles every time.”

  “True,” Will says. “I just want you all to know where we stand. Which is to say we don’t know a goddamned thing, as usual. Sometimes trying to keep all of this together is like pissing in the wind.”

  Will rubs the back of his neck with a meaty hand and stares at the map. “Approximately twenty thousand people. That’s all we know are left. Out of what, three hundred million? There could be thousands we don’t know about, but we can’t afford to lose a single one.”

  “If something’s moving north, we’ll know soon enough,” John says. “One of the Zones is bound to contact us, if that’s the case.”

  I’ve never seen Will so discouraged. None of us has, and we watch as he pulls himself together with a shake of his head. Adrian slides him a paper. “Here’s a list of the starts we brought you today. I’m working on plans so you’ll know where and when to plant.”

  Will glances at the paper and hands it to Ian, his right-hand man. “You’re getting the short end of the stick here, A. Like I said, you don’t need fuel to live, but we damn sure need food. Whatever you need, man, say the word.”