Darren’s pants felt tight from Yuki and Sakiko’s display.
A single set of garage-style overhead doors stretched along one side of the raised loading bay. A couple big metal doors were at either side of the overhead doors. One of the doors had a large sign over it in Japanese characters that Darren thought said office. The other door had no sign over it, but Darren believed it was to the storage units.
Darren and Sakiko followed Yuki up the stairs and to the metal door that led to the storage units.
Yuki used her key on the door, and it opened up. After the three of them walked into the building, Yuki locked the door.
Darren and Yuki pulled out flashlights from his backpack. The light split the darkness but didn’t shine enough to cut it out completely.
Darren and Sakiko followed Yuki through the building. They walked their bikes through the halls past storage lockers.
Yuki walked up to one of the lockers and stopped in front of the door. The door was a gray metal sliding door that came down from the ceiling. The door was locked in the middle of the door by a simple key.
Yuki looked at the door and then looked at the top left of the door.
“My dad hasn’t been here yet,” Yuki said.
“How can you tell?” Darren asked.
“No mark.” Yuki said, “If he were here, he would’ve left a chalk mark in the upper left corner of the door. Then I would know that he’s been here and gone.”
Yuki wiped the back of her hand across a small part of the door. A small piece of glass was underneath a some grease.
“What is that?” Darren asked.
“It’s a peephole.” Yuki said, “So we can see out of it.”
Yuki unlocked the door and slid it up.
The locker was an eight foot wide by twenty-foot long room. For such a large room, it was surprisingly empty of stuff. A pile of supplies were piled in the corner of the locker. Some in cardboard boxes, others in plastic totes. Darren wasn’t sure what all the stuff was, it was all written in Japanese and his Japanese characters weren’t that good yet.
Yuki walked into the locker and found a dusty oil lamp and lit it. She hung it up from a hook on the ceiling.
“Is that it?” Darren asked, “Is that all of the supplies?”
“We should get in and get that door locked,” Yuki said.
Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko pulled their bikes into the locker, and Yuki shut the door.
“How can you lock it from the inside?” Darren asked.
“The lock works both ways,” Yuki said.
“Oh,” Darren said as he piled the bikes close to each other.
“Is that all the supplies?” Darren asked.
Yuki looked at the boxes. Darren was disappointed by the number of supplies in the locker.
“This does seem like not that much does it?” Yuki said.
“What happened to all of it?” Darren asked.
“I’m not sure.” Yuki said, “We were in here a month ago, and I swear we had put more stuff in here than this.”
“Maybe he moved it?” Darren said.
“Maybe.” Yuki said, “He doesn’t exactly tell me everything he’s planning.”
Darren looked at Yuki.
“Didn’t you have a place outside Tokyo we can go to?” Darren asked.
“Yes, I do.” Yuki said, “But we can’t get there yet.”
“Why not?”
“Three reasons,” Yuki said.
“First, where are our dads? Did they survive so far? Two, where’s Anthony? And three, my dad has the vehicle that we need to use to get there at the apartment.”
“Okay.” Darren said, “We can go get the vehicle.”
“Underground parking and my apartment was closer to the water than yours was. We didn’t take into account for earthquakes and tsunami’s that bad.”
“Oh.” Darren said, “Why didn’t you live farther out of town?”
“The company provided the apartment.” Yuki said, “Not many choices.”
“I always thought your dad was the boss,” Darren said.
“Boss yes. Owner no.”
“I see,” Darren said.
Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko made quick work of opening all of the boxes and totes. Darren looked through them and saw that while there were some useful items, they lacked some things.
Darren opened up a duffle bag and some rolled up clothes were tightly stuffed in.
“Sweet, clothes.” Sakiko said, “I’m soaked.”
Sakiko looked into the duffle bags and started to root through the items.
“We should change wet socks and take our shoes off so they can dry.” Darren said, “Do we have anything more waterproof?”
“There are no shoes in this bag,” Sakiko said.
“I have a single pair of rubber boots.” Yuki said as she pulled out a pair of pink rubber boots, “We never planned on having anyone else with us.”
“That means that I could share,” Sakiko said.
“Your feet are too big for these.” Yuki said, “Sorry.”
“Crap.” Sakiko said, “I can find a pair somewhere.”
“We do have a small stove,” Yuki said.
Yuki pulled out a small propane cook stove and a bundle of propane bottles.
“Who wants some tea? Or coffee?”
“I don’t think a propane cook stove is safe to use inside,” Darren said.
“There’s a vent shaft right there.” Yuki said pointing to a grate in the ceiling, “The vent will suck the fumes out to exchange the air.”
“There’s no power,” Darren said.
“That’s fine.” Yuki said, “The pressure in here is higher than outside. The air is sucked out through the vent shaft to make it safe. I mean, its not like its super sealed in here, to begin with.”
“As long as we vent the place after we cook to make sure, then I’m fine with it,” Darren said.
Darren sat down on the ground and put his head against the wall.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m tired,” Darren said.
“Me too.” Yuki said, “Two long nights with little sleep.”
Sakiko plopped next to Darren.
“What time is it?” She asked Darren.
Darren looked at his phone. There was no service, but the clock still worked.
“Its a little after eleven in the morning,” Darren said.
“Is it just me or is this day lasting forever?” Sakiko asked as she rested her head on his shoulder.
“We’ve been moving since like two in the morning, if you don’t include that short hour nap in that park,” Yuki said.
Sakiko nodded.
“Well, I slept from about ten to the earthquake.” Sakiko said, “I’m less tired than you two. I’ll make tea, you two snuggle up and have a short nap.”
Sakiko stood up from the ground and walked across the storage unit to the small camp stove.
Yuki sat down next to Darren and leaned into him. She rested her head on his shoulder.
Darren wrapped his arm around her and quickly fell asleep. He was unsure how long he slept or what he dreamed about. But he did remember that he was scared and that he spent it running from things.
“Darren.” A voice called out in his dream, “Darren wake up.”
Darren woke up with a start. It took him a second to realize where he was. Darren sat in a small storage unit with Yuki and Sakiko. Yuki squatted by a small camp stove. A pot sat boiling on the stove.
Chapter 13
Darren looked around the small locker. Sakiko had taken the lead in organizing the supplies into the different piles. She had the food stacked in one pile, and the other supplies were arranged by category. Sorted out, the number of supplies they had was worse than Darren originally thought.
“Sorry.” Darren said, “Was I snoring?”
“Not really.” Yuki said, “Its noon. You slept for two hours.”
“How long did you sleep for?” Darren asked.
“An hour.” Yuki said, “I should be good until tonight.”