Demise of the Living (17 page)

Sharon placed herself at the
head of the table, close to the door. The others fanned out,
forming small enclaves with empty chairs as the demarcation
line.

Here are the
power blocks
, Sharon mused.

Colin had chosen to sit two
places to her right with a view of the door. Colin was a people
person, Sharon surmised. He would no doubt smile and nod to greet
each arrival at the meeting. He had shown his tacit support for
Sharon’s authority, but had purposefully chosen to sit with an
empty seat between him and her, maintaining a little distance.

Taking the same position on the
opposite side of the table was her sales manager John. He sat with
fresh vending machine coffee and an A5 notepad. He hadn’t bothered
to put his tie back on this morning and his shirt was creased and
stained. There was an unpleasant odour of sweat and coffee hovering
around the man that repulsed Sharon. Their situation was difficult,
but there was still soap in the dispensers, paper towels, and
running water. The man had no excuse for his slovenliness.

Sharon looked around the room,
trying to ignore John’s aroma.

Liz and her daughter sat
together midway down the table with Mo sitting opposite them.

The two Polish cleaners,
Magda and Alex, sat side-by-side at the end of the table, still
smoking. An empty plastic cup sat between them and served as an
ashtray.

At the very far end of
the table was Thomas. He had come in and swept his hand along the
back of the empty seats like a psychic trying to gleam some
ethereal information from his touch. When he finally took his place
he pushed the chair far out and leaned back with his hands behind
his head and his left foot resting on top of his right
thigh.

There was little difference
here and now to the everyday board meetings she attended. Everyone
had to promote and protect their own interests, taking as much from
the others as they could while managing potential conflict. The
problem Sharon faced now was the lack of constraints. Thomas in
particular, sitting directly opposite her, could disengage from the
group, and with the normal rules of society in flux he might resort
to physical violence to protect his interests.

“
Thank you all for
coming,” Sharon began. “We have a number of issues we need to
address if we are to remain in this office block.”

“Food, for one thing,” Thomas
interrupted.

“
There are a number of
issues we need to address and we won’t accomplish anything if we
don’t take a measured approach,” Sharon said. “So I suggest we
approach things in a logical manner and that way we’ll make the
best use of our resources. I have a list of things here. We’ll go
through them one at a time and we’ll all have a chance to give our
input.”

Like the lap dog he was,
John was nodding his approval, notepad at a fresh page, pen in
hand.

“
We’ll start with
security,” Sharon said. She looked over at Mo. “Mo, you know more
about the security of this building than anyone else. Can we remain
in here safely? Will those people outside be able to break
in?”

Mo’s face dropped and he
leaned back in his seat. He hadn’t expected to have to participate
in the meeting and was caught somewhat off-guard.

“
Um, I’m not sure,” Mo
said honestly. “They don’t seem to be trying very hard to get
in.”

Colin entered the conversation
with, “Gary and that other bloke in the parking lot just banged on
the doors. They didn’t try to smash a window or jimmy the door open
or anything like that. They just pounded on it with their
fists.”

“
What about the ones out
front by the lobby’s glass windows?” Sharon asked. “Will they be
able to smash the glass?”

“They might,” Mo said, “but not
with their bare hands. They’d need to smash it with a brick or
something. Even then it would take a fair amount of strength and a
few good swipes.”

“They don’t seem to be smart
enough to try that,” Colin added.

“So we’re safe for now,” Sharon
summarised.

“I guess so,” Mo said.

“We’ll need to keep an eye on
the situation,” Colin said. “For now they’re only slapping at the
windows when they see one of us, but who knows if that will
change.”

Sharon narrowed her eyes
slightly as if she were processing this as new information. She
nodded at Colin.

“
Very good point,” she
said. “Mo, you’d be best placed to take charge of building
security. Are you up for the task?”

Mo was again taken by surprise
to have been singled out and it look a moment for him to wrestle
out a nod of acceptance.

“I’d like you to check the
building periodically during the day,” Sharon said. “On a related
note, I think we should hold morning and evening meetings to
monitor our progress and keep everyone informed. That would be an
ideal time to report back, Mo.”

“
Um, yeah. Sure,” Mo said
softly.

“Next is food.” Sharon looked
directly at Thomas.

Thomas cocked his head and
stared back at Sharon.

“We need to take a detailed
inventory of what food we have,” Sharon said. “We have a few
sandwiches left in the vending machine and sweets and such, but we
need to know how much we have exactly so we can work out how long
we can hold up.”

“What about the drawers?” Colin
asked.

“
Sorry?” Sharon
said.

“Well, you’ve got four floors
of office space and God knows how many drawers. I know myself that
in my drawer in class I’ve got a packet of chocolate cookies. I’m
guessing most people will have some comfort food.”

“Good point.”

“Well, I don’t know if we
should resort to stealing people’s personal property just yet,”
John said.

“What do you mean?” Sharon
asked.

“It’s just that this whole
thing might blow over tomorrow and people might get upset about us
going through their personal things,” John said. “There could be
lawsuits and the police and such-like.”

“I don’t think anyone will
object too strongly about us eating their birthday chocolates,
given the circumstances,” Sharon said.

“
What about the damage to
office property?” John said. “You’ll need to break into most of the
drawers.”

“
Oh, I can pop the locks
of these drawers real easy,” Thomas said. “They’re barrel locks. It
just takes a dunt with a hammer and a screwdriver and they pop
right out. Minimum damage. If you want, I can just detach the
housing at the back and get in that way. No damage at all, but
it’ll take a dog’s age to fix it back up again.”

“
Okay, then,” Sharon
said. “Thomas, I’ll leave it up to you and John to go through the
drawers on this floor.”

John held his pen up in
the air. “I’m not sure—”

“I’ve noted your concern, John,
and I’d like you to take an inventory of anything valuable that you
feel the owner wouldn’t want lost. We can lock up personal items in
one of the stationery cupboards. I’m sure you can organise enough
zip-lock bags or boxes and label them appropriately.”

“
Fine,” John huffed,
resigned to doing things Sharon’s way, as always. He lowered his
pen and made a splodge of black ink on the empty
notepaper.

“Make sure you save any smokes
you find,” Magda said to Thomas.

Thomas gave a deliberate
nod.

“
And when John and I have
finished collecting the scraps from people’s desks, who will dish
out the food?” Thomas asked.

“We’ll take an inventory of all
the food and dole it out fairly between us,” Sharon said.

“And who determines what’s
fair?”

“We all do,” Sharon said.
“That’s one of the reasons for having a meeting. When we meet back
up this evening we’ll know exactly what we have and can proceed
from there.”

“
Why just the drawers on
this floor?” Colin asked. “What about the desks upstairs? They
might have something worthwhile in them.”

Sharon smiled. “They’ll
all be empty, Colin.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. The company has
been downsizing this branch over the last two years. The people who
used to work on those floors have been reassigned for over a
year.”

“So three floors are just
sitting empty?” Colin asked.

“
That’s about it. Head
office has been trying to outsource the rest of this department’s
work, or lease the empty space or find us smaller premises. In the
meantime it’s being treated as contingency resource. So, yes, it’s
just sitting empty.”

“We used it last summer for the
Building Empowerment seminars,” John added.

“
Thank you, John,” Sharon
said condescendingly. She cast a look around the room. “The next
point of order is the power. The generator won’t have enough power
to run indefinitely. I asked Thomas to turn it on this morning so
we had power to use the vending machines and switch the television
on. I don’t think it’s efficient to keep the generator running, so
my proposal would be to limit the amount of time it runs for; say,
half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. This
will give enough time for the water in the urns to boil and allow
us to check if there have been any news updates.”

“Sounds sensible,” Colin
agreed.

“What about the water?” Mo
asked.

“What about it?” Sharon
said.

“
Well, if the power has
gone off, it stands to reason the water will, too,” Mo
said.

“
That’s right,” Thomas
added. “No point us looking for food in people’s drawers if we
don’t have any water. We’ll die in a couple of days without
water.”

“
Okay, any suggestions?”
Sharon asked.

“
We need to save as much
water as we can now,” Mo said.

“Well, can I leave you and
Colin to organise that? I suppose we will need to set in place some
protocols for using the restrooms and washing?”

“
I think Mo will have his
hands full with security,” Colin said. “Why don’t Liz, Melissa, and
I work on the water problem?”

Without waiting to hear
if Liz would agree, Sharon nodded her head approvingly. “Good. The
three of you can see to that. Now, are there any other points of
business?”

The room was quiet. The
occupants looked round at each other to see if someone else would
raise an issue.

“
Good then. We’ll meet
back here at five p.m.,” Sharon said.

The room was filled with the
trundle of chairs being pushed back as people stood up to
leave.

Thomas hadn’t moved. He sat
there reclining with his hands behind his head and waited. He
waited until everyone was standing up and John had his hand on the
door handle.

“What about the boy? Thomas
said, looking up the ceiling.

“What about Grant?” Liz asked
softly.

Everyone stopped. Liz was
staring blankly at the far wall.

“
What about
Grant?”
Liz asked more
forcefully.

Sharon sat back down, and the
three men at the top end of the table followed suit. Thomas, Magda,
and Alex remained standing, but didn’t move to leave.

“What about my son?” Liz asked
again.

“What do you want to do, Liz?”
Colin asked.

Liz’s eyes were puffy and
red. She shook her head.

“
I don’t know,” she said.
“I don’t know because it’s not
him
up there. That’s not my
little boy, but he’s not
gone
.”

“We don’t have to do anything
about your son if you don’t want to,” Sharon assured her.

“
Surely we can’t leave
him like this,” Liz said. “I mean, you said he was dead and I don’t
know what to believe.”

“
Of course he’s not
dead,” John said. “It’s just some crazy virus. When we get rescued
they’ll pump him full of antibiotics and he’ll be right as
rain.”

“I want to believe that, but no
one’s coming to save us,” Liz said.

“
What makes you say
that?” John asked. “They’re bound to send help. It just takes time
to get the rescue effort mobilised, that’s all.”

“Then why is the national news
off?” Thomas asked.

“You’re not helping, Thomas,”
Sharon chastised.

“
I’m not helping?” Thomas
replied. “I’ve done nothing
but
help. I’ve been the go-to guy
with the gennie and I’ve taken my share of watches over that health
hazard upstairs. How am I not helping?”

Colin leaned over the
table and reached a hand out for Liz. Cautiously, she let her hand
slip into his.

“
Liz, we’ll help you
through this,” Colin said. “We all will, won't we?”

A wave of agreement circulated
round the room.

“
We don’t have to do
anything right now,” Colin assured her. “He’s secure; he can’t hurt
anyone. If we get rescued we can discuss options then.”

“
He
is
dead, isn't he?”
Liz said, matter-of-fact.

Melissa started to cry.

“
John, go and get Liz a
coffee,” Sharon said. “Why don’t the rest of you get a jump on your
various projects. Colin and I will see to Liz.”

One by one everyone else left
the room.

Thomas stood up and loudly
thumped his chair back in place under the table. He gave Sharon and
Colin a cold look before making his own exit.

Chapter
9