Page 133 of The End of the World As We Know It

As Woodrow approached the pigsty, the big boar raised his massive head.

His eyes were not muddy dirty brown anymore. They were hazelcolored like drops of honey. It occurred to him that the old Black woman in his dreams had light eyes, too.

“You ready?” Woodrow said over his shoulder.

“Just open the pen,” Jorge said.

Woodrow caught the eyes of the oldest sow. Her eyes were light brown, too.

He pulled the catch and threw the gate open.

Woodrow hopped up on the rail as all eight of the pigs rushed out of the pen at once. Jorge’s gun went off once, then twice.

Then the screams began.

When the screaming stopped, Woodrow took one of the backpacks off what was left of one of the bodies. He packed up his wedding picture, the family Bible, and some moonshine. He placed the grave marker in the backyard. He put it at the head of Mae’s grave and went down to his knees.

He closed his eyes.

“I love you, Mae. I love you Mary-Ellen. I love you Junius,” he whispered. He got up and threw the backpack over his shoulder.

The pigs had moved on from the bodies and were standing at the tree line. The sows had already started walking into the woods. In a month they’d be feral. The boar stared at him. Woodrow stared back.

It licked its bloody snout and turned away from his gaze.

Woodrow took a paintbrush and a small can of oil-based red paint and wrote on his front door.

GONE WEST TO FIND MOTHER ABaGAIL. BEWARE OF WILD PIGS. WOODROW TELLER.

Then he headed down the lane with his shotgun over his shoulder.

He hoped Joshua was still alive.

He hoped Joshua wasn’t in Las Vegas.

He hoped he could find Mother Abagail.

He hoped there were more people like Mae and Joshua than Jorge and Tina and Janice.

He hoped he didn’t run across the Walkin Dude.

But he also hoped he’d be strong enough to make his stand if he did.

KEEP THE DEVIL DOWN

Rio Youers

NOW

Arizona State Route 219, known colloquially as El Camino del Cuervo, one hundred and forty-eight miles of two-lane blacktop running from Yuma to the southwestern corner of Yavapai County. Pale as ash, chewed up by the heat, it had been slated for decommission in March of 1990. That was before Captain Trips, though, when the Arizona Department of Transportation was still functional—wheneverything, to a greater or lesser extent, was still functional. Now SR 219 was just another dead road in a mostly dead country.

Elise put her foot to the floor. The needle went from sixty to seventy-nine and held. This car—a mid-eighties Chevette appropriated from her neighbor’s garage—was not built for high performance. The engine protested with a shrill sound. The windows and door panels rattled. Elise dragged a palm across her greasy brow. Her heart had no problem running at speed.

“You’re going too fast,” the girl said. Her name was Ruby. She and Elise had known each other for little more than an hour.

The car behind continued to gain on them, rumbling through the heat haze and dust—a Mustang, Elise thought, maybe a Barracuda. Something packing muscle, in any case, and with more horses beneath the hood than this old Chevette.

“Just let me go,” Elise whispered.