Charlie

Once I was sure Aiden was safely far enough away I dropped down, pushed my hands against my mouth, and did my best to quiet the laughter I held back. Sadly having missed everything that led up to his crash I vaguely wondered if the security cameras were still working. 

Thinking about the power sobered me up quickly and I set back to my task wanting to get as much done before things really started to go badly. Before the internet went down I was able to look up a whole bunch of videos about how the world would look if humans vanished, of course, none of them had dealt with this specific end of days scenario but they had all shed some light on what to expect. 

Already the power in the city was lasting way longer than I had been led to believe which made me believe that somewhere some group of electricians were holed up somewhere working valiantly to keep the lights on. Hopefully, my sleepy little town was far enough away from the nearest nuclear power plant that I might live long enough to die dysentery instead of succumbing to nuclear radiation. All of the videos I watched had been different but each of them had mentioned the multiple Chornobyl level disasters that were bound to happen now that a majority of the human race was only interested in killing. 

Without Aiden’s distraction, I was able to get through the rest of the medication and procure a basket's worth of what I thought were the most useful things to have. If I could go back in time I would have spent some time looking up what medications did instead of watching forests overtake cities in sped-up time lapses.

Briefly, I thought about grabbing the medication Aiden had been picking up but not being able to remember the name of it quickly put an end to that idea. Instead, I made my way into the small office off the pharmacy where my bag was and began the laborious process of trying to find room for my haul. 

Aiden showed back up as I crammed the last bottle of prescription-strength pain relievers, well the strongest I could find that weren’t opioids, the end of the world seemed like a bad time to get addicted to drugs. When Aiden didn’t say anything I turned to look at him. 

The blonde was standing just inside the doorframe holding two bottles of water and what looked to be about twenty packages of beef jerky. The startling thing though was how much his face had changed since I had last seen him. Somehow during his short trip, the awkward smile had disappeared and now he looked like someone had just run his entire family along with their dog over. 

While I might not know everything about how to handle the end of the world I was absolutely more prepared for it than I was for trying to console a guy I just met. The list of things I was more comfortable doing was extensive and included performing surgery on myself and reenacting the entire plotline of Twilight through interpretive dance in my underwear in front of everyone I ever knew. 

“How did you get into the store?” my mouth worked on its own seeming to decide that this was the course it wanted to take. 

“Through the front door” he replied, the statement sounding like more of a question as one of his eyebrows rose in confusion. Aiden had eyebrows that were perfectly symmetrical while not looking like he ever groomed them. 

“I locked it” 

“Well it just opened for me, automatically even” 

Not wanting to believe him I strode from the room walking through the store to the front of the building until I was standing in front of the automatic doors, which did not open. Aiden had followed me, having put the water and jerky down somewhere along the way. I tried to remember that this was the guy who had tripped over a counter as I moved my arm through the air in front of the sensor half hoping it would open just to prove that he hadn’t been lying to me. 

Aiden walked by me to the side of the sliding doors where a small key was inset into the wall controlling the doors. He stood there studying it for a moment before reaching up and turning it all the way to the left. 

“What are you doing?” I asked, trying valiantly to keep my voice calm and level while splitting my attention between him and the darkness outside of the building which I was now certain was filled with his cohorts ready to murder me now that the doors were unlocked. 

“You had it on the wrong setting” Aiden informed me, his voice flat and devoid of any emotion. “It has four settings and you had it set to only letting people in, I locked it”

Taking a step forward I looked up at where the key was and squinted as I tried to make out the multiple pictures that surrounded it but no matter how hard I tried it just looked like a series of arrows and lines.

His words however put my mind at ease a little bit even if his tone still made me uncomfortable. 

“Beef jerky time?” I supplied lamely turning away from the darkness outside and walking back towards the office. 

Aiden followed along silently and each step made my skin crawl. In situations like this, I had a bad habit of trying to overcompensate. My brain didn’t know how to actually help other people but it also didn’t understand how to leave things alone and commanded me to work overtime to fill the silence. 

“We should probably check the store for anything else we might need before heading out. Definitely want to bring all the food we can carry but probably should also grab some first aid stuff. I’m not sure where else around here we could get stuff from but I want to try and get out of town as soon as possible” words kept spilling forth, Aiden’s continued silence seeming to open the flood gates. “My grandmother had a friend with a house out in Peru that is like one hundred percent off the grid and it’s out in the middle of nowhere so we should be safe there. Should probably grab a map when we leave so that we can plan a ro-”

My rambling was cut off by a loud series of bangs, crashes, and profanity. Turning around I was Aiden on the floor, again, one of his legs stretched out towards an aisles end cap. His shoelace had somehow snagged on something and had managed to trip him along with bringing down a display of toilet paper and tissues down. 

Aiden was looking right at me, his expression had changed again and this time his bright blue eyes shone with happiness as they locked with mine. The pit of my stomach dropped out as it filled with the odd squirming feeling that meant that I was well and truly fucked.