“It doesn’t make any sense. People don’t go mad overnight,” Laura said.
“I really wasn’t that worried until the police started to disappear and they said cops were joining the looters and how it had spread from small towns to the cities after that. I talked to Jerry at work just a week ago; nobody knows what’s going on or how it’s spreading so quickly,” he said.
“Why don’t they just tell us what they want?”
“They don’t have a spokesperson and they won’t make demands. The President said he was going to implement martial law. You already know they told us to stay home from work, stay at home and off the streets, and they closed schools. I think the government knows more than they are telling us.”
Laura sat up taller, looking at him. “Jenny said she heard it all has something to do with the meteor shower last weekend, like maybe it polluted the water, and it’s making people crazy. Smitty says they weren’t meteors at all; he said it was a signal, like a sign.”
“Smitty is a tool; a sign for what?” Jacob asked, already having a low opinion of his neighbor.
“Well, Smitty says the Chinese or North Korean sleeper cells have probably been activated to disrupt the economy.”
“Ha! What economy?” Jacob asked.
“Well then, maybe it’s global warming; or like Jenny said, something in the water or chemicals in the food. All those people on the TV, the experts, they all seemed to have an opinion—at least they did until the experts began to vanish too.”
Jacob sat and listened to her while he second-guessed his earlier inaction. Maybe if they’d left at the first signs of danger, they wouldn’t be trapped here. They would be safe at Laura’s parents in the country. Now they were stuck, left alone to starve… or worse.
“I think you were right, Laura; we should have left when we had the chance.”
“It’s okay. You were just trying to keep us safe. You did what you thought was right,” she said.
Jacob stood and stepped closer to the window, then pulled back on the edge of the drape and let the bright moonlight bleed into the room. He put his eye to the crack; the skies were clear, and the moon hung full, casting a blue hue over the residential street and turning the pavement a gloomy shade of gray. On the horizon, the skyline glowed orange and yellow.
He could see his wrecked car in the center of the road where they’d abandoned it. The car that hit him was twisted, the body of the driver still hanging from the windshield. Jacob tried to look away, but the wreckage mesmerized him. Every time he looked at it, his eyes drawn back to the body… the man’s bloated corpse mangled by the glass… the oily stains on the sidewalk where the other bodies had been…
Movement caught his eye. Jacob instinctively crouched and backed away, even though he didn’t think anyone would be able to see him peeking from the darkened second story window.
“What is it? Did you see something?” Laura whispered.
In a low crouch, Jacob went back to the window and scanned the street. Against a curb, stood a shirtless man, his naked arms tensed, and his head locked straight ahead in a dark stare. Standing like a stone at the edge of the street, the man didn’t move.
Jacob heard the squeak and rattle of a storm door. He concentrated on trying to find the source of the noise and pushed closer to the gap in the drapes.
“No. What are you doing?” he whispered, as he caught a glimpse of his neighbor’s front door slowly opening.
The door squeaked and pushed out. A man dressed in khaki pants and a heavy robe walked onto the porch. Smitty, his neighbor of five years, stepped into the moonlight with an aluminum baseball bat held loosely in his right hand. He pointed the bat with an extended arm and called out.
“Hey… hey you! Why’d the siren go out?” Smitty said to the stranger in the street.
The bare-chested man turned his head to look at him. His arms flexed and extended, pointing at Smitty. His back arched, and he let out a yell—no words, just an anger-filled roar. Jacob watched his neighbor take a step back in fear.
All along the street, more figures came into view from the shadows. They were running at full speed, screaming. They poured past the bare-chested man and ran to the house. Smitty ran inside and closed the door just as the mob crashed into the front of the home. The wood siding rattled, and the windows buckled from the impact. Jacob watched as they piled over the porch and surrounded the perimeter of the home, searching for a way in while tearing at the windows and siding.
The mob exploded through the front windows and crashed through the door. They continued to pour down the street—at least a hundred of them—all entering Smitty’s home. There were no screams from inside the house. No cries for help. Nothing could be heard over the roar of the ravenous mob. Jacob let go of the drape, rolled away, and pressed his back to the wall. The thunder of his neighbor’s home being torn apart shook his own and he barely heard his daughter’s cry from the bed.
His wife pulled her close, whispering as she tried to comfort the girl. Jacob went to the nightstand, gripped his pistol, and walked to the bedroom door. He checked the locks, feeling the long wood screws he had fastened into the doorframe. “What’s happening outside, Jacob?” his wife asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. He searched the floor, lifted the water jug to his lips, and then mumbled, “They're attacking Smitty’s house.”
“What? Jenny and the kids!” Laura said as she jumped to her feet and began running to the window.
Jacob moved quickly to stop
