The End Is Now

A truck passed me, a twenty-year-old Chevy pick-up, two men in the cab. The passenger gave me a hard stare. They turned down the road toward Carrie’s settlement. When I got there, however, I didn’t see the Chevy.

But I did see the bears.

Two adult black bears rummaged in what I guessed was some sort of compost heap, digging out anything edible. A third one ambled toward the wooden community hall, and a deer stood on the ridge behind the settlement—the place had turned into a fucking zoo. No people in sight. Which one of these bears, if any, had killed, and why?

Several people emerged from the community hall, banging on pots and pans, shouting and singing. The bear paused, turned away. I felt like an idiot, standing beside the car with Ian’s twelve-gauge; clearly I was not needed. At the far edge of the group of pot-bangers stood Carrie, her lips open in a song indistinguishable in the din. The sight of her brought such a rush of conflicting emotions that I turned to get back in the car. I despised her, all of them. Passive cowards. They were, indirectly, costing me Ian. She was carrying a niece or nephew, but that baby would just be another coward, unwilling to even try to resist its biology.

The bear, waddling away from the community hall, suddenly let out a huge roar and raced forward. A second later I saw the cub on the ridge beside a stand of trees. Between mother and cub, but much closer to the cub, walked a boy of about six.

The child heard the roar, saw the bear, and froze. Where the hell had he come from and why was he outside when nobody else was? With that heightened, slow-motion perception that makes such moments sharp enough to cut glass, I saw the boy’s mouth open to scream, as pink inside as Carrie’s had been in song.

Carrie dropped her pot and rushed toward the child. She was closer to him than the bear was—they would reach the kid at the same time.

I fired while I had a clear shot, then fired again. The bear dropped. Carrie clutched the child. The other bears fled. The cub vanished into the trees.

When I reached Carrie she was on her knees, the boy in her arms, her face raised to mine. “Oh, Sophie, thank you! But that poor cub, we have to get him now and maybe raise him because you—”

I slapped her across the face. Nothing ever felt so good.

But then someone was turning me around with a firm pull on my shoulder, his other hand holding down my gun arm. It was the man from the pickup truck, a bearded and none-too-clean guy dressed in jeans and t-shirt, his gray chest hair spilling over the stretched-out neck of the tee. “Ma’am? You with us?”

“With who?” I shook off both his hands. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Just some folks come here to prevent a slaughter. And we ain’t got much time. A few hours, is my guess.”

The man who’d driven the truck stood talking to the group at the community hall. A few Sweets were shaking their heads. Carrie still knelt at my feet, murmuring to the terrified child she’d risked her life to save. They both still looked terrified—but not frozen.

The man said mildly, “Damn fools, every last one of ’em. But still don’t deserve to get massacred by that lot in the tents.” He spat on the ground. “So you with us or you leaving? We gotta make a plan.”

* * *

There was time to call Ian. He answered right away. Maybe my mother got to him. I told him where I was, and why. I didn’t ask if he would come out to the settlement with the rest of his weapons. I already knew the answer. We stumbled around for a while, and then he said abruptly, “You never asked me what our breakthrough was.”

“What?” It didn’t seem the right time for a chat about science.

“The night I moved to the lab. You never asked me what the research breakthrough was. The one I rushed to the apartment to tell you about.”

“Ian, we were a little busy fighting and—”

“You never asked me. Never called to inquire.”

“So what is it?” I heard the sarcasm in my voice, regretted it, did nothing to soften it. “Can you cure all the Sweets?”

“You know it doesn’t work that way. What we found is a really important step in how the Sweet brains have been rewired.” He laughed sourly. “And anyway, you’d hate it if we could cure them.”

“What?” I was genuinely confused.

All at once his voice took on venom I had never suspected he felt. “If we could ‘cure’ the Sweets, you’d have no reason to be angry at yourself, for not being as good as your sister is. And without that anger, you’d have no idea who you are.”

When my fingers, all eight of them, could work again, I cut the phone connection.

* * *

Now I wait in my assigned place, on the roof of the community hall, behind a pile of concrete blocks. Luke Ames, our self-appointed leader, determined the positions, weapons, and ammunition for the five of us defenders. In a long-ago life he was a Navy SEAL. We don’t know how many will come against us. We do know the Sweets will be no help.

If we could cure the Sweets, you’d have—