The End Has Come

DANCING WITH A STRANGER IN THE LAND OF NOD Will McIntosh

As the closing music to The Lion King rose from the back speakers, Teale fumbled for the next DVD in the stack, keeping her eyes on the empty, snow-covered highway. She lifted the DVD into her field of vision. It was Frozen.

She lowered her window halfway and tossed it out.

“How about some music?” She glanced in the rear-view mirror, at Elijah to the right, Chantilly to the left. The only thing to indicate they were alive was the occasional blink, the gentle rise and fall of their chests. “It’s Elijah’s turn, isn’t it? How about Rich Homie Quan?”

She dug out the CD, popped it into the Mercedes R-350 minivan’s CD player. Before the nodding virus, Teale had despised hip-hop, but now Elijah’s music was a comforting link to the days when Elijah could jump, run, and dance. In the rear view, Elijah’s eyes darted around as if he was frantically looking for something. His eyes — and only his — did that from time to time. She had no idea why.

Teale reached across to the passenger seat and patted Wilson’s knee. “Don’t worry, the grown-ups get a turn next. Maybe some . . .” The thought vanished as she noticed the temperature gauge on the dashboard.

The needle was higher than she was used to seeing — almost in the red. Had it been like that the whole time she’d been driving? She’d taken the minivan straight from a dealership for the trip, so she wasn’t familiar with its settings. The one thing she couldn’t afford was to break down in the middle of Colorado, in winter. That’s why she’d picked a brand new Mercedes. What could be more reliable than a brand new fucking Mercedes?

The needle crept higher. Closer to the red. What would she do if the car broke down? It was twenty degrees outside.

She watched for exit signs.

“Come on.”

A hint of smoke whipped out from under the hood.

“Come on.”

It grew thicker, blacker.

Teale tried to remember when she’d last passed an exit, or spotted a town through the thick foliage. Twenty miles, at least. If the car broke down, she’d have to head forward and hope the next exit was closer than that. How long could her family survive inside the van with no heat? She had no idea.

The van bucked, sputtered. Teale pressed the accelerator, but the van didn’t respond.

“Shit. Shit.” She slapped the steering wheel, her heart racing as they rolled to a stop on the shoulder. There was nothing in sight — no buildings, no side roads, nothing. Wilson’s face was slack, as always, but there was bright, wet alarm in his eyes. Their eyes were the only part of them that seemed alive, as if their entire selves had retreated inside them.

She turned, faced the kids. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m going to get us another car. I’ll be back soon.”

Opening and closing her door as quickly as possible to keep the heat in, Teale raced around to the back, opened the hatch and pulled out the suitcase holding their winter gear. She put coats, gloves, and hats on the kids, trying hard to seem calm as the kids watched, terrified. She wrapped them in the comforter, gave them each a drink from their thermoses, startled as always by how animated their faces became when the straw touched their lips and they sucked on it reflexively. After dressing Wilson, she pulled on her own gloves, scarf, and hat, then leaned over and retrieved the handgun from the glove compartment and stuck it in her backpack.

“Okay, be strong and keep the faith. I’ll be back before you know it.”

A gust of biting wind hit her as she left the warmth of the van. She locked the door, then took off at a sprint, aware that her family was watching and that she had to look fast and strong, had to look like she could sprint the whole way to the next town like it was no big thing.

When the minivan was out of sight, she slowed. Her lungs were burning, her legs rubbery. She was not a runner; she was an indoor woman carrying an extra thirty pounds who felt at home behind a desk in a climate-controlled room. The opposite of Elijah, whose ADHD had kept him in perpetual motion before the nodding virus took his body away from him.

Teale spotted a sign a half-mile ahead. She tried to pick up her pace; the green sign crept closer, but she still couldn’t make it out. She slowed to a walk to steady her jarring vision, squinted at the sign, gasping for breath.

Gunnison 13

Teale stifled a sob. Thirteen miles? That would take hours. She pictured her family in the van, probably freezing cold already. She eyed the dark woods hugging the highway. Cut through the forest? But what if it was a thousand acres of wilderness?

There were no good options. Trying not to panic, she went back to jogging along the shoulder of the highway.

Within ten minutes she was feeling nauseous and had to slow to a walk again. Pressing her hand against the stitch in her side, she pressed on, images of her family sitting in that van, silent, plumes of white mist coming from their cold mouths. She imagined returning to find them frozen, dead, and —

Teale stopped walking. For the briefest instant she’d felt the most horrible emotion as she imagined returning to find her family dead.

Relief.

Relief that she wouldn’t have to change their diapers any more, or feed them, or carry them to bed. Relief that they would be free of bodies that had become prisons. And relief that she wouldn’t have to witness their deaths, yet hadn’t abandoned them like so many others had abandoned their loved ones.

A humming caught her attention. It took her a moment to identify the soft rumble of an engine rising in the distance. She stopped, spun.

An SUV appeared, barreling toward her.

Teale stepped into the road, waved her arms. “Hey. Hey, help!”

The SUV slowed, stopped on the shoulder a hundred yards short of her.

Teale headed toward it.

When no one stepped out, she paused. Why weren’t they coming out? Were they waiting to make sure she was alone and unarmed?

She swung her pack off her shoulder, deliberately retrieved the handgun so whoever was in the vehicle could see it, then stuck it in the waistband of her jeans. Hopefully the signal was clear: I can defend myself, but I mean you no harm.

As she approached the SUV, she prayed it was filled with women, or old people. Not men with thick beards and automatic rifles.

The driver’s door opened. A white guy in combat boots stepped out, slung a rifle over his shoulder.

Teale’s stomach lurched. She stopped walking, put her hand on the pistol grip. “Are you alone?”

“No.” Head down, the guy stepped toward her.

Teale backpedaled a few steps, drew her pistol. “Hang on. I don’t want you any closer.”

The guy stopped, spread his arms, palms up. “You waved me down. Do you need help, or not?”

“I do. I broke down a few miles back. My family’s still back there.”

He gestured toward his SUV. “Get in. We’ll pick them up. I can take you to the next town.”

Teale eyed the SUV. From this distance, with the truck’s tinted windows, she couldn’t see inside. “Who’s with you?”

“My wife and daughter.”

He opened the back door as she got close, then stepped away. Teale tensed as she leaned in, half-expecting someone to grab her.

There was a girl about Elijah’s age sitting frozen in the back, a woman motionless in the passenger seat.

“Climb in.”

She eyed the back of the SUV, packed tight with supplies. “How is my family going to fit? There are three of them.”

“I’ll leave some of this stuff behind.” He shrugged. “It’s not like there’s a shortage of food and supplies. At least not yet.”

Teale climbed into the seat beside the preteen girl. That was true. You could go into most any house — if you could stand the smell — and help yourself to canned food, tools, bedding, guns. Not to mention jewelry, home furnishings, DVDs, toilet paper. The whole house if you wanted it, and were willing to move the bodies.

“Where are you headed?” the man asked. “I’m Gill, by the way. This is Season,” he gestured at the woman in the passenger seat, “and our daughter Arial.”

Teale smiled and nodded at Arial. “Teale. We’re looking for a town to settle in for a while. We’re coming from Denver.”

“Too many bodies in Denver?”

“You got it. Maybe I could deal with it once they’re just bones, but right now it’s too much.”

“Plus there’s disease to think about. Same story with us.” He had a gravelly voice; his sleeves were pulled up to the elbow, revealing tattoos of eyes shedding teardrops.

They exchanged snippets of information they’d picked up on the radio, or from other survivors they’d met in the months since the fall. The President still made radio addresses, but nearly everyone was convinced it was an impersonator. The voice just wasn’t quite right.

“You think the world will ever look anything like it did before?” Teale asked.

Gill slowed as Teale’s minivan appeared around a curve. “Sure. Sooner or later things will get back to normal.”

It seemed a wildly optimistic assessment. Teale wondered if Gill had said it because his family was listening. That’s what Teale would have done if her family was in the car.

It felt strange, leaving food on the side of the road to rot. Then again, there was food spoiling everywhere. All the fresh food rotted in the weeks after the outbreak. Now all the boxes of cereal and bags of chips were going stale. In a few years there’d only be canned food left. There would be plenty of that, though. They had time to get their act together and learn how to plant crops, to corral all the livestock running free.

Teale reached over and patted Chantilly’s knee. She touched her family a lot now, much more than before.

“So what did you used to do, Teale?”

“I was a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project. It was a group working to legalize marijuana nationwide.”

Gill burst out laughing. “Well, it looks like you succeeded. People are free to smoke as much weed as they want.”

It had seemed important work back when things were normal. She’d believed in it. Now it seemed meaningless, like so many other aspects of pre-plague life. When ninety-seven percent of the population was dead or in a catatonic state, a lot of things that had once been important became meaningless.

“How about you? What did you do?”

“Most recently I was a stay-at-home dad. Before that I was a high school substitute teacher and girl’s tennis coach, and before that I worked for a cable company. I’ve had a lot of jobs.”

The sign welcoming them to Gunnison, Colorado proclaimed it the home of Western State College, which must have been a tiny college given the size of the town. As they cruised down Main Street, which would have been quaint if not for all the broken windows and the nodding virus victims in white body bags stacked along the curb, Teale stopped scanning for a replacement vehicle, and instead studied the town itself. It was the epitome of small-town USA. Maybe this was far enough from Denver.

An old woman in a blue tracksuit walking along the sidewalk paused to watch them pass. Teale waved; the woman raised her hand before turning to continue.

She spotted a Holiday Inn up ahead, on the left. “You know what, Gill? Why don’t you drop us at that Holiday Inn? I can find a new car later.” Gill, who’d been cruising slowly while taking in the town, put on his turn signal.

“You letting the squirrels know you’re turning left?” Teale asked.

Gill chuckled. “Habit.” He pulled up to the front doors of the hotel and twisted to look at Teale. “I’m wondering if you’re thinking the same thing as me, that this would be a good place to settle down for a while.”

“Great minds think alike, I guess.”

“Cool. It would be nice to know at least one of my neighbors.”

“One of your four neighbors, probably,” Teale joked as she climbed out of the SUV.

The door into the lobby was unlocked. Teale looked around in the dark lobby until she spotted a luggage cart.

“You going to find a place and move in right away?” Teale asked as Gill helped her load Wilson onto the luggage cart. She would have to wheel her family to a room one at a time.

“We’ll probably do the same as you: crash somewhere for the night, and scout for a permanent location tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you stay here, then?”

“You sure?” Gill said. “If you guys want some space, there are plenty of other hotels.” He gestured down the street.

“I’m guessing my family likes seeing new faces for a change.” And so did Teale. Especially a face that could talk back to her. Sometimes her family’s silence left her feeling more lonely than if she’d actually been alone.

Teale held the cup steady while Wilson drained the heavily-spiked eggnog in a half-dozen pulls on his straw, as Nat King Cole crooned White Christmas on the stereo.

Her throat was one big knot. Her glands hurt from holding back tears. The flood of memories from past Christmases kept tumbling out, leaving her raw.

Had it been just last year that Chantilly and Elijah tried to stay up all night on Christmas Eve, only to fall asleep at four or five and sleep until noon on Christmas Day? And five years ago today, Wilson donned a Santa outfit and ran across the snowy backyard, into the woods, while the kids watched from the upstairs window, shrieking with excitement at glimpsing Santa Claus?

The song ended. “Whose turn is it to pick the music?” Teale asked in a strained-cheery voice.

“Arial’s, I think.” Gill sprung up, exuding good cheer and energy, his smile terribly stiff. He put on some boy-band’s Christmas CD. As he stood facing the stereo for much too long, Teale noticed his shoulders bobbing slightly, and realized he was crying.

He slipped into the kitchen without turning around.

“You want some more eggnog, hon?” Teale lifted the empty cup from the coffee table and headed into the kitchen.

She found Gill on the floor, clutching his stomach, sobbing silently. When she put a comforting hand on his shoulder he looked up, his face wet, eyelids ringed red.

“I miss them. I grieve for them, but I feel guilty for grieving, because they’re still here.”

“I know. I know.” She sank down beside him, her back braced against the cabinets.

Gill pulled on a towel draped over the handle of the stove, wiped his cheeks and eyes, his breath still ragged. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I’m terrified that if Season could speak to me one last time, she’d say, ‘I’m in hell, let me go.’”

Teale didn’t answer. She’d wondered the same thing many times, but she didn’t want to think about it.

“I can’t, though,” Gill said. “How could I, without knowing it’s what they want?”

The tears she’d been holding back for the past three hours started to flow. “Have I told you Elijah has ADHD?”

Gill shook his head.

“Before the virus he couldn’t sit still for a minute. It must be absolute torture for him, to be like this.” The pain of knowing her kids might never move again hit her, fresh and new. “I can’t stand seeing them like this. It hurts so much.”

“But you don’t want them to see you hurting,” Gill said.

“That’s right.” She was having trouble taking a breath; it felt as if there was an anvil sitting on her chest. She wanted that damned boy-band to stop singing. “I also don’t want them to see how much I hate them sometimes.”

Teale’s own words startled her. She covered her mouth with one hand, turned and pressed her forehead into Gill’s collar, sobbing.

He rested a hand on her head, whispered, “Yeah. That too.”

It had been lurking down in the darker places of her mind, the resentment, the revulsion she felt at their helplessness. It wasn’t fair that she felt it — it wasn’t their fault — but she felt it, and hated herself for feeling it.

“I wish we’d ignored Christmas and pretended this was just another day,” Teale said into Gill’s neck.

“I’m sorry. If I hadn’t kept track of the days, we wouldn’t have known.”

“It was my idea to celebrate Christmas. We could have ignored it.”

Teale raised her head, intending to sit up. When Gill’s face brushed close to hers, she leaned in and kissed him.

She felt a rush of warmth, of comfort, as she kissed this near-stranger. It was the first time in forever she’d felt something other than pain and fear.

When their lips parted, Teale rested her head on his chest. They stayed that way as Ding Dong Merrily on High gave way to Jingle Bell Rock.

“We’d better get back in there.” Gill’s voice was tight.

“Okay.”

Gill hung back a moment, as if not wanting the others to see them go in together.

After she’d put the food away and put everyone to bed, Teale went for a walk to clear her head, to think about what had happened in the kitchen. She felt sick about it, guilty as hell, but also alive in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. Kissing Gill had been the last thing on her mind until the moment she’d done it; it had been like lunging for a life preserver as she was going down for the final time.

Were you depressed if you felt hopeless and sad but had good reason to feel that way? Teale didn’t know. It probably didn’t matter what she called how she felt. Call it “depressed,” or “sad,” or “the new normal.”

“Hey.” Gill was leaning on his SUV, one foot on the bumper. A thrill went through Teale. She tried to tamp it down, wondering if Gill had come outside hoping she would, too, or whether it was just coincidence.

She joined him by the SUV.

“You want to talk about, you know, the kitchen? Or just forget it happened, or —” Gill trailed off.

“Or? Is there a third option besides talking about it or not talking about it?”

He smiled. He was nervous, not meeting her gaze. “Help me out here — I’m kind of lost.”

Teale gave a dry, bitter laugh. “You think I’m not?”

That wasn’t fair, though — she’d kissed him, not the other way around. She truly was lost, though. In the other world, before, she’d never kissed another man, even when she was drunk. Even after she learned about Wilson’s affair with Beth Edwards.

“I can’t touch Season. In a sexual way, I mean. I tried once. It felt like I was molesting her, not making love.” Gill pressed a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“I haven’t had the courage to try with Wilson. I know it’s not Wilson’s fault, but it’s hard to get in the mood when your partner is wearing an adult diaper. Once in a while I, you know, relieve him. With my hand.”

With everything else that had been happening in the aftermath of the virus, Teale hadn’t realized how much the silence, the isolation, had worn her down. What a simple pleasure, to say something, anything, and have another human being respond to it.

Smiling, Gill said, “You’re a good wife.”

“I thought I was.” Teale realized the problem wasn’t so much that she’d kissed Gill, it was that she wanted to kiss him again.

There was an orange glow in the distance, over the rooftop of the muffler shop. Someone must have built a bonfire in their backyard.

“I should probably go in,” Teale said.

This time it was Gill who kissed her.

Someone whispered Teale’s name, jolting her awake. “Wilson? Is that you?”

Wilson lay beside her, his eyes closed, arms at his sides, just as she’d positioned him.

“Please say it was you.” She watched his face, looking perfectly normal in sleep, as if he might open his eyes at any moment and give her a big, warm Wilson smile.

Did he know? Did he suspect? And if he did, did he understand, or was he inside there, screaming in jealousy and anguish? Teale never had to lie, because Wilson couldn’t ask.

“Teale.” An urgent whisper from outside. Teale went to the window.

Gill was standing in the darkness, hands buried in his pockets.

Teale padded out of the room, checked on Chantilly and Elijah before pulling on a coat and heading outside.

She melted into Gill’s arms. “How’re you?”

“Good, now.”

“You making any progress on the grand City Council project?”

“I don’t know about progress.” Gill kissed her neck. “I finished the census, at least. There are officially sixty-nine residents of Gunnison, Colorado.”

“Interesting number.”

“I thought you’d like that.” Gill let her go, took her hands. “Listen, I have something I want to ask.” He licked his lips. He looked nervous.

“O-kay.”

Letting go of one of her hands, he drew a little white box out of his coat pocket, flicked it open with his thumb.

A diamond ring sat nestled in the box. Marquis style, the diamond three carats, at least. “I want to ask you to marry me.”

Teale reached down, touched the ring already on her finger, with its half-carat diamond. She twisted it, struggling to make sense of what was happening.

“I love you,” Gill said. “I don’t want to hide it any more. I can’t. I can’t sneak around behind Season’s back. I know it bothers you, too.”

Yes, it bothered her. She’d walked around for the last month with a perpetual knot in her stomach. Sometimes she felt sure Wilson knew where Teale was going when she said she was going for a walk.

“But what’s the alternative? Tell them?” Teale tried to imagine telling Wilson she was marrying Gill. He wouldn’t react, of course. Neither would Chantilly and Elijah. How would they feel, though, when Mommy explained that she loved Gill? “Imagine having to sit, frozen, day after day, while your wife kisses some other man. I’d rather be dead.”

Gill looked at the ground. “For all we know, they’d rather be dead anyway.”

Teale flashed back to those terrible days when the nodding virus was raging, the hushed conversations about painless ways to release loved ones from their suffering. How much Oxycodone or Valium you needed to mix into their water. Teale had been there, a scarf pressed over her nose and mouth, when their friend and neighbor Mark Melancon gave his son Valium-laced grape juice. She could still see the tears rolling down Mark’s cheeks as Jeremy drank. A few days later, Vanessa Melancon held the cup while Mark drank.

“If I was in their situation, I’d be grateful if Season slipped a dozen Oxycodone tablets into my juice,” Gill said. “If I didn’t know I was about to die? If I just drifted off gently? That would be the kindest thing she could do for me.”

“Then why don’t you?” Teale asked softly. She never asked survivors what had happened to their families, why most of them were alone, with no diapers to change. They’d made a different decision than Teale. She wouldn’t judge.

Gill stared at the ground between them. “I know it would be a kindness. I’m not sure I can do it, though.”

I’m not sure I can do it. A month ago he’d said he couldn’t do it.

“I’m not sure I could, either,” Teale said.

Out in the street, something hurried past — a groundhog, or a raccoon. Gill turned around to see what she was looking at.

“Are we saying —” Gill’s voice hitched. He cleared his throat. “Are we saying we should do this?”

“I don’t know what we’re saying.” Teale looked up at the window where her children were sleeping. Her lips were numb, her chest aching. She didn’t want to have this conversation; she wanted to go to bed, and stay there for days.

“Maybe this is the push we needed, to finally do the right thing,” Gill said. “Maybe we’ve been selfish, keeping them this way with no hope of recovering.”

It was a bizarre thought, but in a brain-twisting way it made sense: they’d needed some selfish motive to goad them into doing the right thing for the wrong reason. The reason wasn’t what mattered; what mattered was to do what was best for her kids.

And there — another illusion had just fallen away. It was all about Elijah and Chantilly, wasn’t it? If not for the kids, Teale would have put Wilson out of his misery long ago.

Yes. That felt true. Fuck Wilson. Were Elijah and Chantilly better off alive or dead? That’s what it boiled down to. Teale closed her eyes, tried to forget Gill, Wilson, everything, and just listen to her heart.

Finally, she opened her eyes. Between hitching breaths, she managed to get the words out.

“I think we have to let them go.”

Teale put earbuds in Elijah’s ears, turned on Iggy Azalea. While he listened, she brushed his teeth, then combed his hair. His hair was getting long again. She’d have to cut it again soon —

The thought formed in an instant of forgetfulness that was followed by a plunging despair as she remembered. It was time to let them go. Today. Today she and Gill would be strong, would let their families go, out of love for them.

Elijah’s eyes were darting around again — his pupils bouncing like twin superballs on concrete. Just as they’d done when she put on Rich Homie Quan in the minivan, and a dozen times before that. Teale caressed his cheek, which was sprouting adolescent peach fuzz. She smiled wide, determined not to give the slightest hint that this day was different from any other. It was crucial they not suspect anything. Teale wanted them to drift off, nice and easy. No pain, no fear.

Elijah’s eyes went on dancing as Teale got Chantilly ready for the day, choosing her white pants and an Olaf the snowman sweatshirt —

She froze, one of Chantilly’s arms in the sweatshirt, the other out.

Dancing.

That’s what Elijah was doing. He was dancing, with his eyes.

How many times had Teale tried to get them to use their eyes to communicate? Look left for yes, right for no. But they couldn’t; they couldn’t move their eyes voluntarily. Their eyes tracked reflexively toward movement, the same way their lips wrapped around a straw.

But Elijah’s eyes could dance. For him dancing was as reflexive as drinking. And reflex or not, he was enjoying the music. Her son was feeling pleasure.

Maybe this wasn’t all hell for them, after all.

Sunlight peeked through the distant Rockies as Teale slid the note under Gill’s hotel room door and headed outside.

She climbed into the Honda Odyssey, which was already running, her family loaded up. Choking back tears, she put on her fake cheery tone. “Here we go. Just a few hours’ driving, then we’ll find another hotel.”

Thankfully, Gill was nowhere in sight. If he came running outside now she knew she’d break down, and if Wilson didn’t already know, he’d know then.

“Who gets to pick the first CD?”

As she pulled out onto the street, she grabbed a jewel case at random. Rich Homie Quan.

“In the spring we’re going to see the country. Starting with the Grand Canyon, then the redwoods, the Pacific Ocean, up the coast. On from there.”

In the rear view mirror, she watched the town fade, and she could see Elijah’s eyes dancing.