The Remaining

by Travis Thrasher

  There’s a sound behind him and Tommy turns, fearing the worst.

  Then he suspects something else.

  “Sam?”

  He moves toward the overturned reception desk.

  “Sam, is that you?”

  Sure enough, the girl is huddled behind the desk, her eyes closed, her body shivering. When he touches her she looks and then jumps up and latches onto him with a fierce hold.

  “I hid—I was hiding—it didn’t get me—it was chasing us—I was so scared—that thing—where’s Allie?”

  “You’re okay now.”

  Sam’s questioning look. Jack holding Allie’s body. Dan speared by some thing. Skylar dead and left alone.

  It’s too much.

  Too much.

  Tommy leans on the desk and begins to cry. His thoughts race and hurtle and rush over each other.

  He’s got a prayer he wants to pray.

  God do You want me then You come find me and take me. Do it and take me and take everything You can because I’m not going to just lie down and let You do it easily.

  Come on.

  Come on can You hear me?

  Sam’s hand is on his shoulder as his tears burn his eyes and mess up his cheeks.

  Do You see me do You hear me do You know how tired I am of hearing of You?

  I’m not a bad guy.

  I’m not a mean soul.

  I’ve done some good things and some bad so what do You want?

  Why did You leave us all?

  Why did You even bother?

  What sort of thing are You trying to tell me?

  Tommy wipes his eyes and then covers his face with wet hands.

  Yeah I’m alone and yeah I’m terrified is that what You want me to say?

  Do You want me to admit that You’re there? That I’m afraid? That I acknowledge You doing all of this every little bit?

  What more?

  Your Son and Your Spirit and all of that stuff I haven’t heard about since leaving Sunday school?

  I don’t know anything more. I’m tired and I’m weak but I’m not going to just give up.

  He looks at a distraught Sam, who stares at him and looks afraid. Then he glances over at Jack.

  Come find me, God.

  Come grab me.

  If You want me then come and crush me down like You’ve done with the rest of this insignificant world. Like You’ve done with everyone close to me.

  Crush my body and soul.

  Do it and end this all.

  Of course, nothing happens. Tommy gets control of himself. He knows they need relief. Physical and mental and emotional and every kind of relief they can find.

  “We have to go,” he tells them in a restrained voice.

  “No,” Jack shouts back. “I’m not leaving her.”

  Jack is as delusional and upset as Tommy.

  “Jack,” Tommy says, “you’re my best friend and you know I won’t leave you. But we do need to leave. Now, let’s go.”

  “I’m not leaving her again! Just get out of here.”

  Tommy stands his ground. “No.”

  He climbs over the counter and tries to help Jack stand up. But his friend only shoves him away.

  “Leave us alone,” Jack shouts. “I mean it.”

  Tommy keeps trying. “She’s gone, man,” he tells Jack.

  But Jack doesn’t want to hear it and needs to lash out. He stands and attacks Tommy, sending them both to the ground as he begins to punch Tommy’s head. Tommy covers his face to defend against the blows, and Sam comes over and tries to stop them. She pulls Jack off Tommy.

  “There’s nothing else out there that I want,” Jack says, more tears cutting down his cheeks. “Nothing. I’m staying with her.”

  “Then I’m staying too.”

  Tommy crawls over the counter and collapses into a chair.

  For a few minutes there’s just silence. Then Jack moves over the counter and walks toward the entrance. “Let’s go,” he tells them.

  Tommy doesn’t hesitate. He simply follows his friend outside with Sam walking next to him.

  There doesn’t have to be an explanation. Not in this hell, this madness. Nothing makes sense. Nothing.

  Jack lost himself but he’s back. For the moment. He’s back to trying to battle and beat this thing.

  Tommy’s battling too.

  As they step outside in the fading light of day, Tommy looks up to the sky, wondering if God heard his prayer.

  Wondering if God cares.

  51

  HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY

  “You think we’ll be hanging around ten years from now?”

  Dan’s question is unusually melancholy but it’s because he’s unusually drunk. It’s the night of his bachelor getaway and we’re looking out over the shimmering skyline of Vegas.

  “Absolutely,” Jack says.

  He’s had his share tonight too.

  “Dan’s gonna get married and then Jack will and I’ll be forced to come to Vegas all by myself.” Yeah I guess I’ve had a little too much too.

  “Dan won’t be able to come,” Jack says. “Skylar won’t let him.”

  “Jack won’t be married,” Dan replies. “He’ll be working here.”

  “What about me?”

  They laugh at my comment.

  “Good luck to whoever marries you,” Jack says.

  “That’s not nice.”

  “You’re too much of a thinker. You’re gonna kill your wife with questions.”

  I can only laugh at Jack’s unusually honest comment. “Yeah, maybe. But what about you? You’re never gonna settle down long enough to even have a wife.”

  We spend a half hour joking around like this until Dan becomes serious. “I’m gonna miss you guys.”

  “We’re not going anywhere, are we, Tommy?”

  “You’re stuck with us the rest of your life,” I tell him.

  “The rest of your life,” Jack says in an ominous tone.

  And it was true. Dan was stuck with Jack and Tommy. They just didn’t know the rest of Dan’s life would be so short.

  They didn’t know a lot of things.

  Memories sneak up and find Tommy. Strange memories. Lots of them. He can’t shake them the same way he can’t move too quickly. He and Jack and Sam are exhausted and confused and careful.

  The sun fades. But at least it’s still hanging up in the sky. At least there’s that.

  The sights are still there for their small group to see. A dead body hanging on to the edge of a car door, as if it were about ready to get out of the vehicle when boom. The big thing happened and the body was just left.

  The streets are all abandoned. They don’t pass any moving souls. Everything is empty, broken, desolate.

  This isn’t the dream people always told Tommy about. The whole thing about growing up and growing older. About pursuing your dreams and passions once you’ve gotten your diploma and left college. Finding the right work and the right woman and the right winning plan for your life. This whole end-of-the-world scenario really doesn’t fit into the plans. They never told him about this.

  Nobody once uttered a single word about it.

  Tommy walks and sees everything gone.

  This isn’t happening.

  But he is still here and this is happening.

  The smoke swirling all around him is making the fading sky even more black-and-whited-out. Bodies can be seen. The dead watch sightlessly from the street, from cars, from corners, rotting away like trash from a McDonald’s.

  I’m not here.

  But his legs are moving and aching. His back and neck and forehead are sweaty. His mouth is dry and thirsty. His heart is empty and depleted like his bank account used to be in his college days when he’d drink his cash away. He wishes he could go back and have one more rowdy night. One more raucous outing with his friends. But they are mostly gone now.

  I’m not here.

  That Tommy—that smiling guy so smug and so smart, the one videoin
g his friends’ wedding—that guy is gone. Forever gone. In his place is this angry, self-serving, surviving soul.

  But me and my video recorder are still here. That’s right. Still here.

  The world drains out and starts to get dizzy and delirious. But he keeps them moving. They keep moving.

  Maybe there’s hope ahead. A fire pit in the dark. A smile in the blackness.

  He turns and sees Sam, the white-haired Goth he initially wrote off. She’s got fight left in her. And that’s good. She’ll need that.

  They will all need that.

  Who knows what tonight and tomorrow will bring. It surely won’t be anything good.

  Soon the sun is gone and darkness hovers around them. And hope—whatever tiny morsel of it might have hidden deep inside Tommy—now seems long gone like the sunshine.

  Ominous, unnatural clouds have started to form in the skies. Seeming to follow them. To shadow their trek through the city, whatever remains of Wilmington.

  “Are we going to the Cape Fear Bridge?” Sam asks while they walk.

  “Yeah,” Tommy says. “Once we get there, we should be okay.”

  Tommy notices Sam playing around with her phone.

  “There’s something important I want you to see,” she says.

  Jack is still leading the way, several yards in front of them, not talking or looking or worrying about them.

  “Let’s get to the bridge first,” Tommy says.

  They move along a street, then cut down a flight of stairs leading to the riverfront. They can see a trash can burning on the walkway with several survivors standing around it. Nobody looks at them and they don’t stop to talk.

  They climb another stairway back up to the road and soon find themselves walking in the middle of an off-ramp. A car in the distance is burning. They hear noises near the car and then can hear a fight taking place. A group of men are stomping all over some poor soul.

  Tommy and Jack rush over to help. The orange and red streaks of fire light their way but it’s hard to see what’s happening and who’s who.

  A gunshot fires and the group of men disperse. Tommy finds Jack on the ground. His head is bleeding from one of the men bashing him with something. Tommy helps Jack get up and together they rush back over to where Sam’s standing, trying to stay safe.

  The other man stands up, the one who was being beaten, and manages to raise the sign he was carrying.

  Tommy reads it.

  Repent—The Day Of Reckoning Is Here!

  Tommy is about to offer the man some help when his eyes become large and he shouts out, “Repent!” as blood drips from his mouth.

  Insanity. Everything is completely insane.

  They leave the man behind as they keep moving.

  Soon they can see the Cape Fear Bridge and the relief center just beneath it.

  “There it is,” Tommy says.

  “It’s really there,” Sam says.

  Jack is holding his bloodied head and isn’t walking as fast as before. Tommy knows they need to get to the relief center.

  Then maybe everything will be okay. Even for just a short while.

  52

  CHOICES

  Spotlights illuminate the base of the bridge. There are hundreds, even thousands of people moving around, filing into the wharf where tents are set up and vehicles are parked. There are ambulances and semis that are open with supplies in them. Hundreds of cars are crowded around the area, but there are avenues open to the relief workers.

  Tommy, Jack, and Sam are moving with the crowd. They see generators working and power—sweet, glorious electricity lighting up this area and providing hope. Providing life.

  A nurse stops them and tends Jack’s head wound, cleaning it up and bandaging it for a temporary fix. She tells them to keep moving down the wharf, where there’s food and other supplies.

  “I thought there wasn’t going to be a relief center,” Sam says. “I thought it was too good to be true.”

  Tommy nods and agrees with her.

  Me too.

  Anything that offers a little light and hope seems too good to be true anymore.

  The crowd murmurs and sounds a little more lifelike the farther they walk. Someone mentions that they’ve brought in chaplains. Tommy’s not sure what that means. He thinks of Pastor Shay, how he finally believed, and how he also volunteered to give himself up.

  What a wonderful thing to do. But then again, the pastor believed he was going to a wonderful place.

  A place where his family waited.

  Tommy used to think it was a wonderful world. Like the song. He remembers hearing it at the wedding during one of the slow dances. He used to see skies of blue and clouds of white. But nothing is blessed and sacred anymore. Nothing is wonderful and barely anything is left of this world.

  He pictures his friends and how they celebrated right before the end. How they smiled and laughed and danced and cheered a new love. A new day. A new life.

  But they’re gone now.

  The roar of helicopters sounds above their heads as they pass by relief tents to find one that might have room in it for them. It feels like there’s a war going on and they’re finding shelter after being on the battlefront.

  So what side are you on?

  The words knock on his heart, working on his soul.

  Where are you going and what are you going to do when you get there?

  The questions haunt and prick and hurt.

  If this is the end why are you still running so fast so far?

  The words beat like drums and he breathes in and tries not to have to answer.

  Tommy is still here. Still breathing. Still able to move. Still able to battle back.

  He doesn’t plan to stop at any point. Yet the darkness sweeping overhead and the dim shadows sucking up his soul make everything so bleak and black and bitter.

  They finally reach a tent where they find blankets and food. The smell of vegetable soup fills the air. People sit around, eating, resting, surviving.

  It’s temporary hope, but for now, it’s glorious.

  For fifteen minutes, the three of them sit with blankets around them while eating cups of hot soup and drinking bottled water. Such simple things—things to bring them warmth and comfort—aren’t taken for granted. Tommy knows the soup in the Styrofoam cup might be the best cup of soup he’s ever had. Ever.

  People keep filing in and finding rest around them. Stories can be heard of the same nightmares over and over again. Most seem too tired to manage anything more than a whisper. There’s a hushed sense of doom hovering over everybody.

  “How’s your head?” Sam asks Jack.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Yeah, you always were hardheaded,” Tommy says.

  “Please don’t give any speeches at my funeral,” Jack says with a wry smile.

  “I won’t because that’s not going to be happening for a long time.”

  Jack gives him a nod for the little bit of encouragement.

  Once they’ve finished their soup Sam digs out her phone.

  “I need you guys to see something.” It’s the video she tried to show Tommy earlier.

  She wiggles between Jack and Tommy and presses Play.

  There, on the screen, is Allison.

  Beautiful, vibrant Allison, the woman both of the guys watching love. The one in the strapless violet dress and the messy dark hair.

  You still looked beautiful even after the world ended.

  Tommy knows a part of him doesn’t want to see this. He should just get up and walk away. It’d be better that way. Whatever Allison might be saying is something that might possibly haunt him for the rest of his life. However many years or months or days or hours he has. He thinks this, yet he stays still and silent.

  “I need to tell you guys something,” Allison says, speaking directly at the phone. “And I’m saying this now because I’m afraid—I’m afraid there might not be another chance to do this.”

  She seems nervous as she t
akes a breath and steadies herself.

  “I was wrong. I realize that now. I’ve spent my whole life telling myself I was spiritual and that was enough. Obviously that didn’t work out too well. But now I’ve found real faith. I made a real commitment. These demons—they are trying to remove the Word of God from what’s left of the world.”

  Tears fall down Allison’s cheeks yet she continues to stare at them and continues talking.

  She was always strong. Always.

  “Don’t you see? It has to be the truth—even they recognize it. God’s words are the only thing that can save us. That’s why they have to destroy them. And they want to destroy us too if God’s Word is in us. It’s their biggest threat. And once we know the truth . . .”

  She wipes a hand across her face to get rid of the tears.

  “We all have a choice. We either choose to accept and believe and get life like we’ve never known it, or we choose to live our lives selfishly, ignoring God, and end up dying anyway.”

  There’s a slight sound fluttering in the background. Allison turns her head around, a startled look on her face.

  “We don’t have much time left on this earth,” she says in a hurried voice. “You have to make a decision.”

  Now it’s a loud thumping that can be heard. She looks around again.

  She knows.

  She knows she’s about to die. Yet she’s still talking. She’s still making sure we hear what she has to say.

  “I choose God,” Allison says. “What do you choose?”

  She closes her eyes, knowing what’s next. Knowing and accepting and feeling strong enough to do so.

  Tommy takes the phone and turns it off. He’s seen enough.

  Seen enough. Heard enough. Gone through enough.

  He doesn’t even hear Jack get up until he notices his friend standing along the side of the tent talking to a chaplain. They’re engrossed in some kind of serious discussion.

  “She wanted you guys to see that,” Sam says.

  “She always cared about others,” Tommy says. “Even to the very end, that’s what she was worried about. Us.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry I wasted so much time,” Tommy says.