Double Or Nothing

by Sean Patten

  So, instead of robbing the couple blind, I picked up an empty glass of water near the sink and filled it with fresh water from the tap. I brought the glass to my lips and drained it in a blink, then filled it again and drank that down too.

  The water felt so good in my belly that I almost wanted to cry with joy.

  “You hear that?” said the man from inside the house.

  “What?”

  “Sounds like the sink. Did you leave the sink running again, Helen?”

  Shit. Time to move.

  I turned off the tap, set down the glass and hurried out of the bathroom. Moments later I was back outside and making my way out of the backyard, where I hopped over the fence and headed down the small path alongside the house, arriving in the streets moments later.

  I was confident that I’d done the right thing. But as I stood in the middle of the road, still silence all around me, I couldn’t help but wonder if the decision I’d made had sealed my brother’s fate.

  Chapter 8

  I headed down the side road of the neighborhood, soon arriving on the main drag. And what I saw surprised the hell out of me.

  There were people there, small groups carrying supplies in bags and pushing shopping carts. That was something I’d seen before, but what was curious was what I saw in the carts—instead of TVs and video games and stereos, they’d looted bottles of water, canned goods, and other more practical supplies.

  This meant that more and more people were starting to wake up and realize what was going on, that the lights were off and no one was coming to save them. It was good, in a sense—it meant that people were actually beginning to take the situation seriously.

  But it also meant that people were going to start getting desperate. They’d grab what supplies they could, hunker down in their homes, and try to wait it out. Before too long, the supplies would run out, and then…

  I didn’t even want to think about it. My mind went back to the older couple, imagining what kind of fate was in store for them. I could picture some gang of junkies like the ones I’d seen at the mall spotting their house and deciding that they were easy targets. Unlike me, they wouldn’t have any compunction about taking advantage of the weak.

  But I didn’t waver in my decision—I knew I’d done the right thing.

  “Hey!”

  A voice called out to me from among the people on the road.

  I looked around and spotted a family—a man and wife and two children who looked to be around ten—standing on the sidewalk, their eyes on me. The man had a shopping cart full of supplies and a rifle slung over his back.

  I touched my chest, and he nodded. He was talking to me.

  Getting mixed up with strangers like this wasn’t the best idea, but I realized that I might be able to get some information out of them. If they’d found some supplies, that meant there had to be a grocery store or pharmacy somewhere near.

  “Yeah?” I asked as I approached them.

  He nodded towards me, his eyes on my wrist.

  “What time you got?”

  I glanced down at my watch, ready to tell him. Only then did I realize that the face was totally cracked, the hands underneath barely visible through the ruin. It must’ve broken when I’d fallen into the bushes.

  “Shit,” I hissed.

  Then my eyes flicked up to the kids, their eyes locked onto me.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “The time?” the man repeated.

  “My watch,” I said, holding up the face to the man. “It broke. Just, I don’t know, a few minutes ago.”

  “Damn,” said the man. “We all use our phones for the time—not a watch among us.”

  I squinted, trying to see if I could spot the time through the cracks. It’d only broken a little bit ago, so the time it read wouldn’t be too far off.

  “Looks like…a little after eleven,” I said.

  “That’ll have to do,” said the man.

  “Hey!” the little girl said, stepping up to me and taking my sleeve. “Do you know when the power’s coming back on?”

  Before I had a chance to respond the man spoke.

  “Kasey!” he said. “What did I tell you about talking to strangers?”

  “Oh, it’s no problem,” I said.

  But the hard expression on both of the parents’ faces sent the message that they were more concerned about me being a possible threat to their daughter than me being bothered by her. The girl let go of my sleeve and stepped back to her family.

  “You don’t…know anything about any of this, do you?” the dad asked. “About the power?”

  Each member of the family stared at me, waiting for my response, hoping that I’d shed some light on the situation. I was torn between lying and keeping them calm, or telling them the hard truth and possibly sending them into a panic.

  “Not sure,” I said finally. “But I’d prepare for the lights to be off for a long while. When you get home, fill up everything you can with water from the tap in case it stops running. And draw the blinds, don’t let anyone see inside your home. And don’t answer the door.”

  “You…sound like you’ve been through something like this before,” said the wife.

  “I just like to be prepared for the worst,” I said.

  The man nodded, apparently still processing what I’d said.

  “Your supplies,” I said. “Where did you get them?”

  The man pointed off towards the west.

  “Down closer to the Strip,” he said. “Plenty of stores along the way. But the people…they’re crazy. Fighting like wild animals over water and canned tuna.”

  “It might get worse before it gets better,” I said. “Try to make what you have last as long as you can.”

  “Right,” he said. “Thanks for the time.”

  Without another word, the man began pushing the cart again, he and his family soon disappearing down the far end of the street.

  They had no idea what they were in for. Suburbs like this, full of retirees and families led by men and women soft from office work and air-conditioning and all the creature comforts would be easy pickings for anyone heartless enough to go on the attack.

  But there was nothing else I could do. I at least had a destination, and I didn’t waste any time starting off in the direction the man had indicated.

  The crowds became thicker the further I went, the panic in the air increasing. It was that familiar feeling, that sense that while everyone was being relatively well-behaved, it wouldn’t take much at all for chaos to break out. One idiot firing off his gun would be enough to send the people into a stampede.

  Just like the man said, shops began appearing the further I got away from the neighborhood. But they were all as much of a free-for-all as the mall had been. Windows were being smashed left and right, mobs swarming the stores as they picked clean the last of the supplies.

  Before too long the noise from the crowds became deafening. The streets were full of people, all of them with the same scared and shocked expressions on their faces, all of them trying to hurry home with their supplies before it all went to hell.

  Deciding not to take my chances with them, I darted down the first back alley I spotted, the quiet returning and allowing me to calm myself down somewhat. I kept on moving, trying to spot a back entrance to one of the stores I could use, and hopefully one not guarded by a pack of junkies.

  Then, off in the distance, a strange sound became audible. There were thuds and grunts, like someone was trying to move something heavy. Picking up my pace, I hurried along down the alley, the sounds growing louder with each step.

  It wasn’t long before I found the source of the noise. Up ahead, just past a pair of dark blue dumpsters, was a small ring of grungy-looking people gathered around…something.

  Or someone.

  Their heads were down, each one of them taking turns kicking and punching whoever it was that happened to be in the middle of them, some unlucky bastard curled up in a fetal position, his h
ands covering his head as the group worked on him.

  “Hey!” I shouted out. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I caught myself too late to stop the words from coming out. Right after I’d spoken I realized what I’d done. The smart thing would’ve been to keep moving, to not involve myself in their business. But between being sleep-deprived and half-starved, my judgment had been shot to shit.

  There was my good nature again, getting the best of me.

  The group stopped, all of them turning around and taking a look at the idiot who’d stopped their fun. It was some ragtag group of punk kids, their eyes all narrowed into hateful little slits.

  I glanced down at the man they’d been kicking, some derelict-looking man with a wild beard and messy hair, his clothes ratty and dirty.

  And he looked strangely familiar.

  “Who the fuck are you?” one of the kids asked, breaking from the group and stepping towards me.

  “Might want to stay out of this, prick,” said another one of the kids.

  My stomach sank as the reality of what I’d done began to take hold.

  “Just leave him alone,” I said. “Enough shit going on without you all making it worse.”

  I was screwed. Getting away from the junkies had been manageable, but there was no chance that I’d be able to outrun, let alone fight off these kids.

  And a fight was clearly what they wanted.

  But I couldn’t take my eyes off the man on the ground. There was something so damned familiar about him.

  That’s when I spotted what was on the ground next to him. It was a large sign, the letters handwritten.

  It read “THE END IS NIGH.”

  It hit me—this was the man from last night, the homeless man who’d stood in front of the taxi that’d taken me and Steve to the Strip.

  I stuck out my hand and pointed to him, so surprised that it took me out of the danger I was in.

  “Hey!” I said. “I know you! You’re the—”

  That was all I managed to get out before the hard “thwack” of something connecting with the back of my head dropped me down to the ground and into an immediate unconsciousness.

  Chapter 9

  Panic gripped me like a vise as I awoke in total blackness. I shot my hands out in front of me, blindly scrabbling to defend myself from some unseen threat.

  “Where am I?” I cried out into the dark, my voice echoing.

  Wherever I was, it was indoors. The air was cool and silent, only the occasional drip-drip of water into the water to break up the quiet.

  I racked my brain trying to remember what had happened. I was in the alley where I saw the gang of kids. They’d been beating that old man, the one who I’d seen last night. And then…nothing.

  Because I’d been hit. Someone had clocked me upside the head, sucker-punched me and knocked my ass out cold. But it didn’t make sense that I’d wake up somewhere inside—I should’ve still been in that alley.

  Unless someone had helped me.

  I still couldn’t see a damn thing, and I began to worry that whoever had hit me had done it in such a way that had rendered me blind. I knew it could happen—a blow to just the right spot of the head could detach the retinas, causing instant, permanent blindness.

  And blindness in a world like this would be a death sentence.

  Off in the distance I heard the shuffling of feet on the ground.

  “Who’s there?” I called out. “What’s going on?”

  The shuffling grew closer. I shot up, feeling around with my hands for any clue of where I was. My fingers touched the wall, which was a cool, rough brick. Moving up I felt the smooth, metallic surface of what felt like a pipe.

  Where the hell was I?

  “Help!” I shouted. “Where am I?”

  I knew that alerting anyone nearby to my presence, as helpless as I was, might’ve been a fatal mistake. But I was desperate.

  Then, suddenly, light flooded over me. I squinted hard, trying to adjust my eyes.

  As I did, I saw that I was in a small, curved alcove no bigger than a large closet. Dingy blankets were underneath me, and someone loomed at the opening, their figure outlined by the light behind them.

  “There you are,” spoke a low, gruff, almost oily voice. “Been wondering when you were gonna wake up.”

  “Where am I?” I repeated. “And who are you?”

  The man said nothing, simply standing there and gazing down at me.

  “Come on,” he said. “Get some food in you.”

  Right at the words my stomach let out a loud grumble, one that echoed throughout the small space.

  “Who are you?” I asked again.

  No answer.

  I felt around on the back of my head, checking for some kind of wound. There was nothing—whoever had hit me had done it with something blunt, maybe a fist or a pipe. Lucky for me, since a hit to the base of the brain was dangerous enough already. If they’d done it with anything sharp enough to break the skin that’d have been it for me.

  Food. The man had mentioned food, and that was enough to get me off my feet and out of that small space.

  I sniffed the air as I stood, smelling something good and hot, the soft sounds of food simmering greeting me as I stepped into the main space.

  Shock hit me as I realized where I was.

  I was underground.

  The room was circular, and surprisingly big. In the middle was a barrel made of chipped green metal, a small fire burning inside, casting a faint light over the high ceiling and dark brick walls. Pipes snaked along the walls here and there, and a few grates were on the ground.

  It was a sewer, all right. Underground and away from everyone. Sure, there was the faint scent of something not so great in the air, mixing with the scent of the cooking food, but I wasn’t in a position to complain. For the moment I was safe—it was the best I could hope for.

  I spotted something else on the far side of the room. Someone, to be more specific.

  It was him—the man with the sign. He was seated on an old, ratty couch, his arm draped over the back, his dark eyes locked onto me, his face illuminated by the flickering flames.

  I stopped short, frozen in place. Something about the man’s gaze was unsettling, as if he could see right through me with just a glance. But I couldn’t look away from him. He was calm and still, seated like a king on a throne, a subject standing before him.

  Finally he spoke, his low voice echoing through the cavernous space.

  “How you feeling?” he asked.

  Part of me was hesitant to say anything. Sure, the guy must’ve saved my life, but I still had no idea who he was or what he’d had planned for me.

  Not like I could give him the silent treatment, however.

  “Good,” I said. “Well, relatively speaking. My head still feels like I got hit by a damn truck.”

  He nodded in understanding.

  “Yeah,” he said. “One of those little shitheads got the drop on you, gave you a jab right to the back of the head.”

  He tapped the back of his own head as he spoke.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Why were they doing that to you?”

  An expression of surprise flashed on his face, and I got the impression that he wasn’t used to people asking how he was doing.

  “Kids like that? Who knows—they like to start trouble for fun even when things are normal, to say nothing of what’s going on up on top now.”

  “Up on top,” I repeated. “That means we’re—”

  “Underground,” he said, finishing my sentence. “Underneath the city.”

  “And you live down here?” I asked. “Why? And who are you?”

  “Full of questions, huh?” he asked, the ghost of a grin flicking over his features.

  “Waking up in the sewer has a way of getting a man’s curiosity going,” I said.

  The man gestured to a chair near where he was seated, one that was just as dingy and worn as the couch.

  “Have a se
at,” he said.

  I did, moving across the space and falling into the chair. Despite the state of it, the chair was surprisingly soft and comfortable.

  Now that I was closer to the man I was able to get a better sense of his features. His hair was a dark brown peppered with grey, the same color as his mane of a beard. In the small bits of his face that were visible I saw a long, thin nose, the kind I recognized from the busts of Roman emperors I’d seen at museums. His eyes were a dark, oaky brown, clear with intelligence. His age was hard to make out, but he couldn’t have been younger than his late sixties.

  “I misspoke,” he said. “Those kids weren’t just beating us up for fun. Once they knocked you on your ass they went through your pockets. Guess they didn’t find anything worth their time.”

  “My pockets…,” I said.

  Panic took hold. I lifted my butt off the seat and shoved my hand into my back pocket, making sure that the medal was still in there. Relief washed over me when I realized it was. How they’d missed it, I had no idea. But I wasn’t about to second-guess my good fortune.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just making sure something was still there.”

  “Hope you’re not talking about your money and credit cards,” the man said. “Because I’m sorry to say those are as good as useless now.”

  “Nah,” I said. “Already lost those last night.”

  “All those idiots up top are stealing any fancy toy they can get their hands on,” he said. “Still thinking the lights are coming back on any minute.”

  This struck me as strange. This man, whoever he might be, was one of the only people I’d met who actually understood the extent of the disaster.

  “But they’re not,” I said. “If they’re off, they’re off for good.”

  He nodded.

  “Smart man,” he said.

  Then he leaned forward and offered me his hand. I glanced down at it and noticed that it was surprisingly clean.

  “Not what you’d expect from a man living underground, huh?” he asked, a slight smile on one side of his mouth.