Pulse ; No Power

by Skylar Finn

  However, whatever rode along next to her didn’t behave like any turtle, shark, dolphin, or other manner of sea creature Ailani had encountered. It bobbed up and down in the wave, weirdly and out of control, as if the creature didn’t have any manner of fins to keep itself steady. Ailani finally gave in. She looked to her right to inspect what was next to her. When she did so, she nearly gagged.

  It was an enormous piece of human feces.

  She broke out of the wave and fled from it, but the smell kept getting worse and worse. Now that she was aware of it, she saw it everywhere. No matter where she looked, human waste floated on the surface of the water, drifted through waves, and gathered on the shore. The people on the beach had been using the ocean as their own personal toilet.

  Bile gathered in Ailani’s throat. She felt violated and dirty. As fast as possible, she rode the next wave to shore and scrambled out of the water, trying not to puke as she heaved her board onto the shore. She passed the fisherman on her way back to Trip’s house. He had caught some sort of medium-sized fish and was attempting to club it to death with his own fist.

  “Don’t eat that,” she said, grabbing the fish and tossing it back in the ocean.

  “Hey!”

  “You’ll thank me later!” she called over her shoulder.

  When she made it to Trip’s backyard, she turned on the outdoor shower. It was the only shower in the house that anyone dared to use ever since the drains had started backing up. Since it was outside, there was no drain. The water simply ran off to the landscaping on either side of the shower area. Ailani doused herself with the clean water, turning the handle all the way to the hot side. Her stomach roiled and rumbled, threatening to expel her dinner from last night. She coated herself with Trip’s organic, lavender-scented soap, hoping it had some sort of antibacterial properties. She scrubbed until her skin was red and raw, but when she rinsed and dried off, the smell of feces seemed to linger. She tried to convince herself it was all in her head.

  “Please,” she said, sending up a plea to whatever higher power might be listening. “Please, don’t let this mean what I think it means.”

  It did. Hours later, in the middle of the night, Ailani awoke to the worst stomach pains of her life. She ran to the bathroom and dumped the contents of her stomach into the toilet. She retched and heaved, her whole body spasming to get rid of the bacteria inside her. Walt ran in and tried to hold Ailani’s hair back, but she shoved him away.

  “Get out!” she ordered hoarsely between gags. “It’s probably E. coli!”

  “But you need help!”

  “If it’s contagious, we can’t afford for everyone to catch it,” she gasped. “Get out!”

  As another stream of bile made its way from Ailani’s stomach and into the toilet, Walt took his leave. However much he wanted to help Ailani, he was smart enough to know she was right. They couldn’t afford to spread a bacteria like E. coli around the house. It was best to keep Ailani quarantined to her room.

  She fell asleep next to the toilet, silently thanking Trip for his exceptional taste in fuzzy bath towels. They provided her a bed and a pillow for the night. For hours, she alternated between sleeping and throwing up, until there was nothing left in her stomach to regurgitate except for acid. Around dawn, she finally found the strength to pull herself up from the floor and check the mirror. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Her hair was doused in vomit, and her skin was sallow and pale. She looked like a haunted, ghostly version of her true self. Worse still, she knew the bacteria probably hadn’t left her system yet. The nausea had not subsided and likely wouldn’t for a few days. Still, she needed to eat.

  Someone knocked on the bedroom door. She crawled out of the bathroom. “What is it?” she croaked, her voice hoarse from the night’s events. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Trip. I have some—”

  She weakly locked the door. “Don’t come in!”

  “I wasn’t going to!” Trip promised. “Walt told me you were sick, so I brought you a few things. Some bottled water from downstairs. You can drink it or wash with it. I also have some saltines. They might be helpful to settle your stomach. And this electrolyte powder to mix into your water. It doesn’t taste great, but you’re probably dehydrated. I also have some fresh towels for you. I’ll leave it outside your door, okay? You can get it whenever you need it.”

  Ailani felt another burst of action in her stomach. She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “Ailani? Are you okay?”

  She sprinted to the bathroom.

  After another hour or two of sleeping in the tub amongst a bundle of towels like a stray kitten, Ailani ventured from the room to collect the supplies Trip had left out for her. Not only had he brought food and water, but he’d also sent up paper towels and bleach spray. Gratefully, she took everything into the bathroom with her. She disinfected the toilet and the floor with the bleach and wiped everything down. Then she rinsed her face and washed her hands with one water bottle. The other she mixed the electrolytes into, but when she took a sip, the artificial grape taste almost made her throw up again. She ate exactly one bite of a saltine cracker before giving up on that too. Until she got the bacteria out of her system, she was in for some long days.

  It took a week for Ailani’s illness to run its course. By day five, she’d stopped puking and her bowel movements started to firm up. By day six, she kept her first bland meal of microwaveable rice and dehydrated chicken down. By day seven, she finally emerged from her quarantine, satisfied that she was no longer contagious.

  The house was quiet. Without her around, Ailani feared Trip and Walt had nothing to bridge the gap between them, but she soon found them on the balcony doing yoga together. Walt had borrowed one of Trip’s mats. He was leading the small class, narrating the flow for Trip to follow. Trip was slightly unsteady balance-wise, but he lowered himself into chaturanga with stunning posture and form. Ailani took a seat on one of the patio chairs and waited for them to finish. A fresh breeze came in from the sea. Thankfully, it didn’t reek of human waste.

  “You came out,” Trip said once he had come out of shavasana. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Much.”

  “What happened anyway?” Walt asked, rolling up his mat. “How did you get sick?”

  She pointed to the beach. “See all those idiots out there? Instead of digging a latrine like we did, they decided to use the ocean as their toilet. I went surfing and came back with a surprise.”

  Trip gagged. “Enough said.”

  “Speaking of our latrine,” Walt said, “what did you do with all of your, er, waste?”

  “I gave her a bucket,” Trip answered for her.

  It was Walt’s turn to hold back his disgust. “Oh, I didn’t need to know that.”

  Ailani couldn’t help but grin. She turned her face into the wind and took a deep breath. “What’s it been like out here? Have you guys heard anything?”

  “Not a word,” Trip said. “And we have a problem.”

  “What?”

  “Your trip to E. coli land put us fresh out of clean water,” Trip answered as he wrapped a strap around his foot and extended his leg up to stretch. “We only have a few bottles left.”

  “We’re low on food too,” Walt added. He pushed Trip’s leg into a better position. “If we don’t find resources soon, we’re going to be in serious trouble.”

  Ailani’s chest tightened with nerves. “Well, what’s the plan? Where do we go from here?”

  “I think it’s time for a trip into the real world,” Walt offered.

  “You were the one who keeps insisting it isn’t safe,” Ailani reminded him.

  Walt let go of Trip’s leg. “I know that, but we won’t be safe here either if we’re starving. Trip says there’s a big warehouse store a few miles from here. We could check if there’s anything left there.”

  “What are the chances of that?”

  “Slim,” Trip answered, “but we have to try.”

  Ailani c
hewed on her lower lip. “Say the warehouse is still stocked. How are we supposed to carry enough supplies out of there on foot?”

  “We don’t have to go on foot.” Trip rolled over, got into downward dog, and started pedaling his feet. “I have a car.”

  “Cars don’t work, Trip.”

  “Mine will,” he said. “It’s an antique Cadillac. No electronic parts. The EMP won’t have damaged it.”

  “So we have a plan?”

  Walt and Trip exchanged a high five.

  “We have a plan.”

  They decided to execute their plan in the middle of the night, hoping to get to the warehouse store and back unnoticed. Since no one felt comfortable leaving Trip’s house completely unguarded, they voted for Walt to stay behind and defend the castle, so to speak. He argued at first, especially because he thought Ailani wasn’t well enough to travel, but they eventually convinced him to stay. The antique Cadillac was housed in Trip’s garage, along with three other expensive cars that Trip used to drive on a daily basis. The Cadillac was baby pink. Ailani raised an eyebrow.

  “What?” Trip demanded. “Don’t tell me this isn’t the prettiest car you’ve ever seen.”

  “I don’t care what it looks like,” Ailani said, “as long as it starts.”

  They climbed in. The seats smelled like mint and tobacco smoke. As Trip turned the key, he scrunched up his face, as if more lines in his forehead meant more luck in getting the car to start. It wasn’t necessary. The engine turned over without coercion, and the Cadillac rumbled to life.

  “All right!” Trip cheered.

  Walt pulled open the gate at the end of the driveway so they could drive through. Before they left, he jogged over to Trip’s open window. “Listen,” he said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Be smart. If the store’s empty, come home so we can come up with another game plan. Don’t interact with other people. Don’t—”

  “Walt, we got it,” Ailani said. “We’ll be back soon, I promise.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “If you don’t drive, he’ll never let us leave,” she muttered to Trip.

  Trip let off the brake pedal, and the Cadillac inched forward. Walt hopped away from the car. “Be careful!” he yelled after them.

  “Bit of a worrywart, isn’t he?” Trip asked Ailani as they made their way out of the Malibu neighborhood.

  “You have no idea.”

  The streets were less chaotic than then had been a few weeks ago. The majority of the cars had been pushed off the road in order to make room for whatever emergency vehicles had actually bothered to come down this way. The complete darkness—no street lights or other headlights—made Malibu eerie and unpleasant. When you were used to seeing one place a certain way, it felt weird and unusual to see it any other way. Thankfully, there weren’t many people out roaming the streets. It was like everyone had given up after realizing the government wasn’t going to help them. Either that or they were waiting for a safer time to come out.

  The warehouse store was a short drive from Trip’s house, but Ailani feared the roar of the Cadillac’s engine might attract unwanted attention. When they pulled into the parking lot of the warehouse store, Ailani immediately spotted a problem.

  “Stop the car,” she ordered. “Turn it off.”

  Trip hit the brakes without questioning her, put the Cadillac in park, and turned off the ignition. Everything went quiet. “What is it?” he asked.

  “You don’t see that?” She pointed to the warehouse store. “Check the windows. They have lights inside. Someone’s there.”

  Trip pulled out the keys. “Let’s check it out.”

  “Are you crazy? What if they attack us?”

  “This isn’t the Hunger Games,” he said, getting out of the car. “I have to believe that the rules of civilized society still exist somewhere. Besides, we can’t go back to the house empty-handed. Walt would kill us.”

  “Walt also told us not to do anything he wouldn’t do,” Ailani reminded him, though she hastily got out of the car too. “This is definitely something he wouldn’t do.”

  Trip walked confidently across the parking lot. “I like Walt. I really do. But sometimes caution isn’t the best way to get what you need. Just trust me, okay?”

  As they neared the warehouse, it became more obvious that there were people inside. A polite chatter emanated from the large secured garage doors, and the smell of cooked food wafted outside. Ailani’s mouth watered. If they could only get inside…

  “Don’t move another step,” someone ordered.

  Ailani and Trip froze in place, and the owner of the voice emerged from the shadows. She was a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and grayish brown roots. She aimed a shotgun at the pavement between Trip and Ailani’s feet.

  “Whoa.” Trip put his hands up. “We’re not here to cause trouble. We need supplies, and we thought this might be a decent place to trade.”

  The woman lifted an eyebrow. “To trade, huh? What have you got?”

  “Wine,” Trip offered. “Tons of it.”

  She laughed. “We don’t need wine. There’s plenty in the store. Besides, it’s hardly necessary for survival.”

  “You could use it for first aid,” Ailani insisted.

  “We have first aid supplies inside too.” The woman brandished the shotgun. “Go on. Get out of here. I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

  “Please,” Ailani said. “All we need are a couple things to tide us over. We won’t bother you again.”

  “No,” the woman declared.

  Trip stepped forward into a patch of moonlight that illuminated his face. “Please, ma’am. We can’t leave here empty-handed—”

  “Hang on.” She lifted the gun. Trip stumbled back, but she was only putting the weapon over her shoulder. “You’re that actor! From Quick Car Five!”

  Trip clenched his jaw at the mention of one of his less successful movies. Ailani elbowed him in the ribs, and he pasted a smile on. “That’s me.” He extended his hand. “Trip Travis. Pleased to meet your acquaintance. Are you a fan of the Quick Car movies?”

  “Am I?” the woman gushed, the gun forgotten as she grasped Trip’s hand. “I’ve seen all of them ten times! And I never rewatch movies.”

  As Trip commandeered the watch woman’s attention, Ailani took the opportunity to disappear into the shadows. She edged around to the rear side of the building, where the loading docks were, and scanned the area of any signs of guards. When it proved empty, she checked the doors of the loading docks, but each one was secured with a padlock.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, looking for other options.

  A delivery truck was parked at an odd angle nearby, but it wasn’t close enough to the docks to be unloaded. It was as if the EMP had struck right as the driver had been backing up to the dock. Ailani hopped up on the back of it and tried the lift gate. It sprung free. As she rolled it up, her eyes widened with glee. The truck was full of crates and pallets of shrink-wrapped products, waiting for someone to dive in. Ailani contained a squeal of excitement. She had to do this carefully, lest anyone notice her.

  She sprinted back to the Cadillac, turned the car on, and drove it the long way around the warehouse, taking it through a couple of tiny back roads to avoid being noticed. When she neared the rear of the warehouse, she turned the car off but left the keys in the ignition. From there, she started loading the trunk and backseat from the supplies in the truck as quickly as possible. She focused on finding food with the best nutritional value—kale chips, protein bars, roasted chickpeas, beef jerky—but also loaded up on water bottles, first aid supplies, gas, and a new emergency radio. She worked as quickly as possible, but her brush with E. coli was starting to get to her. She wasn’t as strong as usual, so it took twice as long to load the car as it normally would. Within minutes, her muscles were shaking, but she refused to give up.

  She thanked Trip for being so amazing at distracting the woman out front. Ailani worked for a full half hour bef
ore someone came out of the warehouse’s back exit to smoke a cigarette. She noticed him before he noticed her. Since she was already in the truck, she ducked behind a pallet of Rice Krispy Treats.

  The guy—a round, short man who wore a warehouse employee’s red vest over his T-shirt—lit his cigarette and took a long drag. When he let out the smoke, he also let out a long, frustrated groan. He stretched his arms above his head, and his shirt rode up, revealing a rotund belly that overflowed his jeans.

  “Come on,” Ailani muttered. “Go back inside, you dummy.”

  But the man took his sweet time. Ten minutes later, he finally tossed the cigarette butt on the ground, smashed his heel into it, and went inside. Ailani sighed with relief and got back to work, dragging another package of water bottles toward the Cadillac.

  “Hey!”

  She flinched. The man had returned. Apparently, he had only gone inside to fetch a fresh cigarette. Now, he was treated to the unimpeded view of Ailani stealing supplies from underneath his nose.

  “Stop right there!” he ordered.

  He didn’t have a gun or any other kind of weapon, so Ailani didn’t have any intention of obeying his order. She hauled the water bottles into the Cadillac and started the car as the man ran inside to alert the others of the intruder.

  Ailani peeled out of the backlot as the others came outside. They brandished hunting guns—the kind the warehouse sold—at the Cadillac, but no one fired. Ailani steered the car around the front of the warehouse, where Trip was still deep in discussion with the guard woman. Both of them were completely oblivious to the drama occurring behind the warehouse.

  Ailani rolled her window down. “Trip! Get in now!”

  Trip, though startled, didn’t hesitate. He tore his hand from the guard woman’s grasp and flung himself feet-first through the open window of the Cadillac’s passenger side. He landed perfectly in the seat, then gave a cheeky salute and wink to the guard woman. As she realized the car was loaded with stolen goods, she raised the shotgun and fired.