by Skylar Finn
Walt eyed her suspiciously. “What?”
She grinned. “We still get to sleep in a bed.”
Luckily for Walt and Ailani, the soundstage where they’d been shooting Trip’s movie was connected to the locked office block, and the studio squatters hadn’t managed to pry open the emergency exit either. As they walked onto the set, using only one flashlight to see, Ailani had flashbacks of her normal life—the one she led a few short weeks ago. It seemed like yesterday, she’d been running around this sound stage to deliver coffee and paperwork, shepherding the dummy actor Trip Travis out of his trailer, and biting her tongue to placate the annoying director. Today, the sound stage was empty, but the sets remained erect. The green screen stage was still there, as was a bar setup and Trip’s character’s bedroom setup. Thankfully, Trip’s handsome alter-ego wanted a king-sized bed.
Ailani walked into Trip’s “bedroom.” The walls of the set could be moved or rearranged, depending on what angle the camera guys wanted to shoot from. Ailani knew where every prop was meant to be placed at the beginning to each take. She’d reset that bedroom so many times because Sebastian wanted “one more take” that morphed into twenty more takes. She respected Trip more than ever on those days, as he performed his part over and over again until Sebastian was satisfied. As she trailed her hand across the bedsheets, her face fell.
“You okay?” Walt asked, following after her. “Because, if I recall correctly, I’m the one who got shot today, but you’re the one who looks like you have a bullet in your arm.”
She smiled weakly. “You don’t have a bullet in your arm.”
“I know. Seriously, spill. What is it?”
Ailani sat on the bed. It was surprisingly comfortable for a set piece, but it didn’t go lost on her that it was all for show. When she pulled back the duvet, there were no sheets underneath. They only dressed the bed if Trip was filming a dream sequence or a love scene.
Walt, comfortable as ever, kicked his shoes aside and stripped off his dirty clothes until he was only in his underwear. Then he sat on the bed next to Ailani. “Hello? Earth to best friend?”
“Do you think Trip’s okay?”
He raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t the question he was suspecting. “You want me to answer honestly?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
Walt sighed and helped Ailani pull her arms out of her sweater. “I think we’ve seen the last of Trip Travis. If he survives Jacob Van Peel, I’ll be mighty surprised.”
“I can’t believe you had a crush on that guy.”
“I had a crush on his face and body,” Walt corrected. “His personality ruined everything for me. I’m scarred for life.”
Ailani cast aside the rest of her clothes. Together, they lay down on the bed, doubling the duvet over to wrap themselves up safely. “You know what I’d kill for? A toothbrush.”
Walt chuckled wearily. “Just be happy we have a place to sleep tonight.”
Ailani slept for several uninterrupted hours. She was so exhausted that when she first woke up, she turned over to check that Walt was still there before going right back to sleep. There was no telling what time it was from inside. The studio had no windows. Finally, Walt tapped Ailani’s shoulder, and she grudgingly opened her eyes.
“Huh?” she said.
“We slept for ten hours,” he whispered. “It’s, like, four in the afternoon. Our sleep schedule is going to be all over the place.”
She stretched and yawned. “Does it matter? It’s not like we have a job to go back to.”
Walt went to Trip’s fake closet and looked through the clothes there. “Yeah, but we should keep some semblance of normalcy. It will help us stay sane. Here, put that on.”
He tossed an oversized sweatshirt at her and pair of joggers. Both articles of clothing swamped her, but the joggers were the only pair of pants with a drawstring waist and it was better than wearing her dirty clothes from yesterday. Walt chose a pair of Trip’s jeans, a classic white T-shirt, and a knit cardigan to go over it.
“What should we do today?” Ailani asked, rolling the sleeves of the sweatshirt up to her wrists so she had use of her hands. “More card games?”
Walt playfully grabbed her by the shoulders. “Card games? Are you crazy, woman? We’re late for work!”
It took Ailani a second to catch on. “Late for work? What are you talking about—?”
Walt yanked her to her feet. “Work! I’m talking about work! Let’s go, we were supposed to be on set over an hour ago!”
As Walt pulled Ailani along, she couldn’t help but laugh. He ran wildly through the soundstage, mocking Sebastian and the many assistant directors and producers they used to have to answer to on a daily basis.
“Dailey!” Walt shouted in a deep voice. “Get to Dunkin’ and order five dozen assorted donuts! No! Not assorted! I want one dozen chocolate covered cake donuts! Make the rest assorted!” He leapt onto an apple box, squared his shoulders, and pointed to Ailani. “You, Ho! I want you to take down the name of every person who’s ever gazed lovingly at Trip Travis and read them off to him to keep his spirits up! Somebody get me a non-fat, almond milk, sugar-free mocha latte STAT.”
Ailani wheezed with laughter as Walt kept up his ridiculous imitation. He jumped off the apple box, linked his arm through Ailani’s, and pulled her into the corridor.
“Let’s go, Ho!” he yelled, putting as much emphasis as possible on Ailani’s last name. “We have work today. First things, first! Check your damn mail! You kids are always on your phones these days, but we have memos for a reason!”
He dragged Ailani into the communal office for the assistants, where Ailani once did all of the computer work required of her job. Each of them had a small mailbox for other employees of the studios to drop off memos, notes, and messages. Usually, Ailani’s was full of requests for fresh scripts, a different set of paperwork, or a new prop to be delivered to the sound stage by a certain time. Walt grabbed the stack of notes in her mailbox and flipped through them, using a different voice for each request.
“Sebastian needs fresh red pens in five minutes,” he read off, leaping onto the desk to continue his insane act. “Get on that, Ho! Camera guy requires new battery for the monitor because he forgot to grab them on his own! Your sister called, she’s coming to—” Walt stopped dead, his eyebrows knitting together as he silently read the rest of the note.
“What?” Ailani demanded. “Walt, what is it? Keiko called?”
She reached up for the note, but he held it out of her grasp. “Your sister called,” he read in a normal voice. “She’s coming to visit later today. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but she wanted you to have her flight itinerary just in case. Don’t tell her I ruined it. Stacy.”
Ailani grabbed the note from Walt and examined it. Stacy, one of the other production assistants, had taken the call from Keiko, probably while Ailani was out running an errand for Sebastian. She had attached a printout of Keiko’s flight information to the note.
“She took a red eye,” Ailani muttered. She looked up at Walt. “What time did the EMP blast go off?”
Walt stepped off the desk, his funny manner completely gone. “We were filming late that night. Trip had just come out of his trailer. It was” —he closed his eyes, trying to remember— “around 1:15. I checked my phone for the time right before we started rolling.”
Ailani’s heart dropped like a weight in her chest. “Keiko’s plane was supposed to land at LAX by 1:30.” The note fluttered out of her hand as her body went cold. “She was on a plane when the EMP hit. Oh my God, Walt. She was on a plane.” She sank to the floor, her breath coming in spasmodic gasps. “The EMP knocked out everything electronic. Planes would have—they would have crashed. Walt—”
“Hey!” He knelt next to her and took her shoulders. “Look at me, Ailani. Look at me! Just try to breathe.”
“I can’t,” she gasped. “I thought she was safe. I thought she was in Kauai.” She ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it aw
ay from her scalp. “She should have been safe! Why would she come here?”
“You don’t know what happened to her,” Walt said in a tone that was meant to be reassuring.
“Exactly!” Ailani said. “I don’t know what happened to her. She’s probably dead. After all, she was on a plane that most likely fell out of the sky at 1:15.”
“Stop catastrophizing,” Walt ordered. He snapped his fingers in front of Ailani’s face. “You can’t think like that.”
She battled against his grip, hammering her fists inefficiently against the broad muscles of his shoulders. He winced, probably because she wasn’t doing any good for his gunshot wound, but he took the hits she gave.
When he wrapped himself around her, pinning her arms against her sides so she couldn’t do any more damage to him or herself, she gave up fighting and started sobbing instead. She heaved for breath, letting out all the emotions that had been pent up inside her. For the past several weeks, she’d been building a wall to separate those emotions from rationality, knowing it wouldn’t do any good to feel pity for herself or Walt. But all this time, she’d been holding on to the idea that her dad and Keiko were safe in Hawaii. If Keiko had died coming to see her, she couldn’t hold on anymore.
“I’m sorry,” Walt whispered, combing her long hair with his fingers while she sobbed into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Ailani.”
They stayed like that for a while, with Walt’s arms secured as tightly as possible around Ailani. She cried until the shock wore off and numbness set in. Her skin stung from the salty tears, and her eyes were pink and puffy. Eventually, she stopped crying and rested her forehead against Walt’s shoulder to let the rest of the emotions lay like broken pieces of glass.
“What do you want to do?” Walt asked when she finally lifted her head and wiped her nose with the back of Trip’s sweatshirt. “What do you need?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I want to go to LAX.”
10
Walt argued at first. He thought it was a terrible idea to leave the studio, let alone trek all the way to the airport. LAX wasn’t exactly close to the studio, and without Google Maps to help them, they had no idea of knowing how long it would take to walk there.
“It’s been weeks since the blast,” Walt reminded Ailani over and over again. “If Keiko survived the crash, what’s the likelihood that she stuck it out in L.A. for all this time? Without food or water?”
“She’s smart,” Ailani argued back. “She would have found a way. You don’t know her. She was a Girl Scout.”
“All you learn in Girl Scouts is marketing,” Walt said, attempting to make Ailani laugh. “Why do you think they’re so good at selling cookies?”
Ailani wasn’t in the mood to debate the advantages and disadvantages of joining the Girl Scouts. She knew Walt was right. It was a terrible idea to leave the studio. For one thing, it wasn’t safe out on the streets, and for another, they had no idea what the conditions were like around LAX. If the EMP had taken out all of the nearby flights, the surrounding area was probably littered with plane crashes. Ailani wasn’t sure if she could handle the carnage, especially knowing her sister had been aboard at the time.
But despite the risks, Ailani couldn’t not check. She would hate herself more if she never went to LAX. She knew the chances of Keiko surviving a plane crash were limited, but Keiko was smart. She was the most resourceful kid Ailani had ever known, and she wasn’t just biased because Keiko was her little sister. When Keiko was ten, she made her own surfboard out of junk she’d pulled out of dumpster, all because their dad had grounded her for surfing past dark. Like Ailani, Keiko favored the ocean, and she followed in Ailani’s rebellious footsteps. However, unlike Ailani, Keiko actually maintained a relationship with their father. If Keiko had died coming to visit Ailani, he would never forget it. And he would never forgive Ailani.
When Ailani started packing for the trip, Walt realized he had to make a choice. Either he could stick with his best friend and potentially risk his life, or abandon her to remain in the safety of the studio. It was hardly a choice. One spoke of loyalty while the other spoke of cowardice, and Walt Dailey refused to be called a coward. Ailani was leaving whether he liked it or not, and he couldn’t bear to let her go alone. If he lost Ailani, there was no point in surviving anyway.
He came to her with a backpack and an army duffel bag that he had found in the props department. When he wordlessly began packing their supplies into the duffel bag, she felt a rush of gratitude toward him. She would have respected his decision to stay, but she loved him all the more for coming with her. Besides, she was stronger with him by her side.
“Come here,” he said once they were finished.
They had managed to get all of their supplies to fit into the two bags, though each one weighed more than Ailani wanted to carry on her back. Walt left the bags in the storage closet and took Ailani to the sound stage. He pulled the gun from his waistband and handed it to her. She hesitated, afraid to take it.
“It’s not loaded.” He took the magazine from his pocket. “But I thought you should at least know the basics of how to use it. Watch me first.” With a practiced motion, he inserted the magazine into the gun and cocked it. “Never point the gun at anyone unless you have the intention of shooting them. Even when you’re just holding it, keep it pointed at the ground.”
He held the gun casually at his side to show her. When he turned in either direction, he made sure the muzzle of the gun never pointed to any part of her body. She studied the way he carried it with rapt attention.
“This one has a safety.” He dumped the magazine before showing her the button to switch the safety on and off. “It’s a pistol. Some other handguns don’t have that. If you’re holding this, and it’s loaded, and you don’t intend to shoot it, make sure you have the safety on. It’s easy to accidentally pull the trigger. I’ve done it a few times with BB guns and paintball markers. Not the same, but you get the gist. With guns, you can’t make mistakes.”
Ailani nodded firmly. Walt didn’t often speak with so much authority and severity. On a regular day, she’d make fun of his professorial mood, but today was not a regular day.
Walt offered her the gun again. This time, she took it, taking comfort in the knowing that it wasn’t loaded. Though it was light in her hand without the magazine inserted, she hated the feeling of the metal against her skin. She wanted to throw it as far as possible, but she forced herself to wrap her fingers around the handle instead. Then Walt handed her the magazine.
“Your turn,” he said. “Load the gun.”
She fumbled with it for a minute or so, but with Walt’s instructions, she managed to get the magazine in place and rack the slide. Her hands shook. She checked to make sure the safety was on.
“Good,” Walt said. “Now take it out and do it again.”
For ten minutes or so, all she did was load and unload the gun. When she managed to do it without Walt’s help three times in a row, he nodded in approval. He pointed across the studio. At the other end of the flashlight’s beam, the shoot schedule from the day the EMP hit was taped to the wall.
“See that?” Walt said, moving to stand behind Ailani. “That’s what you’re aiming for.”
Ailani swallowed hard.
He guided her into place. “Feet planted shoulder width apart. If you’ve never shot a gun before, the recoil can take you by surprise. It’s more intense than you think for a pistol. Don’t let go of the gun when it happens. Use both hands. Lift” —he squared his body against hers and raised her arms as if they were his own— “and aim for your target. Use your dominant eye, set your feet, and fire.”
Ailani left her finger off the trigger. “Do you want me to actually shoot?”
“No,” Walt said, and Ailani sagged with relief. “We shouldn’t waste the ammo. I just wanted you to get a feel for the gun with the weight of the magazine in it. Does it feel natural?”
“Not at all.”
“It
doesn’t for me either,” Walt admitted. He held out a hand, and she placed the gun in his palm, grateful not to be holding it any longer. “Desperate times, you know.”
“Thanks for the lesson.”
“I wish I didn’t have to teach it to you.”
For good measure, Walt and Ailani drew a map of Los Angeles, charting a rough course from the studio to LAX. They scribbled avenues and street names from memory, trying to remember the layout of the city. It was Walt’s idea to have something navigational to work from, just in case some streets were destroyed or blocked off because of the EMP blast. As they outlined the details of the map, Ailani worried that they were wasting time. Part of her wondered if Walt was stalling on purpose, but she put that thought away and refused to let her anxiety sabotage her.
After what felt like forever, they did a final check of their supplies, swapped Walt’s arm bandage for a fresh one, and left the sound stage. They locked the door on their way out to keep the area safe, in case they had to come back this way after checking out LAX. Ailani turned the key with a frown. She doubted they would ever return to the studio. Their mission was a longshot, and the supplies in their packs wouldn’t last them long on the road, especially if they found Keiko. Feeding three people was exponentially more difficult than feeding two.
As they headed outside, Ailani blinked in surprise. She had expected it to be light outside, but the moon was high overhead. It had been dark for a few hours already.
“Told you we screwed up our sleep schedule,” Walt said. “Should we wait until morning?”
“No!” Ailani said, more forcefully than she meant to. “No, I want to leave now. If we wait any longer—”
She let the sentence trail off, and Walt didn’t bother to complete it. She knew what he was thinking. He figured Keiko was already dead, and that their trip to LAX was a pointless one. But he didn’t say it out loud. That mattered to Ailani.
“Let’s go then,” he said, leading the way off the studio’s property. “Heading west, right?”