by Dan Padavona
“No, sir. I’m blind.”
“Oh, my God. We finally find another living person and he turns out to be a crippy. That’s just terrific.” Melody skulked away.
Mitch turned on her. “Don’t ever let me hear you say something like that again.”
“What are you going to do? You’re not my father. You’re just some nobody I met by the side of the road.”
“Take it easy, Mitch,” Beth said. “What did she say?”
“You don’t want to know.” As Melody crossed the interstate to the van, Beth followed her. Mitch couldn’t shake the feeling that if Beth hadn’t followed, Melody would have climbed into the van and driven off without them. “I’m real sorry about that. She’s just some girl we found, overdosed by the side of the road in Tennessee. What she said was unacceptable.”
“Don’t sweat it. I’ve heard worse. Overdosed, eh?”
Mitch bristled. “Nothing like getting high after the world ends. I’m Mitch Bloom, by the way.” When he extended his right hand toward the blind man, he almost pulled it back in embarrassment, realizing the man had no idea Mitch wanted to shake his hand. But the man’s hand met his instantly, as if he had developed extrasensory perception to compensate for his lost sight. Mitch’s brow wrinkled.
“Lance Benin.”
“Good to meet you, Lance. The other woman with me is Beth Tranor, a teacher out of Kentucky. The girl is Melody Ailmen. She’s a teenager, as if you couldn’t guess.”
Lance laughed. “She doesn’t know better. But someday she will.”
“She doesn’t know shit, if you ask me. And if you don’t ask me, I’ll probably tell you anyway.” Lance’s breathing normalized, and he sat up on his elbows. His clothes were soaked with a fetid smell. “Did you swim through swamp waters to get here?”
“As a matter of fact, yes I did. Just my luck that a swamp stands between my house and the highway, and I can’t exactly drive.”
“Jesus, Lance. I was just kidding about the swamp. How did you—”
“I did what I had to do. It was either face the swamp or die slowly.” He pushed himself to his feet. As his hands felt out in front of him, Mitch grabbed hold of Lance’s arm to balance him.
“I’m right here.”
“Thank God for that. If you hadn’t have come when you did—”
Mitch turned his head toward the van where Beth was waving her arms, having a one-way animated conversation with Melody, who stood with her back to Beth, arms folded.
“Hey, Mitch? What the hell is going on, and where is everyone?”
Lance’s question brought Mitch’s attention back to him. The query hung in the wind. Thunder grumbled ominously from somewhere over Georgia.
“I wish I had an answer for you, Lance. We all wish we had an answer for you.”
Fright flashed in Lance’s blank eyes, as did a sudden understanding—the world really had been wiped clean, and left behind was a desolate, blank slate.
As Lance shifted his feet, Mitch noticed something black and shiny along his shirt collar. “You said you swam through a swamp to get here?”
“Yeah.”
“We better get this shirt off of you.”
When Mitch pulled the shirt over Lance’s head, he cringed. Three blood-bloated leeches clung to the man’s skin: one near the neckline, one over his left nipple, the third just below his navel. Walking around Lance, he found four more scattered across the small of his back.
“Shit.”
“Leeches?”
“Yep. Can’t feel ‘em, can you?”
“No, sir.”
“Stand still, and I’ll get them off of you.” Wincing, Mitch pulled a leech off of Lance’s back. Blood spurted, but Mitch couldn’t tell if the blood came from the leech or the wound. “Nasty business. Nasty, nasty business.”
After removing six of the leeches, the last remaining parasite nestled over Lance’s left nipple, digging in for a fight.
“Okay, Lance. The last one is gonna be a little tricky.”
“Where?”
“It’s right over one of your nipples. Sorry about this.”
“Not a problem. Pull it off.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Do it.”
No problem. It’s just like ripping a bandage off, right?
Through narrow slits for eyes, Mitch watched his fingers pinch the leech. When he pulled off the parasite, Lance flinched and grit his teeth. A stream of blood trickled down from Lance’s chest, like a crimson ice melt. A flap of skin hung over Lance’s nipple, like a blood-soaked bandage.
“Sorry about that. You okay?”
“I’m fine, but we’re not done.”
“Not done?”
Lance nodded down below. Mitch lowered his head and understood. Lance’s waterlogged pants clung to his legs like snake skin.
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.”
“How do you want to handle this?”
“How about I pull my pants down and strip nude in the northbound lane of I-95?” Mitch raised his eyebrows, and again Lance sensed what he could not see, guessing the look of disbelief on Mitch’s face. “What? Like you didn’t do crazy shit like this in college.”
A sly grin worked across Lance’s lips, and Mitch burst into laughter. “I wasn’t a college man, Lance. But I’ll be happy to tell you all about some of the crazy things I’ve done over a beer. At least get behind the van, out of view of the women.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“Maybe not, but I am. Follow me.”
“—he said to the blind man.”
Mitch found himself laughing again as he led Lance across the median. I’m leading a wise-cracking blind man covered in leeches across the interstate. How did I get to this point?
“Girls, I need you to get inside the van and keep your eyes focused south.” Melody rolled her eyes. Behind the van, under the full strength of the Florida sun, Lance peeled off his remaining clothes and stood buck-naked on the southbound shoulder. Mitch counted eleven leeches stuck to Lance’s legs and buttocks, like dead, bloated leaves.
“What’s the damage, Mitch?”
“Eleven.”
“Any on the genitals?” Mitch went silent. “It’s okay. I saw ‘Stand By Me’ seven or eight times when I was a kid.”
“No. Nothing that bad.” Mitch began peeling leeches off Lance’s bare buttocks. “But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that scene again. I still get squeamish every time I see that movie.”
A few minutes later, the already-drying husks of eleven dead leeches lay withering on the shoulder. Lance’s legs were covered in splashes of blood. He looked like he’d had a run-in with a whirling lawn mower blade. Seeing no other option, Mitch stripped out of his own clothes and gave his blue jeans to Lance, refusing to take no for an answer.
“Mitch, it’s a good thing I’m blind, because I don’t want to see you in your tighty-whiteys.”
“Easy, my friend. I’m wearing boxer shorts.”
“And when were they last washed?”
“Don’t ask. Don’t tell.” Mitch led Lance to the van’s sliding door.
When the two men climbed into the van, Beth raised her eyebrows.
Mitch smirked back at her. “We’re stopping for clothes at the first outlet mall we see off the interstate. Any objections?”
“None, Indiana. But when you drive, try to keep the barn door closed, okay?”
“Very funny, Beth.”
Mitch drove southbound on I-95. Ahead in the median, reflecting like a lighthouse beacon, stood a sign directing them toward the mysterious Florida Bliss.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mall Life
In the silence of vanished commuters, they of their honking horns and vulgar gestures, the torrid heat seared earth and cement. Houses and buildings gradually drew more shadows, as though concealing themselves from the unrelenting sun.
The world was gone, yet not everyone suffered regret. When Jeremy Andrews realized mos
t of the world had disappeared into the ether, he could hardly contain his enthusiasm. A lifetime loner, Jeremy had never fit in at school and college. His parents had died early, and he didn’t have friends, or at least he wasn’t close enough to any of his friends that he missed them now that they were gone. He hated his data entry job in Brackney, South Carolina, and he was three months past due on his rent, awaiting eviction from a landlord who thought Jeremy was a deadbeat slacker. His fifth-story apartment was drafty in the winter and scorching in the summer, so much so that he could no longer afford the electricity to cool it. So when someone pressed the reset button on the world and everyone Jeremy knew disappeared, he didn’t whimper. He rejoiced.
For the past week, Jeremy had felt like a kid in a candy shop. There was no boss yelling at him, no landlord breathing down his neck for rent money, and everything in the world was free for the taking. But when the power failed on Tuesday morning, life got a little more complicated.
What am I going to eat? he thought to himself, watching dead flies collect between the kitchen window and storm, little disease-toting aviators who might take over the earth in time. A hundred years from now, all that would be left would be cockroaches, flies, and Twinkies.
Cooking became impossible on his electric stove, so he started grilling his meals. For the first few days everything tasted new and different—he grilled pizza, burgers, and chicken; he even boiled pasta and sauce by placing the pots on top of the grates—but then the novelty wore off.
With no reason to continue living in his dingy apartment, he moved into various upscale homes in the affluent section of Brackney but found living within abandoned homes creepy. Pictures on the mantelpiece made him feel as though ghosts were watching him, and in every bed he lay drifted the scent of the vanished.
So Jeremy took his meager possessions with him and checked himself into the Comfort Inn downtown. The room was to his liking, and he had the run of the three-floor hotel. But he had been out for a walk on Tuesday when the backup power failed and couldn’t figure out how to open his electronically-locked room door.
Tuesday afternoon, needing a better plan, he moved into Silver Gates Mall, hoping this stop would be his last. Real estate, as he had once been told, was all about location, location, location. The mall, situated on the west side of Brackney alongside two big-box retailers and a grocery store, seemed perfect.
The big-box stores possessed every item he would ever need, including a several-year supply of charcoal and a huge pre-assembled grill. For the first few days, he ate voraciously of the grocery store produce section, feasting on apples, oranges, bananas, and more exotic items he previously couldn’t afford such as star fruit and papaya. But after a few days without power, the lettuce wilted, and the peppers and fruit items became mushy and brown. Even worse, insects and animals took over the store, skittering and buzzing about as though mother nature rang a dinner bell. The flies were thick, too—perhaps they had followed him from his old apartment. But the countryside groves held a continuous supply of fresh produce, and he made it a point to pick apples and peaches daily. The remainder of his food came from cans and boxes. For Jeremy Andrews, life was pretty damn good.
The mall turned out to be a godsend. Five stories tall, the shopping Mecca was affixed with a glass roof that let in glorious sunlight, making the corridors bright and friendly. Heat rose straight up the center tower, massing at the roof and keeping the lower floors comfortable. When he needed a change of clothes, he picked out something new at Old Navy and JCPenney, both of which stocked a large quantity of average-sized clothing for completely average people like Jeremy. He jogged the walkways to stay fit, scavenged for treats in the food court, and when he was bored, he read novels and magazines from the bookstore.
Maybe if the mall doesn’t work out, I’ll move into the local library.
Macy’s anchored the mall’s western corridor, and here he set up home base, sleeping in the bed section on the second floor. The beds were set back into the middle of the store, far enough from the entrances that he felt secure.
But as much as Jeremy liked living inside the mall, he found it unsettling at times. The ambient light of the main walkways rapidly faded inside the stores, leaving the back walls shrouded in black shadows that seemed to slither. Storefront dummies stared through glass like the undead, and they so disturbed him that he removed every mannequin from his home base and deposited them in a jewelry store, stacking their bodies in a morbid mound behind the cash register. Nonperishables in the food court began to rot, filling the center of the mall with the scent of death.
And he was not alone. On Friday, he awoke midmorning to shouts and laughter. Peering out from Macy’s shadows, he watched two young men walking the mall’s corridor, their hoots and calls echoing through the mall like the moans of phantoms. They didn’t vandalize the interior, though one of the men kicked a garbage can, his laughter ringing up and down the long corridor. After the men collected clothes and finally exited the mall, he breathed a sigh of relief. Still, he wondered if the next group to explore the mall might catch him unawares.
Would they hurt me if they found me hiding?
At night, when the shadows bled out from the stores and cloaked the corridors, the mall became a crypt. Shining through the translucent roof, the moon provided the only light, and as Jeremy crept along the corridors, weaving around abandoned benches and wilting palm plants, the nighttime interior seemed like deep jungle within which all manner of beasts hunkered down, watching him with hungry eyes. He rarely ventured out from home base at night, choosing to hide in his bed, sometimes with the covers pulled over his head to curtain himself from moving shadows.
By Saturday, May 30th, Jeremy had his daily routine down to a science. After eating from a box of dry cereal, he drove out to the groves and picked enough peaches and apples to get him through the next few days. He didn’t return to the mall immediately, choosing instead to hike a nature trail bordering the grove before the morning grew too hot. This is what freedom feels like, he thought, as he raised his eyes to the mottled sunlight bleeding through the thick flora. No alarm clocks, nobody pushing me around. I could get used to this.
He returned to Silver Gates Mall after noon, anxious for its cool confines. The Carolina sun hammered down on the parking lot, turning vehicles into burning stars and baking the blacktop. After he parked amid the lost sea of vehicles outside Macy’s, his mind never registered the new van flawlessly blending into the scene from across the lot. He walked right past the van, not hearing its ticking motor.
Inside Macy’s, the air felt warm and stagnant, the light a gray murk that hid as much as it revealed. As he cut through racks of clothing, a dark forest of garments, he felt a chill on his spine. He stepped quickly through the aisles, longing for the cooler, brighter interior of the mall where he would feel safe.
What if those men are inside the mall again?
He glanced from side to side, studying the shadows, bracing for something to lunge out at him. Silence hung over the store’s interior, thick and viscous. The light of the main corridor burgeoned up from beyond the perfume counter. He was almost out of the dark, almost into the perceived safety of daylight, when two figures jumped out from behind the counter. The first of the silhouetted forms aimed a rifle at his head. The second circled around him holding a handgun. He was sure the two men had returned to kill him, having seen or heard him yesterday despite his attempt to hide. But when the silhouette holding the rifle spoke, he was surprised to hear a woman’s voice.
“I don’t know about this, Kee. He doesn’t look dangerous.”
The one with the handgun edged closer, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he recognized her as a woman, too.
“Can’t ever be too sure, South Carolina. Hey. What are you doing sneaking through the dark?”
Jeremy raised his hands in the air to show he carried no weapons. “Nothing. I swear.”
“Nothing, eh?” As Keeshana glared at him, he felt her eyes burning
holes into him, assessing. “It looked to me like you were trying to hide on someone. Maybe so you could get the jump on us?”
“No. I thought you were the two guys who were inside the mall yesterday. I was just being careful.”
“Do we look like guys, Amy?” The other woman shook her head. “You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing inside the mall? It sure doesn’t look like you are grabbing supplies for the road.”
Jeremy started to lower his hands, but when Amy centered the rifle on his eyes, he raised them above his head. “I live here.”
“You live here?” Amy asked. “What do you think, Kee? You believe him?”
Keeshana glanced around the store, and then her eyes traveled up the lighted corridor. “I think he’s telling the truth. Let’s get him into the light so there’s no funny business.”
Amy backed her way toward the main corridor, still aiming the rifle. As the light grew around her, Jeremy noticed a softening in her eyes. Now they were fully in the corridor, standing beside a blue-colored pool full of coins. The fountain, which had once produced a soothing rainfall effect, lay dormant. The smell of chlorine, not fully dissipated, wafted out of the pool, thankfully cloaking the rot from the food court.
Keeshana patted Jeremy down as Amy rolled her eyes.
“I think he’s safe, Kee.”
“Just checking.” Keeshana met Jeremy’s eyes. “No offense.”
Jeremy finally lowered his arms. “None taken.”
“I’m Keeshana, and this is my friend, Amy.” She held out her hand, and after a moment of consideration, Jeremy shook her hand.
“I’m Jeremy.”
“You from around here, Jeremy?”
“I lived on the other side of town.”
“And when the world disappeared, you moved into the mall?”
Jeremy blushed. “Once the power went out, I couldn’t get back into the hotel.” Keeshana laughed, causing Amy to giggle with her. “What?”
