Alone
Page 2
office, but didn‘t immediately see anybody. I thought of the heckling and load of trouble I'd get into while I entered the administration building with a can of pepper spray at the ready. It didn’t matter though, things were just too strange. I walked slowly through the entire building and didn't see anyone. The radio was playing in the break room. A half eaten microwave dinner sat on the break room table. There was a pile of clothes in the break room seat. But I still couldn’t find anybody.
I walked back outside and looked at the main compound. I saw more piles of clothes on the ball field and pathways, but there weren't any inmates present. I decided I would drive by the other facilities.
Our Medium custody facility was surrounded by a double fence. Within that fence we kept mean-tempered dogs, usually Rotweilers and German shepherds. As I approached the main entrance, the nearest dog began barking, which was not unusual. I entered the main entrance and immediately noticed that the front desk was not occupied. I walked up and looked around. Right behind the desk I saw two piles of staff clothes. Again, I saw badges, radios and duty belts. There was also a set of keys. I looked into the switch board/sally port control room and noticed another set of clothes. I picked up the phone at the front desk and dialed the control room for the facility. It continued to ring. I dialed the lieutenants office. Nothing. Then I tried calling each of the units within the facility. Nothing.
At the Maximum custody facility I tried to buzz their control room from their front gate. No answer.
Frustrated, I returned to my post.
Once I was back in the unit and took some time to think, I had an idea. Looking at the log I determined that there were 87 inmates that were supposed to be in the unit. I took a sheet of notebook paper and reentered the unit. As I walked through the unit, I make a check for every pile of clothes. I noticed many of the inmate ID cards were still attached to shirts. I counted 67 piles lying on the floors and in chairs. I looked through the bunks and counted another 15 sets. That was 82 sets out clothes. I left the unit, passing through the office and walked outside to the track. I counted five more sets of clothes, some on picnic tables, some on the track.
I walked back inside. With nothing better to do, I dialed 911. Nobody answered.
"Where are the people," I asked myself? It seemed like a logical question, but logic didn't seem logical right now.
My relief was due at 1030 that night, but for some reason I didn't expect him to show up. At 1030 I printed out my log and shut down the computer. I turned off all the TV's, radios, and lights. Then I locked all of the doors and walked out to my car. I could still see fires and smoke in the distance, but my drive home was on rural roads and would avoid the city. The unit generator was still running as I started my car and left.
With a bright red and gold sunset still in the sky, the drive home didn’t seem that eventful. I was hoping against hope, that when I entered my home, my wife would warmly greet me. That the radio stations were continuing to play music gave me some hope.
As I left the rural roads and entered the main feeder roads leading into town, I began to see more and more cars that had driven off the road. They weren’t just off the shoulder, but ten to twenty feet into the fields, ditches and lawns. Sometimes they had traveled much further, or even into homes.
At my first major intersection I ran into a road block. Some of the cars in the intersection were still running, there were about seven vehicles that were simply jammed into the intersection. They weren’t banged up, but looked like some of them simply idled into the intersection and stopped when they bumped the car in front. I drove onto the shoulder going behind the stop sign, bypassing the obstacle and continuing on my way. I drove about a mile more and came to the intersection nearest my home. It was the same sort of situation as the last jammed intersection, only the cars were a bit more dented and one had caught fire. Fortunately it hadn’t affected the nearby gas station on the corner, which was dark and vacant. There were still several cars at the pump, with hoses still inserted. I avoided the jam and made several quick turns through the mess to arrive at home.
Pulling up to my driveway I pressed the button on the garage door remote. Nothing happened, and I tried it again before remembering that the power had gone out.
I parked my car in the driveway and walked to the front door. I knocked and waited, expectant to hear the sound of footstep. I heard a familiar ‘snuff’ as my dog investigated my knocking from inside. Still no footsteps.
I walked back to the fence and awkwardly jumped up and unlatched it. I walked around the side of the house to the rear sliding glass door. The door was open, but the screen had been pulled shut. As I stepped up onto the deck, I stepped on something soft. I looked down and saw my son’s t-shirt and shorts. Right next to those were his brother’s. Their shoes poked out from beneath the pile.
I opened the screen slide and my dog immediately greeted me. Then he ran to the corner of the yard to use the bathroom. I entered the darkened house. I called out, “Hello, I’m home!” Nobody answered. I carefully crossed to the garage and reached inside for our flash light. As I flicked it on, I saw my wife’s car parked in the garage. I walked back into the living room. There on the recliner lay the shirt and shorts my wife had been wearing when I left.
I walked through the house. I didn’t find anything. The silence was eerie and pressing. I went back into the garage and got a portable radio. There were less stations to choose from as a scanned the dial.
Back in the living room, I moved my wife’s clothes and sat in the recliner. I didn’t know what to think. “Where is everyone” I thought, “Am I all alone?” I called my dog. At least he was one face, one body, one soul that I knew and connect with. “Where was everybody.”
It was two a.m., according to the portable radio, when I lay down in my empty bed, for a fitful night of sleep.
Day 2
It was late in the morning when I awoke to a warm house. There were no alarm clocks and no children to wake me any earlier. Java eagerly watched me, it was time for his feeding. I called him to me and scratched his head before rolling out of bed.
I walked over to the light switch and flipped it. “Damn” I thought, “Freaking power is still out.” I walked to the window and opened the blinds. Looking out the window, everything appeared calm and quiet. In fact, there was nothing except for the streak of small birds in the air.
I walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge to see what I would have for breakfast. I immediately wrinkled my nose as the smell of rancid meat assaulted me. Again, I forgot that the power had gone out, and the meat had been sitting in an unpowered fridge for at least 12 hours. I closed it, vowing to empty it soon.
I grabbed the dog food bowl and filled it full from a bin in the garage. Then I grabbed his water bowl and took it to the sink. I lifted the sink handle and scolded myself for not thinking. The water was also out. I went to the garage and got several bottles of water to fill his bowl and one for myself.
While Java ate, I sat at the table and ate several granola bars. After breakfast I walked to the bathroom. As I stepped in front of the toilet, I recalled that the power was out. Instead, I grabbed a shovel and headed to the back yard.
For the rest of the day, I simply made each of the beds, and then I laid out everyone’s clothes on top of the made beds from the piles I had found.
It seemed like everyone in the world was gone. They had simply disappeared, probably at the same instant, and everything they were wearing simply dropped where they had last stood, or sat, or lain. Were they gone for good, or would the just re-’pop’ into existence?
I emptied the refrigerator and took the rotted food out to the large trashcan in front of the house. I wasn’t quite sure when the trash man would come, but having food rot in the house wasn’t go to make my existence any better.
Around the time I normally headed to work, according to a battery powered clock by the TV, I loaded Java in the car and drove to work. I didn’t bother to put on my uniform, but just rem
ained in my shorts and t-shirt. Pets weren’t allowed at work, but I wasn’t going to leave the only companionship I had.
The drive to work was exactly the same as the drive home the night before. The only difference, being that it was mid afternoon and I was going in the opposite direction. Driving past several fields, I noticed the livestock. It occurred to me that they would begin to die without human assistance. Perhaps I could just release them from their enclosures and let them fend themselves against nature.
I pulled into work. There were rabbits on the front lawn, but no people. The generator had run out of fuel and was silent. The doors were locked and the lights out. I walked around the building, and all was quiet. Even the sucking noises from the nearby sewage lagoons were absent.
I returned to my car and toured the other facilities. There were still vacant.
I decided to return home, but instead of the back roads I would take the freeway this time. Driving south from the prison, I began to see many more cars off the road and blackened stretches of burnt grass.
The airport looked normal until I drove around the west perimeter. There I saw several blackened heaps of twisted metal that were still smoldering.
I entered the free way and quickly discovered the source of many fires from the night