Page 212 of The End of the World As We Know It

“Huh,” he says.

“But you can read?”

He laughs softly. “Yeah. I can’t do much. But I can read.”

“You should pick a different job than hunting and gathering. Youshould do wash or camp repair. You’re smart, so you could do info relay or radio. Those would work.”

He nods, but doesn’t say more. He’s got a hard jawline. His brow is thick and his eyes deep set. “Your foot’s bothering you,” he says.

“What?”

“Your foot. You’re favoring your left leg.”

“Oh. Yeah. My shoes are failing.”

“We should stop.”

I slow down. It hadn’t occurred to me that he was capable of noticing and adhering to such a practicality. But he’s right. I’ve got a blister brewing and it’ll only get worse. It’s been eight miles. Now is as good a time as any to stop for a meal.

We’ve both packed the same thing: jerky and oranges. We chew quietly. He doesn’t try to sit next to me this time. Though it’s dark, the clouds have lifted. The sky is open and cavernous. Compared to this, our hillside feels closed and trapped. Our assigned territory would be barren, if not for the underground river flowing beneath the mountains. It’s got no resources and is too steep to settle. No copper or old stores worth looting. The Chosen don’t want it, which is why we have it.

Because there’s been so much sickness, our birth rate is almost zero. It’s not just that we don’t want to bring a new cursed generation into the world. It’s that we’ve lost the occasions for physical contact. We don’t know how to do it properly, how not to be frightened of saliva and semen and blood.

In my twenty-five years, I’ve made this GoodWill run to Malibu a dozen times. Every time, when I get to the closed gates, I wish for a mad second that they’ll open. I’d walk inside and be one of the Chosen. It’s a kind of self-hate, but I can’t stop it. I don’t want to be what I am.

As I cut a hole into my moleskin, I feel his eyes on me. Watching and curious. I find myself talking, just to break the uncomfortable spell. “Who was your partner before me?”

Ferris waits until he’s done chewing to talk. He’s got old world manners. “Rotates. I’ve never had a consistent one.”

“Why?”

“You’ll have to ask them,” he says, and it’s an answer I respect. He doesn’t bad-mouth anybody. Now that I think about it, he’s had bad luck. I remember that his last partner was Mattie, who hates everybody. And his partner before that was Grim. Grim was genuinely crazy. Shot himself in the head.

I should have stopped sooner or borrowed better shoes. The blister is red and swollen and the moleskin won’t prevent infection.

I feel something before I see it in my peripheral vision. It’s Ferris, holding out a tube of antibiotic ointment. “For your foot.”

I take it and our fingers touch, charged. I can’t remember the last time I touched anyone. Not Maple. The last person I touched was my mom.

“You’ve been leaving territory?”

He nods. “I’m careful. You won’t get sick.”

He watches with preacher eyes as I apply the stuff, rubbing it into the swell.

We make it another eight miles before the dawn, then spend the day under trees on the side of the road, each taking watch. Closer to the ocean, the brush is thicker, the trees bigger.

The way we sleep isn’t so different from back home. Though there are small houses cut into the granite that we could occupy, our people have been nomadic for so long that none of us wants a ceiling instead of a sky. What’s more, houses confine the air, making it stagnant. Infection spreads in stagnant air.

By night, my foot is worse. I limp and try to hide it. Ferris says nothing, though his gait slows. Without words, he offers to carry my pack by tugging on it. I refuse, but tell him, “Thanks.”

The ocean comes up on us like a surprise: Malibu. We see thelights, smell remnants of snuffed fires that recently cooked rabbit and deer. Dotting the valley below are lonely yellow glints in lonely bedrooms—the insomniacs. They live in houses here. They have a radio station and gas stations and cars. The Chosen have everything.

Ahead, a few hundred feet before the gate, the altar.

Though this entrance is only for us, is supposed to stay clear of immune, it’s still important to be careful. We won’t touch anything. We’re quiet, so the curious don’t hear us and investigate. We leave our offerings, each of us lightening our packs. I’m used to doing this with Maple, so I kneel down as if to pray, like she used to.Oh Lord, forgive us. Oh Lord, choose us, so we can be free, she used to say.

Ferris stays standing and I find I don’t want to say Maple’s words. They don’t belong to me.