The Last Day on Earth

They grabbed the backpack, still full of fruit, and headed out the back of the house. Tim slammed the door behind him and whistled. A great big German Shepherd came bounding around the corner and barrelled into Lucy.

“Hi, Napoleon.” She patted his head and tried to avoid all the slobber he was spraying around in his excitement.

Lucy followed Tim and Napoleon through the overgrown backyard. They jumped the back fence, and she almost twisted her ankle as she landed on the other side. Tim’s hand shot out to steady her.

“Easy there. Don’t go killing yourself too early.”

“Thanks.”

A bit more cautiously, Lucy followed Tim and the dog as they wended their way down the trail that led to the creek. They scrambled a few hundred metres down to the rocky outcrop that had been their favourite hangout spot when they were in high school. This was where Lucy had smoked her one and only cigarette, had her first kiss (with Tim; they’d sworn never to do it again and never to tell anyone and to just generally pretend that it had never happened), sipped her first beer and spent many relaxing afternoons just lying in the sun, under the speckled shade of the gum trees.

Tim’s neighbour, Olivia, had often joined them there after school. She’d been a year below them. Lucy hadn’t seen her for years, but it still felt a bit empty being in that spot without her.

“What happened to Olivia?” she asked.

“Hah. I was just thinking about her. She did the whole London thing, then ended up moving up to Edinburgh with her Scottish boyfriend. Her parents are still next door. Her Mum keeps checking in on me. Wonder what it’s like over there at the moment? The UK, I mean.”

Lucy shrugged. “Probably similar to here. Nothing works. Thrown back into the Dark Ages. Kinda screwed if you don’t have convenient rural relatives. But colder and wetter.”

“Yeah, I’d hate to be stuck in any of the cities. Not that it matters in the end though, does it?”

“Dad reckons we might survive.”

“What?”

“Yeah… I know, right. He’s got Granddad’s old bomb shelter all stocked up… he’s been listening to Jim Schmidt.”

Tim snorted. “Mr. Schmidt was my Year 9 science teacher. Did you ever have him?”

Lucy shook her head. “Nah. Missed out. I had Norton instead.”

“Old dragon,” Tim muttered. “Schmidty told us one time that there was a high likelihood that that the moon landing had been faked.”

Lucy laughed. “Yeah, you shoulda heard Mum when Dad said he was getting his info from Mr. Schmidt.”

Tim grinned, then frowned. “What if him and your Dad are right?”

“I dunno, Tim. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow, but I’m not holding my breath. I think I’d rather be pleasantly surprised.”

“I haven’t exactly been planning on living much past tonight. I don’t have any supplies or anything.”

“You can come hang out in Dad’s shelter. I’m sure they’d be cool with it. Besides, if we’re going to single handedly carry on the human race, I’ll need someone to breed with. I think Mum and Dad are a bit past it.”

Tim screwed up his nose.

“No thanks.”

Lucy punched him playfully in the arm.

“Nothing personal. Vaginas are scary.”

“You were all set to let Lucy Whitmore have her way with you.”

“I would have politely turned her down. I think. Then updated Facebook and Twitter with the fact that Lucy Whitmore finally wanted to bang me. If the Internet still actually worked, that is.”

“You know it was surprisingly easy to sever my addiction to the Internet once it wasn’t actually there. A couple of years ago I promised some idiot guy that I wouldn’t go on Facebook for a week. Do you know how hard that was? I felt like I was missing out on so much. And when we’d go camping, I’d be fretting about all the emails and statuses I was missing out on… it’s a lot easier when you know for a fact there are no statuses or emails whatsoever because everyone’s in the same offline boat.”

“I never liked Facebook anyway.”

“Besides the point, Timothy.”

“I never asked you. Where were you when you found out about dear Cecilia?”

“Work,” Lucy said. “Jess called me. I didn’t believe her at first…”

“I didn’t even find out ’til the next day. I had the day off. Spent it playing Call of Duty and ignoring my phone. Beth turned up at my place the next day and dragged me here. I honestly thought she was crazy at first. Then I saw how crazy everyone else was being and thought that maybe I was the crazy one, not them.”

“Dad came and got me. Kinda. I got to the petrol station at Little River, then sat there waiting for half a day with everyone else trying to fill up, then they tell us that they’ve run out… thank God mobile phones were still working, otherwise I would have had a very long walk…”

“We only just made it back here. Pretty much just coasted into the driveway. Bikes and peddle-power for us after that. No handy horses or motorbikes here.”

“That’s what you get for not having a family history of paranoia,” Lucy laughed. “I’m pretty sure Dad could supply the whole town for at least six months on the amount of petrol and gas he’s got stashed away. Don’t tell anyone.”