by Max Danzig
Peter sensed he was being watched. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a young black woman staring at him. She was sitting on a blue plastic chair staring at him intently. It made him feel uncomfortable. As much as he wanted someone to break the silence and start talking, he realized he didn't really want to talk to anybody himself.
The young woman got up out of her chair and took hesitant steps towards him. She stood there for a moment, a few feet away, before taking a final step closer and clearing her throat.
“I'm Rachel,” she whispered, “Rachel Morris.”
He looked up, managed half a smile then looked down again.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked. “Do you want any help?”
Peter shook his head and stared into the soup, stirring chunks of chicken and strings of spinning noodles around and wishing she'd go away. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to start a conversation because that would lead to talking about what happened, and that was the last thing he wanted to think about.
“Should I try to find some cups or bowls?” Rachel mumbled. She was sure he would talk. He was the only person in the room who had done anything all morning. Her logic and reasoning dictated he'd be the most receptive to a conversation. Up to now, Rachel found the silence and the lack of communication so stifling, she almost got up and left the Community Center. Peter looked up sensing she was about to leave.
“I found cups in the storage room,” Peter muttered. “Thanks anyway.”
“No problem,” she replied.
After a few seconds of silence, Peter spoke again.
“I'm Peter,” he said. “Look, I'm sorry but...”
He stopped speaking because he didn't really know what it was he trying to say. Rachel nodded dropping her head and turning to walk away. The stunted conversation ending before it started was enough to force Peter to make an effort. He tried to think of things to say to keep her at the table with him, realizing he didn't want her to go.
“I'm sorry,” he said again. “It's just with everything that's... I mean I don't know why I...”
“I hate soup,” Rachel grunted, steering the conversation into safer waters. “Especially chicken noodle. I can't stand chicken noodle soup, but I like baked beans.”
“I’m not too crazy about the soup either.” Peter said. “I hope someone likes it. There are four cases of it in there.”
As quickly as it had begun the brief dialogue ended again. There just wasn't anything to say. Small talk seemed unnecessary and inappropriate. Neither of them wanted to talk about what happened but both knew they couldn't avoid it. Rachel took a deep breath and tried again.
“Were you far from here when it...”
Peter shook his head.
"I was up the block when it started, but I spent most of yesterday wandering around. I've been all over town. My house is only five minutes from here by car." He stirred the soup again and then felt obliged to ask her the same question back.
“My place is just down the road near the main intersection in town.” She replied. “I spent yesterday in bed.”
“In bed?”
She nodded and leaned against the nearest wall.
“There didn't seem to be much else to do. I put my head under the covers and pretended nothing had happened. Until I heard the music that is. That was a great idea playing the music.”
Peter ladled a generous serving of beans into a cup and handed it to Rachel. She picked up a plastic spoon from the table and poked at the hot food before sampling a mouthful. Rachel was starving. She hadn't even thought about food since her aborted shopping trip yesterday morning, and right now the beans tasted decadent.
Several of the other survivors were looking their way. Peter wasn't sure if it was the smell of the food attracting their attention or he and Rachel talking. Before she'd come across the room he'd said less than twenty words all morning. The two of them talking acted like a release valve for the rest of the people. He looked around and saw more and more of the dazed survivors showing signs of life as they got up and made their way to the soup table.
All the survivors lined up for a cup of soup or small bowl of baked beans. They ate and were grateful for the food. Some of the survivors opened up and began talking with one another in small, huddled groups. Others decided to remain alone. Several discussions were taking place at once. A mixture of conversations and the sound of muted sobs filled the main hall.
Peter and Rachel continued to talk among themselves. Rachel told Peter she was a first year nurse at Parkland Medical Center, and her family lives in Brockton, Massachusetts. Peter told Rachel he was originally from New Jersey and was a sales consultant, in Manchester. He told her his parents recently moved to a coastal town in Florida with his two younger brothers. Neither wanted to go in too much detail about their families because neither of them knew if the people they loved were still alive.
“What happened? What did this?” Peter asked. He'd tried to ask before but could not force the words out. He knew Rachel couldn't provide an answer, but it helped just to have asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say it was some sort of virus.”
“But how could it have killed so many people? And so quickly?”
“I don't know,” said again.
“I - I watched fifty people die in just a few minutes, how on earth could anything...”
She was staring at him. He stopped talking.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“It's okay,” she sighed.
Another awkward pause followed.
“Are you warm enough?” Peter asked.
Rachel nodded.
“I'm okay.”
“I'm freezing. This old building with its tall ceilings makes it feel drafty and cold. I’m betting the heating system goes back to the turn of the prior century.” Peter said.
“I'd be happy if we could get it going, A little heat is better than none.” Rachel said.
As old and drafty as it might be, it was all they had at the moment. There were other stronger and safer buildings nearby but no one wanted to venture beyond the front door to face the carnage outside again.
Peter watched as Eddie Cook and another young man, whose name he thought was Steve, sat in deep conversation in the far corner of the room. There was also a third figure hidden from view by Eddie’s back.
Chapter 8
Eddie had been the first to arrive at the community center. He made a point of telling everyone who arrived afterward that he had been the one who found their shelter as if they owed him a debt of gratitude. In a world where status now counted for nothing, he was clinging to his self-perceived “status”. It made him feel important like he had a reason to survive.
The conversation in the corner continued as Peter looked on with interest. He sensed frustrations were coming to a head by the increasing volume of the voices. Less than five minutes earlier they had been talking in muted, quiet voices. Now every survivor could hear every word of coming from the group in the corner.
“No way, I'm not going outside,” Eddie snapped, his voice strained and tired.
“What's the point? What's outside anyway?” The man hidden in the shadows replied.
“So what else should we do then? How long can we stay here? It's cold and uncomfortable in here. We've only got a little food and we’ll have to go out looking for more if we're going to survive. Besides, we need to know what's happening out there. For all we know help could be on the way.” Steve said.
“We're not going to get any help,” Eddie argued.
“How do you know?” Steve asked with irritation and frustration in his tone. “How the hell do you know there's no one coming to help us? We won't know until we get out there.”
“I'm not going out,” Eddie stated
“Yes, we've already established that,” Steve sighed. “You're going to stay in here until you fucking starve to death...”
“Hey don’t get smart,”
Eddie said. “Don’t get fucking smart with me.”
Peter sensed the friction in the corner was about to turn violent. He wasn't sure if he should get involved or just stay out of the way.
“I know what you're saying, Eddie,” Steve said, “but we need to do something. We can't just sit here and wait around forever.”
Eddie looked as if he was trying to think of something to say. How could you apply any logic and order to such a bleak situation? Unable to find the words to express how he was feeling he put his head down. When he looked up he wiped tears from his eyes with the palm of his hand.
“I don't want to go out there, and see it all again,” Eddie said in a low shaky voice, forcing out the words. “I just want to stay here.”
With that he got up and left the room, shoving his chair back across the floor. It banged against a cast iron radiator and the sudden clanging caused everyone to jump and look in their direction. A few seconds later a slamming bathroom door rattled the ominous silence again. Steve looked at the man in the corner for a second before shrugging his shoulders and getting up and walking away in the opposite direction.
“The whole fucking world is falling apart,” Peter said under his breath as he watched.
“What do you mean falling apart?” Rachel asked. “It fell apart. There's nothing left. This is it.”
He looked up and around at his cold grey surroundings and glanced at each one of the empty expressions of the people around the main hall. She was right.
Chapter 9
Steve sat alone in a dark corner of a storeroom with his head in his hands, weeping for the family he lost. Why bother continuing? Without his family he had nobody. He wondered about his older sister Heather, who was in school at the other end of the state, and his dad who left for work and never returned. Where were they? Were they okay, or were they…
He couldn't even form the word in his head. And now, with no reason, warning or explanation, they were gone. Everyone he knew was dead. He hadn't even been able to help them or hold them. He hadn't been there when they died. When they needed him he had been miles away.
Outside in the main hall, he heard the moans and cries of other people who lost everything. He knew the sense of loss, anger, and bewilderment of the other survivors; it hung heavy in the cold, grey air. He listened to the hurt, anguished voices full of raw pain tearing at their souls.
When the noise became too much, he got to his feet. He was about to leave the community center and the rest of the survivors behind, when images of lifeless bodies lying in the streets filled his mind. He slumped back against a doorframe knowing leaving was not an option. The light outside was fading. The thought of being out there in the dark surrounded by all the dead bodies now horrified him.
As he leaned against the doorframe he noticed a ray golden sunlight pouring into the small room from above his head. It illuminated everything with a vibrant, almost fluorescent color.
Steve stepped into the room and looked up. In the ceiling just above the door was a narrow skylight. The storage room he had hidden in was a newer extension added to the original building. He noticed it was constructed with a flat roof. Steve closed the storage room door and climbed onto a wooden table, stretched up and opened the skylight. He hoisted himself through the opening and scrambled out onto the asphalt roof.
The cold wind rocked him as he stood exposed on the ten-foot square area of the roof. From the furthest edge, he could see along the side of the building to the main road into the now dead town of Derry.
His eyes followed the road as it veered away in the general direction of East Derry where the bodies of his mom and sister still lay on the bathroom floor. In his mind he pictured them both still and lifeless, their bodies stained with dark, drying blood. For a while he considered driving back to them. At the very least they deserved to be buried with dignity. His heart ached, and he dropped to his knees, held his head in his hands and cried once again.
Steve stood and wiped the tears from his face and studied his surroundings. From this vantage point, he could see dozens of bodies. It unnerved him to think he was getting used to seeing the corpses. Before all this happened he had never seen a dead body. When he saw his first dead body in the wrecked VW, it seemed surreal and alien and made him puke. Now it was already beginning to feel normal.
Parts of the town in the distance were burning. Large clouds of billowing grey and black smoke drifted up darker than the darkening sky. Steve wondered how the fires started. Crashed cars, a broken gas main, or was it other survivors like them? He knew it was pointless to think about reasons why, but he had nothing else to do. At least thinking like that helped him forget about his mom and sister for a while.
He was about to go back inside when one of the bodies in the road caught his eye. He wasn't sure why because the body was unremarkable in the midst of the confusion and carnage. The corpse was that of a teenage boy who had fallen on his side with his head and neck bent at an angle against a curb. From where he stood, Steve could see the boy’s open eyes staring up into the sky as if searching for an explanation of why he died. Even in death, the poor kid looked frightened and alone. Steve couldn't stand to look at the pained expression on that face for more than a couple of seconds.
He went back inside, and the cold, uncomfortable community center suddenly seemed the safest and warmest place in the world.
Chapter 10
Steve returned to the other survivors and found them sitting in a rough group circle in one corner of the dark community center meeting room. Some people sat on chairs and benches while others crouched on the hardwood floor. One group gathered around a single gas camping lamp. A few of the poor bewildered souls glanced up at him as he approached.
Feeling self-conscious he sat down at the nearest edge of the group between two women. Although trapped in the same building as the rest of them, he didn't even know their names. As much as he needed their company and contact, he found the distance between the individual survivors welcoming.
A man named Jason was trying to address the group. From his manner and the way he spoke, Steve assumed the man was a lawyer or a salesman. That is at least until the world turned upside down yesterday morning.
“What we need to do,” Jason said with tedious consideration, “is get organized before we even think of venturing outside.”
“Why?” someone asked from the group. “What do we need to organize?”
“We need supplies like food, water, bedding, and clothes, and we should be able to find most of these items in the immediate area.” Jason said.
“Why?” the voice interrupted again. “We know we'll find everything we need in town. There’s no need to waste our time in here. Everyone needs to get out of here and go our separate ways.”
Jason's confidence was a facade and, at the first sign of any resistance, he squirmed. He pushed his rimless glasses up the bridge of his nose with the tip of his finger and took a deep breath.
“That's not a good idea. Our personal safety and security are our main concern and then...”
“I agree,” the voice interrupted again. “But why stop here? There's hundreds of better places to go so why stay here? What makes any of us safer here than if we were sitting in the middle of the interstate?”
Steve moved so he could see through the mass of people to find the speaker. He saw a man with short brown hair, a little shorter than himself with an athletic build. He looked to be in his late twenties and talked in a calm, self-assured manner. It was Peter, the guy who had cooked the soup earlier.
“We don't know what's outside...” Jason began.
“But we've got to go out there eventually, right?” Peter said.
Jason stammered and fiddled with his glasses again. “Yes, but...”
“Look, Jason, I'm not trying to make this any more difficult than it already is. Someone will need to go out and get the supplies. All I'm saying is why bother delaying it and why bother coming back?” Peter said.
Jason c
ouldn't answer. It was obvious to Steve and everyone else why Jason didn't want to go outside. It was the same reason Eddie Cook admitted to wanting to stay trapped in the community center earlier. They were scared.
“We could try to find somewhere else,” Jason said, “but we've got a good shelter here. It's secure and...”
“It’s not secure. It’s old and rickety, cold and uncomfortable,” Steve blurted.
“Okay, it's not ideal but...”
“But what?” Peter said. “It seems we have our pick of any place we want at the moment.”
The room fell silent. Jason sat up straight and pushed his glasses back up his nose again. He found a reason to justify staying put.
“But what about the music and the fire?” he said, more animated. “Eddie and John brought us all here by lighting the fire and playing music. If we did it again, we might find more survivors. There might be people on their way to join us.”
“I doubt it,” Peter said. “No one’s arrived here since I got here. If anyone else heard the music, then they'd be here by now. I agree with what you're saying, but again, why here? Why not find somewhere better to go? Get ourselves organized at a better place and light a huge bonfire right in the middle of the road.”
“He's right. We should make a beacon or something, but let's find a more secure place first.” Steve said.
“Yes, a new beacon on higher ground that people can see from further away. Makes sense doesn’t it?” asked Debbie Provencher, a fifty-year-old woman. “And isn't that what we want?”