by Kevin Jusino
I wonder how the others here would react to strangers like us.
We pass by the deserted lobby quietly, kicking away the trash and discarded items that clutter the floor. The short amount of time it took for order to completely disappear is nothing less than amazing.
Martin taps my shoulder to get my attention and points at something to our left. “Look, over there.”
Towards the back corner of the lobby, a small corridor seems to lead into some type of utility area. However, as we slink our way through, I spot a large door towards the end of it.
“That has to be the back door to the shop,” Martin whispers. “It’s in the exact same location.”
Henry steps forward, pulling out his gun. “If it’s locked, there’s probably people inside.”
The idea makes my breath hitch, and I continue to hold it as Henry slowly reaches out to grasp the handle. When he pulls it, the door presses against the frame, but doesn’t open.
So we aren’t the only ones here.
“Shit,” Martin huffs.
I think about the thinning supply of food back at the warehouse. Is it really worth the risk?
I realize Martin’s staring at me, probably reading my thoughts because he says, “We won’t last more than a few days with what little we have, at the most.”
Henry nods. “We should take anything we can get.”
It doesn’t reassure my fear, but I don’t say anything. They’re right: we need this food.
“Stand back,” Martin says.
Henry and I scoot a few feet back while Martin points his own weapon at the handle. I feel a nudge on my shoulder, and Henry motions for me to cover my ears; I’m glad he does, because a second later two resounding booms split the earth open.
No, it’s just in my head. They were only gunshots, that’s all. I’m still okay…I think.
The bullets have opened such a big hole in the door it may as well have split in half; just a light nudge from Martin’s boot sends it swinging wide open, allowing us entry. My heart soars at the sight of half-filled shelves and bottles of water, my mouth already watering as I take in the beautiful sights. I’m so distracted, I don’t even realize I’ve walked right inside.
I don’t even notice the click of a gun before I see the muzzle pointed right between my eyes.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WORLD GOES still, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to remind myself to breathe.
“Drop the gun!”
My blood beats so loudly in my ears that the voice is muffled and I can’t tell who yelled: the scraggly, tired looking man in front of me—who points the gun at me, or Martin, who points his rifle at the man’s temple. I can’t see Henry, but I’m too scared to turn my head, thinking the man will get jumpy and accidentally press the trigger.
And then, just like that, it’ll be over.
Forever.
“Who are you?” the man whispers.
“Drop the gun, and we can talk,” Martin repeats, his voice steady. Much more steady than I could imagine speaking in this situation.
“You’re the ones who broke into my store,” the man huffs, his slightly-crazed eyes darting between me and Martin.
“Just looking for needed supplies,” Martin says. “We have a lot of people to feed. We didn’t know you were here.”
A lie. We knew there was a good chance someone was here.
I see a shadow creep around one of the shelves behind the man, slowly slinking forward, and realize it’s Henry. The man doesn’t know he’s here—he must’ve ducked out of view quick enough.
Martin’s breath hitches as he spots the same thing, tightening his grip on the rifle.
“No one has to get hurt here,” he says.
He’s stalling.
Slowly, I raise my hands, keeping his attention focused on me.
“Then I suggest you two leave,” the man replies. “And don’t come back again.”
There’s a flash of metal, and before I can blink again, the man is facedown on the ground. He lets out a single groan before going completely silent; for a single, terrifying moment, I think he’s dead—but the slight rise and fall of his back tells me he’s still alive. Hopefully, the worst he’ll have is a killer headache from the hilt of the gun Henry used to knock him out.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice shaky.
Henry nods, and Martin quickly scoops up the gun from the man’s hand, tossing it into his own backpack. I stare down at him, unable to tear my gaze away from his unconscious form. Is this really what we’ve become? Pointing guns at each other just for a few crackers and bottles of water?
I wonder how long it will be until the same is done over far less.
“Zoey, help me get this door open,” Martin says from the front of the shop, struggling with a heavy wooden bar placed across the door.
I glance back down at the man. “What about him?”
“I’ll watch him,” Henry says. “Just help Martin get that door open, let’s get out of here as quick as we can.”
I step over the man and walk over to where Martin stands. With a grunt, we get the wooden plank out and drop it to the floor with such a loud clang I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. It takes another two minutes just to unlatch and unblock the next series of measures used to keep the front door secure.
The sky has already darkened a shade of orange, and I wonder how long we’ve been in the city. How could the sun have set so quickly already? Maybe I haven’t been keeping track of time as well as I thought I was.
A few more members of our squad pile into the store and start shoving as much supplies as they can into their backpacks and bags. I can’t help but wonder how many other people besides us would have benefited from these supplies.
Maybe the man had his own people to feed.
Or maybe I’m too soft for the apocalypse.
Every bag we’ve brought is filled to the brim, but the shelves are still not entirely bare. It pains me to leave so much behind, but at least this means we’ve left some behind for the man.
“Do you smell that?” Henry asks as we start towards the exit.
I’m still distracted by the man—who is now propped up on some boxes behind the counter—to have noticed anything else. I take a deep breath, smelling nothing at first. A few moments later, it comes to me; a dizzying feeling—small, but noticeable—paired with a slight smoky tinge that makes my nostrils twitch.
“A fire?” I offer.
Martin shakes his head. “There’s no smoke.”
I scan the sky, finding nothing but thick clouds in the distance against an otherwise clear horizon. Before I can speak again, a low rumbling sound spreads through the air, and there’s a flash of light from the faraway clouds. Only…they’re not that far away anymore.
In fact, I’ve never seen clouds move so quickly.
“Rain in the middle of summer?” I whisper to myself.
“Let’s move,” Martin says. “We did good today, I think we should go back to the warehouse now.”
No one objects.
The journey back feels twice as long as the initial walk, and the clouds keep at our heels the whole time. The smell floating in the air doesn’t go away; if anything, it gets worse, each breath I take thick and burning. Every instinct in my body tells me that something is very, very off.
We’re only a few minutes away from the warehouse when the first drops reach us.
At first, we disregard them, figuring it’s only the weather playing tricks again. But it quickly appears that something is off once the smell of burning clothing reaches our noses next, and then the sensation of my skin being sent aflame soon after.
The rain is burning us.
“Everyone find cover!” someone shouts.
“The rain is toxic!”
I’m already scrambling to the sidewalk before they can finish their sentences, using the edges of the buildings to protect me from the deadly water above. Henry and Martin follow, and we all form a line alongside
the block, huddling away from the rain. I wince as remains from the fat droplets splash against my toes, too weak to burn through my shoes, but frightening all the same.
“Where the hell did this come from?” Henry huffs, using the bottom of his shirt to dry off his hair.
No one has an answer for him.
I lean my head out as close as I dare to take a look up at the sky. From a distance, the clouds had the appearance of any other rain cloud. But these…these are much different. For one, they seem to all be bunched together into one condensed collection, blocking out the entire sun. Rather than being round and puffy, its shape is flat and almost hard at the edges, as if it has been cut into pieces.
This is no natural occurrence.
“It’s them,” I say, breathless. “It’s from whoever’s up there in the Globe. The aliens.”
Martin wipes away the sweat from his brow. “Why would they do this to us?”
Henry shrugs. “Meant to kill us off, I guess. Maybe they ran out of bombs. Wonder why the cowards can’t just come down and do it themselves. Let me show them a real fair fight.”
Martin shakes his head. “I mean, why would they try to kill us if they haven’t collected everything they need yet? They still don’t have you…for whatever reason they even needed you in the first place.”
The thought makes my chest tighten even more with fear.
“Maybe they don’t,” I say, pulling their gazes. “Maybe they already have enough. They don’t need us anymore.”
Henry huffs again and his breath comes out as fog; the temperature has decreased a few digits as well with the arrival of the poison clouds. “Then why can’t they leave us alone?” he whispers.
I wonder if we’ll ever truly know.
It feels like it takes an eternity for the cloud of acid rain to pass, leaving behind city streets that have been soaked with melted cement and tar. It doesn’t seem to be powerful enough to get through most of the structures, but small indentures in the walls of the buildings we pass by tell me that it’ll only take a few more of those rain clouds for some real damage to be done.
I hope to be as far away from this city as possible once that time comes. And from the acid rain, preferably.
Thankfully, no one seems to be seriously hurt besides a woman who has a few bad burns on her arm and a man who got a drop in his eye—I don’t want to think about how slim the chances are of it fully healing. As we reach the final stretch leading to the warehouse, I slide between shoulders and sidle up next to Henry.
“I think we should leave,” I say, keeping my voice low enough the chatter from the others’ drowns it out. “I don’t like this city.”
He keeps his gaze forward, but replies, “I think so, too. Let’s talk with the others once we get back. I thought we might be safe, if we could find food, but we’ve only moved to a bigger target.”
I think back to the large cities that were bombed towards the start of this invasion, and feel a sudden sense of urgency to put as much distance as humanly possible between me and this city. Who knows how long until it’s the next target of nuclear annihilation.
First, we wanted to leave the buses. Now, it’s these people. Will we ever get to stop running?
The warehouse faintly smells of the acid rain, and I realize that some droplets stain the floor around the edges of the walls—a few must have burned their way inside. Just one more thing that further convinces me to leave this place. That is, assuming we’ll be able to find safety somewhere else.
Maybe there’s nothing safe anymore.
There’s a brief boost in morale as people watch us dump our winnings out with the rest of the supplies, but a sinking feeling rests at the bottom of my stomach as I realize that it barely added anything at all. To keep everyone fed, we’d have to make finds like this every day, and from the amount of yellow stripes I saw on the doors out there, I doubt that’ll ever happen.
“How was it out there?” Cacy asks once Henry and I return to our area after turning over our weapons.
The hours of walking finally catch up to me all at once, and I nearly collapse onto the mattress.
“Unsettling,” Henry responds.
“And I almost got a bullet in the face over a bag of chips,” I add.
Rachel gasps and Cacy’s eyebrows furrow. “What are you talking about?” she asks.
I wave my hand. “Long story, too tired.”
“Then the acid rain came,” Henry grunts. “Did you guys see that?”
Cacy shakes her head. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I wish,” I say.
We explain to them all that we saw—Henry leading most of the conversation, since I’m so drained both physically and emotionally I keep staring off into space—before bringing up our main topic: escape. I suppose it’s not technically an escape since we’re not prisoners, but I can’t find another word to describe it.
“How will we get food?” Corey asks, bouncing a ball of torn-up mattress stuffing between his hands. Already he is preoccupied with survival, just like the rest of us.
“Maybe we can take some from here…” Henry trails off, before shaking his head. “But that would be too dangerous, especially with all the guards.”
Cacy nods. “I…I wouldn’t feel right, taking food from these people.” We all turn our heads to take a look at those surrounding us. “Who knows how much longer they have.”
“Our chances of survival would likely reduce greatly if we didn’t have food to take along with us,” Rachel adds, eyeing the new pile of food. “And judging from how long it took you to find all that, I doubt it will be much easier to find more.”
She’s right, and I can tell everyone else thinks the same thing because not a word is said for a good minute, leaving us in electrified silence. The rest of the warehouse continues their activities and noise, all unaware of our secret dilemma.
“Well, I’m watching the second exit door tomorrow night,” Martin says. “Mostly everyone will be asleep by then. You guys can get your stuff and then come meet me at the door, and we’ll leave from there.”
“What about your friends?” Henry asks.
Martin shrugs. “They won’t try to stop us. I think.”
I suppose the odds could be worse.
“We’ll have to know by then,” he continues. “Or we leave with nothing but what you brought along with you.”
I glance at my backpack, knowing the water bottles and food within won’t last more than two days when shared with the rest. Hopefully that can buy us enough time to find some other place with food.
It has to.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ONCE AGAIN, I don’t remember falling asleep.
When I open my eyes, the warehouse is calm and silent, dimly lit by the warm lamps scattered across the space. Everyone else is asleep, their figures shrouded by the shadows around me. Brushing away the hair from my eyes, I sit up and stretch my back, having grown stiff during the night.
“Can’t sleep?”
I start at the voice, my heart returning to normal pace when I realize it’s only Martin. He lies on his side on the mattress next to me, brown eyes staring up at the ceiling.
I shake my head. “Guess not.”
“Me neither,” he says.
The silence stretches on between us, and I find myself blankly staring into the center of one of the faraway lamps.
Before I can convince myself not to, I ask, “Why are you coming with us?”
He lets out a long breath and rolls onto his back, fingers clasped together over his chest before replying, “I…I guess because I realized I can’t be a hero.”
I lean forward, tuning into his words.
“I always wanted to be one,” he continues. “Wanted to be the one who saves the day, helps everyone get back on track, whatever. It wasn’t for me, though. I didn’t care about attention or glory or anything like that. I just wanted to help people. Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up with a whole lot. My dad was always worki
ng to keep our roof over our head; every time I needed help with homework, I had to work on it for hours and figure it out myself since there was no one else to do it for me. I had to walk to school every day since he could barely afford the payments on our car and had to drive half an hour to get to his job. So, maybe, I never want anyone else to feel like that.”
He pauses, and I scoot myself closer to the edge of the mattress.
“But…what does that have to do with us?” I ask.
A small smile appears on his face. “Dad used to say if I overdid it with trying to help everyone, there’d be no one left to help me since everyone would assume I could do it myself, and I’d end up getting hurt. All these people…there’s no way I can save them. We have to look out for ourselves now. But maybe, at the very least, I can help you.”
I stay silent, letting his words resonate: even though it hasn’t been more than three weeks since everything changed, I find myself surprised that such a good person can still exist in this world. A few hours ago, I helped in knocking a man unconscious and robbing his own store; I never even thought about the internal complications that could cause inside me.
I’m already putting my morals second, and survival first.
But maybe that’s what we have to start doing to stay alive.
“Do you miss him?” I ask.
He nods. “Every day.”
“He’s not in the city?”
He shakes his head, waiting for another moment of silence to pass before saying, “He was on a trip to see her father when…when they came. It was going to be the first time they’d spoken in years. I don’t know what happened to him, if he’s okay…nothing at all. It’s the worst torture in the world, knowing that there’s nothing you can do. No matter how hard you try. No matter how hard you wish for it.”
“I get it,” I say. “I had to leave my mom behind, leave my friends, and everything else I’ve known for my whole life. I can only hope that everyone’s okay…but…but after seeing what it’s like out there…”