Wendy from Accounting

*

             There wasn’t much time. There was never much time anymore. Everything was fast now. Quick. Lightning speed. It was the thing that got you killed if you didn’t realize it—that you had to watch your six or you wouldn’t make it. It was the thing that got everybody killed. Except her. It hadn’t killed her.

             “Not yet,” she breathed, leaping from the tree branch above and falling down, knife in hand, onto the boar. The knife went in fast, easy, with the finesse of a professional huntress. She pulled her elbow in quick, making the kill before the boar so much as whined.

             Just as fast, she was up and dragging the boar away to a safer location where she could prepare it and cook. She had a place.

             It was a heaved roll to get the hundred-pound boar onto the rig she’d constructed, but it was much easier to drag a hundred pound animal when it was lying on flat boards. Plus, it didn’t leave a trail for anyone to follow. She’d learned this in her first week. How long ago had that been now?

             Wendy shook her head, knowing it was useless to try to keep track of days and weeks. She’d known it from the start. When she’d first set out, it had been important to her, in a sense, to keep notches, keep track. She’d carved them into bark daily for forty-four days. On day forty-five, though, she stopped. This wasn’t a world where you could stay in one place for forty-five days. It wasn’t a world where you should stay for five. It was a kill or be killed world, now, a long way off from Accounting.

             Sometimes she missed her cubicle. She missed John from Finance. She missed Cary at Reception. She missed the instrumental covers of eighties songs that played on a loop through rusted speakers day in and day out. She missed the dreaded phone calls about audits and the monotonous entering of data, keeping up with trends, expenditures, and tax breaks.

She missed Kitty, her best friend. She missed her laugh, the way her nose scrunched up when she didn’t like something, the way she always remembered to ask her how she was, could sense the subtle changes in her voice. Just okay? She’d ask, suspicious. I’m coming over. We’re getting lunch.

She missed lunch.

Wendy’s muscles squeezed under the weight of the boar. She shifted her weight, pushed her body forward, and began to engage her legs. Muscles she’d never possessed as an accountant bulged with each stride, flexing and shifting as she pulled and pushed the earth beneath her. Her stomach growled, and she swallowed down the hunger pains, telling them soon. Almost there.

The cave opening lie just ahead, mountainside, concealed by rocks and brush Wendy had strategically placed. No one had discovered her yet, and she’d been here several nights in a row now. The length of time made her anxious. If she stayed too long she’d want to put in notches, build a firepit, mix cob and construct a mud hut. She knew how. She’d watched enough videos—before. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Inside the cave, she had found an opening large enough to allow for smoke to vent, and here was where she made fires. It was a simple set up. Civilization was dead, but trees still burned. So did cardboard and fabric and brush. She had gotten good at keeping fires going. She had gotten good at gathering combustible material. She had gotten good at looting businesses long abandoned and escaping unscathed. She had gotten good at this life, lonely as it was.

The knife she used to prepare the boar had come from the same hunting and camping supply store that the fire-starter had come from. Both had been invaluable to her survival. Just as soon as she began to slice off pieces of meat, she began to cook them over the fire. Time was limited, she’d found, especially when there was the smell of fresh meat in the air. Office politics didn’t apply out here. No hungry bear cared whether the yogurt had your name on it, and it would not be the first time she’d have to defend herself from a hungry bear.  

Once half the boar was cooked, Wendy finally sat down and took a break. She was starving. It had been three days since she’d eaten anything other than dandelions and acorns, and her muscles were weak and shaky.

The meat was surprisingly good considering the primitive nature she had to prepare it in. She had acquired a backpack that contained all she owned in the world, and in it she kept seasoning for such occasions as this. It helped. It wasn’t Oliver’s on Sixteenth, but it helped.

For defense, Wendy carried a crossbow, a hatchet, and six throwing knives. She had spent hundreds of hours practicing with all three weapons and could hit a target fifteen feet away with her eyes shut—not that she would ever brag about it. It was simply what this world required. This new world where everyone she’d ever loved was gone.

It didn’t do much good to think about it, but it was also all anyone would be able to think about given similar circumstances. And just as she was sure anyone might do, Wendy sat in front of her fire where she roasted the rest of the wild, tusked pig deep into the night, and recounted the events that did this—all of it. That destroyed the world.

*

             “Wendy? Wendy, did you see the news?” It was John from Finance. Handsome John. The one who smiled at her when she talked and made her blush. The one who emphasized words in a way that made them sound dirty.

             “I’ll check it after I finish the Straub account,” Wendy replied.

             “You need to look now. Come here. Wendy, now,” he was urgent, which was odd. John was not an urgent guy. It made her get up and move, made her heart beat too fast. She felt flushed, anxious.

             “What’s wrong?” she was beside him now, standing at his desk. She crouched down, her hands gripping the edge of the wood to stay balanced on her heels. It was a video of an explosion—a massive mushroom cloud pluming out after a devastating eruption. “What is this?”

             “It’s Washington,” John was choked up. “It’s gone. They nuked it.”

             “What? Who nuked it? What do you mean?”

             “The whole place, the whole East Coast—gone. Obliterated or choked out by ash or radiation. They don’t know who. Everyone’s blaming everyone—China, Russia, Korea—it’s all over the world. Half our country’s gone, Wendy,” he turned and gripped her shoulders. He squeezed too tight, staring into her eyes, searching.

             “What will we do?” Wendy whispered, wincing under his grip. He loosened his hands.

             The building shook then and screams began to erupt around them. John reached for Wendy and they held each other through the blast, plates of glass bursting into dust, cinder block being ripped apart, beams bending, the roof crumbling, light fixtures popping. Wendy and John were under his desk. She remembered when he got it. How excited he was.

             “It’s made of walnut, Wendy! I’ve always wanted a desk like this, isn’t it great? Ha, Walnut Wendy.”

             “Don’t you dare start calling me that,” she put her hands on her hips as she stood up and admired the desk. It really was nice. “It’s beautiful, John,” she’d told him, and he’d beamed.

             Now they were under it, the world collapsing around them.

             “John, I’m scared,” she pressed her mouth to his ear so he’d hear her. She had to yell over the chaos.

             “I’ll keep you safe,” he told her, and pulled her head against his chest, shielding her. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

             Wendy closed her eyes on the memory of John’s arms around her. He’d been the reason she’d survived, just as he’d promised. His body had blocked the debris from hitting Wendy, but he—tears streamed down her cheeks as she remembered waking up after being knocked unconscious. The building had been reduced to dust. His body was on top of hers, his arms wrapped protectively around her. She had to pry him off. For a long time she didn’t. For a long time she just laid there, staying in his arms. She’d thought that maybe she’d wake up and he’d be okay. That someone would come and tell her he was alright. That his head hadn’t been impaled with shards of concrete. She laid there until his skin went cold and gray. Until the air cleared of ash and she heard jets overhead.

             “I’m sorry,” she kissed him before leaving, fleeing. She’d had no choice, but still she felt guilty. Paratroopers were being deployed. She had to get out or be captured—become a prisoner of war. It didn’t seem real. None of it did.

             John was dead. Cary. Kitty. They were all dead. All of them. Everyone she’d ever known.

             Wendy raised her flask of dandelion wine and drank to all of them. She drank to Simmons Legal Executive Branch, Pittsburgh Division. She drank to bowling on Thursdays and Mimosas on Sundays. She drank until the dandelion wine was gone and she heard the heavy padfoot of a large mammal enter the cave.

She wished she was in line at the supermarket behind an old lady with coupons.

A low growl echoed all around the walls, reverberating.

She wished she was stuck in gridlock traffic that wouldn’t move for hours.

A huge figure illuminated by firelight, a massive adult, male brown bear.

She wished she was stuck at home with the stomach flu while all her friends got to go to a party.

The bear noticed her. A low growl rumbled from its belly.

She loaded the crossbow.

The bear lifted its front legs and slammed them back down, promising an angry charge if she didn’t disappear immediately.

Her fingers found the trigger.

The bear bounded over the fire, ignoring the embers that it trailed across the cave floor. A roar echoing from its belly, ominous and otherworldly as it surrounded them both.

She fired.

She missed.

The bear lunged, but she was on her feet.

The knife was kept strapped to her leg and she had it in moments, the crossbow cast aside.

The bear came toward her, bellowing—all teeth and claws and muscle—hurtling at breakneck speed in the tiny space of the cave.

Wendy braced herself, knowing she might not make it. Knowing this was the moment—the make or break moment that would decide whether she lived or died.

The bear bounded down in front of her, landing briefly before propelling itself into a single and final lunge. This was it. Wendy dove to the side just as the bear attacked and narrowly missed the swipe of claw against her cheek. She sprinted toward the opening of the cave, pulling down the makeshift roof she’d constructed at the entrance so the bear would be temporarily trapped.

It would only be a matter of time before the bear would escape, but she’d be long gone by then. She had to be. There was never much time to hang any place too long. Never much time to mourn. Never much time. But she was alive. She was free.