The End Is Now

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jamie Ford is the great grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Kaiping, China, to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name “Ford,” thus confusing countless generations. His debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list and went on to win the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. His work has been translated into 32 languages. Jamie is still holding out for Klingon (because that’s when you know you’ve made it). He can be found at www.jamieford.com blogging about his new book, Songs of Willow Frost, and also on Twitter @jamieford.

TO WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD Desirina Boskovich

They said the world would end on Friday. The next moment we’d all be on Planet X, which was like heaven, but in real life.

In Missouri it was supposed to happen at exactly four o’clock. We gathered ’round the living room with the shades down and the lights off, watching the TV and praying while we waited to disappear. It was me, and Jane, and Larry, and Tim. Plus Sylvie, who was crying all the time now. And Dad, of course. Mom had been enforced.

Eventually the TV turned to static as the last station went off the air. We turned it down low and waited some more.

3:55. 3:58. 3:59.

Nothing happened.

4:01. 4:02. 4:05.

Nothing at all.

Larry got up first and peeked out the blinds. That was Larry for you: always curious, always wanting to know. “There’s people,” he said. “Runnin’ around.”

Dad went to the gun cabinet and took out two double-barreled shotguns. One for him, one for me—I was fifteen, old enough to drive, and old enough to shoot, even as a girl. “Can I have one?” Jane asked, but he shook his head. She was only twelve.

At 4:25 the TV picture came back, and every channel was the President, saying: “My fellow Americans . . . We were tricked.”

Apparently, like Dad, the government had had their suspicions. What if the aliens were con men, liars, cheats, and fakes? NASA, the Pentagon, the CIA—they’d reached out to others, through secret channels, the President said. They’d refused to be victims. They’d made other plans.

“We are bruised, but not beaten,” he declared. “Damaged, but not defeated. Now, we must go to war against the alien invaders. We must defend not just our country, but our planet. I stand here today—and I beg you—from the bottom of my heart: Stand with me. We must—we will—we will stand together. God bless the United States of America!”

My father cursed and turned off the set. “Aliens,” he said. “Bullshit. I knew it all along.” He turned on me, sharp and harsh. “Annette. Can you please get your sister to stop that damn crying? I’ve got to make some calls.”

“Okay,” I said. I put down the shotgun and picked up Sylvie. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s take a nap.”

* * *

When I came downstairs a bunch of men were sitting around the dining room table.

I listened to them whisper. They were saying what dad had said all along: that it was a vast conspiracy, the scientists and the government and the people on the news. They wanted to impose a one-world government, install martial law, confiscate our guns. “A war on the free-minded,” they called it, but actually there weren’t so many free-minded left. They’d all been enforced.

Mom had been free-minded. That’s why she was gone.

People kept coming to the door with stories to tell: Smashed cars scattered across the intersections. Fistfights in the streets. Gas stations run dry. City blocks aflame. Supermarkets with their windows bashed in and their shelves stark empty, three customers brawling over the last frozen ham.

And enforcers being chased down, beaten, and shot.

Jane stood behind me, listening in. She was twelve and thought she was awfully grownup, but she didn’t need to hear all that. “Come help me fix supper,” I said.

Supper was just sandwiches, a selection of bologna on white bread and PB&J. We were carrying the platters to the table, when someone outside started beating on the door, hammering the bell, screaming for help.

Dad looked around. “Anyone expectin’ someone? ’Cause by my count that’s everybody.” He went to the window by the door and peeked around the shades. “It’s Don.”

Don went to our church, before he’d become an enforcer. No one had spoken to him since.