by Stevie Kopas
Ben and Sal spoke in hushed voices near the door once it was secure. They agreed on covering the storefront window and securing everyone in the kitchen. Lucy switched the small television set in the kitchen on to the news but the information was all emergency instructions to stay in side and isolate yourself from those who exhibited signs of illness. Two of the female employees sat huddled together weeping near the freezer and a male employee nervously paced behind Lucy. Sal’s cell phone rang on the counter and startled everyone. Lucy ran to it and read the name across the screen. Marco.
“Sal!” Her voice echoed through the pizzeria and Sal rushed into the kitchen followed by Ben.
Lucy put the cell phone on speaker mode. “Mijo!” Lucy squealed into the phone.
“Hey!” Sal couldn’t help but be overjoyed and joined his wife on the phone.
“Ma?! You guys?!” Marco’s voice crackled through the speaker, he sounded elated. “You guys are alright?”
“Yeah yeah, we are fine, where are you?” Sal asked his son.
Marco told them he was stuck in traffic just a couple miles from the house, traffic on the highway was at a standstill. “Look, I’m with some friends, they’ll probably need to stay at the house, there’s no way that anybody is getting back into the city. It’s crazy out here!” The reception of the call was terrible and it was a miracle it had even gone through in the first place.
“Listen to me.” Sal’s voice became very stern. “If you are not that far from the house I think you need to get out and walk.” Marco responded but his voice was too warbled to make out what he said. Lucy began to cry and Sal hushed her quickly. “Marco? You still there?”
“Yeah, I don’t know if I want to walk. The radio is saying crazy things, I have no idea what’s going on, people are just going nuts man.”
“Marco you need to get off the highway, you need to get away from all those other people on the roads!” Another voice was heard through the speaker, one of Marco’s friends in the car.
“What..going…ahead.” The voice was very broken up. “Dad? Something is wrong.”
“Marco? What is it baby?” Lucy was in full on panic mode, her hands were shaking, her lip quivering.
Marco’s friends started yelling in the car. Lucy and Sal were screaming, demanding he tell them what was going on. Marco’s voice was full of panic as he explained that people were getting out of their cars and running, some people were jumping off the bridge, others were attacking each other. It wasn’t helping that the call quality had dropped by probably 60%. Marco began yelling and cursing, they heard someone say that they needed to get out of the car. Screams of horror, guttural growls and dead silence immediately followed. They never heard from their son again.
“No one could have known how bad it was about to get.” Sal had told them as he finished reliving the events that had stranded them at Pisano’s. Sal looked at his wife who was wiping tears from her eyes; he put his arm around her shoulder and everyone sat quietly by the lantern light.
IX
Ben seemed to be in another world, staring at the ceiling, chain smoking in the recliner. His story was completely opposite everyone else’s. It was short and to the point. He joined the military right out of high school and spent most of his time overseas. He was wounded in Afghanistan and honorably discharged. “Pretty uneventful life until people started eatin’ each other, but then again, I’d rather deal with this nightmare than ever spend another fucking night in that God forsaken sand pit,” he explained. He rolled his cigarette around between his fingers before putting it out and sitting up to place the ashtray on the floor. “No family, not a whole lotta friends. Mostly everybody I cared about died in the fuckin’ place I miraculously came back from and so I’d say I don’t have a whole lot to lose. Sal gave a good ol’ boy a job and a place to live and here we are.” He cracked his knuckles and spread his arms, motioning to everyone. “Too bad we don’t have any damn tea and biscuits.”
Everyone remained where they were for some time; Ben on the recliner, Sal by his wife’s side on the couch, Veronica and Isaac on the floor. Veronica had calmly explained that they had lost their father, could no longer stay in their home and tried to make their way out of the city. Sal and Ben remained pleasantly distant while Lucy was very hospitable, offering them water and food, but neither sibling wanted for anything.
A few hours passed and Veronica figured everyone to be asleep. Ben told Lucy to get the kids something to sleep on and it was almost as if Isaac had passed out before his head even hit the pillow. Sal and Lucy lay motionless on the pullout couch and Ben had gone off to his bedroom. She crept around the apartment, trying to get a feel for everything. All the windows in the living room and kitchen had been covered in the same fashion as the downstairs storefront. If the eaters didn’t recognize light, that was one thing, Lucy had told them earlier, but not all people out there would be as nice as the people her and her brother had so luckily stumbled upon. There was not too much for Veronica to explore in the tiny apartment, there was only a small hallway off the kitchen with two closed doors. She assumed the one at the end of the hall was a bedroom and ignored it. She opened the other door very slowly and stepped into a small bathroom with a square uncovered window. Her breath caught in her throat as she gazed at the beauty of the full moon. It was as if someone had strategically placed it there, in the middle of the window frame just for her to see. There was just enough light from it for her eyes to adjust to the small room. No one had been using the bathroom here, thankfully. She pressed her face up against the glass, it was cool. The only thing she could see clearly was the roof of the building across the small alley way. Finally alone, she felt herself wanting to cry, wanting to give in to the grief she felt for her father, her brother, Sal and Lucy and Marco. For anyone else who had lost someone or been lost, which at this point she figured she should be grieving for the whole world. She asked herself how long they could really stay here, how safe creeping around like blind mice in an attic really was. She felt movement behind her and went for the kitchen knife in her waistband as she spun around.
“No need for that.” Ben whispered. “Do you like sneakin’ around people’s houses at night?” Veronica shook her head no, stepping away from the window nervously. Ben pointed to the closed lid on the toilet, “Have a seat if you’d like.” He closed the door behind him as she sat and he quietly inched the window open. She crinkled her nose at the smell of decay that had begun to creep in. “You’ll get used to it.” He told her as he sat down across from her on the ledge of the tub.
“Do you mind?” He held out an open palm with a rolled joint. She shrugged and stared up at the moon again. “Help isn’t coming, you know?” He took a long drag off the joint, “I had a guy I talked to right before the phones went out, still in the service. He said things were worse than a war zone in the bigger cities and not to expect any help any time soon.”
“I wasn’t thinking there would be any help.”
“Smart girl.” He smiled to himself and offered her a hit of the joint.
“I don’t like to.” She remembered the sense of restriction she felt when she smoked a blunt with some friends from school last year, the feeling of unease it gave her, while everyone around her laughed and felt free, she felt trapped and anxious. Dee had told her to loosen up and it would get better, but it never did.
Ben laughed, coughing, trying to remain as quiet as possible. “An even smarter girl.” Veronica felt her face grow hot and was thankful there was no light in the bathroom for him to notice her blush. “What makes you think it’s ok to sneak around like this anyway?”
“I wasn’t,” she answered, too quickly, and bit her lip sheepishly. “I just, um, wanted to be alone.”
He nodded, looking up at the window, “Sorry for the intrusion.”
They continued to talk casually in the tiny bathroom while Ben secretly got high. Veronica found herself wondering how old Ben was and then cursed herself, chasing the thoughts of a normal 16 year
old girl out of her head. He asked what her and Isaac’s plans were and where they were heading when Isaac was attacked.
“Well, like I told ya’ll earlier, we don’t have much of a plan. But we really want to get to the water. You know, if we can’t find safety there, like maybe with a boat or something, then maybe we can work our way along the coast.” She twirled a strand of dark hair on her finger and stared down at her feet. “I promised my dad we’d head that way. There aren’t a lot of people by the water.”
Ben perked up at her last statement. “Well you must get your smarts from your old man.” She looked up at Ben, surprised by his approval. “This time of year, the tourists don’t bother us no more and the Canadians haven’t decided to migrate south just yet.” He chuckled, “I can’t believe I didn’t ever think of that.” He put out the joint and put it in his pocket. “I guess I’ll admit that I just haven’t really wanted to leave. We had a couple other people here with us just yesterday. Can you believe it? Couple of employees, but they didn’t want to stay. They wanted to try and make it home to their families. I mean, I get it, but after the conversation between Marco and his parents, I wasn’t too keen on goin’ anywhere. They shouldn’t have been either.”
“Do you know what happened to them?”
“Nah, I’d rather not think about it. Those two girls were dumb as bricks under normal circumstances so I can’t imagine them keepin’ their shit together out there in a time like this, cryin’ over every damn thing. It was Roger’s idea to leave, I just think he wanted to play the hero and get laid by tweedle dumb and tweedle dee, but ya know, it’s just not my place to say.”
Veronica couldn’t help but giggle. Under different circumstances she might have been put off by his honesty, but right now she felt comforted by it. Ben smiled, “So how about we sit down and have a discussion tomorrow about headin’ to the bay?”
Veronica liked the idea of Ben coming, especially since it was probably safe to assume he could handle himself and keep them out of trouble. But she couldn’t help but to be wary of going out there in a group like this. Would they be able to move fast enough, quietly enough? She knew that she could out run anything, and Isaac wasn’t far behind her in that talent. But what about Sal and Lucy? Lucy seemed like the loose end of the group. Sure, she could hold it together with four walls surrounding her, but what happens when a group of eaters are biting at her heels?
Ben noticed Veronica had yet to respond and could just barely make out her facial expression enough to see she was worrying. “Listen,” he got up from his seat on the tub and stretched. “Get some sleep girl, and tomorrow, if you want to talk about your plan with everyone, you talk about it.” He pretended to lock his mouth and throw away the key. She managed another smile as he closed the window back up and left her to her thoughts on the toilet.
X
Isaac stirred the following morning, his body aching from sleeping on the floor. He thought of his bed, back in the place that used to be his home followed by thoughts of an Eliza he’d never again see. Then he thought of his father’s body lying on the floor in the place where Veronica put a knife through his skull. He blinked his eyes a couple of times and sat up. Everyone was awake and in the kitchen from what he could tell except for him and his sister. Veronica was sound asleep on the couch. He went about tidying his make shift bed up and placed everything in the corner near the lantern.
“Good morning,” Lucy greeted him as she came back into the living room, “I have some coffee here, it isn’t very good though.” Her smile was warm; she had nice soft features on a small face that was framed with thick black hair cut in a fashionable bob. Sal on the other hand had a thick dark beard, small sharp eyes and was balding.
“Thank you,” Isaac nodded and took the cup. It was bitter and cold.
“More like instant shit than instant coffee, wouldn’t you agree?” Ben said to him without looking up as he entered the kitchen.
“It’s just fine.” Isaac lied and smiled at Lucy. “Thanks.” There was a plate of something on the table next to some untoasted English muffins.
“Canned breakfast meat. It is also cold, I’m sorry.” Lucy told him as she noticed him eyeing the plate. “Not much we can do since the power went out.”
Isaac smiled at her again, “That’s just fine, I understand.” He took a seat in the empty chair and made himself a makeshift breakfast sandwich. The table didn’t match the chairs and it seemed the whole kitchen was mismatched, which although he didn’t know him very well at all, Isaac figured it to be the appropriate kitchen for someone like Ben. Sal sat silently across from Isaac, reading an out of date newspaper. He wondered if Sal had memorized it yet, imagining him sitting in the same spot each morning, reading the same headlines and articles over and over again. Ben stood smoking a cigarette over the sink, staring out an open window that had been covered up the night before.
“I thought you guys kept the windows covered up?” Isaac asked through a mouthful of tasteless food.
“This one overlooks the alley out back of the building, no light to be seen during the day anyway.” Ben put a cigarette out in the sink, never breaking his stare out the window.
“Anything interesting out there?”
“Interesting? Yeah, could be.”
Ben’s answer surprised him. “What do you mean?”
“Few days ago we heard some screamin’, but not the kind of screamin’ we had been hearing.” He lit up another cigarette and looked at Isaac. “Like the kind you used to hear before all this. When it was just regular ol’ people treatin’ other people like shit. Ya know, robbin’ from people or maybe somethin’ worse. But anyway, what I’m thinking is that if they found out we were in here, well, you know how that might go.”
Isaac swallowed his food hard. “Yeah, I probably wouldn’t wanna find out.”
“So I’m just attempting to see them first.”
Sal snorted behind his newspaper. “Paranoia. Stop smoking all that mota man.” Ben chuckled and flipped him off.
Another hour passed before Veronica finally woke up. She slept like the dead when she was exhausted. The rest of the group had made small talk, not really discussing anything of importance. Isaac felt awkward among the strangers, his sister was the one who made friends easily and she never had any trouble talking to people. He was relieved when she joined them in the kitchen. Lucy offered her some of the leftovers from the morning. She sat next to her brother at the table.
“What’s been going on?” She asked him, hoping he hadn’t pissed anyone off or told them too much about himself.
“Honestly nothing. We’ve kind of just been sitting here. Nobody wanted to bother you.”
“You needed the rest.” Lucy smiled, sitting off to the side.
“Oh. Thank you.” She broke off a piece of English muffin and chewed it slowly. Sal was going through things in the pantry and Ben still stood beside the window over the sink, chain smoking. He met Veronica’s eyes and nodded before returning to his quiet watch over the back alley. She remembered their conversation from the night before in Ben’s tiny bathroom. No one said anything about leaving the city or heading for the coast so Ben must have kept it to himself.
There was not much conversation to be had over the next hour. Veronica had left the kitchen after eating her stale breakfast and went over to her bag in the living room. The gun she had taken from the street was still there, the few things from the house. Everything looked fine. Isaac followed her in, doing the same with his bag, but only because he had seen her do it first.
“What are we doing, V?” He looked at her expectantly.
She didn’t respond because she didn’t know what to say.
“Well, I don’t know what we’re doing here, I’m just grateful they took us in like they did.” He sat down on the linens he had folded earlier. “They didn’t have to. You know that right?”
She sat down on the floor next to her bag and brought her knees into her chest. She didn’t respond but she knew Isaac
had a point. Maybe it was only right to try and make it to the Bay with the group, stick together. They weren’t by any means bad people.
“What do you think about asking them to come with us?” She stole a glance at the kitchen and made sure her voice was low.
Isaac shook his head, “I don’t know. That’s up to them. I mean, I wouldn’t have left our house if we didn’t have to. We might be safe here for a little while if they let us stay. Don’t you think? I mean, there’s bad shit out there.”
“There’s bad shit everywhere man.” She rested her forehead on her knees. Since when did Isaac become such a pussy? She hated that he kept asking her what they were doing or where they were going. Here was her brother looking to her for the answers when she felt like she might fall apart any minute. Do I really seem that put together right now? She asked herself that question and immediately knew that the answer was yes. She knew that getting emotional would only hold them back and slow them down. It happened out on the street, almost got her brother killed and all she had allowed herself to be was irritable. She knew she was behaving as if the world outside didn’t scare her a bit and she knew that was the way she needed to be. She lifted her head and looked at Isaac, his sad dark eyes were fixed on the floor.
“I’m sorry, you know that?” Isaac looked up at her. “I’m sorry about last night and I’m sorry about dad. I’m sorry that the world sucks ass and I’m sorry if there isn’t any time to grieve.” She paused, giving him a moment to say something but his words never came. She was disappointed and her voice grew stern and she spoke slowly as she continued. “We have to do, what we have to do, in order to keep ourselves intact. Do you understand?” She could tell her brother was getting emotional but she pressed harder. “I might not have a solid plan or know exactly what I’m doing, I definitely don’t know what the hell is going on with the world, but I can promise you I know one thing and that is the fact that I will do whatever I need to do to keep myself alive. I will do whatever I need to do to make sure this world doesn’t determine what I become. That goes for when I’m alive and if I’m dead. Do you understand?