365 Days Alone

by Nancy Isaak

Of course—that would have been too easy.

  Using what little brute force we had, Jay and I eventually managed to jimmy the glass doors a few feet apart and stick a shopping cart between them. We entered, pushing our bikes ahead of us. Jay and I had decided earlier that we would bring them into the store. That way, we could load the food directly into the baskets. More importantly, though, we would have instant wheels if we needed to get out quickly.

  Like if something was chasing us.

  * * * *

  The first thing I noticed about the store was the temperature.

  One of the things I have always disliked about this particular Ralphs is how cold it can get. Even during the summer, my mom and I always carry a sweater when we shop. Otherwise, a few minutes inside and you’re racing for the exit, covered in goose bumps.

  Not today, though.

  Today it was downright hot inside of that store.

  And it also smelled bad! You could definitely tell that there was rotting food inside.

  The other thing about the store was that—like the bike shop—there were way too many shadows. Sure, there was a little light at the front, coming in through the glass doors. Down at the back, however—it was DARK!

  “Let’s get this over quick,” I told Jay as we set the kick stands on our bikes. “Where do you want to go first?”

  “I really, really need some good lotion.” Jay scratched at her leg.

  (A big problem with the world going topsy-turvy—it’s hard to maintain your hygiene. Even though we still have water coming through the lines, Jay and I figure it’s going to end soon enough. Because of that—to save water—we haven’t been taking our daily showers. Instead, we've just been using a face cloth, a bar of soap, and a bowl of water to bathe. Don't get me wrong. We’re basically clean—we’re just not 21st Century-clean.)

  “Should we split up?” I asked. “One of us can get the lotion and the toilet paper and stuff. The other person can get the food.”

  Jay looked at me, aghast. “Have you not watched horror films?!”

  “Okay, okay…we'll do this together. Where do you want to start?”

  “Let's just begin on the right and head up and down the aisles until we find everything we want.”

  “All right…produce section first, it is!”

  * * * *

  It was actually kind of neat, sampling all the fruit and vegetables. I mean, I am a teenage girl and I love my potato chips and chocolate bars but—after twelve days of basically living on canned food and snacks—I was seriously craving some good produce.

  “What's that?” I was looking at a tiny, red oval fruit, covered with something that looked like brown furry spikes. “It's seventy-five cents for just one and it's so small.”

  “It's a rambutan,” said Jay, reading off its label. “Let's try them.”

  She handed me one and I began to turn the spiky guy around in my fingers. “How do you eat it?”

  Jay twisted hers apart easily, taking a tentative lick of the white flesh inside. Her face immediately lit up with a smile. “This is delicious!”

  “Well, I guess this is one thing amazing about being on our own. We can try anything we want now and no parents or budgets are here to stop us.”

  “I’ve never been shopping with unlimited credit before,” beamed Jay.

  Grabbing a plastic bag, I began filling it up with the spiky rambutans. “One, two, three, four,” I counted, making my way up to ten of the little fruit. “That's seven dollars and fifty cents and we've only just started shopping. This is going to be so much fun!”

  Jay nodded, wiping rambutan juice off of her chin. “I just wish it wasn't so dark and creepy at the back of the store. We definitely should have brought candles...and bigger baskets.”

  “You know, we can always pick up some candles down in the home goods aisle.”

  “That's true,” said Jay. “And in the seasonal section, I think they've got those old lanterns. You know, the ones that look like something Paul Revere would have carried. We should get some of those. That way we'll always have light.”

  “Glow sticks from the toy section?” I added.

  “What about those tiki torches from home and garden?”

  “Good idea. We should probably pick up some of those fireplace logs, too. And matches—or lighters.”

  “We don't have fireplaces in our townhouses,” Jay said. “Only the single levels have them.”

  “I know that. But we can still use them to start fires. Oh, and we should pick up some charcoal and lighter fluid for barbeques!”

  “Do you have a barbeque at your townhouse?” asked Jay.

  “No,” I said. “Do you guys?”

  “No.”

  “So, we need to pick up a barbeque, too. Or maybe one of those hibachi-things. I mean, it's not like we can cook on the stove now.”

  Jay frowned. “That's a lot of stuff for our bike baskets.”

  “Maybe we should just grab a shopping cart. We can always push it back to the townhouse. It won't be that far. Plus we'll be able to carry so much more, then.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Jay nodded. “But we'll have to leave at least one of the bikes here, though. We can come back for it tomorrow.”

  “Okay…so, you go grab some more fruit and veggies and I'll go get the cart.”

  I turned to race off but, before I could take a single step, Jay quickly grabbed me by my arm. She squeezed it—hard. “Again,” she said, pointedly—carefully emphasizing each word, “Do you not remember what happens to pretty young girls in horror films when they split up?”

  “Nice!” I grinned, prying her fingers off my arm. “You're calling us pretty.”

  “We're probably the only ones alive,” Jay sniffed. “That means we're the most beautiful girls in Agoura Hills—and the most ugly.”

  * * * *

  There was a shopping cart just inside the door—conveniently holding a lemon meringue pie, two bags of tortilla chips, a six-pack of diet cola, and a Marie Claire magazine.

  “Good start,” I said, looking into the cart. “We'll have to pick up some salsa for those chips, though.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Jay. “With all that produce about to go bad, we need to make our own. It's not like you need electricity to make a simple salsa.”

  * * * *

  Watermelons, oranges, apples—they all went into our cart.

  Cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, and onions soon followed.

  Nuts and dried fruit were also a big item.

  “When we get back,” Jay suggested, “we should create some kind of organization system for storing all this stuff.”

  “As opposed to just putting it in the cupboards?”

  Jay looked at me as if I was an idiot. “We need to eat the most-perishable first! And as far as the other stuff like canned and boxed food, they all have best by dates. We have to eat everything in a particular order or we'll wind up wasting a lot of food.”

  “Well, you can be in charge of that,” I said. “Because I am definitely not Martha Stewarting at the end of the world.” I took hold of the cart and began to push it toward the back of the store. “Crap, this thing is already heavy…and it’s only half full! It’s really going to be a pain to push it all the way back to the townhouse. Maybe we should concentrate on getting just the stuff we need right now…or things like fruit and vegetables that will go bad.”

  “We still really need toilet paper…and lotion,” insisted Jay.

  I sighed. “And I suppose we should pick up some of those baby wipes for when the water stops coming through the pipes.”

  Jay nodded. “That's going to be so disgusting. Baby wipes are a good idea.”

  “So—lotion, toilet paper, baby wipes…other than those, everything else we get should be either perishables or things to cook them with. Agreed?”

  “Makes sense to me,” Jay nodded. “Plus some chocolate.”

  “Well, that should have gone without saying,” I grinned.

&nb
sp; “And maybe some more soda.”

  “And we can put some licorice in our pockets. If it’s on our body, it doesn’t really have to be counted.”

  * * * *

  I stopped the cart in the international section, in front of the Indian food.

  “Anything you want?” I asked Jay.

  She looked down at her feet. “No…not really.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Maybe next time. It's just...”

  “It's just what?”

  When she looked up, I saw that Jay’s eyes were moist. “It’s just that it reminds me of my family and I don't want to think about them right now. It's easier that way, you know.”

  I did know. Even now—there’s this pit of worry in my stomach.

  What has happened to my mom? Is she okay?

  Putting an arm around Jay’s shoulder, I gave her a quick hug. “Our families are fine. Wherever they are…I'm sure of it.”

  “I hope so.” Jay wiped her eyes, then took a deep breath. “Okay, crying's over. Let's get back to work.”

  * * * *

  “Is that money on the floor?”

  Leaving the cart at the end of the aisle, Jay and I moved toward the cash registers. Sure enough, there were bills scattered all over the floor—twenties, tens, fives, and ones—perhaps a thousand dollars’ worth of money in total.

  We tried to make sense of what we were seeing.

  “Remember that armored truck down at the bank,” said Jay. “Maybe they were making deliveries and this was one of them.”

  “I don't think so. Look at that cash register near the self-serve machines.”

  Jay turned and looked.

  The cash register’s money drawer was open, its slots empty. A few five-dollar bills littered the floor below.

  “That’s where I think all this money came from,” I said.

  “Well, then that makes sense. The register was probably open when the ‘thing’ happened and then, when we opened the door, the wind just blew out all the money.”

  I walked a few steps over to the cash register in the next aisle. “Then how come this register is open, too? And look down the line. All the registers are open and their money’s been taken.”

  “But this doesn’t make any sense.” Jay looked confused. “Does it?”

  “No.” I shook my head, becoming increasingly unsettled. “Come on…let's finish what we started and get the heck out of here!”

  * * * *

  Even after almost two weeks, the bread aisle still smelled SO GOOD!

  (This is one of my worst vices. I am an absolute bread and pastries junkie. My mom is always trying to get me to cut back. She says that our family is known for large hips and thighs and that the last thing I should be doing is loading up on carbs and starches. I can't help it, though. It's all just so yummy!)

  “A lot of this bread has gone moldy,” I said, placing two clean loaves in the cart. “They have some bread mixes down in the baking aisle. We should probably grab a couple of those and see if we can figure out how to make bread on the BBQ.”

  “My mom makes bread almost every day,” Jay said. “And papadum...and naan.”

  “Do you make it with her?” I asked. “Can you make bread?”

  She shrugged. “I can try.”

  Just then, we reached the end of the row and turned the corner…

  …and stopped.

  “What the...” stammered Jay.

  “Careful,” I whispered.

  On the floor before us, was a variety of condiment containers—ketchups, mustards, salsas, and mayonnaises. They were spread out in a large circle, surrounding a bag of half-eaten tortilla chips, six A&W Root Beer bottles (two empty and four full), an empty carton of Twinkies, and about a dozen crumpled candy bar wrappers. Off to one side, just outside of the circle, was a handful of magazines and newspapers—some open as if they were still being read.

  “We're not alone?!” Jay whispered.

  “I don't think so,” I agreed. “I think someone else survived.”

  “Well, where are they?”

  “Dunno’…there are a lot of stores around here. Maybe they're in one of them. Or maybe they went to their own home.”

  “Or maybe you're wrong,” said Jay, looking scared. “Maybe they're still here and they're hiding somewhere, waiting to attack us when we go by.”

  She had a point.

  “What do you want to do, then?” I asked.

  “We should go home…right now!”

  “But what if they're like us? What if they're just a normal person who's scared and hiding, because they're afraid we'll hurt them?”

  “Or what if they're big and mean and really angry and take it out on us?”

  Another good point.

  “What about this? We’ll leave a note,” I suggested, “just like we did at the Sheriff's Station.”

  “And then we'll leave?” Jay asked, hopefully.

  “We still have to finish getting our supplies.” Jay looked stricken, so I quickly added, “But we'll move really fast. Just get the essentials. Tell you what, you just push the cart and keep a lookout. I'll run up and down the aisles and grab what we need.”

  “But you stay in the same aisle as me,” she begged, fearfully. “You don’t leave me behind!”

  “Absolutely not.”

  We took off at a furious pace, racing up and down the aisles, throwing what we needed into the cart. When we reached the office supplies section, I stopped to grab a pen and some paper.

  “Kaylee…just essentials!”

  “I need to write to the other survivor.” I waved the paper at her. “So, what do you want to say on the note?”

  “I don't care,” Jay said. “Just don't let them know where we live just in case they're bad.”

  “Well, how about if I just write the same thing we did at the Sheriff's Station?”

  Jay nodded. “That's fine…can we go now?!”

  “Should we leave the note back in the condiments aisle or on the front door?”

  “Are you insane?!” Jay looked horrified. “There’s no way that I’m going back into that aisle! Just tape the stupid thing on the front door!”

  * * * *

  Outside the store—with Jay keeping watch—I finished writing the note and taped it onto one of the sliding glass doors.

  “Ohmigod!” Jay suddenly cried out.

  I spun around, thinking that Jay had seen our mysterious condiments-survivor. But it wasn't a man or a woman that she had spotted.

  It was a little calico cat—being chased through the parking lot by three large coyotes!

  “Oh, no!” Jay cried, horrified. “Come on, kitty. You can do it!”

  The cat spun and weaved, over and under cars—the coyotes steadily gaining. Suddenly—another coyote appeared just off to its left. Immediately, the calico switched directions, sprinting under a row of shopping carts and coming around—straight toward us.

  “Oh crap!” I grabbed Jay by her elbow, intending to pull her inside the supermarket if the coyotes came too close.

  But, once again, the cat changed directions.

  Meanwhile, the coyotes separated, one moving up on either side, while the remaining two stayed right behind the little calico. They appeared to be herding the cat toward the far end of the strip mall.

  “Should we do something?” asked Jay, worried.

  “What can we do?”

  “I don't know…but it just seems wrong to let that cat get killed without trying to help it.”

  Moments later, the coyotes slowed—their prey cornered—caught where two walls right-angled, creating a solid, impenetrable intersection a good twenty feet high. But the little calico—instead of turning to face the predators closing in on it—ran straight at the intersecting walls.

  In a feat that would have made any parkour-gymnast proud, the cat bounded from one wall to the other, somehow finding enough purchase to make it all the way to the top of the building and onto the roof.

  T
he last Jay and I saw of that little cat was its tail held high in the air, the tip twitching in irritation, just before it disappeared behind an air conditioning unit. Meanwhile, the coyotes howled and grumbled at the base of the building for a few minutes, before they finally gave up and ran off, disappearing in the direction of the 101 Freeway.

  * * * *

  It took Jay and me about twenty minutes to push the shopping cart back up to the townhouses. Because of the heavy weight, both Jay and I had to push together, especially on the uphill part of the journey. Unfortunately, that also meant that we had to leave the two bikes behind in Ralphs.

  The shopping cart we eventually left parked in front of the Israeli's unit. It was our thinking that—if our condiments-survivor had somehow followed us to the townhouse complex—they would hopefully think that we were living in that unit and not the Sitipala's.

  * * * *

  “We were wrong about being the only survivors,” Jay said, as we carried in the supplies. “Which means that we might be wrong about the pets, too. Maybe they weren’t all taken. That calico is still here.”

  “But the pets in the townhouses are missing.”

  “We didn’t go through all of the townhouses. So, maybe they just took some of the pets. Maybe there are still some inside the townhouses that we didn’t check. I think we should go back and go through those ones tomorrow, just in case.”

  I groaned. “We can do that, if you really want. But I don't think we're going to find any more pets. I think that cat we saw down at Ralphs—I think it was feral.”

  “A wild cat?”

  “Think about it. That calico was skinny and it moved so fast. I'll bet it was a feral and that's why it didn’t disappear with the rest of the pets.”