Would You Lie With Me (Chapter One - 2/16)
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Prologue
The first thing Jon was aware of was the heat, too much heat no matter what the long range forecasts had predicted for Chicago. It was a heat that prickled his skin like he hadn’t had anything to drink for days. The air was natural, acrid, brittle and Jon gasped it in, desperate for something in his lungs that didn’t taste like sand and smoke and salt, and he didn’t even understand why his mouth remembered all of those things.
His head spun with each ragged inhale and he was vaguely aware that he might be hyperventilating. He couldn’t stop himself though. Each breath seemed to draw less oxygen than the one before. Each heart beat that fluttered weakly along his veins tilted the world in a new direction until he wasn’t sure if he was standing or laying or hanging upside down.
Hands were on him, too many to be one person, but after that Jon lost count. Everything hurt and each feathery, nervous touch was jarring. Each almost-there press of foreign fingers felt like it was digging into bruises; the deep purple kind that linger as small pains even long after the color is gone. Above the sound of his blood pounding in his ears, he could hear voices. It was maybe three voices, whispering and talking and shouting at each other, in perfect timing with the cadence of their touches on his skin, like he was an instrument they were playing in concert with each other.
“Tom,” he groaned. He was surprised when he was hit with the first wave of nausea.
“Hey, dude, don’t talk,” said the voice that wasn’t quite shouting, but was still loud enough that he didn’t have to strain to hear it. “You’re looking pretty rough.”
If Jon looked half as bad as he felt, he was surprised they even knew he was alive. He tried to tell them as much, but all that came out was a helpless gurgle and then he was lurching forward and emptying his stomach over the bright pink of someone’s sneakers. He just registered a disgusted complaint (“Ew, gross, man!”) and then long fingers were gripping his upper arms and holding him upright.
“Tommy, have to see Tom,” he said once more. His vision was still black around the edges and white spots were wiggling around and making what he could see look speckled and gritty. Three worried faces peered down at him. He wanted them to go away, he wanted them to be familiar, to be Tom’s, to be his mom’s. They weren’t. They were strange and new and they looked just as scared as he thought he might feel, if the throbbing in his blood would ever die down and give him a chance to assess himself.
The one closest to him - the owner of the pink shoes - splayed a hand over Jon’s chest. It was warm, even through the cotton of his t-shirt. He didn’t know he was shivering, but the touch was gentle and the trembling in his limbs tapered off until it was just a shudder here and there. The other two guys stayed further back. One wore red-framed glasses and a lavender hoodie that should have clashed but didn’t really. He clung to the other one, the one draped in long scarves and fingerless gloves, and if Jon looked closely enough, he could see him reciprocate the clinging with the subtle way his body pressed along that of the one with the glasses.
“I have to find Tom,” Jon said, and this time his voice didn’t shake, didn’t come out broken. “Tom.”
No one moved.
“I have to go, Tom’s out there, he’s -. I have to -.”
“You can’t go up there,” is the only response he got. It was from the scarf guy in the back, the one with long bony fingers and a monotone that hurt Jon’s ears.
“Up?” Jon asked and the one nearest him peered down at him. Even in the poor lighting, his eyes were a piercing blue. There was a streak of something brownish-red on his cheek and Jon tried really hard to believe it wasn’t blood.
“Up there. Above ground. Can’t go up there.”
Jon blinked. The third guy smiled sadly. Jon noticed for the first time that his lip was split and a bruise was lurking around his left eye. He looked so tiny behind the frames of his glasses and Jon just wanted to hold him and comfort him and tell him it would be all right. Except that it wouldn't be all right. It never would be, ever again, and besides, Jon had to find Tom.
“Spencer’s right. Stay here with us man.”
Spencer - the one closest to him - pressed gently on Jon’s chest and Jon found he was too weak to resist and ended up half reclining against a cinderblock wall. When he tipped his head back, he saw the concrete ceiling sloping upwards.
He would find it frustrating but part of him was a little bit glad for the excuse to just sit and wait for his body to catch up to his mind. He didn’t allow himself to think that Tom was probably already gone. Gone, not dead, because Jon still couldn’t reconcile that word with what happened to everyone he knew. Instead he studied the three in front of him, studied his surroundings.
“We’re under the stairs?” he asked at last. “A cupboard under the stairs somewhere?”
Glasses gave a startled twittering little laugh that seems to shatter the air around him. “Cupboard under the stairs,” he repeated. “God, I could really just watch the Sorcerer’s Stone right now.”
The guy with the scarves let a smile slip with an almost silent admonishment. “Brendon,” he said softly, then louder he said, “We’re in the storage under the stairs. Thought it was best to wait it out here.”
“We’re safe then? Is it still -?” Is it still happening? Is it still raining fire and is the ground still heaving and splitting? But he couldn’t finish the question.
Spencer shrugged. “The radio cut out.” He kicked at a battered battery-operated radio that looked like it was probably a million years old. “I mean, the radio still works, but we can’t get any stations. Just static.”
Brendon’s eyes were wide and Jon watched as his fingers twitched against the dark denim practically painted onto his thighs. He was vibrating in a way that wasn’t so much nervous as it was pure energy and his left foot picked up a staccato beat for a few seconds before falling, well, not still, but not really moving either. “Yeah, like, Chicago fell and then the radio guy swore a bunch and then, just, like, nothing.” His thumb curled against his pinkie finger and picked at the skin around the nail there. “Just fucking nothing, man. And that was, what, four, five? Hours ago. Ryan’s been keeping track.”
Jon felt the bottom of his stomach drop. He’d always thought that was just an expression, but this was like free-fall. It hurt and it made him want to be sick all over again, but Spencer had just wiped his shoes with the paper towel that was stocked on the shelf behind him, and the smell in such a small space wasn’t very pleasant besides.
“Chicago fell?”
The guy with the scarves - Ryan - raised an eyebrow. “You got people there?”
Jon bit his knuckle without any recollection of how his hand got up near his mouth. “I,” he said. “We’re not. I mean. We’re not in Chicago?”
Ryan hesitated while Brendon chewed on his lip. Finally, Spencer opened his mouth, after a silent conversation with Ryan. “Vegas. We’re in downtown Vegas.”
Jon didn’t think he was going to be sick again. He did, however, think that he was, reasonably and without judgement, allowed to freak right the fuck out.
+++
Ryan might have been freaking out a little bit. Brendon was still clinging to him as though Ryan’s frail body could stop whatever was happening from getting to Brendon, like it could be a shield. He wanted to point out that Spencer was probably better protection but he didn’t want to call attention to the size difference again, not after the fight he had witnessed last Sunday over ice cream and fudge when Spencer’s mom had gently suggested that Spencer maybe take a smaller serving this time. Instead, Ryan curled his fingers around Brendon’s upper arm and waited for Brendon to move even closer into his space.
It had been longer than five hours. Ryan had secretly stopped checking his pocket watch after four, but he knew it was maybe double that long, if not more. They’d kept checking the radio, though, every so often just to hear if any stations had come back on. There was nothing. At one point, the buzzing static was interrupted by the panicked preaching of someone ranting about God’s wrath and ethnic cleansing for the sins of Abel. Brendon had muttered something about “Sins of Cain, dumbass,” before he flicked the dial through the empty silence every other station had to offer.
Ryan had been talking about maybe stretching the time between checking, preserving the battery if possible because “we don’t know how fucking long we have to hide down here, asshole” when a small breeze pressed against the exposed skin on the back of his neck, almost like someone fanning a piece of paper on a hot day. The breeze brought the smell of smoke and maybe the ocean and sand and when Ryan turned around, there was a guy sprawled in the backmost corner of the supply closet.
“What the?”
The guy was young, about their age, but that’s all Ryan could tell. His clothes were tattered and dirty and might have been jeans and a white t-shirt at one time but now they were just gray rags, singed and hanging off his body. His face was covered in a layer of soot, streaked with perspiration and if that is how he looked after somehow managing to get in here from up there Ryan was going to extend their time spent under the stairs indefinitely, food and water and bathrooms be damned.
“Oh my god,” Brendon had breathed against Ryan’s neck. Ryan refused to vocalize his agreement.
“Is he dead?” Brendon asked when the guy didn’t move. “Is he real? Is he dead?”
Ryan leaned back against Brendon while Brendon pressed closer and clung tighter, and all Ryan wanted was for Spencer to come away from the probably dead guy and hold them both until Brendon stopped shaking and Ryan didn’t want to throw up anymore.
Spencer knelt down and skimmed his hands over the barely visible skin of the guy’s arm. It was a second before he let his fingers settle on the wrist, limp and scraped.
“He has a pulse.” Spencer huffed a breath through his nose and shook his head. “It’s jumping all over the place and he’s all clammy and gross, but he has a pulse.” When he turned his eyes back to Ryan, it was with the same question Ryan had been asking himself. How did he get in here? Ryan nodded above Spencer’s head to the shelving unit holding the cleaning supplies.
The guy was pale under the soot and dirt and what was probably blood. He wasn’t a delicate natural pale like Spencer was. It wasn’t the pale kind of skin that burned in the sun with freckles that seemed to appear out of nowhere. He was pale like death and it made Ryan shrink a little. He’d seen death, he’d known when the fucking boulders started falling out of the sky and onto buildings and cars and, you know, people, that he was seeing death. He just hadn’t stuck around long enough to really see it. He’d pulled Spencer and Brendon, who were visiting him at work, down the stairs and into the basement and he hadn’t really seen anything.
Now, though, he was afraid his brief moment of sheltered sanity was going to end. This guy was broken and bleeding and possibly had recently been a little bit on fire, and Spencer was wiping his face with paper towel that had been wet by the few drops still clinging to the end of the hose in the janitor’s sink, and Ryan was afraid this complete stranger was going to die right in front of him.
He didn’t. The guy gasped and convulsed and Brendon clutched a little tighter. They heard a name, some garbled snatches of what might have been words but mostly the guy just flailed weakly and tried to sit up. The cleaned part of his face blanched and Ryan and Brendon crept closer until Ryan could bend down and rest his hand open against the heaving chest. Spencer gave one last wipe through the grit covering the guy’s face.
“Tom,” the guy whispered, through a voice that was raw and scratched.
Spencer shoved back against Ryan and they both knew it was Spencer language for back the fuck off.
“Hey, dude, don’t talk,” Spencer said.
Ryan watched as Spencer “took charge” and as the guy came down from whatever fear and pain-induced high he was probably riding. He watched and might have participated in the conversation they were having, although he didn’t think so, and in the back of his mind he ticked off another hour that passed with the beep of Spencer’s watch and wondered again how this guy had managed to get in here. He came back to the present when the guy went rigid at the mention of Chicago.
“Hey, hey, man, it’s ok.” That was Spencer. Brendon gasped into Ryan’s shoulder and just buried his face there. “Hey, ok, you need to breathe. Can you breathe?”
The guy didn’t respond, he just gasped a few more times, his eyes wide and his lip caught between his teeth so hard he was drawing blood.
“Dude, dude, you need to take a breath, here, I’ll breathe with you, ok. In-two-three-four. Out-two-three-four. In-two-three-four, out-two-three-four, that’s it, come on.”
Ryan watched as Spencer inched forward and edged behind the guy until he was curling around his back. Ryan knew what it felt like to be held like that, what it felt like to be surrounded by Spencer, to have his hands over Ryan’s heart and his chest against Ryan’s back. Ryan wanted it now, wanted it for himself.
“Chicago,” said the guy and Ryan felt the jealousy drain away at that broken sound. “Chicago fell.” Spencer hummed gentle sounds into the guy’s neck, against his somewhat tangled beard. Ryan might have heard a soothing “sh” but he wasn’t sure. “How did, how did it, I mean, what happened there?”
His eyes looked faded, like Ryan was looking at him through a filtered lens, like the colour had been bled out of him.
Spencer flexed his arm and curled himself more firmly around the guy before he answered. Ryan watched for a change in the guy’s facial expression when Spencer told him the whole fucking city caught on fire. He watched for some sort of reaction when Spencer told him even there were reports of stone burning and flames licking along the water.
There was nothing. His face didn’t change. He didn’t press back into Spencer’s embrace, nor did he pull out of it. He just closed his eyes, dropped his head and fell silent.
+++
Brendon wanted to pride himself on being the first to find out Jon’s name but at the moment he couldn’t justify any sort of positive emotion, especially one so selfish. “Pride is a sin, Brendon,” his mom used to say, and even thinking of that made his eyes want to well up with tears. As it was, Ryan was leaning against the door with his head thrown back and his neck exposed. His hand was still loosely resting on the little radio, even though they hadn’t been able to find anything - not even crazy religious people or that couple that was either having sex or killing themselves out of the morbid luxury of not being told not to. Ryan’s chest rose and fell softly, evenly and only occasionally a lone snore would slip out.
Spencer, too, had his eyes closed. His arms had fallen away from their protective hold around the guy’s - Jon’s - chest. He still had his legs on either side of Jon’s hips but one leg had dropped to the side and the other had slid out until it was flat along the ground. His head bobbed into Jon’s shoulder, causing a light rasping sound each time their facial hair brushed. Brendon couldn’t sleep. He was edgy and he couldn’t think about any one thing long enough to not think about it. His sister’s face flitted across his mind, before thinking that the Smoothie Hut would be angry at him for missing his shift. The blue bottle of window cleaner caught his eye and he visually traced the contours of the label, until his gaze dropped from the shelf to Jon and Spencer, where they were curled loosely together. Jon’s eyes were open.
“Hey, hey, hi.” Brendon wished he sounded calmer, sounded more sure of himself. He wished he sounded like Spencer, strong and in charge. His voice shook and he was afraid his greeting might have scared the guy right back into his weird rocking state he’d been in for probably two hours (not that Brendon had a watch).
“Oh, uh,” the guy said back and then he did this little thing with his mouth that might have been a smile, a lifetime ago. “Hi, um, Jon. Me, I’m… Jon. Hi.”
And Brendon hadn’t done anything more for him than Ryan had, and he did far less than Spencer had. Brendon just happened to be awake and happened to say hi. And he watched as Jon’s mouth did that little thing again and then faded into a sad little frown.
“Um, I’m Brendon.” Jon gave a little huff that might have been a laugh or might have been a sneeze. “You want to play Eye Spy?”
+++
Jon played a fierce game of Eye Spy. He kept spying little things that Brendon would never even notice, like the little dust bunny under the shelves or the fat spider wandering across the far wall. Brendon was never very good at the game to begin with and always chose obvious things like Spencer’s shoes or the mop hanging above the little janitor’s sink. He was being truly trounced at another round (“Eye Spy with my little eye something that is round.” “The bottle? The drain? You’re eyeball?” “Brendon, how can I see my own eyeball?”) when Ryan flinched, then flailed himself into wakefulness.
“Dude, it’s my fucking pocket watch,” he grumbled when Brendon guessed the light bulb. Brendon squirmed in his seat, letting his thumb rub absently against the seam of his jeans. His ass hurt from sitting on the floor for too long, and no matter how many times he shifted, he couldn’t find a comfortable position that didn’t make either his legs fall asleep or his knees ache.
“Oh,” Brendon said. Jon’s face had gone back to blank. Jon had livened up a little during the game, laughing when Brendon asked if something furry was Spencer’s “almost-beard” and even going so far as to mock-gloat when Brendon picked something too easy. Now, as Ryan turned his eyes to where Jon was still almost wrapped up in Spencer’s arm, Jon dropped his gaze to the floor and hunched his shoulders.
“His name is Jon,” Brendon said helpfully when Ryan didn’t do anything to break the silence.
“Jon,” said Ryan, as though testing it out in his mouth. “Jon.” He didn’t look too disappointed when Jon responded with only a tight smile and a little nod. “I’m Ryan. Spencer’s behind you. Have either of you tried the radio?”
Brendon shook his head. He’d been afraid to. What if there was still nothing? Worse, what if there was something but it was worse than everything they’d ever heard. Ryan flipped the switch and Brendon held his breath. The empty airwaves sounded through the speakers, a little cracking buzz that said the radio was receiving but had nothing to report.
+++
Jon extracted himself from Spencer between the time Ryan had bitched at Brendon for “fucking wiggling too fucking much oh my god” and the time Brendon had actually stopped wiggling and had instead finally fallen asleep wrapped as far around Ryan’s thin frame as he could get. Jon felt some disconnected satisfaction that Brendon was finally sleeping. His eyes were getting that bruised appearance underneath and his mouth kept turning down at the corners whenever he wasn’t trying to smile at Jon. It didn’t occur to Jon that if Brendon looked that tired, he himself couldn’t be that much better.
The nauseating pain from when he first woke up had receded to a faint tingling along his spine as though he was humming with electricity. His head was still a little sore and when he stood up for the first time in what had to have been over a day, he tilted dizzyingly until he managed to grab a hold of the shelf to right himself.
Spencer grunted once and drew his now empty arms around himself. The fingers of his right hand closed over air and he twisted his head until his cheek almost pressed against the cool concrete of the wall. He looked almost innocent like that, in sleep. Jon studied him: he hadn’t had much of a chance before Spencer took up position behind him. His beard was patchier than Jon’s, and finer. It was shorter too and was probably the growth of about a week (because he’s probably been trapped down here for that long, Jon’s brain supplied). Ryan and Brendon both had slight beards too although Ryan’s was barely there and Brendon’s appeared scruffier and somehow more innocent than Spencer’s.
Spencer’s mouth hung open in his awkward position and he was making soft little snuffling noises on each inhale. His t-shirt was pale blue, stretched across his chest in a way that emphasized the baby fat still clinging around his middle. He looked so young.
A little whimper from Brendon and Ryan’s corner broke the moment and Jon knelt down beside the radio. The little on switch was easy to find and when Jon flipped it, the same nothing hummed along the airwaves. He clicked it off and snapped open the pocket watch that was sitting beside it. The time read five forty-five but Jon didn’t know if that was morning or evening. The little date counter was off by about three months and he sighed in frustration. On the upside, the muffled thuds that had sometimes rocked the walls had finally died down and Jon was certain he hadn’t heard one in over an hour. He didn’t want to know what was causing them, didn’t want to know what impossibly, insane event had taken down Las Vegas.
“I’m hungry,” a voice behind him said and when he turned, Spencer’s eyes - blue, too, too blue - were peering up at him. “You’re probably worse. You did lose your lunch on my shoes.”
Jon wavered. He wasn’t sure if he had offended Spencer by moving, or if maybe Spencer thought he’d freak out again. He wasn’t going to - not that he was okay with everything that had happened. And how had he ended up in Vegas anyway? And why the fuck was Tom not with him? The time for panic attacks was passed and now it was just a dull worry that gnawed away at his insides.
“I guess…I haven’t really noticed.”
Spencer nodded and patted the ground beside him. “Come sit. You look dead on your feet.”
“I, uh. Yeah, I guess I kind of am.”
Spencer smiled up at him, but the smile never reached his eyes. He patted the ground again when Jon still hadn’t made a move to sit and finally Jon just collapsed on the ground beside him.
Spencer didn’t touch him beyond reaching up and squeezing his shoulder.
“I’m Spencer,” he said in lieu of any further physical contact. Jon nodded.
“Jon,” he said to his knees. “Uh, I. I don’t know what day it is, anymore. I lost count.”
Spencer didn’t say anything. He tapped out a slow measured beat against his thigh. In the space above his shoes and where his jeans had ridden up, Jon could make out little purple unicorns on his socks. He didn’t comment. He didn’t feel surprised, didn’t feel like he should be surprised.
“What day was it when you, you know. Arrived. Here.”
Jon paused, counted out the beats. It was three-four time. Jon itched to play something. He wanted to feel the strings of a guitar beneath his fingers, moving to Spencer’s steady tempo. Instead he counted back in his head. The reports of the British Isles almost completely disappearing beneath the waters of a freak hurricane had woke him up on Tuesday morning. And yeah, it was sad and kind of alarming, but other than that, it was just another news story pouring out of his clock radio. By Tuesday evening, Africa had literally split in two and Australia had somehow drifted two hundred kilometres toward the South Pole. Tom had shown up at his apartment on Wednesday night claiming with a droll expression that the apocalypse was nigh and it was their duty to “get as stoned as fucking possible, dude. Once in a lifetime opportunity!”
They woke up Thursday afternoon, hung over and still slightly buzzing from too much alcohol and weed. There were screams outside his window. He had kept studious count of the days after that, counting the morning news reports of gnat swarms miles in diameter and all the water in Mexico City freezing solid. He and Tom buried themselves in the blankets of his bed and watched with wide eyes as the clock ticked off the minutes. They listened over the hushed noise of their breaths to the radio as it told them of all the things that shouldn’t be happening. It was Saturday morning that they hauled the comforter, a backpack full of water bottles and granola bars and the rest of Jon’s alcohol supply into the laundry room in the basement of his building. A few of the neighbours were already gathered there, huddled in groups. Some had their heads bent in prayers. Others just had their heads bent for no reason at all. There was one radio sitting atop the second drier, although the news casts were getting less coherent. One station had stopped broadcasting. The city was already trembling. The people were panicking.
Sunday passed with the drone of the radio and Tom’s arms circled tightly around his waist in an embrace they rarely allowed past the bedroom door, let alone in public. “Scared Jonny,” Tom had told him Sunday night.
“We’re okay,” Jon had reassured him when Sunday turned into Monday and the radio station they had on fell into silence. Someone got up to change the station and had to scroll past a bunch of stations before they found one that was still broadcasting. Jon fell asleep in the early morning with Tom pressed tightly against him.
He woke up confused and too hot. Screams were echoing around him and Tom’s nails were digging into his arms. The laundry room was too bright and when Jon’s eyes finally focused he discovered why. Tom didn’t scream as the wall of flame closed in on them. Jon didn’t either, he just curled his fingers around Tom’s wrist and said “Well, it’s been fun. I think now’s a good time to tell you I accidentally came all over your t-shirt I borrowed last summer and had to throw it out.” Tom huffed out a laugh that simmered in the heat and he clutched at Jon’s legs.
“I liked that shirt, asshole,” he said back and the flames licked at his foot.
Nothing after that made much sense to Jon’s mind. He was aware of pain and heat and swirling colours and Tom’s terrified howl. He knew Tom was slipping from his grasp and that he was moving, flying, spinning through the air in a dizzying free-fall.
Jon shook his head to clear the image of losing Tom and looked at Spencer. “Monday. It was Monday.”
Spencer nodded. “We’ve been trying to keep count but we lost track. I think it’s Tuesday night right now.” He slowed his beat, started another one, quarter time this time and Jon watched as Spencer’s foot gave an occasional twitch as though joining in on the rhythm. “Or maybe it’s Wednesday morning. Can’t tell.”
Jon looked across the room at the horizontal lines of the cinderblocks that made up the wall. There were cracks feathering up from the floor and down from the ceiling, possibly more than the first time he’d looked but he couldn’t be sure. Ryan sighed in his sleep and twisted against Brendon who curled his fingers tighter in Ryan’s scarves.
“Do you think it’s over yet?”
Spencer didn’t answer for the longest time. When he did, his beat changed again to something slower, punctuated with little flutters of his eyelashes. “There were boulders,” he said instead of answering the question. “Fucking boulders and they just kept falling. The radio said it was hail after that. And then all the water fucking boiled. All of it.”
Jon blinked. Spencer stared at him for a moment before turning away and speaking at his knees. “If it’s over, it probably means there’s nothing left up there. And then what does it even matter?”
+++
Spencer had set up his watch to beep every hour. His mother rolled her eyes at him and the twins teased him for being too punctual. It was good now though because it was a constant reminder that time was passing, no matter how much it seemed to be frozen, broken. Ryan and Brendon were just waking, uncurling from each other and yawning. Brendon hummed in his throat and smacked his lips.
“I could really go for a really huge espresso,” he said when he caught sight of Spencer watching him. “Dude, I’m so parched.”
Ryan nodded his agreement and twisted until he could reach the taps of the little janitor’s sink. Spencer saw Brendon tense. He wanted to do the same but he knew they couldn’t go without water for too much longer, and if it was still boiling in the taps then they might as well just give up now. Jon, in his place pressed shoulder to elbow along Spencer’s side, didn’t react at all. Monday, he had arrived on Monday and had missed the terrifying moment when Ryan tried to take a drink from the hose only to be hit with steam. The metal tap had been too hot to turn off with their bare hands and Spencer had to wrap one of Ryan’s scarves around his palm so he didn’t get burned.
They held their breath when Ryan twisted the little metal knob, when a bare little trickle seeped into the basin. It didn’t steam. It didn’t bubble against the drain. It was clear and when Spencer reached a timid hand forward to let his fingers dip into the stream, it was cool against his skin.
“Fuck,” he breathed and shoved his whole hand under.
“Fuck,” he heard Ryan echo before the hose was taken away and held up for Brendon to take a drink. It was passed to Jon next who tipped his head hesitantly under the spray. He got the angle wrong the first time and the water trickled down his chin and onto his shirt. Brendon let out a high-pitched giggle that had Jon smiling softly and readjusting his face to get his mouth under the water. He only stopped drinking when he choked a little and Brendon laughed at him again.
Ryan offered the hose to Spencer next but Spencer shook his head and waited until Ryan was finished. When the wet finally hit his tongue, after everyone else was done, Spencer realized for the first time exactly how dry his mouth had gotten. The water hurt his stomach, pressing against the inside and reminding him how painfully empty it really was. When he finally moved away and Brendon reclaimed the hose for a second drink, Spencer could hear the water swishing around inside his own stomach.
Ryan was watching him. Brendon reached across him to hand the hose back to Jon, and Ryan just moved his head so their eye contact wasn’t broken.
“Yeah,” Spencer said at last. Jon looked at him curiously. Brendon twisted off the water and the silence swallowed Spencer’s words. “Yeah, okay. I guess it’s time. We can. Yeah.”
+++
Brendon was clutching at him again and Ryan turned his body until Brendon could get a better hold of his arm. They were both trembling. Behind them, Jon hovered, as far away from the door as he could get. He’d washed his face in the sink, watching the soot swirl in little black ringlets against the dirty grey bottom of the basin. He had been silent when he rubbed the paper towel against his cheek and chin and nose until his skin was shiny pink. The neck of his tattered t-shirt was wet and he had perspiration stains under his arms. Ryan didn’t have to look at him to know he was trembling too.
Spencer placed his left hand flat against the door, as though testing it. His eyes were closed, his face calm. Ryan wanted to touch him, comfort him the way Spencer would do for him but he knew this was one time when his touch would be worse than the absence of it. He waited. The watch on Spencer’s wrist beeped the hour. The pocket watch said it was seven o-clock. It also said it was the seventh of January which it clearly wasn’t but whatever, the date thing was broken before he picked it up at the thrift shop so it totally wasn’t his fault.
“Ready?” Spencer asked and rested his forehead against the metal of the door and twisted his head to look back over his shoulder at the other three. Brendon’s eyes were impossibly round behind his glasses. Jon let out a shuddering breath.
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Do it.”
+++
It was dark in the hallway. There was one spot just near the door to the stairs that a pile of rubble kind of blocked their way, but they scrambled over it with only a lightly skinned knee on Brendon’s part and a tear in Jon’s jeans catching on a sharp edge and ripping further. The door at the top of the stairs was gone and when they peered up, they were met with a dusky sort of half light. It wasn’t much better at the top. A huge boulder sat where the cash register used to sit, right where Ryan usually sat and read his magazines. The glass from the front windows was blown in all except for the last panel which had the last few letters of the store name curling across it. The instruments at the front were covered with shattered glass. One of the bins of discount sheet music was scorched but not decimated. The sky was the fiery orange of sunrise. It was a new day.
Chapter Two
back to masterpost
Prologue
The first thing Jon was aware of was the heat, too much heat no matter what the long range forecasts had predicted for Chicago. It was a heat that prickled his skin like he hadn’t had anything to drink for days. The air was natural, acrid, brittle and Jon gasped it in, desperate for something in his lungs that didn’t taste like sand and smoke and salt, and he didn’t even understand why his mouth remembered all of those things.
His head spun with each ragged inhale and he was vaguely aware that he might be hyperventilating. He couldn’t stop himself though. Each breath seemed to draw less oxygen than the one before. Each heart beat that fluttered weakly along his veins tilted the world in a new direction until he wasn’t sure if he was standing or laying or hanging upside down.
Hands were on him, too many to be one person, but after that Jon lost count. Everything hurt and each feathery, nervous touch was jarring. Each almost-there press of foreign fingers felt like it was digging into bruises; the deep purple kind that linger as small pains even long after the color is gone. Above the sound of his blood pounding in his ears, he could hear voices. It was maybe three voices, whispering and talking and shouting at each other, in perfect timing with the cadence of their touches on his skin, like he was an instrument they were playing in concert with each other.
“Tom,” he groaned. He was surprised when he was hit with the first wave of nausea.
“Hey, dude, don’t talk,” said the voice that wasn’t quite shouting, but was still loud enough that he didn’t have to strain to hear it. “You’re looking pretty rough.”
If Jon looked half as bad as he felt, he was surprised they even knew he was alive. He tried to tell them as much, but all that came out was a helpless gurgle and then he was lurching forward and emptying his stomach over the bright pink of someone’s sneakers. He just registered a disgusted complaint (“Ew, gross, man!”) and then long fingers were gripping his upper arms and holding him upright.
“Tommy, have to see Tom,” he said once more. His vision was still black around the edges and white spots were wiggling around and making what he could see look speckled and gritty. Three worried faces peered down at him. He wanted them to go away, he wanted them to be familiar, to be Tom’s, to be his mom’s. They weren’t. They were strange and new and they looked just as scared as he thought he might feel, if the throbbing in his blood would ever die down and give him a chance to assess himself.
The one closest to him - the owner of the pink shoes - splayed a hand over Jon’s chest. It was warm, even through the cotton of his t-shirt. He didn’t know he was shivering, but the touch was gentle and the trembling in his limbs tapered off until it was just a shudder here and there. The other two guys stayed further back. One wore red-framed glasses and a lavender hoodie that should have clashed but didn’t really. He clung to the other one, the one draped in long scarves and fingerless gloves, and if Jon looked closely enough, he could see him reciprocate the clinging with the subtle way his body pressed along that of the one with the glasses.
“I have to find Tom,” Jon said, and this time his voice didn’t shake, didn’t come out broken. “Tom.”
No one moved.
“I have to go, Tom’s out there, he’s -. I have to -.”
“You can’t go up there,” is the only response he got. It was from the scarf guy in the back, the one with long bony fingers and a monotone that hurt Jon’s ears.
“Up?” Jon asked and the one nearest him peered down at him. Even in the poor lighting, his eyes were a piercing blue. There was a streak of something brownish-red on his cheek and Jon tried really hard to believe it wasn’t blood.
“Up there. Above ground. Can’t go up there.”
Jon blinked. The third guy smiled sadly. Jon noticed for the first time that his lip was split and a bruise was lurking around his left eye. He looked so tiny behind the frames of his glasses and Jon just wanted to hold him and comfort him and tell him it would be all right. Except that it wouldn't be all right. It never would be, ever again, and besides, Jon had to find Tom.
“Spencer’s right. Stay here with us man.”
Spencer - the one closest to him - pressed gently on Jon’s chest and Jon found he was too weak to resist and ended up half reclining against a cinderblock wall. When he tipped his head back, he saw the concrete ceiling sloping upwards.
He would find it frustrating but part of him was a little bit glad for the excuse to just sit and wait for his body to catch up to his mind. He didn’t allow himself to think that Tom was probably already gone. Gone, not dead, because Jon still couldn’t reconcile that word with what happened to everyone he knew. Instead he studied the three in front of him, studied his surroundings.
“We’re under the stairs?” he asked at last. “A cupboard under the stairs somewhere?”
Glasses gave a startled twittering little laugh that seems to shatter the air around him. “Cupboard under the stairs,” he repeated. “God, I could really just watch the Sorcerer’s Stone right now.”
The guy with the scarves let a smile slip with an almost silent admonishment. “Brendon,” he said softly, then louder he said, “We’re in the storage under the stairs. Thought it was best to wait it out here.”
“We’re safe then? Is it still -?” Is it still happening? Is it still raining fire and is the ground still heaving and splitting? But he couldn’t finish the question.
Spencer shrugged. “The radio cut out.” He kicked at a battered battery-operated radio that looked like it was probably a million years old. “I mean, the radio still works, but we can’t get any stations. Just static.”
Brendon’s eyes were wide and Jon watched as his fingers twitched against the dark denim practically painted onto his thighs. He was vibrating in a way that wasn’t so much nervous as it was pure energy and his left foot picked up a staccato beat for a few seconds before falling, well, not still, but not really moving either. “Yeah, like, Chicago fell and then the radio guy swore a bunch and then, just, like, nothing.” His thumb curled against his pinkie finger and picked at the skin around the nail there. “Just fucking nothing, man. And that was, what, four, five? Hours ago. Ryan’s been keeping track.”
Jon felt the bottom of his stomach drop. He’d always thought that was just an expression, but this was like free-fall. It hurt and it made him want to be sick all over again, but Spencer had just wiped his shoes with the paper towel that was stocked on the shelf behind him, and the smell in such a small space wasn’t very pleasant besides.
“Chicago fell?”
The guy with the scarves - Ryan - raised an eyebrow. “You got people there?”
Jon bit his knuckle without any recollection of how his hand got up near his mouth. “I,” he said. “We’re not. I mean. We’re not in Chicago?”
Ryan hesitated while Brendon chewed on his lip. Finally, Spencer opened his mouth, after a silent conversation with Ryan. “Vegas. We’re in downtown Vegas.”
Jon didn’t think he was going to be sick again. He did, however, think that he was, reasonably and without judgement, allowed to freak right the fuck out.
+++
Ryan might have been freaking out a little bit. Brendon was still clinging to him as though Ryan’s frail body could stop whatever was happening from getting to Brendon, like it could be a shield. He wanted to point out that Spencer was probably better protection but he didn’t want to call attention to the size difference again, not after the fight he had witnessed last Sunday over ice cream and fudge when Spencer’s mom had gently suggested that Spencer maybe take a smaller serving this time. Instead, Ryan curled his fingers around Brendon’s upper arm and waited for Brendon to move even closer into his space.
It had been longer than five hours. Ryan had secretly stopped checking his pocket watch after four, but he knew it was maybe double that long, if not more. They’d kept checking the radio, though, every so often just to hear if any stations had come back on. There was nothing. At one point, the buzzing static was interrupted by the panicked preaching of someone ranting about God’s wrath and ethnic cleansing for the sins of Abel. Brendon had muttered something about “Sins of Cain, dumbass,” before he flicked the dial through the empty silence every other station had to offer.
Ryan had been talking about maybe stretching the time between checking, preserving the battery if possible because “we don’t know how fucking long we have to hide down here, asshole” when a small breeze pressed against the exposed skin on the back of his neck, almost like someone fanning a piece of paper on a hot day. The breeze brought the smell of smoke and maybe the ocean and sand and when Ryan turned around, there was a guy sprawled in the backmost corner of the supply closet.
“What the?”
The guy was young, about their age, but that’s all Ryan could tell. His clothes were tattered and dirty and might have been jeans and a white t-shirt at one time but now they were just gray rags, singed and hanging off his body. His face was covered in a layer of soot, streaked with perspiration and if that is how he looked after somehow managing to get in here from up there Ryan was going to extend their time spent under the stairs indefinitely, food and water and bathrooms be damned.
“Oh my god,” Brendon had breathed against Ryan’s neck. Ryan refused to vocalize his agreement.
“Is he dead?” Brendon asked when the guy didn’t move. “Is he real? Is he dead?”
Ryan leaned back against Brendon while Brendon pressed closer and clung tighter, and all Ryan wanted was for Spencer to come away from the probably dead guy and hold them both until Brendon stopped shaking and Ryan didn’t want to throw up anymore.
Spencer knelt down and skimmed his hands over the barely visible skin of the guy’s arm. It was a second before he let his fingers settle on the wrist, limp and scraped.
“He has a pulse.” Spencer huffed a breath through his nose and shook his head. “It’s jumping all over the place and he’s all clammy and gross, but he has a pulse.” When he turned his eyes back to Ryan, it was with the same question Ryan had been asking himself. How did he get in here? Ryan nodded above Spencer’s head to the shelving unit holding the cleaning supplies.
The guy was pale under the soot and dirt and what was probably blood. He wasn’t a delicate natural pale like Spencer was. It wasn’t the pale kind of skin that burned in the sun with freckles that seemed to appear out of nowhere. He was pale like death and it made Ryan shrink a little. He’d seen death, he’d known when the fucking boulders started falling out of the sky and onto buildings and cars and, you know, people, that he was seeing death. He just hadn’t stuck around long enough to really see it. He’d pulled Spencer and Brendon, who were visiting him at work, down the stairs and into the basement and he hadn’t really seen anything.
Now, though, he was afraid his brief moment of sheltered sanity was going to end. This guy was broken and bleeding and possibly had recently been a little bit on fire, and Spencer was wiping his face with paper towel that had been wet by the few drops still clinging to the end of the hose in the janitor’s sink, and Ryan was afraid this complete stranger was going to die right in front of him.
He didn’t. The guy gasped and convulsed and Brendon clutched a little tighter. They heard a name, some garbled snatches of what might have been words but mostly the guy just flailed weakly and tried to sit up. The cleaned part of his face blanched and Ryan and Brendon crept closer until Ryan could bend down and rest his hand open against the heaving chest. Spencer gave one last wipe through the grit covering the guy’s face.
“Tom,” the guy whispered, through a voice that was raw and scratched.
Spencer shoved back against Ryan and they both knew it was Spencer language for back the fuck off.
“Hey, dude, don’t talk,” Spencer said.
Ryan watched as Spencer “took charge” and as the guy came down from whatever fear and pain-induced high he was probably riding. He watched and might have participated in the conversation they were having, although he didn’t think so, and in the back of his mind he ticked off another hour that passed with the beep of Spencer’s watch and wondered again how this guy had managed to get in here. He came back to the present when the guy went rigid at the mention of Chicago.
“Hey, hey, man, it’s ok.” That was Spencer. Brendon gasped into Ryan’s shoulder and just buried his face there. “Hey, ok, you need to breathe. Can you breathe?”
The guy didn’t respond, he just gasped a few more times, his eyes wide and his lip caught between his teeth so hard he was drawing blood.
“Dude, dude, you need to take a breath, here, I’ll breathe with you, ok. In-two-three-four. Out-two-three-four. In-two-three-four, out-two-three-four, that’s it, come on.”
Ryan watched as Spencer inched forward and edged behind the guy until he was curling around his back. Ryan knew what it felt like to be held like that, what it felt like to be surrounded by Spencer, to have his hands over Ryan’s heart and his chest against Ryan’s back. Ryan wanted it now, wanted it for himself.
“Chicago,” said the guy and Ryan felt the jealousy drain away at that broken sound. “Chicago fell.” Spencer hummed gentle sounds into the guy’s neck, against his somewhat tangled beard. Ryan might have heard a soothing “sh” but he wasn’t sure. “How did, how did it, I mean, what happened there?”
His eyes looked faded, like Ryan was looking at him through a filtered lens, like the colour had been bled out of him.
Spencer flexed his arm and curled himself more firmly around the guy before he answered. Ryan watched for a change in the guy’s facial expression when Spencer told him the whole fucking city caught on fire. He watched for some sort of reaction when Spencer told him even there were reports of stone burning and flames licking along the water.
There was nothing. His face didn’t change. He didn’t press back into Spencer’s embrace, nor did he pull out of it. He just closed his eyes, dropped his head and fell silent.
+++
Brendon wanted to pride himself on being the first to find out Jon’s name but at the moment he couldn’t justify any sort of positive emotion, especially one so selfish. “Pride is a sin, Brendon,” his mom used to say, and even thinking of that made his eyes want to well up with tears. As it was, Ryan was leaning against the door with his head thrown back and his neck exposed. His hand was still loosely resting on the little radio, even though they hadn’t been able to find anything - not even crazy religious people or that couple that was either having sex or killing themselves out of the morbid luxury of not being told not to. Ryan’s chest rose and fell softly, evenly and only occasionally a lone snore would slip out.
Spencer, too, had his eyes closed. His arms had fallen away from their protective hold around the guy’s - Jon’s - chest. He still had his legs on either side of Jon’s hips but one leg had dropped to the side and the other had slid out until it was flat along the ground. His head bobbed into Jon’s shoulder, causing a light rasping sound each time their facial hair brushed. Brendon couldn’t sleep. He was edgy and he couldn’t think about any one thing long enough to not think about it. His sister’s face flitted across his mind, before thinking that the Smoothie Hut would be angry at him for missing his shift. The blue bottle of window cleaner caught his eye and he visually traced the contours of the label, until his gaze dropped from the shelf to Jon and Spencer, where they were curled loosely together. Jon’s eyes were open.
“Hey, hey, hi.” Brendon wished he sounded calmer, sounded more sure of himself. He wished he sounded like Spencer, strong and in charge. His voice shook and he was afraid his greeting might have scared the guy right back into his weird rocking state he’d been in for probably two hours (not that Brendon had a watch).
“Oh, uh,” the guy said back and then he did this little thing with his mouth that might have been a smile, a lifetime ago. “Hi, um, Jon. Me, I’m… Jon. Hi.”
And Brendon hadn’t done anything more for him than Ryan had, and he did far less than Spencer had. Brendon just happened to be awake and happened to say hi. And he watched as Jon’s mouth did that little thing again and then faded into a sad little frown.
“Um, I’m Brendon.” Jon gave a little huff that might have been a laugh or might have been a sneeze. “You want to play Eye Spy?”
+++
Jon played a fierce game of Eye Spy. He kept spying little things that Brendon would never even notice, like the little dust bunny under the shelves or the fat spider wandering across the far wall. Brendon was never very good at the game to begin with and always chose obvious things like Spencer’s shoes or the mop hanging above the little janitor’s sink. He was being truly trounced at another round (“Eye Spy with my little eye something that is round.” “The bottle? The drain? You’re eyeball?” “Brendon, how can I see my own eyeball?”) when Ryan flinched, then flailed himself into wakefulness.
“Dude, it’s my fucking pocket watch,” he grumbled when Brendon guessed the light bulb. Brendon squirmed in his seat, letting his thumb rub absently against the seam of his jeans. His ass hurt from sitting on the floor for too long, and no matter how many times he shifted, he couldn’t find a comfortable position that didn’t make either his legs fall asleep or his knees ache.
“Oh,” Brendon said. Jon’s face had gone back to blank. Jon had livened up a little during the game, laughing when Brendon asked if something furry was Spencer’s “almost-beard” and even going so far as to mock-gloat when Brendon picked something too easy. Now, as Ryan turned his eyes to where Jon was still almost wrapped up in Spencer’s arm, Jon dropped his gaze to the floor and hunched his shoulders.
“His name is Jon,” Brendon said helpfully when Ryan didn’t do anything to break the silence.
“Jon,” said Ryan, as though testing it out in his mouth. “Jon.” He didn’t look too disappointed when Jon responded with only a tight smile and a little nod. “I’m Ryan. Spencer’s behind you. Have either of you tried the radio?”
Brendon shook his head. He’d been afraid to. What if there was still nothing? Worse, what if there was something but it was worse than everything they’d ever heard. Ryan flipped the switch and Brendon held his breath. The empty airwaves sounded through the speakers, a little cracking buzz that said the radio was receiving but had nothing to report.
+++
Jon extracted himself from Spencer between the time Ryan had bitched at Brendon for “fucking wiggling too fucking much oh my god” and the time Brendon had actually stopped wiggling and had instead finally fallen asleep wrapped as far around Ryan’s thin frame as he could get. Jon felt some disconnected satisfaction that Brendon was finally sleeping. His eyes were getting that bruised appearance underneath and his mouth kept turning down at the corners whenever he wasn’t trying to smile at Jon. It didn’t occur to Jon that if Brendon looked that tired, he himself couldn’t be that much better.
The nauseating pain from when he first woke up had receded to a faint tingling along his spine as though he was humming with electricity. His head was still a little sore and when he stood up for the first time in what had to have been over a day, he tilted dizzyingly until he managed to grab a hold of the shelf to right himself.
Spencer grunted once and drew his now empty arms around himself. The fingers of his right hand closed over air and he twisted his head until his cheek almost pressed against the cool concrete of the wall. He looked almost innocent like that, in sleep. Jon studied him: he hadn’t had much of a chance before Spencer took up position behind him. His beard was patchier than Jon’s, and finer. It was shorter too and was probably the growth of about a week (because he’s probably been trapped down here for that long, Jon’s brain supplied). Ryan and Brendon both had slight beards too although Ryan’s was barely there and Brendon’s appeared scruffier and somehow more innocent than Spencer’s.
Spencer’s mouth hung open in his awkward position and he was making soft little snuffling noises on each inhale. His t-shirt was pale blue, stretched across his chest in a way that emphasized the baby fat still clinging around his middle. He looked so young.
A little whimper from Brendon and Ryan’s corner broke the moment and Jon knelt down beside the radio. The little on switch was easy to find and when Jon flipped it, the same nothing hummed along the airwaves. He clicked it off and snapped open the pocket watch that was sitting beside it. The time read five forty-five but Jon didn’t know if that was morning or evening. The little date counter was off by about three months and he sighed in frustration. On the upside, the muffled thuds that had sometimes rocked the walls had finally died down and Jon was certain he hadn’t heard one in over an hour. He didn’t want to know what was causing them, didn’t want to know what impossibly, insane event had taken down Las Vegas.
“I’m hungry,” a voice behind him said and when he turned, Spencer’s eyes - blue, too, too blue - were peering up at him. “You’re probably worse. You did lose your lunch on my shoes.”
Jon wavered. He wasn’t sure if he had offended Spencer by moving, or if maybe Spencer thought he’d freak out again. He wasn’t going to - not that he was okay with everything that had happened. And how had he ended up in Vegas anyway? And why the fuck was Tom not with him? The time for panic attacks was passed and now it was just a dull worry that gnawed away at his insides.
“I guess…I haven’t really noticed.”
Spencer nodded and patted the ground beside him. “Come sit. You look dead on your feet.”
“I, uh. Yeah, I guess I kind of am.”
Spencer smiled up at him, but the smile never reached his eyes. He patted the ground again when Jon still hadn’t made a move to sit and finally Jon just collapsed on the ground beside him.
Spencer didn’t touch him beyond reaching up and squeezing his shoulder.
“I’m Spencer,” he said in lieu of any further physical contact. Jon nodded.
“Jon,” he said to his knees. “Uh, I. I don’t know what day it is, anymore. I lost count.”
Spencer didn’t say anything. He tapped out a slow measured beat against his thigh. In the space above his shoes and where his jeans had ridden up, Jon could make out little purple unicorns on his socks. He didn’t comment. He didn’t feel surprised, didn’t feel like he should be surprised.
“What day was it when you, you know. Arrived. Here.”
Jon paused, counted out the beats. It was three-four time. Jon itched to play something. He wanted to feel the strings of a guitar beneath his fingers, moving to Spencer’s steady tempo. Instead he counted back in his head. The reports of the British Isles almost completely disappearing beneath the waters of a freak hurricane had woke him up on Tuesday morning. And yeah, it was sad and kind of alarming, but other than that, it was just another news story pouring out of his clock radio. By Tuesday evening, Africa had literally split in two and Australia had somehow drifted two hundred kilometres toward the South Pole. Tom had shown up at his apartment on Wednesday night claiming with a droll expression that the apocalypse was nigh and it was their duty to “get as stoned as fucking possible, dude. Once in a lifetime opportunity!”
They woke up Thursday afternoon, hung over and still slightly buzzing from too much alcohol and weed. There were screams outside his window. He had kept studious count of the days after that, counting the morning news reports of gnat swarms miles in diameter and all the water in Mexico City freezing solid. He and Tom buried themselves in the blankets of his bed and watched with wide eyes as the clock ticked off the minutes. They listened over the hushed noise of their breaths to the radio as it told them of all the things that shouldn’t be happening. It was Saturday morning that they hauled the comforter, a backpack full of water bottles and granola bars and the rest of Jon’s alcohol supply into the laundry room in the basement of his building. A few of the neighbours were already gathered there, huddled in groups. Some had their heads bent in prayers. Others just had their heads bent for no reason at all. There was one radio sitting atop the second drier, although the news casts were getting less coherent. One station had stopped broadcasting. The city was already trembling. The people were panicking.
Sunday passed with the drone of the radio and Tom’s arms circled tightly around his waist in an embrace they rarely allowed past the bedroom door, let alone in public. “Scared Jonny,” Tom had told him Sunday night.
“We’re okay,” Jon had reassured him when Sunday turned into Monday and the radio station they had on fell into silence. Someone got up to change the station and had to scroll past a bunch of stations before they found one that was still broadcasting. Jon fell asleep in the early morning with Tom pressed tightly against him.
He woke up confused and too hot. Screams were echoing around him and Tom’s nails were digging into his arms. The laundry room was too bright and when Jon’s eyes finally focused he discovered why. Tom didn’t scream as the wall of flame closed in on them. Jon didn’t either, he just curled his fingers around Tom’s wrist and said “Well, it’s been fun. I think now’s a good time to tell you I accidentally came all over your t-shirt I borrowed last summer and had to throw it out.” Tom huffed out a laugh that simmered in the heat and he clutched at Jon’s legs.
“I liked that shirt, asshole,” he said back and the flames licked at his foot.
Nothing after that made much sense to Jon’s mind. He was aware of pain and heat and swirling colours and Tom’s terrified howl. He knew Tom was slipping from his grasp and that he was moving, flying, spinning through the air in a dizzying free-fall.
Jon shook his head to clear the image of losing Tom and looked at Spencer. “Monday. It was Monday.”
Spencer nodded. “We’ve been trying to keep count but we lost track. I think it’s Tuesday night right now.” He slowed his beat, started another one, quarter time this time and Jon watched as Spencer’s foot gave an occasional twitch as though joining in on the rhythm. “Or maybe it’s Wednesday morning. Can’t tell.”
Jon looked across the room at the horizontal lines of the cinderblocks that made up the wall. There were cracks feathering up from the floor and down from the ceiling, possibly more than the first time he’d looked but he couldn’t be sure. Ryan sighed in his sleep and twisted against Brendon who curled his fingers tighter in Ryan’s scarves.
“Do you think it’s over yet?”
Spencer didn’t answer for the longest time. When he did, his beat changed again to something slower, punctuated with little flutters of his eyelashes. “There were boulders,” he said instead of answering the question. “Fucking boulders and they just kept falling. The radio said it was hail after that. And then all the water fucking boiled. All of it.”
Jon blinked. Spencer stared at him for a moment before turning away and speaking at his knees. “If it’s over, it probably means there’s nothing left up there. And then what does it even matter?”
+++
Spencer had set up his watch to beep every hour. His mother rolled her eyes at him and the twins teased him for being too punctual. It was good now though because it was a constant reminder that time was passing, no matter how much it seemed to be frozen, broken. Ryan and Brendon were just waking, uncurling from each other and yawning. Brendon hummed in his throat and smacked his lips.
“I could really go for a really huge espresso,” he said when he caught sight of Spencer watching him. “Dude, I’m so parched.”
Ryan nodded his agreement and twisted until he could reach the taps of the little janitor’s sink. Spencer saw Brendon tense. He wanted to do the same but he knew they couldn’t go without water for too much longer, and if it was still boiling in the taps then they might as well just give up now. Jon, in his place pressed shoulder to elbow along Spencer’s side, didn’t react at all. Monday, he had arrived on Monday and had missed the terrifying moment when Ryan tried to take a drink from the hose only to be hit with steam. The metal tap had been too hot to turn off with their bare hands and Spencer had to wrap one of Ryan’s scarves around his palm so he didn’t get burned.
They held their breath when Ryan twisted the little metal knob, when a bare little trickle seeped into the basin. It didn’t steam. It didn’t bubble against the drain. It was clear and when Spencer reached a timid hand forward to let his fingers dip into the stream, it was cool against his skin.
“Fuck,” he breathed and shoved his whole hand under.
“Fuck,” he heard Ryan echo before the hose was taken away and held up for Brendon to take a drink. It was passed to Jon next who tipped his head hesitantly under the spray. He got the angle wrong the first time and the water trickled down his chin and onto his shirt. Brendon let out a high-pitched giggle that had Jon smiling softly and readjusting his face to get his mouth under the water. He only stopped drinking when he choked a little and Brendon laughed at him again.
Ryan offered the hose to Spencer next but Spencer shook his head and waited until Ryan was finished. When the wet finally hit his tongue, after everyone else was done, Spencer realized for the first time exactly how dry his mouth had gotten. The water hurt his stomach, pressing against the inside and reminding him how painfully empty it really was. When he finally moved away and Brendon reclaimed the hose for a second drink, Spencer could hear the water swishing around inside his own stomach.
Ryan was watching him. Brendon reached across him to hand the hose back to Jon, and Ryan just moved his head so their eye contact wasn’t broken.
“Yeah,” Spencer said at last. Jon looked at him curiously. Brendon twisted off the water and the silence swallowed Spencer’s words. “Yeah, okay. I guess it’s time. We can. Yeah.”
+++
Brendon was clutching at him again and Ryan turned his body until Brendon could get a better hold of his arm. They were both trembling. Behind them, Jon hovered, as far away from the door as he could get. He’d washed his face in the sink, watching the soot swirl in little black ringlets against the dirty grey bottom of the basin. He had been silent when he rubbed the paper towel against his cheek and chin and nose until his skin was shiny pink. The neck of his tattered t-shirt was wet and he had perspiration stains under his arms. Ryan didn’t have to look at him to know he was trembling too.
Spencer placed his left hand flat against the door, as though testing it. His eyes were closed, his face calm. Ryan wanted to touch him, comfort him the way Spencer would do for him but he knew this was one time when his touch would be worse than the absence of it. He waited. The watch on Spencer’s wrist beeped the hour. The pocket watch said it was seven o-clock. It also said it was the seventh of January which it clearly wasn’t but whatever, the date thing was broken before he picked it up at the thrift shop so it totally wasn’t his fault.
“Ready?” Spencer asked and rested his forehead against the metal of the door and twisted his head to look back over his shoulder at the other three. Brendon’s eyes were impossibly round behind his glasses. Jon let out a shuddering breath.
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Do it.”
+++
It was dark in the hallway. There was one spot just near the door to the stairs that a pile of rubble kind of blocked their way, but they scrambled over it with only a lightly skinned knee on Brendon’s part and a tear in Jon’s jeans catching on a sharp edge and ripping further. The door at the top of the stairs was gone and when they peered up, they were met with a dusky sort of half light. It wasn’t much better at the top. A huge boulder sat where the cash register used to sit, right where Ryan usually sat and read his magazines. The glass from the front windows was blown in all except for the last panel which had the last few letters of the store name curling across it. The instruments at the front were covered with shattered glass. One of the bins of discount sheet music was scorched but not decimated. The sky was the fiery orange of sunrise. It was a new day.
Chapter Two
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