In the Meantime: Chapter 1

Chapter 1- Irene

Everything was grayed, the snow, the tone of thick wet cement. Irene’s boots lap with each step, threatening to suck beneath the sludge as if invisible hands reached for her from the other side; the one Mack went to, the lucky goat. If only he knew what she was up to, he would say, “Get behind me. Steady now, girl. Don’t be afraid.” His veiny red nose. His sausage fingers. Through their forty years of marriage, he was always too protective. She missed that about him the second he whiffed his last breath.

A scuffle ahead. Irene knew there were others in the Costco building. They all knew others straggled in the dark. Most everything was picked over. All the soup cans, batteries, and bags of flour were long gone. Once raided by individuals, then by organized groups. But now, after the ravages of the pandemic, looted by twos and threes. So many, like herself, single survivors shifting in the night. Slinking in the darkness like nocturnal coons, she hoped to go unnoticed.

If only she could find what she scavenged for. No one else would want them. They had no use for the long silly things, especially in winter. But she did. She knew what pool noodles were useful for after the apocalypse, and the last time she walked across the parking lot, she’d left jewel-toned foam cylinders behind. They attracted too much attention. The colors too flashy. Their colors were like sending a beacon, like sending out a flare brightening a night sky. Now she was back for them, but her hands were shaking on the hilt of the knife sheathed at her waist. “Lighten up,” Mack would say. “Take a deep breath. Let it out. Steady yourself. Take control.” And as a white cloud drifted out in front of her face, she loosened her grasp a smidge and then retightened her grip in an instant.

Yelling. They were yelling again. They still argued over who took what, even as their numbers dwindled to a mere drifting hundred or so by her own estimates. The entire town of Silverdale, Washington, was once so overcrowded their winding streets plugged along during a small-town rush hour. Now they lay abandoned except for the thick layer of old snow riddled with weathered pockmarks and the telltale signs of sled tracks where the streets once were. Who’s going to fill all those potholes when the snow melts? She wondered about many things now that nearly everyone had died off last autumn, taking Mack and leaving her alone. Not only had the world changed, but the town had also changed and, she along with it. No one was the same anymore. You were either a memory or held scars barely crusted over.

Survivor’s guilt, she’d diagnosed herself since no one else was around to do it for her. She’d survived when so many had died. But she heard the yelling again in a familiar voice just as she reached the tire department entrance. She reached for her knife and in an instant, Irene’s eyes widened when a blast outlined the metal door. She crouched to the ground and heard the yelling again and then another shot.

That’s when Irene shook her head. Of all people to survive. A woman as old as herself, and the one person in town she’d least likely call a friend. Life just wasn’t fair.

Irene opened the door and watched the woman shove tiny boxes around from within a metal cabinet. She’d pick up one and hold it close to her face, toss it over her shoulder and then pick up the next one.