Page 13 of The Last Man on Earth
Did the plane cremate them?
Are they just bones now? Maybe ash? No chance of burying them now, from the little I know about it. When the rescuepeople find us tonight, will they have to transport my people in trash bags?
It’s a nauseating thought.
My eyes well up again, but I blink the tears away. I ain’t lettin’ that woman see me cry again.
Then it hits me.
I jump up so fast, my head spins. But I’m not so dizzy I can’t get to that pile. I go to my knees in front of it, digging, scavenging, scrounging. Then, I see it. The sleek collection of phones all lying haphazardly in the same place. I don’t know what phone belongs to who, but I grab three of them and drop then on the dirt where I was just sitting.
“Ariana, what your phone look like?”
“It’s in my bag,” she says weakly. “The black Telfar.”
Of course her phone is covered in pink glitter. I hand it over to her, then ask Ms. K. She says hers is in her purse. I find it easily; it’s the Gucci tote I bought her for Christmas last year.
All of us sit there, quiet for a moment, almost like we’re nervous. And then we all exchange a look right before we look at our screens.
And then, together, we press the buttons.
Chapter 6
Ariana
“Fuck!”
Villain looks exactly how I feel—dejected. Like the world just ended. Again.
None of us has a signal out here.
“Fuck!” he yells again, his voice echoing across the trees and wreckage, sharp enough to make Ms. Kiara flinch. I set my phone face down, not surprised at all that it would play out this way. Of course there’s no signal here; there are no cell towers. But for a brief second, the three of us had hope, and maybe that’s more important than being right.
“Nah. This shit here…nah,” he says, shaking his head, a petulant child having a meltdown. It’s like he thinks the world owes him a few bars of cell service just because he’s rich and famous.
“Where the fuck evenarewe?” he demands, waving his useless phone in the air to emphasize his frustration.
I glance past the burned out husk toward the jagged line of green and gold that stretches beyond. “An island, maybe,” I say quietly. “I don’t know how far the shore is.”
Villain blows out a sigh. “I could go check. Walk around a little bit, and—“
“No!” Ms. K and I say at the same time. Mine comes out sharper than I meant it to, while Kiara’s is soft but firm. We both shake our heads at the same time, too. The shadows are already growing around us. The thought of me and her being left alone here makes me extremely uneasy.
“I’m sayin’, I heard the waves when I first stepped outside,” he explains. “It’s probably no more than five minutes. Maybe ten.”
We stare at him.
“Alright. Fine.” He throws his phone down in the dirt. “Somebody’ll be here soon anyway.”
I keep my mouth closed, but a quiet, nagging thought won’t release me from its clutches: What if theywon’t? What if nobody’s coming? The idea is so terrifying I can barely stand it, but also plausible enough that I feel like I need to be prepared for the possibility.
I bury it as deep as I can for now.
Villain takes this moment to light up another blunt. The sharp scent floats over the acrid smell of fuel, which means it must be the good stuff. I wrinkle my nose, annoyance prickling under my skin. “Really?” I mutter, but he just leans back, exhaling smoke toward the turquoise sky like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
In any other context…in the back of the club, in the VIP, in the bedroom…I’d find him sexy right now. But all I see when I look at him is a little boy. A stupid one.
Time passes indeterminately. The sun dips lower, staining everything with a hazy glow. Kiara stirs beside me, managing to sit up on her own. Relief eases through me—if she can do that, she must not be hurt too badly.
