The complete lack of other drivers on the usually busy streets of town sent an eerie, cold feeling creeping across the back of my neck. It all felt so normal, and yet anomalous at the same time. Almost as if the entire world had been frozen in place, except David, the rusty Ford and me. Or maybe we were just too well hidden for the frost to catch us. 

It wasn’t until we hit the highway that we started to see other cars, though very few of them were moving. The edges of the road were lined with cast-aside vehicles, some dented or totaled, others smoking. We saw people, lots of them, with a plethora of different expressions on their faces. Some argued with their neighbor in frustration, others frantically attempted to fix their vehicles, and some sat motionless, still inside. I looked away from those and over at David, to see the same feeling of fear and sympathy that shook my bones reflected in his eyes. But all of that changed the second they noticed us. 

Seemingly at once, unsettlingly synced, the people lining the highway turned towards the Ford. A few began calling out hesitantly, asking for a lift. 

“Should we?” 

“No,” David interrupted. “We can’t pick and choose who can come with us. We just have to keep driving.”  His voice was cold and calculating, but I could tell from the tension in his shoulders he’d fought with himself to come to that decision. 

I nodded reluctantly and applied a bit more pressure on the gas, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from making eye contact with a young woman cradling a drowsy toddler in her arms. She stood up and began jogging after the truck, jerking her child awake.

“Take my baby!” she shouted after us. “Please, please take him!” 

David squeezed his eyes shut and turned the radio up to full volume, but “Hey Jude” somehow only seemed to amplify the woman’s words echoing in my ears.

Before long more voices joined in the choir, and more people followed the Ford, pleading for a ride, to be saved. Some hit the sides of the truck, beating it with their fists in frustration at finding the doors locked. At one point I thought I glimpsed one of them pull a sharp object from their waistband and lunge for the tires. That was enough for me. I smothered my sympathy and floored it, my knuckles white as ice with tension around the steering wheel. 

Eventually David got me to slow down by reminding me we only had so much gas in the tank, and we’d left any rest-stops behind with the highway. At that point, we’d taken an exit off the main road for fear of being followed, and were then driving down a thin side road with apple trees swaying on either side. The pavement was cracked and reduced to practically no more than gravel at the edges, but that wasn’t uncommon on a New England backroad. I noticed David staring at the ripe red apples surrounding us, letting his usually calm and calculating eyes land on each one, dark brown flashing with drops of scarlet. I reached out with my right hand and grabbed his left. His fingers interlocked with my own. 

“You know we’re not gonna make it, right?” He spoke quietly, but his voice was absent of its former fearful tremble. 

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed, watching as the sky began to turn a pale orange color, though it was only about three in the afternoon, far too early for sunset.

“Wanna pull over?” 

I pulled the car to the side of the road, and David walked around to greet me as I opened the door, our hands quickly finding each other once more. He led me between the trees, and I ran my free hand through the leaves as we passed by, watching them bob and shiver. 

Soon we came to a clearing between the trunks with minimal rotting apples on the ground. David removed his aviator jacket, his shoulders visibly relaxing as if it weighed a thousand pounds. He laid it out on the grass in front of us and sat down, pulling me down with him. Our eyes met for a moment, reflecting back our own familiar faces, before our lips interlocked. His hand came up to cup my cheek, and mine found their way to his hair, my fingers quickly lost to the curls. Passion shifted into lust, into longing, and soon I was perched above him, pressing him against the grass. I removed his glasses, then lifted up his shirt while he unbuttoned mine. My bra soon followed suit. Then my pants, and his own. 

After what could have been a moment or a lifetime, we both lay naked on his jacket. Our clothes sprawled around us, as if they had exploded from our bodies and now lay still and cold like scattered shrapnel. We didn’t mind. They really didn’t seem to matter anymore. Our chests heaved in an attempt to catch our collective breath. He turned to me, his mahogany eyes lit with a bashful fire. I chuckled under my breath at the sight of him. Messy and sweaty and gorgeous beneath the false-sunset sky. He laughed too, I assume at my own flustered appearance. Soon we were both doubled over, holding onto each other, doing our best to steady our breathing once more. 

When we were finally able to regain our composure, I found myself with my head on his shoulder, eyes locked on his serene face above me. His eyes, still free of his glasses, met mine. He smiled before going back to watching the changing sky. The earth seemed to shimmer around us, perhaps in anticipation. The apples looked redder, the grass greener, his jacket a deep molasses. If I really tried, I could convince myself for a moment that this was just another beautiful sunset with the love of my life. I suppose in essence it was. The coup de gras of dusk. The curtain call of closing night.   

David shifted so he could look down at me more easily. His face held no sign of fear or regret, just calm contentment. Like he knew he’d lived a good, albeit short, life. As I thought about this, I realized I held the same sentiment, but I found I still had one more question left to ask.    

  “Not every story has to have a happy ending, right?”

He kept his eyes locked on me as he answered, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. The lips I’d kissed uncountable times. The lips that had told me he wanted me, needed me, loved me. The lips that held the world, but only had six more words left to speak before that world turned to dust. 

“No, but I like ours nonetheless.”