Free How to Find Peace at the End of the World by Saro Yen Page A

waves of aliens, turning their technology, all their vaporizing ray guns and giant mechanical suits against them and take over the ship by forcing the few alien scum xeno-biologists I leave alive to turn the ship around for Earth, and to my Amy, and while they do that, they also sabotage the faster than light drives and we are stuck travelling at an unbearably slow speed back towards earth until the drives are fixed, which will take a long time, and because I don’t believe I will be able to even make it back in time to my Amy before she dies I am inconsolable except that I realize, quite sensibly, that there are people here with me, my fellow Houstonians, millions strong, and I try to forge a life among these people that hail me as a hero, and try to rule justly for the centuries that the Alien technology, infused in my blood, keep me alive, while taking many wives, actually, many harems, loving them even until they are quite old ladies, for they have not tragically or non-tragically been similarly enhanced until the very end when I die and my soul is consigned to that rare place that souls dwell, encased in their little bubbles and surrounded by the floating ethers of those they have loved and have similarly loved them.

Shit. This is strong stuff.
    After a while Linda begins to seem freaky to me. She can turn her head. Look at me with plastic eyes. I don’t like it. I feel like throwing her out of the car but I can’t bring myself to do it. I put her in the back seat instead. She still stares at me accusingly. I cover her with a canvas tarp.

In downtown I go down the streets I sort of remember from a summer internship down here ages ago. I worked on the top floor of the library for a nice lady, filed for her and arranged and catalogued the contents of her storage closets. I find, surprisingly, that the way coming back to me quite easily.

I pass by the downtown Fuel N Go and look at my gas gauge. I’ve been driving all day just about and the tank is already ⅓ of the way down. I decide to stop at the station and fill up and see if I can find some more gas cans while the power is still on.

I find that the pump still asks for my credit card. Good. I put my Visa in and take it out quickly and select premium. Let them bill me. I put the nozzle in and press the trigger. Click. Nothing. Shit. I remember something about having to flip a switch to turn the pump on, or at least to a mode that actually, you know, pumps gas. I grab a large 4-D cell maglight from where it’s strapped in the truck’s cab. I realize how paranoid this is, especially considering what other dangerous creatures I’ve encountered on my journey so far: basically nada. I don’t know if I might actually be comforted should I come upon a bear or something in the middle of downtown Houston, running the gas pumps at the Fuel N Go. But it’s almost ingrained in my mind: I’ve seen so many zombie films and post-apocalyptic vampire films that I know not to go anywhere without a 4-D cell Maglight because it can be used as both a a source of illumination and a weapon. Not that the Fuel N Go is scary or anything: it’s not very deep and one wall is all windows and the lights are still on, it’s just the desolation of the surroundings resonates so strongly in my brain pan with all those disaster movies that I used to enjoy and probably now don’t enjoy because, Hell, I’m in one.

I slink towards the glass doors and peer inside. There’s one of those glass barriers around the counter, but currently the slot is open. I go inside and take a better measure of the opening. I’m all of 5’10, 150 lbs. I think I can get through. I pull myself on to the counter by the grill above the opening and then I lower my legs through and slowly sit my butt on the counter, legs where the attendant would be. I drop the rest of the way in.

It’s much tighter in this hole than on first blush. There’s a lot less light, too: metal grates cover the windows and block