Never Wake (10 page)

“What’s wrong with you? Oh, my God.” Her laugh sounded harsh and mirthless. “You’re not going to tell me you have a problem with black people, are you? ’Cause last time I looked, fifty percent of the viable populace of Portland is black,” Troy pointed to her chest, “and the other fifty percent,” she pointed to Emma, “has no right…” Troy stopped speaking as Emma’s face went from shock to disbelief and then anger.

“I am not prejudiced,” she said as if Troy had just accused her of being a Republican.

“Good,” Troy let her bag slide to the floor, “glad to hear it.” She stooped and fished around inside the bag. Her eyes burned, her head ached, and she felt like someone had punched her in the kidney. She set each item on the floor, one by one. A can of Slim Jims, a large bag of peanuts, a bag of potato chips, and two packages of cheese and crackers. She looked at the stash feeling like she had just asked a date to share her kid’s meal. She picked up the chips and held the bag out to Emma. “Sorry, none of it’s good for you. I wasn’t thinking about nutrition when I took it.”

Emma stared at Troy’s outstretched hand. “You just—took all that?”

Troy looked from the junk food to Emma.
What is she, nuts?
“Yeah, I took it. Why didn’t you…?” The rest of the sentence wedged in her throat as she took in the condo and Emma’s appearance.

Although she did have a lot of books, they fit neatly on her bookshelves, and there were no towers of old newspapers, nor did she see or smell twenty-three cats or sixteen Chihuahuas. But from what she had just gleaned, this woman had not left this condo even after she had many clues that something was wrong outside. What would she have done if Troy hadn’t ridden by?

Troy dropped her hand to her side. Emma was looking down at the snacks lined up on the floor as if she didn’t know what they were.
Great. I find someone else awake, and she’s a fucking nut.

“I’m not crazy.”

Emma’s voice sounded so sad that Troy regretted the direction her thoughts had taken her and then felt silly. “I didn’t say you were.” Troy held out the chips. Emma looked as if she wasn’t going to take them. But then her hand came up, and Troy pressed the bag into it. Her fingers brushed against Emma’s soft palm. Troy met Emma’s eyes and shoved her hands in her pockets. Emma parted her lips to say something but didn’t. Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t look scared.

“Why’d you wait three days to let me come up?” Troy asked before Emma could further protest.

“I didn’t want to…”

“You didn’t want to let me up. Right, I get that. Why’d you let me sit out there all this time if you never intended on letting me in?”

Troy expected her to rip into the snacks, but she hadn’t. The chips seemed forgotten in one hand while the other hand gripped the cane so hard that her knuckles looked white and shiny. Her hands, like the rest of her, were slim, but she was by no means emaciated. Even if she was hungry now, Troy didn’t think she had been for very long. “How’d you get food before?” She kept her voice quiet, her hands in her pockets.

A twitch began at the side of Emma’s mouth. “Kirkwood delivers it to me. I placed two orders, but nothing came. I was going to try another store when you rode by.”

“You didn’t know the rest of the world was asleep until I rode by and told you?” Troy couldn’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “How in the hell could you not know?”

“I…suspected. I don’t go out much.” She held out her cane. Troy studied her, and Emma looked away.
She looks the way white folk look when they don’t want to see themselves as you see them.

“What are we going to do?” Emma asked.

“What are we going to do?” Troy repeated.
We are going to leave you to your suicide while I continue with my own plans
. “I don’t know. Like I said down there, I have no idea what the hell’s going on or why it’s happening. I do know that, other than you, I haven’t found anyone else awake in the last three days.”

“Did you try a phone?”

Troy nodded. “On the first day. I spent hours trying different numbers, 911, long distance, the international operator. No one ever answered.”

“So you’re saying…you’re saying it’s not just Portland?”

Compassion flooded through Troy. She’d had almost four days to digest what had appeared to have happened, and it was still a hard thing to swallow, but she had accepted it somewhat. Emma, it seemed, hadn’t. At least not yet.

“There’s no one?”

“Not that I’ve found. Just me. And now you.”

“How about the newspapers? Maybe we should check a few weeks back—”

“Checked all that the day after I woke up. I was hoping to find some passing mention of, hell, I don’t know, a gas leak in some third-world country that ended up being worse then anyone realized, but,” Troy shrugged, “there’s no mention of anything out of the ordinary. What ever happened out there must have happened too fast.”

Emma turned away from her and sat down on a built-in seat beneath the window.
She sat there watching me
. Troy should have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t.

“All sleeping?” Emma asked again, mulling it over. Troy didn’t say anything. She had told Emma as much days ago, but for some reason Emma just now seemed to be taking in the full ramifications.

“Did you see any accidents?”

“Accidents? What, you mean like car accidents? No, no, I didn’t. I was so—” Troy paused as she relived the horror of finding the city comatose all over again.

“I understand,” Emma said. Their eyes met and Troy had the feeling she did understand.

That’s crazy. How could she, when she’s been in her safe little hidey hole.
Troy pushed away her resentment and asked, “When did you first notice things weren’t right?”

“When my groceries didn’t come the second time. I also noticed that the building cleaning crew didn’t come on their normal day.” Emma flushed again. “I wasn’t sure, though. It’s real easy to lose track of what day it is.”

Troy wanted to ask how a woman Emma’s age could be capable of losing track of days, but she pointed to the desk in the center of the room instead. “May I?” Emma hesitated and then nodded. Troy walked over to her desk and picked up a pen and paper. “When did you say you noticed?”

“At least four days ago.”

“Uh- huh, June seventh. That’s the day after I woke up in the hospital.”

“You were in the hospital?”

Troy looked up. “Yeah, everyone in the place was out cold. I thought I’d been in an accident.” Now it was Troy’s turn to feel heat surface on her face. “I didn’t have money for the hospital bill, so I skipped out.”

“What hospital was it?”

“Small place out near Southeast Thirty-First Street.”

Emma frowned. “Must be new.”

Troy shrugged. “I don’t know. All the staff was asleep. It was kind of creepy, so I left. I thought it was weird, until I found the rest of the world was the same. Man, I never knew it could be that quiet.”

“That must have been hard to deal with.”

Troy shrugged again. “It was what it was. I dealt with it fine,” she said, and then wondered why she felt the need to lie to someone who was so afraid of her own shadow that she was willing to starve rather than leave her own home.

“What about fires? Did you see any fires?”

“Fires? No, no, I didn’t. I see where you’re going, though. If people just fell asleep you’d think they would—I don’t know—burn themselves up with cigarettes in their hand or food left on stoves or something. I didn’t see any of that. If they had warning or time to turn off stoves, there would be something on the Net or in the newspaper.”

Troy got up from the desk, took off her scarf, and ran her fingers through her hair. She twisted the scarf into a tight rope in her hands. Instead of answers, Emma was creating more questions. Questions she herself should have thought of instead of riding around trying to think of the least painful, wussy-ass way to kill herself.

“I’ll be back,” she mumbled.

She already had the front door open when Emma asked, “Where are you going?”

Troy met her eyes and then looked away before answering. Her words came out slow and concise as if she were speaking to a child. “I’m going to break into your neighbors’ places and steal whatever food they have, and then I’m going to come back here and give it to you. After I do that, I’m going to lie on your couch and get some sleep, because now that I know that someone else is awake, I might be capable of sleeping for more than half an hour. Is that all right with you?”

A low wail emanated from the area of Emma’s stomach.

“I thought so,” Troy said and pulled the door shut. She bit her lower lip.
What would cause someone to wall themselves up in their own home to the point that they don’t know when the rest of the world goes to hell in a hand basket? Worse yet, what would cause her to stay there, even after she knows something’s wrong?
Troy tested the first knob and continued walking down the hall. Her frustration was already reaching the boiling point. She would check one more door, and then she would go to another floor so that she didn’t scare Emma when she went nuts on one of her neighbor’s front doors.

Standard, Oregon, September, Years Ago

The Boy’s shoelaces had worked themselves loose again. Shoelaces, at least untied ones, bothered Hoyt. Anything that bothered Hoyt usually earned a slap on the back of the head. So The Boy tucked his feet back beneath the chair and kept his body still. He knew he hadn’t done anything to get in trouble. Not unless this was about the fight, but he couldn’t see why getting his ass kicked would be reason to call his father in.

Unless, his teacher, Ms. Carter, was planning on telling Hoyt what a pansy he had for a son.

The idea of Hoyt finding out that he got chased as far as the Pump and Go Gas Station almost every day made The Boy’s stomach cramp. Something trickled down the side of his leg. Sweat, he hoped.

Hoyt had worn his Sunday best. Not that his Sunday best had gotten use on any Sunday that The Boy could remember.

“Mr. Pokorney, it’s nice to meet you,” Ms. Carter said as she rushed through the door. She looked so beautiful that The Boy forgot that he should be afraid.

“Hoyt. You can call me Hoyt, Ms. Carter. The Boy’s mother couldn’t make it. She’s having female problems.” Hoyt’s laugh made The Boy’s eardrums tingle and the smile he put on turned The Boy’s stomach. It was the same one he had used on Amy, the waitress at Bernie Ann’s Corner Side Cafe. Ms. Carter returned Hoyt’s smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes like it did for him when he answered a question right. The Boy wondered what a black eye had to do with Pam’s female problems.

Ms. Carter looked down at her folder. The Boy liked how she was wearing her hair and how neat and clean her desk was. Everything in its place, even the folder that he was sure Mrs. Orson, the school secretary, had handed her just before she walked in the door.

The one thing that The Boy didn’t like about Ms. Carter was the way she got quiet sometimes. She would ask a question and after you gave her the answer, she wouldn’t respond right away. It made him feel like he had said something wrong, even when he knew he was right. She was doing that now and it scared him because he knew Hoyt wouldn’t like it any more than he did.

“Mr. Pokorney,” she began.

The Boy jumped as Hoyt cleared his throat. The sound was like the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire in one of those old westerns with all midget actors that his grandma liked to watch every Sunday.

“Hoyt,” Ms. Carter said with the same smile she used when she didn’t want to tell a student that their answer wasn’t quite right. “Are you aware that your son has shown an affinity for math?”

Hoyt looked at The Boy and then back at Ms. Carter with the same smile he used on all women he was sure found him good looking. The Boy gripped his armchair and looked down at the floor and hoped Hoyt didn’t call Ms. Carter a gal.

“Has he, now?” His tone made The Boy even more nervous. It was always like this at home. Before a fight. Hoyt always got gentler before things got real bad. The Boy’s bladder was so full now that his leg began to shake.

He wanted to yell at Ms. Carter to get on with it. He didn’t understand why she had called Hoyt here. His grades were good and he didn’t make trouble.

“Yes, some of the other teachers and I have organized a science club with some courses that are geared more toward middle and high school. We offered your son one of the spots and he refused. He said you needed his help at home.”

“He said that, huh?” Again Hoyt looked at him, but The Boy continued looking down at the floor. His cheek cooled when Hoyt turned his gaze back to Ms. Carter.

The Boy slumped forward and began to fumble with his shoelaces. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Some-bitch Some-bitch.
He repeated the mantra over and over in his head. Pee eased out of his penis; he grabbed his ankles, pressed his tummy into his crotch to stop the flow, and prayed.

“He told you right. I do need him to help me with my work.”

“Hoyt.” Ms. Carter’s voice had softened and The Boy heard papers shuffling. Neither of them seemed to notice that he was still bent over. He clenched and unclenched his stomach. The pressure was building so much that he had begun to rock.
Some-bitch Some-bitch
. Should he tell them he had to go? No, they’d make him stand up. He didn’t know what was worse: peeing his pants in front of Ms. Carter or the beating he would get for embarrassing Hoyt.