No one

  immediately grabbed me when I stepped out into the hallway, so at

  least that was a good sign. The air stank heavily of mildew, more

  than normal. It had been one of the first things I noticed about the

  building when I moved in and I had used what little extra pocket

  money I had to hire cleaners to give a deep clean to my apartment’s

  dubious grey carpets. The water I watched get poured away had been a

  shocking shade of dark, swampy green that made me feel nauseated to

  know anything I owned had touched the floor. I assumed that the

  hallways were just as bad, if not worse and I had never seen or heard

  any sort of cleaning crew do anything in the hallway other than a

  quick vacuum maybe once a week. Still, it had never been quite so

  pungent before, especially through the mask.

  I shuffled to the first door to the left of mine, trying to move

  slowly to keep my makeshift spear from clanging against the leg of my

  walker and the knives in the pouch from rustling. I was mostly

  successful, but if I ever was going to leave farther away from my

  apartment it was clear that I needed to figure out a way to muffle

  some of the sound as I moved. The rubber tips of my walker were

  silent on the carpet for now, but in the future on a hard surface it

  would be a dead give away. There were so many things to consider and

  I was glad that this was a sort of test looting run so I could work

  out some of the flaws before I was out in the open and it would be

  too late.

  My hand froze on the door handle and I wasn’t sure how to

  proceed. It would be a pretty stupid idea to knock and see if anyone

  was in, but then again surprising someone who might be terrified

  inside might have them lash out at me and defend themselves. There

  really wasn’t a good way to judge other than I had been listening

  and hadn’t heard any obvious noises from the apartment since this

  whole apocalypse fiasco had begun. Truthfully, I hadn’t ever heard

  much from the apartment, though I doubted it had been unoccupied. Low

  income apartments tended to have months or even years long waiting

  lists with people clambering to get a roof over their heads. I had

  waited on a list for nearly a year myself and had been ecstatic to

  finally get one even if it had been so filthy at the start.

  Deciding that the best thing to do was to just try the handle and

  go about things slowly and seem non-threatening, I turned it and was

  not surprised to find it locked. I wiggled the handle back and forth

  just enough to make it obvious to anyone inside that someone was

  trying to get in, then paused and held my breath as I waited to see

  if I could hear anyone move inside. I counted to 30 in my head and

  heard nothing, so while it was still potentially dangerous, I was as

  certain as I could be that it was worth trying to get inside. Instead

  of an ID or credit card that might break down or snap, I took a thin

  filet knife from my pouch of weapons and slide it between the door

  and the door frame just below the lock, then gently shimmed it up

  until it met solid metal. It was uncomfortably easy to wiggle the

  thin tip of the knife until I felt something give and with a soft

  click the door popped open a crack. Keeping the knife in hand just in

  case, I pulled the door open just enough to be able to peer through

  the crack and was relieved to see a messy, torn apart living space,

  but no movement. Also, much to my relief, the chain lock was not

  engaged, further adding to the likelihood that no one was inside.

  With more confidence, I slid the knife back into the pouch and

  slowly opened the door fully, still not willing to step inside just

  yet. I surveyed the mess from the hallway and what had happened

  seemed fairly obvious. Women’s clothing of all styles and weather

  types trailed from the small hallway closet to the kitchen table

  where there was a large pile that had been combed through with the

  rejects being tossed to the floor. Most of the kitchen cabinets were

  open and the contents rifled through, with it appearing that the

  heaviest of items like canned goods left behind and light things such

  as granola bars had been ripped from their cardboard packaging and

  taken. Whomever had lived in the apartment seemed to have been smart

  enough to see the writing on the wall for how things were going and

  must have had the ability and means to escape somewhere. I entered

  the apartment, now very certain I had just gotten incredibly lucky

  for my first supply run and allowed myself to close the door,

  relocked it with the chain and sat heavily onto the beaten up couch

  that was placed where my bed was in my apartment set up.

  Even though I hadn’t travelled more than to the next apartment

  over, my entire body was shivering. Every part of my fight or flight

  had been engaged waiting for danger and now that I knew it was safe I

  could feel the toll it took on me. I felt so ridiculous being so

  physically effected already and I could feel the hot tears

  threatening to push past my eyelids. It was absurd that such little

  effort would cause me to feel so oxygen starved and weak. This had to

  happen, I couldn’t afford to sit in bed and wait it out, so I would

  have to push past even though the feeling felt so insurmountable in

  this exact moment. There was no way to sugar coat it in any way: it

  was going to suck. That was going to be life for the foreseeable

  future and I was going to have to accept that or lay down and give

  up.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Sharp pain ran up my left hip to my shoulder as I stood up and my

  hands shook the entire walker, but still I pressed on and limped to

  the kitchen area. I took a cursory glance over the clothing, but all

  of it seemed to be a for someone a couple of sizes smaller than me

  and I couldn’t immediately think of any good reason to need to

  collect clothing in the short term so I didn’t go digging in the

  pile. I did however happily fill my empty backpack with the cans of

  various pastas, beans, and vegetables she had left behind. There was

  more than I could comfortably carry, but with the rest being just

  next door it felt safe to leave some for me to collect later. There

  was a medium bag of rice in the very back of one of the cupboards

  that I felt was likely more important to have on hand as far as

  calories went rather than a few cans of mixed vegetables, so I made

  the switch.

  Other than that, there wasn’t much in the kitchen that wasn’t

  something I already had or needed more of other than a cheap plastic

  lighter tossed into the utensil drawer. I pocketed that and opened

  the fridge to find it mostly empty outside of a few salad dressings,

  the standard ketchup, mustard, mayo, and one of those pitcher water

  filters. I wondered how effective one of those would be on a

  completely unknown quality water source. Sure, it was still the city

  water system, but without continuous oversight to ensure systems were

  still filtering and chemicals were still being added at correct

  doses, it would eventually become just as bad, if not worse, as

  walking down to the river itself and taking a sip of it. The pipes

  had the extra fun unknown of eventually breakdown of the linings of

  the water system and leeching all sorts of things into the water

  flowing through. Would one of those off the shelf, for home use only

  water filters do much for that? My gut told me probably not, but in

  desperate times maybe it would be better than nothing and if nothing

  else the water inside of it would still be good regardless. I pushed

  aside some of the clothes on the kitchen table and set the pitcher

  down to be in plain sight so I wouldn’t forget and leave it after I

  finished looking around.

  Being a mirror of my apartment, there wasn’t too much left to

  explore other than the small bedroom and bathroom. The bathroom had

  little in it, it looked like whomever had lived here had shoved most

  of everything into a their bag before leaving and the only thing of

  interest in the bedroom was a bookcase full of various beaten up

  fictions books that looked to have been picked up at thrift stores

  for cheap. Reading was hard for me to keep track of the plot while

  dealing with the eye strain of the tiny black letters on write paper,

  but it wasn’t like there would eventually be much entertainment

  around so while it was silly to move any of it now, it was nice

  knowing it would be there if the boredom ever became a big enough of

  a problem.

  Picking up the filter pitcher on the way out and carefully, but

  still precariously balancing it on my pouch of weapons, I decided to

  consider this enough of a successful trip for one day. I checked to

  make sure the hallway was still clear, then left and closed the door

  behind me. I considered locking the door as well, but realistically

  it was so easy to break into that it felt a waste of time and in an

  emergency situation is might just benefit me to have it unlocked.

  I was in such high spirits despite feeling so physically drained

  that I almost didn’t noticed that my apartment door, which I had

  been certain to close behind me was noticeably ajar. I froze, heart

  pounding with terror as my mind raced to figure out how likely it was

  to have somehow blown open. Sure the building tended to have a

  constant flow of pressure that caused a draft into the apartment, but

  it had never even jiggled my door before that I could recall. I

  swallowed hard and considered my options. I could retreat to the

  apartment I had just come out of, but it would leave me with none of

  my personal items and only trustworthy water being what was left in

  the pitcher and that left me at a way worse point, especially if I

  thought it was now unsafe to leave. It felt like the temporarily

  safer option, but long term the worse option.

  Hating what I was choosing, even though I knew it was probably the

  best route, I carefully took off my backpack and set it down on the

  floor, then carefully did the same with the water pitcher and slowly

  unclamped my weaponized cane and held it in my right had while

  clutching a small paring knife in my left. My heart leapt out of my

  throat and I felt relieved that I had thought to mute the heart rate

  alarm on my watch because I was certain it would be blaring right

  now. I slowly pushed my apartment door open, peering through the

  crack and met eyes with a scrawny, crazed man standing right next to

  my bed tearing apart the bedside table and going through my

  medication.