by Max Lockwood
Chapter Twelve
“How well do you know this area?” Elaina asked Alec as he drove back into the city they’d abandoned not long ago. The air smelled of burned plastic, and a thick smog hung over them.
“I’ve been living here my whole life,” Alec answered. “Don’t you worry.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Elaina lied. “I was just making polite conversation.”
Elaina wasn’t yet convinced of the police officer’s competency. He looked to be about her age. She wondered if she would have been in a class appropriate to her age if they had met in school. She doubted it though. She went to a private science and technology high school. He seemed like a public school kid.
Elaina tried to relax, but her type-A tendencies tried to take over. Many called her a know-it-all, but she just had a very good idea of what was rational and what was not. Going to an abandoned warehouse didn’t seem like a good idea when much of the population was looking for shelter and supplies. They certainly weren’t the only ones with those same needs and the intelligence to know where to get it.
“There are so many of them.” Natalia yawned as they drove through the rows of metal buildings. “How do we choose which one to stay in?”
Elaina looked to Alec for an answer. She didn’t think that he had one.
“Well,” he said, slowing down, “we want something that’s empty. And it would help if there were some good supplies inside. The problem is, we have no way of knowing what’s inside without checking ourselves.”
“That’s going to take forever.” Elaina sighed. “Shall we split up?”
“No,” Natalia said quickly, clutching her seatbelt.
“I don’t think it’s a great idea either,” Alec agreed. “Don’t worry, we’ll find something in no time.”
Elaina rolled her eyes. There was no reason she should trust him. If he were a little more aware of the news, he would have arrested her without asking questions. Still, she figured she was lucky to meet up with a dumb cop. He could provide protection for a brief length of time until he realized who she was.
“It’s now or never,” Alec said after coming to a halt in the middle of four different storage buildings. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”
Elaina thought he seemed a little too cheery to stop, but she reasoned that one might be at more ease in this kind of situation if they had weapons and the means to use them effectively.
“Stay here,” he ordered, getting out of the car and opening his trunk. Elaina watched him through the rearview window, wondering what kind of firearms he had stored back there.
Instead, he pulled out a backpack and started unbuttoning his uniform shirt to reveal a snug white t-shirt underneath. Natalia snickered softly, and it took Elaina all the composure she had not to join in. She hated to admit it to herself, but Alec was not a bad looking man.
Reaching into the bag, he pulled out a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. His lower half was hidden from view, much to Natalia’s disappointment, but when he returned to the driver’s seat, he didn’t look like a cop at all. Instead, he could have fit in at any college campus.
“Are those your undercover clothes?” Natalia asked, a wicked smile spreading out across her face.
“Something like that,” Alec replied. He reached into the storage console and tossed an extra handgun into his backpack, along with the empty water bottle and various other items he could find.
Elaina and Natalia followed him from the cop car to the first warehouse. The sliding metal door was cracked open, so they squeezed in to see what was inside.
Much to their surprise, there were people inside, quite a few of them. Fires were burning in metal barrels around the expanse, and people from all walks of life were gathered around to absorb some of the warmth.
Natalia opened her mouth to speak, but Alec placed his finger to his lips, signaling silence. He was being cautious for good reason—there was no way of knowing if these strangers posed a threat from this distance.
After creeping around for a short while, Alec led them back outside.
“I think it’s probably too crowded in there,” Alec said softly. “I think we should keep looking.”
Elaina nodded in agreement. The fewer people to identify her, the better.
The sight of the people seeking refuge in the warehouses was haunting for Elaina. These weren’t just homeless people in tattered clothing looking for a warm place to sleep. Instead, average people occupied the buildings. Teachers, retail workers, and accountants were huddled together. The only difference they shared from the usual vagrants was that they once had homes. But once society’s only concern is staying alive, it’s easy to be pushed out of a home with nowhere to turn.
Even Alec knew that his position as a police officer was much different than the job he signed up for. He felt useless in doing the usual work that filled his days. He couldn’t stop every carjacking and kidnapping in the city. He couldn’t fight off the squatters that displaced people from their homes with violence. He definitely couldn’t prevent the virus from spreading at an alarming rate. It gave him some small comfort that he had two citizens who trusted him enough to follow him through the shipping district.
The trio explored different warehouses, all of them a little too full for comfort. A few times, they were unsure if the inhabitants were healthy or infected. Finally, after three or four attempts, they found one that was good enough.
For the three of them, good enough meant that they could expect to keep to themselves and avoid being attacked or bothered for supplies for a couple of hours.
“Look,” Elaina whispered when they entered. “Shipping containers.”
This particular warehouse hadn’t even been unloaded before the virus struck. A few metal containers had been opened and emptied, but most remained latched shut.
Alec led the girls over to a quiet corner. They weren’t completely alone, but their other housemates appeared generally uninterested in knowing who was setting up residency on the other side.
Elaina wrenched the latch of a container open. She struggled and strained, but she eventually managed to reveal crates full of pet supplies. She laughed as she pulled dog beds of varying sizes out of a protective plastic bag. Rawhide bones and tiny stuffed mice lay at her feet.
She wondered if all of the cubes would be full of mostly worthless items. It had been foolish of her to imagine crates filled with bottled water and canned food.
She exited the container to watch Alec open his latch with ease. She rubbed her tired muscles, wishing he had used her free pass to the university’s recreation center once or twice.
“What’s in there?” she called to him. Alec returned, holding two large plastic flower pots in his hands.
Before she could stop herself, she burst out giggling again. How incredibly bad their luck must be if a warehouse full of merchandise for the taking turned out to be completely useless.
Alec looked surprised to see Elaina in either surprisingly high spirits or on the verge of a mental breakdown. He studied her face with concern, wondering if inappropriate giggling was a symptom of the virus.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is just so incredibly ridiculous. We could take whatever we want, but we’re stuck in a warehouse full of pet supplies and gardening items. What do we do? We have no food and water and nowhere to go. Is this the end for us?”
“Hey, you guys,” Natalia called. “I think I’ve got something.”
Elaina jumped down from her perch and followed Alec to the other container. Alec shone his flashlight into the dark space.
“What did you find?” he asked.
“Baby stuff,” Natalia answered, flinging a mobile with stuffed animals out of the way. “It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing,” she said, pulling out a box of tiny glass jars.
“Baby food.” Alec chuckled. “You’re right, it’s better than nothing. And you know what? I think it’s going to rain today. If we put a few of those flowerpots outside, we
could collect enough rain water to last us a few days.”
“I guess we can spread out those dog beds and blankets and try to get some sleep,” Elaina said, starting to feel rational again.
“Good thinking,” Alec said, resting his hand on Elaina’s shoulder and giving it a little shake. “Everything is going to be just fine.”
“Let’s sort through our containers and collect the best stuff. We can put it all in one central area for easier access,” Alec suggested. “I’ll put the pots out, and you two can grab your stuff.”
They got to work straight away, Alec hauling as many containers as his arms would carry, Elaina sorting through the squishy cushions, and Natalia searching for anything edible. When they finished, they met in the spot between their respective searching places.
“This place kind of reminds me of a capsule hotel I stayed at for a conference in Japan,” Elaina thought out loud. “But this is on a much larger scale, of course. I guess we can all choose our own containers and get a little rest.”
“No way in hell,” Natalia interjected. “These containers are pretty massive. If someone comes after me, it would take about a minute for someone to hear my screams and come find me. By that time, I’d already be dead or infected. We stick together.”
Elaina started to protest. She spent much of her time alone, so being paired with two other people really threw off her routine. She just wanted a little time to chill out and decompress before the next day. She was hardly even tired anymore. It was the middle of the afternoon, after all.
As much as she had been through with Natalia, and now Alec, they still weren’t close. Even though she was starting to think of Natalia as a younger sister, she was still an acquaintance. In fact, being Bretton’s daughter almost made her an enemy.
Alec was also somewhere between a stranger and an enemy. Whether he realized it or not, he should have arrested Elaina. He may have saved their life, but that didn’t make him a friend. They were all just in the right place at the right time.
Elaina thought about it and decided that if she were in a situation where she could save herself by leaving the other two, she would. As much as she hated to admit it, it made sense to travel in a group, but she was not going to let herself grow too attached to either of them.
“I don’t mind staying in the same container,” Alec said, looking between the two girls. “Lainey?” he appealed to the older girl, using her family’s childhood nickname.
“Yeah, Lainey.” Natalia smirked. “We don’t have to cuddle together. I just don’t want to be alone.”
“Fine.” Elaina exhaled, grabbing a handful of blankets and tossing them into a container. “Let’s set up camp.”
Natalia looked pleased with herself and carried the boxes of supplies she found into the container. Alec followed behind, securing the area before he closed one half of the door.
“Should we sleep in shifts?” Natalia asked.
“You two go ahead,” Alec offered. “I think I can handle things for the time being,”
“Awesome,” Natalia said, spreading out on her personal cushion pile. She draped fluffy pink blankets over herself and fell asleep almost instantly.
“Poor thing,” Alec said quietly once Natalia fell asleep. “She looks completely exhausted.”
“She is,” Elaina answered, glad that her young companion was finally getting some rest.
“You can sleep too, you know,” he said. “You’re safe with me.”
Elaina closed her eyes for a second and tried to imagine a scenario in which that sentiment was true. His words meant little in what felt like the end of the world, but somehow, it was still a little comforting.
“Thanks,” she said, leaning back on her own stack of pillows. “I’ll try to rest. I’m just not feeling very tired all of a sudden.”
“I understand,” he said. “It’s hard to relax when you feel the burden of responsibility. I don’t think I slept for more than a few hours a night when I started working. It just always feels like you should be doing something, you know?”
Elaina understood. In every spare moment of time, she was thinking about what she would do when she got to a lab. She had imagined the procedure so many times that she knew the motions would be automatic and efficient when she got to where she needed to be.
“Did you two really just meet?” Alec asked skeptically. “It seems like you two know each other from something,” he said. “If I had to guess, I’d say you two are sisters.”
“Nope. I don’t have a sister. I just have to look out for her, you know? She’s too young to be on her own.”
“That’s really good of you,” he said, to her annoyance. She didn’t want him to portray her as the hero. Not yet, anyway.
“She’s been through a lot,” Elaina said, watching Natalia snore. “A lot of people have.”
“Did she really get snatched out of her dad’s car?” Alec asked. “That just sounds crazy. How did that even happen?”
“Well, from what I know, her dad’s a real piece of shit,” Elaina said, feeling some of the anger flow out of her body. She wanted to help keep his daughter alive, if only to use it to mock him for the rest of his life.
“He sounds like it,” he answered, chuckling.
“You know what?” Elaina said, “I think I’ll try to get some sleep after all.”
“Great,” Alec said, his voice tinged with disappointment. “Rest up. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”
Elaina retreated to her cushion pile and turned her back toward Alec. As she pulled the blanket up over her head, completely awake and alert, she tried to pretend that she was alone in her bed instead of sleeping in a metal box with a cop and her rival’s daughter.
As she pretended to sleep, she tried to replace the feelings of fear and anxiety with laboratory procedures. She pictured herself filling test tubes and looking under the microscope. Somewhere along the way, she finally fell asleep, watching the centrifuge spin in her head.
Chapter Thirteen
Elaina woke with a dry mouth and cold feet, but otherwise feeling good. Her arms and legs were a little sore, but once she stretched out, she felt fine.
She looked at her watch. It was nearly eight o’clock in the morning, meaning that she’d slept for about sixteen hours, something that she had never done in her life.
Stomach rumbling, she searched around in the dark for something to eat. Natalia had made it seem like she hit the jackpot of edible treats in her container, when in reality, they had a small box of mushy baby food and toddler snacks. Even if they managed to choke down the green sludge, it wouldn’t be enough to sustain them for more than a handful of hours.
She chose a jar of fruit cocktail and wrenched it open, scooping the purple slime onto her finger and into her mouth. It didn’t taste terrible, but it certainly wasn’t good. She finished the rest and tucked the jar into the pocket of her jacket.
It took her a few minutes of adjusting to the low light to realize that Alec was gone. Natalia was still snoozing in her corner, but her loud breathing and occasional mumbled phrases made her well known to the others. Alec’s absence was odd because he’d promised to keep Elaina updated on any new findings.
Curious, she squeezed out of the crack in the doors and left the warehouse. Others were milling about on the other end, no doubt searching for supplies. She wanted to make it known that there was nothing worth rifling though on their end, but then she would have to communicate with others. She kept her head down and let her hair fall like curtains on her face.
Perhaps it was the much needed sleep she got or the sound of the birds chirping their morning tune, but Elaina felt much better about the position she was in. With everyone rested and ready to go, Alec could drive her to a hospital or school on his way back to work. Then, she could get back to business and do the tasks she could only do in her head from the warehouse.
That was, if she could only find Alec.
Elaina figured that it wouldn’t be in her best interes
t to walk around asking people if they knew where her police officer friend was. Government officials were under fire at the moment for their perceived poor response to the disaster, and none would be very happy to see a police officer walking around collecting supplies of his own. Plus, the fewer people who saw her face, the better.
She started walking back toward his patrol car when she heard a hissing sound from the edge of the building.
“Hey, Lainey,” he hissed, waving his hand at her. “Come here.”
She jogged over to him, looking behind her shoulder to see if anyone noticed her. The coast was clear.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Alec pointed to the flowerpots with a grin on his face. “Look,” he said, sloshing around a few inches of water in each plastic receptacle. “Drink up. It’s important to stay hydrated, especially when we don’t know how much longer it’ll be until we get more. With any hope, it will rain again soon, but it’s hard to know.”
She took a planter from him and held it to her lips. It smelled like newly manufactured plastic, but her mouth and throat were parched. She gulped it down without tasting, letting the cool liquid quench her thirst.
“Thanks,” she said, swallowing again. “That’s much better.”
“I refilled the plastic water bottle I had,” he said. “I just wish I had more.”
She pulled the empty jar from her pocket. “We can use these.”
He laughed. “I can’t believe you ate that. Was it gross?”
She blushed. “I thought we were all going to,” she said quickly.
“I’m just teasing you,” he smiled, lightly shoving her shoulder. “Do you want to help me with these?” he asked, pouring the water into larger pots.
Elaina grabbed one, her face still pink, and quietly carried it into their temporary shelter. Unsurprisingly, Natalia was still sleeping.
