The Sound

by James Sperl

  “Do you think it’s true?” she said. “That people who’re alone are the ones who disappear?”

  “Sounded real enough to me,” said Valentina.

  Clarissa twisted on her bench seat to face her friends. “Yeah, me too, though I don't understand why it matters.” She contemplated this. “In a way, though, it makes some sense given what we know.”

  Rachel frowned. “How so?”

  A skinny, teenaged boy jumped between Clarissa and Valentina to chase after a friend, startling both women.

  “Hey!” Valentina yelled after him. She crumpled then chucked a paper cup she found on the seat in front of her in his direction. She scowled as she returned to Clarissa. “You were saying?”

  “I don’t know,” Clarissa began. “Something’s been weird about the disappearances from the start. Like, how come do we not only not know what happens to someone who’s disappeared, but why hasn’t anyone seen it when it happens?” Valentina and Rachel looked at one another. “I mean, you’ve got thousands and thousands of people going missing, right? Why hasn't anyone seen the reason why? There has to be at least one person who has witnessed what happens. It's just weird. It's like whatever's going on is happening out of eyesight of anyone who could report it. How could that be possible?”

  “I don’t know,” Valentina said, standing. “But just talking about it is giving me the creeps. Can we go?”

  Clarissa surveyed the crowd. It had dwindled significantly in the few minutes since the mayor bid everyone a good night. It seemed as good a time to go as any.

  As she, Valentina, and Rachel collected their belongings, Clarissa thought about one of the last things the mayor said. It boiled down to the notion of chaos versus order. She thought he made a clear and concise case against the pitfalls of selfish, rash decision-making and the trickle-down effect it had on those who rode in its wake. She hoped that the majority of people felt as he did and clung to common sense long enough for whatever was going on to pass, because if they didn’t, Clarissa feared the mayor’s appeal for the latter of his two options would very likely result in the former.

  CHAPTER 13

  The disappearances had slowed.

  It was the front-page headline on virtually every online news outlet Clarissa checked: “Number of MPRs Down,” read one; “Is It Over?” asked another, with a third accurately proclaiming “Cautious Optimism.”

  Fewer people had gone missing overnight than any other night since the Sound. Pastora was a prime example. Local network affiliates reported that the number of missing person cases had moved from 42 to 47. It still meant five more people were suddenly unaccounted for, but the lower number suggested a decline in rate and frequency. Had the mayor’s petition for communal living been the mitigating factor? Had people shacked up in droves to prevent being alone despite the lack of any earthly reason for having to do so? Clarissa didn’t particularly care for coincidence. The fact that the slowing occurred the very morning after the mayor’s plea for calm, vigilance, and a strengthened community was too stark to ignore. And this plea must have been echoed simultaneously worldwide.

  State and local politicians around the globe had apparently given speeches to their constituents using language similar to Mayor Trebuchet’s. It seemed that what the mayor shared hadn't originated solely within the walls of Pastora's city hall. More likely was that what he shared had been the result of a global debate, discussions that were held behind closed doors by the world’s top scientists and leaders until an accepted hypothesis was fit to deliver to the masses. For the first time in what seemed like ever, the world appeared to be working as one.

  Regardless of the media’s hopeful tone, Clarissa wasn’t going to let it prevent her from becoming proactive. She had a plan, and she intended to follow it.

  Rachel and Valentina had both returned to Clarissa’s apartment after the town meeting to sleep over. All had agreed that at first light—roughly fifty minutes ago—each would go home and collect clothes, personal belongings, and whatever food they had, and bring it all over to Clarissa’s. While her apartment was spacious for a single occupant, it would be tight once she retrofitted it to accommodate three independent women. But this was a minor inconvenience. At least they would all be together until whatever was happening blew over. If it blew over.

  Rachel and Valentina had traveled together so each would be in someone else's presence, but their absence meant Clarissa would be alone for a time. Even though she couldn't adequately explain why, she felt reasonably assured she'd be okay. Her morning would be spent mainly in the company of others, even if they were mostly strangers.

  After slurping down a cup of high-octane coffee and inhaling a slice of peanut butter toast, Clarissa compiled a list of the day’s errands:

  To Do

  - get out $$—more than you need

  - gas up car

  - stock up on food & water

  - rearrange apartment/ help Val & Rach move in

  - buy gun (?)

  The work staff at Aunt Mae’s had unanimously decided to remain closed for the day so that each person could attend to his or her personal affairs. Maxwell’s accountant, Jerry Newstaff, seconded the motion, feeling that Maxwell would have wholeheartedly agreed were he around. Clarissa hoped that some of the more loyal patrons understood the temporary closure, but even if they didn’t, she knew everyone would survive a day without a Super Scramble. With the day free, Clarissa had ample time to get things done.

  Unfortunately, it seemed the entire town of Pastora had the same idea.

  She waited over an hour in line at the bank to withdraw money, this after arriving there fifteen minutes before it opened. An enormous crowd had already gathered, and it continued to grow until the bank pushed open its doors and urged everyone to proceed inside slowly. Had Clarissa the presence of mind the night before, she would have hit up an ATM and saved herself the time and headache of scurrying about town trying to get cash. She had attempted three different machines, each of which greeted her with a “Temporarily Out of Service” warning before she decided to give the main branch a go.

  The gas station was no better. After bypassing several in the city—the car lines for which seemed to stretch into infinity—Clarissa finally opted for one on the outskirts of town. Even so, she spent forty minutes idling on the county road that led up to the station. When she was finally able to fill her car, she watched with dismay as the gas station attendant covered two of the six available pumps with garbage bags.

  By the time she returned to her apartment, it was lunch. All told, she spent more than three hours doing what should have only taken her twenty minutes.

  Valentina and Rachel met her there. Clarissa helped them lug suitcases, cardboard boxes, and other miscellanies from their cars up to her apartment. They piled everything in an unorganized heap in the middle of the living room.

  Clarissa eyed the mound with growing concern. Yes, space would be tight. She questioned whether her single-bedroom pad would be able to handle all of Valentina’s and Rachel’s stuff. It’s just temporary, she reminded herself, though she would have preferred a finite timeline to an open-ended one.

  The only major chore left was to make a run to the grocery store. Clarissa had just gone to the market three days prior, and with Valentina’s and Rachel’s supplies, their stash was already shaping up to be more than adequate. Still, the future was uncertain. If the grocery store was anything like the banks or the gas stations, food might be in short supply. They needed to get over to Holsten Market as soon as possible. With any luck, the situation wouldn’t be so bad.

  * * *

  It was worse. Much worse.

  “Jesus,” Rachel said. “It looks like a Black Friday event in here.”

  Clarissa had a sinking feeling that things were going to be intense when she, Valentina, and Rachel had to park clear on the opposite side of the parking lot from the store. Now that she stood inside Holsten’s, she realized just how intense it truly was.

 
; It was indeed like those Black Friday YouTube videos that circulated in the days following Thanksgiving: crowds of people, some pushing and shoving; shelves cleared; barely contained chaos. The frenzy in the store smacked of a disorganized super sale—only there was no sale. There were only panicked individuals scrambling for food. And now Clarissa, Valentina, and Rachel were part of the mix.

  Three police officers patrolled near the registers. Their presence was only slightly reassuring, if largely ineffectual. What three cops could do against a mob of people if they decided to riot Clarissa didn’t know, but having them there seemed to provide enough of a sense of order to keep everyone in check. People were anxious, but at least they weren’t clawing over one another for a can of beans. At least, not yet.

  “I think everyone from last night's meeting is here,” said Valentina, as she panned over the packed aisles.

  Clarissa scanned the cart return stall and discovered it empty. “Anyone see any carts?” she asked.

  Rachel shook her head. “No. And I don’t see any shopping baskets either.”

  “So, what,” Valentina began, “are we just supposed to carry everything in our arms?”

  Clarissa locked on a kiosk of green, reusable bags. It had been picked over, but there were quite a few left.

  “Come on,” she said, snaking her way through the crowd over to the kiosk. Reaching it, she grabbed a fistful of the bags and handed several each to Valentina and Rachel. “Here. We should probably divide and conquer.”

  “Agreed,” Valentina said. Rachel bobbed her head.

  Clarissa tucked the bags under an arm and reached into her back pocket to retrieve a list. She ripped it into thirds, handing Valentina and Rachel each a portion.

  “Take this and get whatever you can. And fill your bag. I don’t think we can get too much.”

  Valentina glanced at her list. “Lighters? Matches? Batteries? Flashlights? Candles?” She looked at Clarissa. “Jesus, apocalypse much? Why do we need all of this? I thought we were just getting food.”

  “Trust me,” Clarissa said. “Those things are just as important.”

  It was true too.

  Clarissa spent significant time researching preparedness websites after the meeting the night before, just as she was sure a majority of others in attendance—and probably around the world—had also done. Of the sites she was able to access—quite a large number were down—advice ranged from the sensible (buy food and water) to the extreme (have an off-the-grid compound!). Since installing a doomsday bunker was both financially and logistically impossible, she had to rely on thrifty shopping and plain old common sense.

  Canned goods and raw grains appeared to be the best bets. The average bag of rice or dried beans was good for well over a year, and the use-by dates for many canned foods often pushed into the three-year range (though Clarissa hoped that the crisis was long over before then). Dried jerky, canned tuna, and chicken were good options that were protein rich, and she could incorporate them into satisfying meals. Other suggestions: peanut butter, honey, powdered milk, dried noodles—anything that had both nutritional value and a decent shelf life. For now, gone were the days of bagged snacks, ice cream, cookies, and any other carb-heavy food that brought little to the table. Clarissa and her friends needed to focus on the long-term, which was why she had drawn up the list currently in everyone’s hands.

  But preparedness didn’t stop with food; supplies were just as essential. Candles, matches, first aid, batteries—all were crucial elements of a well-stocked post-event supply pantry. Clarissa cringed when she read through some websites’ step-by-step checklist of societal collapse. Following world-event scenarios (sort of like the one we’re in, she thought), basic services often failed, chief among them, power. Once electricity went, so went everything else, and the domino effect from defunct, power-dependent technology would be swift: non-functioning gas pumps, dormant ATMs, downed traffic grids—all were the “beginning of the end,” as one site put it. When those elements broke down, it wasn’t long before reason and order took a back seat to unbridled fear and panic.

  A heavy-set family trundled past Clarissa, bumping her with their grocery cart. They said nothing in apology, as they pushed through the crowd and cut down the snack aisle.

  Clarissa faced her friends.

  “Look, I know this all seems daunting, but we just need to focus on getting as much as we can for a survival situation.”

  Rachel’s face sagged. “Is that what we’re in? A survival situation?”

  Clarissa took her friend’s hand. “I hope not. But it’s better to be safe than sorry.” She looked at Valentina; her words were meant as much for her as they were for Rachel. Both women nodded uneasily. “We’ll get through this, you guys, okay? So, let’s take our lists, get what we can, and meet back here in ten to fifteen minutes, all right?”

  Again, both women bobbed their heads.

  “Okay,” Clarissa said. “See you soon.”

  Without another word, she peeled away. She knew if she gave the moment any more weight, it would bring Rachel to anxious tears and leave Valentina wringing her hands. She couldn’t have that. Now was not the time to wish things away and hope it all got better. Clarissa knew the truth, could feel it down to her bones. Things were not going to get better—they were going to get worse. The decline in missing person’s cases over the past day should have felt like a step in the right direction, but she was having a difficult time accepting it. Maybe the reports were true. But to her, the lower numbers felt like misleading information put out by the media and governments to help calm the masses. Regardless of either truth, Clarissa would continue to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

  She made a beeline directly for the canned food aisle. As she suspected, the shelves had been picked over. Anything with a bean in it was long gone, and every price label denoting fruits in syrup sat below an empty shelf. Several dented cans of vegetables had been left behind, and Clarissa didn’t waste a moment snatching them up; she shoved green beans and peas and carrots into her bag. After filling it half full, she weaved her way through a dense stream of shoppers toward the end of the aisle to see what pasta remained.

  No go. The shelves were a barren wasteland.

  Shit.

  Things were not going well. She started to imagine what it would be like to starve to death. You should have gotten here earlier, she berated herself. But what else could she have done? She was up and on the road at dawn precisely to avoid the exact situation in which she now found herself. How was she to know the entire town would think the same way she did?

  On to grains and rice.

  A bottleneck of shopping carts formed at the entrance to the aisle, the congestion resulting in some cross words uttered in frustration. Since Clarissa had no cart, she was able to slip past them, squeezing through the narrow gaps into the aisle.

  It was more of the same—mostly empty shelves with a smattering of leftovers. Two bags of dried lentils had been pushed to the farthest reaches of the bottom shelf, and the last bag of brown rice had been torn open along its side, the contents partially spilling out. Clarissa didn’t care. She scooped them all up. A second glance revealed a crushed bag of Asian noodles on the floor, which she promptly picked up. Other than these few items, precious little remained.

  She couldn’t waste time lamenting her food choices. With any luck, people will have overlooked hot cereals like oat bran and oatmeal. Turning down the aisle, Clarissa got two steps before she was forced to stop.

  Andrew blocked her path.

  “Well…hello there,” she said in utter surprise.

  Andrew gawked at her as if she were unfamiliar. Then his face warmed.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, his voice so low Clarissa could barely hear him above the chattering in the store.

  “Really? I don’t know. Given how the whole town seems to be here, it would be strange not to run into each other at this point.”

  Andrew teased a smile and nodde
d. “You may be right.”

  A brief moment of silence passed between them. It was just enough time for Clarissa to notice that, like her, Andrew had no cart, and instead used a rucksack, which he slung over a shoulder.

  “You fuel up?”

  “Huh?” Clarissa said through a confused scowl.

  “Your car. Have you gassed it up yet?”

  “Oh. Yeah. This morning. Though it took forever. Same with the bank. Everybody’s in full-on freak-out mode.

  Andrew nodded again. “They have good reason to be.”

  Clarissa’s skin went cold. “This is bad, isn’t it? Because I have this, like, gut feeling I can’t shake that things are just beginning.”

  Andrew glanced around the store, let his eyes pass over two men at the end of the aisle bickering over a jar of salsa.

  “I think you should listen to your instincts.”

  That wasn’t what Clarissa wanted to hear, though she’d never known Andrew to be anything other than brutally honest with her.

  “Look at this place,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s crazy. Probably take an hour or so just to check out.”

  “That’s a fair assessment,” he said, his face hardening. “I should probably get going, so I can get in line.”

  “Okay. Yeah, that’s probably wise.”

  “Take care of yourself. And good luck.”

  “Uh, thanks. Yeah, you too.”

  Clarissa felt hurt by the brief interaction. Granted, Andrew had never been much of a talker, but she had known the man for years. Years. Seeing a person once a month may not qualify as a relationship in many people’s books, but Andrew was the most consistent friend she had. No matter what, she could count on seeing him every third Thursday. She rather liked that security. Now, though, he seemed as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. She tried to tell herself that his rapid departure had more to do with the crowds than it did with her. The current situation was the antithesis of what a private person like him preferred. Regardless, it stung that he had no words for her other than base pleasantries.