by William Oday
At forty-nine, Flo was no spring chicken. Still, anyone would feel young compared to these two grouches. She rolled her eyes before taking her own seat. “How many times have I heard that? And yet, you’re still breathing and causing me problems.”
She added the last part after noticing that Earl was already knocking back a gulp from his hip flask.
Jim’s trembling hand hovered in the air, waiting for his turn.
Before everything had gone crazy, these two had been everyday regulars in the diner for over two decades. In that time, they’d consumed enough coffee and whiskey to supply a large army.
In the open space in front of them, Mayor Okpik approached the podium. She brought the microphone close to her mouth and then shook her head, pushing it away. “Can I have everyone’s attention?”
The commotion in the room didn’t change. If anything, it got louder.
Chief Stuckey approached from behind the mayor and raised his hands. “Quiet down everyone!”
That didn’t do much either.
“Shut your traps, people!” he bellowed. A thick mustache hung below his nose like the bristles of a push broom. The chief wasn’t known for being a people person in normal times. And his blood-shot eyes and scruffy beard affirmed the story that these weren’t normal times.
The room settled down.
Mayor Okpik’s tight lipped smile at the chief hinted at something between them. She turned with grave eyes and looked over the mass of people packed into the lobby of the Afognak Center. “Thank you everyone for coming today. I know it’s been hard since the event five days ago.”
“My family’s running out of food!” someone shouted.
“My daughter’s sick and the hospital won’t give her medication!”
Okpik raised her hands and patted the air to quiet the outcries. “I understand there are problems that need immediate attention. Everyone up here is doing their best,” she gestured at the line of people seated in chairs behind her, “to keep our town running. But we all know that this is no ordinary emergency.”
“Did the Chinese nuke us?” someone shouted.
“Or was it the commies?” someone else yelled.
“The Chinese are commies!” the first voice replied.
“I meant the Russians!” the second voice replied back.
Flo turned around and looked across the sea of faces facing the front. They were scared. Desperate. Angry. Unpredictable.
She glanced at the emergency exit in the corner behind the seated city officials. If things went crazy, she could make it out no problem. Helping Jim and Earl get out wouldn’t be so easy though.
They didn’t do fast.
They hadn’t done fast in thirty years.
Whatever. They’d get out one way or another.
And she wouldn’t draw the nine millimeter Beretta tucked under her jacket unless absolutely necessary.
Partly because that wasn’t the kind of person she was. And partly because Chief Stuckey would probably shoot the first person he saw pull out a gun.
These were uncertain times.
Shoot first. Ask questions later.
Maybe it wasn’t the official take yet, but it sure felt like it would be soon.
Earl nudged her shoulder and held out the flask. “Want a nipper? Be good for you.”
She shook her head. “No. Not for the last ten millions times you’ve offered, and not today either.” Long ago, she’d been happily married. So long she barely remembered. She and her husband had been regulars at the bars downtown. Lived it up. And not long after that, she lost her husband and marriage to alcohol. She wasn’t going to judge others about it, certainly not these two, but that didn’t mean she was ever going to allow it in her life again.
Mayor Okpik was saying something and Flo realized she’d missed whatever it was.
“…all out nuclear war. And anyway, it doesn’t matter who started it. The rumors we’re hearing on shortwave are that every nuclear capable country got involved and unloaded their arsenals.”
“Jesus save us,” someone nearby whispered.
Flo doubted Jesus had anything to do with putting mankind where it was, and she wasn’t all that sure he’d show up now to help clean up the mess.
“We believe nearly every major city in the United States is gone. Targeted by multiple warheads and wiped off the map. Untold millions gone in a blink of the eye.”
Flo sucked in an involuntary breath.
All of those people? Gone?
Millions?
Tens of millions?
Okpik raised her hands to again quiet the room. “We’ve been unable to confirm the operation of government at the national and state levels. As far as we know, it’s just communities like ours trying to hold on and figure this out. Which brings us to another problem. We suspect that sooner or later, radioactive fallout may–“
A frantic shout from the back of the room cut her off. A skinny man with greasy hair shoved his way down the side aisle. “My stuff’s been stolen. All of it! Gone, it’s all gone!”
Flo recognized him as he lurched to a stop in front of the mayor. His gangly frame, stringy hair and unhealthy pallor hinted at a hard drug addiction. Hinted was probably not a strong enough word.
Ronnie Dean. The repugnant owner of The Weary Traveler. The very motel where she’d found Bob after a failed suicide attempt.
Mayor Okpik touched his shoulder. “Ronnie. What happened?”
“Some low-life, no good SOB stole all of my food! Every last bit! I got nothing left. I’ll starve to death.” He turned to the crowd. “Your stuff ain’t safe, everybody!”
Everyone started shouting at once. A few people on the fringes broke off and disappeared outside.
Ronnie turned back to Okpik and grabbed her arms. He yelled in her face but the ambient conversation was too loud to hear what.
The mayor tried to say something, but Ronnie grabbed her mouth and squeezed. Hard. He yelled again.
An instant later, Chief Stuckey landed a thunderous blow to his chest and hammered him to the floor. The chief wrenched his lanky arms behind his back and cinched his wrists in handcuffs.
Ronnie screamed as Stuckey hauled him to his feet. “Leave me alone! I ain’t the criminal! I’m the victim!”
Stuckey passed him off to a deputy. “Throw him in with the others.”
“Chief, the cell block is way over capacity.”
Stuckey cursed under his breath. “Lock him in the bathroom if you have to. I’ll deal with it when I get there.”
The deputy dragged Ronnie away as Chief Stuckey worked on getting everyone to quiet down. He eventually did and the mayor finished her brief update on what they knew so far.
As people began filing out, Stuckey appeared at her side. Hey, Flo.”
“Hey, chief. How are you?”
“Been better. You?”
“Same.”
“Listen, would you mind coming down to the station some time today?”
“What for?”
“We have your statement on how you found that Outsider that tried to kill himself at Ronnie’s hotel. We just need to dot a few I’s and cross a few T’s to finalize the paperwork.”
“Paperwork after the end of the world?”
Stuckey snorted. “Yeah, trying to keep things normal as much as possible.”
Flo didn’t love the idea of having to go out again. The town was slipping toward chaos. But it wouldn’t do to hole up like a hermit and try to ignore the rest of the world. Community required effort. And that was truer than ever when things took a turn for the worse.
“Sure thing, chief. I’ll drop by this afternoon.”
3
Taking care of a man who’d just tried to kill himself was a complicated business. On the one hand, he was weak and the nurturing side of Flo wanted to nurse him back to health. On the other hand, he had stolen her pistol and snuck out of the apartment in the middle of the night.
And to top it off, he’d left the front door un
locked. While the apartment complex wasn’t normally a dodgy or dangerous place to live, these weren’t normal times.
Flo counted out the prescribed antibiotics and shuffled over to the man lying on her couch. She extended her open hand and a glass of water in the other. “Bob. Wake up. You need to take these.”
His eyes fluttered open and he stared up at her in confusion. It took a second for comprehension to take hold. “Oh. Thank you.”
After he took the meds, Flo set the glass back on the kitchen counter. She stood with her back to him, biting her jaws shut to keep quiet.
But finally realized she couldn’t.
She spun around and Bob was watching her with a tired look on his face. He was in no condition to defend himself.
Flo bit down on her lower lip. How could she think of herself as a generally good person if she did what she wanted to do?
“What is it, Flo?” Bob asked.
She threw up her hands. Battling with herself was exhausting and she was done with it. She crossed her arms and nodded, confirming that she was indeed tough enough and cruel enough to do it. “You have to leave, Bob. You can’t stay here.”
His eyes dropped to the worn carpet. “I understand.” He started to stand up and winced in pain.
She rushed over and helped him lie back down. “I don’t mean immediately! My Lord. Be careful. I mean once you're well enough to get up and around. Then, I need you to leave.”
Bob looked up at her with dull eyes and sunken, pale cheeks.
Nearly bleeding out apparently took the sheen off a person like little else.
“Okay. I promise I’ll do it.”
Flo nodded and then headed for her bedroom. Better to not be around him. The pity fighting the fury was more than she could stomach. As in it literally gave her a stomach ache.
“Florence.”
She paused without turning back.
“I want you to know I’m sorry. I know what I did was wrong.”
A long silence followed.
What?
Did he want her to forgive him and hug him and tell him everything was okay and that they could all live together like Three’s Company and he would be the kooky old Mr. Roper or something?
No.
He’d put her son in danger and that could not be forgiven.
Even if her wanted to do exactly that.
Her belly pinched tight.
Ugh.
She was so weak.
“Is that all?” she said as she looked over her shoulder.
“And I wanted to thank you. I haven’t done that yet. Thank you for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled coldly, approving of the chill coming across through the words.
“I know you don’t have any reason to believe or trust me, but it’s changed me. Almost dying. I don’t want to be the man I’ve always been. I feel like I survived for a reason.”
“Is that all?” she asked again.
“Yes.”
She took a step toward her bedroom when the front door lock clicked and the door swung open.
“Help me out here, mom!” Rome said from the entryway.
She turned and stared in shock at the grocery bags filling his huge arms.
He stumbled inside as she tried to direct the impending avalanche toward the kitchen table that sat halfway in the kitchen and halfway in the living room.
The bags just made it as cans of black beans, corn tortillas, cans of soda, wheat bread, a jar of Grey Poupon, and other items spilled out.
“Where did you get all this?”
Rome grinned and, in that instant, she saw the chubby-cheeked little angel that he was ten years ago. He might’ve been sixteen, six-three, and over two hundred and sixty pounds, but he was still her baby.
Rome adjusted the ridiculous Delta Luvr baseball cap he loved to wear and that she hated with a passion.
Why did he have to choose a hat with a sexy, half-naked cavewoman zombie girl on it? Disgusting. And inappropriate. But he was sixteen and she’d learned long ago to choose her battles.
“I heard about a market in the old warehouse on the south side near the marina. I checked it out and sure enough, there was one. It was crazy! People with stalls set up and selling and trading all kinds of stuff. Like a flea market.”
Dazzled by the pile of supplies covering the table, it took Flo a second to get to the next logical question.
But any mother would’ve got there soon enough.
“So, how did you pay for all this?”
Rome took his hat off and knocked off some imaginary dust.
“I asked you a question, young man.”
“Don’t worry about it, mom. I got it. That’s all. It’s fine.”
Flo opened her mouth to demand an answer, and she would’ve if this had been a normal day in a normal life, but it wasn’t. And the bounty spilling over the table more than doubled their dwindling supplies.
It was an unexpected blessing and sometimes it was better not to ask. This time, at least.
Rome pulled out an apple from his coat pocket and handed it to her. “Here. Have a bite. It’s the last of the fresh stuff.” He pulled out several more and set them on the table.
Flo took a bite and the tangy sweet juice dribbled down her chin. She chewed and swallowed. “What do you mean last of the fresh stuff?”
“No ships have come in since the event. Nobody is expecting more to come any time soon. Those are straight from Wesley Smith’s apple tree. He was charging an arm and a leg for them, but he cut me a deal.”
Again, the how question popped into her mind, and again she set it aside.
Another bite of the apple made her jaws ache from the sweetness.
“Is there an apple for me?” Bob asked from the couch.
Rome looked away into the kitchen. “Did someone say something? I can’t tell. It sounded like a fart coming out of a donkey’s ass.”
“Romero! Do not use that language in my house.”
“It’s an apartment, mom.”
“Don’t get smart with me, young man. The world may have gone to hell in a hand basket, but that doesn’t mean my home will. Do you understand?”
Rome shrugged. “Sure.”
Flo took an apple over and handed it to Bob. While he was a guest in their household, he would be provided for. But hopefully not for much longer.
“Mom!” Rome yelled without looking in their direction. “Don’t give that bastard our best stuff!”
“Romero Andrew Bickle! No more language like that!”
“Sorry. I’m just saying,” he picked up a can of pickled jalapeños, “give him this. It’s food.”
Flo sighed. It was time for her to head to the police station. “Rome and Bob, I have to leave to meet with Chief Stuckey.”
Rome faced her with wide eyes. Fearful. Concerned, at a minimum. “Why?”
What was he thinking right now?
Anyway, that mystery would wait for another day. “I have to go finalize my statement about what happened with Bob.”
“You mean the loser’s failure at suicide?”
Flo frowned at him and shook her head. Bob may have been, well, Bob, but that didn’t make it okay to treat him like dirt. “About the suicide attempt, yes.”
“You shouldn’t have to go. He should,” Rome said as he pointed an accusing finger.
“I’ll go,” Bob said.
“Both of you, shut your mouths,” Flo said with growing irritation. “I’m going. This isn’t a debate.”
Rome kept his mouth shut and adjusted his hat.
Flo involuntarily glanced up at it. The curvy woman was either the sexiest zombie not alive or else a very down on her luck porn star. She hated the thing as much as ever.
“I need to trust that you two will get along while I’m gone. Can you do that?”
“Absolutely,” Bob said.
Rome crossed his thick arms over his thicker middle.
Weight had always been an issue for him.
Just another thing for her to feel guilty about.
Flo kicked the thought aside. “At least promise that you’ll leave him alone.”
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll stay in my room. As long as donkey balls doesn’t bother me, we’ll be fine.”
“Thank you,” Flo said as they both shuttled groceries into the kitchen cabinets.
When everything was put away, she grabbed her purse and considered whether or not to slip the 9MM Beretta into it. It was the middle of the afternoon and though things had gotten rougher in general, it wasn’t like it was the wild west with people getting gunned down in the streets.
Not yet, at least.
Besides, she was going to the police station, the safest place in Kodiak.
She pulled her son’s head down and kissed his cheek. Standing at the open door, she looked back and forth between them. “Just be civil. I mean it.”
And then she was off.
4
The walk from her home through the north end of town to the police station proved to be uneventful. Most of the cars that had been killed by the electromagnetic pulse still occupied their final destinations on the streets. The EMP had turned them into landmarks like the surrounding buildings.
There was the black Ford F250. Still looked fine, as if someone had decided the world was their parking spot.
There was the cherry red Hummer H3. Though it now had all the windows busted out and tires missing. Even the one on the back.
She could’ve driven the old brown Ford Pinto, but she didn’t want to waste the gas. She used to hate the Pinto Bean. That was their nickname for the ugly old car. But now that it was one of very few cars that still worked, the rust brown junker had turned into a prized possession.
She arrived at the police station and entered through the open door. She entered the small lobby and the front desk that was usually occupied was empty. The large area of desks to the left held the fifteen officers that constituted the entire police force of Kodiak, Alaska.
Chief Stuckey was going over something with the rest of them, but stopped when he noticed Flo. He passed the discussion to a deputy and walked over.
“Hi, Florence,” he said as he extended a hand.
