Heart Sick

My legs, warm and slightly pinker than normal from the July sun, were sprawled out before me in the sand. It was a pleasant sand, much unlike the bayou mud I’d grown accustomed to in my many trips to Galveston. These tiny pearls of glass shook off easily as I stood up to go grab another bottle of sugar-free fruity vodka masquerading as a bottle of water. Despite smuggling enough liquor here to make a Kennedy blush, I was at least trying to avoid breaking the rule about glass bottles at this beach.

This beach-- the one my husband and I had waited so long to enjoy on our first vacation together ever, our honeymoon-- had to stay glass-free for migratory birds and the feet of fellow beachgoers. We finally had the money and means to have our kids and dogs managed for two weeks while we enjoyed some of the best views and weather the planet had to offer. I was not going to ruin our honeymoon with foreign fines and possible jail time for glass bottles which could be easily swapped out for plastic ones; my husband, ever the risk-taker, had insisted on hiding the glass bottles in a bag and mixing our drinks on site, but my caution (and nagging) had prevailed.

I had turned around to grab from the overpriced cooler we had purchased earlier that day. As I did, the waves crashed loudly.

Too loudly.

I sucked in air and gasped while I sat up and opened my eyes. Everything was a blur.

Where am I?

My heart, pounding and racing, made me feel queasy. I could taste the saltiness and sourness of an impending vomiting episode as way too much saliva pushed its way around my tongue. I’d still not figured out much other than I really needed to collect my thoughts and get to a toilet. My body swayed as I negotiated the dizziness.

Being startled awake was never enjoyable. Being startled awake to the point of needing to vomit was also never enjoyable. Being startled awake and needing to vomit in a partially demolished hotel was past being unenjoyable-- it was at this point, annoyingly repetitive and depressing. I couldn’t remember how long I’d been here, stuck alone in vacation hell, dreaming of nothing but the days before everything went wrong.

More of the building had collapsed apparently, hence the crashing noise that woke me. As dust wafted over into my room, I felt myself begin to retch and sprinted for the bathroom in the corner, still standing although its plumbing apparently needed more than gravity to pull waste down fifteen floors after weeks of no power. I shut the door behind me, hoping that the dust would air out of the room before I returned from exorcising my innards.

Collapsing at the foot of the toilet, I added to the vomit already collected in the bottom of the bowl. I wasn’t quite sure what I was puking up anymore-- I’d run out of food last week, and for weeks beforehand, we’d rationed to the point that I was excited to finish a whole cracker in one sitting. Hunger had become my constant companion. Fortunately, I still had water, vodka, and a plan to leave the room by midnight if my husband had not returned.

He’d left the insanity of the building over a week ago to hunt for food, even waving at me when he somehow got out of the building to let me know he made it out of the treacherous stairs and debris alive. I knew there was a way out, thanks to him, but now, I was afraid to leave. If he couldn’t find food and make it back to me in a week, I knew something horrible had to have happened in this mess. I’d begged him to let me go with him, but with my nervous system being as shot as it was, he insisted that he would go alone and would not return without food or information. Plus, as he pointed out, he was so much faster than me and would get so much more ground covered and so much more done compared to me and my health issues.

Moving my long hair behind my ears to avoid more vomit collection, I heaved up what appeared to be all the fluid I’d had from the day before. I felt freed of the nausea, and as I looked down to close the toilet lid as to attempt containment of the growing stench, I saw the worst possible thing in the world: my necklace had broken at some point while moving my hair, and what was sinking slowly into the muck of the toilet bowl was the one thing I could not lose, a large silver locket.

Heart-shaped and a family heirloom from my grandmother (a gift to my mother when she married), the locket had my mother’s initials engraved on the front with ornate scrolling around it and the edges of the two hearts making up each clamshell side. Upon inheriting it, I’d done much as my mother had done, placing photos of my children and husband on each side. As my phone had died about three weeks ago, these photos were all I had of them while I waited to find out what was going on outside the hotel and for my knight-in-shining armor to return.

These photos now sank along with the locket, probably soaking up whatever horrid juices had collected since the toilet began backing up over a week ago. I hadn’t eaten enough to have a bowel movement and had barely peed, so the lovely mix of bodily fluids was mostly the product of my nausea. I tried to quickly grab the locket, but touching around it made it sink further while making me dry heave a good five minutes.

I regained my composure. I needed to save my locket soon as I needed to take it with me when I planned to leave later that night. I was having to use the sun and moon when the sky wasn’t covered by ash and smoke to figure out the approximate time at night, and it appeared the evening was coming soon. I could never really be sure as the smoke from all the fires and explosions was making it hard to see the sky, but as whatever had been falling from the sky had stopped weeks ago, it was getting easier to see in spite of the permanent haze.

With no gloves nor tools available, my bare hands would have to do the job. I did not have time to waste, so I held my breath and grabbed the locket and the vomit around it. I ran to the sink and dumped my hand’s contents, gagging all the way. There was no water pressure, so I took a somewhat dirty hand towel and wiped my hand off as well as I could. I then realized the locket was in the sink covered in what looked like ectoplasm, so I had to get my hand dirty again to finish cleaning. I then re-dried off my hand with whatever parts of the towel weren’t totally coated in slime, gagging still.

The locket was saved!

I found a square of toilet paper in the trash from when we still had some; it was stuck to the bottom of the plastic trash bin. All the other toilet paper had been used and even re-used until there was nothing but this sad little thing. It was dry, though, and that was all I needed to wipe the locket. I cleaned off the locking mechanism on the right and the hinge on the left, opened it, and discovered that no toilet liquid had found its way inside.

I wept.

I saw my kids and my husband-- my daughter, son, and man were all unknowns to me with no way of my finding out anything at the moment, maybe ever. When the sky first lit up, internet and phone services went out soon after, even in the hours before the island itself was barraged with whatever it was that was falling out of the sky. The likelihood of this being more than just a thing here on the island was very plausible due to no planes, ships, nor satellite communications since the event. The safety and status of everyone I loved weighed heavily upon me. I had to leave to know, and it was not as if anything remained for me in that damned building.

I sipped some water from one of the remaining bottles and used a splash of vodka to wash off the outside of the locket and my hand. I then put the locket with the broken chain in my bra and began to pack water and the few supplies I had for my journey.

Traveling by moonlight was easier as you could see what was burning and avoid the few people skulking around during the day. I could safely hear and see them from my unique vantage point, and as most people had raided and evacuated all the buildings right after the island went to shit, I was pretty alone in the building. The folks taking advantage of the lawlessness preferred daytime, it seemed, due to not having to hide nor use artificial light. Plus, after so many weeks of this craziness, the population of ne’er-do-wells was on the decline, likely related to the effects of killing each other over toilet paper and bread.

As midnight approached, I grabbed my bags, walked out of the hotel room for the first time in days, and found the staircase. I pulled out the flashlight, thankfully solar-charged, and trudged along in the dark, spiraling down while gripping the handrail. About four floors down, rats screeched and ran away. A body, rotting for a while as I deduced per the smell invading my nostrils, was plopped down over the next few stairs. Carefully, I tiptoed around it.

More bodies followed. One appeared to have been fresher and unlooted; it appeared she, a young, bedraggled woman, had jumped off the stairs above me. As I looked at her, I could see the reflectors of an exit sign as my flashlight hit it. Navigating the stairs for just a few more steps proved difficult; I wanted to run, but with a dead body in the way and my heart racing from my nervous system going bonkers, I had to stop twice just to calm myself down. The door had a push bar, so I pushed and peeked my head out just enough to look around before finally fully walking out of the building that had both protected and tortured me for weeks.

I slumped down against the wall, feeling the thump of my heart, heaviness of my breath, and emptiness of my gut. From my bag, I located and unfolded a map and instructions drawn by my husband which he had left for me upon his departure.

If you’re reading this, I probably did not make it. Please go to the airport that’s southeast from here. Whether it's occupied or not, it houses a US military installation, so there will be supplies and FOOD. Be careful! I love you.

As I looked around the building to determine which way was best to get to the base, I saw something familiar and ran to it. My husband’s bright flip flops sat beside his butchered body and empty rucksack. He couldn’t have made it more than twenty minutes out of the hotel before being robbed and stabbed. Even worse, as I looked southeast, all the buildings and vegetation had been replaced by rubble and ash.

Exhausted and cold, I snuggled up near him with a blanket I’d packed, clutching my locket tightly. As I closed my eyes, I noticed my heart, no longer racing, was barely beating. Finally relaxed, I slept, dreaming of the only vacation I almost had.