I placed both bowls in the sink and began to wash them, “Dessert?” I heard Chelsea say from behind me. My pants tightened. I turned to see Chelsea holding a box with an Entenminn’s label for a pastry cake. Thank god for preservatives.
My pants loosened again as Chelsea started cutting the cake in a very non-sexy way, though I am not sure if there is a sexy way to cut cake. I now had something to look up on the internet later.
Chelsea cut up two even pieces as I put on water to boil. She placed them on napkins and I got out more forks. I also pulled out two mugs and loaded each with a fresh teabag which Chelsea managed to grab in the super store.
We got a few bites into the cake when the teapot began to whistle. “OUCH!” I yelled as I stupidly grabbed the top of the metal teapot over a flame with my bare hand. “That was not bright,” I said as I turned on the sink faucet to run water over my throbbing palm.
Chelsea got up to see the damage. It was not too bad. A bit of reddening across my palm but nothing that would not heal after a night’s rest. “You’ll be fine,” she said, turning off the burner, something else that I forgot to do. She opened up the lower cabinet drawer and pulled out an oven mitt. She slid it on and poured the hot water. “That’s how it’s done.”
“A woman would know. OUCH!” She smacked me on my bad arm. “C’mon! I’m only kidding.”
“Me too,” she said as she placed the teapot back on the stove burners. “It’s just a love tap, or are you too wimpy for that.”
I had no response. Chelsea bested me at my own sarcastic game. I merely gathered up the remaining pride that I could muster and sat back down, stuffing my face with cake and washing it down with tea.
We finished and I started to put the plates into the kitchen sink when I heard a noise. “That cake was good-“ I cut Chelsea off with a wave of my hand, pointing to my ear for her to catch on. The noise sounded like a grinding, sort of an object rubbing against pavement with a slight buzzing following it.
“Do you hear that?” I asked in a whisper.
Chelsea nodded, “Do you think it is a contaminated?”
“Can’t tell,” I whispered back, and I could not. “It sounds so familiar though, like something that I used to hear tons of times and recently too, but I don’t anymore.” The noise faded but we kept on listening. With a light clatter, I put the plates and forks into the sink and walked my way into the kitchen, old wooden flooring cracking and squeaking under my feet.
I made my way to the front windows which overlooked the porch and poked my head between the curtains as I did when the doomed lady decided to run past our house. All that I saw was darkness. The moon had not gotten any brighter, but actually darker. The clouds were completely covering the moon from all angles. The only thing that shone through was the light illumination in the clouds, but nothing significant. I almost dared to turn the porch lights on to see what was happening on outside, but that would have been suicide. There was no reason to call all of the contaminated in the area to my house when there was not enough tea and cake for everyone.
The noise was coming again, growing louder and louder by the second. I looked up and down the street but could barely see anything. I felt Chelsea’s hand on my shoulder, no doubt looking over it to try and glimpse the commotion, which was only a commotion because it was uncommon.
It was approaching faster and faster now, the noise becoming more recognizable, almost like a cat purring angrily when suddenly two lights emerged from the darkness, two dull and dark orange lights. “A car? A CAR!” I practically yelled to Chelsea. “It must be looking for something, for someone!” I began to get excited. “Maybe the military finally returned, answering our prayers!” I was not religious, and I do not know why I said that.
“In the middle of the night?” she replied.
“Under the cover of darkness, maybe?” I asked, though I felt deep in my gut how farfetched the idea of the military returning was. If they came back it would be with a whole convoy, nor would they risk searching for survivors individually. That was how the stupid horror movies did things, not the logical individual. “Should we signal them?” I asked her.
“Why ask me?”
“I want to include you on decision making, since you are currently healthier than I am.”
“Oh? Not because of equal rights of men and women?” she spat back. “Or maybe the fact that you are finally beginning to understand that I make the better decisions, such as the cake?”
“Chelsea, I love you, but not now, okay?” I said with a smile on my face.
She frowned, “Fine. What do you think about this guy?” she said as the lights passed.
“I expect he’ll pass again, assuming that he is searching for someone,” I restrained myself on that stupid saying about what happens when one assumes. “He could be someone looking for us, maybe one of my parents or someone that we knew who got stuck in town.”
Chelsea put her thinking face on, “I don’t think it would be a parent, only because I heard that the military wasn’t letting anyone in a safe zone out again under
