I ran until their voices were out of earshot. To catch my breath, I hid behind a drycleaners. When I felt the coast was clear, I reached into the bag and grabbed UCLA’s phone. It turned on and it showed full bars of reception again. I started to think.
I reasoned that if there was enough reception in the area then there had to be people around. People who might be kind enough and take in a girl in exchange for, oh, I don’t know, maybe the comfort of the written word, courtesy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Maybe I’d find my parents in one of these conveniently located houses or maybe an Army base who’d jump at the chance to cart a healthy white girl to safety so the human race could continue on.
I put in the number from the missing poster, but it rang once, then gave me the ascending chord followed by the lilting feminine robot voice, “The number you have dialed does not exist. Please check the number…”
I hung up, then flipped through the phone’s applications and found them largely useless. Mostly because they didn’t work and I couldn’t get anywhere with it. I went to a dating app just for kicks and found that was alive and well—it had been active for the past five minutes.
There was a time where you were warned about contacting people online, that you were warned about people contacting you. Anyone could be anyone or anything. Let the wrong person into your psyche and next thing you know, you’re hiding five thousand dollars cash in Cheerios boxes and sending them to Ghana to a guy named Kevin Kostner that you think you’re engaged to. These were lessons I had learned from a number of investigative shows that were meant to strike fear in all of us. I threw out all those fears and hunted for active profiles within a five-mile radius. I hunted for women and men. I messaged a girl named Chatelynne and asked if she was interested in meeting up. I watched the screen intently, my heart pounded at the hope for human contact through technology. Seventy five seconds later, she messaged me back. She asked if I had any Tina and how open minded I was. I messaged back that I didn’t know Tina and didn’t know what she was talking about. She responded with a quick “Fuck U” and went offline. So I kept on.
Two women told me that I had to prove I was a man and weren’t interested in me when I told them I was a woman looking for a friend. One said she was now saving herself for our new alien overlords, but wished me good luck on my search.
So I switched my preference to men and found a wider world of opportunity that seemed genuinely frightening. I also saw a lot of pictures of penises.
The first person I messaged had a nice unthreatening looking face. His name was Randy and liked video games and Spider-Man—the alternate universe series and the animated series, but not the Civil War series. There was a difference, and he wasn’t interested in anyone who felt otherwise. So I messaged him anyway, hoping he wouldn’t ask. Maybe an Apocalypse can change a man’s heart. He didn’t message me back, so instead I waded through strange men’s dick pics, looking for any alternates. I turned off the app and debated the safety of trying to sleep in an abandoned Arby’s that was a few blocks ahead.
It seemed sketchy, what with the stray dogs circling it and a shadowy figure that would pop up every now and then, but my newly acquired phone buzzed. I pulled it out and saw a message from Randy.
No profile picture? That’s okay, he had written. We should meet up. Are you busy tonight? Kind of limited on where to go, so I guess you can come to my house.
Thank god, he didn’t grill me on Spider-Man, but had jumped to the meet-up point. So I messaged him back and asked for directions.
* * *
He didn’t live far, and it turns out he was holed up in a house with four other thirty something graphic novel enthusiasts. He warmly greeted me and ushered me inside.
Just like his picture, he had a soft doughy appearance, a face that was warm and seemed untouched by human hardship. His roommates all followed suit, grunted at me and seemed a little intimidated at a girl in their midst by the way they avoided eye contact with me.
The house was like the world before the Incident. There was a large comfy couch that I itched to curl up on, a wall with shelves stuffed with games and movies, and in the center of the living room was a massive flat screen TV, which was on and showing a violent action movie.
“You’re watching a movie?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Randy said. “We’ve been dying to see the director’s cut of Enter the Dragon, but Jeremy finally found the copy his mom sent him over a month ago. Ever seen it?”
“You have power,” I said truly in awe as I looked around. “This is amazing.”
“I guess. It’s just a generator,” he said. “Better news is, Jeremy just made parmesan pastry pups. Hungry?”
I stared, incredulous. “I thought the world was done,” I said. “There are people fighting to the death over Flamin’ Hot Cheetos just a few miles away.”
Randy shrugged and offered me a plate of pastry pups with a big smile. “They’re really good. You should have some.”
I took one and let my teeth bite into its deliciousness.
“So,” he said. “Walking into the house of strange men. What’s it like to do that with no fear?”
“Aren’t you worried that you’ll attract the wrong people?” I asked. “I just met you, but I’ve got a really interesting story about how I almost became a concubine because I took a UCLA sweatshirt. I could be a cannibal. They’re out there, you know.”
Randy shook his head at me. “No stories,” he said. “We’re all quite aware of what’s going on out there and we worked really hard to make this a safe zone. And no questions either. You seem like a cool girl, but I’d hate to send you back outside.”
I stopped and weighed the options. My gaze traveled upward, where there was a staircase and a lighted hall, whose wall space was covered in limited edition Lord of the Rings replica swords. I knew there had to be beds up there, and possibly real working bathrooms.
I smiled and took a pastry pup, squelching the desire to grab ten more. It was the perfect combination of flaky crust and salty sausage. I took a bite and enjoyed its saltiness.
“It’s really good,” I whispered. “And is that a framed Tron soundtrack over there?” I asked, pointing at the framed LP on the wall.
“You should tell Jeremy,” Randy said.
“Okay,” I said, turning to face Jeremy’s surly posture. “What’s up with the Tron soundtrack?”
“No,” Randy said. “I meant, he made the pastry puffs. You should tell him you like it.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks, Jeremy. They’re tasty.”
Jeremy sat in the corner of a room behind a table painting X-Men figures. He looked up and nodded at me.
“Jeremy’s a little upset at us,” Randy whispered.
“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”
He shrugged. “It was his week to invite a girl over and we had to sacrifice her because she made fun of Brett’s light saber, then used all the lotion on her legs.”
“You sacrificed her?” I tried to keep my voice calm. “That doesn’t mean what I think it does? Does that mean something different now?”
“I-It’s lotion,” he stammered. “You use it. And you don’t question when people want it!”
“Silly me.” I tried to mask the nervousness of what I might have just entered. “It’s strange any woman wouldn’t recognize that.”
“Seemed even stranger that she wouldn’t recognize the detailed craftsmanship of a light saber that Brett spent the last year making,” he said. “She had to go.”
“So she just went willingly?”
He shrugged again. “We dragged her to that Arby’s down the street and let the gang in there deal with her.”