Partyville USA: Part 3-2

He walked into the conference room and gently opened the door. He could hear people talking in the office, but in far calmer tones than previously. He nudged the door and saw that at the center of the room a small group was conglomerated around Sam, whose hand was resting on Lisa Chan’s shoulder, his head nodding receptively to whatever she was saying. He also saw that even Beverly had regained herself, and was now consoling two women from Accounts Receivable. Roland stood in the doorway for a minute and watched Sam, and how easily he was comforting Lisa Chan. He watched how even though grief rattled her speaking, her eyes were rested gratefully on Sam. He saw the other staffers perched on his words, receptive and intoxicated.

            “Hey Roland” Sophie said.

            “Oh, hey Soph” said Roland, just then noticing her.

            “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for how I acted earlier,” she said, looking away.

            “Oh?”

            “Well it was just stuff everybody knew already, they didn’t need me reminding them.”

            “It’s alright Soph.”

            “Also, I called the 25th floor and asked them about the cafeteria, just to be sure, and they said it’s been picked clean.”

            “I see.”

            “They said it was gone by the first night, there was even some fighting, it got really ugly.”

            “What if they’re lying?”

            “Sir?”

            “How do we know they’re not just saying that?” Roland said, raising his hands “they could well be keeping it all to themselves.”

            “I doubt it Roland” Sophie said, shaking her head “I mean, it’s an emergency, why would they?”

            “Why wouldn’t they? Hell, for all we know that riot story is the same one they told every floor. I mean 25th floor? They’re contractors! You know how shady they are!”

            Roland didn’t mean to exclaim, and out of the corner of his eye he could see his outburst was attracting Sam.

            “Well I’m just telling you what they said”  Sophie said as Sam walked over.

            “Hey, everything alright here?” Sam said with quiet concern that made Roland wince.

            “Roland thinks the 25th is lying about the cafeteria” said Sophie.

            “I’m saying what if they are?” said Roland.

            “We could call the other floors and ask for food” said Sam.

            “You’d think they would have offered it by now” said Roland. Sam rubbed his head, thinking.

            “I suppose we could at least check it out” he said “there isn’t much else to do up here.”

            “We’d have to take apart the barricades” said Sophie.

            “Well if it means getting some proper food, I say it’s worth the risk” said Roland.

            “Where are those things now?” Sam asked Sophie.

            “I don’t think they’ve gotten any higher than the 19th.”

            “Well if we’re going, now would be the time” said Roland. Sam thought a minute longer.

            “Alright” he said “we’ll go.”

            “I’ll come along” said Roland “if there’s foo

d, we’ll need to grab all we can.”

            “Thanks” said Sam.

            They decided to take the northern stairwell since it terminated at the 30th floor. With help from the interns they removed the furniture that had been piled against the door and then descended into the empty stairwell equipped with garbage bags taken from the maintenance closet. Sam opened the door to the 30th floor and they stepped out. Neither could hear a sound on the floor.

            “Think they’re here?” Sam asked as they walked to the stairs that led down to the 20th floor.

            “Maybe,” said Roland “maybe they all left.”

            Sam opened the door to the stairs quietly then poked his head into the hall, listening. When he didn’t hear anything they walked in and down to the 25th floor. Again, they didn’t hear anything as they stepped out into the hall.

            “Why don’t they have this one barricaded?” said Roland “Don’t they know they’re on the 20th?”

            “Who knows” said Sam, looking at the carpet as they walked. There were various powders of various consistencies and colors on it. As they walked further, there was also a ripped bag of potato chips, though the only remains of its insides were bits of chip too small to eat mashed into the carpet.

            “Look at this” said Roland, pointing to a medium-sized dent in the wall.

            “I guess there really was a fight” said Sam.

            “Well we’re here, let’s look anyway, eh?” said Roland. Sam nodded meagerly. Finally they came to the closed twin doors to the cafeteria. Sam pushed one open and they stepped inside. Although there were a few tipped chairs and tables the furniture was largely undisturbed. The service area was different. The wicker baskets that used to hold cereal were emptied and ruffled. The stainless steel trays on the self-service line were all missing. There were a few plastic tubs sitting in the now-melted ice of the salad bar, but they had been scraped clean of anything remotely nourishing. Roland looked over them. One, half under the opaque white brownish water had white traces left from cottage cheese. Another, still floating, had the black liquid residue of olives.

            “Christ” said Sam, pointing to the tubs at the end of the salad bar “they even took all of the salad dressing.”

            “There has to be something” Roland said, turning around and heading to the kitchen.

            “Come on Roland” Sam groaned as he followed him “it’s like they said, this place was picked clean long ago.”

            Roland climbed to the other side of the service line and pushed open the swinging doors of the kitchen, but stood in place. Every last cabinet’s doors were swung open. Pots and pans were all over the floor, tossed perhaps by those who thought something could be behind them. Roland caught the doors when they swung back to him, and slowly entered. The freezer door was ajar, with cold vapor still leaking from the seal.

            “Fucking hell” said Roland as Sam swung the doors open behind him. He walked up behind Roland and placed a hand on his shoulder.

            “I’m sorry Roland” he said. Roland stood mute, before running forward. He sprinted to the freezer and swung open the door. When he saw the empty racks he flung it shut again. He turned and opened the door to the cooler nearby, and slammed it again, seeing only wilting leaves and corn husks on the floor. He kicked open the door to the dry storage, and again saw nothing. He began to quiver with rage, and began kicking pots across the floor.

            “Fucking…fucking…” he stammered furiously “fucking motherfucking cocksucking bastards!”

            “Roland calm down” Sam said across the kitchen.

            “Motherfucking cunting hell!” Roland yelled as he kicked a wok at an oven. He collapsed to his knees and covered his hands with his head.

            “Why?” he croaked to himself “why?”

            “Roland?” Sam said. Roland didn’t answer, but kept his hands cupped around his skull.

            “Why?” he repeated.

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nbsp;          “Roland, we have to go” Sam said. Roland took a moment to calm down before standing up. As he did, he saw the door twitch behind Sam.

            “Come on” said Sam “We have to leave.”

            Roland stood and watched as the door slowly, quietly pushed open. As it glided open, he could see it being pushed by a bruised, decaying hand. Slowly, a man in a torn, cornflower blue shirt emerged from the door and his eyes swelled hungrily on Sam. He began to step forward as the door swung behind him. Sam heard the door slap shut and turned around, too late. The man’s hands gripped around his throat and slammed him against a refrigerator.

            “Holy Christ!” Sam shrieked. He slammed his hands at the man’s shoulders.

            “Roland!” he choked, his head swinging over “hel….me”

            Roland stood frozen at the other end of the kitchen, his eyes locked with Sam’s.

            “Help…..me” Sam said again, still trying to push the man away. The man shifted, one of Sam’s hands slid off his shoulder behind him. The man instantly swung down and sank his teeth into Sam’s shoulder, wrestling, then jerking flesh away. Roland watched Sam slump helplessly to the floor as the man released his grip to savor the flesh. Roland slowly backed away, towards the rear exit. “Ro….land” he heard Sam gurgle as he backed through the swinging doors to the back hall.  When the doors slapped closed, Roland saw the man’s head lift again and scan the kitchen through the porthole window of the door. He snapped himself out of his trance as the man vanished from the window’s view, and ran down the concrete rear-hallway, back towards the main offices. When he got to the twin doors back to the offices, he quietly opened the door and peered down the hall. When he saw it was clear he tiptoed across the carpet back towards the stairwells. However, as he skulked down the hall, he heard whispers emanating from one of the doors he had passed on his way down. He crept up to the door and place and ear on the windowless door and listened, but couldn’t make out anything besides frightened murmurs or an occasional shushing. He placed his hand on the doorknob and lightly twisted it but was stopped by the lock. The noise of the turn changed the voices. Now they went silent except for one barely audible “oh god” from a female voice. He listened to the murmur before it died down before walking away. He entered the stairwell and slowly, quietly climbed the stairs back to the 49th floor. When he finally arrived at the door, he knocked four times as was agreed, then listened to the honk and trundle of moving furniture before the door creaked open. Beverly peered around the corner, and sank when she saw only Roland, standing empty handed.

            “Oh no” she gasped “….Sam?”

            Roland shook his head. Beverly’s face quivered before she finally broke into grieving repose. As Roland entered, he saw that the entire office was crowded around the doorway, now with matching expressions of unbelieving grief. He walked through the crowd without anyone saying a word. Halfway to Wallace’s office Sophie walked up behind him.

            “Roland, I swear I didn’t know” she said. Roland turned around. She was clutching a phonebook to her chest, quivering and unable to look at Roland. He turned again and pushed the ajar door open, then lightly pushed it closed.

            He entered and slumped into Wallace’s chair. He faced away from the window and noticed the closeted stereo system in the office he had opened earlier but not activated. He sat for another ten minutes before finally doing so. After taking a minute to figure out which unit did what, he turned it on and tuned the radio. He scanned through mostly static, with the odd distorted voice until he finally located a patchy but intelligible station. He didn’t recognize the broadcaster’s voice, though.

            “-arrived in London this morning with his wife and children this morning” he said. “Most Americans however are finding far greater difficulties escaping the continent. Airports and Marinas continue to be mobbed with now 112 wounded and three killed in the riots that have been breaking out sporadically since yesterday.

            “I am joined again by our now regular guest,” he said with a chuckle “The Reverend Brian Bishop, Reverend it’s good to have you back.”

            “Good to be back” said Bishop as Roland opened Wallace’s portrait and filled a snifter with vodka.

            “I’d like to, as I’m sure you would as well, pick up where we left off yesterday, with this issue that is certainly on a lot of people’s minds globally, that is, are these the End Times? As you said, Revelation makes reference to the dead rising again. You lent some credence to this theory.”

            “Yes I did&rdqu

o; said Bishop as Roland sat back in the chair and turned back towards the window. “You know John” Bishop continued “I was thinking this morning about how interesting I find it that despite the Scientific and Skeptic communities’ reluctance to acknowledge this idea, they offer no plausible alternatives. Finally we’ve come across something that they can’t explain, and it also happens to be something spoken of in the Book of Revelation.”

            “Though there are those skeptics who say that we haven’t seen any other signs of the Apocalypse, such as the Four Horsemen, or the Seas Boiling” said the Announcer.

            “That may be true, but I and many of my colleagues have been quick to point out that, look, it won’t be long until there will no longer be a United States of America, there will not be a North America. It won’t even be long until there isn’t even a South America! Many believe it could even spread over the globe. There may not be four horsemen, but make no mistake, these are the End Times. This is Mankind’s Day of Reckoning, and the thing to do now is use what time we have to make right with our Heavenly father.”

            Roland was seated away from being able to view the street, but even from there he could see in remaining daylight a curtain of dark, unraining clouds closing over the sky, They were multiple layers, either grey sheets or thick, voluminous monsters. Shadowy, smoky monsters that seemed to reach with smoky palms and vaporous spreading fingers. There were long, bearded faces and formless apparitions twisting and curling into themselves.

            “We are faced with a catastrophe the likes of which we’ve never seen, one which we cannot stop even with all of our sciences, all of our tools and weapons. There is only one force which can stop this, the force of Almighty God.”

            Roland’s head drifted away from the clouds towards. As he did, he saw the few lights that were still on in the city all turned off at once. A second later, the power went out in the building. Behind Roland, the radio abruptly cut off, and through the door came moans and cries. He looked again at the sky, as the last of daylight sank under the clouds, and took a long sip from his glass.