Page 137 of The End of the World As We Know It

“Look at your old man. Three weeks out of prison before breaking his parole, then back inside he goes.” Jason folded the rag so that the phlegm wad was on the inside and kept cleaning. “Being bad is in your blood, Elise. You can’t run away.”

“I can.” Now the tears came, hard and bright. “I can and I will.”

Jason’s smile changed again. “The devil will find you.”

Elise walked out of the kitchen, a little dazed, a lot hurt, hopingin that moment that whatever Jason had was more than a smoker’s cough and hating herself for thinking that way.

She considered burying him. He wasn’t always so mean. They’d shared many good moments in the time they were together. She thought he’d like to be buried in the backyard of the home he grew up in, where he played as a child and had fond memories. Elise was emotionally punched, though.Notdying, and watching everybody else die, was hard work. The thought of hauling Jason’s dead weight out of their apartment and into the back seat of a vehicle, driving it to South El Centro, and then digging a hole large enough to drop it into, was simply overwhelming. Arguably, he deserved better than a puke-stained sheet, but a puke-stained sheet was what he got.

His Bronco was unreliable. The transmission had been slipping for the past couple of weeks (he’d been meaning to fix it, but then got sick) and it had two bald tires. Even if it had been fully roadworthy, Elise wouldn’t have taken it. There was too much of Jason in there. His trove of cassette tapes. The worn spots on the steering wheel made by his hands. His oil, aftershave, and sweat smell. He’d be with her every mile, telling her to turn around, that being bad was in her blood. Maybe the devilwouldfind her, but Elise didn’t want to make it easy for him.

She opted for the neighbor’s Chevette because, of the four vehicles she’d checked, it was the only one with gas. Half a tank, in fact. More importantly, it was nondescript, unassuming, and she believed it would elicit less attention—an important factor in a world so suddenly thrown into chaos.

A gang of children patrolled Adams Avenue in a beaten up Econoline. “La Raza” by Kid Frost blared through the open windows. The driver looked no older than twelve and there were more preteens on the roof, some armed with machetes, others with semiautomatic rifles. Elise avoided them without challenge. She saw a man dragging bodiesinto a pile on the corner of 8th and Main. There was a five-gallon can of gasoline nearby.

She crossed Alejandro Ortega’s farmland and joined Villa Road heading east. It was late morning when she finally—and permanently, God willing—put El Centro behind her.

She found the girl a mile outside Caballo Blanco.

Caballo Blanco meantwhite horsein English, but the only horse Elise saw was a bay roan. It lay dead in the middle of a trailer park and looked to have been stripped for meat. The trailer park was called Días de Sol and constituted most of the town. There were a few dusty buildings, a ranch, and a convenience store that had suffered recent fire damage. Elise had pulled into Días de Sol and siphoned dregs of fuel from three vehicles, just enough to return the Chevette’s gauge to the halfway mark. A fifty-something woman with greasy red hair looked on from the front step of her Airstream. She’d painted black X’s on her eyelids that flashed warnings every time she blinked.

A one-lane gravel track led from Caballo Blanco to State Route 219. The girl walked its verge with her head down. She was thin and dirty. The laces of one sneaker were untied. Elise drove past her, then a voice somewhere inside—hersoulvoice, which had been mostly suppressed in the two years she’d spent with Jason—called out. She stepped on the brake pedal, reversed, and got out of the car.

The girl stopped walking and looked up, lifting a clump of knotted hair from in front of her eyes. She saw Elise and backed up a step.

“It’s okay,” Elise said, raising both hands palms out. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The girl didn’t look so sure.

“Hey. It’s okay.”

The girl stood still. Her jaw quivered. The early afternoon sunlighthighlighted a bruise on her left cheek. Elise kept her hands raised and stepped closer.

“Do you live around here?” she asked, gesturing down the narrow track with a small nod. “The trailer park?”

The girl looked at her sneaker tops.

“Your family?” Elise asked.

A vague yet telling shake of the head. Elise sighed and looked around. Other than Caballo Blanco, which the girl was walking awayfrom, there was nothing for miles. It was hot, even for Arizona in July. If Elise saw a thermometer reading anything less than 110, she’d believe it was broken.

“Wait right here.” Elise returned to the Chevette, opened the trunk, and sifted through the box of provisions she’d packed. She grabbed an apple and a Pepsi bottle filled with tap water. The girl’s eyes blurred with grateful tears when Elise handed them to her. She tried unscrewing the bottle cap, but it was too tight. Elise did it for her. The girl drank with loud swallows. Elise tied her sneaker lace.

“What’s your name, hon?”

The girl lowered the bottle and belched. She stifled the sweetest giggle and said, “Ruby.”

“That’s a pretty name. I’m Elise.”

Ruby tore a chunk out of the apple. It was warm and bruised, but she didn’t care.

“Where you headed, Ruby?”

“I don’t know,” she replied between bites.

“You got anybody back there?” Elise stood up straight and gestured down the track again. “Is there someone you can stay with?”

Ruby took another bite of the apple. She chewed noisily and washed it down with water. “I was staying with Courtney, but she got sick and died. She was Mom’s best friend. She had lots of books and that was good because someone stole the gas out of her genny and we couldn’t watchSteel Magnoliasno more.”