I’m a mess.

  My hair is ratty and tangled, I’m covered with salt and grime. The scratches on my leg are swollen and have an unhealthy look to them. I haven’t eaten or drank, and my head is pounding. My knees are shaking, and I think I’d be throwing up if I had anything in my stomach to do so.

  This floor is office cubicles. Some of them still have knickknacks on them, a busted snowglobe, or a faded family photo. Some of them still have nameplates or job titles on the desk. None have landline phones, and the intact computers don’t turn on when I try the buttons. One desk has a fossilized newspaper, its words barely legible, but the headline still stands out.

  “Infection Rates Still Climbing.”

  When I move the paper, it crumbles, the back page stuck to the desk. I decide to leave it and keep walking.

  I could almost swear work stopped one day and no one ever came back. There’s a handmade flier for a company cookout, tacked to the soft carpeting of the cubicle wall. Another has a child’s drawing of a family in front of a tall building. Another shows a woman holding a large cat. Another has a faded fashion magazine that advertises “The Year’s Hottest Mods.”

  Some kind of bird has nested in a hole on top of one of the storage cabinets. It has the plumage and hooked beak of some kind of parrot or macaw, but coloring more like some sort of hawk, giving it the impression of a tropical bird wearing camo print. It peeks out of its nest, caws at me, and then disappears inside.

  Sunlight streams through big, bay windows, many of which are missing glass, in part or in whole. Through them, I can see the whole of the swamp beneath me. Vines creep along streetlights and powerlines, climbing up buildings. Trees grow out of windows and doors, some with bits of things embedded in them or on them, like a chair or desk.

  At the end of the office floor is a staircase and an elevator. The elevator shaft hangs open, and peeking in, I can’t see the car at all, just loose cabling. The door to the staircase is missing as well, just an opening into an empty staircase lined with moss and a few plants taking root anyplace they can find sunlight. Something like a flying squirrel or sugar glider sits on a window, open to the outside, washing its face, and slides out under the iron framework when it notices me.

  I take the steps carefully. The cement feels strong enough, but I’m shaking. I’ve gone from feeling too cold to feeling too hot. If I had anything with me, I’d probably make Survival Mistake # Whatever and start disrobing or leaving stuff behind to alleviate my discomfort, and then regret it in the night.

  The stairwell has filled with sand in places. It catches my attention, so I crouch low, wincing in pain as I do, and examine. There are footprints in the wet sand, two-toed footprints with heavy clawmarks. I count out the joints visible in the toes, three, as in my fingers, and both toes have claws. I try to decide how many individuals I can see, but I can’t, because I don’t know what left this. I don’t know if I’m looking at front feet or back feet. Some are larger or smaller than others, but I can’t…I can’t focus.

  What kind of animal leaves tracks like this?

  Some appear to be coming and some going. I can’t keep track of which ones are on top, but they must have been fairly recent. That’s right, isn’t it? Tracks don’t last forever. How wet did this stairwell get last night? Was the storm last night?

  I keep moving, leaning against a wall for balance. Someone has written on the stairwell here.

  Catharine, if you read this, meet me at Grandma’s.

  I put my fingers over the letters. They’re chipped, faded. They definitely aren’t new, and not the stuff typically found written illicitly in stairwells. I try to remember if I know a Catharine.

  I keep going, floor after floor. I stumble a few times, grabbing onto the railing, which is rusty and unstable in a few places. Somehow, I make it to the bottom, where the door lies outside the doorway, rusting away on the ground. The doorway leads to a pond, with lily pads and flowers. A pair of black swans drift lazily across the surface, and what looks like a koi breaks the surface, drawing me closer, counting the silver and gold speckled bodies.

  I remember last Fourth of July, and the low country boil. It was potluck, everyone brought something different, crabs, mussels, crawfish. Someone brought fresh-caught fish, thick and juicy, almost like a steak. The memory on my tongue causes my stomach to rumble piteously.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I begin to look around for fallen limbs. Wet branches won’t burn, but I might be able to find something dry enough. There are some trees growing around here, a few with branches lost during the storm. I drag them back to the pond, piling them up by the bank.

  This little place of grass is wedged between the pond and the swamp. I think at one point it was part of a drainage ditch, funneling water away from the parking lot and into a drain. It seems to me I heard that any body of water standing for long enough attracts fish, but whoever told me the story didn’t seem to know how they got there. It isn’t like they migrate for miles across dry land.

  This little dry spot doesn’t have a whole lot to work with. The kindling is all wet from last night. Trying to rub a fire out of twigs isn’t going to be easy.

  My head feels hot. That’s not a good sign. Maybe some fresh fish will help a little.

  I pile what I have into a heap, putting the driest on top, and then take two branches and begin rubbing them together. After about ten minutes, I throw them down in a heap, thinking about how stupid this is, and then pick them up and try it again. At least the sun is drying the wood out, but it beating on my back isn’t heling the pounding headache or thirst.

  Eventually, I manage to eek out a spark, and then coax it into a small flame. I breathe on it until I can be sure of its stability, and then move on to the next step: a big branch I think I can use as a spear.

  It would be better if I had something to sharpen the stick with, but I don’t, and by “stick” I mean “comes up to my waist or so.” Fighting back the nausea, I wait at the edge of the pond, hoping a nice, fat koi will come close enough. I have to be careful, too, or the splashing will scare them off.

  The first one misses. I cuss, and then sit down on the bank, rubbing my temples. This really isn’t funny anymore.

  There’s a thud as something strikes the ground behind me. I turn to see what it was, and find a large, brownish mass, and look up to see where it might have come from. There’s a bit of curtain moving in an upper window. I crawl a little closer to the thing to see what it is.

  It’s a giant spider.

  It is a giant spider the size of a basketball.

  This is a really huge spider.

  And it’s dead, its legs folded against itself the way they do when they die. Pale ooze drips from its mouthparts, from gaping holes where the pincers, or stingers or whatever spiders should have, should be.

  Fangs. That’s what spiders have. Fangs.

  I retch and pull back, trying not to dry-heave in the grass. I ignore it and try not to think about it, going back to my spear and the fish in the koi pond.

  Around the third time I miss a fish, I throw the spear down and start screaming and punching the ground. I don’t feel well, and I lay in the grass, dry-heaving and gasping. It’s late evening when I open my eyes and realize I must have fallen asleep or passed out, and I decide to give it one last college try with the fish.

  This final try, I don’t spear it so much as somehow manage to scoop it onto the bank and make a mad grab for it, dragging it into the grass and holding it still until it smothers.

  By now the fire has died down to a few warm pieces of charcoal, but at least I have the fish, which I place in the firepit, cover with some twigs and try to re-light. Tonight I eat like a queen.

  I wish I had a knife. I can't remember which parts to remove or how to do it, but I remember the eyes and the scales. That's where the good stuff is.

  I bake it as best I can. When the embers die down, I suppose it's done. I take a bite straight from the flesh, hoping it isn't going to lead to dysentery. I spit the larger bones out, eat the smaller ones, and suck the eyes out of the skull.

  “It won’t be pretty, Minka,” my father says in the back of my head. “It won’t be nice. It probably won’t taste very good. But to stay alive, you have to be willing to do things you never thought you would, find the edible in the things people turn their noses up at, in bugs, eyes, and marrow.”

  When I have nothing but entrails and bones, I throw it back into the pond and sit back. My stomach is a bit happier, but I’m still hungry and longing for more, my tongue still dry and my head still pounding. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can get another fire lit and I’m losing daylight.

  But I have my fishing spear. That’s an improvement.

  I use it as a walking stick and limp back into the abandoned building, using what’s left of daylight to check the scrapes and cuts on my thigh. They don’t look good, an unhealthy color, speckled with pus, and warm to the touch. I’m warm all over.

  That isn’t a good sign.

  I try to drain some of the pus with my fingers. I get out what I can, but my hands aren’t clean and I don’t have anything to clean it with. Unfortunately, I’ll have to deal with that in the morning.

  I keep going into the building, taking the inner door in the stairwell this time, which creaks and groans, opening up into a bank lobby. The furniture is more or less intact, but worn and cracked in places. Open glass windows and doors on one side let in enough light for me to see the teller windows, straight and even, official-looking, and most importantly, a bottle of hand sanitizer sitting on the counter.

  I limp toward it, stepping past a brochure display and a couch I’ll probably be sleeping on tonight, and examine the bottle. It’s a big bottle with a hand pump, the label’s too faded to read and what’s left in the bottom is a thick jelly. There’s a yellowed note hanging off the side by hope alone.

  To prevent spread of disease, please sanitize hands before and after each transaction.

  Not at all creepy.

  I pull the note off the bottle and pry the screw-on lid off, finding it fused by whatever non-evaporative ingredients are left, which doesn’t work but the bottle splits along its seam. I scrape out what I can reach with my fingers and smear it along the exposed skin on my leg. The burn lets me know it’s working.

  Hopefully, that’ll have bought me another night. Yawning and a little dizzy, I go back to the old-fashioned humpback couches and pick the most intact one to spend the night on.

  What best hits the spot after a long day of survivng the post-apocalyptic workout?