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It’s the End,
Pennie Wilson

CHAPTER ONE

February 6, 2021

Pennie eyed the darkening sky as she drove her cobalt hatchback up the last incline on I-40 before the winding run down the mountain. The trees on either side of the interstate stretched their barren lengths into the clouds, skeletal limbs reaching over dead grass and tire debris.

“I might make it down the mountain in daylight,” she muttered to herself, anxiety just beginning to tighten her throat. She’d noticed on the way up that morning that she had a headlight out. But it’ll be dark before I’m home. Pennie turned up her car radio, electronic pop music flooding the cabin, and forced herself to unclench her jaw. She set her car to cruise five miles over the speed limit and shifted her foot closer to the brake. The other drivers were impatient, speeding up too close behind her only to jerk over into the left lane between transfer trailers.

As she watched the other vehicles jockeying to gain another car-length, the display in her dash lit up and her phone ringtone played over the car speakers.  Pennie spared a glance at the screen and saw her brother Grant’s name on the audio display. She used her thumb to tap the green phone icon built into her steering wheel. “Hello!”

“Hey, sis. Mom and Dad get on the road okay? They didn’t tell me when they headed out.” Grant’s warm voice faded in and out, distorting. Pennie squinted, trying to concentrate on both the call and the road.

“Yeah, they left over an hour ago. You’ll probably hear from them sometime tonight.”

“They left awfully late.”

Pennie reduced the speed of her cruise control, anticipating the speed limit dropping up ahead to fifty-five miles per hour. “Yeah. Dad says they can be in Tennessee in no time and they’ll get a hotel there.”

Grant made an exasperated noise. “…and my power just went out.”

As she slowed, more vehicles started passing her. She heaved a sigh and forced herself to spare some attention for the conversation. “What? Your power went out?”

“Yeah, just now. Are you still in the car?” Grant asked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m on the interstate. Right before that curvy section down the mountain. Everyone’s just driving too damn fast. There’s a lot of truck traffic, too.” The road widened to three lanes in front of her and the surrounding cars picked up speed.

“Be careful,” Grant warned. “There’s been some weird stuff happening over on the west coast with truck drivers today.”

“Really?” Pennie watched as a few trucks exited into the transfer trailer information lane, where there were large signs explaining the grade and location of the runaway truck ramps. A few more trucks, however, sped past the off-ramp. “Oh shit, some of the truck drivers aren’t stopping at that place at the top of the mountain. I think they can get in big trouble for that…”

“Wow. Do you think they’re trying to make up time?”

“Maybe…” Pennie let her voice trail off. She noticed there were transfer trucks in all three lanes ahead. The trailers were only supposed to drive in the middle and rightmost lane. She briefly lost sight of them as they dipped down around a curve.

“Pennie? Everything okay?”

She tapped the brake, which simultaneously set off a shrieking sound and disabled the cruise control. She’d been hearing a faint squeal for the last week and realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had the car serviced. “I don’t know. There’s a lot of… rule-breaking happening right now.”

Her hatchback popped over the hill. Well ahead, she spotted the transfer trucks, all with their brake lights on. On the other side of the concrete barrier, there were also trucks driving in all three westbound lanes.

“—can you still hear me? Pennie?”

She gasped, realizing too late the speed at which the distance was closing between passenger vehicle traffic and the transfer trucks.

“Yeah… uh… Shit! Shit! They all stopped!” Pennie stomped the brake and heard the hatchback groan, the steering wheel shaking in her hands. Ahead, the road lit up with red lights that flashed and swerved. A large silver pickup truck with an extended cab lost control, the vehicle jerking hard to the right. The truck clipped a compact car before punching into the guardrail, the back end of the truck rising into the air. Pennie sucked in air and expelled it in a shout: “No!”

“Pennie!” she heard her brother call out.

A vehicle to her left grazed the concrete barrier and crashed into the back of one of the stopped transfer trucks. As plastic scattered across the road, Pennie’s attention jerked back to her own circumstances. Multiple sets of brakes squalled around her, and the scent of scorched tires tickled her nose. Her hatchback shuddered to a stop a few feet behind a work truck.

“People just died! People just died!” Her voice came out shaky, clinging to the upper register.

“What’s happening—” The call dropped with a beep.

Behind her, there was a squealing sound, a metallic crunch, and then her head snapped back as the hatchback surged forward, propelling her into the back of the work truck. She felt a strong punch straight to the face and saw a white flash of light. Everything stopped.

An irritating whine in Pennie’s ears roused her. She coughed, the air thick with powder.

The whine eased off enough that she could hear the rush of blood in her ears, whooshing rhythmically with the rapid beat of her heart. Her face pressed against something rough and wet. Her left eye cracked open reluctantly. Burning orange light pierced the side of her car, highlighting the dust motes traveling through the cabin. She tried to bring her arms up to push herself off the steering wheel. Sluggish to obey, her left arm felt numb and weak, rising only a few inches. She used her right and heard her face peel off the collapsed airbag, a squelching sound accompanied by stinging pain. 

Sagging back in her seat, she reached up and grazed her face with her fingers. They came away red. Her right eye felt gummy and swollen, with a sharp pain along her hairline. Pulling up the hem of her shirt, she swiped at her eye, trying to clear the blood. Her hand felt uncoordinated and shaky, difficult to control. Pennie dropped the shirt and wiped her fingers across her stomach. When she next blinked her left eye, the right peeled open.

“Grant?” she whispered, the memory of his voice confusing her. The whining and swishing sounds in her ears faded, replaced by the blaring of horns and the thump of car doors slamming. Pennie looked down in her lap, where glass pooled blue and purple, dotted with fresh blood. She reached up again and pressed the heel of her hand against the gash in her hairline, shuddering at the hot and cold pain that flared beneath her palm.

Her eyes tracked to the side, taking in her surroundings. Her windshield, a crazed web of glass, sagged down onto the dash. She’d hit the work truck off-center, and there was debris from the truck in her passenger seat.

Over the ever-present sound of the horn, something else drew her attention: pop! pop! pop!

“What?” Sluggish thoughts trickled through her brain as she tried to put a name to the familiar sound. Fear hit her, secondary to her confusion.

Her car rocked as a man abruptly slammed his body into the side. He shouted something unintelligible and reached in through her broken driver’s side window. She cringed away from his fingers that scrabbled down her useless arm and the spittle that sprayed from his mouth. His wide, unhinged eyes met hers as he grabbed her arm, her shoulder coming to life with a burning roar. Pennie let out a choked scream and lashed out with her good arm, clawing at the man’s face.

“Ow! Stop it, I’m helping you!” He pulled back and yanked on the door handle. “You have to get—”

The man flinched, his head rocking to the side as another popping sound registered in Pennie’s brain. A dark ribbon oozed down the side of his face before his body dropped out of sight.

“Oh, fuck! What—” Another cluster of shots rang out.

Her breath came hard and fast; an audible, repetitive gasp. Her right hand grabbed at her seat belt, fumbling with the buckle until it released. She tried to make herself small, sliding down in the seat and twisting, digging her good hand between the seat and the door to grope for the seat adjustment levers. Her fingers closed on cool plastic, and Pennie directed the seat backwards, laying it down so she could slide into the footwell. She barely felt it as her head clipped the steering wheel. The rasp of her breath filled the space as she waited for the next shot, eyes so wide they ached.

The sun slid below the horizon. The inside of the car grew dim, the light from the setting sun fading quickly. The enclosed space spun around her until she squeezed her eyes shut. Her ears strained for clues about the chaos outside. The endlessly blaring car horn ate up most of her attention; she couldn’t focus on anything else. Breathing hard, she covered her right ear, grinding her left into the seat to block out the sound. 

Pennie stayed that way for a while, not asleep, not unconscious, but unable to move. Tears leaked down her cheeks, burning as they oozed out of the corner of her swollen eyelid. Her heart palpitated, sending pulses of pain through the wound at her hairline. Her muscles eased, trembling slightly as she relaxed into the footwell.

Eventually, the cold roused her. Shivering, Pennie opened her eyes and lowered her hand from her ear. The car horn was finally silent.

“Hey!” a distant voice called. “We ‘bout to leave if anyone else needs a ride!”

Pennie gasped, lifting her head from the car seat.

“Got room for one or two more!” the voice beckoned again. She stirred, trying to shift her legs in the cramped space.

Drawing a breath, she attempted to shout. “Wait!” Her voice cracked and squeaked. She pushed with her legs and grabbed the door handle, trying to drag herself off the floor. Her muscles felt weak, trembling with the effort. Heaving her bad arm up onto the seat, she flopped onto her back. Her shirt rode up, exposing her pale stomach to the cold air. She reached up and back, grabbing the headrest with her good arm.

“Argh!” she shouted hoarsely, pulling with her arm and pushing with her feet at the same time. “Wait!”

“Hey, man—I heard someone over in that cluster!” The voice sounded closer.

“I’m here!” she called out, her voice stronger. She yanked on the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. Footsteps approached her car, shoes crunching in the glass. 

“You ain’t armed, is you?” a man asked, his voice rough.

Relief shuddered through her body. “No! I’m just… Ugh, this won’t open!” She thumped her fist on the steering wheel in frustration. A flashlight beam struck her in the eyes and she cringed, jerking away from the open window.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he apologized, and the beam lowered. Pennie blinked away the spots in her vision. “We need to hurry. It’s gettin’ cold out here.”

“I need help getting out.” She looked to her right, where she’d last seen her purse on the passenger seat and her phone in the vent cradle. Both items were nowhere to be seen, presumably buried under the debris.

The man jerked on her door handle a few times before reaching in to press the lock. She heard it click on and off, but the door still didn’t budge. “You’re gonna have to come out the window.”

“Okay…” Pennie twisted in the seat, getting her knees beneath her and stretching her good arm toward the man. The stranger wrapped her torso in a bear hug and yanked, hauling her out of the car with a mutual grunt. She caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and sweat. When her feet touched the pavement, the man released her, though he kept his arms stretched out toward her.

“You good?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I feel okay. I’m good.” She didn’t mention the pain ricocheting back and forth between her shoulder and her head.

The stranger pulled his flashlight out of his back pocket. Pennie registered facial hair and a trucker-style hat as the beam swung around. “Don’t look down. And watch your step. There’s a dead man down there. You got a coat?”

“In… In the b-backseat…” She turned, squinting at her car and trying not to look down at the pavement. There were headlights on here and there, but that made seeing her hatchback somehow more difficult. The man pointed his flashlight toward the back seat, where more glass pooled. Pennie reached in through the empty frame and fished out her coat, shaking glass fragments out the best she could with one arm. She got her bad arm into the coat by herself and the man held the other side up so she could slide her good arm into the sleeve.

“You need to get anything else?” The man swept the flashlight beam across her car’s interior. “You prolly won’t be coming back up this way.”

She reached into the pocket in the back of the driver’s seat and pulled out a handful of disposable face masks, shoving them in her coat pocket. “I have a bag in the hatch. And I can’t find my purse.”

“You ain’t getting in there, honey. Ain’t no hatch left.” The man pointed his flashlight toward the back of her car. He was right; another driver had pancaked the back of the vehicle between her passenger compartment and his pickup truck. “Don’t look too close at that truck, neither,” the man warned, his voice gruff. “Take my arm; you have to watch your step.”

“I don’t have my phone—”

“Ain’t no signal, and I don’t—”

“Y’all coming?!” another man shouted, his voice cracking.

“Yeah!” her Good Samaritan called back. “We’re coming now!”

“Look,” he continued, leaning into her car and reaching around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. We have to go. We don’t have time to look for nothing. I got your keys here.”

“Okay… Um, okay. I guess I have some numbers memorized.” Pennie slipped her keys into her coat pocket and reached out with her good arm, linking her elbow with his. He led her closer to the stopped trucks and then across the lanes, weaving between stopped and damaged vehicles. They passed between the guardrail and the line of trucks. “Where are the truck drivers?”

“Most of them parked their trucks and left on out of here. Had getaway drivers parked just past the stopping point. One’s dead, though. Came back to get something and someone shot him.”

On the other side of the transfer trailers, a pickup truck idled, steam flowing from the tailpipe. 

“Took you long enough,” someone sitting in the back griped. “We’re freezing.”

“Help me, will you?” the man beside her called up toward the front of the truck. “She’s hurt.”

The front door popped open and a short man with a thick, dark mustache jumped down, hurrying toward the back. 

“Watch her arm, she’s favorin’ it!”

Before she could do more than reach toward the truck, the two men and a third already sitting in the back hauled her up onto the tailgate. Pennie’s rescuer climbed in beside her and dragged her backward into the bed. 

“Pull your legs in,” he instructed, gesturing for her to scoot further back.

She did, and the driver closed the gate before jogging back to the front of the truck. Soon after, they pulled away from the pileup and drove into the night. Pennie thought dimly that she should probably have a mask on, but she was too cold to do anything about it. She wrapped her good arm over her bad and cringed away from the wind, bumping shoulders with the man who’d helped her.

“Where are we going?” she shouted, her voice carried away by the wind.

“The One Stop,” he shouted back. “Old Fort! This is the third truckload!”

The trip took about five minutes, long enough that her nose ran over her upper lip. She swiped at it with her sleeve and sniffled. Overhead, the overcast sky blotted out the stars, though she could still see the glow of the moon. 

The truck turned into a dark parking lot. It dawned on her that everything outside of the range of the pickup’s headlights was a hungry black, sucking up and swallowing the meager beams. “Is the power out here, too?”

“Yeah.” They pulled underneath the awning, between bagged pumps. “Where else is it out? Black Mountain? Swannanoa?”

“Seattle. I was on the phone with my brother…”

He considered the information for a few seconds before she felt him shrug. “Could be a coincidence.” The truck stopped, and the man reached over the tailgate, pulling the handle. The gate dropped with a groan. Pennie felt like groaning as well as she tried to scoot forward and off the back of the truck. 

A flashlight bobbed alongside the bed, and Pennie heard a woman’s voice. “Let me help.”

Pennie took her hand and let the other woman help her down. “Thank you…”

“No problem. You just go over to the store. They’re letting us stay inside out of the wind.”

A pallid young man with a flashlight and a yellow vest met her halfway. “You can come right in here, ma’am.” He ushered her toward a pair of glass double doors and held one open for her.

“We’ve got some more injured people,” the young man called out before speaking to her again. “I’m Adam. I work here. Uh, this is Jean. She can look at your head.”

Adam passed her on to an older woman with dark brown skin and silver hair cropped close to her skull. The woman was short, even shorter than Pennie, but her grip was firm as she took hold of Pennie’s right arm and directed her to the corner of the store. 

“This young man is Trey,” Jean told her matter-of-factly. Trey stood by an empty chair next to a rack of umbrellas, flashlight beam pointed at the floor. “His job is to hold the flashlight and to forget everything he hears about your health. Isn’t that right, Trey?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the teenager murmured, pointing the beam at Pennie’s knees as she sank into the chair.

“What’s your name, honey?” Jean asked, leaning over an assortment of supplies scattered on top of what appeared to be cases of Cheerwine soda.

“Pennie.”

“Pennie, I’m going to wash your face. Would you close your eyes for me? Trey’s going to point the flashlight at your face so I can see what we’re working with.” Jean took a handful of paper towels and splashed them with water from a bottle before leaning close.

Pennie took in Jean’s cloth mask and gave a start, patting her pocket with her good hand. “Hang on… I have masks in here.”

“Wait,” the older woman chided. “Let me clean you up and then you can put one on. Close your eyes. Trey?”

Pennie obeyed, and the woman began wiping her face in short, gentle strokes. She tried not to move as the cold paper towel swiped close to the gash.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting.” The woman made a low, humming noise. The paper towel left her face, and she heard the snap of nitrile gloves. “I don’t think I should glue that, and I can’t use butterfly strips. You need stitches. Don’t have any sutures here, of course. So… congratulations, you get to use our last roll of gauze. Keep your eyes closed so Trey doesn’t blind you.”

Pennie held still as the woman applied a gauze pad and then wrapped rolled gauze around her head, carefully trimming and tucking in the end. 

“Point that at her shoulder, Trey.” Jean instructed, prompting Pennie to open her eyes. She cupped Pennie’s elbow and gently moved her arm, cooing softly the movement made her hiss from the pain. “Just a bad contusion, I think. Fingers are tingling? This will feel worse before it feels better. Hopefully, all of this will be resolved by morning and you can get to a hospital or urgent care and have them take a look at you.”

Pennie nodded and then grimaced, her head swimming from the gesture.

“Would you help her to the bathroom?” she heard Jean say as another woman stepped into Pennie’s line of sight. She registered the woman’s long, blonde hair as Jean took her good arm and helped her up out of the seat. “Feel better soon, honey.”

Pennie followed the new woman across the store, shuffling around a display of sunglasses and the sneakers of someone sitting with their legs stretched out into the aisle. The other woman held the door open for her and then directed her down the row of stalls, popping open the doors and shining her flashlight inside.

“This one looks good. Plenty of toilet paper. I’ll put the flashlight down here on the floor so we can both see.”

“Thank you.” Pennie closed the stall door behind her and turned to face the door, awkwardly undoing her jeans and pushing them down with one hand. Everything she touched felt disconcertingly wet, which is when Pennie realized she’d pissed her pants. The fabric at her crotch was wet and rank with the scent of her fear. She blotted herself the best she could with toilet paper and then dropped onto the icy toilet seat, letting out a hiss.

“I heard that!” The other woman laughed. “Cold-ass toilets, right?”

“Yeah,” Pennie replied ruefully, giving her own shaky laugh. 

“We got someone handing out snacks when you’re done. Joan says that we need to keep everyone’s blood sugar up.”

When she’d finished, after reluctantly pulling up her cold, wet clothing, Pennie shuffled out of the stall and over to the sinks. The other woman kept the flashlight beam pointed at the floor. 

“So, obviously you had a wreck.”

“Yeah…” 

“Me, too, though mine was farther up, and just a fender bender.”

Pennie blurted: “They did that on purpose! And then there was a lot of shooting…”

“Yeah.” The woman leaned her hip against the counter. “Some of that was a misunderstanding, I think.”

Pennie turned off the water and felt around for the paper towel dispenser. “That’s…”

“… some misunderstanding, right?”

“Yeah… And none of the phones work?”

“No signal. I thought it was something to do with the power being out, but Adam says they have backup batteries and generators for power outages.” The blonde gestured at the bathroom door. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat. I’m Courtney, by the way.”

“Pennie.” She followed Courtney out of the bathroom. As they walked, she realized there were people everywhere, curled up on the floor, stretched out along the aisles. She could hear children, too, chattering away toward the back. Courtney led her to the cash register, where Adam handed her a bottle of water and a packaged snack cake. Then the other woman walked her back over to the first aid station.

“Joan wanted you to sit over here with her. She said the head injuries gotta stay close.” Courtney pointed the flashlight at an empty spot on the floor next to a woman with a bandaged eye. “Right there. I’ll be making the rounds, but holler if you need me!”

Pennie eased herself to the floor as Courtney walked away. The woman next to her grunted but didn’t speak, nor did she pull away when Pennie’s arm brushed hers. Pennie used her teeth to tear open the cake’s plastic wrapping. 

After she ate, she sat sipping her water and listening to Joan talk to people as she bandaged them up. 

“No politics indoors,” Joan chastised one woman, who insisted they could lay this fiasco at the feet of President Biden, who’d taken office a month prior. 

“Or maybe it was more insurrection,” muttered a man sitting close by. Pennie couldn’t see him in the dark, but he sounded young.

“I am serious,” Joan snapped. “If you want to talk politics, you can do it out in the parking lot!”

“Those truck drivers aren’t coming back, right?” Trey asked, sounding young. Pennie studied him, finally deciding he must be in high school. He reminded her of the students at the school where she worked as a secretary.

“That’s why we have a watch,” Joan replied. “And with the police and highway patrol out there, we will be okay.”

Shortly after, flashing red and white lights spilled into the front of the store.

“That would be the ambulance,” Joan announced. “Trey, go inform our diabetic patient, and I’ll go get the compound fracture.”

Pennie capped her water and sat it to the side before pulling her mask up over her nose and mouth. Her head ached, and fatigue made her bones feel heavy. She let her eyes drift closed and her knees collapse inward against each other. Her heart rate slowed, breaths coming easy. The sounds made by the other occupants fractured and grew distant.

Pennie tapped fingers of her right hand rhythmically against her thumb, soothing her nerves until she dropped off to sleep.

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