The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse (12 page)

Surprised, I turned and looked behind me to see a woman with an extremely hard face, the kind that challenges you, which was partially hidden by a hoodie, baring her teeth at me. In the darkness, her features were hard to make out, but there was no mistaking the world of hurt I was fully anticipating.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she growled and held the box close.

“Oh,” I said. “Did you want some too? There’s probably enough.”

She looked past my head and saw the broken window on the car.

“Did you do this?” she asked. Her voice got higher and louder. “I’m gone for five minutes to go pee in a Corolla and
this
is what happens?”

“I thought it was abandoned,” I said. “I was just so cold and hungry—”

“Really?” she shouted. “Is this how you act? You just wander into people’s homes and steal their shit? And where’s my dog?”

“Well,” I thought it over. “No. I don’t do that. I’ve never done that. You have a dog? What’s his name?”

“This car is my home! And you broke into it and stole my Wheat Thins!”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have known better. I didn’t know they were your Wheat Thins!”

A low howl broke out into the night, and the woman’s face went from murdering rage to being terrified.

“I have to get inside,” she said as she shoved the box at me. “Just take the crackers and leave me alone.”

“What’s that?”

She rushed to her car and tried to unlock it. “Good to know,” she said. “All this effort in locking my car came to nothing.”

She got in, locked it and burrowed into the darkness.

“Well, now what’s coming?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, but I did realize she had left me with a box of Wheat Thins.

I stood there for a moment, listening until I could hear running footsteps coming closer and closer my way. Figuring I’d rather deal with the wrath of my new friend as opposed to these strangers, I crouched low and hid under her car.

Sure enough, what sounded like a marathon came bounding through on the 405, runners yelling barbaric sounds. I craned my neck a little bit to see them with faces painted, chests bare, handmade weapons in their hands. I also saw people being dragged mercilessly behind them. Some struggled and screamed, some might have been already dead, I don’t know. I huddled there with my UCLA sweatshirt, briefly considering giving it back to its hostile owner, but then fully embraced it until this horde was long gone.

When they were, I listened for any more sounds, and when it seemed at its deathly quietist, which naturally is when I crawled out.

“I’m going now,” I said. “Sorry about the window.”

She didn’t say anything as I slipped on the sweatshirt.

“Thanks for the crackers!” I said, turning to look behind me.

When I turned around, there was an ominous-looking man staring down at me. Startled, I yelped, then covered my mouth.

“Who are you talking to?” he asked.

“Uh,” I said. I pointed behind me. “Just back there. It’s nothing.”

He shoved past me, but gripped my shoulder hard in the process. I struggled against him, but he was fully dragging me at this point.

“Let go of me!”

“Hey, Stephanie!” he shouted.

“Get bent!” yelled the surly car dweller.

“You coming home or not?”

She didn’t say anything, but I struggled to get out of his meaty grip. He was in a hoodie and a woolen hat, smelling badly like BO and old tuna.

“Sir—” I said.

“Quiet,” he said.

He banged on the car. “You belong to me!” he shouted. “We got work to do!”

“Leave me alone,” she said. “Take the girl in my place. She’ll touch anything. She’s clearly begging for it.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Now he grabbed me by the hair. It was painful, and he jerked me up to my feet.

“Ow!” I cried at the sharp pain of hair tugged out of my head. “Why do people think this is the best way to move me around?”

“Today’s your lucky day.”

“Stop it—” I tried to fight back, which meant uselessly flailing my arms back and forth, all out of reach of him.

“Stephanie!” he said.

“What?” she asked, rolling down her window.

“You coming out?” he asked. “You owe me, and I’m getting what I want.”

With his other hand, he picked up a rock and threw it through the window. It missed but banged on the lower portion of the door instead.

“Hey,” Stephanie said. “I had three payments to go!”

“Sir—” I was near tears, hungry, cold, and for the second time in one day, my life was being threatened with the unknown.

I jerked away, but he held firm.

“I’m not done with you,” he said.

“What do you want?”

“Don’t be like that,” he said. “You wearing that UCLA shirt says that you’re ready to be in my bitch house.”

I pulled away, rubbing the top of my head where it still hurt.

“Bitch house?” I asked. “Really? What year is this that this is how you refer to Stephanie and me?”

“Leave me out of it!” Stephanie shouted through the opening of her window. “Just go with him. You’ll be fine.”

“Get out of the shirt,” he said. “You don’t want to wear the badge, then don’t put it on.”

“It’s not a badge,” I said. “UCLA is UCLA.”

“Not anymore,” he said. “So I’m claiming it, and it’s now my name and when you wear that. You wear my identity.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.” I waved the idea away and shook my head.

I finally pulled away from him, ripped off the shirt and threw it onto the ground.

“Who’s going to argue with me and prove me wrong?” he asked.

“There!” I said. “If it means that much to you, take the stupid shirt, Mr. UCLA. I belong to someone else, anyway!”

He pointed at my chest.

“Batman?” he asked.

I looked down and noticed that I was still wearing my Batman shirt from three days ago.

“Yes,” I said. “Batman. He’s really big and fights crime and he’s probably expecting me.”

“I haven’t heard of anyone with that name,” he said. “Beyond, you know,
that
Batman.”

“They haven’t heard of you either,” I said. “Neither of them has, but why take the chance?”

“How do I know you’re not making this up?” he asked, slowly backing away.

“This coming from a guy who insists his name is UCLA,” I said. “And if you leave me and Stephanie here, I’ll let him know that he should grant you mercy if you do get around to finding him.”

He reached over and tugged at my box of Wheat Thins. “I’ll have to take this,” he said. “Nothing personal, just business.”

I tightly held the box in my arms. “I think Batman would disagree,” I said. “In fact—” I grabbed his messenger bag. “This is Batman’s bag now.”

He tried to hang on to it, but I was too fast. A dog came up behind and attacked UCLA.

“Get off! Get off!” he screamed.

He gave up, went limp and threw up his hands in surrender. I couldn’t believe I had gotten away with this.

“You’ll know where to find me, Stephanie!”

“In Satan’s jockstrap?” she yelled. “Is that what I was smelling?

“Forget it. You’ll see how wrong you were.”

He took off running into the night as the dog chased after him, growling. “Wait up!” he called.

Stephanie opened the door to her car. She looked cautiously both ways. “You’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” the woman snarled. “And I didn’t say you could shield yourself in my car. And where the hell did my dog go?”

“I’m sorry,” I said as I brushed off my knees.

“For what?” she asked. “Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to yourself for being such an earth-shattering idiot. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten yourself killed yet.”

“I thought I was doing you a favor,” I said. “I don’t know who that guy is or what he was talking about, but I got the distinct feeling you didn’t want him around. Don’t trip over yourself with gratitude or anything.”

She got out of the car and then shook her finger at me. “What kind of world do you think you’re living in?” she asked. “You find alliances, but you look for an exit strategy wherever you go.”

“Isn’t that just life in general?” I asked. “And in case you didn’t notice, your boyfriend is a bigger idiot for thinking there really is a Batman.”

“I was just with him because I could never find the right time to break up,” she said. “Now that we have, he shows up needing attention and it’s just awkward.”

“I’ve watched two ex-boyfriends die,” I said. “You don’t have anything to teach me.”

She snorted. “Please,” she said. “You’re an amateur. Find a safe place and never come out again.” She went back into the car. “Never come and find me again,” she said. “You can keep the crackers. I’m trying to cut out carbs.”

IT WAS
THE FIRST TIME
in the weeks, maybe months now, since the Incident that I didn’t have somewhere to sleep. I hadn’t seen my apartment since then, and I shuddered to think of what it might look like or who was living there, sleeping in my bed, eating whatever was left of my food. The floor under my desk wasn’t super comfortable, but there was warmth and a serviceable bathroom that you only had to fear getting locked into the stairwell. That stupid house near the cannibal zone had cannibals, but there was a couch to make a fort out of. The quarantine zone was even stupider, but at least I was inside. Now I was just walking down a freeway, getting colder under my newly acquired sweatshirt, looking at a crumbling city. Above me was a traffic alert sign, the kind that makes you aware of accidents or Amber Alerts, but now the messages were direr. AIRBORNE VIRUS. STAY HOME, which then switched to ACID RAIN, STAY HOME.

I thought about whoever had programmed that sign must be dead now. Or maybe he just followed his own advice and sat at home, waiting for this all to blow over.

I sat under the sign and dumped out the contents of UCLA’s bag. There was a Swiss army knife, a beat up copy of
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
and some cherry flavored Chapstick. I was so excited to see that tube of Chapstick. Immediately, I pulled off the cover and smeared it over my grateful lips.

That wasn’t all that was in there. There was a hand towel with the Texas A&M logo embroidered on it, a pair of men’s underwear and a set of keys. I was revolted at the underwear and flung it far off into the night. I checked the inner pockets and found an iPhone. I frowned at it until I pressed the home button and it came on. It was charged and started locating bars of reception. I gasped and thanked the spirit of UCLA, wherever he was cowering.

I fought the impulse to play a game of Tetris or listen to whatever music was on it, but I knew spending the night on the 405 was risky given what had just happened. So I put it back into the bag and took the nearest exit and hiked down into the city.

My apartment wasn’t far from the off ramp. I turned down the street toward my old neighborhood, some excitement building. Maybe I could just hide out in this place and weather this thing out, rent free from now until whatever dystopian government would eventually take over, the way they always did in books after an event like this. Everywhere I looked there was yellow tape and signs with a gas mask icon on them. I ignored them as well as the ones that screamed, DANGEROUS AREA. STAY OUT.

I ran toward my home. I ran until my sides hurt, but stopped when I saw a government quarantine van patrolling up and down the streets. I waited until they were gone and headed in the right direction.

When I reached my apartment building, I saw in the darkness that about half of it had withstood the Incident, the other half was in various sizes of rubble. Much of people’s belongings were scattered around it. My eyes adjusted to the piles of stuff until I saw some familiar things, like old pictures, some Blu-rays, my mom’s favorite teapot—the one with repetitive cat heads painted all over it. The building seemed empty and there were no signs of life, so I crouched and poked through the pile. I pulled out a handmade poster with my picture and the words HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Under the text there was a phone number.

“Hey there!” a voice shouted.

I froze, looked around and saw several figures marching toward me with flashlights. I quickly folded the paper and shoved it into my bag.

“What are you doing?” asked another voice. “You got ID?”

I put my hands up and shook my head. “I used to live here,” I said. “I was just trying to find my family. Do you know what happened here and to the people who lived here?”

One of the figures approached me, shined the light directly in my face and therefore blinded me.

“Don’t you know this is an infected area?” he asked. “We had to clear it out. People were dying. You can’t be here.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “How would I find anyone?”

“Got me,” he said and grabbed my arm. “Now we have to test you for disease. Come with us please.”

I took my arm away. “What disease? Do you guys have any answers? At all?”

“Well no,” he said while he looked at the others. “We’ve just been taking blood, putting it in test tubes and waiting to hear what our bosses want us to do with them.”

Another figure grabbed my arm. “That’s no reason to resist!” I heard a woman’s voice say.

“Stop that!” I said and tried to slip out of their reach. I scrambled to my feet and started to run.

“After her!” one of the men said.

“Should we run or walk back and take the van?” the woman asked.

“You run.”

“But—” the woman shouted with exasperation. “It’s dark and it’s probably far.”

I ran until their voices were out of earshot. To catch my breath, I hid behind a drycleaners. When I felt the coast was clear, I reached into the bag and grabbed UCLA’s phone. It turned on and it showed full bars of reception again. I started to think.

I reasoned that if there was enough reception in the area then there had to be people around. People who might be kind enough and take in a girl in exchange for, oh, I don’t know, maybe the comfort of the written word, courtesy of
What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
Maybe I’d find my parents in one of these conveniently located houses or maybe an Army base who’d jump at the chance to cart a healthy white girl to safety so the human race could continue on.

I put in the number from the missing poster, but it rang once, then gave me the ascending chord followed by the lilting feminine robot voice, “The number you have dialed does not exist. Please check the number…”

I hung up, then flipped through the phone’s applications and found them largely useless. Mostly because they didn’t work and I couldn’t get anywhere with it. I went to a dating app just for kicks and found that was alive and well—it had been active for the past five minutes.

There was a time where you were warned about contacting people online, that you were warned about people contacting you. Anyone could be anyone or anything. Let the wrong person into your psyche and next thing you know, you’re hiding five thousand dollars cash in Cheerios boxes and sending them to Ghana to a guy named Kevin Kostner that you think you’re engaged to. These were lessons I had learned from a number of investigative shows that were meant to strike fear in all of us. I threw out all those fears and hunted for active profiles within a five-mile radius. I hunted for women and men. I messaged a girl named Chatelynne and asked if she was interested in meeting up. I watched the screen intently, my heart pounded at the hope for human contact through technology. Seventy five seconds later, she messaged me back. She asked if I had any Tina and how open minded I was. I messaged back that I didn’t know Tina and didn’t know what she was talking about. She responded with a quick “Fuck U” and went offline. So I kept on.

Two women told me that I had to prove I was a man and weren’t interested in me when I told them I was a woman looking for a friend. One said she was now saving herself for our new alien overlords, but wished me good luck on my search.

So I switched my preference to men and found a wider world of opportunity that seemed genuinely frightening. I also saw a lot of pictures of penises.

The first person I messaged had a nice unthreatening looking face. His name was Randy and liked video games and Spider-Man—the alternate universe series and the animated series, but
not
the Civil War series. There was a difference, and he wasn’t interested in anyone who felt otherwise. So I messaged him anyway, hoping he wouldn’t ask. Maybe an Apocalypse can change a man’s heart. He didn’t message me back, so instead I waded through strange men’s dick pics, looking for any alternates. I turned off the app and debated the safety of trying to sleep in an abandoned Arby’s that was a few blocks ahead.

It seemed sketchy, what with the stray dogs circling it and a shadowy figure that would pop up every now and then, but my newly acquired phone buzzed. I pulled it out and saw a message from Randy.

No profile picture? That’s okay
, he had written.
We should meet up. Are you busy tonight? Kind of limited on where to go, so I guess you can come to my house.

Thank god, he didn’t grill me on Spider-Man, but had jumped to the meet-up point. So I messaged him back and asked for directions.

* * *

He didn’t live far, and it turns out he was holed up in a house with four other thirty something graphic novel enthusiasts. He warmly greeted me and ushered me inside.

Just like his picture, he had a soft doughy appearance, a face that was warm and seemed untouched by human hardship. His roommates all followed suit, grunted at me and seemed a little intimidated at a girl in their midst by the way they avoided eye contact with me.

The house was like the world before the Incident. There was a large comfy couch that I itched to curl up on, a wall with shelves stuffed with games and movies, and in the center of the living room was a massive flat screen TV, which was on and showing a violent action movie.

“You’re watching a movie?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Randy said. “We’ve been dying to see the director’s cut of
Enter the Dragon
, but Jeremy finally found the copy his mom sent him over a month ago. Ever seen it?”

“You have power,” I said truly in awe as I looked around. “This is amazing.”

“I guess. It’s just a generator,” he said. “Better news is, Jeremy just made parmesan pastry pups. Hungry?”

I stared, incredulous. “I thought the world was done,” I said. “There are people fighting to the death over Flamin’ Hot Cheetos just a few miles away.”

Randy shrugged and offered me a plate of pastry pups with a big smile. “They’re really good. You should have some.”

I took one and let my teeth bite into its deliciousness.

“So,” he said. “Walking into the house of strange men. What’s it like to do that with no fear?”

“Aren’t you worried that you’ll attract the wrong people?” I asked. “I just met you, but I’ve got a really interesting story about how I almost became a concubine because I took a UCLA sweatshirt. I could be a cannibal. They’re out there, you know.”

Randy shook his head at me. “No stories,” he said. “We’re all quite aware of what’s going on out there and we worked really hard to make this a safe zone. And no questions either. You seem like a cool girl, but I’d hate to send you back outside.”

I stopped and weighed the options. My gaze traveled upward, where there was a staircase and a lighted hall, whose wall space was covered in limited edition
Lord of the Rings
replica swords. I knew there had to be beds up there, and possibly real working bathrooms.

I smiled and took a pastry pup, squelching the desire to grab ten more. It was the perfect combination of flaky crust and salty sausage. I took a bite and enjoyed its saltiness.

“It’s really good,” I whispered. “And is that a framed
Tron
soundtrack over there?” I asked, pointing at the framed LP on the wall.

“You should tell Jeremy,” Randy said.

“Okay,” I said, turning to face Jeremy’s surly posture. “What’s up with the
Tron
soundtrack?”

“No,” Randy said. “I meant, he made the pastry puffs. You should tell him you like it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Thanks, Jeremy. They’re tasty.”

Jeremy sat in the corner of a room behind a table painting X-Men figures. He looked up and nodded at me.

“Jeremy’s a little upset at us,” Randy whispered.

“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “It was his week to invite a girl over and we had to sacrifice her because she made fun of Brett’s light saber, then used all the lotion on her legs.”

“You sacrificed her?” I tried to keep my voice calm. “That doesn’t mean what I think it does? Does that mean something different now?”

“I-It’s lotion,” he stammered. “You use it. And you don’t question when people want it!”

“Silly me.” I tried to mask the nervousness of what I might have just entered. “It’s strange any woman wouldn’t recognize that.”

“Seemed even stranger that she wouldn’t recognize the detailed craftsmanship of a light saber that Brett spent the last year making,” he said. “She had to go.”

“So she just went willingly?”

He shrugged again. “We dragged her to that Arby’s down the street and let the gang in there deal with her.”

My stomach turned over with a main course of nausea with a side of fear, but tried to play it cool. “Um,” I said. “That seems a little harsh.”

He looked confused. “How so?”

“Because –“ I started to explain what I thought was the obvious, but seeing Randy’s quizzical face left me speechless. So I made a joke instead. “Who would ever want to be stuck at an Arby’s, am I right? That weird horseradish sauce.”

He nodded, chuckling under his breath. “I know, right?”

I looked around at the contents of the house, marveling at how jam packed it was with so much lightness and fun.

“You still want to check out my
Tron
record?” he said. “It’s a first pressing.”

Randy led me to it, and I tried to hold my own in a conversation about
Tron
. At least I smiled and nodded to a lot of it.

“Mmm,” I said. “Neon rings and stuff.”

Randy laughed. It came out as sort of a choking, nasally sound that made his overly soft belly shake. “That’s funny,” he said.

“Is it?” I cleared my throat. “So what kind of work are we doing here?”

The question seemed offensive to him and he became suddenly abrupt.

“That sounds like a nosy question,” he said. “And we can’t allow that. So you should think about that by folding some laundry.”

“Excuse me?” I asked. “What—”

He pointed down the hall. “Laundry room’s over there. So you should probably get started on that.”

My reward for doing laundry without complaining was spending the night in a bed. A real bed. It had covers and sheets and everything. I also spent the night next to a framed picture of Randy’s family, all four of them chunky and clean, preserved in a magic minute of time where everything was fine in the world.