THE TOWN AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD / RIFKA HANDELMAN Fiction Today The boots look to have once been black, but are now scuffed and faded and patched until they resemble a scruffy animal more than anything else. They crush the sickly grass as the woman walks across the plain. She resembles her boots in a way, a patched-together, worn look to the clothes that cover every inch of skin. Her too-heavy pack has the same look; more patches than original canvas, scarred from use and scorched from radiation fires, and the two masks clipped onto her pack are dusty. The sheath for her knife looks like it was made from an old leather jacket, the zipper flashing in the sun. The woman’s gas mask is cracked and taped together—she can feel the angry, deadly air scratching her lungs as she breathes. The only thing about the woman that looks new is the water bottle hanging at her hip, and despite the weight of the shiny metal, it is too light. She can feel the dryness in her throat and the way her blood moves sluggishly through her. The hollowed-out shell of a town the woman heads for is in almost worse shape than she is. Most of the houses are barely standing, and the ones that are have rotted roofs and smashed windows, their furniture moldy and destroyed by the animals that survived the end of the world. And yet, to the woman, it is a haven. She reaches what was once a house and moves between fragments of plaster and drywall that cling to their vertical positions. She stops. Sets down her pack. Detaches something from it—a crowbar, a lucky find in a ruined hardware store five years ago. She sticks the edge into the ground— no not into the ground, under a square of metal. With a huff, she pushes down and the trapdoor
8
pops open. She reshoulders her pack, but holds on to the crowbar as she descends the steps, closing the trapdoor behind her. She can almost feel her pupils dilate, her eyelids sweeping open behind the goggles on her gas mask, searching for any source of light, but she might as well have closed her eyes. Automatically, she reaches back and pulls the lantern off her pack. Her fingers easily find the button and the circle of darkness around the woman is banished by dull red light. Red light saves power—her lantern has been soaking up sun for days, but better safe than sorry. She holds the lantern to the wall, making a circuit of the room. She stumbles over something, sending the pieces of it clattering across the floor, but finds the switch panel on the wall. Click, click, the whir of an air filter, lights in the ceiling glimmering to life. She switches off her lantern. She gives the air purification system a moment, then takes off her mask, breathing the fresh air gratefully. The thing she tripped over is a child’s skeleton. Until now it had leaned against the wall, in ragged shorts and an only-somewhat ragged shirt. Synthetic fabric. In front of it are two more, larger skeletons, also in a mixture of rags and better-preserved clothes. Next to them, an empty cylindrical pill container. At least this family’s end was quick. They did not have to watch each other starve to death. Twenty years before today The woman was once a fifteen-year old girl, at school when the news broke. She didn’t know until she reached home. There was only the sound of the principal’s fearful voice, instructing the students that they were to be released early. They knew something was wrong, but the girl and her best friend walked home, chattering
