Rock Bottom

Slumped back in one of the hard plastic chairs – they had to be part of the whole torture vibe these assholes were going for here – Kace bounced one knee. His eyes burned from staying locked on the board. The zombies they hadn’t been able to wake up in here seemed to manage it for hours, but after ten minutes he was ready to tear his eyeballs out.

Kace glanced away, his hand sliding up his thigh to the pocket where the last of his cigarettes – the one Winter had taken a single drag off of – sat in the box. He’d been spacing them out, putting off the day he’d end up patting down the people who were still zonked out to try and find one more hit. Nobody else he’d spoken to in here had any, or at least had any they were willing to share with him.

They were shrinking in number, more and more of the zombies arriving every day. Some of them woke up, but most seemed to prefer clinging onto that stoned state where they didn’t have to handle the thought that they were trapped in here forever because they were the ones nobody gave enough of a shit about to remember. He wasn’t one of them. No matter how much better off Kit might’ve been without him his brother fucking cared, in the end something would break through the same way it had done for Winter with that tall dude who’d stormed in here to get her or the familiar woman who’d come for Mikey. Maybe he’d turn around tomorrow and Kit would be bolting through this place for him. Or maybe not.

Chewing on his lower lip to distract him from snatching that last cigarette out of his pocket, Kace pushed to his feet. Staring at the board had done diddlysquat anyway. They hadn’t changed, the non-existent trains weren’t going anywhere, they were just stuck waiting for an escape that was never gonna come that way. He had to trust in his brother, in the family he’d found through Kit. If Mikey or Winter still remembered him once they got out of here they could go and talk to them. It wasn’t like any of them were blind to the weird shit that happened in this town, they wouldn’t scoff and turn away.

Waiting wasn’t gonna get any easier with the place clearing out, but it was all he could do. Like he’d done first thing that morning, Kace started a slow walk around the place. The woman who’d been looking after the kid – what sort of sick bastard had shot a kid? – had gone too. Damn, the kid had too. Pretty soon he was gonna be the only one left sane in here, tearing around the place, trying to break through to the rest of them for some company here.

He stopped as he saw someone else moving through the rows. The rangy guy he’d seen Mikey speaking to was still here. Still giving off that weird vibe, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?

”Hey man,” Kace called out as he approached, lifting his chin towards the guy. If anybody in here gave off antsy smoker energy it was this dude. ”Looks like it’s getting kinda quiet in here, huh? Everybody’s heading out…” And they were the forgotten, the strays nobody was looking at twice. It was fucking depressing. Frowning heavily, Kace lifted his chin again, gesturing towards the guy. ”You got a smoke? Nobody in here seems to be carrying and we all need a little somethin’ to hold us up, right?” That single cigarette in his pocket for like it weighed a fucking ton. Why had he even held onto it? Was he just waiting to light the damn thing up when he got out of here, like it was a bottle of champagne to crack open and celebrate freedom with.

Tagged: NEMO AGNELLI * Word Count: 650