Young Writers Society

The remarkably intact condition of the city paled next to what they found there. They had passed the sign welcoming them into San Angeles, with dust accumulating on its smooth jade surface and rendering the lettering nearly illegible. They made their way along the broad street, Kali rejoicing at the feel of the pavement, smooth against her feet if scorching from the sun, and the power lines stood straight and tall as they flanked the street, almost like sentinels daring the sky itself with their strength and size. Unspoken wonderment hung in the air between them, like the joy that runs rampant through the air at Christmas day at the sight of brilliant, iridescent wrapped presents piled high beneath a tree that, in that moment, appears to have stars strung through its ribbon, bell-laden branches, and an angel to watch over the whole affair. Somehow, this town had escaped the Armageddon that had claimed the rest of the world, and, perhaps, its people had fled.

They were approaching the intersection of Hyatt and Billings where a grocery store stood, its glass front revealing shelves piled high with goods that would be putrid by now, its lights flickering, somehow managing to avoid seeming eerie and instead reminding her of a disco, when Andrew let out a sudden warning shout. Startled, Kali jumped and fell backwards over the curb, her foot kicking out and sending the grocery cart they used for their belongings, now empty, rolling forward. Andrew reached down to offer her his hand, but neither his gaze nor his attention were on Kali at all. As Kali stood up, wiping off dirt and straightening her clothes, she followed his gaze and, for the longest time as she gazed into the interior of the store, she saw nothing that was out of place in the slightest. For a moment, concern flickered through her and a morbid thought formed that Andrew might, for some reason, be hallucinated. Then, she finally saw what he had seen, lurking in a shadowed corner beside the entrance, and she began to walk towards the entrance, excitement lending her speed she would have not though possible. Andrew placed a hand on her shoulder, whether to restrain her or share his excitement she didn't know, but she shrugged it off, hardly looking back to see if he was following her.

The man that had hidden himself so deftly in the shadows of the store rose, and wandered towards the door and opened it as Kali skidded towards a halt. Andrew and Kali studied him as though he were some unknown species, and he studied them in much the same way, his dark brown eyes taking in Andrew first before skipping over towards Kali, all the while holding the door open with his shoulder, standing half in and half out of the building. His surveyance was so thorough, that Kali could nearly believe that he had even read her thoughts and penetrated her darkest secrets. Andrew held her hand firmly and gave it a squeeze, and Kali squeezed back just to show that she was not afraid and would not be intimidated by him.

He was a rather tall man, his skin so pale and his close-cropped hair a shade of blonde that bordered on white that his dark, unrelenting gaze was unnerving. Crows-feet around his eyes and slight wrinkles beginning to form on his forehead seemed to owe their existence more to worry and stress than to advanced age. His skin hung in loose flabs, suggesting that he might once have been a lot heavier, and a breeze brought her the slight smell of cigarette smoke that seemed to be coming from his worn clothes. He finally pulled his thin, pale lips back into what might have been meant for a comforting smile, revealing yellow teeth that further affirmed her suspicions that before the onset of this Armageddon he had been a smoker. Kali could tell that he was not used to smiling, and something about the lazy, sullen way he motioned for them to enter the store and the way his eyebrows seemed scrunched down over his forehead like he wore a permanent frown, said to Kali that even before the Armageddon, he had not been a man given to smiling either.

"So, what's your name?" Andrew asked finally. His whisper sounded too loud against the silence blanketing the store. Despite the smile that Andrew offered him, she could tell by the way his gaze kept shifting from the man, to Kali, to the entrance, and then back again that he felt the discomfort and uncertainty as strongly as she did. "I'm Andrew," he continued quickly, his rapid speaking only serving to accentuate and emphasize his discomfort, "and this is Kali. We've been traveling for a while. Haven't hardly anything living at all for a long time, especially not other people. Almost thought we were the last people alive, and now apparently we don't get that honor. Damnit." He laughed like he was making a joke. It was far too loud.

He didn't speak for a few minutes as he lead them through the store, winding his way around huge boxes that had once held fruit of some sort but now held, for the most part, canned goods as well as other essential. Kali took that time to notice that someone had removed all the perishables from the shelf, and Kali breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn't have to smell the stench of rot, even though the air was somehow stale and old. He paused towards the back of the store at the double doors that still bore the, "Employees Only," sign and turned towards them. "Scott," he said, and even as Andrew nodded his head in greeting and flashed a grin, Scott had already turned around and was pushing open the doors, strolling inside almost as though he was unsure of where to go and had nowhere that he needed to be at all. Still not looking back, he held open the double doors for them until Andrew got it before walking a little ways into the darkness and flipping the light switch. The sudden, glaring light was so bright that Kali had to squeeze her eyes shut against its offensiveness and Andrew shaded his eyes against it, but Scott barely even blinked.

"You can stay here for however long you need to. Not sure if there's any blankets. Plenty of room, though. There was a lot of other people, of course. This town was untouched. They wandered off until there was just me, most to find out if there were any other survivors, others for God-knows-what harebrained reason. I moved here so it'd be easier to get what I need. There were a couple other people that went with me, a young married couple and a single mother with two little kids, but they've been gone long since. Been alone for a while." It was the most he had said yet, and certainly more than she had thought him capable of, but, obviously his spiel was over because he fell silent again. He rummaged through the room until he found chairs for them, and they accepted the chairs from him with a, "Thanks," but he just nodded, retiring to his own stool. In front of his stool there was a television, rather old-fashioned looking, sitting on the floor against the gray, somehow intimidating wall. On top of it there was a dvd player, and beside the television, on the floor, was a leaning tower of dvds, a good deal of the cases already battered and worn. He reached for the remote and turned it on, already appearing to have forgotten them.

Over dinner that night, a platter heaped with canned ham, peas, and pears, Andrew attempted to strike up a conversation. His attempts were meet by either outright silence or brief, one-word replies full of disinterest and dubious patience beginning to wear thin and fray. After a while, Andrew gave up and turned his full attention on devouring his food. Once he was finished, he motioned Kali over to a corner and, despite acknowledging that it was nice to have company and comforting to know that there were perhaps other people alive, that they leave as soon as possible the following day because Scott obviously did not want their company. Kali shrugged, unsure of what to say, but she had to concede that Scott was rather unsociable and slightly intimidating, and his personality was likely the reason the others that he had mentioned had left. She wanted to stay, to rest, to enjoy the questionable company offered by Scott, but she was not sure how long she would be comfortable staying here with him, or, indeed, if there was anyone at all who could deal with Scott's personality.

Kali slept restlessly that night, waking up to stare into the blacknesss. She listened to Andrew breathing lightly, to Scott snoring, to her heart beating out a frantic rhythm, and tried to become accustomed to sleeping on a mattress, albeit a lumpy one. She tried to be content in that Andrew and she were no longer alone, but somehow the sudden appearance of Scott only made her more aware of the emptiness consuming the world.

After a while, Kali got used to Scott's personality, and even began to like him a little bit. He had an unusual affinity for noticing when Andrew and she needed private time, and he would wander off, mumbling about needing to check on something or wanting to sleep somewhere else where Andrew's snoring wouldn't keep him awake. Even though he rarely ever talked, that didn't seem to matter because of his tendency to think of others before himself and his willingness to work hard, not to mention his honesty that managed to be complete and unflinching while also avoiding being mean.

Spring dissolved into summer, and summer reared up like a snake poised to strike, sinking fangs of furnace-like heat into summer. The sky took on a deeper shade, and, in contrast to the unpleasantly high temperatures, offered a lighter, soothing touch. At night, when the sun faded below the horizon and darkness came in from where it had waited in the wings, every star was clear and vivid. It was like a black blanket was spread over snow, and holes had been punched at certain spots so that the white snow would have that one little peephole, and since she had never known much about astronomy anyway, Kali occupied herself by making shapes and imagining letters to spell out special notes to the world.

One night in particular proved to be a pivotal moment. A conversation with Andrew, seemingly innocent, piqued her interest in having a child, and, despite Andrew's initial hesitation to bring a baby into this harsh world, he finally concedeed, if only because he could tell how much Kali wanted it. There were many reasons of course; just the thought of someone who relied solely upon you, the longing to have a piece of Andrew if, God forbid, he should die any time soon, and the sudden realization of how important life was and how necessary it was for life to keep going. Despite the morbidity of the thought, it was very plausible that they were the last three human beings alive, and Kali felt a pressing responsibility to ensure that humans did not become extinct as so many organisms had in the past.

Fall overtook summer, with crisp breezes that stirred dust outside into miniature tornadoes, inciting shrubs to cackle and snap irately as the winds moved through them, hurriedly and carelessly. The sky became a colder shade, as though the atmosphere was beginning to freeze over, and the closer it came to being winter, the more and more that seemed to be true. Day after day passed, and Kali was relatively happy, except for the one creeping, irrational fear that began to creep into even her dreams, giving her nightmares worse than those caused by the Armageddon had ever been. What if they could not have a child? Her heart became as cold as the shade of the sky when she imagined what the world would be like if humans died out. Somehow, in her dark imaginings, there was a complete and utter lack of life. Everything had died, even the land. In her mind, she saw the earth as a barren rock. That was what it would become, once all the towns had eroded into dust, once all vegetation, all forms of scenery, was swallowed into the ground, and the edges of the death-like deserts already here gradually creeped out to cover the entire globe.

She worked to get rid of that fear, to embrace the idealism she favored, to fix her mind on waiting for the baby and ruminating over the idea that making love was like making life, but there was nothing that she could do, and the helplessness nearly paralyzed her. Andrew tried to comfort her, to abate her fears, but nothing that he did seemed to work. Kali smiled for him, laughed for him, but her heart became as filed down as the nails she chewed on ceaselessly. It was near the anniversary of the Armageddon, approximately, and that thought swamped her with a million other emotions on top of those she was already experiencing, until she began to feel as though the inner conflict was tearing her apart with a ripping, serrated edge. The pieces were scattered wherever the wind took them, and some God caught out of the air and crushed ruthlessly in his fists.

When she woke up one morning to find Scott cold and motionless and the sun already almost midway in the sky, the loneliness took her in an even tighter and more unforgiving stranglehold, and fall cowed away at the razor-winds of winter and the sky of ice to match the ice that covered the windows of the store in a near-constant thick layer. The heating would not work, and she and Andrew huddled close for warmth, but no matter what she did to heat up her exteriors, somehow her insides remained cold all the same. She was surprised that her blood was able to flow and had not frozen over. It should have, she was sure.

It was when spring began flirting at them from around the corner when the nausea began, and Kali was sure that her stomach bulged ever so slightly. She barely allowed herself to hope, though, and continued making love to Andrew. Hope flared through despite her attempts to crush it, though, and every now and then she let herself actually feel the passion of it rather than losing herself in the dutiful, mundaneness that had begun to characterize their sex.

Andrew was rummaging through the store to find a pregnancy test when it happened. Kali looked down at her belly, then glanced over at her shadow, and her heart swelled as she now knew her belly would soon, because there was a difference in it, however slight it might be. Then, she caught a flicker of light behind her in the corner of her eyes and ignored it, until it persisted and she realized that it was different from the flickering that would have named it as faulty electricity.

Even after the ash settled, the sky was saturnine, gray like smoke choking the air around the charred remnants of the store, thick and damp with humidity that made breathing impossible. Kali forced herself to breathe anyway, holding on to Andrew's hand, not as though it was a lifeline, but with an air of readiness, and a willingness to face the future with him at her side. They turned their back on the charred, smoking ruins of the grocery store with the gray sky collapsing down on it. Atlas had realized it was a burden one man, even a God, could not do by himself, and he had let it slip from him again, but Kali had learned that as long as there was breath left in someone's lungs, there was no such thing as an Armageddon. They retrieved the grocery cart they had abandoned long ago, holding what was once again their only belongings, and walked forward again, the city receding into the sky and the future looming over them, heavier than Atlas's lost burden. Kali steeled herself and picked it up herself, mentally slinging the sky back into its place and throwing Armageddon as far from her as she could. She was having Andrew's baby, the seasons always continued onward in their cyclic, stabilizing motion, and there was no such thing as a damn Armageddon.