Tourists of the Apocalypse

by WALLER, C. F.

“Best leave the guns to me though,” I warn, turning her around to face me.

  “I thought you were a desk jockey in the Army,” she balks, poking my sternum with a finger. “Purchasing clerk or something?”

  “Sure, but I went through basic,” I argue defensively.

  “Where do you think I come from?”

  “I don’t know as you won’t tell me anything about you,” I point out.

  “Para-Military Pal,” she smirks, tossing a thumb over her shoulder. “You drive and I’ll ride shotgun.”

  “Whatever the lady says,” I groan, holding up my hands and backing away. “But not for a few days right?”

  “Yes, we need to let the highways clear out. We also have to get you some clothes. You can’t be a post-apocalyptic road warrior in flip flops and shorts.”

  “Mel Gibson would never approve of shorts.”

  “Who’s Mel Gibson?” she shrugs.

  A memory of Graham not knowing who Dilbert was flashes across my thoughts. Anything that’s older they haven’t had time to assimilate.

  “It doesn’t matter, but I don’t think the Old Navy is going to be open tomorrow.”

  “I’ll round up something,” she promises me, scanning around the empty parking lot. “We should call it a night.”

  I nod and start back to the room, but she doesn’t follow me. She heads toward the beach, shuffling out into the sand. I follow along, trying to keep up in the dark. My feet hit wet sand suddenly, and then I bump into Izzy who is practically in the ocean.

  “Watch it,” she groans, hopping on one leg, then pulling her jeans off.

  “Swimming?”

  “Yeah, I’m gross. I can’t sleep like this,” she whines, slinging her top off. “Besides, some masher was crawling all over me last night. I feel like a chew toy at the dog pound.”

  “You weren’t complaining last night,” I joke, pulling my shirt off to join her.

  DAY ONE

  The only thing selling at the coffee shop this morning is actual coffee. They are making it wild-west style on the grills that produced yesterday’s barbeque. Izzy leaves me sitting at the counter picking grounds out of my teeth and goes out front clothes shopping. I can see her through the glass talking to several young men loitering around the front of the building. After some negotiation one of the men removes his shoes and hands them to Izzy, who in return gives the man an undisclosed amount of cash. I notice she’s not waving the wad around today, but rather working with just a few bills in one pocket at a time. Another man she talked to earlier comes jogging back down the walkway from his hotel room holding several pairs of socks. Izzy looks them over and another discussion takes place, after which she buys them.

  “Your girlfriend running a swap meet out there?” the older woman who runs the counter every morning asks me.

  “Back to school shopping,” I joke, drawing only a smirk from her. “No burgers today?”

  “Nothing left,” she sighs. “Freezer won’t run so we cooked it all yesterday.”

  “Well, it was delicious.”

  “Have more soon. This nonsense can’t go on forever,” she theorizes. “Power will be back on today or tomorrow.”

  “I hope your right,” I agree, but am fairly sure she’s not.

  Chalk that opinion up to insider information in my case. People have no idea what’s happening. Izzy strolls in and dumps the shoes and two pair of clean white socks on the stool next to me. She reaches across me and pulls her coffee cup down the counter. The shoes are white Fila’s with an aggressive tread pattern.

  “You said ten and a half right?” she exhales, taking a deep swig of her coffee and wincing.

  I nod, kicking off one flip flop and pulling it on. It fits fine so I give her an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

  “Thirty-two,” she remarks pointing at my waist.

  “Thirty-two waist, thirty-four long,” I advise. “Thirty-six long if you can find it.”

  She returns a thumbs-up and finishes her coffee. Before I can ask her anything else she scoots out the door and begins sizing up men’s pants sizes. I pay the waitress, whose nametag declares her name is Wendy, another five bucks and she refills my coffee. Yesterday a bottle beer was two bucks and today cowboy coffee full of floating grounds is five. I hate to think what it’s going to cost tomorrow.

  Izzy seems to have trouble getting men to part with their pants until one young guy starts pulling his off before she can negotiate a price. He looks seriously desperate. Watching him shake the pants at her I’d guess that he’s hungry. Is this the beginning of the real life Hunger Games Izzy was talking about? It’s only been one day.

  I watch Izzy acquire a hoodie and a jacket, before returning to the counter. When asked about the hungry looking man who sold her the pants she shrugs and suggests it’s going to get a lot worse.

  “Before it gets better,” I add, but receive a head shake.

  “Not in your lifetime.”

  I go back to the room and change, leaving her to finish my second cup. In the room, I run into Randall and Derrick and they encourage me to join them as they head back to Tallahassee. I argue that we won’t be late for work due to the crisis, but they are sure the power is on everywhere but here. I take a pass and they promise to catch up with me when I get home. They do mention that some people have been getting pretty pushy about the Jeep. I warn them to be careful and that someone may try and take it, but they think the rest of the world’s fine. I’m walking back to the coffee shop in my new pants and shoes as I watch them pull out of the parking lot and disappear.

  Izzy’s annoyed I’m not wearing the hoodie when I come back, but its 85 degrees at nine in the morning. I’m baffled how she wears hers most all the time. She explains that she’s not wearing anything underneath, but I still am hot just looking at her. The hoodie she got me is light blue with YOLO in glow-in-the dark yellow letters on the front. I had to explain to her that this means You Only Live Once, an anthem of tweens everywhere. She doesn’t see why it would bother me to wear it. My pain being lost on her, I drop the subject. She also complains I am wearing her Texas A&M visor, so I give it back. She props it on her head and sticks her tongue out at me.

  “Randall and Derrick left,” I reveal, snatching her coffee cup off the counter and drinking the last swig.

  “They won’t make it far,” she drones in her gloom and doom voice. “There’s an exodus on the highway today. Everyone who waited by their vehicles for help to come yesterday is walking to an exit, in some cases 15-20 miles. They will be hungry and thirsty coming down those exit ramps. Small towns will be overrun.”

  “And the cities?”

  “Exodus works in reverse from big cities,” she advises. “After a week or so when the fighting over food starts people will try get out.”

  “But we will be fine hitting the highway for Texas in a day or so?”

  “Probably not,” she mutters, but then see’s the look on my face and smiles. “Listen, there’s going to be abandoned cars and trucks, groups of desperate people walking and rougher types trying to take people’s stuff. Try not to worry about it because there isn’t anything you can do now.”

  “We could stay here,” I propose, worried about a road trip into the forbidden zone.

  To this she wrinkles her nose and puffs her bangs, looking at me as if I am stupid. This look lasts until I relent and she rewards me with a kiss. It appears that I am on the look at me, I’m pretty, then do what Izzy wants plan.

  “Let’s go buy some cigarettes,” she orders, taking me by the hand and dragging me out into the street.

  “I don’t smoke,” I argue, watching her scan the street in both directions for a convenience store. “I didn’t realize you did?”

  “I don’t, but that’s not the point,” she explains. “We are trading a currency in decline for one with an upside.”

  “So like stocks?”

  “Correct,” she grins, pointing to the right and marching toward a Mom and Pop Store. “We know that the
paper money we have is going to lose value. We also know that cigarettes are a finite resource that will be hard to come by very soon.”

  I follow along, hard pressed to argue. The front doors of the store are plastered with hand written posters warning of a cash only policy. Inside a Russian sounding man, who I assume owns the place, is exchanging items for cash. Two large men stand by the other doors, one in front and one on the side. They look like security in case anyone decides to try and make a run for it. The store’s picked over pretty well. Snack cakes and candy bars are sparse on the shelves. The coolers are devoid of beer, but some soda remains. The energy drink section is nothing but bare shelves. Those kids love their Red Bulls. Behind the counter the cigarette racks are empty. Are we too late?

  Izzy starts talking to the guy, who offers to sell her a few packs from his private collection for an exorbitant price. She steps away and confers with me in whispers. It seems the guy was probably smart enough to pull all the cartons and hide them in the back. This way he can start price gouging immediately.

  “Sounds like he’s pretty smart,” I whisper.

  “Except that he’s trading valuable commodities for worthless paper,” she points out. “If this was going to be over in a week then yes, he’d be considered brilliant. Being as this is permanent all he has done is giveaway the only valuable items he possessed.

  She buys two packs of Marlboro’s for twenty bucks, then hands me twenty and tells me to purchase a couple. I do, but complain about the cost. She chuckles and waves me off.

  “The twenties are basically toilet paper,” she explains a second time, spitting on the ground. “If the cigarettes are worth twenty now, what are they going to be worth in a week?”

  “You have a point,” I am forced to agree. “What now?”

  “There’s a 7-11 a block down. Let’s go see what the going rate is on smokes,” she proposes, already walking in that direction. “Maybe they got some of those little doughnuts for breakfast.”

  “Are baked goods going to be worth more later?”

  “Doubtful,” she grins, walking ahead of me. “I’m too hungry to save them.”

  DAY TWO

  There are new faces in the coffee shop this morning. Wendy tells me it’s influx from the highway. I roll my eyes at Izzy, who just nods and smiles. This one clearly loves being right. While a few refugees are sitting inside enjoying coffee and what looks like fruit cocktail, another dozen are sitting on the curb out front or leaning on parked cars. I notice a few of the cars have busted out side windows, but Izzy shrugs this off suggesting the real looting is still a few days off.

  After coffee, which is ten dollars a cup today, we walk back to the car. In the backseat are two large nylon backpacks. These are the type someone might wear if they were seriously hiking around. They weigh a ton and we drag them into the room. Apparently the broken windows spooked her with regard to leaving them in our vehicle. She passes this off as not wanting anyone to bust out a window just to check them out.

  She also removes a .40 Cal handgun from the trunk. Initially, this worries me, but when she jerks the rack, ejecting a bullet, then catches it, I figure she’s seen a gun before. Under her direction, I drag several wooden pallets around the beach side, stacking them by our glass patio doors. These were abandoned by delivery trucks and no one notices me when I nab them. Izzy uses a hammer and crowbar she has acquired without my knowledge and starts breaking them down.

  When she’s done I observe her stuffing boards in the track sideways. An hour later the entire length of the six-foot track has several layers of boards rammed into it. She then takes some longer boards and wedges them up and down, holding the wood in the bottom of the horizontal tracks down. Most of this seems redundant, but she works at it all afternoon. When she’s done I can barely see the beach around the wood and she’s used up a half dozen pallets. We walk out the front door and go around to see it from the beach side.

  “It’s still a glass door,” I pester her as we walk.

  “Twenty glass doors,” she lectures. “Two or three are barricaded and the rest aren’t. Which do you rob first?”

  “Maybe I assume the ones barricaded have something good to steal inside?” I argue as we come down the beach and view our patio door.

  “You’re not a professional thief,” she snorts, “just an average Joe suddenly displaced by this disaster. Maybe you’re hungry or thirsty. This imaginary looter is going to pick out the easiest target.”

  “Well he’s not going to be poking around here,” I declare, looking at the glass from the outside.

  Izzy has hand written WE SHOOT FIRST with black paint on a square piece of plywood. She set it against the glass before she built her pallet wall. She stands, hands on her hips smiling. Next to the words is a cardboard box nailed to the plywood. Closer inspection reveals this to be an empty box of .40 Cal bullets.

  “Kind of excessive don’t you think?” I shrug, looking over my shoulder at two guys sitting on a bench sharing a bag of Fritos. “I thought you said the early days will be calm.

  “They will be, but we got a much bigger migration than I was expecting,” she contends, heading back to the front. “It’s time for us to keep our heads down and stay out of sight.”

  “We’ve been doing that,” I suggest, slapping her on the rear.

  She slows to almost a stop and gives me a stern look. Before I can apologize, she rolls her eyes and giggles. We are in the honeymoon stage which makes dealing with this mess much easier. I follow along and she tells me to post up outside our door and wait. We decide that from now on someone needs to stay by the room. She keeps the gun, tucked in the back of her jeans and covered by her hoodie. This relaxes me a bit as I watch her wander down the street in search of dinner.

  The two lane road that runs past this motel has become a hiking trail. At any one time a dozen travelers are present moving in either direction. Yesterday these were mostly locals or the beach crowd, but today suit jackets and business skirts have been sprinkled in as well. I’m watching a middle aged woman in moderately high heels suffer down the road, when Randall’s Yellow jeep roars into view. I’m expecting it to turn in, but Rocky just slows momentarily, before accelerating out of sight. Neither Randall nor Derrick was driving and it takes a moment for the implications of that to form in my mind. What happened to my friends? When Izzy said they wouldn’t get far I didn’t attach such an ominous outcome to her statement.

  “Hey, you got any beers,” a long haired kid holding a bong asks me.

  “Um, no,” I mumble, eyes still down the road.

  “I got stuff to trade with dude,” he continues, an optimistic smile spread on his face.

  “Like what?” I query, drawn away from darker thoughts for the moment.

  “Lots of stuff,” he confides, quieter now as he leans on the wall outside my door. “Weed, smokes, snacks.”

  “Hang on to the smokes,” I advise him. “They’re going to be worth more tomorrow.”

  He does a self-satisfied head bob, indicating that he’s aware of whatever information I am trying to impart. That or he’s smoking too much of his own stash. In his open bag I spy two tiny cellophane tubes of Hostess mini-doughnuts. Izzy was looking for them yesterday, but found none. Digging in my pocket I come back with only twelve dollars.

  “How much do you want for the doughnuts?”

  “No money Bro,” he winces, and then whispers. “Paper money is on the way out.”

  He’s a complete stoner, but he’s not stupid. It seems he has already realized the economic opportunities afforded a person living at the end of the world. I hold up a finger and turn the door knob behind my back. When I start to slip inside, he begins to follow. I have to wave him off and point at the ground as if I was training a dog. He stays, but leans around as far as he can to get a view of the inside of our room. In the pocket of my hoodie are the packs of cigarettes I bought yesterday at Izzy’s request. He’s notices them right off and displays vigorous interest.


  “Nice,” he whispers, pulling out the two sleeves of doughnuts. “Which ones you want, chocolate or powdered?”

  “Both,” I reply offhandedly, pulling the door shut behind me. “They’re for a lady friend.”

  I can tell he knows the smokes are the better end of this deal, but he’s a shrewd negotiator. He waffles, rolling his head from side to side stalling. Behind him, a guy in a business suit has wandered off the road and sees the pack in my hand. His eyes fixate and he reflexively licks his lips. I’m watching this as the guy with the doughnuts caves and hands them both over. I pass him a pack of smokes as the guy in the suit watches closely. Stoner guy walks down a few doors before Suit and Tie Guy catches up to him. They have a frantic discussion. It’s clear from the pained expression on his face that any amount of cash he has won’t buy the cigarettes.

  “Cigarettes and bullets,” I mutter, taking the doughnuts inside.

  Before I can get back to the door, Izzy blows in. She’s carrying a crumpled brown paper bag under one arm, but looks perplexed.

  “Did you trade those cigarettes?” she groans, wagging a thumb over her shoulder. “Some guy in a suit jumped me at the door asking if I had anymore.”

  “I cannot tell a lie,” I recite, a hand over my chest. “I did trade one pack.”

  “I hope you got something we can use,” she complains, slamming the door and leaning back on it to make sure it latches. “If you swapped for a PlayStation we are going to have a long talk about priorities.”

  “I did okay. What did you come up with?” I ask, pointing at the bag.

  She tosses the bag at me, hitting me in the chest before slipping into the bathroom. Inside the bag is a tube of Hello Kitty bubble gum flavored toothpaste, a travel size box of tampons, and a half empty bottle of Pert shampoo. Stepping over to the bathroom door, I lean on the top frame and frown.

  “I was hoping for Italian.”

  “Funny guy,” she remarks, pulling up her hoodie in the mirror revealing a second paper bag.

  “The plot thickens,” I sigh, watching her untangle the bag from the top of her jeans.