Where did it come from and how far had it traveled?
Before I could think anymore about it, it left, just as easily as it had arrived. Before it flew off to the unknown it uttered one last word, one that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Alone.
Who had taught it that word? Hello, sure. Polly want a cracker, maybe. But, Alone? There would be no possible use for a bird to know that word. And that’s when I noticed that Mandy was missing.
Entry 7
God dammit, she always liked to wander off.
I called for her frantically. My mind instantly went to the worst. I don’t know what I would do without her. She really was my lynch pin to sanity in this world. The one who I talked to. The one I confided in. The one…
The bushes started rustling about twenty feet down the fairway. Pointing the gun at the moving bushes I called for whoever, or whatever, was in there to come out or I would fire. I had only killed one of them before, but it wasn’t easy. They still look like us, but their eyes have glazed over and they seem, I don’t know, lost, empty, alone.
Three more seconds and I would empty the clip into the bush, cutting in half whatever was hiding in there. Two. I really don’t want to. The noise would definitely attract any scavengers in the area. One. I squeezed the trigger, but something stopped me, a familiar jingle of the collar escaping from the bushes, then that silky black fur. I lowered my gun and sighed.
Entry 8
The next few days were spent inside. After the run in with the parrot I had seen the black smoke from one of the scavenger’s caravans in the next city over, that horse town that thought it was cool to model their city after an old west motif.
The scavengers were dangerous folk that roamed the deserted wastelands of once great cities, searching for anything to kill or steal, or both, no matter how insignificant. I first heard about them from the search and rescue group that broadcasts over the dead radio. They warned me about the large trucks they would drive, emitting thick black plumes of smoke.
The first time I saw one was one of the most frightening moments of my life. They had come along the freeway plowing through the wall of dead traffic with a cow catcher welded onto the front of their truck. I watched them from my roof chasing a group of survivors. I can only imagine that they were caught at the freeway over pass down the street. As they passed behind a tree, blocking them from my sight, I heard the most horrific screams all night long. I didn’t sleep for three days. I still hear them sometimes in my dreams. Or are they nightmares? Whatever they are, they usually involve my family.
My father’s plan was simple. He and my mother were going to pick me up at the house and we were going to head north to get my sister, she was attending college for the fall. I had left work early and the west bound side of the freeway was a ghost town. It never moved fast, ever, let alone being deserted. The east bound side, however, was worse than a parking lot. Cars were crammed into every nook and cranny. The spaces that did exist were clogged with pedestrians trekking along the freeway.
Once I got off the freeway it wasn’t any better. I felt like I was driving through the streets of 1920’s Chicago. No one had any regard for street markings.
Normally, even though the freeway was less than a mile from our house, the freeway noise only grew to no more than a loud whisper. Now the noise was like an assault on my ears, car horns, yelling, and the occasional fender bender. I doubt anyone stopped to get insurance information. I kept telling myself it was a backfire, but I thought I heard gun fire once or twice.
My father told me to wait by the phone, he would call me when they were outside. I decided to turn on the news until they got there. The images reminded me of the ’93 L.A. riots. Cities burning. People Panicking. And, yes, I remember those. It wasn’t that long ago. It amazes me that in states of emergency some people’s first instinct is to loot.
One of the news stations must have been attacked somehow. A big bang erupted off camera, shaking the screen wildly and then it went dead, displaying the ominous “Please Stand-by” graphic with that picture of a cute puppy pulling the cord of the camera out of the socket.
Several times I tried calling my father and mother. Each time I got a busy signal. The lines must be jammed with people trying to reach loved ones. I even tried my sister with the same results.
As the night dragged on I came closer and closer to the worst realization I would come to, my family was never coming.
Their memory still haunts me to this day, that sick feeling in your heart and the pit of your stomach, the feeling of being left all alone in this world, not knowing their fate.
I still wait by the phone sometimes.
Entry 9
Being in seclusion for three days has left us weary. Mandy was eager to stretch her legs out on her speed track, but she would have to wait a little bit longer.
