by Tom Abrahams
“You don’t need that,” Rick said, playing his part to a tee. “You just ate this morning.”
Kenny’s face melted with disappointment. His shoulders drooped for emphasis. “Pleeease? This morning feels like it was last week.”
Rick glanced at Nikki. She held up her hands, abstaining from the decision. He sighed.
“Fine,” he relented. “Two each. That’s it. You don’t need too much sugar, especially because we’re going to be in the car for a few more hours.”
Kenny’s face lit up and he thanked his dad. Chris thanked Rick too and offered him a couple of the bars he didn’t choose. Rick took one and handed the other to Nikki.
“Where’s Mumphrey?” he asked, realizing he hadn’t seen the old man since walking into the store.
“Over by the radios,” said Nikki. “He was hoping one of them might work.”
“Do they?”
“Most of them,” she said. “But they’re all two-ways. They’ve got maybe a one- to two-mile range.”
“Wouldn’t be bad to have a couple of those,” said Rick. “How much?”
Nikki shrugged and led Rick back to the electronics section. Mumphrey was playing with a couple of the radios, oblivious to their presence. He jumped and almost dropped the radio in his hands when Rick called his name.
“Mumphrey, how much are those things?”
“This one’s forty-nine dollars,” he said. “You need two. So it’s ninety-eight. They’ve only got a one- or two-mile range though.”
“Good enough for me,” said Rick. “Are there four of them?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get four.”
Nikki nudged Rick. “They only take cash, remember?”
“I’ve got it,” he said.
“What about later?” she questioned. “If this is a long haul, as you suggested, won’t you need as much cash as you can keep?”
“Good point,” admitted Rick. “But I also need a way to communicate without standing next to the person. This is good.”
Nikki eyed the radios. “Two hundred dollars good?”
“I won’t pay that.” Rick nodded toward the front counter. “Let’s go,” he said. “Mumphrey, could you carry two of the radios? I’ll take the other two.”
Mumphrey handed a pair of radios to Rick and grabbed two more from the shelf. Rick wove his way to the counter and the trio of clerks in various states of consciousness.
All three clerks were men. Two of them, neither of whom seemed interested in helping him with his purchase, hadn’t shaved in a week or more. The third was younger and slightly more eager. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot. His hands jittered as he drew a swig from a large can filled with an energy drink. Rick guessed none of them had bathed in a while.
“How’s it going?” Rick asked politely. The group helped him deposit the load of candy bars, bottled waters, and radios.
The two unshaven clerks grumbled their responses. Both sounded drunk or on the verge of collapse.
The red-eyed clerk at the register belched. “Cash only.”
A waft of citrus-laced tobacco breath brought tears to Rick’s eyes. He took a step back from the counter.
“I’ve got cash,” he said. “I wanted to deal with you on the radios.”
The clerk’s face twisted into a knot. “Deal?”
“Yeah,” Rick said. “Nobody else is buying them. You need cash, right? I’ll give you a hundred for the four of them.”
“No way,” said one of the unshaven clerks. “They were already half off. Those are good radios.”
“Yeah,” said the register clerk. “They’re good radios.”
“One twenty, plus everything else here. The candy. The water.”
“You know you’ve got fifty dollars in water, right?”
Rick laughed until he saw the blank expressions on the clerks’ faces. “Ten apiece? That’s gouging. It’s illegal.”
“You a cop?” asked the register clerk.
“No.”
“Then it ain’t illegal. It’s fifty for the water. Twenty for the chocolate. Two hundred for the radios. I’ll skip the tax.”
“Thirty for the water. Ten for the chocolate. One twenty for the radios.”
“We ain’t dealing,” said the register clerk. “You think—”
“Hang on,” said the bearded clerk who hadn’t spoken yet. He was the oldest of the three. His hair was receding against a scalp that had seen too much sun. The hair remaining on his head matched the mangy white stubble on his face. He stepped to the counter and looked down at the haul on top of it.
“One hundred sixty? What bills you got? I don’t want big bills.”
“Twenties. Fives.”
“One eighty, you got a deal.”
The register clerk narrowed his red eyes “But—”
“Shut up. I’m the assistant manager on duty. I get the say. One eighty.”
Rick shook his head. “One sixty.”
A sly smile snuck across the older clerk’s face. He rubbed the scruff on his chin. “One seventy-five.”
“Done.”
Rick told the boys to grab the candy and pulled out his old, worn wallet. Nikki got the water and Mumphrey grabbed the radios without being asked.
He pulled out the cash and laid it on the counter one bill at a time before stuffing the aged billfold back in his pocket. “Thanks.”
“Thank you,” said the older clerk. He quickly tucked the cash into his hands and folded the bills in half.
Rick handed the keys to Nikki. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right out.”
Nikki took the keys, put her hand on the back of Kenny’s head, and moved the group to the parking lot. Rick wound his way through the store, following the overhead signs pointing to the men’s restroom.
He pushed open the door with his fists and shuffled onto the aged linoleum floor. He stopped at the ceiling-to-counter mirror above the row of sinks and looked at the nearly unrecognizable man staring back at him.
It hadn’t even been a full day since the event, but Rick was already a shell of himself. Instead of appearing thin and fit, he was gaunt. His skin was sallow. His eyes were sunken and cushioned by thick, swollen lids. His five o’clock shadow had deepened, revealing the gray he worked so hard to hide on his head.
He leaned into the mirror and touched his face, pulling down on his eyes to reveal a riverbed of swollen red blood vessels. He was no better than the register clerk. He tucked his nose into his armpit and sniffed. At least he smelled like scented pine, even if he looked like death warmed over.
Having seen enough of his doppelgänger, Rick spun on his heel to find a urinal. He didn’t really have to go, but thought it better than waiting until he did. He’d reached the first one when he heard footsteps behind him.
“Hey.” It was the older clerk. The younger one who’d manned the register was with him. The younger one had a sawed-off shotgun at his waist, aimed at Rick.
Rick felt like wetting himself. He raised his hands above his head. “H-h-hey.” He was as confused as he was frightened and immediately regretted leaving his handgun in the Jeep.
“You got more cash in that wallet?”
Rick stood silently, cursing his fortune. Three times in the same day he’d had someone trying to hurt him. He wondered if he had the word SUCKER tattooed on his forehead. What was it that had people willing and ready to take advantage of him? If he still wondered where on the apocalyptic response spectrum he stood, he now knew definitively where most of humanity likely did. It had taken no time for people to devolve to their basest instincts.
The register clerk nudged the shotgun toward Rick and stepped forward. “He asked you a question.”
“I-I—”
The register clerk mocked Rick. “I-I-I. You got money in the wallet. Give it to us.”
“This was your plan the whole time?” Rick said, stalling. “Bargain with me and then steal the rest?”
The older clerk halved the distance
between the shotgun and Rick. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t until I saw all the extra bills in your wallet and you decided to go to the bathroom alone that I figured I’d take advantage of the situation.”
Rick couldn’t believe it. He’d set himself up without even knowing it. “And you’re the manager?”
“Assistant manager,” he smirked. “Now carefully reach into your pocket, drop the wallet on the floor, and slide it over to me with your foot. Then we’ll watch you take a leak and escort you from the premises.”
Rick stood still, his eyes darting from the gun to the older clerk and back.
The older clerk cleared his throat. “You understand?”
Rick nodded and lowered his right hand. He dipped it into his back pocket and withdrew his billfold. He raised the worn, overstuffed brown leather wallet and held it above his head before kneeling to put it on the ground. He kept his eyes on the shotgun, which was beginning to shake in the hands of its energy-drink-swilling operator.
The older clerk’s eyes were bulging in anticipation. “That’s it,” he hissed. “That’s it.”
Rick looked down at his wallet for a brief instant as if to say goodbye. His arm tensed as he readied himself to give away his money, his identification, and the wallet his father gave him.
“C’mon,” said the one with the shotgun. “Slide it ov—”
A loud grunt and the shuffling of feet called Rick’s eyes up to the clerks. They weren’t alone anymore.
Rick fell back on his heels, catching himself with his hands. The clerks were still there, one of them aiming a shotgun at him. But standing behind them were Gary the Griller and Deep Six Nikki.
Gary had his handgun at the back of the older one’s head. Nikki had the TP9 from the glove box pressed to the shotgun clerk’s temple.
“Drop the shotgun,” said Gary. “Now.”
The clerk knelt down and put the short-barreled blaster on the floor. He was cursing everyone and everything in the room.
“Kick it over to Rick,” said Nikki.
The clerk started to turn in protest, and in a split second Nikki snapped her knee forcefully into his kidney. His body wrenched awkwardly and he gasped in pain, grabbing at his side.
“Do as the lady says,” instructed Gary.
The clerk hunched over, drooling and huffing from the blast to his lower back. He shuffled weakly with his right foot and slid the shotgun most of the distance to Rick.
Rick grabbed the weapon by the buttstock before leveling the shotgun at the register clerk.
Gary thumped the barrel of his gun on top of the older clerk’s head. “What do you want to do with these fellas, Rick? Your call.”
The hunched-over clerk mumbled something and spat a thick yellowish gob of fluid onto the linoleum. He grunted and then laughed.
“What did you say?” Nikki asked.
The clerk, apparently undaunted by Nikki’s first jab, suggested what he’d like to do to her. Before he’d finished with the vulgarity of it, she’d shoved him into the tile wall.
When he caught himself against the wall, she drove a foot, heel first, into his calf, twisted to the side, flicked her leg upward, and drove the toe of her hiking boot into his nose.
It exploded with a spray of blood and the clerk grabbed his face while crumpling to the floor in a heap. His nasal, gasping wails echoed off the walls of the bathroom.
Nikki shifted her weight to her other leg, jumped into the air, and caught the older clerk on the jaw with her heel. His head snapped to the side, carrying him into the row of sinks away from Gary. His forehead slapped against the counter before he dropped unconscious to the linoleum.
“Holy mother…” said Gary, his face ashen. He aimlessly waved the gun as he backed away from the mess in front of him. “Who in the world are you?”
Nikki twisted her neck and it cracked. She flexed her fingers in and out, relaxing the tightly balled fists she’d employed while kicking the clerks into oblivion.
She shrugged. “I’m nobody special. I just don’t like crooks.” She looked over at Rick. “You okay?”
Rick nodded. “How’d you guys know what was happening?”
“I saw them,” said Gary. “When your friends walked past me and you weren’t with them, I figured you were still in the store. Those clerks weren’t shy about taking that shotgun through the aisles. I figured something was up.”
Nikki stepped over the whimpering register clerk. He was in the fetal position, shivering in a growing pool of his own blood.
“He came and got me,” said Nikki. “He thought you might be in trouble.”
“And the boys?”
“They’re with Mumphrey. They’re okay.”
Rick swallowed hard and reached for his wallet. He shoved it in his back pocket with one hand while still holding the shotgun with the other.
His eyes danced from Nikki to Gary and back again. “Thank you,” he said. “I know that’s not enough, but thank you.”
“It’s enough,” said Gary. “Hell, I’d pay money to see missy over here do her Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon bit again.” He kicked at the older clerk. “What do you want to do with them?”
Rick stared at the blood leaching across the linoleum. “I think that’s up to you, Gary,” he said. “You’re staying here. We’re leaving.”
Gary sighed. “Makes sense. I’ll take care of the clerk up front and make sure he doesn’t have any designs on anything. The other fellas will be more than happy to figure out a plan for these two here.”
“The smokers?”
“Them and a couple of the others,” he said. “None of us are leaving. We’ll figure it out.”
Nikki motioned to the bleeding one. “He might need medical help.”
Gary chuckled. “He might. You stomped the snot out of him.”
The clerk whimpered. He tried lifting his head and whispered something unintelligible. It was too much effort, apparently, and he gave up. His eyes were swollen shut. His nose looked like half a sourdough pretzel.
“We should go,” said Nikki.
Rick agreed and they moved from the bathroom into the store. Rick handed Gary the shotgun. He followed Nikki out of the building and into the sunlight. He trailed behind her for a few steps until she slowed her walk and strode next to him.
“That’s twice,” she said, smiling.
Rick raised his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t checking you out. I swear.”
She giggled in a way that belied her strength and disarmed him. “Not that,” she said. “That’s twice I’ve saved your behind.”
CHAPTER 16
MISSION ELAPSED TIME:
72 DAYS, 18 HOURS, 34 MINUTES, 06 SECONDS
241.5 MILES ABOVE EARTH
“For not knowing Russian, I’m a regular Crazy Ivan,” Clayton said. “Pozdravleniya.”
He congratulated himself for having gotten as far as he had. He’d undocked successfully without hitting the ISS and damaging the Soyuz. He’d entered orbit and completed two passes around the planet. And now he was on the verge of the deorbit burn.
Clayton entered the final commands into the computer that enabled the main engine, known as the SKD. The cover for the propulsion system was open. He’d double-checked the parameters as best he could, and the SKD ignited.
The engine was, counterintuitively, a brake. It was intended to slow the Soyuz’s speed as it reached the most vulnerable points of the reentry. It was on the rear side of the craft and fired for exactly four minutes and forty-five seconds.
Normally, days before reentry, the crew would have had a run-through with the ground team. The control instructors in Russia would have reminded them of important tasks and tested them on emergency procedures. They would have relayed to the crew a timeline and ground conditions. That hadn’t happened. Clayton Shepard, first-time astronaut, was left to his own devices.
This was the critical moment.
He’d known from the instant he’d decided his only way home was to self-guide th
e Soyuz back to Earth, this was the point where he was most likely to screw up. It was also where he’d likely die if he had.
There were only three choices. He would live, at least until the next phase of reentry, he would die a quick but agonizing death, or he would slowly suffocate to death as he drifted into the abyss.
Clayton held his breath. He wiped sweat from his eyes. If the calculated burn wasn’t enough he’d skip off the atmosphere like a pebble flicked across a pond. That was the abyss option. If it was too much, he could burn up. That, of course, led to the agonizing, if not relatively fast, demise.
The SKD stopped its burn; the indicators looked good. Clayton’s entry was within the window, according to the data he could understand on the panel in front of him. He could be pretty certain he wasn’t going to bounce off the atmosphere. However, he wasn’t entirely sure his measurements and calculations had slowed the craft enough to prevent too much friction once he sank into the dense layers of the atmosphere.
Regardless, he acted as though he had fifty-five minutes until landing. He was on the final leg of his journey back to Earth.
Clayton reached up and grabbed his visor. He closed his helmet and depressurized the Orbital module. The next step was separating the crew module from the other two.
He looked over at Ben Greenwood then at Boris.
“I should have saved you,” he said to both of them. “I could have saved you. If I’d ignored protocol, worried less about myself, and gotten out to you sooner, you might have lived.”
Clayton didn’t know why he was saying it. He couldn’t reconcile the emotion that pushed the apology from his lips. He did know, rationally, there wasn’t anything he could have done. Both of them were likely dead within a few minutes of the CME shutting off or damaging the critical systems in their suits. It might not even have taken that long.
There was something about sitting between them that turned the cramped but utilitarian space of the module into a confessional. For more than twenty minutes he talked to the men. He told them about his fears. He opened up about his selfishness, how he never should have become an astronaut. It wasn’t what his wife had wanted, he admitted to them. He knew she was against it, but he manipulated her into going along with it. He played on her guilt and her love for him until she relented, until she supported his application.
