Except the problem is, he was. And she was the last girl. All the others fled or died or just plain vanished, leaving the two of them to fend for themselves. And to stop fending off each other.

          Maybe that’s him now, kicking up all that dust back there. Whispering exhortations in the wan, yellow air. He’s like Nature, persistent and recursive. Present in every unexpected gust, or when a pebble dislodges from a gradient. He’s like a brother, and an enemy. An uninvited thought, buzzing around just outside the periphery of consciousness, no hand can shoo away.

          The last they saw each other was days, weeks or eons ago. And his voice? Human speech must have disappeared with everything else. The only sounds come from the murmuring of wind wisps and the scattered rhythm of her footsteps. The clapping of her sandals against her heels. The rumbling of a distant hailstorm, or ground fire.

          In these conditions, it’s easy to forget how long you’ve been walking, or how far you’ve got to press on. Minutes and hours, hours and days unfold in undifferentiated increments. The road ahead looks a helluva lot like the road behind. There aren’t any houses or barns or trees along this route. No stars or sunlight to help a body navigate its way. A careless traveller could easily wind up retracing her steps, revisiting places she thought she’d just left. Making no progress. As if progress meant somewhere other than those places she’s already been.

            To stay on track, she will pick up a stone before she sleeps, and set it on the ground in front of her, in the direction she’s been heading. This way she’ll be able to orient herself when she wakes again. If she wakes again. If she isn’t already asleep, having the worst dream imaginable.

            Becky…

            Please, Gabe, not now.

            But this is important.

            She happened to be in the shelter when he found her. The one her grandpa built. Back in the ’80s, when everyone was still talking about the Russians like they were the next great plague. Where she withdraws to from time to time, to be alone with her thoughts. Not that it’s hard to hide in a town like Rock River. The other 237 inhabitants are usually too preoccupied with their herds or their seed stock or their drink to notice. Most days it’s so quiet, you could hear the feather off a passing hawk hit the ground. But sometimes a girl needs to be close to the earth. Back in the primal matrix, where she can soothe her heart and attune it to the beat of those ancient terrestrial rhythms. Even if the earth consists of twenty feet of parched Wyoming dirt. Lying above a 12-inch thick lead and concrete tube.

          She’d just gotten Titus’s text. Had barely time to dry her eyes before the noises started. Then the rapping on the trap door. It was Gabe. He looked like he’d just been on the bender of a lifetime. Only he was stone sober.

          He told her what happened. She didn’t speak for several minutes.

           You don’t believe me, he said. Here. He went over to the radio, her grandpa’s old transistor. Nothing. Take out your phone, he said. She took it out. It lit up, but there was no connection.

            Grandpa Williams had been certain Judgment Day was just around the bend. Or at least WWIII. If it wasn’t going to be the Russians, it would be the Arabs. Or the Liberals. Kept the place well stocked right up until his death a few years ago, from natural causes. Even installed Wifi. And cable.

            He never counted on hackers. Messing with the entire intercontinental ballistic missile system. Just for the fun of it.

            It was the kind of prank Gabe might have done, had he any knowledge of computer networks. Had he much knowledge of anything besides how to hose longhorn manure off a barn floor.

            It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Where were the trumpets, the armies of angels? Jesus. Where the hell was Jesus? Where the hell was Hell?

            He dropped down on a bunk, and sprawled out his long torso. His left knee poked through a hole in his jeans like a curious chipmunk.

            You remember when we were kids, and we used to play down here?

            How could she forget. Her grandpa would go ape-shit. This isn’t a rec room, he’d holler. Later, he’d be chasing out teens who used the shelter for their parties. Becky didn’t party, but sometimes she’d join them for company. That’s when Gabe hit on her the first time. He was already drunk, and his hand was halfway up her dress before she even had a chance to sit down.

            Gabe, no.

            Aw, come on, Becks. The Lord would understand. He didn’t give you those milky white calves just to tempt a poor wretch like me.

            He gave me these calves, she insisted, so I could walk away from jerks like you.

            Or run, as the case may be.

            Why he wanted her was anyone’s guess. By now he’d been out with just about every other girl in school. Which isn’t saying a whole lot, seeing how there were only a couple dozen to choose from, and barely enough boys to fill a football team. Yet he persisted. Right through to graduation. Then suddenly, the next fall, he disappeared for a while. Like most kids, he probably went to Laramie or Cheyenne or Denver to look for work. When he showed up again, she was waiting tables at the Double Shot, the dreary little bar at the edge of town. He ordered a couple Coors to start. She told him she wasn’t thirsty, as though the second was meant for her. She was wrong.

            When the light returns, she will stretch her body over the ground, as if to embrace it. The light. Dim as a fading florescent tube. Sometimes there are flashes in the distance, past the horizon. Maybe the sign of a passing storm, or a brief aftershock. Mostly, the sky hangs like a pall, the color of bruised skin.

            After a little while, she rises from the ditch that pretends to be a mattress, brushes off the loose ash that blankets her. Even this many days later, ash continues to flake down, like freeze-dried snow, or the fragments of a shattered cloud.

            She spots the stone she placed in the road some unknowable hours ago, and starts off. Reaches a hand inside the cloth bag along her waist and takes out a couple of biscuits. She hasn’t looked in some time, but her fingers tell her she’s down to about a third of what she started with. The thermos feels lighter too. She’s been drinking her own spit to conserve what’s left.

            Eyes search the range for some familiar landmark, a barn or a silo, anything to indicate she’s making progress. Even when they travelled by car, the road felt endless. They used to drive to the bigger towns to shop, or to catch a movie. The church once took them on a bus trip to the Fox Cinema to see Exodus: Gods and Kings. Soon after, the school visited a state historic site featuring what was once the biggest prison in the old territory of Wyoming. The kids knew the trips weren’t just coincidental. There was lots of talk about disciplinary problems at school. Kids were showing up drunk or high, if they showed up at all. They kept it up long after these excursions. The days of the settlers and the Wild West seemed a long time ago. So did Moses. Now what time there was, was there to kill.

            A warmish wind starts up, almost musically. The hem of her dress brushes against her ankles. Bits of road gravel bite into her soles inside her sandals.

          Where you goin’?

          Out.

          That wouldn’t be a good idea. Unless you want that creamy skin of yours to start fallin’ off like tree bark.

          How long we gotta stay in here?

          I’d give it a few days. Wait till the air stops burning.

          She went over to the storage area in the back to examine the provisions. Bins full of soup cans, crackers, wafers, dried pasta. Tins of Ready-to-Eat, military meals. She reached for a cache of hard candies, and tore open a bag. After crunching down three or four, she offered one to Gabe.

          He waved her off. What’s the matter, she said, you love sweets. You might say I’ve lost my appetite, he replied. Besides, you ought ‘a go easy on those. Once it’s safe to go out, it’ll be a long way to find more.

           Laramie was forty miles down the road. Cheyenne was another fifty. There was no telling what was left of those places, if there might be food stored somewhere, or just charcoal.

            He told her what it was like outside. How the old First National, a ruin from the settler days where they used to play Cowboys and Indians as kids, could be a model home compared to the rest of the town. The owners of the Double Shot, where she waited tables, hadn’t repaired its front sign in years. The O in Shot had been broken in two, and everyone called the place the Double Shit. Well, there was no sign anymore. There were no walls left to hang one on.

            Rock River wasn’t one of those quaint western towns you read about on travel blogs. At its height it was no more than a small network of small homes and trailers connected by about three or four gravel roads, surrounded by dozens of miles of emptiness. Many of the houses were built over a century ago, and looked like aging mutts begging to be euthanized. A traveller passing through might have assumed the apocalypse had already occurred.

            Only now, even the ruins are gone. The road gravel looks like cinders in the back of a woodstove.

            She dropped onto the bunk across from his, staring absently. Fingered a lock of hair and drew it across her mouth, a nervous habit from when she was a little girl.

            Can I ask you something? he asked. What were you doing down here, if you didn’t know what was going on up on the surface?

            She hesitated a moment, before saying: I’d just heard from Titus, and needed to be alone. Said he wanted to break it off. Wasn’t ready to commit.

            Shit.

            No kidding.

            Sorry.

            Guess it don’t matter now, she said, peering up at the ceiling.

            He was still at that job in Medicine Bow, was he?

            She nodded. At the new coal plant, she said. Run by the Chinese. Not exactly glamorous work, but the pay was good. We were saving to buy a house up there.

            Isn’t it every girl’s dream to own property in Carbon County? he asked, half grinning. She looked away. He made an apologetic gesture, but she gave no sign of noticing.

            The wind starts up and quietens almost imperceptibly. Nothing happens out of the blue anymore. Stillness and motion are synonymous now. Seamless are the earth and air; time and position behave like intimates.

            To the imaginary eye, her progress might appear to be slowing. Her arms and legs move like the limbs of a fly submerged in gelatin. But it’s a false impression. Her body has simply lost its dependence on external stimuli. Eyes that no longer require light resist all distances. Ears no longer attuned to the sound of human speech hearken to subtler whisperings. The world has become a theater of indeterminacy. There could be hundreds of other pilgrims spread along this route, all hungering for the same biscuits. But the sensation that someone might still be nearby, watching over her movements, is gone. If there was an expectation she might yet have company on this journey, it’s long expired.

            So much the better. If he were here now, he would be all brainless blather. Spamming the air between them with his lies and half-truths. Partly to shield himself against boredom, no doubt. Partly, no doubt, to shield himself from himself.

            When the lights started to flicker, he asked where her grandpa kept the generator. She shrugged and got up. After some searching, she found it near the entrance. Better turn it on low, he said. She glared at him angrily. I’m not trying to be romantic, he said. The power’s fed by solar panels. And there isn’t much sunlight out there. Best to conserve what little energy we have. If you got some candles down here, even better.

            She dug a box of candles out of the storage area, and lit up a pair. She also grabbed a flashlight and switched it on, to test the battery.

            It was odd that he hadn’t made a move on her yet. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of opportunities. She couldn’t count on both hands and feet the number of times he’d asked her out. Even after he heard about her and Titus. Just last Christmas Eve, they were having a party at the church. Most of the town was there, stuffed into the two small basement rooms they used for bible classes. Titus was settling in at the plant, so Gabe took advantage of his absence to approach her. Holding some kind of branch above her head, he stuck his face into hers so their lips nearly collided. His breath was warm and sticky with whiskey and eggnog. She shoved him back.

            What the hell are you doing, she snapped. I’m engaged, you know. And that ain’t even mistletoe.

            I think it’s hemlock, he grinned. Then he said: Just figured you might be lonely. Where’s that Titanium man of yours, anyway? Don’t they celebrate Christmas in Medicine Bow?

            She didn’t answer. Maybe she was afraid he’d boast that her fiancée cared more about his job than his loved ones. Maybe she was afraid he’d be right. So instead she left him with his branch of hemlock, or whatever it was, and went home. Even now it’s hard to say whether the tears she cried that night were for Titus or him.

            And yet here he was now, in a bunk not three feet from hers, passive as a corpse. Maybe it was the candlelight, but there was something strange about Gabe’s features. His typically dark, wiry hair had faded to a grayish blond. His skin was translucent as tissue. And his eyes had lost their devilish luster. Rather, there was a vagueness to them, like windshields fogged with morning frost.

            They sat for a while in dim silence, then she took out her phone. What are you doing? he asked. Is this really a good time to be playing Zombie Apocalypse?

            But it wasn’t a game. It was an app containing the text of the Bible. Her finger tapped a link to the Book of Revelation. She was looking for something in there to help make sense of all this. Or to help her believe there was something still worth believing in.

            He folded his arms. Right, he said. Tell me when you reach the part about the hackers. And the new Eve, gazing at her iPhone in a bunker.

            New Eve. God. And did this mean that this emaciated hound dog was now anointed the new Adam? When he wouldn’t even make a move on her from three feet away?

            You have to be careful about that seeing-is-believing stuff. Especially in the half-light. Your eyes can be susceptible to all sorts of tricks. Shadows that masquerade as dogs. Or trees. Boulders that resemble ranches. Or flatbeds. Until you’re right up close, and they turn back into aggregates of minerals and magma. Balls of fire mixed with mud, cooled over hundreds of millennia. Way longer than the human race was meant to see them, apparently.

             Or that ridge above the horizon. The one that rises like a scar on earth’s void-like face. Recent history tells you it might signify the foothills of two small mountain ranges, between which lies a small urban population of some 30,000. Lay. There’s no telling who might be there now, or what.

            You reach down toward a pebble and toss it into the distance, for no better reason than to break the monotony. And yet have you succeeded? What exactly have you displaced? How can one be expected to dissect a void? Where every part redounds to its unity, vast and indifferent?

            Because you cannot answer this, you go on. Whether you are advancing toward a new reality, or a fading memory, you cannot say for certain. But you must go on. There is no turning back, or standing still. There will be a time for stillness, but it isn’t now.

            Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me….

            And you are not alone.

            It’s hard to recall which went first: the power or the food. They were down to just a couple of candles, and a few bags of biscuits. It was time to leave.

            She counted out the last of the biscuits, to ensure that they were apportioned evenly. Then she added a few more to his bag, since he was bigger than her.

            But he insisted she take it all.

            At least have some water, she said. You’ll dry up like a weed.

            No.

            Are you sure?

            Yes.

            When they reached the surface, it was as if the earth had been turned inside-out. He hadn’t overstated the wreckage. The houses had crumbled to rubble. The trailers looked like spiny roadside cadavers. There were no cars or trucks, just scattered heaps of spare parts.

            Even the remains of the First National were gone.

            A smell of burnt rubber permeated the air. She covered her mouth with her sleeve.

            Go south, he said, pointing down the road. To Laramie. There might be some provisions there, though I doubt you’ll find any competition for them.

            You’re certain there were no survivors. Anywhere?

            Does it look like there were?

            No. But something don’t make sense to me. How is it you managed to reach shelter in time, when no one else did?

            He looked at her in puzzlement, like someone had just asked him for directions in a foreign language.

            In time, he said. Who said I reached the shelter in time?

            What???

            A silence. And then: Oh God.

            It explained why she never saw him eat or drink anything. Why he hadn’t hit on her. Why he was pointing down the road as if she was meant to take it alone. Because she was. Alone.

            Go on, he said, his mouth, face and the rest of him already starting to fade.

            But why? It’s hopeless.

            It don’t matter if it’s hopeless or not. You gotta go.

            And again: You got to. But you won’t be entirely by yourself. Not really. I’ll still be around. Whenever you think on what might have been, I’ll be there….

            The distant ridges are a little bigger than before. They look like rows of blackened teeth biting into the pallid horizon. The road too has enlarged, having broadened into four lanes. Remains of a power station lie scattered to her left. To her right, the flattened walls of some aluminum sheds. And everywhere, metal debris scattered like the broken toys of a disinterested child.

            And all the while, the murmuring, even when the air is calm. Whether the buzzing voices of a thousand earthbound souls, or just one, nonetheless, it persists. Wordless pleas that may be directed at anyone, or at no one in particular. No one who can do anything for them now, except try to endure.

            The sky rumbles a little louder. She stops to examine the hull of an eviscerated vehicle, tugging a little at her hair. A small clump detaches itself as she draws her hand away.  The new humanity will be a hairless tribe. And a homely one. If such a thing is still possible.

            The air starts to stir. She clenches her eyes against the rising turbulence. The rumbling overhead could indicate a coming storm, but she does not stop. She moves on. Even the whispering sounds, begging her to seek shelter, do not deter her. She doesn’t turn around, and so cannot tell whether these are real utterances, or just the wind. She will not see the dust, how it whirls up all around, erasing the footprints trailing her.