YESTERDAY’S GONE
EPISODE ONE

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Sean Platt & David Wright. All rights reserved 
Cover copyright © 2011 by David W. Wright
Edited by Shane Arthur.


This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The authors have taken great liberties with locales including the creation of fictional towns. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

This eBook is for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you’d like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this copy and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.

Visit: http://SerializedFiction.com 
Layout and design by Collective Inkwell
CollectiveInkwell.Com
Published by Collective Inkwell at Smashwords

* * * *

Dedication:
To You, the reader.

* * * *


INTRODUCTION


When I was a child in 1979, there was a TV show on NBC called Cliffhangers. Each week, they’d bring you three 20 minute segments of ongoing serials. One story was a horror tale about a vampire, the other was a sci-fi/western hybrid, and the last one, a mystery. I don’t remember much of the stories. But I do remember how excited I got each week when the show was about to come on. 
And how frustrated I got at the end of each segment when the announcer would tell you that the adventure would be continued next week.
“Arggghh!”
God, how I loved being teased and tormented by that show. 
Of course, the network had the last laugh when after just 10 episodes, they cancelled Cliffhangers — before they finished the stories!
The ultimate, “ARGGGHH,” but not a good one.

THE GOOD “ARGGGHH”
Anyway, we’ve all had those “Arggghh!” moments when our favorite shows leave us hanging another week to see what happened. Or, in the case of a season ending cliffhanger, we’d have to wait a whole summer!
“ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!”
I love shows like these. My writing partner, Sean, loves shows like these.
I’m guessing you love shows like these.
Whether we’re entrenched in The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, LOST, X-Files, Game of Thrones, Dexter, Deadwood, Mad Men, or any of the other great shows on TV, there’s nothing better than episodic TV and the cliffhanger.
In 1996, Stephen King released The Green Mile as six chap books, each of them around 100 pages, the first five ending with cliffhangers. He released one a month until he told the entire story.
While writers have been doing serialized fiction forever, and I’d read a few serialized stories in magazines (and comic books), this was my first experience with serialized storytelling in book form.
King had me hooked from book one.
I remember going to the bookstore the minute it opened on the release date of each new book. Then I raced home to devour the book. As a writer, I loved the concept. 

SERIALIZED FICTION
Sean and I attempted to release our vampire thriller Available Darkness as serialized web fiction a couple of years ago, posting chapters weekly on our blog. We drew a few readers, but most people emailed us saying the same thing:

“I hate reading on the web. When are you gonna come out with a book?”

This was also the exact moment that our business was taking off and we were drowning in work. Putting a book out was not gonna happen. So we reluctantly put Available Darkness on hold until we could finish it properly and release it as a book. 
And then last year, eBooks and Print On Demand took off. Suddenly people were reading on Kindles and iPads in record numbers. 
That’s when we knew we had to finish Available Darkness and get it out to the few loyal people we left hanging. (Released August 9, yay!)
But in this era of indie publishing, we also saw another opportunity. To get back to what we really wanted to do — write serialized fiction and get it to you. As a writer, there’s no more awesome feeling than creating something that people get wrapped up in and can’t wait for the next installment. 
And unlike 1996, you don’t have to drive to a bookstore to get the next copy. Instant downloads from Amazon at a low price. 

THE PLAN
We’ve got a few stories we’re working on in the background. Our plan is to release a new episode of Yesterday’s Gone every three weeks (updated from our original once a month plan) until the first season is over. Each book will be 100 pages or so (just like The Green Mile, that seemed like a good size) and each series will be six books.
And then we’ll either release season one of our next title like HBO rotates its hit shows, or go straight into season two of Yesterday’s Gone, depending on how things go and where we’re at with our other books.

I’m not sure how many other writers are out there doing serialized eBooks. But I think the time has never been better for this type of fiction. 
And we’re looking forward to taking you on one hell of a ride and giving you some “ARGGGHH!” moments that will make you throw your Kindle across the room.
Or just slam it down gently into your pillow.

Let us know how we’re doing. Leave a review at Amazon or stop by http://SerializedFiction.com and drop us a line.

Thank you for reading,
David W. Wright
See you on August 22 with Episode 2! 


* * * *


BRENT FOSTER

Saturday
October 15, 2011
morning
New York City


On the day everything changed, Brent Foster’s biggest concern was getting an hour to himself. But hell if he wouldn’t have settled for 15 minutes.
His head was pounding when he woke, as if he’d spent the night partying rather than staying late at the paper. Fortunately, it was his day off. He glanced at the alarm clock and saw that the blue numbers were black. The fan he used to drown out the sounds of his neighbors and traffic was off too. The power must’ve gone out.
Great.
Judging from the morning sun coming through the opening in the curtains, he figured it was probably 9 a.m. And since he couldn’t hear the sounds of his rambunctious three year old at play, Gina must’ve taken Ben for a walk or play date at the park. 
He smiled. He loved when he had the apartment to himself. Moments alone were so rare these days. He worked under constant deadlines in the newsroom, still always hustling and bustling, even with the layoffs. Then, at home, his son was usually awake and in need of some daddy time. 
“He just wants to spend time with you,” his wife would say, tugging at Brent’s threadbare guilt strings. “You’re always working.”
Brent wasn’t completely antisocial, even if Gina might argue otherwise; he just needed time to decompress when he woke and when he got home. He was just wired that way. If he didn’t get time, he grew moody and anxious. And he was short with Ben, which carried the rough consequence of feeling shitty for hours, one hour for every second he was uncool to Ben. The last thing he wanted to be was like his own dad, yet some days, he was headed there with a full tank of gas and a brick on the pedal.
He was in a better mood when he could start the day alone. Today, it seemed, would start just right.
Brent walked into the living room, popped open the fridge, off but still cold. He grabbed a bottle of water and took a deep swig as his eyes scanned the counter for a note from his wife. She always left a note when she went somewhere. But, apparently, not today. Brent took another swig of water and headed down the hall to his son’s room. The door was closed; big blue wooden letters spelled BEN on the door. Brent peered inside. The bed was unmade, curtains drawn, even though Gina always opened them when Ben first woke. Both pairs of Ben’s sneakers were sitting on top of his blue wooden toy box that doubled as a bench.
Brent was confused. Gina wouldn’t take Ben from the apartment without shoes. 
He went back into his room, fished the cellphone from his pants, and glanced at the time. 10:20 a.m. Later than he thought.
He dialed Gina’s cell and put the phone to his ear.
No sound on the other line.
Phones are down, too?
Brent dialed again, same result.
Mrs. Goldman.
They had to be at the apartment across the hall, Mrs. Goldman’s. Her husband had passed away a few months earlier. Gina had started bringing Ben over to keep her company. She loved Ben and he loved eating her cookies — a perfect match.
Brent slipped on some sweatpants, then headed across the hall and knocked on the door. The lights in the hall were out, save for four emergency lights spaced every five doors along the ceiling.
Mrs. Goldman always took forever to answer the door. Brent suspected she was going deaf, even though she had a keen ear for neighborhood gossip. He knocked louder. Still, no answer. 
Mrs. Goldman never went anywhere. Ever. Her only other family was her worthless son, Peter, who never visited. The few times Gina had invited her to the store or for a nice afternoon lunch, Mrs. Goldman declined. She didn’t care much for the city. Was only there because her husband loved it. Now he was gone, and she was happy to spend her days watching TV, reading her mysteries, and playing bridge with some of the other ladies twice a week.
“Mrs. Goldman,” Brent called, “Are you there?”
Nothing.
Weird.
Brent didn’t know the other neighbors on his floor, but Gina had recently become friends with a young mother a few doors down. Maybe they went there, Brent figured. He walked toward the end of the hall, but couldn’t remember if the woman lived in number 437 or 439. 
He tried knocking on 437 first.
No answer.
He tried a couple more times, then went to 439.
No response.
What the hell? 
People were always home, or at least it seemed that way. Brent was never able to sleep in because his neighbors were loud and the walls were thin. He’d wanted to move somewhere quieter for years, somewhere with neighbors who actually left the building every now and then. Brent turned and tried the door across the hall, 440.
No response.
What the hell? 
Brent turned around and headed up the hallway, stopping to knock at each door along the way.
One, two, and then five more doors. Nothing. He continued down the hall, his heart thudding, knocks turning to pounding at each door. 
By the time he reached the end of the hallway, he was hot and sweaty, yelling. “HELLO?! ANYONE?!”
Nothing but black silence. The darkened hall seemed to constrict as his mind started racing.
Impossible. There’s no way that nobody’s home. No fucking way. Unless . . .
Terrorists.
The word bubbled to the surface as an answer to a question he’d not yet had the courage to ask. They were in New York, so it wasn’t implausible. He raced back to his apartment, door still open, went to the windows and pulled the curtains aside, then looked down on the city streets. The empty city streets.
Brent was speechless, his heart on pause, eyes swimming in and out of focus.
“What the fuck?”
It didn’t add up. If there were an attack, there would be bodies. If there was an evacuation, surely his wife would’ve woken him. Unless maybe it happened while she was out and unable to get back.
That thought died on the vine when he spotted Gina’s purse and keys on the kitchen table, right where she put them every night before bed, ready for the next morning. 
He looked back down. No people. No cars on the street. Well, none that were moving, anyway. Brent could see a handful that were either in the middle of the street, or had crashed into the cars parked on the opposite side of the street. He could see exhaust from some of the cars, their lights still on.
It was as if everyone on his block just simultaneously vanished. Everyone except Brent.
He went to Ben’s room again to get a look from his son’s window, which had a slightly better angle at the cross street. Something sharp stung his foot. He cursed as he stumbled, glancing at the carpet to see a small blue train.
Stanley Train, Ben’s favorite toy, which he carried with him everywhere, including to bed. It was there, just sitting on the floor. Brent bent and picked it up. Its wide eyes and eternally giant smile stared back at him. Wherever his little boy was, he was without his favorite toy. 
He set the train on Ben’s pillow and returned to his room. He got dressed, then grabbed his keys, wallet, and phone. He shoved everything in his jeans, then went to the kitchen, found the notepad and a pen and left a note for Gina.

“Where did you go? Went outside to look for you. Knocked on doors at our neighbors, nobody’s home. I’ll be back at 1 p.m. If you come home, wait for me.
Love,
Brent”

Halfway through the front door, Brent thought of something, then went back to his son’s room, grabbed Stanley Train from the pillow and put it in his pocket. 

**

Brent took the stairs down to the next floor, and started knocking on those doors, despite not knowing anyone on this floor.
At the sixth door without any response, he worked up the courage to try a doorknob. Locked.
Halfway down the hall, he got an idea. He found the fire alarm and pulled it. The alarm blared; a banshee shriek amid the quiet. Brent covered his ears, watching the hall, waiting for people to flee. 
Not a single door opened.
“Fuck it,” Brent said, and went to apartment 310, tried the knob. It was locked. He backed up a bit, kicked at a spot right below the doorknob and was surprised at how easily the door burst open. Why even have locks?
“Hello?!” he shouted.
No response. 
The apartment was as vacant as his own. Pictures on the wall showed a Puerto Rican family of four. Parents with two twin boys, about 10 years old. He was about to leave the apartment, but movement grabbed him. Something just beyond the sheer curtains covering the living room window. He moved closer and saw the slinky silhouette of a cat sunning on the windowsill. How it could relax with the alarm blaring was beyond Brent, but then again, so were most things feline.
He went to the curtain, pulled it aside, and saw the white long-haired cat stretched out, face nuzzled against the warm windowsill. As he reached out to pet the cat, it started to roll over to show its belly. As it turned, Brent jumped back.
The cat’s face had no eyes or mouth.
Brent fell back two steps, letting the curtain fall into place, his heart racing, half expecting the monstrosity to jump on him or worse. He stared at the curtains, dread creeping up his spine.
What the hell is that?
He watched the cat’s silhouette as it laid back down. He worked up the courage to pull the curtain aside again to make sure he’d seen what he thought he’d seen. The cat’s face was turned down, so he had to reach out, hesitantly, again and pet its head to get it to look back up at him. As his fingers touched the cat’s fur, he felt a slight shock, like static electricity. The cat didn’t seem to notice the shock. It began purring in response to the touch, then lifted its chin to meet Brent.
Only this time, the cat had eyes, wide blue ones, and a mouth.
Brent shook his head, feeling stupid. He continued to pet the cat’s head as the alarm kept ringing.
“You deaf, kitty?” Brent asked.
No response. Which was a good thing, or Brent might have just jumped right out the window. 
He glanced out at the street below to see if tenants were pouring from the building’s lower floors because of the fire alarm. If so, he didn’t see anyone. 
As the curtain drifted back into place, he saw movement on the street below. 
He snatched the curtain aside again, and glanced down at the apartment building across the street. A man in a dark sweater, baseball cap, and pants emerged from beneath the green awning and onto the street, looking around. He was too far away to get a good look at, particularly under a baseball cap, but something about his gait suggested he was nervous.
Brent jumped up, excited, and began smacking the window, yelling, “HEY! HEY!”
The cat leaped down and scurried out of sight.
The man on the street didn’t seem to hear Brent. He was walking north along the street, sticking to the sidewalk. Brent stopped trying to get his attention. While the man did glance over at the building a couple of times, likely drawn by the sound of the siren, his attention was mostly on something further down the road that Brent couldn’t see.
Brent watched, waiting to see where the man would go.
He seemed to be looking for someone. The man pulled a pair of binoculars out of his jacket and scanned the street in both directions. Then, he raised his binoculars up toward Brent. Brent waved frantically. For a moment, the man paused, and Brent was certain that he’d seen him. But he put the binoculars down and turned quickly to the north side of the street as if he’d heard or seen something.
The man lifted the binoculars to his eyes and focused to get a better look at whatever had his attention.
Brent turned, pushing his face against the window, struggling to see whatever the man was now staring at, but the angle was marred. He looked back down at the man, only to see him running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, and back into the apartment building he’d come from. 
Brent pressed his face against the window again, struggling to see what scared the hell out of the guy. Whatever it was, he couldn’t see it.
Hide, a voice in Brent’s head said. Hide now. 
It’s coming.

* * * *


MARY OLSON

Saturday
October 15, 2011 
morning
Warson Woods, Missouri 


Mary woke up sticky.
Another dream about Ryan, the sixth one in the last two weeks. Weird. She probably hadn’t thought of him for a month before that. Or longer. Though she couldn’t help but picture her ex from time to time since their daughter was his spitting image — well, a cuter, girly version, anyway.
Mary turned over and buried her face in the pillow. She hated dreaming about him, and really hated when they were sex dreams.
He’d never stop being inside her, but he hadn’t actually been there in three years. They’d been divorced for two, but once she found out about Natalie Farmer, the bitch that was 10 years too young and as perky as a sitcom schoolgirl, she couldn’t touch him without a shudder. 
She hated him for the innocence he stole and the lives he abused. But a large part of her could never forget the way he made her feel — the way he made her laugh, the way that, for no reason at all, he used to slip behind her and whisper treasures in her ear. The way he truly seemed to love her and their daughter, Paola. And the way he always reassured her that everything would be okay, even if he only did so in her dreams. 
Mary rarely slept past seven. During the week, Paola had to be at school by nine and they usually left by eight because Paola liked to go early. Unlike most 12 year olds, Paola would wake early even on the weekends. Sometimes, Paola would join Mary for some early morning yoga before Mary worked a few hours on the greeting cards that paid for the $1.1 million house high on a hill in Warson Woods, just outside St. Louis – no thanks to Ryan.
A million dollars bought a palace in Warson Woods, the kind of house Mary liked most, even though it made her feel guilty all the time. Her cousin lived outside L.A. He said nothing was for less than $350,000 unless you were willing to settle for bullet holes.
It was probably thinking about bullet holes that made Mary realize how quiet the house was. More than usual. She sat up in bed. More than quiet – eerie. The trees were swaying, but that was it. No birds chirping. No dogs barking. And no lawnmowers. In Warson Woods, people loved lawns like children, and spoiled them the same, either themselves or through their teams of landscapers. Mary started calling lawnmowers the “Missouri Symphony” the second week she moved in. To not hear lawnmowers on a Saturday morning made her briefly question whether she’d slept straight through to Monday. 
Mary left the bed and padded toward the stairs. She needed coffee. That would help the oddness fade. The hallway was dark. Mary flicked a light but nothing happened. She sighed and kept walking. One million for a house, fine, but everything should work.
She would have a hard enough time this morning without light, but being without caffeine might make it impossible. So she wasn’t happy when her new Keurig wouldn’t work either. Maybe there was an outage in the neighborhood? A sudden chill iced her insides. It wasn’t logical, but it came from the place that keeps its eyes peeled for the stuff logical doesn’t.
“Paola?”
Paola didn’t answer, but the Keurig rumbled to life and started warming its water as the hall light came on and the air conditioner cycled on. She would’ve called for Paola a second time, but she didn’t have to. Paola called for her instead. “Mom!!!” Mom sounded like a war cry rattling from the throat of a warrior who knew she was about to die.
Mary was at the foot of the stairs in less than a second and all the way to the top in two after that. She flew through Paola’s open door. Her daughter was screaming at something out of view. 
It was gone before Mary got there, but it had left Paola a vibrating mess. Mary tried to soothe her, but Paola pushed her away. “It’s okay, Honey.” Mary pulled her closer. Paola surrendered and Mary’s hands fell in a familiar pattern behind her daughter’s head. 
“What was it?” Mary asked.
“I don’t know,” Paola shook her head. “I don’t know the words.”
“Try.”
“It was like,” Paola fell into a second fit of sobs. Mary continued to pet her. “It was like ...” more sobbing, then, “It was like Daddy.” 
“What? What do you mean, it was like your father?”
Paola shook her head. Her cheeks burned. “It was Daddy. He was in my room but he wasn’t. It was just him, but not all of him.”
“Your father was here?!” Mary could feel her white face making Paola’s redder. 
“No.” Paola started to say something, then closed her mouth. A long three seconds passed, then, “It was like if a ghost was there without the ghost. Daddy, but not Daddy.” 
“How do you know it was a ghost, or your father, if you couldn’t see anything?”
Paola just stared at her mother. “I’d know daddy anywhere.” 
Her face cracked and she started to cry again as the power went off again.


**

It seemed to take longer than normal for Mary to calm Paola’s whimpers down to heavy breathing. Right when inhales and exhales were starting to meet, Paola broke the rhythm. 
“Why is it so quiet?”
Mary had almost forgotten. “I’m not sure, honey. The power’s out and everything feels...”
“Wrong,” Paola finished.
“Yeah, wrong.” Mary stood and held out her hand for Paola. She was almost as tall as her mom, and would likely tower over her in another year or two. Paola followed her mom downstairs and into the kitchen. The coffee machine had died before it could produce enough for a cup. Frustrated, Mary went to the fridge and grabbed a Diet Coke for herself and poured some OJ for her daughter.
When they finished, Mary looked out the front window.
“Let’s go look outside.” 
They walked the neighborhood that had gone from posh to ghost town overnight. 
They peered through windows and into cars, and crossed well-manicured yards, starting at Mrs. Parker’s house on the corner, because she was the first to move into the sub-division and had made it family business to know everything about everyone every day since. She wasn’t home. 
After two empty streets, they rounded the hill and hit the hiking trail, thinking there might be a neighborhood gathering they didn’t know about. The trails were empty, too. Odd for the weekend, when the housewives and retirees were usually out en masse.
They followed the trail, then rounded the avenue back to their street. They were surprised, and thrilled, to see someone standing in front of their house. It was their neighbor, Jimmy – Jim, as he’d been introducing himself since 8th grade, even though no one would listen. He was a head too tall for his age. That, along with his long dark hair that he let hang in his eyes, made him look a bit older than his 16 years. Any advantage he had in looking older was usurped by his immaturity. While he was generally a good kid, as far as Mary knew, he got into frequent trouble for skateboarding in the shopping center, trespassing at the pool after hours, skipping school, and the stuff that unfocussed kids generally did to pass away the time.
“What’d you find out Mrs. Olson?”
“Nothing,” Mary shook her head. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Other than the entire world going POOF!?” Jimmy made jazz hands, “I’ve no idea. I woke up, my mom and dad were AWOL. So were both my brothers. I figured they were fu ... messing with me, but I can’t figure out the angle, plus there’d be no way they’d get the whole neighborhood to play the reindeer games.”
Jimmy seemed oddly unfazed by events. 
Mary was about to ask him if the electricity was working in his house when her neighbor from the other side John, appeared in the distance. He was walking fast, directly toward them. Mary closed her mouth mid-sentence, Jimmy and Paola turned to see why. 
“Thank God!” John was running toward them. 
“What’s going on?” All three asked, hard to tell who was first.
“No idea. Jenny’s gone. No note. Nothing. She doesn’t even go downstairs without kissing me goodbye.”
It was true. With any other couple it would’ve been disgusting. But John and Jenny were probably the two nicest people alive. And so adorable and doting, it was almost creepy.
No one had a chance to console John, or consider Jenny, before a smoke-colored Audi appeared on the drive coming toward them. It was Desmond Armstrong, the neighbor from across the street. The Audi’s engine died but Desmond stayed inside. They could see him through the tinted windows, sitting and staring into space. It was an endless minute with no one knowing what to do. Finally, the door opened and Desmond put his boot on the grass.
“There’s no other way to say it,” Desmond shook his head. “The world is dead.” 

* * * *


CHARLIE WILKENS

Saturday
October 15, 2011
morning
Jacksonville, Florida


Charlie Wilkens wasn’t upset when he woke to find an empty world. In fact, it was the best damned thing that had happened in his 17 years on the planet.
He was frightened at first, of course, when he woke to find his house empty, both cars in the driveway, and no sign of his mother or asstard step-dad, Bob. But when he went door-to-door and discovered his entire block was as empty as his house, he was a few planets past the moon. 
As he tottered down the street on his 12 speed, he stopped to knock at each house, considering its occupants and the offenses they’d committed against him over the years. He knocked on the bully Eddie Houghton’s house, remembering the time the fat red head made Charlie eat dirt in front of his classmates in sixth grade. 
Good riddance.
He stopped at Josie Robinson’s house, a girl he had a crush on since kindergarten, and who had been his friend until last year, before she started hanging out with Shayanne Wolfe and the rest of the cheerleaders in the Bitch Clique. It was bad enough that she’d shunned him, but at one point, she called him “pizza face” in front of half the lunchroom. It was all he could do to keep from crying. 
Bye-bye, Josie.
Then there was that asshole, Mr. Lawrence at the end of the block. A short, creepy dude who once hired Charlie to go door to door and hand out flyers for his painting business. Mr. Lawrence had promised Charlie $40 for the job. But after Charlie spent the entire weekend canvassing the neighborhood with the ads, Mr. Lawrence claimed someone saw him dumping a box of the flyers in a dumpster at the Quick Stop (which was bullshit). So he refused to pay Charlie.
Sayonara, asshole.
Charlie laughed as he raced to the next block and repeated the process, growing more giddy with every empty house.
“Goodbye, assholes! Fuckers! Motherfuckers!” he shouted from the top of his lungs. It was an amazing release, even if no one was around to hear him.
For too many years, he’d had to bottle his emotions and take shit from everybody. He’d been the world’s doormat for most of his life, through no fault of his own. He just happened to be a bit geekier, a bit paler, and had a few more zits than everyone else in his class. If he didn’t have the zits, got tan instead of turned pink in the sun, and his hair was straight instead of a curly blond mop, maybe people would have seen him a bit differently. 
All he wanted to do was get through adolescence under the radar. But ever since middle school, it was as if he had some sort of homing signal which seemed particularly honed to attract unwanted attention. And when you stood out, the wolves licked their chops.
Growing up a momma’s boy had made him soft. 
He spent the first 11 years of his life practicing ways to make his mother happy. She’d been depressed since his father died, so it was his mission to bring her smile back. He’d put on puppet shows, tell her jokes, and would even go to painting classes with her on weekends. While most kids avoided their parents, Charlie was best friends with his mom.
But having no father figure in his life had made him meek and a magnet for the aggro assholes wanting to vent their frustrations and call him momma’s boy, faggot, and anything else their tiny intellects could muster.
He might have been able to cope, if it weren’t for Bob. 
Charlie’s mom met Bob four years back. They began dating immediately. Dating turned into an impromptu wedding. Everything was good for a few months. That’s when Bob dropped the mask and let his drunken, violent colors bleed into Charlie’s world. In a land of bullies, Bob was their king. And there was nothing Charlie could do. And nothing his mother would do.
And for that, he was glad she was gone.
Smell ya later, Mommy.

**

Charlie rode around a while longer until he circled back to Josie’s. He knocked again. When nobody answered, he tried the doorknob. To his surprise, it was unlocked.
Hot damn!
He opened the door and stepped inside “Hello? Josie? Are you here?”
When nobody answered, he closed the door. 
The house was cool, despite the loss of power. And it was well lit by all the large windows and open blinds. He hadn’t been in Josie’s house in three years, but it was as nice as ever. Her mother was in real estate, made good money, and routinely indulged in her premium tastes.
Josie’s dad had left her mother a few years earlier, but the a-hole was an investment banker, so the monthly checks were fat. 
Despite her family’s wealth, money didn’t seem to affect Josie all that much. In fact, she seemed embarrassed by her mother’s extravagance, which was probably the thing Charlie liked most about her, other than how she was cuter than an anime character. She didn’t act like the other rich kids in the school, and had never treated him like the poor kid he was. 
Well, at least until she started hanging out with the Bitch Clique.
Charlie trudged up the stairs to Josie’s room, and opened the door.
She had redecorated since he’d last seen it. She used to be obsessed with stuffed penguins, which once lined her shelves, closet, and even her bed. Now, her room was more adult with pinks, blues, and the sort of furniture his mom circled in the catalogue but never bought. No childish stuff anywhere, save for one lone penguin standing guard at the foot of her unmade bed. His name was Percy, Josie had once told Charlie. That was something else he’d liked about her. She wasn’t afraid to be goofy, one of her most endearing qualities, actually.
Charlie sat by the headboard and picked up her pillow. He lifted it to his nose and took a deep breath. It was soft, fluffy, and smelled just as he remembered her.
He closed his eyes and sent his mind to a time when they were sitting on the floor in the room. They were both 12, and she’d asked Charlie to give her a neck massage. It wasn’t sexual of course, he’d barely even thought about sex at that age. And she wasn’t that kind of girl. But sitting behind her, with her long hair spilled in his face and his hands on her shoulders, along with a glimpse down her shirt, gave him a raging erection.
When she lifted her shirt, and asked him to rub her back, he was painfully erect. Then, to his utter horror, he ejaculated in his pants, and had to make an excuse to rush home.
So, technically, Josie was his first, and only sexual experience with another person, even if she never knew.
Thinking about Josie as he sat on her bed, he was hard again. 
He began to look around her room and found a photo album she’d made. He thumbed through the book and saw pictures of her, taken recently at the beach. Her lips were full, her skin the color of honey, and her breasts practically falling out of the pink bikini. He was rock hard.
He went to her dresser and thumbed through her drawers, investigating her underwear, surprised to find such lacy numbers. He wondered if her mother knew what Josie was wearing under her skirts. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of the expandable hamper in the corner, pink, of course.
Charlie retrieved a pair of pink silky panties from the top and smelled them. The faint scent of piss and perfume made him wince, then smile. He closed his eyes, imagining the prettiest of her pink that he’d never see, then went to her bed, dropped his pants, wrapped her underwear around his staff and started stroking.
He lasted three seconds longer than he had when he’d given her a back massage.
Charlie caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, denim snaked around his ankles and wiping himself with her underwear. Shame flushed his face. He threw the panties into the hamper and yanked up his pants, then glared at himself in the mirror, angry at his lack of self control. Josie was right to shun him — maybe some part of her had sensed his perverted thoughts. Maybe she’d only become a bitch to him because he was such a creepy geek.
The thought depressed him and he went downstairs to her fridge. Rich people always had good food.
He grabbed a piece of birthday cake. It was half gone, but enough remained for Charlie to imagine the “Happy Birthday Mom!” scrawled across the top. It had a chocolate ganache frosting, at least he thought that’s what it was called, and it tasted better than delicious. Maybe even the best cake he’d ever had. He was about to grab a glass of milk, when he thought better. Though the contents of the fridge were still cold, the milk (even thought it was soy milk, whatever the hell that was) might’ve already started to spoil. The last thing he wanted to do was get sick, especially if no doctors were left in the town, or hell, maybe the world! 
Instead, he found himself eyeing a four pack of red wine coolers. 
He’d never drank before. As a child, he’d never had the urge. And Bob was a living poster for why NOT to drink. But he knew a lot of the kids in school did drink. Mostly the dumb jocks, cheerleaders, and the “Fiesta Crowd,” as they were called. Charlie considered them all about as smart as a hot dog and didn’t want to be anything like them, even if that meant being a pizza faced geek, but they did seem to enjoy their lives. His life, on the other hand, was a constant broadcast of misery.
It didn’t take long to do the math. Charlie grabbed the four pack, locked the front door (just in case), and headed back to Josie’s room.
He decided there were worse places to hang out at the end of the world. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go back home to his shitty little house.

**

Three bottles in, Charlie wondered what all the fuss was about. He didn’t feel all that different. If anything, he felt worse. His head was hurting, and he was feeling sad.
He decided to take a nap. He slid off his jeans and shoes and laid down in Josie’s bed, nestling his head into the cool, perfumed pillow. 
Josie was so beautiful. Why did she have to be such a bitch?
Charlie began to think about where the world had gone. Or rather, where all the people had gone. Whether this was a localized thing or if maybe people were missing in India, too. He’d thought about it earlier, of course, when he realized something was wrong. But now, a bit tipsy, he found himself sinking deeper into the thought. 
He decided that though he hated most of the world, or at least the people he’d met, he didn’t want to see everybody gone. He’d be awfully lonely. In fact, he was lonely now. Hell, he’d even be happy to see Josie, even if she were mean to him.
Charlie cried himself to sleep. Fortunately, he faded fast.

**

A loud knocking downstairs woke Charlie from his sleep.
“Charlie? Are you in there?!” a man’s voice.
What the fuck?
Charlie leaped from the bed, nervous, looking around until he found his jeans and shoes.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
He was busted. This had all been a dream; he sleepwalked and broke into Josie’s house. The police were outside! 
His heart raced as someone shouted his name again. The voice was deep, angry, and familiar. He ducked low on his way to the curtains, then slid them aside just an inch to peek at who was outside. It was the devil himself — Bob.

* * * *


EDWARD KEENAN

Saturday
October 15, 2011 
2:18 a.m.


The first thing Edward Keenan felt was rain, cold and splashing his face, snapping him from the darkness and into the bright light beaming through a thick canopy of trees. 
The next thing he felt was pain — everywhere, as if his entire body had been thrown from a building and slammed against every awning on the way down and then picked up again and thrown off the building once more to hit the awnings he missed the first go round. A high-pitched whistle pierced his throbbing eardrums. He reached up to cover his ears, before realizing his wrists were still bound together by plasticuffs.
Ed stood clumsily, pain shooting through his legs, back, and arms, then glanced around. A faint, flickering glow broke through the tree line. He made his way forward tentatively, stumbling several times, but managing to stay upright. 
As he got closer to the glow, he could hear the crackle of fire. Could smell the fuel. And there, as he pressed into the clearing, he saw the mangled, fiery wreckage of Flight 519.  
Ed raced forward, searching for any sign of survivors. The plane was split in half, swallowed by billowing smoke and a quick-spreading curtain of flame.
Suitcases, clothing, papers, chunks of the plane, and other debris littered the field, with some of the smaller scraps sailing low in the sky. From what he could see of the cabin, nobody survived other than himself. Yet, there weren’t any bodies. He looked back into the woods, wondering if perhaps all the passengers had been ejected from their seats as he had. Perhaps some, but not all of them.
Where the hell is everyone? 
The last thing he remembered was his escort, Agent Grant, telling him to shut the fuck up. They’d be in Washington soon enough. Ed decided to take a nap, but didn’t think he’d actually fall asleep. He must have. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground.
He was torn — go back into the woods and search for survivors, or run as far and fast as he fucking could. Last thing he wanted was to run into Grant — assuming Grant was alive. 
He took a chance. “Hello?!” he called.
As he stood at the edge of the woods, another high-pitched sound sailed over the drone in his ears, sounding as if the sky was ripping to shreds above him. He instinctively ducked, glancing up as another airplane shot by maybe 10 stories from the forest floor, on a sharp dive, soaring past the tree line before disappearing into a deafening explosion just out of sight.
Christ on a cross. What’s happening?
Ed raced toward the crashed plane as fast as he could, pain shooting through his atrophied legs. He stumbled into the woods, but stopped short when he reached a partition of flames where a large, unidentifiable chunk of the plane had set the surrounding trees on fire.
There’s no way anyone survived that.
He retreated, away from both crash sites, following a winding path that led uphill, where he spotted power poles and lines leading toward civilization, he hoped.
“Happy 44th birthday,” he said to himself as he slipped into the black of night.

**

Despite being in top physical shape, Ed was exhausted by the time he reached the first row of homes. Falling out of the sky will do that to you. 
Two-story faux New England architecture lined either side of the street, barely illuminated by the half-concealed moon. Was one of those new gated communities in the suburbs, designed to look nice, but they were usually shit quality with tiny lots. As he stepped onto the first street, he realized not a single light was on. Not a streetlight, nor a light in any of the windows of the 20 or so homes on the street. 
A blackout?
Ed rolled his neck, sighed, and headed toward the closest house, a neatly manicured, two-story home with a large double door and windows on either side. Judging from the moon’s position, he figured it was around 3:00 a.m. Not a great time to be knocking on doors, especially when you’re bloody and in handcuffs. But options were scarce — he had to find a phone and contact Jade. No doubt news of the crashed plane would’ve already reached her.
Perhaps, though, it was best that he not contact her. Maybe she’s better off this way, thinking I’m dead.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He should just disappear. It was what he did best. He had a safehouse in Florida that nobody knew about. He’d just fall off the radar. Again. And this time he knew better than to trust the agents he used to work with. Maybe the plane crash was the best thing that could have happened. Nobody would be looking for him. Not hard, anyway. This was his chance at a fresh start.
Ed would live like a ghost. No relationships, no friends — just live out his life until someone found him or he died of old age. As much as he’d love to hear his daughter’s voice one more time, to let her know he was alive, he knew he’d lose what might be a golden opportunity to finally make things right. She was a big girl; she’d get over his “death.”
But he still needed to get to a phone to contact Xavier, the only person left (other than his daughter) he could truly trust. Xavier would help him get out of town. 
He knocked on the first door, lightly at first. No response. Raindrops grew larger and started to fall faster, but he was mostly sheltered under the gable roof. He knocked again, louder, watching through the window into the dark house for any sign of movement or light.
Nothing.
He knocked a third time, this time with authority, like the law.
Still nothing.
Ed glanced around at the house across the street to see if he’d attracted any attention. All the windows were dark, showing no movement. 
On the ground, Ed spotted a garden with large decorative rocks. He grabbed one, gripped it tightly on the end, and tapped it hard against the window to the right of the doorknob. The glass crashed loudly, and Ed glanced around to see if anyone had taken notice.
Nothing, still.
Crackerjack gated community security, hard at work.
Ed smashed a large swath of glass away; he’d need plenty of room to reach inside the doorway with his hands bound. He swept the last shards of glass from the frame until he had room to safely reach in and twist the locks. He opened the door and rushed inside, closing the door behind him. 
“Hello?” he called out, wishing he’d thought to bring the rock. “This is Officer Grant. Anybody here?”
Nothing.
He knew, from years of experience, that he was alone in the house. Houses harbored a specific brand of quiet when empty. A still you could sense immediately. This house wasn’t only silent, it was dead. No electricity meant no humming fans, electronics, air conditioning, or any other heartbeats of the average home. Sounds you didn’t even notice until their voices were taken away.
Ed made his way toward the kitchen scanning outlets for any sign of plug-in lights. Finding nothing, he rifled through drawers until he found a flashlight heavy with batteries. To his relief, they weren’t dead, and the light was bright. He waved the spotlight around the kitchen, finding the phone. A fucking cordless, meaning it wouldn’t work with the power out.
He tried it anyway, just in case.
Nothing.
Fuck, doesn’t anyone use regular phones anymore? 
He clicked the light off, thinking about his next step, then headed back upstairs, light on. Two doors were on either side of the hall, and a large, double door was at the end, which he assumed would take him to the master bedroom.
The first two rooms weren’t bedrooms at all — one was a converted office. The second was a monument to clutter, tons of boxes leaving little room to walk. Finally, he reached the double doors, drew a deep breath, and pushed one of the doors open, training his light on the king-sized bed.
Unmade, nobody in it.
He figured whoever lived here was out of town, maybe on vacation. But something reflected back as he swept his light over the nightstand — a glass of ice water. As he moved closer, he saw beads of sweat, a small pool of water around the glass, and the last remnants of ice floating.
His heart stopped as he spun the light around toward the bathroom door, which was shut.
Had they heard him and ducked inside?
Ed squinted his eyes, searching for any signs of movement. He was too old for this shit. And not at all ready to die at the hands of some yuppie with a Beretta playing Die Hard.
He considered turning around and leaving, but something rooted him in place.
The house was empty. He could feel it. And he was never wrong about these things. Yeah, the loss of power might have been screwing with his instincts, but he didn’t think that was the case. Whoever was here was gone.
He clicked off the light and began to creep toward the closed bathroom door. A closet was to his left, but it was open, and he could see it was empty. If anyone was with him, they were likely in the bathroom.
He was nearly five steps away when he rolled his neck again, then spoke.
“Hello? This is officer Grant. We’re investigating a break-in at your neighbor’s house and we saw your front door was wide open. You okay?”
Nothing.
He turned on his light again.
“I’m coming into the bathroom now. My partner is in the hallway, checking out your other rooms. Do NOT shoot me. I repeat, do NOT shoot.”
He twisted the knob, pushed open the door, and thrust his light into the bathroom.
Nothing.
He caught his reflection in the mirror, dirty, banged up, bloody, and a huge knot sticking out from his closely-cropped dome. He laughed grimly at the reflection, then checked the closet for clean clothes. He would be stuck with his dark trousers, but he grabbed a black tee from the closet which he’d put on as soon as he got the cuffs off. The shirt looked like it would be tight on his muscular build, and a bit short, but it would have to do.
Ed returned to the bed and felt the sheets. They weren’t warm — whoever had been sleeping in them had been gone at least a few minutes before he’d entered the house. He grabbed the glass, picked it up, cool to the touch. He took a long drink, the water soaking his dry throat. He chewed the remnants of ice, placed the glass down, and opened both nightstands, hoping to find a gun. No luck.
Ed moved from room to room, searching the house for anybody. At last, he reached the door leading to the two-car garage. If anyone was here, this was the last place they could be hiding, unless they sneaked into an attic or something. He did the police routine another time, with the same lack of response, then opened the door. Clutter filled one side of the garage, though more neatly arranged, and all of it boxed. The other half of the garage housed an SUV. 
He flashed his light to make sure the vehicle was empty, then doubled back to the kitchen, found a pegboard with keys and an automatic car lock, alarm attached. He glanced at the fridge, where a photo in a magnetic frame showed a middle-aged guy, a middle-aged woman, and a 20-year-old girl wearing an Ohio State sweater. He pocketed the keys, headed back to the garage and was relieved to see a workbench on the far wall with a large red Craftsmen toolbox beside it.
Thank God some people still do shit themselves.
He found a hacksaw, fastened the blade on a C-clamp, then proceeded to saw his restraints away. Once he had the middle part cut, he found some bolt cutters, sheared the bracelets the rest of the way, and massaged the red from his wrists. He slipped on the tee shirt, which fit him better than he thought it would, and balled up the shirt he’d been wearing and tossed it in the SUV.
Ed went to the fridge. Stuff was still cold. He inhaled a Coke, then grabbed a box of cookies from the pantry and threw them on the passenger seat of the SUV as he climbed in the driver’s side. He turned on the radio to a static assault and hit the scan button, watching the digital display race through the FM spectrum without slowing.
All the stations are down?
Something was very wrong.
Ed hit the garage door opener before remembering it ran on electricity. He hopped out of the SUV and flashed the light at the ceiling, finding the motor for the garage door opener. A red cord dangled from the center. He yanked it, disengaging the opener, opened the door manually, got back in the SUV, and backed out of the driveway.
He figured he had maybe two hours until the state was crawling with feds.

* * * *


LUCA HARDING

Saturday
October 15, 2011
morning
Las Orillas, California


Luca’s skin was burning. He opened his eyes and put an end to the dream where Mommy was making eggs on his arms. 
But he was still too hot. The sun outside was brighter than it was supposed to be. It looked like the last day of school, but it was already a week before Halloween. Light poured through the window like Daddy was hosing it down with sunlight like he did with water sometimes when he washed the car.  
Luca never slept past six but it definitely felt later than that. Dad got up at 5:30, even when he wasn’t working. Luca had been no more than a half hour behind him for all but one of his eight years. 
I don’t like the feeling in my arms. Tingly bad and burny. I want to scratch them but maybe it’s like the bites that Mommy says I shouldn’t scratch because it always makes it worse. The itchy hot burny will probably go away if I ignore it. 
His Cars alarm clock wasn’t working and the screen on the computer was black. The house sounded like when mommy went across the street to talk to Mrs. Susan, only quieter. Luca went to the closet and peeled off his Lego pajamas, replaced them with jeans and his favorite Star Wars T-shirt, then went to the window and stared at the rainbow.
It was brighter than usual. Most rainbows looked like they were already erasing. But this rainbow looked like someone just plugged it in.
The sun was past the start of the rainbow, so it was maybe as late as eight. Mom was gone, he could tell. But he couldn’t hear his dad either, even though it was his day off. Anna should be up, but he couldn’t hear her either. And he could always hear his sister. 
Luca left the bedroom and looked around the house, even though he knew he’d find no one. “Mom, Dad, Anna?” Luca waited for an answer, counting to 10 as he always did when Mom said to wait. 
After 10 seconds of less than nothing, Luca opened the door to a blanket of heat. The air felt like hot sand and made his hot burny feel worse. Something moved at the corner of his eyes. He turned to see his cat, Lucky, leap to the front porch where it settled a stare on Luca and licked it paws. The cat looked somehow different than it did the day before. Luca would swear. But he didn’t know how.
Inside out. Yeah, the cat feels sorta inside out. It looks normal, but feels like someone made all its thoughts go on the outside. 
Luca crossed the street to Mrs. Susan’s house, put his nose to the window, and saw exactly what he expected. Since Mom didn’t like him on Mrs. Susan’s side of the street unless he was visiting Mrs. Susan, he went back home. 
Instead of going back in the house, Luca decided to walk to the mailbox under the stop sign all the way at the corner. That’s where Mr. Hassell lived. Mr. Hassell probably didn’t know everything about the entire world, but he knew a lot of things about people on Oregon Avenue. That’s probably why he was always talking about it. 
Mr. Hassell’s empty house was the farthest Luca had ever walked alone. Mr. Hassel wasn’t on his porch like usual, so he rounded the corner and kept going, all the way around the block. When he got back to his own number at 314 Oregon, he sat on the stoop and looked at the rainbow. 
I should go to Coach Michael’s. Mommy and Daddy said he’s safe. And he is driving close. We even walked there two times before, like that time last June. His house will be easy to find because the rainbow is pointing right at it. 
The rainbow was pointing toward the coach’s house, but it wasn’t the big bright one Luca saw when he first woke. This smaller rainbow was brighter, and sat just beneath its big brother, spilling sideways instead of south.
Luca went back in the house and filled his Star Wars backpack with two granola bars, a banana, and two bottles of Smartwater from his mom’s side of the refrigerator. The house was getting warmer, a lot warmer, but it was still cooler than it was outside. 
Luca started walking toward the rainbow. He made it six blocks before he felt the headache start to hammer his skull. At least he thought it was a headache. The ouchy tingle sure seemed like the stuff mommy was always talking about.

**

It was easy to keep from getting lost with the rainbow showing him where to go. Luca passed all the places where no one was anymore on the way to his coach’s house. But the only things home at the corner of Appian and Monrovia were the coach’s collection of vintage cars.
Luca looked in the window. The lights were on, like most of the houses for the last few blocks. A purr at his feet pulled Luca’s attention to Champion, the coach’s cat, rubbing itself on his ankle. 
Champion felt weird just like Lucky had. Comparing the two led Luca to realize that besides Lucky and Champion, he hadn’t seen a single animal since waking. Which was weird since some dog in the neighborhood was always barking. 
All Luca wanted was someone to explain what was happening. Like his dad always did. In simple sentences that would be easy to understand. But no one was around, and after following the rainbow 17 blocks to the coach’s house and not seeing anyone, Luca felt the sad spiders start to crawl inside him. His mom could usually get them to leave with tickles, or the promise of a salami sandwich. But his mom wasn’t there to make him a sandwich any more than his dad was standing by with an explanation.
Luca leaned against the door, slid to his bottom, put his face in his palm and cried. He tried rubbing the headache from his head but the headache said no. A dog cried out from somewhere in the distance. Luca was glad to hear it. 
He felt a sudden icy chill beneath his burning skin, but shrugged it off and stood.
Luca looked around the neighborhood. White spots were everywhere, but he looked past them to get a good look at the brand new rainbow. It was telling him to listen to the trees. And though Luca was old enough to know that trees couldn’t talk, they did seem to be whispering something or other. 
Trees aren’t supposed to talk, but they keep telling me to follow the wind. And the wind won’t stop talking about the water. I think they like the place we go each summer, the beach in Mexico where the man makes the lobster tacos. 
Mexico it was. And it made perfect sense. His parents were probably there at the small house already – that’s what the rainbow said. And rainbows were too colorful to lie. 
Luca didn’t know how to drive, but he did know a car was better than walking. He would’ve gone back to his house, but his dad’s truck was way too big and his mom’s car was a stick shift she’d had since her 20s. He definitely didn’t think he could drive that.
One of the cars in Coach’s collection was a red Porsche that looked like a bathtub. Luca had ridden in it before. It was parked on the street and he needed it, so Coach Michael would understand if he took it. His mom said that in emergencies, like when you’re bleeding or vomiting, there were special rules. Luca wasn’t bleeding or vomiting, but he was definitely having the biggest emergency of his life.
Luca looked but couldn’t find any keys. They weren’t in any of the cars, even though people in movies found them tucked inside the thing you use to keep the sun from getting in your eyes. Then, he tried Coach’s door and was surprised to find it unlocked. He went inside and called for Coach, but nobody answered. Luca started searching for the keys.
He looked for over an hour, until his skin was burning and head pounding enough to make him stop. He was about to walk back home when he heard a meow coming from the kitchen. He went to the kitchen where Champion sat beside the cooking island, patting his paws against the wood. 
Luca walked straight to the drawer above Champion’s head, slid it open, and removed a small, rectangular cobalt blue box with three keys inside. He removed the middle key, because it was the one that worked in the small Porsche that looked like a bathtub. Luca knew it, just as he knew what was in the box as soon as the cat told him.

**

Even though they were supposed to have sticks in the middle like his mom’s car, the coach’s Porsche didn’t. That was because it was a model car for grown-ups. And it wasn’t as old as it looked. Coach said it was a replica. It had a Volkswagen engine and an auto something transmission. He said that even though it was all sizzle and no steak, he loved driving it just the same.
Luca opened the door, sat behind the wheel, turned the engine, and scooted down until his foot was on the brake. He put the car in drive and moved his foot to the gas. The Porsche lurched forward and threw Luca against the seat. He had to scurry down to hit the brake before the car rolled too far.   
He tried a few versions of the same thing several times before realizing that though he was big enough to ride in the Porsche, he wasn’t yet tall enough to drive it.
He returned to the house and ran upstairs to Matthew’s room. Matthew had more Legos than anyone Luca knew. He pulled the largest bucket from Lego Island, the one with all the odds and ends and oversized pieces. For five minutes, he didn’t think about burny skin or white spots in the sky or rainbows. For five minutes, he did nothing but stack legos, wearing a rare smile for that morning, on a face that usually looked naked without one. 
Once he had created two neat cubes about 15 bricks high, Luca went to Matthew’s closet and grabbed a pair of shoes, size 12, same as him. He used duct tape from the garage to tape the two cubes to the bottom of Matthew’s shoes. He put them on and smiled.
Luca climbed into the car and drove toward the end of the smaller rainbow at a comfortable 20 mph. He was a robot, with super cool handmade ninja robot feet.

**

He drove slow but exactly where the rainbow told him, winding down the hill until he hit a mostly empty Pacific Coast Highway where he made a left. Luca wove through the occasionally idle traffic as if playing a slowed down PS3 game with his daddy. 
He had driven for three hours and 41 miles when he noticed the animals. At first, it was just a cat or two, then three. The math got harder as he drove, and by the third hour Luca was noticing all sorts of animals trotting along both sides of the highway. 
Like animals that aren’t really animals anymore.
BAM!!!
Luca was lost in thought when he smashed the back of a pitch-black truck dead on the highway. Luca hadn’t seen a car for two miles, just long enough to send his attention elsewhere. 
The empty hood of the bathtub crinkled like paper and threw Luca back hard against his seat and out cold on impact. The last thing he sensed as he slipped into darkness was the fire, not on his skin, but starting in the back of the car.

* * * *


BORICIO WOLFE

Saturday
October 15, 2011
1:17 a.m.
New Orleans, Louisiana 


There were no explosions. No crashing concrete, crackling electricity, or menacing reverb to blanket the city. No screams. Just that hollow pause that sits in the seconds between ignition and detonation. 
Except this one came and never left. 
Boricio woke a second after It started, wide awake even though he’d been tangled in a fat thick of sleep — the kind you get after a night spent doing all the things he’d just finished doing. He wasn’t sure how he knew the end had begun. He just knew.
His feet hit the floor and felt colder than they should have. That didn’t bother him. At least not like the air. Stale. Though he could still smell the restaurant below, there were no sounds. And there were always fucking sounds. 
This is some beer-battered bullshit.
Boricio looked around the loft — nothing out of place, at least not that he could put his finger on. Just the smell that didn’t smell right and the crazy feeling of empty that seemed to swallow the entire apartment like the fat lips on a French Quarter whore. 
And the crazy as a cat on crack dream.
Boricio looked outside. Sky wasn’t right. 
He opened the window, and yup, same beer-battered bullshit outside, but stronger. He didn’t bother to shut the window, heading outside and grabbing a beer from the fridge on the way out instead. The fridge was still cold, though it’d gone as dark as the always-blinking alarm. Boricio stepped into the hallway and grabbed the time from the beat-to-shit clock with the three missing Romans — 2:17 am. 
Fuck that. 
Boricio hit the bottom stair and opened the door. He could smell the beer-battered bullshit before it was halfway open. Yup, the restaurant was dead. The restaurant hadn’t been empty once in the four months he lived upstairs, but Boricio could see through the glass: No cooks, no customers, no servers. He walked outside into the night.
And on the corner, Lucy was gone, which was equally weird. Lucy was never gone. Fucking mystery when she slept; stood on the corner day in, day out, except if cops were on the beat or she was filling the mayonnaise jar. Even then, she was only gone for five to nine minutes at a time. Lucy had a way of taking guys into the room and giving them more than they expected in less than a quarter of the time.
Like his apartment, the motel across the street was dark. But the humming light from the restaurant’s sign (which was lit) illuminated the split crack of Room #112. Boricio crossed the street, then opened the door the rest of the way to a whole mess of what-the-fuck?  
The room was neat. Ready for the next 5–9 minutes neat anyway. And the air was so cold, it wasn’t like Lucy had stepped out so much as she’d never even been there. Boricio had smelled that room most days ending in Y for four months straight and it had never smelled like that. 
The motel room was dead. Just like the alley. And the stairwell. And his fucking apartment. And just like that, the restaurant sign went dark, the humming ceased, leaving everything quiet. Like no animals or insects quiet. The kinda quiet you sometimes got right before a hurricane, but even quieter.
A flirt’s worth of fear fluttered through Boricio’s body. It almost made him smile; it’d been so long since he’d felt it, but his beading temple kept the grimace fixed. Boricio stepped back into the alley, drawing a deep breath and inhaling a perfumed gust from the Mississippi. 
The river. 
Fuck yeah, that’s where he’d go. Something had happened and he’d missed it. People were evacuating and would have to meet in one place. The river made sense. Besides, if it really was the end of the world, the Mississippi would look him in the eye and tell him the truth. 
Boricio crossed the street, hopped in his 10-year-old, 2-ton Ford, then gunned the engine and tore into the street with a roar thundering over dead earth. He was only a half mile from the river but didn’t even make it a block before braking hard enough to burn his nostrils with the scent of burned rubber. 
FUCK. 
Maybe the world had been shingled in shit and maybe it hadn’t, but a sudden memory from his previous night’s adventure filled Boricio’s brain with a planet and a half’s worth of fuck this! 
The world had disappeared. The thought of her disappearing, despite the neat slit that ran beneath her chin from ear to ear, was about as much as Boricio could take. He flipped the pickup in a U and sent it flying toward the Village de L’Est where that little bitch Brianna had kept her tidy apartment, at least until he’d made her breathing impossible. 
He’d see if the body was still there. If so, he’d deal with it. 
Him, too. 

**

Boricio coated the back of his hand with brow sweat and pushed the pickup harder. Less than a mile to go. 
Fucking bitch. I wanted to wait until Christmas. She was my present. And if it wasn’t for that ancient fuck, or the punk ass with the pink glasses, I would’ve. Still, she’d been yummier’n a Hurricane and a heap of hot wings. Didn’t even scream. Not once. Just wheezed at the end a little, like a dying vacuum cleaner. 
Boricio broke into a cracked laugh at the memory. 
Punk ass with the sunglasses, though, he cried like a stuck pig. Would’ve died fast no matter, but the squealing made it easy. She was worth savoring every second. Too bad about the rush. Happy fucking Halloween. 
Now I need something new for Christmas.
Boricio rounded the corner at Dauphine and killed the engine at the second curb so he could walk the rest of the way. Like always. Just in case.  From a block back, he knew everything he needed to, but kept on going anyway. The old man, same fucker who had been sitting on the stoop since early September when Boricio first started scoping the place, was gone. He’d been half the reason Boricio had to hurry his Christmas, and now he wasn’t even around to celebrate the end of the world.
The door to the apartment was unlocked just as he left it. He could almost smell her as he crossed the apartment toward the bathroom where his first surprise was waiting. Boricio had left precisely one body in the bathtub with all its limbs in place. He’d even left the head on since an extra body was all the cops needed to open-and-shut his ritual into an easy-to-swallow murder-suicide. 
The punk ass dude had bled out, coating the tub in a thick mottle of red, but his body was gone and the gallons of blood looked like they’d been replaced with fresh water. 
The fuck is this?
And she was missing too. 
The bed was rumpled from where she’d been taking her final nap, but the buckets of blood that were beneath her when Boricio closed the door three hours earlier, now looked suspiciously like bleach stains. Same for the drops leading from bed to bathroom. The white against the brown of the hard wood was clear, even with only one light working.  
Someone turned the world inside-fucking-out...
Boricio tore through the apartment, trying to pull sense from the impossible. He wasn’t worried about getting caught at all. It hadn’t happened in 20 years and sure as shit wasn’t about to happen an hour into the Apocalypse, but he wasn’t a guy to flip a bitch on Answer Road. 
After 15 minutes, Boricio couldn’t find a single thing, except for the panty drawer he’d rifled through 73 times before. 
Those aren’t her panties. Ain’t a single pair in that drawer was ever worn. 
Thing about beer-battered bullshit is it doesn’t taste different until you spit it out, so Boricio threw a final scowl around the room, then headed for the door, pausing at the threshold. He could swear he felt faster, stronger. And not just like he usually did after a good kill and a great night’s sleep. 
Like a few lines of coke gone permanent. Must be the adrenaline. Feels good. Could get used to this shit in a hurry. 
Boricio bounded down the stairs and kicked the door with a giggle. Maybe it was the end of the world, and maybe that shit wasn’t too bad. Humanity was mostly made of assholes anyway, and that was scientific fucking fact. 
Boricio was practically skipping across the street, but broke into a full run when he saw the police cruiser sitting in the ghost lot of a usually hopping Circle K. 
The meek don’t inherit shit. Earth belongs to the wolves.

* * * *


EDWARD KEENAN


Darkness bathed every block. 
Not a single light or car on the street. Nor a single person in sight. 
The shit was downright spooky. He followed the streets until they led him out of the neighborhood and into town, wherever the hell he was. He didn’t think to look at an address while in the house. That was the second mistake he’d made this evening. He’d have to stay sharp if he planned to get back home. He was about to lean over, open the glove compartment, and dig out whatever paperwork was in there, when he saw the glow of lights from a gas station’s lit canopy ahead.
Excited, he floored the gas, and raced to the station. A red Honda was parked at the pump and a blue Mazda was parked in a space at the back of the store.
The gas station was in the lot of a small shopping plaza, which had gone completely dark. As he got closer to the gas station, he looked inside the store. It was lit, but dimly. Backup lighting, no doubt.
Ed parked behind the Honda, hopped out of the SUV, and went inside the store, which was haunted by the same vacant feeling of the oddly abandoned house. 
“Hello?” No cashier at the register; no one in the store. He walked towards the walk-in cooler, which was muted from its usual hum, and peered inside the window. Nobody in there, either.
He headed to the back of the store, checked the bathrooms and a back storage room, doubling as an office. He saw a closed-circuit TV, its broadcast dark. He was about to leave the back room when he spotted something on the desk — a phone! And not one of those wireless fuckers, but a landline.
His heart leaped in his chest. He raised the receiver to his ear, heart beating faster and excited fingers ready to dance the 11 digits on their way to Xavier.
Except he heard no dial tone.
He clicked the disconnect a few times, nothing in return. The line was as dead as the lights. It didn’t make sense. Even during a total power outage, phone lines had enough power to make calls. Perhaps, he considered, the phone company’s power was out? 
Nope, they’d have backup generators up the ass and back. Something is definitely sideways.
The voice in his head told him to get the hell out of the store and back on the road. Because at this hour only stoners with the munchies and cops frequented gas stations. He needed to find a highway and head to Florida, A-fucking-SAP. First, though, he had to figure out where he was. A newspaper rack at the front counter spilled the beans – he was in Ohio. Made sense given the girl’s sweater in the photo.
He grabbed a five-pound spiral book that included a map of the United States. He glanced around the station, then outside again. Still no signs of another soul. He went behind the counter and approached the register. It ran on power, and was off, but when he twisted a key in the bottom, the drawer sprang open. Inside the drawer he found four stacks of bills, from 20’s to singles. He grabbed them all, shoved them in his pocket, figured there was about $250 total. He was about to leave, when he spotted a black backpack nudged in the corner, probably belonging to the missing cashier. He glanced around again, then retrieved the bag. There it was — a Smith and Wesson 9mm.
Automatic in a holster. 
He was surprised to find such a decent gun just laying out in the open.
Ed grabbed the backpack, a few snacks and drinks for the road, and got back in the SUV. He was about to reverse, when he realized the Honda was gone.
What the fuck? It must’ve left while I was in the back of the store.
He spun around, scanning the parking lot and the street. No sign of the car. He glanced back to the parking lot behind the station. The blue car was still there, seemingly empty. He didn’t know what was happening, but knew enough to know Ohio was creeping him the fuck out. He had to bail. Now. 
He put the truck in drive and hit the gas.

**

Ed had driven nearly three miles and the entire town was pitch black, save for the occasional emergency lights at gas stations. Nobody was on the streets, in car, or on foot. He found the freeway ramp that would take him out of state, and merged in a hurry. The lights along the highway were dim, but not out, also running on backup power, he figured. 
How big is this blackout? Something’s not right.
His head was still pounding, and his thoughts still jumbled from the crash. Once he got some sleep, he’d be able to think more clearly, suss out what the hell was happening. Falling planes, blackouts, missing people — this wasn’t all coincidence. Something bigger was in play. And while he could see someone downing the plane to free him — he still had some fans at the agency and killing a bunch of innocent people was nothing to them — a second plane and the blackouts made no sense.
Something big is happening.
Maybe he would call Jade — if he could find a working phone. 
Would be nice to know she’s okay.
He’d been driving nearly 10 minutes and had yet to see another driver, but was careful to keep under the speed limit, anyway. He let the radio continue its scan, waiting for something other than static. 
White lines raced by as the sound of rain splattered against the thumping of his windshield wipers. The quiet drone threatened to send him into sleep. His eyes were heavy and he wanted nothing more than to pull over and grab a quick nap. But he couldn’t stop. He had to press the advantage of his new-found freedom before they came looking for him.
His eyes grew heavier as he strained to see through the thickening rain, which was now a blinding white squall in front of him. He had to slow the truck to ensure he didn’t run off the road. His eyes were dry, and he wanted to close them, but had to concentrate on the rain to see anything in this mess.
That’s when he heard it.
“sssaaiirr,” a voice echoed in some faraway place over the radio waves. 
Ed’s eyes shot wide open and he sat upright, attention on the radio’s face as the numbers escalated from the 101s to the 105s, and then the voice again.
“...again...”
There! The word was clear as day. The digital channel locked on a station. 88.8 FM, a spot on the dial reserved for public airwaves, religious stations, and talk radio. Ed hit the button to stop the scan, waiting for another sound. Still static, but busy static, something just out of range, trying to come through.
His eyes were glued to the radio as if he’d see whoever it was he was waiting to hear. So he didn’t see the car until it was nearly too late.
On the side of the highway, the soft red glow of taillights broke through the white wall of rain. 
“Fuck!” Ed screamed, yanking on the steering wheel sharply, sending the SUV sliding.
Ed rotated the wheel in the direction of the spin, praying the SUV wouldn’t roll. The truck spun, faster out of control, as it crossed into the opposite lanes. Ed’s eyes were wide, adrenaline shooting through every cell, as he somehow turned through the skid and managed to come to a full stop.
His body shaking, he let out a deep breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding, and glanced ahead, his car now facing the original direction. Twenty yards ahead, a light colored Buick sat on the side of the road, its front passenger side crushed against the side rail. Its front driver light and taillights were on, but the cabin was dark.
Ed leaned forward, trying to see into the car.
Is there someone in there?
He thought he saw movement, but couldn’t be certain. 
Every instinct told him to get the hell out of there, but something else tugged at his brain, pushing him forward. He grabbed the gun from the backpack, checked the clip, made sure one was in the chamber, and the safety off.
He drove toward the car, slowly, with high beams on. Nobody was in the driver or passenger seats. 
He saw movement again. This time for certain. Someone was in the backseat, just out of view. He pulled the SUV in front of the car, aiming the lights inside, and stepped from the truck, into the rain, gun in hand.
He approached the car carefully, eyes on the backseat and its just out of sight inhabitant. He brushed the hard-falling rain from his eyes, and inched closer to the car until he saw a shape in the back seat. He trained the gun on the vehicle as he approached the back driver’s side door and peered inside. As he moved closer, his eyes widened.
Sitting in the backseat, with her hands over her pregnant stomach was a ghost-white girl, no more than 16.

* * * *


LUCA HARDING


Luca woke alone, sore, and somewhere with a lot of confusing. Trees surrounded him, but he could still hear waves from the Pacific. The rainbow was gone. His Lego shoes had been taken off, his other shoes sat beside him. A dog, a husky, was panting beside him.
Luca grabbed his shoes and started to put them on. His head was still pounding, though less than before. His arms were painted in purple and a long gash ran along most of his right leg. It was bigger than the cut on his left ankle, though the cut on his ankle hurt a lot, lot more. 
It was painful to stand, so Lucas stayed sitting, rubbing his wounds. The heat in his body was easing the pain. So was the air, which had cooled down enough to feel a little like a kiss.
The Husky didn’t seem weird like the other animals he’d seen; it was pretty normal. The dog whimpered and nudged his nose at the bottle of water beside him. It was warm, but Luca drank it all in a few furious swallows. 
“Did you help me?” he asked, half expecting an answer. The husky nudged him and Luca looked up. The rainbow was back, still pointing south, slightly brighter. 
Luca’s leg throbbed. “What am I supposed to do now?” He looked at the husky. “No way I’m driving.”
“I don’t like driving without the controller. Or Daddy. It’s pretty sort of scary. Especially because I can’t look around me like I can when we’re going somewhere as a family. But we can’t go anywhere as a family now because I don’t know where anyone is and the phones don’t want the numbers to work.” 
The husky trotted to the edge of the clearing and stuck his nose at something Luca couldn’t see. Luca slowly followed. In 10 steps the dirt ended in concrete. On the other side of the yellow paint sat a rundown shack that looked like it sold milkshakes. And they were probably great milkshakes, because a lot of bikes were in the bike rack.
Luca looked both ways and crossed the street. He felt a bristle on the other side. He turned back and looked toward the trees, but saw none of the eyes he felt peering from behind them.
They’re there. But I don’t know how many because the math is hard when it gets to a lot. 
Luca looked another moment, then turned and headed for the employee entrance of the ice cream shack. It was locked but the window wasn’t. Inside, he looked for the white plastic box with the big red cross, like the one in Mrs. Engler’s office. 
He found it in a cabinet a lot like Mrs. Engler’s, the first place he tried. It looked mostly the same, though it didn’t have the peeling Transformers sticker that Johnny Bryson put on the back when Mrs. Engler wasn’t looking.
Luca split the square into a rectangle, then made a pile of the stuff people used when ambulance men were saving people in the movies. He finished cleaning his wounds and suddenly felt hungry. A little at first but then the hungry grew really, really big. It grew into the kind of hungry his dad called “alligator hungry.” 
He made a bowl of ice cream and a big sandwich. He didn’t eat enough ice cream to get sick later, like he had at Billy’s birthday when he ate so many scoops he threw up in the pool. He ate just enough to know his mom would be happy if she was sitting right beside him. After all, maybe she was.
Maybe everyone else is here and I’m the one who’s not? 
He removed the one bike without a lock, the red one with a white stripe, then swung on the seat and looked into the sky. Sure enough, the rainbow was back. Luca started to pedal, leaving the eyes behind him.

**

Luca stayed on the bike, but the next several hours were mean. 
His leg looked like it had a layer of Rice Krispies coated in blood. His head felt like when he hung upside down on the monkey bars and fell, and his tummy was like the time Greg Moore punched him in the stomach because he had accidentally dropped and cracked his Super Soaker. Except worse. 
He stopped four times, seven counting the places that were locked. The entire time he still hadn’t seen a single person. Probably about 500 cars, though that stuff was hard to count. All the empty made it easy to feel the something following behind him. A lot more animals were here than at the ice cream shack, maybe times two. But Luca didn’t mind. They felt like less alone. And besides, they probably knew a lot of stuff he didn’t. Like where his mom and dad might be. If the rainbow knew, maybe they did too. 
It was only after his fifth stop when Luca finally realized he had a hard time seeing the rainbow when he was thirsty. The rainbow had started to flicker alongside a roll in his belly when he saw another one of the shacks that looked busy like it was open but was empty like it was closed.
A few yards from the front of the shack, Luca’s bike hit a sharp rock jutting from the dirt. The bike’s front tire came to a dead stop while the rear wheel lifted from the back. Luca’s short stint as Superman lasted only a second. 
He hurt. A lot. A million galaxies worse than when Greg Moore had punched him. He wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t. The big rainbow was back, leapfrogging over the little one. 
I’m supposed to go. I’m supposed to go now.
Luca stood. But only for a moment. His knees wobbled, then quit. His cheek met the thin side of a rock on its way to the dirt and a little river of blood ran toward the highway.

**

Luca woke in another small clearing. He felt different. Looked different, too. His mottled arms had returned to their normal olive color and his legs were free of their bloody Rice Krispie layer. His face, which he remembered falling on, didn’t hurt either.
The Husky was there, looking at Luca with large, sad eyes that looked even larger and sadder beneath the bright light of the full moon. In front of Luca sat a small pile of broken twigs and brittle leaves, gathered like the mini-mountains Dad made for the family campfires, just smaller.
And water was there. A lot of it. All the bottles were warm, but at least 20 were sitting in a big pile of plastic just a few feet away.
Luca looked at the sky. The rainbow was gone.
“It’s coming back,” the dog said, though its mouth didn’t move.
Luca shivered. That was un-possible. Dogs didn’t think loud enough to hear. 
“Sometimes we do.” 
This doesn’t feel like my pretending reading mind imagination. This is different. Like someone scratched me on my thoughts. 
Luca didn’t like his thoughts being scratched. At least not without being asked first. Mom and dad wouldn’t like it. So he refused out-loud dialogue with the dog, but was willing to follow the husky as it trotted back toward the highway. He grabbed two bottles of water and opened one. Warm, but refreshing.
Luca followed, hearing the rustling of more padded feet slapping the dirt behind him.
He walked for hours, feeling stronger the entire time. He was still warm, warmer than he should be, but a whole lot cooler than he’d been a few hours before. Before he fell down, before he woke to a dog that could talk to his thoughts. Before he woke to a ready-to-go campfire. 
Luca didn’t get thirsty again. Every time he felt his mouth start to dry, the husky would appear with another bottle of water. 
“I think I’m going to have to name you,” Luca finally said, drinking water and rubbing the husky on the snout. “How do you like the name, Dog Vader?” 
The dog whimpered. “It’s good for now.” 
Luca stroked the Husky’s fur.
He’d been walking for hours and though he wasn’t really tired; it was probably past middlenight or even next day. So Luca stopped, lay his head on a smooth rock and closed his eyes. It was only a moment before he was in the twitchy part of dreams, where his body moves a little but his brain moves a lot. 
He opened his eyes and saw an Indian. The kind like in the movies. The kind you’re supposed to call Native Americans. The Indian was sitting on a stump looking at Luca right where Dog Vader had been just a moment before. The man smiled. 
Luca sat up. “Am I dreaming?” he asked.
“What do you think?” the Indian spoke, his mouth not moving either. His voice didn’t sound like the deep-voiced Indians from the movies though. It sounded like his own voice, a bit, just like the dog’s had.
“Yes,” Luca nodded. His floppy hair bounced up and down. “And no.”
“You are correct,” the Indian smiled. 
“Are you Dog Vader?”
“I am your friend, yes, but I never agreed to that name.”
“Can I call you Dog Vader?”
“No.” The man smiled. “But you may call me something else. What would you like to call me?”
“Kick.”
“Kick?”
“Yes, like sidekick. Like Robin. From Batman and Robin.”
“Okay. But what makes you think that I’m the sidekick?” The Indian continued to smile. 
“Because you’re the one following me.” 
“Then Kick it is,” he said with a laugh. 
“Where are we going?” Luca asked.
“There,” Kick pointed toward the far side of the coastline. 
“Are we almost there?”
“Almost.”
Luca believed him. He closed his eyes again and didn’t open them until the bright light and white spots came back and told him to. Of course the rainbow agreed. Kick, if Luca wasn’t crazy, was sitting beside him, awake, snout pointed at the rainbow. Luca got up and followed. So did the countless animals behind him. 
Luca looked both ways, crossed the street, then ambled over a thin row of rocks separating the road from the sand. He looked at the coastline, then gasped and fell to his knees. 
Cats, dogs, birds, and plenty of other animals that weren’t fancy enough for the zoo were there. They were everywhere. Maybe 1,000, though Luca was sorta bad at counting when the counting stuff was spread all over the place. 
Luca turned back toward the highway and followed the rainbow. An army of beasts followed.

* * * *


BORICIO WOLFE


Streetlights had flickered the entire way from his apartment to Her Majesty’s, but unlike his apartment and the rest of Crap Alley, currents were crackling at the Circle K. Neon bathed the lot in a cheap glow, which looked especially bright against the backdrop of black. 
Boricio laughed out loud at the unlocked cop car and held his grin while looking at the shotgun sitting upright in the back seat. Shit sure is easy at the end of the world!  He opened the trunk of the cruiser and headed inside the Circle K for a bit of light early-morning shopping. 
Beer, chips, protein bars, Excedrin, porn, everything Hostess makes, a few Cup-A-Soups, and some other sundries made it into the surprisingly large trunk. Boricio slammed the trunk shut, then went back in the store to empty the cash register, just in case. He took the snub-nosed revolver from under the counter and tucked it into his waistband next to his .45, also just in case. After a swift kick to a safe that wouldn’t open and a like it fucking matters, Boricio was sitting in the front of a police cruiser for the first time in his life.
View’s much better from here.
The few miles to the Mississippi were graveyard quiet, with less than nothing on the radio and the same empty hanging in the air outside. Though Boricio wasn’t sure what he expected to see when he hit the river, it wasn’t anything close to what he actually saw. He figured there’d either be no one or everyone, but a fat river void of boats — save for what looked like three ships sitting out as far as his eyes would go — wasn’t on his radar at all. 
If it had been bobbing in the middle of the Mississippi by last sundown, it was gone now. 
Looks like it’s time to get the fuck out of Dodge. 
A minute later Boricio was back behind the wheel, with the siren at full bray and the cruiser’s odometer kissing red, headed back into the business district. To see so many buildings, a city that was always busy like this, dead, was a mind fuck like no other.

**

After a few miles of nothing, Boricio found himself playing “I Spy” with his sanity. The empty outside was bad enough, but the shit he couldn’t put his finger on was a chronic case of Crabs worse. People were missing, but now it seemed like shit was missing, too. And he didn’t know what. He could feel things gone, but couldn’t put his finger on what they were. Like memories he couldn’t withdraw from his bank. 
He knew billboards were missing, but wasn’t sure which. Seemed like all the chain shit was still there, though. Boricio flew by a billboard for Applebee’s advertising their new Stacked, Stuffed, and Topped “Entrees You Deserve!” 
That right there’s a swinging sack of crap, especially in New Fucking Orleans. Not like the slop makes you sick, but it’s always cold, crappy, or served by some curly cunt hair pimply faced fuck who spends 40 minutes giving you the WhatTheFuck? eye. Plus, the pussy up in there is always too old or too young. Never just right. If the world is dead, at least it took Applebee’s with it. 
Boricio whistled as he flew by the missing church that everyone knew wasn’t really a church. That one he knew was missing. The big billboard was still there, but other than that, it was just a big empty nothing sitting on the side of the street.
Well, how about that!! Crazy, fucking shit. 
Boricio kept fiddling with the radio. Nothing. Hell, he’d settle for Top 40 right about now, but the nothing on the radio and the nothing on the scanner matched the nothing in the air and all the nothing he’d been driving by.
He was about to drive back home; he’d thought of a few people’s places he’d like to break into if they weren’t there. Some people that had some good shit that could keep him high for months. But then, in the middle of the street was a pickup. Unlike the countless other vehicles he’d passed, this one had a passenger standing next to it. The guy was waving for help.
Yee. Fucking. Haw.
Boricio slowed to a stop and gave the siren a celebratory blare as he pulled beside the stranded motorist. The pickup was less than a year old and the dude with the fresh haircut standing next to it was wearing clothes that still held their store-bought creases. 
What kind of asshole puts on new clothes to meet the seven fucking horsemen? 
Boricio lowered the window, then leaned his head out and smiled. “Morning, Sir. Need any help?” 
The motorist nodded. “Thanks officer, you’re the first car I’ve seen pass in the last two hours. Any idea what’s happening?”
“Haven’t a clue,” Boricio stepped from the cruiser, closed the door behind him, and leaned against the black and white. “Been responding to calls all morning. Didn’t even have time to get my uniform on proper.” Boricio gestured at his dirty jeans and the faded indigo polo with a tear on the collar. “Where you from?”
“Gretna, but there’s no one there now. Whole city seems to have disappeared. Same here, I see?”
“Bout half the town’s gone missing,” Boricio chewed on the lie, “They sent the rest of us south on reconnoissance. I’m sure happy to have found you. I was about to turn around.”
“Any idea what’s going on?”
“Nothing for sure, though we got a call from the feds around 4:00 a.m. saying there was some strange happenings started last night over in Nevada. Nothing certain, but you can imagine how the rumors are flying.” Boricio had to swallow his grin, looking at the idiot with the brand new clothes wrestling the idea he’d put there. 
“You think it’s some kinda ... alien thing?” 
“Probably. Seems like Hollywood’s been predicting somethin’ like this forever.” Boricio ran his hands through his thick hair then looked up and down both sides of the street. Nobody else in sight.
Time to figure out if this fuck knows anything worth knowing. 
“I need to check in with dispatch. Anything you can think of for me to tell them?”
“Not much to say. I woke up this morning and everyone was gone. Thought my girlfriend was pissed since we had a big blowup last night. Same brand that happens every 28 days or so and she’s never left before, but I’ve never slept on the couch either, so I didn’t think anything of it at first. But then the air got so heavy, know what I mean?”
“No, not sure. We didn’t have anything like that up north, just a bunch of people running and screaming in the streets. What sorta feeling you mean?”
“Well, it was like...” the motorist swallowed hard, “Don’t think I’m crazy or nothing, but it was like the air weighed more, or maybe less, I’m not sure, but it was different. And I could feel it so I knew something was wrong.”
“What’d you do?”
“At first, nothing. Turned on the TV, but there was nothing on. Not a single station.”
“You mean the TV was dead?”
“No, it was working, but all the channels were blue, except the ones with snow. Oh, and one channel that was showing some old show from the 50’s. Might’ve been Leave it to Beaver, but I’m not sure. Didn’t leave it on long enough to find out.”
“What’d you do after the TV wasn’t working?” Boricio looked at the motorist with kind eyes, waiting to kill. 
“Went outside to see what I could see, you know? And I could just feel it, the whole neighborhood gone. And sure enough, it was like someone had shaken the city and dumped the people out. So I changed my clothes, grabbed my keys and started heading north.”
“Why north?”
“Got some family here, brother and his kids, wanted to check on them. But my truck was near empty, hadn’t gassed it in a week, and the gas stations I ran into are all down. No power, no people.”
Fuck. No gas. That was gonna be a BIG time, beer-battered bullshit of a problem. Good thing the cruiser was still three-quarters full. 
“Well, you’re welcome to ride along with me,” Boricio jerked his thumb at the cruiser. “I can drop you off at your brothers, if you like. Anything else you can think of before I check in with dispatch? Anything that might help us figure what this is all about?”
The motorist looked far off, half swallowing what he didn’t want to say. Boricio put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. 
“It’s okay, you’re not alone. Tell me anything you think dispatch might wanna know, and don’t worry if you think it sounds weird.” Boricio smiled as wide as he could. “This is the season of weird after all.”
The motorist returned the smile and swallowed again. “Okay, you know that church up the road? The big one with that sign that says, “The Perfect Place For Imperfect People?” 
Boricio felt a bristle at the back of his neck. “Yeah?”
“Well, it was still there, but it wasn’t. Know what I mean?”
Boricio wished he didn’t, but he mostly did. “No, not sure I do.”
“I could see it like it was there, and I felt like if I got out of the pickup I’d be able to feel it beneath my fingers, but it was gone, just like my girlfriend and everyone else in the city.”
“Well, that is weird. I’ll report that to dispatch.” 
It’s official. This fucker has gone from worthless to boring. 
“You ready to ride?”
“You bet!”  
Boricio stuck out his hand. “Sorry I’ve not introduced myself yet. Must’ve left my manners back with the chaos. I’m Officer Thompson. Good to meet you.”
The motorist took Boricio’s hand. “Jim. Jim Silva. Good to meet you too. Thanks for your help.”
“My pleasure.” 
Jim Silva had exactly two seconds to notice the officer’s face move from passive to predator before he felt the grip on his hand tighten.
“Hey, Jim?”
“Yeah?” Jim asked, confused by the tight grip on his hand, but too pussy to do anything about it.
“I’m not a cop, Jim.”
“Huh?”
“No, I’m a hunter. I hunt people like you, Jim. Hunt ‘em and kill ‘em.”
Jim’s eyes widened as he tried to pull back his hand. Boricio locked his grip tighter. He loved the look in his victims’ eyes in that moment when they first realized they were with a psychopath. It made him erect, even though he was no queer.
Boricio grabbed Jim by the back of his head, twisted him around, and thrust forward.
Silva’s nose smashed into the top of the cruiser and rained a fountain of blood. He would’ve screamed if sudden knuckles hadn’t beaten the possibility from his throat. Boricio released Jim on two unsteady feet, then let him wobble a few seconds before kicking them from under him with a maniacal laugh. 
Another second and Boricio was on top of his new friend, Jim, banging his head on the asphalt like a stick on a snare drum. Jim heaved a few quivering shudders, already dying but a good stretch from dead. Boricio pulled the .45 from his belt, put it to the motorist’s temple, then shook his head and put it back.
Bullets are better than money now. 
He raised his boot above the motorist’s head and Silva’s final whimper was silenced with a squish and a new stain on the highway’s old asphalt. 
Adios dipshit.
Boricio climbed back in the cruiser and floored the gas.

**

Boricio wondered if he’d killed his friend Jim too quickly. Sure, it felt good, but he’d never killed two days in a row. Maybe he should’ve added the crisp-clothed cocksucker to the stash of Ding-Dongs in the trunk and saved him for later. Would be a shame to not have anything else for a while, which was probably how it would be. 
He was relieved to find another breather, though; to know he wasn’t alone on the big blue marble, yet. That meant it was only a matter of time before he’d have someone else to play with. And hopefully the next time it’d be something he could fuck. 
Boricio ran his hand along the sudden bulge beneath his denim. The hard-on made him think of pussy for sale, which sent his thoughts to his favorite strip club, Plan B, which made him realize their billboard had gone missing too.
Why the fuck didn’t I notice that? 
For some reason, that bothered Boricio more than just about anything else. He loved that fucking billboard, and looked forward to it even if he wasn’t gonna stop. Shit was obviously wrong with the world, but shit was wrong with him too if he didn’t even notice his favorite pussy parade was up and running AWOL. 
Boricio pulled off the road at a Love’s Travel Stop. If he couldn’t get gas, then he’d get a fully-gassed car. The lot was lit like Christmas, but none of the pumps were working. Boricio traded his cruiser for a full tank and an empty Prius, then went inside and emptied the register of cash, just in case, before heading back to his brand new ride. 
The door was halfway open when Boricio heard a muffled, “Help!” 
The cry was female, causing the bulge in his jeans to resurface. It sounded like it came from the back of the store, maybe from the bathroom, but after 15 minutes of frustrating search and two more cries, Boricio gave up looking.
I’ll be fucked if I start hearing things, too. If the world is fucked to pieces, fine. That’s them. But if I’m hearing voices, well baby, that’s all me. 
Boricio flew back onto the highway and started fiddling with the stations, thinking maybe they’d be better than the ones in the police cruiser. For the first 15 minutes or so, they weren’t, but then a crackle of static on 90.7 reversed the trend. 
90.7 was the New Orleans “Original Local Jazz and Heritage Station,” but if jazz was what was being broadcast, Boricio couldn’t hear it through the hazy wall of static punctuated by the occasional beep or muffled word. And though he couldn’t make anything out, the sound was still better than the eerie nothing outside. Besides, it was sorta fun trying to hear what he could, like trying to watch porn on a scrambled channel. 
Boricio kept driving while the sky outside darkened. Daylight hadn’t hit, though it had to be morning. But the gloom in the clouds looked less than normal and mostly like a bruise.
A loud POP! on the radio was followed by the word “Boricio,” which despite its clarity, he knew he must’ve imagined. The world could disappear, sure, but some shit just wasn’t possible. 
Like the strength in his shoulders, it didn’t make sense. Boricio felt like he could ditch the Prius and run the rest of the day, though he hadn’t eaten since early yesterday and wasn’t hungry enough to bother with any of the crap food piled in his trunk, even though he’d taken the time to move it from the cruiser to the Prius. 
He was in mid-daydream, imagining pitting his new strength against some 250-pound pussy (the fat ones always liked to fight) when the broadcast from 90.7 suddenly jumped in volume. Boricio heard his name again, no doubt, followed by another 20 minutes of mostly silence seasoned with the muffled versions of the words gone, absent, defunct, dead, and buried, all crackling through the speakers. 
Only one word repeated though, several times, in fact.
Extinct.

* * * *


CHARLIE WILKENS


“You in there, Charlie?” Bob shouted, rattling the door with his knuckles.
Charlie’s head was still hurting, but Bob’s sudden appearance had startled him to readiness.
The whole town ups and leaves and this asshole is still here? The end of the world and it’s me and Bob? Fu-uck me.
Bob caught a glimpse of Charlie peering through the curtains, so there was no point in hiding. He grabbed the empties and tossed them in Josie’s closet, then headed downstairs and opened the front door.
“What the hell happened?” Bob asked, pushing his way into the house without invitation. “Where’s your mother?”
“I dunno, I woke up and you and mom were gone, then I went around the neighborhood and everyone else is too.”
“Your mom’s gone?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, noticing that Bob looked genuinely concerned. “Where were you? I thought you were gone too.”
That’s when Charlie noticed Bob was wearing his greasy work shirt and cap, with ‘Sal’s Towing’ in ugly cursive letters. 
“I had to cover someone’s shift last night. I was bringing a car to the impound and I must’ve nodded off waiting for the asshole to fill out the paperwork. Next thing I know, I woke up and everyone is gone.”
“It’s not just our neighborhood, then?”
“Dude,” Bob said, his eyes wide and nervous, “it’s the whole fucking world. Or at least everything I’ve seen for 50 miles on the highway.”
Charlie stared, digesting the news.
“Why are you here? Anyone home?”
“No, I came looking for my friend Josie, and saw her door was open. So I came inside to see if she was here.”
“So you broke into her house?” Bob said, his face showing a shadow of the asshole Bob hid beneath the surface.
“The door was open,” Charlie explained. “I came in to see if anyone was here, maybe hurt or something.”
Bob stared at him, likely trying to decide if he’d be a total fucking hard ass like he usually was or if he’d let it go on the count of it being the end of the world and all. He turned and headed out the door, “Come on; let’s go home. Your bike’s in the truck already.”
Charlie wanted to protest, but knew he didn’t have a choice. He was, by all accounts, Bob’s bitch again. He walked like a dog behind him.

**

“So what are we gonna do?” Charlie asked, sitting on the couch opposite Bob, who was in His Chair — the chair nobody else in the house dared to sit in — drinking his fifth Nati Light. 
“Fuck if I know,” Bob said, his voice slightly slurred. “Wait for someone, the Army, The Marines, fucking X-Files, I dunno. If you ask me, it’s the goddamned Rapture. God came and took the good folks to heaven so us degenerates could rot.”
“Don’t you think if it was the Rapture, there’d be a lot more people here than vanished?”
Bob stared at Charlie for a moment, as if trying to figure out how he felt about Charlie’s response.
“Shit, boy, that’s the funniest damned thing you ever said.”
Charlie glanced at the ground and shrugged. 
“You ain’t so bad,” Bob said. “You should talk more instead of always staying up there in that room of yours.”
Yeah, maybe I would if you didn’t always call me dumbass or retard, or slap me around.
“How old are you now?” 
Charlie squirmed a bit, not sure where this was going. “Almost 18.”
“Well, hell, ‘almost 18’ is old enough for a beer. Shit, I was drinkin’ when I was 13. Of course, times were different back then. Go get me another beer and get yourself one too.”
“You sure? I don’t think mom would want me . . .”
“Your mom ain’t here, now is she? She’s probably up there in heaven and seeing as you and me are still here, means we’re probably goin’ to hell. So we may as well have some good times till then, eh?”
“I guess.”
Charlie went to the fridge and grabbed the last two cans of beer, then returned to the living room and handed them both to Bob, just in case Bob was testing him.
“Here, crack it open,” Bob said, throwing it to Charlie.
Charlie pulled back the tab and beer sprayed all over his face and shirt. He let out a yelp before running into the kitchen so his beer could overflow into the sink. As Charlie cleaned himself, Bob was in the living room laughing his ass off.
“Goddamn, you are funny, boy.”
Charlie glanced at the beer, still about 70 percent full, then lowered the can into the sink, quietly spilling all but 10 percent or so down the drain. He returned to the living room taking a sip of the beer as he entered. The beer tasted disgusting. Like shit’s shit, if shit could shit. Nowhere near as sweet as the wine coolers he’d downed at Josie’s. He made an awful face and Bob laughed again.
“Beer virgin!” Bob said like he was some kinda frat boy asshole. Charlie would’ve rolled his eyes if he didn’t think Bob would knock one of them onto the floor.
Charlie took another swig, though most of it was thankfully gone. He pretended to drink longer than he had been, then put the empty can down and let out a loud burp. That ought to make ole Bob laugh his ass off.
And it did.
“Holy shit, you’re done?” Bob said, grabbing the can and shaking it, “Wow, that’s impressive.”
Charlie smiled and sat back on the couch.
“You didn’t pour it down the sink or anything, did ya?”
Charlie’s heart sped up. He wondered if Bob had seen him, but the angle of the kitchen’s opening killed the clear view into the living room. 
“No,” but I spilled half the can on myself. And . . . oh shit, the floor,” he said, realizing some had gotten on the carpet, also.
“Hey, boy,” Bob snapped, a serious glare flamed in his eyes, “you watch your mouth, ya’ hear.”
Charlie paused, staring at Bob, waiting for him to crack a smile or laugh, or tell him he was just kidding. Hell, Bob had just told him to drink a beer and now he was gonna’ get all hardcore about a curse word? Sure, Charlie never cursed in the house before, but that was out of respect for his mom. He never realized Bob would be Billy Bad Ass about a little foul language.
Hypocritical fuck.
Bob continued to glare, “You don’t use that language under my roof.”
“Yes,” Charlie said, glancing at the floor, not even bothering to point out that it wasn’t his roof, but his mother’s, and that Bob barely contributed to anything, much less rent. God knew what he did with his money, but he sure didn’t give any to Charlie’s mom.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie said, and shrunk into the kitchen to get some paper towels to clean the mess.
As Charlie sprayed the beer stain with carpet cleaner, Bob got up and went to the kitchen. A moment later he yelled, “Hell, we’re outta beer!”
Charlie cringed, wishing he’d mentioned that his was the last can. He was even more glad Bob hadn’t seen him pour half the last beer down the sink. He dabbed at the stain, soaking it dry with the paper towels, pretending to be deep in concentration and hoping to avoid Bob’s wrath.
Bob slammed the fridge, came into the living room, and said, “Come on, kid, we’re gonna hit the store.”
Charlie jumped up, threw the dirty paper towels away and told Bob he’d be right out, after he went pee, using the word pee, because if shit ticked off Bob, piss would probably make him go nuclear.
“Okay, hurry up, I’ll be waiting in the truck.”
Great, we’re gonna go out and do some drunk driving in a tow truck. That should be a blast.

**

Bob was a surprisingly good drunk driver, though he still went too fast for Charlie’s tastes. When Bob saw Charlie clenching the hand holder thingee above the passenger side window, he vented another one of his dirty, ain’t I an asshole? laughs.
“What? You think I’m gonna crash us? Shit, boy, I’ve been driving trucks since before you were an egg in your momma’s snatch.”
Wow, there’s an image.
“I’m sure you’re a great driver,” Charlie said, “I was just thinking maybe the beers might impair your driving a bit.”
Charlie regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He expected Bob to go ape shit.
Instead, Bob laughed.
“She-eeit, it takes more than a six pack of beers to get me intoxicated, kid. You ain’t even seen me drunk.”
Charlie laughed, uncomfortably. He still had a few bruises that said otherwise, but he wasn’t about to say that!
The streets beyond their neighborhood were creepy enough to keep the hair on his arms high the entire time. Not a soul on the roads. They passed a few cars here and there, which had seemingly been left running in the middle of the road or crashed on the sides of the streets, but not enough to cause any congestion.
When they pulled up to Evergreen Square, the closest shopping plaza to their house, the emptiness got louder. The always-full parking lot had been reduced to just three cars. Bob pulled right up to the first spot in front of the Save-A-Lot.
“Let’s go shopping,” he grinned.
The store was dark inside, but not so dark you couldn’t see between the daylight and the store’s huge glass facade. The automatic doors were dead, so Bob went back to his truck, opened a side panel and retrieved a crowbar. 
“Stand back, kid, I’ve got a door to open.”
Charlie thought Bob would pry the doors apart. Instead, being the subtle kinda guy he is, Bob smashed the glass with the crowbar, until he’d made a big enough hole for them to climb through.

**

The store was dark and damned creepy without people inside. While Bob grabbed a shopping cart and headed straight to the beer aisle, Charlie was tasked to fill another cart with as much water and food as he could fit. If any other people were left, it wouldn’t be long before they’d be looting the store too, Bob warned. 
“Anyone too stupid to loot was just smart enough to die,” he said.
As Charlie navigated the aisles, he couldn’t help but feel a thrill from the all-you-can-grab shopping spree. Anything he wanted in the entire store — for free! He imagined Bob was filling his cart with nothing but beer. Maybe some canned meat products and pork rinds too. The idea made him laugh. He could hear Bob on the other end of the store singing some country song about beer, which made him laugh harder. If Bob weren’t such an asshole half the time, Charlie might actually get along with the prick.
He loaded up on water and soda on one aisle and was shoving every battery pack, flashlight, and battery powered gadget he could find into his cart when he heard a noise one aisle over. 
He froze, listening. All he could hear was Bob’s obnoxious singing. He was in the middle of his aisle, ready to run in either direction. He crouched down and moved closer to the source of the noise and then he heard footsteps.
Shit.
The barren store, hell, the barren town, the lack of power, and the general creepiness convinced Charlie he was about to come face-to-face with a zombie. 
Shit, shit.
He crept toward the front of the store, abandoning the cart.
The footsteps, which were at the back of the store and heading away from him, reversed course, and were now following his path in the next aisle. He stopped. The other person stopped one step after.
Charlie was frozen in place, Bob’s drunken singing sounded as though it were a mile away.
He scanned his aisle, looking for something, anything he might be able to use as a weapon. He wished he were in the cutlery aisle, but the small tool aisle would have to do. He grabbed a generic-looking hammer, orange with a black handle. It wasn’t heavy, but it was metal, and he figured it could do a fair amount of damage.
He started toward the front of the store again, this time on tiptoe, hammer ready. Silence on the other aisle. He wondered if his stalker was staying put or creeping along with him. He gripped the hammer as he approached the end of the aisle. Once there, he’d have to make a decision whether to round the corner and confront whoever was there or start running and yell for Bob. He’d hate to be imagining things, then go running for Bob like a big baby, so he decided he’d turn the corner and let fate figure it out.
Bob was still singing, but now it sounded like the out-of-tune was coming from a mouthful of food. Fucker was probably chowing down on raw steaks.
Charlie inched toward the soda display at the end of the aisle, his heart in his throat as he rounded the corner. His shaky hand clutched the hammer, as he considered the ways he might use it when needed. Swinging it would require getting in close, and if the other person — or persons — had a better weapon, he was screwed. He could throw it, but if he missed, he’d be empty-handed. And he’d be facing an angry attacker.
He sat frozen and crouched at the end of the aisle, weighing his decision, and glancing toward the other end of the store to see if Bob was in sight. He wasn’t.
Charlie heard the footsteps, now in full sprint toward him.
He ducked down, and got ready to swing the hammer. As trouble ran toward him, he cried out, “Bob!”
He stumbled back just as the figure in blue jeans and a black hoodie shot past him and darted toward the front doors. 
Bob came running, crowbar in hand, and glanced down at Charlie who had fallen to the ground. The person had hopped into Bob’s truck.
Bob raced from the store, yelling, “Hey, fucker!”
Charlie followed, gripping his hammer. As Charlie pushed through the front door, Bob yanked the hoodie-wearing punk from the cab and threw him to the ground. He brought the crowbar up and swung. The guy rolled out of the way at the last second and knocked Bob’s legs out from under him. Bob fell to the ground. 
The guy hopped up and raced across the parking lot. Charlie followed, driven by adrenaline, and a desire to do something good in Bob’s eyes by catching the bastard who tried to steal his truck.
“Stop!” Charlie yelled, as he got closer, emboldened by both the hammer in his fist, and knowing Bob would surely be beside him in a moment and help him deal with the punk.
Though Charlie couldn’t see anything beneath the hoodie, he could tell the guy was shorter and skinnier than him. So long as he didn’t have a gun — and Charlie didn’t see one — he figured he might have a chance to win a fight for once in his life. 
Charlie was almost close enough to grab the guy. He considered throwing the hammer at the back of the guy’s head, but didn’t want to slow down as he was almost ... catching ... up.
Just inches away, Charlie dropped the hammer, reached out with both hands and grabbed the hoodie, then yanked the guy back. They collided in a rough roll to the ground which lacerated Charlie’s arms and bruised his ribs and back, but he didn’t release his grip, and the two rolled until they’d come to a stop with the guy on top of Charlie. Only it wasn’t a guy, but rather, a young black girl, close to his age, with short curly hair and piercing, azure eyes.
He let go immediately. She stood and their eyes locked in a tango of fear and survival. I’m not a threat, are you?
Just then, Charlie heard Bob’s thundering footsteps, then looked up to see him running up behind the girl, screaming with the crowbar raised.
“No!” Charlie screamed. The girl spun around just as the crowbar came down. It narrowly missed her head, but hit her hard in her right shoulder, sending her sprawling to the ground as she cried out.
Bob immediately brought the crowbar up again and was about to take another, surely lethal swing, when Charlie leaped at Bob, pushing him back, and sending the crowbar back where it bounced off the ground with a hollow metal thud.
“She’s just a kid!” Charlie yelled as Bob stumbled back, but didn’t fall.
Bob’s bloodshot eyes were crazy, his nostrils flaring. He was out of breath.
“She’s a kid, man. Relax,” Charlie gasped, leaning on his knees to catch his breath.
Bob’s eyes relaxed a bit and Charlie turned to the fallen girl, lying unconscious on the ground.
“Did I kill her?” Bob asked.
“I don’t think so,” Charlie said, leaning down to feel for a pulse.
Charlie wasn’t sure whether or not Bob was disappointed.


* * * *


MARY OLSON


Desmond was a fun neighborhood mystery. Everyone loved to guess where he got his money. No one knew what he did, but everyone knew he had to be one of the best. His house, directly across the street from Mary’s, wasn’t larger than hers. But it was just as big and ten times as impressive. You could tell that she was someone who was struggling to stay in such a grand home; he was likely living beneath his means.
Desmond rarely wore anything other than jeans and a simple shirt, but on him, everything looked custom tailored. Even jeans and tees. He always had new toys, including cars. And new women, or so rumor went. And the one time Mary had been inside his house, she left thinking it was the most beautiful interior she’d ever seen. And his garden inspired jealousy from everyone in the neighborhood. She’d dreamt of the garden more than once. 
Mary had known a few guys who could mint money, all of them assholes. Desmond wasn’t. He was a good guy with a great sense of humor, though he spent most of the time quiet, at least at the neighborhood gatherings. He had honest eyes and was a great listener; rarely broke eye contact and usually waited his turn to speak. When he spoke, people listened. 
“What do you mean the world is dead?”  John asked. 
“Exactly that. May not be the entire world, but St. Louis is gone for sure. If there’s a rest of the world, we need to get to it now.”
“People are missing, or do you mean the town itself?”
“A little of both,” Desmond said. “All the people, definitely. But a lot of the town, too.”
“How do you know?” John’s bottom lip started to dance. 
“Because I’ve been driving the city since 3:30 this morning. It’s a ghost town, and I can’t get a signal from anywhere in the world. If I can’t get a signal, no one in this city can.”
Jimmy lost his tongue for the first time in years. 
Mary said, “What do you think we should do?”
“Pack some supplies; we’re gonna head southwest to Fort Leonard Wood. If the world’s gone to shit, you can bet the Army base is the best place to be.”
Jimmy’s tongue came back. “What if the Army is gone?”
John stepped in front of Jimmy. “I’m not going. I’m waiting for Jenny here.”
Desmond said, “Jenny’s gone.”
“She’ll be back.” 
A sadness shuddered through the tiny circle. Desmond put his hand on John’s shoulder. “We’ll be safer together. And have a better chance at finding Jenny.”
Jimmy agreed. “Yeah man, better together.”
Mary turned to John. “I know how you feel. But right now, we don’t know what’s happened or what that means for tomorrow. All we know is, yesterday’s gone. Whatever happened, we were hit hard. If our numbers were cut, then every number matters. We need to stick together and figure out what’s going on.”
John was silent. Desmond thanked Mary with his eyes then opened his mouth. “I suggest we’re packed and ready to hit the road hard in 30. Take only what you know you need. No computers or large items. I only have so much room in the cargo van for our supplies. We can also use the Escalade.”
John said, “I’ll go. We can take my Suburban. Just cleaned it yesterday.”
Desmond smiled. “Okay then, let’s hustle. Everyone back here in 30.”
“Why the hurry?” Jimmy wasn’t being flip, just wanted to know. “Looks like we’ve got all the time in the world.” 
A shadow smudged Desmond’s face. “Time might not mean what it used to. But if the sky is falling, every minute matters.” 
Mary and Paola went back into the house. Paola ran upstairs to pack clothes; Mary stayed downstairs in the kitchen tossing a medley of foods into two 30 gallon trash bags. She packed all the dries, then made a cooler of perishables and set it by the front door beside the two plastic bags. 
Paola met her mom at the front door with two suitcases, stuffed with Mary’s favorite jeans, cammies, and sweaters with 15 minutes to spare. 
“Anything else?” 
Paola was sweet this morning. And it was early. 
“Not sure. Other than are we dreaming, is this real, or any other way of saying, this can’t be happening. Most of all I just want to know you’re okay. Are you?” 
Paola smiled. “Would it be weird if I said yes?”
“A little,” Mary hugged her daughter and laughed. “But you’ve always been a little weird and a lot tough!”
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think happened?”
Mary had no idea and couldn’t possibly guess. “I don’t know, but I think we’ll be okay. That feels right. And you know I’d tell you if it didn’t. Whatever happened, we’re okay. That has to be enough for us right now, got it?”
Paola gave her mom her hand. “Pinky promise.” 
Mary wrapped her pinky around Paola’s. They spent several minutes rocking back and forth, then opened the door to the sudden future waiting outside. 

**

Desmond’s cargo van was nice but nondescript from the outside. New, tall and shiny. Black. The back doors were open. Mary saw custom cabinets and shelving inside, sitting beside a small bank of computers, every screen black. Her face must have looked louder than she thought.
“I’m not crazy,” Desmond laughed. “I’m just always prepared and can afford to do it well. Come on, let’s get packed.” He took the bags from Mary and Paola and loaded them into the van.
“Mind if I take a look?” Mary asked. 
“By all means,” Desmond stood behind the swinging door and bowed his head.     
Mary climbed in and started opening cabinets. They were packed with an end of the world picnic: juice, dried fruits, condensed milk, canned meats, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, granola bars, baby food, coffee, tea, hard candy, cereal, salt, pepper, sugar. There was a giant first aid kit, the biggest Mary had ever seen, a portable toilet, light sticks, a stack of 5-gallon buckets, plastic trash bags, bleach, a disaster supply kit, and tons of water, though it looked like it would run out quick.
Mary looked at her two plastic bags and felt like she was watering her lawn while looking at Desmond’s copper piping. 
“One more,” Desmond said, straining to lift a small footlocker into the van. A padlock secured the lock.
“What’s in there?” Mary asked, even though she anticipated the response.
“Guns,” Desmond said matter-of-factly.
“Who’s riding with me?” John opened the door to his Suburban and climbed in. Mary and Paola climbed in back. 
“I’ll go with Desmond,” Jimmy said. 
Desmond shook his head. “You should ride in the Suburban. I’ll hit the front line.”
Jimmy didn’t disagree, just opened the passenger side of the Suburban and climbed inside.
The cargo van left Warson Woods. The Suburban followed.

**

The Suburban was a coffin of silence as its occupants surveyed the city beyond their neighborhood. 
It was gone. 
In its place, torn trees jutted up from the debris-strewn earth consisting of splintered remnants of houses, destroyed vehicles, broken glass, and paper. Lots and lots of paper, as if a million office buildings exploded, and paper rained from the sky, as if a super tornado had wiped out miles and miles of the city. 
Paola burst into tears, and Mary hugged her tight. 
“What happened?”
“Jesus,” John said. “Everything is ... gone.”
Mary held Paola tightly, unable to think of anything to say that would soothe her this time. As they drove along, Mary saw that Jimmy, who had his face buried in a fantasy book, was starting to tear up. She turned away, so as not to embarrass him.

**

Fortunately, the on-ramp to the highway was intact and the streets remarkably, and eerily, were free of vehicles. If a mass exodus occurred, everyone either got out in time, or took other means of escape.
And the sky had a gauze. It made her think, opposite of Colorado and that managed a smile. They’d driven nearly 20 minutes before the trees began to appear along the side of the road again. The tornado, or whatever it was, hadn’t reached this far. In another 15 minutes or so, they would reach the next major city. She hoped it was still standing.
As they drove in relative silence, something gnawed in Mary’s brain. Something she should either remember, or notice. That’s when it occurred to her —  something was off about the trees. She realized what it was before Jimmy said a thing. 
“You hear them?” Jimmy turned to the back seat.
“Who?” Paola asked.
“The trees.” 
Paola did, though she hadn’t realized it until that moment. That they were able to hear anything from inside the cabin of the Suburban, let alone trees, confused her. That she and Jimmy agreed it was the trees they heard, even odder.
“Yeah,” Jimmy drummed his fingers on the dashboard, “they’re definitely talking.”
John turned his head to the right and raised an eyebrow. “The trees are talking? What are you smoking?”
“Nothing yet,” Jimmy laughed. He pulled a small Ziploc baggie from the inside of his jacket and opened it. The sweet, skunky scent of herb filled the Suburban.” 
“What is that?” Paola asked. 
“Nothing,” Mary said. Then, after a second, “It’s marijuana.” 
“Oh,” Paola said. “It smells sorta good.” 
“Yes, it sorta does,” Mary laughed, then traced the memory of her and Ryan in their old days losing hours to the fog. 
“I don’t want that in my car,” John said, eyes on the road. 
“Relax, yo. It’s the end of the world. This might be the last baggie we ever gonna smoke... until we start planting it. Until then, I’m willing to share. You have the car, I bring the weed. It’s fair. Besides, what’re you worried about — getting a ticket?”
John didn’t care anyway, but the argument turned to vapor when they saw the cargo van slowing to a standstill. 
Desmond got out and the temperature in the Suburban rose a degree. 
“I wish my brothers were here,” Jimmy said. “Mom and Dad, too.” 
Mary and Paola exchanged the same knowing look: everything was different, except that they were all that mattered. 

**

Desmond was looking down, his right hand raised at the Suburban in a silent stop. “What should we do?” Paola said. 
“Nothing yet,” Mary said, then, “Stay inside.” 
“I’m going to take a look.” John put the Suburban in park, then climbed outside and headed for Desmond. 
“Yee-haw. Me too.” Jimmy opened his door and hit the concrete. John and Jimmy were just shy of Desmond when Paola opened the door and ran past the boys, in front of Desmond, then face first into a scream. 
Desmond pulled Paola back, already hysterical. Mary rushed to her daughter. In front of the van, Mary saw what caused her daughter to shriek. It was all she could do not to follow suit.
The twitching creature on the highway was human — mostly. Its face was pale black, with bright white balls of light pulsating under the glistening, mottled flesh. It had no mouth, eyes, or nose, and its legs were longer than they should’ve been. The body was moving, gasping in its death throes. 
The sky got ashy and the twitcher started twitching more. As the sky grew darker, the thing’s jaw began to push out, stretching its head until a slash ripped horizontally above its jaw — forming a rudimentary mouth. From its new-found orifice, it gasped and groaned, as if trying to form words. 
Desmond stepped toward the creature, and turned to Mary, “Cover her eyes.”
Paola buried her face in her mother’s shoulder as Desmond aimed a pistol, a Glock, Mary believed, at the twitcher. 
“What are you doing?” John screamed, knocking his hand away.
Desmond lowered the gun, then turned to John with a glare, “You won’t be touching me when I’m aiming a loaded gun.” 
“He needs help. You can’t just kill whoever you want. None of us agree to that.”
Desmond raised the Glock and pulled the trigger. Twice. The light in the creature’s body seemed to flicker just before its head exploded in gore. Then, the lights went out and its body went limp and still.
The shot sounded like a rolling detonation as it caromed across the emptiness. 
“This is the Apocalypse, not a democracy,” Desmond said, “Let’s go.” 
Desmond got back in the van and drove around the body without another word. 

**

Nothing but silence in the Suburban for several minutes. Mary wondered what Desmond knew that he wasn’t telling anyone else. 
Sure, people had vanished, and an entire town wiped off the planet, but who said anything about an Apocalypse? There was no way to know how far spread this event was. No reason not to think that once they reached the Army base, they’d be transported somewhere where everything was still normal.
Apocalypse?
As much as she wanted to believe her hopes, something told her she was wrong, that Desmond was right, and everything had indeed changed. Forever. 
She wanted to cry too, but she had to be strong for Paola. And for Jimmy, to an extent. Though he was practically an adult, so much about him was still a child. An orphan.
“Where do you think everyone is?” Jimmy asked, breaking the silence.
“I dunno,” Mary said. “I’m thinking of some sort of evacuation or something.”
“No,” John said, “I mean, maybe if everyone from the same homes were gone. But my wife is gone, Jimmy’s family is gone. There’s no way the Army or anyone would be able to evacuate half of a family without waking the others. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe they all raptured?” Paola offered. “God called all the believers home?”
“That’s all bullshit make believe,” Jimmy said, “And besides, if there was a heaven, no fu... friggin’ way my dad was on the list. Believe you, me.”
“Maybe aliens?” Paola said.
Jimmy thought on that for a moment. “Now, that, I wouldn’t rule out. Though, that would be an awful lot of UFO’s to take all those people away.”
“Maybe they didn’t take them away?” Paola countered. “Maybe they just killed everyone.”
Mary flinched, catching a look from John. She made an “I’m sorry” face and his expression changed from scorn to understanding.
“Let’s change the subject, huh? Why don’t we talk about ... I dunno, you all pick a topic.”
Before they picked a topic, John slowed the Suburban. Desmond had stopped again, in the middle of a bridge, which ran maybe fifty yards, a few hundred feet above ground.
“Why’s he stopping here? We’re nowhere near Fort Leonard Wood.”
Desmond got out of the van and was looking up at the sky. And that’s when they saw them — birds. Lots of them, swarming and diving overhead and to the river below. Desmond walked toward the guardrail and looked down, then turned back to the Suburban and held up a hand, telling the others to stay put.
Jimmy ignored the signal and jumped from the car. John followed. Mary looked at Paola and told her to stay put, she’d be right back. Surprisingly, Paola didn’t argue, and Mary stepped out of the car and joined the rest of the gang looking down over the guardrail.
As she drew closer, she noticed an overpowering sickly sweet smell that seemed somehow familiar, though she couldn’t quite place it. The sound of a river rushing beneath them was barely audible over the squawking of birds as they continued to circle and dive. 
John turned toward her and leaned over, vomiting on the road.
Jimmy and Desmond simply stared. Mary reached the guardrail, looked down below and immediately wished she’d stayed in the car.
Corpses filled the river, in the hundreds, if not thousands, bobbing up and down, floating like logs as birds feasted on their rotting flesh.
“Well, I think we know where all the people went,” Jimmy said, his face ashen.

* * * *


BRENT FOSTER


Brent wasn’t sure how long he hid in the pitch black, waiting for a looming dread to fade from the apartment. Maybe 20 minutes. Probably two hours. Hard to tell in the dark and with nothing to count.
He wasn’t sure what he was hiding from, but something in his lizard brain made him run from the downstairs apartment. Something told him if he stayed, he’d die. He hadn’t even worked up the courage to look out his own windows.
What did he see?
Though he couldn’t see the man on the street’s face well enough to see his expression, his run told Brent all he needed to know. The man was fleeing from death.
Maybe the city had suffered a terrorist attack, and the man saw the bad guys coming. Or, Brent suddenly thought, perhaps the man had something to do with what happened and was running from the police or Army or whoever the hell was now in control of the city.
Brent had only recently moved to New York, so he was a tourist to 9/11, not a citizen. But he knew enough to know someone was surely out there evacuating people, searching for survivors, or both. He couldn’t expect someone to find him; he’d have to find them. And that meant leaving the building.
He went back into the living room, glanced out the window and down to the street below. The city, or what he could see of it, was a morgue. He went to the fridge and grabbed another water, sat on his couch, and put his feet up on the coffee table, where a framed photo of his family faced him.
They took the picture last Christmas, just in time for cards. Brent thought sending family photos for cards was smarmy, but Gina insisted. He wondered if it was something women did to compete with their friends to prove who really had a nicer-looking or happier family. All Brent saw in 90 percent of the photos were uncomfortable children and miserable spouses holding tight to a veneer of love. 
Merry Christmas, indeed.
He held the photo, eyes fixed on Ben’s joyous smile.
Brent hadn’t wanted kids, not really. The world was far too fucked for that. Ben was an accident. Gina’s plumbing made him a one in a million shot at best. Same as Ben’s odds when Gina was rushed to the hospital bleeding at seven and a half months.
Only then did Brent realize how much he’d come to love the thought of having a son, and let his cynicism face the light of hope. When the doctors came out to update him on the status of the emergency C-section and told him he had a son, he was nothing but tears.  And when he finally saw his son in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, his heart melted. Ben was their miracle. And for one not inclined to believe in miracles, that was no small statement.
Sitting there on the couch, Brent felt guiltier than ever about trading his family for work. 
He’d always wanted to be a reporter. When he landed a gig in New York, his dream came true. Sure, it wasn’t The Times, just The Apple Tribune, but still, he was in the heart of it all, covering feature stories in the city of a million stories. But the newspaper business was dying: the Internet, evaporating advertising, and a cast and crew that couldn’t stop the bleeding. As the cuts came, he was always spared (so far), but it meant working that much harder to survive the next round.
He rarely saw his family.
It was a temporary sacrifice, he told himself, and a necessary one. He was working toward something, and getting there a word at a time. And he knew good writers, damned good writers, who were unemployed, hungry, and writing anything they could just to keep food in their fridge. 
And while he used to dream of the life of a newspaper writer in New York, as something close to being famous, or at least respected, the reality of his role was a slap in the face. Most people treated him like shit. Especially people who disagreed with the politics of his paper, something he had nothing to do with. He was a features guy, telling nice little stories about the city and its eclectic denizens. 
But most people didn’t care. You work for the wrong paper, they treat you like a lying, thieving, evil bastard. And even when they didn’t hate him for the paper’s politics, they often bitched when he got some little facet of a story wrong, or more often, didn’t stick with the narrative they imagined the story would take. It never ceased to amaze him how many people would get bent out of shape or threaten lawsuits over a nice story!
Now, sitting alone with no idea where his family was, the vanity of his job was apparent. He was too busy trying to impress strangers and win their love, while neglecting his family who already loved him.
Brent pulled Stanley Train from his pocket, looked at the train’s big goofy smile, and he felt his heart fade into an ache. Ben was gone. The thought that he might never play with his toy train again shattered Brent into tears.

**

Brent spent about half an hour feeling sorry for himself while fear ran rampant in his head. Then something swelled inside him. Anger. Anger at himself and his inaction. His family was out there — he hoped — and it was his job to find them.
He grabbed a backpack from his closet, filled it with food, drinks, and clothes, wrote his wife another note — this one saying he’d be back at midnight — and headed out the door. He left it unlocked since Gina left her keys inside. If someone broke in, let ‘em. Halfway down the hall, he raced back to his apartment, grabbed the framed photo from the couch, put it in his backpack, and headed out into the city.
First, though, he’d need a gun. He found one in the fourth apartment he kicked in. A revolver with a box of bullets. He’d fired a gun twice at a range, but never owned one. No matter, he knew enough to be dangerous.
He stepped out of his apartment building and onto the street. The air was cool, and a fog was rolling in, like a wooly icing atop the haunted hallways of the abandoned concrete empire. Brent couldn’t smell any smoke, or anything out of the ordinary. A good sign, he guessed.
He stared off in the same direction as the man had been staring before losing his shit, but saw nothing odd. Well, no more odd than the ghost streets, and buildings getting swallowed by the fog descending on the city. The fog was different than normal, though Brent couldn’t quite place what the difference was. 
He crossed the four lanes of West End Avenue to the apartment building the man had ducked into. It was roughly the same size as his, 15 stories tall. He wasn’t sure how he’d find the guy, or if he’d be dangerous, but Brent had to establish contact with the only person he’d seen.
When he reached the double doors that would normally be locked or tended by a doorman, he noticed that one of the two windows was shattered. Glass covered the red doormat inside. Brent put his hand on the gun tucked inside his jacket and stepped through the doorway. Glass crunched beneath his sneakers. The lobby desk was deserted and the elevators were dead, which meant he had to take the stairs and begin his ascent.
The stairwell was dimly lit by emergency lights. His footsteps echoed off the walls. He didn’t bother with stealth. He hoped the guy, if he were still around, would show himself so Brent wouldn’t have to search the whole damned building.
Brent got his wish as he opened the door to the second floor landing and came face to face with a pistol. On the other end of the gun, a wild-haired disheveled, skinny guy in his late 40’s or early 50’s wearing thick black rimmed glasses. Brent’s hand held his gun tight in his pocket, but made no move to reveal it. Instead, he aimed it at the guy, through his jacket.
“Anyone see you come in here?” 
Brent shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. I didn’t see anyone out there.”
“Who sent you?” the guy asked, his voice tuned to nervous.
“Nobody, my name is Brent Foster, I live across the street. I’m looking for my family.”
“Brent Foster?” the guy said, his eyes darting up for a moment, accessing memory. “Brent Foster who writes for the Tribune?”
Great, the moment he’d always hoped would never happen. Some wacko with a gun recognizing him as a reporter. Hope he’s a fan.
“Yes,” Brent said, reluctantly, bracing for reaction.
The guy lowered the gun and a broad smile crossed his face.
“Stanley Byrd, but you can call me Stan. I’m a big fan of your work, sir.” the guy said, putting the gun awkwardly in a jacket that was about 20 years out of fashion.
Brent let go of his own gun and shook Stan’s clammy hand.
“What have you heard? Did you see anything?”
“Nothing,” Brent said, “I woke up and my wife and son were gone. And apparently the whole damned apartment building and everyone on the streets is gone, too.”
“Yeah, the whole city is gone, but not just the city.” Stan said with the certainty of someone who took such things in stride. 
“What do you mean?” 
“Come, come, I want to introduce you to some people,” Stan said, turning and heading down the hall. “I can’t believe you’re here. I read that story you did on the blind jazz guy who plays in the subways to put his son through college. Goddamn, that was beautiful stuff.”
“Thanks,” Brent said, following, hand in his jacket. Just in case.
Stan brought him to the last apartment in the hallway, knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice, paused again, then two more quick knocks.
Bolts, several of them by the sounds of it, unbolted and the door opened. A bald, buffed, stone-faced Hispanic in a tight black tee greeted them, arms drowning in ink. He nodded and let them in.
All charm, this one.
Sitting on a sofa even older than Stan’s clothes, was a blonde haired woman in her early 40’s or so. She reminded Brent of a doctor or scientist, and he was rarely wrong when judging people by appearance. Stan was nuts, muscles was angry, and the lady, well, she was probably the brains of the bunch.
Muscles locked the door and Stan introduced everyone.
“Everyone, this is Brent Foster, from the Tribune. Brent, this is Luis Torres, who lives five floors up. And this is Melora Mitchell, who lives in your building, actually.”
Luis nodded. Melora stood up and reached out to shake Brent’s hand. Her hand was cold, thin. She retreated quickly — or perhaps Brent was just imagining things — as if she were aware of Brent’s judgment of her hand’s temperature.
“Have a seat, Brent,” Stan said.
Brent took a seat in one of two recliners across from the couch. Stan took the other, while Luis stood up, arms crossed.
“We didn’t think we’d find another,” Melora said. “How long have you been having the dream?”
Brent didn’t have a chance to ask what she was talking about.
“Where were you at 2:15 a.m.?” Stan asked. It seemed as if he were waiting for a specific response to the time.
“In bed. Why?”
“What do you remember?”
“Nothing. I went to bed dog-ass tired, woke up this morning with a headache, and the world was gone. Why are you asking me about that time?”
“Because that’s when The Collapse first started.”
“What do you mean, Collapse?” Brent asked, glancing now at Melora to see if she were also buying into Stan’s weirdo speak. Her face was all business.
“At 2:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, nearly 99.9% of the population of the planet vanished. Gone, poof, into the unknown.”
“What are you talking about?” Brent asked, now glancing at Luis, also stone-faced.
“We’re calling it The Collapse. And we’ve known it was going to happen for years.”
Brent stayed silent. He was certain his expression was louder than words, anyway.
“The four of us have been dreaming of this day and hour since we were children. We found one another five years ago on some message boards, and started researching this thing, trying to prepare. We even came up with a name for ourselves,” Stan said with a laugh, “We call ourselves the 215 Society.”
Okay, that’s it, I’m outta here. Brent began to think of a way to get the hell out of the room without offending Luis.
“We’re not crazy,” Melora said with a professorial smile. “We’ve been dreaming of this moment for most of our lives. Something in the dream told us that the world would be gone and we had to prepare.”
“Prepare? How?” Brent asked, his curiosity getting the better of him even if he was chasing delusion. It wouldn’t be the first time he entertained some loon with crazy, tin foil hat stories.
“Well, we never really knew, to be honest,” Stan said, “At first, we thought we were supposed to warn people. We tried that, but nobody listens to you when you say the world’s gonna end. And we didn’t want to lose our jobs or get thrown in the loony bin. So we kept mum, just trying to be ready in whatever ways we could.”
“Wait,” Brent said, looking around the room, and trying to see into the hall, which likely led to a single bedroom and bath. “You said there were four of you; where’s the fourth?”
“We haven’t seen her yet,” Melora said. “She was supposed to come here last night to wait with us. But she never showed.”
“So you all stayed here for the end of the world? What happened at 2:15 a.m.?” Brent asked. “Did you see people vanish? Was there some big light from a UFO? Was God here? What happened?”
Melora smiled one of those smiles that someone gives you when they’re looking down on you. “You think we’re crazy, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Brent said, “I’m just looking for my family and would like to know what the hell happened.”
“They’re gone,” Luis said from behind. “They’re all gone.”
Brent was getting pissed, but kept his attention on Melora as he spoke. “They’re not gone. I’m going to find them.”
“I’m afraid Luis is right,” Melora said. “Everyone is gone. Which is why I’m confused. You didn’t answer my question before. Have you not had the dreams, too?”
“No,” Brent said, standing. “I didn’t have any crazy dreams. I told you what happened and now I’m going to go out to find my family. Thank you for your time and your . . . stories.”
Brent pushed his way past Luis, who didn’t bother to stop him.
“Wait,” Stan called out, his voice hyper. “There’s something you’ve gotta see.”
Brent was going to ignore him, just head the hell out of there, get back out on the street and leave Crazy Town. But again, his reporter’s curiosity tugged at him. Even if these people didn’t know what the hell was happening, he wanted to understand what they thought was going down. 
“What?” Brent asked, going to the kitchen where Stan and Melora were pulling something from a box. A small video recorder.
Stan handed it to Brent.
“Press play.”
He did.
The camera showed the time in the bottom right corner. 2:14 a.m. The scene was the room he was in now, except the chairs and couch were all moved aside, and the three 215ers were sitting on the floor talking.
“Should be any minute now,” Stan said in the video. 
Melora started to say something and then the power went out. 
The camera switched to night vision green and showed all three fall to the ground, unconscious. There was some static. Brent watched the screen, waiting for them to move, but they didn’t. They were out cold. If he didn’t know better, he’d think they dropped dead right there. 
“That’s it until an hour later, when we woke up,” Stan said. “Then we went out and drove around the city to confirm what we thought.”
“I drove around the city,” Luis corrected him.
“Yes,” Stan agreed. 
“Okay, so you recorded yourselves ‘passing out’ at the same time; what’s that supposed to prove?” Brent asked.
Melora reached into the box and pulled out another recorder. “This is the one we put in an apartment two doors down. One of several we placed in other apartments, I might add. Without anyone’s knowledge, of course.”
She handed it to Brent, and he pressed play.
2:14 a.m.
The scene was inside someone’s bedroom, a king-sized bed. The camera was already on night vision. Next to the bed, Brent saw a clock’s face that read 2:10. He could see the shapes of a man and woman in bed, the guy hogging the blankets, the woman curled against him. He could hear one of them snoring.
The alarm clock went black.
“That’s the power outage,” Melora said.
Brent kept watching. 
More static, this time accompanied by a five second burst of a high pitched whistle like a tea kettle if the tea kettle’s sound were filtered through a high velocity fan.
And then something came into view of the camera and Brent jumped. The camera fell from his hands.
“What the fuck was that?!”
Stan, surprisingly agile, grabbed the camera before it hit the ground. He rewound it to where Brent had left off and handed it back.
Something that looked like a dark cloud had formed all at once over the bed, a swirling mass of slow moving smoky tendrils. Except it moved more like smoke if it were in liquid form. Brent stared in horror as two long tentacles of darkness twisted and snaked down toward the sleeping bodies. Just as one of the tentacles creeped toward the woman’s head, the image flickered
More static and the high-pitched weird teakettle noise whistled for the longest five seconds of Brent’s entire life. The static cleared. When it did, the bed was empty. 
The time in the corner read 2:15 a.m.

TO BE CONTINUED...IN EPISODE TWO ON AUGUST 22, 2011

* * * *


ALSO BY SEAN PLATT & DAVID WRIGHT

AVAILABLE DARKNESS


The Darkness has awoken.
FBI Special Agent Caleb Baldwin is on the hunt for a serial killer who has left a trail of burned bodies. One of those victims – his wife. As he gets closer to finding the killer, he falls deeper into an elaborate conspiracy.

A man wakes buried alive with no memory of who or what he is. In his pocket, a note: “Avoid the sunlight and don’t touch anybody.” Now he is being hunted by the FBI while trying to remember his monstrous past. He must control the darkness within before it consumes him and the child whose life he must protect.

11-year-old Abigail was dying slowly each day as the prisoner of a sick man. Until she is saved by the most unlikely of heroes – a vampire with a deadly touch. He is her only hope, and she may hold the key to unlocking the memories of his hidden past.

Past, present, fate, and future are on a collision course as the hours of AVAILABLE DARKNESS are ticking away and a force greater than anything the world has ever seen threatens humanity. 

Available Darkness is the first book in an epic journey that reinvents vampire mythology with a fast paced, character-driven thriller that blends action, mystery, fantasy, and horror in an addictive, tragically romantic story.

AVAILABLE NOW 
Visit http://AvailableDarknessBook.com for more information and to get sneak peeks at the next exciting book in the Available Darkness trilogy.

* * * *


ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sean Platt is author of the books Four Seasons, Penny to a Million, Writing Online, and co-wrote Available Darkness and the Yesterday’s Gone series.
In addition to being a regular contributor for Copyblogger.com, the Web’s premier content marketing site, Sean has written copy for some of the largest writing and lifestyle blogs on the Web.
A new breed of publisher, Sean writes and publishes nonfiction and fiction in several genres ranging from children’s books to horror. Sean is a co-founder of the publishing imprint Collective Inkwell Media.
He is available for speaking events aimed at writers, publishers, and creative entrepreneurs, as well as for individual consultation. 
Sean is living the writer's dream in Ohio with his wife and two children.

Connect with Sean at:
sean@ghostwriterdad.com
http://ghostwriterdad.com
http://twitter.com/seanplatt
http://facebook.com/ghostwriterdad
http://collectiveinkwell.com


David W. Wright is a former newspaper reporter and cartoonist. He is co-author of Available Darkness and the Yesterday’s Gone series. He is also working on an illustrated children’s book for preschoolers.
He writes about self-publishing at:
http://CollectiveInkwell.com
He blogs and rants about writing, pop culture, and other stuff at: http://DavidwWright.com
David lives on the East Coast with his wife, his four year old son, and the world’s most annoying cat.

Connect with David at:
http://twitter.com/thedavidwwright
http://collectiveinkwell.com
http://davidwwright.com