Gilgamesh Grocery
Locally Owned, Intl. Known!
1800 NE 8th, Bellevue,
Washington, 98008
First Floor of the
Galleria at Crossroads!
Hours: 6 AM - 10 PM Mon - Sun
12/14/2024 - 11:58:03
Entry: Cash
Immortal Savings Member: Riley, Kat
Dairy:
Gilgamilk Milk 2% Gal
3 @ 4.39 Each ………… 13.17 F
Gilgamilk Milk 1% Gal
2 @ 4.39 Each ………… 8.78 F
Gilgamilk Milk Whole Gal
3 @ 4.39 Each ………… 13.17 F
Grain Planet Oat Milk 1 Ca
1 @ 3.79
Member @ 2.50 ………… 2.50 F
Gilgameal Van Meal Shake
1 @ 2.49 Each ………… 2.49 F
Candy:
Super Fresh Mint Gum
1@ 1.79 Each ………… 1.79 F
Subtotal ………… 41.9
Sales Tax ………… 4.27
Total ………… 46.17
Cash ………… 50.00
Change ………… 3.83
Cashier: Diop, Mary
Code: 0019
Thank you for Shopping at
Gilgamesh Grocery
----------------------------------------
Kat let out a low curse as the fickle light dimly directing the intersection by the main entrance to the Galleria at Crossroads flickered green for a moment, then to orange for a heart beat, before suddenly flashing red. She gunned her old Ford Fiesta through a narrow turn, barely making the turn - with mere inches between her hoopty and the big white box truck that came flying down the hill. The old car coughed and stalled on the outside of the turn, but Kat viciously kicked one foot over the shift, braced it against the console, and hefted her narrow frame towards the front right tire while gunning the gas. It roared back to life, though it was more like a cornered animal than a lunging predator. The car skittered around the perimeter of the tall strip mall and slunk into the part in the brick wall, festooned in cheap plastic Christmas banners, to crawl into the employee parking lot. Collapsing with a sputtering sigh into the open spot marked “T-3”, the car finally stalled and died. Kat sat back and patted the console warily.
“I hit the payment on the loans this week, I get paid the week after, maybe someone picks up an article and pays, get lucky on Craigslist, I could replace you in two weeks.” She rapt a cracked knuckle on the steering wheel, causing the old beast to shiver in fear, “If you hold out that long, I’ll make sure you don’t go to the compactor, okay?”
The creaking response as the frame settled was enough acknowledgement for her and she moved her attention to the other cars in the lot. Kat saw her coworker’s pristine silver sedan parked in the other T-3 spot. He was a quiet guy who’s name she’d never caught, but he made the best espresso she, or indeed most anyone that visited their shop, had ever tasted. Kat also spotted the annoying boy from the board game shop that kept coming back no matter how rude she was to him - and she’d upped her game by orders of magnitude since he’d begun his twice-daily visits.
The lanky barista let out a sigh and sat lower in her gritty fabric seat, considering if she could afford to call out. A student at the local trade college, she’d found herself coming to work hours early to study in the boba cafe downstairs, leaving her plenty of time for the two hour window her bosses had generously afforded their few employees. She weighed the options as the temperature quickly dropped in the car. With the engine off, the thin windows welcomed in the dreary Washington winter chill without hesitation and quickly made her decision for her.
Besides, she reasoned, she was already there. Might as well get a step closer to replacing the jalopy.
Kat unfolded her spindly frame from the small car and extracted her backpack from the back seat via the window, as the door hadn’t opened in a decade. She locked it and quickly loped through the small parking lot to the north of the building in a futile attempt to outrun the drizzle. The light rain got lost in her nest of frazzled honey-blonde hair and attempted to log in to her phone as she checked the time. 11:32, plenty of time to get a few dozen lines of code - and a few hundred bugs - into the prototype before work.
Perhaps it was the rain, but there was a strange scent in the air, something clean, but… off.
Kat rounded the building and took a quick glance at the customer parking lot. Between the lot and the first row of units, a bicycle rack held a cheery blue cruiser that had been painted with intricate yellow roses. A lack of a matching green bike let her know her boss's boss, and wife, was not in today.
As Kat waited for the North Elevator to arrive, she picked at her paint-stained overalls and turned sour thoughts of annoying people potentially plaguing her over in her head. For every bit as kind as Summer Yates was, Emi Yates was intense, an energy Kat did not feel like dealing with today. Or most any day. Plus the board game man. Boy. Child. He was better adjusted as far as their type goes, shaved and showered at least, but she’d been pushed out of more than enough Magic the Gathering groups to know his type.
The elevator chimed and she stepped in, holding her breath and fixing her gaze on the small window on the far wall. She punched “T” for “Ferris Terrace” and bounced in place as the doors closed, doing nothing to stop the chill nor the strange smell lingering in the air. Before her, the city of Bellevue zoomed out, an abstract painting of evergreen tree tops and apartments and, in the distance, the much more popular mall that was slowly leeching life from the Galleria, one customer at a time. The Crossroads Mall.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
Kat accidentally let her breath out to give a huff of indignation and found that she could not refill her lungs. Instead, the walls pulled in closer with each attempted inhalation, crushi-
The doors behind her slid open and she practically threw herself out of the elevator with a steady stream of belligerent cussing, splitting her ire between the narrow box and the voice in the back of her head mocking her weakness. Her eyes flicked around to assure no one was watching, scanning the north side of the terrace, which was covered by a series of fashionable and surprisingly effective sails that had yellowed with time. Unfortunately, a few were, in fact, eyeing her outburst - a gaggle of teenagers stared back at her from a nearby table, most of them seated on top of the cold bolted steel.
“You good?” one of them squawked, his hands pressed around a steaming cardboard cup with “Apocalypse Coffee” printed on the side.
“Yeah, uh…” Kat groped for something less embarrassing to blame her reaction on, landing on one of the thousands of spiders that regularly inhabited the mall. “A very big spider, just sort of… caught me by surprise.”
“Oh, say no more fam!” another teen crowed and for a blinding second, Kat wondered if she was ever so… young. She cringed inwardly, apologizing to the sacrificial spider as the teens surged past her and into the elevator. She quickly moved towards the coffee kiosk at the far end of the covered area where she could see someone bravely managing a surprisingly long line for the time and weather while another inside was pumping out drinks at breakneck speeds.
A cheer went up behind her and she turned to see the teen that had talked to her had tossed his drink across the cement and had just successfully captured the spider. They charged out of the elevator and down the stairs, chanting something about returning it to nature.
“KAT!” a voice called, drawing her out of her muddled thoughts. She hustled over to the kiosk - she was perhaps being inconsiderate, she thought, as it was affixed to the building and larger than the drive-up coffee stands that littered the state… but it was certainly not big enough to be called a store - and hopped inside.
“How’s it?” she called over the steam of the frother, giving a quick head bob to the barista who was clearly too dialed in to notice, and to Summer, who gave her a dazzling, if frazzled, smile in return.
“Oh, busy! Big order from downstairs, then the highschool had a football game that just ended so they’re out in force! Here’s your change,” she added, though she still spoke it to Kat despite handing the coins out the window. “You’re on at three? That’s perfect, but can you do me a favor?”
Kat nodded twice, and, holding her breath once more, kicked the door open to the empty, tiny backroom that served as office, stockroom, and dishpit all in one. She slammed open the fridge, snatched a jug out, and then bounced out of the back as quickly as she’d come in.
“Just a lowfat, you need me to get more?”
“Oh, that would be wonderful!” Summer beamed and passed her a fifty from the till without ringing it - something Emi would notice and sternly remind her of later, Kat was sure. “Take the dolly and stock us up, pretty please! And take five or so for yourself for the trouble!”
Kat gave a quick salute, wrestled the folding cart from behind the door, and slipped out of the chaotic scene.
Over the warm smell of coffee and warming baked goods, she could still smell the scent of… what was it? Wood shop? Yes… but also no. She mulled it over as her knock-off, kitchen safe Converse skittered down the steps to the second floor. She stepped out of the stairwell to check the Oh Me! Bakery’s meager dozen or so seats, all full of chattering teens and a few harrowed customers, and her dark thoughts grew ever more clouded.
One more floor down, she returned to the ground floor where the Gilgamesh Grocery took up most of the level, save for a couple of restaurants and a few empty units. As she loaded the cart up with a variety of milks and dinner for the night, she considered if it was the soldering iron from shop class in highschool. Or perhaps, science class, when they had built steam engines and tesla coils. As she checked out, she thought, yes, like steam and electricity.
Kat took her receipt as the word “Ozone” drifted, slightly uselessly as she did not know exactly what it was, through her mind. A rumble passed through the parking lot and the rain began to fall in long, delicate sheets with a sudden wind sending the heavy drops against the Gilgamesh Grocery glass like millions of fingers on the head of a single taught drum. Kat cursed once more and turned to eye the central elevator.
The Galleria at Crossroads had three elevators, one at the north, one at the south, and this one, dead center of the Gilgamesh Grocery, running up to the terrace and down to the sublevel below. It also had a shorter run in the rain, from the Ferris Terrace exit to the covered area of the terrace, as opposed to half the building to reach the north elevator. However, it didn’t have a window.
“However, you’re a fucking adult.” Kat growled to herself as she pressed the button, taking deep, calming breaths before stepping in. “You’re in control. You’re-”
The doors closed behind her and she slammed the button for the terrace. Despite holding her breath, the smell was getting almost heady now, reaching its cloying scent into her brain.
The elevator lurched upwards. It slid past the second level, chiming weakly.
The lights flickered.
The elevator stopped.
Kat struggled, gripping the handle of the cart until her knuckles were white with the effort.
Kat dropped to her knees.
Kat let out her breath and for a moment, time stood still as she tried desperately to refill them.
The walls slid closer, leaning over her and smothering her as the light winked and went completely dark. Her fears, made true, she was trapped between floors in the tiny elevator.
In that absolute blackness, breathless, overwhelming smallness, Kat could swear that she could see things. Strange things, brilliant lights of indescribable colors shimmering through the crack in the doors and the gaps in the speckled ceiling tiles. She could see the Earth itself shrink away into inky blackness and she could see the sky shrink away into an ever vanishing square as she fell down the chimney of an abandoned roof in a part of town she shouldn’t have been anyway. She spent hours there, as she did as a rambunctious teen, trapped with her arms crimped to her chest in the ever narrowing space with the air growing thicker and harder to breath.
Then, the lights returned and the elevator slid the last foot, its door opening with a cheery chime.
Kat stumbled out of the tiny box and threw herself, sprawling onto her back, into the terrace, taking deep, gasping, greedy lungfuls of wide, freely open air. The warm, wet terrace floor was hard on a frame too thin to get stuck anywhere ever again, quickly reminding her that she needed to get under cover. She sat up, gathering the milks back into the cart, and searched the sun dappled terrace to make sure no one was watching.
This time, there wasn’t. Instead, her boss hung halfway out of the window, mouth agape as she stared into the sky. Kat followed her gaze as she hustled over, eyeing the small ferris wheel that sat unused for the winter at the south end of the terrace, now glittering with rain water in the brilliant sun.
Then she noticed, with a start, that it was no longer raining.
In fact, the sky was bright and sunny and clear, far clearer than most any day so far north. She could see to the horizon from here… Which was impossible. Bellevue was ringed by tall hills and dense coniferous forests. Kat’s hustled steps slowed to a meandering stop as she also stared at the sky, eyes wide with awe, then narrowing with confusion. This was not heaven and she had not died on that elevator, so what was going on?
“Kat?” Summer’s voice came drifting shakily from the window, “did you see that light? D-did you see the customers? They-”
Kat rushed over, eyebrows furrowed with concentration as she scoured the floor for remains. “Did they melt? Transform into bats?”
“No, just…” Summer responded with uncertainty, “faded away.”
A shout from the lower level brought Kat’s attention and she rushed to the bannister overlooking the customer parking. Below, the staff she knew well from the Oh Me! Bakery were leaning over the railing on their level and glancing around warily. Below them, the staff of the Willy’s fast food joint were wandering into the parking lot. The lot itself was filled with cars, including the Mexican food truck that was only there on weekdays, but, beyond the lot… was nothing.
Well, not nothing, but practically. Gold and blue stalks of some strange grain waved in ripples with huge gusts of wind that scoured the open plains interrupted only by low rolling hills and many copses of thin, but densely packed trees. She caught the glimmer of a lake bending around them, almost touching a steady river that rushed behind the building and out south, into a glittering bay some ways off.
Summer appeared at her side and the quiet coworker beside her, a coffee tamp still gripped in his hand.
“Where are we?” Summer breathed, half reverently, half in fear.
“Mississippi?” Kat’s coworker guessed, the first words she’d heard him utter in the year she’d known him.
“Emi.” Summer suddenly said, turning sharply to lock big brown doe eyes on Kat, the dread in her voice sending shivers down Kat’s spine. She repeated, louder, then louder still. “Emi! EMILIA! NO!”
“Summer!” a voice responded far behind, and all three turned to the coffee stand. Stepping out, the other owner of Apocalypse Coffee came running over to the trio while Portia the part-timer stepped bemusedly out of the back office. The Yates’ embraced under the brilliant, if slightly green, rays of the new sun overhead. They repeated their motto back and forth as the curious faces of their downstairs neighbors appeared in the stairwells, coming to find out if they knew anything more than anyone else.
“If we have each other,” they said in half laughing, half crying mumbles, “we can get through the apocalypse!”