“And,” she said, looking at Terrence and Freddy, who was standing right beside him, “stay away from me, you mean vigilante justice squad.”
“What?” Terrence said, taking off his jacket. “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
“No, it is hot in here,” Freddy said.
They started removing their clothes. So did Astrid. And so did I.
“Watch out, Owen, she’s probably signing her name ‘Mrs. Laura Douglas’ on her secretly ordered stationery with her married monogram, like good southern girls do,” Astrid said, holding on to Max.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
“I don’t know. My head hurts.”
Max led her to the other side of the room, but that didn’t stop us from arguing.
“Laura, you’ve already gone to second base with Freddy,” she said.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I’m Astrid Ogilvie. I know everything,” she said.
“But she made out with Freddy up on the mountain,” Max said.
“Shut it,” I said, glaring at him.
Astrid started laughing. “Who haven’t you made out with?” she asked in between breaths.
“I was drunk,” I said.
“Yeah, we were drunk,” Freddy said.
Max nodded. “His lips touched yours.” He smiled.
“It was a drunken moment—”
“Of passion,” Max finished for him.
“No, of stupidity.”
“Hey—” I started.
“We’ve all been there,” Owen said.
“But it was nice, and Laura, of course I would do it again,” Freddy said with a wink.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“A love connection,” Max said.
“No,” Freddy and I said in unison.
“Okay, not a love connection,” Max said.
“But I do blame Max,” Freddy said.
“Excuses, excuses,” she said.
“Hey!” Max screamed. “I didn’t force you to drink it.”
After that, we were quiet.
I was still angry with Astrid for bringing up Freddy. It was my own damn fault for drinking Max’s family moonshine and making out with him. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t like kissing Freddy—because I did. He was a good kisser. Ugh. What was wrong with me?
“I think I found your mole,” Max said, picking it up from the floor. He tried handing it back to Astrid but she swiped his hand away.
“It’s a beauty mark,” she said. “It’s a bloody beauty mark.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Max sat on a cot, picking at his teeth. He was crying so hard that snot was coming out of his nose. He had just realized that he was going to be stuck with braces for the so-called apocalypse.
The joke was on us, though.
Astrid and I got our periods. Thank God for the teachers who remembered to put tampons in the fallout shelter.
“How can you tell?” Freddy asked. “We’re all bleeding from down there.”
“But they’re hemorrhaging from the vagina,” Max clarified.
“I’ll cut off your dick, and you won’t have anything to beat on during the night. Yeah, we hear you, all night long,” Astrid said.
Freddy retreated to the corner.
“No. She’s got her period.” Terrence nodded.
-
Once upon a time there was a scientist who wanted to kill millions of people. And the only way for the scientist to accomplish his plan was to come up with a capable invention.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Everyone took another dose of potassium iodide. We couldn’t tell if it was working or not. But did it matter? Everyone drank a Coke, and we toasted to our last night here—our last meal. We thought it was night. But for all we knew, it could be day. We picked out a can of food for each of us and took turns using the can opener that we’d found on the second day. And while we ate, we finished Eve of Destruction. The ones who had never read it wanted to know how it ended. It was bleak. Boudreaux Beauchamp did not write uplifting inspirational stories. The ending, though it gave hope, wasn’t exactly a happily-ever-after tale. Rodney wanted a sequel.
We wanted to believe that there would be one for us—a sequel. Though it was undeniable that it would be different.
Dylan talked about the footage and how no matter what, he was going to put it together in some edit room and make it a movie. Even though it wasn’t his job. He was a cinematographer, not a film editor. But we all would have to adjust.
Astrid wouldn’t be on the cover of any magazine, unless it was for a medical journal. Freddy and Owen wouldn’t be the leading men they hoped to be. Rodney, Max, Terrence, and I probably were the graduating class of 1986. All four of us. But Director Edman was the one who was adamant that his future wouldn’t be so much different from what he had always lived. He was so sure that he would have a little gold statuette, an Oscar, in his future.
“We will be at the Academy Awards,” he said. “Our names will be read.”
“Yeah,” Freddy said. “In the ‘in memoriam’ part of the show. They’ll put our pictures and our profession.”
I hoped that they wouldn’t use my Jostens school picture.
Chapter Fifty-Three
It was quiet. Most were passed out. The director and Dylan were going over final scene shots like this movie was going to get an ending. I sat by myself on a cot writing a letter to my future self. Mrs. Martin brought it up in the meeting when I got suspended—the second time in the last couple of weeks. She thought it would be therapeutic to put down all my feelings about what I thought would be the forthcoming apocalypse, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. Now seemed like as good a time as any.
“Laura, you awake?” Terrence asked.
“Yes,” I said above a whisper.
He stepped over legs and buckets and fell onto the cot next to me. “Sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said, rubbing my head. He didn’t give me this headache, but it still throbbed just the same.
“What do you think it will be like?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, out there?”
I shrugged. “But studies have said and then movies have shown that—”
“We don’t know, is what you’re saying,” he said, interrupting me.
“Yeah.”
“But it will probably be hell.”
“Yeah, hell.”
We sat there for a while in silence by candlelight. Then he grabbed my hand and squeezed.
“You know our parents are probably dead,” he said.
“I know.”
“We are probably the only family we have left.”
I squeezed his hand. “You’ll always be my brother.”
“And you’re my nerd of a sister.”
I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. We’d need our sleep. We had no idea what was waiting for us on the outside of this fallout shelter.