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

hazy from the fires, but I no longer heard sirens or helicopters.
    There was no one around, no one to come up and ask me why I was taking things out of the Waverlys’ house. Of course, I was paranoid about having to explain myself even though I knew I wouldn’t have to. The world had only just ended. The old rules hadn’t been forgotten yet. You didn’t just gather supplies from a house that wasn’t your own and cart it all away in your sister’s Nissan. You got things from the store. You paid for them. That was the way things were supposed to work. Even though they didn’t work that way any more, I still couldn’t shake the sense that I had to be on guard, ready to justify my actions.
    It was like being in a dream where nothing makes sense and yet you somehow know exactly what you’re supposed to do…only no one else in the dream seems to know what’s going on or why you’re acting the way you are.
    A deep breath, another look up and down the street, and then it was out to the car with my first load. I packed the car methodically, thinking about what I’d need most, what I should hide in case other survivors got curious about what I was carrying, what was most valuable, what I could do without if it came down to that.
    When I was finished loading the car, I went back through the house and got my computer and other things from the backyard. Then I left Jen’s house without looking back, without even closing the door behind me. I might think of something else I’d need later. If I came back and found the door closed, I’d know someone else had been there—I wouldn’t know who, and I wouldn’t know if they were still there, but at least I’d know the house had been visited. I seriously doubted I’d be back, and doubted even more that the door would be anything but open just as I’d left it.

Chapter Six
     
    It didn’t take me long to realize how impractical Anna’s Nissan was going to be, or how I’d pretty much wasted all that time loading the car so carefully. There’d been a few cars in the middle of the streets in Jen’s neighborhood, but they’d been easy to avoid, with me driving slowly and cautiously, still feeling shaky behind the wheel. But when I got out on the main street, with the intention of getting over to Colorado Boulevard, I found it to be just about impassable.
    Cars were everywhere. Not parked. Just there. Some had crashed into each other. Some had gone up onto the curbs and sidewalks or crashed into homes and businesses. Some were just abandoned in the middle of the street.
    There were dead people in many of them—men and women and children with stalks growing out of their faces. More dead people lay in the street.
    At first, I just stared in disbelief. There were so many of them. And no one was around to do anything about it.
    No one was around.
    Just me.
    Some people hadn’t died from the disease. I saw more than one who must have died in crashes before the disease had gotten them. They were just dead, sitting there behind their steering wheels. I hadn’t been ready for that, ready to see dead people who were…regular, like me. Had some of them been immune, too, and just unlucky? I tried not to think about it, tried just to watch the road in front of me and thread my way through the cars and bodies.
    After a few blocks, I gave up, having already driven across one lawn and cutting through two parking lots to try and get through. There were just too many cars.
    I navigated into a parking lot and brought the car to a stop.
    Now what? I thought.
    I was in front of a dentist’s office. There were probably dead people inside. There would probably be medical supplies, too, but I didn’t know what I might need or what to do with any of it, so I put the thought out of my head.
    Even though I was all alone out here, I decided to protect all the supplies I’d gathered, popping the trunk and then moving all the canvas shopping bags I’d filled at Jen’s. The quilt and pillow I