South, that was all we knew. Head south.
The snowmobiles weren’t equipped with radios, and if they had been, I doubted we’d find anything besides static. Too much time had passed since the blizzards began, and no one could realistically shut themselves up in a radio booth this long without needing food, water, and so on. Besides, what were the chances that one of the last deejays in the world was relaying messages about a place to get away from the monsters, when they should’ve been heading to that place themselves? Sure, maybe a recording played on a constant loop or they broadcasted from inside the City, or something like that, but the chances were slim. This was my thinking at the time, at least. In truth, I was glad we had no radio, because part of me didn’t want to risk hearing something soul-crushing if we had.
Like: The City of Light is full. Do not approach. All those who come within fifty yards will be shot on sight.
The City of Light was close. The first sign we saw hung outside of Cincinnati. It told us the city was over the Ohio-Kentucky border in a town called New Hill, which might as well have been Mars to us.
While we traveled the outskirts, we saw more signs, but fewer the farther we got from the metropolis. In the suburbs, we saw none. We stayed the night in someone’s house. It smelled of the cold, but the faintest scent of chocolate chip cookies lingered, a ghost of what had been in the oven when the world ended.
“I’d poke out my eyes for a sleeve of Thin Mints. Shit, I’d poke out my eyes for a bag of Thin Mint crumbs,” Stone said.
“That’s sad,” Mia said. We were sitting in the laundry room (no windows there). She leaned back against the washer. A tower of folded towels was stacked atop it, which swayed any time she shifted. A sheet of ice had frosted over the circular glass in the washer’s front. White flakes fell whenever Mia’s coat scraped it, gathering on the floor, never melting.
“My love of junk food is sad?” Stone squinted. “You know what, I agree with you there.”
Mia shook her head. “Not that.”
“Then what’s sad?” I asked. I was parked in the opened closet with shelves of metal racks above my head. They were empty.
“It’s sad how we aren’t gonna see Girl Scouts ever again. They were so adorable.” She waved to the right, where the snow lay beyond the cold walls. “Before all this, I dunno how many Girl Scouts I shooed away from my front porch. Always saying how I don’t got any money for cookies, but try down the street, that old guy is loaded.” She paused, looked over into the distance. “I’m never gonna get the chance to do that again.”
“A lot of stuff like that,” Ell whispered, “we took for granted, all of us. Don’t get down about it, Mia.”
Mia nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, you’re right. It’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay.”
I offered a smile. Soon as Mia met my eyes, I saw how her face betrayed her words. Her lip quivered, her eyes got watery, and then she started crying. Ell scooted closer and put her arms around Mia who, now sobbing, buried her head into Ell’s coat. Her body shook, and the towels on the washer toppled over, landing on the tile with a soft whisper.
Stone and I stared at each other the way deer in the middle of the road stare at the headlights of a semi barreling toward them.
Ell waved one hand while the other stroked Mia’s hair. She mouthed, Say something! But I didn’t know what to say. Comforting, as I’ve told you before, has never been one of my strong suits.
Thankfully, Stone, the funniest boy of our eighth grade class, did know what to say. He said, “Mia, you’ll see them again, I promise. And like these goobers, I never break my promises either.” He cracked a smile and went on. “I know for a fact that Grady has his own Girl Scouts uniform. Don’t ask why, we probably don’t wanna know, but I’m sure you could convince him to put it on and try to sell you some Tagalongs or Samoas or something. You could even tell him to peddle his sweets down the street, if it’ll make you feel better.” He turned to me. “You’ll do that, won’t you, Grady?”
I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, of course. I’m not sure if I can fit into it anymore. You know, with all this junk we’ve been eating and all…”
A long stretch of silence fell among us, and I thought I had ruined the moment. Then Mia lifted her head up from Ell’s chest and, tears glistening on her cheeks, she started laughing.
“I’m sorry,” Mia said. “I’m an emotional wreck.” Her hand rubbed the swell of her belly as she shook her head. “But please don’t put on any Girl Scout uniforms around me, Grady. Please.”
I winked. “No promises.”
The laughter helped ease our minds, and things were good for the first time since we’d left the church.
Sadly, it didn’t stay that way.
But it never does, does it?
Our stay in the house that smelled of cookies lasted two days. I’m pretty sure of that, but I wasn’t sure of the name of the town we were in when things started going bad again. I remember we had just crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky. Sometime around then we started seeing the signs again that told us New Hill was close. The signs were the temporary kind you’d see on the highway during long stretches of construction. The Army or the National Guard had probably put them up after the first few days, and each time another blizzard dumped more snow on the world, some poor souls came out and
