I guessed that if she were to smile, she wouldn’t show any teeth. Her lips would just tighten up and her cheeks would smile. Her face was too smooth. She didn’t have any blemishes.
“Hi,” I said after what seemed like hours of her standing there.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m not doing anything. What?” I put my hands up and tried to smile.
“Who the hell were you talking to? Were you just talking to yourself?” She pointed at me like I was some endangered animal in the zoo. “You were just talking to yourself.”
“Yeah, sorry.” I looked away and back at the wall where my wife had been standing. I completely turned in a circle and looked around the entire apartment. She wasn’t in the kitchen or on the bed.
I walked by her and over to the boxes. She wasn’t hiding behind those.
“What’s going on?” She was confused. Her eyebrows furrowed.
I opened the bathroom door and looked in there. That place was too tiny for anyone to hide in.
“Okay, whatever. I’m just grabbing a few things for the bar.” She walked over to the boxes.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I blurted out. I reached my hands up to get her to stop moving. “Hi, I’m sorry. I, uhh.” I didn’t want to lie to her. It wasn’t because she was pretty or because I felt love at first sight when I saw her, it was because I just wanted to stop lying to everyone. People needed to know what was going on in my head. Maybe they could help me if they knew.
“Dude, what’s your problem?” she asked.
“I think I just, uh, I think I just saw my ex-wife.”
“In here?” She looked around the room. I knew she thought I was crazy.
“Yeah. Crazy, right?”
“Um, yeah, I guess.”
“She died during the virus outbreak.” I nodded like a crazy man now.
“Yeah, that’s crazy.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. That is not a good first impression.”
“No,” she said. She reached over to grab some boxes.
“I can help.” I put my hand out to stop her from moving again. “Please. It is the least I can do living in your storage room.”
“Glen told you what these are for?”
“Yeah, he did. He told me he was going to find another place to store all of this, but I told him it wasn’t necessary.”
“Thanks,” she said warming up to me.
“Don’t mention it. I figured it was as close to the bar as you’re gonna get. I don’t want to make your life more difficult.”
“Okay, well, I need to get back to work.”
“I can help. Please, let me help.”
She stopped again. She straightened up and was trying to get an understanding of who I was. Talking to myself wasn’t a very good ice breaker, but hopefully, she could look past that. Maybe she thought it was funny. She’s probably seen crazier stuff in the outbreak world than that. I had.
“Sure, crazy. Grab those two.” She pointed.
“I’m Scott,” I said stopping her from grabbing a box. I reached my hand out to her but quickly pulled it back. I didn’t think she wanted to shake the hand of a crazy person. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.” I bent over and grabbed the two boxes she had pointed at.
She watched me with such curiosity. She bent over and grabbed another box and we started moving toward the door. I could hear bottles clinking together in the box she carried. I had no idea what was in my boxes, but it didn’t feel like bottles. It wasn’t too heavy, either.
“So, you work in the bar?” I asked her on our way down the stairs.
“Wow. That explains it,” she said.
“I’m sorry?” We got to the bottom of the stairs and she set her box down on the counter.
“You’re a genius. They say geniuses talk to themselves.” I laughed but she stared at me like it wasn’t a joke. I laughed again so hopefully, it was. “You can set the boxes down here.”
“Oh, okay.” I put the boxes down and stood there waiting for her to ask me to do something else. “Glen said he was going to find me a job. So, I guess I’ll be staying around for a while.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah, I’m excited to get back to a normal life.”
“It is anything but normal here, Scott.”
“Well, from what I’ve seen, I’ll take as close to normal as I can get.”
“Well, thanks for your help,” she cut me off.
“Is there anything else you need help with?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Please. There’s got to be something I can do.”
“Don’t try too hard to impress me, Scott. It’s not going to work.”
“Oh, no. It’s not that. I just…I just don’t want to be alone for too long. A guy can get lost in his thoughts. Start hearing voices.”
“You’re kind of a freak, huh?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I collected my thoughts and continued, “Like I said, I’m trying to get back to as normal as I can. Some fucked up things happened to us out there.” I wasn’t going to be entirely truthful with her just yet.
“Okay. Go grab two more boxes. Two more that have this logo on it.” She pointed to the logo on the boxes I’d just brought down. “And Scott,” she continued. “Come by sometime and grab a drink. You can tell me more about what’s going on.”
“Really? Great.” I pulled out a stool and sat down at the bar. I looked over at the drinks on the wall and thought about what I wanted. I was close to ordering when I saw the look on her face. “What?”
“Not right now, dumbass,” she teased.
“Oh, right.”
“The boxes,” she said.
“Yes, the boxes. I’ll be right back.” I pushed the stool back in. I slid the boxes on the counter closer to her and then walked.
“Scott,” she called. “I’m Sarah.”
“Sarah. Hi.” I smiled. It only felt slightly goofy.
“Hi, Scott.” She laughed and shook her head. “Go get those boxes. And then get some sleep.”
It sounded like a great idea. I was going to grab two more boxes, bring them down to Sarah, and then go upstairs and take my first nap in my new apartment.
11
Haylea Meyers
I stepped out onto the porch of my new house with a glass of wine. I couldn’t believe the amount of alcohol that was stashed in the house. There was wine in the fridge, beer in the garage, and hard liquor and more wine in the cabinets in the dining room. We could have thrown a giant party if there was a reason to celebrate.
I took a few sips. I should have taken a few giant gulps to try and forget what I’d just seen before our meeting. I couldn’t believe Jack and Elyse would be doing that. I didn’t need long to convince myself that Jack had nothing to do with it. It was Elyse. Something was wrong with her.
Jack wasn’t pushing Elyse off of him because I came into the room. He didn’t even see me until she was already lying on the couch. He was fighting her off because it was the right thing to do. She was coming on to him and very strongly. She was a young girl. Underage. Jack wouldn’t do that. Jack’s a dick but he’s not a creep.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it. It wasn’t my place to do something, but I also couldn’t just let it go. Elyse was acting now the way Scott was acting back at the station. She was acting strangely as if somebody else was controlling her body. She wasn’t making a single movement that was her own. It was like the devil was controlling her by strings.
By the time I finished my next, longer sip of wine, my mind had transitioned to another thought. I thought about Kurt. I tried not to selfishly think about missing him, because I did. I was just concerned about him. I thought about what he was going through. I hoped he was alive. I didn’t want to be thinking that, but it was a logical possibility that he was killed in the fight.
He had spent so much of his time in WTIX helping the people around him. I could only hope and pray that he was finally taki
ng care of himself. I knew that he would go out of his way to help the others he was with. I knew he’d go as far to sacrifice himself if it was for a Frank or a Reggie, but I wanted him to be selfish. He’d spent so much time worrying about others that I wanted him to worry about himself and get back to me.
I was about to go inside and call it a day. The sun was beginning to set and I could have gone to bed early. I was able to recognize my own exhaustion more being in a normal household setting. I turned to lock up for the night when I saw Emily come out on to her porch and sit in one of the rocking chairs. She lifted her legs up and curled them up into her body. There was a permanent frown on her face as she looked down the road.
I stepped back inside the house before Emily could see me standing out there, but I left the door open. I moved down the foyer and into the kitchen. Heather was sitting on the couch reading a book. I didn’t take her for much of a reader, but she seemed to be at peace enjoying the story. She never looked up to me. I was happy about that or else she probably would have wanted to join the conversation I was about to start with Emily.
I grabbed another wine glass and the rest of the bottle that I had opened up. I wrapped my fingers around the stem of the glass and the neck of the bottle and snuck out of the kitchen and back outside. I quietly closed the door behind me.
I hopped down the stairs and looked both ways before crossing the quiet street. At this point, Emily had seen me and stretched her legs out and sat up a little straighter. I held up the wine and glass and extended a peace offering. She shrugged her shoulders and smirked just enough to accept my invitation.
I handed her the glass and began pouring. “I think I took alcohol for granted at first and then was just starting to become okay not having it.” I finished my pour and set the bottle down between us. “And now if we drink it all, I’m just going to go right back to withdrawals.”
I sat down in the chair next to her and watched as she took a sip. She enjoyed it as much as actors enjoyed a Coca Cola in the commercials. She’d been so relaxed before she spotted me coming across the street, but after that first sip, she leaned back and rocked.
“There was one time in college,” she started talking. I looked over to her. “A few friends of mine went to a bar and then ended up at one of their apartments. I think we had drunk the bar dry and when we got to her place, well, the alcohol in her refrigerator didn’t stand a chance.”
She took another drink and stared into the glass. She continued, “We got so drunk that two of those friends actually ended up in bed together. It was a bit of a shock to all of us. They tried that for a while. It didn’t work out.” She laughed. I drank. “Anyway, I woke up in my bed in my apartment the next morning. I still to this day have no recollection of how I got home.”
“Was it far?”
“Far enough that I shouldn’t have walked. I know I didn’t drive, so…”
“Well, it sounds like fun,” I said.
“The night was. However, the point of that story is not about the night, but the next day. I was supposed to have class, but I skipped it. I will never forget that I laid in bed until seven pm the next night. I ate an entire bag of bagels. I didn’t toast them, I didn’t have cream cheese. I just pulled them out and ate them.”
She looked at her glass and started circling her hand and spinning the wine around the edges. “That day I promised myself that I would never get drunk again.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve been there a few times. How long did yours last?”
“We were back out at the bars the very next night and about twelve hours after I finished that last bagel, I was shoving pepperoni pizza into my mouth.”
“Now that is my drunk food right there,” I said emphatically. I lifted the bottle from its short rest and poured more into my glass. I leaned over and without permission poured the rest of the bottle into hers. “Thank goodness this is one promise we didn’t keep.”
That seemed to upset her. It wasn’t a comment that was going to get her to walk away or lash out at me verbally, but I could see that mentioning something about a promise had her mind wandering.
“Are you okay? Was it something I said?” I set the bottle down cautiously.
She didn’t expect me to notice a dip in her mood. “Oh, no. Not at all. I’ve just thought a lot about Sam since we got here.”
“Are you doing okay? I can’t imagine losing somebody and not be given any time to grieve.”
“Oh, I’ve been grieving. It’s been hard, but I think about this world and I think Sam is in a better place now. He wouldn’t have enjoyed this place.”
“I would hope not,” I said.
“He’s not as strong as me and he definitely is not as strong as Elyse. He was soft. I think this place eventually would have broken him. He would have loved this place.” She looked around the street we were on. “But this isn’t real. This is all a façade.”
“Why did you vote in the meeting to stay here, then?” I asked.
“The same reason you did. Hope. Esperanza, right? You’re hoping Kurt comes back and I’m hoping this place gets everyone back to feeling like themselves. If even for a few months or weeks, it is a place we can stop running for a while.”
I knew she specifically meant Elyse. And maybe she was right. Maybe this place would help Elyse get back to where she used to be. Having a normal place to live and normal things to do could set us all straight.
“Because those things are still out there,” Emily said. “Death is still out there. In a strange way, I am happy that Sam is gone. I’m happy that he doesn’t have to live through this. He died a strong, confident man. Not a broken one.”
“He died a hero,” I said. Her face didn’t portray that she knew what I was talking about. “When Scott and Nick went back into that building, Sam saved them. He shot off a few of the stragglers and allowed them to get away.”
She smiled, but it faded quickly. She had no idea that there was a struggle with the stragglers. It was a part of her darkest fear that Sam suffered when he died.
I used the next few minutes to think about Kurt and I’m sure Emily continued to think about Sam and her family, but that pulled me away from my thoughts. I started to think more about her and her family as the time of our silence lingered.
“Emily, how is Elyse?” I asked.
“She’s fine,” Emily said. “She’s moving on from what happened like the rest of us. Like I said, she’s strong.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t necessarily talking about the incident with Scott. “I’m kind of worried about her,” I blurted.
“Excuse me?”
“Her behavior has been a little strange. I know it isn’t my business.”
“It’s not your God Damn business,” she interrupted. “Who the hell do you think you are? Where do you get off telling me that my daughter is acting strange?”
“Emily, don’t get mad. I’m just— “
“I know what you’re doing. Little miss Queen B taking over the kingdom now that the king is gone.”
“Emily.”
“No, just shut up! Don’t you dare come over here and pretend like we are going to have a normal conversation when you are just going to degrade my little girl!”
“Emily,” I was cut off again. I just wanted to calm her down.
“Maybe if you spent a little more time worrying about Kurt and not my daughter, he wouldn’t have ended up out there. Elyse is here! I kept her safe. You’re so hopeful that Kurt is coming back when he’s probably dead. He’s not coming back!”
I didn’t react in any way. I watched as Emily condemned my fiancé. I couldn’t believe how quickly things could go from pleasant to, in a way, violent. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was just the way the world was now. The world killed any good vibes. Light was immediately turned to darkness in every way possible.
“I’m sorry, Haylea,” she said. I put my hand up and shook my head. “No, I shouldn’t have said that. That was out of line. You know I don’t feel that wa
y.”
I grabbed the empty bottle and rose to my feet. I wanted to walk away and not make it worse between us. I wanted to just accept she said what she said because there really was something wrong with Elyse and she knew that. She lashed out at me because she knew I was being honest. I didn’t even make it off the porch before I turned around.
“Earlier, before you came down for the meeting, I saw Elyse kissing Jack. She was jumping at him and licked his neck. She tried to get into his pants. I walked in on them. Jack tried fighting her off and even had to push her. Something’s not right with her Emily.”
Now I was ready to walk away and accept that things were going to be weird between Emily and me for a while.
12
Scott Daugherty
It had been a long time since I slept like that. For so many days, I’d been sleeping on the floor. I’d try to nestle together a few blankets and pillows and make something resembling a bed, but it was never a comfortable place to sleep. I’d slept on a bus and even tried to train myself to fall asleep in an office chair, but no position would give me that deep sleep feeling.
The bed, as dusty and old-looking as it was, did the trick. I curled up in it and was out within seconds. I couldn’t remember falling asleep. I couldn’t remember the last thing I had thought about before falling unconscious.
I was in a lost deep sleep that when I woke up, I had no idea where I was. The room was dark. I hadn’t left any of the lights on and the sun was no longer peering through the windows. The room felt cold and empty. I always felt like being in a room with hardwoods was different than carpeted floors. Not by the feel of them, but just a feeling that the room was colder and bigger. I felt that here.
I sat up and began to panic. Where was I? Was I dead? Where was the rest of the group from WTIX? Were they dead? Was I all alone? I couldn’t remember anything that had happened to me before I fell asleep.
I got out of bed and when my feet made contact with the floor, I started to relax. I saw the walls of the apartment. I was able to see the floors and could softly see the yellow color of the kitchen through the dark, but what really calmed me down was the boxes. I could see them stacked up to the side of the kitchen. The boxes were filled with supplies for the bar downstairs.
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