Sightless by H.R. Davison (ebook offline reader TXT) 📕

Tristan thinks about that one perfect day, yesterday. Given the situation she is in it seems so far away. Sitting on the floor with her back to the wall and her knees up to her chest she slowly rocks back and forth. Her eyes keep flickering to the cell phone lying on the floor next to her. Useless. Even though she knows it won’t work she picks it up and tries anyway.

Hitting the redial button for at least the tenth time in so many minutes she hears the same bland voice telling her that all circuits are currently busy please try your call again later. Frustrated she thinks about throwing the phone against the wall. Curling her small fist around it she almost does, then thinks better of it. The thought of destroying something that might, just might, work again is so against her nature. She gently lays it back down on the floor next to her.

Locked in the ladies dressing room of the department store she works in she hears voices outside the door. They don’t know she is in here, and why would they. No one ever pays much attention to Tristan. Again, why would they? She isn’t beautiful or especially talented in any way. Tristan is and always has been the type of girl to fade into the background.

She listens to the approaching voices. They are getting closer to her now and she can almost make out what they are saying. She recognizes the voices though. It is Jason the store manager and his best friend Tom, the head of the small electronics department in the store.

Everyone knows the only reason Tom got the best paying commission job in the store is because he is best friends with Jason the store manager. He definitely isn’t qualified for the job. His only experience before this job was being a fry jockey at a fast food joint, according to the break room gossip anyway. Tristan doesn’t know if any of this was true but was inclined to believe it.

Tristan pushes her hair behind her ears and crawls just a little closer to the dressing room door. She hears them talking again just above a whisper.

They must be right outside the door. She puts her hand over her mouth. Fearing hey must hear her breathing, because to her in this small room it sounds like a wind tunnel with every breath she exhales. She holds her breath and counts to ten to calm herself.

She doesn’t know why she is so scared of Jason and Tom. She has known Jason for the past two years since she started this job. He has always been nice to her and even remembered to give her a card for her birthday every year. She knows an employee relation is a part of his job but it still makes her feel special to receive that card every year.

Tristan reaches back down for her cell phone and checks the time. One O’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. It has been two hours since the end of the world.

Tristan almost laughs out loud at that thought, the end of the world. In all actuality it seems no one knows what was going on. As far as she knows no one in the store can get any telephone to work, cell or landline. And the internet is down also.

Tristan stares at herself in the dressing room mirror. The same face she always seen stares back at her. Blue eyes a little too small. Blonde hair that she keeps cut short in pixie style. And a cute button nose in the center. She doesn’t think it is a cute button nose, but that is what Kyle tells her.

She looks down at her cell phone again at picture of the two of them she keeps as her background image. She doesn’t know why she is so lucky as to have Kyle. He is gorgeous. Everyone tells him so. She thinks he looks a little like the actor Ben Affleck. She has to get out of here and be with him. Kyle is strong and smart and healthy. There is no way that he could be sick.

She thinks about the last time she talked to him. Only three hours ago on her break. He told her that he was in bed. He felt like taking a lazy day. She had laughed at that and told him she would see him tonight. Now she doesn’t know when she will see him again, maybe never.

She hopes against hope that he is okay. He lives in the city, and if the sick people there are turning into what the sick people here are turning into. Tristan shudders at the thought.

She remembers the local news reports she had heard just this morning before leaving for work. About how in the matter of hours all the hospitals in the city began filling up, something about an unknown illness and a possible pandemic. She had thought nothing of it then, thinking that it was another scare like H1N1 or the bird flu. Something so small and irrelevant in the scheme of things but the media hypes it up for lack of a better story.

She strains to listen to what Jason and Tom are saying in hushed tones, maybe they are trying to figure a way out of this mess.

“We can use the bays. They are all closed right now but we can look out the windows and make sure there is a clear path. Get in the car and drive right the fuck out of here.” Tom says.

“That will never work Tom.” Jason whispers. “Everyone here will want to know what we are up to and want to come along and there are only two cars in the bay right now. We have at least 40 associates here and God knows how many customers. Did we get the gate down? Oh God. Tell me someone got the gate down.”

“Yeah, it’s down.” Tom replies.” I was by the front when it all went down. I saw… oh man. I saw some scary shit. Getting the gate down was my top priority.”

Jason sighs with relief. “Good. Good. Okay Tom this is what we need to do. Now listen up this isn’t a video game. This is real life with real people at stake. We need to get a team together. Mark, we need Mark and Gordon. We need to do a sweep of the store and round up all the… survivors. If there are any… any of those things we need to restrain them somehow. We can get some rope and tools from the auto department. Once we have that done then we can all figure out what to do from there. Sound good to you Tom?”

“Yeah, yeah that sounds good to me bro.” Tom says.

“Good then let’s get started” Jason says. “You take the east side of the store and I will take the west. We will meet back up at the center. You have your walkie so get a hold of me ASAP if you run into any problems. Now let’s hit up the auto department and get supplies.”

Tristan hears them walk away. They are trying to get out of here she thinks. It comforts her to know that she isn’t the only one that is scared. Tom sounded on the edge of a breakdown.

She thinks she better get out of this dressing room and head to the center of the store. Better to wait for them there. As she stands up she grabs her cell phone off the floor. Before she puts it back her front pocket she tries one more time to call Kyle. All she gets is that same voice telling her that same tired routine. No worries disembodied voice; I WILL try my call again later. Tristan cracks a smile for the first time in over four hours.

She slowly opens the dressing room door.

Derek pokes his head around the cash wrap at the back of the store casually brushing his long dyed black hair out of eyes. The store is empty, nothing unusual there. In the computer age of electronics, high speed internet and the information super highway books stores are a dying breed.

He stays low and crawls toward the door to the backroom. From there he can make his way into the hallways that run through the mall connecting each store on the ground level. Once he gets into the backroom he quietly closes the door and breathes a sigh of relief.

Relative safety he thinks. He sits down at the office manager’s desk and pulls his laptop out of his back pack. Once it powers on he hits the Google Chrome button to see if he can find out what is going on.

Derek thinks about everything that has happened today. He had been in the front of the store rearranging the magazines when he witnessed firsthand the chaos that ensued outside of his safe room. There had been a young couple holding hands looking at the kiosk set up in front of his store.

Trisha the young girl who worked at the kiosk selling candles for the summer to earn money for school caught his eye and winked at him playfully.

Girls are always flirting with him. His best friend says it is because he looks like he is in a band. With his black hair and punk style, girls always love a bad boy. Derek is the opposite of a bad boy, though he loves the attention he gets from girls.

He had given a small wave back then looked on down the rest of the mall. A figure moving at crippling gait was walking towards the young couple. As the figure got closer he could see the guy was in serious need of medical attention. His arms were covered in oozing sores that were leaving drops of watery blood on the tile floor behind him, but the worst part was his face. He had no eyes. Just black holes were his eyes should have been and blood covered his face like some sort of horrific warrior paint dripping down onto the front of his shirt.

Derek had stepped back into store thinking he would call 911. But at that moment he heard Trisha scream. Derek turned to look and he seen that Trisha had went up to the guy, probably to help him. The couple that was at the kiosk had taken off at a sprint towards the exit at center court. But the guy had grabbed Trisha by the hair and was pulling her face towards his.

Trisha was screaming for help and slapping at the guys face but he never relented. He kept curling his fingers deeper into her hair pulling Trisha’s face closer to his. At the moment she was close enough the guy bit down into Trisha’s right cheek. Blood poured out of the side of her face. The guy brought his other arm up around Trisha’s head pulling it back exposing her neck. He buried his face in her