This is the Way the World Ends Read Free Page B

he acquired from lifting granite.
    And then they came, the three children in white, jumping out of the back of John Frostig’s panel truck and sprinting toward the sample stones that spread outward from the foundation of the Crippen Monument Works. The stones were closely spaced, as in a cemetery for dwarves. ‘Floor models,’ George’s boss liked to call them. ‘Want to take one out for a spin?’ the boss would quip.
    Sitting near the smeared and sooty window of the front office, George watched as the white children leapfrogged over the stones. Their suits – trim, one-piece affairs cinched by utility belts and topped with globular helmets – afforded complete mobility. Each child wore a pistol. The leapfrogging boys looked ready for the bottom of the ocean, the inside of a volcano, a Martian sandstorm, a plague of bees, anything.
    Briefcase in tow, John climbed out of the driver’s seat. A painting of a white suit decorated the side of the truck, accompanied by the words PERPETUAL SECURITY SCOPAS SUITS . . . JOHN FROSTIG, PRESIDENT . . . WILDGROVE, MASSACHUSETTS . . . 555–7043. The president of Perpetual Security Scopas Suits marched toward the office exuding the sort of nervous energy and insatiable ambition that made George feel there are worse things in life than being satisfied with what you have.
    Entering, John imposed his rump on a stool, balanced the briefcase on his knees.
    ‘Has someone died?’ George asked.
    ‘Died? Nope, sorry, you won’t sell me anything today, buddy-buddy.’ John’s friendship with George had been primarily John’s idea. ‘No tombs today.’
    George swiveled away from the window. A swivel chair, a rolltop desk, a naughty calendar, a patina of dust, the stool on which John sat – these formed the sum total of Arthur Crippen’s office. Arthur was not there. He never appeared before noon, rarely before 2 P.M. Just then it was 3:30. Arthur was doubtless at the Lizard Lounge, a bar administering to the broken hopes and failed ambitions of the town’s shopkeepers.
    ‘Look out the window, buddy-buddy. What do you see?’
    George pivoted. The children had begun a science fiction game, laser-zapping each other with their pistols, using the monuments for cover. ‘White children,’ he reported.
    ‘Safe children. There’s a war coming, George, a bad one. It’s inevitable, what with both sides having so many land-based, first-strike ICBMs. Soon we’ll all be living in scopas suits. That’s S-C-O-P-A-S, as in Self-Contained Post-Attack Survival. Just five weeks I’ve had this franchise, and already I’ve sold two dozen units without once leaving the borders of our fair hamlet. The company tells us to operate under any name we like, so I’m Perpetual Security Scopas Suits. I thought that up myself – Perpetual Security Scopas Suits. Like it?’
    ‘I can’t see why the Russians would want to bomb Wildgrove,’ said George the Unitarian. He was what his church had made him, a naive skeptic.
    ‘You don’t know jackshit about strategic doctrine, do you? Ever hear of a counterforce strike? The enemy wants to wipe out America’s war-waging capability. Well, Wildgrove is part of that war-waging capability. We’ve got food, clothing, gasoline, trucks, people – many things of military value. All the apples we grow here could prove decisive during the intra-war period.’
    ‘Well, if they ever do drop their bombs, I imagine we’ll all die before we know what hit us.’
    ‘That’s pretty pessimistic of you, buddy-buddy, and furthermore it’s not true. Put on a scopas suit, and you won’t be able to avoid surviving.’
    John opened his briefcase, took out a crisply printed form headed ESCHATOLOGICAL ENTERPRISES – WE DO CIVIL DEFENSE RIGHT . George knew about sales contracts; you could not acquire a stone from the Crippen Monument Works without signing one.
    ‘Eschatological – doesn’t sound very Japanese, does it?’ said John. ‘Don’t worry. Right now all the