Free The Girl at the End of the World by Richard Levesque Page A

Atlanta and New York. There, people wearing masks still spoke to the camera, but you could barely understand them through all the filters.
    If I’d had any doubt that it was the end of the world, it left me that afternoon staring at Mr. Waverly’s giant television screen. CNN showed image after image of streets filled with corpses and crashed cars, buildings on fire, and people dying not just here but all over the world. They called it a plague, an outbreak, and an apocalypse, and it had struck in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. During the time I watched, there was no mention of Australia, and I began to wonder about islands, or people doing research in places like Antarctica or out in the ocean on submarines or cruise ships. There had to have been people who hadn’t been exposed yet, and surely there would be some of those who could find a way to keep safe.
    And there had to be others like me, who were immune. Or at least slow to show signs of infection.
    But how would I find them?
    I thought about going into downtown LA to City Hall or finding the nearest police department in Pasadena, reasoning that any other survivors might try the same thing. Part of me thought it sounded like a good idea. And part of me wondered who else would be there. Police, I hoped. But what would make them so special? The people in charge, the people you could count on, the good people…they weren’t somehow more likely to have survived this long. But who then? Other people like me? I wanted to find them. And at the same time I thought of the woman who’d lived down the street from me, the one who’d looked at me so strangely as I’d driven away from the fire. There might well be people who’d survived this far through luck or genetics and who were not at all happy about it, not at all ready to embrace other survivors.
    I gave it a minute’s thought and then clicked off the television, setting the remote neatly on the coffee table and leaving the room as though everything was normal.
    At the foot of the stairs, I tentatively called out, “Jen? Are you up there? It’s Scarlett.”
    There was no reply, no movement, no sound. I could have walked upstairs and found her; I told myself that maybe I should, that it would be the last thing I could do for her, the last friend I’d have the chance to say goodbye to. But I turned from the stairs instead. There was no point in climbing them. I’d just have to come back down again. My tears for Jen had fallen outside by the pool. I wasn’t about to let them start again.
    Back in the kitchen, I began looking for proper supplies, not just the kinds of things you grab when you fear the house will burn down around you if you don’t get out fast enough. Jen’s mom had re-usable canvas grocery bags in the utility closet by the back door, and I filled them with canned food after finding a hand-operated can opener in a drawer. Mixed vegetables, tuna, pineapple, beans. I tried to remember nutrition class and the things I’d need most, but it was all a blur, and I grabbed whatever made sense.
    One cupboard held four gallons of water, and several liter bottles of more expensive “designer water” as my mother had called it. Those all went into canvas bags, too.
    I also found three flashlights, only one of which worked, and a package of batteries with enough in it to get the other two powered up.
    I grabbed more knives and tools, and from a hallway closet I pulled three blankets and a quilt and a pillow.
    It took a couple of loads to get everything to the front door. Using a knife, I sliced through the plastic that Mr. Waverly had used to try to save himself and his family. It seemed so flimsy, such a futile thing to try. Then I unlocked the door and carefully cracked it open, peeking outside to see if anyone was around.
    The neighborhood looked as empty as it had hours before when I’d arrived. A couple of crows flew past. A dog barked distantly. The air still smelled smoky, and the sky was