A view from the end

My mother always said despair was a sin. I won't give in to it. We're good people. We believe in tradition and love and justice. But the thing my mother always hated most wasn't cruelty, or greed, or anything like that. It was despair. She said the worst thing a person could do was to give up. That there were a lot of sins against man, but despair was a sin against God.

I know things seem pretty grim now. We've lost contact with the other towns, and Turk says there's no reason to believe they haven't been wiped out. I agree it's unlikely, but it seems they could just be unable to communicate. They could be hunkered down, like we are.

I always thought I'd be a good leader, but it's like I never had any time to prepare... Lupin was killed, and the old colonel, and people started asking me what to do, Mary and her sister and the old colonel's wife. Because I have such a strong voice. People thought I seemed like a leader. I always thought I'd be a pretty good leader. I just never had any practice... the old colonel used to say that to hesitate was the worst thing. So I told everyone we needed to get out and took them up on the mountain.

The air reeks even from here. The cloud of smoke hangs over the town in the February air, just staying in one place, but I can smell it from here. I thought I was going to cry this morning. Everyone else is crying, just about. Mary's little sister is worried about her house and her cat. I'm too busy worrying about my life for that nonsense. I wish everyone would shape up. Maybe I'm a little inexperienced, but they're not making it any easier. I wish people would just use their heads. Nobody cares about your cat when the entire world is being destroyed.

My mother was the strongest woman. When I was young and the invasion was new, she still used to smile a lot, I remember. She made me laugh. She used to say if she ever met one of them she'd give them a piece of her mind. She was angry a lot, but I loved it. She had so much energy for that. When she went on a rant, talking so fast I could hardly follow her, I loved her. I didn't really think she could save the world, but if anyone could, sure it would have been her. She was righteous.

I'm looking at the smoke again when Turk runs up, panting like an idiot. "They're coming," he says. "They're coming up from the town." So I stand up and start yelling. I have everybody get up off the warm rock and go into the forest. I figure we'll go over the pass into the next valley.

I hate these people. A couple middle-aged women are crying and they're slow to get up. God, I'm yelling right in their face. I love my voice though. I wonder if the invaders can hear it, wherever they are.

Finally I just run, right into the trees, getting whacked in the face by branches, and other people start to follow. I'll kill myself running up the side of the mountain. But I'm in better shape than most of these people and I've got to lead. Maybe if they see me doing it they'll do it too.

I feel the lurch in my stomach before I hear the explosion. Chunks of rock and wood the size of cars fly past me in an instant, rocketing against the mountainside and rebounding into snapping tree trunks. I didn't hear anybody cry out. Hopefully whoever got hit didn't feel much. The black smoke blows over me in another minute, and I start coughing as I run.

I really didn't think any of this would happen. I feel like my life went wrong about five years ago. I was supposed to go to college, learn sports medicine. Even while I'm running I have this damn nagging feeling in the back of my mind, like I have to go back, like there's something I forgot to do. It was one thing when the invaders first arrived. I was only a kid. For all a four-year-old knows, stuff like that is normal. And it was normal. It sucked but it was normal. In a little town like Millhoe, it was normal. We saw the deaths on TV and we couldn't travel much but we pretty much went about our lives. I was going to be a physical therapist or something. Turns out the libertarians were right. We were never going to be allowed to live.

It's just... I can't give up. It would be a crime. Anyway my mother would hate me for it if she were still alive. Her hate was a wonderful thing to behold. My stomach drops again and then the mountain disappears in front of me, and I swear I see grey sky and birds for a second but it's just my imagination, I'm seeing powdery dirt and dust, and then I know something's hit me when the trees seem upside-down. It's strange-- I don't know what-- those bastards! I think, I won't give up because to despair is a sin and it might not matter anymore but God my mother raised me better than that.