Fear: The Quiet Apocalypse

by T M Edwards

  Maps were prominently displayed on an endcap. I took two--a big, book-style one that had road maps of all the states with their major roads, and one of Alabama. I was about to leave when a decent-sized section of car repair items caught my eye. Among the supplies was something that looked like a divided plastic hose with a big bulb at the end. Dad had told me about these. They could be used to remove gas from the tank of a car. They were meant for repair purposes, but maybe they could extend the number of miles I could drive. I grabbed it, and two of the red gas cans from the bottom shelf.

  After loading my new gear into the car, I studied the map for a moment, then started the car and made my way back to the road.

  When I finally reached the highway, I caught myself checking for oncoming cars before I merged onto it. I laughed at myself. There was nobody here. The road stretched away into the distance, wide and gray and empty.

  I was tempted to roar along at speeds high above the limit, but restrained myself. The gas would last longer if I drove slower. As I drove, I searched for any cars left along the highway. There was nothing. Mile after mile passed, and the only things I saw on the road were the occasional piece of a tire or trash.

  When the gauge was edging perilously close to Empty, I caught a glimpse of a cargo van in the distance, stopped right in the middle of an exit ramp. Heart beating faster from stress and anticipation, I slowed my car to a stop right behind it, and got out with the hose and the gas cans.

  It took a frustrating amount of time to figure out how to use the apparatus, and I wasted at least a couple of cups of gasoline before I got everything set up. I used the bulb to pump fuel from the van into the red containers, then lugged them, full and heavy, to my car.

  The van only had about 5 gallons of fuel in it, but it was a start. That was over 100 miles in my little car.

  I got in, backed down the ramp, and was on the move again with my quarter-tank of gas.

  Day 21: October 7th

  Three weeks since the object crashed. I woke up on the back seat of my car, with one of the buckles digging painfully into my ribs. It was cold enough that my breath misted in the air in front of me. The sun was rising in a pale sky.

  I shivered and pulled an energy bar out of the backpack that I had used as a lumpy pillow. While I munched on the bar, I pulled the big map out of the front passenger seat, and opened it to the Mississippi page. I had passed over the border about an hour before I stopped driving last night.

  It was scary, driving without my favorite app for directions. The only way I knew I was on the right roads was by the signs, and I had to watch for exits and mile markers to figure out where I was on the maps. I didn’t have my app to give me the shortest route, either. I had to figure one out myself, by following the roads with my fingers. I was just a few minutes past a little Mississippi town. If my calculations were correct, I had another hour before my route trended upward to take me toward Memphis.

  The car’s gas tank was nearly three-quarters of the way full, but I hadn’t seen any other vehicles in over a hundred miles. I supposed I could have stopped at one of the exits to search a city, but it seemed like a lot of risk without much chance of reward. Better to get stranded on the interstate than lost in the downtown streets of some town that was too small to make it onto the map.

  I did a quick inventory of my backpack. I’d grabbed some more supplies from a couple of gas stations, but it wasn’t going to do me any good if I ended up having to walk. I was going to have to assume that it could be a day or more in between gas stations on foot. It didn’t help that the farther west I drove, the more I found bare shelves rather than full ones.

  I hadn’t seen a single soul since I’d set out from home. The loneliness and silence was deafening. We don’t ever experience it in the cities. There’s always sound of some kind. Cars, people, air conditioning, construction. But when all that ceases, when there is nothing where there was previously always something, it presses on the eardrums and rings in the ears in eerie ways. Every sound I made, every breath, seemed magnified ten times over.

  The car took a little longer to start than normal, and I felt my stomach drop slightly.

  “Come on, old girl. Don’t give up on me just yet.” It would be insult to injury if my reliable little car gave out on me before the gas did. Maybe she was upset for how I’d allowed the hail to crack her windshield and dent her top.

  I pressed down on the accelerator and eased back from the shoulder of the interstate into the lane. Force of habit had made me pull off to the side, even though it wouldn’t have made a difference.

  Thankfully, the car hummed along without any other threats of failure. I soon crossed the border into Tennessee, and was well on my way to Memphis. I stopped when I saw a blue pickup driven into a ditch, but the gas tank was completely empty. So, either somebody else had taken it, or the vehicle had simply run out of fuel and been abandoned.

  As I reached the outskirts of Memphis, there were more cars abandoned along the road. At first I searched each one, but after nearly a half-dozen turning up empty, it was obviously not worth the time. So, even though my stomach sunk a little each time, and my mind whirled with what-ifs, I forced myself to keep driving when I came upon a black minivan, then a red sports car, then a pickup that had just been left in the center of a lane.

  Memphis was utterly terrifying. Not the size of the city, I’d been in plenty of those. But trying to navigate all of that construction and all of those highway changes with just the little paper map I’d picked up at a convenience store near the border...it was nerve-wracking. My eyes constantly scanned for signs pointing me in the right directions, and once I even had to retrace my route when I took the wrong exit.

  By the time I edged past Memphis and the roads became slightly more straightforward, I was mentally exhausted. I forced myself to keep driving, and opened my second soda of the day in an attempt to stay fully alert. The skies were gray and threatening rain. That was the last thing I needed. Rain plus a severely cracked windshield was not going to be a good combination.

  There was nothing else to do but keep driving. I willed the car ever forward, watching as the needle slowly sank toward the big red E, and wondered if I should really have stopped and checked every car that I’d found.

  There were no more cars, and by the time I reached Little Rock, half a tank of gas was gone. I kept my eyes open as I came up on Conway.

  There was one car, parked perpendicular to the droad, blocking a lane and a half of the highway. I braked to a stop, and got out. I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in as I set up the hose and the gas can.

  I’m screwed.

  You’ve got a few miles left.

  I groaned in frustration, and yanked the hose out of the car’s gas tank. Yeah. And then I’m walking.

  Maybe you’ll find another car before then.

  I tossed the gas can and hose into the back of my car. Suuure. Because there’s just SO many of them.

  You never know.

  I twisted the key violently in the ignition, and then hit the steering wheel with both of my hands, inadvertently causing the horn to honk. Shut up. Just shut up! False optimism isn’t going to help.

  Maybe not. But it’s never a bad thing to have hope.

  I laughed bitterly as I threw the car into drive and accelerated down the highway. The first few drops of rain spattered against the glass. It’s been hopeless ever since that...thing fell from the sky.

  You’re still alive. How is that hopeless?

  Alive? Tell the thousands upon people who have already died. Who died exactly because they had no hope. Who committed mass suicide over something that wouldn’t even have hurt them.

  But you haven’t died.

  I fought back the angry tears that pricked at my eyes. Yes, the greatest irony of all. That the girl who’s so scared of her own shadow that she can barely go grocery shopping, is the one that is still alive. If you ask me, that bodes even less well for the fate of the world in general.
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br />   Yep, there I was, driving down an empty highway, arguing with myself, here at the end of the world.

  In that next moment, the car began to sputter, and within a few hundred feet, the engine finally died. The car rolled to a stop, and I stared numbly at the gray asphalt in front of me as the rain pelted ever harder on the glass, inside of what was now an entirely useless hunk of metal.

  Day 22. October 8th

  The rain passed overnight, and I woke in the backseat of my car, to a pink sunrise that made the damp asphalt sparkle.

  I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. I felt almost sick at the thought of leaving my car, which had been shelter and protection as much as transportation.

  The backpack needed to be as efficient as possible. I removed all but one change of clothes, and filled the emptied space with bottles of soda and energy bars. With the pack strapped to my back, a gallon of water in one hand and my tent bag in the other, I stepped out of the car and began to walk.

  Things that would have taken me seconds to speed past now took agonizing minutes. My feet thudded on the pavement. Each time I passed something, I would find another object in the distance to fix my eyes on. A tree, a streetlight, a mile marker. It was the only way I could measure my progress against the endless highway.

  After an hour, I was sweating all up and down my back where the pack rested, and across my chest and waist where one of the extra support straps lay. The straps were designed for long use, so they didn’t chafe, but the weight on my shoulders was already starting to make my neck hurt. My back was aching, as were my legs. I was breathing as hard as if I’d tried to jog. The gallon of water felt like a lead weight at the end of my arm, as did the tent.

  I was barely managing two miles each hour. At this rate I’d reach Vegas in, what, two months? If I somehow managed 10 hours of walking a day, that was 20 miles. I estimated I had about 1400 of those miles left in my journey. Assuming I walked that far every single day, which seemed impossible.

  The thought of how far I had to go made my pack seem even heavier. My legs were so tired they were shaking, and I’d barely gone 5 miles. I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other. Just one more step. Now, one more. Again. Again. Again.

  Right at the point when I passed the sixth mile marker, I tripped over a rock I hadn’t seen, and went sprawling onto my hands and knees. I dropped the water and tent to catch myself on my hands, and the jug split when it hit the ground. Water poured from the side of it as I screamed in pain and frustration.

  I gave up on rising, and sat there with my burning knees drawn up to my chest, and sobbed as I stared off into the interminable distance of the neverending highway.

  My knees were bleeding, and the asphalt had ripped right through the fabric of my yoga pants. There was gravel and dirt encrusted in the cuts. I unbuckled the straps across my chest and waist, and let the backpack fall to the ground. Then I pulled my spare shirt from it, and soaked it in some of the spilled water to dab at the cuts and try to remove the worst of the grit.

  I covered my knees in bandages from the first-aid kit, then packed everything back into my bag. Nearly half of the gallon of water had spilled out, but had stopped once it went below the level of the crack. If I carried it carefully, I could save the rest.

  I don’t want to! Part of me cried, as I looked at the stuff strewn around me, soaked in water. I just want to rest!

  Resting isn’t going to get you any closer to where you’re going. And you’re using up valuable daylight.

  Tears hot in my eyes, I took a deep breath and forced myself up. I stumbled to my feet, and strapped the backpack on, then picked up the tent and the cracked water jug.

  Day 23. October 9th

  I didn’t make much time that day. My legs were so sore that every step was agony, and when I tried to just push through it, my head began to swim. It didn’t help that I was limiting myself to five energy bars a day. They were three hundred calories each. It should be enough to keep me on my feet.

  Except that I’d forgotten to make allowances for the fact that I wasn’t used to doing much besides sitting in a computer chair all day. I was also used to as much food as I could eat without feeling guilty about how much weight gain it was going to cause. In fact, my stomach already felt a little smaller, but maybe that was just my imagination.

  As the day wore on, and I stumbled ever forward, driving myself through the pain and dizziness, at least I had less time to think. In the endless silence, thinking too much easily led down into despair, and I wasn’t yet ready to give up, no matter how much the more pessimistic side of my brain begged me to just lay down on the road and wait for oblivion.

  The sun was in my eyes when I wrenched myself out of a particularly depressing train of thought. I rubbed my face wearily, and looked off to the side to spare myself some of the glare.

  There, just a few hundred feet off the highway, was a grocery store. More food! Energy renewed, I trotted across the median and down the exit ramp, continuing to jog even once my breath felt sharp in my chest.

  I was forced to walk by the time I reached the edge of the parking lot, but it didn’t matter. I was almost there. The front doors gaped open, inviting me inside. I pushed myself back to a slow run, even though my chest and calves were screaming at me.

  I reached the doors and collapsed against one of them as I stared inside, letting my eyes adjust to the gloom.

  Then I gagged, and had to clap my hands over my nose to stop the wave of stench that hit me. The store smelled of death. Legs shaking with trepidation as much as exhaustion, I forced myself to walk forward. I breathed shallowly through my mouth to avoid the rotten smell. Past the checkouts, toward the aisles, eyes scanning in the gloom for any sign of the many dead bodies that I was afraid to see piled on the floor.

  The store was wrecked. Merchandise lay scattered all over the floor. There was rotting produce, cans dented by the force of their landing, plastic containers of bread and cake with their contents spilled out and turning green with mold. Magazines were strewn around with their pages ripped.

  As I walked further into the store, heart hammering wildly and barely daring to look around any corner lest I see decomposing bodies, I realized the smell was getting stronger. I traveled up the cereal aisle toward the back, where the freezers stood.

  I emerged from the aisle, and the source of the smell became clear. Every bit of meat that had once been fresh and cold, now lay in the cases, warm and festering. Black and congealed blood covered the bottom of the cases. Flies buzzed and open packages crawled with maggots.

  Resisting the urge to gag again, I turned away from the meat, and walked back to the aisles. Well, at least I hadn’t just happened upon the source of a zombie uprising or something. I took a cart that was sitting empty and began to push it up and down the aisles, even though I knew that there was no way I could carry much more. The shelves had obviously been raided. I scrounged what I could, even though cans of tiny sausages weren’t exactly my idea of a tasty meal.

  I pushed the cart, loaded with random and often unappetizing food, back toward the front of the store. When I had reached the spot just inside the front doors, I let go of the handle and threw my backpack to the floor before sinking down with my back against the glass.

  Exhaustion hit me like a tidal wave, and I barely had the presence of mind to pull my backpack over to use as a pillow, before I collapsed onto the floor and fell into unconsciousness of one sort or another.

  Day 24. October 10th

  It was still dark when I woke up, parched and starving. I was also freezing. I jumped up and danced in place for a minute, trying to restore circulation to my extremities. I pulled my sleeping bag off of the bottom of my pack, unrolled and unzipped it, and wrapped it around myself like a fluffy cape.

  Then, I sat and watched through the door as the dawn came, while eating my way through a package of crackers and a can of the little sausages while drinking from the cracked water jug.

  Once it was light e
nough to see, I figured it was time to get moving. I looked regretfully at the cart full of food. Then I did a double-take. Wait. Why couldn’t I just take it with me? I might move a bit slower, but I wouldn’t have to carry so much. And I could pack food in there that would be enough for weeks. I could push it until the wheels wore off. After all, didn’t homeless people walk all over the city with all of their belongings in a cart?

  Impressed with my own ingenuity, I tossed my backpack and tent in the cart, then pushed it back to the drinks aisle, where I loaded the bottom rack and all the other empty space with bottled water.

  Then, I set out with my back to another sunrise.

  Back on the highway, I walked ever westward. I reached and passed a couple more small towns. I came upon a stopped car, which I checked on the off chance it had fuel and keys. Keys, but no fuel. Oh, well.