Sydney reached for the radio and turned the knob to change the channel. The President’s voice was intermittently interrupted with static but his gibberish resumed as she moved through all the stations, each one playing the exact same thing. She grabbed the power cord and yanked it from the outlet.
She gripped the plug and waved it at me. “This is what they were listening to!” A breath caught in her throat and she growled. She threw the plug and it hit the sink and made a loud gong against the stainless steel. “They were all in here listening to this shit and then… and then …” Her breath hitched and she crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself.
Callie and I both reached for her at the same time but she jerked away from us.
“I’m fine,” she said.
Callie said, “Do you want to talk about it?”
As sincerely as I could I said, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through but telling us might help you to vent. And it might help all of us figure out what’s going on.”
Callie added, “It wasn’t just those guys. I was attacked outside. There were some men wandering around…” She looked at me for an answer.
“One fell down dead when I kicked him in the balls,” I said. “Like the other three.”
“The men outside kept saying gross things.” Callie pointed to the radio. “Like the President was saying.”
Sydney rubbed her eyes as if she could rub away the weariness. “It’s like it’s contagious.” She leaned her butt against the counter. “I came in here to pick up an order and the men were all laughing about what he was saying on the radio. I didn’t pay any attention to the program. I was more focused on my job and trying to remember which tables I needed to check on.” She stared at me and I could see the tears lining her lower lids. “But when I came back in with a second order the atmosphere had changed. There was a tension between the guys and the two girls working back here. The guys leered at the girls with these creepy grins on their faces. I rattled off the order and clipped the slip to the order rack over there.” She pointed to a shelf where four slips of paper dangled and then wiped at her eyes before the tears could spill. “And I… left to refill drinks. I mentioned it to Sara—”
Callie interrupted, “Sara?”
“The other waitress,” Sydney said. “I stopped her and said something like ‘the guys are being weird in there’. She mumbled something I didn’t catch before she headed back into the kitchen to pick up an order. I was refilling a table’s water when everyone in the dining area overheard some yelling. Sara came out of the kitchen with a pissed off look on her face and a tray of orders. The other girls ran out behind her and knocked the tray out of her hands. The guys came out right after them and grabbed Sara. She was screaming and they were tearing at her clothes and saying this awful shit and… and…” She sobbed loudly and buried her face in her hands before bursting into tears.
She didn’t fight Callie as she hugged her. Sydney buried her face in Callie’s neck and I rubbed her back. Sydney bawled as Callie petted her head and she finally said something but I couldn’t make it out.
She pulled away from Callie and said tearfully, “I don’t know what happened! I was helping her! She got away! Then the guys got me and carried me into the bar and no one helped me! No one helped me! There was screaming and the other men in the restaurant kept saying all this nasty stuff! And no one helped me! They kept doing it! And they raped me!”
Callie and I smothered the girl in hugs and let her cry. Her emotions were contagious and we cried with her.
Once she calmed some she pulled away from us. Her eyes were red and her face was blotchy. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and said, “I think I need a drink.”
Callie was blotting her nose with the back of her hand and nodding at me. She said, “I’ll get some tissues.”
I wiped my eyes with my thumb. “I can take care of the drinks. Be right back.”
I left the kitchen and took a deep breath. I scanned the dining room even though I knew we checked every nook and cranny. I didn’t feel safe. I felt exposed. I was terrified and nauseated over what happened to Sydney, filled with an overwhelming sense of dread Callie and I were destined for the same fate or worse.
I really didn’t want to go back into the bar but I knew Sydney… hell, all of us could use a drink. The hair on the back of my neck pricked when I entered the bar. I tiptoed as if any sound I made would awake the three men even though we checked for pulses and they were most definitely dead. It didn’t seem possible kicking a man in the balls would kill him but nothing felt real at the moment. I could partially see the man splayed on the table and the fallen masturbator’s head beyond the edge of the bar. I caught the faintest scent of feces and found slight solace in the fact the men were probably stewing in their own filth.
I lifted the bar top door and slipped into an alcoholic’s Mecca. I wasn’t sure what Sydney would want to drink. I found a server’s tray stashed under the register and loaded it with a smorgasbord of liquors, cold bottles of beer, a couple sodas, a jug of juice I found in a mini fridge, and some glasses.
When I returned to the kitchen I found the others were in the middle of preparing some boxed pasta they’d found and Callie remarking she couldn’t believe they didn’t make their own. I retrieved two small tables from the bar and three stools and we ate in the kitchen and had our drinks with dinner. We were afraid we might be seen through the front door if we sat in the dining room. Each of us periodically tried our phones but the internet and phone service hadn’t returned. We didn’t talk much during the meal.
Callie mixed a second rum and coke toward the end of her dinner and checked her phone again.
I said, “You should probably save the battery and try the landline in the office.”
She said, “We can’t stay here all night.”
Sydney was knocking back her third shot. She set the shot glass down a tad too hard and gasped before saying, slightly slurred, “I don’t want to go out there.”
“We can’t stay forever,” Callie said.
“I don’t think we should leave tonight,” I said. “At least not without an escort or something. It’s dark and Sydney is impaired. We should wait until we can get a hold of the police and make a report.”
Sydney gave a small dry laugh and poured a fourth shot. “Lot of good that’s gonna do,” she mumbled and then added, “We haven’t even heard sirens. The police are probably dead or, more likely, part of the problem since most police officers I see are usually men.”
Callie looked panicked. “Do you think the whole male population has lost their minds?”
I downed the last swallow of my beer and decided one drink was enough. Someone had to be alert and coherent enough to keep checking for a connection to the outside world and keep watch for any interlopers.
“We’ll keep checking the landline until it’s restored,” I said. “And sleep here tonight. We’ll venture out tomorrow when it’s daylight so we can see to defend ourselves if we have to.”
“And where are we gonna go?” Sydney remarked. She held up another shot with the intention of drinking it. “Home? To the police? Back to our lives?” She snorted derisively. “The world is dead.”
“We don’t know that,” I said.
“They’re not zombies,” Callie said.
“They might as well be,” Sydney said. She laughed and teetered on her stool, spilling some of her drink on her hand. The laugh went from something drunken and playful to manic and scary. She licked the liquor off her hand. “Sex zombies! Instead of eating you they want to rape you… or humiliate you! And… and… and instead of shooting them in the head… you have to kick them in the dick!” She threw her head back and laughed.