Page 150 of The End of the World As We Know It

She gave him an incredulous look. “Are you crazy? We can’t get to America!”

“Yes, we can. I found a working bus and enough gas.”

“No wonder you were still a virgin. Because you are one big silly cunt!” she said, emphasizing the wordcunt.

Joseph reached inside his jacket and pulled out an antique dagger encrusted with jewels on the handle. Before Elizabeth could react, he stabbed her twice in the abdomen. Her mouth opened as she sucked in air with each penetration of the blade. She touched her belly with a look of shock on her face. Her hands balled into fists as searing pain radiated from the wounds. She screamed in agony, her eyes squeezed shut.

“How dare you!” she shrieked as she opened her eyes and glared at him. Tears slipped down her cheeks.

He grabbed a large candelabra off the altar and hit her on the side of the head. Elizabeth fell to the ground.

When he couldn’t sleep and while Elizabeth was getting drunker by the minute, Joseph had left the hotel to search the buses for one with enough gasoline. He had finally scored one at the bus depot thirty minutes’ walk away. He had parked it by the abbey, knowing she would look for him.

Now his plan had come to fruition. Blood pooled around her body and saturated her clothing. At least it would be her blood on him and not the other way around. He grabbed both of her hands and dragged her out of the abbey and to the waiting bus. He hoisted her onto the first seat. He used a cable he’d found at the bus depot to tie her wrists and ankles together. The memory of her tying his hands and neck made him pull tighter on the cable.

“You will answer for what you’ve done and for your lies.” He glanced at her top, saturated with blood. His fingertips touched it. “Your life belongs to him.”

Her eyes fluttered, and she winced as she continued to bleed. “You dummy, we can’t drive there.”

“He has promised a miracle.”

“Please, Joseph. Hemademe do it. Let’s live out our lives here. Have a go of it. Don’t you want to make your nan proud? Maybe have a family?”

“Not with you.”

Elizabeth’s face morphed into pure hatred before launching spit and blood toward his face.

“You will face your maker, Jezebel. We have six hours to drive. Don’t die on me just yet.”

He turned and got into the driver’s seat, and started the ignition. Rain pelted the windshield as he drove them out of London toward Lizard, a small coastal town to the southwest. It was the place he had visited during summer holidays when he was a boy.

Elizabeth stared out the window. She hadn’t been outside the city since before the plague. They passed military vehicles, older buildings succumbing to the elements, more abandoned cars and trains stopped on tracks. Once outside the city, the greenery had taken over. Deer, foxes, and stray cats wandered without fear or care. Overturned bins and piled up rubbish had been feasted upon by the animals. Her eyes opened and closed with the heaviness of knowing she would die. She glanced at her reflection in the window hoping to see Flagg, but there was nothing. He had abandoned her, too.

Joseph pressed his foot on the accelerator as they barreled through the southwest edge of the country toward the cliffs just beyond Lizard Point. He wouldn’t stop until they floated across the Atlantic on their journey toward Las Vegas. His body trembled with radioactive excitement.

Joseph and Elizabeth jolted in their seats as he took the bus off-road with the accelerator pinned. Elizabeth fell out of her seat, unable to move, her cheek planted to the dirty floor. She could no longer see what was happening.

For a moment, they were in flight. Just like his kite in his dreams. A wide smile spread across his face as the sun burst through the clouds. Then his stomach lurched as the bus began to fall toward the ocean. Joseph braced for the impact by gripping the steering wheel. The forceful penetration of the bus caused his entire body to jolt forward. Icy water poured into the heavy vehicle at a speed he didn’t anticipate. He opened his eyes, trying to get control of the steering wheel, but water filled his nose and mouth. He couldn’t breathe.

“Hey, Joey… Over here.”

Joseph heard Flagg. He had come to save him. His head twisted from left to right as he tried to stay conscious. Elizabeth floated, lifeless. In the darkness of the freezing water, he thought he could see Flagg’s face. He reached for the image and thought to himself:

My life for you.

THE BOAT MAN

Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes

Key West was now the Island of Chickens.

Although chickens had roamed free on streets and in yards for all of Marie’s life, and apparently since the first Cuban settlers a million years ago, they walked with more arrogance now. When Marie slipped outside into the shadows between the old wooden row houses, chickens were the largest living creatures she saw except for the birds lucky enough to be able to touch the sky. Chickens strutted in a sea of brown and white, with bright red combs flapping, filling the streets as they darted between abandoned cars. They roamed the houses with impunity, through perpetually open doorways, across sofas and kitchen counters. Or they roosted on white fences wrapped in cheerful bougainvillea blossoms, sometimes as far as she could see.

Cats were prowling, of course. But not as many cats as chickens. Not by a mile.

Marie thought she might catch a chicken for dinner. But later. If she could keep her head on straight and didn’t think of them as pets so she wouldn’tchicken out—she chuckled to herself at the pun—dinner was everywhere she looked. For life.

But Marie didn’t want to be in Key West for life. Hell, no.