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Back At the End of Everything Save as PDF
Contents ( 46)
  3. Contents
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Epilogue
  41. Author’s Note
  42. Acknowledgments
  43. About the Author

• 2 frozen tubs of butter

• 5 boxes of mac and cheese

• 20 fruit cups (Does no one here eat fruit?)

• Sugar, salt, spice, all things nice

• 1/2 raccoon

• 2 fish

• 5 fresh carrots

• 3 withered wild garlic plants (How do you count wild garlic? In bushels? Leaves?)

• 13 old and wizened blackberries

Phone call between Casey and his sister

ASHLEY: Hi, it’s Ashley! I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message after the beep. Beep!

CASEY: Ash, it’s me. I’ve tried to call you a few times, but you keep going to voicemail, so I thought I’d leave a message. I wanted to hear your voice. I hope things are okay where you are. Things are rough here. I don’t know if you know, I don’t know if you get any news about me, but—

CASEY: I’m scared, Ash. I’m no doctor or miracle worker. I’m just a boy trying to keep his friends safe when everyone is dying.

CASEY: Did you know, Ash? Did you know that you can learn what it looks like when someone is about to die? Do you know that some of them gasp for air and others hallucinate and still others just let go?

CASEY: Did you know that muscles can still twitch after death? That some people still groan? I nearly screamed the first time it happened. I nearly broke down.

CASEY: Ah, you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to burden anyone else, but I don’t want to scare you either. Maybe I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry.

CASEY: For what it’s worth, despite everything…I’m good. As can be, in any case. I’m taking care of myself like you told me.

CASEY: I’m still here. And that matters.

This phone call has been disconnected.

Sixteen

Logan

I haven’t seen my sister in over two weeks, and her absence is a wound that will not close. We’ve never been away from each other for this long. Even when she fell from the roof one summer and the hospital kept her overnight for observation, it’s only ever been a day. Even when we were interrogated after the fire, we were together.

Every morning at breakfast, Casey tells me she’s alive. She’s alive, but she keeps having seizures. She’s alive, but she’s drifting in and out of consciousness. She’s awake, but she’s minimally responsive.

Casey thinks it may be a form of brain inflammation. Either because of the plague itself or because of how high her fever ran, but he doesn’t know much more.

Every evening after dinner, Emerson waits outside the kitchen and confirms it too. They keep their distance, but they keep me updated.

Every day I ask them if I can go see her. I’ve passed by the outside window at least a dozen times, but it only makes it harder to see her so close but so out of reach.

Every night, in our room, I talk to her. I lie down on my bed, next to hers. I stare up at the ceiling. If I don’t turn my head, and I don’t listen too hard for her breathing, I can pretend she’s lying in the bed next to me.