Wasted World | Episode 2

and keep them safe… more than you ever did for me.
I looked out for you more than you’ll ever know. I’m still looking out for you. There’s a way out of this, Angie… you’re just too dumb and stubborn to take it.
Angela didn’t answer her stepfather, and she didn’t say anything else to the family of four. She waved goodbye instead and the twins followed her along the curving exit road towards the half-collapsed string of hotels to their right.
“You think they’ll find them?” Amanda asked.
“Find who?”
“Their grandparents.”
“Maybe.” They probably wouldn’t, and if they did, Angela figured the little girls would likely be disappointed.
The first hotel had been a Hilton, Angela could tell by the massive collapsed H sitting atop the rubble blocking the front entrance. They went past it; Angela had never stayed at a Hilton in her life—she couldn’t afford it on her secretarial wage, and she had no one to travel with, and nowhere to go. The Sandman, Edward the mechanical whiz had said. Lots of food and plenty of mattresses. The three walked another quarter mile, past two more hotels until they came to the Sandman. The sign was still attached to the building, the trademark green letters looked almost a sick, dull purple against the backdrop of grey sky beyond.
“I don’t want to go there,” Amanda said. “It looks scary.”
“They all look scary,” her brother added, pointing back down the silent street.
“We don’t have to stay long,” Angela said. “We’ll have a few decent meals and see how we feel about it in a couple of days, okay?” The kids didn’t answer. They could see someone standing under the front, pacing slowly back and forth with a rifle in his hands. He was wearing one of those oxygen masks, the kind with the big round reflective eye covers. It was the protective head covering people wore in those post-apocalyptic zombie movies the kids said they’d seen on television, Angela thought. “One meal and one night,” she whispered as they approached the man.
“Hold it right there,” he called out when they were still over forty feet away. “Where are you coming from and what’s your business here?”
Our business? Why we’re travelling sales people and we’ve driven over a thousand miles to attend a shower curtain manufacturing conference. We’re very tired and we would appreciate your quietest room with a view of the planes landing and taking off if possible.
No need to be a smart-ass. The man’s just doing his job.
“A family back down the road said there was a shelter set up here, that there’s food and a place to sleep.”
The man eyed them up and down through those expressionless, flat glass eyes. “Where did the kids get those clothes? We’re they stolen?”
Angela looked at the expensive brand-name jackets and shirts. Michael’s were a good fit, but the hoody Amanda was wearing was a few sizes too big. The bottom of it hung past her bum. There were price tags and materials stickers still attached to most of them. “We’ve been sleeping outdoors and in vehicles for the last few nights. We needed… I wanted the children to stay warm. The clothes came from a shopping center.”
“Meaning you didn’t pay for them.”
The city had been nuked. Ninety per cent of the people living there were already dead. Why were the survivors so obsessed with stolen clothes? “We couldn’t pay for them. There was no one left to attend us, and I left my purse in the crater of what was once my office.”
You be careful, girl. The guy’s holding a rifle and he’s wearing an end-of-the-frigging-world helmet. Keep shooting your mouth off, and he’ll blow your head clean off your shoulders.
Angela didn’t care. She was sick of strange men frightening her, and she was sicker of the one in her brain telling her what to do. “Are you going to let us in or not?”
The man lowered his weapon and removed the oxygen mask. A mop of blond hair fell out and he was grinning widely. “Sorry about that.” He was young, probably not yet twenty, and his eyes were kind. “Marie’s making me ask all the people that come here these stupid questions.” He placed the mask down at his feet and left the rifle laying there as well. “Not even sure why she makes me wear that thing. It’s not like it’s going to keep the radiation from seeping in through my skin.”
Amanda spoke up. “Maybe it’s supposed to make you look scarier, you know, to stop bad people from coming too close.”
“I guess it could be something like that.” He held his hand out and Amanda shook it after a few hesitant moments. “I’m Cory Walker… used to run luggage back and forth from the guest rooms.”
“I’m Angela.” She didn’t see the need to provide last names any more. “This is Amanda and Michael. How many survivors are there inside, and who’s Marie?”
“There’s maybe sixty people down below, and Marie Hodgkin is my boss. She was the hotel manager on duty when it happened. No one’s come to relieve her since, so she’s still in charge. Real hard-ass, too, so the place is in good hands. She told me to watch for folks wearing new clothes and carrying expensive things. Last thing we need is a bunch of looters staying.”
“We’re not looters,” Michael spoke up defensively.
“Nah, of course you aren’t… you know what I mean. We’re not stopping families or kids, or anything like that, just keeping an eye out for gangs and stuff.”
It had been less than a week and already people were preparing for roaming gangs. Angela shouldn’t have been all that surprised. She had already fended off a rape and attempted murder. Civilized society had broken up and vanished at approximately the same rate of speed as the bomb’s destructive wave. “We’re