by North, Geoff
She couldn’t remember the blast taking place. Most of her co-workers had been gathered round the television in the break room watching the news unfold. A few more had stood at the big window in the main lobby and seen the missile trails streak across the sky. All Angela could recall was Trish Saquet’s final high-pitched words. Jesus that hurts. Angela hadn’t seen what Trish was screaming about. She had already taken cover under her desk by that time. She had curled up into a ball, her knees pressed into her cheeks, and she was whispering goodbye to her sorry ass.
She had woken up a few hours later in a cramped, black hole, choking on dust. There was the faintest point of grey light peeking through the debris by her left foot. A piece of drywall had jammed uncomfortably up between her legs, and the top of her head was stuck at an awkward angle in one of the desk’s inner corners. Angela had removed the drywall slab and positioned herself in the tiny area with her face next to the patch of grey light, allowing her just enough room to breathe. She had fished around in the shattered picture frames, shards of glass, fragments of plastic, and endless dust, eventually finding two of the three water bottles she had stashed beneath the desk with her. She had sipped one of them slowly, listened to the rubble settle, and tried to plan a way out of her predicament. Angela had heard someone crying, a woman, she thought. She’d tried putting a face to the sound, but couldn’t. The woman wasn’t speaking; she hadn’t been calling out to anyone, or telling them where she was. She had just wailed her mournful, weak noises, and Angela had sipped away at her water, wandering who it might be. Maybe Trish—Trish the Dish is what the guys in the office called her. Trish the Dish with the big, fake tits.
Jesus, that hurts. What had hurt so much to force Trish to take the Lord’s name in vain? Angela didn’t like it when people did that. She had finished her first bottle of water and decided do something. She had to get out of her little hole and help whoever that was crying. Even foul-mouthed tramps didn’t deserve to suffer. Angela had started to pick at that little trickle of light with her fingers and stopped. I only have one bottle of water left. I need to save it, I can’t share.
But it was more than just the struggle between helping another human being and self-preservation. Angela was terrified. She had lived through the worst of it and felt content to stay in her little black space a while longer. Once she worked her way out, Angela would have to deal with what was left. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet, maybe never. She had rested her face next to the opening, closed her eyes, and listened to the agonized cries of her co-worker grow fainter.
I’ll make my way out. I’ll go to her and help… soon.
The bomb had smashed into Winnipeg forty-eight hours ago bringing the end to a half million lives. Angela had woken from beneath her desk twelve hours later and listened to her co-worker die. She had gulped down the second bottle of water, swallowing her guilt and self-loathing along the way. Now it was time to do something. Angela had to face her new world.
Digging her way out from under the desk turned out to be a lot harder than she thought it would be. She was weak and hungry, and the debris fought back, stabbing into finger tips and slashing at her arms. The worst injuries Angela had ever received in her office environment up to this point were paper cuts. The conglomeration of furniture and files she had worked in all of her adult life had turned deadly.
Angela was stunned when she finally managed to crawl free and stand to her feet. She was outside, and the city was on fire. Walls of flame reached up and reflected muddy yellow light off a roiling blanket of black above. The smoke from the burning buildings had nowhere to go, trapped low beneath an endless cloud of fallout pressing back down on the earth that had spawned it. She went to the corner of the street—where the corner had been—and searched the horizon east for her home. The fifteen story building was gone; or at least the top half was. The single bedroom apartment on the twelfth floor she’d lived in for the last six months no longer existed. She had lived alone and hadn’t made many friends there—she didn’t even own a cat for company—but Angela would miss the place for its close proximity to work. She loved no longer having to wait for buses or call a cab on the mornings she was running late. Angela could walk to work and be there in less than five minutes.
There’s no more work to go to, she reminded herself. No more buses to take and cabs to call. Even the street corner she was standing on was gone; the concrete torn up and pulverized into dust. All that remained as proof a busy intersection once existed on the corner of Smith and Delgardo was the mass of a twisted traffic light pole at Angela’s feet.
Dear Lord… where am I supposed to go?
A familiar voice spoke inside her head. This is what damnation looks like, girl… the end of the flipping world. It was Angela’s step-father. He spoke to her almost every day; his booming tone as loud in her mind as it ever was when he was living. How’s a useless thing like you going to survive in a place like this?
Angela chewed at her bottom lip—a nervous habit she’d picked up at the age of fourteen, shortly after Dan Bennet had married her mother—and answered softly into the wind. “I’m afraid, Dad, but I’m not useless. I’ll find a way… I’ll find others to help me.” She still called him Dad, even though the brute was no longer around to smack her into saying it.
I’ll find others, he responded mockingly. Why doesn’t that surprise me? You’ve been relying on others your whole life… why stop now?
Hot wind whipped through Angela’s short, grey hair. It buffeted her body, almost sending her to her knees. She made a feeble squeaking sound and started crawling through the rubble of her work place. She couldn’t face this alone, and she certainly didn’t want to face it alone with only her dear old step-father’s advice to carry her along. Angela had to find someone she knew to help her through. She called their names, and no one answered.
It was Trish. She cried in agony, and I listened to her die.
Maybe Trish wasn’t dead. Perhaps there were more survivors like Angela, trapped under their desks or balled up into washrooms and closets. It would be almost impossible to hear their screams in the thunderous roar of flames surrounding her. It had been a miracle Angela had heard those faint cries in the first place. She started pulling the wreckage away. After ten agonizing minutes she gave up. The heat had grown unbearable, the task lying in front of her beyond impossible. There was nothing substantive enough left—besides the miserable space beneath her overturned desk—to take cover in. Bonn’s Accounting was a pile of ruin. Whoever it was Angela had heard crying was thankfully gone. She didn’t have the strength or time to find anyone else.
Giving up already? Lazy girl. Let those before you suffer for your sins. Lazy, cowardly girl. I wish I’d had more time with you… maybe I could’ve knocked some morals into you.
Something big started to groan behind her. Angela turned and watched the remains of an old brick building come crashing down. Andy’s Delicatessen… I bought lunch there every Friday. It punched the pavement with a rumble, throwing up a cloud of smoke and dust into the even bigger clouds of smoke and dust above. Angela heard the sound of what was like a thousand firecrackers going off at once. She saw the sparks a few seconds later, a sea of orange and yellow sparkles travelling above the column of dusty smoke. A strong gust of wind caught the floating embers and drove them towards where Angela was standing. They rained about her magically, a million points of starlight, floating in the black and grey. They settled in the crumpled mess of paper, wood, and plastic at her feet and continued to smoulder brightly. The sparks rained into her hair and bit her shoulders. She danced about wildly, striking the pain away. Her desk burst into flames, and Angela ran.
There she goes… running away from doing what’s right. Run, girl! Run, you useless thing.
She staggered in the opposite direction from where Andy’s had collapsed, away from where she once worked, and towards that area of city block not already consumed in flames. It was too late for Trish. It was too late for Lisa, Michelle, Sa
ndra, and all the other workers she occasionally went out with for drinks and called her friends. Even the ones she didn’t like; the men that laughed and called her the sexy old Jesus-freak with a nice ass behind her back. Even her boss, John Bonn—the man that once owned the flaming pile of debris at her heels—was beyond rescue. They were all beyond hope. Angela would have to find someone else to save.
Chapter 6
She went west, out of the business district and towards the suburban part of the city. Angela wanted to get away from the collapsing office buildings. She wanted to find the homes where people used to live. Fires were still raging around her, but they were smaller and spaced farther apart. She stepped carefully over fallen power lines, even though they looked as dead and inactive as everything else. Electricity was a thing of the past but tripping on the tangles of endless charred cables at her feet was a very real possibility.
Angela scavenged what she could from exposed basements and flattened corner stores. If she’d had money to leave for the stolen bottles of water and bags of potato chips, she would have. She had even scrounged around for a pen and paper in the smoking aftermath of a 7-Eleven to leave a note. Sorry I couldn’t pay for the melted chocolate bars and flat soft drink. I don’t have any money. I’ll pay you back when the city’s back on its feet and money means something again. That’s what she would’ve written, or something to that effect, had she managed to find a pen the ink hadn’t boiled out of, or paper that hadn’t been transformed into ash. Angela took what she could and remembered her path. She would make it up to them someday.
She went on like that for hours, searching for food and fresh water, calling weakly into the wind for other poor retches stumbling about in the ruined city. The fires continued, and the smoke blocked the stars above. Angela knew it was night-time; the dainty gold wristwatch her grandmother had given her was still working, still ticking the hours, minutes, and seconds away. It was 10 p.m. and Angela was tired. She had found enough to eat and drink since leaving Bonn Accounting, and had stored more in the pockets of her dress to last another twenty-four hours. Angela wanted to get out of the smoke. She needed to find a cool, dark place to curl up in and sleep the next ten or twelve hours away. Should’ve stayed under your desk.
She found a single story house still standing behind the rubble of a collapsed church. This will do just fine. The glass once sitting inside the window frames had blown in, but the structure of the building seemed solid enough. The front door was locked—or the latch had been damaged in the blast—so she crept in through the open living room window. It was dark and still inside, perfect for her needs. She groped forward, and her foot bumped into an overturned coffee table. She blinked her eyes a few times, adjusting her sight to the almost complete blackness, and saw the hulking form of an antique chesterfield beyond the table. She leaned forward and felt the coarse fabric covering the middle pillow with her fingertips. Angela would’ve squealed in excitement if she wasn’t so tired. She crawled over the table and sat on one end of the couch. She closed her eyes and let her head sink back into the cushions.
Angela had lived through the end of times and was sitting on a comfortable couch in the dark. She pulled her legs up from the floor and stretched out. She could see the pile of stone and brick where the church had stood out through the open window. She shifted onto her side for a more comfortable view. Angela studied the holy black mound outside and mourned for the people that once went there to worship. They were all gone now, burned away and scattered throughout the smoke of the city. But the site where that church had been was still there. The bricks, the stones, and the crushed pews underneath were still there. Those thoughts comforted Angela as she drifted off into sleep.
Chapter 7
Something was making a high-pitched squeal in her dreams. One of those dreams was of Trish the Dish Saquet spread out on the boss’s desk letting the piggish men of Bonn Accounting have their way with her, one after the other. Angela could see Trish’s pretty face hanging off the desk’s edge, upside down, and red with exertion. Her thick red lips were stretched tightly into her cheeks, and she was squealing between her big, too-white teeth. The upside-down frown looked demonic, the woman’s black eyes bore into Angela’s soul. This is what you always wanted, but were too afraid and prudish to ask for, the eyes accused. The men high-fived each other after their turns were done, and some high-fived during the act. Trish continued staring at Angela and squealed even louder when John Bonn went last. His penis was as thick as the 1-litre plastic pop bottle Angela had stolen from the corner store, and twice the length. He leered up at his personal secretary and wagged his tongue at Angela. You’re next, darling.
The grinning accountants with their pants still bundled around their ankles; the rocking desk, Trish’s black eyes and glistening white teeth were too much for Angela to bear. But worst of all was John’s threatening expression. He was so good to me over the years. We had a professional relationship… and I loved him. She tried covering her eyes, but the horrible scene remained with her. It’s a dream, my eyes are already closed. I can’t escape this.
The self-satisfied squeal whistling between Trish’s teeth became louder. The woman’s red makeup-smeared lips and cheeks morphed into something even more terrible. The teeth sharpened, transforming into yellow fangs. The black of her eyes narrowed into vertical strips surrounded in pools of bloodshot green. Whiskers sprouted from the sides of her nose. The noise she made burrowed into Angela’s brain like pins being jammed into her ears.
Angela snapped her head forward and stared into a bleak, grey sky. A cat was howling somewhere off in the distance. It sounded as if were being roasted alive, and chances were it was. She felt her heart hammering inside her chest and forced herself to breathe easily. The cat’s screeching died off and Angela’s heart rate slowed. She was sitting up on a chesterfield in a stranger’s house. She was alone and afraid, but she was safe.
So why could she still hear that incessant squealing? ellleeeeeeeeeeellleeeeeeeee
Angela looked out through the window at the church ruins. She could make more of it out now. Night had passed and morning was doing its best to show there was still a sun rising somewhere on the eastern horizon. She saw a blackened round surface sitting on a precarious angle near the top of the collapsed church. After letting her eyes adjust through the dull layer of ground smoke, Angela finally recognized the church bell. The weak squealing continued.
elllleeeeeeeeelllleeeeeeee
Angela could see more of the small room she’d snuck into the night before. There was a small, old-styled television—the kind they used to make before flat screens attached to walls took over—sitting on an equally small end table. It was pushed up at an angle into the corner next to the blown in window. Dozens of tiny photographs in cheap gold frames hung crookedly on the walls, and a few more were littered across the brown linoleum flooring. They were old pictures, mostly black and white, of people from generations past—grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, moms and dads. It was a scattered collection of silent memories, gathered along the walls with no one left living in the home to appreciate.
Elllllleeeeeeee… Elllllleeeeeeeeeeee.
The sound was in the room with her. Angela’s head turned slowly, towards the far end of the ancient chesterfield where her dirty shoes had streaked the burgundy-colored cushions filthy grey. There was an armchair in the corner, directly across from the television. Something black was seated in it, something fried into the upholstery. Angela jumped back, curling her legs up away from the thing. At first, she thought it was a pile of garbage bags, stuffed full with bits of refuse sticking through the melted walls of plastic. It moved, and Angela screamed.
The thing in the chair was still squealing when Angela had finished. ELLLLEEEE… ELLLEEEEEEEEEEE… ELLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. It was a person, and he or she was stuck there. Angela watched its fingers wiggle grotesquely on the arms of the chair. There was a long white knitting needle stuck between the
swollen knuckles of her right hand. Its arms and shoulders squirmed in a hopeless attempt to free itself, and it squealed louder. Angela crawled across the chesterfield for a better look. She could tell it was a woman—had been a woman—from the blackened remains of her dress just below the knees, and the melted pantyhose fused into the skin on her legs. She had taken the brunt of the shockwave; shards of window glass were sticking out from every part of her. Blood had leaked from a hundred entry points over her burned flesh and dried.
Angela knelt in front of her and whispered. “What… what are you trying say?”
The woman’s eyes were gone, melted clean out of her skull. All that remained in the left socket was a three-inch piece of glass. She tried wagging her head in an attempt to speak through her charred lips but could only manage her pathetic mewling. “Ellleee…. Ellleee… Ellleeeee.”
Help me.
How could Angela help the poor soul? She was melted into an armchair. “Can I… would you like a glass of water?” It was the stupidest thing to ask, but Angela had no other idea how to assist the dying woman. The burned skull wagged its head again, side to side, and then up and down.
“Aaawwwwerrrrr.”
Water.
Angela stood up and went to pat the woman’s arm. She changed her mind, imagining the simple gesture likely to cause even more unimaginable agony. And she didn’t want to touch her. She held her hands up at the woman instead in a ridiculous motion that said stay right where you are, I’ll be right back. Angela backed away from the chair and went to find the kitchen.