Gabe and Weasel were the first out the door. Though it was ten in the evening, outside it may as well have been high noon. People ran from buildings in abject panic. Cars crashed against each other. Flowerpots fell from balconies to explode on the sidewalk. A cloud of dust rose over distant rooftops. On the pallid blue sky, Mira II swam mindless like a fiery tadpole.
The tremors passed, but the panic stayed. The streets were soon blocked with wrecked or abandoned cars and people were stampeding. Weasel would’ve stampeded with them, but Gabe grabbed his arm and told him they should stay put. “Where are you gonna go?” he had said. “You’ve seen the news, the fucking earthquakes are everywhere. We should stay here and wait to be rescued.”
“But Gabe… what if the building falls?”
“Look at it, it’s already stopped shaking. If we stay in the street, we’re gonna get trampled or bricks are gonna fall on our heads or we’re gonna get shot by looters. Unless you got a helicopter, it’s best we hide and wait for this whole thing to blow over.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“What is this, the end of the world? Of course it will.”
They returned to the deserted Arabian Nights. Adnan had fled along with the rest. He had left the keys on the bar, so Gabe went and locked the door. Two hours and a hookah later, their bellies began to groan. The fridge behind the bar was stacked with juices and booze and bottled water, but no food aside from a homemade chicken sandwich. Adnan’s dinner, most likely. After they had eaten it, Gabe said, “We hafta get some cans.”
“Cans?”
“Canned food, bro. Tuna. Sardines. Beans. Stuff can last us years.”
“Where will we find that?”
“In the supermarket across the street, of course.”
“I… I doubt it’s open now.”
“So? We’ll loot it.”
“What? No.”
“There’s no power, remember? Security cams are all dead. Besides, after we’re rescued and everything returns to normal, we’ll go back and pay for the stuff we took. This is about survival, bro. I wouldn’t be surprised if the place has already been looted.”
They arrived at the supermarket to find its front window shattered and its cash registers emptied. They filled two trash bags with cans, crackers, candies, rice cakes, toilet paper, bottled water, soft drinks, red wine—Gabe insisted even the cheapest, warmest red wine tasted okay if you mixed it with Coke—and cartridges for the portable gas stove Adnan kept in the back. “Don’t worry,” he said as they headed back. “We’ll have ourselves a cozy catastrophe.”
They first saw Pauline as they walked back to Arabian Nights. A twenty-something redhead with a messenger bag under her arm, she stumbled down the sidewalk, leaning a hand on a nearby wall like a sailor traversing a storm-wracked deck. Gabe asked if she was okay, and she said, “No, fuck no, I’m not okay,” and showed them the matted, bloody hair at the side of her head.
They took her to Arabian Nights and disinfected the gash with tequila and dabbed it with napkins until it stopped bleeding. Pauline had been outside when the tremors hit. A chunk of masonry broke off from a first-floor balcony and clipped her on the head. She had tried to get home, only to discover a gaping fissure had zig-zagged through the city, swallowing entire buildings. She had been wandering the area, searching for a way to cross the chasm, when she ran into Gabe and Weasel. Weasel asked her why she didn’t just follow the fissure itself, and she licked her lips and said, “I did, at first. But then I heard…”
“Umm, heard what?”
“Noises. From the fissure. They weren’t tremors. They were more like… squawks.”
“Squawks?”
“Yeah, like there were giant birds down there.”
“In the fissure?”
“Yeah. I got scared so I ran away.”
“It’s just nerves,” Gabe said.
“Screw you, I know what I heard.”
Gabe shook his head. “You probably heard the earth shifting and the echo made it sound weird.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. It sounded like a bird.”
“An underground bird is an oxymoron.”
Sadly, Pauline was right. Their one remaining link to the outside world, the radio, was crammed with people describing the monstrosities that had emerged from the cracks in the earth. Biologists speculated there was an entire ecosystem deep beneath the planet’s crust, hitherto unknown to us, and that the seismic disturbances caused by Mira II’s gravity had sent its denizens skittering for the surface. The last broadcasts they heard before their batteries ran out urged listeners to avoid these creatures, since most appeared omnivorous.
Not that they needed the warning. Every now and then, they, too, heard things. Hisses. Squawks. Growls. A week in, a woman dashed through the street outside. Before they could call to her, something else darted past the window. A serpentine body lined with myriad segmented legs. Gone too fast for a good look. They heard a heavy thump as the woman slipped or was dragged down. The ripping, snapping noises that came after she had stopped screaming have fueled their nightmares ever since. The incident erased whatever ideas of leaving Arabian Nights they might’ve entertained. Until now.
“Freshmint,” Weasel said. “God, do I miss freshmint.”
Gabe wiped his brow. His hand came away glistening. “I hear you, bro. I’d kill for any flavor right now. Even orange. These cigarettes taste like trash.”
“I’ll be happy to take them from you,” Pauline said.
Gabe groaned.
Weasel licked his lips. “I was thinking. Maybe we could…”
“What, bro?”
Weasel shook his head.
“Can’t leave me hanging after you got me wet, bro. C’mon, say it.”
Weasel looked through the window at the parched street. “There’s that place.”
“Which one?”
“The one next to Nefertiti.”
Gabe’s eyes widened. “You mean…”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell is Nefertiti?” Pauline asked.
“A hookah lounge Weasel and me used to frequent until the new owner made it a booze-free establishment.”
Pauline arched a brow. “And?”
“There’s a hookah store next to it. It stocks everything hookah-related. Probably has boxes full of flavored tobacco.”
“Freshmint,” Weasel said. “And saloom.”
Gabe grinned. “And lemon. And apple. And coffee. And chocolate. And watermelon. Holy shit, I’d drink my own piss for a watermelon hookah.”
“With saloom,” Weasel said.
Pauline frowned. “You can’t be serious.”
Gabe shrugged. “It’s just half a block from here.”
“I don’t care if it’s next door. Those things are out there.”
“We haven’t seen them in days.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re gone. I’m not letting you two go out. You saw what happened to that woman.”
“Well, umm, she didn’t have a gun,” Weasel said.
All three of them looked at the shotgun on the couch, its wooden haft scratched and glazed with age. They had found it in a drawer behind the bar, laid alongside a nightstick and a can of pepper spray. Adnan’s security.
Pauline shook her head. “Nobody here can shoot a gun.”
“I can,” Gabe said.
“Yeah, right.”
“I’ve been to the range.”
“How many times?”
“One.”
“Did you use a shotgun that one time?”
“No, a pistol.”
“Forget it. Not happening. There’s no fucking freshmint in your fucking future.”
Weasel and Gabe spent most of the following twenty-four hours standing by the windows, watching the street for signs of inhuman presence. They occasionally saw it, too. A pigeon landed on the sidewalk and pecked around. A rat scuttled under a car, its hairless tail bouncing. A skin-and-bone cat came by and looked at them, its yellow eyes narrow and judgmental. It looked diseased. When it became apparent no monsters infested the streets, they brought up Nefertiti again.