Page 65 of The End of the World As We Know It

Half an hour later, Sandra starts thinking about the possibility of finding the boat and being taken to a better place, to a new community. Maybe there she can find hope again.

A big mongoose interrupts her thoughts. It walks out from behind the burned metallic skeleton of an overturned van that sits in the middle of the road. It’s as big as a small dog. It’s the biggest Sandra has ever seen. It looks swollen. Clearly infected. Saliva and something thicker fall from its mouth. Sandra stops walking and keeps her eyes on the animal.

The mongoose makes that little growling thing they do. It’s a deep, primal sound that sends a shiver down Sandra’s spine despite the heat. Every instinct in her body tells her to turn and run. Then she remembers the gun.

Sandra slowly brings her right hand up and pulls the gun from her waist.

The mongoose hisses and walks away before Sandra has time to aim. She’s glad. Infected or not, she didn’t want to shoot it. She watches as the animal trots over a front yard and disappears around a house.

Two weeks ago, she wouldn’t have thought she would ever touch Miguel’s gun. She didn’t even want it in the house. But then everything collapsed, and she watched as people turned into savages, stealing, breaking into homes, running around in absolute anarchy, andslaughtering each other in the streets. Now she is sure she will pull the trigger.

About half a mile later, the residential part of town ends and Sandra walks onto a much larger road. This one will take her to the beach. She’s halfway there. The thought of reaching the beach injects a bit of energy into her system and Sandra speeds up a bit, happy to no longer be surrounded by houses full of dead people.

But the big avenue is no better. Cars are piled everywhere, and many of them contain bodies. The stench is even worse than it was before. Here, it’s also mixed with the smell of gasoline and charred things.

A while later, the driver’s door of a black Lincoln Town Car opens about twenty feet in front of Sandra and a man stumbles out. He’s wearing dirty jeans and no shirt or shoes. He looks like a corpse that’s been in the water for too long. He takes a few steps toward Sandra.

“Stop,” Sandra says. Fear has made her voice weak, and the screaming from the previous night isn’t doing her any favors.

The man snarls, shakes his head, and moves toward her.

The oily sweat and swollen face are clear signs that he’s infected, but it still takes a moment for Sandra to make up her mind.

The shot is too loud. It feels like Sandra split the day in half. It pings against the car. He keeps walking. Sandra takes a breath and aims again. The second shot is just as loud, but there’s no metallic ping. It hits the guy in the stomach. He falls to his knees and grunts. Sandra squeezes the trigger one more time. The left side of the man’s face explodes in a puff of red and pink.

Sandra walks around the man, making sure he’s not moving. Her hands are shaking.

You killed a man.

The voice doesn’t sound panicky or judgmental. Sandra ignores it and keeps walking past more cars, more bodies, more destruction.

The big avenue bends left before you see the beach. There’s a Blockbuster on the corner before you have to turn. Sandra can seethe blue of its marquee from where she’s standing. She’s close to the beach. Sandra looks at her watch. 10:15 a.m. She’s going to make it. She takes a moment to drink some water and eat a few crackers.

An uneventful hour later, Sandra is at the beach. There are no bodies on the sand. She’s grateful for that. The ocean is a darker blue than the sky. A few white clouds hang over the ocean. The palm trees and the sand and the few white clouds paint a pretty picture. For a while, Sandra sits near the ocean and allows her surroundings to dim the horrors in her head.

The horizon is an unperturbed line. By noon, it remains the same. Untouched. Empty. Unbroken.

By 1:00 p.m., Sandra begins to wonder what midday might mean to other people.

At 2:30 p.m., she gets up and pees behind a palm tree, looking around before she does, even though she hasn’t seen a soul since the sick man she shot on the road.

Time keeps on keeping on.

2:55 p.m.

Sandra gets up and walks the length of the beach, scouring the horizon for a boat.

3:17 p.m.

The waves are never quiet. Birds make noises from time to time. A small crab makes a mad dash to some unknown destination. The world is dead, but life goes on here and there. An insect. A bird. Palm trees. The rock keeps spinning without people. It makes Sandra think about what the world would look like with everyone gone, with not even a single survivor. It’s easy to imagine it now. All she has to do is look around. All the emptiness fills her with a new kind of sadness.

We’re nothing but cosmic dust floating in an infinite beam of light.

4:00 p.m.

Anxiety tickles Sandra’s heart with a feather like a scalpel.

4:25 p.m.