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“The stairs are gone,” she called out.
“What?” Finally, I worked up the nerve to leave my spot, tripping over a piece of the floor that was once my living room. I hurried over to her, hopping along the way as I stepped on various things. I’d probably bleed out down here from being stabbed with little pointy objects.
I looked up hopefully where the door at the top once stood. Now, it was just an empty space. The staircase had fallen to the floor, leaving us little chance of escaping.
“Maybe we could hoist it up?” I said thoughtfully.
“With what? Our sheer determination?”
“I don’t know. There has to be something down here we can use as leverage.”
“Or maybe we can bounce on the couch until we’re high enough to grab onto the floor above us,” she said sarcastically.
“You know, I’m trying to find solutions,” I said, chasing after her as she started making her way around the other side of the basement. “Is it so wrong to look on the bright side of things?”
“Yes, when the bright side leads to a horrible death. Do you really want to have a nail shoved through your chest cavity as you try to prop up the stairs on the TV?”
“Don’t be silly,” I muttered. “The TV is made of glass. It would break in two before we even put the full weight of the stairs on it. Ouch!” I yelped, hopping on one foot as something particularly sharp embedded itself in my foot. “Son of a monkey razor!”
“Here.”
A pair of rubber boots was flung into my chest, nearly knocking me over. I grimaced as I stared at the blue boots covered in dust. “I’m not putting these on. I don’t even know who wore them last!”
“Fine, get a nail in your foot,” she said, grabbing more things to haul out of the way.
I stared into the dark depths of the boots, hoping there weren’t mice or spiders inside. While the tornado didn’t kill me, I was more than certain that a mouse touching my foot would send me into cardiac arrest. Looking around, I found a dirty rag trapped under an old board game and yanked it out. Squealing with anxiety, I shoved the rag in the boot, slamming it around inside and killing anything that might be hanging out.
“That was so disgusting,” I said to myself. After both boots were clean, I shoved my feet into them, relieved when nothing started crawling over my toes.
“Jackpot!”
My head snapped up in excitement. If she sounded that happy, it had to be for a good reason. “What is it?” I asked, shoving things out of my way to get to her. My curtain snagged on something, nearly tearing from my body. I hoisted the tail up, wrapping it around me and tucking it between my breasts for safekeeping.
“Man, whoever was husband number three, he really knew his liquor.”
“That’swhat you got excited about?”
She broke the seal and took a swig, grinning at me. “Damn, that’s good.”
This was hopeless. We were never going to get out of here. Stomping back around to the couch, I yanked the broken TV off, then dusted the cushions as best as possible before flopping down.
“This is not the way the day was supposed to end.”
“No kidding,” Lee said, plopping down beside me. “Instead of being at the bar like a normal person, I’m stuck in the basement with you! A person that doesn’t appreciate a good whiskey, or the fact that it can numb our minds from this horrible world until we one day drink ourselves to death, relieving us from the pain of this nonexistence.”
“Just give it to me,” I grumbled, snagging the bottle from her and chugging.
“If you want the bright side, it’s that we’re more likely to die down here from the house caving in on us than starvation.”
I slowly turned to glare at her. “How is that the bright side?”
“Starvation can take days. A house falling on us will be quick and most likely painless. That is, unless we’re stuck under a beam or something. In which case we might actually die of starvation.”
I took another swig.
If I got drunk enough, everything she said would no longer matter. I could die blissfully unaware of the depressing woman beside me.
5
