"If I wanted to pick up my food myself, I wouldn't have scheduled a delivery, would I? Jesus! There's no one there who can drive a truck?" Tyreese could feel a knot of tension beginning to tighten in his gut. Breathe, he told himself, just breathe and keep calm. In the background, Tyreese could now make out the unmistakable sound of angry voices, all vying for the clerk’s attention.
"I'm sorry, I don’t have enough staff to pull orders, let alone deliver them. There's really nothing I can do," the man said, already distracted by what sounded like a developing commotion in the background.
The line went dead.
Tyreese disconnected the phone at his end too. His eyes wandered around the room as though the delivery guy might be hiding in there with him somewhere. He took a deep breath, held it for several seconds and then exhaled slowly. The anxiety had already spread throughout his stomach and was now climbing toward his throat.
"Breathe," he said to the empty room. "Just breathe." Anxiety was a wall of static in his head. It blocked his memories, confused his thoughts, distracted him. And it hid something from him. Something that he wanted to look at but which this fog, like some malevolent trickster, chose to hide. It made every day the same; colorless, muted, frightening. The continual feeling of agitation almost never left him; it was like a second skin of electricity fitted over his own, firing off random nerves that made Tyreese twitchy and restless, and set his stomach in a constant twisting and turning soup of emotion. He took in a few more deep gasps of air and felt the knot of panic loosen its grip on his intestines just a little.
A few more minutes of deep breathing and the stress had subsided enough that Tyreese did not think he was going to have to pop a Lorazepam. That was a win. He hated taking those damn pills, they fuzzed his brain.
Tyreese wheeled himself across the room to where his legs waited. He stared at them for a moment, his heart thumping at the idea of what he was going to have to do. Steeling his resolve, he pulled up his phone's web browser and tapped in what he was looking for, then quickly scanned the search results. He tapped the top choice and listened as the phone rang.
"Hello," he said when a gravelly female voice answered after a couple of rings. "I need a taxi as soon as possible."
•••
Tyreese sat in the foyer of the apartment building, waiting for the taxi he'd ordered to show up. When he and Emma had first moved to their home at Riverview Apartments there had been a sofa right here, second-hand, but nice. Now the place smelled like piss, and the sofa had been replaced at some point in the last three or four years by one of those park-bench style seats you can pick up from Walmart for thirty bucks; all wooden and damn uncomfortable... and chained to an exposed water pipe that ran along the baseboard.
Had it really been that long since he had been down here? Tyreese pushed the thought out of his mind along with the fluttering of unease at the idea of just how much time had passed. This place had been clean and new back in '04, the paint fresh, the rest of the residents smiling, he'd known them all by name. That had been back when Emma was still with him. Now the paint on the walls was peeling. There were spots of mold in the corner opposite him, near a brown water stain on the ceiling tiles. What the hell was this place coming to? And he knew no one, well, not unless you counted Annabelle, the girl who lived in the apartment below his.
The sound of a car horn honking alerted Tyreese to his taxi's arrival. He pushed himself unsteadily to his fake feet, using his wooden walking cane to help him keep his balance. Through the grubby glass double doors of the entranceway he saw his taxi waiting at the curb.
Outside. I'm going to have to go outside.
Tyreese's heart thumped against his ribs at the thought of having to leave through those doors, and for the second time since he had stepped out of the elevator, he wished that he had taken that damn anxiety pill.
Tyreese took a deep breath and stepped toward the exit, the anger he felt at himself helping to force his anxiety down deep inside. He got by on his anger a lot these days. He pushed the door hard and it flew open, bouncing back on its hinges as he shouldered himself through and headed to the cab waiting at the curb.
The taxi driver was a sour-faced Mediterranean man who glared at Tyreese as if he had just stolen his life's savings. No offer of help from him.
"Where to?" the man grunted as Tyreese maneuvered himself awkwardly into the back seat of the cab, pulling his legs up after him before tugging the cab door shut. He rattled off the market's address, then tried to relax as the cab pulled away from the curb.
It was only a three-mile drive to the store but within the first half-mile, Tyreese had begun to really regret skipping the anti-anxiety meds.
Maybe it was the grime-smeared taxi window, but the streets seemed even dirtier than they did from his apartment window, the few people he saw on the eerily deserted sidewalks looked more like shadows than people. They seemed to slink past each other, merging with the equally gray facades of block upon block of apartment buildings. Even the trees looked wilted and colorless in this dour gray-filtered daylight. It was as if the air had suddenly become poison.
Tyreese leaned his head against the glass of the cab's window and stared up at the leaden sky, even thicker with clouds now. It was the first vanguard of the El Niño-driven storm that was inbound to the West Coast. This storm was predicted to be hellacious. The one back in '97 had been bad enough. Streets had flooded, power had been intermittent at best, and then there was the looting. The experts said this one was going to last twice as long. The authorities had recommended that anyone who was able to leave town should do so. They should head inland or at least away from LA, which the weather service had all but promised was going to get hit the hardest.
Good luck with that around here, Tyreese thought. The majority of folks in these apartments could barely afford the rent. He was confident none of them had a vacation home in Aspen or a place in Tahoe or Las Vegas where they could wait out the storm. Christ, most of them couldn't even afford a car and had to rely on public transport to get anywhere. And the second the storm hit, the roads would flood and the bus service would shut down and then what? If the authorities didn't do something fast then they'd turn on themselves, that's what. And when had anyone ever given a damn about anyone around here? Not in a long time.
The taxi pulled up to the curb outside the store.
"Thirty bucks," the driver said, turning to stare at Tyreese through the security Plexiglas separating them.
"How much?" Tyreese asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.
"Thirty. Dollars," the driver repeated the words slowly as though he were dealing with an imbecile.
Tyreese scowled at the obvious scalping he was getting but he pulled out his wallet, counted out the exact fare and slapped it into the man's hand. "Wait here," Tyreese ordered. "I'll be ten minutes."
The driver said nothing, turning his eyes to the front as Tyreese opened the door and maneuvered himself out onto the sidewalk. No sooner had Tyreese slammed the door shut than the driver slipped the car into gear and pulled away.
"Hey!" Tyreese yelled, waving his cane in the air after the rapidly disappearing cab. "Goddammit!" You simply couldn't rely on anyone these days.
It took only a few moments for Tyreese to realize just how much space there was around him. How open the area was. How exposed he was. Only another moment for the anxiety to begin to flood his system. His muscles began to tighten, the time between each of his breaths coming shorter than the one before as panic began to take control of his respiratory system. The saliva in his mouth disappeared as though his teeth had suddenly become sponges. His knuckles cracked as his hand tightened around the grip of his cane, fingers turning into a fist. He was a statue, caught by the vibrations of fear that told every atom of his body to flee, yet greedily resisted its neighbor's desperation, pinning him to the spot.
Then Emma was there and talking to him. Close your eyes, baby. It's okay. Just close your eyes. He heard Emma's dea
d voice as if she was standing right there on the street next to him. Although he knew it was just the memory of his wife, he obeyed, because even the ghost of her was an irresistible force. Even so many years after she had gone, Tyreese still carried her willingly around within his head and heart. What else was he supposed to do with the love of his life, when the only thing that remained of her was her spirit? That was better than the alternative.
Distilled light filtered through the lids of his eyes. He squeezed them shut as tightly as he could until there was only blackness. He allowed his mind to listen to his wife's voice speaking to him, easing him down as she had always been able to. He felt his heart begin to quieten, his shoulder muscles relax, as he focused on his breathing just like Emma had taught him.
Slow baby. That's it, just relax, Emma's echo whispered. Her beautiful face—the way she used to be, young and smiling, not the withered, pain-riddled one she wore at the end—filled his mind and he smiled back at her. He felt his shoulders relax, his heart rate slow more, and—
"Hey! Hey, mister!"
Tyreese started, his eyes flickering open at the sound of a woman's voice, not his wife's; this one was dry and raspy. He turned around, saw a woman standing just a foot or so away to his left. Her skin was burnt a deep coffee brown from constant exposure to the California sun, wrinkled, with deeper brown age spots—or maybe dirt? It was hard to tell—along the length of her arm. Her hair was a tangled blonde mess. She was wearing a stained summer dress that fell limply from her emaciated frame. The dress might have been older than Tyreese. A shopping cart waited for the woman like an obedient dog a few feet away, its insides bursting with plastic containers and spent cans of soda and beer. How the hell had she gotten to him without him hearing her?
Tyreese blinked twice in quick succession, not sure if he was imagining the woman, but judging by the smell of dirt and urine that wafted from her she was all too real.
The woman smiled a gap-toothed smile at him. "It's coming," she said, her words slurring. "Can you feel it? It's coming."
"What?" he asked, even though the answer should have been abundantly clear. "What's coming?"
The woman's grin grew even wider as she threw her head back and laughed a gurgling maniacal laugh. "Something you never expected." Her head bobbed back and forth as she howled wildly at the sky. "It's coming for you. It's coming for me. And there ain't no escaping it."
•••
Tyreese walked as quickly as he could toward the entrance of the market. 'Market' might have been too strong a word for the building he was approaching, if he was honest, it barely made it past corner-store level but it was where he got his supplies every week, delivered a couple of hours after his order was placed... usually. He walked up to the entrance, pushed the door open and stepped inside.
He felt better instantly, the remaining anxiety slipping away at the sight of the store's comforting box-like design.
An Indian man in his mid-thirties with tired eyes sat behind one of three checkouts. His nametag read 'Mike' in large white letters, and 'MANAGER' below that. This was probably the guy he had spoken to on the phone earlier.
Tyreese commandeered a metal shopping cart that had been left near the entrance, nodded at Mike then headed toward the canned goods aisle. There were two other customers in the store, a far cry from how chaotic the place had sounded when Tyreese had called earlier. It quickly became apparent why. The shelves were all but empty, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the swarm of panicked humans who had descended on the store like locusts, picking it clean.
"Well isn't that just special," Tyreese muttered to himself, limping down the nearest aisle. The right-front wheel of his shopping cart seemed to have a will all of its own, wobbling and squeaking, intent on forcing its three brethren to follow it in the opposite direction Tyreese wanted to go.
The shelves had been laid bare. It wasn't hard to imagine the throngs of locals who had descended here like a proverbial plague of locusts, stripping the aisles clean of almost everything. He found a couple of boxes of Hamburger Helper and tossed those into the cart. On the second aisle he found a row of six cans of green beans and a single can of carrots. The bottled water section was completely empty, but the freezer still contained plenty of bags of ice, so he grabbed six and added them to the cart. The ice would hopefully stay frozen long enough for him to get them home and allow them to defrost into containers that he could use if the water supply dried up. There was no telling what would get blown into the reservoirs when this storm hit. Clean drinking water could be in short supply.
By the time Tyreese forced his rebellious cart to the checkout he had added a clutch of Ramen noodles, some dried chicken bouillon, and a handful of candy bars.
Mike the Manager gave a perfunctory smile and began ringing up Tyreese's haul. The man looked weary as he pecked away at the cash register's keyboard. He announced the total and packed the items into plastic bags while Tyreese pulled the money from his wallet.
"Have a nice day," Mike said as he handed Tyreese his change.
"Sure thing," Tyreese muttered. He lifted the bags into the cart and pushed it toward the exit.
"Hey!" Mike the Manager shouted, suddenly animated, pointing at Tyreese's cart full of groceries. "You can't take that outside."
"Just gonna load my car," Tyreese lied, and pushed the cart through the doors before Mike had a chance to object.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Birdy hopped a DASH bus at Figueroa, flopped down onto an empty seat and watched the streets roll by. She allowed her mind to drift away.
The first time she had seen parkour on TV she had fallen instantly in love with it. It made her feel like she could be a superhero. She watched tutorials on YouTube, and downloaded old episodes of American Ninja Warrior off the Internet to study during breaks at school.
And she practiced.
It was a lot harder than she thought it would be, but Birdy soon found she had a natural athletic ability, an ability that quickly developed into a skill, thanks to her passion for the sport. Finding Bryanna at the YMCA had been the best day of her life. She set herself a goal of being the youngest girl to ever compete on American Ninja Warrior, the show that first got her interested in parkour.
At 7th Street, Birdy jumped off the bus and headed in the direction of the mall, a couple of blocks away.
The Figueroa Mall had three floors, and lots of stores; everything from jewelry to kitchenware to perfumes. There was even a real bookstore Birdy liked to visit when she could. But today she was only interested in one particular store, which was located on the third floor. She pushed through the double doors, and headed past kiosks and stores. She ignored the elevator and took the stairs, loping up them two steps at a time, her excitement supplementing her already abundant energy. At the top she hung a left, weaving her way through the throngs of people chilling, browsing, and shopping, until she stood outside the store she was looking for. Footsie, the red neon sign over the door read.
Inside she headed toward the shelves on the right wall where the sneakers and sports shoes were displayed. She was halfway across the store when she heard someone call her name. Not 'Birdy' but...
"Annabelle, hey! How you doing?"
Birdy looked toward the voice. It was Trenton, his six-three basketball-player frame disguising the fact that he was almost a full year younger than Birdy. "What you doing here, girl?" he asked, smiling casually. Another guy, one she didn't recognize, stood to his right. He looked nervous, his eyes constantly moving around the store.
"Just looking," Birdy said, not really sure what else to say. Trenton had never even said a word to her before today, just eyed her up when he passed her in the hallway or during lunch breaks at school. Flattering, but not something she was interested in.
"That's cool. Me and my bro are just browsing, right man?" Trenton turned and gave the nervous looking kid next to him a hard punch on the meaty part of his shoulder. The other kid barely even registered it, he just glanced in Trenton's
direction then glared at Birdy as if she'd been the one who hit him.
"Anyway," said Birdy, forcing a smile, "I gotta be going. See you in school."
"Yeah, yeah, girl. See you around." He flashed her a smile that showed off his perfect white teeth. And with that, Trenton and his friend headed to the opposite side of the store and began browsing through a rack of football shirts.
Birdy found the sneaker she was looking for, tracked down an associate and handed it to her. "Size eight. In black, please," she said.
A minute later the woman was back with a box. She handed it to Birdy before disappearing to help an older woman who was trying to find something for her daughter.
Birdy sat on a bench with a slanted mirror at its base. She stripped off her scuffed and scraped sneakers, laying them on the floor next to the bench. The shoebox sat next to her on the padded seat. She lifted the lid reverently, as if the box contained the Holy Grail itself, moved the packing paper aside, and reveled in both the sight and smell of the brand-new pair of sneakers within, each one toe-to-heel with the other, like twins in a mother's womb.
They were beautiful.
Birdy lifted the left sneaker out of the box, pulled out the cardboard support then loosened the laces. She slipped the shoe on and felt the soft material cling to the shape of her foot as though it were a second skin. She did the same with the right sneaker, then stood up.
They felt amazing, like she wasn't wearing them at all, but with all the support and protection she needed. Birdy skipped a few paces, hopped to the left and right, then jumped up and down in place a couple of times. She couldn't help but smile; these were going to make her training so much easier. She reached into her jacket for her wallet.
"That's her!" a stern voice announced from behind Birdy.
Birdy turned to look and saw a man with a manager name-tag pointing at her. Next to him was a guy who looked to be seven feet tall and almost as broad, wearing a mall security uniform. About ten feet behind that guy were two more security guards; one held Trenton in an arm lock, the other had his friend.
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