Full trolleys were a lot harder to push. Elizabeth was grateful they didn't end up with one that had wonky wheels. Not that the end of the world could really get worse. Perhaps, she thought, that's what purgatory was: Waiting for an end that never came, in a shopping center filled with trolleys that only had wonky wheels.

Saleem lead them back out through the fire door. He looked the hallway up and down. As the trolleys filed out of the center, he closed the fire doors and set his candle's base in the middle of the hallway floor.

"Good thinking," Elizabeth approved.

With their original beeswax candles, they made their way through the shops and back to the escalators. Just like the times before, there was no way that they could push or carry them all the way up. Obviously, the lifts weren't working either.

Once again, Saleem and fire safety came to the rescue.

"What," Saleem said, with an attitude on his face, "do you think they're just gonna tell people in wheelchairs that they're on their own in case of a fire while they're watching a movie? Of course there's a ramp."

Elizabeth had never noticed the doors off to the side of the cinema near the entrance to the projection booth. If she had, they just looked like another entrance to another cinema auditorium. The entrance was just under the cinema level, in one of the walls of the food court.

She wondered why Donovan hadn't mentioned it when they had their first trolley-load of items. Perhaps the stress, or perhaps it was quicker when they had far more people to help bring everything indoors. She supposed dark spaces were also much less desirable back when they didn't know what was lurking. It was almost more scary that the longer they stayed, the more obvious it was that inside the building they were almost totally alone.

The area with the ramp was just as unwelcoming as the fire hallway. Rough, grey cement bricks blended in with the gritty cement flooring. Pushing a trolley up the ramp was hard enough. She could only imagine someone who needed a wheelchair making their way up the steep ramp. Of course, working with men who had lost limbs, she understood that architecture for people with disabilities was often an afterthought, begrudgingly put in because the government said so. She understood that this doubled as a fire exit. "Still", she thought, "put in a potted plant or something. Damn."

When they got to the double doors, they walked right in. They'd given up on announcing themselves anymore. If the end was coming, it was taking too long anyway.

Emilio had control of the trolley while Saleem clutched the backpack and hustled his way down the ramped aisle to Matthew. The aisle was only big enough for one trolley at a time. Gowan and Elizabeth were both pulling on their trolley, simultaneously hoping nothing fell out the sides while also trying to make sure it didn't roll forward too fast and crush Emilio between their trolley and his.

Saleem glided to the ground and immediately began opening the backpack. He was throwing every packet on the floor around them, reading the names out loud. As soon as Donovan saw the familiar pain medication packet filled with codeine and paracetamol, he grabbed it directly from Saleem.

"These might be better, man. Just to lift his spirits." Saleem handed Donovan a different packet.

Donovan examined the pack with the light behind him. "Oxy-condone?"

"Oxycodone," Saleem corrected, "like... Oxys? There was a full documentary on them. They're real good. People in America got addicted to them and it was a whole thing."

"So we run out and then it's back to square one?" Donovan asked.

"The world's ending anyway. We run out, we switch back to the normal ones." Saleem shrugged. "Your choice, man. I just seen people get real happy on these, and I thought-"

Matthew groaned in pain, and Donovan stopped his line of questioning. He immediately opened the package and put it in Matthew's mouth before unscrewing the cap off a bottle of water and holding it to his lips. "Not long now, baby. Any second. The lights will come back on, ok? Just hold tight."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Elizabeth and Gowan were unpacking Emilio and Saleem's trolley. They shot each other a glance. A bible snapped shut from a few rows of seats away, and Elizabeth put her head back down. She unpacked even faster, trying to look busy, hoping it would camouflage the guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"So did you find the source of the light?" Victor asked to nobody in particular.

"Nah, mate." Emilio sniffed, wiping his nose with his hand obnoxiously. "Found out one of the Gleesons managers must have been waiting for some kind of apocalypse of his own by the amount of drugs he was hoarding."

"Or she!" Elizabeth interjected.

"Yeah, Em," Saleem rolled his eyes sassily, "women can be middle management with terrible drug habits too. God!"

The joke didn't land.

"Yeah." Emilio said a little softer, "I'm aware."

Victor was not distracted. He asked further, "You didn't investigate the light?"

"We did," Elizabeth interjected, her eyes looking around the room, "we couldn't find anything."

"Yeah, my mind must have been playing tricks." Emilio agreed.

"Hm." Victor mumbled. He eyed each of the four but said nothing else.

They continued to unpack. Storing toilet paper near the makeshift curtain Masina had put up days before. They changed out the toilet bucket and placed it in the projector hallway until they could think of how to dispose of it better. Thankfully, they'd brought lids.

The bottles of water got stacked neatly and Elizabeth had begun a pantry system. All the dried fruits and fruit cups were placed together, then the savoury beige foods like crackers and chips, then the sweet beige foods like cookies and museli bars. She looked proudly at her work.

Nobody was expecting Matthew to say anything but groan. After 20 minutes, he began to speak up. "Hey, Lizzy! Can I call you Lizzy? Liz?"

Elizabeth hadn't seen Matthew smile before. He had lovely teeth. Someone had clearly spent a lot of money on braces when he was a kid. His full cheeks made his glasses rise when he smiled.

"Matthew!" she said, a little surprised, "What's up?"

"You're really pretty. Dude, but it's ok, I'm gay. I just mean you're pretty. Sorry, I can't feel anything and I feel great! I had another thing!" He pointed to the box of medication.

At this point, everyone was just looking at Matthew, chattering away and touching his face with the arm that did not get slashed.

"You're the only girl now. We should call you Queen Liz, like the queen." He looked up at Donovan with big eyes. "Yo! We could call her Queen Liz but we'll mean it like Lizard!"

Donovan laughed nervously. "Ok, we've got to make sure you stay down. You're still really hurt. I'm glad you feel better. You can talk, but you have to stay still."

"It hurts to laugh!" Matthew said, still amused at the thought of Liz standing for Lizard. He turned to Donovan. "Do you think I should talk more gay?"

"Babe, you talk plenty gay. Please just-"

"Queen Lizard! Hey! No! I remember what I was going to ask you!"

Elizabeth hesitated, "How can I help?"

"If I'm not gonna die, and that's fine, honestly, right now I could die. That would be fine. I think if I die that'd be cool. How cool was the smoke? Sorry, my mind is just like ..." Matthew made a noise imitating a laser.

"Ok babe, ask the nice lady your question." Donovan mouthed "sorry" to Elizabeth.

"Lizard. I call you Lizard coz I love you. Actually, everyone, babe, is everyone listening to me?"

"Everyone is listening to you, just go ahead and ask Elizabeth the question." Donovan had a slight smirk that Matthew was doing more than groan on the floor, but still held his head in frustration.

"No, she is Lizard. You have to call her Lizard. I need to make Lizard a thing. It's really funny. Trust me."

By this stage, Elizabeth had stopped stacking food away to stand near Matthew. She thought that if she was in his immediate eyeline it may help him stay on track. "Yes, it's me, Lizard. What would you like to know?"

"Lizard, why do you have so much food if we're only here three days?"

Matthew's words hit the room like a truck.

Elizabeth's mouth opened but no words came out. Everyone's heads snapped to Elizabeth. Even Victor, who had since gone back to a chair to read his bible in a small pool of light was leaning forward to look at her.

"We need to set ourselves up for success." Gowan stepped forward. "We know by now we're not great at counting." He looked at Donovan. "We know the light is going to come back on at any minute." His focus then shifted to Victor. "What we don't know is what could be waiting for us outside, or who might want to come in when the world settles back down."

"That's right," Elizabeth joined in, "We have to get you to a hospital, but once we get you there, we have to have a place to come back to, right?" She took Gideon's car keys out of her pocket and examined them. "Plus, I don't even know what kind of car this is. It might only have two seats! It certainly wouldn't fit," she counted the room, "six."

"And you," Gowan corrected.

"Yeah. Plus me. So we have to have a home base."

Matthew squinted his eyes. "You're a smart one, Lizard. I think I want to sleep now."

Elizabeth looked at Donovan and nodded her head, "Yeah, that's a good idea."