Page 139 of The End of the World As We Know It

“Good thing I only needed to go pee.”

They got going again, crossed Interstate 10 at Tonopah, and came to the trading post a mile further on. It was hard to miss, with Arizona’s distinct state flag painted along one side and numerous plastic cacti on the roof. There were several vehicles on the lot, all with shattered windows and open doors. Some had their fuel doors open, too—new code forAlready Siphoned. A dog slept in the shade.

“Maybe they’ve got something to wipe with,” Ruby said.

“Maybe.” Elise steered onto the lot and found a space away from all the broken glass. She surveyed the front of the store and made two quick determinations: that the place had long since been looted, and that the dog wasn’t sleeping.

“Oh,” Ruby said. She’d noticed the dog, too.

Elise shifted into park, turned off the ignition, but sat for a moment. Second thoughts swam through her mind. It was gloomy inside Cactus Belle’s. The screen door was torn, hanging off one hinge. The main door stood partway open, its security locks negotiated byway of a shotgun, judging by the damage. Whoever had done this was probably long gone. The only sign of life was the flies that had gathered on the dog. Elise chewed her lower lip, trying to get a sense of the place.

“We going in?” Ruby asked.

There’d be no food or drink. The shelves would be bare. The dark, dead refrigerators would be stripped to their wire racks. Ruby had nothing, though, only the clothes on her back and her ratty sneakers. Cactus Belle’s was no Kmart, even at the best of times, but maybe they’d find junior-sized T-shirts and shorts, sunglasses, a ball cap, a deck of cards, a soft toy, coloring books and pens. And yes, there might even be something for them both to wipe with.

“Okay,” Elise said. “Let’s take a quick look.”

They went in but Elise removed the Hardballer from her knapsack first and tucked it into the back of her jeans.

She and Ruby stood in the doorway with the sunlight laying their shadows along the dusty wooden floor. More light came through the windows. The air was dim and hazy.

Ruby wrinkled her nose and Elise nodded. There were dead here, more than one, if the stench was any indication. The extreme heat didn’t help. Elise waited a moment for her eyes to adjust, then proceeded deeper into the store. As suspected, the food shelves and refrigerators had been ransacked. Empty boxes and wrappers littered the floor. They stepped over broken glass and various spillages: cereals, potato chips, peanut butter, coffee beans. On a display rack next to the checkout counter, Ruby found an unopened packet of Spitz dill pickle-flavored sunflower seeds and a roll of Certs. She held them up proudly.

“Jackpot,” Elise said.

They walked along the back wall, stepping over maps, pamphlets, and magazines. Ruby added a copy ofRanger Rickand a word searchbook to her stash. They passed two doors, both standing open. One led to a small office. Elise saw the edge of a desk and a chair tipped on its side. It was too gloomy to see more. The other door opened on a narrow hallway illuminated by a back window. Four more doors led off it. A stockroom, a washroom, a closet for cleaning supplies, and another room—additional storage, maybe. The smell was thicker here.

Elise directed Ruby away from the door and toward a part of the store that was mostly intact. There clearly wasn’t much demand for souvenirs, local history books, and potted cacti in this devastated era. She found a cowboy hat for herself and a ball cap for Ruby and sunglasses for them both. There were no shorts, but Ruby grabbed two Cactus Belle–themed T-shirts and another withTONOPAH, AZacross the front. They’d find a better selection in Nebraska.Two days, Elise told herself. Even taking rural roads and stopping when they needed to, it shouldn’t take longer than that.

They put their modest haul in a canvas tote bag with the Stars and Stripes printed on one side and a bald eagle on the other. Ruby carried it with a precocious swagger, like a girl at the mall with her mom. It broke Elise’s heart just a bit.

“We should go,” she said.

“Toilet paper?” Ruby raised one eyebrow.

“I didn’t see any,” Elise said, and puffed out her cheeks. “Okay. One more look around. Look for Kleenex, wet wipes, napkins… anything like that.”

They checked every aisle and display, but came up empty. Elise sighed, thinking that civilization’s collapse could be epitomized by the fact that toilet paper was now a luxury item. (She wondered if, somewhere in Vegas, Hector Drogan was dealing cocaine and Charmin out the back of an old cargo van.) She looked regretfully at Ruby, then switched her gaze to the rightmost door along the back wall. The narrow hallway opening off it had to lead to a stockroom. A staff washroom, too.

She started toward it, registering the thickening smell with every step. It renewed her unease.

“Wait here,” she said to Ruby. “I’ll be thirty seconds.”

Elise pulled the collar of her T-shirt over her nose and entered the hallway. Cracked tiles shifted beneath her feet. A dirty mop and bucket stood in the far corner. The first door on her right was ajar. It was the stockroom—one-third the size of the main store and three times the havoc. The shelving had been emptied. Cardboard boxes had been cut open, spilling unwanted items across the floor. It took Elise all of ten seconds to ascertain that she’d find nothing of use in there. She turned around, opened the first door on the left, and found the dead.

It was a makeshift quarantine, with cots arranged throughout the room and spoiled food crowding every surface. Cactus Belle—an altruistic soul, no doubt—had opened her door and her supplies to friends and neighbors, hoping to outlast the pandemic. There were too many dead to count. Two dozen, easily. Perhaps as many as forty. Elise spied a box of Kleenex on a pillow beside an infant boy, but would not venture to get it. The flies here were overfed and slow.

She backed out of the room spluttering into her T-shirt. The next door opened on a dark utility space. She saw what looked a breaker panel and the rounded edge of a water heater. The fourth and final door opened on the washroom. A dead man was slumped beside the toilet with his pants around his ankles. Elise checked the cupboard under the sink and found cleaning supplies, boxes of rat poison, and a single roll of toilet paper. Elise grabbed it. There was also a tarantula back there, huddled in the corner, but she didn’t bother it and it didn’t bother her.

She walked through the hallway and into the store. “Okay, Ruby, let’s—” She froze in her tracks. The toilet paper fell from her hand and rolled across the floor.

The man angled the sole of his boot and stopped it.

“Heya,” he said.

Elise reached for the gun in the back of her jeans.

He was tall and snake-thin with straggly red hair spilling from beneath a trucker cap turned backward. His left arm had been amputated just north of the elbow. The stump poked from the sleeve of a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt and was capped with flaky skin. His right hand clamped the back of Ruby’s neck.