Drink in case of Emergency (12 page)

“Umm. Yeah, maybe. I’ll be there in a minute.” Scott turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing softly down the hallway. Tyler stepped back from the fallen filing cabinet, reaching down and pushing it over onto its side. The drawers were open a crack, the latch from the locking mechanism had been loosened. With another two quick tugs, the top drawer was open and the files spilled out onto the floor. Tyler pushed them around on the floor until he found a small stack of files with “McGovern.Tyler” printed in the top right corner. He picked up the file and began walking out the door of the office while reading the first page.

Tyler had taken three steps out of the office door when he slowed and stopped. His eyes were still scanning the page, but his mind was wandering. Turning quickly, Tyler walked back into the office and stepped over the mess he had created, and began fumbling with the pile of files, office nicknacks and general papers that had fallen into the corner when he had tipped over the cabinet. After a moment, he found and pulled out what he was looking for, and locked eyes with the awkward and pubescent photograph of ninth grade Jennifer. Or Caitlin. Maybe it was Caitlin?

With a flick of the wrist, Tyler shattered the picture frame against the wall and pulled the glossy photo from the frame. Tyler took one last look at awkward Tonya’s face. He bent the 5x7 photo and creased it firmly before tucking it into his pocket. He wasn’t sure why he did this yet, but for some reason, having Gretchen’s face next to his left buttcheek made him feel a lot better.

****

Twenty minutes later, four young men and two young women sat around the conference table of Tyler’s former employer to eat dinner. Justin had grilled up steaks, as well as tossed a large salad and had lain out a spread of all of the hangover foods that everyone brought back with them. There were bowls of popcorn, saltine crackers, and several cases of gatorade which had been sitting in the freezer in the breakroom, so they were crisp and delicious.

             
Jessica and Amy hadn’t come up empty handed. They had apparently grabbed supplies from their car. Jessica had brought in two bottles of fine wine. Chris thought he recognized the label, but only in the ‘that looks way to expensive, I’ll grab the bottle that’s next to it’ way of recognizing wine. Amy, not to be outdone, also brought beverages to pass. Her beverages consisted of a box of assorted liquors. Twelve bottles in all, Chris recognized all of them as being top shelf and extremely expensive. He would have wondered if they had scavenged them from the offices, if they hadn’t all been full.

             
Despite their earlier vigor in attacking the stray bottles that Chris and Scott had found, seeing a dozen full bottles of liquor made each of the men uncomfortable. Stomachs rolled a little as Amy opened the first bottle, Spiced Rum, to mix with a coke she retrieved from the soda machine. The scent was overpowering and very familiar to the men who had finished a pair of bottles the night before.

             
Dinner was eaten in relative silence. Everyone focusing on the food first, and mumbling words of appreciation towards Justin, who had done all of the cooking. Chris realized that it had been over 24 hours since they had actually had a full meal. It was the burgers and brats that they had on the grill before this all began. After the dinner was mostly consumed, along with the two bottles of wine (the liquor, to this point, had only been touched by Amy and Tyler), tongues were loosened enough to talk.

             
Justin asked the majority of the questions, many of which made Chris cringe in awkwardness.

He just tried so hard sometimes, so hard…

             
They spent the first half hour just talking about their backgrounds. They guys revealed that they had known each other since college, except for Tyler and Justin, whose history went back to middle school. The guys told their story of the last twenty four hours. Tyler getting fired and bringing everyone together. The parts of the binge drinking that they had remembered, as well as everything that had happened thus far. Chris was really surprised that it was Scott who gave the details about their trip out to his Aunt and Uncle. He could see the pain in Scott’s eyes at the story. Once the girls were another two drinks deeper, they began to open up about their story as well.

“Jessica! Oh Em Gee! You have to meet Amy!”

Amy had just been served her third martini sour, when Emily shrieked the semi-introduction. Amy’s very first thought about Jessica was that she had excellent timing. She only had 5 minutes left to order a drink (or three) before happy hour was over and they went back to regular price. Amy spun in her barstool, turning to face Jessica Williams for the first time.

“Jessica, this is Amy O’Reilly.” Jessica raised her hand in an offering to shake, but Amy just gave a slight nod and tipped the dry martini to her lips. Emily continued the introductions. “Amy, this is my college roommate, Jessica Williams.”

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I remember hearing so much about you during our two years living together.” Jessica sat down as she spoke. “Are you so excited for this weekend?”

Amy’s first impression of Jessica was that she was a hardworking cheerful airhead, who missed 80% of sarcasm that happened around her. This first impression was, for the most part, absolutely accurate.

Amy had known Emily Vaber since they were in middle school. Following high school, Emily had gone off to the same small private college her parents had met at, while Amy hung back and went to community college part time, while she worked full time to help support her family. Her step-father had an accident when she was six that left him with a bad back and a worse drinking problem. This drinking problem led to a liver problem which eventually led to a pretty nasty dying problem. Amy helped her mom take care of her younger brother and two half-sisters.

Jessica Williams sat down with Emily and Amy at the high bar table, ordering a raspberry margarita before happy hour ended. Amy quietly enjoyed her buzz while Emily and Jessica caught up on gossip about a dozen different sorority sisters that Amy couldn’t care less about. The conversation evolved to talk about Emily and Adam’s wedding planning and how guys just didn’t understand the importance of color coordinating and flower arranging. It was another forty five minutes and a drink and a half later before the subject turned to something that caught Amy’s ear.

“So you two really cut yourselves off? No sex until your wedding night?” Jessica’s face was red, although Amy couldn’t tell if it was the raspberry margarita or the topic that made her blush.

“Yeah, it was weird at first, but now its kinda romantic. I mean, when we are together on our wedding night, it’s going to be over six months since we did anything like that.”

“Wait.” Amy blurted out, insistence in her voice. “When you say ‘anything like that’ are you actually referring to the fact that you are not engaging in ANY sexual activity until your wedding night?”

“Yeah, no sex.” Emily said, a sharp note of pride in her voice. “It will be like we’re born again virgins, exploring each other for the first time.” Emily looked to Jessica, who nodded and smiled in support. Amy wasn’t sure if it was the three very strong martini’s, or her own dry spell, but she found herself speaking without a filter.

“That’s easily the worst idea I’ve ever heard. I mean... I’ve seen Adam, he’s a fine piece of man. Do you just masturbate like twice a day then?” Amy found out that it was the margarita that had made Jessica blush, because this comment turned her face into a strawberry. Emily tried to recover the situation with a small amount of grace.

“No. That’s gross. Besides, the anticipation is going to be the best part on our wedding night.” Emily’s pride began to tip her shoulders back, stiffening her posture even though her face was slowly reddening as well.

A little voice of judgement in Amy’s head tried to tell her to let it go, but a stronger voice, by the name of vodka, got the better of her.

“Well one of two things is going to happen. Either Adam has been spanking the monkey twice a day this whole time, or the sex is going to be shorter than your first kiss as husband and wife.”

Emily kept her face straight. She had dealt with Amy’s tipsy ramblings many times in her life. Amy just hadn’t had the same opportunities that she had growing up, so she couldn’t be held to the same standard. All the same, Emily was not going to let it ruin her wedding shower weekend. “Ames, how about we just drop it for now. This weekend is going to be a lot of fun. Let’s talk more about what we’re doing tomorrow, okay?”

And so the night went on about as Emily had planned it. After dinner and another drink, she, Jessica and Amy went back to Emily and Adam’s house to plan the bachelorette party that would take place on Friday night. A few other college friends were getting into town late tomorrow afternoon, but for tonight it was the three of them. Adam would be home for tonight, and then working the rest of the weekend. As a firefighter, he typically worked forty eight hour shifts, with two to three days off in between.

The evening was nice, and Amy found herself even warming up to Jessica a little bit. She let Jessica take the guest bedroom and claimed the couch for herself. Despite their lack of carnal relations, Emily and Adam still shared a bed together. With this bit of news, Amy was positive that Adam was flogging the dolphin.

The idea that Emily was so high and mighty about it while Adam was hanging out with his other gal, rosy palm, made Amy giggle to herself as she fell asleep Thursday night. She slept well, and woke to screaming.

****

“Anyway, I woke up this morning to sceams. Real, bloodcurdling screams.” Jessica had a far off, haunted look as she spoke. She trailed off and Amy picked up on her story.

“We followed the noise to Emily’s bedroom. Adam was…” Amy gave a little shudder and took another pull from the bottle of vodka in front of her. “He was tearing her throat out...with his teeth.”

“There was so much blood.” Jessica was coming out of her trance. “I didn’t know what to do, so we just ran out the door.” Jessica’s face began to flush. “There wasn’t anything we could have done for her. So much blood…”

“Then what happened?” Justin asked, his voice as soft as his eyes.”

“We ran to my car. We called the police.” Amy said, her voice strong.

“And nobody answered.” Scott spoke up.

“Yeah...so we tried just driving there. But that didn’t work either. We tried the hospital and fire department and even a couple of churches. Everywhere we went it was the same. Everyone turned into those things like Adam.”

“Hospital!  We should have thought of that.”  Scott chimed in.

“So I thought we should get some supplies so we could lie low.” Jessica said, with a note of optimism in her voice. “And that’s where we met you.”

“Yeah..you.” Chris could her the anger dripping from Amy’s final statement. They really didn’t have time to be angry here, not if they wanted to survive. He didn’t think it would work, but he figured it didn’t hurt to ask the biggest question that was on his mind.

“Do you have any idea why we’re still alive?” The question hung in the air awkwardly. There was enough of a pause that Chris was actually hopeful that they might have some idea of what was happening.

Jessica looked to Amy, waiting for her to respond.

“Nope.” All four guys at the table dropped their eyes for a moment in frustration. It was the question that had been asked only a couple times so far, but not actually discussed in depth. “I’m guessing that means you guys have no idea either, huh?”

“Nope. None.” It was Scott who answered for the group. This line of questioning wasn’t getting them anywhere productive. Time to take a different direction.

“So, we have no idea what happened. We just know that we’ve survived it, whatever it is.”

“Some kind of virus, I bet.” Scott spat out. Chris had noticed an underlying anger in him ever since the incident at his Aunt and Uncle’s. The whole situation was fucked, Chris didn’t deny that, but he had a feeling that this anger was more or less just misplaced frustration.

“A virus wouldn’t have affected everyone all at once. Viruses spread slowly, regardless of the method.” Justin argued.

“Well what the fuck do you think it was?” The question had teeth like a bear trap, just daring someone to step into it so he could attack them. Chris wasn’t going to let this happen. The last thing they needed right now was for the group to be fighting.

“Regardless of what caused this, we just need to figure out where we want to go from here.” Chris looked around the table as he made the statement.

Tyler had been more or less silent since the incident in his boss’s office. Scott was a ball of angry emotions. Justin was distracted, trying to do anything he could to make friends with the ladies.

Jessica was reacting to Justin, Chris had noticed her face reacting to the minor expressions that he was making. Amy face was virtually blank. She closely watched what was going on around her, but she didn’t seem to be reacting to it, not emotionally at least. Jessica was the one who finally broke the silence.

“Well, we should find other survivors, right? I mean, if we’re all still alive, then there has to be others. Maybe it’s a genetic thing, you know, like we’re immune to whatever happened, so our families will be too.” Her question caused another silence which made her blush. It seemed like a good idea, Chris thought, but he also knew how their last effort to find survivors went. Across the table, he could see tears forming in Scott’s eyes.

             
Chris knew that Scott wouldn’t mind crying in front of his friends. They were a close enough group for that, but he didn’t think he would want to cry in front of two strangers, especially women.

             
“Excuse me, it’s been a very long day.” Scott stood up as he spoke. He quickly turned and made for the door.

             
“Where you going?” Justin asked. Chris noticed that Justin had been so caught up in watching the girls that he completely missed Scott’s distress. Scott didn’t answer as he walked through the door and down the hallway. There was an awkward pause, when, to Chris’s surprise, Amy spoke up.

             
“Let me finish this drink, then I’ll go after him.”

             
“I can come with.” Jessica offered, but Amy shook her head and chugged the rest of her drink. Chris wasn’t sure what to make of her yet, but he had a feeling he was going to like Amy.

Five minutes after Amy had left to follow Scott, the conversation was just getting going again.

“I don’t care what you think. This couldn’t be viral, It spread too quickly for that.” Justin emphasized his point by throwing an empty coke can through the open window that he had broken to vent out the fumes from the camping stove.  It made a faint tinkling sound on the concrete below.

“Now you’re an expert on viruses?” Justin and Jessica were about two minutes into this argument, each side not really willing to admit that they actually had no idea.

Chris didn’t know much, but he knew that the situation that he and his friends were in was a serious one. He knew it might be a big assumption, but there was a chance that everyone in the world outside of this room was now...he felt juvenile using the word, although he couldn’t think of a more appropriate one, a “zombie.”

Immediate party excluded, Chris hadn’t seen nor heard from another human being since...Chris chewed on the thought. It had been Beth. Beth was the last other person they had all seen alive.

Chris remembered the first time he met Beth. He thought she really did look hot, but in more of a bitchy, high maintenance way. It had been at an Oktoberfest celebration in a nearby town.

There were a few bars that got together and held a block party of sorts, bringing in a few polka bands and carnival food vendors. Chris remembered it being bitterly cold, much colder than it usually was at the start of October.

Chris and Tyler were already a couple of beers in, and were quickly making friends with a table of older gentlemen who were wearing lederhosen, the traditional German shorts with suspenders. Up walks Justin, clad in jeans, a tee shirt, and button up dress shirt, with his arm around an overly made up blonde woman wearing a jacket that was three sizes too large for her. Chris recognized the jacket she was wearing as Justin’s, and instantly put together that this beautiful young lady had come along and dressed completely inappropriately for the weather, and now Justin had to suffer the cold because of it. Chris did not have a great first impression of Beth.

As he reflected on their first meeting, Chris realized he never really had a high opinion of Beth after his second, third, and fourth impressions of her either. Chris forgot the entire story of how Justin had met her, but it had involved his cousin who knew Beth through an ex boyfriend, or something like that. Chis was thankful that due to Amy and Jessica, Beth would NOT be the last living woman he would ever see.

Chris was mostly worried about Tyler. He was acting weird, even given the circumstances. Ever since he and Scott had helped him break into the file cabinet, he hadn’t said more than two or three words. This is why he was taken aback when he realized that Tyler had asked him a question.

“Huh? Sorry man, drinking on a hangover day always knocks me out. What’d you say?” Chris looked over at Tyler, who had been completely silent for the last fifteen minutes. He had just been quietly listening in on Justin and Jessica’s argument.

“Do you think I’m difficult to work with? Or that I ‘lack the ambition necessary to become indispensable’?” Tyler dictated the words stiffly from the file with his second question.