Abandon

by Stephanie Dorman

  Putting his phone into his pocket so Katy couldn’t see who the text was from, he grabbed a bag from the bed and tossed it into the hallway. “I’m not being unreasonable, and I don’t need to explain myself to you. I’m leaving here in forty five minutes. If you want to come, be here. If not, maybe I’ll see you when all of this is over.”

  Katy jumped off the bed in a huff, grabbing her clothes that had been strewn across the room the night before. He had been at the bar with some friends and called her when he reached the point where he was more than a little drunk. Upon coming home he discovered her on his doorstep and they had ripped each other’s clothes off in a fit of alcohol fueled passion once they hit the bedroom. “Fine, whatever, have fun in the mountains,” she huffed walking out of the bedroom and slamming the door behind her.

  Cort didn’t even call after her and instead single mindedly focused at the task at hand. He had gun, knifes, clothes and some paper and books. Looking into his closet he started pulling out camping supplies and sleeping bags. They would need these if they couldn’t find a cabin that happened to be empty and unlocked. After packing everything into the bags he opened his door and moved it all into the hallway. Looking at the pile he was glad he had an SUV so that everything could fit. He rapped quickly on his roommates door. “Jake, you awake?”

  Jake opened the door and peered around it, smirking at Cort. “Yeah I was just trying to avoid the awkward conversation between you and your fuck buddy. I take it she decided you were full of shit?”

  Cort checked down the stairs to make sure she had made it out the front door. “Thank God, she would have been nothing but a drain. You almost ready to go?”

  “Yeah, almost. Where we headed to?” Jake responded as he hoisted a huge duffle bag over his shoulder.

  “Cumberland. Annalise is going to meet us there, as well as Kevin and Jenna. I want to see if we can convince my parents to come as well.”

  “If we can’t, I can always throw them over my shoulder. Your parents are no match for my strength,” he laughed as he walked down the stairs. Cort grinned too, mentally laughing at the image of Jake throwing his mother over his shoulder like the cave men of old did to their women. Jake had grown up in the wilderness of Alaska, chopping down trees with his dad for a living since the age of twelve. His physique showed it despite the years of drinking and general wastefulness he had partaken in since moving to Maryland for college. His forearms were most often referred to jokingly as the size of Cort’s whole head, and it wasn’t exactly untrue. Last time they had been to the gym he had been able to bench press 300 pounds without breaking a sweat. Because of his sheer size and history in the great white wilderness that is Alaska, he had been an obvious choice for Cort’s perfect survival team. Luckily Jake rarely questioned Cort and had a habit of following wherever he went, so when Cort had knocked on Jake’s door earlier and hollered that the world was falling apart and Jake should probably pack all his shit, Jake had apparently began just that.

  Cort walked down the stairs into the kitchen with one of the empty duffle bags and started putting all non-perishable goods he could see in the pantry inside. They would probably have to hit a couple of stores on the way out to get more supplies, but whatever they could get out of the house was guaranteed survival food. When he finished in the pantry, he moved to the counter and began opening drawers to get any knifes and silverware that might be useful. He could hear Jake coming and going through the front door, presumably loading all their gear into Cort’s Suburban. Although the plan was to take both cars, Cort’s car was significantly bigger than Jake’s Jeep Wrangler and could hold more equipment. Whatever gear and food they got from the stores they hit on the way to Cumberland they could load in Jake’s car. Cort heard the door open again and Jake’s voice boom down the hallway.

  “Katy’s car just pulled up, Boss.”

  Cort groaned and tossed a can opener into the duffle bag as he walked to the door. Katy was getting out of her tiny Smart Car and he could see she was visibly shaken and had been crying. Stepping down the couple of steps on his front porch he looked at her quizzically.

  “My… the… I don’t have a home,” she managed to get out between sobs. “It’s on fire. It’s gone. I… I have nowhere to go.”

  Chapter 3: Annalise

  Northern Virginia

  December 12, 2012

  Opening the door to her best friend’s one-bedroom apartment, Annalise smiled. Meredith’s house always smelled like a grandmother’s kitchen. A couple months back, Meredith had finally grown tired of her 9-5 job with the government and quit without notice to focus on her budding bakery business. Most people were shocked with her decision but it turned out to be the right one because with the holidays coming up, business had been booming. Right now the apartment smelled like peppermint and sugar, and she imagined that Meredith would probably be in the kitchen, making a cupcake or some candies.

  “Hey, Mere, you here?” she yelled out as she kicked off her shoes at the door. Walking out of the foyer into the living room she saw Meredith had been watching the same news channel Annalise had earlier in the morning. The images were still rolling across the screen of the destruction in DC and it appeared the government was preparing to release some new calming agent onto the rioters.

  “In the bedroom!” she heard Meredith yell back to her. “Hold on two seconds, I’ll be right out!”

  Annalise sat down on the couch, watching the images scroll across the TV. The government was creating a wall to stop the rioters from crossing the 14th Street Bridge into Virginia. The announcer was speaking in very serious tones about how the government shouldn’t release the calming agent on to the crowd because it wasn’t FDA approved yet. Another announcer rebutted that mustard gas wasn’t FDA approved either and something had to be done before the situation got even more out of hand. The image switched to a solitary car burning somewhere in DC, and then to a twelve story apartment complex where apparently there were residents trapped in the building. The resources of the city were stretched so thin that there were no firefighters to help them, so they had started jumping.

  Meredith walked out of her bedroom freshly showered, rolling a suitcase behind her. “I was wondering if I’d see you before you left.”

  Annalise grinned. “How’d you know I’d be leaving?”

  “Are you going to try to tell me that Cort didn’t message you this morning?” Meredith prodded walking to the kitchen and pulling out some oven mitts from the drawer by the stove. “Because if you are, I’m not going to believe it.”

  Annalise stood up and walked to the kitchen island, taking a seat on one of the short stools in front of it. “He did. I’m meeting him at the rally point just outside of Cumberland. You comin’ with me?”

  Meredith shook her head as she pulled some cupcakes out of the oven. “No, I’d love to - but I think I’m going to Tennessee instead to be with my parents for the holidays. If you wait a while before you leave I can give you some cupcakes to take with you.”

  It was so like Meredith to prepare cupcakes for her during a crisis. As long as she had known Meredith, she had always thought that cupcakes could solve any problem. Break up with a boyfriend? Cupcakes. Parents died? Cupcakes. Skinned your knee? Cupcakes. The amazing part of it was Meredith’s cupcakes actually did somehow manage to sooth the soul. The night Annalise had officially broken up with Cort she had called Mere in hysterical sobs and forty minutes later Meredith had shown up at her door with red velvet cupcakes that had “I’m sorry” spelled out in cream cheese on the top and three bottles of champagne. They had played video games, drank champagne and ate all the cupcakes that night in between Annalise’s sobs and self doubt. When she woke up the next morning she realized she already felt slightly better besides the pounding headache from the champagne.

  Meredith was icing the cupcakes with Annalise’s favorite topping. “When were you thinking about leaving? We could pop a bottle of champagne, eat half of these and watch on the chaos in DC before yo
u go.”

  Nothing would have pleased Annalise more, if she couldn’t have Meredith come with her. Since both of Annalise’s parents died in the past five years due to extreme liver failure from their drinking, Meredith had been the closest thing to family Annalise had. She understood why Meredith was going to her family instead of coming with Annalise though. Her dad was a retired CIA operative whose paranoia had followed him long into his twilight years, and he and his wife had retired in the middle of Tennessee on a hill that was defendable against almost everything. Plus, Annalise was pretty sure Meredith’s father had collected enough guns and ammunition to last them well into the next century. If Meredith was going to go somewhere, Tennessee was the safest place to be. Annalise pulled a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and grabbed two flutes from the cabinet above the sink.

  “So what did Cort say,” Meredith asked, moving to the living room with the cupcakes.

  Annalise popped the champagne, settling into the couch. “Not much, woke me up via text and asked me if I remembered the plan. Texted him back and said I’d meet him at the rally point.”

  “Are you nervous?”

  Annalise pondered the question for a moment and grabbed a cupcake from the table. “Yes and no. I haven’t seen him in months, but in theory this is a survival scenario right? I still trust him with my life.”

  Meredith nodded as she took her glass from the table and sipped it. “I always thought you guys would get back together. You were too similar. Who actually enjoys coming up with these kind of plans anyway?”

  Annalise raised an eyebrow. “We’re not getting back together. We’re surviving together. There’s a difference.”

  Meredith laughed. Her laughter sounded like a thousand windchimes and never failed to put Annalise in a good mood. “He’s inviting you to the middle of nowhere for an undefined amount of time. You guys are getting back together.”

  Taking a bit of the cupcake in her hand, she savored the flavor pondering what to tell Meredith. “I hadn’t even really thought about it Meredith. I was busy packing my car and getting over here. I don’t even really want to think about it. Shit, he could have a girlfriend for all I know.”

  “No way,” Meredith shook her head emphatically. “You guys were too good together. You haven’t replaced him and there’s no way he could replace someone as awesome as you. You’re getting back together.”

  Once Meredith had something in her mind, it was impossible to change it, so Annalise turned to the TV and lapsed into silence with her thoughts. Leave it to Meredith to bring up the one question that she had somehow avoided in her head so far. What was this invite from Cort? Was it just a knee-jerk reaction because most of his plans had included her, or was it because he wanted to be with her? Maybe it was a mix of both, but the last thing they needed in a survival situation was unresolved issues between them. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and twisted it in her hands.

  “Don’t text him to ask,” Meredith said without even looking over. “Just go with it. That was always what did you guys in. You both thought way too much.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Annalise responded, putting her phone back in her pocket.

  “I know, I’m always right.”

  How like Meredith, to just state that she was always right. In the history of their friendship there had been many points when Meredith had been wrong, but Annalise would never bring that up. When it came to the important things, she was right. Annalise reached out and grabbed Meredith’s hand quickly. “If this isn’t just a quick vacation, if it really is that bad, I want you to know that you’re my best friend, and I want you to know that I never would have survived without you to this point.”

  Squeezing her hand, Meredith smiled. “It’s nothing but a free vacation, but I know. I feel the same.”

  Annalise hoped she was right, but the knot in her stomach was growing with every image that streamed across the TV.

  Chapter 4: Cort

  Route 70 West

  December 12, 2012

  They had been on the road for a little under thirty minutes and Katy was already starting to get on his nerves. Sitting next to him she had spent the entire car ride calling all her friends to make sure they were okay and telling them where she was going. After she had shown up at his house earlier, he had attempted to get her to stay with one of her friends. She had been in hysterics, saying that none of her friends were answering the phone, and eventually he had reluctantly relented and let her come with them. Bitterly, he listened to her on the phone with one of her friends, apparently they had all finally managed to find their phones. Cort made a silent prayer that none of Katy’s friends tried to meet them at the rally point, even though she was inviting all of them. He didn’t know how Katy would react to being out in the wild, and he sure as hell didn’t want to deal with multiple versions of her.

  A year or so ago there used to be a show on TV where they would put people in the middle of nowhere and tell them to survive in any way possible. It had been one of his favorite shows to watch with Annalise and they had spent hours after every show picking apart the characters’ decisions and talking about how they would have done everything differently. One of the funniest parts of the show was that the producers had always picked one supermodel type in there who had absolutely no talents that were useful to join the cast. As he and Annalise had watched the show together, she had always commented that the supermodel’s talent had actually been giving the guys blow jobs behind the scenes - she was sure of it. Smirking, he looked over at Katy as she twirled her blonde hair around her finger and continued to yammer on the phone to one of her friends. At least he was sure that Katy could perform that task to perfection, although he doubted that she’d be blowing anyone but him.

  “How much longer until we’re where we are going?” Katy asked when she finally got off the phone and put it down on her lap.

  “Probably another three hours, but we’ll have to stop at couple stores on the way to pick up supplies,” he responded, shifting his train of thought to more important matters. They could still use a little more ammunition as well as perishable food. He was sure that Annalise would be bringing her snowboarding gear, but hopefully he would find a place for them to pick up some heavy duty snow gear for him and Jake too. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it right and be prepared for the long haul.

  “Great, I need clothes. Do you think we’ll be able to stop at a Nordstroms?”

  Cort thought it was an absurd question to ask. What could Nordstroms possibly have that would warrant a stop there. “No, probably only a couple of grocery stores and Wal Mart’s. It will be faster there, they’ll have everything we need instead of just nice clothes.”

  Katy made a disgusted face. “I don’t shop at Wal Mart.”

  “You do now,” Cort said curtly, reaching out to turn up the radio in his SUV. Maybe if he drowned her out he’d be able to pretend that she wasn’t with him and focus on the things that he needed to. The song on the radio was R.E.M’s ‘The End of the World (As We Know It)’ and he tapped his left along with the beat. The song choice was apt, even if it wasn’t the apocalyptic scenario he had secretly prayed for years on end, the world was never going to be the same in the face of the political corruption the election. He was living in a time of extraordinary change in America, and for that he supposed he was truly blessed. How many people got to say they lived through something that changed the face of the world as everyone knew it? If they made it through this, he’d certainly have one hell of a story.

  In the cup holder next to him, his phone began to buzz. His car automatically turned the radio down. “Jake Johnson, calling - would you like to accept?” his bluetooth connection asked him. Cort pressed the button on his steering wheel and responded in the affirmative.

  “Hey bro, what’s the plan?” Jake’s booming voice came over the surround sound speakers. “There’s a Walmart two exits up if you want to stop.”

  “It’s as good as pl
ace as any,” Cort responded, slowing down so that Jake could pass him and lead the way. “I’ll follow you.”

  “Roger that,” Jake said and disconnected the phone.

  Katy sighed again. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a Walmart. What if there are undesirable people there?”

  Cort didn’t even dignify her question with a response. He turned up the radio and thought that if she was like this the entire time, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to control the urge to push her out of the car.

  Four miles and one more song about the end of the world later, they were pulling off the highway towards the nearest Walmart. The parking lot was surprisingly empty considering it was roughly 2PM on a Friday. He assumed people were probably glued to their TV’s at home, or making plans to get out of the area like they were. It was just as well, that meant they would be able to get in and out without much hassle. Parking in a spot as close to the front as he could get without pretending to be handicapped, he stepped out and began walking to the store.

  “Wait for me!” Katy yelled after him. She skipped towards him linking her arm in his. “I don’t know my way around this store. I don’t want to get lost.”

  “Yeah, you might run into some undesirables,” Cort muttered under his breath. Every minute that passed, he was wondering what he saw in her to begin with. Turning his head, he ran his eyes lazily over her body while they waited for Jake. He was slowly realizing the more she spoke, the less attracted he was to her firm butt and her perky breasts. They didn’t hold the same appeal once he realized they belonged to someone so shallow and one-dimensional.