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Slow Saturday afternoons at the MoviePlex were the worst. If a Friday was slow, Riley generally knew who she could send home early, but if Saturday started slow then she had to weigh every man hour wasted against the likelihood that she’d need everybody for the Saturday night rush. And the whole time, basically everybody who worked here was trying not to stare at her pleadingly enough to piss her off. Despite being only twenty-seven, Riley was the only manager left at this place since Mark quit. Corporate kept saying they’d hire someone to replace him. Riley wasn’t holding her breath. In the meantime, she was the only one sending people home. 

Saturdays were also less than ideal because Tim worked all day. And Tim was fine. He was! Not Riley’s favorite guy in his forties, but he didn’t have to be. He showed up on time enough that she couldn’t complain, especially since he was also the only other person besides her that seemed to give a shit what it looked like in here. If she didn’t get to send him home early, they were the last two leaving. 

Today, they weren’t quite dead enough to let anybody go so far. Just dead enough for Riley to be annoyed about the bad service in here. Nobody was texting her back. She had to resort to scrolling through Instagram. Or what they called Instagram, but was really more of a shambling husk these days. All ads. Better than nothing, but god. Just barely. 

“Hey boss.” Tim ducked into the office doorway. Riley hated her awkward startle. “Did you let Angie go?” 

“What? No. Why.” 

“She just took off.”

Riley waited, expecting him to go on. Tim absolutely, very much didn’t. “Took off how?”

“Like, made a break for the doors.” 

“And why were you in the lobby and not cleaning the bathroom?” 

“Bathrooms are clean. Nobody’s used ‘em. I think they sold two tickets in the last hour. You know, Angie left her sweater.” 

That was the other annoying thing about Tim. He was always in everybody’s business. Why was he noticing Angie’s sweater? Come to think of it, why was a grown man tattling on his twenty-year-old coworker? That was weird as hell. Riley gave up trying to stay distracted by her slow-loading phone. She slipped it into her pocket and reluctantly made eye contact with Tim. “Okay. Thank you. Can you cover her register, then?” 

This was not what Tim wanted to hear. He tapped his fingers against the doorframe, took a long pause that felt pretty damn insubordinate if anybody was asking Riley. “Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“Fine.”

  “Thank you,” Riley said pointedly, hoping he’d take the hint and leave her to scroll. And he did, but only after a very slow turn and walk away. Drama queen. 

That was the worst thing about Tim. He took her power over him personally, when she was really only incidentally in charge of him. It wasn’t like her life dream was to be a manager. Her uniform wasn’t even different besides the name badge. The eighty-five cent pay raise when she was promoted originally came with the promise of more, but with no sign of another raise in two years Riley thought she should probably give up on even that minor dream, too. 

Riley made a note in the system that Angie was gone. Of course she hadn’t clocked out—people forgot to do that even when they didn’t disappear, so the movements to clock out for someone were well-worn habit. She was going through the motions when something finally popped up on her phone. News alert. Some kind of outbreak somewhere. Who got to pick what made the list for news alerts, anyways? It was always so irrelevant and a waste of a notification. Some new bird flu or something, or some rich dude getting fired that she’d never heard of, or something overseas she had no reference for. Had she ever signed up for news alerts? It felt like the kind of thing she should be able to turn off, but was always slightly too complicated to figure out in the moment. And why did that come through when a text from Marcus wouldn’t? Shit was not fair. 

When Riley could send texts, she should check on Angie. She wasn’t the type to walk out. Maybe somebody died or something. Riley did try to be compassionate when she could, as much as she hated the idea of being responsible for people that were themselves full grown adults. That was the text she’d tried to send to Marcus. I guess one of the girls just walked out?? And Tim just HAD to tell me about it before I noticed smdh

Still wouldn’t send. Riley checked again right then, and let out an annoyed groan. Fine. She’d do some work. 

The air was unusually still. She noticed it the moment the office door cachunk-ed shut behind her. Slow day, sure, but more than that. It took her a couple of steps to figure out what was missing. It was the popping—or lack thereof. There were four big glass boxes for popcorn behind the counter. They were always sizzling hot and slightly dangerous. Only one was on right now, and the poppers were all silent. 

Tim was standing behind a register, annoyingly compliant. “It’s dead out here, boss,” he reported as if she didn’t have eyes in her head. 

There was not a single person in the lobby. Riley went to one of the other computers to see what sales looked like. Yikes. In-person ticket sales were zero since an hour ago. A couple new movies had some almost sold-out showings, but they had not sold enough food for all those people to have shown up. No way. Either this was a totally random coincidence or a thing was going on. Major accident blocking the street type of thing. 

Tim was sneaking looks at her, which felt just about as comfortable as a middle-aged man peering at a young woman could ever feel. “I could go get a head start on 16,” he says, the latest of his ideas that all involve him doing his job his way and in his time. 

“I don’t need ideas, Tim.” Riley headed off towards one of the supposedly full theaters, just to see for herself. Getting away from Tim was a bonus. She wasn’t even supposed to think of one of her subordinates like that. Instead of being able to bitch and moan like every other person here, she had to keep a professional lid on things and not wish stubbed toes upon him. Or at least never admit to it to anyone who’d judge her. Marcus never did, which was what made him great boyfriend material. Aside from how smoking hot he was. 

Another text sent to Marcus while she was walking. Whoa dude it’s empty in here.

In the theater she checked, the latest comic book drivel was playing out over the incredibly large screen, and every seat was empty. Riley’s stomach sank right into the pit that was developing in her gut and stayed down there. She swallowed hard. 

Riley didn’t mean to hurry, but she power-walked all the way back to the front. Tim was still just standing there, total NPC mode, looking like there wasn’t a thought in his goddamn head. But that was the problem, there were tons of thoughts in there. About how he’d do her job better, mostly, and looking dumb was his convenient cover she was getting tired of. 

It took a second for something else to hit her. Tim was alone up there behind the counter. “Where’s Jamila?” she said when she was close enough to not shout that at him. She could not shout at work, no matter how Tim he was and how empty it was. 

“Haven’t seen her. Did you check the staff bathroom?” 

Riley had to stop walking to adequately convey the depth of her frustration with her body. “When would I have time to do that? You see where I’m coming from.” 

Tim responded to that by getting all huffy. “Well, what the fuck? How am I supposed to-” 

“Can you just check for me, please?” Riley cut him off. “I’m going to see if she texted.” 

“Fine.” He stomped off. Well, he was a skinny guy so it was just kind of a lot of limb action. As always, riding a specific line, making sure they could write it off, they needed to work together without compromising the bare civility that kept them from ever really going at each other the way Riley wanted to. Riley was finding that civility hard to manage at the moment. She didn’t really want to hear what Tim said when he really let loose. Then she’d have to quit and find somewhere new to waste her degree. 

Nobody else smoked. Riley figured that out six weeks into her time here and immediately claimed the habit. Smokers got ten minute breaks, and people who wanted to text their boyfriend and mom did not. One side of the alley had service. She always made sure to light one up and let it burn in the ashtray, for the smell and in case anyone came to check on her. This was the only time she didn’t bother. 

The second she was out there, her phone was ringing. Marcus. “Hello?” 

“You’re at work?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Anything weird?” 

He wasn’t messing around with her. That wasn’t his messing with her voice. Riley bit back the urge to ask if he was serious. “Yeah, nobody’s here and two cashiers apparently just walked out. Why?” 

“Baby,” Marcus said, and that was all the time he could buy her. “There’s another pandemic or something. It’s bad.” 

Riley processed that intellectually, as words with concrete meaning she could understand. Okay. New pandemic. Great. Maybe those would be a once a decade thing. Still, her brain rejected it. “Okay. So this… what, this happened in the last four hours?” 

“It’s happening. It’s still happening right now. You should come to my folks’ house, they’re all stocked up. You know how they are.” 

“I’m not going anywhere without my mom.” 

“Your mom is here already. I’ve been calling for a while.” 

“This goddamned building.” Riley groaned, and it echoed off the walls. Which, all of a sudden that seemed like a stupid thing to let happen. The open ends of the alley seemed pretty damn close. In a more measured tone, she said, “Thank you.” 

“Of course.” 

“I could probably cut myself early at eight, but I’m not sure about earlier.” 

There was a disorienting pause before Marcus answered. His voice sounded so far away by the time she heard it. “This is bigger than that, Riley. I’m going to head your way now, okay? Where should we meet?” 

“Front doors.” 

“I’ll honk when I’m here.” 

“Okay. And I love you. We say that a lot, right?” Riley tacked on. 

“Yes we do. I love you too. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

The situation had a certain gravitas to it, when Marcus was on the phone. His deep voice delivering the facts was reassuring. Now Riley was just standing here, all by her little old self, and the actual weight of what he said landed squarely on her shoulders. There was some kind of new pandemic spreading now. Great. Riley noticed that her mouth was dry all of a sudden. She wet her lips and forced herself to take a deep breath. Deeeep breath. Marcus was on his way. A thirty minute drive. Well, his parents lived further away. And actually he didn’t say a specific time he’d be here. Was that ominous? That felt ominous. 

While she was out here, Riley checked the news. Followed up on that annoying alert she’d gotten, which in retrospect she should’ve known was a bigger deal. Shit. But what would she have done? She couldn’t leave. Marcus had the car.

Okay. Riley locked in and learned the little there was to know. It had started on the East Coast, a person or two getting sick. Not sure from what. Before anybody could take it seriously, it started to spread. A case or two confirmed in Ohio. One in Wisconsin. Shit, she was surrounded. And if they’d caught a case or two, there had to be like ten they hadn’t found. Or a hundred, if this was anything like the last one. And it could be. They didn’t know how this was passed between people. 

This was less than useless. Riley opened the soulless Twitter copy that had taken its place to see what the general public was saying. That took a longer moment to parse. The first couple videos were fakes. One could be real. Some stories seemed more real than others. All just about as promising as those early pandemic days. Nothing caught from a bat was ever good, and sort of in the same vein, nothing like rabies could be either. 

It was a relief to duck inside through the heavy weighted doors. Safe. They locked automatically behind her. Though, there were a lot of unlocked doors in this building now that she was thinking about it. Shit. Riley hurried back toward the concessions booth. Now, it was facing the six-panel span of front doors. But, it felt defensible, with the most useful things. Custodian closet, kitchen tools, legally-mandated first aid kit. Tim had supplemented it with his own gear and told them they’d be grateful. Equal odds on it being scammy supplements and ivermectin or like, actual tourniquets and shit. He gave suburban field medic but these days, that was always a gamble. 

Her senses were sharper coming back in the space, all the familiar sensations hitting different. Soda smell and well-worn carpet, the bright backlight of the concessions stand opposite the light through the bay of doors. Tim had graduated to pacing the empty lobby. He was up near the doors when she saw him. They met somewhere near the middle. “Nobody in the toilet. And I haven’t seen either of the boys.” 

Oh. Right. Carlos and Christopher. They were supposed to be here, even if they never did very much work. So everyone was gone. Riley had to tell Tim. “Yeah. I called my boyfriend. There’s some kind of pandemic. People must be freaking out and going home.” 

Tim nodded several times, each one slower. “Okay.” 

“Just okay?” 

“You should’ve listened,” Tim pointed his finger at her. “When I said we needed a backup generator. They’ll cut the power first.”

“Who? Don’t be crazy. Nobody’s cutting the power.” 

Tim retracted his finger to pump his fist, full of some kind of old man energy. “Okay. Yeah. We’ll stay open as a bastion of sanity in a crazy world.” 

Today the combination of unprecedented affairs and the gradual erosion of her patience every day she’d ever worked with him gave way to the bare truth. Riley had to just tell him. “Tim, what are you even saying? I don’t give a shit about this place. I’m leaving the second my boyfriend gets here. You should too.” 

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” 

“Okay. That’s not.” 

“And this is why you never should’ve been made manager over me,” Tim continued over top of her. “Because I’m not leaving.” 

The thing was pretty boring to hear out loud once he just said it. A completely non-threatening sentiment that had some merit to it, honestly. Why hadn’t he gotten it? Clearly he cared more than anybody else. Corporate probably would love a martyr as manager. It didn’t make sense. Boredom was not why Riley snapped, though. That was just because she was pissed. “Why not? You can’t?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Tim glared at her. The glare was more friendly than his usual blank look, somehow. “You think I don’t have a car?” 

She didn’t really care. “So leave.” 

“No.” Tim scoffed at her, and repeated it. “No.” 

Their rapport had gotten a lot more hostile, all of a sudden, but Riley’s frustrations evaporated. Like, they might as well say it.“Dude, I’ve never heard my boyfriend sound like that before. Whatever’s happening is serious.” 

“We’re on the schedule until—“ 

Riley cut him off. “Would you rather leave or die?” 

“I don’t know,” Tim said after a long pause. 

Jesus. How sad. “Okay. Well. I know which I’m picking,” Riley said. 

“Executive decision-making like that must be why they made you manager,” Tim mumbled, like the whiny little bitch he was. Riley ignored him. And kind of flipped him off a little bit, middle finger at her side if he happened to notice. 

The minutes passed like sludge. Like cleaning out the butter nozzle. Slippery but immobile. Riley stood at one of the registers, tapping her fingers on the counter. For the sake of her own sanity, she decided not to address Tim, who was walking to and fro doing many things behind her and not even pretending to work. Not that she expected him to work, but it would’ve been nice for somebody else to be pretending since she was. 

“Here.” Tim draped an oversized purple zip-up hoodie on the counter next to Riley. Angie’s abandoned clothing. “Another layer never hurts. And you’ve got short sleeves.” 

He was already walking away by the time she processed the words, so Riley didn’t get a chance to say anything besides with her face, at his back. He was headed off towards the office for some reason. She could follow. But the front doors seemed like a tactical weakness, and Riley ultimately wanted to keep her eyes on them more. She struggled into the big hoodie and wedged the cuffs up by her elbows for full mobility. It did feel good to have another layer, even if sweat was instantly building up and dripping down the middle of her back. 

A dark spot of movement caught her attention outside. Somebody running down the street, opposite side. Riley couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen somebody running here before. Yes, probably. Right? She’d just never noticed. Usually inside was way busier. Cars were still going both ways out on the streets, so things couldn’t be that bad. Marcus had to be exaggerating. 

Marcus never exaggerated. They were a real opposites attract situation. Riley was full of flash-in-the-pan emotions, and Marcus was the reliable beach her emotional ocean could crash on. When she said things like that he smiled at her, and said she was wild, and let her be. And now he was the one running to get her. Riley had no clue what to do in this situation. She stood there long enough that the POS screen went to sleep. 

Tim came back, and this time she caught him coming. He had a determined look on his face, and a broom in each hand. “Hey Tim.” 

“Huh?” 

“Lock the safe up.” She unhooked her keys from her belt and held them out towards him. “No more customers are coming. I’m calling it.” 

The silence was loaded. The hum of machines was the only thing Riley could hear. Still no popping sounds. Probably wouldn’t be able to eat popcorn for a while after this. If there was even going to still be popcorn. If Marcus was here, he’d tell her not to invent miseries.

“Yeah, sure, fine,” Tim said after a second, and took the keys from her hand. Such an ego. Even taking the keys from her, he had to do it in a just barely polite way. In a way that made it clear he was not any happier to be trusted than he was to be tolerated. 

Whatever. This was awful. She reveled in the awfulness of it, and watched cars passing to see if they were moving weird. It just looked like they were all going one way. And then, the light had to be taking forever, because no cars were going anywhere. All the facts were just that—facts—until some essential critical mass was reached. Well, not some. She knew the exact moment, the moment it was happening.  A car crashed through the theater front doors. 

Riley had been in a car accident not that long ago. Hence the Marcus taking her to work now. This crash wasn’t over in a flash like that one had been. She saw every second. The big SUV was out there in the totally empty parking lot, and then it was driving fast down the center aisle of the parking lot, towards the front doors. Nobody knew how to drive; Riley was starting down that mental path when she realized it wasn’t stopping like she assumed it would. It was speeding up. It was over the curb. It was bursting through in a glittering flash of glass and sheets of screeching metal. It came to a stop against the kiosk up front, the long-empty remainder of when humans were needed to sell tickets.

Immediately after the crash, it wasn’t quite silent as much as it was briefly totally still. Something was hissing. She couldn’t see in through the cracked windshield so she couldn’t tell what psycho had done this, only that they had a candle-shaped air freshener on the rearview mirror. The front of the car was a wreck in that unsalvageable way. Burning plastic and hot metal drowned out the usual twin smells of dried butter and artificial flavorings. Some more glass crumpled off a headlight. 

“Hello?” Riley ventured. 

That was maybe the stupidest thing she’d ever said. She really should’ve just booked it out the back door. But some part of her brain couldn’t give up the feeling of responsibility here. Irrational and fully aware, Riley hesitated where she was. 

It was several more seconds before anything moved. Then, the dented doors bobbed open slowly. Two people stumbled out, old white ladies with floral shirts and white capris. They immediately focused on Riley with alarming intensity. If they were anything like the average problem customer, they probably wanted to complain about their subpar car crash experience. 

Manager instincts kicked in. “Everything’s fine, I’m calling the police to make an accident report,” Riley said loudly. 

One of the women tilted her head, but the movement didn’t look right. It was jerky. 

People were getting sick and nobody knew more, and now was the first time that Riley considered that could be because nobody was making it away from the sick people alive. Her stomach sank into her pelvis. She needed to reach for the phone, but she held still. Something told her not to be the thing that moved first. 

“Hey boss.” Tim was the one to break the tension, barreling back from the safe with her keys in hand—and part of her mind broke off to wonder why the fuck had she given him her keys? What if Marcus had gotten here and they needed to go, and she couldn’t get into Mom’s house for something important? What if she never went home again, though—and now Riley was back watching life happen in front of her, seeing both women turn to Tim as he entered with so much noise. One of them twitched. Tim startled. “Oh shit.”

Riley tripped over the next few seconds. The women were advancing towards them, no recognizable gait. Their bodies were just flinging themselves forward. She couldn’t look away, frozen, watching, until Tim grabbed her arm and pulled her down to the other side of the long front counter, away from the grasping arms. Riley had never been in a fight before. In this moment, she realized Tim absolutely had. He knew just what to do, he kept his head. 

Riley wrenched her arm back from him.“Give me my keys back.”

“That’s your priority right now?” 

“You could have given them to me by now.” 

She had to lean back to not get hit in the face with the broom when Tim lunged forward and up onto the counter. Infuriatingly, she couldn’t even be that mad about it because it was the exact right position to whack one of their attackers with the handle. Wood on skull made a sharp crack, and Tim cheered. Riley didn’t have the best view, but the thing on the other side went down for the moment. “Office! Retreat!” he bellowed from up there. 

“No, I need signal.” 

“Can’t live without your damn—“ Tim started with an eye roll, but petered out when Riley said on top of him, “I need signal for when my ride gets here, jackass,” not shouting with such intensity that her throat felt ragged. “How about you try acting like I’m not a fucking idiot.” 

On the other side of the counter the thing groaned. “We need a door that locks,” Tim responded. “How about theater 16. Emergency exit’s right up front.” 

“Great.” 

“Here. Go.” Finally, Tim gave her the fucking keys back, and waved her through the hall. Covering her while they moved to theater 16, which apparently they were just running to. 

It wasn’t that scary. The front lobby was big, and the people or used-to-be-people or whatever didn’t move fast. Tim had zip-ties in his custodian cart for some horrifying reason, and he zip-tied the double doors shut easily. And it might be that easy. They waited, weapons brandished. Riley had grabbed a mop off the cart. It did not feel any better to be armed. She startled at the first thump, but the doors barely moved. Whatever had happened to these women, bumping up against the door with all the force of one step was all they seemed capable of. Riley took a deep breath of relief.

“Knew it,” Tim said. 

“I’m glad you’ve acclimated to the situation so quickly.” Riley walked quickly down to the front towards the emergency exit, keys and mop squeezed tight in sweaty hands. 

“What, you’re mad at me?” Tim asked, jogging up behind her. 

For the entire few seconds it took him to catch up, Riley tried to talk herself out of what she wanted to say, but no dice. When Tim had joined her at her side, she looked at him in the dim house lights and said, “It is embarrassing how bad you think I am at my job, Tim.” 

Tim looked at her like he might really see her. At least like he was trying. And then he said, “This is not a hard job to be good at.” 

“But you’d be better.” 

“Obviously. I’m older than you. I have more experience.” 

“Well, I didn’t make the decision so why do I have to deal with the bitching?” 

Tim didn’t do any more bitching while they waited—and good. She couldn’t take that. While they waited, Riley didn’t ask him if he saved her life because he was a good person or out of instinct. Both seemed unlikely. Riley could not be sure the man she was running from customers with enjoyed her company. Was that a first world problem? She knew there was a whole thing with that classification system anyways. It was racist and probably other things, but also there was no guarantee that any existing systems would survive. First world nations generally didn’t have pandemics, so America probably hadn’t made the cut for a while. And maybe there weren’t that many sick, and this would be over tomorrow. Just because that didn’t happen in movies or whatever didn’t mean it couldn’t. Humanity had to know what to do. 

Focus. What time was it? Riley checked her phone. Marcus had said he’d be there in thirty minutes twenty-three minutes ago. She peeked out a crack in the door, stood just far out enough to peer around the corner and scan the parking lot. 

“Pull your head in,” Tim said. 

“It is totally dead out here.”

“Really?” 

They were both contemplating the absolutely empty streets when they caught sight of something moving. It was Marcus, definitely his car, but Riley wouldn’t trust it until she was looking in his eyes. She watched the dark sedan approach at a reasonable pace. Still signaled to turn into the parking lot. So Marcus. 

“Drives like a fucking square,” Tim said. It was great emotional progress to be able to ignore him. Marcus slowed down abruptly nearby, probably when he saw the front of the atrium. Riley waved, and Tim adopted a basketball guard position, trying to bat her hands down. “Don’t fucking wave, what if it’s not him.” 

“I know our car, Tim.” 

“Well motion could attract attention.” 

“You’re moving the goalposts. That’s classic moving the goalposts. Where’s your car, you should get out of here too,” Riley added magnanimously. Sure, he’d already said he wouldn’t, but she could try and lead this ornery old horse to water one more time. “This job isn’t going to matter. Come on.” 

Tim heaved a deep breath in and out. “I took the bus.” 

And Riley said the one thing she’d sworn to never say to a coworker. “We can give you a ride.”