“So, your boyfriend hasn’t picked up even once?” Caleb asked incredulously.
Moira sighed.
“He’s not even responding on social media?” He shook his head and tsked, “Hopefully, he’s like this clown here, and he broke his phone and didn’t think to check his Snapchat on someone else’s phone. But you’d think he’d want to figure out how you are doing! I get that Jer only cares about his cat, but your boyfriend…man…”
He trailed off and gave her a meaningful look. Moira glared at him and muttered, ‘Shut up’ under her breath. Jeremy just rolled his eyes.
Everything he and Moira had carefully avoided talking about came out of the woodwork with Caleb here. He chatted about anything and everything that came to mind. He wanted to know everything about the old god. When Jeremy described the chat box, his laughter echoed off the buildings. He kept pestering Moira to change into a dragon. He pointed to random things in the street and asked what their overlay looked like. After enough times of hearing dark red with runes, he stopped asking that.
Only a vague outline of the sun shone through the hazy sky. Smoke billowed skyward to the east. The smell of it permeated everything. Ash drifted lazily overhead. Jeremy’s eyes ached, and his throat was dry no matter how many times he cupped his hands and willed them full of water to drink. He studied the triangle-shaped rune that flashed as the spell took each time.
“You know what would be nice?” Caleb mused, “Those scooter things. They always seem to be lying around on the sidewalk in your way, but they are impossible to find when you need them. I think I’m getting blisters.”
“Do you want some band aids?” Moira offered.
“Nah, I’ll be fine.” Caleb folded his hands behind his head and let out a big sigh. Moira grumbled and pulled out her phone. By some miracle, one of the convenience stores they passed was still in business and open. They did not have much in the way of food, but Moira did find a power bank. She swiped her credit card. Jeremy felt a little surprised when the transaction went through. It was strange that purchasing something with ordinary cash had so quickly become a surreal experience. Moira had more battery life to play around on her phone and keep up with the news. The riot here was just one in a long string of protests getting out of hand as panic spread.
“Why were you at my apartment, anyway?” Jeremy asked Caleb, “Don’t tell me you were just worried about Atticus and me.”
“Man, I know you.” Caleb bumped shoulders with him, “If there is anyone I want to be with during the apocalypse, it’s Mr. Prepared For Anything. And I’m right, aren’t I? Just one day in, you are already at the epicenter of this whole thing. You’ve got goals and a plan to achieve them, unlike the rest of us panicking shmucks. You are even helping a damsel in distress.”
“I’m a literal dragon,” Moira said dryly.
It took a lot of effort to be friends with Jeremy. Before all this chaos, he was rigid in his rules, with a routine he did not deviate from. Caleb always insisted this meant he was the easiest person to be friends with. They hung out at the same times every week to watch a movie or go to an event around the city, and he could always count on Jeremy to be genuine and reliable. Still, this did not leave much room for the spontaneity that Caleb infused into every element of his life. He and Moira were similar in that way. Or at least Jeremy assumed they were. In all reality, he did not know Moira very well yet, but she’d flown by the seat of her pants the night of the banquet when she dragged him into that closet and made him look like a guest, so he assumed she didn’t plan much of her life either. That was probably why she and Caleb kept bickering back and forth. Because they were birds of a feather.
“Hello?” Caleb waved a hand in front of Jeremy’s face.
Jeremy blinked at him, “What?”
“I asked if it was so hard to believe that I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I know it's only because it didn’t work out with that girl.” Jeremy teased, “If you had it your way, you’d be at her place defending her like some hero out of a movie.”
“No way!” Caleb protested, “Me, the hero? No. I’d much rather be defended by you instead.”
He batted his eyelashes, and Jeremy shoved him away. Moira’s phone rang, and she held it up to start chatting with one of her friends. It was the same friend she’d called a few times over the past couple of days, the one who could not make it back home because the airport wouldn’t let her parents’ private jet off the tarmac. Moira promised to find her as soon as she’d picked up Derek.
“Have you considered that he is probably going to find you?” the friend asked. Moira’s steps slowed to a stop. Her face drained of color.
“No way,” She muttered, “If I get to his apartment and he is not there, I’m going to kill him.”
“He’s not exactly the type to sit around and work on his crochet while he waits for you to come find him.”
“I’ll kill him.” Moira repeated, “When I find him. Really? Has nobody heard from him at all?”
“No, sorry.” The friend said, “I haven’t been able to get ahold of anybody at the university for the past couple hours to ask if they’ve seen him, either. I think they all went to that protest. You don’t think Derek would go to the protest?”
At this point, Jeremy and Caleb stopped because Moira’s feet were still glued in place. She smacked a hand over her face and groaned, “He totally is the type to get wrapped up in that.”
“All I’m saying is that you are trying to get to his apartment, but he’s probably not even there.”
“I don’t know what else to do.” Moira wailed. Jeremy crossed the distance between them and leaned over her shoulder to peer at the friend on her screen.
“Even if he is not there, there might be a clue about where he is.” Jeremy pointed out, trying to shut down this pessimism before Moira got upset. “Maybe he left a note, or a neighbor knows what happened.”
Beside him, Moira bobbed her head, “Yeah, what he said.”
“Hi, Jeremy.” The friend waved. The back of a couch angled out behind her, and she wore a towel wrapped around her hair like she’d just gotten out of the shower. He squinted at the screen.
“I’m at a disadvantage.” He said, “Moira has not told me your name.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m Rose.” She smiled. The name fitted her round face and rosy cheeks well. But Jeremy was more interested in the fact that he could not see her overlay through the screen. He opened his mouth to ask if she had tried to perform any spells, but Caleb butted in before he had the chance. He poked his head in front of Jeremy’s and waved.
“Hi, Rose!” He said, “I’m Caleb. Any friend of Jeremy’s is a friend of mine, which means Moira here is my friend.” He nudged her with his shoulder, “And since Moira is now my friend, any friend of hers is a friend of mine, which means we’re now friends. Nice to meet you, friend.”
Rose looked at the ceiling as she tried to follow Caleb’s words. Moira twisted away and told her she had to hang up, and then she glared at Caleb. He just smiled.
“We need to keep moving.” He set off once again. Jeremy hung back to walk closer to Moira this time.
“Is Derek smart enough to leave a note?” He asked.
Moira glanced askance at him. “Well, I didn’t think to leave him a note at my house in case he goes there.”
“Yeah, but your phone works, so you didn’t think you would have trouble communicating with him,” he said. Moira just shrugged and looked away. Jeremy let the subject drop. If they pulled on the thread too hard, the entire carefully constructed goal of going to find Derek would unravel. Because there was no reason for him to have been unable to borrow a phone and call Moira or hop onto a computer and send her a chat unless he was physically unable to or didn’t care enough to. Neither were good options.
Atticus moved around in the cat carrier, putting pressure on Jeremy’s wounds. He grimaced and paused to turn the backpack around so it hung in front of him rather than behind. Amid a riot, this was not an advantageous set-up, but now that they were just walking down the street, he could give his back some relief. Atticus peered through the mesh and meowed.
“Hang on.” Jeremy stopped, “I should let Atticus out so she can walk.”
“Are you serious?” Moira looked at him like he just told her he would let his pet alien out to walk around on the leash. All things considered, that probably would not be all that strange at this point. He set the carrier down on the concrete. Atticus immediately started yowling.
“Caleb,” Jeremy waved his hand and made grabby fingers, “Her harness and lead are in the clothes duffle.”
Caleb poked around, hopefully not upsetting the clothes too much. He pulled them out with a triumphant shout and handed them over. Jeremy now faced the difficult task of unzipping the carrier and getting the harness on Atticus without letting her squirm away. First things first, he hooked the lead to the harness and wrapped one end around his wrist. Then he crouched by the carrier and took a deep breath.
“Can’t you just carry her?” Moira tapped her toe against the ground. Jeremy glared at her.
“You can carry her then.” Caleb sidled up to Moira and whispered behind his hand, “Don’t let Atticus know I said this, but she could stand to lose some weight. That’s why Jeremy got her the harness and leash in the first place. She’s been going on walks in the park.”
“Not anymore.” Jeremy undid the zipper just enough for Atticus to poke her head out. He looped the harness around it and fed her legs through the front pieces. She complained loudly. Jeremy huffed as he worked. “Not with the creepy things coming out of the park now. We ran into some people who said a goblin ate their cat.”
“That’s horrifying,” Caleb muttered.
“The goblins got what they deserved,” Moira assured him. Jeremy finally wrangled Atticus into her harness and handed the carrier off to Caleb so he could fold it up and stow it in the duffle bag. Atticus enjoyed her newfound freedom now that the process of getting the harness on ended. She crawled around like she was Spiderman, clinging to the sidewalk as if she might fall off. They watched her sniff some grass poking through a crack.
“Okay,” Moira clapped her hands, “Let’s keep moving.”
And so the three of them set off again, this time with a cat trailing beside their feet. Atticus walked well on the leash, thank goodness. Jeremy found it much easier to put one foot in front of the other when his back was not on fire.
“Does each individual blade of grass have an overlay?” Caleb wondered aloud. Jeremy looked at the tall grasses poking through a chain link fence around the vacant lot to their right. The grass was brown and brittle, baked between two buildings in the late summer heat. It might have been humid, but they hadn’t gotten rain in over a month. Jeremy glanced up at the smoke with a frown. The fires would probably spread throughout the city severely, given how preoccupied the fire departments were and how difficult it was to navigate the streets. They needed to hurry up and find Derek, then get to Uncle Howard’s penthouse.
“Jesus, Jer.” Caleb snapped a few times in front of Jeremy’s nose, “What did you smoke? I never see you this absent-minded.”
“You’re just not used to being ignored. He’s got other things on his mind right now. We all do.” Moira quipped. Caleb scrunched his nose at her and turned back to Jeremy, eyebrows smoothing out into a look of genuine concern. Jeremy brushed him off.
“No, I don’t see an overlay for each blade of grass.” He answered Caleb’s question. “It’s more like I see an overlay for the entire lawn, but if I got close enough, I could see a different one for each plant.”
Caleb whistled and looked over his shoulder at the vacant lot, “Does that mean that anything alive can do magic?”
“I guess.”
“There have been videos of dryads and things.” Moira said, “Maybe they are higher-level trees.”
“I don’t know. I can’t see the overlays through a phone screen.” Jeremy remembered that he meant to write that tidbit of information down. He pulled his notebook out and jotted it on the page he’d made about himself.
“We still have to figure out what your magical ability is.” Jeremy tapped the page a few times with the back of his pen before shutting it and shoving it back into his pocket. “They seem just to come naturally. Suddenly, I was able to see the overlays. When Moira was in a stressful enough situation, she became a dragon. I’m sure yours will show itself the first time we run into trouble.”
“Maybe.” Caleb shrugged, “But I haven’t heard of anyone besides a few random exceptions with special abilities. Which honestly, thank the gods. Can you imagine everyone running around with superpowers?”
“I think that would be awesome.” Moira offered. Caleb scrunched his nose at her again.
“It would be even more chaotic. Anyway, the other cases I’ve heard of people doing extraordinary things were, like, that dragon guy who started eating people or this guy on the radio. You’d probably recognize him,” He said to Jeremy, “He started understanding cats, but then he started getting confused about how to talk to humans and ended up going insane and is literally catatonic. I know one of the interns at the station.”
“Jeeze.”
“So maybe I don’t want any superpowers.”
“You are just trying to make yourself feel better.” Jeremy teased, “You, of all people, will have something stupidly, specifically useful. Like maybe something to do with your insane spatial awareness and memory.”
“Or maybe you two are just exceptions because you let that old god free.” Caleb said, “You said it did something so that you were able to see the overlay without it feeling like a mindfuck the whole time, right? Maybe people with special magical powers go insane, but you guys are okay because you helped the god, and it blessed you or something.”
“That would make a lot of sense.”
“I’d like to talk to this old god.” Caleb mused, “It would be interesting to hear his take on everything happening.”
“I really don’t think it cared very much what happens.” Jeremy paused to coax Atticus along when she stopped to sniff a particularly interesting part of the sidewalk. “I don’t even know if it is still around. I mean, if things can come through the gates, that obviously means there are other planes of existence. I wonder if people could go through the gates to them!”
“Jeeze, your brain is working on a higher function, isn’t it.” Caleb assessed, “This whole apocalypse thing has really helped you find a groove.”
Actually, Jeremy was intensely uncomfortable at all times. He did not think he would ever get used to it, but he was learning how to cope. He had his notebook, and his brain struggled to find answers for everything. None of it would help him regain the semblance of control he missed, but it helped a little, at least.
“Do you think that’s why the government is so adamant about getting everyone away from the gates?” Caleb paused when Atticus ran in front of his feet and cut him off. He went around Jeremy and started walking in the middle of their little line. “So, some poor dumbass doesn’t try to go through?”
“Who would want to go through?” Moira said, “Aren’t there literal zombies coming out of the one in Texas?”
“There’s always that one guy,” Caleb said.
Atticus stopped to sniff another spot. Moira let out a strangled cry of frustration and stooped down to scoop her up, carrying her down the road like a baby. Atticus curled up amicably in her arms. Jermy and Caleb shared a look. They followed along, with Jeremy now being led on the end of the leash.