by Trevor Zaple
The door opened and for a brief instant before it opened he thought he would see a corpse lounging in the corner, just to cap the day off, but of course it was empty. He trundled his cart into the elevator and squeezed himself in around it. He had to strain slightly to reach around the cart to press the “5” button on the panel, and within a moment the elevator lifted him up into the tower.
On the fifth floor he left the cart at the elevator drop-off, too impatient to bother with it for now. He couldn’t help himself and began to run down the hallway of rough, faded carpet. The doors rushed by him, displaying blurs of numbers that he saw without really seeing. When he got to 517, he fell against the door and began pounding on it.
“OLIVIA!” he screamed, “OLIVIA LET ME IN!”
There was no reply from inside, and in the silence Mark could feel his brain begin to come loose of its moorings again. Then, like the first rays of dawn over the horizon, he heard the scrape of a chain lock being loosed from inside the door. Then the latch was engaged. Then the door swung open slowly, and Mark proceeded to fall into the open doorway with jellied muscles that approximated relief.
Olivia was there, and she caught him. He looked up at her dumbly, unsure of whether to trust any of his senses. She looked down at him without expression. Her lithe, heart-shaped face seemed serene, and the dark hair that curled down her exquisite jawline framed it in as alluring a manner as Mark had ever seen it. He looked up at her, feeling an amazing amount of love for her welling up in him, wondering why they had ever broken up.
“Of all the people that should be falling through the door”, she said flatly, “you should be the last. Mark, have you been drinking? It’s not even seven o’clock”.
She let him fall to the floor and Mark lay there breathing, trying to figure out what was going on. She turned and headed into the apartment.
“What do you mean, have I been drinking?” he asked plaintively.
“I mean, you were supposed to go to the grocery store,” she said, her voice now coming from her kitchen, “and that was five hours ago. The store is down the street, Mark. Where have you been and why are you in such a state?”
He sat up, mouth open, trying to comprehend what she was saying. Hadn’t she –
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he blurted out without thinking. She slammed a mug down on the counter in the kitchen and he winced. She came around the corner from the kitchen with her pretty face set hard and her warm, bottomless brown eyes blazing with a fury he’d become accustomed to with resignation. Her burgundy top stretched against her body for a moment and he saw the bump that was forming. Their bump. He realized with a start that she was five months along now, and that added something even more unsettling into the mix. He forcefully pushed back that rising tide of panic again, telling himself that he’d deal with it when the time came. He swallowed hard, and she stood over him with her arms crossed.
“Mark, if you can’t go off to the grocery store without disappearing for hours on end, how in the hell can I trust you to raise a baby with me? I mean, seriously?” Her tone was stinging, contemptuous, and it pricked into him like small blowdarts. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to speak calmly.
“Have you not turned on the radio, or a TV, or, I don’t know, looked outside today?”
She pursed her lips. “I woke up early—morning sickness, you know? After that I went back to bed and I texted you from there. I’ve been trying to sleep the whole day, since puking my fucking guts out every morning seems to really be tiring”.
“So, then, you don’t know.”
“What don’t I know?”
“Everyone’s gone”
Olivia stared at him, continuing to keep her arms crossed. She was very obviously trying to figure out what to say to that.
“Mark…” she began, her disgusted disbelief dripping off of her tongue. Mark got to his knees and cut her off sharply.
“No, Olivia, listen to me.” He saw her stiffen, and her eyes blazed even hotter than before. He continued quickly, not giving her time to argue.
“I’m being serious! I don’t know what happened exactly, but I was at the grocery store and everyone vanished. People were there one moment and they weren’t the next.”
Her eyes searched his face, unreadable.
“That’s stupid, Mark,” she said finally. “Am I supposed to believe you?”
“YES!” he yelled suddenly, sounding extremely loud in close quarters. She bent down and got into his face, raising her finger angrily.
“Keep your fucking voice down!” she hissed. “Do you think I want my neighbors to hear me fighting with you?”
Mark chuckled weakly, feeling the unreality of the situation start to catch up with him.
“Olivia, hon, I don’t think they’re going to hear you. They’re probably not even there.”
She rolled her eyes and walked away from him back into the kitchen. He got to his feet and dusted himself off.
“Listen,” he called out to her, “I’m just going to go out to the elevator, I left a full cart of groceries there. Don’t lock me out, okay?”
“I can’t make any promises,” she replied darkly but she made no move to come after him. He stepped out and made his way back to the elevator bank. His cart was still there, and there was no sound to be heard from anywhere within earshot. The cart’s wheels were hard to roll on the carpet but once he got it to Olivia’s apartment the parkade flooring made it much easier. Olivia came out of the kitchen when she heard him come back in. She looked at the pile of groceries in the cart with wary disbelief.
“My god, Mark, how much did all of this cost?”
“Nothing,” Mark replied, laughing ruefully, “absolutely nothing.”
“Oh, Mark,” she admonished him, “you didn’t just roll it out without paying, did you? I’m surprised they didn’t follow you all the way here?”
Mark gaped at her, and grasped at words to say that weren’t covered in white-hot anger.
“Does that…does that really sound like something you would expect from me?” he asked. It felt like she had struck him.
“I don’t know Mark, I don’t really know what you’re capable of nowadays, do I?”
He stared at her levelly, trying to coalesce his thoughts.
“Olivia, I…”
“Don’t”
Mark didn’t. He closed his mouth, nodded his head, and stared at the floor. Olivia sighed and then began going through the cart.
“Seriously, Mark, how much did this cost?” she asked incredulously as she pored through the bulk boxes of pasta and the brand-name frozen foods. “There must be three or four hundred dollars worth in here”.
“Well, you said you wanted brand-name,” he muttered.
“Yeah, but chips Mark, potato chips. Not…” she gestured at the cart, “all of this”. She picked out a small pork shoulder, struggling a little with its weight. “I’m not even sure if I’m going to have room for all of this”.
“I wasn’t really thinking when I was grabbing all of this,” he replied hazily, “it just sort of happened. Everyone vanished and I just kind of…grabbed everything I could see that might be good to grab, you know?”
Her angry eyes whipped into him again.
“Still with this?” she said between clenched teeth. “Have you been drinking, Mark? This isn’t funny anymore. Not that it ever was”.
He looked up suddenly, an idea forming in his head.
“Turn on the TV! You’ll see that I’m not lying.”
The force of his demand took her back a bit, but she regrouped quickly.
“Oh? And what am I supposed to be seeing?”
“Just turn it on. Here,” he said, walking around the couch to where the old Sony sat under the window by the balcony door, “I’ll do it for you”.
“Mark!” she hissed sharply, but Mark ignored her. He turned the TV on. The sound faded in and one of the stations that play the same movie for weeks on end came into view, playing
a John Hughes movie that Mark knew but couldn’t place right away. John Cryer was in it which probably made it Pretty In Pink but…
He shook his head, trying to clear out that sense of unreality that still hovered over him. It refused to dislodge. He flipped through the channels until he found one that would have been broadcasting a live show at the time of the disappearance. He flipped through three movies, some kids cartoons and an infomercial (the Magic Bullet, he saw, a personal favorite) before finding what he was looking for. It was a channel that consisted of a single shot, a live camera facing a dead scene. He had no idea what show it was supposed to be and didn’t care. There was an empty table ringed with empty chairs that he assumed were for the hosts and their various guests. The only signs of life were the potted plants that dotted the scene.
“See,” he said, a trifle smugly, “there you have it.”
Olivia made her way over and watched the TV for a long time, although there was little to watch. Her expression was inscrutable. Mark realized that he was holding his breath.
“This really takes the cake, Mark,” she said bitterly. Mark let out his breath explosively and stared at her incredulously.
“What?” he spat.
“How much did this little prank cost? You know, I don’t get it, Mark. Was this whole trip to the grocery store a ruse to get me to fall for this? Why? This is really kind of stupid.”
Mark shook his head slowly.
“No, no” he denied, his head spinning in a daze, “that’s…why would I…forget that, how would I get that arranged?”
Olivia smirked and bitter triumph sprang up all over her expression.
“Well that should be pretty easy to explain,” she said smugly, “after all, I know damn well that you have friends that work in TV”.
Mark felt a volcanic burst of anger surge up through him and got it under control at the last minute. Of course she would bring it up, he seethed, of course. It’s all about the shitty things that Mark does, all the time, to the point of-
“That’s stupid, Olivia,” he said bluntly, and the shock on her face made it almost worth it. “I don’t talk to her anymore—I’ve told you this—and besides which, despite what you obviously think I’m not made of money. There’s no way I could spend a fortune getting an entire morning show crew—in a completely different city, I might add—to take the entire day off. Not to mention the very simple question of why. Why would I spend all this money and expend all of this effort to pull a convoluted prank on you?”
She looked at him without speaking for a moment and he saw that there were tears welling up in her eyes. He instantly felt bad about the tone he had been using but didn’t apologize.
“I don’t know,” she admitted finally, her voice very small. “Probably because you hate me”.
He stepped forward automatically.
“I don’t hate you Olivia,” he said gently, “not even a little bit”. She burst into tears and he smoothly took her into his arms. She was stiff at first but her sobs ratcheted up in volume and she melted into him. He held her against his chest as she cried her heart out, feeling a massive upwelling of emotion for her bubbling up from somewhere deep below. He wished at that moment that he could find his way back into time and take back every action that had led to their break-up. Eventually her sobs quieted down and settled out into a series of congested sniffles.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, meaning it. She pushed away and looked up into his eyes. There were tear-streaks down her face and her own eyes were very red.
“I know you are,” she said quietly, “but that doesn’t change anything. I can’t trust you, Mark. I just can’t.”
He nodded, accepting it without rebuttal. The fact that he didn’t have one made it worse.
“But are you telling the truth now?” she asked, her voice rising. She gestured towards the TV. “If this isn’t some ridiculous joke, then what the hell is going on? You’re telling me people just vanished, or something? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No,” Mark agreed, “it doesn’t. It doesn’t make one bit of fucking sense”. He giggled and felt the panic-gorge start to rise again, sour and tasting of years-old bile. “They were there and then they weren’t. Come on, I’ll show you”. He gently took her hand and lead her out onto the balcony. She looked at him oddly but followed along without complaint.
Out on the balcony, the street scene that Mark had come out of was as empty and serene as he had left it. A moderate breeze rustled the leaves that shaded the street, and the wind-chimes that hung over the porches of the once-beautiful houses that lined the other side of it. The only other sound was those ubiquitous air conditioners, rattling on all around them.
“It’s very peaceful out here, today,” she said doubtfully, “I’ve been out here once already.”
“I know,” he said, and then laughed at her startled expression. “Carlos told me”.
“Carlos?” she asked slowly.
“Yeah, you know, the short Mexican dude that takes that hand-cart with him wherever he goes, turns the recycling in for money. He’s the only other person I’ve…seen since it happened”. He hesitated on seen as he remembered again the footsteps that had hurried away from him, like smoke on the breeze. “He said he’d seen you up here earlier, along with a few other people he rattled off seeing”.
“So then not everyone is gone,” she said, confused and irritated. Mark swallowed and leaned on the balcony rail, looking out over the street. A plastic grocery bag blew down the sidewalk and got caught in the chain-link fence that bordered the park.
“I guess not,” he admitted, “but a lot of people are gone. I thought…” he stopped, clenching his teeth and swallowing saliva that suddenly tasted like battery acid.
She settled in beside him, copying his hands-on-the-rail lean. She looked out at the street, and then coyly turned her head to look at him.
“You thought what?” she asked, and was that amusement that he heard in her voice?
“I thought you’d be vanished, too,” he admitted, although he had to force it. “I was close to panicking, and then I found Carlos, and he said that he’d seen you, so”
“So you came to find me,” she finished for him. There was a small smile on her face.
“I was coming here, anyway,” he replied gruffly. It was strange, he reflected, strange how the scars that ringed the soul could keep someone from admitting very simple, very heartfelt things. He felt a bleak wave wash over him.
“Well, I’m glad you came. I still don’t know if I believe you, but I’m glad you came.”
He looked at her, trying to read her expression, and saw a glint of warmth in those warm pools of dark brown. The pace of his heart picked up slightly.
“Well, I’m glad you’re glad,” he teased her, “but what can I do to get you to believe me?”
That fleeting spark of warmth left her eyes and Mark’s mood deflated.
“I don’t know, Mark, I really don’t. I’m going to try calling some people, though, and I’ll find out what’s going on.” She left the railing and opened the balcony door.
“Good luck with that,” he called after her, and made no move to follow her inside. There was a sense of serenity on the balcony that had been evading him and as he looked out over the deserted expanse before him he wondered if he hadn’t maybe suffered a psychotic breakdown, or something of the like. He heard Olivia pick up the phone from inside. She dialed, waited, and left a message.
This was no breakdown a voice inside of him spoke up, you saw this happen. You saw the woman trying to choose between two remarkably similar bags of chips just vanish. She was there, then she wasn’t. Do you think that grocery stores just become randomly abandoned in the middle of the day? That live-to-air television stations waste their money on continuous empty shots? Was that driverless car a psychotic imagining? I’ll bet you can walk back down Lansdowne and find it under the railway bridge, settled in, turned on, with no one behind the wheel. I’ll bet you double the mo
ney in your pocket.
He rubbed at his eyes, trying to dispel the basic truths that the voice seemed to be saying, but to no avail. He knew damn well that the voice—his voice, after all—was telling the full truth. He heard Olivia leave another message, and begin dialing again. He leaned over the rail, trying to see out as far as he could. Trying to see if he could see anyone else out there, wandering dazed in a cavernous and empty city. The breeze blew, the wind-chimes tinkled, and the air conditioners ran on, but there was no other sign of life. He gave up and went inside.
Olivia was hanging up the phone as he walked in, and she looked at him with evident terror building up. He walked over to her quickly and offered his arms out. She took his offer without argument and nestled into him.
“No one’s answering,” she murmured, her voice shaking.
“I didn’t think that they would,” Mark replied quietly. “I would have been very excited if someone had”.
“I tried my sister in Burlington,” she went on, “and then I tried my parents. I tried the main office here but they never answer the phone anyway, so I don’t know what I was expecting”.
“I don’t know,” Mark echoed in a comforting tone.
“So then I tried that 2-for-1 pizza place down the street, and no one answered so I tried again. There was still no answer. So then I tried 911. No one picked up, Mark. No one picked up on 911”.
“So do you believe me now?” he asked, but she continued on as if she hadn’t heard him, her voice getting shakier.