Aftermath

by Mark Lukens

  A moment of panic surged in her. For just a moment she was sure someone had moved the flashlight. Someone had taken it.

  Calm down. It’s probably on the floor.

  She couldn’t believe how dark everything was. She could barely see a few inches in front of her face. She knew it was going to be dark; she had taped plastic over all of the windows and then drawn all drapes and curtains. But she hadn’t expected it to be this dark.

  Kate checked the floor beneath the coffee table, her fingers brushing by the table legs.

  And then she froze.

  She’d heard a noise close to her. It had sounded like breathing, like someone trying to be quiet, but she heard the breaths.

  Panic squeezed her lungs as she felt along the top of the coffee table again. The flashlight had to be there.

  Her hand bumped into the candle again and then someone’s hand brushed against hers. There was no mistaking the feel of fingers against her skin, flesh against her flesh.

  She screamed and jumped to her feet. She dove down to the end of the couch, onto the floor, searching for the baseball bat she’d left there.

  “Kate,” a man’s voice whispered from the darkness. “Are you looking for the bat?”

  For a split second Kate thought the person in the house was her father. Yes, her father had come to save her. He’d gotten inside of her house, being quiet so he wouldn’t wake her up. But she knew this wasn’t her father. Her father would have had a flashlight with him. His voice would have been soothing. He would be comforting her, not teasing her.

  “Kate,” the man whispered again. He was closer now . . . so close.

  Kate was up and over the back of the couch, trying to flee. She tripped over the back of it and landed hard onto the floor.

  Footsteps in her house—the man was around the couch in a flash. His hand grabbed her arm as she tried to get up, his fingers like a metal clamp, like the ripper’s hands had been in the supermarket parking lot.

  Kate looked up at the man. She could make him out in the darkness now, but he was like a shadow that had come to life, none of the features showing, just an outline. Except for his eyes. They were shining, and the light from his eyes showed the suggestion of a face: long nose, high cheekbones, sharp chin, mustache and goatee, an evil smile full of strong white teeth.

  Kate screamed and then . . .

  . . . she sat up on the couch, inhaling a breath like a drowning woman breaking for the surface of the water.

  CHAPTER 9

  For just a second it felt like Kate couldn’t draw another breath in, like her throat was frozen. A terror gripped her, holding her there on the couch, squeezing her.

  Like the man with the shining eyes had squeezed her arm.

  The thought of the man with the shining eyes came to her. She was on her feet in an instant, ready to bolt in a blind panic. But then she stopped, noticing that she could see the living room and the kitchen beyond. Everything was gloomy, like early-morning light before the sun was fully up. But at least she could see now.

  She exhaled a breath, blowing it out slowly as she stood beside the couch. She looked down at the coffee table. The flashlight was right next to the extinguished candle and empty teacup. The aluminum baseball bat was on the floor next to the end of the couch. Everything was just as she had left it—no one had gotten into her house and moved things. There was no shadowy man with shining eyes.

  A wave of relief flooded her as she realized that she had slept through the night. It was cold and she shivered, grabbing her blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders like a giant shawl. That was a little better. She sat back down and looked at the coffee table. She picked up her bottle of water and drank a few sips, her lips and throat dry.

  Even though she could see well enough now, she went to the kitchen and lit the candle there. The light felt good, and it actually made her feel a little warmer, even though she was sure that was psychological.

  She checked her phone. It hadn’t been on the charger long before the electricity went out, but she still had over fifty percent battery life left. It was almost seven o’clock. There was no service on the phone. She tried the internet, tried a few phone calls. Nothing.

  Setting the phone back down on the counter, she went back to her bedroom, checking all of the windows along the way, making sure the plastic taped over them hadn’t been disturbed. She got a sweatshirt from her closet and changed into a pair of jeans. She slipped her feet into her sneakers. She felt better now that she was dressed.

  The food in the refrigerator was still surprisingly a little cold. She ate a cup of yogurt and cottage cheese. She had planned to ration out her food, using up the food in her fridge before touching anything in her pantry. She had a few frozen meals in her freezer, but she wasn’t sure how she could cook them. She had a grill outside she’d hardly ever used, but she worried about the smell of cooking food bringing any unwanted guests.

  Like rippers.

  But she had to think about other dangers too. There could be looters, gangs of criminals. Even the police and military rounding people up had to be considered.

  *

  Hours later, she sat on the couch. She’d tried reading for a little while, but it only made her tired. She wondered if she should try to take a nap while it was daytime, maybe stay awake through the night. She dreaded the thought of the coming night, the thought of waking up in the darkness.

  “It was just a dream,” she whispered.

  Her voice sounded hoarse, but she kept talking to herself. “They’ll get this straightened out. I just need to wait here a few days. Ration the food, make sure the house is locked up tight. That’s all. Just survive for a few days.”

  Yes, survive. And she needed to start working on that right now. She needed to collect any items that would help with her survival and comfort.

  A list. She’d make a list. That would make her feel better. She loved writing lists and checking the items off.

  *

  Fifteen minutes later, she looked down at her list as she stood next to the island in her kitchen that separated the kitchen from the living room. She had batteries on the list first, then all the candles she had in the house, all lighters, all matches. Obviously light was her first priority right now after that terrible dream she’d had. Next she needed to inventory all the food, using the perishable items first. Catalogue all water and liquids. Collect all medicines into some kind of first-aid kit. Gather any other weapons she could find besides the baseball bat and the kitchen knives.

  The list was a good start. She was sure she would add more to it later as she began to collect and organize the items.

  She wished she had some coffee, but settled for a bottle of water instead, sipping it throughout the day as she set about collecting the things she needed.

  CHAPTER 10

  October 25th

  And now, three days later she was still waiting in her house, still waiting for the authorities to reach out to her after society had collapsed. The electricity and water were still shut off. The internet and phone services still weren’t working. She had listed the food she had, and according to her calculations, she probably still had at least two weeks’ worth of food left, maybe three if she rationed it out carefully. The drinks were getting low, but she still had the water in the bathtub if she really needed it. She could definitely stay in her home for at least two weeks comfortably, maybe even three or four weeks.

  But she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to stay in her house much longer. She had plans on leaving sometime today. And there was a reason for it. She wasn’t safe here in her home anymore. Early this morning, just after dawn, someone had been outside her home. She’d heard the person messing with one of the windows in the living room, and then jiggling the doorhandle on the front door, testing to see if it was locked.

  She had jumped up from the couch and grabbed her baseball bat, creeping toward the front door. She’d waited there in the dark, listening to the person outside. She felt silly s
tanding there with a baseball bat in her hands. What good was a baseball bat going to do if someone broke in with a gun?

  There was a sound from outside, a hissing sound that was familiar to her, but she couldn’t place it for a moment.

  Then silence.

  She waited in the foyer another ten minutes before moving, making sure the man was gone. It might have been a ripper, but she didn’t think so. The person out there had been sneaky, testing the doorhandle lightly and checking a window or two.

  The authorities she’d been waiting for?

  For a moment she had almost bolted to the door in hope and opened it. But then she had stopped herself.

  Last night, around ten o’clock, she’d heard the sound of a truck outside in the street. It was rumbling, like it had a powerful motor. She’d been tempted to peek out the windows, hoping it might be a military vehicle, but she didn’t want to take the chance of the people out there spotting her if they weren’t military. And if it was the authorities, wouldn’t they knock on her door?

  Wouldn’t they have knocked on her door just now rather than checking the doorhandle?

  Of course anyone could knock on the door and say they were the police or the National Guard, waiting for you to open the door and then pounce. And they could even dress like them. And even if it was the police or National Guard, she couldn’t get the thought out of her mind of the video she’d seen when Tarik had pulled the dark web up onto her laptop last Friday—the cops and military shoving handcuffed men and women into the backs of vans and trucks, beating them like they were animals, the military personnel wearing gas masks and other protective gear. She still had to be cautious if they were rounding people up.

  There was a chance she could still be infected, but she was pretty sure if she was she would have begun exhibiting symptoms by now; the disease seemed to have moved quickly through the population, so that made her believe the incubation period was short.

  She hadn’t peeked out the window last night at the truck rumbling by, but she felt the urge to peek out the window now. It was light enough to see out there.

  But she didn’t want to peek through the living room window.

  Kate hurried into the kitchen and leaned her baseball bat against the lower cabinets. She had already removed the tape from around the door that led out to the garage two days ago. She opened the door and went into the garage. There were two windows on the far wall and she crept over to them. From one of the windows, she could see her closest neighbor.

  She peeled up the tape and plastic from the lower corner and pulled it away just far enough for her to steal a glance out onto the side yard. From this vantage point she could see part of the street in front of her neighbor’s home, and part of the home across the street, before the road curved around the stand of trees and disappeared.

  A man was walking toward her neighbor’s home. A big pickup truck with large knobby tires waited near the bend, maybe waiting for the man. There were two men in the back of the truck, both of them dressed in camouflage clothing, both of them armed with rifles. The man walking down the street had a rifle with a strap slung over his shoulder. He wore camouflage pants, a dark jacket, and a baseball cap. He had what looked like a can of spray-paint in his hand.

  That’s what the hissing sound had been at her front door—spray-paint. The man had painted something on her door. Marking it. But marking it for what?

  She watched as the man strolled up the walkway to her neighbor’s home with the can of spray-paint in his hand, but then he was out of view.

  Those men didn’t look like the authorities. There were no state or county markings on the truck, no military signs. They looked more like a gang of redneck thugs. And they were marking doors with paint and checking doorhandles. Why? Were they going to come back and loot? If they were marking houses to break into, why not just break into them now? She couldn’t help thinking that the men were searching for something.

  Or someone.

  Kate felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. Those men were going to be back. In an hour? In a few hours? She wasn’t sure, but she knew they’d be back. She needed to get a bag packed and get out of here.

  *

  As she packed her small suitcase with a few changes of clothes and her impromptu first-aid kit, her thoughts turned to the dreams she’d been having the last two nights.

  She had dreamed of the shadowy man with the shining eyes again. A few times. She hadn’t been getting a lot of sleep because the nightmares kept waking her up. She’d never really had many nightmares in her life before, but these were terrible; they seemed so real.

  But she’d been having other dreams too. Dreams of other people: a muscular black man and his son; a skinny man with long hair and tattoos; and a man with a buzz cut and a mean stare. She didn’t know who these people were—she’d never seen any of them before—but she felt like she knew them.

  There was another person she’d seen in her dreams, a young blond woman with pale skin and dark glasses. The woman was blind; Kate was sure of it. She looked almost like an angel with the glow of light around her. The woman spoke to Kate in the dream, the vision as real as anything she’d ever experienced. In her dreams she felt like she’d been transported to another place, teleported somehow.

  “Come west and find us,” the blind woman told her in the dream last night.

  Or really this morning. Kate was pretty sure she’d been dreaming about the blind woman when she heard the man prowling around outside.

  “There are others with us,” the blind woman had also said, reaching a hand out like she wanted Kate to take it. “Come be with us.”

  At that moment Kate wanted to take the woman’s hand. She’d felt an overwhelming sense of hope and peace for the first time in what seemed like such a long time. It was like a religious moment. She wondered if this was the euphoric feeling her family experienced at church. If so, then she could finally understand the lure of faith; she could understand the addiction to that feeling, chasing it like a junkie chased a high.

  But before Kate could touch the woman’s hand, she pulled her hand away, the light dimming suddenly around her. The woman’s face turned into a frown. “You need to wake up now,” she said.

  And that’s when Kate had popped awake and heard the man outside.

  “It wasn’t real,” Kate told herself as she closed her suitcase. She’d heard the man out there, and it had affected her dreams. She’d gone through some serious shock and trauma in the last few days; no wonder her dreams had been so dark and strange.

  She took her suitcase to the kitchen. She had a cardboard box with some food and drinks in it. She’d filled three plastic jugs up with water from the bathtub. She had her baseball bat and a few kitchen knives. She found a map of North Carolina, and she had marked out a route to her parents’ town, Astorville, using as many back roads as possible.

  Her father hadn’t shown up; he hadn’t come to rescue her. It didn’t mean that he hadn’t tried—it probably meant that he hadn’t made it for some reason or another. She couldn’t keep waiting here for a father who was never going to show; she couldn’t keep waiting here for authorities that were never going to save her. She had to face it now, she was on her own.

  Go west. That’s what the blind woman had said in the dream this morning. Of course Kate was sure that she had projected that into the dream; she had already made up her mind to go west, up into the mountains, to her mom and dad’s home, so that’s what she’d heard in her dream.

  She was ready to leave now . . . as ready as she could be.

  CHAPTER 11

  The car was packed with Kate’s small suitcase and the two cardboard boxes of food, water, and supplies—and of course, the baseball bat. Her car was backed into the garage, so when she opened the garage door she could just drive right out to her driveway. She would have to open the garage door manually because the electricity was still out, but there was a handle that she could pull down so she could push the door up.

&nb
sp; First, she needed to peek out through the garage window one more time. She pulled the tape and plastic back just a little and stared at her neighbor’s home and the home that she could see across the street. The men were gone now, maybe marking other homes with the spray-paint. The coast was clear for now, but she had to assume that they were still somewhere in the neighborhood.

  A few minutes ago she had peeked out through some of the other windows in her house, but she hadn’t seen anyone else around. She was able to get a better look at the house across the street from hers. She could see the mark left on the front door—a symbol painted in red on the white door. From her window, the symbol looked like a circle with another symbol inside of it, but she couldn’t tell what it was. She had good eyesight, but the home was too far away and the front door was hidden in shadows.

  The men were marking all the front doors. Why? She still couldn’t help thinking that the men were searching the neighborhood for something . . . or someone. It was an irrational thought, but it felt right.

  It was time to go. She needed to leave now before any of the men came back around.

  Kate took a deep breath; she slid the locks back from her garage door and then lifted it up. She’d never lifted up her garage door by hand before, always using the electric motor. She thought it was going to be heavy, but it slid up easily. And it wasn’t as loud as when the motor lifted it up, but the rumbling noise of the door going up was loud enough in the eerie silence.

  Kate jumped into her already-running car and shut the door, pressing the button to lock all the doors. She wore a dust mask and latex gloves, still concerned about an airborne virus, if there was one. She shifted into drive and pulled out onto her driveway.

  She felt exposed as soon as she was out of the garage, the sunlight bright in her eyes even though the day was overcast, the early-morning sun muted with haze. She drove to the end of her driveway and made a right out onto the road. This route would take her through the twisting and turning roads of her large neighborhood, and eventually to the entrance of the housing development.