Chapter 2: The First Night
1323 Words
“We're going to die,” she said.
Adrian turned his head.
Mara looked at him. “I mean it.”
“I know.” Something about his expression made her laugh.
One short burst.
Then another.
That made him laugh too.
Within seconds, two strangers were sitting on the floor of a dark condominium while something that might actually be a zombie wandered outside, laughing because the alternative seemed to involve screaming until neither had a voice left.
Eventually the laughter faded.
Mara wiped her eyes.
Adrian leaned his head against the sofa. “We're not dying tonight.”
She looked at him. “You sound confident.”
Adrian stood and turned on his phone flashlight. “I have food.”
Mara stared at him. “That is your survival plan?”
“For tonight, yes.”
“How much food?”
Adrian hesitated. “A lot.”
Mara followed him toward the kitchen. “How much is a lot?”
He stopped in front of a door near the kitchen. “Before you see this, I need context.”
Mara frowned. “Why?”
“I have a hobby.”
“I don't think your hobby is going to shock me.”
Adrian opened the pantry.
Mara stared.
Shelves covered nearly an entire wall.
Rice. Pasta. Dried noodles. Oats. Crackers. Dried fruit. Powdered milk. Cooking oil. Sugar. Salt. Canned fish, beans, meat, soup, instant meals, sauces, spices, and enough sealed food.
Then there were the jars. Rows of them.
Kimchi. Pickled r****h. Cucumbers. Garlic. Preserved lemons. Fermented bean pastes. Chili pastes. Bottled sauces. Vegetables submerged in brine. Salted eggs. Dried mushrooms. Preserved meat.
Mara turned slowly toward him. “You're a prepper.”
Adrian's face became offended. “I am not a prepper.”
“You have an apocalypse pantry.”
“I ferment things.”
“That is not a normal explanation for this quantity of food.”
“I like food preservation.”
“You have twelve jars of cabbage.”
“Kimchi.”
“You just assaulted a man with cabbage.”
“That was fresh cabbage. Completely different.”
Mara stared at him.
Adrian stared back.
Somewhere outside, something slammed into a wall.
Mara looked at the pantry again. “How long would this last?”
“For one person?”
“Yes.”
“Months, depending on water.”
She turned.
“For two?”
Adrian glanced toward the front door. Then toward her. “Still a while.”
Neither of them needed to discuss what that meant. Mara wasn't going back to her apartment tonight. Adrian wasn't asking her to.
She stepped farther into the pantry doorway. “You really made all this?”
“Most of it.”
“Why?”
“Because I like it.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It is. People collect shoes. I keep bacteria alive on purpose.”
Mara looked at one jar. She read one handwritten label. “You made this seven months ago?”
Adrian moved protectively closer to the shelf. “Don't touch that one.”
Mara looked at him. “You have a favorite jar?”
“I've invested time in it.”
“There are zombies outside, and you're emotionally attached to cabbage.”
“Kimchi.”
Mara laughed again. This time it felt less hysterical.
Adrian's mouth curved. For the first time since the elevator, he looked almost like the man who had walked in carrying groceries rather than someone trying to understand the collapse of civilization.
Mara looked down at the plastic convenience-store bag still hanging from her wrist. She had somehow never let go of it. “I have food too.”
Adrian looked at the bag. “What?”
She opened it. Two cups of spicy seafood noodles.
He stared.
Mara lifted one.
“I was planning dinner before society ended.”
Adrian looked from the noodles to her.
“Those are my favorite instant noodles.”
Mara put the cups on the dining table. “Do you have hot water?”
“No electricity.”
“Right.”
“But I have a portable butane burner.”
Mara looked at him. “Of course you do.”
“I bought it for a hot pot.”
“That is exactly what a prepper would say.”
“I am not a prepper.” Adrian crouched beside a lower cabinet and pulled out a compact burner and a butane canister.
Mara watched him assemble it. “You know how long one of those lasts?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
Adrian found a saucepan and filled it from the tap. The water still ran.
Both stopped. Adrian looked at the stream.
Then at Mara. “We should fill containers.”
They looked around the kitchen.
“How many?” Mara asked.
“All of them.”
That became the first real survival decision they made together.
Before cooking the noodles, they filled every bottle Adrian owned. Two pitchers. A stockpot. The electric kettle. Several empty food-safe containers. Adrian reluctantly sacrificed three large empty fermentation jars to water storage after Mara pointed out that clean water ranked above future pickles.
They carried more containers into the bathroom.
The mat outside the shower read PLEASE DON'T DIE IN MY BATHROOM.
Mara stopped. She looked down. Then at Adrian.
He looked embarrassed. “It was a gift.”
“From?”
“A friend.”
“Your friend had foresight.”
Adrian opened the bathtub tap. Water rushed in.
Mara crouched and stared at the mat again. “This is aggressively relevant.”
“Please stop reading it.”
They filled the tub.
By the time they returned to the kitchen, the apartment felt slightly more defensible.
Not safe.
Mara suspected she would never use that word carelessly again.
Adrian lit the portable burner. The small blue flame looked absurdly normal. He heated water while Mara sat at the dining table and removed her painful shoe.
Adrian glanced down. “What happened?”
“My shoe has been trying to kill me since lunch.”
Mara rubbed the side of her foot.
Adrian poured hot water into both noodle cups. The smell of spicy seafood seasoning filled the room. It was the same dinner Mara had expected to eat alone while scrolling through her phone. Instead she sat across from a man she had known for less than an hour while his front door remained barricaded against people who might no longer be people.
They waited for the noodles to soften.
Adrian looked toward the dark windows.
Mara did too.
From the twenty-seventh floor, most of the city still looked normal. Some buildings were lit. Some weren't.
Traffic had stopped strangely in several streets below, though from this height Mara couldn't see why. Farther away, a column of dark smoke rose between buildings.
A siren wailed somewhere in the distance. Then another.
Mara lowered her gaze. “This is real.”
Adrian did not answer immediately. He stirred his noodles. “I think it is.”
Mara stared at the steam rising from her cup.
A heavy impact struck the front door. Both froze.
Another impact followed. The dining chair scraped slightly against the floor.
Mara's hand closed around her plastic fork.
Adrian stood. He reached instinctively toward the kitchen counter.
The cabbage was still there.
Mara looked at it. Then at him. “You are not fighting a zombie with that again.”
“It has a proven record.”
“Sit down.”
Adrian listened.
The thing outside scratched at the door. Mara and Adrian remained silent until the sound slowly moved away. Only then did Mara breathe normally again.
Adrian picked up his fork. The noodles had gone slightly too soft. Neither complained.
For their first night at the end of the world, Mara ate the exact dinner she had planned before everything went wrong.
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