2
Nothing seemed different as James drove along the highway, avoiding the empty cars and collisions. The noise of the engine relieved him in place of the dreadful silence he’d endured at home for several days now. But even still, an oppressing fear hung over him as he made his way toward his brother’s house. Not a single person, alive or dead, appeared at any point. Who was he kidding? He’d seen no signs of life save for a tree and his own reflection. Checking the Internet only added to the number of questions swirling in his head. About half of the pages he attempted to load brought up nothing, and those that did come up hadn’t been updated since before everyone disappeared.
Even the roar of the car’s engine wasn’t distracting enough from the desolation that surrounded him. At first he was only nervous. He told himself whatever happened was probably localized to the south side of town. But as he made his way around the circular highway northeastward, his nerves frayed toward panic. The pileup along the 65 South exit had really jarred him. He’d never seen so much carnage. Hundreds of cars smashed together, more than half of them on fire and smoking profusely. The heat through the closed window came through in waves, even from the far side of the highway. The horizon above blurred in and out of focus from the flames. But still he saw no bodies. Not a single one.
The city streets weren’t much different on the east side of town. Those not desolate contained wayward cars and the remains of several explosions. One major thing was different here, though. House fires, a lot of them, littered the area. From what James could tell, it looked like some of them had spread from one house to another. It was everything he could do to keep from breaking down as he watched the smoke roll up from those houses. For 20 terrifying minutes, he imagined finding his brother’s house burned to the ground, Joel’s body the first one for James to find. But relief came when he turned down Hopkins Road and the entire street looked completely unscathed save for the lack of anything green or growing. Joel’s red Corsica sat in the driveway as James pulled up to the curb. He killed the engine and sat there for a long moment, studying the house. The shades were drawn and the door was closed. Looking around, he didn’t see a single house with an empty driveway or any other signs of normal activity. It appeared just like his neighborhood. Just as deathly still. After a few deep breaths and a long, hard swallow, James pulled the keys from the ignition and got out of the car. He walked with short strides through the dirt yard, taking his time and examining the soil with his shoes.
With the front step of the porch just a stride away, he stopped still and gazed into the front window. He could make out the outline of the dining room table and various ceramic decorations Cheryl, his sister-in-law, had put up. He kicked the dirt off his shoes and started up the porch, toward the door. Holding his keychain up in front of his face, he stared at it, unable to find the key. He knew it was there, but he just couldn’t find it. Then he snapped himself out of it, pulled aside the proper key, and used it to unlock the door. The door creaked and moaned as he opened it. Sebastian, the family’s golden retriever, who usually attacked James by throwing his front paws onto James’s chest and smothering him in doggy kisses, was nowhere to be seen. James called out as he stepped around the dark blue recliner.
“Joel? Cheryl? Sebastian? Here boy?”
He headed for the table he’d seen in the window. Looking to the right into the kitchen, he saw no one there. On the floor he found Sebastian’s food and water bowls, both partially empty. He’d started for the bedroom when he heard a low pitched boom from outside of the house. It went on for a moment until finally it rattled the walls and all of the nick-knacks for several seconds and then faded away. Even though James knew the sound had probably been a distant explosion, it still made him jump when he heard it. He entered the hallway. On the right side, the guest room door stood ajar, while on the left, Joel and Cheryl’s bedroom door remained closed. Straight ahead, James saw the wide open bathroom door.
James tried the guest room first looking for any sign of Sebastian. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was stalling, but it helped him deal with his fear, so he went along with it. Under the guest bed, he saw a sparkle of shiny metal. He tapped the object with his foot so that it rolled out from under the bed. It was a collar that said, “Sebastian” on it. He told himself it could’ve just been an old collar. After confirming the guest room was empty, he went to the bathroom, flipped on the light, and looked in the mirror. He turned on the water and ran it over his hands. Then he ran his hands over his face and through his hair and took a deep breath. He dreaded what he would find in that room and didn’t want to look anymore. If they were gone, he wondered if he could convince himself they were merely somewhere else. Worse yet, what if they were in there, frozen stiff. The different possibilities terrorized him. He couldn’t take it anymore. With tears streaming down his face, he burst through the bathroom, and flung the bedroom door open. Joel’s glasses and two cell phones sat on the nightstand, one of them flashing. James walked over to them and picked up the flashing one. Joel’s. He flipped through the menu until he found the recent calls list. His own number and no other filled the missed call log.
James stood alone in the room. The blanket lay ruffled on the bed as if whatever it covered had simply dissipated. James walked around to the other side of the bed. A crunching sound from under his shoe startled him. He bent down to take a look. Little pieces of curved, pink plastic lay on the ground, some of them shattered from his footfall. He picked up the pieces and then flung them when he realized what they were.
Fingernails.
He gagged for a moment, having to grip the dresser to keep from falling over. Then he realized as he took a deep breath what he’d not gathered at first. They were fingernails, all right, but not
Standing outside of Joel’s shed in the backyard, James stood smoking a cigarette, his body convulsing, his face red and full of tears. He couldn’t understand why he kept smoking but still couldn’t bring himself to put the cigarette out. He moaned in a miserable high pitch as he leaned into the front of the shed, weeping. When the cigarette ran its course and burnt his hand, James threw the butt on the ground and went into the shed. When he found Joel’s gas can, it was empty. Kneeling on one knee, he chucked it aside and wiped his face. It had been worth a try, but now he would have to figure out how to get gas from a gas station if he was going to have enough fuel to get wherever he was going.
As he walked back to his car, he thought for a long moment about taking the Corsica. Joel obviously wouldn’t be using it. But he knew that would only remind him of his loss. He got in his car, started it, and sped off, paying little attention to where the road took him. He drove around aimlessly for a long time, just taking inventory of his surroundings. Eventually, he came to a trashy little gas station, the only one that wasn’t crowded with cars and hadn’t exploded. He pulled the car into position beside one of the pumps. Without even thinking about it, he got out and swiped his card in the pump’s card machine. The small screen said, “Approved” and the machine beeped at him. He pulled out the nozzle and pumped gas into the car. Once the tank was full, he replaced the nozzle back in its holder and tightened the gas cap back in place.
At some point, James wasn’t really sure exactly when, he’d subconsciously decided he would head west until… well, until he found something, someone. And if he found nothing, then he would just keep going until he couldn’t go any further. When he got on the ramp for 70 West, he slammed on the gas, swerving to avoid random collided and burning cars. By the time the skyscrapers of downtown towered to his right, he was reaching 110 MPH. It didn’t feel good, exactly, but it relieved him a little somehow to drive so recklessly. But as he neared the west side of town, he quickly cut his speed. The amount of cars and pileups were staggering. The highway ahead of him looked like a war-zone with dozens of smoke plumes racing each other for the highest point in the sky. As he swerved around a couple of overturned cars, something occurred to James. Compared to typical daytime weekday traffic very few cars covered the road. Then he remembered how many cars still sat in driveways just about everywhere he had been.
Every house in his housing edition had garages, but most of them probably housed automobiles. The only time so little traffic came out was in the dead of pre-dawn, before the first daily traffic rush. It must have happened all at once and likely in the middle of the night. Out of habit, he looked at the time on his cell phone. 2:30 PM. He
