Spring Break Apocalypse

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. What a serious bummer.

It was if she’d been dancing at the coolest warehouse party until, suddenly, the lights came on and she was in fact at a silent auction for her aunt Nance’s church (and the only things to bid on were “reflective walks with Pastor Turnip-For-A-Personality”).

Maybe there hadn’t been such a boring, bare aesthetic one week ago. Or, maybe there had, but she just hadn’t looked outside. Gwen had been younger, in love, and pimple-free seven days ago, likely unable to process the depressing landscape. Now, today, she could fully absorb the dead crops, the dusty flat acreage, the complete nothingness of it all. Each wilted corn tassel reflected the neglect and torment to which her heart had now been subjected.

The huddled groups of people added the only pop of color. About fifteen of them all stood, heads down, appearing pretty disheveled and seeming to quietly converse. A few kids ran amongst the lifeless plants, and she could almost hear their sandals slapping against dry earth. One kid looked like the Tuckers’ hyper son from down the road; did he have blood on his shirt?

“Your family sucks at farming,” Gwen said, licking a tear from her upper lip.

Yuri stood behind her, rambling about being sorry and how he would always remember that first turkey on whole wheat that they shared. He paused at her comment, but then continued. “Cara Cook is seventeen, Gwen, and she’s worldly – like, she’s my dream girl. But, hey, that doesn’t mean I don’t value you and our time together.”

“I spent my entire spring break with you,” Gwen said. “And I’m the one who told you about that documentary on Paraguay.”

She was starting to sound croaky and desperate, so she forced herself to swallow down the rising disappointment. There was that bubbling longing, too.

Yuri placed a hand on her shoulder, which she shrugged off automatically. He cleared his throat, and she heard him head toward the door of his bedroom.

“Because we are now in the same pod,” he said, “I get that it’ll be awkward for a bit. Thing is, though: I want Cara to be my official re-pop buddy. I hope you can respect that.”

“You never make any sense, and I used to think that made you smart,” she said. She heard the door close and Yuri’s footsteps fade.

Gwen kept her eyes fixed on the miles of dirt. The sun would set in the next couple of hours, so it would soon be cool enough for her to walk home without mascara and concealer dripping down her face.

She knew she was on the outskirts of town. Yes, Yuri had picked her up from school, and yes, she had been mildly distracted by the cool lizard tattoo on his bicep, but she still knew where his miserable farm was located. It was probably only a forty-five-minute trek to her house. If she left now, she’d get back in time for her aunt’s Friday night runny omelets. And she’d be able to catch her uncle before he left for his weekend poker trip, so he could give her some life-lesson gem (“Blah-blah-blah, look at yourself, kid. This is what happens when you disappear with some schmuck you meet outside of Tito’s Sub Shack on your lunch break”).

Gwen sighed and tapped a nail against the window pane. If those people down there were looking to buy some produce, they were shit out of luck.

--

With her school bag draped over her shoulder, Gwen descended the steps and seemed to enter a flurry of forceful and heated conversations. Voices boomed from the living room, with adults determined to be heard and out-yell each other. Rhythmic banging intermingled with the arguing.

“-Wouldn’t last a week. You never even served in the military!”

“She should be our pod leader! Have you seen those calves?!”

It seemed bizarre to hear such boisterous noises since Gwen recalled that Yuri lived with only his demure grandpa and his mom, who was apparently home-schooling Yuri with a lot of Google and even more quiet shrugging.

Gwen turned the corner from the stairway corridor. She was hoping to pass through the living room and get to the front door without anyone noticing her red eyes and red leather skirt.

Two men were nailing up boards over the downstairs windows. They looked like they would hang out at Buffalo Boon Saloon on Christmas day and hit on the bartender. Both craned to look at her suspiciously.

“Nance’s niece is here?” someone said.

Swearing under her breath, Gwen jutted out her hip and took in the crowd. A sweaty panic hung in the air, with neighbors and teachers and acquaintances all stacked on top of each other – maybe thirty of them. Grey faces, shaking heads, shattered breaths. There was Mayor Vern and his slack-jawed wife, Jordan Thompson’s parents (who had rudely objected when Gwen dated their son for a couple of months), David Sanders and his attractive married brother. There was a group of girls from school, sniffling and whispering. Gloria Shepherd from church had grass stains on her pressed pink slacks.

Gwen was glad to be on her way.

Yuri’s mother came from the kitchen. She carried a steaming mug to a familiar-looking man on the couch. “Yes. She’s been holed up with our boy in his room for the past week,” she said. No eye contact with Gwen.

Gwen heard Jordan’s mom snort. “Typical. Dirty girl.”

Mrs. Frankel, who worked at the post office, stood from a chair. She had newly-darkened bags under her eyes, but compassion was etched into the fatigue. “Honey,” she said to Gwen. “Do you understand what’s going on?”

Waving off the concern, Gwen ignored the growing grumbles from around her. “I’m heading home, so you can all continue your weird town meeting-”

“This missy thinks she’s going out there?” shouted a man to her right.

Gwen side-stepped two women cradling their heads as they sobbed. She briefly wondered if they were mourning a break-up, too. “I mean, I don’t need permission.”

The sheriff, Eve O’Brien, had been leaning next to the front door before she stepped forward to intercept Gwen. “Miss Copeland,” she said, “You need to sit down.” Her dark eyes looked more threatening than her empty holster ever had.

Gwen did her best to elongate her spine. She just wanted to go home, use nail polish to draw a picture of Yuri on her bathroom mirror, and then work out various scenarios and conversations for a couple of hours. Why were adults always assuming she didn't have plans of her own?

“Maybe in your car, I will. Could you give me a ride, Sheriff?”

“Mayor, do something!” Gloria Shepherd cried.

“He ain’t the pod leader,” said Mrs. Frankel’s husband.

The sheriff gave Gwen a tight-lipped smile. “Now, now, folks. She just needs to hear what’s happened.”

Gwen thought about Yuri kissing her just yesterday, tracing hearts on her back with his finger, and calling her delectable. Then, today, when she woke up, instead of saying, “good morning, Goddess Gwen,” he told her she had dirt under her fingernails. Their week-long tryst died and was buried with dirty nails and Cara Cook.

After a quick wave to the room of distressed and nosy townsfolk, Gwen made a dash for the door. That was when the sheriff cuffed her.

--

It was like the worst imaginable version of a parent-teacher conference; her aunt Nance wasn’t there to defend her, and there were hundreds of judging eyes inspecting her bare knees and the hickey on her collarbone. Also, her hands were cuffed together and laying awkwardly on her lap.

The mayor and the sheriff towered over her as she sat, shoulders slumped, on a velvet couch. Everyone else peered around the two faux-authority figures with their arms crossed.

“Does your aunt know you’re here?” Mayor Vern asked. His fingers fidgeted at his side.

“Yes,” Gwen said, bored. “My cell phone broke last week, so I used Yuri’s phone to call her and let her know. She doesn’t try to control me.”

“You’re a minor,” the mayor said with disdain.

“Your fly is open,” Gwen said.

“Miss Copeland,” Sheriff O’Brian interjected as Mayor Vern turned away with a quick zip. “There is no easy way to say this, but we are currently in a state of emergency.”

“Well, I carry a hammer in my bag in case of emergencies,” she said. Problem solved.

Gwen noticed Yuri and Cara Cook watching her from the back of the room. They weren’t holding hands, but they looked pretty snuggly. Cara even poked the lizard tattoo with a giggle.

Cara caught Gwen’s eyes and cocked her head. “The emergency alert was blasting on the radio. Didn’t you hear that?” she asked.

“I only listen to podcasts.”

The sheriff sat down next to Gwen and touched her wrist delicately. “It wasn’t exactly an earthquake, Miss Copeland, but a natural disaster took place about two days ago.”

“It was the apocalypse!” said Gloria Shepherd, clutching the mayor’s jacket as she stood up on her toes. “The devil himself opened up the earth and sent his demons up here to drag down the sinners. And those evil spirits are killing the trees and the land with their presence!”

Yuri and Cara Cook seemed to exchange incredulous looks (like some comfortable, inside-joke-sharing couple?) while the sheriff coughed loudly.

“There have been reports of violence,” the sheriff told Gwen. “Unknown persons attacking and—and critically injuring citizens of this town-”

“Demons ate Henrietta and her brother who was here visiting from New York!” Mrs. Shepherd declared.

“Allegedly,” said Jordan’s dad.

Gwen was getting a headache. She also couldn’t stomach to witness any more touching between Yuri and his new girlfriend. They were now sharing a can of corn, using one fork. She silently hoped they would get infected with an abundance of itchy sexually transmitted diseases at the same time that demons emerged to gnaw on their faces.

“Honey, are you even understanding the gravity of this?” asked Mayor Vern.

“I’d like to ponder it all at home,” Gwen said with a shrug.

“No, you don’t understand,” the mayor’s wife choked out. “There is no home to go to. Our town has been ravaged. You must stay here, with your pod.”

Shaking her head, Gwen huffed out an angry sigh. This was not her pod. Not one cute single boy stood out amongst the mass of worried warts.

A thought hit her, then, and she pointed to Yuri accusingly. “Your re-pop buddy! Like for repopulating?”

Yuri blushed. “I hadn’t pitched the idea yet, Gwen. Jeez.”

“And you want it to be her? Everyone knows she has daddy issues,” Gwen snapped, feeling the tears returning.

“You’re one to talk,” Cara said. “Didn’t your parents abandon you in a field outside of town? For your aunt to find you, when you were just a baby?”

Hands were now gripping Gwen’s shoulders, holding her in place on the couch, as the sheriff’s eyes leveled with her own. “Miss Copeland.” Then, of course, she told Gwen the one thing Gwen had been hearing her whole life – from school principals scolding her for her attire, to ex-boyfriends patronizing her after breaking her heart – “Look at yourself.”

“I --"

“No matter what circumstances led you here, this is where you are. Maybe you can get yourself cleaned up, someone can loan you a change of clothes, we’ll get you something to eat, and you can wrap your head around this.” Sheriff O'Brian appeared sympathetic, but there was a sharpness to her expression that Gwen knew well.

As her uncle always said, people pitied her until she opened her mouth and flirted with their brother.

Gwen took in the scared women, uncertain men, the restless children. She glanced at Yuri’s grandpa as he sipped his coffee and shifted about in his seat to find the most comfortable angle for his back. She knew most of them were afraid of dying, of the world ending. However, she had felt this same level of discomfort and hysteria when she’d shown the janitor at her preschool her underwear because it was the same color as his handkerchief.

Gwen wasn't planning on eating any of these people or sucking the life from their crops, but she also wasn’t going to stay in their pod. They would give her a curfew, a can of something, and they would pretend like she hadn't been their hellion all along.

“Can you take these off so I can go upstairs and process all of this?” Gwen asked the sheriff. She held up her hands expectantly.

The mayor shared a relieved smile with the others, and he patted Gwen’s knee. “Good girl.”

The chaotic energy seemed to downgrade as her cuffs were removed and Yuri’s mother offered her some tea. When she shook her head, the passive parent then beckoned Yuri to take her upstairs and let her have some time by herself.

“Don’t bother,” Gwen said, rubbing her wrist. “I know the way.”

--

It was strange, the way she understood that they were coming for her. From underground, they were looking for her.

Her aunt had once said that Gwen just needed Jesus’ love, not the approval of “these boys you keep chasing.” While she wasn’t sure about that, she knew that was her aunt’s way of telling her that it was all fixable, that she would end up on the right path eventually. That her heart would be understood someday.

Gwen locked Yuri’s bedroom door behind her and headed to the window. She set her school bag down and watched for movement. Light was minimal outside, the sun slinking away and casting a breathy halo above the dead field. Imagining Yuri’s grandpa watering and caring for those shrunken, dusty crops made her feel nostalgic for land that wasn’t hers.

Her hand came up to flatly rest against the glass. There was a person – a shadow – clawing up from the still earth. The ground seemed to shift as a lanky arm was followed by a head and torso. Slowly rising, the person lifted themselves up until they were on two feet. Without hesitation, they began running toward her, toward the house. Gwen’s heart pounded as she quickly searched through her bag, eyes bouncing between her hands and the figure charging toward her.

When her fingers touched the hammer, she clutched it with both hands and swung it back. Gwen caught her reflection in the glass before she caused the collision.

“Look at yourself,” she laughed.