He had all those things and more. Co-existing with Lizzy seemed a reasonable trade-off.
“Time to get up,” he said aloud to himself. That was happening more and more these days, and he didn’t fight it. Humans were hard-wired to vocalize. Otherwise, the default method of communication might have evolved into sign language or even more X-Files-ish...telepathy. The notion made him smile.
After making the bed, he brushed his teeth in the small sink of his utilitarian bathroom. His apartment — originally his office back when he’d been in charge of the place — wasn’t luxurious. The annual budget of the Strategic National Stockpile had only been a half-billion. It was one of the few truly no-frills programs within the US government. The modest allocation bought vast quantities of items which would address a variety of possible threats to the country, back when there had been a United States of America. The government stored those items in six secret warehouse locations scattered between Seattle and Boston.
The Tennessee facility was the second largest. From the outside, it looked like a sizeable but otherwise unremarkable storage building nestled within a sea of smaller storage buildings. The inside, however, was anything but unremarkable.
Two Walmarts placed side by side with their drop-ceilings removed would be similar in size and area. Plastic-wrapped pallets containing gas masks, gurneys, ventilators, and hundreds of other emergency and medical items were stacked to dizzying heights on industrial storage units. The shelf-stable food, packaged similarly, spanned six rows alone.
Ray wouldn’t starve for a thousand years.
Nerve agent antidotes, antivirals, antibiotics, insulin, and dozens of other medicines filled the refrigerated section, kept cool with electricity generated by the very solar panels he dreaded replacing. If Yellowstone’s super volcano erupted and spewed sun-blocking ash particulate into the atmosphere, he had a backup plan for powering the facility: generators and dozens of propane canisters populated the entire back wall of the facility.
Painkillers — morphine, OxyContin, codeine, and other similarly addictive, high-theft drugs — occupied their own secured chamber. He and his former assistant had been the only people who knew the lock code. They had learned that lesson early on in the program.
Everything he needed for a comfortable life was here. Although he didn’t always feel lucky, he knew he was. Surely nobody else left alive had fared so well. The warehouse had become home, and he maintained it as immaculately as two dozen government employees had before the end came.
The only glitch — the proverbial thorn in his side — was the creature who lived there with him, incarcerated in what had been the employee breakroom, when there were still employees. Lizzy had remained tied up for two days while he’d secured her quarters, creating an escape-proof environment that allowed him to sleep at night though a psychopath slept under his roof.
At list there would be time to take the drone out for a spin later.
He finished dressing, heated two bowls of instant oatmeal in the microwave, and ate his portion quickly. At a brisk pace, he walked to the prison block.
“We hear youuuu,” came the voice on the other side of the improvised mesh fence. Made of galvanized 14-gauge steel, the mesh would have been used in emergency quarantine or crowd control situations. Here, it served as prison-cell bars. Plastic cutlery would prove ineffective against it, and anything that might actually compromise it had been removed long ago.
“I hear you too, Lizzy. I guess that makes us even.”
Musical laughter floated through the mesh. Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded lovely.
“Oatmeal today?” said the voice. The timbre was dulcet and the accent unmistakably southern.
“Yes.”
“We can smell it, just like we can smell you. Mmmmm. Hope you put a lot of sugar in there. A few fingers and toes of local children would be delightful too.” More musical laughter.
“Very funny, Lizzy. Your witch allusion is a nice change from the Catholic nun you pretended to be last week.”
“We keep you entertained. There’s no denying it. Think how lonely you would be all alone in this cavernous space.”
He stood beside the mesh now. The person on the other side stared back, smiling and unblinking. The dilated pupils looked like miniature black holes...event-horizon irises, the green hue of fairy-tale poison.
Of all the personas she had displayed during their time together, the current one felt most representative of Lizzy’s true nature. A child-eating, wicked witch of the forest seemed about right.
“You know the drill.” He waited while she stepped away, turned her back, and placed both hands against the opposite wall with fingers splayed. Looking at the straight black hair instead of those soulless eyes was a relief.
He unlocked the twelve-inch hatch at the bottom of the mesh. He had rigged it to be secure, but even if she somehow managed to open it from her side, she would never fit through.
He placed the plastic bowl on the floor inside, hyper aware of her the entire time, and then re-secured the thumb screws. He was glad today was not laundry day. That took longer and required back-and-forth interaction to retrieve her soiled linens and clothing and supply clean ones.
“We could use more toothpaste,” she said, keeping her hands on the wall and turning only her head, owl-like. A human shouldn’t be able to swivel her head that far backward.
“Then you’re using too much. You’re not due for more toothpaste until next week.”
“You’re a tough nut,
