I arrive in Superior, a small Arizona town fifteen miles from the lab and just inside the southern fringe of the Tonto National Forest, at 11AM. It’s kind of a ramshackle place that’s frozen in the early 70s, populated by adobe mobile homes, scrub brush, endless dirt and a smattering of short trees in constant need of moisture. Many of the buildings are vacant and falling apart. It’s basically a depressing craphole, but the familiar roads and epic vistas surrounding the town begin to ease my tension.
The community I settled in five years ago, Nebula Estates, was built shortly after Desert’s research facility, named to attract the bevy of astro-scientists relocating to the area. And it worked. Most of my neighbors are also coworkers. As I turn off the empty Route 60 and onto what appears to be an unassuming side street, I hit the brakes, squealing to a stop.
A mountain lion, massive and defiant, stands in the road, its head cocked toward the vehicle. Its eyes pierce the windshield to find my face. There are three predators in this part of the world that pose a threat to people: rattlesnakes, coyotes and mountain lions. The snakes will stand their ground, but they won’t pursue a person. There’s nothing to be gained. A coyote will only attack if cornered. They know well enough to fear mankind. But mountain lions... Although people aren’t normally their preferred prey, they will stalk and kill a person. In fact, they’re the only predator in the world that will move toward the sound of human activity, rather than away from it. That I’m the last person on Earth might make me an irresistible treat to the predator. I’m an ice cream sandwich, I think, but wrapped in a metal shell. Safe.
I honk the horn defiantly. The cat doesn’t flinch. It just stares for ten more seconds and then seems to lose interest. As it strolls away, it looks back one last time, meeting my eyes, as if to say, ‘I know where you live.’
Despite the big cat’s disconcerting appearance, it’s another living thing, and that’s encouraging. My list of survivors has grown to four: two ravens, a mountain lion and me. But are there more?
There have to be.
The black gate, an ornate iron affair, appears ahead. There’s no guard shack. The heavy gates detect the windshield-mounted sensor and open automatically. The power is still on here, I think, and I chide myself for not considering the possibility of it being off. I stop, waiting for the gates to open enough for me to fit, and then I speed in, worried that the cat will follow the vehicle inside. The community is surrounded by a gleaming white, eight-foot-tall fence, so once the gate is shut, the mountain lion won’t be a concern. Or will it? Can they jump that high? Feeling a little paranoid, I stop on the far side of the gate and watch it close.
No lion in sight.
The dark pavement and bright yellow lines dividing it are free of white residue and vehicles. The event must have taken place when no one was coming or going. Unless, I think, there are survivors. I roll down the windows and slow to five mph, honking my horn, hoping that a familiar face will run from one of the McMansions lining the sides of the curving road. The neighborhood is pristine. Automatic lawn sprinklers have sprung up in several yards, their tck, tck, tck, shhhh, a strange comfort; it’s a sign of life, if only artificial. But nothing else moves.
I pull up to my home, a long beige ranch with a two-story, two-car garage, above which is my office. Unlike my neighbors, who elected to have green lawns and acacia trees in the middle of a desert, I went with stones and cacti. It’s not exactly a welcoming sight, but I don’t have to care for it, which is important, since I’m so rarely home.
I pull into the garage and cut the engine. Silence greets me. In general, the desert is a quiet place, especially during the day. But here, close to town, the pulse of human activity drones in the background, white noise that I hadn’t really noticed until now. The silence is like a pressure on my ears. I hit the garage door button, more eager to drown out the silence than to protect the vehicle. Who’s left to steal it?
Inside, I put my keys and wallet atop a small table, just inside the garage entrance. The silence inside the house is more bearable, probably because I’m used to it. The solid construction and triple-paned windows keep the outside world...outside.
Of course, right now, all I really want is some kind of confirmation that the outside world still exists. I head for the kitchen, which is dressed in chrome, shiny black granite and richly stained brown wood. Any respectable chef could make a feast in this kitchen. I mostly make Captain Crunch and microwavable pot pies, but I’m not here to eat. The iPad resting on the bar is my destination. I left it plugged in and on, so I’m online with a button push, screen swipe and double tap.
My first destination is the BBC news app I check every morning I’m home. I don’t have cable TV, or get a newspaper, so my one source of news is the Internet, and I’ve found the BBC the best source of global news that isn’t full of American political strife. The app loads as usual, lingers on the updating screen a little longer than usual, but then pops up a stream of stories from around the world.
Relief floods into my body as I scroll through the horizontal thumbnails in the Top Stories track. But my grip on the device tightens when I reach the end and see nothing about Phoenix. Or Arizona. In fact, only one of the top stories is in the U.S., the murder trial of a pop star. I tap the pop star story and note the date and time: yesterday at 5pm. I go back and check three other stories with similar results. The most recent story, about the mystery virus known as Hochman’s, named for the man who discovered it and then perished from it, was posted yesterday at 5:30pm. Despite my urgency to find signs of human activity, I linger on the Hochman’s article.
I’d been following the virus’s progress before heading into the lab for the week. The virus spreads quickly, via the coughing and sneezing present in the first day of infection. The first case was recorded in China, but it had already spread around the world, taking advantage of a defect in the genetic code present in nearly everyone—if not everyone—on the planet. Researchers were rushing to find a patch for the human genome, and had begun looking for survivors, but thus far, the survival rate was zero. Absolute zero. Contracting the virus was a death sentence. Over the course of a week, the infected human body would simply fall apart, like a well-cooked roast. Quarantine zones had been set up in major port cities where cases had appeared—Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York in the U.S., and thus far, the virus had remained under control, but a catastrophic pandemic was feared. The end of human civilization hadn’t seemed as possible since the Cold War.
Too bad no one even saw the real threat.
You don’t know everything yet, I tell myself, and I switch from the BBC app to Facebook. I don’t have a lot of Facebook friends, just 54, and like most people, only a handful of them are actual friends. The timeline pops up, filling with posts. Photos and videos of people I know or vaguely know fill the screen, mixed with advertisements and pop culture memes I don’t understand. All dated for yesterday. Facebook is still up, but no one is posting. I switch to my Twitter account, where I’m following just twenty people, but they’re twenty different people, and some post frequently. The story is the same.
I broaden my search to the rest of the Internet as a whole, visiting news sites first. Like the BBC, the news is silent about Phoenix and dated for yesterday. My final stop is Reddit, which even during the apocalypse, would be filled with conversation. I find the last post is dated yesterday, time-stamped for 8:30 EST. It reads, “Does anyone else hear that freaky noise? I’m in New York.”
There are four replies, time-stamped a minute later.
“Hear it. Cali.”
“Hellz yes. Toronto.”
“WTF. YES!!! London.”
The fourth reply is in Japanese script, but the location is in English. Tokyo.
If this mystery sound, heard around the world, has something to do with the event that turned everyone to dust...
My worst fears are starting to resolve.
Shaking my head, I reach out. The motion is without thought, but when my fing
ers wrap around the neck of a Jack Daniel’s bottle, I quickly unscrew the cap, tip the bottle to my lips and suck down a burning gulp. Then another. And another, until the words, I’m alone, fade from my mind.
12
POE
I don’t hesitate. I pull each bag of food over my shoulders, and step out of the fish water. I know that Luke will stay with me now. I’m trusting in that.
I sneak out from behind the freezers and move along the walls, like I know how to do this sneaking thing, like cops do it in the movies, eyes darting, movements smooth. Except that I’m limping with heavy bags and a big red dog. I leave wet footprints and a fishy trail. Easy to follow. But, strangely, I’m the one doing the following, taking the same idiotic path toward the dangerous unknown as the morons in horror movies. But curiosity, the desire for answers, pulls me like gravity. We make it to the dairy freezers, and I peer around the corner, only my forehead and half an eyeball visible.
The shimmering is there, moving away from us, passing by bread shelves.
It’s like looking through water. The background is still visible, but blurry and warped. A loaf of bread, put back sloppily, hanging off the shelf, spins and falls to the floor as the thing passes, giving the loaf no heed. It’s solid, I think, not a ghost or spirit or something intangible. My next thought is, It’s looking for us. But I quickly discount that. It already found us. Saw us. And now...what? It’s leaving? Just a quick, how do you do, neighbor, sorry about wiping out the human race?
I have no real knowledge that this thing is responsible, but what else could it be? That said, why would an entity responsible for the deaths of billions stop by a grocery store just to pay me a visit?
The thing moves around the corner, out of sight, bringing its dragging sound and rose scent with it. I wait, listening, breath held, fingers cramping around Luke’s collar. He presses his head against my leg.
The dragging sound fades, moving steadily away from us.
I should run.
What the hell is that thing?
I listen, ears straining, balancing heavy on one foot, just toes on the other, until I can’t hear the dragging anymore. And then I limp my way as fast as I can down the bread and dairy aisle, hoping it’s not waiting in silence for us, right there, when I round the corner. Yogurt, cheese, bagels, loaves, peanut butter at the end…
The front door is so close, just have to turn this corner. I flatten against the endcap and look, frantic. I see nothing, then full out run, limp, run. Luke is way ahead of me. He beats me out the door. I scurry through the self-serve register, my bags falling to my elbows. I should leave them. But can I ever return here? I glance back, around, nearing the doors. I forget the mess at the entrance and slip on the melted ice cream and the dissolved people. I skid and let out a moan of pain. My ankle. Liquid, chocolate ice cream splashes onto my pant leg.
Then I’m at the exit door, shoving it through loose snow, packing it to the side just enough for me to slip through.
Outside, the wind has picked up again. I’m still wet through from my earlier fall, my ankle is throbbing and an unearthly presence is scuffing through the grocery store on the other side of these walls.
Luke rolls around in the snow, excited to be outside, away from the powder piles and the God-only-knows-what-that-thing-was. Underneath my layers, a veneer of panic sweat transforms into goosebumps and I shiver violently. Keep moving, I think. Get away. Life suddenly feels like a recurring dream I used to have as a child, trapped in a house that was sometimes a school, pursued by something unseen. I knew that house like it was my own, the same familiarity with which I know this store. And now, that same unknown something, is looking for me...for real. So I do what I did in those dreams. I run. We round the corner of the grocery store, my ankle throbbing.
I can’t walk all the way back like this. I’m going to do long term damage. I lean against the brick wall of the store, lifting my foot, eyes darting all around. Is that thing going to come outside? I need to move. Run!
Maybe I could drive part of the way, up to our unplowed road? I could use one of these cars, maybe? I limp quickly across the parking lot, reach a car and place my mitten on the handle. I stop. Can’t do it. Two piles of powder mixed with clothing. One in the passenger seat—with knitting. Someone was knitting a warm, blue hat while they waited. And in the backseat, small, red mittens, a parka, overalls, boots. I don’t open the door. What would I do with their remains? Besides that, would the car have any gas? They wouldn’t have been waiting out here in the frigid evening without the car running to keep the heat on. I look for the small hybrid. It’s silent now.
I can’t keep hesitating. I’m getting cold, and I think I’m being watched. Across the street, several houses sit silently. Glancing backward at the storefront reveals nothing—I can’t see inside. It’s too blindingly white out here and too dark in there. Even if I could, I’d look right through it.
It’s watching us, I think, even now weighing the worth of this confused, pitiful survivor. I head for the houses, not looking back, and not knowing what I’m looking for.
I reach the first ancient Colonial two minutes later, Luke by my side every second, and I find the door locked. My thoughts spin. I’m starting to feel panicky. I limp around the front of the house and come face to face with a shiny red snowmobile, backed out of an open two-car garage that is filled with not only two cars, but boxes, hunting gear, skis, bicycles and skateboards. You name it. If not for my ankle, I would take the skis, and if not for the snow, the skateboard, but instead, I eye the snowmobile.
The key is in the ignition. I glance around, and notice a two-tone snowsuit that has blown away into a nearby shrub, helmet on the ground. The owner had just backed it out of the garage when the event occurred, and maybe sat waiting for a friend to arrive. Snowmobiling with friends anytime, even during a blizzard, is a fairly common, rural New Hampshire activity, but not usually my cup of tea.
I try the snowmobile key, it just clicks and nothing happens. Gas, I think. It was idling here all night. In the garage, I find several full portable tanks, and I lug one back to the snowmobile. I feel inept and ridiculous, exhausted with anxiety and the pain in my ankle. One of the two canvas bags filled with food tips over on the snowy walk and a bag of oranges rolls out. Luke picks it up in his jaws and runs off with it.
I want to cry. I don’t know where the stupid gas tank is and I feel on the verge of some kind of precipice. Teetering. Anxiety swirls through my body to my fingertips. I’m freezing. I allow myself to cry a little while I finally locate the tank and pour the gas inside.
When I open up the enormous hatch on the back of the snowmobile, four partially frozen Sam Adams six-packs await. Nice. Drunk snowmobiling, good for everyone involved. I consider getting plastered on alcoholic slushies and falling over into a snowbank, allowing nature to decide my fate. When I realize that nature, or something, has already decided my fate and left me as the sole survivor of some kind of apocalyptic event, I remove the frozen beer and stuff my canvas bags inside, without the beautiful oranges.
“Luke!” He jogs back to me, snowy, bag of fruit still in his jaws. Weird dog. “You’re gonna have to walk. Come on, boy.” Misunderstanding, or perhaps outthinking me, Luke climbs up over the snowmobile and lies across my lap. He’s done this before.
The engine roars to life, and I ease out of the driveway, moving carefully, but then I remember the roads are empty, and that there is a shimmering thing haunting the grocery store across the street. If it’s even still there. It could be ten feet away and standing still. The thought propels me, and the snowmobile, toward home.
13
AUGUST
“Show me the way to go home,” I bellow, standing above my open and smoking barbeque. I’ve thrown on a steak and nothing else. Alone at the end of the world, I’ve decided to eat like a man, or at least how I think tough men eat. Because that’s what I am, right? A tough man. The last man in the world! “I’m tired and I want to go to bed!”
The sun has fallen behind the mesa to the West. After a day spent drinking, I’d witnessed the most vivid sunset I’d ever seen. At first, I thought it was the alcohol, but then realized it was probably because of all the human dust drifting around in the atmosphere. That, and smoke from Phoenix. Neither of them helped my mood, so I hit the bottle a little harder and decided that cooking with gas was a good idea. I haven’t set myself on fire yet, but the night is still young, and I still have a quarter bottle of whiskey to go.
My head suddenly feels heavy, and I lean back, eyes on the deep purple sky, mouth hanging slack. The stars are out. Not all of them, of course. The Milky Way won’t be visible for another few hours, and even then the full moon on the horizon might be bright enough to drown it out. But it will be a spectacle, either way. Maybe I’ll lie outside tonight. Watch the satellites zip past.
A flicker of motion tracking across the sky catches my attention. Speaking of satellites. It’s rare to see the glowing hull of a passing satellite this early in the night. But this one is bright. And a little larger than most. Is it the space station? No, it’s moving too fast. In fact, it’s moving a little too fast for any functional satellite.
Perhaps, without control from people on Earth, some of the satellites will start falling to Earth? I shake my head. That will happen eventually, but not in a single day. Most of the satellites orbiting the planet will continue to function, powered by the infinite sun, waiting to transmit signals to no one, until long after I’m dead. I watch the bright speck glide across the violet curtain of fading day, and then, it’s gone. But not. My vision has moved beyond it. I track back, expecting the moving point of light to slip back into view, but I only find a stationary star.
The Distance Page 8