Page 61 of The End of the World As We Know It

Baker held Lenora in his arms all night. He didn’t sleep, didn’t doze. Just cradled her in his recliner and wept soundless tears. At six that morning, the dawn overbright and the heat already closing over the countryside like a fist, he carried her to the backyard, where he stood with her amid the scorched ruin of the old house.

It wasn’t fair. He might not deserve better, but Lenora did. By God, if anyone deserved to survive this plague, it was her.

He bared his teeth.Goddammit, he thought.GODDAMMIT!

Baker sank down, settled Lenora’s body on the grass, and rested his forehead on her silky fur.

“Bring her back,” he said.

No answer. The clearing was breezeless, the heat oppressive despite the early hour. His perspiration soaked into Lenora’s pelt. He rocked back on his heels, a hand on her little head.

“I said bring herback.”

No response from the clearing.

Baker trudged to the garage, returned with a shovel, and buried Lenora deep enough that nothing would disturb her. He yearned to eulogize her, but didn’t trust himself to do her justice. He flung the shovel aside and strode to the Ranger. He fired it up, clicked the garage door opener, and rolled inside. There, he shifted into park, thumbed the button to shut the garage door, but left the pickup running.

Darkness enshrouded him. The engine rumbled.

How long would it take? Five minutes? Ten? It didn’t matter. Lenora was gone and so was the world, and this death was as good as any other.

He glanced at the glowing dashboard clock.

7:17.

The garage was stifling, the Ranger pumping heat as well as poison into the air. He grew drowsy. He distinguished the clock through bleary eyes.

7:23.

He recalled the book he’d read Lenora, the loneliness of the maincharacter and the way he’d tackled the problem of a world-ending plague. But Baker’s only skill was repairing small appliances. He doubted he could save the world by fixing toaster ovens.

He caught himself nodding off. His vision carouseled, and when his eyes refocused he was astonished to find it was already 7:30.

So it was happening. Baker was about to close his eyes for good, when something in the other garage stall caught his gaze.

The red wagon.

Baker’s chest burned, but he didn’t think it was the carbon monoxide. He began to weep, his tears raw, ungovernable. He sobbed against the steering wheel and groped for the ignition. He found the key at last, twisted it, and heard the engine go silent. He slumped there, his body shuddering, and let it all flood out. The fire. The beautiful years that preceded it. His wife, his children. Petey. Such a good dog.

Lenora.

Baker reached up and pressed the garage door opener.

When his vision normalized, he climbed out of the Ranger and shuffled back to the house. It took him twenty minutes to load the truck. That done, he backed out of the garage and drove away.

He encountered a menagerie of corpses on his cruise through town. An elderly lady’s slippered feet jutted through a tangle of tomato vines, varicose veins threading her calves like plum-colored calligraphy. An affluently dressed couple sat putrefying inside a factory-new sterling silver Cadillac. A naked man sprawled face down in a flower bed, the phlox and bluebells seeming to sprout from the crack of his ass.

The sun pummeling the Ranger, Baker motored on. When he passed the veterinary clinic, he tried to suppress images of Dr. Weizak and the doomed lovers. There was an idea nibbling at him, but he couldn’t quite grab hold of it. After a time, he found himself gravitating toward the bank. He parked the Ranger there, wondered briefly if theperspiration slicking his skin was from the heat or the superflu. It was entirely possible he’d contracted it from Dedaker or Lenora. Or perhaps he wasn’t sick at all. It didn’t really matter.

He loaded the wagon, trundled it down the sidewalk, then halted and closed his eyes. When he opened them, the vague idea that had been nagging at him crystallized.

He turned and beheld the navy-blue saltbox house.

He rolled the wagon up the sidewalk, hefted it onto the porch, and cupped his hands against a sidelight. A deceased woman lounged on the sofa, her throat bulging like an amorous bullfrog. Prostrate on the floor was a girl of no more than six. Baker assumed she’d expired, too, but when he tapped the glass, she stirred, her eyes finding his through a tangle of auburn hair.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other.

She drifted to the door, and after tussling with the lock, drew it open and regarded him through the dusty screen.