The Walls of Orion

by T. D. Fox

  Curiosity burned in her chest. She concentrated on the coffee she was brewing.

  The shift crawled by slower than she could ever remember. One by one, the remaining customers left, muscling their way out the door into the building snow. The drift against the door had risen knee high. Courtney hoped she’d still be able to open it when it was her turn to leave.

  Five o’clock came and went. Max and Madeline bid their goodbyes. Six o’clock passed. The second to last customer left. W remained in his booth. By the time seven rolled around, it was pitch black outside, with only a few flakes of snow catching the light from the windows.

  The wind howled. The glass rattled, along with the hanging wooden sign out front. It smacked and bounced against its chains, threatening to rip right off and blow away with the snow. Little white bullets blew sideways with the wind. They swirled with so much force she heard each one as it flicked the glass.

  Courtney finished all her closing chores before seven-thirty. She sat against the counter, twiddling her thumbs. Maybe she should close early. She could already hear Jess in her head griping at her to go home. But W remained in his booth, and didn’t look like he was moving anytime soon.

  She could kick him out. Anxiety twinged at the notion, but it was undercut by something else. Maybe if she waited long enough, he’d leave first. She turned back to the sink and looked for something to do. The extra coffee pots under the sink hadn’t been rinsed in a while. They’d probably collected a fine layer of dust.

  I’m not stalling, she told herself as she crouched, reaching into the dark cupboard to pull the pots out.

  Pain ripped along her palm. She yanked her hand back with a gasp, and blinked at the long line of broken skin between her palm and thumb joint. Crimson bloomed. Pressing it to her mouth, she looked inside the cupboard.

  Some idiot had stashed the mixer blades down here. The naked metal blades stuck up in wicked curlicues, unscrewed from their plastic counterparts. A safety hazard like that was enough to get somebody fired.

  Damn. She was really bleeding. Fighting the quakes in her gut, Courtney stuffed a clean washrag against the wound, wobbled to her feet and searched for the first aid kit. They were supposed to have one around here.

  The wind screamed louder against the glass outside. The lights flickered.

  “Oh, come on,” she muttered to the forces of nature. “Please don’t...”

  Another surge of wind plunged the café into darkness.

  Her fingers dove through an empty pocket. Crap. She’d forgotten her phone was in the back.

  She fumbled behind the counter. Her injured hand bumped into something, and she swallowed a yelp. Where on earth did they keep the flashlight? Probably with the first aid kit.

  It was still dark outside, but now that her eyes were adjusting she could see the faintest gray light emanating from the windows. She moved toward it.

  And ran smack into somebody.

  She shrieked. A hand shot out to keep her from stumbling.

  “Whoa there.” W’s voice materialized above her head. He gripped her elbow. “I think the wind took out the power lines. Hang on a minute.”

  Her heart slammed. She’d never been afraid of the dark, but now, in the pitch black, with the wind screaming like a living thing outside, and the heat of him mere inches away... She stood frozen, listening to him rustle around.

  Light stabbed into her vision.

  “Sorry.” He chuckled as she recoiled. She squinted up at him, having to tip her head back. He was so close.

  He’d pulled out a phone, an old-fashioned block with a flash bulb bright enough to light up a small circle around them. The light gleamed off his black eyes. His pupils were blown so wide in the dark that they swallowed up the pale irises. She shivered, even though she knew her eyes probably looked the same.

  His nose wrinkled. He tipped the light lower. “You smell like blood.”

  Of all the things she’d prepared for him to say, none of them covered that. Speechless, she tensed when he reached down and slipped his fingers around her wrist, lifting it up into the light.

  “That’s a doozy. This just happen?”

  “Uh.” She struggled to find her voice. “Yeah. A minute ago.”

  Gleaming black rivulets streamed from palm to wrist, starting to drip down her sleeve. Courtney’s stomach rolled.

  “Let’s slow that down a bit.” Gripping her wrist, W guided her toward his corner booth. Courtney sank onto the bench. A faint rushing sound echoed in her ears. It must’ve drowned out W’s next question, because she looked up to catch amusement flickering in his eyes.

  “Don’t do blood, huh?”

  She breathed low and deep. “You’d think I’d be used to it after med school.”

  Propping the phone light up against a salt shaker, W reached into his coat and pulled out a drawstring pouch. He tipped the contents out onto the table. Courtney’s swimming vision focused on a roll of tape, gauze, a few unknown packets and a small dark bottle.

  “You go to OSM?” he asked, referring to Orion’s School of Medicine.

  “Not anymore.”

  “That squeamish?”

  “No. I mean, yes, but I could handle it. I just racked up too much debt. With my dad’s horrible credit, the banks wouldn’t give me any more loans. I thought I’d go back someday, but... I guess now I’m taking work where I can find it.”

  W took out an alcohol swab, tipped her hand into the light, and set the cotton to the wound. Courtney jerked. Beneath his long fingers the tendons stood out in her wrist. Pulling in a breath, she made a fist with her free hand.

  “This looks pretty clean. Lucky you. What’d you get yourself on?”

  “The blenders,” she said. “Some idiot forgot to put them away properly.”

  “An inch lower and you’d have sliced an artery.”

  “I know.” She shivered a little, and felt his grip tighten.

  The alcohol swab skimmed over the gash. Courtney’s fingers jerked shut around W’s, nails biting into the back of his hand.

  “Sorry,” she gasped. “That hurt.”

  “Well, yeah. I’d be a little concerned if it didn’t.”

  “How do you know how to do this?”

  W uncurled her fingers from his. “My work comes with certain occupational hazards. Basic first aid is kind of a necessity.”

  “I thought you said you were a scientist.”

  His mouth tipped. “Part time.”

  Four semesters at OSM had taught her enough to recognize when something needed stitches. This gash, cleared somewhat of the gore, looked a little smaller than two inches, but deep. W was right, it was clean: a neat little slice charging across her palm. Four or five stitches would cover it. But with these snow-clogged streets a trip to the hospital was out of the question. Could she call Dina? No, her poor friend probably had enough on her plate with the power out.

  That was her excuse, as she sat in the eerie half-light, listening to the whine of the snowstorm and letting this strange man play doctor.

  W finished cleaning her hand and took out a roll of gauze.

  The smash of breaking glass cut over the storm, echoing down the street. Courtney guessed it came from the jewelry store down the block. She shook her head.

  “All it takes in this city is a little wind and a downed power line for people to go crazy.”

  W raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, right,” she said. “You don’t like to use that word.”

  “Use it all you like. Just use it in the right context.”

  The looters smashed another window down the street. The alcohol burned fiercer.

  “Then,” she said, trying to distract herself. “You wouldn’t call those men outside crazy?”

  “First of all, that’s sexist. Who says they’re men? You could hurl a rock through a window easily as I could. And no, there’s nothing inherently loony about taking advantage of a prime situation. The alarms are down, cameras too, and the police can’t cover ever
y street. Who’s to know when another opportunity like this will crop up?”

  “But it’s wrong.”

  “Perhaps. Does that make it crazy?”

  She frowned, watching him bandage her hand. A bright spot of scarlet soaked through the first layer of gauze. W covered it with a second layer, then a third. It was tight enough to stop the flow, but not so snug that it cut off her circulation. He knew what he was doing.

  “What makes something crazy?” she asked. “Since you’re the expert.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched, as if repressing his usual smile. He focused on her bandage. “Nothing makes something crazy. It either is, or it isn’t. And nothing isn’t. Everything that moves under the sun has got a little crazy in it. It’s the law of entropy. Take this café. You clean up after us customers every day, and you’ll never be finished. Mop the floor spotless, a hundred times, but it’ll never be clean. It takes no energy to move from order to disorder, but tremendous effort to try and reverse the process.”

  He lifted his eyes to hers, to see if she was tracking with him. Whatever was on her face made him sigh.

  “Let’s shed a different light on the concept,” he said. “Apply it to people: introduce one little break in the pattern—a windstorm, for instance—and all your little law-abiders slide straight to disorder. It’s gravity. Another law in the universe.”

  Courtney narrowed her eyes. “So, in your words... nothing is crazy?”

  “I didn’t say that. Remember our last conversation? You’re crazy.”

  “Right. Because I’m a workaholic at a dead-end job. Throw me in the loony bin.”

  “No. That’s a symptom.”

  He finished wrapping her hand, tore off the end of the gauze, and tucked the strip beneath the rest of the bandage. Smoothing over the bandage, his fingertips lingered the barest moment, brushing across her knuckles. Her skin tingled under the featherlight touch. As if realizing what he was doing, he let go abruptly.

  Unnerved by her pulse’s sudden jump, Courtney took her hand back and focused on his work. She wiggled her fingers. No sudden stream of blood emerged at the movement. Maybe she wouldn’t need stitches after all.

  “Why am I crazy, then?” she asked.

  “Don’t ask to humor me. Ask because you want to know.”

  Courtney looked up, and saw that the playful light in his eyes was gone. He sat watching her with an intensity that made her want to change the topic of conversation. But a genuine, burning curiosity pressed the question back to her lips.

  “I want to know.”

  He tilted his head, as if reading her authenticity. “You remember the definition of insanity.”

  “Yeah. Doing the same thing, over and over again, hoping something new will happen.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Come on, kid, this is basic. If you were like any of your coworkers, I’d let you off the hook. But you’re not. You’re bored.”

  “I thought I said not to call me kid,” she snapped. “You say you hate labels, but you keep labeling me.”

  He leaned back, the grin he was fighting earlier breaking through. “Touché.”

  “Seems like you’re the one throwing around words without definitions. Define bored.”

  He considered her, smile fading. “Like I said before, you want more. But you aren’t willing to chase it. You do the same thing every day, expecting tomorrow to be different. Tomorrow will be better. And you tell yourself, again and again, that it won’t be this way forever. But it will. Because you’re not changing anything. Sometimes you’ve got to rattle things up a little. Sometimes you’ve got to color outside the lines.”

  “Like you?”

  “No. Like you. Say nobody was watching. Say all the cameras were down, the wind was howling, snow’s clogging up the streets, and no cop car is coming within a mile of you for the rest of the night. What would you do?”

  “I’d... try to get home.”

  “To do what? There’s no power, your phone’s dead, no TV, nothing to distract yourself from what you really want.”

  “I’d...” Her mind flickered, in a strange direction. A scene played out, weaving itself into shadowy foreign territory. In the silent, dark space, Courtney allowed herself to unlock the words from behind her teeth. “This is hypothetical, right?”

  “Entirely.”

  “No cops? No way I’d be recorded?”

  “For one night, you don’t even exist.”

  She fiddled with the rubbery edge of her bandage. “I guess I’d wait for those looters to leave, across the street. See if there’s anything they left behind.”

  “Hm. A moment ago, you called that crazy. Wrong, even.”

  “Hey, you asked me what I’d do in this imaginary situation. Not in real life.”

  “Still, that’s a bit weak. Don’t you have loans to pay off? What about Orion Federal Credit down the street?”

  “I can’t break into a bank.”

  “Why not? The security system’s down. All the vaults are unguarded. Let’s make it even easier: the guards are all off duty tonight.”

  Courtney laughed. “You really want me to be a criminal, don’t you? What if I’d really just go home and make myself some hot chocolate?”

  “Can’t. The microwave’s not working.”

  “Damn.” She chewed her lip. “Sad, but that actually makes a difference in my moral choices.”

  W smirked. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Okay. Say there’s no security guards, no cameras, no locks on the bank vaults—not likely, they’ve got to have some manual backups. But say there’s no way I could get caught. Would I have to hurt anyone to get inside?”

  “Maybe. How do you imagine this scenario playing out?”

  “I wouldn’t hurt anybody. But... I don’t know, I might sneak in, grab a couple hundred dollars, if I could get my hands on it. An amount people won’t miss. I don’t want to rob anybody blind.”

  “Oh dear, this is like pulling teeth.” W leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. He reached forward and picked up one of the files on the table, leafing through it. Courtney had to squint to make out the cover in the dim light, but she could read the initials: J. W.

  “What would you do?” she asked.

  “Work.”

  “That’s boring. You can’t get mad at me for being boring when your hypothetical adventure is just as boring.”

  His grin flashed white in the darkness. “My work is never boring.”

  She shook her head, trying to keep a straight face, but his smile was quite infectious. She looked down at her bandaged hand. “Thanks, by the way.”

  “Don’t mention it. Glad I could lend my non-medical-school services.”

  The wail of the wind grew stronger, filling the space between them. An old fear Courtney didn’t know she still had prickled beneath her skin. When it became clear W wasn’t going to break the silence, content with reading whatever paperwork he’d brought, she stood up and picked her way through the darkness toward the door.

  She only had in mind to try it. Earlier, when that customer had tried to push her way out, she’d managed to crack the door open against the gathering mountain of snow. Courtney pressed her hand to the glass and shoved. It didn’t give even an inch. She tipped her whole weight against it. It was so dark, she couldn’t see how high the snow had piled up. But it was too deep to force her way out.

  She pressed her nose against the glass. Outside, the street was featureless and black. Even if the streetlights still burned, they wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

  The wind wailed louder. That twinge of fear returned, sharper than before.

  She glanced back at W. All she could see was the back of his hat, silhouetted by the white glow of the phone. He had his back to her, files lifted to the light, disinterested in her antics. He turned a page.

  For the first time, Courtney paused to analyze the situation. Something instinctual—probably the primal f
act that she was a woman, trapped alone in a dark space with a man she didn’t truly know—urged her to keep her distance. Or maybe it was something else. Maybe now, in the empty café filled with shadows, the wind yowling, she finally sensed the sinister vibe her coworkers had spoken of.

  Don’t be silly. He’s no different in the dark than he is in the light. A peculiar man who made for interesting company, when given the chance.

  Picking her way back to the storage room, she found her purse and pulled out her cell phone. Her screen lit up, burning a blue rectangle onto the backs of her eyelids. She breathed a sigh of relief. At least she still had signal, for however long that lasted. This was the worst snowstorm she’d ever experienced so early in the year. She took one last look at the time and slipped the phone into her pocket.

  Eight o’clock. How much longer could this last? Surely not all night. They’d figure out a way to clear the streets and get the power back on. She hadn’t experienced a full-blown power outage that wiped out the city like this since before Quarantine. She hadn’t even reached her teens. Back then, her mother had been there to dig out marshmallows to roast over the fireplace. She’d been there to tell Courtney and her toddling little brother that the wind outside wasn’t howling. It was trying to whistle. Just like ten-year-old Courtney had tried and failed for years to get the flute-like sound through her lips and teeth, the wind was practicing. It huffed and puffed and couldn’t get it right.

  She and little Mikey had laughed. They’d forgotten their fears and listened to their mother’s ridiculous stories about the wind’s musical endeavors. It wasn’t scary. It was just really bad at whistling.

  Courtney pushed the memory away. She walked back to W’s booth, her feet heavier than before.

  She dropped onto the bench across from him. He didn’t look up, eyes trained on his paperwork.

  “You might want to save your phone battery,” she told him.

  He didn’t respond, just flipped the page.