Apocalypse Alone

by David Rogers

  “It’s the kind of thing that can cause problems, especially if everyone else is stuck with Twinkies and potato chips.” he said.

  “That’s just food. What happens if they know you’re not the big bad soldier here to save them, but only care about me.”

  “But I do.”

  Her heart twisted within her, and she smiled faintly. “I know, and I just don’t have the words to do what it means to me justice when I think of it. But it’ll cause problems, and hurt us when the time comes.”

  “Jessica, the thing that I’m worried about, if we have to break out of here with those bastards still up on the roofs, is I’m probably their first target.”

  She tried to break the tension with a laugh. “Well, you are head and shoulders above everyone else, even U for all the muscle he’s carrying—”

  “And I’m trained, and I’ll be shooting at them as fast as I can.” Austin said. “That’ll make me the target, if they’ve got any sense at all. And as good as I might be, I can’t shoot in multiple directions at who knows how many targets, all at once, and get them all before they put some of us down.”

  “I’ll be there with you.” she said, promised really. “We’ll be together. And we’ve got Byron, he’s a good shot. And Nate’s not bad. And the others. There’s ten we don’t know; they can’t all be like Milo, especially if they ended up in here.”

  “It just might not be enough. And … and even if I stay up … they might hit you. I can’t cover all of it and know I’ve got them handled enough to keep them off you. Not before they could get lucky.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “If they’re shooting at me instead of you, then that just makes it that much more likely you’ll get back to Candice.” she finally said, faintly amazed at how matter-of-fact she managed to make the words sound.

  “Jessica—”

  “I’ve told you, she’s all that matters to me. It doesn’t have to be me. If it is, then I’ll be there for her. But I know, I know, you’ll be there for her too. And I can live with that, or not, but, well, you know.”

  “I’d do anything for you, and that includes Candice.” Austin said. “But …”

  “But …” Jessica pressed.

  “But, I just … I can’t lose you.” he said finally, and she saw an expression even more alien than the unhappy discontent she’d already noticed earlier on his face. It was almost embarrassed. Shame.

  “I can’t.” he said, almost whispering. “It would break me.”

  A complicated surge of emotion sent Jessica moving against him. She slipped her arms around him, putting her head against his chest. When she spoke, it took her a few words to be sure her voice wasn’t about to crack. “Austin, you’re not just the most patient person I’ve ever known, but the most resilient too. If it comes to that, if that’s how it happens, you’ll keep going.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. You’re not a quitter either.”

  “I never have.” he said, stroking a hand through her hair. “Not ever. But I’ve never had you, and then lost you, either.”

  “You’re not going to lose me. And if you do, I’ll be there in Candice.”

  “She’s not you.”

  “She is me Austin.” Jessica said, rubbing her cheek against his shirt, feeling his warmth beneath. “Joey was always like Brett, and Sandra was her own girl, but Candice is like me. She thinks about things, she’s always got her wheels turning up there, and she’s blown me away with how she’s held herself together through all this. Better than me.”

  “Not better.”

  “You know how many times I’ve lost it.”

  “I do.” he admitted. She’d told him everything, certainly about the last four months, if only to help her work through it. And more besides as they’d gotten to know each other the way anyone did as they spent time together in circumstances that were more than circumstantial. That were intimate. Zombies and the end of the world made everything much more personal for anyone still breathing.

  “She’s cried, but not like I have. Not even close. It’s not because she doesn’t care, or that it hurts less, but because she’s just got it together in a way I’ve had to figure out when it got bad.” she said, then laughed slightly. “I’d thought losing Brett was the end of my world. And then the world went and really ended. But she’s held it together through all of it. You know she made me put you on my list of rules.”

  “What?” he asked, sounding startled. His hand stopped moving through her hair.

  “Really.” Jessica said a touch thickly, as her throat tightened. “She made me promise before I left. She wanted you to be on the list, so it wasn’t just her I was worried about. Made me replace her in some of the slots with you.”

  “Go girlie-girl.” he said softly.

  “She’s amazing. And however horrible the world’s gotten, she deserves the chance to grow up despite it.”

  “I love Candice.” Austin said softly. “But only almost as much I love you. I know, I just know, that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s true. I’m sorry.”

  “No.” Jessica said, leaning back a little and looking up at him. Then she reached with one hand and tugged on his shirt collar. And he obligingly bent down so she wasn’t so far beneath his face. “Never apologize for love. Not when it’s real.”

  “I can’t help it. I know if it were me or her, you’d choose her, and I’m okay with that. I’m ready for that. It doesn’t bother me. But if it were you or her, and it was me picking—”

  “Austin.” Jessica said, growing alarmed again. His voice was cracking some, and she wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t on the verge of unmanly tears.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’d pick me over Candice?”

  “I … I just don’t know. Not for sure. I know it would break you if I left her and saved you if we got down to that … but I just don’t know.” he said, sounding like every word was torture. “But we’re in here, and I’ve been thinking about things. And I keep thinking about that when I’m trying to work on the problem … and I just don’t know which way I’d go if that’s what we came to.” he said, his voice barely audible. “And it bothers me. Because I know it’s not what you’d want. That bothers me a hell of a lot more than dying.”

  “Neither of us are dying.” Jessica said, unraveling her hand from his and scrambling around to get on her knees. With him sitting, and her as upright as she could be from the knees up, she was more or less able to look right into his eyes. “Not you, and not me. Not today, and probably not tomorrow either. Say it with me.”

  “A day at a time.” he whispered.

  “A day at a time.” she said, putting as much love into her voice as she could. “Now hold me.”

  His arms wrapped around her, all but engulfing her as always, and she came off her knees as he lifted and hugged her to himself. Hugging him back, Jessica put her head on his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out.” she told him as he rocked her.

  Chapter Ten — Working the problem

  “Need a little help here.” U grunted. The muscles on his arms were flexed solid enough to outline some of the blood vessels beneath his dark skin as he struggled to hold the shelving unit.

  “Got ya man.” Wes said, sliding down a little closer to U so he could take some of the weight at the end. “Ed, you got it?”

  “I got it.” Ed said from where he stood more or less in the middle of the long rectangular piece of retail furniture. Byron and Nate were beside him, also holding onto the shelving unit.

  “Just don’t let it tip.” Austin said from the other end, his own voice a little tight from strain. He and U had the ends, and everyone else was supposed to lift from the long sides and keep it steady. “Arcelia, it can’t tip when we lift it.”

  “Sí , sí, lo está sosteniéndolo.” Jorge said after Arcelia translated, his voice floating out from the far side where he and his friends stood lifting opposite the two student athletes, and the pair of Houseboaters.


  “Okay, everyone good?” Austin asked.

  The men were all holding one of the shelves that had been used to set out clothing in the store, standing with it held between them at about knee height. Three others had been pushed and shoved into a parallel block right beneath the door to the small second floor in the back room of the store. Jessica watched as they all adjusted their grips, some of them breathing in and out as they took the weight.

  Only Jessica knew about the doubts Austin was harboring, that he’d confided to her the previous night. And today, he was back in normal Austin mode, showing no sign of any of his inner conflict as he went about projecting confidence and polite leadership, taking point in organizing the effort to try out his plan.

  “Listo?” Arcelia asked.

  “Sí , sí.” Rico said.

  “Yeah.” U said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Before I lose feeling in my fingers.” Ed said.

  “On three, lift.” Austin said. “Slowly, no hurry. Don’t let it tip. Okay? Here we go, on three. One, two, three, lift.”

  “Uno, dos, tress, levante.” Arcelia said as he counted.

  The shelves were not exactly small. Nearly ten feet long, about four wide, and made of wood with metal framing. That meant they were bulky and heavy, but it also meant they were sturdy. Austin wanted to get a look at the upstairs, and then at the roof to see if they could make anything happen. There had been a little, only a little, hesitation — it wasn’t fair to call it outright resistance — to the notion. But the other men had agreed to pitch in to rearrange the shelves to build something that could be used to replace the stairs.

  Those stairs, someone had clearly wrecked them on purpose. They were metal, and couldn’t have been easy to dismantle. And they’d been more than dismantled; they’d been cut apart into scrap using a blowtorch or something. The burn marks and melted edges made that clear even to her. And the back door of the building was welded shut, both to the frame and additionally with scrap metal that had been fused to both door and frame.

  The why and how was just one more thing that didn’t make sense, but ultimately didn’t matter. Only getting out did. And information was the only thing that could help. Step one of gathering some had been clearing away the pile of actual rubble, which had gone quickly with everyone helping. Well, nearly everyone; Carlo could only stand with pain and effort, so he was left out of the process.

  Straining together, the men lifted the shelf higher. As it came up past their collective abdomens, U and Austin quickly shifted and changed their grips, so they could get under it and push from below rather than flexing it up in a pulling motion that was range limited as it got higher. This had been discussed, at length, by Austin, and a plan laid out for everyone to do the same.

  “Ready.” U said as he got his palms beneath the unit, standing with bent knees and his hands flat against the bottom with outstretched arms.

  “Switch grips, in order.” Austin grunted. He was bent lower than U, since he was — as usual — by far the tallest person in the room. Even though he was almost crouched beneath the shelf, he still looked ready to continue. Jessica thought it couldn’t be that comfortable though, regardless of how strong he was.

  “Cambiar las manos.” Arcelia said loudly.

  “Changing.” Wes said, releasing and repositioning his hands one at a time in quick movements that made his skin slap against the wooden base of the shelf.

  “Hacerlo Rico.” one of the laborers said on the far side.

  In sequence, a little raggedly but without incident, all the men got their grip changed.

  “Okay, higher.” Austin said. “Go.”

  “Levanta lo.” Arcelia said.

  The shelf went higher as the men pushed on it, until it was high enough to clear the shelves beneath the back room’s upper floor doorway. U turned his head to verify there was enough clearance. “Okay, sideways.”

  “Don’t let it tip.” Austin said.

  “Moverlo lentamente.” Arcelia said. “Cuidadosamente.”

  “Rico bastardo sostenerlo.” Jorge said.

  “Estoy levantando!” Rico protested.

  “What?” U asked tightly.

  “Nothing, they’re good.” Arcelia said.

  “Move it.” Austin said. “Go, go.”

  The shelf moved laterally. As soon as his end was over the others already in place, U lowered it down and started walking his hands along the bottom and pushing to help the others keep sliding it over. It took a bit of doing to nudge it across the little gaps between the bottom shelves, they weren’t completely flush due to some warping or settling that had occurred over the years, but half a minute later the upper shelf was on the base that had been prepared for it.

  “Good job.” Austin said, his breathing coming a little faster than normal. Most of the rest were sweating, and several of the men flexed their hands or arms around after the exertion.

  “Normally I stop heavy things, not move them.” U said to Austin. He was the closest to the taller man’s demeanor in the aftermath of the lifting; both of them clearly less physically affected by the effort than the rest.

  “Which is why you weren’t around to help me change dorms last year.” Wes said sourly.

  “Hey man, you made out alright.”

  “Yeah, me too, once upon a time.” Austin told U with a grin as Wes shook his head.

  “What position?” U asked, eying him far more speculatively than Jessica would have ever guessed someone, even someone built like U, would.

  “Center, but only in high school.”

  “Man, I used to love knocking you fellas on your asses when I blitzed.”

  “I didn’t end up on my ass all that often.”

  U laughed. “Yeah, well, that I actually believe.”

  “Ahora subimos?” Jorge asked, looking at Austin briefly before redirecting his gaze to Arcelia.

  “People can climb up now?” she translated.

  “If they can reach.” Austin said, looking up at the jury-rigged hill they’d just constructed. It was a few feet beneath the level of the second floor doorway. “If it’s not high enough, we can knock some of the shelves out of the other units, pile the boards up and stand on them.”

  “Sí adelante.” Arcelia said.

  “What does getting up there get us again?” Tori asked.

  “There might be something in the offices that could be helpful, but really all I’m interested in is the roof, like I said.” Austin replied. “I’m hoping that maybe we can fight from up there, possibly even pull off some sort of ambush on the guys that have us penned in.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  “Could be. But we won’t know what we’re dealing with until we get some more information. Thus, recon.”

  “What if we provoke them?” Phil asked. The old man, either him or his friend Ben, hadn’t participated in moving the shelves because there were other, fitter and younger, hands and backs who could handle it. But they’d helped clear the debris away, and had stood watching with interest. Jessica thought Phil sounded a little worried as he asked his question though. That was still better than Tori, whose tone as she questioned Austin was tinged with evident skepticism.

  “Right now I just want to see if we can even get through to the roof. And if we can, take a careful look and try to stay out of sight.”

  “Maybe we should wait for night before poking any heads out then?” Ben said.

  “Not a bad idea.” Austin said with a nod. “A dark moon would be better, but I think we’d have to wait a couple of weeks for that to come around. Even so, unless they’re specifically watching our roof, a little peak-and-sneak should have a good chance of going unnoticed. But I’ve got a mirror; it’ll work on a roof just as well as a corner.”

  “Are you always so eager?” Tori asked.

  “To stay alive?” Austin said mildly. “Yes.”

  “Hey, just because he only got here yesterday doesn’t mean he’s wrong.” Nate said, joining the little group
. Behind him, the three laborers were climbing up the repositioned shelves toward the second floor. The jock kids were watching them, apparently curious or eager to follow once the way was clear.

  “You want to get out of here don’t you?” Jessica said, using the polite and disarming tone she’d often adopted in the office when faced with on-edge patients.

  “We do.” Donita said, shooting a glance at her friend before smiling at everyone else. “It’s just, they’ve got guns. And if they start using them for more than warning shots, that could get ugly.”

  “When bullets start flying it’s already ugly.”

  “So what kind of soldier were you?” Tori asked, eying the carbine Austin had slung behind him. He’d insisted Jessica stay ‘geared up’ as he called it too, and Byron had taken the cue by telling Arcelia and Nate to keep their rifles with them as well.

  “Army Ranger.”

  “How long?”

  “What is this, a job interview?” Austin asked, though he offered a disarming smile as he spoke.

  “I’m just trying to figure out who you are.” Tori said with a shrug. “I mean, you show up, and now you’ve got all these ideas and plans for us.”

  “Tori.” Donita said, rolling her eyes.

  “If those guys outside get upset enough to stop hanging out and start doing something, I don’t want to be caught in the crossfire.” Tori insisted.

  “It’s just recon.” Austin said calmly.

  There was a brief half-shout from the top of the shelves, and everyone looked up to see Jorge standing on Rico’s shoulders. The latter was craning his head to cast an annoyed look upwards, and wincing as the former’s shoe soles dug into him.

  “Asshole!” he said as Jorge stood on him and got a hold of the edges of the doorway where the top of the stairs had been.

  “Lo siento, lo siento.” Jorge said, pulling himself up. He managed, and turned to extend a hand to the put-out Rico, and started pulling him up with Diego’s help.