The End Boxset: Postapocalyptic Visions of an Unstoppable Collapse Read Online Free PDF

to avoid both administrators. Brian followed feeling his face swell and swell. “The building's just ahead, we'll hide in the bathroom!” Tobias shouted to Brian as they neared a classroom building. Student’s faces blurred alongside as their speed increased. They came within a few feet of the building when an administrator drove his golf cart directly in their path, blocking them. The tires screeched as he came to a halt.
     
    The boys couldn't stop in time and nearly crashed into the improvised barrier. They stopped, breathing heavily, as the administrator jumped out and grabbed them. “Got you now, boys! Just calm down. Take deep breaths.” There was no escape. This was the end of the line. Tobias looked at Brian, Brian looked at Tobias. Their nods indicated that nothing more could have been done. “Now take a seat in the cart,” the man continued. The boys complied as the man used his hand held radio to contact the others. 
    “Yeah, I got 'em. Fast little buggers, but it's okay. I don't know if they were the ones doing the fighting or what, but we'll find out. I'll take 'em to the front office, just meet me—”
     
    All of a sudden, in the mid-sentence, his radio died. He paused, curious, and held the radio outward, clicking repeatedly on its button. “Hello,” he clicked some more, “hello? Brian looked across the school yard and noticed the other administrators trying to get their radios to work as well. In a split second, the largest explosion Brian had ever heard rattled his consciousness. He didn't see it or feel it, but he heard it. Collective gasps and startled screams from all the other students followed the echoes of the blast like clockwork. The single blast even caused some students to fall to the ground and hide under lunch tables.
     
    Brian looked to Tobias, who was shaken and clueless. The administrator was disoriented himself as he looked around in confusion. He shouted over to his counterparts from across the school yard.
    “What the hell was that?” The other men shrugged and walked over. They were now in a huddle. Tobias and Brian could hear low murmuring, but nothing more.
    .
    “What do you think that was?” Tobias asked.
    “I don't know,” Brian answered, “but it sounded pretty big.”
    “Like a bomb?” Tobias continued.
    “Could be.” Brain shrugged.
     
    Tobias looked around, noticing that the administrators were heavily distracted.
    “We should get out of here,” he said clutching Brian, “now's our chance.”
    Brian nodded and Tobias continued, “We'll take the golf cart right out the gate and leave it. Who cares? They don't even know our names yet.”
    Brian looked at the golf cart. Not a single indicator light was functioning.
     
    “It's dead.”
    “Dead? It was on like a second ago,” Tobias said
    “It's not working now,” Brian said as he pressed onto the accelerator.  
    “Okay, let's move then.”
    The boys jumped off the golf cart and ran the opposite direction of where the administrators were huddled, away from the students hiding under the tables, and away from the attention of anyone who might notice them.
    “So where do we go now?” Brian asked while moving at a jogger's pace from behind.
    “We need to get out of the school, wait until this thing blows over.”
    “What thing?”
    “The fight thing!”
    “And go where?” Brian demanded.
    “Anywhere but here!” Tobias shouted from the front.
    As they approached the front gate to the school, there was an eerie silence. Not a single car was moving on the road. No golf cart. No administrator at the front gate.
    “It's now or never, man,” Tobias insisted.
    Brian was about to respond when he saw it: a large blaze in the distance. 
    “Look at that,” Brian said pointing ahead. 
     
    The boys stopped in their tracks. Ahead, flames burned so vibrantly that it looked like something out of a war zone. It was enraged fire. An angry fire. A thick sheet of black smoke covered the sky above the