The Blast

Chapter One: When the World Ended

I was 10 when the world ended. The 4th of July had just passed, so my father, my brother Henry and I spent the early afternoon before the blast eating leftover hot dogs in the yard. My mom was at work in the nearby farmers' market, selling some of our produce to people from town who sought a connection to nature that concrete supermarkets couldn't offer.

Our bellies full, my brother and I ran to Ellie's house to ask if she could come out and play. She was our closest neighbor, separated only by our family's cornfield, a sparsely used road, and her family's maple out front, a treehouse resting on its looming branches.

I knocked on their front door, and my hand, greasy from lunch, left glistening stains on the paint. Their home, displaced from the traditionally suburban neighborhood past the train tracks up the road, was built from burnt red bricks, unlike our white painted farmhouse, with cream window panes and a craftsman-style overhang protecting its cream door, which Ellie's father answered.

He was a tall, thin man who wore buttoned shirts and bow ties, even on the weekends. Both her parents were professors at the local college: her father, a professor of sciences—most often biochemistry, though he was well versed in physics and the general sciences as well—and her mother, a professor of history. Their home was lined wall to wall in books of their specialties and interests, whose papers had sucked in all of Ellie's family's signature scent—rose water and fresh linen—so that any time they opened the door, the aroma would radiate outward.

Ellie's father smiled. "Good afternoon," he greeted us. "Let me guess: You're here to see if Ellie can come out to play."

"Yes, Mr. Timmons. Can she?" I asked.

Henry rocked on his heels beside me, and Mr. Timmons knelt to meet his eyes. "Henry, do you need to use the bathroom?"

My brother nodded, his tight springy curls bouncing on his head. He had just finished potty training a few months earlier, and hadn't quite learned how to hold it yet. Mr. Timmons smiled and held out his hand.

"C'mon, I will take you to the bathroom," he said to Henry, welcoming us into their immaculately kept home. "Ellie is playing in her room if you'd like to join her. Do your parents know you two are here?"

"My dad knows," I said, shutting the door behind me.

"Okay, I'll text him to let him know you got here safely," he said, no longer even looking at me, as he helped Henry into the bathroom.

I scurried up the stairs, lightly running my fingertips over their polished banister. Up the stairs and to the left, I turned the knob into Ellie's room. Her blonde-white hair, like strands of spider webs, spun around as she snapped her brown eyes to the door. She sat on the floor of her pink-filled room, surrounded by her fashion dolls and their dresses, gathering them in front of her for a party. In an instant, her thin lips exploded into a smile, and she called, "Beatrice! Do you want to play dolls with me?"

Ellie was always more of an indoor kid than me, preferring to put on plays in her living room and gather imaginary people together for parties, whereas I grew up with nature as my playground. We were a strange pair, but our proximity bounded us.

"No thanks. Henry and I are playing outside. Want to come?" I asked from the doorway.

She shrugged and brushed the hair of one of her dolls. "I think I'll stay in," she said. Little did she know she'd be forced out in less than an hour anyway.

"Okay, see you later," I said, pulling the knob toward me and heading back downstairs. We had grown up together, so we were comfortable moving through each others' homes.