Running Out Of Time

Ivy was so used to the sirens by now that they barely registered as background noise. She woke up, the sirens were going, she went to work, the sirens were going, she came home, the sirens were going. The only break in the monotony was the special siren at noon when they all had to head to the shelters as a training drill. To make sure they were all ready.

Every time Ivy heard that phrase, she rolled her eyes. When it eventually happened, no one would be ready. Complacency had set in after the first few months, and people only did the drills because they’d be arrested if they didn’t. The longer people had to wait for something to happen, the less they believed something would happen. Ivy and her colleagues had taken to enjoying a leisurely stroll to their designated local shelter every day; enjoying the sunshine and occasionally stopping to talk to others on their way, almost as if it were just an ordinary lunch break, and not the dystopian nightmare they actually lived in.

When it did happen, for real, Ivy found herself surprisingly calm, and incredibly inconvenienced. She was right in the middle of the abandoned quarter of the city taking photographs. Ivy used the term ‘abandoned’ loosely; there were people here, mostly other artists, and some homeless people. She knew there was a brothel here somewhere too, although she’d yet to come across it.

When preparations had first started, everyone had been given two designated shelters: the one closest to their home, and the one closest to a second location of their choosing. Ivy had picked one near her office, as that was where she was for the most part. They always checked people in at the shelters, both to see how long it took for everyone to arrive, and to make sure everyone was accounted for. What Ivy didn’t account for, was being somewhere there were no shelters when everything kicked off.

She glanced around quickly, looking for a building to shelter in – anything to avoid being caught in the open. Ivy saw a couple of people dart into a boarded-up building down the street from her and walked as fast as she could to get there. Whilst the official shelters guaranteed completely safety from what was to come, the abandoned building Ivy now found herself in offered no such promise. She could very well die here, surrounded by strangers.

Taking a quick look around, Ivy counted six people other than herself. Two people that looked like a couple, an older gentleman, two girls slightly younger than herself, and a guy about her age. She plonked herself down in a corner and observed her companions. They all seemed, not panicked, but definitely more on edge than she felt, except the guy her age. She snapped a few pictures of everyone on the sly but otherwise didn’t move.

Looking around at the building, Ivy figured it used to be some kind of music store. There were faded posters of bands she’d never heard of peeling off the walls, and there were a couple of cracked vinyls littering the floor. She could still hear the special siren wailing away in the background; it unsettled her.

“What brings you here?”

Ivy looked up at the guy talking to her.

“The end of the world?”

He smirked, taking a seat beside her, before gesturing around the building.

“No, I mean here.”

Ivy waved her camera around.

“I take pictures here sometimes. What are you doing here?”

Ivy watched, intrigued, as the guy shrugged his backpack off his shoulders and pulled it open. She raised an eyebrow at the spray paint cans that were practically spilling out of it.

“Nice. So, what do we do now?”

The guy shrugged. Ivy cast her eyes over the other people in the room.

“Anyone got any idea what we do now?”

The man sat with his girlfriend piped up.

“Wait to die?”

Ivy rolled her eyes.

“Well, thank you for that. Anyone got any good ideas about what we do now?”

After getting a rousing response of several shrugs and head shakes, Ivy turned back to the guy next to her.

“Wanna explore this place? It’ll get us whether we’re sat on this floor or not.”

He shrugged and stood up, holding a hand out for her. Ivy stared at it for a second before taking it and pulling herself up. They headed for a door at the back of the room and Ivy paused and turned back to the rest of the group.

“We’re gonna explore. Let us know if you start, like, dying or anything.”

Ivy followed the guy through the door and came face to face with floor to ceiling boxes. Not very exciting.

“What do you think is in them?”

Ivy shrugged.

“Only one way to find out I suppose. Hopefully some food though, who knows how long we’ll be here before it finally gets us. We wouldn’t want to be boring and die of starvation first.”

The guy laughed, and Ivy felt weirdly pleased at having made a total stranger laugh at her morbidity. She pulled a box towards her, vaguely noticing him doing the same thing, and tore the tape from the top of it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t food.

“What are we supposed to do with a fuck ton of records?”

Ivy laughed.

“Look for a record player, I suppose. If there’s all these records, there must be a player somewhere.”

They scoured the room together, eventually finding a vintage record player tucked away in the back corner. They plugged it in before pulling it into the centre of the room together.

“What should we listen to first?”

Ivy thought for a moment before her eyes lit up. She went back to her box and pulled out the record she’d seen earlier. She placed it carefully on the player and lowered the needle. As the opening notes of Material Girl came through the crackly speakers, the guy turned to her with a sardonic smile.

“At least we’ll have music as the world ends.”