The End of the World As We Know It Read online

“Nice work, man,” Leo said to Evan. He scanned the empty horizon and felt almost as satisfied as if he’d just cleaned his plate at a fancy steakhouse. Actually, food would be good right now, he thought.

  Next to him, Evan’s sweater was crusty with his own dried blood. His face was dirty, and he looked spent, like someone who’d been running for days. But as Evan rubbed his arm, his face was one of a man satisfied with a job well done.

  They were leaning against the van, next to the open back window. Thanks to the aliens, the Gussy Me Up van was dented in places and tilting, due to the greenie that had taken out the front tire earlier. But the van was still driveable, and attached to it, Abe’s trailer was still in good shape. Part of Leo wanted to look inside, but another part of him wanted to keep it sacred. The old man’s death had hit him harder than he’d ever say.

  Behind them, in the van, Sarabeth was trying to bandage Teena’s cut using some torn-up Gussy Me Up polo shirts. If he ignored her wound, with her windblown hair and her melted-off makeup, Teena looked just a weensy bit like someone who’d just gotten lucky.

  In contrast, Sarabeth still looked calm and composed, even though she’d fought as hard as anyone. Leo smiled to himself as Sarabeth bit her lip in concentration. He knew she’d left the battle behind her already, and her mind was working in overdrive thinking about what came next. They’d made it past the perimeter, but that just meant they were one step closer to the ship.

  “I’ll be fine,” Teena was saying insistently. She looked out the broken passenger window at the guys. “Maybe we should hit the ship now, while we have momentum. The mall will just slow us down.”

  “We won that battle because we prepared for it,” Leo said. “We’re out of supplies. We’re tired. Let’s stick to the plan and get to the mall.”

  The sky was growing dark, and the air was colder. Across Fordham Avenue was an old strip mall that hadn’t been updated since the seventies. Instead of the faux Tuscan oranges and yellows that many of Tinley Hills’s new shopping plazas had, this one was just gray and flat, and in the parking lot was a Stop ’n’ Smoke, a tiny shed that sold cigarettes at a drive-through window.

  “You know what would be good about now?” Leo said to Evan. “A cigarette.”

  “I don’t smoke,” Evan said.

  “And I’ve been thinking about quitting,” Leo replied. “But something about fighting off aliens makes the health risks seem like less of a big deal.”

  Evan seemed to consider this. He looked at Teena in the backseat until she finally looked back up at him. She smiled.

  “What?” Teena asked. “I’m okay, really.”

  “Okay,” Evan said, blushing beneath his dirty face. “Let’s go.”

  Sarabeth looked up momentarily from her work and caught Leo’s eye with a half-smile he couldn’t quite decipher. He knew he liked it, though. He smiled back at her. “Be right back.”

  He and Evan jogged across the empty street and pushed on the door of the Stop ’n’ Smoke. It was locked. He still had a pistol tucked into his jeans, so he fired a shot at the lock, like they did in movies.

  He was hoping the door would blow open. Instead, the bullet lodged itself next to the knob, the sound of the shot echoing through the empty town. He tapped the door with his foot. It creaked open.

  “At least guns work for something around here,” he told Evan as he walked in and scanned the various cartons of cigarettes. Evan minded the door, keeping watch on the van across the street, probably worried about leaving the girls.

  Leo quickly scanned the tiny space, wrinkling his nose at menthols and Marlboros. “So, I’ve always been more of a Camel guy, but maybe this occasion calls for something fancy. A Nat Sherman, perhaps.” He crouched down to see under the register, where the premium tobacco was kept. He grabbed a box of Nats, a box of Camels, and a second Bic—a green one, for backup.

  “How many more of those aliens do you think there are?” Evan asked.

  “Man, I don’t know. We at least need more supplies. We can’t take chances.”

  “Um, chance taken,” Evan said, pointing down Fordham. “They must have heard the shot.”

  Dozens of aliens were coming toward them. They were about a quarter mile away, marching in unison, and not slowly.

  Without talking, Leo and Evan dashed across the street. Leo jumped into the van, and before Evan even had his door half closed, Leo pressed the gas and zoomed down the nearest side street, hoping the aliens wouldn’t see them.

  The girls looked at the road behind them. “It was the gunshot, wasn’t it?” Sarabeth said.

  “I fucked up. I’m sorry,” Leo replied, careening down Sayre Avenue, a quiet residential street that abutted the mall. He kept an eye peeled for other aliens or—he hoped—other non-captives, but the street was as empty as the rest of the town.

  “You didn’t know, man,” Evan said next to him. “I thought we might be in the clear, too.”

  Leo parked at a far corner of the mall parking lot, just near the Shoppoplex construction site where the ship had landed. There was still a cluster of trees that hadn’t been taken down, and a set of Dumpsters. Even when things were normal, this particular part of the parking lot had been dark and scary, and female mall employees were urged not to park there.

  The four of them were all breathless and cagey. Their victory high was gone.

  “I don’t think they saw us,” Teena said, looking tense. “We’re safe for now, but we need to move quickly.”

  “She’s right,” Sarabeth said, an edge creeping into her voice.

  Leo had imagined this moment differently. He hadn’t even had his victory smoke yet.

  No, he thought. The aliens aren’t going to take this from us. “Slow down, people,” he said. “Let’s let the mall tell us what to do next.”

  24

  MALL FOR ONE, AND ONE FOR MALL

  Sarabeth Lewis, 7:12 P.M. Sunday, Orland Ridge Mall

  Sarabeth had never been much of a mall person.

  Maybe it was because she never had anyone to go with, but any time she actually needed to go to the mall for something, she ran the errand like she was a contestant in the Hunger Games—moving fast and praying for her survival.

  She’d once made the mistake of believing the mall was a place where a person could just shop. Last year, on a kick for new kitchen supplies, she’d been eager to peruse Sur La Table and Williams-Sonoma one Saturday afternoon. After picking up a few things, she’d gone for a snack in the food court. She picked a table where she could sip her cappuccino, nibble on her croissant, and read the newest issue of Bon Appétit. But Orland Ridge Mall was no Parisian café, where a woman dining alone was almost a cliché. She’d barely gotten through the Letters to the Editor when she felt eyes on her. Every table around her contained a cluster of girls her age who apparently thought she was some new, highly undesirable species. Teena and her friends made up one of the clusters. The other tables weren’t even girls she knew from Ermer, but apparently her solo shopping excursion had egregiously broken some girl code. They’d looked at her and looked away, as if afraid that eye contact would freeze them into stone social pariahs.

  After that day, she got it. Orland Ridge Mall wasn’t a place where people—at least people her age, who were supposed to be living the best years of their lives—just shopped. They hung. And to hang, you needed a group, which Sarabeth had never had.

  But now, walking through the parking lot of Orland Ridge—empty save for errant plastic bags and crushed Big Gulp cups that blew across the asphalt—it occurred to her that she did have a group.

  A group that had just maneuvered its way past an actual perimeter of outer-space thugs using some of the worst beauty products ever invented.

  Her life was officially too weird for its own good.

  Teena yanked on the handle of the glass doors like she owned Orland Ridge Mall. Which, in a way, she did.

  “It’s locked, dammit,” she said. Then, despite her bad leg and the fact that she couldn’t ha
ve weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds, Teena hefted up one of the three-foot cylindrical stone ashtrays outside the entry doors. With a determined look in her eye, she positioned herself with the ashtray like a battering ram, ready to drive it though the locked glass doors.

  Leo stepped between the ashtray and the glass. “Wait, don’t do that,” he said, pulling a key ring from his pocket. “I have the key.”

  Teena scowled at him, the kind of cute scowl that guys liked and Sarabeth would never manage, no matter how many alien attacks she survived. “You could have said something,” she said, putting down the ashtray with a thud. “I have to pee.”

  “Keep your pants on,” Leo said. He pulled the keys off his belt loop and casually opened the door to the mall, as if every teenager had mall keys. Sarabeth’s insides puffed up like a blowfish. A tingly blowfish. Leo, Mr. Rulebreaker, was trusted with keys to the mall.

  Very adorable, Sarabeth decided. She just wished that “being Sarabeth” also meant knowing what to do when you liked a guy for the first time. The locks clicked open.

  Leo breathed in deeply. “Ah,” he said. “Mall sweet mall.”

  He held the door open for them, pointing down various corridors like a tour guide. “Bathrooms, down there. Movie theaters, that way. Bubbling water sculpture, straight ahead.”

  As Sarabeth stepped inside, she was startled by how still and quiet everything was. The kiosks where salespeople chased you with flat irons and greasy hand lotions slept like hulking, motionless buffalo. The stores, with their grated gates locked tight, looked like deserted, heavily merchandised jail cells. In the dusk, the small potted birch trees that ran down the center of each wing became skeletal sculptures from a Tim Burton movie. Rays of moonlight flowed in from the overhead skylights, bathing everything in a dark blue wash. It wasn’t too dark to see, but it wasn’t light enough to make their haven feel a hundred percent safe.

  “I think we should stay together,” Sarabeth said, catching Leo’s eyes. His tangle of hair was more of a mess than ever, and she could tell he was as tired as she was, but the smile he flashed gave her a burst of energy that started at her heart and worked its way out.

  “I think so, too,” Leo said, just to her. A little connection fizzed between them. She knew that the little glances and touches, and the flirtation, and the teddy bear might have been part of some Leo scheme to have a little fun with her. But she really felt something real was happening here. And if she was wrong, and this wasn’t the real thing for him, it was real for her, and she wanted to act on it.

  Sarabeth pictured the world being normal again and bringing Leo home as her date. Cameron probably would give her the thumbs-up, but Cameron liked everyone. Her mom, not so much. But if Leo was a hero and not just a pizza-delivery boy, maybe even Olivia Lewis could forgive his unkempt, shaggy hair and marijuana habit.

  “So, we’re going to sleep here?” Evan asked, making his way to the water feature and splashing his face.

  “Yeah, for a little while. We need to fortify our operation,” Leo said, rubbing a palm of cool water along the back of his neck. “I thought we’d make our way to Bed Bath & Beyond, to enjoy the beds and beyond. Sorry, ladies, but the showers are fakes.”

  “Honestly, Leo, if they’re still out there, we should be moving as fast as we can. Otherwise, it’s like we took out the perimeter for nothing,” Teena said, splashing her own face with the fountain’s water. She wrinkled her nose. “Chlorine, how refreshing.”

  “Look, we need weapons, and we need food, and we need a plan. A little rest wouldn’t hurt, either. The mall has everything, including places to hide,” Leo countered. “And it’s like home turf for us. We need this.”

  “I agree we need some supplies. But how can we get what we need when all the gates are locked?” Evan said, scanning the storefronts, his eyes tired.

  Leo shook his head and jangled his keys proudly. “There are back entrances to all the stores,” he said. “And I have a master key. Phil may be a scumbag, but he’s got connections. Actually, he probably has connections because he’s a scumbag.”

  Evan got to his feet and slapped Leo on the back appreciatively. “A nap in a real bed will feel good after today.” He grabbed his baseball bat and started to head down the corridor toward Bed Bath & Beyond.

  “Okay, fine. And maybe we can crack open one of those giant popcorn buckets by the registers,” Teena said, stretching her back. “I’m fucking starving.” She hoisted her Uzi on one shoulder and started to follow Evan and Leo. Sarabeth didn’t move.

  It wasn’t even eight o’clock. Sarabeth was tired, but she didn’t want to sleep, not yet. How often would they have the mall to themselves for a whole night, with no worries that anyone would catch or stop them? If it was their last night on Earth, why not make it count?

  “We’re not going to make camp already, are we?” Sarabeth asked. “I mean, we have the full run of the mall with someone who has the keys. When does that happen in real life?” She gestured expansively, as if they were about to spend the night at Versailles, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, like in From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

  The grayed-out signs for the As Seen On TV store, the Vitamin Shoppe, and Baby Gap weren’t necessarily deserving of Sarabeth’s prize-showcase hand gestures. But so what if it was no hall of mirrors? They all might be decorating some alien’s mantel come Monday. They needed to take what they could get.

  “Sarabeth’s right,” Leo said. “We might be dead tomorrow.”

  Sarabeth bit back the goofy grin that threatened to appear on her face. Who wanted to think about tomorrow when she had Leo Starnick tonight?

  As her heart beat rapidly in her chest, she realized something.

  Crushes were fun.

  You might think making the night matter means that someone—ahem, Sarabeth—is about to lose her virginity. But this isn’t prom. And while it’s certainly a good way to spend a possible last night on Earth, giving up your V-card isn’t something you want to do in the bedding department of J.C. Penney. Or maybe you do. No judgment. But having the run of a whole mall is much more of a one-of-a-kind experience than some clumsy fumbling in the dark.

  You don’t need nitty-gritty details. Just think, what would you do if someone gave you and a couple semi-strangers keys to the mall for one evening? Mind you, the power’s out, so you’d have to make do with what’s available.

  Would you go to Macy’s and try on the most outlandish formalwear, while blasting a gimmicky CD of early nineties dance music on a battery-operated boom box? Sure.

  Would you hit up the bulk candy store and not use the sanitized silver scoops, but instead hand-sample every gummy confection available?

  Would you hold races from one end of the mall to the other on roller skates, scooters, skateboards, and mountain bikes you pilfered from the sporting goods store?

  Would you raid the fridge at Subway and make the biggest sandwich you’ve ever made and eat the whole thing? Only to follow it shortly with a raw cookie-dough chaser from Mrs. Fields?

  It might sound like a movie montage, but when you have to pack a lot of life into a little time, the montage is your only option. And you best enjoy it while it lasts, because what comes next is never easy.

  25

  I’LL DRINK TO THAT

  Teena McAuley, 12:23 A.M. Monday (aka Casimir Pulaski Day), Orland Ridge Mall

  Teena’s stomach ached. She’d overdone it on the Swedish Fish—they were her weakness. Normally, because she was not Fatass McEveryGirl, she’d eat only one Swedish Fish at the end of each day. She had to rein herself in like that. If she had even two, all hell broke loose, and she’d commit fish-icide, downing the little red swimmers faster than you could say Ja.

  She’d done that today. All this end-of-the-world, last-night-on-Earth talk was getting to her. So was the fact that Leo was still in la-la land over Sarabeth.

  They were making Teena sicker than the gummy ball lodged beneath her ribcage. They’d giggle
d over conversation hearts at the candy store as if Teena and Evan weren’t even there. In Macy’s, Sarabeth had tried on a green strapless prom dress, and Leo donned a tux with a matching cummerbund. In the food court, Sarabeth and Leo had eaten halves of a sandwich like they were in the middle of Central Park with doves tweeting melodiously overhead.

  She wanted to let Sarabeth have him. She really did. But every time they shared a glance or laughed at one of each other’s jokes, Teena just plain hurt.

  Now the four of them were preparing to camp out at Bed Bath & Beyond. Since several hours had passed with no sign of the aliens, they decided they had some time to relax and strategize at a less frantic pace.

  They were gathered in the outdoor furniture section, each wearing a Snuggie. Teena had held out for as long as she could, but now even she was draped in pink fleece. Among several deck chairs were a cluster of Crock-Pots they’d filled with scented candles, like a campfire. A schizophrenic odor cloud of vanilla, pine, Tahitian Dream, coconut, Sea Breeze, and jasmine hung in the stale store air. Propped up between two inflatable palm trees was a whiteboard where Sarabeth had started to scribble drawings of the ship, and lists of necessities, like perfume, flashlights, and first-aid gear. But Leo, with his irritating concern for Sarabeth’s well-being, had convinced her to finish it later, after she got some rest.

  Now Leo and Evan were playing bartender at one of the thatch-roofed tiki bars that everyone in Tinley Hills seemed to purchase after returning from a Sandals vacation. In a town with no bars or liquor stores, people made sure they could drink heavily at home. Leo had lifted several bottles of booze from a cabinet next to his boss’s desk. He hadn’t had the key for it, but picking the lock had proved easy.

  “What do you guys want?” Leo asked, trying to catch a bottle of tequila behind his back. Evan reached out and grabbed it before it hit the floor. “Sarabeth, you seem like you have a refined palate. No girly, fruity stuff for you. Something with a little burn maybe, like a whiskey and Coke?”