The End Is Nigh

Sanchez

, his name-tag read. Yes, he had been here before.

She expected him to say something about her sitting outside in her underwear, but he didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he saw people half naked on a regular basis.

“You cleaning this place up?” he said, incredulous.

A week ago, fast food wrappers and debris had covered the grass in the green belt, where she and Shanice and their friends had played until they were too old to play outside. She hadn’t meant to clean it all, but a little each day had done it, her therapy. She hadn’t risked hurting herself to climb the palm tree to take down the flapping shirt and jeans. But she might one day. Trash still hugged the fence around the pool. She hadn’t gotten to that.

“I grew up here. I want it to look right.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” he said.

“My car is packed with everything I need.”

“Then why are you still here?”

She suddenly remembered meeting him before. He had come with the team from the hospital that examined Gram to make sure she only had cancer and not the 72-Hour Flu. Mr. Yamamoto and other neighbors had reported that Gram had been sick for a long time. This cop might have said his grandmother had raised him too. Nayima couldn’t quite remember. Her memories that day had been frozen out from her terror that they would take Gram away.

“My grandmother’s got cancer,” she said. “Remember?”

Gunfire crackled east of them. Sometimes the rounds were from soldiers, sometimes random rage. Looters might come tonight.

“You have a gun?” he said.

The earnestness in his voice made her anxious. “Of course.”

“What kind?”

“A .38?” She tried not to say it like a question. It was Gram’s Smith & Wesson she bought in her old neighborhood, where Nayima’s mother had lived and died. A world away.

“Ammo?”

“A box. And what’s in… the chamber.” She’d fumbled, trying to remember gun terms.

“You know how to shoot one?”

“Is this a test?”

She was sorry as soon as she’d said it. His face deflated; maybe he thought they’d been having a friendly conversation. “A gun’s no good if you can’t use it,” he said. He ripped an orange page from his pad, stuck it to Mr. Yamamoto’s window. Ugly and permanent.

REMOVAL ORDER

, it read.

“Forty-eight hours,” he said. “Anyone still here… it won’t be pretty.”

“Are they burning J next?” she said. The county had divided neighborhoods into lettered sectors. Foothill Park was in Sector J, or so all the notices kept saying.

“Yes. Anyone in J better be gone in forty-eight.”

“Is it working?” she said. “Does burning stop it?”

“If it lives on things we touch, why not?” he said. “Don’t ask me. I pass out stickers.”

But that wasn’t all he did. She noted the handgun strapped around his waist, the semi-automatic slung across his chest.She wondered how many people he had killed.

“I listen to the car radio,” she said. “People say it’s not working.”

“So we should sit on our asses and do nothing?”

“Maybe you could teach me,” she said. “How to shoot.”

He stopped and turned slowly, profile first, as if his body followed against his will. A sneer soured one side of his face, but it was gone by the time he faced her. “Does it look like I have time for private lessons?”

“You brought it up.”

“Are you playing rich princess out here?” he said. “None of the rules are for you?”

He’d been fooled by the mountains close enough to walk to and the estates lined up a quarter-mile up the street. He’d been fooled because Bob had made sure everyone kept the detached townhouses military neat, with matching exterior paint. But Foothill Park had been home to some of the county’s poorest residents, the few who had dark skin or spoke Spanish at home. She and her friends used to call it “Trailer Park,” although she couldn’t understand why.

“This is my grandmother’s house,” she said. “She moved into a tiny little two-bedroom she could barely afford so I could go to school here. I was her second chance to get it right, and she changed my life. Gram bought this house when they were cheaper. She never went to college, but I’m in grad school. When Gram got sick, I took a year off to move back in. Plain old cancer—nothing fancy. Old-fashioned dying takes time. So here I am.”

He stared at her with pale brown eyes, the color of the houses’ walls.

“Hold on a minute,” he said.

He went back to his car, ducking out of sight. His sudden absence felt menacing, as if she should run and lock the door rather than waiting. But Nayima was not afraid of the cop, though she probably should be. What scared her more was the tasks waiting for her: the tedium and horror of her days.

He returned with a plastic shopping bag, heavy from its load. When he gave her the bag, she found two packages of whole chicken parts, frozen solid.

“Do you have electricity where you live?” she said.

He shook his head, a shadow across his brow. “Nah. Bunch of us were sweeping some houses on the hill. Guy up there had a generator and a subzero freezer. Food’s hard as a rock.”

The magnitude of the gift suddenly struck her: She had not had meat in a month, except a chunk or two in ca

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m Nayima. What’s your name? I mean… your first name?”

He ignored her question, just like he ignored her underwear.

“Don’t ruin it,” he said. “I don’t have time to cook. I’ll be back tomorrow for lunch.”

• • • •

After Nayima had cleaned and fed Gram in the morning, she grilled chicken on Mr. Yamamoto’s patio Grillmaster instead of washing clothes like she’d pla

Nayima hadn’t had much practice on the grill—meat had disappeared fast, even before the supermarkets shut down—so she hovered over the chicken to be sure she didn’t burn it. The patio smelled like a Fourth of July cookout. She didn’t mind the new smoke, since it carried such rich, tasty scents.

She tested a wing too soon. It was too hot, meat bloody near the bone, but her mouth flooded with saliva at the taste of the spices. Such flavor! She wanted to eat the food half raw, but she waited, turning carefully, always turning, never letting the skin burn black.

At noon—the universal lunchtime—he still had not arrived.

Nayima’s stomach growled as she turned Gram from the left side to the right, pulling her higher in the bed beneath her armpits, supporting her against the pillows. Gram moaned, but did not scream. Nayima changed the bag for Gram’s feeding tube and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Gram,” she said. But Gram was already sleeping.

By one o’clock, Nayima stopped waiting for the cop. She ate three pieces of the chicken: a thigh, a leg and a wing, sure to leave plenty in case he brought friends.

He came alone at three-fifteen, coasting up to her curb in the same filthy cruiser. In brighter daylight, earlier in the day, his face looked smudged across his forehead and cheeks. He might not be bathing. All of him smelled like smoke.

“The chicken’s ready,” she said.

“J gets burned in twenty-four,” he said, as if in greeting. His voice was hoarse. “You understand that, right?”