The

  next two days, paradoxically, both sprinted and trudged past. In the

  interest of speeding up my crash recovery I kept myself mostly to bed

  with my eye mask on and resting. The attempt at trying to rest and

  sleep as much as possible likely would have gone much better if I had

  been able to wear my ear plugs, but it felt like a silly way to die

  by not being able to hearing someone or something breaking down my

  door or window. Every scream, crash, and bump from both inside and

  outside the building woke me up with a pounding heart and my hand

  flew up to remove the eye mask to make sure everything in my

  apartment was still safe.

  The times between being able to sleep were more boring than usual.

  I generally kept myself from watching TV or looking at my phone while

  I was actively trying to rest and recover, though with so much stress

  and racing thoughts I was willing this time to make an exception.

  Unfortunately, the list of active channels were rapidly dwindling and

  those that still did have programming were the same episode re-run of

  an old sitcom stuck on repeat.

  I did try to look on my phone, though all the warning messages and

  news stories were quickly overwhelming with the death estimates and

  gory pictures. Social media and online forums were even worse and I

  couldn’t stand more than a few moments of scrolling through the

  absolute carnage of the world and people posting about how their

  whole families were gone and they were now all alone. I decided that,

  at least for the moment, I was better off living in ignorance. If I

  ever made it outside the doors of this apartment building, then I

  would have to face reality, but for now it could stay a distant,

  slightly intangible, fact and that was the best path to keeping my

  psyche healthy.

  I wasn’t delusional, I couldn’t deny that the end of the world

  was here and millions, if not billions of people were already dead or

  undead. I just didn’t think it was in my best interest to see the

  proof and get stuck in the very understandable rampant fear and

  sorrow. I did manage to pick up that there were groups of people

  banding together to try to create safe zones, those outside of

  government control far into rural areas of the country. I very much

  doubted that I would end up having the opportunity to try to get one

  of those, but if somehow the cards ever did fall in that direction, I

  made a mental note.

  Most heart wrenching for me was the lack of any communication from

  Gloria through text, no missed calls, and nothing on any of the

  social media we had in common. It cemented in my mind her glaring

  absence despite doing my best not to think about it. I had considered

  that maybe she had to leave her phone behind running to safety and

  maybe she would have to borrow someone’s phone later to let me know

  she was okay. I knew in my heart it wasn’t likely true and that I

  was deluding myself for the sake of not facing the truth just yet,

  but with the time to lay in bed with nothing but my own thoughts, I

  had started to make my peace.

  Gloria and I had known each other since 4th grade when

  she moved with her family into our suburb. I had been the first

  friend she made and we were inseparable until we went to different

  universities. She had always wanted to be a veterinarian and got

  accepted to a very prestigious pre-veterinarian program at a

  university that I hadn’t been interested in thanks to the high

  cost. We had still called each other every day after classes to catch

  up and often cry about how hard classes were or an exam we thought we

  did terrible on. We both made friends, lots of friends, outside of

  each other, but they felt like they were part of our own individual

  pocket worlds and weren’t part of the same kind of reality as when

  we went home for the holidays or summer and suddenly everything was

  back to as it should be.

  Our connection was hard to explain to others. We both had

  siblings, I had my younger sister, and she had an older brother and a

  younger sister, but we were more sisters to each other than we were

  them. I was a bit of a pessimist when it came to things like dating

  or love, so I had never really bought into the idea of a perfect half

  or a soulmate, but if such a thing did exist, Gloria was mine. Her

  accomplishments had filled me with so much pride and love for her. I

  had been there for her graduations, her excited decompression after

  the first date with her future husband, her wedding, the births of

  her children, the opening of her first private practice, and even

  when I got sick and started to feel bitter about how all the rest of

  my peers were going on, living life, and having amazing experiences,

  I never felt that envy for her. I wouldn’t have even begrudged if

  she had left me behind to focus on her family and career, but it

  spoke to exactly why I loved her so deeply and unconditionally when

  she didn’t even hesitate to support me even when my own family gave

  up.

  More than the lack of communication was just the empty feeling in

  the pit of my chest. It was a darkness that felt like I may never

  experience joy again. Some primal, unknowable part of me had known

  the moment she was forever gone from my life and the emptiness was

  the wound left behind. Eventually I would feel the full brunt of the

  agony of her loss and it would overwhelm me and try to consume me,

  but I would try to hold off the inevitable, if for no other reason

  than I could picture her shaking her head and telling me to pick

  myself up and keep going. One of us had to live, I just wish it had

  been her instead. She deserved it more than me.

  As I heated up the last of the fresh meals in the fridge, I

  decided that I was reasonably recovered enough to start planning my

  next move. I only had three frozen meals left in the freezer that

  calorically were barely enough for a single day and after that the

  pantry would only secure me maybe another week of food if I stretched

  it out while still being realistic about my needs. With my illness,

  not eating enough in a day would be playing a dangerous game. I

  already struggled with fatigue and energy, so skipping meals or not

  eating enough in a day just compounded and made my symptoms grow

  worse and worse until they were unbearable. The idea of food scarcity

  had always been on my mind as someone on a fixed income, but now it

  was like being hit by a truck driven by reality. I had to figure out

  something or I would be forced to leave and try to scavenge before I

  felt ready and that seemed like it would be all but a death sentence.

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  The switching off of the microwave broke me out of the terrifying

  mental image of me trying to limp my way through hordes of zombies. I

  filled up my water bottle and took my meal back to bed, grabbing a

  notepad and a pen on the way. The only initial plan that made sense

  was to start in my hallway and break in to clear out any useful items

  and food. There were five apartments around me and thus far, I had

  not heard much directly in the hallway outside my door. It could mean

  that there were still people alive and bunkered down like I was which

  was both a pleasant and unpleasant thought. Most of the people I

  shared the building with were either disabled like me or in extreme

  poverty for one reason or another. Even before the end of the world

  it seemed like these circumstances made people paranoid and

  desperate.

  Beyond the obvious dangers of someone snapping to protect their

  supplies from me or realizing I was an easy target to take mine,

  there was a more subtle danger that perhaps would end up being even

  worse for my long term survival. There was a high chance that I might

  come across someone still alive and more disabled than myself that

  needs someone to help them to survive. I knew myself far too well and

  I knew that I would be unable to simply turn my back on anyone in

  that position. I understood far too well what it would feel like and

  I just couldn’t do it to someone else.

  I stopped my sketch of the hallway as I remembered it and let out

  a long sigh through my nose. I couldn’t recall if I knew if any of

  my neighbors were disabled, though as established before I barely

  left my apartment to be able to know. For all I knew all of them

  would have disabled people in them right now hiding in fear and

  waiting for the end. That both made me want to go save them and

  continue to hide away so I wouldn’t have to face that possibility.

  A sip of the water from my water bottle sealed my fate though, it

  tasted off, more off from normal. I wasn’t in the position to be

  picky, but I spit the water back into the bottle and set it aside. I

  couldn’t afford to get sick from tainted water. If the water was no

  longer safe then I was facing a ticking clock even more menacing than

  running out of food. People without food and water never die of

  starvation, they always die of dehydration.

  If the apartments were locked, which I assumed most would be, it

  would be simple enough to bypass at least the door handle locks. The

  building was not well maintained and our door locks were very cheap.

  In a pinch, Gloria had opened my door with one of her credit cards

  when I had forgotten my keys when we went out to an appointment. It

  had really alerted me to the fact that I needed to have the chain

  locked at all times when I was inside my apartment. The chain was the

  real problem, though unless the other doors had been set up

  differently the chain was fairly long, at least long enough to get a

  pair of wire cutters in to snip through a link. The building had

  given us an illusion of security, which for people barely scraping up

  to the poverty line was all we could afford anyway. I did have a pair

  of wire cutters in my junk drawer that were fairly small and

  definitely not intended to cut through a metal chain, but they would

  have to do until I found something better.

  Empty backpack on my back, weapons and tools attached to my

  walker, I was as ready as I could be to venture into the hallway. I

  shuffled up to the door as quietly as possible, then leaned up to

  look through the peephole. The dingy, tan carpet and peeling peach

  wallpaper in the hallway looked unbloodied and undisturbed. Craning

  my head to the right I could just make out that the large door that

  separated our wing from the rest of the floor was closed, which was

  the best case scenario. The building itself was quite large and each

  floor had several wings that connected to a central stairwell and

  elevator. That area and any hallway open to it would be incredibly

  dangerous. It would be too easy for zombies to wander up and hide

  away into dark corners or just behind closed doors. It was a bit of a

  relief to know that my hallway had was sealed, but that did not

  eliminate every danger. There was a way to deadlock the wing from the

  inside, but none of the tenants would have a reason to have access to

  that key so it was something to file away from later but not to count

  on.

  I stood for too long with the chain off the door and my hand

  hovering on the door handle. Going out had a high risk of danger and

  death, but I knew I didn’t have many other options. Still, I was

  shaking from more than just the lingering fatigue and exertion. The

  medical mask I had put on could not be rated for this new virus and I

  could come back infected without even seeing anyone and slowly

  zombify locked in my own apartment with all the food I needed. I

  might think a room was empty and let my guard down for a second and

  get torn apart. I even might just stumble into someone scared and

  armed and get shot before I even had a chance to explain myself. All

  of these scenarios seemed equally likely to finding an empty

  apartment where I could get in, get what I needed, and get out. I was

  more terrified than I had ever been in my life and there was nothing

  I could do other than to face whatever lay in the hallway, even if it

  brought my death. Besides, as I stood at the door feeling a gentle

  draft of stale, slightly mildew scented air come in through the crack

  in the door, it was entirely possible the virus was on the wind and I

  was already infected anyway.