by Daphne Lamb
People shrieked as I let myself fall from the pole and slumped down, not sure what I had seen. When they were done, they drove off, breaking through the barriers on the other side and into the night. The tent collapsed on us like a dying dream.
In the aftermath, I couldn’t tell you a lot of what happened. I think maybe a day had gone by that I spent huddled in yet another corner, watching people clean up the mess that was left behind. I watched them try to put up the tent again, but I noticed the mood of the place had changed. People weren’t looking at me the same. Before it was just apathetic unrecognition and now there was a sort of layer of hatred I was working through.
It didn’t make any sense, but that was before I caught sight of the Twitter board. It seemed I was blowing up. Every card on there was about me and they were all mean. So incredibly mean.
“Real nice, guys!” I said loudly after taking it all in. “We got slaughtered and this is what we’re worried about?” I took one card off the board. “I do not have eyes close together,” I shouted after reading them. “And we all smell the same around here.” I grabbed another. “Hashtag Sandwich Whore? Real clever and mature, people. Also makes a whole lot of sense.”
I crumpled it up and threw it to the ground. I felt like I was being stared at, so I looked up and saw Destiny with a death glower. She was pale and had murder in her eyes.
“Don’t start,” I said and waved her away.
“Jake’s dead and it’s all your fault,” she said. “You killed him and everyone knows it.”
“I did not,” I said. “I tried to stop him and he wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Prove it!”
“I can’t,” I said. “There’s a guy in a weird hazmat suit who might vouch for me, though.”
She pointed her finger in my face. “You killed him. He wouldn’t have gone out there had he not been so obsessed with proving your stupid view wrong.”
“That makes no sense. He wanted to help out those in need,” I said wearily. “Clearly he was too good for this world.”
“You should have stayed away,” she said as tears brimmed in her eyes. “We were happy together. We were going to get married and have lots of children in Texas. I was never going to work at Hooters again!”
“That’s a very specific life plan.”
She jabbed her finger in my face again. “It is specific. Because it was perfect. We had a lot planned. I had a lot planned.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sure you were really happy, and you’re one of the few who had a really bright future. But face it, he did something really stupid.”
“You just wanted him back!” she shouted. “And you made sure no one else would ever have him.”
I shook my head. “We’re both grieving. Can’t we just bond over that?”
“We could have been the ones to bring back order to the world,” she said. “The kind God wants everyone to have.”
I took a step back as I read another card on the Tweet Board. “She lets bad things happen to everyone else,” I read out loud to myself. “Hashtag Bitchsoup.”
The card seemed to be staring at me through the eyes and into my heart. Which really hurt. I got to survive and this was my legacy. Maybe I should have followed Robert, after all.
“You’re right,” I said, stuffing the card down my shirt. “Everyone here is right.”
She wiped tears away. “What?”
“I’m getting out of here,” I said. “I probably have family somewhere looking for me and hoping I’m not chasing stupid boys as usual.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I hope you die,” she said. “The future has no place for you.”
I nodded. “I’ve made it this far,” I said. “So maybe you’re wrong.”
Chapter 8
Prioritizing Can Hurt
WHEN I THINK BACK ON IT, I didn’t intend for anything to be so dramatic, it just came out that way. But it was sort of those classy “fuck you” send offs I’d always wanted to be capable of making, just never had the inspiration.
Apparently, Robert was right—new civilization, new rules. Next time I saw them, I made a mental note to thank fake nurse, Rebecca.
I strode up to the covered security guard, thinking it was the same guy from earlier who’d blocked me from saving Jake and tugged on his sleeve to get his attention. He spun around, then immediately folded his arms.
“Hey,” I said forcefully. “Everything that happened is your fault.”
“Excuse me?” asked a muffled woman’s voice.
I drew back. “Sorry,” I said. “You all look alike.”
“That’s just hurtful. I am a beautiful and complicated human being,” she said, then tapped another guard on the shoulder. “I think she’s talking to you.”
“You,” he said. “Come to check how many moral codes you violated today?”
“I didn’t violate anything and you know it,” I said.
He took off his helmet. “Hashtag Safety Code Violater,” he said. “I put that on the board.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He pointed to the Tweet Board.
I rolled my eyes. “Not you too.”
“I heard you practically pushed him into danger with your lies and seductions,” he said.
I incredulously stared at him before I just folded my arms. “Okay,” I said. “I officially can’t take it anymore. I’m out of here.” I marched toward the main exit, but the man grabbed me, this time around the waist. “Hey!” I said. I pushed and slapped his hands away. “Stop that!”
“Think again,” he said. “I can’t let you leave. I hear you’re going to be tried by a jury.”
“Let me go,” I said. “This is highly inappropriate.”
His hands went lower. “I don’t know,” he said. “We live in a new world. You can’t see it, but I’m winking at you.”
I wriggled out of his grasp and then kneed him in the gut. “Knock that off,” I said. “And let me go. I’m getting out of here.”
He gasped and panted hard, in obvious pain. “You don’t know what’s out there,” he said.
“Neither do you,” I said. “But if my boss and his new wife can leave, then I can too.”
He folded his arms. I gestured to the Tweet Board.
“Everyone hates me,” I said. “If I’m trending over blanket fails and soup of the day tweets.”
“Now that’s not true,” he said. “Someone here drew a nice selfie of themselves.”
He pointed to a crudely drawn figure of a girl scrawled on a napkin with a ballpoint pen. “I don’t even know who this is.”
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I said.
He snorted as I went to pass him, but he tried to hold me back, keeping a safe distance between his groin and my knees.
“Still can’t let you go out there,” he said.
“What are you going to do? You can’t stay by that door forever,” I said. “You’ve got to leave sometime. What if they have more sandwiches?
He braced himself. “No one leaves, no one comes in,” he said. “I took a vow to protect anyone in this tent and that means you.”
“What about Jake?” I asked. “What about last night’s massacre?”
“That was a slight oversight.”
“What if you have to go to the bathroom and need to leave your post?”
“That’s a nonissue.”
I stared him down for a moment. I backed up slightly until he took a more relaxed stance. Then I bolted for the door, but he was too fast for me. His arm came out at me and knocked me down. I hit the dirt floor, feeling pain all over.
“That’s uncalled for,” I said, struggling to get up.
“Hit her harder!” someone called out. “She deserves it.”
“You should mind your own business!” I yelled back.
“Who’s going to try me?” I asked.
“Girl named Destiny,” he said. “She’s in charge of the disciplinary procedures.”
“Who gave her that job?”
He shrugged. “Who gets any job around here? I walked in here last night and found a suit to put on.”
I backed away, looked around and saw a line forming around food.
“Fine, I’m getting a sandwich,” I said. “It’s going to be delicious, and I’d get you one, but you’re mean.”
“Have fun,” he said. “They all hate you over there, so good luck getting one.”
I headed to the line and approached a now different woman distributing food. She had a stony face, long straight hair and a no-nonsense sensibility around her. I tried to take away her serving platter.
“Hey,” I said. “Today’s your lucky day. I’ve got it from here.”
She sneered at me and jerked the plate away. “What, so you can send me to get murdered too?”
The line cheered and threw whatever they had on hand at me—sandwiches, garbage and projectiles of bodily fluid. Dejected, I walked away and stood at the end of the endless sandwich line. I felt as though I was being eyed with contempt, so I kept my gaze to the ground.
After at least an hour, I got to the front of the line where the girl waited for me. When I did get my sandwich, she handed one with a bite already taken out. She laughed at me.
“Enjoy!” she cackled.
I took out the few bites from the opposite end, purely out of hunger, but it had a bad taste, so I left the rest in a pair of sneakers of one of the quarantine guards that were just sitting out. I expected to get called out for it. I didn’t expect to get extremely nauseous from it, but I did.
As the pain worsened, my vision started to get blurry. I looked for a place to sit and recollect myself when my balance gave way. I tried to steady myself on what I thought was a pole, but it reared back and swore obscenities at me.
“Sorry!” I slurred
I fell to the floor when it seemed my head wasn’t in charge of my body anymore. It was light and full of woozy air. I felt the hard floor. It probably hurt. I heard applause before I completely blacked out. That was weird. I let myself slip into unconsciousness, hoping it would lead to a better place than this.
* * *
When I woke up, I was stirred by a hot wind and about eight faces above me, one of which being Destiny.
“What’s going on?” I asked, groggy and fighting for consciousness.
“You were tried and convicted,” the girl said. “And now you’re about to be punished. There’s no way you’re getting away with what you’ve done.”
“For the last time,” I said, drowsy. “I didn’t kill Jake. He was stupid. And what kind of fair trial is it if I’m drugged and can’t give a testimony?”
My S’s slurred together, and I realized I was eliminating a lot of saliva.
“You know that Jake and I dated first, making you thloppy theconds,” I said in sloppy speech.
She sneered at me while one girl grabbed the top of my hair and pulled it. I yelped in pain.
“You think you know so much,” she said. “You don’t know anything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out the way you wanted. But that’s no reason to have it out here in—”
I sat up and looked around blinded by bright white light, but the girl jerked me back to the ground by my hair.
“Ow!” I cried. “Where am I anyway?”
I was outside and could see nothing but desolated city with that smoggy green haze for as far as my eye could see. My arms were tied down, and the girls around me tightened the ropes.
“Since you left Jake out here to die,” Destiny said while one girl kept her firm grasp firmer on my hair. “We’re returning the favor, just to see what it was like for him.”
They all straightened and took a few steps back as if to admire their handiwork. Destiny rubbed her hands together and beamed.
“I just wish my sorority could see me now!” she said.
“Real mature, guys!” I said. “At least set me down on the ground so I can figure out where to go from here.”
“Admit it,” she hissed. “You wish you were us. You know why?”
“I literally can’t think of one thing,” I said. “There’s no way I’d want to be part of your crappy club for jerks.”
“Because we’re the future,” she said. “And we’re going to survive and live long, and when we’re done, we’re going to have children who carry on our legacy.”
“Moving on so quickly then?” I asked. “Jake would be happy.”
She drew her hand back and slapped me really hard. I jerked back in pain and winced. It burned, then tingled. Whatever—I knew that joke was funny.
“You remember that,” she said. “’Cause it’s the last human interaction you’re going to get.”
She straightened and was greeted to high fives all around. The rest of the girls took turns spitting on me before they all left.
“Ew!” I said. “Stop that!”
They turned and left me, then ran for the door. Just like that I was abandoned on top of the roof of the quarantine underneath the hot sun, tied to it like meat left out to dry.
One girl poked her head out from the door they’d just disappeared through “Also, you’re fat.” The girls laughed and walked away.
I rolled my eyes, which isn’t easy when you feel them welling up with tears.
“I am not,” I muttered.
It was hot, really hot, under the sun with no shade whatsoever. I closed my eyes and prayed for the third time in my life. I muttered words over and over like a magic spell and then would open my eyes quickly as if an angel would appear in thin air. I think I did this about five times, and every time I felt a little less hope in me.
When that didn’t work, I wriggled around, trying to bend my knees. The ropes were tight and scratchy. Overheard, I saw birds fly over and then circle around. I realized my bag of belongings still were inside, forever gone.
Nope. I made a resolve. If I was going to die, it was not going to be at the hands of those petty, stupid girls. If I was going to die, it wasn’t going to be a day where the last thing I heard was “Also, you’re fat.”
This couldn’t be true. I’d been eating nothing but scraps and I knew I’d lost weight. I felt it and my pants were looser. The pre-Apocalypse me would be so proud that finally I had found a diet that worked. So many years of just eating Doritos for dinner and Coke for breakfast that just never worked. My mind traveled back since the Incident now that I was only eating what I could find, eating for survival, not taste. I made a mental note to self, I thought, while furiously wriggling out of my bonds. I would put together a diet plan and market it as the “Survival Diet” for when the world went back to normal. This would probably be the best idea I would ever come up with.
I’m going to get out, I told myself. I’m going to get out. I repeated this over and over. I’m going to get out. I’m going to get out.
Wriggling out of those ropes was torture. They burned as they rubbed against my skin and my back ached from my fingers straining to find a weak spot in the knots. Still, in the back of my mind, I imagined my cookbook—me in an apron, surrounded by rocks and shrubs, like something out of the Bible.
Yes! The Jesus diet!
I told myself to stop it—this was the time to get out of here otherwise those birds would be vindicated in their dietary choices.
I fumbled around enough where the knot loosened and freed myself. I could tell I had limited time before another roving gang would be out and about, looking for either sandwiches or a lost, clueless girl. There was no way I was going back
inside. If I was going to have my choice of which barbaric gang was going to kill me, it certainly wasn’t going to be the one where Jake’s lover was dreaming specifically of how to dismember me.
I ran to the side of the structure by way of the rafters. To the left I could see what was left of the freeway and to the right just one abandoned building after the other. I took my chances by following the now crumbling freeway. Time wasn’t on my side, so I limped away. If I headed north, maybe I could find my parents and their apartment. Now that I didn’t have people fighting and deciding which direction to go was right, I could do what I wanted. So I decided to go home.
Walking down a freeway is terrifying. It doesn’t matter if it’s pre-Apocalypse, post-Apocalypse. One thing that hadn’t changed was there were still bumper to bumper cars, just not moving anywhere as far as the eye could see.
It was dark, and I had followed the freeway since my escape from the quarantine. It was cold and I had lost everything, including my scratchy blanket, my dead phone, a bag of kale chips that I was hoping to barter something more valuable for. It occurred to me that I could just check and see what people had left behind in the cars. Clearly, I wasn’t the first person to think that—so many had had windows bashed in and been picked clean of whatever was available, but it didn’t mean they were all like that.
There were so many BMWs that looked like garbage now. Seeing a black five series made me remember there was a time when I wanted one, but so many people warned me about their resale value. Now they were all worth nothing. This one was just some trash and a single shoe, so I moved on. Most of the other cars were similar. The fabric on seats was hard to find and given how cold it was getting, I could understand.
I wandered near a SUV that didn’t have its windows broken and seemed in decent shape. I peeked inside and about cried tears of joy. There were blankets, a box of crackers, and I think I saw socks under a UCLA hoodie.
I tried the door first. After all, I wasn’t a barbarian and wasn’t going to start now. It was locked. In fact, all four doors were. I took another look inside and saw a bottle of Bath and Bodyworks lotion.