The End Of The World

The day the world ended was the day that Billy Candor’s life changed for the better. Though he was only ten, Billy knew he had a tough life. When he was seven, his father had died unexpectedly and mysteriously. He wasn’t sure how his father died, his mother never told him, so he figured it must have been bad indeed. Now, he was left alone with his sickly mother. That made him The Man Of The House, she told him, and it was the job of The Man Of The House to provide for the household. His mother wasn’t so ignorant as to make him find actual employment, being only ten years old, but she did make sure he handed over any money he would happen to come across or earn in any way, and she was constantly pushing Billy to sell dinky little charm bracelets she spent all day making.

On top of that, his mom insisted that The Man Of The House was to take care of the house. The majority of Billy’s time not spent in school was spent cleaning the house, running errands for his mother, and making meals for her. This latter task, he had discovered, could sometimes be gotten out of if he tried hard enough. This usually involved planting a seed of doubt about his competence in the kitchen. After almost setting their house on fire and scorching the meal one day, his mother had been more cautious when Billy was cooking.

The day that the world ended began with the blare of all the smoke alarms in the house, mixed with shouted curses from his mother. Blearily, Billy pulled himself out of bed and went to the kitchen. His mother was standing there in her once white nightgown, which was now yellowed with age and covered in various, unidentifiable stains and smudges. He watched her with an bored look on his face, leaning against the door frame.

His mother took no notice of him. She was too busy yelling at the oven for setting off the smoke alarms. She stood there, hands on her fat legs, squatting down like a sumo wrestler in ready position. Her eyes bulged from her reddening face as spittle and insults flew from her mouth, bouncing off the oven with no noticeable effect on it, which made her even angrier. She grabbed the oven door, opened it, and slammed it shut, rattling the plates in the cabinets and causing a spoon balanced on the edge of the sink to fall in with a clatter. The smoke alarms continued to beep. She turned to the alarm and began to shout at it too.

Finally, she seemed to run out of air in her lungs. As she breathed in to continue her tirade, Billy’s mom turned and locked eyes with him. She froze mid-breath, then straightened and faced him. “Fucking oven set off the alarm. I was going to make cinnamon rolls, but not if it’s doing this.”

Billy peered past his mother at the oven. The door stood ajar, smoke slowly seeping out. “What happened to it?”

“There’s shit caked all over the inside,” his mother said. “Didn’t you see that yesterday when I showed it to you? Goddammit shut the fuck up!” She yell this last part at the smoke alarm overhead. It ignored her and keep up its urgent beeping.

Billy didn’t answer. He just stood there impassively.

“Well?” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Fucking answer me when I talk to you! Did you see all that shit all over the oven when I pointed it out to you yesterday or not?”

Billy slowly nodded. “Yes.”

“Then go fucking clean it! You’re The Man Of The House! Go take care of your house!” With that, his mother stormed off to the living room, muttering to herself about disrespectful children.

Billy sighed and went over to the oven. It was still pouring smoke from the open door. He pushed the door shut, but it fell open immediately. After trying again and getting the same result, he gave up and looked around for his kitchen stool.

The stool was his favorite thing in the kitchen since he actually got to pick it himself. When his father was still alive, he had done most of the cooking, and Billy wanted desperately to help. He begged his father to get him a stool so he could see over the counter, so one day his father took him to the store. There, Billy found a bright blue plastic stool with three steps that had connected with him, in some way he couldn’t explain. From that day on, Billy climbed the stool and stood next to his father as they made that night’s dinner.

As Billy stepped on the stool now, he once again though about his father, missing his calming presence and confident, firm hands that held his own while his dad taught him new ways to knead dough or chop vegetables. He had actually enjoyed cooking with is father, he thought bitterly. It was nothing like the cooking he did these days.

He reached out and turned the oven off. There was a pleasant chime from the oven confirming the shutoff, and the outpouring of smoke slowed, but it still pooled around the ceiling, spreading out slowly like a nasty smelling fog. The smoke alarms sounded their urgent message without respite. His ears were starting to feel a little funny from all the noise.

He dragged his stool over to the sink, climbed up, and opened the window. Then he went to the other side of the kitchen and opened the window on that wall. In the other room, Billy heard the TV turn to some vapid reality show where everyone fights and everyone is an idiot. It was his mother’s favorite. Billy couldn’t stand that show, he left the room every time it came on.

He was walking back to the sink to find the oven cleaner when a deep, bass rumble started somewhere in the distance. It quickly grew to a roar that overpowered the smoke alarms, and it kept growing louder. Within seconds, the windows were rattling. Cabinets flew open and plates came crashing down to the floor. Billy screamed and fell backwards off the stool, driving all the air out of his lungs as he landed. He lay on the floor, gasping, surrounded by falling objects and shards of glass and ceramic that flew through the air. The rumbling had become a roar.

The ground was shaking by now. Billy could feel himself being moved back and forth across the floor, sliding into objects in his path. He put his arms up to protect his head and instantly felt pain flair in his right forearm, something had cut him. He squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his arms tighter.

There was a great ripping sound that sounded throughout the house. A terrific CRASH followed and the air was suddenly full of dust and debris. Billy’s nose stung with each breath and he began to cough. The roar was absolute and overwhelming. It filled his universe until all that was left was the loud steady bass and intense shaking. He could no longer feel his nose, neither could he hear his coughs. The blackness behind his eyes was absolute, and terror filled him.

With one last resounding crash, daylight flooded the room. The space behind his eyelids lit up with a warm orange light that seemed much too cheery for such an occasion. At the same time, Billy felt something heavy land on his legs and he cried out.

The roar faded back to a rumble, then disappeared entirely. The silence it left behind was eerie. Everything was entirely too quiet. Then slowly, sound returned to the world. Billy faintly heard himself groan. The creaking of the destroyed house reached his ears. Miraculously, the TV in the living room was still playing that reality show his mom loved.

His mom! Where was she? He hadn’t heard her yet, that was concerning. He opened his eyes to find himself staring out at the sky. The ceiling had collapsed, which is what had fallen on his legs. From the thighs down, he was buried in rubble. The rest of his body was covered in a fine, white dust. There was a cut on his right arm that oozed blood, and he was bruised in several places.

He yelled for his mother, but there was no answer from the other room except the TV. He yelled again, and still nothing. He tried pulling himself out of the rubble, but something had caught his foot. He tried to move his foot around the obstruction, but there wasn’t enough room to do anything. He slowly sat up, groaning with effort. He pulled a bit of his house off of him and tossed it aside.

He tried not to think too much about his mom and the possibility that she was dead. That was just too much. He tried to focus on his work. Pick up a brick, put it to the side. Pick another one, put it with the last one. Move that bit of wire. Don’t think about Mom. Get your legs free.

By the time he could see his feet, he was crying, exhausted, and bleeding from his fingers. The intensity of the last hour had worn his nerves away. And there it was. The last thing keeping him stuck there was a piece of rebar that missed his leg by centimeters, trapping his foot behind it. Billy freed his foot and then collapsed back onto the floor in exhaustion.

He lay on his back for a long time. The sun had started to set by the time he picked himself up. He walked through the remains of the kitchen. There was almost nothing left of the room, only the wall to the living room remained standing. Everything else was in piles that ringed the room or in pieces scattered over the floor.

Billy reached the living room wall and could go no further. The doorway was filled with debris. Faintly he could hear the TV, but it wasn’t loud enough to make itself heard though the remains of the living room.

“Mom! Are you there?” Billy shouted. There was no response from the room. Billy shouted for her again and began to pull rubble in to the kitchen, determined to move all of it. With each armful of house, he grounded loudly. Eventually the grunts turned into cries of desperation as he worked. The cries of desperation turned to anguish as he took another load of rubble, only for the entire structure to collapse further, spilling into the kitchen and filling the door back up, more obstructed than before.

He screamed wordlessly. He picked up half of a brick and threw it at the wall. The brick dented the wall and fell to the floor with a crunch, it had landed on glass. He sat stood in front of the blocked doorway and sank to the ground, crying. What was he going to do now?

“Billy? Are you alright?”

Billy turned around to see his best friend and neighbor Charlie. Charlie’s mom stood behind him. They both looked like they had been through hell. Charlie was covered in black grease and soot, and his hair was matted and cut short on one side, almost to the skin, as if someone had tried to use a knife to shave him and gave up halfway through. Charlie’s mother was also covered in dust, and her left arm was in a sling. One sleeve of her shirt had been torn off, and her left pants leg was split open below her knee. They were the most wonderful sight Billy had ever beheld.

“Charlie!” Billy ran to him and embraced the other boy. Charlie’s mother walked over and knelt down next to them. “What happened?”

“I’m glad you’re okay, Billy.” Charlie’s mom said. “We’re not really sure what happened. Maybe some kind of earthquake? It destroyed most of the buildings around here. Do you know where your mom is? We’re trying to find everyone we can, make sure that people are safe.”

Wordlessly, Billy pointed to the pile of rubble filling the doorway. Charlie’s mom walked over to get a better look.

“Do you think she’s okay, Mrs. Campbell?” The tension in Billy’s voice made it shaky.

“Carrol! Carrol! Can you hear me?” Charlie’s mom shouted through the rubble. There was no answer. She turned back to Billy and squatted down with him. “I don’t know, sweetie. But I don’t want to lie to you, I don’t have a lot of hope for her. I’m so sorry”

She hugged the scared boy tightly, and Billy hugged her back with all his strength. He sobbed into her arms and she patted him on the back. They finally broke apart, and Billy stood there, trying not to sob. Charlie went over and gave Billy another hug. Then he pulled a cookie out of his pocked and offered it to Billy.

“I found this over there,” Charlie said, pointing to what used to be the pantry. “I think you could use a cookie now.”

Billy laughed weakly and nibbled on the cookie. It was pretty good, and it did make him feel a little better. Just a little, but it was better. Charlie’s mom looked at Billy. “Come on Billy. You’re coming with us. We’re going to see if anyone else needs help.”

The three of them walked out of the ruins of the house, the two boys talking animatedly and running about in the way that boys do. They made their way down the street, which was now shattered into uneven pieces that resembled a mountain range more than a road. Around them buildings lay smoldering. Gunshots sounded in the distance. But despite the disaster that seemed to have befallen the world, Billy felt happy for the first time in a long time.