Hornets and Others

sections of road and sidewalk were alternately moving up and down, like predatory mouths, and I knew that those openings were large enough to swallow a human being whole, snowshoes and all.

I resolved to stay on as long as possible, stretching my food in the hope of some lessening of activity outside; but, when my water suddenly dried up in the tap in the middle of my fourth day of self-imposed captivity, I knew my fate in the city was sealed.

I made up my mind to get as far away as possible, making it, if I could, to the suburbs. From there I would hike, using whatever stealth and guile was necessary, to the mountains I had recently left, where perhaps this activity was less ravenous. I knew that reaching the country-side alone would not solve my problem-1 had seen, on the television before it was cut off, reports showing dirt roads breaking up under those walking on them. I had the feeling that even forest trails and whatnot were susceptible. What then could I do? I must admit my plan was tenuous, but I did feel that I must make my way as far from the city as I could.

And so began my journey of adventure. I spent most of the morning of my leaving with gathering together whatever from my apartment I deemed necessary for my well-being. I remember packing the shortwave radio, forgetting completely that it required electricity to run on, and that electricity was the one thing I would probably be finding less and less of as I traveled, except in battery form. I also packed a few treasured books and sentimental possessions, and water from my tub which I had managed to drain out of the pipes before everything went dry—this I put in various Tupperware containers, some of which worked perfectly and one, a lettuce storage container which was never meant to hold a quart and a half of water, which burst all over most of my aforementioned treasured possessions. After making exchanges (a Kafka for a Roethke, as I recall) I donned my ridiculous snowshoes and made for the exit.

Those ridiculous snowshoes proved my salvation. Running and leaping like a madman, I managed to make it to the sporting goods store, where I outfitted myself with every piece of camper's equipment I could carry. I resembled Admiral Byrd himself at the end of my shopping spree, and I even managed to locate a book which informed me of all the best and lightest gear I would need for keeping myself alive in all climates. I left the store twice as confident as when I had gone in. Then, leaping and jumping once more, I made my way to the grocery market where I stocked up with whatever material I was unable to find in the dry foods section of the sports store.

As I said, my snowshoes proved my salvation. Portions of the ground were literally alive with appearing and disappearing holes; but with cunning and no small bit of luck I was off. As I hopped my way to the edges of the city the activity of the ground lessened somewhat; apparently its strength was regulated by population. I still barely managed to escape a few encounters with pot holes which suddenly materialized out of nowhere; once, when two popped into existence so close together as to form virtually one hole, I managed only with a great show of strength born of fear to yank my legs free from whatever had grasped them from below.

I won't relate all of my experiences with hiking, sleeping in trees, and the avoidance of wild animals which I found myself faced with over the coming weeks; let it suffice for me to state that I stayed alive, and even thrived a bit. I never saw another human being in all this time, and (rightfully so, I believe) I began to fancy myself as the Last Man on Earth.

Eventually I reached my string of northern mountains, and was encouraged when the lack of activity under foot decreased dramatically as I climbed; and then, to my great relief, ceased altogether. When I finally topped a high portion of one peak, which, I guessed, had hardly if ever been visited by human beings, I at last began to feel safe and secure again. Picking out a high level spot near the summit with a commanding and clear view of all below, I made my home. I built, over the next two months, a rough-hewn cabin, and, from then until the present, have maintained a periodic survey of my surroundings, here and below, for any sort of activity, in the ground or otherwise.

There hadn't been any up until yesterday. But early in the morning I noticed some sort of odd movement through my binoculars at the base of the mountain. And then last night I spied a ring of campfires halfway up the peak. And so at last I'm faced with having to think about everything that's happened, and what might happen from here on.

These new developments disturb me, because I really have been convinced for the past few months that I am the last man alive on earth. I can't really explain why I've been so sure that there are no other human beings alive; it's more of a gut feeling than anything else. And that of course forces me into thinking about who or what is sitting around those campfires down there.

And I've come up with a funny theory. Early on after settling down here I tried to sort out just what might have happened below, in the cities and everywhere else. I thought about earthquakes, of a scale and strangeness never before seen, but that didn't seem right. There had been those 'hands' I'd thought I'd seen and where there are hands there must be someone connected to them. So I thought about a huge underground race, like H. G. Wells' pasty subterranean Morlocks from The Time Machine. But that didn't seem right, either —and neither did twenty other theories.

But finally I hit on one that I couldn't shake. Again, I had a gut feeling about it.

The way I see it, those figures below me, who hiked all day today up toward me, out of sight, and are traveling that last mile toward me now by the light of torches, just out of range of my binoculars, are either men or they're not. If they're men, that's fine and good; it means the world down there is safe once more and that maybe we survivors can get about the business of building things back up again. And if they're not men, they must, of course, be something else.

And a curious scenario popped into my head. Like I said, a gut feeling. What if, I thought, another race, the quietest of all races, had decided that it was time to trade their world for this one. What if they had determined that it was time for us on the surface to inhabit their world and they ours? What if these quiet ones—the dead, of course—had decided to switch places with us? To take back what they had once had? What if that was who was behind those bobbing torches, just coming into focus in my binoculars? The silent, stealthy dead. How many early cultures had cosmologies that designated the underground as the abode of the dead? Suppose that now it's time for a switch of living quarters?

I can now see down through my window, with my binoculars, the first pale, fleshless faces in the flickering torchlight as they break through the brush and my crude fences.

Hornets

Too warm for late October.

Staring out through the open door of his house, Peter Kerlan loosened the top two buttons of his flannel shirt, then finished the job, leaving the shirt open to reveal a gray athletic tee-shirt underneath. Across the Street the Meyer kids were re-arranging their newly purchased pumpkins on their front stoop—first the bigger of the three on the top step, then the middle step, then the lower. They were jacketless, and the youngest was dressed in shorts. Their lawn was covered, as was Kerlan's, with brilliantly colored leaves: yellow, orange, a dry brown. The neighborhood trees were mostly shorn, showing the skeleton fingers of their branches; the sky was a sharp deep blue. Everything said Halloween was coming—except for the temperature.

Jeez, it's almost hot!

Behind him, out through the sliding screen door that led to the back yard, Peter could hear Ginny moving around, making an attempt at early Sunday gardening.

Maybe it's cold after all.

He opened the front screen door, retrieved the morning newspaper he had come for, and turned back into the house, unfolding the paper as he went.

In the kitchen, he sat down at the breakfast table and studied the front page.

The usual assortment of local mayhem—a robbery, vandalism at the junior high school, a teacher at that same school suspended for drug use.

In the backyard, Ginny cursed angrily; there was the sound of something being knocked against something else.

'Peter!' she called out.