Quake

by K. R. Alexander

  By mid-afternoon, after struggling for hours on empty stomachs, talking about work and social media and what we’d been doing while in quarantine, comparing who had binge-watched the most shows—Trent had seen everything—we were exhausted, mouths dry, heads and bruises aching. All for the sensation of having traveled the length of the average driveway. At least the view had changed, crossing a section of I-405 so flooded and covered in ruins that we went on east, through wide parks and destroyed neighborhoods, climbing to higher ground so contaminated saltwater no longer mocked our swollen tongues and parched lips. Soaked up to the bottoms of our jackets in filthy water, we were barely even dried on top as the sun went behind clouds, looking horrifyingly like rain.

  Then, at last, Ramak called back to us stragglers that we’d reached a QFC—how could he tell?—and were taking a break to scavenge.

  Unfortunately, store shelves, even in the few places like grocery stores that had been kept open through the virus lockdown, had not been able to maintain top notch stocking. They’d been recovering, but people had hoarded so much, stripping shelves with such paranoia, that the rest of us who didn’t have SUVs to fill, or extra freezers, or closets to store toilet paper, all had to tighten our belts and use two squares at a time for a while. Now, we could expect QFC to have a reasonable stock before the quake had hit and the wave had washed half the place away. Anything watertight and unbroken we might be able to salvage and eat—or drink—but would any of the store’s bounty remain? Or be scattered over miles or buried?

  The trouble with finding out came from all angles. Running out of daylight, getting hurt in the effort, eating something we thought was safe only to get sick from it, and on and on. At least Ramak turned out to be right about the store’s location. We knew because of the people who’d beaten us here.

  My throat clenched to see twenty men, women, and children picking the place apart. But, no, it was all right—no hoarding, no resource guarding. They were so relieved to see us there were more tears than tense words. We told them about the group downtown and another in the park, helped in the search, and pooled what we could find to share out. Again, we lost a member who was going to escort this group back with assorted items from canned chili to Gatorade, now meaning to get everyone to Wilburton Hill Park.

  We spent so long foraging and comparing notes, then sharing around, making bags with shirts or jackets to carry treasures, the sun popped out below clouds, sinking beyond Seattle before we were ready to move on.

  Ramak studied the roads. Jackson urged him on, saying we could tackle the food once we got to I-90 and “made camp.”

  Ramak shook his head. “We have to find a place while it’s light, and go through this. That’s maybe another hour. Anyway, we can’t keep it up without fuel.”

  “Parking?” I pointed, having had my eye on rows of upright cars that didn’t look much the worse for wear.

  “I think so too.” Ramak held his hand out to me. “I can put that in the bag.” He had turned his jacket into a sack, wearing a torn button-down under it.

  “It’s fine.” I didn’t mean to clutch the intact, precious bag of Cheerios to my chest anymore than I expected the rush of terror that hit me at the idea of them being taken away.

  Ramak smiled, gentle curve of his lips, slight crinkles at his eyes as he met mine. “It’s okay.” Speaking softly, as if to a snarling dog. “I’ll give it back. You’ll want your hands free to climb over all this.”

  “Yeah…” I almost shoved the bag at him, frightened by my own response, voice catching. “I’m sorry. That’s fine. Thanks for carrying stuff.”

  He added the bag of cereal to his meager sack, then lightly touched my arm in the fleece, repeating, “It’s okay.”

  There was so much in the tone, the look, the touch, I don’t even know all the feelings. Like relief and hope and gratitude, even love in a sort of, I don’t know who you are but you’re all the family I have right now and our lives depend on each other so I love you, sort of way. At least for me. I don’t suppose he felt anything except that he was having to keep me calm.

  We went on.

  We had to use bricks to break windows and find some semblance of shelter and safety in two SUVs just as the rain started. Interiors were wet but not dripping, and we had some jackets to spread for insulation, small overhead lights coming on for us, and our lovely feast.

  A handful of Cheerios each, a handful of crushed potato chips each with ketchup, one banana safe in its skin, if rather black on the outside, divided into nine pieces with a business card from a console, and a single bottle of water also divided around between all. We poured the water carefully into our mouths, touching lips as little as possible, letting it drizzle in. Even so, some people hesitated, Jeff and Christine especially glancing at one another and I thought they were going to refuse. No one mention the virus. They drank like the rest of us.

  It wasn’t all we’d found. Only eating up the most bulky and one perishable item. For tomorrow we had a granola bar, a can of condensed soup with a pull top—having sent more canned goods with the others with hopes they’d be able to open them—a bottle of ketchup, a plastic sealed package of thawed waffles, a can of orange soda, and one more sixteen-ounce bottle of water.

  Ramak had wanted to conserve even more than this. Half a bottle of water tonight and only the chips or Cheerios, not both. He’d instantly been outvoted by the starving flock, Jackson quick to point out that we were going from a city to a city; there would be more.

  Jackson and Trent got in the back of the Explorer with me so our two newcomers, Sasha and Nazia, would have the seats and the other four, Ramak, Jeff, Christine, and Ari, took the second vehicle.

  We talked over dismal progress in the dark, how much farther we’d get tomorrow, then lay quiet, thoughts so distracted it didn’t even feel weird to be all pressed up tight with these guys.

  Then Trent said, “I can’t stop thinking about toaster waffle commercials.”

  We giggled. Next thing we knew, we were all talking about food. Trent’s boyhood fondness for Eggos, not knowing until he was a teenager that there was such a thing as a waffle from a waffle iron. Jackson’s weakness for Taco Bell even though he usually avoided all fast food and ate healthy. Nazia’s mom’s mouthwatering lamb seekh kebab with creamy mint yogurt sauce. Sasha’s thirty-minute veggie chili. And my totally impractical fondness for tiny foods: petit fours, cherry tomatoes, tartlets, mini muffins, tea party cucumber sandwiches.

  That made Jackson bring up sliders and we were off again. Bar food and favorite drinks and the cocktails or glasses of wine we swooned over.

  So we didn’t talk about the fear, the pain, the end of the world. We slept, and I, for one, was warm and grateful and certain we would keep walking the next day, and the next.

  Chapter 9

  We were seven by the time we reached I-90. Sasha had woken with a dry cough. Ari turned back with her, along with more survivors from the ruins. Again, no one said anything about it. Not as if we didn’t all know we’d been exposed to everything under the sun—or water, rather. Now the whole group, Ramak, Jackson, Trent, Christine, Jeff, Nazia, and me, were between twenty and thirty-five years old, healthy before this all started. Least sensitive demographic, in other words. And no Red Cross in sight. Someone had to push on.

  Interstate overpasses were skewed drunkenly from the quake, covered in debris from the flood, road split and cracked even on ground, but the waters had receded and, compared to picking our way through Bellevue, strolling down I-90 was a breeze.

  It had rained part of the night, still a drizzle that we turned our faces up to, desperate for a drink. We’d shared three of the ten mushy waffles for breakfast, frosted in ketchup, splitting one between three people. Ramak and Jeff carried the rest of our provisions. I cannot even describe how filthy I felt, but not being able to so much as take a sip of water in the morning, forget toothbrush or swishing your mouth out, was getting to me more than no shower. Ramak said there was a lot of water
in the waffles and the ketchup, that we’d have a drink later. But there’s a reason you never see anyone gargling with ketchup, no matter how wet it might be.

  I’d been kind of liking Ramak after his smile, then his returning my Cheerio bag as promised once we’d made car camp and I shared them around. Watching him with water bottle and soda can jammed into his jacket pockets up ahead on I-90, those feelings were growing less warm and fuzzy by the second.

  Speaking of warm and fuzzy, it did make me smile that Jackson and Trent seemed to be hitting it off. They’d had an off-and-on conversation going ever since the snowboarding.

  Trent was sore from being bunched up in the back of the SUV with us last night and Jackson guided him in stretches to work it out. Reminding me that he knew who I was for many months before I knew he existed, I noticed Trent didn’t say much—watching everyone, taking us in. I bet he was writing a screenplay about us in his head, or following us with an imaginary camera. Like everything, we didn’t say much about phones and computers and connections being gone. But I guessed Trent might be the one missing it all the most in a pure technology sense. The rest of us just wanted to be able to make a call and see a newsfeed or Google map.

  Sports talk didn’t carry them far. More about food today, Jackson prodding everyone into the conversation after a solid half hour talking to Trent about tacos: fast food tacos, Tex-Mex tacos, real Mexican tacos, fish tacos, breakfast tacos, chocolate tacos in the ice cream aisle, tacos no one has ever heard of. Trent watched him, lips parted, like a dog following a man waving a couple of sirloins.

  It had been soothing last night. Now I couldn’t stop thinking about being denied that water bottle, wanting to ask him to shut up. I wouldn’t do that. We were right to keep ourselves distracted. And Ramak was right to be super careful about provisions until we knew we could find something in Issaquah. Only … it was already getting harder to remember that.

  We paused to watch helicopters. They didn’t come anywhere near. Three of them, all down south, roughly around Tacoma and Mount Rainier area, circling and flying low.

  After a while, all of us glaring at them through the fine drizzle and low clouds, Jackson muttered, “What the fuck are they doing? Why aren’t they over Seattle? I know they can’t get in with trucks but … come on, man.”

  Ramak started to speak, then shook his head. He walked east. “If we can get to the plateau someone will have phone signals or radios.”

  I’d hardly taken a step when the road shuddered below my cold, painful feet in their wet, uneven shoes. I grabbed Trent’s hand, he squeezed mine, and we all froze, slightly crouched, until the tremor subsided. The aftershocks kept up yesterday, and Jackson said there were two last night but they never woke me. Maybe that was the last little gasp, the Cascadia line settling back for another few hundred years of slumber.

  Jackson, back on topic, trotted ahead to interrogate Ramak, who was also not a talker, about food. “What do you wish you had right now?”

  Ramak glanced at him. “A fully operational hospital, Whole Foods, and several hotels?”

  Okay, maybe I did still like him.

  “Lunch, man.” Jackson clapped a hand on his shoulder. “What’d you wish you had for lunch?”

  Ramak looked at the hand, inching away while he walked. “Oh… A green smoothie, extra bottles of water—”

  “Dammit, you’re impossible.” Jackson was laughing a little as he shook his head. “Know a grandmother when you were a boy? Favorite meal she cooked?”

  “It only makes us more hungry to—”

  “No, it doesn’t. Haven’t you seen Unbroken? It keeps people sane to talk about this stuff.”

  “Hopefully we’re not that far gone.” But Ramak sighed. “Abgoosht, I suppose. And a Caesar salad.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a romaine salad with a dressing of lemon—”

  “You’re funny.” Jackson really laughed this time. “The first thing. What is it?”

  Ramak paused. He did not look or sound like he was being funny. “Abgoosht? A Persian stew made with mutton and chickpeas. My grandmother made the best Abgoosht.”

  “Where’s she from?”

  “Shiraz,” then adding in response to Jackson’s blank look, “Iran. I used to sit on a stool in the kitchen while she cooked and we played question games. They were always more enjoyable than this one.”

  Jackson chuckled again. “You’re Iranian?”

  Ramak turned his head to look at him, so I could see the side of his face as they were walking ahead of Trent and me. The other three trailed, talking together. Even in profile, the expression was unmistakably cold. I didn’t think Jackson was stupid by any means, but I was beginning to wonder what made him think he was good enough with people to be a physical therapist—as he went right on striding, swinging his arms.

  “I’m American,” Ramak said. “I was born in this country. But—”

  Jackson waved a hand. “You know what I mean. I grew up in Seattle, but you don’t have to go back very many generations to find my people all over the place, from here or there—Eastern European, Irish, German, all sorts.” He looked around. “Vacarro? Italian?”

  Trent nodded. “Father’s side is Italian, mother’s is English and I don’t know what all.”

  “But—” Ramak pushed on after once again being interrupted, “Yes. I lived part of my life in Shiraz, part in Chicago. I’ve been in Bellevue ever since law school, and this country two decades all together. I’m still stopped by airport security every time I fly.”

  “Those fuckers,” Jackson said with feeling. “But you know?” He elbowed Ramak. “It’d help if you didn’t go around with your pockets bulging.” Casting a meaningful look to the protruding aluminum top and licking his lips.

  I thought Ramak was going to slap him. He did give Jackson a look, then paused, smiling just a bit. “Close enough to midday.” He pulled the orange soda can from the jacket pocket.

  We all crowded round in a circle like he’d whistled.

  I’m not a soda drinker. Green tea, hot chocolate, cocktails, a range of coffees I sample at work. But it’s no exaggeration to say those two mouthfuls constituted the best drink I’d ever had, and probably the best thing I’d ever tasted. Tart, blisteringly sweet, bubbly and a bit warm, mixing with traces of cool rainwater as I tipped my head way back to drink without the can touching my lips.

  It made two complete circles and returned to Ramak with another swallow still in it. He handed it over to me. I shook my head, ready to gouge out eyes for that last sip, but no way I was going to be singled out when everyone needed it as much as I did.

  “You take it,” Ramak said calmly. “You’re limping the most.”

  I glanced at my mismatched, unfitting shoes, no socks, blisters already stinging. He was always out in front. How did he know if anyone was limping or not? The idea that he was keeping an eye on me made my face heat as much as accepting the last swallow.

  “Loser take all?” I mumbled and the others chuckled. It was so, so, so good.

  Jackson made us stretch and bend before we went on, then I carried that can for fifty yards before Trent asked if I really thought it would catch any rainwater.

  “It’s not that. I just…” I trailed off, cheeks getting hot again as I looked around, flooded in my own absurdity. “I didn’t want to litter,” I whispered.

  Trent snorted, gulped, and forced a straight face. “I’ll take it.”

  “Thanks.” I gave him the can.

  Trent left it perched delicately on a truck tire beside a dead squirrel and a baby’s rattle.

  “That was noble of you,” I said just as softly.

  “Hey, we’re here for each other.” He took my hand. “If I can do anything to ease your burden, just let me know.”

  I had my lips pressed so hard together to maintain solemnity it was making my eyes water, while Jackson had gone back to the attack on Ramak, having jogged to catch up since the road was really open here and Ramak
was making the most of it.

  Jackson had given up on food and asked about Shiraz. “So, what’s it known for?”

  I perked up to pay attention to that one, embarrassed to admit there was no way I could have found the place on a map.

  “Ancient Persian city…” Ramak didn’t seem to think any more of this topic than the other ones. “These days … the virus. Like everywhere else. Otherwise … busy cultural hub, great literature, poets, beautiful gardens and mosques, fine museums, world-class wines … public executions.”

  I almost jumped. Trent’s hand tightened on mine.

  Jackson was shaking his head. “Holy fuck, man. Do you ever know how to nix a conversation…”

  “Occupational necessity.”

  I wanted to ask what sort of law he practiced but it seemed too obvious a subject change. Anyway, Trent and I were only observers to the awkwardness.

  Ramak continued. “It’s not fair to say, really. Shiraz hasn’t cornered the market with regards to executions anymore than to wine.”

  “Well … at least they’re not greedy…” Jackson cleared his throat.

  Ramak stopped. I almost walked into him, having been watching Jackson.

  We followed his gaze, the others stepping up with us. At last, we’d come far enough on I-90 to see into the lake and the valley. The trouble was, it wasn’t a lake anymore, and the road wasn’t an interstate anymore. We faced a small sea.

  Chapter 10

  We had to follow cracked roads, strewn with power poles and trees, up into the foothills of Cougar Mountain, wavering for the first time, struggling both to keep going the right way, and to be allowed to by the terrain.