What good's a designated driver without a car? Nick and Tessa stumble behind you out of the car, leaning on each other for support and trading loud whispers. You're relieved at the sight of the black sedan, eager to sleep. At a distance, the fob doesn't work. The familiar double flash of the headlights doesn't come, even when you're standing next to the car. Bracing yourself with a hand on the roof, you try the key. It turns a full 360 degrees and you pull back with clenched teeth; someone tried to break in. As you try the lock on the passenger side, you pull out your phone. The door won't unlock and neither with your phone. No amount of button smashing lights the screen.
Nick's phone won't turn on. Neither will Tessa's when you eventually convince her to hand it over. You're not worried yet. It is a freak accident but not beyond belief that all four batteries could die without notice and that a stranger broke the lock. But your phone is in your front pocket and you keep taking it out to check if it's miraculously resurrected.
"Let's get walking then," you announce, heading toward home.
Your friends follow you with quickly sobering complaints. They had spent the last few months walking a thousand miles so what was a couple more? The promise of warm blankets gives you the burst of energy you need to sprint the last block to the front door. It's so close, your bed and half a beer await your gracious return.
The key slips home and... spins. One then two then three full rotations. You yank it back and kick the door before trying again. This time you lean all your weight into the door as you turn. It yields the same result but you slip and the key snaps with the weight of your body behind it.
For a moment you can't help but stare in disbelief at your mistake. "Are you fucking kidding?" you ask helplessly.
Nick and Tessa are behind you now. You turn around to show them the half key you still hold.
"Ah fuck that," Tessa growls. She runs up to the nearest window and starts pounding and yelling. You don't stop her. You join in. When you finally give up, at least you're warm from running around the apartment building. It's then you realize Nick has set up his backpacking tent.
"Let's sleep please," he says, holding open the nylon door flap.
Camping out on the sidewalk is strange sensation. Plus, it's a two person tent and it barely holds the three of you. For a while you're pissed, curled up with your friends on the street like your memory foam mattress isn't fifty steps away. But it's so quiet you start to forget where you are. Packed this tight, it's almost hot and you sleep.
Morning is the color of a ripening orange that still remembers being green. Bright, cloud scattered sunlight filters through the tent, illuminating your tangled bodies. You sit up, ignoring Tessa swearing at you, to open the door. With more swearing, you exit onto the concrete and look around.
By the height of the winter sun, you ration it must be late in the morning. Usually cars are honking outside your window and people are getting in each other's ways. It's a main road through the city. You can't think of any good reason it should be so empty. Entirely empty. Not a single parked car, no hurried business men, no trash bags, no scattered coffee cups. You turn to look at your building, expecting to see someone staring down at the idiots that missed the stay at home order.
But no, all the windows are white with the reflected sky. Even the windows you remember holding flags and political signs are blank. You still aren't panicking, your brain won't let you until you've eliminated every rational scenario and surely you can find one.
"Guys come look," you say, patting the top of the tent.
"You got the door open?" Nick asks, pushing a disheveled head into the cold air.
You don't respond, you instead start walking up the street to see if it's normal.
"What do you want?" Tessa's voice is almost overtaken by the sound of rustling as she struggles out of the tent.
You're expecting to be yelled at by your two friends but they're as quiet as the city. It's so quiet you can hear their feet scuffing the pavement. When you hear running you know it's Tessa, she can never stand still when she's stressed. You return to where Nick is standing and he's turning in a slow circle, eyes bulging.
When Tessa returns, she reports the bizarre emptiness for blocks. Empty sidewalks, roads, windows, gutters. Your stomach aches and Nick is holding a hand over his eyes, swaying with dizziness. You all decide to sit and eat and think. The tent zipper sticks as you open it to rest on the mattress pads.
Breakfast is cold and sparse. Your friends packed well for their trip so there's not much food left. One MRE, electrolyte powder, a handful of granola bars, and a water bottle. It's not enough food for a day. You'll all be fine once you find a way inside, no problem. And you eat like it won't be a problem. When you're done, the bars are gone and your water is half empty.
"It was an evacuation," Tessa offers.
You whisper 'no' to yourself, thinking of the streets cleaner than they've ever been in your life.
"Shelter in place?" Nick asks the universe.
"No," you whisper. Where are the cars?
"The rapture!" Tessa exclaims.
"No," you retort. You aren't the three sole sinners on earth.
"Aliens?" Nick asks quiet as if little green men are listening.
You press your face into your hands as your heart begins to race. This is it, you are finally panicking. You're in a different world, probably have been since you left the bar last night. The worst part is not knowing how you got there.
There's quiet for an awful minute before Tessa speaks. "What do we do?" Her excitement over the novelty of your situation has run out and she sounds like a child.
It's quiet again and when you lift up your head to see why, your friends are waiting for you to have a solution. If you can't give them something you know your thumping heartbeat will become a full-blown meltdown.
"I think we need to get out of the city," you say. It's your first thought. Cities are magnets for death and destruction so the suburbs will be safe.
The three of you pack up and let Nick take the lead. Despite his hangover, dulled by sunglasses and a baseball cap, his sense of direction is good. You recognize bits and pieces of the city that remind you of trips to the beach. You never venture this far east if you can help it. You don't stop for lunch, none of you have an appetite and the movement keeps you warm. The jacket you wear is only good for going between heated car to heated building.
When you stop for the night, it's because Tessa is complaining about her feet. Nick sets up the tent as you heat up a hermetically sealed pouch of ravioli and Tessa checks her blisters. It smells like fake cheese and sour tomatoes as you drift off and you think you'd feel like a king sleeping on the floor of a shitty pizzeria.
The next morning the city continues on. Nick swears they should be hitting tree line sidewalks of two story family homes. And yet the familiar repetition of apartments, corporate skyscrapers, and chain restaurants continues abated.
You stop for lunch on a bus stop bench. There used to be more covered bus shelters, you waited under one last weekend after drinks with your coworkers. The three of you touch shoulders and arms as you share tough bread with fake cheese. The bars between the seats prevent you from getting closer for warmth. Tessa let you borrow her extra shirt but it doesn't help at all.
You start walking before your friends are ready. If you don't get your blood moving you're afraid you'll get stuck, frozen to the metal bench. Your shoulders are pulled to your ears as you walk, eyes down so all your focus is on your numb feet.
"Could we get on a roof?" Tessa asks. "See where to go?"
You shrug, Nick speaks. "If you can find a fire escape, go for it."
"What do you think?" Tessa is asking you directly.
You look to her, eyes watering and painfully cold. "Anything that gets me home," you tell her.
Walking resumes but now with energy as Tessa is excited to have a project. She runs back and forth across the street to check the adjoining alleyways for a reachable ladder. Nick walks on one side of the sidewalk and you the other in case your third misses something. Time passes slow with disappointment.
You're ready to give up, the sun is setting, when Tessa yells with excitement. Nick jogs over to her and you follow out a walk. Your friend is already pulling herself up the metal rungs of a fire escape. You notice that even though she's hanging onto the sliding portion of the ladder her weight doesn't move it. There's a closed dumpster pulled under the fire escape so that she could reach. You and Nick watch her, anxious at what she might find. Secretly, you worry she'll fall.
You're pacing to stay warm, no longer paying attention to Tessa by the time she reaches the top. Nick is beside you when she does, nudging you to look up. You look in time to see the silhouette of Tessa waving against the orange sun before she vanishes over the roof's edge. Actually holding your breath, you wait for news. But you're losing feeling in your face as Tessa takes too long to tell you what she sees.
Nick starts into the street, looking for your friend. "Tessa?" he yells, voice stuttering through his chattering teeth. "You okay?"
There's a beat of silence before a scream pierces the air. "Tess?!" You join in Nick's frantic calls. She doesn't respond, she just screams and screams, louder than you ever thought she was capable. There's a pause and you hear the distinct sound of gagging but there isn't anything for her to vomit.
"I'm coming up!" Nick announces. You grab his arm as he moves to run. You know it would be dangerous to follow.
"No!" Tessa seems to reply. But then she repeats it, over and over until it's noise. "No! NO! NO! NONONONONONONO-" She stops to gag and cough and then you hear her feet pound the solid roof. You can barely see her against the darkening sky. But you can hear her coming. She's trying to yell and cough at the same time so it comes out as a wordless animal bellow.
Tessa is going too fast, when she comes around the corners you hear her whole body smash into the railing. You watch as her shadow partially runs, mostly falls, down the next flight of steps. She's still halfway up the 10 story building so when her momentum carries her over a rail, you close your eyes. Nick screams and runs, you can barely hear Tess hit the ground over his worry.
You heave a breath and pick up the two backpacks that were left behind. By the time Nick returns from Tess's body, you're huddled in her sleeping bag, numb from your brain through your toes. Nick is breathing ragged, hiccuping with unshed tears that dehydration keeps at bay. He leans through the front of the tent and puts your dead friend's jacket in your lap. You don it, shivering in the down sleeping bag alone. It's been dark and getting colder by the time you and Nick curl together for a long night.
Nick is missing when you wake. He left his bag, mostly empty MRE package open on top. He can't be far. Hot sauce packet and almonds clutched in one hand, you leave the tent and close it after you as though you can trap the heat inside. From across the street, you can see Nick crouched in the alley where Tess lays. You walk over, getting close enough to just see the tips of her boots. One is the opposite way of the other.
"You eat?" you ask Nick flatly.
He stands from the body and presses a hand to his mouth. When he reaches you, you offer him the almonds but he shakes his head.
"Let's go," he says. You don't argue. You don't know where you're going but you have to try, don't you?
Something is wrong when you reach the tent. Nick says the zipper is stuck but the whole front door refuses to move, his yanking doesn't wrinkle the fabric like it should. You try the zipper and it's like pulling at a nail in a brick wall. The tent is somehow solid. The two of you scratch and bite and kick at the solid mass that used to be a shelter. You give up after Nick's stripped his pants to use the zipper as a knife. What is supposed to be nylon shows no sign of damage, you might as well have tried blowing it down.
Silently Nick pulls back on his jeans, shivering hard. You split what's left of the nuts and the hot sauce before walking. You have no plan and soon you won't have any energy to move, the only thing keeping your limbs soft. So you walk without rest. Inevitably the night comes and you curl together in the deep door way of building. You have cover on three sides but it doesn't keep the cold out.
You wake and you're cold, colder than you should be with Nick at your back. The pressure of him is still there, the warmth isn't. "Nick?" you ask.
His corpse is silent in return, only providing you with the sand bag weight of his body. You wonder how long he's been dead, cooling and loosening as you sleep.
Freezer burnt thoughts keep you laying on the ground with the body until pins and needles erupt in your lower legs. A soft fear sends enough adrenaline through your system to get you on your feet. You start walking just to walk. Eventually, your legs feel better and you're actually warming up. You don't need Tessa's jacket anymore and discard in the middle of the road. Hypothermia is slowly becoming a friend, you haven't felt this comfortable in days.
Walking brings you to a familiar place. The abandoned tent is bright orange in the distance. You approach and walk past only to stop in front of an alley. Tessa is where you left her, the yellow treads of her boots acting as her grave marker. You wonder what she saw, what was so awesome she had to run away from it. Your eyes drift up to the roof. There's a flash of fear in the back of your mind but the urgency of your curiosity wins and drags you forward. Your hands burn on the frozen metal of the dumpster as you scramble on top. Standing on the plastic lid, you inspect your palms and they're purple instead of red. That's fine, all you care is that they can pull you up the first ladder rungs.
The clang of your body on metal and your own rough breathing create a steady rhythm for you to climb to. Your lungs aren't cooperating and you have to push harder the higher you get. When you're forced to stop by swimming vision, you've stripped your own jacket. Your skin is burning.
You continue to the roof with wooshing breaths, the air feels thinner. But you're so close. You force yourself to keep moving even though you're permanently seeing double. When you stop to look, it'll clear. Finally your hand grabs onto brick instead of metal and you know you're there. Now you can't stop even if you wanted. Your body is moving on its own. Even though something is wrong with the sky. Even though the air you're breathing is foul. Even though the wind doesn't sound like wind and it sounds more like Tessa. You've made it over the edge.