unnamed story (Part 9)

Patti was upstairs working the internet. She didn’t know how long it would be up so she was looking up medical information and printing at a frantic pace. There would be no worries about getting drugs but knowing one from the other would be tricky.

She printed instructions on how to build fires and boil water.

And finally she looked up the address of a fertility clinic. If they were going to have to repopulate the planet the ever-growing legion of whores descending on her house would have to think twice about using Clay’s seed. Patti would be damned if she was going to allow the planet to be crawling with three-armed mongoloids because of a few generations of inbreeding.

With any luck all would agree that they needed to sprinkle in some various ethnicities and couldn’t all shoot for blonde and blue eyes. Someone would need to have a baby with Asian in it. This messed up new world was going to require math.

They could just look through the samples until they found a Wang or a Dong.

Rather ironic that.

Clay was pacing in the hall. Trying to figure out a way to let Patti know that yet another old girlfriend of his was inbound. What he needed to do was sit down and make a list of all the girls he’d been with. If they were in fact going to be hanging around this reality then he’d better find out where they were at and figure out a way to contact them.

He owned them at least that much.

Tina had sat down and watched TV. The movie channels were still on and she figured she’d enjoy them until they went black.

Eventually, after sifting through so many bad movies that she honestly felt that humanity somehow deserved to have the television go dark for eternity, she stumbled on an Eric Clapton documentary. She watched it until it ended and wondered why they didn’t call it An Asshole Who Played Guitar Well. Having never heard the story behind the song Layla she immediately fell in love with it.

She turned on her laptop and listened to it.

When the chorus came she sang along.

She played it again and sang louder.

Then she started to cry.

Let’s make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane.
Please don’t say, we’ll never find a way
And tell me all my love’s in vain.

Layla,
You’ve got me on my knees,

Layla.
I’m begging, darling please,

Layla.
Darling won’t you ease my worried mind.

She wanted to be someone’s Layla.

Donna had been having a bit of trouble leaving Manhattan. Her first attempt at going through the Holland Tunnel had ended rather badly. It became clear that when people disappeared they didn’t have much notice and bringing their vehicles to safe and orderly halt was not a priority. It must have happened when their wasn’t much traffic but there were still enough wrecks that it was tricky to weave through them and then about three quarters of the way through the tunnel it became impassable.

Turning around in the tunnel wasn’t necessarily difficult but it did creep her out. She suddenly felt very claustrophobic.

When she finally made it back out into the light she decided to give the Lincoln Tunnel a miss and headed a little further north to the Washington Bridge. She opted for the upper level and almost immediately regretted it as a multi-car accident had it completely blocked.

She pulled a u-turn and gave the lower lane a go.

It became a video game. Weaving and occasionally grazing the other empty vehicles. Near the end of the bridge she stopped the car and got out.

It wasn’t a video game.

She looked at New York City sitting quietly behind her. If it weren’t for the fact that she was completely alone in the city that now slept it might have been a beautiful moment.

She looked west towards New Jersey. Somewhere down that road there were the only people that she knew still existed.

Above her head a few birds circled and she found that comforting. Hearing them screech and complain made her feel attached somehow. The wind felt nice on her face.

She looked down at the water below.

Did some people really have the courage to jump?

“Well” she said to nobody “let’s see where this road takes me.”