“I didn’t want to be left behind. I wanted to live. I wanted to eat food that I’d never eaten before. Stay up until three in the morning, going from one party to the next. I wanted to hear the sounds of cars honking outside my window. I don’t know why. Maybe as just a reminder that people are real. Out here, you don’t get that. Everything is so quiet. You can hear yourself think. And sometimes, that little voice in your head says things you don’t like. You’re not good enough. You’re not pretty enough. That birthmark on your hip is hideous. In the city, I bet it’s too loud for thoughts. Keep going down this road.
“On his last day at the ranch, Chris told me he’d call. Text. Snapchat. And before he left, he kissed me under a willow tree. I’d never been kissed before. He tasted like mint gum and sweat and spit. I think it was good, for a first kiss. He didn’t try and do more, just cupped my face and closed his eyes and went for it. His nose kept hitting mine. His tongue poked against my lips. I felt like I was on fire. It didn’t last very long. Five seconds, maybe seven. I acted like such a little girl, blushing and playing with my hair. He looked proud of himself, like he’d been working up the courage to do that. I liked that about him. I waved goodbye to him as his family drove away. They were going to Joshua Tree. He said he’d send me pictures because I’d never been. I was sad, but not. It was exciting. I couldn’t wait to see the pictures.
“He sent so many. I saved all of them. Some were of him, making faces. Others were of trees he liked, rocks in weird shapes. One had crystal in it. Quartz. He took it with him because he said he liked how pretty it was. He said he’d keep it safe because one day, he’d give it to me. I told him I loved it. Other pictures, with his mom and dad. With a boy he’d met and hung out with for most of a day. I can’t remember the boy’s name.
“He called me all the time. Sometimes it was only a minute or two. Other times, we’d be on the phone until past midnight. Me in my bed. Him in a hotel room, sitting on the toilet in the bathroom so he didn’t wake his parents. We talked about everything. He loved movies. I loved books. He had a dog named Captain. I had a horse named Big Nose. He missed his grandma, who died last year. I told him I didn’t know anyone who’d died. He said the funeral was terrible. He sniffled a little. I thought he was going to cry. He didn’t. If he’d known me better, maybe he would have. I wouldn’t have judged him. It’s okay to cry when you feel like it.
“He didn’t call me one day. Didn’t text me back after a message that said good morning. I tried to call him, but there was no answer. I knew he was probably busy. Maybe his dad didn’t like how much time he was spending on the phone. They were supposed to be on vacation, right? But I was sixteen. What did I know? I left a message. Sent some texts. Are you all right? What’s going on? Did I do something wrong? Turn right up there. See it? Past the crooked tree.
“I spent that night being mad. I found a boy who liked me, and he wasn’t talking to me. I yelled at Daddy for no reason. Mom too. They said that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t. I apologized but I was still angry. Why did he make a promise to me and then disappear? Was that how boys from cities were? Did they just take what they wanted and didn’t think about how it made others feel? I didn’t like that. It wasn’t right. People shouldn’t do that to other people.
“A week went by. And then another. And then another. I still thought about Chris all the time, but after the first few days, I didn’t try to contact him anymore. I’d been ghosted. He disappeared like a ghost. It happens all the time. I read about it online. Boys do it, girls do it. I thought Chris was different. I thought he was better than that. I never heard from him again.
“Then Dad came to me about a month after Chris had left. Said he knew why Chris hadn’t called me back, hadn’t texted. He’d found an article online. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to look him up by his name. I just didn’t think about it. But Dad did. Chris and his parents were on their way back home. They were in the Blue Ridge Mountains, driving on a winding road. Another driver fell asleep at the wheel. He was in a tractor trailer. Hit them head-on. Chris and his parents died instantly. They’d already been put in the ground by the time I found out.
“I thought to myself, isn’t that strange? One minute, you’re riding horses and kissing under a willow tree, and the next, you’re on a slab, waiting for someone to dig around your insides to confirm you died the way people thought you died, even though Chris apparently didn’t have arms anymore, which, you know. My grandpa used to butcher pigs. Do you know how it’s done? Hang them up by their bottom legs and slit their throats. A bucket underneath catches all the blood. Chris wasn’t a pig. But they still stretched him out and caught all the blood that came from him. What a terrible thought that is. We’re almost there. Keep going straight. See the cows? Those are ours.
“My parents said it was the way of things. That sometimes, when you least expect it, bad things can happen. It’s not anyone’s fault. It just was. And I remember thinking, how is that fair? How is that right? Was he scared? Did he see the truck coming? Or was he looking at the phone? Was he looking at his phone, scrolling through our messages, looking at the pictures we’d taken together?Maybe if he hadn’t been so distracted, he’d have seen the truck. Maybe he could have warned them. Daddy said it wasn’t my fault. They probably went around a corner, and the truck was already in their lane. The truck driver wasn’t hurt. Can he sleep at night? I wouldn’t be able to.
“But I couldn’t get one thought out of my head. Something my mom told me. She said at least he didn’t suffer. That it was over probably before he felt any pain. I hoped that was true. If I had to go, I wouldn’t want to suffer. I wouldn’t want to know something was coming and that I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Here one moment, happy, safe, and then gone the next without a thought of what had happened. Isn’t that nice? Isn’t that pretty?
“I wasn’t okay for a long time. Which was weird. I knew him for a few weeks. In person, only a few days. I didn’t know anything about him, really. But I was young, and more than halfway in love. How tragic, I told myself. I was like a girl in a book. A princess who loses her prince and her heart turns to stone. At least he didn’t suffer. But I did. My heart didn’t turn to stone. It was painful. It felt like I was being stabbed over and over again.
“We don’t slaughter animals on the ranch. It’s not that kind. But Daddy grew up on one that did. Cattle farm. They line them up in these pens that open up to narrow corridors they’re funneled down. All in a row, all in a line. Then the cows are stunned with a gun. Not a normal gun, but with a metal bolt that hits the cows in the head, knocking them senseless. After they’re stunned, they’re hoisted up by their legs and their throats are cut. If you do it right, the cows won’t know what’s coming. That’s what Daddy said.
“But I didn’t believe him. I’ve known cows all my life. They’re smart. A lot of them act like big puppies. They haveawareness. You can see it in their eyes. There’s the expression ‘cow-eyed,’ that means dull. Most cows aren’t like that. They have personalities, wants, desires. Most of it is baser instinct, but it’s still there. Soyes, I think they suffered. I think they knew something was wrong when they got put in that pen. I think they knew something was wrong when they were shoved down the corridors. I think they heard what happened to the cows in front of them. Making noise and then… nothing. See the sign on the archway? Diamond K Ranch. That’s us. Turn there.
“I never told my dad what I thought about the cows. How they knew what was coming. It didn’t matter. Because six months after Chris died, the black hole came. And anytime you turned on the television, all those people losing their minds, police and military trying to push them back. Like cattle, all of them. And that’s when I realized.We’rethe cattle. We’re the cattle and we’re being herded toward the narrow corridors. We know what’s coming but there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Soon, it’s going to be our turn to be stunned and have our lives stolen from us. You can park right next to that SUV. It’s not ours. People came to visit. There you go. Right there. Perfect. The people who came in the SUV were nice. They wanted to ride horses before the end of the world. A man and a woman. A couple. Their son. He was… eleven? Or maybe twelve years old.
“We have some people who work for us on the ranch. They live here too. We had ten of them. When the news came that we were all going to die, a few of them left. They wanted to see their families. But most stayed. They continued working. What else was there to do? Wail and scream? Try and run? No one’s listening, and there’s nowhere to go. So, they kept on working. Dad and Mom too. ‘Someone’s gotta do it,’ Dad told me. ‘Might as well be us.’
“I helped, but not as much as I used to. I was too caught up in what was going on. I’d never really thought about black holes before. Why would I? I didn’t care about space. I could see stars anytime I wanted to. There are people who dream of flying, seeing the curve ofthe Earth. I like my feet on the ground, thank you very much. I sat at the computer for hours and hours and hours, reading everything I could. Some people thought it was going to be over in an instant, that we wouldn’t even have time to react. Others thought that we were going to feel every single part of it. That our skin will melt. The blood in our veins would boil. Radiation poisoning, if we weren’t dead from a blast of invisible energy. I hated that thought. I didn’t want anyone I loved to suffer. What if we survived, but my father’s tongue fell out of his mouth? What if my mother lost her lips, her eyes, her ears? What if her skin only partially melted, and she looked like a monster? She would be in so much pain, begging for someone to help her, and what could we do? Nothing, I think. Nothing aside from helping her sleep.
“I wanted to help them. I wanted to save them. I didn’t want them to suffer. Chris didn’t suffer. Did I tell you that? Mom said he didn’t, and I wanted that for them. I didn’t want them sitting in front of the television at night, seeing how hopeless things were getting. I wanted them to be happy. To remember the life we’d built. See the barn? Daddy built that before I was born. It took four months. Everyone chipped in because people care about each other. Most of us want to see others succeed.
“But I couldn’t shake the thought that they were going to melt, that they were going to suffer. I couldn’t stand the thought of my mother screaming in pain because her skin was boiling. I couldn’t stand the thought of my father with burnt-out eyes and nothing on his mind but dying. When you’re in pain, when you’resuffering, all you want to do is make it stop. Youwishfor death. They were suffering. I could see it in their eyes. The lines on their foreheads. The secret conversations they had. They were my parents. I needed to protect them. They were wishing, but they couldn’t say it out loud.
“Living on a ranch, you learn things. All the chores that needdoing because there are always chores. How to ride. How to mend fences and cattle guards. You learn to use machines, tools. What to watch for in case your animals get sick. How to shovel manure. How to clean stalls. How to care for the saddles, the bit. How to herd cows. And if an animal hurts itself, beyond fixing, you do the merciful thing. You put them down. It was Mom who taught me how to shoot. She was better than Dad. He loved that about her. No one could hit a target like my Mom. She had this rifle. It was her granddad’s. She cared for it, kept it clean and oiled. It was the first gun I learned to shoot. It was big. It hurt when the stock slammed against my shoulder. But my mom was there, right behind me, and when I fired that first shot when I was six, she cheered for me, even though I’d missed the target. We were only ten feet away, but you would have thought I hit the bull’s-eye with how happy she was. She looked so wonderful in that moment. I can remember it like it happened yesterday.
“I didn’t have my own gun. We had plenty. Rifles. Pistols. A shotgun to scare off coyotes. They were stored away in a gun cabinet, which was locked. But the key was always sitting in the bowl near the back door. Anyone could use it if they wanted to.
“I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t let them suffer. I took one of the guns. A Glock 9. It uses nine-millimeter bullets. I checked to make sure it wasn’t loaded first. Daddy said that a gun can load itself when you’re not looking, so you always have to check. The magazine was empty. Standard-capacity magazine for the Glock 9 holds fifteen bullets. I loaded up each and every one.
“I used thirteen of them. When most everyone was out in the fields, I called one of the ranch hands into the barn. I told him I needed help with something. His name was Bill. Good guy. Older, had been on the ranch for almost fifteen years. Always smiling. I shot him in the back of the head so he wouldn’t suffer. It wasn’t as loud as I expected it to be. He fell down and didn’t move. I putsome sawdust around him to keep the blood from spreading. And then I called for the next ranch hand. And the next. All seven of them. Not a single one knew what was coming because I didn’t want them to suffer. I wanted them to leave before they could. I don’t think they saw the other bodies before they died.
“Mom and Dad came back. I was in the house. They were early. I thought I had more time. They asked where everyone was. I said I had something to tell them. We sat at the kitchen table. I told them I was scared. That I didn’t like the idea of waiting. It felt bad. Why wait for something that’s going to hurt? Why should we just sit here and not take matters into our own hands? Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t be afraid. Don’t be sad.
“Dad went first. Then Mom. They didn’t have a chance to react. Boom, boom, and then they lay down at the table and went to sleep. I didn’t want to track sawdust through the house, so I put down towels. It didn’t work very well, but I felt better. See what I’d done? I’d helped them. I’d kept them from suffering. Like Chris, it was over in an instant. I spent the rest of the day lying in my bed and listening to birds out the open window. I slept a little and when I woke up, I’d forgotten my parents were dead, but only for a couple of minutes. They’re still inside, where I left them. They don’t look like they used to, not anymore. It smells bad too.
“I tried to use the gun on myself. I put the barrel against my head and counted to ten. By the time I got to six, I was already putting pressure on the trigger. But by the time I got to ten, I couldn’t go through with it. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to suffer. I didn’t want to be here when the fire came. I didn’t want my skin to melt off, or the marrow in my bones to boil. So why couldn’t I do it?
“I called the police three days later. No one answered. I called again. And again. And again. Finally, at about one in the morning, someone picked up. He said he was a deputy. He was crying.I asked him what was wrong. He said he was so scared. That he didn’t want the world to end. I told him I understood, and that I had killed my parents. Could he please come and arrest me? He laughed at me. He laughed at me and said that it didn’t matter, not anymore. And then he hung up on me.
“The next morning, a family came. I had forgotten to check the reservations. Everyone else had canceled, so why hadn’t they? They pulled up in their SUV. The boy came out first. He was so excited. He had wanted to ride horses all his life. They were supposed to stay in the house with us. Like before, when other people did it. He said he’d been reading about our ranch. Was it true we had twelve horses? Was it true we had hundreds of cows?
“We did. I told him as much. I asked him if he’d like to see them. He said yes. His parents said they wanted to take pictures before coming into the barn. I told them not to go inside the house because the floors had just been mopped for their arrival. It needed time to dry.
“I almost couldn’t do it. The boy was so happy. I thought he’d burst out of his skin. He couldn’t see the others. I had put hay on top of them. The smell wasn’t bad. It smelled like a farm with something sweet on top, like newly spoiled meat. But then I thought about Chris, and how he didn’t suffer. I thought about the ranch hands. My parents. I was doing the merciful thing. He didn’t make a sound as he fell. His parents must have heard the shot because they started yelling, asking us if we were all right. I told them yes, we were, but their son had tripped. Could they come in and help?