Black Friday by Ike Hamill Page A

janitors—how do they get to work?”
    Robby took the keys from the ignition and stuffed them in his pocket before he eased the door open. The interior lights came on and he hurried to shut the door behind himself. The Volvo dimmed the lights slowly and Robby cursed the speed while he crept over to the fence near the trees. In the shadows of the overhanging branches, he inched his way towards the building. While he moved, he kept watch on the highway, waiting for the next blue flash.
    He circled the parking lot, staying next to the tall chain-link fence that stood between the grass and the woods, until he could see the back of the rest stop building. The building had loading docks on the far end and a couple of doors closer to Robby. A sidewalk led away from the doors and through a set of tall hedges. Robby crossed over the lawn—just starting to crunch with forming frost—until he could round the hedge and see what it was hiding. Between the tall bushes, the sidewalk led to a ramp that descended down to a lower parking lot.
    At the bottom of the stairs, the sidewalk split off to his left and right. In front of him, a couple of rows of parked cars sat in the moonlight. Robby guessed that he had found the employee parking lot. Around the north side of the lot, the pavement ended near the trees. Robby kept to that side so he could move in the shadows. He hoped for a nearby neighborhood, or perhaps a convenience store.  
    He hoped for anywhere he might find shelter or a set of car keys hanging on a hook in someone’s kitchen. Until he rounded the back corner of the lot, and could see that the two-lane access road for the employees stretched off into the night, he had high hopes for an easy solution to his problem.  
    Robby paused. The wind in the trees made the only noises Robby could hear. He grew up on a sparsely populated island—he was accustomed to quiet nights—but this silence felt empty of life.  
    Robby walked. He kept to the edge of the road, right where the pavement ran out and gravel covered the gap to the grass.
    The movement warmed up his core, but his feet and hands remained frozen. Robby counted his steps and decided that he would walk one-thousand paces and then turn around if he didn’t find any houses. At about three-hundred, the road rounded a slow turn and Robby saw a big straight length of road ahead. He kept going. By eight-hundred steps—two curves later—Robby could see where he would eventually turn around, but he kept going. At one-thousand, the view was the same. The two-lane access road was flanked with wide, grassy shoulders, and then were bordered by deep Maine woods. He didn’t know what town he was closest to, but it was clearly not close enough to offer him easy shelter against the cold night.  

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    Robby’s young legs threatened to cramp, so he turned and trudged back towards the rest stop. Even a car with a broken window was better than no shelter at all, he figured.  
    As he walked, Robby’s thoughts returned to the turkey sandwich he’d had for breakfast. Even when fleeing the house, his mom had tried to make responsible use of the Thanksgiving leftovers. Now that she was gone—sucked up into the air and evaporated, right before his eyes—Robby wondered if he would ever have another turkey sandwich.
    “The power hasn’t been out that long,” he whispered to himself as he thought. “I’m sure I could find a grocery store where the meat is still reasonably fresh.”
    But that wasn’t the point, and he knew it. His mom was gone, and his dad was gone. Both had disappeared and he couldn’t kid himself—they weren’t coming back. For that matter, all his friends were gone, too. As far as Robby knew, he was the last person left alive on the planet. The days of turkey sandwiches were finished, along with his parents, friends, and warm cozy beds where he could sleep until breakfast without worrying about rotting corpses lined up in the