The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse (9 page)

I took a bite and nodded. Ham and cheese was way better than I remembered.

“He had his good points,” I said. “Never failed to convict me on what I could be doing. He genuinely cared about me.”

He raised an eyebrow at me and then threw my blanket at me. “Eat your sandwich,” he said. “Try to get some sleep. I’ll see if you’re sane in the morning.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever slept in quarantine, but sleep is almost impossible to get. The lights never shut off, there is weird smells, bodies are rolling up against you and the noise level never goes down. So I laid there and spent my time thinking instead. Every now and then I looked at Robert, who apparently, could just sleep anywhere, despite his previous pleas for lumbar support. He used his book as a pillow and spooned a tiny brunette.

Jake, on the other hand, nursed someone who was throwing up violently. I watched that happen too, my mind traveling back to when I threw up in the bathroom of that Italian place and he stood by the door. He left to jump start someone’s car and then disappeared for another hour to meet their kids. It was the ultimate in attention trumping that I couldn’t argue with.

As I stared at the scenes of human interaction around me, I thought maybe my sarcasm did get in the way of happiness, both in myself and in others. And maybe I was wrong to let Jake go. Someone so willing to put themselves in another person’s filth could never be on the wrong side of the argument. Probably why Mother Theresa was single—she was too good for everyone. Seemingly so, anyway.

It was at some point I got up and went to the public bathrooms, which were port-a-potties at the far end of the wall. When I was done, I washed my hands in a long trough of sinks that were being used for a variety of purposes. Jake followed me there, cleaning himself off.

He saw me and smiled. I smiled back. He motioned me to come over.

“I have a confession to make,” he whispered.

“Oh?”

He smiled. “It’s like God has something bigger than this planned.”

I nodded. “What are we up to now? Three Biblical plagues? Seems about right.”

“Are you still staying over on the east wing?”

“If east is that way.” I pointed to where Robert slept soundly. “Then yes.”

He took my hands. His were wet, but I didn’t mind.

“I’ll come and find you in the morning,” he said. “We have so much to catch up on, and I know time is a precious resource. Especially since we’re on such a good vibe.”

I nodded again.

“I really missed you,” he said. “Not everyone could make me laugh like you.”

I smiled. “There’s no one really like you,” I said.

“That means a lot to me.” He let go of my hands and smiled softly. “I’ll find you.”

I went back to where Robert was still sleeping. Next to him was a middle-aged woman who had a shiny bag near her. Her eyes were closed, but I could see into the shiny bag. A tube of Clinique lipstick stuck out of it so I reached over and took it, then slipped it into my pocket. Somehow I was able to sleep after that.

* * *

I stood in the breakfast line wearing lipstick, but I couldn’t find Jake. The woman who had slept next to me had gone into hysterics over her missing lipstick.

“Where the fuck is it?” she screamed. “Some asshole thinks they can steal my lipstick?”

I stared at the floor, holding my bowl. I pursed my lips, momentarily hiding them.

Robert stared down at me.

“Someone’s all dressed up. When did you go lipstick shopping?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t know anything about the time you took my spot in line and therefore took the last chicken Caesar salad.”

“You’re visualizing salads now?” He looked confused.

“No, this was two years ago,” I said. “And I didn’t say anything then, but it really bothered me.”

Robert rolled his eyes. “We’re living in a different world now. No one cares about salad.”

“But we should care about lipstick?”

He raised an eyebrow. I took a deep sigh and looked down at the lipstick in my hand.

“Fine.”

I made my way back to the woman who shouted at one of the security guards and made wild gesticulations with her arms.

“What kind of operation is this?” she asked, teeth bared. “I close my eyes and everyone thinks its open season?”

“Ma’am,” said the tired guard. “It’s lipstick. I’m sorry for your loss. Hopefully, this is the worst thing that happens to you during this time.”

“You’re not going to help?” she asked, grabbing the lapels of his uniform. “You’re not going to interrogate anyone?”

“Excuse me,” I said, gently approaching them. “I think this belongs to you.”

I held out the tube and waited for her to turn her wrath on me. Instead, she slowly took it out of my hand, staring at it in awe.

“You had this,” she said. “You? And now you’re giving it back?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry, I took it and it was wrong.”

She nodded and cleared her throat. Her breath quickened and her cheeks went flush. For a moment, I thought she was going to break into tears. She pointed at me and hissed at the guard. “And that’s how you do it!”

She turned on her heel and marched off in the other direction. The guard looked at me.

“Did that make any sense to you?” he asked.

I shook my head when Jake approached me. He gave me an approving nod then gently squeezed my shoulder. I smiled broadly at him, staring at his hand.

“Hi,” I said.

“That was so nice of you.”

“What was?” I said. “What’s on tap for breakfast?”

“You’re going to be the glue that holds this place together. I can feel it.” His face was worried and gaunt. “It’s oatmeal,” he said sadly. “I tried to get cinnamon, but…you know. People will be so disappointed in me.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case.”

“More importantly, we have to bunker down,” he said. “I wanted to let the two of you know first, but don’t say anything to panic anyone.”

Robert stared at him, then me. “What are you talking about?”

“Sometimes we have to put the quarantine under lockdown,” Jake said quietly. “It’s because of the Wanderers.”

“The who?”

“They wander and pillage,” he said. “They’re ruthless. They came a few weeks ago, made an awful noise and terrified us all. They also killed an old man.”

“And you say they’re coming?” Robert asked. “How do you know this?”

Jake started to shake his head. “We have access to a weak satellite signal,” he said. “We know when they’re coming.”

“So what happens?” I asked.

“We’re going to cut the power,” Jake said. “Soon. We hope that if they think there’s nothing here, they’ll pass by it.”

“There’s no way,” I said. “Have you seen how many people are packed in?”

“It worked once,” Jake said. “There were less of us at the time. That’s the key. But people tend to put aside their fears in times of trauma.”

“According to who?” I asked.

“Let me know if you need help.” Robert offered his hand.

Jake shook his hand. ”I’ll remember that.”

Word spread and rather quickly. I expected pandemonium, but instead, people seemed to take it in stride. In the afternoon everyone carried boards in a single file line toward the outside of the quarantine. We watched it for a while before Robert joined in. It was at that point I noticed a woman my age, chin-length short, dark hair, stocky build, wearing a University of Texas sweatshirt. She stared at me.

When the sun started going down, that’s when the lights began to shut off. I sat in the same sleeping spot as the night before and waited for Robert and Jake to come back. Robert came by first and Jake joined him as the last lights were being turned.

“Have you seen Destiny?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Destiny?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know who that is. Unless it’s that weird guy who tried to sell me semen earlier today.”

“You have to make the most of your potential.” He tapped his risk management book.

I grimaced. “I didn’t think I looked that desperate.”

It was now completely dark and there was a loud bang that came from the outside, which startled me, but Jake jumped up and stood at attention. He then collapsed to the floor and burrowed his head in my lap.

“I hate this part,” he said. He started to shake, and I realized he was crying. I knelt and put my arm around him.

“Don’t cry,” I whispered. “Its getting too sad and I’ll have to start cracking jokes again.”

“If we could only reach out to these people,” he said. “We could just make it all go away.” He sobbed now with big audible gasps as he slumped over my lap. “I just wish things were the way they used to be.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“If people could just smile at each other,” he said. “I hear the sounds of fighting and it gives me nightmares.”

“Fighting?” I asked. “Everyone seems so calm. This can’t last, can it? I keep hoping, but it won’t last.”

My left leg had fallen asleep under his weight and I tried to shift it, but it was pinned without any hope of release any time soon.

“Just the weight of the world is so heavy.”

“I know what you mean.” I tried to shift again, but there was no moving it.

The darkness was becoming overwhelming, and the entire area was filled with the sounds of heavy breathing, the quiet sobs and shuffling of limbs that were in better shape than mine.

So in that dead quiet, the fact there was a crash came as a bigger shock and opened a chasm of panic that quickly erupted. Jake suddenly jumped up from my lap. The blood returned with stabbing prickles.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“The doors!” someone shouted over the panic. “One of the back doors didn’t get boarded!”

“We’re all dead!” Jake screamed. “We’re all going to die!”

I frantically looked around. “What was all that talk about staying calm—”

It was at that moment when the fires of human emotion in their most extreme form broke out and I had to fight to cling to a pole to prevent being trampled on. There were the sounds of more crashing, screaming, when suddenly a fire broke out and part of the tent went down with it. It occurred to me, I was terrified someone was going to smash my head with thick-toed soles. Someone ran by who was completely on fire, then a gun shot went off followed by more screams. Some people on the other side were getting trampled. I sat on the floor, clutching the wall, hoping for some kind of safety when a large woman with a heavy bag bulled her way through. She swung it.

“Are you okay?” I asked, reaching out to her.

“Get out of my way!” she screamed.

Her bag, which must have been filled with bricks or cartoon anvils, hit me on top the head. It hurt like a mother and made me cower even more near that wall. “Ouch!”

She marched on and didn’t give me a second thought, so I snuggled under a blanket and closed my eyes. I was aware of the jostling of other people around me, but I tried to concentrate on a memory, scanning through as many as I could until I stopped on Christmas when I was seven years old. I unwrapped a box while my parents looked on and beamed. I opened the box and saw a puffy paint sweatshirt with two goofy reindeer holding a wreath.

When I woke up, it seemed as if everything had calmed down. Most people were sorting through their belongings, and cleaning up the gruesome mess from the night before. I was processing the sight of dead bodies, blood smears on the walls and then the smells of blood and excrement. The last time I had seen a dead body up close was my grandmother’s funeral and even then I could only keep a safe distance from it. There was a pain in the side of my head where someone or something had dropped that heavy weight on me and it was now bleeding sporadically. I wrapped it with a dirty pillowcase I had found on the ground. While I did so, I saw Jake crawling out of an overturned box. I considered saying something, but let the moment go.

Instead I went to find Robert. I pushed past the crowds of people until I found him at a makeshift infirmary, getting his wrist tended to by a pretty petite brunette woman, mid 20s, in an Atlanta Falcons sweatshirt and black leggings with a stethoscope around her neck and a needle in her hand. He waved me over the second he saw me.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

I joined him on a table made from aluminum siding and cinder blocks.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Mostly just fighting not to get any internal organs smashed.”

The woman pointed at my head. “What happened to you?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Something or someone hit me. I don’t know.”

“Does it hurt?” Robert asked, tilting his head to get a better look.

I nodded. “About as much as you’d expect.”

“May I?” She gestured to my head wrap.

I nodded, and she unwrapped it.

“Well,” she said. “You get points for resourcefulness.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I didn’t realize pillowcases would become so valuable in the future.”

She looked over my wound. “I wish I had some real bandages for you,” she said. “But I can give you some Neosporin and an injection for the pain.”

She ripped up the case and made a more appropriate dressing. “Do you mind if I keep this?” she asked. “Someone else might need it.”

It’s kind of stained and dirty—”

She stared at me blankly, then blinked.

I shrugged. “But go nuts.”

She smiled and applied the medicine, then gave me the shot.

Robert elbowed me. “This is Rebecca,” he said. “Isn’t she something?”

“She’s great,” I said, then turned to her. “How long have you been a nurse?”

She wiped the blood off me. “Oh, I’m not a nurse,” she said.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“I’m just a little old Pilates instructor,” she said. “I decided I was bored in this tent and started giving people shots. And now I’m in charge of all this.”

She smiled at me with serenity, gesturing to the expanse of the quarantine.

“That’s a horrible story.”

“You coming with us?” Robert asked.

I looked at Rebecca, who beamed.

“Wait, what’s happening now? Where are we going?”

“We’re heading up north,” he said. “Rebecca heard about a commune that has been completely unfazed by all of this. They grow their own potatoes.”