Page 144 of The End of the World As We Know It

“Uh-huh.”

“Feels like I’ve been asleep forever.” She either yawned or sighed—Elise couldn’t tell which. It was a sweet sound, in any case. “How much farther?”

“A long way. Into Colorado, through the Rockies.” Elise looked at Ruby and smiled. “Then straight on till Nebraska.”

Ruby pondered this, scrunching the bridge of her nose. “Like… a hundred miles?”

“More like eight hundred.”

“Jeez.” A moment passed as Ruby processed this unthinkable distance. At length, she settled back in her seat, looked fondly at her California Raisins, and said, “I dreamed about her again. The old lady.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She told me that we’re not the only people traveling to see her. There’ll be others. People like us.”

Elise frowned, the bridge of her nose scrunching similarly to Ruby’s.People like us… what didthatmean? Then Ruby placed one hand over her heart, and Elise understood: There’d be no Morey Sorensens or Hector Drogans in Nebraska. There’d be nobody like Jason.

“People like us,” she said.

“She was smiling in the dream,” Ruby continued, nodding. “She has a real pretty smile.”

A warm sensation spread through Elise’s chest. For the first time in a long time, everything felt right. It was probably foolish to feel this way, but she couldn’t help it—and nor did she want to.

They moved on, the road unfolding between tall green pines and rugged passes. Elise checked the mirrors, but not as often.

They refueled courtesy of an abandoned Dodge Raider and stopped for the night northeast of Flagstaff, parked behind a ramshackle post office on Hopi land. They ate chicken noodle soup straight from the can and had Ho Hos for dessert, then reclined their seats and slept. Elise had loaded the .38 and kept it close. It took her a long time to drift off. She woke before dawn, started the truck, and got rolling.

The sun rose high and golden. They crossed the Colorado state line two hours later.

ACROSS THE POND

V. Castro

Every morning, Elizabeth walked across the now desolate Westminster Bridge sucking on her first cigarette of the day and stopped at the foot of the Big Ben clock tower. Eddies of smoke rising into the air matched the churning Thames, though the river appeared cleaner than ever. The golden hue of the clock’s brickwork seemed to brighten like a beacon on the occasional sunny days. It still kept time, which felt like a small miracle. Next to Big Ben were the Houses of Parliament with their daggered spires. Across the street stood Westminster Abbey. It housed dead royalty including Queen Elizabeth I—the Virgin Queen, and a very dead god she never prayed to.

After, she continued to walk along the Thames, salvaging food and any goods she might need from the abandoned shops that once served the millions of tourists who poured into the city. Tattered and sun-bleached tabloid magazines and out-of-date newspapers remained on the shelves. The red double-decker buses that once congested the roads remained where they had been abandoned. On the opposite side of the river was St. Thomas Hospital. Handy for the strong meds that weren’t for curing anything, but felt good to take.

More than a few times, she ventured into the small museum dedicated to Florence Nightingale that was only a few minutes’ walk from the hospital. A life-sized Florence made from wood and wax stood at the entrance holding a lantern. It made Elizabeth wish she had mattered more, had been someone like Florence instead of living a life worth a pittance. She had been a year eight history teacher and utterly forgettable to the impoverished students who couldn’t care less about school, considering they could leave at sixteen to make money for smokes and cheap cider. The ones who were desperate for love or attention were nice, but most of the others were cruel little gits. A single note calling her Ms. Minging Minge stuck with her like the stink of the boy’s locker room.

All that was over. Something worse than the bubonic plague had killed them all. Death had visited this place before and come back to nearly finish the job.

With nothing to do since the collapse of the world, Elizabeth would spend hours in museums looking at pieces of art that had once been considered priceless, but were now less valuable than toilet paper or batteries. Despite the widespread death, this world of disaster suited her fine. There was nothing and no one to make her feel like her existence didn’t matter. She left her apartment in a rundown council estate in Vauxhall and moved into the County Hall Hotel’s most expensive suite. She woke up with the view of the Thames and Westminster Bridge. All the luxuries she didn’t have before were for the taking. She could live like a queen in this nightmare if she wanted to.

They say you find love when you aren’t looking for it and that’s exactly what happened to Elizabeth. Just when she had begun to accept never seeing another soul again, never getting to fuck again, she began to experience lucid, dark dreams of a man named Flagg, with a distinct American accent. At first, he seemed like a mirage, or a watercolor made with different shades of denim. His presence felt overwhelming, larger than life. Like his power could extend across the Atlantic and scoop her into his arms. Nothing like the working-classmuppets she met at pubs before last call. Their bloodshot eyes and noses with prominent spider veins made her despise them. All they did was complain about the government and football. But a warm bed was better than an empty one.

With eyes closed, her fingertips glided over her body, imagining what Flagg would feel like next to her in the super king-size bed not meant for one. She awoke still alone. But that tracked with the story of her love life. A series of fucks that left her frustrated in an endless cycle of loneliness and disappointment. Since puberty, males had never noticed her at first glance. She didn’t have nice skin with wide-set eyes or a made-you-look body. Her hair was a frizzy mess the color of muddy water, and teenage acne had left scars. Years of smoking and tea drinking had left her teeth discolored. TheEnglish Rosegene somehow missed her. That’s why she became what her students would call a slag. What she lacked in pretty she made up for by being an eager lover. At least it was some sort of affection, even if they never spoke to her again. Then again, the pubs and nightclubs were always full.

Yet that seductive man with the heat of the desert and darkness of hell returned night after night in her dreams and made her orgasm in her sleep as his hands dug deeper into her flesh while she lay on an altar with ecstasy taking over. She woke up invigorated and feeling alive, as if his energy flowed from his cock and into her body. It could only be described as an out-of-body experience, or possession. Standing nude in front of the bathroom mirror was where she talked to him. Instead of her own face, she saw his. The longer she communed with him, the more she craved to see him and others—if there were any left. She wanted to be touched again. His presence stirred deep longing and frustration.

“I can’t be the only survivor here. There has to be someone who can help me get to you,” she said to him as herself.

Her lips moved, yet she heard his voice in her mind. “Be patient.”

“I will do anything you want me to as long as you help me!” she pleaded.

“Patience,” he replied.

Tears streamed from her eyes. “I’m lonely. You’re the only one I can turn to. Anything. I will do anything to fuck you.”