Authors: J. Thorn
Chapter 18
The aroma of sugary cola and dried beer woke her from the
stupor. Jana closed her eyes again and felt the presence of many around her.
When she opened them, she counted five faces. Their muffled and distant words
formed into coherent sounds.
“She’s coming to!” one woman said.
“Give her room to breathe,” said a man.
Jana sat up, and streaks of light and pain flooded her
head. She felt dried blood in her matted hair. A bitter, copper taste flooded
her mouth, and her hands trembled.
“It’s okay. You ran into Peter and knocked yourself out.
Somebody get her some water.”
A small boy appeared at Jana’s side with a half-empty bottle
of warm water. Jana hesitated when she saw the particles floating in it, but
her thirst overrode the sense of revulsion. Her tongue felt swollen and
cumbersome as she fought to put a sentence together.
“Where…?” she asked.
“You’re in the BP on the corner of Mayfield and
Warrensville. You’re safe here.”
Although it was dark, Jana’s eyes adjusted. She could see
the faces of the people around her, but not their bodies. It appeared as if
heads floated in space. She managed to smile at the young boy that shared his
water with her.
“What are you people doing here?” she asked.
Her thoughts came back into focus.
“We were here when the shit went down, and managed to hide
in the storeroom. We haven’t left this place in days. Well, a few of us did,
but they didn’t come back. You’re the first to come by since, since…”
The woman trailed off, unsure how to finish her sentence.
“My name is Jana. I live right down there on Plainfield. I
think they’re looking for me.”
“They’re looking for everyone, dearie,” said an elderly,
black woman.
“I’m Peter,” said a man.
“Ruth.”
“Bill.”
“Sally.”
“Jake.”
“Andrew.”
The little boy sat on Jana’s good leg.
“I’m Jay,” he said.
Peter held his hand out to Jana and helped her to her feet.
His rough hands lifted her without effort. Jana guessed Peter to be in his
mid-thirties, based on a receding hairline and paunch that grew under a loose
shirt. He wore a wedding band as well as a full sleeve of tattoos on both
arms.
“Sorry about knocking you over. We weren’t sure who or what
you were, and we happened to run right into each other. If it makes you feel
better, you gave me quite a shot to the ribs.”
Peter’s smile made Jana blush.
“Didn’t mean to rough you up,” she said while twirling a
strand of hair around a finger.
“Honey, do you have any news? Has there been a terrorist
attack?”
Ruthie stumbled toward Jana on a cane held together with
duct tape. Her mangled glasses hung from a broad nose. Ruthie tottered on a two-liter
bottle but kept her balance as the others caught their breath.
“No, I don’t know what’s going on. Guys, army guys I think,
broke into my house. One shot me in the leg and left me for dead. I woke up
before they came back and I hid. After they left, I ran down the street.
There’s nobody around, nobody anywhere.”
The group stood motionless.
“I have a radio from my shower. Maybe we could try and pick
up the news.”
Jana walked toward the ATM inside the food mart and picked
up her duffle bag, which had struck the cash machine during the collision with
Peter. She unzipped it and fumbled until she brought out the neon-green radio,
bringing the scent of bodywash and conditioner. She handed the radio to
Peter. He turned the dial and picked up nothing but static from one end of the
FM band to the other. He switched it to AM with the same result.
“I’m afraid there isn’t anyone broadcasting,” said Peter.
He turned the radio off and handed it back to Jana. “Why don’t you keep that
in your bag and we can try again a little later.”
“Why don’t we keep it on? Are there nine-volt batteries in
here?”
“Yes! Good point, my lady. We can afford to leave it on,
and hopefully we’ll pick something up.”
Jana felt a flutter in her chest. She turned to hide her
face from Peter.
A younger man approached Jana.
“I’m Jake,” he said, holding out his hand to hers.
She shook his hand and noticed that he also had tattoos on
his right arm. His left hand reached and pulled the sleeve down over the ink.
“Jana,” she replied.
Peter appeared next to her.
“Well, let’s see if we can make a little room for Jana.
We’re going to need to squeeze another person into the storeroom tonight. It’s
not safe out here.”
The group led Jana through the jumbled aisles of snack cakes
and potato chips. Unopened junk food reached from the floor to the ceiling.
Jay tugged on Jana’s jeans and handed her an opened bottle of water. She
smiled and ruffled his hair with her hand. Sally smiled too, and pulled Jay
inward.
They entered the storeroom, where candles pilfered from an
emergency roadside kit spread meager light. Jana gawked at the boxes of
packaged goods along the walls.
Blankets and tarps spread out on the floor. A metal
shelving unit stood across the wall, blocking the back door, leaving the only
entrance to the storeroom from the food mart. To the right, an employee
restroom stood with the door open.
“There are bottles of washer fluid on the floor. Make sure
you fill the tank up with it after a flush. If you’re doing a number one,
don’t flush it. We don’t know how long the washer fluid will last.”
Bill’s face glowed bright red as he stared at the tops of
his shoes.
“I’ll be sure to flush when appropriate,” Jana said with a
slight smirk.
The group sauntered into the room and retreated to their
tiny spaces, the territory marked with remnants of their past lives. Jake and
Peter slid their tarps apart a foot or so to create a space for Jana. She
sighed with resignation at the thought of sleeping between the two men. Peter
rolled up a fleece blanket and placed it in Jana’s spot.
“It’s not exactly the Cleveland Marriott, but anything’s
better than sleeping on the cold concrete floor.”
Peter smiled and waved at Jana’s space. She noted that her
spot on the floor had the same dimensions as a coffin.
Jake sat down on his tarp. His eyes searched and prodded
Jana’s body, sending the hairs on the back of her neck into full alert.
“Feel free to get close if you’re cold,” the young man
offered. “There’s no heat in here, but I’m always warm.”
Jana looked at Jake, evaluating. She held his gaze for
another moment, but did not respond.
After fidgeting, sneezes, coughs, and expulsions of gas from
various orifices, the group finally settled. Jay complained to his mom that he
was hungry, and then cold, and then thirsty, and then hot. Though she liked
the boy, parenthood never looked so unappealing to Jana. Sally told Jay
bedtime stories until he fell asleep. Others stared at the water-stained
ceiling of the storeroom, awake and still. Jana fought to keep from crying
aloud, ignoring the tears flowing down the side of her face and into the rolled,
fleece blanket.
The sound of water sloshing troubled her sleep, followed by
the antiseptic odor of windshield-washer fluid. The floor of the storeroom
sucked most of the heat from the warm bodies. Jana imagined everyone sleeping
on a glacier in Antarctica. Her back, neck, and shoulders began to ache, and
she flipped around on her tarp. Every movement brought a rustle of plastic
that disrupted the dead of the night. Jana gave up on sleep and stood. She
moved toward the door that led back into the store. As she got closer, Jana
noticed a chain and padlock woven through the vertical push bar of the door.
Jana crept back to her spot. Jake snored, laying on his
back. Light from the bathroom stole at least some of the power from the
darkness. While Jake slept, his sleeves rolled up his arms, revealing the
human artwork from wrist to elbow. She noticed a dragon as well as an inverted
cross. The beast stood on his wrist and bellowed fire up his forearm toward
the cross. Flames danced around the dragon, and the numbers “666” sat above a
spiderwebbed elbow. On the other arm, Jake wore a faded swastika. Jana wanted
to see what was on the other side, but did not want to get any closer.
“We don’t know about him,” Peter said.
Jana jumped, almost falling on Jake. She turned and glared
at Peter. He could see her anger even in the dark.
“I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Would you
like to take a walk, get a drink?”
“Yes I would. I can’t sleep.”
“Some haven’t found that difficult, but I have. This is our
third night here, and I haven’t slept but five minutes of any of them.”
Jana followed Peter to the door. They made loping strides
on their toes to avoid stepping on or waking the others. Peter pulled a silver
chain out of his shirt. It hung around his neck with a key on the end. He
slid the key into the hole and opened the padlock, gently dropping the chain until
it lay coiled like a venomous snake on the concrete floor. Peter pushed the
door open a crack. He placed his right eye to the opening and stood motionless
for a minute. The calm silence of the store convinced Peter to push the door
open so that he and Jana could squeeze through.
Peter walked down the aisle closest to the back wall, where
the coffeemakers stood cold and silent. Jana inhaled the scent of coffee
grounds, closed her eyes, and shook her head. Peter picked up two cups and
handed one to her.
“Here. Shake it a little bit and then pull the top off.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“It will be hot coffee.”
Jana looked at him with a quizzical expression.
“These are kind of new. They have chemicals in the bottom
of the cup. When activated, they give off heat, giving you a warm cup of
coffee, hot chocolate, soup, whatever. It’s not like a French roast from
Phoenix Coffee, but it’s the only hot coffee you’re going to find around here.”
Jana followed Peter’s instructions. She felt the cup come
to life in her hand. The chemical warmth spread from the bottom toward the
top.
“Why hasn’t everyone drank these already? Seems to me they
would be one of the first food items to go.”
“Because nobody knows about them. I hid them under the
cabinet.”
Jana smiled and took a sip. She caressed the outer lip of
the cup the same way she did with her favorite mug in the break room. Jana
caught a fleeting whiff of hospital-grade disinfectant before it vanished.
“Do you want it?” Peter asked.
“Want what?” Jana replied.
“My story. We all have one, don’t we? Being here is like
being shipwrecked. We’re a bunch of strangers forced to live in a cramped
space together for an indefinite period of time. Nobody knows if we’ll be
rescued or not, so we continue to live out our existence as best we can.”
Jana sipped the warming cup and sat down on an overturned,
plastic milk crate.
“I’m not about to sleep, so go right ahead.”
Peter pulled another milk crate up next to Jana and began
his tale.
“I’m originally from Wales. You may have detected the
accent.”
Jana blushed again, pretending to be surprised by his
revelation.
“I came to the US about ten years ago. I’m a math teacher
at Brush High School. I have a wife and two kids.” Peter paused and spun the
wedding band on his finger. “I’m not sure what’s happened to them.”
He paused , struggling to form the words.
“I was at school late, trying my best to get papers graded
before parent-teacher conferences next week. I had a desk lamp on, but the
room lights were off. I think that’s what saved my life. I could hear the
sound of the military vehicles marching down Mayfield. Bursts of light came
through the window when the slaughter began. I turned the lamp off and crawled
to the window. I could see troops everywhere. The school was dark and,
because it was night, they didn’t come inside. I watched them pull people from
the homes across the street and shoot them in the head, right there on the
front lawn. Other soldiers spray-painted a pentagram on the house. They moved
right down the line. People were dragged out on to the lawn and shot. Others were
bound with plastic zip-ties and thrown into a troop transport, and others, I
assume, were killed right in their own beds. I could see the flash of a
machine gun as it lit up the bedroom of the poor people inside. This went on
for an hour, maybe two. I stayed in my dark classroom and waited. As the
troops moved west on Mayfield Road, the streetlights went out behind them. The
phone on my desk was dead, and the power to the school was off. I live on
Belvoir, near the school. That was the direction the troops headed and all I
could think about was my family. I stumbled through the dark hallways and
exited through a door in the back of the cafeteria. There was no one else
around. I ran as fast as I could over the football fields and on to the quiet,
residential streets of South Euclid. I don’t know what happened to everyone.
Houses were dark, cold, and empty. It was as if everyone had fled. When I
finally reached Belvoir, almost every house had the pentagram painted on it,
including my own. I ran through the backyard, tripping on my son’s Big Wheel
he left in the driveway. Our kitchen door was open, and the screen door had
been tossed aside. I grabbed a flashlight from the closet and dashed through
the house. There wasn’t a sound nor a soul in it. The good news, I think, is
that I didn’t find any blood. They took my family and I’m holding on to the
belief that they are alive somewhere. That’s more than I can say for many
others.”
“Jesus, Peter.”
Jana finished her coffee.
“May I have another?” she asked, tipping her empty cup in
Peter’s direction.