The Last Thing You Ever See

By Adam Wood

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462896899

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Copyright © 2011 by Adam Wood.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011910871

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-9688-2

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-9687-5

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-9689-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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97214

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Dedicated to anyone who doesn’t

have all the time in the world.

Acknowledgements

Some say that the act of writing is a lonely one. Though at times it seems like maybe it is, if it was, there wouldn’t be so many people for me to thank right now. All of these people had a hand in this book whether they know it or not, whether it’s specifically mentioned here or not.

My infinite thanks to:

Matt. You read every last unfinished draft that I threw at you, and your editing was a boon that helped make this book what it is. Without you, this book wouldn’t exist.

Kirstin. You always have something positive to say. You lift everyone up around you, and I don’t even think you realize it. Also, thanks for lending me your handwriting.

Craig. You always have something to say, but in this case what I’ll remember the most is that advice you gave me when I first started editing. Just throw some vampires in it. I didn’t listen to your advice, and I’m not sorry.

Andrew. Your immense knowledge of the goings on of publicity, marketing, Chicago artists etc. still baffles me. You’re like an encyclopedia of people to know.

Alyssa. There’s something about a good friend who practically yells at me, So, why isn’t your book finished yet? that makes a guy know he’s doing something that matters.

Jeff Rowe. You get a full name mention because the cover art belongs to you, and it’s beautiful. You did a wonderful job and I know you’ll continue to do great things.

I also want to thank the many people who read this novel in any of its forms and offered any advice and feedback to me. This has been a process of more than four years, so there are a lot of you who fall into that category. Even if your name isn’t here, even if you didn’t say anything to me about this book, just knowing that you were willing to read it means so much to me.

And finally, thanks to Mom for always reading to me when I was a kid.

Ice age, heat wave, can’t complain.

If the world’s at large why should I remain?

—Modest Mouse, The World At Large

Prologue

At Home

April 12, 2007

It didn’t all start with this list, but that’s probably the most significant thing we did during that first week. I started the list after we lay down on the grassy hill at the park. I didn’t tell her what the list was for; I simply said, The last Harry Potter book.

What? Chloe said.

All that new music that I’ve been waiting for. A new cell phone.

She caught on to what I was doing, so she started adding to the list. Me getting my car fixed. Moving out. Getting better than you at Xbox.

Ha, you were never gonna get better than me anyway. She pushed my shoulder then laid her head against it. We continued listing things that would never happen. We looked at the sky as we did it.

For the week after the news broke, I spent most of my time staring at the sky. Probably a waste of time, sure, but the sky usually wasn’t something that appeared threatening. Even now, it still didn’t.

It was blue. Bright blue, with a tinge of orange just off in the horizon right where the ground meets the sky. Thin clouds hovered as if held by strings, so thin that they appeared more as mist that spread across the sky from an unknown source. It was hard to believe that in less than two years, a meteor would tear through that beautiful sky. And of course, more frustrating than that was death.

We came to this park often. It was just down the street from my house, making it easy to escape to if we ever needed it. I glanced to the left, blades of grass tickling the inside of my ear, at the old swing set next to me, rusted out, a husk of the swing that I used to push my little brother on. Chloe, her head still on my shoulder, had fallen asleep while I stared at the sky. At what was to come. Perhaps it was the first time that I thought so much about the future, that I decided to list it all out, but I guess it’s human nature to yearn for things that you can’t have. A future. A future with Chloe. That was one thing I couldn’t bring myself to put on the list. I stroked her hair as she slept.

A siren went off in the distance, and Chloe stirred as she woke up. What’s happening?

I continued looking up at the sky, my mind still wandering, and I said, Don’t know.

She lay her head back down on my chest, her brown hair brushing my neck, but I didn’t move. And I didn’t care about the siren.

It’s only been a week, and everything’s already so . . . she trailed off.

Yeah.

My attention was always at the sky. I thought if I looked hard enough that I might see the planet-killing rock off there in the distance. It was past the misty clouds and through the blue with the orange tinge. Because it didn’t seem real yet. It wouldn’t be real until I could see the thing.

A squad car raced past us on the street at the foot of the hill. Red and blue flashing lights danced on Chloe’s face, and my eyes followed the car down the street toward whatever new disaster was taking place. Whether it was a robbery or a fight, maybe even a murder, it didn’t faze me. Because none of this was real yet.

What time do you wanna go home? I asked.

It doesn’t matter, she said. My brother’s gone again, and Mom doesn’t care.

I bet she worries about you more than you think.

Well, she shouldn’t.

I sat up, and so did she. She looked down the hill and brushed her bangs to the side, but they fell back into her face. I slid them behind her ears with both hands and then kissed her. C’mon, I said. I’ll walk you home.

What if Collin’s there? she asked.

Then he’s there, I said. I stood up and then held out my hand. She took it, and I pulled her up next to me, and we walked down the hill toward her house.

Other than the sirens, the streets were quiet. Most people opted to stay indoors instead of venturing outside, almost as if the sun itself was a threat. We walked down a suburban street, hand in hand, past the driveways that were packed with cars and past the families huddled inside their homes, hoping that what we’d all heard was some kind of cruel joke. Chloe scooted closer to me, and I let go of her hand and put my arm around her shoulder.

Are you going to Landon again tomorrow? Chloe asked.

Yeah, I said. Landon Community. The college where futures begin. I had no reason to believe that classes would be back in session. The website had said the school closing was only temporary, but if things tend to turn from bad to worse, then perhaps temporary turned to permanent.

The sun was almost out of the sky now, and that meant things could get more dangerous outside. I walked Chloe to her front door and took both of her hands and said, If you need anything, just call me.

She looked at me with those brown eyes of hers, and she smiled. ‘K, she said. She rose up on her toes and kissed my lips before she turned and ran inside.

Chapter 1

At Home

April 5, 2007

I was in a math class just before I found out the world was gonna end. In the middle of taking a test, a man burst into the room and, grabbing the professor by the elbow, took him to the side and whispered something in his ear. You can’t be serious, I heard the professor say. The man that came in only nodded and then turned to leave.

Professor Green sat at the desk and put his head in his hands. Even from the back of the room, I could hear him breathing heavily. A few minutes went by, and he stood up and paced back and forth in front of the whiteboard until his cell phone rang, and he left the room to take the call.

Everyone in the class felt something was wrong, yet nobody attempted to cheat as we all looked around and exchanged glances. Some of the less patient students up and left when the professor didn’t come back right away, leaving their papers piled haphazardly on his desk.

Twenty minutes passed, and Professor Green was still gone. As far as I know, he remained absent; I just finished my test, put it on his desk with the rest, and left the building. I never saw him again.

My car was parked all the way across the campus, and on my ten-minute walk to it, I saw a group of people accusing another student saying something about terrorism. One of the group members pushed the lone student. I recognized the aggressor from my math class. He was usually quiet, stuck to the back of the classroom, and didn’t participate. I ran up to the group and stood between them and the single student. What’s your problem? Go home, I said. I wasn’t sure where this bravado was coming from.

The aggressor had to look down at me. Our eyes met, and he said, Why don’t you tell him to go home, and take his bombs with him? Bombs? Really? Sure, the terror alert was red, I think, but I never imagined it would cause anyone to act as rashly as this guy was right now. He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me close to him. That’s when campus security showed up and escorted all of us to the security office.

I sat in isolation on an uncomfortable bench in the lobby of the security office for over an hour. A single woman sat at the front desk keeping an eye on me, but every few minutes she would part the blinds with her fingers to take a look outside.

The student who was accosted finally came out of a door in the back of the lobby and said, They want to talk to you now. He was almost out of the building before he added, Thank you.

I went into what I imagined to be a kind of interrogation room. There was a water cooler in the corner and a long rectangular table in the center with papers littered across it. A man in a light-blue security uniform sifted through a stack of papers. I took a few steps into the room, but the man looked up from the papers. I stopped in my tracks as I reached for a chair. Don’t sit down, he said. I just need your name and student ID number.

Cameron Worth, I said as I fumbled through my wallet for my student ID. I’d been going to school there for three years, and I was never able to remember my ID number. I read off the seven-digit number.

Amir said you helped him out, and that’s what I saw when we stopped the fight. That’s good enough for me. Normally there’d be paperwork that you and I would have to fill out together, but given the circumstances, we’ll forget about all of that red tape.

He looked back down at the papers in front of him. I stood for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds. I can go?

Try to stay safe, Mr. Worth.

Too shocked to ask him what these circumstances were, I turned around and left the security building.

Campus security was busy that day. As I jogged to my car, I saw them break up another argument, but there were several ongoing, and in the distance I heard the sound of metal smashing against metal and tires screeching against the street. Everyone looked across campus to the street that ran by the school. Two cars smashed together, and a plume of smoke and fire bloomed into the air. The two security officers left the group that was arguing and ran to the accident site. That parking lot exit was a magnet for car accidents. In my three years there, I’d seen at least one a year, but never this bad.

People began crowding the accident, but those who didn’t shifted their gazes to the sky. Hands shaded eyes as if they were looking for some astrological answer to what had been going on. Still I joined them, if only for a minute, but looking in the sky yielded nothing except the clear beauty of it all: the clouds rolling across the brisk blue atmosphere. But it looked like in the distance there were pillars of black smoke. More accidents like the one that happened just outside of school. What was going on?

The parking lot had been vacated. Whatever Professor Green was told, whatever these circumstances were, must have shocked a lot of people, and I wondered if whether or not there really was some kind of terrorist threat. The idea that those students could have been looking into the sky for missiles crossed my mind, but if such an imminent disaster were to be taking place, they wouldn’t have been so calm.

I took to the road slowly even though it was a warm spring day. Traffic accidents seemed more common than usual. Most were minor fender benders, but there were some bigger wrecks. Ambulances and squad cars raced past me down the street, their lights blaring, and they stopped at an intersection. An officer began directing traffic, and as I drove by, I saw a body covered under a white sheet, and a woman was being wheeled into an ambulance on a stretcher. I wondered if things like this were happening all over, or if I just happened to be in a particularly unlucky area.

Only a few miles down the road I ran into yet another accident. A semi had jackknifed, and three cars collided with the trailer. Smoke hung like a veil in the air over the scene of the accident.

It would have been as easy as turning around and finding another route, but I recognized one of the cars in the pileup. I pulled to the side and ran to the car. Though there was no one inside, I did notice a streak of blood on the steering wheel and the dashboard.

There were no police or medical presence, but it didn’t seem like anyone else involved was hurt. They were just wandering the accident site confused, and one man was screaming at the truck driver. A car horn sounded off, adding to the confusion and causing a middle-aged woman to hunker down in the middle of the street with her hands over her ears and tears in her eyes. But I didn’t see Megan anywhere. I called 911 on my phone and got a busy signal like I expected, then I called Chloe. Megan was her best friend, and I couldn’t think of anyone better to call.

Cam, did you hear? she said, her voice shaky.

No, hold on, I said, interrupting her. As I spoke, I looked around and tried to take in everything at once. The plumes of smoke that hung in the sky. The traffic accidents that plagued the streets. Chloe was going to tell me something important, but before she could, I said, I think Megan was in an accident. I saw her car smashed by a semi on the way home from school.

There was a pause, as if she was weighing the importance of what she had to say against her friend’s life, but then she asked where I was.

Ridgeland and Eighty-Seventh Street. This intersection was notorious for accidents as well. It was actually a five-way intersection that people around town nicknamed the Black Hole. Today, its name was proving accurate.

I’ll be there as soon as I can.

After returning my phone to my pocket, I walked around the accident site again, calling out for Megan. I even traveled a few yards down the road, but I wanted to be there when Chloe showed up.

When I decided that Megan wasn’t going to answer, I turned my attention toward the woman who was sitting on the ground. She had begun screaming a few minutes earlier, and I tried to calm her down. I knelt down next to her and put my hands on her shoulders and said, Ma’am, you need to calm down. You’re fine. She looked at me and fell backward out of my reach. A few more minutes went by, and Chloe showed up in her brother’s car. She got out and threw herself into my arms.

Collin let you use his car? I asked.

Yeah right. No, he’s just not home right now, she said. If he knew I took it, he’d kill me.

I shook my head. Collin was a problem, but right now I was more worried about finding Megan. I looked around, but I didn’t want to leave until you got here. I don’t think anyone’s seen her.

Chloe grabbed my hand and led me to the sidewalk, where we both began to walk and call Megan’s name. A few minutes went by without any luck, so I looked at Chloe and said, Maybe you should call her parents and let them know.

I did just before I got here, she said. They’re probably on their way.

We’d been walking down this street for ten minutes, and I was just about convinced that Megan had wandered in the opposite direction, but then I saw her sitting on a bus-stop bench in the distance.

Should we go back the other way? Chloe asked me.

I put my arm around her shoulder and steered her gaze toward Megan. Oh, thank God, she said. She ran over to Megan and called her name.

Megan stood from the bench; she smiled as she saw us coming. Then she fell forward, arms at her side, not bracing for the impact with the concrete.

I turned her over onto her back, her arms sprawled like she was trying to make a snow angel, and she stared wide-eyed into the smoke-filled sky. Blood flowed from a gash in her forehead and formed a small puddle on the ground. As Chloe dove to Megan’s side yelling her name and teetering on the edge of tears, I was sure she was dead.

Chloe cradled Megan’s head gently in her arms. You gotta wake up, she said. Come on, don’t do this! She was just standing a second ago, what happened?

I knelt down next to Chloe and touched two of my fingers to Megan’s neck in search of a pulse. I finally breathed a sigh of relief as I found it thumping steadily.

Chloe was on the verge of tears, but she remained strong and held them back. I felt adrenaline rushing through me as I put my hand on Chloe’s shoulder and said, She’s alive.

She let go a long sigh of relief.

No ambulance was coming though, I was sure of that. After a minute I let go of Chloe and asked, Can you stay here with her while I run back for my car?

Yeah. I’ll call her parents and tell them to meet us at the hospital.

Okay, I’ll be back in a few minutes, I said as I began to run back.

There was still no one in authority at the accident site. The hysterical woman remained unconscious in the street, and the man that had been yelling at the truck driver was now nursing a broken nose with a blood-drenched handkerchief.

My chest burned from the run as I entered my car and drove over the sidewalk and through a gas station parking lot so I could get back to Megan as quickly as possible.

Chloe stood up as I returned. Leaving the car running, I got out and picked Megan up. Open the back door for me, I said to Chloe. I eased Megan into the backseat and sat in next to her with my arm around her shoulder. Her head fell limply to the side. Chloe sat behind the wheel and drove to the nearest hospital.

There were very few cars on the streets and no more accidents that we could see. Smoke floated in the air in almost all directions, and the sky was no longer a peaceful blue color. A soft rain began to fall as we pulled into the overcrowded emergency room parking lot. Cars pressed against each other; horns blared over other horns. We left the car in that mess and carried Megan into the building.

Chloe and I sighed in relief as we saw that the hospital was up and running even though outside’s chaos was slowly making its way in. Streaks of blood were smeared on the floor and walls. A man sat in the corner with blood running down his neck. There were so many people sitting unattended. I was worried that the hospital was too busy to take care of Megan, but I told the receptionist her name, and then Chloe and I sat down in the waiting room with Megan still unconscious in between us.

Twenty minutes went by, and Megan was still bleeding next to us, so I went back to the lady at the reception desk. When is someone gonna take a look at her? She’s bleeding out, for Christ’s sake!

Sir, the receptionist said as she glared at me, all of these people need a doctor right now, not just your friend. I looked around the room and noticed that I was one of the few people who wasn’t bleeding or tending to a broken bone. Without saying anything else, I sat next to Chloe and took her hand.

They’re busy right now, babe, I said. I don’t know when they’ll be ready for her. I rubbed my free hand through my hair as she rested her head on my shoulder.

A few minutes later, I said, What was it you wanted to tell me on the phone?

After a moment of silence, Chloe said, I don’t think you’ll want to hear about it right now.

Tell me anyway.

She squeezed my hand and gestured with her head to a TV that sat mounted on a wall. I couldn’t hear the anchorwoman through the chaos of the hospital, but the news ticker on the bottom of the screen read, Meteor to collide with Earth in less than five hundred days. Authorities rush to stifle rising panic.

My mouth hung open in surprise, and I looked at Chloe, then at everyone in the room. They still moved about in disarray, but it was as though the noise was muted, like someone was holding his hands over my ears. Everything that was happening suddenly made more sense now that it was given context.

My gaze found its way back to Megan, and at first she looked peaceful, but then her body started to shake. She was having a seizure. I laid her on the ground unsure of what to do when I noticed a trickle of blood on the corner of her mouth. I felt a pain in my stomach that moment, one that I never felt before, and I thought I might throw up. In a few seconds, the pain passed, and I had Megan turned on her side so she wouldn’t choke on the blood, but I didn’t know what else to do. She was still shaking.

What’s wrong? Chloe asked.

I don’t know, I don’t—she’s seizing, bleeding from her mouth. Get someone!

Oh god, Chloe said as ran for a nurse.

I kept my attention on Megan. Megan, don’t do this, I said to her. She stopped shaking, so I felt her pulse, which was very light, and placed my hand under her nose to see if she was breathing. She wasn’t.

Sliding my arm under her legs and placing my other arm around her back, I lifted her off the floor and brought her to the nurse behind the counter. Chloe was already there, and when I came up, she started rubbing Megan’s cheek.

She’s dying. I think she’s bleeding internally! I said.

I’ll see if anyone’s available, the nurse said.