by Skylar Finn
“You’re still bleeding,” she said. “Stay here.”
She pulled her T-shirt over her mouth and nose as she went scouting. She searched the cars and stores nearby and came upon another corpse. The woman appeared fresh. Unlike the others, she had yet to rot. Ailani, holding her breath, took the sweatshirt that was tied around the woman’s waist and went back to Walt.
“Here,” she said. She untied the bloody bandage and swapped it for a new one using the sweatshirt. The material was thicker, and it did a better job of stopping the blood flow from Walt’s arm. “That should hold a bit longer. Ready to keep going?”
“What’s the point?” Walt said. “We don’t have anywhere to go.”
Ailani looked around. She knew these streets better than anyone else. Without thinking about it, she had led them down a familiar path. If they took a right at the next intersection, it would lead them back to their own apartment, the one they had abandoned the day after the EMP hit. If they took a left, it would lead them to the studio where they’d been filming Trip’s movie.
“Yes, we do,” Ailani said, hauling Walt to his feet. “We’re going back to the studio.”
To his credit, Walt did his best to help Ailani move him along, shuffling his feet so she didn’t have to support his full weight. “What’s at the studio?”
“Don’t you remember?” she asked. “We locked a bunch of supplies in the storage room. I’m one of the only people with a key to that place. There’s a good chance all of that stuff is still there.”
“Did you say supplies?”
Ailani whirled around at the sound of the scratchy voice. An older woman—in her sixties or seventies—had appeared out of nowhere. Ailani guessed she had been following them for some time without them noticing.
“No,” Ailani said. “Sorry, you must have misheard me.”
The woman looked crazed. She was stooped over, covered in dirt and soot from head to toe. She fiddled with a pocket knife. She dug the point of the blade into the tip of her fingers one by one, drawing a pinprick of blood and then wiping it away with an obsessive gesture. Her hair was shorn in unequal locks, as if she’d taken the same pocketknife to it a few days earlier. She studied Walt and Ailani, staring both of them up and down with an indescribable hunger in her eyes.
“I like your shoes,” she said at last, pointing to Ailani’s sneakers. “Where did you get them?”
“I ordered them online.”
The woman smirked. “Can’t really do that anymore, can ya now?”
“No, you can’t,” Ailani agreed.
The woman took a step forward. Ailani carried Walt a step away.
“I wouldn’t mind a pair of shoes like that,” the woman said, her eyes never leaving Ailani’s feet. “What would you trade for them?”
“They’re my only pair.”
Ailani noted that the woman’s own feet were bare except for a pair of ratty socks that were black now but perhaps had not been black to begin with.
“You won’t trade?” the woman asked. She took another step toward them.
“No,” Ailani said firmly. “Please leave us alone. I have to get my friend some help.”
Without warning, the woman lunged. Ailani yelped as the woman tackled her around the knees, sending all three of them sprawling to the ground. The woman’s sharp nails scrabbled at Ailani’s legs as she tried to pry the shoes off her feet. Ailani kicked out, catching the woman under the chin, but it didn’t stop her.
Walt pulled the gun and cocked it. Ailani watched as the familiar sound registered on the woman’s face. The old woman immediately released Ailani and her shoes and scrambled away from their tangled limbs.
“Don’t shoot,” she begged, crawling backward. “Don’t shoot.”
Like before, Walt’s hand shook as his finger inched toward the trigger. The crazy woman kept shuffling away until she was far enough to get to her feet and run off. As she disappeared into the distance, Ailani steadied Walt’s hand. He lowered the gun.
“Thank you,” Ailani said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
She inspected her legs. The woman’s sharp nails had left long scratches in her skin. Without disinfectant, the gouges were sure to get infected. “You scared her away. I kept my shoes. You did everything you could to keep me safe.”
Walt stared at the gun in his lap. “If I could actually find the balls to fire it, we might not be in this situation.”
“You did fire it,” Ailani reminded him. “At Trip’s house.”
“And all it did was make the situation worse.” Walt frowned and tucked the gun back into his belt as if he couldn’t look at it any longer. “When it mattered—when I should have fired—I couldn’t. I can’t shoot people, Ailani. I just can’t.”
She lifted his chin up so he would look at her. “That isn’t a flaw, Walt.”
“It is in this world.”
“I don’t believe that,” she insisted. “And you shouldn’t either. Do you want me to take the gun?”
“Do you know how to use it?”
“Not really.”
Walt swallowed hard. “Then it’s probably better if I keep it.”
“All right then. Are you ready to keep going?”
He shakily got to his feet. The incident with the old woman seemed to have infused him with another bout of energy. Now that his gunshot wound was no longer bleeding incessantly, he wasn’t as unsteady as before.
“Let’s go,” he said.
By the time they reached the studio, the sun was peeking over the horizon, illuminating the horror and destruction of Los Angeles. Ailani and Walt silently agreed on two rules: keep moving and don’t talk to anyone. They kept a steady pace and their eyes down. Twice, they heard someone scream for help. Three times, someone attempted to approach them to ask for food, water, or other supplies. Countless times, they came across somebody who was no longer able to ask or beg for favors, but they kept moving until they hit the boulevard where the studio was.
Sergeant, the buff security guard, had given up his post. The gates were smashed open, and the guard station had been broken into. The inside was stripped bare. Thieves had taken the portable radios and whatever else they could find. Ailani and Walt didn’t question Sergeant’s absence. They didn’t want to know what might have happened to him.
The inside of the studio was wrecked. Without the premise of security at the gates, looters had come in and taken anything and everything that held promise. On the upside, now that the studio had been rid of supplies, few people bothered to stay here. Unlike the neighborhood on the beach, the cold and empty warehouses didn’t attract many squatters. Ailani and Walt happened on a few loners here and there, but everyone minded their own business. No weapons were drawn. No threats were made. The people here had made an agreement too: to live in relative peace as the rest of the world fought each other for survival outside.
Though she did not fear the piles of blankets that marked the temporary homes of the loners at the studio, Ailani did fear the possibility that these people had raided their stash of supplies, regardless of the locked door. She and Walt silently walked the halls, trying not to draw attention to themselves. Thankfully, no one paid them any mind, but it didn’t quite put Ailani’s anxiety to rest.
The storage closet was in the office area of the studio, where less people had bothered to break into due to the amount of locks involved. The first door had been busted through, but it was the only one with a window to smash in order to reach through and unlock it from the others side. It gave random vagabonds access to the offices of the less important studio employees, including the break room Ailani and Walt barely had time to frequent. The soda and vending machines had been broken into and cleaned out.
The second door, with no window, was locked. Someone had done their best to break through it. A bent crowbar rested nearby, and the door itself had taken some damage from the efforts. As Ailani found the right key, she hoped the lock hadn’t been bashed beyond repair. It
took some coaxing to get the deadbolt to turn, but they made it inside.
Walt checked to make sure no one had followed then locked the door behind them. They snuck up the corridor, pausing at each room to make sure no others had somehow made their way inside. When they reached the director’s office, it was in the same state they had left it in, complete with Sebastian’s puke on the floor. It had dried up, but the smell lingered.
“Ugh,” Walt said, plugging his nose. “What do you think happened to him after we dropped him off at security?”
“Knowing Sebastian, he managed to worm his way into one of those county camps,” Ailani answered. She checked Sebastian’s mini fridge. All that was left were two water bottles and an unopened handle of cherry vodka. She handed Walt one of the waters and opened the other for herself. “I bet he’s totally taken care of. What should we do with his vodka?”
“Drink it,” Walt suggested with a shrug. “Give it away. Barter with it. Have a party with the rest of the poor homeless people that live in the studio now. We could call it a housewarming occasion.”
Ailani unscrewed the cap to the vodka, took a swig, and made a face. The artificial cherry flavor was too sweet and potent for her to handle. She passed it to Walt. “Blech. No thanks. No wonder Sebastian puked. That stuff’s disgusting. Feel free to do with that what you will.”
Walt drank from the bottle, shrugged, and took another sip while holding his nose. “It’s not too bad like this.”
“You shouldn’t be drinking that at all,” Ailani warned as she jiggled the locked drawers of Sebastian’s filing cabinet. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. Drink the water instead.”
Walt took her advice, switching the vodka out for the water. He lifted the makeshift bandage from his wound, wincing as the fabric stuck to his mangled skin. “We should keep moving. There was a first aid kit in the storage closet when we left. If it’s still there, I’d like to clean up this mess on my arm.”
Ailani picked the filing cabinet lock with a paper clip and pulled it open. It was full of old script drafts and unorganized paperwork. She swept everything aside, searching for anything else Sebastian might have hidden beneath the wreckage.
“To be honest, I’m dreading checking the storage room,” she admitted, sweeping the bottom of the first file drawer. “I feel like someone’s going to have found everything in there, and we’re going to have to start all over again. Ah ha!” Her fingers closed around a small foreign object. She pulled it from the depths of the cabinet.
“That’s cocaine,” Walt said.
Ailani pocketed the baggie. Walt raised his eyebrows. “Like you said. We could barter with it. I bet there’s more than one drug addict on the streets that would trade a package of water bottles for some powdered sugar.”
“You’re nuts.” Walt pulled her away from the filing cabinet. “Enough stalling. Let’s check the storage cabinet. We’ve put it off long enough.”
9
Walt forced Ailani out of Sebastian’s office and to the door of the storage unit. As they approached it, both of them let out long breaths. Neither realized they were holding it to begin with. The door to the storage room was untouched. It had not suffered beneath the crowbar as a few others in the building had. Ailani unlocked it and pulled it open, her chest tightening as they stared into the dark storage unit.
Walt took the reins, squinting as he stepped inside. Ailani waited as he felt his way to the back of the room, using the shelving units to guide himself. After a few seconds of terrible silence, he shouted, “It’s here!”
A round beam of light switched on from the back of the room as Walt found one of the heavy-duty flashlights that they’d previously hidden away. Ailani yelled in triumph and rushed into the storage room, following Walt’s haphazard light show. When she found him amongst the pile of food and supplies, she laughed outright and leapt into his arms.
“It’s here!” she repeated gleefully, jumping up and down in Walt’s grasp. “It’s here, it’s here, it’s here!”
“It’s still here!” Walt added in a baritone sing-song voice. He waved his arms like a director on the podium in front of his band. “We’re not going to staaaaaarve!”
Ailani grabbed onto him again for another hug, and they danced around in a contained circle until she accidentally brushed the gunshot wound on his arm.
“Ouch!” He pulled away from her and clutched the wound. “I got shot, remember?”
She grimaced. “Sorry. I was excited.”
He sat on the floor to go through the things they’d gathered all those weeks ago. It wasn’t much compared to the raid Ailani and Trip had conducted on the warehouse store, but it was better than nothing. “Thank goodness we were smart enough to put all this stuff in here. Do you want a cereal bar?”
Ailani sat next to him and put her hand out. “Absolutely.”
“Apple or cherry?”
“Apple, please.”
He handed her the bar and unwrapped one for himself. They tapped their cereal bars together in a weird toast and each took a bite. Ailani moaned with relief. It had been hours since their last meal.
“It will be the hunger,” she said, catching a crumb in her hand and putting it between her lips.
“What will?”
“The thing that kills me,” she answered. “It’s going to be hunger, and I don’t mean I’m going to starve. It’s—”
“The mentality of being hungry,” Walt finished for her.
“Exactly!” Ailani took another savage bite of the cereal bar. “This is going to sound like the most privileged thing that’s ever come out of my mouth, but I could never be homeless. I wouldn’t make it.”
Walt, in contrast to Ailani, pinched off a small corner of his bar and savored it on his tongue for several long seconds before actually swallowing it. “No, you wouldn’t have. I’m surprised you’ve gone this long without hair products.”
“Do you see this hair?” She let it out of the bun on top of her head, and it cascaded around her shoulders. “It should be insured. I could model for shampoo commercials.”
“And yet here we are,” Walt said, “sitting in a storage room eating Nutri-Grain bars. Everything would be different if you’d pursued your dream as a hair model.”
She threw the wrapper at him. “Shut up. It’s not like you were making the most out of life before all this crap happened either.”
He lifted his palms. “Whoa, easy there. I’m not trying to start a fight.”
“You’re right.” Ailani finished the last bite and dusted her hands. “Let’s have fun.”
“How are we supposed to do that?”
“We have the studio to ourselves,” she reminded him. “We can do everything we were never allowed to do as production assistants. Don’t you want to wreck Sebastian’s office or maybe play around with the stunt wires?”
Walt considered his options. “Yes to the first. No to the second. That sounds like a terrible idea and several broken bones. But should we really be goofing off? We need to come up with a plan—”
“The temporary plan is to stay here while it’s safe and we have supplies,” Ailani said. “It’s the same plan that we were going to do at Trip’s. If we ration our food and water, we can last a few weeks here.”
“What if the other squatters decide they want us to share?”
“They couldn’t get through the locked doors,” Ailani said. “As long as we stay in this part of the studio, we should be fine.”
Ailani located the first aid kit and gingerly unwrapped the sweatshirt from Walt’s arm. The wound didn’t look great. The bullet had taken a neat little chunk out of Walt’s skin, leaving an deep, angry welt instead. On the upside, the pressure of the sweatshirt had stopped the bleeding.
“It’s not infected,” she said, using the flashlight to get up close and personal.
“That’s good.”
“Yet,” she added. She rooted around in the first aid kid. “I’m going to clean it out as much as possible, but once
we run out of these big bandages, it’s going to be hard to keep it that way. I hope it scabs over quickly. Wait here for a second. Don’t move.”
She ran to the nearest bathroom and stole the antibacterial soap dispenser off the wall. When she returned to the storage room, she washed Walt’s wound over a clean rag, using as little water to rinse it as possible. For good measure, she doused a cotton ball with iodine and dabbed it on as well.
“Neosporin,” she requested, holding out her hand like a surgeon in need of a scalpel. Walt used his good arm to give her the tube of ointment. She squeezed a dollop onto a cotton swab and slathered it all over the wound. Then she used the biggest bandage in the first aid kit to cover any part of exposed flesh. “There we go. We should clean it and change the bandage at least once a day. We’ve got” —she quickly counted the first aid supplies— “three more of those huge bandages and a package of these non-stick gauze pads we can stick on with medical tape.”
Walt experimentally rolled his arm around, testing his mobility as well as the strength of the bandage adhesive. “So it’s okay for now?”
“For now.” Ailani stacked the first aid materials neatly in the plastic box they came in, making sure not to spill or crumple anything. “It’s going to be hard to keep it clean without using a ton of water.”
“We can use wipes,” Walt suggested.
“Not the best option, but it’ll do.”
He handed her the water bottle they were sharing. “You can have the rest. I’m okay.”
She pushed it away. “You should drink it. I didn’t get shot today.”
“But you’ve been dehydrated since you were sick—”
“Walt, seriously.”
He gave up and took the last sip. “So what now?”
Ailani groaned as she got to her feet and put the first aid kit back on the shelf. “Now we sleep. You know what the best part of being back at the studio is?”