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CHAPTER
32
SUN BLAZING IN through the classroom windows and the smell of coffee woke Mercury. She yawned and stretched and wished she’d had even a moment where she’d forgotten the apocalypse and thought she was back in her antique cherrywood bed in the silver and gray bedroom of her midtown condo, and the coffee she smelled was Café du Monde’s dark chicory blend coming from the preprogrammed machine in her immaculate kitchen.
“Here, Acorn. It’s about time you woke up. It’s almost noon.” Stella handed her a mug of black coffee.
Mercury rubbed her eyes and then sipped the hot coffee. She sighed appreciatively. “Thanks. This isn’t bad for school coffee.”
Stella snorted. “Oh please. You’re just desperate. And you should be. I doubt if we’ll have coffee wherever we end up.”
“Do not blaspheme like that!” Mercury lowered her voice and added, “Where is Karen?”
“She told me she was going to church,” Stella said. “Though she must be doing one hell of a lot of praying. She’s been gone for hours.”
“Hours? How long have you been up?” Mercury raised her hand to stop Stella’s words. “Never mind. I shoulda figured not even a damn apocalypse could change the fact that you wake up with the chickens.”
“We should get some of them too. Chickens, I mean, not more apocalypse or church,” said Stella. “Come on, get yourself together. Ford’s in the cafeteria. I told him I was going to wake you, and then we’d join him for something to eat.”
Mercury put her coffee mug on the floor and pulled on her “Notorious RBG” sweatshirt and jeans before she sat to shove her feet into her Ariats. “Then what are we going to do?”
“Explore the town a little—see what supplies we might be able to subtly confiscate—and while we do that, eyeball what’s going on with those roadblocks in case Moira’s not crazy and the godly people of Madras aren’t as willing to say goodbye as they are hello.”
Boots on and coffee mug in hand, Mercury stood and they headed to the door. Then she stopped and returned to her cot to pick up her backpack and sling it over one shoulder. “I’m not leaving this again.”
“Sounds smart.”
“Did you say supplies? Anything in particular we should look for? I mean, I’m not going to want to schlep bags of groceries back to the truck.”
“I was thinking more like pharmaceuticals and tampons,” said Stella.
“Ooh, Xanax?”
“Well, sure, though you know I’m a bigger fan of CBD than Xanax. It works better to manage anxiety and is a lot healthier for us—not to mention sustainable. When I said pharmaceuticals, I meant birth control and antibiotics.” Stella paused before she opened their door. “I probably don’t need to say this, but just in case—we shouldn’t talk about anything more than the weather and such where we can be overheard.”
Mercury nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Hey, have you seen Moira this morning?”
“Nope, and I’ve been looking for her. Moira—is it bad that every time I hear that name I think of Schitt’s Creek and am overwhelmingly sad that I’ll never see an episode of Moira Rose’s brilliance again?”
“Hell no, it’s not bad, and don’t remind me. It was horrible enough that we only got six seasons of it, but at least I could binge them over and over.” Mercury sighed heavily. “I need to stress eat. Let’s go.”
The two friends made their way to the cafeteria. When they passed the second set of blacked-out, chained doors, Mercury whispered to Stella, “Have you gotten a glimpse of that courtyard?”
“No,” Stella whispered back. “I tried, though. I thought I’d open one of the doors as far as the chain would allow so I could peek out there, but it was a no go. The doors are locked and chained and padlocked. There’s no way to see out, and the windows are painted from both sides because I used my fingernail to scrape away some of the paint. I also got lost”—she air-quoted—“and wandered to the other wing of the school. It’s the same over there, except the halls are full of the desks they moved from these classrooms. Doors are blacked out, chained, and locked over there too.”
“They really don’t want people looking out to that courtyard.”
“They sure don’t.” They paused in the open doorway to the cafeteria to see Ford sitting at a table with four women clustered around him. “Yep, he’s definitely popular.”
“They’re like a swarm of mosquitos,” said Mercury.
“Jelly much?”
Mercury bumped her shoulder. “No. Just making an observation.”
Stella laughed softly. “A catty one, that’s for sure. I don’t think you need to worry, though. I’m pretty sure he’s only interested in—”
“Mercury! Stella! Over here.” Ford waved his arms at them like he was sitting in the middle of a packed cafeteria instead of one that had less than a dozen people scattered at several tables.
