’Til My Last Breath: A Halloween Story Read online

  ’Til My Last Breath

  A Halloween Story

  Rachel Kane

  Copyright © 2017 by Rachel Kane

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Trigger Warning

  ’Til My Last Breath

  Trigger Warning

  This short story deals with a character trying to overcome past abuse. Although the abuse itself is not pictured, the story does deal with themes of oxygen deprivation, and the character’s mental state afterward. Please be safe, and if you find these themes disturbing on any level, set the story aside.

  ’Til My Last Breath

  The first time I ever fell in love was at the end of the world. Typical.

  * * *

  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, it’s a little bleak: What happens to all the carbon dioxide we pumped into the air with our cars and farming and coal plants, that got sucked into the ocean over years and decades? If you were a scientist twenty years ago, you would’ve hemmed and hawed and talked about a limit to how much absorption the ocean could do, with lowering pH levels and dying coral and decreasing biodiversity. If you were a scientist six months ago, you would’ve said It’s all bleeding back into the atmosphere at one time, and we’re all going to die.

  * * *

  But hey, at least we’ll have the coral reefs back.

  * * *

  I was taking a walk through town. No, I should be honest: I was sneaking, avoiding the police.

  If they caught you out during curfew, there would be questions. If you gave the wrong answers, you’d be dragged into a cell with a bunch of other miscreants who were sucking the little remaining oxygen out of the air. Or, as the public service announcements put it: Be considerate of your neighbors! Minimize aerobic activity between dawn and dusk!

  * * *

  There was a limit to how much time I could spend on the couch, though, sipping air through a little tube. I had to get up, I had to move, even though it filled me with guilt, my selfishness helping to destroy the world. Sorry about that.

  * * *

  Outside the air was thick, greasy where it touched the windows of the abandoned storefronts. I patted the pocket where I kept my inhaler. Five minutes outside and I was already feeling a little light-headed.

  * * *

  When you walk out into the constant rain, your first instinct is to take a deep breath, get a lungful of rain-washed air. You quickly learn to fight that instinct. This isn’t real rain; it’s just condensation off the dome, the huge plastic bag they pulled over the city to conserve the atmosphere we breathe, for just a little while longer. Buying us time. I amused myself wondering if there was a warning label on the dome: This bag is not a toy.

  * * *

  A crash down the block pulled me out of my thoughts. I stepped behind an ATM for cover. Was it police? Nobody else was supposed to be out during the day, and anyone who ventured into the street was, by definition, a criminal. (I know, I know, I’m a criminal now too, but it didn’t make it any less scary.)

  * * *

  The sound was coming from the coffee shop on the corner. More crashes, breaking glass and thumps, but I didn’t hear voices, no crazed laughter or signs that this was a psycho or a gang. I dared to get myself a little closer. You spend your whole life being careful, risk-averse, then the minute civilization comes crashing down, you find yourself weirdly brave. After all, what have you got to lose? I peeked in.

  * * *

  He was shirtless and sweating in the closed-in heat of Plastic Bag Town. Even in this dim light, I could see the sweat trickle down the ridges of muscle on his back--ridges that must have taken years of disciplined workouts to develop. Nowadays we were afraid of muscle. It uses so much oxygen.

  * * *

  I watched his face carefully for signs of craziness, before announcing myself. He didn’t look psycho, though, just frustrated...and a little amused.

  * * *

  I stepped into the doorway. “I always hated this place in the old days, but not as much as you, apparently.”

  * * *

  He glanced up, tense and ready to spring if I’d been a cop, but when he saw it was just a guy, just me, he relaxed. Looked a little embarrassed, even. He gestured at the glass. “All I want is some damned coffee. I haven’t had coffee in a month. But I guess someone already looted all the bottled coffee.”

  * * *

  My shoe crunched against broken glass as I came inside. He really was spectacular to look at. His breaths were deep and full, as his lungs tried to steal all the oxygen from the air. His flanks and chest did interesting things as they expanded.

  * * *

  I was lonely. It was the end of the world. That’s my excuse.

  * * *

  “I have some back home,” I said. “It’s cold, obviously.”

  * * *

  He shrugged. Of course it was cold. There was no electricity. “Maybe we could start a fire and warm it up,” he joked, and followed me out of the shop.

  * * *

  By instinct we looked both ways before crossing the street--not for cars, because there weren't any anymore, but for the cops. One person by himself on the street was cause for alarm; two walking together were a public menace.

  * * *

  My apartment was unlocked, and I led him in. Without asking, he collapsed on my couch and pulled the oxygen tube over. I had a moment’s alarm when I watched him eagerly suck down the air. I'd gone through half my ration this week already, and the weekend was going to be uncomfortable if I had to spend it hypoxic. It was worth the risk, I thought, watching his cheeks hollow as he greedily sucked down the air. He grabbed the pulse oximeter off my table and slipped it over his finger. It was in the green, high 90s. He nodded at it. “That's better. What about that coffee?”

  “Are you from the neighborhood?” I asked him.

  * * *

  His hunger for my oxygen tube made me worry about how quickly he'd down my tiny supply of remaining coffee, yet he seemed to be savoring it, taking slow sips and closing his eyes, a smile growing over his face.

  * * *

  Finally he shook his head. “Downtown,” he said. “It's worse there. Everything looted. They don't even bother with the police, they know nobody's going out. I figured I should do a little exploring.”

  * * *

  “Make some good use of the time we have left?

  * * *

  “Dude, don’t tell me you believe all this shit.”

  * * *

  I had a moment of that conversational vertigo I used to get back when the world was normal and there were more people around, a moment where I wasn’t sure I’d kept track of the conversation, where I’d walked down the path without watching and had ended up somewhere new and therefore frightening.

  * * *

  “Which...shit?” I asked.

  * * *

  He rolled his eyes. Oh, you’re one of those, his expression said. “The end of the world. The Big Choke. You know what shit I’m talking about.”

  * * *

  That sense of vertigo would not shake itself free. I wondered if it would be rude to take my oximeter back and get a measurement. He was sitting next to the air tube. Maybe I could’ve shoved him aside and taken a few replenishing breaths. Instead I stood still, my fingers creeping up to touch the inhaler in my shirt pocket.

  * * *

  “You don’t bel
ieve in the Big Choke?” I asked. Without a thought behind it, I glanced out the murky window of my apartment at the greasy condensation. “I mean, it’s not the sort of thing that requires belief. It’s...right there.”

  * * *

  “Bullshit,” he said, leaning back on my couch, his hands behind his head. He propped a boot up on my table. His posture said relaxed but ready. I was regretting inviting him in. What did I think was going to happen, some last-minute lust overtaking me just before the world went away forever?

  * * *

  He was pleased, confident, sure of himself. The opposite of me. He was used to being self-evidently right, used to being believed, in that way confident, beautiful people often are.

  * * *

  My life had taught me a different lesson. The lesson you learn when things happen to you and no one listens, no matter how loud you are. You learn not to raise your voice. Not to waste your breath.

  * * *

  Why would they have spent millions on the plastic bag? Perhaps a different person could have challenged him with that. Why is the air scrubber the only building in town allowed to use electricity? Only a global calamity could explain how strange my life had become. Yet through habit, the strangeness had receded from life, and it was harder to remember a time when the news interrupted every show, every website, every city block, with dire warnings couched in the anodyne tones of the public service announcement.

  * * *

  It’s important to remember. I don’t know why it is. There will be no posterity for one to say for posterity’s sake. No one to learn from our mistakes. But it is still important to remember, despite the comforting for forgetting.

  * * *

  He patted the couch beside him. “Come sit down.”

  * * *

  I obeyed without question. Without question to him. In my mind, questions thrived like new opening leaves, still curled and damp with potential. Are you sitting down because you’re afraid of him? Because he is handsome and you want him? Because it’s the end of the world and you are lonely? Or is it because you never learned you were allowed to say no?

  * * *

  It’s because when I sit alone in my apartment all I do is ask myself these questions, and I would like to talk to someone else for a change.

  * * *

  “May I...?” I asked, gesturing at the pulse ox. He took it from his finger, and I slipped it on. The little digital display, sometimes the only light in my entire place, barely climbed to 90%. No wonder my head was full of questions. I took the tube and inhaled.

  * * *

  His lips had touched the tube before mine. I wondered if this counted as a kiss.

  * * *

  “Nice place,” he said, his hand stretching out to encompass the two rooms I had. “How did you manage it? Downtown, they want everyone in as few buildings as possible. It’s crowded. It’s hot.”

  * * *

  “Do you live with someone, then?” I asked. It was two questions in one.

  * * *

  His face went grim. “Too many someones. Three other guys. One has a girlfriend who is always over. Less room than this. They give us two air tubes, but it’s not enough. Feels like I can’t breathe in there. Out here, hell, you might as well be out in the country, all this room, all this air.”

  * * *

  “I had a roommate,” I said. “They caught him smoking, though.”

  * * *

  A knowing nod.

  * * *

  For the protection of your neighbors’ lives and property, open flames are prohibited. Violating this prohibition may result in fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  “A lot of room to have all to yourself,” he said. “Hell of a lot of room.”

  * * *

  “You could stay here.” The words came out without warning, without thinking. That ingrained sense of obedience, because it is never enough to obey an order after it is given. It’s always best to anticipate what someone will want, especially when they are so much larger than you. If I were to be honest, I would say my interest in him involved as much fear as it did attraction. I wondered what I was doing, bringing a man like this into my place. Too late for second thoughts, as always.

  * * *

  A skeptical glance at me. I waited for him to say, Why would I want to stay in this dump? Instead he looked at the dark kitchenette.

  * * *

  “You got anything else to drink? You got any music in this place?”

  * * *

  I busied myself making it nice for him. I have two battery lights. I don’t use them much, as I think their light gives a sickly glow to the walls, but I sensed he was a man who needed energy to be burned in his presence, a man who needed things to get used up.

  * * *

  I had two bottles of beer left from the six-pack I’d been drinking for the past couple of weeks, and I brought them out. He slapped his knee and said, “All right, now we’re talking.” While I looked for a CD to play, he finished the first bottle, disturbingly quickly. I didn’t say anything when he opened the second bottle and took a smaller swallow.

  * * *

  My music collection was pretty small. Long before The Choke, I’d copied my CDs onto my laptop, and donated the physical disks to the thrift store. In retrospect, now that there were no working laptops anymore, that seemed like a poor decision. Now I was left with a few ambient albums, just background noise. I slid one into the battery-powered player and turned it on.

  * * *

  I waited for him to say What is this shit when the music came on...sweeping synths and distant bass, translated into a small and tinny sound by the little speakers of the stereo. He didn’t even seem to notice. He was drinking my last beer. Tilting it back, so that I had a full view of his throat. The motion of each swallow was enthralling. A drop of condensation fell from the green bottle, down onto his throat; I watched it roll down to his collarbone.

  * * *

  He looked at the bottle as if reading its label, then set it down. He stood, my sofa creaking as he rose.

  * * *

  When he took my hands, I wasn’t at all sure what was happening. It wasn’t a lack of oxygen this time, just my old uncertainty around men of a certain size, formidable men (my brain always said the word the way we’d learned it in French, formid-aaaaa-ble), and until his hips began to sway roughly in time with the music that I realized he wanted to dance with me. It seemed only right that he should lead.

  * * *

  How do people dance? I’ve never understood it. I have watched, while pressed against the wall at clubs, at parties, weddings and prom nights, usually with a drink in a plastic cup slowly warming in my hand, watching hips and buttocks and elbows, reducing people to skeletons like some motion-capturing computer, trying to understand the arcs and vectors and how they manage not to stumble into one another. My own clumsy attempts in front of the mirror, singing into my hairbrush or wooden spoon, led to elaborate daydreams of being on-stage, thousands of screaming fans rejoicing at my every thrust.

  * * *

  My man here, though, he kept it simple. His hands had left my hands, and were on my hips, gently moving me to and fro. Right, bum-bum-bum, left, bum-bum-bum. An innocent dance, right to left. Perpendicular to sex, innocent.

  * * *

  I remembered a dance in sixth grade, the boys and girls desperate to segregate themselves into the exclusive circles they’d been used to in former grades, a few brave souls daring to leave their friends and discover proper hetero dancing. I was in charge of the punch-bowl, safely out of reach of these awakenings, standing next to my math teacher, Mr. Sims, whose mustache was thick and dark, and whose stubble promised a roughness that excited feelings in me I could not yet name. I remember wondering what it would be like to dance with him, cheek to cheek, my smoothness against his roughness, and the furious shame that overwhelmed me as I found my body starting to respond in a visible way to the thought.

  * * *

  This man�
��s body was warm, his chest radiating heat, all that oxygen burning up inside him. As we moved, I tentatively lay my head against his shoulder. Would he accept this closeness? Was I moving too fast? When I felt his shoulder and arm move, I thought I had made a mistake, and in my fear my sway became even more mechanical, preparing for him to push me away.

  * * *