Fred pulled over along the sidewalk in front of the grocery store parking lot. He let the motor idle for a minute, then shut it off. They pulled their helmets off and sat without moving.
“Why is it so quiet?” whispered Wilma. She felt a shiver run up her spine.
“Maybe the power is still off?” offered Fred.
“It’s more than that,” said Wilma as she slid off the motorcycle and stood there, helmet dangling from her hand. “I don’t see any people. There should be someone, coming in or out of the store, or voices. Anything. But there’s nothing!”
Fred got off the motorcycle too. He hooked his helmet over the bike, then took Wilma’s and did the same. With a hesitant look at each other they walked across the oddly-still parking lot. Usually someone’s pick-up truck would have a dog or two in the back, but there were none today.
The automatic door didn’t open, but when they pushed on the door it swung inward. They stood in the doorway and stared. In the dim light they could see food sitting on the shelves. But there wasn’t a soul in the store. A cart sat in a check-out line, half filled with groceries, with more groceries on the belt and in bags at the end of the check out line. There were carts sitting in the aisles of the store, some with a few food items in them, but no people.
A dripping noise came from an aisle at the far right. They cautiously walked over, Wilma holding Fred’s arm. Peering around the end of the aisle they saw a carton of ice cream in a cart, melting and dripping into a puddle on the floor.
“What’s going on???” Wilma yelled, grabbing at her head. She turned and ran back toward the door, Fred right behind her. They stood in the sunshine, breathing hard and holding onto each other’s hands.
“Come on, let’s drive though town and check some other places. Maybe everyone gathered at the community center. Maybe there’s going to be some kind of announcement or something.” Fred led the way back to the motorcycle.
They drove slowly through town. Doors were propped open at some of the businesses, as was normal in nice weather, and they could see that no one was in sight. At the far end of town they pulled into the parking lot of the community center. The door was wide open, so they walked on in. At the reception desk a cup of coffee sat next to a notepad and pen. Fred reached over and felt the side of the cup.
“Cold,” he said. They walked up the hall and glanced into the rooms, mostly offices. The hall ended at a large room filled with tables. In an adjacent kitchen the ingredients for a meal were in various stages of preparation. The meals for seniors were prepared here.
“This is creepy. What’s happened to everyone? If they’d been evacuated, wouldn’t there be notices posted? Signs of chaos? Wouldn’t they still be going building to building making sure they found everyone?” Wilma hugged her arms against her chest and felt panic rising inside.
“The phones!” Fred exclaimed, and they headed back to the reception area. He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear. Tapping the phone with his fingers he said “Hello? Hello?” Apparently nothing happened because his voice got louder and louder, repeating “HELLO? HELLO?”
Wilma took the phone from his hand and said gently, “Honey, if it’s not working, yelling won‘t help!!”
“Let’s go back outside,” said Fred. He couldn’t figure out, for the life of him, what was going on. It felt hard to breathe.
“There’s no electricity. No people. No sign of damage or rioting or a hurried evacuation.” Fred said slowly.
“Everything is intact,” Wilma added. “I wonder if these cars would still start?”
They walked car to car, looking for keys. “Here’s one!” Wilma called. Fred joined her, opened the door, got in and turned the key. The motor started smoothly and idled. He shut it back off and sat there with his hands dangling on the steering wheel, a perplexed look on his face.
“What should we do?” Wilma asked. After a long silence Fred said “I don’t know….I just don’t know. I have no idea!”
He got out of the car and they walked back to the motorcycle. They stood near it, looking first one direction up the street, then the other.
“Come on. Let’s walk through the neighborhood and check door-to-door. Someone has to be here somewhere, and someone must know what’s going on!” Fred led the way and they started up the sidewalk, away from the main street. They knocked on the front door of every house. When no one answered, they checked to see if it was locked. They opened the unlocked ones, took a glance and hollered “hello!” then went on to the next house.
Their efforts didn’t turn up any people in the three blocks they checked, and they were getting discouraged. They headed back to Main street.
“I’m hungry. Let’s get something to eat, and we’ll make a list so we can pay them later. I don’t want to just leave money on the counter because someone might show up and take it,” said Wilma. They rode the motorcycle back to the grocery store.
“Hey, let’s go check out McDonald’s!” said Fred. It was across the street from the grocery store. They walked over and entered the restaurant. Trays of partially-eaten meals sat on a few tables, and a tray with food on it sat on the counter. Fries sat, cold, on the serving stand, and wrapped burgers on heaters that were no longer warm.
Sadly, Fred said “We don’t even know how long this stuff has been here. Nothing smells spoiled, but we don’t dare eat it!”
They walked back to the grocery store. Walking through the aisles they decided they better stick to canned and packaged food. They gathered up bread, canned meat, a jar of mayo, a package of chips and a bag of cookies. Finding a pen by one of the cash registers, they took a receipt out of the trash and wrote down what they had.
Back out in the sunshine they made sandwiches and ate. They made another trip back inside for something to drink, writing that down as well.
“Do we leave the list here, or take it with us? What if someone else takes it or moves it?” Wilma asked. They decided to make another copy of the list for themselves. They gathered up more groceries, wrote them down, then headed back to their campsite.
The rest of the day they felt like they were in a daze. They went about things, staying close to the uhaul and to each other.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Fred asked finally. “The old TV show, “The Twilight Zone”. It’s like, today is creepy, and tomorrow we’ll go to town and everything will be normal and no one will have any idea what we’re talking about. I won’t even mind if they laugh at us!”
“Yeah!” Wilma said with a feeble laugh. It comforted her a little to think of that. “Or maybe this is just a dream. Maybe one of us is asleep and having this dream and none of it is real!”
Fred reached over and gave her rear-end a squeeze. She jumped and squealed. “What was that for?”
“Just checking to see if it’s your dream or mine!” he said with a mischievous grin.
That evening they sat inside the camper. It was still dark toward Las Vegas and no airplanes flew over. They went to bed reassuring themselves that all would be back to normal in the morning.
A light wind made the Greasewood bushes shake slightly as the sun rose. Fred and Wilma opened the camper door and poked their faces out like a mouse looking to see if the coast is clear before leaving it’s hidey-hole. They stood listening, for airplanes or cars, or anything man-made.
“Well, welcome to Day 2 of the Twilight Zone!” said Fred.
“Not necessarily! It may just be quiet here. We won’t know until we go back to town!” said Wilma. They made oatmeal for breakfast, feeling all the while like actors on a stage. It was so bizarre. Then they got on the motorcycle and headed back to town.
Nothing had moved. Nothing had changed. Their note was still laying on the check-out counter at the grocery store. The carton of ice cream had stopped dripping in the end aisle.
“We need to go to Las Vegas and see for ourselves what’s going on! You know, back in the 70’s and 80’s they did a lot of nuclear testing on Yucca mountain north
of Vegas. Maybe there’s been some kind of accident related to that. Maybe we’re being exposed to radiation here.” Wilma said.
“You’re right, but we don’t have enough gas in the motorcycle. We’ll have to find some gas, or…take one of these cars!” Fred looked around the parking lot.
“But what if we get to Las Vegas and everything is normal? We could be arrested for car theft!” Wilma exclaimed.
“Right now, even that sounds pretty good! At least there would be people! And we could find out what the heck is going on!” Fred said emphatically. He walked along the rows of cars in the lot, mumbling to himself and testing door handles. Several were unlocked but there were no keys. Then he gave a yell and hollered “Eureka!” and waved her over.
“Oh, come on, Fred! You’ve got to be kidding!” Wilma said as she eyed the powder-blue Prius with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. “Even in a time like this, you’d take a chance of being seen driving that thing?” She giggled and leaned on the car next to it. She turned her head and saw keys dangling from the ignition, noted that it was a Cadillac, and said “How about if I follow you in this one?”
Fred walked around and looked in the car Wilma was leaning against. He kicked it’s tires and furrowed his brow, which made Wilma laugh. “We better see how much gas is in it first,” he said, reaching for the door handle. He tugged, then stepped back.
“It’s locked!” he exclaimed. “Someone was going to be in for a surprise! Guess we better see if the powder puff is unlocked!”
It was, and when he turned the key to check the gas gauge he was nearly blasted out of the car by loud music pounding out of the speakers. Fred’s fingers fumbled frantically on the buttons and it changed to another song. Wilma reached in and turned the volume off.
“Thanks.” Fred grumbled. The gas tank was nearly full, so they buckled themselves in and drove out of the parking lot.
“Wait! Go back!” said Wilma. “We don’t know what we’re going to find. We should get some food and water and supplies.”
“Good idea,” said Fred. He swung a u-turn in the middle of the street, grinned, and went the full 360 and made another u-turn.
“What on earth are you doing?” Wilma asked him in amazement.
“Baiting the cops!” Fred grinned. He pulled right up to the “No Parking! Fire Lane!” sign and shut off the engine. “What should we get?”
“Just grab a bag and find whatever you like. Get drinks, too.” She handed him a bag and took one herself. It felt weird bagging groceries while walking along the aisles. In a short time her bag was full, and she had a few extra bottles of juice under her arm.
When she got back to the front Fred was setting a bag next to one that was already full. “Just got to get some drinks now,” he said sheepishly. Wilma’s mouth dropped at the sight of bags of chips, candy bars, beef jerky, and other junk food piled up in the bags. In a few moments Fred reappeared with a case of pop in each hand.
“We should get some water, too,” Fred said innocently, trying to appear at least somewhat responsible. He set the pop down and headed back into the aisle. He returned with a case of 16-oz bottles and two 1-gallon jugs of water. “Okay, this should do it. You done?”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh and decided not to make a fuss over it. She reached for one of his bags. “Let me help you with that.”
He looked at her with surprise, then followed her out the door with a smile on his face.
They drove to the freeway, passing through two other small towns on the way. Buildings and cars sat where you’d expect them, but nothing moved. There wasn’t even a breeze. It was like driving through a painting, or a still-life model.
They were quiet as they drove up the freeway ramp. Nothing moved but there was a change here. Cars and trucks sat in the lanes of traffic as though someone had hit the “Pause” button on life.
“This is SO weird! If there’d been something like an EMP or a solar flare, the cars would have drifted to a stop and people would have been pulling over on the shoulder. And there would at least BE people!” Wilma said, shaking her head and trying to make sense of it.
“It would be complete chaos, not this freeze-action stuff!” Fred agreed. “It’s like…I don’t know….” His voice dwindled into silence. He steered the little car around the cars and trucks on the freeway. At first they stared into each one they passed, but all were empty. All were silent, no motors running.
They topped the rise and looked across the city of Las Vegas. The freeway lanes were cluttered with cars now and they drove slowly on the shoulder. On the outskirts of the city they came to an overpass with no shoulders and stopped the car. There was no exit here, so he couldn’t simply back up and go off the freeway.
“Let’s carry the food and water across and find another car,” Fred said. They walked across the overpass, threading their way between the vehicles. Fred pointed out that there were keys in all of the ignitions. He leaned closer and looked into a couple of the cars, then said, “The odd thing is, they’re all in ‘park’ and it looks like the keys have been turned to the ‘off’ position! So, if they knew they were going to park and shut off their engines, why didn’t anyone pull off on the shoulder? Why did they just stop right where they were?”
Wilma didn’t answer. She was so far out of any element of understanding that she had stopped trying to find an explanation for anything now, and simply tried to function with what was at hand.
The road widened out and the shoulder reappeared. Fred started looking for another car. His eyes widened and a huge grin filled his face. Wilma followed his gaze to a Highway Patrol Cruiser.
“Okay, go for it. Might as well live the whole fantasy!” she said. They walked over to it. The keys were in it, so they got in and Fred started the car. He reached for the buttons and knobs and had the siren and lights going within seconds. He pealed onto the shoulder and the parked cars became blurs as they passed them. Wilma just hung on and let him have his fun. A few miles later they came to another overpass, but this one had an exit and they took it.
The siren and lights went off now, and Fred headed down Las Vegas Boulevard, once more weaving among the cars. At intersections with stoplights the cars going one direction were lined up and obediently stopped, as though waiting for the light to turn green.
“You’d think if people simply disappeared, all the things they had been carrying, like grocery bags, would be sitting on the sidewalk!” Wilma mused as she looked out the window. They were on “the strip” now, entering the normally-glittering casino district. Fred pulled to a stop in front of Caesar’s Palace.
“I always wanted to go in there and see if it looks like it does in the movies,” Fred said, and opened the car door. Wilma did the same. “We better lock it so our food and drinks are still here when we come back,” he added.
They walked across the concrete to the doors of the casino and entered. It was dim inside, with only a small amount of light coming through the row of glass doors. They walked among the gaming tables and the slot machines. They came to the cashier‘s cage and walked through the open door. Stacks of money sat on the counter near the barred exchange windows. Fred picked up the piles and made one stack. He flipped through it, tapping it with his finger.
“More money than we make in a year. And it probably isn’t worth anything,” he said sadly.
“True,” Wilma said. “Keep it anyway. I don’t know what this whole thing is about, but in my opinion, all the rules have changed. From now on, if it’s there, it’s ours. We may be in a whole lot of trouble if everyone reappears, but I guess we’ll have to sort that out when the time comes.”
Fred nodded his head and looked at the money. He separated a stack about an inch thick, folded it and put it in his pocket, placing the rest back on the counter. He took Wilma’s hand and they walked back to the door and out into the sunshine.
They went back to the cruiser and drove farther up the street. When they reached a place that was blocked, they ba
cked up and turned onto another street. Soon they were away from the strip and in a shopping district surrounded by houses. There were fewer cars here and they didn’t have to backtrack for a while.
After driving aimlessly for several blocks Fred pulled to the curb and parked. He leaned his forehead on the steering wheel and sighed, then sat back up. Wilma put her hand on his arm and looked at him, but her eyes went past him to the building across the street. It was a church, a brown brick building with white trim and a steeple. Thoughts filtered into her mind and a new theory came to the surface.
Prepper Fiction Collection: Four Books in One Page 24