The End Has Come

“Because if they do just take me, and leave you alive — you’re the one who has to keep fighting. You know the funny thing about the end of the world?”

“I  . . . no,” Philips said.

“There is no such thing. The world doesn’t end. There’s always more work to be done, more digging out the rubble. More fucked-up shit to live through. Well,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I’m done. Let me have my ending. Let me have some peace, for a change.”

The senators kept them waiting for a good half hour. Plenty of time to decide questions of life and death, these days.

* * *

“What the hell are they doing back there?” Whitman asked. In his rearview, the bikers had fallen well back, barely increasing their speed at all as the van outpaced them.

He needed to concentrate on the road. One bad patch of asphalt, and this chase could end very, very badly. “Grace,” he said, “keep an eye on them. I need to watch —”

“Mr. Whitman?” Bob asked from the backseat.

“Not now, Bob,” he said, a little louder, a little harsher than he’d meant to. The road ahead looked well-maintained, but he knew from long experience that —

“Mr. Whitman,” Bob said again.

Had he seen it coming? It didn’t matter.

Up ahead, a long curving ramp cut away from the highway. Whitman didn’t bother looking at it, being far too busy looking for road obstructions he might have to negotiate. So he didn’t see the truck coming up the ramp at high speed.

It was a semi rig, a big rusting hulk of a vehicle eleven feet high with six bald tires that smoked as they bit into the asphalt. Mounted across its grille was a snowplow blade dented and bent from repeated collisions.

It slammed into the front of the van at thirty miles an hour. If it had hit them a split second later it would have sliced right through the passenger compartment, killing all of them instantly. Instead it just pancaked the van’s engine, blew out both front tires, and turned the windshield into a storm of flying glass daggers.

Whitman flew forward, the shoulder strap of his seat belt cutting deep into his armpit, crushing his chest so he couldn’t breathe. He felt like he’d been picked up and dropped from a height, like he was dangling from his belt as a planet of metal and glass and plastic came rushing toward him. His head bounced off the steering wheel, and a high-pitched scream roared through his head. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel his own body.

For a long time he could hear nothing, see nothing. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think  . . . little by little the world came back to him.

The first thing he heard was Bob screaming behind him.

It shook him up. Woke him, a little. He looked around, trying to figure out where he was. Why he hurt so much.

Straight ahead, through the place where the windshield used to be, he saw the tall curving shape of the snowplow, now thoroughly embedded in what remained of the van. Beyond that he could see the cab of the semi rig. Its windshield was gone, too, though it hadn’t shattered as cleanly as his. The driver of the rig hung half in, half out of that frosted plane of glass. Blood poured out of him. He was very clearly dead.

Whitman turned, looking for Grace, but he couldn’t see her. The impact had torn off the passenger side door, and he saw the road surface beyond, littered with glass and twists of broken metal. He couldn’t see her or any part of her.

Bob was still screaming.

He wrestled with his seat belt. Somehow got it loose. He pushed open his door and wriggled out of the wreckage, dropped to his feet on the road. He pulled open the side door and saw Bob unhurt but very upset, staring at him with wide eyes.

Bob stopped screaming. Which allowed Whitman to hear something else.

Motorcycle engines, coming closer.

* * *

“Mr. Whitman, they’d like to see you now,” the page said. She was still smiling.

Whitman knew better than to think that was a good sign. He tried to stand up but found that his knees had frozen. They wouldn’t do it down here, he thought. They wouldn’t want to disturb the senators with the noise of a gunshot. No. They would take him up to the surface, first.