by Ray Wil
A strange rush of fright and excitement enveloped me when I touched her lips. I didn’t want to feel like the killer from the horror movie attempting necrophilia with a dead body but this had to be done. My lips sunk into hers deeply feeling very intrusive but yet no response. Not a flutter. I waited then tried again cupping one hand behind her neck telling myself a moment more was needed. Perhaps two. She was a very attractive girl not unlike Kay who I was in love with. Her lips were pink, round and supple. It should be easy enough. My tongue found its way deeper into her mouth probing for a response. My hands ran down soft thighs challenging my self-control. I began to cry, sobbing while my mouth gasped for hope. Her body remained inert and breathless. I finally stood up and left the bedroom convinced any twinkle of optimism that I was holding on to was quickly disappearing.
My eyes wet with tears and disappointment I reluctantly dozed off. Sleep had oddly comforted me for the short time either to calm my escalating dread or from sheer exhaustion. Before long, though I was awake with something hitting my leg. With dry and blurry eyes, I made an attempt to sit up thinking I was dreaming. A hand pushed me back down.
“Stay there! Who are you? What’s happening! Tell me what the fuck is going on!”
It was my kissing partner, Jennifer. A baseball bat was between her hands that she held tightly like a batter at the plate. But that didn’t deter my joy or exhilaration at finding her awake.
“Oh god it worked. Oh god it worked!” I shouted, making an effort to stand.
“I said I will hit you if you don’t sit and tell me what the hell is going on!”
Not wanting her to swing the bat, I complied with her wishes and lay back in the sofa.
“I’m as much in the dark as you are. I have very few answers for you. Except I’m the only one that hasn’t fallen asleep as far as I know.”
With the bat still held high her expression was overrun with confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about? What do you mean fallen asleep?”
“The world has fallen asleep. Suspended. Not moving. I haven’t seen an animal for weeks. Birds, pets, whatever. There are dead people all over...”
“What the hell are you talking about? Stop talking! That’s not funny. That’s impossible. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the only one as far as I know that’s still awake until now. Something about me that kept me awake.”
My answers didn’t please her questioning. She repeated again more slowly her words with deliberate intent.
“Let me repeat again so you can think about it. Who the fuck are you and what did you do to my boyfriend?”
I saw no reason to not indulge her clear cadence.
“Let me repeat again so you understand exactly what I’m saying. You have been asleep for more than three weeks. The whole world is sleeping.”
“That’s impossible. That’s not possible. What are you saying. Oh my god.”
“Yea I know.”
She lowered the bat. “I can’t wake up Josh?”
I sat up in the sofa. “The only reason you’re awake is because I kissed you. Something about my touch brought you out of the sleep.”
She was understandably stilled rattled. “No way. No fucken way! Did you put on my…Oh my god...what is happening?”
Her breathing was disorganized and hampered. Inside her head I could see her grasping at answers and an infinite amount of reasons why what I was saying could not be true.
“Chances are you won’t be awake for too long. I’m not sure how long we’ll have power and lights. I’ve been cleaning up the wrecks I can get to here and there. Even if it’s impossible for one person.”
She was at the window now peering out to the city and weeping.
“How…how long has it been like this. How long have I been asleep?”
“I woke up just like you more than twenty days ago. Right now I’m just trying to survive.”
“Twenty days. Twenty days? No, no. I can’t believe you. I wanna see what the hell you’re talkin about!”
“OK. OK. I’ll take you. Come.”
She darted over to a cordless phone on a small table at the entrance of the kitchen.
“Why don’t the phones work. The landline, my cell phone…” She shouted.
She paced angrily back and forth even racing to touch the neck of her partner Josh in the guest bedroom. When she returned I veered in front of her, grabbing her frenetic attention.
“Nothing works. No radio, television, phones or internet. The only thing we have is power.”
Jennifer paused her pacing. “That doesn’t make any fucken sense.”
“Look outside the window. Tell me if you see any moving cars. A plane in the sky. Hear any kinda noise whatsoever. Tell me if you see anything that makes sense.”
She breathed heavily then turned towards the balcony walking ever so slowly. Pulling the French doors, she stepped out into the quiet night, holding on to the rail and peering down to the street. When she returned her face was a stark shade of pink.
“OK.” She said.
“OK.” I mirrored.
“How did this happen. We have to find people who can help. People who will have answers…”
“People like who…?”
I waited a few breaths for her to answer but none came. She was motionless gazing at the window. I asked again feeling her attention had been distracted.
“People like who. Where would we go to get help?”
She was silent and like a standing domino, her body flattened to collapse. I quickly leaped to catch her buckling form but with the deadweight surprising me, brought us both to the floor. Leaning over, I desperately kissed her. Expecting life to return once again into her body. There was a tingling electric sensation that swelled through my limbs. The moment I touched her skin she stiffened, a sudden bolt broke between us. Something had happened, sparked maybe. Her eyes blared wider and I could feel hands gripping and sinking into my face. I pushed and pulled at her arms but her strength was like stone. She said nothing, her face displaying only a trapped sleeping emotion while she positioned herself on top of me. I couldn’t move.
Somewhere within this stifling terrifying despair, gasping for air, the life from my chest was slipping and my eyes fluttered to black. She would loosen my neck only to place her hands over my mouth and nose further shutting off my air. I kicked frantically hitting at her face but strong fingers tightened around my neck again while her lips pushed into mine. I became resolute with the fact that death was coming soon. Her assault exploded soft and powerful at the same time.
Images of babies eyes and pictures of young children lying sleepless and abandoned pressed through my head. Burning buildings filled with lifeless carcasses motionless in the cold crippling snow wrestled into me. The ships that had no one to steer them wondering aimlessly into unattended harbors and rocky lands. Hundreds of planes fell out of the sky igniting open landscapes. The thousands and thousands of cars strewn along the roads and highways around the country then ultimately the world melted into broken heaps.
I felt the dwindling oxygen leaving my lungs and an ominous blackness entering my eyesight. Telling myself, this is how the world would end and how easy it would be to let go. And then a sensation of floating as I was above my body looking at the killing taking place. The act held a peaceful emptiness, I couldn’t quite describe. Hovering beyond the physical shapes tranquil and desperate to return. The two bodies, one of them my own twisting and struggling like serpents fighting but still moved as one. My would-be murderer suddenly without cause released my throat and just as quickly slumped like a fallen oak on top of me. My body was rigid and lifeless. I willed myself from my other worldly vantage point to suck in air. I couldn’t die yet. There was too many things yet to do. My chest convulsed, jerked and coughed. With each hack of my lungs, the spasms yanked at me until I was alive, breathing.
I stood up lightheaded, pushing Jennifer on to the shaggy rug. Fearing she might regain wakefulness and attack me again,
I hastily found the bat she dropped earlier. But she was once again stiff as if Rigor mortis had set in. Baffled and ultimately defeated I sat cradling the wooden pipe keeping a close watch on my bestial foe. I found a roll of duct tape inside a kitchen cupboard and secured her hands for caution. Afterwards, no less concerning yet still remarkable, I slipped slowly into a calm painful slumber.
My sleep was exquisitely enshrouded in soft serpentine vessels of blackness. Dreaming for a time being a young boy running alongside an old red truck on a dusty dirt road in the middle of a vast green farmland. Corn and wheat fields stretch out to every direction and the air smelled of innocence. Other children trekked joyfully beside me laughing at the sweet spilling sunshine. That memory in no way came from a real life experience. I grew up in the city of Toronto inside a modest neighborhood with cement and tar covered streets with streetcars, subways and corner shops. The only glimpse I had of farm land was a trip to the nation’s capital with my mother and father one summer. But the dream was only that. A small breath of longing to escape my inescapable grinding certainty.
Several hours later I awoke with the lifeless body of Jennifer mysteriously lying across my chest. The tape had been removed. I jumped up sharply pushing her off. I was on the rug even though I remembered falling asleep on the sofa. Did I somehow attempt to wake her again while I was sleeping. My neck was sore from the clamp of her inhuman grip during the attack. A provoking feeling also swelled within me. Things were not how they seemed. I had acquired a kind of disturbing outlook on my empty damning reality over the past weeks. My acceptance of the perceived rules and self assigned duties was how I dealt and moved forward. In the hours that transpired things had drastically changed. If the suspended animated bodies were some sort of world disaster or terrorist machinations then this was something incredible different. There were forces at work beyond my comprehension and things happening I couldn’t even begin to grasp.
* * *
At the noon hour, the sun hung overhead scorching the still city like a hot moist cloth. The clarity in the atmosphere without the dusty pollution displayed a pristine view for miles. I could almost see the lake from the window. Not a bird nor figure rustled under the calm breeze. The molten air though seeped into the apartment like a slithering serpent while the air-conditioning would start and sputter cutting off several times before settling. I shut off many of the lights before I showered and changed, borrowing a pair of faded jeans and t-shirt from my host closet.
A black 9millimetre handgun sat inside the closet drawer next to a box of bullets and white sox. A much smaller black container filled with plastic bags of white powder was also in a corner under some men underwear. A picture of Jennifer and Josh snorting cocaine out on the balcony ran through my mind briefly. I grabbed the weapon and the box of bullets throwing in a large kitchen knife. I carried a knapsack although there really wasn’t any need. But now I was more cautious. I took my time walking down hallways and peered around corners before stepping out. Things even seemed different in my surroundings. Small details had somehow changed. Bodies that I remembered lying to one side of the street were in a different position. Small obstructions on side roads that I hadn’t gotten to yet like pieces of wreckage or garbage were now nonexistent. Perhaps the incident at the condo, bringing me within seconds of losing my life rattled something in my head. Or was it possible someone else was lurking around. I carried the gun in my hand. It felt strange but comforting.
Part 2
The Conclusion
A thick brood of clouds had moved into the sky and soon rain began to trickle. I took shelter inside an old smelly cube van when I had trouble with the jeep’s cover. The afternoon quickly fell under the shroud of night spitting a heavy downpour. The empty van had a musty odor mixed with paint and cut wood. Various electric tools like saws, nail guns and drills were littered about in the back over a paint splattered tarp. I made sure a body wasn’t also among the clutter. The roof of the vehicle tattered with the noisy shower brought me a calming relaxing respite. I eased into the old vinyl seat, the gages and dashboard reminiscent of my father’s old Pontiac before he sold it. I then saw something that frightening me. A movement across the street that looked like people. I rubbed my eyes to make sure what I was seeing wasn’t an illusion. Several figures were walking into the convenience store directly in front of me.
The heavy shower cast a thick film of camouflage on the vans windshield but I could still make out the forms. There were five of them wearing what appeared to be shiny attire. All of them were men. I hesitated, having a notion to run out of the van screaming that I’m awake but I stopped myself. Taking several deep breaths, perhaps ten, reassuring myself I wasn’t seeing things. A few more seconds had passed until they stepped out of the store. I grabbed the knapsack with the gun inside before running out to greet the figures. As I approached the sound of my feet against the drenched pavement alerted their attention. The men’s face turned with ghostly astonishment.
“Hey! Hey!!” I screamed out. “Oh thank god I found someone else. I thought I would be the only one!”
The shiny clothes were actually plastic rain protected jumpsuits under which they wore formal ware like business men. They exchanged calm, odd looks with each other. The one closest to me, a big broad man against my smaller frame grabbed me by the arm.
“Let’s go inside, out of the rain.”
We entered a large highrise bank building a few doors down from the convenience store. I had been inside the bank a few days earlier contemplating if I should fill up my knapsack with money from the open registers. To many people that would not have been a moral dilemma but strangely in my new role, it was.
“Please tell me you guys know something about what’s going on. Is it all over the world? Did you fall asleep like everyone else?”
The biggest man, easily over six three stepped toward me reaching into the plastic covering then into the suit. He brandished a large silver handgun before pointing it at me.
“You are the anomaly. You should not be awake. You have to die.” He calmly said.
“Wait, wait, wait! What are you doing?” I flared, throwing my hands in front of my face for protection.
The smallest man in the back, came forward. “Hold on. Wait. Let’s keep him around for a bit.”
My mind was now on my weapon inside the bag and getting away from the five men I’d foolishly brought myself to. The thumping inside my chest made my voice break several times when I spoke.
“Why…why would you wanna shoot me. Why…why…what?”
They all remained unbothered and controlled but for the gun pointed at my face moments before. If not for the threat, I would think they were simply high-powered businessmen heading for a meeting to discuss the latest market shares or an impending company takeover. The large one again placed his hand on my shoulder, his big hand gripping the back of my neck. He had put away the weapon.
“If you run or try to hide we will find you. And then kill you.” A hint of an accent, perhaps German was detectable.
“OK. I don’t understand. Why. What is going on?”
He tried to push me forward, towards the offices but I pulled away sharply, grabbing the gun from my knapsack. I held the weapon by my side. The men turned around almost nonchalantly.
“I’ve been wondering around this damn city for weeks. What the fuck! What the fuck is goin’ on!”
Collectively I received half-curious looks while one man even fiddled with his tie.
“Somebody fucken say something. Now!” My voice echoed into the large high ceiling space travelling upward. Someone struck a match. It was an older grey haired oriental gentleman with a cigar in his mouth.
“Unless you are prepared to use that thing, you should not be holding it.” He breathed.