by Nancy Isaak
The grass was already at ankle-height and there were rabbits everywhere. As we walked past the rock hill, I even noticed a large tarantula sunning itself on a ledge.
“I never knew we had tarantulas in Agoura Hills,” I marveled.
“We don’t see them much,” Jay responded, “but they’re here. It’s just that they’re pretty shy creatures. I guess we’ll be seeing more of them now.”
“Oh-oh.”
Two coyotes were crossing the softball field in front of us. Jay and I immediately stopped, hoping to remain invisible. Meanwhile, Lily knelt down beside us, fiddling with her Mary Janes.
“They sure are getting brave now, wandering around in the daylight,” I whispered.
“At least, we’re downwind,” Jay whispered back. “Hopefully, they won’t be able to smell us.”
“It’s not you and me that I’m worried about them smelling.”
I nodded toward Lily who had yet to notice the two wild dogs. Pugly, of course, was completely oblivious to the danger, being occupied with sitting on his butt and licking his—well, let’s not get into that, shall we.
Luckily, the coyotes moved on quickly, trotting behind the batting area and on toward the sidewalk. Once there, they crossed into the street and headed into a nearby residential neighborhood.
* * * *
Jay, Lily, and I crossed the baseball field to the fence line. Just to the right of the baseball stands, was a small bridge that had only recently been built. It crossed over a widening in a culvert, where water collected into a small pond.
(This is part of the water culvert that I’ve been writing about—the one that goes all the way from Chumash Park to the end of our townhouse complex.)
“Egrets are out,” I commented.
“Have you noticed,” said Jay, “how much the wildlife population around here has increased in just these few weeks?”
“That’s just natural, isn’t it?”
“But like with the egrets…there was only one mating pair before. Now, there are at least three pairs of birds hunting in those waters.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “There was only one pair before. How bizarre. Most of the pets are taken away, yet the number of the wild animals has increased. Wonder what that’s supposed to mean?”
“Or maybe it’s something else,” suggested Jay. “Maybe the other two pairs simply came from somewhere else now that the people are gone. Maybe it’s simply safer in the park for them now.”
“Have you noticed how we’re talking like there’s some big someone or someones who have done this to the world?” I added. “I guess we’ve thrown away the hell and purgatory theory, huh?”
“I do like the ‘being part of a big science experiment’ theory much better,” Jay said.
We stopped on the bridge for a moment to watch an egret fly majestically over our heads. Its wings fluttered and flowed on the air currents, its long legs stretched out behind.
“You know,” I mused, “my mom told me about this television series a long time ago. She said that at the end of one of the seasons, the star woke up and everything that went on in the year before was just part of her dream.”
“You think maybe we’re dreaming?” Jay asked, grinning.
“Well, it would have to be just one of us, wouldn’t it?” I grinned right back at her.
“Then it would have to be you,” said Jay, “because you have more imagination than me.”
“Know what would really be funny?”
“What’s that?”
“What if it’s Lily who’s dreaming?”
I didn’t think that the little girl had been listening to us but—when I said that—she looked up at me, grinned, and gave me a thumbs up.
* * * *
As we left the park and came out onto Kanan Road, Lily stopped short. I looked down to see that her eyes had gone wide and I realized that this was the first time that she’d seen all the cars dead and stopped in the middle of the road.
“They don’t work anymore,” I told her. “It’s like someone just turned off all the electricity in them.”
Lily still didn’t move. She looked scared.
“It’s okay,” I said. “There isn’t anyone inside the cars. The people are all gone. I promise.”
“We just don’t know where,” added Jay.
I held out my hand to Lily. “Come on, kiddo. Let me show you.”
Slowly, Lily reached out and took my hand. I pulled her gently over to the nearest vehicle, a red Prius. “Look inside, Lily. See, there’s nobody there.”
Lily inched over, peering through the passenger’s window. Inside, as with all the other vehicles we’d checked, the key was in the ignition and the seatbelts were buckled. In fact, in this particular car, both front and back seatbelts were still done up.
A family had been taken.
It was obvious that it had been young kids in the back, because there was a Bratz doll on one seat and a package of fruit roll-ups on the other.
I saw Lily staring intently at the Bratz doll.
“Do you want me to get that for you?” I asked her.
Lily immediately pulled back, horrified.
“It’s okay,” I said, quickly. “Sorry, Lily. If you want a toy, we’ll get you one in the stores. We don’t have to take any from the cars if it bothers you.”
Lily relaxed a little, but she didn’t let go of my hand. It gave me a warm feeling as we threaded our way through the cars across Kanan Road.
I wasn’t really certain what being ‘maternal’ was like, but I had a sense that this might be it. Holding my little strawberry-blond girl by the hand made me feel immensely protective.
Without a doubt—Lily was my responsibility now.
* * * *
“There’s definitely been someone here,” said Jay—trying desperately to keep the fear out of her voice, if only for Lily’s sake.
We were standing just outside of Vons, looking at the shopping cart that was propping open the doors.
“That may not be true,” I said. “Maybe the event happened just as someone was pushing that cart through the door.”
“You think?” asked Jay, hopefully.
“It makes sense. And lucky for us, because now we don’t have to find a way to open the door.”
But we didn’t go inside just yet; instead, we just stood there, staring inside.
“It stinks a little,” said Jay, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “You can smell the rotting meat.”
“I’ve been thinking that maybe we should grab all the fruit and vegetables that aren’t rotten…as much as we can push in the cart,” I suggested. “When I was little I remember going to my grandma’s up in Canada. She used to can everything. I helped her out a few times and it really wasn’t that hard. I know in the baking aisle, they have all that canning stuff. It’d be kind of a pain doing it over a hibachi, but I really think we should try.”
Jay didn’t look convinced. “Between Vons on this side of the street and Ralphs on the other, I’m pretty sure we’re set for canned fruit and vegetables for a long time to come.”
“It just seems wasteful to let them all rot,” I said. “And we don’t know how long we’re going to have to live like this—if not for the rest of our lives. The canned stuff is going to run out sooner or later, so why not learn how to do things like that now? While we still have alternatives.”
“It’s just that it’s going to be a lot of trouble and take so much time.”
I shrugged. “It’s not like we have anything else to do.”
* * * *
The rotting-meat smell was even stronger in Vons than in Ralphs.
There were other unpleasant odors, but they were more difficult to discern—although I was fairly certain that I was picking up sour milk and rotting bananas. Apparently, so could the flies, because they were buzzing past us—heading directly toward the produce.
“Vons has some great vegetarian meals in the frozen section,” sighed Jay. “But I guess they�
�ll be thawed out and useless now.”
We were standing just inside of the open door, trying to figure out our next step.
“Except for the buzzing of the flies, have you noticed how quiet it is in here? I kind of like that they don’t have any of that elevator music playing.”
“It is really quiet,” said Jay. “Also, you don’t hear the hum of all the refrigeration units anymore.”
Lily was looking at a small sign on the side of the front door. I bent down to see what had caught her attention. It was a ‘No Dogs Allowed’ sign.
“Not a problem, Lily,” I laughed. “I’m pretty sure that rule doesn’t apply at the end of the world. Pugly can come in with us.”
“That’s right,” nodded Jay. “Where we go, Pugly goes.”
* * * *
“What say we all grab a cart and start shopping?” I suggested. “Lily, there’s one of those little kid ones over there.”
I helped Lily with her tiny cart, placing Pugly in the basket where he wouldn’t wander off. Meanwhile, Jay went over to the florist section, where there were two abandoned carts and brought both back—one for each of us.
For a long moment, we waited—holding onto the handles of our shopping carts—grinning. I guess when it came right down to it, we were really just girls about to go shopping with unlimited credit.
What could possibly go wrong?
* * * *
My cart was filled up quickly; between feminine products, canning equipment, and fruit and vegetables, I was pretty much done in five minutes.
Jay, meanwhile, was charged with getting the soy milk and dog food, so her aisles were still a ways off. We were taking our time—staying together—heading up one aisle and down another, just looking at things, making mental notes of what to come back for on our next trip.
Lily had a few things in her little kid’s cart—primarily chocolate bars and, oddly enough, a can of sweet potatoes. If I had to guess, I would have said that the sweet potatoes were probably something that her mother cooked for Lily and her brother.
I made a mental note to include them in one of our meals.
* * * *
In the middle of the store, I suddenly noticed one of those bubble-topped barbeques on the top of one of the shelves.
“Look!” I said to Jay, pointing at it. “That doesn’t look that heavy. I’ll bet we can get it down. Don’t you think it would be a whole lot easier cooking on that than the hibachi?”
“It’s pretty high up. I guess that they’ll probably have ladders in the back of the store,” said Jay. “But I don’t want to go back in the dark to get them. Do you?”
Not a chance.
“You know what we could do,” I suggested, “is move some of this canned food to one side. If we clear a space on each shelf, I can use it to climb up. Then I can hand the barbeque down to you.”
It turned out to be surprisingly easy. Using the shelves as a ladder, I climbed to the top in seconds. I stood up on shaky legs, looking over the aisles.
The perspective was so weird.
When you shop, you were always down at floor level. But standing at the top of the shelves—I could see all the way from one side of the store to the other.
“What is it?” asked Jay. “What are you looking at?”
“It’s just interesting, that’s all…seeing the way that everything is laid out. You know, it’s kind of odd, but the store looks smaller from up here. More like a maze, with all these rows put into one room. I guess we don’t notice that when we’re at ground level.”
“Um, Kaylee?” said Jay, looking uneasy. “Any chance we could get moving before it gets too dark to walk home? Like I really don’t want to have to spend the night in Vons.”
That got me going. I quickly reached for the barbeque but—when I grabbed it—it didn’t move. Bending down to look closer, I realized that it was bolted to the shelf.
“It’s got screws holding it down,” I told Jay. “I guess they did that so it wouldn’t fall on any of the shoppers’ heads.”
“Then let’s get going!” urged Jay. “We can always find a barbeque on one of the neighbors’ patios anyways.”
“I know,” I agreed. “It’s just that I liked the idea of having one that didn’t have meat juice all over it.” (It’s a vegetarian thing.)
“Then let’s look for one over in CVS or Rite-Aid,” Jay suggested. “They’ve always got those things in their seasonal aisles.”
“What the?!” I nearly lost my balance as I suddenly noticed movement two aisles over. “Oh crap!”
“What is it?!” Jay squeaked—suddenly scared.
My eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing—a tiny orange flag that was making its way slowly down the aisle two rows away from us.
I knew that flag—because it was attached to the top of Lily’s shopping cart!
* * * *
“Where’s Lily?” I cried, jumping down off of the shelf.
Jay spun around, looking. “She must be in the next aisle.”
“You were supposed to be watching her!”
“I was!”
“Well, not good enough!”
“Hey, you were the one with the total-room-view!” Jay said, angrily. “Looks like you didn’t do such a good job either!”
I started running down the aisle. “Let’s just find her…come on!”
Leaving our shopping carts right where they were, Jay and I ran to the front of the aisle, turning right. In the next aisle over, there were a few displays in the center that obscured our view. I let Jay run down to check behind them, while I moved on to the next aisle. It was clear of displays, so I could easily see that Lily wasn’t there either.
At the mouth of the third aisle, I skidded to a stop—not really believing what I was seeing.
Jay came up behind me. “What is it?”
Then she, too, went quiet.
Before us, in the middle of the aisle, knelt Lily. Her tiny shopping cart was a few feet away—Pugly sitting in it calmly, looking like a little fat king. All around the two of them, on the floor, were open packages of junk food—Slim Jims, Twinkies, potato chips, bakery cakes.
Like in Ralphs, the food had been arranged in a circle. The difference here was that there was a second, separate circle inside of the first one that consisted of various containers of alcohol. But it was what was in the middle of those two circles that had Jay’s and my mouth hanging open in astonishment.
Lying there—surrounded by junk food and booze—was a snoring teenage girl!
Lily was kneeling beside her, holding the girl’s hand and patting it gently.
“She needs help,” our little mute told us.
* * * *
It seemed that the snoring girl was passed out, but Jay and I were too unnerved to be completely certain.
We started forward—but slowly.
Jay reached into the shelf next to her and pulled out the heaviest thing she could find—a can of silver polish. I looked on my own side for an equal weapon, but all I saw were boxes of laundry soap. I supposed that I could always drop twenty-five pounds of Tide on the girl’s head if she became a problem, but that didn’t seem too realistic.
“I think she’s sick,” said Lily, in a worried voice. “I tried to wake her, but she’s not getting up.”
In another time and place it would have been amazing to hear Lily finally talking. However, coming down that aisle toward the strange, sleeping girl, our nerves taut and tingling, all I could think of was how—if anything happens—I was going to grab Lily and start running.
“Why don’t you come over here?” I urged quietly, motioning Lily toward me. “Let Jay and me take care of her.”
Lily didn’t move.
Instead, she reached over and brushed some stray hair away from the snoring teenager’s face.
“She smells stinky,” said Lily, frowning.
A few feet ahead of me—Jay suddenly froze. “Ohmigod, no!” she gasped.
“What is it?”
I moved closer, so that I could see what was lying there; or rather—who was lying there.
“Crap,” I whispered—when I finally recognized her.
* * * *
Beside Lily, the teenage girl snorted, then began to stir.
She coughed once, twice—then lifted her head and looked around. Catching sight of me, she smiled and, when she spoke, it was with muffled and drunk words.
“Wudda look adat?” mumbled the girl. “Ish Barbie an Skipper.”
And JUDE-THE-RUDE then turned her head toward Lily and said, “Wudda know—ish Sailor Moon.”
Then—with another cough—Jude’s eyes rolled up in her head and she passed out once more.
Jay turned toward me, absolutely horrified.
“Double-crap!” she moaned.
JUDY, JUDY, JUDY
As we were to find out later—on the evening before the event—Jude had been working at her part-time job, bagging groceries at Vons—when Brandon Keretsky entered with a couple of his football team buddies (Frank Gornman and Denny Passelmore). They had been at the Foxes’ yearly combination birthday/Halloween party earlier in the evening and were still dressed in their costumes—football jerseys, of course. (Jacob, thankfully, while on the football team—had not attended the party.)
Also working at Vons that night was Porter McIntyre, a 15-year old semi-genius from Jude’s Chemistry class. (Jay and I had always liked Porter—but in a non-romantic kind of way.)
The relationship between Porter and Jude (which neither Jay nor I knew anything about at the time) was an interesting one.
Even though Jude was a complete screw-up in school, at her part-time job, she was apparently quite capable and committed. Perhaps it was because she truly enjoyed her work or, perhaps, it was simply because she loved working alongside Porter.
