At Ends

Chapter Two: The Aftermath

    We stood there and watched as our school half fell into the faults in the ground. We looked at each other.
    "We need to get to a store- chances are police aren't going to give two shits if things are stolen, and if anyone else has the same idea, they're going to be ravaging stores," I brought up. Marra nodded.
   "Besides, we need shit to get away from here and survive," Marra added.
   Our choir and senior English teachers nodded. At that moment we ran and found a car that was neither in a chasm, or on fire, or out of gas. Mr. Caplyn hotwired it, and Mr. Baine looked at him with a what the fuck look.
   "I read a lot," Mr. Caplyn said. "Now, you guys get in. I'm driving."
   I made a sound of protest. "What if I wanted to drive?" He smiled at me.
   "Well too bad. You don't have your license." I narrowed my eyes. At that point, Marra and Mr. Baine were in the back seat of the car, leaving me to sit passenger next to Mr. Caplyn.
    "Buckle up guys, we wouldn't want to get into a wreck or anything," he said sarcastically. That was one of my favorite parts about him- his sarcasm. I rolled my eyes.
    "With you driving," I said, "we might actually hit something that's not even there." Marra laughed and told me to stop being a brat. With that we were off to the nearest Walmart.
   "Uhm, hey guys?" Marra said, kind of nervously. Baine and I looked back at her, and Caplyn looked in the review mirror. "Where is everyone?" The rest kind of looked around, just as nervously.
   "Maybe they've already taken off?" I said, not very reassuringly. Everywhere we looked, there was death, people stuck in between cars, and falling buildings. There was no one alive- there were no cars, no lost children looking for their mums. Just. Death.  It made my chest hurt.
   "Let's just get to the store and get out of Here okay?" Mr. Caplyn said softly. I nodded and looked down at my worn converse.
   We pulled into Walmart- still. Not a single living person in sight. I didn't even see any dogs or cats.
    We ran in and went separate directions. I didn't know where the others went, but I ran to the weapon section of the the store. I stuffed seven knives into my pockets, and looked around for small handguns, then mentally cursed the store for not having any. I picked up a Samurai sword and furrowed my brows. Since when did they have swords here? I shrugged and unsheathed it, running my finger along its edge. It wasn't sharp, but it wasn't dull. I shrugged and picked up a sharpener, running it along the blade. Once I had it to where I wanted it, I shoved the sharpener into my pocket, along with two more. For safe measure.
    I ran to find Marra, and found her in the medical section, stuffing various first aid supplies into a backpack. 
    "Where did you go?" She looked up at me, then at the sword. "Really, Adelynne?"
     I shrugged. "I got pocket knives too. This just looked cool." She rolled her eyes.
   "Its the end of the world, and you're worried about looking cool?" I shrugged again, before walking to the hygiene sections, picking up a handful of dental care products, and a few bottles of leave in shampoo and conditioner. I walked over to Marra, and shoved them into her backpack. She looked up at me confused.
   "They're necessary. Even if the world is ending."
   She rolled her eyes again, and finished stuffing the backpack, then we ran to find the teachers. We found Mr. Baine, with a huge duffel, stuffing clothes of multiple sorts into it. Marra and I nodded in approval. He finished and we went to find Mr. Caplyn.
   He was stuffing cans of food and bottles of water into two giant duffel bags. I nodded in approval again, and decided to help him. I looked at Marra and noticed something wrong.
   "Marra, what's wrong? I mean, besides the world ending and not seeing another living being?"
    She looked at me with an uneasy look. "I feel like we are being watched." I looked at her, slightly worried.
   "What do you mean?"
   " I don't know. I know there's nobody watching us, but it feels there is. I mean, there can't be, cause everyone's dead." I shrugged.
   "It happens. The mind goes funny when major shit happens." She nodded and looked away.
    Mr. Caplyn and I finished stuffing the bags as full as we could, and we each slung one over our shoulders, and nodded at the other two.
    "Let's go then," Mr. Baine said. We walked out and back to the car. Everything was the exact same as it was when we went inside.
   We got back in the car and drove.
   We drove for days on end, stopping and syphoning gas out of cars on the road, still not seeing anybody. We got used to it after a while.
    We made it to a mountain range. I didn't know what mountain range, but I didn't care. We kept driving until we had no gas left, and there weren't any cars to get gas from.
     Then we kept walking. Along the road and into a forested area. At least it was pretty.
     Even though we were days into the end, I couldn't shake this feeling. Like we were being watched. Maybe it was just part of the aftermath. The mental aftermath.
     I wondered if the rest of the physical aftermath looked like. I wondered if it was just as bad as it was back home. I hoped not.