The sirens amplified as the door opened and a man limped in, ash falling from his hair.
He blinked while his eyes adjusted to the dim interior; only one window remained unbroken and not yet boarded up.
“You’re actually open?”
Salim shrugged, behind the bar. “Shelters were full, and I had no place else to be. What brings you in?”
“Same,” the man said. “Well, I did have somewhere to be, but, you know, no accessible roads at this point. So, unless the networks unjam, I have nowhere to go and no way to call anyone. I went wandering and saw your sign. Frankly I assumed it was a joke.” He wiped something from the corner of his mouth. Dirt, maybe. Dried blood, more likely.
“Glad you took the chance.” Salim spoke up to make himself heard as something flew past in a roar, low enough to rattle the glassware. “Pull up a seat.”
The man plopped onto a barstool and patted his pockets. “As it turns out I happen to have lost any money I was carrying.”
Salim laughed. “Not much need for that, today. We’ve got a drink special going. You pick a bottle from any of these shelves here and I give you a pour, on the house.”
The man pointed to a bottle of bourbon on the top shelf. Salim pulled it down and set two glasses on the bar top.
He poured a healthy glug into each glass. “I’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”
“Would not mind that at all,” the man said. His voice caught for a moment, and he cleared his throat. He held up one of the glasses. The contents sloshed as his hand tremored. “Here’s to you.”
“Here’s to us,” Salim said, clinking their glasses together. The room lit in a bright flash for a few seconds as a mushroom cloud bloomed on the horizon.
“To all of us.”
Sean MacKendrick is a software engineer who splits his time between Colorado and Texas. Beyond that we don’t know much else about him, except that this is the second story of his that we’ve published.
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