Prospero's Half-Life

by Trevor Zaple

  Richard nodded to Samantha, who keyed the additions into her register. This took a moment, as the antiquated system demanded that she input each warranty separately for each hard drive. When she was done, she pressed the total button and issued an involuntary “oh my god”.

  “What’s the damage?” the stranger asked, grinning widely.

  “Nine thousand, three hundred and sixty-seven dollars and forty-five cents” she replied incredulously. Richard coughed politely. The man gestured impatiently for Samantha to count out the money. She did so, with professional speed, and soon had it divided into two very uneven piles.

  “This one’s yours” she remarked, pushing the smaller pile towards the stranger. He picked it up and pocketed it without so much as a second glance.

  “Can I help you with anything else?” Richard asked, adding a hoped-for note of finality to his voice.

  “Bill”, the man grunted. Richard stuck out his hand.

  “Richard Adams” he replied. The man laughed uproariously and Richard reddened.

  “No, the receipt”, he said, pointing to Samantha, who was handing it over at that moment. Richard ground his teeth.

  Richard escorted the man out, just as if her were the last customer before closing time on any normal night.

  “Troy Larkson, by the way”, the man said, hoisting the knapsack onto his shoulders.

  “Nice to meet you”, Richard replied, a trifle sullenly. “Pleasure doing business”.

  “Likewise”, Troy Larkson said, giving a loose little salute with his right hand.

  Richard did not watch Troy Larkson leave. He instead began very rapidly the process of closing up.

  “What were we thinking?” he chastised to himself as he pulled the heavy steel gates across the front display windows. “Any random person could have walked through those doors. We’re asking to be murdered”.

  Samantha did not reply. She was morosely re-counting Troy Larkson’s payment and marking the figures down on a reconciliation form. Richard had insisted on it, for completion’s sake.

  “I should have just closed up and moved on once I arrived. I especially had no right to endanger you like that”.

  Samantha shrugged. “My boyfriend didn’t come home four nights ago. My parents and my brother are dead. My only friends are the people who work here, and they’re pretty much all dead too. I’ve had to hide in the corner of my bedroom furthest from the window with the lights off for the past week because I can hear crazy people in the streets all night. This seemed a lot safer than that”.

  Richard blinked. It was such a matter-of-fact tone that she used, as if it were a dry recitation of some mundane technical information.

  “I hate listening to the sick people”, she continued, motoring along in that same too-level voice. “I hate that I have to listen to some of them die outside my window. I hate listening to them vomit, and groan, and I hate listening to the gunshots”.

  “Where do you live?” Richard asked.

  “Across from the hospital. There’s a bunch of people barricaded inside and they’ve been shooting any sick person who gets too close”.

  Richard said nothing. He wasn’t sure if there was anything to be said.

  “You can come see it if you want”, she offered. “If you don’t have anywhere else to be, I mean. It’s safe enough in the day, the sick people don’t like the light and the crazy people don’t seem to come out much in the day either. The people in the hospital will only shoot you if you’re on their side of the street”.

  Richard didn’t actually have anywhere else to go, and said as much.

  “My neighbours are all dead, and my family lives pretty far away”. He paused for a moment. “I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do after this” he said, as if realizing this fact for the first time.

  “Well, this will give you something to do for a little bit, anyway”.

  “I suppose it will”.

  “I’ll warn you, there’s a lot of bodies on my street. I think that a lot of people thought that they could maybe get cured if they made it to the hospital, or something”.

  “That makes sense” he replied non-comittally. “Are you just about done?”

  “Sure” she replied pertly. “Want me to just leave it on the back counter?”

  “Ah”, he hesitated, and then mentally shrugged. “Sounds good”.

  After making sure that the front of the store was tightly locked, Richard walked into the back to shut the music off and lock the electrical room. He’d finished doing this and was halfway back through the back warehouse when the PA came suddenly to life, scaring him close to an early grave.

  “Richard, I need to see you in my office”. It was the voice of Mohammed, rich, dark, and cultured. He knew that some of the associates knew it colloquially as the Voice of Doom. For a brief, wild moment he considered ignoring the command and walking out of the store without a second glance. He knew, though, that he owed Mohammed at least a little more than that. In fact, he owed Mohammed a lot more than that.

  He returned briefly to the front of the store.

  “You heard that?” he said to Samantha. It was not a question. She simply nodded.

  “Well, I guess I’ll be back, then”. A sudden wave of paranoia washed over him. “You’ll wait ‘til I get back up here, eh?” he asked her, trying to sound casual.

  “Of course”, she replied, awkwardly. She met his glance briefly and dropped it just as suddenly. Richard nodded to himself and made his hands into fists. This was not something that he wanted to see.

  THREE

  Manager’s Row, that area of the store where the offices and training room were located, was chilly. At least, Richard suspected that this was the reason that he was shaking.

  Mohammed’s door was, like he had last left it, securely closed. When he put his palm to the doorknob this time, however, he felt it turn easily, and the heavy door swung open.

  “Richard”, he heard that dark, cultured voice say again. “Come in quickly, and shut the door behind you”. Richard shivered. There was a cold, sepulchural tone to his voice now.

  The office of Mohammed Malani was just as neatly put-together as it had always been. The desk in the middle of the room was tightly organized; no paper out of it’s place, no debris of eating or drinking. The walls were lined with perfectly square frames. Some were pictures of family: two bored-looking, physically attractive children and a knockout of a raven-haired wife. Others were pictures of staff from days gone by: Christmas parties, summer picnics, important staff meetings. Richard was in more than a few of these, smiling and silently glad-handing for all that it was worth. Yet more were certificates and awards, for sales volume and community service. Stepping in and seeing it, Richard felt almost normal. At least, until he saw Mohammed.

  He was as pale as his South Asian skin would permit, with blood-flecked lips and those tell-tale crimson eyes. They looked as though someone had taken his rich, expressive dark eyes and filled them to the brim with blood. His hands lay palm-down on the surface of his desk, as pale as his face but (as far as Richard could tell) unshaken. Mohammed looked at him steadily, his bloodied eyes unwavering. Richard felt awkward under that gaze, and felt a pang for days gone past. Before this sickness, this Emergency, such a steady, silent stare would have indicated that the recipient of the stare was in some fairly serious trouble. Richard himself had been on the receiving end of that stare a couple of times before, and even under these radically different circumstances he felt as though he were a child of ten again, called to task for breaking something important.

  “Richard,” Mohammed spoke. “I trust that everything is well?” Richard blinked, unsure of what his superior meant. There wasn’t very much of his life that he could honestly characterize as “well” nowadays.

  “The store, Richard,” Mohammed continued when he saw Richard’s confusion. “How is business?”

  “We actually had some traffic today”, Richard replied brightly. “It was quite the sale�
��.

  “Give me numbers”, Mohammed replied impatiently, twirling his hand in the classic get on with it gesture.

  “Oh, uh, let’s see”, Richard stammered. “It was, er, somewhere around nine thousand dollars, give or take a few hundred, I think”.

  “Did you print out a duplicate receipt?”

  “Ah, no”

  “What is the standard procedure in cases like this?”

  Richard hesitated, and licked his lips. “Ah, print a duplicate so that the numbers can be submitted quickly”.

  “So what’s wrong with this situation?”

  Richard gaped, disbelief rising through him. He spoke before he could process it fully.

  “What is right about this situation?”

  Mohammed smiled quickly, revealing formerly bright-white teeth now heavily stained with ejected blood. It was a ghastly grin, a death’s-head, and Richard recoiled slightly.

  “Not much, my friend, not much” he replied, his underlying laugh bubbling under with thick, choking blood. “I’m afraid that this is the last day that we’ll be open for business”.

  Richard nodded, having already come to much the same conclusion.

  “You’ve given me a lot of good service over the years, you know”, Mohammed. “I couldn’t have run this store without you”.

  Richard nodded mutely once again. There was nothing that he could think of to say that would add anything useful.

  “What’s going on out there?” Mohammed asked, leaning forward slightly. His bloody eyes widened intently. “The news sites haven’t updated in days. There’s nothing but babbling on the radio, crazy people and idiots shouting about nothing into the mic”.

  “I don’t listen to the radio”, Richard said automatically, and Mohammed twirled his finger again.

  “There’s nobody out there”, Richard stammered along. “On the streets, I mean. I saw a car earlier, a little way off, but nothing else”.

  “But someone came into the store?”

  “Yes sir. Also, Samantha and Mark came into work today. I had to fire Mark”.

  “With cause, I hope”.

  Richard’s mouth twitched. “Job abandonment, sir. He made a scene and then walked out”.

  Mohammed nodded gravely. “No great loss, there. What about Samantha?”

  “She’s still out at the front of the store. I told her to stay away from the windows and page immediately if anything happens”.

  “She’s been a good worker, too”. Mohammed paused and stared at his desk. He didn’t speak quite a while, and Richard wondered with growing discomfort whether he had died or not.

  “Tell her she’s been excellent, and that I appreciate everything she’s done” he said finally, his head flying up and bloody spittle catapulting off his lower lip. It hit the desk and Richard stared at it, slowly realizing after half a minute that he was unable to look away. It quivered noxiously, ropy spit and dark blood smeared on mahogany. That stringy spit he thought distractedly, that’s what you cough up right before you go. He did not remember where he had learned that.

  “Is…is there anything I need to do for you, sir? Ah, religiously I mean?”

  Mohammed waved his hand. “I’m not religious, Richard. I think I’ll just stay here. At least I’m more or less comfortable”.

  “Oh, ah, I just thought, er, since you were named,”

  “Oh, the only reason that I’m named Mohammed is to pull my great-aunt’s nose. She was a very devout Christian and hated the fact that my mother’s family was Muslim. They were secular of course, and that’s where the joke is”.

  Richard nodded, only partially understanding. “So you just want to be left here?”

  “JUST, he says. “I will sit here, Richard, surrounded by the only things left that let me remember better times. My wife is dead, died two weeks ago. I didn’t tell you”, he said, noting Richard’s shock, “because it served no purpose for you to know. You would have worried needlessly about me, instead of concentrating on business. My children died both slightly before and slightly after that. Dying at home would be unbearably depressing, and dying here would at least let me die with success in my mind. Do you remember that book about thinking your way to success?”

  “The Secret, sir?”

  “That’s it. Absolute bullshit from beginning to end, written for middle management types just like me. It’s only real valid point was that it was important to deal with crisis by visualizing positive things. Which is exactly what I’m doing right know”.

  Richard felt his eyes growing wet. He blinked it away. “I’ll lock up before I leave” he said roughly, wanting very badly to leave as quickly as possible.

  “Lock it up tight, Richard”, Mohammed replied, chuckling that clotted chortle again. “Lock it so tight that it’ll take men a hundred years to break back in. I want them to have to work to find me, and when they do find me I want them to wonder hard about what it all means”.

  Richard fought to stop from sketching a salute. He had no idea how to end it, what the protocol on this was. He didn’t want to shake the man’s hand; even though there was an immense amount of respect present the idea made his skin crawl. Fortunately it was Mohammed who initiated it. He waved his hand curtly, dismissively.

  “Go along, Richard,” he said, his voice low and tired. “I need to rest, very badly, and you need to lock up and move along with your life”.

  “Yes sir,” Richard replied, very much relieved. “Lights on or off?”.

  “Off. Take care of Samantha, Richard”.

  “Ah, I will sir”.

  Richard left, gently closing the door behind him. He fished his keys out of his pocket, and locked the door. The tumblers shifted home with a heavy finality, and he hurried out of Manager’s Row and back towards the front of the store. Samantha was sitting on the counter behind the service desk, several feet to the right of the nearest window.

  “Everything OK?” she asked when he reached the counter. He nodded sharply and quickly changed the subject.

  “Are you ready to lock up and go?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Samantha replied, giving him an unreadable look. “Let’s do it”.

  It took them fifteen minutes or so to shut the window-gates and prime the alarm. Richard knew that the alarm would be useless, ultimately, but it was all part of the routine, and he couldn’t escape it. As he keyed the lock on the outer front door, the sun peaked overhead at high noon. It was warm and bright, belying the scenes that Richard knew were playing out all around but refused to mentally acknowledge. He escorted her closely to the car, and kept a lightning-fast watch as she climbed into the car.

  “Point the way”, he invited her, as he twisted the ignition into sudden roaring life.

  FOUR

  They had to take the back route to get to Samantha’s apartment. As they drove closer to downtown, on the other side of which she lived, cars began to choke up the street. Their owners had parked them mid-street and fled; some had simply parked their cars at unnatural angles and died in the driver’s seat. After a certain point it became impassable. Acutely conscious of the buildings on either side of them, and the blank, staring windows located on them, Richard had carefully backed up and turned around, opting instead to weave through the intricate side streets. Samantha directed him listlessly from the seat beside him, spending much of the time playing silently with the little plastic nametag on her green uniform.

  Finally he had pulled around a blue Neon with broken windows and followed Samantha’s sudden exhortations to turn right, turn right. They’d found themselves in the large back parking lot of Samantha’s two-storey apartment building, one of three cars.

  “My neighbours” Samantha had explained without much interest evident in her voice. “They’re dead”.

  Now they were sitting in her small living room, silently awkward. Her apartment was brief, really the smallest that he’d seen since his student days. Her living room was bare, by what he was used to. Her couch and loveseat were both beat-up and
dingy, upholstered in a pattern that had been popular at roughly the same time a Georgia peanut farmer had been getting elected to the White House. Her coffee table was being propped up by a compressed stack of magazines, and it’s sole decoration was an ashtray that was half full and surrounded by a halo of cigarette ash. She had a nice enough television, which they had off since there was nothing of any relevant use on anyway. Her front window was covered by thick yellow curtains, slathered with a nicotine residue that had to have been contributed to by more than one owner. Richard had attempted to draw back the curtains, so that he could see the purported hospital-cum-fortress, but Samantha had forced him to stop.

  “Wait until nightfall”, she told him, her voice coming alive with an intensity that made him obey automatically.

  Eventually Samantha got up from the loveseat where she’d been sitting huddled with her arms liked around her knees. She turned on the TV and began flipping through the stations until she got to the radio stations embedded at the bottom of the list. She dialled through the frequencies, stopping on each one and listening for a moment. Many were just tantalizing blasts of static, atmospheric interference and cosmic background ra//diation. A couple featured voices talking, but faint and with a lot of crackle, as though they were receiving the signal from a very great distance. Then she stopped on a station in the early hundreds, and the urgent, seething voice leaped out of the television speakers with such force that both Richard and Samantha were momentarily stunned.

  “Brothers and sisters!” the voice declared powerfully. “Brothers and sisters! Are you still alive out there? We need to have ourselves a chat, if you are. My phone line is still working, and yours is too, as long as your area isn’t too bad off”. The voice paused to chuckle, and their was an unpleasant note to the laughter, a suggestion that there was no mirth to be found in it, no matter how deep one dug. “My brothers in Detroit, if you’re still listening, may I suggest getting out of the barbeque”.

  Richard looked over at Samantha, but she simply shrugged her shoulders.