The Shelter
Page 4
“Okay, but it’s a waste of time,” Courtney says, singing her words and following Ethan to the pallet. “Oh my God!” She yelps. “Some people are savages.”
Several assailants have leapt on the stacked pallet as a distressed F-Mart employee looks on. The pallet hadn’t even made it to the correct aisle before the assault began. Men elbow ladies out of the way and claw at the pallet’s plastic outer wrapping. It’s a muted, brutal moment. As soon as a twelve-pack of rolls come free from the pallet’s clingy grasp, different hands scratch and compete for it. The action pauses only when the store’s lights falter and blink, triggering gasps in the dark. The horde pick up their pace and each member rips a piece away until nothing is left but a plastic brown pallet beneath a pile of torn Saran Wrap.
“Ugh, this is boring. Let’s get out of here,” Ethan says. “I think we’ve done all right, we have a cart with carrots and some veggie burgers, veggie meatballs…”
“We have no chicken! I practically live on chicken. I’ve had to sub for frozen shrimp,” Courtney says.
“Well, I have a ton of food, not that I want to be this guy and point any fingers, but vegetarians are clearly not the ones panic buying.”
“So… the company, then?” Courtney says.
“Yeah. Don’t worry. This is all just a moment in time. We’re strong enough to tough this out, I think. A lot aren’t. I know companies that are either out of business already or will be by the end of the month. I have a few things they don’t – great support from the bank, for example. I’m going to have to take out a bridging loan to cover the losses but there’s a small chance the government may offer a bailout. There’s an announcement tomorrow about our industry. Either way, it’s hard but I need to keep my staff; when the dust settles on this the entire world will be up for grabs, it’ll be huge, and we’ll be in pole position. Until then, it’s tough. Oh, and making friends with the local government officials last year was a smart move. They’ve been supportive.”
The couple cut their losses and head for the checkout counter. The rain becomes loud. Heavy staccato drops beat down on the wide metal-roofed single-story building. It’s enough to make shoppers look around at each other in bemusement.
Outside in the parking lot, rain gathers in small pools around a blue Dodge SUV. One man blows cigarette smoke from behind a balaclava before yelling at three other men in the back. “It’s happening. We gotta do this. Do you want to go back and explain how you lost your nerve?”
Inside, Ethan starts bagging at the counter. “So, you must’ve seen a lot of crazy people buying hundreds of packs of toilet paper then?” Ethan smiles at the check-out clerk.
Suddenly, the noise of a revving engine grows dangerously loud and the glass storefront explodes in a hail of debris. A blizzard of glass shards rain down on the shoppers as an alarm starts. People drop to their knees. Rain blows through a large jagged hole in the store where the blue SUV has come to a halt.
The heavily tattooed man in the balaclava jumps out of the driver’s side. Three other men climb out, clutching rifles.
“Don’t fucking move! Lay down and nobody gets hurt! This store and everything in it belongs to me now.”
“Shit! Ethan, get down. We have to get out of here!” Courtney says, diverting her attention away from the guns. “Ethan! Ethan!”
Pushing the shopping cart out of her way, Courtney falls to her knees and crawls towards Ethan. He’s lying prone on the floor. She notices blood pouring from his forehead. After a brief confused moment she sees a large shard of glass protruding from his head. His eyes are frozen open and he is gasping for air. She cries his name. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t answer. Thick, dark blood streams from between his brows. Courtney steadies the head of her husband as dearly as she can and cries for help. With the emergency services reduced due to the hurricane, Courtney knows that help won’t quickly be found anywhere in the state of California.
From here things blur. Moments fade in and out. She wipes away a palmful of blood from Ethan’s face. The check-out clerk yells out to colleagues for help, but Courtney can’t make out their words. People gather. Ethan’s eyes close. CPR is tried. Courtney’s heart breaks as the rain pours in at checkout number five. Hope slips away against a backdrop of panic and looting. Courtney’s unfortunate path begins.
7
Your optimism is refreshing
Oscar’s a willowy young man with tortoiseshell eyes and finely trimmed dark hair. He’s the last of our five dramatis personae, so know this: his life hasn’t always been easy but at age twenty-three, even after recent setbacks, he’s got to admit it’s getting better; a little better all the time.
A few months earlier, Oscar was facing up to three years jail time for attempted auto theft. He had started working for a local gang after his father passed away. One night, Oscar got caught trying to steal a car with a stick shift. He couldn’t figure out the clutch pedal because poor Oscar had never driven a manual transmission before. The owner of the car came back to find him struggling. After calling the cops, the owner filmed Oscar on his cell phone. “That fool didn’t need to film me. Calling the cops is one thing, but recording me? That shit’s harsh,” he’d say to his friends when they’d tease him about it.
After the footage hit the internet, Oscar trended in the local area under #ThugFail. “I’m not stupid, I just never drove a stick shift before,” he’d say at first, but soon the few online comments became hundreds then thousands. The online maelstrom rapidly became sour and quickly turned personal. He would read the posts about himself and every time his stony countenance would crease and collapse into a grimace. It seemed true, to Oscar at least, that social media is simply a place where people go to join mobs.
“