Daphne Lamb - The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse

“We really don’t have technology anymore.”

“See what I mean?” he asked. “Million-dollar company. All of it crap. And where the hell are the lights?”

I shrugged. “The lights from the power that doesn’t work?”

“Bet you anything the folks upstairs have it.”

“Maybe.”

He stared at me. I stared back, daring him to blink first. Which he did. He always did.

“I’m getting really tired of you not being a step ahead,” he said.

“The power’s out,” I said. “The elevators aren’t working, and I don’t want to get locked out of the office again. Where it’s really dark and creepy, I might add.”

“Fucking useless,” he muttered as he went back to his office. “I’m using the bathroom.”

“The bathroom’s not on this floor,” I said. “You insisted all the sick people go to the floor with the bathrooms, remember? Or does your risk management wisdom have a better option?”

He gave me a withering glare. So I took a deep breath and changed my tone.

“There’s two options,” I said. “You can get stuck in the dark stairwell and feel around corners until you can turn left or you can use one of the corners behind any plant you see.”

“So no one’s getting any dignity out of this, are they?” he asked.

I shook my head and stared at the floor.

“We got any food around here?” he asked.

“I’ve got a bag of Funyuns and there’s some leftover Raisenettes that I found in the back of the break room.”

Underneath my desk, I had made a makeshift bed out of two emergency blankets and an ugly oversized hooded sweatshirt that had been the company Christmas present the previous year. I shoved my feet under it for warmth, and it was oddly comforting for something I had made fun of just six months before.

I heard a voice calling from in the darkness.

“Robert? Robert?”

I stood and tried to peer into the darkness. I saw movement, but wasn’t sure who was coming.

“Who is that?” Robert asked.

“I can’t tell,” I said. “I don’t know who else is living in this building.”

“Well, find out,” he said, annoyed. “I don’t have time today for people stumbling by my office.”

“You mean the break room?” I asked.

“Whatever,” he muttered as he stared at his Blackberry. “If it gets me no view of what’s going on outside, I’ll take it.”

“Who’s there?” I asked.

“It’s Debra!”

“Tell her I’m not here,” he hissed.

I reached over and shut Robert’s office door as Debra, late 40s, perky and cultishly corporate, got close enough I could see her in the limited light the window offered.

“Hi, Debra,” I said, smiling broadly. “He says he’s not here.”

“Jennifer!” she said. “You’re still here?”

“I’m Verdell,” I said. “Jennifer was the receptionist. Emphasis on the word was.”

“Of course,” she said. “I can never keep up with the turnaround here.”

“Did you check the group of sick people downstairs?” I asked. “She might be one of them.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she said. “My assistant died three days ago. I’d ask HR to get me a new one, but god knows how helpless they are.”

“I think everyone’s pretty helpless these days,” I said. “Probably to save their own lives. My regards to Denise, by the way. I heard she was nice.”

She shrugged calmly. “What are you going to do,” she said. Then she stopped to think. “Of course. How silly of me. Funny.” She cleared her throat. “Where did you say Robert was?”

“Uh, in a meeting.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Who’s around that he’d be in a meeting with?”

“Like he ever tells me anything.” I laughed with as much fake enthusiasm as I could during times of corporate fallout.

I gestured at his darkened form in the break room. “Maybe you’d like to help yourself to some picked over Raisenettes or Funyuns.”

She sighed. “You lower level entries and your carbs.”

She plopped herself down onto a nearby desk and folded her hands. Despite having been locked away for a week with no change of clothes and limited resources, Debra looked fantastic. Her pencil skirt was short and unwrinkled; her blouse perfectly coordinated with her chunky jewelry and platform nude heels. It was dim in the room. I couldn’t tell what the makeup situation was, but I was going to just assume it was perfect.

She leaned forward as if we were girlfriends at lunch.

“While I’m waiting, I have to tell you something.”

“Oh?”

She pulled a small bottle of nail polish out of her skirt pocket. “Did you hear about my makeup party I’m having next week?”

I shook my head. “Now where on earth would you be having that?”

“Originally, it was going to be at my home, but now it looks like it’ll be in the break room,” she said. “Unless they get all this,” she motioned to the carnage lying on the freeway below us, “cleaned up. I’ll keep you posted, though.”

“Please do.”

“Yes, anyway, there’s going to be games, prizes, and best of all, you can order the entire fall line. And my gift to you is one of the shades of nail polish.”

I held it up to the light. “It’s pretty. Like a magenta color.”

“Not magenta,” she said. “It’s called Candy Doo-Wop.”

“I don’t think I can say that with a straight face.” I handed it back to her.

“It’s going to be the hottest color this year. You’ll see.” She pushed the bottle back at me. “Please. My gift to you.”

I looked at the bottle. “Color of the year? I would have thought it’d be a murky grey or crusted blood burgundy. But thank you, Debra,” I said.

I set the bottle to the side. She sighed, looked wistfully at Robert’s door.

“Do you want me to find you when he comes back?”

She playfully shook her finger in my face. “No one ever gets back to me. I know it’s a joke with everyone.”

“He’s busy. You know that.”

She stood and smoothed down the fabric of her skirt. “I’ve got a hunch I know where he’s meeting.”

She walked up to his door and knocked gently. “Robert?”

There was silence for a moment before I heard the sound of Robert clearing his throat, his shadow moving around.

“Robert?”

The door opened by a crack, which Debra immediately shoved her beautiful platform heel into it.

“The bosses upstairs are on me about these numbers,” she said, trying to push her way in.

“I don’t have numbers for them,” he snarled. “Nobody has numbers. And now nobody has power.”

It was at that moment the main doors of the floor were kicked in and a SWAT team swarmed us. I was startled and jumped backward, gripping the wall for balance.

“This is not a drill!” they shouted. “Everyone down on the floor!”

Debra rolled her eyes at them. “We are in a meeting. Can’t this wait at least fifteen minutes?”

They were forceful and humorless. We were being evacuated, and I barely had time to grab my belongings. My hands shook, but I grabbed my purse, an emergency blanket and that really ugly sweatshirt from a team building exercise last year before someone grabbed my arm and hoisted me to the emergency exit.

“I-I’m sorry!” I stammered. “Am I in trouble?”

“You apologize and then ask if you’re in trouble?” the SWAT guy asked. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry?” I offered.

The SWAT member shook his head. “You’re building’s getting demolished, and we’re under orders to get you all out.”

“Can I at least get my car out of the garage?” Robert asked. “It’s a black Mercedes C Class. I left it near the stairwell entrance.”