by C C Roth
He reached down and turned the knob, but it was locked. So he jiggled the handle a few more times just to be sure then stepped back, folding his arms, “Hmm.”
I grinned ear to ear. “Look out, buddy. Your badass training starts now.” I raised my rifle and smashed the butt of it through the window sending a tiny hailstorm of glass shards tinkling to the ground. I stood back triumphant and gestured for him to go ahead.
“You’re so lucky you met me,” I teased. “How else would you open doors?”
“Yes, yes I’m a lucky man, you nutcase. C’mon let’s see what they’ve got.” He reached through the jagged edged opening and unlocked the door from the inside.
It was dark and there was debris across the floor right in front of us as we stood in the opening. The sunlight behind us only provided so much sight into the room but I was able to distinguish the shapes of arcade games covering almost every inch of the place.
“Okay what’s the deal? Who would come here to play games? I thought all you gamers liked to sit at home in your boxers wearing those sexy headsets.”
“We do. But sometimes you need to get out and socialize.”
“Why do I feel like you’re not joking?”
“You keep making fun of me if you want but I guarantee you’d fall in love with gaming the second you tried it. It’s sort of perfect for you. Why don’t you play with me later tonight?”
“Right, yeah I don’t think so. I’m not really coordinated.”
He burst out laughing and stepped over a pile of trash on the tile. “You, not coordinated? Sam, are you forgetting that I’ve seen you in action? You are a scary-as-shit rockstar with that gun and I’m betting you’re just as scary good with anything you try.”
He was giving me a compliment which always made me twitch a little, but it was sort of nice to hear. “Thanks, yeah, okay I’ll give it try later. There isn’t anything to do at the house anyway so might as well.”
“Good. And who knows it might keep you out of trouble.”
“Trouble? Me?” I covered my chest in feigned surprise. “How could you ever suggest such a thing?”
“Right. I’m guessing you were plotting ways to burn that house down right before we went for a ride today.”
“Burn it down? Are you crazy? I was only going to cut Karina’s hair while she slept, Jesus. Burn down the house? And you think I’m nuts.” I giggled as we kept inching further into the stuffy box of a room, the light growing thinner and thinner.
Stopping next to a Mortal Kombat machine, we hit dead center and looked around. There was a smell of something rotting hanging in the air, like feet and old pizza. It felt like no one had been in there since before the spread. Navin pointed to the ground and followed a trail of trash with his finger.
“Look. There was obviously someone here right when everything went down early on. Maybe they tried to ride it out in here for bit.”
There were empty soda cans, bags of chips, and a pizza box; all pretty standard arcade nourishment.
“Crap. I guess the vending machines are empty then. Maybe there’s something left in the back. If they had a kitchen then they had supplies at one point.” I pointed to the very back wall in the darkest corner of the room where we could just see the outline of a doorway. The exit sign above caught just enough sunlight to reflect its letters.
Navin looked around hesitating. “Awesome. Who wants to go in the creepy dark corner first?”
“I’ll do it!” I shouted excitedly and skipped along toward the back.
“Sam, slow down. There might be people.”
“I hate to break it to you, but no one is home. This place is stanky and empty. C’mon, don’t you trust me?”
“Nope. Not at all. But what the hell?” He flopped his arms down to his sides exasperated and followed behind me.
We stood at the doorway for a minute, our eyes straining to see anything, but it was total blackout.
“So, what’s the plan?” Navin’s tone was nervous.
“Good question. This is the back so there has to be another exit back here, right? I mean so they could have hauled out trash and stuff like that?”
“Sounds logical.”
I took a step in but Navin put his hand on my arm. “Sam I can’t see anything in there. Maybe we should go grab a flashlight and come back.”
“That’ll take too long. We’re already here.”
“Sam—"
I raised my rifle and searched left to right then back again hoping to find a window. But it all looked the same in the dark.
Oh, well.
I squeezed my trigger and fired three rapid shots in succession. One pinged off something metal to our left, making a spark. One landed with no frills in something solid to the right and the third shattered a hole through the darkness letting a peephole of light come streaming into the room.
“There. I made a flashlight. You’re welcome.”
“Gee thanks. Maybe warn me next time.” He had his hands jammed over his ears. “It’d be nice not to go deaf before I’m 20.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
I shouldered my rifle and made my way to the back wall where the light was coming from.
“It looks like they boarded up the windows. I guess this place didn’t go as unnoticed as you’d hoped.”
I grabbed a large cooking pot flipping it over to use as a step stool. It was wobbly but gave me enough reach so I could get to the boards. I took hold of the top one and gave it a good tug. Nothing. Digging in with both my hands I yanked with all my body weight and it flew off making a huge clatter. Of course, I lost my balance on the water pot and spun around about to fall on my face. Instead I fell into Navin who had rushed in to catch me. His hands landed right above my waist and we stumbled backward in an awkward tangle of feet and legs. Righting himself quickly he held me out at arm’s length and stood me up.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I told you I’m not coordinated.”
“Only when shooting at people, huh?” he teased.
“Apparently.”
Light had flooded the room and looking up I noticed for the first time Navin’s eyes were a crazy mixture of brown and black with tiny gold flecks. They were always intense, something I’d noticed when we first met on the train, but at that moment they looked different somehow. His hands moved slightly on my waist reminding me he was still holding on. Something stirred inside me and it wasn’t the familiar chill of my cold friend, but something else completely. I stared into his eyes for one second too long, then suddenly feeling out of my depth I stepped backward, letting his hands slide off of me.
Feeling the need to change the subject, I turned around and started sorting through the cabinets and pantry. “It’s not really coordination anyway, when I shoot, I mean.”
He smiled but played along with ignoring our little interaction. “Oh? And what would you call it then?”
“It’s just something inside me that takes over…I don’t know, It sets itself free. I think It was always with me, all my life but now it’s more than just a part of me.”
“Huh, you sound like this ‘thing’ is more like a person than just a feeling of empowerment.”
“Well, yeah, I guess it is.”
There was a long silence, as I looked up from an empty box of granola bars to find him staring at me. Not judging but simply surprised. “Damn, Sam. That is messed up. I really do worry about you.”
“Shut up, never mind, I don’t know how to explain it. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Oh, come on, please? You know I have a million questions now. Like, does your invisible friend have a name? Do you play games together? And if you do play a game then how do you ever know which one of you really wins?”
I was giggling in spite of being embarrassed for over-sharing. Totally against all odds and certainly my will, Navin and I were becoming friends. However unlikely, it was undeniable and Navin was becoming more and more important to me. I
felt like I could talk to him without any fear of judgment or persecution. But I probably shouldn’t talk to him about my… what? Creepy cold monster living inside me?
“Say what you want, Sam but I’ve spent enough time with you to see your talent. You don’t give yourself enough credit and I don’t think you need an invisible power to help you do anything.”
“Geez, don’t get all mushy on me.” I spun around and kicked a bucket across the floor. “C’mon. This place is empty. Let’s go.”
We climbed back onto the cars in the alley and headed onward to the other end, thinking maybe we’d find something else along the way. I hopped from hood to bumper like a frog jumping lily pads and Navin followed suit, cracking jokes as we went. I only fell on my ass once which was a triumph. We made it to the end of the alley and leaned up against a dusty El Camino to catch our breaths. My curiosity started tingling as I wondered who used to drive the cars we’d just put about 20 dents into. These belonged to people five months ago. These were how people made it to work or dropped of their kids at school or robbed banks…bank robbers needed cars too. Who were the people that parked them there? Did they all know each other and decide, “hey let’s hide from the deadly virus at the arcade. That’ll make the impending doom less sucky” or did someone just steal all these off the street when things got really bad? I tried to envision what they looked like, sweating with the effort of pushing all the vehicles into position.
“Can you imagine it? What it must’ve been like to be here when all these people were bolting? I mean I saw it on the news and the videos were posted everywhere but we left before things got worse, before the bomb decimated D.C., before the X survivors panicked themselves out of hiding and started the second spread. I just wonder…I wonder what it felt like to be in the middle of it. So close to death at every turn.”
We stepped around the corner and were met with the reality of just that. The baseball stadium downtown had been turned into an emergency FEMA shelter for the sick before they knew there were going to be too many infected and no way to save them. Before we knew the virus was a death sentence.
The enormous and depressing banner still hung against the side of the brick wall, waving sadly in the breeze. Its dancing letters the only sign of movement in our field of vision. It was no secret what was inside, the smell was unmistakable and overpowering. Decaying bodies of the abandoned Avian-X victims. I coughed behind my mask and turned my head but Navin just stood frozen, his eyes fixed on that banner.
“We went to one of these, back home when it was all happening. You want to know what it felt like? To be in the middle of it all?” He turned to face me, his eyes glistening and heavy with pain. “It felt like your insides were being torn out of you, like there was nowhere safe in the entire world. Like we were marching in a herd of doomed cattle being sent to a slaughter. Little kids were taken from their parents who were sick and coughing up blood. People were collapsing on the pavement and everyone just stepped over them because no one wanted to touch them. I don’t know if there is a word that can tell you what it felt like, Sam. It felt like the end. It felt like…Death.”
A surge of something resembling guilt bashed me over the head. I was an asshole. A second ago, I was daydreaming about how exciting the chaos must’ve been…but of course it wasn’t. This wasn’t a movie. These were innocent people like my family just trying to stay together and do their best. Except they didn’t know any better. They didn’t know not to trust their own government. Why would they?
His body trembled slightly as we stood and watched the defeated banner fluttering. How many bodies had walked toward that banner thinking they’d found salvation, an answer? One thousand? Ten thousand? How many of those bodies made it out alive? I was tucked away in Hillsboro safe in the cabin while people like Navin were coming here for help. It must’ve been horrific to live through. I hadn’t known his story until then, it had never occurred to me to ask. I knew he needed empathy in that moment just as plainly as I knew I wasn’t capable of giving it. So, I did what I’d done my whole life. I faked it. I gave my best impersonation of a caring friend and wrapped my arms around him tight. I must’ve done it right because he welcomed me in and rested his cheek on the top of my head. His body was warm and though my knee-jerk reaction was to pull away as quickly as possible I knew he needed it. We stayed like that for a while until he was ready to let go. That was the first time I can remember holding someone like that, being a source of comfort. It felt almost…good.
Gross. Stop emoting.
────♦────
Our drive back to The Home was silent. I gave Navin the driver’s seat to take his mind off things but mostly because he wasn’t in the mood to deal with my suicidal tendencies and I was never in the mood to control them. The air was changed somehow since we had left on our exploration that morning, almost as if the scent of the dead was following us. Navin was hurting but I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to help him, so I left it alone until a distraction presented itself. It just wasn’t the distraction either of us wanted.
Navin took a steady right turn onto Maryland, steering us back toward The Home when suddenly we found ourselves at a dead end. There were at least ten people in the middle of the road spread out behind a blockade made of their vehicles, and they each had a gun pointed right at us.
“Well, crap,” I said annoyed.
“Yeah, crap is right. Any thoughts?”
“None that won’t get us killed.”
“Well it looks like that might happen anyway so I’m open to suggestions,” Navin said, his voice wavering.
I stared at our would-be attackers, but something was off. From what I could see all the people looked clean, like really clean, as if they’d been at a spa since the world went to crap. None of them had the appearance of menace or experience on their faces. Several women in thick rimmed glasses and floppy hats wore bored expressions and one of the men was busy untangling his handgun from the fringe on his teal scarf. Then a big guy with a serious beard and way too tight pants stepped forward and waved at us to get out of the car. He looked like a middle-aged Waldo crossed with a lumberjack…it wasn’t a good look. I made an exaggerated scared face at Navin then giggled as I realized these people were hardly a threat.
Eww, hipsters.
“You might as well step on out. You have nowhere to go.” The man’s voice was raspy like he’d just woken up from a nap.
“Nope, we’re good. Thanks anyway,” I said and slowly put the gear shift into reverse.
“You aren’t exactly in a position to negotiate—"
“I really like your beard,” I interrupted. “That takes some serious commitment to grow it that long, huh?”
He instinctively stroked a hand down the length of his facial hair ending right around his belly button, which thanks to the super tight pants was popping out. “Well yes it does…now wait I’m not messing around here, kid.”
“Oh, me either,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “I never joke about facial hair. You’ve really accomplished something there.”
The man scowled, not sure what to do with me. “Look, kid. All we want is what you have and then you can go. So just unload your supplies and we’ll be done here.”
“Oh, is that all? Well here,” I lifted my rifle and pulled the bolt back, aiming right at him. I knew I only had two more rounds in the magazine, and we were outnumbered so things were about to get interesting…thank god. “Why don’t we start with all my ammo. Catch.”
He let out a forced chuckle then raised his hands gesturing to his people behind him. “That’s cute, sweetie but I don’t think you’re going to—"
Before he could finish, my shot fired true and landed in his left foot. He fell to the ground in agony and started throwing the biggest fit I’d ever seen.
“There, I gave you something,” I yelled as Navin hit the pedal and we launched backward. “Nice to meet you! I really do like the beard!”
We rocketed down t
he street and could still hear him screaming as we turned on the next block over.
“Are they chasing us?” Navin yelled.
“Nope, I think I scared them.”
“Why didn’t they shoot at us?”
“I guess no one’s ever stood up to them before. Maybe they panicked. Or maybe their pants were too tight and cut off the circulation to their brains.”
He let out the biggest laugh ever and threw his head back. “Holy crap, Sam! You just shot him, and they did nothing? Wait, you didn’t kill him…why didn’t you just kill him?”
“Maybe I really did like his beard.”
This earned another laugh from Navin and I felt infinitely better about life than I had five minutes ago.
“No, I think I’m just a good influence on you. You need me around to keep you from killing so many people.” He grinned and took another turn, steering us further away from the not so scary band of idiots.
────♦────
We made it back to The Home without any more ineffectual gangs assaulting us and pulled up to find Mike waiting on the sidewalk. His face was seriously annoyed.
“Karina said you left. Where did you go?”
Eye roll.
“Well it’s nice to hear your voice, bro. I hate to answer a question with a question but, why the hell does Karina care where I go?”
Navin stepped in between us to get to the burn barrel and quickly dumped all his coverings. “I’m just going to let you guys chat,” he made an awkward face and went inside.
“So, you just leave without telling me?” His tone was over the top.
“Um, yeah. Because I can take care of myself, Mike. I don’t need to ask your permission. Especially when you’re kind of being a jerk to me.”
He blew out an annoyed breath and calmed himself, something Mom used to do all the time when she really wanted to strangle me.
“Sam, you don’t need my permission just give me a heads-up next time. I had something I wanted to tell you, that’s all.”
“Oh, so you’re speaking to me today? Awesome. What’s up?”
He stepped closer as I poured some lighter fluid and tossed my gloves and mask into the burn barrel.
