“I guess.” Dakota turned his head down, letting his long, stringy bangs shield his eyes from the waning light of the midafternoon sun. He traced the whispers of dust on the windowsill and tried not to think about how, were they not in their current situation, the window would be clean. Steve had always been a good home keeper, regardless of what some might’ve thought based on his scruffy, unkempt appearance.
Dakota closed his eyes.
Dust never shined on gloomy days. Then again, it didn’t shine at all.
“Dakota,” Steve whispered, startling the younger man out of his trance.
“Yes?”
“I’m closing the window.”
“Oh. Right.” He moved aside to allow Steve easy access to the curtains, then watched as his friend strung his fingers through the dark, maroon fabric and began to position them over the curtain—slowly, with a sense of patience like that of a snail crossing a hot highway on a busy day. Such a process became second nature over time. You watched for people watching you from across the street or the shadows of alleyways, for zombies cocking their heads to the skies; you drew the blinds over the looking glass into the outside world as though any and all movement could reveal your presence to others. If you didn’t, there might as well be a gun in your mouth and a finger on the trigger, a lone shell waiting to fire into your brain.
“I’m gonna go shave,” Steve said after he finished closing the window, pressing a hand against Dakota’s shoulder as he made his way to the coffee table. He stopped in midstride, when Dakota didn’t respond.
“Koda? You gonna be ok?”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
Nodding, but with a frown painting the curve of his mouth, Steve plucked a razor from the pile of toiletries and made his way toward the bathroom.
Dakota turned, looked at the curtains, and closed his eyes.
He never could’ve imagined how lonely being stuck in a dark room could be.
That night, Dakota drew his knees to his chest and tried to drown out his thoughts, a process easier said than accomplished. He went to bed and almost immediately closed his eyes, then tried to get as comfortable as possible. Somehow, though, he couldn’t fall asleep. Counting sheep, drowning in a black void, forcing himself to realize how good it felt to lay in a warm, soft bed—he tried everything he could, yet to no avail.
It took him only a few moments to realize what was wrong—he couldn’t count sheep because every time he tried to conjure one forward, it would disappear, he didn’t like the idea of falling into a place he couldn’t get out of, and Steve’s bed was too hard.
In the midst of everything, Steve shifted, once again jarring Dakota from a failed attempt at sleep. The older man’s side of the blanket settled on top of him a moment later.
Here we go again, he thought, tossing the blanket back.
“I’m not cold,” Steve mumbled.
“It’s cold,” Dakota said.
“Maybe to you, but it isn’t to me.”
Steve tossed the blanket back. More annoyed than anything, Dakota threw it right back at him.
“Dakota,” Steve said, exasperated now.
“Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”
“Please, don’t. I already said I’m not cold, so don’t throw the blanket back to me.”
“Whatever.” Dakota settled back into the bed, this time with the whole blanket. He drew it around his side and tucked it under him, rolling over so his back faced Steve.
After a moment, Steve chuckled, then said, “I guess this means you can’t sleep either.”
“I guess it does.”
“You wouldn’t be worrying about me otherwise.”
“Yeah right,” Dakota smirked, rolling onto his back. He stared at a poster on the ceiling, its edges long-since frayed and its corners curled. Men in capes, women in leotards, dogs with emblems on their chests—it didn’t take much to imagine the person that had once stood on this bed and pinned the poster to the ceiling. It was likely a teenager, possibly the only son of a single parent, or a middle-aged man without a girlfriend who preferred to inhabit a world of fantasy instead of reality. Steve said the poster had been there since the beginning and he hadn’t bothered to take it down. What is the point of removing something that once meant so much to someone? Steve had asked during one of their first conversations about it, right after it all had begun. You’re just taking a memory away.
“It makes you wonder,” Dakota muttered, smiling when he saw the metal tack wink at him.
Steve grunted and threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I have to take a leak. You coming?”
“You need my help?”
“Fuck you.”
Chuckling, Dakota crawled out of bed and followed Steve out of the room and into the kitchen. Steve took an empty plastic bottle from a rack on the cupboard and slid behind the island to give himself some privacy.
“Sucks the toilet doesn’t work,” Dakota commented.
“No kidding,” Steve said, lifting the bottle a moment later. He carefully opened a nearby window and rolled the bottle off into the dumpster below. “You need to go?”
“No.”
“You hungry?”
“For what?”
“A pickle.”
“I… guess.”
“Hey,” Steve laughed, “I don’t like ‘em either, but it’s food, right?”
Dakota nodded. No one needed to remind him of that.
While Steve turned and started rummaging through their meager food stores, occasionally swearing but mostly mumbling, Dakota looked out the window Steve had just opened and tried to imagine what it would be like to not have a home. In this day in age, things could change by the minute, if not the second. It didn’t take much for someone to come in with a gun or a group of cannibalistic corpses to charge down the street and storm your house. In a world without law and a country without borders, it took little for something to happen. Dominoes fell constantly, especially when you were alone.
“Here ya go,” Steve said, offering the pickle between two fingers.
“Thanks.”
“It’d be better with whatever, but we gotta save what we’ve got for tomorrow.”
“What?” Dakota asked
“We gotta go. We’re almost out of water.”
“Why the hell didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“Because I didn’t want you to argue with me.”
“Steve,” Dakota sighed, setting his pickle on the counter. The audible crunch of Steve’s pickle between his teeth made him grimace. “I wouldn’t have argued with you.”
“Yeah, you would’ve.”
“Maybe for a little, but not for long.”
“Look, Dakota.” Steve shoved the last bit of pickle in his mouth, chewed, then set his jaw. “We have to go out. I know you don’t want to, because I sure as hell don’t want to either, but we have no choice. If we’re going to stay in this apartment, we’re going to need water. As it stands, we haven’t taken a bath for nearly a week. We smell like shit.”
You’re telling me. Dakota took a bite out of his pickle. “When?” he asked.
“Tomorrow, before the sun comes up.”
“Where’re we going?”
“The supermarket. If we’re lucky, there’ll still be something left when we get there.”
Where the hell is Steve? Dakota shoved a can of creamed corn into his backpack. Steve had run off to explore the rest of the store, while Dakota had busied himself with gathering food and any other necessities. Fruits, vegetables, the occasionally saucy soup and snack cake—what little he could find filled the bottom of his pack, but he already knew it wouldn’t last them more than a few days. They each needed to eat, and it wasn’t much.