The Blizzard

The Blizzard

Drinks at nine. It was supposed to be simple, drinks at nine. 

[8:30pm]

As half past eight rolled around Kristen was in the middle of getting ready to go clubbing with her friend, her only friend, Melonie. She put on her shortest black dress and finished off her makeup with a bold red-lip. After staring at herself in the mirror for a good minute, the vanity lights making her pale skin glow, Kristen turned off the bathroom light and exited the room. She grabbed her clutch purse from her nightstand. Crossing to the door of her one room apartment she threw on her black blazer and some strappy heels. She closed her apartment door behind her and set off down a long flight of stairs to the lobby. 

“Going out tonight, miss?” the doorman called to her.

“Obviously,” Kristen replied coolly.

“Of course, miss. Just be a little careful, heard there’s a nasty snow storm coming in later tonight,”

“Sure, whatever,” she replied absentmindedly, her eyes glued to her phone screen.

The cold December wind nipped furiously at Kristen’s exposed skin, making her dress stick to her legs and chills go down her spine. She hurriedly hailed the nearest taxi and hopped in. Instantly she could feel the warmth of the car spread throughout her body. It was as if she had just slid under a warm blanket.  

“New York is cold tonight isn’t it?” said a gruff voice. Kristen looked up and met the eyes of her taxi driver in the rearview mirror. 

“I suppose so,”

“Did you happen to hear about the storm coming later tonight, wicked one they say,”

“Yeah, I guess I did hear something about that….”

And with that their conversation ended and they headed off down the busy streets. 

But there was a small ounce of worry that was building up inside of her. After all this was the second time tonight someone had brought the storm that was supposedly coming their way. She quickly reassured herself that it was nothing and shook the feeling off. 

After ten minutes they arrived at the bar. Kristen quickly paid and thanked her driver and headed inside. At once she could see Melonie’s face staring out over the crowd of people looking for her. Melonie was wearing an olive colored body-con dress with ruching on the sides. Melonie had a slim nose, small lips, medium length blonde hair and, like Kristen, green eyes. Although her eyes had a hint of blue unlike Kristen’s. With a small smile on her face, Kristen headed off in Melonie’s direction. They decided to sit at the bar and talk. Several Vodka martinis and a lot of gossip later Kristen was pretty drunk. As half past ten came Melonie looked at her phone and said,

“It’s from Micheal, he wants me to come home apparently the kids woke up and want to know where I am. And….”

“And what?” Kristen replied, a little miffed that their drinking session was about to end. 

“And he’s a little worried. Apparently there’s a nasty snow storm coming to Buffalo tonight and it's already starting to snow outside.”

Kristen, who was starting to lose control of her fine motor skills, floppily turned her head towards the bar door. Sure enough pure white snow white was steadily falling from the dark sky and there already was a light dusting on the sidewalk outside the door. 

“Whatever, go home to your stupid kids,” Kristen said mumbling the last part of the sentence. 

“What did you just say?” Melonie, who had only had water, was very sober  and now very pissed.

“I saaaid gohome to’ya stuuupidkids. Those thingssuck theliifeoutta you. Thank God I’m neverrrr having those ruuugerrats,” Kristen said louder, her words slurring slightly.

“Fine! I will! And I think it’s time you went home too. I’m calling you a cab,” Melonie replied hotly. 

‘NO!,” Kristen said as she knocked Melonie’s phone out of her hand.

“Immawalk home,”she said as she slammed a wad of cash on the table to pay for the drinks. Before Melonie could stop her Kristen hopped out of her stool and stumbled out of the bar and into the cold night. Instantly regretting her decision as the temperature was below freezing. She decided to take refuge in the Supermarket across the street from the bar. 

After nearly getting run over by a passing taxi and sliding on a piece of ice Kristen finally made inside the store. While the temperature had improved greatly once inside the store, her attitude however had not. Kristen stumbled into aisle 17, the wine and spirits aisle. She saw just what she was looking for. Holding onto the aisle shelf to keep herself upright, she swiped the nearest bottle of booze. She broke the seal of the bottle, throwing the cap across the linoleum floor with a soft ping. Without any further thought she started guzzling the contents of the bottle. Her throat burned but she didn’t care.

“Uh, ma’am? Ma’am!,” Kristen turned to see a concerned looking store worker staring at her in astonishment. 

“Whatzdamatter?”she slurred back

“You, you have to pay for that,”

“Smerkoff man”

“I’m going to go get my manager”

“Like Hell you are!”

She turned back towards the shelf and picked up another bottle. She tilted her head back as she began to down that one too. 

“Woah headrush” she muttered. 

Just then the employee came back with his manager. 

“Ma’am you must pay for those, and I think you should go home. We’ll call you a-Woah there ma’am”

Kristen had just limply slumped forward and had lost balance. The half empty bottles of alcohol swung dangerously near the ground. The manager and the employee dived to help stabilize her. They each took a hold of one of her arms, hoisting her up by the armpits, they began to steer her towards the end of the aisle. Their voices began to fade. Black was starting to creep near the corners of her vision. Kristen’s body went completely limp; she hit the floor with a smack bringing the manager and the employee down with her. Everything went black. 

[5:00am]

It was cold. Everything was cold. The next thing Kristen could sense was a throbbing throughout her whole body. She blearily opened her eyes. This was a mistake. The minute she opened her eyes a splitting pain went through her head. It felt as if someone had driven an icepick through her forehead. The pain rippled throughout her skull. 

“Ow,”She groaned

She sleepily rubbed eyes and could feel crud slip out of them. With her other arm she pushed herself up into a semi sitting position. Looking through as little of her eyelids as little possible she stared around her. The sight alone was enough to make her eyes bug out, sending another flash of blinding pain through her forehead. She was lying on the floor of a Supermarket, completely alone. There were two bottles of alcohol lying next to her, their contents entirely on the floor and her legs. She stank of alcohol. As she sat up all the way she ran her hand over her head and could feel a lump on her left side near her hairline. She had clearly hit her head last night. The light above her flickered ominously. Kristen pushed herself to her feet, which were red and swollen from her heels. 

“I knew these shoes were a bad idea,”she said darkly as she bent down and freed her feet from their strappy black cages. 

That was when she realized that half of the store was in total darkness. She grabbed up her purse and pulled out her phone. Turning on her phone flashlight, she cautiously walked towards the darkness. The motion centers did not work and the lights did not turn on. There was a scuttling noise coming from the inky black. 

“Who's there?”she exclaimed. She quickly started backing away into the lit part of the store.

 When she was within twenty feet of the main door she turned and broke into a run towards the door, narrowly avoiding crashing straight into them. Her heart sank right outside the set of glass doors was a wall of white up to her waist. Snow and wind howled outside the wind. The little storm that she had written off had turned into a full fledged blizzard. She was completely snowed in. Kristen sunk down to the floor.

“The phone lines!” She thought desperately. “Maybe I can call Melonie,” She pulled out her phone. No service. “Shit, the phone lines must be down…”

For how long she sat there staring blanking she didn’t know. She was completely mentally frozen, and if she didn’t act fast she would be frozen physically too. The store’s backup generator would eventually fizzle out. Kristen willed herself off the ground. She needed to collect supplies and goods from the store if she had a chance of surviving. After mentally compiling a list Kristen began to walk around the store swiping things off the shelves left and right. Arms filled with: packets of food, water, booze, wet wipes, and a stapler. The last thing she needed was some towels from the dish aisle. She could staple those together to make a blanket for warmth. The only problem was she couldn’t see where the dish aisle was. Everywhere that was lit by the remaining light contained something else. 

“Don’t tell me…” She muttered to herself. 

Tentatively she turned her phone flashlight in the direction of the blacked-out part of the store. She slowly began to walk into the darkness letting it swallow her whole. In the light of the flashlight she could just make out the signs hanging about the aisles. Ah hah! There it was! Aisle 26: Dishes, Towels and Glasses. She turned right and headed down that aisle. Her confidence started to grow. Quickly she grabbed the entire stack of Maroon hand towels. She hoped it would be enough to cover at least most of her. 

“Hah, see this isn’t so bad…”That’s when she heard it. The same scuttling noise she had heard earlier. Except this time it was closer. Much, much closer. She wheeled around in the darkness. She pointed her phone left and right at the shelves. Then up and then finally down. On the floor was a face. A human face. 

“Ahhhhhhh!”Kristen screamed. 

Her yell echoing eerily throughout the store. Its eyes opened. 

“Oh my God it’s alive!” And that’s when she got a clearer view of its face. It wasn’t a bodiless human face it was worse. Much worse. It was a baby. A human baby just lying abandoned on the store floor. 

“Oh gross,” Kristen said, her usual demeanor coming back to her. The baby began to wail loud angry sobs.

 “Oh great just what I need. A wailing baby.” Its screams were getting louder and louder. 

“Oh shut up would you? Shush! STOP. SCREAMING!” This only made things worse. “Oh for Pete's sake”. 

Cringing Kristen bent down and picked up the baby, awkwardly trying to cradle it in her arms. She slowly began to bounce up and down like she had seen Melonie do with her kids. It worked. After a few minutes the baby stopped wailing and fell asleep. Kristen tried lowering the baby to the ground again but the baby woke up. She tried again, no use. Resigned, she shifted all the towels into her left arm and the baby into the right. Slowly she headed back to where the rest of her things were. She sat down and got to work on her makeshift blanket. It was at this point that she noticed the baby was shivering with nothing but a thin blue blanket to keep it warm. 

“Should I give it my blanket?” She wondered 

“Wait no it could hurt itself on a staple!”

“Why did I think that? Since when have I been so concerned about kids and their wellbeing?”

Kristen slid off her blazer a rush of icy cold spilling over her. She carefully wrapped the baby in it. Hastily she set the baby back down and finished her blanket. It was very thin but it was better than nothing. As she looked up at the ceiling she could see more of the aisle lights had gone out and more had started to flicker or grow dim. The baby stirred occasionally but for the most part remained peaceful. Periodically Kristen checked her phone to see if any cell phone tower was available. Each attempt was unsuccessful. 

Throughout the day she would venture out of their aisle from time to time to grab more food or water. Around 5:00pm all the lights except the one over aisle 17 had gone out. Wanting to preserve battery life Kristen had spent most of her time that day in thought or taking care of the baby. She thought about Melonie and her family, hoping they were all alright. She thought about the fight they had and how she was in the wrong. She thought about all her coworkers she couldn’t be bothered to get to know, she regretted not trying to know them better. She thought about her mom and how she wasn’t nurturing and patient like her. Slowly throughout the day the baby had grown on her. For once she didn’t mind the little “gah” noises babies make. She noticed how chocolaty brown its eyes were. 

Around 7:30pm the light above them started to flicker more often. Kristen fed the baby some apple sauce and rocked it to sleep again. She held the baby in her arms and drew her knees to her chest for warmth. What little heating they had at the beginning of the day was gone. She wrapped the blanket around both of them like a poncho. Her breath rose in pearly mist in front of her. Shivering she watched as little by little the light above them went dim and eventually dead. Kristen turned on her phone flashlight. It wasn’t much but it was something. There was still no service and it looked as though they were going to be stuck there for the night. 8:30 came quickly, twenty-four hours ago she was getting ready to go out. 

“How could things have gone so wrong?” She thought to herself. Her phone was starting to die. Half past nine came, 5% battery life was left on her phone and Kristen’s feet were starting to go numb from cold. 

“Please let us live through this,” She thought desperately “Or at least one of us… let it be the baby if it’s only one. I know I messed up a lot in my life. I know I’m not a pleasant person, I deserve this. But this kid doesn’t” 

For the first time in her life Kristen didn’t think of only herself. She saw her phone battery go from five to four to three, two then 1%. At ten her phone finally died plunging them into total darkness. The baby’s slow breathing and its weight in her arms were the only things she could sense. 

“If I get out of this alive, I’ll change. I’ll be a better person. I’ll be nicer, get to know my coworkers and be a better friend to Melonie. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a kid.”

And with that last thought, Kristen closed her eyes and fell fast asleep.