All Is Silence - Deserted Lands #1

Chapter 4 - Part III

She couldn’t remember the walk home. It was like she’d lost that time. The shot glass in her hand, the pink frilly one Mama got in Vegas, was filled to the top with amber liquid, Mama’s brandy. She raised it, pondering what to toast.

“A better place!” she said and downed it.

The brandy burned down her throat and out her nostrils. She filled the glass again. Pain was an old friend. It told her she was still alive. She stared again at the ladder of cuts on her arm. Her fingers traced the scars, soft white lines that had started as a vivid red ruin. She hadn’t cut since she moved the blade to her wrist. Blood and pain had always seemed like the only true reality.

There were no messages on Facebook, no texts, no calls. There were 37 saved messages in her voicemail from before the end of the world. Lizzie listened to them one by one: Jayce’s voice. Mama’s voice. Jess. Even one from her ex, Chad. All normal, dull and wonderfully “real.” It should have made her sad. But the brandy flowed in and no tears came out. She jabbed delete at the various drunken and angry messages from Jerkwad, and saved the rest.

Lizzie tried calling Jess. She let it ring. No answer.

She tried the family cells. No answer.

Finally she texted: Call me. Please. Lizzie.

She plugged in her player and set it to random. The bottle of brandy was getting low. She recognized the darkness coming. She'd hated her life, high school, her mother's endless string of boyfriends. Well, she got her wish and everyone had left her alone, but it felt more like they left her behind.

Why did I have to be immune? It could already be over for her if she had gotten sick and died like everyone else. She sent Jess another text: Dont know if i can take it much longer. She’d made a promise to Jess, but what if Jess was already dead?

She sat heavily on the computer chair nearly upending it. She grabbed the desk to steady herself and pulled up Facebook. She tapped the letters on the keyboard with a dramatic flair: Goodbye cruel world.

Lizzie glanced at the shotgun sitting on the kitchen table. She stood and stumbled toward it, picking it up, hefting the weight in her hands. A vision of blood spreading over the ground popped unbidden into her head, like the body at the convenience store. No sense leaving a mess.

She walked into the bathroom, lay down in the tub, and put the barrel of the gun in her mouth. The metal tasted acrid and oily. She checked that she could still reach the trigger. Then she lay there, hugging the shotgun like it was her last friend in the world.

“NO!” Lizzie shoved the shotgun away. It hit the wall with a clatter and slid behind the tub. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t pull the trigger and blow her brains out.

She dragged herself out of the tub, holding onto the toilet. The medicine cabinet. Her eyes wouldn’t focus to read the labels, but she figured there was no need to be choosy if she took enough. Her hands struggled with the lids, but soon she had a double handful of various pills.

She started swallowing, chasing the pills with water. I don’t want to die in the bathroom. She stumbled to Mama’s bed and took the last handful.

By the time she got to the last two pills, her hands could barely lift them to her mouth. Her eyelids were just as heavy. She managed to pop them in as the world got dim, but they caught in her throat. The last thing she remembered was coughing, and her body wracking with spasms.

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