Surprised? The only

surprise

is I didn’t have a fucking heart attack at the wheel. They haven’t got a word for what I was when the sky fell down. Or when I hit the point where the Philly skyline should’ve come into view… and didn’t. Maybe it was lurking out there in the dark, its power failed, its spires hidden in a thicket of dust, but I don’t think so. I think it’s not there anymore. I think the end came, just like I said it would, and I think it’s better not to think too much about that.

I kept driving, long as I could, because what else was I supposed to do? Not north, back toward the compound—nothing was getting into that fortress, not for months, maybe not for years, and they’d shoot me if I tried. East, toward the ocean. Tsunamis or not—and the kid had made it clear

not

was far less likely—I wanted to see it before the end.

Didn’t make it that far.

Didn’t make it very far at all. Cars swamped the highways, and somewhere in the distance, on the black of the horizon, a bloom of fire that said, pretty clearly:

Wrong way

.

I was no sign reader before, but the kid taught me well. I know what happens now. Destruction, devastation, cities vaporized, millions incinerated, gutted infrastructure, rotting corpses, starving orphans, endless winter, food riots, armed bandits, crime, punishment, plague, famine, hellfire and damnation. If we didn’t need God to end the world, we surely won’t need him to turn the wreckage into hell on Earth. Humans are capable creatures; we can do most anything ourselves.

It wasn’t a bad stretch of road—concrete ribbon winding through lush woods—so I left the car in its jam and took off into the trees, and I waited, like I’m still waiting, for what comes next.

• • • •

There wasn’t anything special about Hilary, nothing more or less special than any of them, and I never led her to believe any different. That wasn’t for me, the wining and dining shtick, and I certainly knew better than to tease a girl like her with a future. You’ll notice those same people who turn their nose up at my methods don’t hesitate to tell a few stories of their own when it comes to love and lust, parading around their sad little pretense of commitment, promising nothing will ever change when change is the only sure thing we’ve got. The Hilary episode was brief. It was fun. And then, when it wasn’t anymore, it was over—but I guess everything has its moments.

There was this one night, same shitty motel room with its stiff sheets and unnamable perfume, same crap box wine and love handles, same greasy Chinese and sour breath, even the same routine, a little for her, a little for me, finish with her on top then finish her off with the same tired flourish, not an iota of difference from any of the hundred some nights we spent before the sight of each other made us both sick, but that night, after, she fit perfectly against me, a puzzle piece with sad eyes and downy blond peach fuzz up and down her arms—that night, I couldn’t stop touching her, and we fell asleep together, like a couple of spooning teenagers. That night, and that night only, for no reason whatsoever, she smelled like home.

It’d be convenient to imagine that was the night we conceived the kid, because wouldn’t that suggest there was some higher purpose to the whole thing, not just the sad motel sex, but fifty-six years of eating, sleeping, shitting, enduring one minute after the next? This kid, my kid, and all the Children he saved, our little ark up in the hills where, no matter what happens to the rest of it, some righteous sliver of the human race will survive. That’s what the kid believes, and if he’s right, it’s a nasty joke for God to play on me, but I can’t say I’d blame Him.

It’d be convenient, and it’d be easier—especially now. If I could believe in something aside from my own rotten luck. That after all these years of playing the odds, my number finally came in, the one jackpot that does me no good whatsoever. If I could believe that there really is a puppet master, some holy ghost guiding the chess pieces across the board, that this one time he broke with tradition and sacrificed the father instead of the son. But that isn’t His way, and believing in it isn’t mine.

A happy accident, that’s all, for the Children and for me, because there may be no atheists in foxholes but there’s at least one immune-to-bullshit bullshitter in these woods, and he may not be ready to die, but he’s definitely not looking to survive.

Something will come next; something always comes next. But I’m guessing whatever it is won’t be too friendly to bullshit—the world’s not going to have much use for that anymore. Unless, maybe, you’re the kind that can buy into a lie so fully, so thoroughly, that it comes all the way back around to truth. There’s a new world coming, that’s what the signs tell me, and it’s going to be dark, and it’s going to be cold. It’s the world I made, but my Children are the ones who’ll have to live in it.

My Children, and my son. There’ll be no living on through them: God may have made His children in His image, but I made mine in the opposite—and whatever they remember of me will be a lie. I made them to believe; I made them to survive.

I, on the other hand, am in the business of knowing when to quit. I’m in no hurry to die, but it’s a comfort to think I’ll be gone before they know enough to hate me for leading them into the promised land.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robin Wasserman is the author of several books for children and young adults, including

The Waking Dark

,

The Book of Blood and Shadow

, the Cold Awakening Trilogy,

Hacking Harvard

, and the Seven Deadly Sins series, which was adapted into a popular television miniseries. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in several anthologies as well as

The Atlantic

and

The New York Times

. A former children’s book editor, she is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. She lives and writes (and frequently procrastinates) in Brooklyn, New York. Find out more about her at robinwasserman.com or follow her on Twitter @robinwasserman.

Desirina Boskovich — HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON PLANET X

It was 8:34 p.m. on a Tuesday, and it was almost the end of the world.

Actually, the world was expected to end on Friday, at precisely 5 p.m., eastern daylight time. This was not a forecast, or a projection: it was more like an appointment.

On Friday at 5 p.m. eastern, a thousand high-powered laser cannons would fire simultaneously from their hidden positions in outer space, instantly reducing Planet Earth to vapor and ash. At the exact same moment, the consciousness of every living human being would manifest itself on Planet Xyrxiconia. This planet was located a trillion light years away in a far-flung region of the universe Earth’s scientists had not yet glimpsed. There, on Planet X, humanity would find themselves in fresh bodies—remade vessels. These reincarnations would live eternally in a world of infinite luxury.

At least… that’s what the aliens claimed.

They’d arrived two weeks ago. They’d been rather vague on the subject of their origins; apparently, they came from all over. And they’d been traveling a while. They’d spent more time in the dark empty places between stars than we could possibly imagine; they’d been staring into the endless void since before we were finger-painting on the solid walls of caves.

Through human mouthpieces, the aliens communicated their expectations. There would be no end-of-the-world parties, no apocalyptic adventures, no doomsday loss of decorum. There would be no orgies, no mass suicides.