Alone

by Jennifer Reynolds

  Before she had been left completely alone, Kyle and Ty had moved one of those big, metal dumpsters, the ones you see behind department stores or in apartment complexes, to the road in front of her house. The thing was an eyesore, but there was no one left to notice it but her.

  She took all of their garbage out to it and burned it. She had been trying, unsuccessfully, to keep it burning at all times. The idea she and Kyle had was to use it like a signal fire for anyone passing by. It was a safe assumption that if she and Caleb were still alive then there were others who had survived. Logically, they couldn’t possibly be the last two people on the planet. She kept telling herself this, but no one came.

  The TV, the radio, the CB were all filled with white noise.

  No one was out there.

  Still she hoped.

  She listened.

  She tried her best to keep the fire going.

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  On the fourth of December, Eve was still sick, but she thought that she was actually getting better. That hadn’t been the safest assumption for her to make, but she really had thought she was. Her fever had all but gone. Her cough had almost fully ceased. What little bit of stuff she coughed up was nearly clear. She was still tired, though. She and Caleb spent most of their day sprawled out on the family room floor watching Christmas movies. He seemed to sense that she was feeling better because he acted better that day than he had been the last few days.

  As good as she felt, she wasn’t comfortable enough in her belief that she was getting over her sickness to clean up the kitchen, though. Caleb didn’t like having his stuff all crammed into the family room nor did he like having to fend for himself. He got uncomfortable and clingy when she tried to make him walk to the kitchen by himself or open things on his own.

  Eve didn’t let his behavior stop her from working with him on it, but since she was feeling better, she didn’t force too much on him. Everyone who had died from the sickness had steadily gotten worse. There hadn’t been a single case where someone seemed to get better, and this deterred her from being too forceful with him. She understood that it was hopeless for her to try to teach him things to help him survive, but she wanted to die knowing that she had done everything she could to ensure his survival. Although she wasn’t sure what he would be surviving for.

  The idea of killing him kept popping into her head, but it was too painful to let it linger. She knew she would never be able to do it. She had this fear that as soon as she did, she would get better. The kind of grief that would come from that, she wouldn’t be able to live with. Whenever the idea came up, she told herself that someone would eventually come along and rescue them. It never once occurred to her that she might be the one who did the rescuing.

  The better she felt, though, the more she thought that perhaps she wasn’t sick; maybe the baby was sick. That night, just as she was falling into unconsciousness, she realized that she hadn’t felt much fluttering during the day.

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  By the sixth, Eve was sure she was one hundred percent better; well, except for some weird gas pains she was having. In fact, she was so confident in her recovery that she cleaned up the kitchen.

  Caleb was still not showing any signs of the sickness. Eve had reason to believe that the baby or well, being pregnant had caused her sickness and not whatever it was that had been killing people. If that was true than it stood to reason that either (A) the virus was gone or (B) she and Caleb were immune. She prayed that it was A because there might be a chance that when the baby came it wouldn’t be immune because Kyle wasn’t. Then she wondered what would happen if when it got there it was already sick or got sick shortly afterwards. What would she do?

  As these thoughts flooded her mind, her hand softly rubbed her belly. The baby had been still all day. Her gas must be annoying him as well, she had thought. Him. The baby’s gender was only a guess, but she felt positive it was a boy. She still hadn’t chanced going up the stairs, but she told herself that she should really go up and see what the books said about the gas.

  The books didn’t say anything about what would cause the fluttering to completely stop; well, not in the sections that she consulted anyway. This made her nervous and scared, but nothing happened all throughout the day, or that night. By the next morning, she was chiding herself for scaring herself.

  Then around noon, right after she put Caleb down for a nap, she got a real sharp pain in her lower stomach. She was walking from Caleb’s bedroom into her own when she felt it. The pain was so intense it sent her to her knees. It was so painful she couldn’t believe that she had been able to stop herself from screaming.

  As the pain began to fade, she slowly rose from the floor, using the bedpost to pull herself up. She made it as far as the hallway when another pain hit, doubling her nearly over the first downward step of the staircase. With that one, came the sensation of something warm and liquidy gushing out of her and running down her legs.

  Halfway down the stairs, she landed on her bottom with a loud thud as another gut-wrenching spasm ripped through her abdomen, throwing her equilibrium off balance. She sat, belly and head hanging between her knees, as wave after wave of nausea swept over her. Keeping her eyes closed as tight as she could helped block out the vision of a twirling stairwell and the sight of the blood that was steadily gushing from her.

  Eve’s goal was the second floor bathroom. Once she was sure she wasn’t going to add her morning breakfast to the growing puddle at her feet, she got up, aiming for her destination. The second floor bathroom was where she had stored most of the things she thought she would need for the delivery. The bathroom wasn’t an ideal place for a delivery. She had planned to deliver in the family room, but the baby wasn’t going to wait for her to set up down there.

  Crying and begging God not to do this to her, that it was too soon, she made her way into the bathroom. The second floor bathroom wasn’t large. The room only had enough space for a tub, toilet, and a sink with just enough space on the floor for her to lie down. In the midst of her ongoing prayer, she spread out her makeshift delivery room in the middle of the floor. When things were setup, she began the painstaking process of pulling off her bloody clothes and throwing them into the tub.

  “Please. Please don’t let this happen. Please. Let me keep this baby. You have taken everyone else. Please. No. I will not let this happen.”

  With a determined heart, she closed her legs, squeezing with all of her strength, trying desperately to fight the urge to push. Unfortunately, another wave of pain washed over her and instinctively she was up on the balls of her feet pushing. Her mind, her heart didn’t want to push, but her body was rejecting something that it knew was no longer alive.

  It didn’t take long for the baby to slide out, and when it was over, she lay down on the cool linoleum breathing in long harsh breaths. Exhaustion, sorrow, and an overwhelming feeling of emptiness immediately consumed her. Her soul felt the loss the moment it was out of her. For a long time she made no effort to move or look at it. She didn’t want to see. Seeing would make it even more real.

  Eve’s head was near the toilet, which was a good thing because when she did try to sit up she vomited. After detaching the baby from her body, she cleaned him off the best that she could. From the looks of things, the baby was going to be a boy, a little Kyle. She held him there in the palm of her hand. He utterly amazed her. His skin was a transparent pink. He had tiny little eyebrows and his lashes were just starting to grow. His nose, eyes, and lips were perfect, and his ears were just beginning to form.

  When she had him as clean as she could get him, she wrapped him up in a light mint green blanket. She sang to him. She talked to him. She knew this would seem a little bit morbid to other people, if there had been other people, but it was what she felt she needed to do to process her grief.

  Slowly her body began to loosen up enough to let her move. The entire time she cleaned herself and the bathroom she held him. She held him as close to her a
s she could while she mopped and scrubbed the wood stairs and tiled bathroom.

  Caleb slept through most of it, only waking when she was about to clean her bedroom. Apparently, she had begun to bleed with that very first wave of pain; she just hadn’t known it. Luckily, he heard her and realized that she was busy, so he played quietly by himself in his bed. Eve was constantly amazed at how observant Caleb was. He seemed attuned to her mentally because he always knew when to be content with where he was at, to let her be alone when she needed time.

  With the mess on the second and third floors cleaned up, she dropped the garbage bag with all of the bloody things down the three flights of stairs. Carrying both boys down the stairs wasn’t easy. Her legs felt like wiggly Jell-O and were a little numb. Also, she was trying to keep the baby hidden from Caleb.

  Caleb played contently in the yard as she, yet again, dug another hole in the makeshift graveyard. Eve didn’t want to just put the baby in the ground the way she had done all of the others, so she found a small white plastic tub that had a blue lid to put him in before she buried him. She named him after his father and engraved it on a wooden cross that matched all of the other wooden crosses in the graveyard.

  Eve and Caleb camped out downstairs in the family room again that night. He really seemed to enjoy it when they did that. Playing with him distracted her enough to keep her from constantly crying over her lost child.

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  The ninth of December was Eve’s birthday. She made one of those no bake cheesecakes that came in a box, and she and Caleb played games all day. This was the first birthday they had celebrated. Caleb loved it because Eve let him eat all the cake he could get into his stomach. She had wished she had ice cream for him to try. He would have loved ice cream.

  Nevertheless, ice cream no longer existed, like so many other foods that Eve had come to enjoy. She missed milk. Real whole vitamin D milk. The powdered stuff was only good if it was very cold, and even then, it was nowhere near as rich and creamy as real milk. She missed Dunkin’ Donuts’ mini crullers, Chinese food, peanut butter, and oddly enough fried bologna. She also missed real bananas, grapes, kiwi, pineapple, and papaya, which were all things that wouldn’t grow in this environment. The only way that they got any of it was when they found it in jars or cans, but those didn’t taste the same as the fresh stuff always had.

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  On the twenty-fifth Caleb had his first Christmas. He was too young for her to explain the true meaning of Christmas, the Birth of Christ, nor did he fully comprehend the Santa thing, but he understood that it was a special occasion, and he would again get lots of cake.

  Eve wrapped up a few toys and things they had already had in the house in some Christmas paper her mom had stored in the attic from last year. He didn’t know the difference or that there was supposed to be a difference, he just enjoyed ripping up the paper. She told herself she would have to do better in the gift department for his birthday.

  IV – More Nightmares

  They made it through the worst year in recorded history without any problems. Eve was watching the stars in the clear, winter night sky when the antique grandfather clock in the downstairs hall struck the midnight hour. That New Year’s Eve, she didn’t make any resolutions. Although, she did get a lucky midnight kiss; a big, wet, slobbery one, but a kiss is a kiss.

  Caleb really had saved her life, she surmised, as she watched him sleep. In her mind, this made him her good luck charm. That night she also made a wish upon the first star she saw. She wasn’t sure if you were supposed to make a wish at midnight, but she had made one. Her wish was to make it through the next year.

  The following day was Caleb’s first birthday. Eve forced herself to get up early and go to the store. She brought home real presents and wrapped them for him. What he needed the most was new clothes. He was changing sizes quicker than she could change his clothes. She also brought home another cake mix to make him a cake, some party decorations, and picked up a few movies that they didn’t have.

  Along with the movies, she picked up a few of the hot ticket toys from the year before. She brought home stuffed animals that made noise and danced, a few educational toys, books, and a small collection of cars, trucks, fire engines, dinosaurs, and many other things that made noise, shot water, bounced him, swung him, and in every way kept him occupied.

  The little trip out of the house made Eve think they might actually need to start leaving the house more often. Seeing the town made her miss her life, made her want to go out into the world. The town hadn’t changed much in the few weeks that she had spent cooped up. No new fires. No new vandalized businesses. Everything was quiet. There was no evidence that there was another human being anywhere in the area.

  “It doesn’t look empty, when you really get out into it. Nearly every house has a car parked in its driveway, giving the impression that someone is home,” Eve commented to Caleb, who looked like Maggie from the Simpsons, turning his toy steering wheel, mimicking Eve’s movements. He smiled up at her voice, mumbled back an agreement in baby talk, and then gave his steering wheel a good right turn.

  Trash cans lined curbs, waiting for garbage trucks to come by and empty them. Sprinklers cut off and on, according to whatever timer their owners had set them to in the few yards that still had electricity. There wasn’t much overgrowth, yet, so the yards still looked moderately maintained. The winter had been slightly harsh, killing most of the grass that had sprung up during the previous summer.

  From inside the car, the world outside gave Eve a slight déjà vu feeling, flashing her back to the few times she had driven through her neighborhood at five in the morning, sneaking home or back to her apartment after a long night with Doyle. No one was up, the street was quiet, and behind every door life was going on as normal, alarm clocks blaring, showers running, groans and complaints coming from those unfortunate people who had to wake up too early for school, work, or that dreadful morning run.

  “I can almost trick myself into believing that there is life going on behind some of those doors.”

  Again, Caleb mumbled a few incoherent words that made complete sense to him. Eve laughed, encouragingly.

  She had prayed that the sound of the car would signal to others that they weren’t alone, but no one came out to inspect her.

  The first stop had been the Wal-Mart. The next was Toys-R-Us. Caleb had been in awe of everything he saw, but luckily he wasn’t old enough to do the ‘I want that’ and the ‘I need that’ thing that most kids used to do when they were taken to a store geared just for them.

  Before going home to unload the massive amount of stuff she had crammed into the vehicle, she drove around town, going up and down familiar and unfamiliar streets, looking for any signs of life. She did this for nearly an hour, taking great efforts to stay away from funeral homes or cemeteries, before heading back home. Caleb wasn’t used to staying so cooped up and the novelty of being away from the house wore off quickly.

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  Shortly after Caleb’s birthday and their drive through town, Eve began having more nightmares. Nightmares that would again jerk her awake screaming. Fortunately, these weren’t as bad as the ones she had before Kyle died. This wasn’t because she had grown accustom to those nightmares, but because these dreams were different, not less scary, just different and easier to handle in the daylight. Luckily, Caleb had grown into a hard sleeper, and she rarely woke him with her screams.

  The dreams were nearly always the same. In them, she wakes early in the morning to the sun shining brightly in her face. As she stirs into consciousness, she hears muffled noises coming up at her through her closed bedroom window from the backyard. Quickly, she slings the covers off and hurries over to the window to see her mother and father coming across the backyard. Emotion after emotion sweeps over her, disbelief then relief. She understands that what she is seeing is impossible, but her heart doesn’t care.

  “Mom…Dad,” she yells throu
gh the glass, banging on the window, trying to get their attention. Why she doesn’t just open the window, isn’t a question her dream-self asks, though it would have made sense to do so. Her parents don’t look up at her.

  Forgetting that Caleb is asleep in the other room, she runs out of the room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, just as her parents stumble up the back steps.

  Her mind doesn’t register her parents’ appearance, their jerky walk, or the strange gargling noises they are making. All she sees are her parents. When she nearly throws herself out of the back door, into their arms, they jerk their heads up and look at her. The sight of their faces causes her upper body to freeze. Unfortunately, her slippery socks continue sliding her a few more inches across the slick back porch and dangerously close to her parents.

  “Mom? Dad?” Her words come out in a whispered question that they take no notice.

  Their eyes are sunken deep into the back of their heads. She almost can’t see their bloodshot pupils because they were so far back that their sockets created a shadow that nearly conceals the color. Their skin has turned a yellowish-brown color from the long months immersed in the dirt.

  She can also see that their bodies are thin to the point that they are almost skeletal. Thoughts began to fill her head, thoughts that perhaps she had buried them alive. That she had left them starving underground for too long while they desperately tried to dig themselves out of their graves.