The Last Birthday

The world came apart on my eleventh birthday.

I can still remember the party, bright colors and laughter, and vanilla-mint chocolate chip birthday cake.

I sat, surrounded by my friends, in the living room of my childhood home. They watched excitedly as I worked my way through a mountain of gifts. Wrapping paper piled up around my feet. I liked to kick at it and make it crinkle. A golden, heart-shaped locket hung from my neck. The necklace glinted in the sunlight streaming through the big bay window. It had been my dad’s gift. He had given it to me before everyone arrived so that I could wear it with my birthday dress.

Tires crunched on the driveway outside. Daddy had returned from the store with the ice cream. Now we could cut the cake. I looked to my mom, expecting her to call all of us into the kitchen, but she stared at the front door as if it was about to open and reveal a monster. The screen of her phone still glowed. She had just read a text from someone.

Footsteps pounded on the porch. Why was my dad running? He twisted the handle of the front door, but instead of pushing it gently open, he put his shoulder to it. Wood splintered and glass shattered as daddy exploded into the living room.

I flinched, and at my sides, my friends jumped. It was just starting to dawn on them that something was wrong.

“We have to go,” my dad said. “Now!”

“Mom?” I said, my confusion quickly turning to fear.

My mom ignored me. I do not think she even heard me.

“Can’t we talk about this?” my mom said. Her voice trembled. “How can you be sure?”

Daddy shook his head. He strode across the room and grabbed my arm. The wrapping paper crunched under his feet.

“Mr. Dillinger?” one of my friends asked. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

My dad did not explain. He yanked me off the couch and dragged me towards the door.

“Ouch, you’re hurting me!” I said.

“What about the other girls?” my mom said, her voice almost a wail.

“Leave them,” my dad said. “It’s too late.”

The next thing I remember was a seatbelt being cinched around my chest. My mom dropped into the passenger seat an instant before daddy slammed the car into reverse. She sobbed as we sped out of our neighborhood and into the city.

“Daddy?” I asked. I was crying too.

“Quiet,” he said.

He switched on the radio. The custom antenna on the roof of the car caught the signal of one of my dad’s special stations. Through the static, a calm voice announced the end.

“Unidentified drones have —shhhtcrkr— military response compromised. Every citizen is —chshhhtick— the president is believed to be dead. You might survive if you get away from the cities. This is my last transmission.”

The voice faded away, leaving only the hissing and popping of interference.

My dad pulled onto the freeway and floored it. The car rocketed towards the open country. We weaved in and out of the lazy Saturday traffic. Apparently, none of these drivers listened to the same radio station as my dad.

He kept leaning out over the dash and looking up through the windshield. As we hit the border of the city, my mom’s crying finally stopped.

“This is insane,” my mom said. “Look at all these people. None of them are—”

“Here it comes!” my dad shouted.

Somehow, he coaxed even more speed from the old car. I turned to peer out the back window. A lance of pure light split the blue sky. I blinked, and the afterimage left a perfect burning line on the backs of my eyes. When I opened them again, I watched as a dome of fire blossomed where the light touched the ground. It grew and grew until the distant skyscrapers were swallowed by flame.

A second lance slashed down, and a third, and I had to look away because it hurt my eyes. I heard the sound of rushing wind even over the roaring of the car’s straining engine. All I could think of was my friends we had left back there in the house. There was no way they escaped.

We made straight for the mountains. I lay in the backseat of the car. None of us spoke. We hurtled down the highway as the world burned behind us.

That had been ten years ago. Today is my twenty-first birthday.

We survived by hiding in an abandoned mine. My father had spent most of his life preparing for the end of the world, and it was only thanks to his paranoia that we lived through it.

He always said that his plan had been to lay low in the mine for a year or two until the war ended and survivors started to emerge from the rubble. We had more than food hidden in these caves. Before armageddon, my father had slowly collected a treasure trove of raw metal, weapons, tools, seeds, and even plastic pellets and molds. All of it was stashed in the deepest tunnels of the mine. Everything needed to rebuild society, and my father would be in control of all of it.

But no one came. With every year that passed, my dad grew increasingly desperate. Until, three years ago, he left to see if he could make contact with other survivors. He never returned. Two years after that, my mom died. She was weak, and she never truly recovered from watching the fire devour everything she knew and loved.

Now, I am the only one left, maybe in the entire world.

Yesterday, I packed as much food and water as I could carry, strapped my dad’s old machete to my leg, and set out for the base of the mountain. I spent the night on the edge of the forest. I needed time to work up the courage to continue on. Ten years living in the shadows made the naked sunlight seem dangerous. I had no idea what I would find out there under the hostile sky, but I had to try.

I stood beneath the shade of the last screen of branches. It would only take one more step to leave the safety of the forest behind. The familiar weight of the golden heart locket in my palm brought my thoughts back to the present, and I glanced down at the smiling faces of my parents.

Reassured by their presence, I tucked the locket back underneath my shirt. The numbers etched into the back caught my eye. They were the coordinates for the mine. My father had been looking out for me, even back then. I imagined him at my side again. Was he still out there somewhere?

I took a deep breath, and I stepped out into the wasteland of the world I once knew.