Ryan Westfield - Getting Out

Max just shook his head in disbelief. He knew people would be slow to catch on, but actually confronting the reality of it was… astounding.

“Out of my way now,” said Max.

Big Tom bowed his head slightly, looking at the ground before stepping aside.

Max was in good physical condition, and Tom could sense that he wasn’t a match for Max, not that he’d ever dream of fighting him. Fighting wasn’t part of the modern cultured world, especially not in an office environment. Instead of thinking about physical capabilities, Big Tom’s managerial head was likely instead filled with ideas about potential lawsuits and demerits of his own that he’d have to deal with, should he find himself in a physical altercation.

Max walked out of the office. He knew it would be the last time.

The door slammed behind him, louder than anything he’d heard in the intense silence surrounding him.

The lights were off in the staircase.

He took a single cautious step past the threshold and paused. When he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell the difference. That was how dark it was.

There, in the silent darkness of the stairwell, the reality suddenly struck him. His heart started pounding in his chest. The anxiety hit him like a tidal wave. His pulse skyrocketed and his skin felt cold and clammy.

He’d had it together back in the office. He’d been vaguely planning this for years, or at least considering the possibility. He had some gear at home, and he had a plan, unlike a lot of other people. He had enough food for over a month.

But suddenly, none of it felt like it would be enough.

And he was all alone, the silent, dark staircase reinforcing this thought.

Was he really better off than anyone else, or would he become trapped like the rest of them, left to die a slow death of hunger, or perhaps something worse? After all, he still had no idea what had happened.

Max tried to reach into his pocket for his LED flashlight, hoping against hope that it hadn’t been affected by the EMP. But his hand was trembling too much, and he couldn’t even slide it into the pocket of his jeans.

Shit. That was all he could think: shit. His mind was stuck in a loop of panic.

Mandy had taken the day off from work. She’d managed to wake up early enough to call in, doing her best impression of a sore throat. “I can come in if you really need me,” she’d said. “But I think I might be contagious. You don’t want to see what I just did to the toilet.”

“All right, all right, spare us the details,” her boss had said, laughing. “Come in tomorrow if you’re feeling better. Make sure you call me at the end of the day to let me know how you’re doing. I’ll have to get Rachel to cover your shift, shit…”

Mandy had let out a big sigh of relief and let her head fall back on her pillow. She’d fallen back into half-drunk dreams, where nothing seemed to happen and everything felt static and strange.

At noon, she woke up again, her head pounding from the beers she’d had the night before at the bar. She knocked over the lamp from her nightstand getting out of bed, and stepped right onto a glass of water that she must have left on the floor the night before.

Stumbling into the bathroom, she flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. That was weird. Maybe the bulb was out. She pulled open the blinds to let in enough light to find the aspirin bottle in the medicine cabinet.

She shook out a handful, not bothering to count them, and swallowed them with a glass of water that had been sitting out for probably a week.

She stumbled into the kitchen, where she flipped the light switch. No lights again. She cursed under her breath. The power must be out again in the apartment building. It hadn’t happened in a while.

The last time it had gone out, she’d been living with Ted, her boyfriend of five years, who she’d just broken up with.

She shuddered at the memory of her and Ted huddling under a blanket, playing cards with a flashlight propped up like a lantern.

The memories were still fresh and painful. That was why she’d been out drinking last night with some friends from her old job, who’d promised to take her out and make her forget all about her problems. It hadn’t quite worked out like that, and the main thing Mandy remembered from the end of the night was crying in someone’s arms, drunkenly sobbing about Ted. Ted was long gone, out somewhere in California with his new girlfriend.

Despite her headache, the power outage, and her breakup, not to mention the shitty job she was barely holding onto, Mandy was a woman of internal resources. She decided right then and there to get things going today. She surveyed the apartment, which was a disaster. Normally clean and pristine, it was now full of ice cream containers that she hadn’t even bothered to throw out. The dirty dishes piled up out of the sink and onto the counter.

She poured coffee into the automatic coffee maker and hit the button before remembering that the power was out.

There was a knock at the door, loud and forceful.

“Who is it?” she said sleepily, winding through the mess on the floor of her apartment towards the door.

“Who is it?” she said again, peering through the peephole.

“Mrs. Kerns,” came the reply.

Mrs. Kerns was an older retired woman who lived on the same floor as Mandy. It was just the three of them on the second floor: Mandy, Mrs. Kerns, and a single man named Max, who Mandy hadn’t ever exchanged more than a few words with. He always seemed so serious, and perhaps a little too disgruntled to have a friendly conversation with.

Mandy groaned internally. She didn’t want to deal with Mrs. Kerns right now. Sure, she was a nice old lady, in most respects, but she was not the type of person that Mandy wanted to deal with when she was hung over. And surely Mrs. Kerns would want Mandy to contact the landlord or something.

Mandy paused before opening the door, trying to fix something of a smile on her face. Then she remembered she shouldn’t be waking up at noon, and she sure as hell looked like she’d just woken up. She remembered vaguely calling work and pretending to be sick, so she tried to fix her face into whatever a “sick” expression was before opening the door.

“Mrs. Kerns,” she said, trying to make her voice sound a little scratchy, opening the door wide.

“What’s happened to you, dear?” said Mrs. Kerns. “Did you lose power too? Why aren’t you at work?”

Mandy felt immediately overwhelmed with the peppering questions, and wished she’d just pretended she hadn’t been at home. Why didn’t she think of that? It wasn’t like Mrs. Kerns would have seen that the lights were on.

“I don’t have power either,” said Mandy, after a long pause. “I’m sick.”

She hoped that would cover her disarray.

“Might I come in, dear?” said Mrs. Kerns, in that pushy way that older ladies could sometimes so naturally be.

“Um,” said Mandy. “It’s a little messy.”

“My back is killing me, and I left the cane in my apartment.”

Sighing, Mandy stepped aside to let Mrs. Kerns into the apartment.

“My God!” exclaimed Mrs. Kerns upon seeing the horrible mess.

“Yeah,” said Mandy. “Sorry about the mess… It’s been a tough week.”

“Oh, yes, I almost forgot… I heard about Ted.”

Did the whole building know her personal business? Did everyone know that she’d caught Ted cheating on her, talking to his online girlfriend over the internet? Did they all know that Mandy wasn’t exactly sure who’d broken up with who, whether Ted had left her or whether she’d thrown him out of the house?

The two of them sat down on the couch. Mandy hurried to move aside her half-opened laptop and some old magazines that she’d partially torn up in a bad mixture of anger and depression.