The End of the World As We Know It Read online

  “No,” Teena said definitively. “We split up and gather supplies in the mall. A half hour, tops. You know I’m right. We wouldn’t have taken down the perimeter without our Toys“R”Us trip.”

  Teena crossed her arms over her chest. He didn’t like listening to her, but she could tell Leo knew there was some truth to what she was saying.

  “Fine, then fifteen. You guys can help or not,” she said. “Just so you know, I can do a lot in this mall in fifteen minutes.”

  30

  THE MOST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WORLD

  Leo Starnick, 4:41 A.M. Monday, Bed Bath & Beyond

  An air horn sounded, jolting Leo out of his daze. This was why he hadn’t wanted to wait. The longer he did nothing, the more of a shit-funk he got in. He hated himself for encouraging them to camp out at the mall in the first place. Last night, half—no, three-quarters—of his reason for wanting to camp here was to see what might happen with Sarabeth. And now he knew what happened, and it fucking sucked.

  He was in the kitchen section of Bed Bath & Beyond. Evan was wandering the store with a shopping cart, but Leo kept seeing him put items back. Teena, meanwhile, had disappeared into the mall proper and was probably giving herself a fucking makeover. Like she actually cared about Sarabeth.

  He sighed, scanning the shelves and feeling cagey. There was nothing here that would help him take over an alien ship. Melon ballers? Avocado slicers? His head was starting to throb with a whiskey headache.

  The air horn sounded again. Closer this time.

  What the fuck?

  He made his way toward the sound and saw Evan coming at him from the opposite direction, the only thing in his cart a bottle of cleaning solution. This was a waste of time. They needed to move.

  Staring at them from the end of a long aisle of multicolored curtains was Teena, looking tiny and elflike in oversize Jackie O sunglasses. She was wearing the foam sparring pads they’d gotten from Toys“R”Us around her mid-section, with the toy Captain America chest plates Evan had worn during their perimeter battle. The armor was placed over a tight, shiny spandex bike shirt and matching bike pants. On her feet were polka-dotted rubber rain boots. She looked ridiculous.

  “Look alive, fuckers,” she said, blowing the air horn again.

  She squeezed it once more, and Leo and Evan both cringed in agony.

  “Do I have to use this thing again? Come on, what did you find?” She sounded the horn again, this time aiming it right at them before they even had a chance to move, enjoying their pain.

  Leo simply showed his empty hands, feeling edgy. Evan shrugged down at his cart.

  “Well, whatever, I covered your asses. Literally. I’m armored, and I’ve got spandex for you, too,” she said, gesturing to a cluster of shopping bags at her feet. “And we’re fortified. I raided the perfume counters. Britney Spears’s cheapo colognes are super drying.” She reached into an oversize Michael Kors purse slung over her arm and pulled out the purple perfume bottles.

  Evan pointed to a weird R2-D2 machine with a hose attachment at Teena’s side. “What’s that for?”

  “It’s a Super Sprayer,” Teena said. “It’s basically a knockoff of a power washer. Half the Macy’s perfume counter is in there. It won’t last long, but we should be able to hose a whole bunch of aliens down with it.”

  Leo knew he was looking at Teena like she’d just pulled the cure for cancer out of her purse. To his left, Evan was just as incredulous. “Did you go to a hardware store?”

  “No. There’s a creepy junk store in the mall, down by Shitty Arcade and the store that still sells Looney Tunes ties. You know, the gross section. Don’t you pay attention to anything?” She matter-of-factly gave them each a nail gun. “I got these there, too, so you’ll have them in case of a greenie attack. Though you’ll probably suck at firing those, too.”

  “Guns don’t even work,” Evan said.

  “Well, we don’t know what’s on the ship, now, do we? And, as long as I don’t go for the throat, we can still slow things down, if we need to,” Teena said. “Just let a girl have her guns, would you?”

  Leo held up a hand. “Hold on a second,” he said. “I need to get my bearings.”

  He went over to the whiteboard, where Sarabeth’s rendering of the ship was drawn. She had started drawing arrows and circling areas of the ship, but between the shock of losing her and his ever-growing hangover, he couldn’t remember what she’d said about them all. Plus, she’d never finished, because they’d all been so intent on getting drunk.

  “We don’t have a chance,” he said, pointing at the board and realizing he didn’t think he could say Sarabeth’s name. “She had all these ideas for where to go and what to do, and now she’s gone.”

  Teena nodded, almost solemnly. “I know. I was being totally self-absorbed and an utter bitch. I wasn’t paying attention, either.”

  “As usual,” Evan said, leaning against a shelf full of throw pillows.

  “Yeah, like usual,” Teena agreed, pulling down her sunglasses and looking at Evan. Leo saw Evan twitch a little before he turned away.

  Teena looked ready to go. And in his heart, Leo was ready to go, too. He wanted to save Sarabeth. But trying to rescue her also meant he might fail to rescue her. And if he failed …

  He rocked from side to side on the balls of his feet, thinking of every eventuality. They could do this, right? He could tell his deliberations were making Evan nervous.

  Not Teena. She grabbed two loofahs off a nearby display and lobbed one at his head and one at Evan’s.

  “Snap the fuck out of it!” Teena yelled like a drill sergeant. “Do you know what today is?”

  “It’s the day we go save Sarabeth,” Leo said, hoping he sounded convincing.

  Teena lobbed another loofah at him. She threw pretty hard, and it scratched him near his eye. “Damn straight, asshole. But today is also Casimir Pulaski Day. Do you know who Casimir Pulaski was?”

  “No one knows who he was,” Leo and Evan answered simultaneously.

  “I do. Casimir Pulaski was exiled from Poland and recruited by none other than Ben fucking Franklin to fight in the American Revolution,” she said. “He trained soldiers, he fought, and you know how the revolution turned out. It wasn’t the life he expected, but he took it, and he worked it.”

  Evan looked at Leo. Leo looked at Evan. Both of them wore expressions of pure puzzlement. Teena McAuley knew who Ben Franklin was, let alone who Casimir Pulaski was? The world really was ending.

  “What?” She picked up another loofah. Leo and Evan both winced, but Teena didn’t throw. “Of course I know who Casimir Pulaski is. My mom is three-quarters Polish. Look, my point is, like Casimir, I didn’t expect to wake up on the last day of my three-day weekend at Bed Bath & Beyond, and especially not with Evan Brighton and Leo Starnick. Now all I really want to do is march through the front door of that ship and kick some alien ass. And save my friend Sarabeth.”

  “Did you just say your friend Sarabeth?” Leo asked, realizing her name came out easily this time. He was starting to feel more confident. Teena knew how to give a speech.

  Teena blushed, something Leo had never seen her do. “Yeah, I said my friend.” She turned away from Leo and glanced at Evan with semi-sad eyes. “It turns out I didn’t realize how much she meant to me until too late.”

  Evan swung his bat, seeming sprier than he had a minute ago. Looking at Leo but not really at Teena, he said definitively, “Then let’s go save Sarabeth.”

  Leo wondered for a moment what had gone down between Evan and Teena in the bedding section. He knew he didn’t have time for petty gossip, but he actually gave a shit and wanted them to be happy. It was a new feeling for him, caring about others’ happiness. While he was at it, he thought of his father and hoped he was safe. Maybe Leo and Ed Starnick had some bonding to do when this whole thing was over.

  “Okay, one thing,” Leo said, looking at Teena’s cache. It was a strong start, but like she said, her robot sprayer would
only work so long, and he really didn’t want to get close enough to spritz the aliens with cologne. No one killed anything by spritzing it. “We need more weapons.”

  “We can fill our water guns with perfume,” Teena suggested. “We could try to find some water balloons.”

  “Water guns, fine. But we don’t have time to be pouring perfume into water balloons again. We need alcohol. The real stuff.” He got excited. Why hadn’t it dawned on them before? If the alcohol was the drying agent in perfume they needed, wouldn’t full-on alcohol be fucking awesome against the aliens? “Shit, why does Tinley Hills have to be a lame dry town?”

  “We have a bar,” Evan said, spearing the air with his bat victoriously. “We brought it with us, remember?”

  Leo felt a smile creep across his face. He knew they’d been saving Abe’s trailer for something.

  “Janie!” they said in unison. Looking from Teena to Evan, Leo could actually imagine them winning this thing.

  ***

  The morning was silent. And not the kind of silence you could cut with a knife. It was the kind of hard-edged silence that was a knife. The hulking metallic mass of a ship loomed just beyond the mall like a huge blemish on the horizon. It was still dark out, and Leo, Evan, and Teena crept across the mall parking lot toward Janie, Abe’s trailer.

  “I can feel every leg hair in these pants,” Leo said, wriggling uncomfortably in his spandex. His balls felt like someone had put them in a Ziploc bag. He wasn’t quite sure the uniforms had been Teena’s best choice, but he’d gone along with it as a gesture of good faith.

  “Yeah, I wish I had gone up a size,” Evan said, squatting a few times in an effort to stretch the pants while straightening out the Iron Man chest plate Teena had affixed to his armor.

  “Stop whining,” Teena whispered, her footfalls soft on the pavement. “If you really hate them, take them off when we’re in the trailer. Just remember, right now, you’re aerodynamic, and the spandex won’t get caught on anything. Jeans might.”

  She had a point.

  In addition to the spandex, Teena was wheeling the Super Sprayer in a kids’ wagon behind her. Evan, of course, had his bat. Teena also had a squirt gun filled with perfume but still insisted on carrying her Uzi and extra clips of ammo, even though neither Leo nor Evan thought this was a good idea. Leo and Evan had oversize water guns filled with perfume, plus the nail guns, which they carried in backpacks. Their bags also held extra bottles of cologne, plus cans of hair spray, which Teena claimed would at least partially dry out the aliens. They were planning to load up further with what they hoped to find in Abe’s trailer.

  As they traipsed through the dark, Janie shone, practically winking at them.

  Leo could feel excitement growing in his belly. Losing Abe had been a blow, but he just might be able to help them, after all.

  He climbed up the metal steps to the silver door, tugged on the handle, and opened it softly.

  As they stepped inside, Leo could swear he heard angels singing.

  “This is not at all what I expected,” Evan said, looking around.

  “That dirty old man lived here?” Teena asked, stunned. “I mean, may he rest in peace. This is nice. Not my taste, but nice.”

  Leo whistled low and slow. “Yeah, Janie’s got some pretty guts.”

  The inside of the mobile home was like a futuristic, high-class bordello. Or, like the Wizard of Oz’s vacation home. The walls were covered in a deep, emerald-green paper with flocked dark green fern leaves—but not in a seventies gigolo kind of way. It looked brand-new, like something from a fancy Vegas hotel. The wall nearest them was lined with a sapphire crushed-velvet couch wide and long enough for two people to sleep comfortably. Two armchairs in a soft, silver-gray leather sat opposite the couch, with everything gathered around a low coffee table made from gemlike, iridescent fiberglass. The table contained the only Abe-like thing in the room, a massive ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. The centerpiece of the wall opposite the couch was an enormous flat-screen TV. It rose up behind a Lucite bar that sparkled under the blue-gray overhead lights. Shelves on either side of the TV contained amber, blue, and clear glass bottles showcasing every liquor and spirit imaginable. They twinkled and gleamed temptingly under museum-quality track lighting.

  “Wow,” Evan said, looking up reverently.

  “We found the mother lode.” Leo smiled. He had to make sure Sarabeth saw this. “Abe, you magnificent bastard.”

  Leo slid behind the bar and started to pull bottles down from the shelf, lining them up on the clear bar top. “Take whatever you can carry, the higher the proof the better.”

  They started to fill their backpacks with vodka and whiskey and gin. If a bottle had no label, they’d smell it to see if it was strong. If two bottles were half empty, they combined them.

  Their work was almost done. Only a few bottles remained, and to Leo, the atmosphere had gained a pulse. Next to him, Evan and Teena worked contentedly. This was the team that would save Sarabeth, and the world.

  Then something clattered in the back room. His heart rocketing up his throat, Leo snatched a bottle of Wild Turkey off the bar and held it aloft. Evan pulled out his bat. Teena whipped out her gun, pointing it toward the sound. Terror growing in his eyes, Evan gently guided her arm down. A greenie attack in these close quarters would be very bad indeed. Teena pulled a squirt gun from her bag instead.

  Leo took a deep breath and just listened. Utter silence. He squinted at Teena and Evan, as if to say, “Did we imagine that?”

  Teena looked toward the source of the sound and, when no new noise emerged, tucked the plastic gun into her tight spandex sleeve. Evan and Leo lowered their weapons, leaning against the bar. They all started breathing again.

  Then, something jumped up onto the bar behind them. In unison, Leo, Evan, and Teena screamed like the terrified teenagers they were. Spinning around and ready to fight, they all aimed their weapons at a …

  … cat?

  “Meow,” it said, mockingly, Leo thought, before slinking around Teena’s outstretched arm, purring loudly.

  She checked its tag. “Knickers?” she said. “Isn’t that how English people say panties?”

  Leo laughed. “Our Abe, a perv to the end.”

  The cat brushed by him and jumped from the Lucite bar to a small shelf that Leo hadn’t noticed before. It contained an Albert Einstein action figure and a photo of a younger, cleaner Abe, his arm around a pretty redhead. The woman reminded Leo of Sarabeth. He slid the photo into his backpack. He had to show her. Also on the shelf was a small bottle with a handwritten label that said PURPLE PEOPLE-EATER. Leo uncapped it and sniffed.

  The aroma alone was enough to get him drunk. He had a good feeling about the stuff, so he put it in his pants pocket.

  “We ready?” Evan asked, working his arm through the strap on his now-laden backpack.

  “Let’s go save the world,” Leo said, even though he still wasn’t sure how they were going to do this.

  Teena petted the cat one more time. It pressed itself against her palm and purred.

  “We’ll be back for her,” Leo said, hoping he was right.

  They stepped outside into the dawn’s weird pre-sunrise light. It was just past five a.m. Leo could see the scene drawn in his mind. Him, Teena, and Evan, standing together with a wide swath of nothing between them and the ship. Showdown.

  The ship had landed on a large empty parcel that used to be Walt’s Wheat ’n’ Stuff, a commercial bread bakery where Leo’s dad once worked. It had shut down seven years ago, and the bakery had stood dormant until now. Most of the buildings were cleared away to prepare for the new Shoppoplex retail, dining, and living community. Construction was supposed to start in May on the 356-condo, 12-restaurant, 24-movie-screen, 72-store “experience” advertised on a big banner that hung on a chain-link fence. There were small piles of stone and rubble left from the demolition, but not much else.

  Their packs were heavy, but they each had a spring in
their step. Despite her small size, Teena effortlessly pulled the wagon containing the Super Sprayer behind her.

  After cutting through the few trees that remained between the mall and the new shopping center, they came to the chain-link fence and stood behind a massive Shoppoplex banner that covered most of it. Leo used a paring knife he’d taken from Abe’s bar to cut a hole in the banner. He peered through binoculars—another Teena find—at the entry ramp onto the ship.

  “There’s the front door, as it were,” he said, handing the binoculars to Evan. “Complete with alien doormen.”

  About a dozen of the purple aliens stood on either side of the ramp, their massive forms casting huge shadows against the ground. Leo’s confidence started to fade. When they’d taken out the perimeter, they’d had the van and been on their own turf. How were they going to get past those guys?

  “There are only about twelve of them,” Evan said, his voice wavering a little. “We’ve handled more than that.”

  Teena took the binoculars from Evan. “At least they don’t have weapons,” she said.

  “That we know of,” Leo corrected her. “Besides being indestructible, able to spew greenies, and having fucking talons that could run right through us like those samurai knifes that cut through shoes.”

  “Thanks for that,” Evan said sarcastically.

  The aliens shifted ever so slightly down the ramp. Leo tensed. Evan cocked his bat back, ready to fight.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Leo asked.

  “I don’t know. Their eyes are so unreadable.” Teena shuddered. “Not even eyes.”

  “For our sakes, I hope they’re blind,” Evan said. “But I don’t think you can abduct a whole town without seeing it.”

  They were freaking themselves out, Leo knew. They needed to make a move.

  “So, should we run straight for them? Or do we need a cheer or something?” Leo said.

  “We need to get over the fence first,” Teena said, gesturing to the twelve-foot-high barrier that separated them from the aliens.