“Alright guys, let’s get moving.”
They seemed to snap out of their trance, and stood together. Geno and Hillary helped each other, and Larry started walking behind them. I mouthed a question at him over their heads.
‘You got them?’
He nodded, and we set out, back into the stairwell.
“Alright guys, let’s just get to the store. No more side trips,” I said as I shot a look at Geno. He balked for a moment, then caught on that I was messing with him.
“Yeah, yeah. Fuck you too, buddy.” Geno cackled as he responded.
“We did try to warn you, hun. Your lead, Dante.” I looked back at Hillary.
The bruise on her head was massive and already an ugly purple-black color, but her eyes were clear and she looked determined. Geno grumbled a bit, but they put their arms over the other’s shoulder and we continued on down the stairs.
It took us another hour to get to the security lobby on the 4th floor. Both Geno and Hillary were walking slower, because of their injuries.
I looked back constantly to make sure they were okay. Larry watched them from behind, alert to any signs of severe injury or complications.
There was no door on the fifth floor, and the fire stairs dead ended on the fourth floor, which I was sure was a violation of some fire codes. I had never seen the stairs before, so hadn’t known that was the case.
I pushed the crash bar on the door and it opened loudly, the metal clang reverberating through the wide open space. The marble glittered in the cold bleak light cast by my flashlight.
I searched around, but again saw no sign of life. I had honestly expected to find at least a few dozen frozen bodies, of the hundreds that worked in the building. The lobby was empty.
12
June 14, 2033
Seattle, Washington, USA
4th floor, Illeni Building
-41°F
1145 Hours
“Wow, how is it even colder down here?” asked Hillary.
I turned to look at her.
“Hills, the sun is missing, or blocked, or something. The temperature is constantly falling outside.”
“Oh, right. Well, where is everybody?”
I shook my head. “That’s what I was just trying to figure out. We should have seen at least a few bodies. People stuck in stairwells, or frozen in their offices. We haven’t seen any sign of a survivor or even a dead person, save for that dog.”
My head lit up with yet another migraine. “And this air is fucking awful. It keeps making my head hurt. It’s too cold.”
The others nodded, rubbing their temples as well. I continued, “Let’s get through the security cordon, and down into the store. They have the first three floors, so we should be able to find plenty of stuff.”
We started out of the elevator area, our shoes clicking on the marble floors. The eerie silence dug into my brain, punctuated only by our footsteps and the howling wind outside.
It battered the admittedly impressive windows. They stood twenty feet tall, all crazed with impact marks and spiderwebbed with cracks.
The windows hadn’t given in though, despite what sounded like a constant barrage of debris. My flashlight swept over everything I could see.
Light reflected crazily off the windows, floor, and even the ceiling. There was a thin film of ice on the windows, multicolored couches, tables, anything but the floor it seemed.
I tread with care, trying to ensure I wouldn’t slip and fall. In each of the four corners of the building stood the elevators and fire stairs. The elevators to the east were much larger, and had openings to the garage below for freight.
I chose the northwest corner since it was the closest to the front of the store, and headed for it. The others followed closely behind, nearly in a single line.
I got to the elevator bank here, and immediately tried for the crash bar on the fire door. The door budged, but only barely.
I put my shoulder into it, and felt something beyond the door start to move. Larry saw me struggling and stepped up. He put his hands on the door with me and we shoved.
The object blocking the door slid a few inches, so we tried again. The door moved another half a foot, and I could make out something in the darkness.
I stood up and shined the light into the crack. Faces stared back up at me, blue in the light. Their skin glittered with frost, leaving them paper white. Shrunken, cloudy eyes frozen open, like marbles of ice sitting in their skulls.
The stairwell was packed solid, dozens of people all lined up and frozen to death. It was truly bizarre, they all seemed to be moving upward, then sat as a group, and perished as the temperature fell.
I quietly closed the door, and turned to Larry. “We need to take a different staircase. This one is blocked off.”
He leaned close, and asked, “how bad?”
“Bad. Dozens, at least. Maybe fleeing from something. None of them had been dressed for any kind of cold.” He nodded, and we set out for the southwest corner.
I opened the fire door to the sound of the screaming wind. Muffled thumping could be heard from below. It wasn’t rhythmic, but it was pretty regular. I stepped into the stairwell and it was absolutely frigid.
I thought I had been cold before. Everything exposed immediately went numb. I hustled down the stairs to the first floor. There, I found a body curled up at the door to the street, one outstretched arm keeping the door open.
The door would occasionally open an inch or two as the wind let up, only to slam back into the arm as the wind gusted again. It sounded like a hammer falling on the tail of a lobster over and over again.
I grabbed the door and yanked hard. The arm shuddered, splintered bone piercing the frozen flesh. I slammed the door again, and the body rocked backward, arm severed.
The door clanged shut. Larry helped me drag the body into the store and away from the door. The air was no longer blasting into the staircase, but there was no chance that staircase would ever heat up again. My body was racked with shivers, and I figured it was colder outside than Seattle had ever experienced before.
I stood in the relative warmth of the store. It had to be around zero degrees. I thought it had to be more than forty-below outside. I went back into the stairwell and wedged the doors open on all three floors of the store for easy access. Then I walked out to the center of the first floor with our group.
We could see an open lofted area in the west side of the store, which had windows facing the street. The north side was partially below ground, leading up on both sides to the east.
The store had multiple entrance points, but all of them were closed. It seemed that when the power went out, all of the doors closed.
The glass was completely covered in frost and scratches, obscuring the outside view. Still, the windows had not broken. It really was impressive.
“Right, so we’ve got ‘Sports’ and ‘Camping’ down here on the first floor. We’re going to be hauling stuff back up seventy flights, so our first priority is sturdy hiking backpacks.”
I indicated the backpacks as the others followed along.
“They help distribute the weight evenly so we can carry more without getting tired. We’re going to want tents, bedrolls, cookware like pots and pans, flashlights, lanterns, and frozen food. We also need to find winter clothing. I especially want a ski mask or balaclava, my face fucking hurts. I wish the cold gear up there had included one.”
The others were nodding along, taking mental notes of what I mentioned.
Geno spoke up, “My fucking face hurts too. I second that. And water, it's like a fucking desert down here.”
Then Larry, saying ‘Toys’ in his usual terse fashion.
“Yeah, the kids are starting to go stir crazy. Art supplies would be good too, since we have all the paper we could ever want now. Maybe we should grab some books too,” Hillary added. She mentioned a few more quality of life items.
“Toothpaste and toothbrushes, deodorant, as much toilet paper as we can
bear to strap on the bags. Oh, and, uh, women’s products.”
I nodded. “Doesn't that just scream military. They include cold gear, hot weather gear, even MREs, but they forget that women still need sanitary... stuff.”
Larry nodded along, though it seemed that the sentiment was lost on Hillary and Geno. Then I remembered they hadn't ever served.
Geno perked up, “Man, I would kill for a shower. Maybe we should figure something out for that?”
“Yeah, I’ll think on that. Is there anything else we should grab on this first trip? Oh, the pharmacy on the second floor. We should definitely break in and grab everything we can. I doubt anybody will be coming by to fill their prescriptions now,” I began ruminating out loud.
“Okay, I think clothes and toys are on the third floor. Probably books too. Second floor is hygiene, medicine, and a few other things we could probably do with. Then we have all the camping stuff on this side, plus some household stuff on the far end. I’ll look around.
I paused for a moment.
“Shoot, we’re going to need to figure out what to do with all of our trash.”
I started to get lost in thoughts, then snapped out of it when I saw the other three staring at me.
“Right. Sorry. Head’s been a little fuzzy the last day or so. Must be the cold.” They all nodded in sympathy.
“So, Hillary, grab what you can for hygiene. I’ll clear an area here for us to organize. Then I’m going to grab camping stuff. Larry, you were a corpsman, right? So you know medicines?”
He nodded tentatively. “I can figure a few things out. There might be a paper list in there.”
“Great. That leaves you, Geno. Can you go up to the third floor and start figuring out clothes and toys? Definitely some playing cards, and maybe a board game or two?” He nodded.
“Oh, wait, Hillary, when you’re done, go and help Geno. I’ll help Larry if he needs it. You guys can probably just pitch the non-fragile stuff over the railings up there and I’ll gather it up down here. Let’s get this done.”
“Fucking hell, I thought it would never end,” said Geno.
“Whiny,” muttered Larry with a smirk. Geno shot a look, but the words were so quiet that even in the silence I wasn’t sure he’d said it.
Larry broke off and headed toward the hardware section of the store. Hillary and Geno walked toward the nearest set of stairs upward, talking about things to prioritize.
I began to clear an area, setting up tables in a circle to hold the supplies and stage a packing area. After about ten minutes, I had an area I was satisfied with for the time being. I did my best to not look out the front doors. Not only did they show the devastation that the storms had caused in the city, but there were two bodies slumped against the doors. I figured they were frozen to the doors, because they didn't budge even when cars rocked in the wind. I was just thankful they were facing away from the doors.
Rhythmic metallic thumping started from near the back of the second floor. I guessed Larry had found something to smash the pharmacy door open.
Clothes began falling to the floor. Bags of underwear and socks rained from above. I stepped back to leave a clear landing zone and looked up.
“Incoming!” yelled Geno.
“You're supposed to say that before you throw shit!”
He stood at the railing on the third floor, grinning maniacally. He took aim and let a pack of socks fly. I swatted it out of the air before it hit me.
He continued grinning, then dumped the rest of the undergarments over. I shook my head and walked deeper into the camping supplies.
13
June 14, 2033
Seattle, Washington, USA
4th floor, Illeni Building
-44°F
1230 Hours
Silence is often mentioned, but rarely do people actually experience it. Even in this newly dead world, it wasn’t totally silent.
Wind howled on the other side of the windows, accompanied by debris slamming away. The winds outside were still at gale force, causing untold damage to the city beyond our little sheltered building. Even so, the silence weighed on the mind.
I had heard the phrase ‘oppressive silence’ before, but had never really come to understand it until I stood in a massive store that should have had hundreds of people quietly talking and shopping.
It was so quiet inside the store that I could hear Geno two floors above, picking through clothing racks. I could hear Hillary sweeping products off of shelves. Larry was grunting as he continued to swing at the door.
As I listened, something cracked. A shriek of metal sounded, then something dropped, probably a sledgehammer. The shriek of metal must have been the shutter or door giving way. The silence was so profound I could hear Larry quietly rattling bottles of medication a moment later.
A few aisles from the cleared area I found sturdy framed hiking backpacks on display. There was a surprising variety, then again, people in Seattle loved hiking.
I removed the two prebuilt backpacks from their display racks and moved them over to the staging area. I went back to grab two additional backpacks, but they would have to be built.
Then I started gathering small tents, no larger than two person tents. It would be cramped, but we only had so much floor space to work with. I had already moved the first half dozen when something caught the corner of my eye.
Unbelievably, the store had not one, but two camp showers. They were neatly boxed up, three and a half feet long by six inches on a side. I carried them back to the staging area and read over the one of the boxes.
The showers were crude, four PVC pipes with connections allowing three and a half feet of room. Nylon covers gave privacy, and it stood just shy of seven feet tall when fully constructed.
It did not come with a water system, but looking at the shower on the box gave me an idea. I took off jogging over to the hardware section.
I grabbed duct tape and stout tin snips. Then I found the section with vacuums. I removed as many hoses as I could without causing undue damage.
They came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but they all were roughly an inch to an inch and a half wide. I wore the duct tape on my wrist like a terrible bracelet, stuffed the tin snips in my back pocket, and gathered the hoses up in my arms.
As I walked back to the staging area, I saw a light waving around. As I rounded the last corner, I saw Geno standing in the center of the mess he’d made, starting to pile clothes on the tables.
He turned and shined his light directly at me, partly blinding me for a moment. I heard him mutter, “What the fuck?”
“I am Cthulhu!” I waved my armful of ‘tentacles’ at him for emphasis. He chuckled, shaking his head.
“You’re a damn fool, Dante. What are those for anyway?”
“Years ago, in a previous life, I guess, I lived in an apartment. I was home, just falling asleep, when I heard a bang and then some insane sound coming from my bathroom. I got up, flicked on the lights, and discovered a pipe had blown in my bathroom, causing water to come gushing out. I grabbed the hose off of my vacuum,” and I held up one of the hoses for emphasis.
“Then I stuck one end over the pipe and the other into the toilet. The water just gushed straight into the toilet and hardly leaked at all, until management could shut off the water to my unit. So, I think we should take a few hoses, tape them together, and tape one end to the faucet at one of the sinks. The other end gets fixed to the shower, and we have hot water for actual showers.”
“Yeah... yeah, that’s pretty fucking clever man.”
“Thanks. Let’s go find the other two and start planning out what we’re going to take back.”
“Hey, I haven’t found any good winter stuff yet. Probably in the back stock.”
“Yeah, alright. Let’s find them and then tackle that.”
Geno and I started over to the stairs for the second floor. We could hear plenty of plastic crinkling and pills in bottles. Both Larry and Hillary were still hard at work. As
I put my hand on the railing out of habit, I realized I could still feel the chill through my gloves. I pulled my hand back and tried to massage some warmth back in.
“Damn, that’s freezing. We should try to find hand warmers too. I doubt they’ll have them, but it can’t hurt to look.”
Geno grunted behind me, either from walking up the stairs or in response to my rambling. He was keeping up pretty well, despite the nasty fall he had taken earlier that morning.
For that matter, both he and Hillary had been keeping up without complaint. My respect for them grew a little more when I reflected on that.
We crested the stairs, and started walking back toward the pharmacy. Sounds could still be heard from the battered doorway. I got a better look as we closed in.
A sledge hammer was lying near the door. It had a big ‘5’ stamped on the side of the head. The metal door was badly dented near the middle, biased toward the handle. The frame clearly had some warping as well, possibly to help loosen the cold door.
I poked my head in and heard Larry quietly muttering to himself. Bottles continually flew from the aisle he was in toward the desk, landing with a satisfying rattle in a large basket. There were three baskets on the counter.
“Nice shot, Larry! How’s it going?”
The muttering stopped, then he poked his head around the corner. “Fine.”
“You, uh, need any help?”
“No.”
“Okay, well, uh we’ll be back.” I backed away. He was focused and not in the mood to deal with people in his way.
This time only a grunt answered me.
I looked at Geno and we both set off to find Hillary. We found her surprisingly nearby. She was still focused on hygiene, with a large basket full to the brim.
She was grabbing bulk packages of everything she could. A pile stood at the end of the aisle that she occasionally threw products to. She was glancing at whatever her hand was before tossing it into the pile or back into the already emptied shelves.
“Hills, how’s it going?” I asked her. She looked at me blankly. “Hills, you good?”
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