Partyville USA: Part 4-1
Normal
0
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
By the third morning, the world outside began to sicken. In addition to the zombies walking along the streets and between the cars, packs of dogs with missing limbs and bloody bodies hobbled slowly in the alleys. Flocks of tattered crows flew jerkily through the air. The trees planted along the sidewalk turned grey, their branches sank and their brown leaves began to blow away. The fields just visible on the horizon turned brown and arid.
Roland saw it all when the morning sun pried open his eyelids. He felt terrible, sitting in the chair. His head was pounding, his guts burning and twisting. His skin was grimy and clammy from Roland’s not having showered in two days, and his spine ached from sleeping in the chair. His muscles were thin and exhausted, and it took him 15 minutes to finally push off from the chair and begin taking incremental paces about the office.
He noticed, walking around that not only was Luanne gone, but Wallace’s portrait was still wide-open from the night before. He closed the portrait again and headed out to get aspirin from Sophie’s desk when he noticed the groaning again. There was a ringing in his ears and his head felt like it was full of cement, but it was unmistakable now. He stepped out into the office, wondering if anyone else had noticed it, but he found that nobody had woken up yet. He checked his watch and saw that it was only 5:15. Quietly he walked to Sophie’s empty desk and slid open the drawer where he had seen her put the aspirin. However, when he searched it he couldn’t find it. He quietly sifted through the binder clips and manila envelopes before he finally noticed the empty container sitting capless in the trash. His heart sank along with most of his weary body and he crudely landed himself in Sophie’s chair. In his head the pounding seemed to intensify, as though his hangover had gotten wind about the aspirin and squeezed Roland’s skull out of merciless relief.
Peter picked up the wireless receiver to Sophie’s phone and fumbled it to his ear. He pressed buttons but the phone remained silent. He dropped it back to the base but it bounced off. Roland groaned as he saw Luanne. She was sleeping on a large mat that had been assembled from detached office chair foam. Nearby Beverly and Sophie slept on similar mats. Eventually Roland got up and walked to the water cooler. It was nearly empty as well, but he managed to get a cup out, which he poured down his throat. He gasped as he swallowed and flipped the valve and waited for the slow trickle to refill the cup.
In time the rest of the staff began to awake. Most were too weary to do much more than move from a mat to a chair or vice versa. Some tried to get back to sleep, but with the groaning now audible throughout the office, few could manage. Roland, now capable of walking proposed that any furniture that could be spared now be used to block off the exits, and tasked the interns, as well as anybody with the strength to accomplish this. Roland absolved himself from the task, citing his bandaged, still aching hand.
The twelve who could work then set to dismantling cubicles for their walls, passing the two screwdrivers they could find amongst themselves. They also pushed whatever desks remained, though had to take frequent breaks from the exhaustion. Within an hour, all of the water coolers on the floor were drained. When they checked the sinks for tap water, they sputtered a few drops, then ceased entirely.
And all the while they pushed more furniture and cubicle walls into the hall, they heard the groaning, little by little, grow louder. For a while it was simply a low, indistinct tone, but gradually it took on different voices. Out of the murk of the noise came sounds that could be identified as male or female. They could make out individual noises that sounded old or young. Soon, it was no longer one enormous noise, but a full chorus, the sound of thousands, muffled but growing clearer.
As the hours wore on the office grew bare except for the wastebaskets, chairs and improvised mats which sat upon the skeletal imprint left on the light-blue carpet. When the last things that could be piled in front of the entrances, the exhausted workers collapsed back into chairs or mats, some falling back to sleep.
Roland, who had spent the time grumbling suggestions to workers hunched in one of the last cushioned chairs, spun around and strenuously lifted himself up. Behind him, he saw Sophie sitting in the chair where her desk used to be, gazing disconsolately at nothing and smoking her penultimate cigarette.
<p style="line-height: 200%;” class=”MsoNormal”> “Hey Soph, is there any more aspirin?” Roland asked when he walked to her. She didn’t hear him.
“Soph?” Roland said, louder. She blinked out of her gaze and turned slowly towards him.
“Do we have any more aspirin?”
“Ran out last night.”
Roland stood for a moment as she turned back away.
“What was the last floor that you couldn’t call?”
“The twenty-fourth.”
Roland looked at her a minute longer before turning back around and walking back to his chair. As he neared it, he heard the door to Wallace’s office open. He turned around and saw that Sophie wasn’t at her desk. Then he heard a loud shattering noise. He dashed towards the office, followed by the three others who were standing. He flung open the door to see Sophie standing in front of one of the windows which was broken completely out of the frame.
“Sophie don’t!” Roland yelled. She didn’t turn around. She took a small step forward and fell from sight, silently but for the brief ruffle of her clothes in the wind. All that was left was her cigarette, stubbed but still smoldering on Wallace’s trophy case, in front of fresh gap on the bottom shelf.
Roland staggered backwards, catching himself in the jamb of the door. Those who had followed backed away, hands cupped over mouths or fingers hung trembling in front of their slack, colorless faces. The full staff, now completely visible without their cubicles or hardware, either took grave, cautious steps toward the office or leaning up on their improvised mattresses.
As the hours of the day stretched on the office, now without air conditioning, quickly grew dank and muggy with trapped summer heat. The only slightly bearable room to be in was Wallace’s office, due to now being ventilated, but none could stand to set foot near it. Most of the staff minimized movement at all costs due to the stifling atmosphere, on top of their hunger. Many tried wearily to keep conversations amongst themselves afloat, just to distract from the noise below.
Normal
0
MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Roland was in one of the far offices with Burt. They originally wanted to discuss things in the conference room, but even with the door to Wallace’s office open the sun pounded in, not having yet crested over the building.
Roland sat against the wall fanning himself with a manila folder with his left hand while unsticking his drenched shirt from his soggy, clammy skin with his right. What he needed most was to unbunch his boxer shorts from the damp extremities and crevices, but he had to wait for a point when Burt wasn’t looking.
“How the fuck did this happen?” Burt said, slumping into the empty corner of the room.
Roland didn’t answer, being too focused on the creeping discomfort needling his loins. Burt gazed off vacantly.
“You know,” he said “I’m a churchgoin’ man. Been for many, many years. And you know, I knew that the end was comin’. That it could happen at any minute. And yet I don’t think I really thought it would at the same time.”
Roland looked him, subtly adjusting himself, but finding he’d have to stand up to truly correct his underwear.
“But this…” Burt said “what is this?”
Roland retracted his hand, but remained silent.
&nb
sp; “How could…” Burt said, turning towards him. He held his thought tenuously, then lightly shook it away.
“We have to do something” said Roland.
“Like what?” said Burt.
“I don’t know, just something.”
Roland found his shirt was already clinging back to his sweating torso.
“You could try to comfort everyone” Burt said after a thoughtful interval “like Sam did.”
Roland didn’t respond.
“God, I wish he were here” Burt sighed, his head slanting back into the corner.
“Yeah” said Roland, “me too.”