CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Benji doesn’t hesitate to slam the door shut behind him, the sound ricocheting through the small stairway.
“What the hell is going on?”
He isn’t talking to anyone in particular, his question broadcasted to all three of us. As we stumble out into the bookstore, he looks around, first at Becca and then to me, his mouth wide.
Benji’s pale skin is flushed, the shimmer of sweat visible on his brow. “Does that mean that we’re not even safe inside? What do we do?” No one answers.
The wind picks up, and I hear a rustle of metal in the parking lot, a grating noise, like nails down a chalkboard. Maeve turns slowly, staring out the back window as I try to come up with a coherent answer to Benji’s question.
“We weren’t able to finish the repairs in time. We were never ready to ride out another Storm.”
Benji runs his fingers through his hair, his hand shaking. He looks to Becca for reassurance, but she’s not present. Sure, her body is here, having been dragged down the stairs, but her mind is somewhere else far away. Half of her face is covered with blisters, an eye turned glassy white, the space around the iris filled with crimson from burst blood vessels.
I think about Eva’s body, still up there, not even cold and slowly being destroyed. What did she do to deserve this? And why not me? Why was she more of a worthy sacrifice than I am? And now she’s gone, and I’m here, and there’s nothing that I can do about it.
“What about the generator?” Benji is asking, as the wind howls outside.
I don’t care about the generator. I don’t care at all. It can dissolve into nothing for all I care. I hope that it disappears completely.
The grating noise in the parking lot returns, louder than it was before, as Maeve gazes out the window, eyes darting back and forth. I try not to pay attention. I try to not acknowledge the hairs on the back of my neck that stand on end. But Maeve stays alert, and I can hear her suck in a jagged breath as glass shatters in the Children’s room, a serrated car door crashing across the floor, thrown by the ferocious winds. Rain pours in through the broken windows.
Fear leaps into my throat as Maeve turns to me. “We have to get out of here.”
But I don’t hear her. All I do is watch as the rain makes its way inside and singes the bright blue carpet. All I do is watch as page after page of my books are destroyed. The car door busted through the last semidecent part of the wall, and now the western side of the building is exposed to the elements. If we stay here, either the wind or the rain will kill us.
“We should move into the basement,” Maeve murmurs.
“There’s a basement?” Benji parrots, his hand reaching for Becca’s, her fingers limp in his.
“It floods sometimes,” I respond eventually. “It’s not safe. It’s filled with overstock and books we never had time to return.” As well as copious copies of The Giver, but I decide not to mention that.
But Maeve’s eyes dart from the hole in the front windows to the destruction in the back.
“But it’s safer than this, right?”
I don’t know if it’s safer than this, but the decision is made for me when the wind picks up again, causing the fractured pieces of our wooden patchwork to splinter.
I swallow. “It’s safer than this.”
I look for a way to lead them downstairs into the slightly murky and most-definitely-haunted basement. It won’t be easy getting there. The entrance to the basement is on the other side of the room, which will require us to run under a leaking ceiling, past an exposed wall, the whole while praying we aren’t trapped by the rain or falling debris. Kind of like a very real, very terrifying game of “the floor is lava,” but the sky is lava and one wrong step means certain death.
But Becca makes no move to follow me toward the basement. She’s staring blankly ahead, as if she’s been hypnotized. It isn’t until Benji places a tentative hand on her shoulder that she snaps back to reality.
“I’m not doing this,” she spits, her jaw clenched, the syllables harsh and gritty. “I’m not going anywhere with you two.”
Benji retracts his hand, turning to Maeve for whatever help she can offer. But Maeve doesn’t seem interested in persuading Becca to survive.
Benji leans in closer, whispering something into Becca’s ear. Her face softens, but the look quickly dissipates, her face turning stony as soon as she glances back out the window. “I’ll take my chances up here, alone if I have to.”
“That’s a suicide mission,” Benji pleads. He pauses, biting his lip, before adding, “What would your brother say?”
In an instant, Becca’s cheeks flush red, embers burning inside her, her gaze flashing back to Benji. “Who are you to talk about my brother? You don’t know him at all.”
Maeve shakes her head. “I’m going. Stay up here and die for all I care.”
Maeve takes a step toward the basement like she expects me to follow. But I don’t. Instead, I turn to Benji, who nods and follows Maeve across the room. Every step they take is preceded by a drop in my stomach. It’s agony, watching Maeve carefully step around the room, fearful that one mistake could mean the end of the family I’ve only just found.
I take a deep breath before following in their footsteps. It’s now or never. I step over a stack of Percy Jackson books, narrowly dodging a steady stream of water falling from the sagging roof. The wind pushes me back against the wall and sends droplets spraying across my legs. A low moan of pain escapes my lips as I bend down to grip the bubbling skin. Maeve and Benji are almost at the door to the basement now. Maeve hesitates, looking back at me.
I glance behind me and realize Becca isn’t there.
She stands in exactly the same spot, looking out at the blue carpet on the floor, which is slowly dissolving in front of her. Harsh winds whistle through the store and send her dark hair flying around her face like one of those balloon men in front of a car dealership.
“Come on!” I shout over the roar of The Storm. “It’s not safe.”
“I know,” Becca replies, her lips pursed into a thin line.
“You’ll die.”
Becca doesn’t respond. The car door skids across the room as more bookshelves tumble, wood splintering against the rain-soaked floor. The glass of the only remaining window shatters, and I’m all too aware that our window to make it to safety is closing.
“Fine!” I yell. “If you want to die so badly, you’ve got it.”
I’m scared, and I’m tired, and I know that if I don’t move soon, I’ll meet the same fate as Tristan, as Eva, as all the people who went before me. Like Thea. Have I really survived for so long just to give up now? Is this really how it’s meant to end?
My feet pound across the floor, taking one step and then another. It’s all I can do. I barely have time to think, barely have time to stop as I dodge books and falling bits of rain.
I stop only when I hear the screams, my head twisting out of pure instinct.
Becca is splayed on the ground, writhing in agony. A bookshelf lies on top of her legs, pinning her to the floor as water floods in. Her fingers are contorted, gripping the carpet fibers with what’s left of her fingernails, clawing against the shelf by her feet. This does not look like someone who is ready to die.
I run forward and grab Becca, wrapping my fingers around her blistering and bleeding upper arm. The pain in my own arm, the one still mending after being eaten by the generator, is searing as drops fall down. I try to pull her up, but Becca doesn’t have the force within her to move her legs.
I watch as her face morphs into Thea’s, her dark hair turning lighter with each second, my imagination taking over and warping my reality. I watch as her dark eyes glow blue and her screams become all too familiar.
Maeve’s boots squeak against the floor as she rushes forward to help.
“I need you to move her legs,” I tell her as the wind swells, muffling my words. I will be brave. For Thea.
I brace myself and pull again, the edge of the white painted wood digging into the skin on my fingers. My Converse slide against the rough carpet as the shelf shifts, lifting from Becca’s feet, only half an inch, but it’s enough. Maeve reaches forward, dragging her legs out of the way and motioning for me to let go of the shelf.
I let it clatter to the ground as the sound of the screaming wind echoes in my ears, numbing the rest of my senses. I slide my good arm underneath Becca’s torso as Maeve reaches for her feet, a safe distance away from the open window. I bite my tongue, the taste of blood flooding into my mouth, as I bend over and lift up, drops of rain finding their way onto my skin. I will not scream. I will not make a noise.
Becca is small, weighing no more than a minifridge, but it feels like so much more. My calves tense and my spine compresses as Maeve and I shuffle across the floor, my feet slipping and tripping over one another.
Rain lacerates my back. Books are flying around the room like a tornado. I’m losing strength. Maeve and I are struggling to drag Becca to the safety of the basement. We’re not going to make it.
I’m not going to make it.
I sink to the floor, clutching my mangled arm. I can’t summon the strength I need to keep moving as Becca slips from my grasp. And suddenly, I feel a wave of something cool wash over me. A haze fills my senses, and it’s like I’m a million miles from here. This doesn’t exist. This isn’t real. I’ve been so afraid for so long. So hesitant. So unsure. But I’m not now. If this is how I go, so be it.
The pain fades away as I think of Thea. My parents. Eva.
Maeve.
Maeve.
I look at her as she hands off Becca to Benji. She moves toward me, and I remember whom I keep going for. Taking one breath and then another. I feel her holding me, pulling me toward the basement. Out of the corner of my eye I see Benji sliding Becca’s body across the floor behind me, his calves straining. And I crumple. There is nothing that I can do except let myself fall.
Brian Henderson
28 Years Old
Columbus, Ohio
I know this is probably slightly weird to say—and please, bear with me—but I really think that my life started when everything ended. I lived this life of constant work, constant studying, constant solitude. I was making my way through my residency, taking no prisoners or whatever. And when it happened, I was lucky to survive. Truly. I was under the overhang of the hospital waiting for my ride to pull up when the rain started, so I just went inside. I didn’t run. I didn’t panic. I just walked inside and helped whom I could. I did what I could to save those who were left. Protected them, too, from the flooding and violence that came after. But when the streets cleared and we were able to leave, we left together, because I was needed. And I was no longer alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
We all sit in the basement trying to avoid thinking of the bodies that remain upstairs. The Storm still rages outside, and whether Benji and Becca like it or not, they’re stuck here until it passes through. We’re reminded of that every time we hear the wind howl above us and listen to the sound of shattered glass.
Maeve and I sit next to a shelf of overstock, our backs pressed against a pile of picture books. She holds my hand even though there’s no one trying to kill us anymore, a blanket draped around my blistered shoulders. Even though Maeve is never afraid. She still holds my hand, her fingers laced through mine, squeezing tight with every sound that echoes from above. We sit on top of a filing cabinet as the water begins to seep in, acid slowly but surely covering the floor. It’s too dark to tell the rain’s depth, but we can hear it in the quiet of the basement, ebbing and flowing.
Benji and Becca remain by the basement door, perched atop a discarded desk, Becca lying on her back as Benji watches over her. Even though I’m too far away to make out the expression on Becca’s face, I can see the way her shoulders shake as she silently sobs. Benji looks on from a few inches away, his hands pressed against his knees. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t even move. I’m sure that he has no idea what to say to Becca.
I want to say something to her, even though I know that I shouldn’t. I want to tell Becca that I understand how she feels. I know what it’s like to watch your sibling die and know that you can do nothing to save them. I remember the way you feel like you’re underwater, the world eating you alive. You can’t remember how to breathe anymore now that they’re gone. Maybe she wishes that she was gone too. I did.
It hurts to know that I helped cause this pain. To know that I am responsible for the way Becca feels right now. But I had to do it, right? We had to do it. And unlike in the children’s books pressing against my spine, there’s no easy answer. There’s no apocalyptic equivalent of Aesop’s Fables, although it might be worthwhile to spend time creating one for all the postapocalyptic children who come after me. There’s no right or wrong, just ten million in-betweens.
I don’t know what will happen when the rain stops and the ground is finally dry. I don’t know what Becca and Benji will do. Will they come after us once again, or will they remember Eva? Will they tell their people about her, and how she stepped in front of Becca’s knife? Will Becca remember who carried her to safety? Will the peace we have right now last a little bit longer? A small part of me reminds myself that there might be nothing left to fight for when we emerge.
“I’m sorry, Liz.”
I’m snapped away from my thoughts as Maeve squeezes my hand. I can feel the heat rising to my cheeks at the reminder of her presence. Am I allowed to feel a sliver of happiness in a moment like this? I’m not sure whether I should feel guilty.
“Sorry about what?”
“Eva. Leaving. All of this.”
“Eva wasn’t your fault,” I reply, squeezing her hand gently. “She made that choice on her own.” I pause, listening to the building creak in the wind. “I would have done the same.”
“Don’t say that,” Maeve murmurs.
“It’s the truth.”
“Fine.” Maeve rotates herself until she’s facing me before carefully taking my other hand. She holds both my hands in hers. “Then I’m sorry for leaving.”
“You came back, right? You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
“But it was my fault that these people even came in the first place. They wouldn’t have even known about the generator, or about you, if you hadn’t been with me.”
I shake my head. “I’m the one who told them. And if I hadn’t told Benji, then I would have told someone else. Either way they would have ended up at our door at one time or another. Maybe this was inevitable.”
Maeve cocks an eyebrow, the faintest hint of laughter hidden under her voice. “I didn’t take you to be a believer in the grand plan of the universe.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
Thunder rumbles outside, shaking the remaining glass in the building’s windowpanes.
Maeve pauses, running her finger through the dust that coats the cabinet’s surface. “Still, I’m sorry.” A hardcover of Parable of the Sower slowly dissolves in the swirling water beneath us. It has to stop rising at some point. It has to.
“Stop with the apologies, Maeve.”
“I’m serious. I should have stayed. Maybe things would have been different if I stayed.” She looks down at my bleeding hand, wrapped tight in an old tote bag we found lying on the stairs. I pull it underneath the blanket I’m enveloped in, hiding it from her view. None of that matters now.
“Maybe things would have been different if I had left with you.”
I have an urge to tell her about the butterfly effect, and how any one of the million decisions we’ve made throughout our lives could have been the one to lead us here. It could have been her choice of breakfast cereal at age nine that sent her spiraling down this strand of time. It could have been any combination of things, and none of those things are her fault.
“Whatever sins you think that you have to atone for have already been forgiven,” I murmur.
Maeve laughs, for real this time, the sound cutting through the stale weight in the air. Benji looks over at us, eyebrows raised. “Are you suddenly getting biblical on me, Liz?”
“I read the whole thing a few months ago. I will go to some pretty wild lengths to cure my own boredom. Would you like a selection of fun facts about female Russian sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko?”
“Are you sure that those facts are fun?” Maeve asks. It’s not a no, so I decide to continue.
“Not-so-fun fact number one: she claimed to have killed three hundred and nine people, making her the—”
“Please, spare me the gory details,” Maeve groans as she reaches for something behind me.
“What are you doing?”
She searches the shelf for something, peeling off a piece of plastic wrap and discarding it, watching it dissolve in front of our very eyes. Becca says something to Benji, who scowls, placing his hand on her knee. She pushes it off.
Maeve holds a leather-bound notebook. It’s not my leather-bound notebook—the cover is still fresh and untarnished—but it’s close enough. As she inches closer to me, she places it on my lap, its brown cover almost invisible in the too-dark room.
“What’s this about?” I ask as she opens the book’s cover.
“Remember how, when we’d just met, you asked for my story?”
“You said you weren’t ready.”
Maeve flips through the pages before landing on one. “I think I’m ready now, if you are.”
I smile. “What, is this your big happy ending?”
“No, but it can be our beginning, right?”
I nod.
• • •
We write together, using the lone pencil that was left in the drawers below us, and I whisper my words into her ear. She inks them onto the page in her perfect handwriting, my writing made better by the fact it was done by her hand.
I write about my sister and my earliest memories with her. Dancing in the rain when we were five, not caring that we were soaking wet, not running from the thunder that rumbled overhead. Singing together in an elementary school talent show, dressed up in ridiculous costumes that didn’t quite make sense. She refused to use a backing track, even though without it we sounded horrible. There were no computer-generated trumpets to mask our off-key notes. I write about staying up together late at night, whispering about god knows what. Telling each other secrets, the ones that we couldn’t possibly imagine telling anyone else. They were secrets just for sisters. Secrets that would drive me wild if I didn’t tell someone, so I told her. Doing dishes and singing show tunes together, even though she always sounded better than me. She’d be Maureen and I’d be Joanne, even though they were dating each other and we were siblings. Even though the notes were too high for me and my voice would inevitably crack. I didn’t care when she laughed at me. I just cared that we were together.
Maeve writes about New York City and the way each block smelled like food or garbage, you just never knew which. She writes about the Jefferson Market Garden and how she had to do a project on it when she was in second grade. Apparently, there used to be a detention center there before it was turned into a library. She writes about the gate in front of her basement apartment that separated the descending stairs from the sidewalk. She used to set up lemonade stands there, right on Ninth Street on summer days. She writes about the little chocolate shop over on Bleecker Street that she used to go to with her dad before it moved when the rent got too steep. She writes about chocolate bunnies and candy raspberries. She writes so vividly that I can imagine the taste.
I write about Maeve, and her love for Fiona Apple. I write about her cart that she pulls around everywhere and the creaking sounds that it makes. I write about the way she smells and how she talks in her sleep.
And Maeve writes about me, and the generator. She writes about my well-worn Converse and how stubborn I can be sometimes. She writes about how much I snore and swats away my hand when I attempt to cross it out.
We write about us. We write it all down. We write until everything else disappears, just in case we do too.
EPILOGUE
The world has begun to come back to life, the smallest flowers peeking out from the ground as we slowly edge into April. The air smells sweet. It smells good. It smells like home. And sure, it smells the way the air smelled before everything went to shit, but I try to forget about that. I try to focus on the good.
Becca and Benji left after the sky cleared and Becca was well enough to travel. They didn’t say a word to us as they left, but Becca looked into my eyes and nodded, and I understood. A truce, for now. Until things change, or we make up our minds about North Carolina. I try to focus on the good.
Maeve is lying beside me as I roll over in bed, the spring sun streaming in through the open window. The repairs to the bedroom took a long time, but we did it, and this time I was able to pitch in, my arm mostly healed. We measured and cut the wood, using an old carpentry manual I found in the DIY section downstairs. We even patched the roof and did it right this time. After all of that, we went back to my home and took the things we needed. And maybe even some things that we didn’t. One by one, trip after trip.
The old rocking chair that used to be hiding up in the guest room now sits in the corner, a stack of books atop its well-worn upholstery. We almost collapsed trying to carry it the ten blocks from my house to the store, but we managed. And then we lay on the floor, swimming in our sweat and refusing to get up until we got too hungry.
The bookstore is no longer my glorified bachelor pad. Maeve has turned it into a home. Unfortunately, her definition of home includes an embarrassing selection of baby photos stolen from my old living room. Maybe one day we’ll make it back to New York City and I’ll be able to return the favor. Until then, I’ll have to find other ways to embarrass her back.
I nudge Maeve awake as I crawl out of bed, the windowpanes magnifying the sun’s heat.
“What time is it?” she grumbles, pushing my grandma’s old quilt onto the floor. It used to be draped across the end of my bed, used only when it got cold enough. Now it smells like Maeve.
I pull a T-shirt over my ratty tank top and walk through the bedroom door. Maeve follows suit, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as we make our way down to the store.
A to-do list sits on the front counter, each letter written in perfect cursive. Repairs are coming along faster now that the generator is fixed—something that I had absolutely no hand in—but there’s still work to be done. I read the entries, scanning each loop and line as I smile. Maeve plans on repainting the mural that used to adorn the walls of the children’s room, which means I’m being sent to the hardware store down the road for more blue paint. Still, I fumble with the battery-powered stereo sitting on the Science Fiction shelf and wait for the dulcet tones of Pinegrove to waft through the air.
As Maeve walks past me toward the front door, she pauses, looking at the small knife that sits on the shelf above the counter. It’s Becca’s weapon, the handle worn, the blade since cleaned. Neither of us knew what to do with it, so it stayed here, like some shrine. We both remember.
I just nod in acknowledgment as Maeve continues forward, unhooking the metal sign that hangs on the front door. The windows still need to be fixed, but we have time. No matter what comes next, I’m certain that we will make it through to the after. We have time.
“Do you think there’s a reason that we made it?” Maeve asks, turning to me like she senses my thoughts.
I smile, my teeth pushing against one another. “The cockroaches are always the ones who survive the crunch.” Laughter invades the end of my sentence, and Maeve beams back at me. “You and me? We’re just too stubborn to die.”
“I’m glad you were stubborn.” For a second, I don’t really understand what she’s saying. But then, I do.
“Me too,” I say. “I’m glad you were stubborn too.”
Through the remains of the front window, I can see Peacoat Man stumble down the road, Sawyer by his side. When he sees my shadow in the window, he smiles. I smile back.