Her life had largely been a solitary one, until Courtney came into her life. Rough around the edges, snarly as hell, but sweeter than sweet underneath the tattoos and attitude. No one had ever treated her like he had. She was his entire world, and he was hers. They had spent years existing in each other's presence, and then he was gone.
"Look at that. I'm starving. What is that? Chicken?" Joan was rambling on about the food while Clara was lost in her thoughts.
"Could you shut up about the food?" she snapped. Joan closed her mouth. They stood in silence as soldiers ladled scoops of food onto white Styrofoam trays with different compartments pressed into them. The silence was large, so large it threatened to crush Clara down onto the concrete floor and press the life out of her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."
"No, I'm sorry. I'm treating this like some sort of vacation, but the truth is, I still don't feel like I'm able to believe that this is all actually happening."
"I was thinking of Courtney. I was thinking of how the entire last decade of my life was spent being with him, eating with him, sleeping with him. We did everything together, and it was always alright. No matter what happened at college, no matter how the loans kept piling up, I always knew he would be there, and now he's not. The time when I need him most, and he's gone."
Joan had no words for what Clara was feeling. Her own existence had been one of petty self-involvement. The moment she could move out from underneath her parents' Rockwellian existence, she had jumped at the chance. They walked through the concourse, words dying on their lips.
Chapter 18: Ginger Fluff
Rudy sat in a run-down bathroom stall of the Memorial Coliseum. Shame still burned through his body. Rudy had never willingly taken his clothes off in front of anyone, and then he had been forced to do it right there in front of the most beautiful woman he had ever met... he thought he was going to die from embarrassment.
Right there in the sunshine, he had pulled his shirt off, exposing his pale skin. If he had to give a name to the shade of his skin, it would be "milkworm," a special combination of skim milk and maggot white, dotted with freckles that made him look like the first drips of a Jackson Pollock painting.
The shirt was bad enough, but the rest had been even worse. "C'mon. Pants too, Chubs," one of the soldiers had said. He looked at the soldier, pleading in his eyes. "Anything but that," his eyes said. The soldier's look was hard and disinterested. He was too busy ogling Chloe to stare at the fat pale man who looked like he was on the verge of tears.
Rudy had undone his belt, digging underneath the folds of his gut to unbuckle it. Then he had wheezed as he leaned over to undo his shoes, his breathing disrupted by the pressure of his gut smashed between his chest and his thighs. His head was dizzy from bending over, and with relief he finally kicked off his shoes. His socks were next, and he bounced around on one leg, trying to pull the socks off of his feet. They were slightly moist from the situation. It seemed that his feet were always in a constant state of perspiration whenever stress was involved. He managed to pull his right sock off, his girth jiggling as he bounced to maintain his balance, but he fell to the ground while trying to pull off the second sock.
Then it was time, time to do the deed. With his pants unzipped, and his belt hanging open like floppy dog ears, he hesitated. A soldier to his right yelled, "C'mon, fat boy. Let's see that truffle shuffle." The soldiers laughed at him, and his skin went from milkworm to strawberry milk in no time at all.
"You guys are real assholes, you know that?" Amanda said.
The soldier that had said the comment looked slightly embarrassed by Amanda's comment, but it was nothing to the embarrassment that Rudy felt as he placed his hands on the top of his pants in preparation to do the deed.
"Go on, Rudy. I won't look," Amanda said.
Rudy watched her put a hand over her eyes, and then he became even more embarrassed when he realized that she was already naked. Quickly, while her eyes were covered, he shoved his pants down, exposing his elephantine thighs and buttocks. His ginger fluff glowed in the fading daylight, and his penis was little more than an acorn.
He heard a musical laugh from his right, and he realized he had forgotten all about Chloe. He turned to look at her. He didn't notice her perfect breasts or the shaved smoothness of her own nudity. All he saw was the amusement on her face, her hand pressed to her mouth to stifle the laughter.
"Is that good enough?" Rudy spun in a circle for the entire world to see.
The soldier nodded his head in a professional manner, and Rudy pulled his pants up as quick as he could. He threw his shirt on over his head, and stuffed his thick feet into his shoes, stomping on the heels as he ran inside the Coliseum, his bag slung over his shoulder.
He stalked into the building, its age showing in the dated designs, cold concrete with little consideration for comfort. The concourse was twenty-feet wide, the ceiling was an off-white laced with pipes and cheap florescent lights that gave the entire place the feeling of a morgue. People milled around, their faces forlorn and haunted. It was a solemn place, like a library. Rudy headed immediately for the bathroom, a door-less expanse lined with stainless steel troughs for urine, and stalls that were barely wide enough to accommodate Rudy's bulk.
It was his intention to live out the rest of the days of his life in the bathroom. He had never been so embarrassed, not when his third foster mother had caught him masturbating, not when they had pulled down his pants in gym class, not when Becky Jurgenson had caught him staring dreamily at her in the middle of Mr. Patterson's social studies in middle school. This was the type of embarrassment that could kill a man... it could kill a Rudy even quicker.
Rudy squeezed his eyes shut. That look. That fucking look on her face. The words played through his head in a loop, over and over. Tears came to his eyes, and great bursts of pent up emotion escaped his throat in sobs, like a seal gagging on a fish. He bashed the side of the toilet stall with his hand, not minding the pain that he felt. It was better than the embarrassment.
"You alright in there?" a man asked, his voice strained.
Rudy rolled his head to the side and looked heavenward. Could this day get any worse? A world full of undead, showing my little penis to the hottest woman in the world, and now crying next to some guy taking a shit. What's next? He tried to sound as if he were in command of his voice, but he blubbered as he said, "I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine, man," the voice said. "What the matter? You run out of toilet paper? Here." A brown-skinned hand thrust a wad of toilet paper under the door.
Rudy couldn't help himself, he laughed just a little bit, wiping his snotty nose with the back of his arm. "No, I'm fine."
"Well if it ain't toilet paper, it must be family. You lose someone?"
Rudy sighed, a ragged hitching thing that somehow made everything not seem so bad. People out there were losing family, dying, killing loved ones, and here he was crying about someone seeing his penis. "I don't have anyone to lose."
"Then it must be girls. That's nice. Girl problems is much better than the problems most of us got going on right now."
"Yeah. I suppose you're right."
He heard the man straining in the stall next to him. "Goddamn right I'm right."
"Thanks," Rudy said.
"No problem," the man said.
Rudy waited for the man to finish his business and leave before he wiped his face, and tied his shoes. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, he thought. He pushed the stall open and walked out into the concourse, the sting of the embarrassment fading. It would always be there, just like Becky Jurgenson, but he could deal with it. Rudy looked down the concourse and spotted a black man walking away, baggy pants, a shiny bald head, and heavy tan boots on his feet. He thanked him silently from a distance and went to find Amanda. If Chloe was there, well, then he would just swallow his pride and deal with it.
Chapter 19: Dinnertime
Katie sat in the nosebleed seats of the Coliseum, her back pressed against the co
ld concrete wall. She sat alone staring down at the buzz on the floor of the Coliseum. The Memorial Coliseum was home to the Portland Winterhawks, a junior hockey team that had produced some of the best talent in the NHL, at least that's what her husband Jason had said when she had asked him what exactly the Winterhawks were. Their logo was the head of a Native American with multi-colored feathers hanging in his black hair. How that related to hockey was anyone's guess. As far as she knew, there was no tribe named Winterhawk and there was no bird named a winterhawk either. She guessed it was better than Braves or Warriors or something generic like that.
Right now, people were tromping across the logo, which was usually covered by three-quarters of an inch of ice. She wondered if anyone would ever skate across that logo again. Katie sat, wrapped in dark thoughts, a blanket to keep her mind from the other emotions that were struggling to escape from her. She didn't want them. She didn't want the sadness, the grief, the rage. She would take a triple dose of denial. When she had first come in, a lady had greeted her, and chatted to her, asking her if she had lost anyone. Katie said, "No."
The lady had shaken her head in confusion at Katie's terse response, then she had walked away, a hurt look on her face. That was fine with her. The people here wanted to bond. They wanted to feel better. Katie just wanted her gun back. Her harrowing entrance into the refugee camp had been the first sign that she had most likely made a mistake. Now she was intent on escaping from the Coliseum, getting some sort of weapon, and leaving the city altogether. It was the only play that made sense. If her mind had been right, she would have figured it out a lot sooner, but the idea of being someplace safe had called to something within her. Perhaps it called to her willingness to abandon responsibility and let someone else do the thinking.
Katie's stomach gurgled. She was hungry and a little drunk. They had taken her gun, but allowed her to keep her tiny bottles of wine. She would have traded them in a heartbeat for the gun, but the soldiers weren't interested in trades. They were interested in talking big, maintaining a sense of authority, and denying the fact that every hour more and more of those things showed up, shambling and pressing against the woefully pathetic fences that encircled the Coliseum.
The flow of refugees had slowed down, whether that was because most people were dead or because they simply couldn't reach the Coliseum, Katie didn't know. Either way, it all meant bad news to Katie. She kicked the seat in front of her, and swore under her breath.
On the floor of the Coliseum, survivors huddled in groups, their Styrofoam trays resting on their knees. Some slept, some wept, but they all had the same look of shock on their face. There were few children, and the ones that were there sat as if in a daze, their worlds shattered into so many pieces that they had no idea how to even begin putting them all back together. Katie couldn't look at the children for long before thoughts of her own child started to bubble up.
Food. If she was going to escape, she was going to have to find something to eat. Katie rose from her seat and stumbled down the stairway that led to the concourse, her purse in her hand, tiny bottles of wine clinking around inside. She exited the stadium and found herself on the dirty gray concourse. It had an industrial, heartless feel almost as uncomfortable as the view through the glass front of the Coliseum. Soldiers packed the Coliseum's broad courtyard, a square of concrete that sat before long windows that led from the floor to the Coliseum's airy ceiling. The soldiers were out there, rifles in hands, and beyond them were the fences, backed by scaffolding that the soldiers stood upon to shoot at the dead outside. There were thousands of them. There was a sea of rotting flesh out there, pawing at the chains of the fences. The soldiers on top were shooting at the dead below, the noise of rifle shots was unceasing and muffled only by the thick glass windows of the Coliseum. Other soldiers sat below, filling magazines with clips of ammunition and stripping and cleaning rifles that had been fired throughout the day. They were all busy, and they were barely making a dent.
A chopper lifted straight into the air from the courtyard, its rotors whirring into invisibility and blasting the soldiers with a gritty wind. Shell casings rolled across the ground, brass stars twinkling underneath the generator powered floodlights in the courtyard. A soldier ran inside on some sort of mission, and as the door swung open, a blast of air from outside hit her in the face like a punch, the smell of thousands of dead that had spent most of the day putrefying in the sun. Her gag reflex was strong, but she clamped her hand over her face and moved away from the front of the building, stalking around the concourse to find where they were serving food.
She had seen other refugees moving across the Coliseum floor, paper plates of steaming food in hand. She hitched her purse up on her shoulder. It was all she had left, and it was about the most worthless possession anyone could have in a time like this. Liable to be snagged by the dead, she knew it was only a matter of time before she would have to give it up. When her wine was gone, she would toss the bag into one of the many trash bins around the arena, along with her credit cards, her wallet, and all the make-up she had dutifully applied to her face for the last three decades of her life. She hadn't quite decided what to do with her cell phone. Part of her wanted to keep it, but another part of her wanted to bury it in one of the garbage cans, along with the pictures of her husband and child that were stored on it.
She pulled the cell phone from her purse, a clunky chunk of glass, metal and plastic. It was an outdated phone by society standards, nothing fancy, but it held pictures, some songs, and a list of her few contacts. Ever since Kevin had been born, her list of contacts had slowly dwindled until it was just her, her brother in Vermont, and her mother. She opened up her list of contacts... so small, so pointless. Having a child had been the worst choice she could have ever made.
Katie selected her mother and listened as the phone began to ring. She hung the phone up after two rings, and tossed it into the nearest garbage can, tears threatening to escape from her eyes. She walked fast, as if the phone would jump up out of the garbage and follow her around. Katie didn't want to know. She didn't want to know how her 70-year-old mother was surviving this. She didn't want to have that conversation. She didn't want to tell her what had happened to Jason and Kevin. Most of all, she didn't want the phone to go to voicemail. She didn't want to hear her mother's voice telling her to leave her name and phone number so that she could get back to her. Not getting an answer would be the worst.
She walked along the concourse, until she came to a white trailer that had been set up to serve food to the refugees. That's what they were now, refugees in their own country, in their own home, fleeing from a disaster that seemed to have struck the world down in one fell swoop.
When she had first arrived, she overheard two people talking about causes of the disaster. Maybe it was nature trying to create a blank slate. Maybe God was real, and he was pissed. Katie laughed in her head. What a waste of time their conversation had been. Two scared men trying to figure out who or what they should blame. Blame wasn't going to make it go away. If anything, knowing would just make it worse. Katie was glad she didn't know why the end of the world was happening. Knowing why would lead to the hope of being able to stop it. Stopping it would mean continuing on for who knew how long with the guilt of killing her husband and child... the guilt of knowing that she had, in her most melancholy moments, actually fantasized about doing it before the world had rotted.
There were two lines of people waiting to be served. Boxes of bulk food items were stacked haphazardly around the trailer. She could see soldiers working feverishly inside the trailer, dishing out food as fast as they could, but still they could not keep up with the demand. The refugees stood, a hundred deep, many of them lost in their own thoughts. Smiles were few and far between.
Katie stepped up behind a man with a red beard. His hands were placed protectively on the shoulders of two children, and their eyes were painted with sorrow. They did not speak. They stood there, mute, waiting in line like cows for the sla
ughter. The children made Katie feel sad. How would they die? Would they get eaten? Would their father murder them to save them from an eternity stalking the world as living dead? Would he do nothing?
There was only one thing that Katie felt good about, knowing that she had ended her own child's twisted existence. Kevin wouldn't be target practice for anyone. She had ended him, the way it should have been. Family takes care of family.
"When the time comes, it should be you," she said to the red-bearded man.
He looked at her, horror in his eyes. "Excuse me?"
"If they turn, make sure you're the one that does it. You know what I mean?"
The man didn't say anything else. He propelled his children to the back of the other line. Katie smiled and waved at the children. They did not reciprocate.
Katie turned her attention to the line in front of her. At least she'd get her meal faster this way. The trailer was pumping out plates of food at an alarming pace. Katie wished they would have given out more packaged food, something that would last a while in an emergency, but food was food, even though the stuff they were ladling out didn't seem all that appetizing to her.
With her mind lost in thought, she stepped up to the counter, and a woman in fatigues plopped a tray in front of her. First, there was a scoop of mashed potatoes, likely from some dehydrated source. Then there was an unappetizing piece of breaded meat topped with another ladleful of gravy. Next was a scoop of mixed vegetables, carrots, peas, and corn that all had that shrunken look that comes from being dehydrated. Finally, she was given a dinner roll with some sort of butter substitute in a tiny golden package. It was followed with a bottle of water, which Katie was a little upset with. The rest of the meal brought about the nostalgia of meals long ago at her elementary school in Vermont. The only thing missing was an 8 oz. carton of 2% milk.
This Rotten World (Book 2): We All Fall Down Page 13