Before We Die Alone

by Ike Hamill

  “Thank you.”

  I am halfway to the kitchen when I hear my bed crack as he climbs back on.

  I find a plastic cup that I fill with water. I’m tempted to put something in it. Maybe some chemical from under my sink will poison him. But, then again, he has a bear’s nose and I’m sure he would sniff out anything I try.

  I return to my room to find him stretched out. His stupid bear head is on my pillow. My sheets are going to be covered with his fur.

  If I’m going to sleep in the TV room, at least I might have Adam for company. Thinking of him makes me remember his questions. He wanted me to track down one of these bears so I could get some more answers. The whole thing still seems stupid, but if there’s a chance that my questions will annoy the black bear, I guess that stupid is okay.

  “Hey,” I say, putting the cup down on my nightstand, “what was that you were saying about a vote?”

  “When?” He opens his eyes for a second, glances at me, and then closes his eyes again.

  “This morning, when I saw you out on the street. You said that I would be naked and running for my life in a week or something. Then you said you voted for us.”

  “Nope,” he says. He notices the cup and rolls over so he can grip it between his paws. He lifts it carefully, and then dumps the water into his mouth. I guess maybe half of it goes in. The rest just goes everywhere. “I can’t vote. I’m a convicted felon.”

  “Then why did you say that?”

  “Say what?”

  I throw up my hands in frustration. Then, I take the cup from his paws. “What do you know about the asteroid?”

  “Oh, the asteroid. That’s the topic on everyone’s lips, isn’t it?”

  I nod.

  “I’ll tell you what I know, if you get me some blueberries.”

  “What? Where the hell am I supposed to get blueberries?”

  “Don’t you keep any? Maybe in the freezer?”

  “No! Why would I?”

  “It boggles the mind. You have access to blueberries—fresh or frozen—any time you want, and you don’t even bother? Crazy.”

  “I don’t even like blueberries.”

  “Then you are a damned fool. Please leave,” he says.

  I feel like a damned fool as my feet begin to move towards the door.

  “Wait. No,” I say, stopping. “Tell me what you know about the asteroid. I think I’m being plenty hospitable to you. I even brought you water. The least you could do is give me some idea as to why my planet is about to be destroyed by a celestial body.”

  “That’s the wrong question,” he says. He flicks his paw in my direction, dismissing me, but I don’t move.

  “So? What’s the correct one?”

  “The question you should be asking is this,” he says, taking a deep breath before he continues. “What was my crime, and how did I escape that prison?”

  I have an epiphany—he is a very self-centered beast. Nothing matters to him except his own well-being and how he is perceived in the world.

  “I’m going to get blueberries, and then you’re going to tell me about the asteroid,” I say. I point my finger at him before I leave.

  Chapter Thirteen

  * Mission *

  I BANG AROUND IN my kitchen for a few minutes. I’m not sure what I expected to find—some forgotten stash of blueberries? The closest thing I have is an apple that was on my counter. If the bear had wanted that, he would have taken it earlier when he was digging around for the cereal. Perhaps I could put some honey on the apple to make it more appetizing. Bears love honey. I don’t have any honey either.

  “Pssst!” I hear.

  It’s coming from the other room.

  “Pssst!”

  I cross through the TV room and stand there. My stance could be characterized as impatient frustration. My toe is tapping.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you talk to the bear again? What did you find out?”

  “Nothing. He’s a big, selfish bully, and who knows what he’s smearing all over my bed right now?”

  Adam is silent for a second.

  He’s probably trying to figure out why I’m mad at him. I’m trying to remember, and I’m having a hard time, so I’m sure it’s puzzling to him.

  “Do you have something useful to contribute? Because if you don’t, then I need to go. I have to find blueberries,” I say.

  He’s still silent.

  Maybe I can find some at the mercado. Of all the things that would be looted, I’m guessing that frozen fruit might be low on the list. People probably took the meat and the canned goods. Who would want something that relies on a power grid to keep it edible. Then again, you can’t trust a looter to be thoughtful.

  For clarity—“mercado” is the Spanish word for market. In my neighborhood, the little markets are mostly mercados, which I suppose means that they’re run by, or for, Spanish-speaking people. For whatever reason, people in different geographical areas speak completely different languages. Sure, some words cross between languages, but the differences far outweigh the similarities. In the future, I think this would be one of the most difficult concepts to comprehend. We’ll all be speaking very little anyway, I suppose. Communication will consist of the transmission of thoughts through some kind of implant. Hell, we’re almost that way now. You can be standing next to someone on the bus and they’ll be texting to their friend who is sitting two rows away. Why say something out loud and have everyone hear it when you can text it and have it reach only their ears?

  Plus, speech is transient. If you say something to me and I don’t hear it, I have no option but to ask you to repeat yourself. The teller has all the power. If I’m listening, I want the ability to review the communication over and over until I’m satisfied. With text, I get that ability. I can read your text once or a dozen times, now or an hour from now. Text puts the power of the communication in the hands of the receiver. You can’t shout a text, or whisper it.

  So, long story short, language is going away with speech. I guess this isn’t about predictions, it’s about explanations. Scratch everything I just said.

  “They have some at the Grinder,” Adam says right as I turn to walk away.

  “Say what?”

  “There’s a snack bar at the back of the Grinder. They serve parfaits with blueberries. You should be able to find a ton there. It’s one of the most popular items.”

  “But how would I…” I begin. Before I finish my question, a key pushes through the grate. I reach for it and it falls to the floor.

  “You’ll have to duck through the front door behind one of the students. Once you’re inside, that key will open door to the snack bar.”

  I pick up the key for no good reason. I’m not going to break into the college. I would much rather just head over to the mercado.

  ---- * ----

  Everything is quiet outside.

  Quiet doesn’t always mean peaceful and calm. Sometimes quiet is that feeling in a western, right before the hero steps out into the dusty street to face down the gunfighter who has been terrorizing the villagers. That’s not me. I’m no hero.

  I move from my doorway down to the next in a quick shuffle. I back into the shadows there and wait to see if anyone is tracking my progress. So far, so good.

  I hear footsteps approaching. They’re not running, or sneaking, or shuffling, they’re just walking down the street. They pass right by the doorway I’m hiding in, and I suddenly feel pretty stupid. It’s just a couple—a man and a woman holding hands—walking down the street on a normal summer evening. They don’t seem to find anything frightening about the city at night, and yet I’m hiding.

  As soon as they pass, I push out and walk down the sidewalk, trying to imitate their casual gait. After a little while when nothing bad happens, I loosen up a bit. There are no cars moving on the street, so I jog across and turn towards the mercado. It’s about halfway down the next block. There’s a guy outside the office building. He’s leaning against th
e wall, smoking a cigarette. I hate it when people cross the street to swerve around someone who is loitering. It shows a disturbing lack of trust. Plus, the mercado is just beyond the man, so I keep walking.

  I feel his eyes on me as I pass.

  The glass doors of the mercado are two bright, yellow rectangles, inviting me in. I tug on one of the chrome handles, but the door doesn’t budge.

  I realize a couple of things at the same time. First, the mercado is mostly empty. I don’t mean that it’s empty of people, I mean it’s empty of groceries. The shelves are bare. Perhaps the lights are on inside so nobody will break the windows just to find that there’s nothing inside to steal.

  The second thing I realize is that although the door is locked, it’s hardly a deterrent. The lower half of the glass door is missing. Maybe it was shattered by a rock or something, but it’s gone. The shattered glass is gone too. Someone has cleaned up this whole scene after the crimes took place. At least I’m assuming there were crimes. No other easy explanation jumps to mind.

  I glance back in the direction of my building and I see that the smoking man is gone. His cigarette is still there on the sidewalk. I see the cherry glow in the shadow.

  My belly falls, like I’m on a roller coaster and we just went over the first hill. I just stand there, like a dolt. This would have been a good time to run.

  Sure enough, I see a rectangle of light spill on the sidewalk. It’s quickly obscured by the shapes of three men, who step out of the building. The one who looks like the cigarette smoker points in my direction. I don’t know what conclusion he has come to about me, or what he has said to the other two, but I don’t intend to stick around to find out.

  I duck down and slip through the broken panel of the door.

  There is some grit on the floor. The door at the back is locked, of course. It probably goes to the apartment upstairs or something. In the curved mirror, I can see the first of the men coming through the front door. He’s moving cautiously. I don’t have that luxury. I find an open door. The only thing in there is a mop bucket, sink, and some bleach. I leave the door open a crack and rush back into the main part of the store.

  I have an idea about waiting for them to come through and then sneaking around them. Maybe they’ll assume I went out the back and I can…

  Nope. Two guys have come through, but one is staying out there. Maybe he’s standing guard.

  I’m out of options. The refrigerator case next to me used to contain drinks. The shelves have a million stains of little rings, where bottles sat for years. The bottom half of the case must have been for boxes. I have an idea. I open the door and crawl under the lower shelf. The pain in my chest is immense, but I move as quickly and as quietly as I can. I let the door close itself behind me and I look back to see legs walking by. I’m too obvious here—they’re going to find me before long. I’m not sure why they’re chasing me, and I’m certain that I don’t want to find out.

  There are rubber flaps at the back of the case, and I realize why. They must restock these cases from the back. After a glance to make sure nobody is right outside the case, I push through the flaps and find myself in the dim storeroom. I almost laugh—there’s still stuff back here. Whoever looted the mercado didn’t do a very thorough job of it.

  The men out in the store might have just come to the same conclusion. Someone is banging on the storeroom door.

  I back up against a stack of beer cases. A door opens and I see a flight of stairs. Fortunately, the man coming down them is already looking towards the door. He’s holding a shotgun.

  If it’s possible to shrink my body—to make my molecules actually become smaller—then I’m doing it now. I imagine myself invisible and stand frozen.

  The man with the shotgun isn’t frozen. He’s facing away from me, fortunately. He has adopted an athletic stance—knees bent, shoulders down and loose, arms set at ninety degrees—and he’s waiting for the door to break open.

  Between me and the shotgun guy, the rubber flaps to the back of the refrigerator case push open. The hands of one of the men appear. The shotgun guy turns towards the sound. He sees me and raises the shotgun. I do the only thing I can think of—I grab one of the cases of beer behind me and swing it forward. I can see that the man is just about to pull the trigger. I throw the beer down at the head of the man who is pushing through the rubber flaps.

  I put my hands up, expecting the blast.

  The shotgun guy glances at me and the guy on the floor. He turns his shotgun back towards the door. The frame is cracking under the blows. I’m guessing that the guy breaking down the door doesn’t realize that his friend has been incapacitated by a case of beer to the head. The door frame wrenches inwards and we see the foot of the man kicking it. With the next kick, it swings in. The man raises his shotgun again. This time, it’s mercifully not pointed at me. The kicker sees it and freezes.

  It doesn’t stop the shotgun man. This time, he pulls the trigger.

  The gun goes off.

  I’m guessing that the spray of pellets went over the guy’s shoulder, because I don’t see any blood spatter on the wall. My hearing is dampened by a loud ringing and I barely hear the retreat of the guy at the door.

  The shotgun swings back to me again.

  I still have my hands up. I point to the guy on the floor.

  “Not me,” I say. Actually, I’m pretty sure I yelled it. I can barely hear myself. “Him. He’s the bad guy.” I point down. The guy on the floor looks asleep. One of the beers split open on his skull. There’s a pool of beer spreading around him. He’s bleeding beer.

  He gestures with the shotgun. He wants me to leave the storeroom. I don’t blame him, but the command poses a problem for me. One guy is unconscious, but that still leaves two of them. There’s the guy who just had a shotgun discharged over his shoulder, and then there’s the other guy who was standing guard at the door. They might have run, but they might also be out on the street, waiting for me.

  “Do you have a back door I can go out or something?” I ask. I’m probably still yelling. The guy is backing up towards his stairs. The end of the shotgun is still trained on me.

  My hearing must be coming back because I hear the claws scrabbling down the steps. The feet are too light and quick to be a bear—that’s a good thing. A German shepherd appears. I’m not particularly scared of dogs, but a German shepherd can be a scary thing.

  For clarity—a dog is a species of animal that people have housed and fed for about ten-thousand years or so. They evolved from the wolf, which was another four-legged species that perfected pack hunting. The dog perfected proxy hunting. Instead of having to run and chase food for themselves, the dog relies on humans to acquire their food. Some dogs, like this one, provide a service in return.

  The dog launches itself from the fourth stair and clamps his teeth on the shopkeeper’s arm.

  The shopkeeper immediately shouts a string of profanity at the dog. “Goddamnit, Toby! Get the fuck off me, you shitless, worthless piece of fuck.”

  The dog is holding onto the man’s shirt, not his flesh. That’s a good thing, I guess. The barrel of the shotgun is swinging back and forth as the man tries to wrestle himself free.

  “Fucking cunt shitter! Come on, Toby. Let me the fuck…”

  I duck as he jerks his arm to the side. I hear the shirt ripping. Toby is basically hanging from this guy. The dog’s legs are limp as Toby funnels all his strength into his jaws. He must weigh a ton. He’s dragging the shopkeeper down towards the floor.

  Without thinking, I move in. It’s hard to see a man attacked by a dog without wanting to help.

  When I put my hand on Toby’s collar, he lets go immediately. He strains and growls, but I drag him back a few feet.

  The man leans his shotgun against the wall and examines his own arm.

  “Damnit, Toby, you ripped my fucking shirt.”

  Toby barks an excited yap.

  “You’re supposed to bite him, Toby,” he says. He doesn’t
point at me. He points at the floor, where the man had been. Instead of a man, there’s just a pool of beer. Toby sees what the shopkeeper points at, and suddenly he’s straining towards that. I give him a little slack and Toby is at the puddle of beer, licking it from the floor.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. My hearing is back. I’m not yelling anymore.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” the guy says. “Fucking dog though. I told them to keep him upstairs.”

  Up the stairs, a kid peeks around the corner.

  “Call your damn dog,” the man says.

  A voice from above calls, “Toby!” and the dog nearly tears my fingers off. He sprints up the stairs.

  It’s just me, the shopkeeper, and the shotgun leaning against the wall.

  “Do you have a back door I could leave by? Those guys were chasing me and I’m afraid they might wait for me out on the street.”

  “Well, you’re screwed then. If they’re waiting for you on the street, they’re going to see you when you come out from the alley. It dumps out right by the front door.”

  “Oh.”

  He picks up his gun. Mercifully, he lets it hang down, pointing towards the floor instead of making me look into the barrel.

  “Here,” he says. He moves over to a shelf, where there’s an old TV set. He flips it on and it takes a second to warm up. When the picture finally swims into view, it’s the interior of the store. After a few seconds, the view changes to a scene from behind the register. “One of these shows you the outside.”

  After a shot of the bathroom doors, I see it. The picture is fuzzy, like the lens is covered in oil, but I can see the outside of the shop. The three men are standing there, in a little conference.

  “Shit,” I whisper.

  “You can wait here a second if you want. Maybe they’ll go.”

  The shopkeeper glances up the steps. Maybe he’s going to go back up the stairs. Maybe he’s just worried that Toby is going to come down again.

  “Shouldn’t you do something about that door?” I ask.

  He shrugs.