SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“It must have been large. Megaton.”

Henry nodded in thought. Then he added. “I was concerned about the fog,” he said, twirling his fingers up and around, “but this building is wired with sensors and Geigers, they’d be going berserk if there was any fallout or radioactive residue.”

“Except for the EMP.”

Henry shrugged, widened his eyes, and nodded. “Except for the EMP. There is that, could’ve knocked the sensors out.”

“I’m sure of it.”

Henry continued to stare into the mist.

“I wouldn’t worry about contamination though,” Nate added.

Henry veered back toward him. “No?”

“Doesn’t work that way…If it was even a nuke.”

“Right.” The smile returned. “What’s next, do you suppose?”

“Hold tight.”

Deidra tapped on the doorframe. Iona was behind her as well as a skinny young Indian man in khakis and a polo shirt. “Henry,” she said.

“Yes, Deidra?”

“Cory is dead.”

Henry gave Nate a side glance before addressing her. “His pacemaker,” he said. “And the others? How many others are on the floor?”

Nate noted Henry didn’t mention the past twenty-four hours, not the EMP, not the prolonged darkness that followed, not the black raccoon circles surrounding Deidra’s eyes. He was a leader going forward.

Deidra lifted her clipboard and pen and began to list the names. “There are ten of us altogether. Mister Farther, myself, Cory, deceased, Iona, Bruce—he’s in his office—Raj, Jenny, Lisa, Terry, and Rob, back in Marketing, and you. Everyone else appears to be off the floor.”

“Ten souls,” Henry said, his words seemed to drift with some second intent, some memory. Nate wondered if Henry too was a veteran of some war, some other place. “Well, why don’t you round everybody up? We’ll move into the conference room for lunch. If anyone has anything left from yesterday, they should bring it. I believe we have crisps and such in the break room and I’ll spring for the soda machine. We’ll sit tight, and help will be along soon.”

Without the rumble of elevator bay, the hum of the computers, desk fans, heating and cooling units, or any other electrical device on the high floor, the smallest of sounds became amplified. A bubble surging to the surface of the water cooler was thunderous, the carbonation release from an uncapped seltzer could be heard in every corner of the office. Without the forced air circulation the same was true for smell. The aroma of potato chips and pretzels, long since devoured, lingered in the foil bags they were packaged in. After a few short days on the floor, the odors of their own clothes were inescapable. Nate’s new Men’s Wearhouse khakis reeked of the sweet scent of sweat, a smell he could no longer ignore.

They’d all done their best to stay fresh. The women dabbed cologne. Ironically, Jenny and Iona appeared no different than they had the day before. Jenny, preferring her own desk, went back there in the morning to knit. It could’ve been another normal day. Lisa and Terry, the young women from Marketing, were dressed for after-work cocktail hour, so they merely appeared to have stayed out late and not made it home before coming in to the office. Poor Deidra showed the brunt of forty-eight hours on the floor. Her attempts to clean away the raccoon mascara left ten years on her face that weren’t there before. She did her best to busy herself until it was too dark to work, yet Nate heard her whimpers deep into the night.

The others pretended not to notice.

What couldn’t be ignored was the need for food. They’d cleared the snacks from the pantry and had now gone a day without eating.

They were expecting the cavalry at any time, but no one came before nightfall, and as midday rolled around relief was still nowhere in sight.

Nate was up for food, but he wasn’t hungry, not much. Bruce, on the other hand, was in the midst of some ‘sugar situation.’ That’s what Iona called it when he wandered off. “He’s got the ‘sugar,’ ” she said.

Nate was familiar with the term. His grandmother said ‘the sugar’ when she spoke of diabetes. Grandpa had ‘the sugar’ too. And it was a safe bet that Bruce, five-nine, age fifty, and two hundred and thirty or so pounds had Type Two, a real safe bet. Where the others were either disregarding or in distress of their situation, Bruce was angry, frustrated, and more focused on the time creep the incident would put on his project. Nate’s impression was that Bruce was an ass, though the others appeared unfazed by his demeanor—to them Bruce was just being Bruce. Some agreed with his reasoning when he argued that they should head to the cafeteria, one flight above.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “There’s a ton of food just over our heads.”

“He’s got a point,” Rob said. Rob was the Marketing VP and even without corporate experience, Nate was able to size him up. He’d met a dozen Robs before, either in the form of a salesman or lawyer, oily con men that never seemed to commit to one side or the other, always working their own agenda a thin layer behind those trust me eyes. And Rob had the works. Nate supposed that was the difference between sales and marketing, between a five-digit and a six-digit payroll. Rob’s slacks and monogrammed shirt certainly weren’t from Men’s Wearhouse, and there was enough product in his hair and Van Dyke beard to keep him quaffed for a week, less the two days they’d already spent on the floor. “How about,” Rob said, “Bruce and I run upstairs, see what we can find. And then we bring it back down here. That way if anyone comes along, you’ll be waiting.”

Henry nodded and Nate didn’t bother to answer.

“I’ll help,” Terry, one of Rob’s Marketeers, added. From the little black cocktail dress she was wearing and the way she kept her gaze on Rob, Nate assumed her job was to stick close to him.

Everyone agreed, and nothing more was said until after they left the floor through Marketing. The hair on his neck rose and he thought he perceived a slight pressure change as he watched the fire door to the stairwell open.

That’s when Iona began to talk about Bruce and ‘the sugar.’ Nate lifted himself out of the pleather-cushioned chair, his seat for the past hour, and moved over to the glass wall. Henry was staring out again, Bruce’s moment of distraction having passed, but he gave the man space.

There wasn’t anything new to see out in the creamy fog, and there wasn’t too much to be said.

But Nate didn’t stand there long.

From above their heads came a crash, a loud smash that on the all-too-silent floor mimicked thunder, and outside of the window, though he couldn’t be sure, Nate saw several shards of glass. He was not sure, because they didn’t drop, they didn’t fall, rather they held just beyond clarity in the mist, allowing only brief glints.

He would’ve examined them more, except he was forced to look up, look up at the source of the severe set of thumps that followed the crash. The foam and plastic ceiling tiles that shielded the now dark lights bounced in their frames with each solid thud, as if a huge hammer was pounding the floor above.

THUMP, THUMP.

“What’s happening?” Deidra asked, already showing signs of an understandable panic.

THUMP, THUMP.

“Gas line,” Henry said. His head pivoted to Nate for a confirmation to his guess.

THUMP, THUMP.

“Yeah,” Nate said. “Something’s under pressure. Something on the end of a line.” He said it, but he wasn’t sure. It made sense. “The group may’ve jarred something.”

THUMP, THUMP.

Deidra eased up. “Jarred something?” she asked.