“We should tell Mom.”
“If she makes it home, we can. But I think these roads are going to be closed off.”
“So what happens then?”
“What happens when?”
“Like does the water just keep coming up?”
“I don’t know. Not forever. Eventually, it will go down.”
“It’s weird. It’s like you never really expect something like this to happen.”
Day looked up. He shrugged.
“Eventually, someone will come by with a boat or something. They’ll send helicopters, I guess. Something. You see it happen on the news all the time.”
“What if the building tips over?”
Day put both hands to his throat and made a choking sound. Ellis laughed.
“I’m hungry,” Ellis said.
“We can’t cook anything.”
“I’m still hungry.”
“Maybe a peanut butter and jelly.”
“I don’t want that.”
“Quit being a jerk and play. You can eat after the game.”
Before he could make a move, Ellis heard someone knock. He slipped out of his chair and ran to the door. Day ran, too. They collided when they reached it. Ellis grabbed the doorknob, but Day karate-chopped his hand off it.
“Who is it?” he asked.
That was protocol when their mom wasn’t home. Ellis should have remembered that. You didn’t simply open doors to strangers.
“It’s Kuru from downstairs. From the bakery.”
Ellis looked at Day. He pursed his lips, then nodded and pulled open the door. The beam from Kuru’s flashlight blinded him.
“Lower that, would you?” Day asked.
“We’re eating a bunch of the bakery stuff if you want to come down. G-Mom sent me up to tell you.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s just going to go stale otherwise.”
“Sounds good.”
“Have you seen the other girl? Carmen?”
“In Apartment Two? No, why?”
“She was supposed to come down and join us, but she didn’t. I thought she might have decided to come up here with you.”
Ellis looked at Day. He knew Day liked Kuru, or at least thought she was pretty. He talked about her sometimes.
“We’ll just grab our stuff and come down,” Day said.
“What stuff?” Kuru asked.
It was true, Ellis thought. They didn’t have any stuff to bring.
“I guess we can just come along,” Day said. “Thanks.”
“Let’s check apartment two on the way down, okay?”
Ellis grabbed the pool noodle from the kitchen table. It knocked over a few chess pieces as he pulled it away. Knocking the pieces over reminded him to extinguish the candle before they left. He wet his fingers and doused the wick. Then, without really thinking about it, he stuck the candle and a pack of matches into his pocket. The wax felt a little warm, but it was okay. That was their stuff, he realized.
You guys didn’t have electricity, did you?” Kuru asked. “It may seem obvious to you, but I figured I should ask.”
She had meant to ask that right off, but then forgot. It was strange to be with the two boys. They reminded her of dogs, of energetic dogs, who were kind of cute until they ran into your legs and knocked you down.
“No, it went out,” Ellis said. “A couple hours ago now. Right before it got dark.”
“Same in our place. Have you seen how much water there is?”
“I guess a lot,” Day said. “It’s still coming, right?”
“We’re going to have to move out of the bakery. Out of the first floor. It’s already knee-deep.”
Kuru led them down the center staircase, flashing the light forward and back so they could see. She realized she had become so accustomed to the slowness of her G-Mom’s movement that she almost couldn’t believe how fast the boys traveled. Ellis, the younger one, jumped at the end of the first landing they came to. He swung himself around the newel-post and landed with a soft thud.
As soon as they reached the second floor, they heard the baby crying.
“He wasn’t crying when I came up,” Kuru said. “That’s new.”
“He sounds pretty upset,” Day said.
Before either of them could say anything else, Ellis sprinted toward the apartment. Kuru watched, amazed. The kid just took off and went right into the apartment without knocking or yelling or anything else. A second later, Day ran after him.
“You guys …” she said.
Then she ran. She had no idea why she ran, but if they did, she did. She kept the flashlight beam on the floor in front of her. She entered the apartment, unsure of the layout. Then she heard Ellis calling from the back portion of the apartment. He sounded relieved.
“Got him,” he called.
“The baby?” Kuru asked.
She felt confused. Why did they sprint like that? It felt like they knew something she didn’t know, and that annoyed her. It annoyed her plenty. She stepped into the dark hallway — the layout, she realized, was not very different from theirs downstairs — and flashed her beam up and down.
It flashed on Carmen. It flashed on Day squatting next to Carmen, holding his palm against her forehead.
“You okay?” Kuru asked. “What happened?”
“I tripped on the stupid laundry basket, that’s what happened. I could kill my mother right now.”
Kuru went slowly down the hallway. Ellis popped out of the back room with the baby in his arms. He looked comfortable holding the baby. It was sexist to admit it, but it sort of surprised her.
“Why did you guys run?” she asked.
They didn’t say anything, but they exchanged a look. It was a weird, knowing look. Kuru decided to let it go for the time being, but she marked it in her mental notebook just the same.
“I think I almost broke my neck,” Carmen said. “I really do. When I hit the wall my head snapped back onto my shoulders. It’s killing me.”
“Your head or your neck?” Kuru asked, squatting next to Day.
“My neck, mostly.”
Kuru used the flashlight to examine Carmen. She looked bad. She looked flushed and uncomfortable. Carmen held her hand on her neck and slowly moved in a circle, feeling for injuries. Before anybody could say anything else, the building shuddered. It rocked softly and made a tick-tick-tick sound, as if water had reached a new level. It was time to get G-Mom, Kuru knew. The water was rising faster than they could have guessed.
“You guys want to help me get my grandmother up here?” Kuru asked. “We planned to eat down there, but it’s drier up here. You don’t mind, do you, Carmen?”
“I don’t mind.”
“We may have to carry her up,” Kuru said.
“I’ll keep the baby,” Ellis said. “Can you two do it? Why don’t we put Carmen in a chair or something?”
That became the plan. Kuru helped Carmen into a chair next to the kitchen table. She guided her with the beam of the flashlight. Ellis sat on a chair beside Carmen and bounced the baby on his knee. The baby stunk, Kuru realized. He stunk like anything.
“We’ll bring everything up,” Kuru said. “Candles, food, whatever we’ve got. We might have to make a couple trips. First we have to get G-Mom.”
“You got any glazed?” Ellis asked.
“I think so,” Kuru said. “That your favorite?”
“I love glazed,” Ellis said. “I really do.”
He danced the baby on his knee.
“I don’t know,” Kuru said.
Day stood at the bottom of the steps, knee-deep in water, looking at the staircase in front of them. It wasn’t going to be easy. G-Mom sat in a straight-backed chair, looking up the stairs herself with the flashlight beam. Sixteen steps, Day guessed. The staircase was narrow and steep, and he couldn’t see how they were going to lift the chair with G-Mom and manage to keep it level. It was going to be heavy and awkward.
“We can’t stay down here,” G
-Mom said. “I think I can climb it.”
“I don’t think so, G-Mom,” Kuru said.
“Well, I doubt you two can lift me. Not up those stairs.”
She had a point, Day acknowledged. But what else could they do? The downstairs was flooded. Water had come in everywhere and it now sloshed around in a dull, smelly mess. It was cold, too. Day couldn’t say for sure, but he guessed the outdoor temperature was around fifty, maybe a little lower. With no heat in the apartment building, and with the water sapping whatever heat remained in the pipes, the temperature felt nippy.
“The thing is,” Kuru said, “once we start lifting her, we won’t have anywhere to put her down until we get to the top. I don’t think we’ll be able to rest her on anything.”
“I can climb,” G-Mom said, but Day noticed she didn’t get out of the chair.
“Maybe if we get all four of us,” Day suggested. “Maybe with four of us we can do it.”
“I don’t know if Carmen is going to be up for lifting anything,” Kuru said.
“I’ll run up and check.”
He trotted up the stairs and found Carmen and Ellis at the table still. They had changed the baby, though. Day could smell the improvement. He explained the situation.
“If G-Mom will hold the baby, I’ll help lift,” Carmen said.
“With four of us it won’t be bad,” Day said.
He led them back down the stairs. G-Mom held her hands out for the baby without a word. Ellis handed him over.
“Once we start going, we have to go straight up,” Kuru said. “One lift.”
“We can do it,” Day said.
And he thought they could. He took the front right chair leg. Ellis took the other front leg and the two girls took the back legs. They had to reach down into the water to grab the legs. On the count of three, they lifted.
Turned out, she wasn’t heavy at all. Day nearly laughed. G-Mom was made of cotton. They went right up the stairs, G-Mom clutching the baby. Day told everyone to put her down when they got to the landing, but they probably could have kept going.
“That’s the best ride I’ve had in years,” G-Mom said. “Thank you all.”
“Let’s carry her right in,” Kuru said, “then we can run down and get the doughnuts.”
They whisked G-Mom into Carmen’s apartment and parked her next to the kitchen table. She still held Juan on her lap. Ellis had set up a candle, Day saw. Otherwise the apartment was dark.
“We have more candles, too,” Kuru said. “Downstairs.”
“Bring everything you need,” G-Mom said. “I don’t want you going up and down with all that water around.”
“I’ll be okay, G-Mom.”
“No, I mean it. You never know when this building may give a little. We got to keep to high ground.”
“Maybe so, G-Mom.”
“I’ll go with you,” Day told Kuru. “Ellis, why don’t you come, too? More hands. We can make it in one trip, maybe.”
Ellis stood. Carmen, Day observed, kept trying to get her neck working. It must have hurt like crazy to have her head snapped back like that, he thought. G-Mom had the baby standing on her lap. It was going to be okay, he decided. As long as nothing else happened, they were going to be okay.
SURVIVAL TIP #2
* * *
One of the hardest things to recognize in an emergency condition is that you have entered into an emergency condition. That may sound simplistic, or self-evident, but it is true. Our brains prefer the ordinary, the routine, and they will try to push for a return to familiar patterns. Accepting that you are in an emergency situation is the first step toward survival. Things will not return to normal immediately. Events have gone to a more extreme mode and it is in the best interests of all concerned to get that into the common conversation. The sooner one can grasp the reality of her or his situation, the better chance that person will have for survival.
We should tell her,” Ellis said.
They stood on the last three stairs of the center steps, watching the light beam move over the water on the first floor. The water looked ugly, Ellis thought. It was black and dirty and it smelled like gutters. Inside the water, under it, over it, all around it, the snakes patrolled. He knew that Day had promised the snakes would remain in the basement, but he didn’t believe it for an instant.
“Tell me what?” Kuru asked.
“Oh, it’s just a thing,” Day said.
“Tell me,” Kuru said, and she turned the flashlight beam on each of them, one at a time.
“You know Teddy?” Ellis asked.
“Teddy? That punk who thinks he’s all street?”
“His uncle owns this building. I think it’s his uncle, anyway,” Day said. “So Teddy uses the basement.”
“Uses it for what?”
“He had snakes down there,” Ellis said. “Constrictors.”
“Con … what?” Kuru asked, her voice rising.
“Constrictors,” Ellis repeated. “Pythons, and red-tailed boas.”
“Downstairs, below us?”
Ellis nodded. He saw Day nod, too.
“Let me get this straight,” Kuru said, her posture growing rigid. “That idiot Teddy used the downstairs to raise snakes?”
“His uncle let him,” Ellis said. “He made good money off it.”
“I don’t care what he made. How many?”
“Maybe a dozen,” Day said. “I think a dozen.”
“But they’re in cages, surely.”
“The water …” Ellis said, but Kuru stopped him short by pushing past him and going up a couple steps.
“You’re telling me they could be down in this water?” Kuru asked, obviously freaked.
“They’re probably still in the basement,” Day said. “We shut the door. We have a key to it because sometimes we feed them for Teddy if he’s not around.”
“Feed them what?”
“Rats,” Ellis said.
“Oh, it gets better and better,” Kuru said. “Are you all out of your minds?”
“Lot of people think it’s cool to have a python,” Day said. “He makes good money off them. He really does. His uncle thought it was a free enterprise sort of thing.”
“People like to watch them eat rats,” Ellis said. “You know, certain guys do.”
Ellis was aware that it all sounded a little weird when you said it right out. He liked the snakes, personally, but he supposed it wasn’t a great idea to raise them in an apartment building. Snakes made good pets, actually. They were quiet, they didn’t demand much, they didn’t have to be walked like dogs, and they stayed where you put them, usually.
“Even if they were up here, and I don’t think they are, they wouldn’t attack us,” Day said. “We’re too big.”
“But …” Kuru said, the light of understanding coming on in her eyes, “the baby would have been just right.”
“That’s why I ran,” Ellis confessed. “Just in case.”
“That is messed up,” Kuru said. “That is so messed up.”
“I’m telling you, we’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Day said. “They can’t get out of the basement.”
“When was the last time you fed them?” Kuru asked.
“Oh, they can go a long time without eating,” Ellis said. “That’s one of the cool things about them. That’s why they’re good pets.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Kuru said.
“Teddy fed them last week for sure,” Day said. “That’s what I remember.”
“Definitely last week,” Ellis confirmed.
“Why anyone needs to bring a snake like that into this house,” Kuru said, “is beyond me. I swear.”
“If you don’t want to go in the water, we’ll go get the stuff,” Ellis said. “Just tell us what to grab.”
“You’re going to wade through that water?” Kuru asked.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Day said.
Ellis hoped that was true. He didn’t know for sure. There was on
e snake — Big Monte, Teddy called him — that Ellis wouldn’t want to mess with. He was huge, for one thing, and he was nasty, for another. While the other snakes moved around the cage infrequently, and slowly when they did, Monte had more energy. He twined around the aquarium with grace and speed, and when they dropped a rat into the cage with him, he didn’t hesitate. He struck and then rolled over the rat, squeezing it to death, usually consuming it before the others had even managed to kill their prey. Big Monte was a machine.
“I’ll do it,” Kuru said, coming down the stairs again. “I’ll go with you. But I swear if I see a snake, I’m going to climb you guys like a tree. Do you understand me? I’m not playing about this.”
“It’s going to be fine,” Day said.
Ellis stepped into the water. It came up to his waist, which meant it had come up a few inches even since they carried Kuru’s grandma to the second floor. The water was cold, too. It was strange to think they were inside a building. You didn’t think of water being in an apartment like this. He waited while the other two stepped off the stairs into the water, all of them feeling forward with their feet. Except for the flashlight, the apartment was dark. Ellis realized you usually counted on light from the street, or from the stars, for all he knew, but now everything was dark.
“So what are we getting?” Day asked.
“Just the leftover baked goods. And anything else we might need. We have some more candles and we need to get G-Mom’s medicine.”
“Why do you call her G-Mom, anyway?” Ellis asked, wading slowly after Kuru.
“Well, for a while she raised me. My mom had some issues. So my grandmother became my mom, sort of, and when my real mom came back I kind of had two moms. So G-Mom became short for my grandma mom.”
“Makes sense,” Day said.
“Let’s turn in here,” Kuru said. “This is the bakery.”
The door wouldn’t open. Kuru stood in front of it and turned the doorknob, but it wouldn’t push inside.
“Maybe it’s blocked,” Kuru said. “I just closed it when we came out. I don’t know why, really. Force of habit.”
“The water has come up,” Day said.
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