She moved behind the desk, trying not to look down at theback of the man's head, where she saw maggot-white movement. She pulled thedrawers open, hoping to find what she was looking for, although she alreadyknew that if there were smokes anywhere in the office, they wouldn't be in somedrawer.
She rifled through the drawer, finding a fairly graphicnudie mag underneath a bunch of files. It was a good sign. Anyone that couldclose their office door and rub one out would likely take more risks in theirlife. This man had no pictures on his desk. His face was too disfigured withrot to be able to tell if he had been handsome or not. Based upon his porncollection and the fact that he had chosen to ventilate his head, she guessedhe had probably been average at best. She searched the bottom drawer, findingnothing out of the ordinary.
Then she sat back on her heels, trying to guess wherethey might be. She looked doubtfully at his business pants, tight gray withsome neat pleats and a large dried bloodstain. She would search the jacketfirst.
She reached into his jacket pocket, first the left andthen the right. She came up with some keys and a pack of gum. At first, she wastempted to pull the gum out and share some with her fellow survivors, but thethought of chewing something that had been sitting in a dead man's pocket for acouple of weeks was too much for her to stomach. But some of her survivorscould definitely use from fresher breath. She pocketed the gum anyway. Shecertainly wouldn't be partaking, but what they didn't know wouldn't hurtthem... and if it made their breath smell less like dog shit, then it would allbe worth it.
She found some car keys in the other pocket, but nothingelse. She looked at the car keys. A Ford. In her mind, she tried to calculatethe odds of being able to find this man's car out on the street. There wasn'tmuch parking on the street in front of the building, but perhaps behind it. Shestood and took a look out the window.
Below her, on the backside of the building, there wasindeed a parking lot. Three lone cars sat in a cracked, asphalt parking lot.She aimed the key fob at the cars and clicked the lock button. She had hoped tohear a horn blast or see some flashing headlights, but there was nothing. Maybeshe was too far away. She shrugged her shoulders and put the key in the pocketof her pants.
She turned her attention back to the dead man and threwhis jacket wide open, avoiding the brown stains. There was an inner pocket.Digging her fingers into it, she could feel cold metal items at the end of herfingertips. She knew what they were, so she dug deeper, keeping her mouthclosed to avoid tasting the rot of the man.
Eventually, she pried the bullets free, 4 brass casingsthat were as good as gold used to be. She threw them in her pocket as well andthen looked down at the man's pants. There was no getting around it. She wouldhave to go through the man's pockets. She squatted to her knees, and wentthrough the right pocket. She pulled out a useless chunk of metal and plastic.
It was a cell phone. She pressed the power button, butthere was no response. Even if it had a full charge, it wouldn't have worked.The towers and networks and satellites required to keep the modern-day cellphone network running had long since broken down. There was no one to fix them.She slid the phone back into the man's pocket. It was his. It was personal.Perhaps he had pictures of his family on there.
She walked around the desk and squatted down on the man'sopposite side. It was now or never, she thought. She reached into thepocket, cringing at the feel of crusty brown fabric on her skin. Mentally, shekept her fingers crossed. Then she touched it, a box covered in plastic. Shegrasped the box with her fingers and pulled it free. She could have cried.
She held the green box in front of her, and then sheflipped it open. There they were. Cigarettes. She pulled one out and rolled itbetween her fingers, savoring the feeling of just having one in her possession.The white stick rolled back and forth, then she held it up to her lips.
"Fuck." Clara looked up at the acoustic tilingon the ceiling, as if, just on the other side, God might be there, ready tolisten to her justification for using foul language. "Now I just need alighter."
Chapter 6: Not Quite the Way It Was Planned
It was dark in the office. The sun had passed over themand now hung in the sky to the west, casting shadows throughout the building.With the darkness came the silence, of the people at least. The world aroundthem was still full of noises. Distant gunfire echoed through the city, thewind howled through the broken windows, and the thumps and groans of the deadassaulted them from the stairwell.
They were now trapped, at least until morning. Trying toescape at night, in a pitch black city where not even the moon was shiningthanks to the veil of smoke and haze that had descended upon Portland would besuicide. About that one thing they had all agreed.
Everything else was up in the air.
"I found these keys," Clara said.
Rudy looked at the keys dangling in Clara's hand."What are we supposed to do with those?"
Clara shrugged. "I don't know. It's just anotheroption."
Andy, having been silent for most of the day finally spokeup. "Yeah, well it's an option for maybe four of us. Five at themost."
"Dibs," Amanda called. The group looked at herwithout amusement. "What? How else would we choose who gets to go and whodoesn't?"
"None of us is
