Disappearance

by Wiley, Ryan

  I wish I had thought of this earlier, because I might have actually considered going to Boston for this very reason, even though it's cold there this time of year. If I make it all the way to Mobile without seeing anyone, I'll probably go to Florida. It's warm and beautiful there when there isn't a hurricane. Once I get tired of Florida, and if for some reason I still haven't seen anyone by then, it's crazy but I think I'll go to Boston.

  I make my way down a long exit ramp that takes me into downtown Louisville. Needless to say I'm not met with an entourage of cars. The highway was a pretty clear indication of what was to come – a ghost town.

  Everything looks normal, other than the lack of cars driving and nonfunctioning stoplights. There are a few cars parked in metered spots on the road, but where their former drivers are, I wish I knew.

  That's something I can't wrap my head around. If there were an evacuation of people, I would think every car would be gone, not to mention the highways would be lined with cars trying to leave. That isn't what has happened these past couple days though. There's nobody around town, and nobody on the highways either. Where could everyone possibly have gone?

  I drive around making sure to be aware of what general direction the highway is in. I have a compass at home that I got for Christmas one year. I thought it was a lame gift at the time, but it sure would come in handy now if I had thought about bringing it. My smart phone has a compass app, but my battery died a long time ago and I don't have a car phone charger for it.

  Just as soon as this thought occurs to me, I see a store up ahead called "Electrodes," which looks to be a huge electronics store. Jackpot!

  I pull into the big empty parking lot and park in my favorite spot right by the door. I get out of the car without grabbing any artillery and see if I can pull the sliding glass doors open manually. My attempt is embarrassing; I'm such a weakling.

  I go back to the car and grab my ax, my favorite door smashing instrument, then stand about ten yards away and give it my best baseball swing at the door. When it hits the door, I see something fly off but the glass isn't even cracked. When I go to pick up the ax, I see a huge chunk of the wooden handle broke off. "Piece of shit ax!" I guess you get what you pay for. It's still usable, I just have to make sure I don't get a splinter lodged in my hand every time I hold the handle.

  I reach into the car for my second favorite method of breaking and entering - my pellet gun. Since I'm now in Kentucky, I really should start keeping my eye out for gun stores. I'd think they would have drive-thru gun places on every corner the same way Ohio has liquor stores.

  It takes several shots, but eventually I get the glass to crack and break through. The key I've found is to shoot at the same spot multiple times until it gives in.

  This door has the most durable glass I've seen so far, which makes sense being an electronics store. I have to chip away at it with the ax, which I find to be a much better option than using my foot. I'm not the brightest of the bunch, but I learn from my mistakes. My leg is a scabbed reminder of my earlier stupidity.

  I grab my gun and my flashlight from the car and head into the store, leaving the ax on the ground beside the door. Being the nerd that I am, my eyes light up when I see this huge store filled with electronics I can pick and choose from.

  The only thing I came here for is a car phone charger for my phone and some CDs to make the ride more enjoyable. The car adapter for my smart phone is easy to find so I make my way over to the CDs. The selection isn't nearly as big as it used to be before MP3 players, but there are still some options. I have a wide music taste, as long as it's not Abby's sappy love music.

  I take some Metallica, Aerosmith, Billy Joel, and a nice overpriced collection of Beatles albums. It's starting to get hard to carry everything so I make my way back to the car to unload.

  That's when I drop everything I'm carrying to the ground. Standing at the doorway, with its razor-sharp teeth snarling at me, is a big black dog. It looks very similar to my Cujo – same breed, roughly the same size.

  I slowly reach down for my gun, making sure to keep my eyes on him. He's snarling but not coming toward me yet. I lift the gun off the ground and take the safety off as quietly as possible. The clicking of the safety, though, seems to set him off and he runs towards me.

  Realizing I don't have a clear shot, I look for somewhere safe I can go. Right in front of me is a large shelf holding boxes of software programs. I put my foot up on one of the shelves and climb up. The top has about a one-foot ledge for me to stand and walk on.

  The dog is barking with fury as it tries to climb up the shelf. His first attempts fail as he falls back down. However, this dog is clever. The next time he jumps he realizes he needs to pull himself up with the shelves like I did.

  Surprised by my survival instincts, I take the butt end of my gun and start hitting him with it until he falls back down. This angers him more and, now that I'm this close, I can look in his eyes. I am almost certain this is the exact same dog from Ohio. How can this be though? There's no way Cujo could have walked over two hundred miles to get here.

  With Cujo on the ground, I get my gun into position and aim. He's moving so fast it's hard for me to get a clear shot, but I pull the trigger anyway.

  I miss.

  He gets a good jump off of one of the shelves and takes a snap at my arm, barely missing. I take a swing at him with the gun but also miss. It's enough to cause him to fall back to the ground.

  If only I had my ax with me. Why did I leave it by the door?

  The dog, sensing my next shot will be more successful, starts running away. I take aim and, without much thought, pull the trigger. I see him flinch from the blast as he scurries behind another shelf. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I hit him. It may just be a wimpy pellet gun, but it's still powerful enough to hurt when it shoots you.

  I keep my gun aimed and ready for his next attack. The shelf is just in front of a wall which means he has to come out on either the left or the right side; there's nowhere else to go.

  A minute passes but I don't even hear him move. Did I kill him? Did I shoot the bastard and he's lying behind the shelf bleeding to death?

  Forget what I said about remorse, I want this damn mutt dying a miserable death right now. I hate dogs in my neighborhood and this only reinforces that hatred. All they do is bark non-stop if you get anywhere near them, and attack you if their owner leaves them unleashed.

  Five more minutes pass and I still hear no signs of him. Then ten minutes.

  I can't take the anticipation any longer. After wiping the sweat from my forehead and making sure my gun is loaded, I climb down. I walk toward the left corner of the shelf, gun aimed and ready. With one deep breath, I look around the corner hoping to see a dead dog lying on the ground. Instead, I see nothing. No blood, no hair, no signs of him. Where did he go?

  Fear shoots through me; how could I have missed him? The only time I took my eyes off the shelf was when I was checking that my gun had ammo in it and even then my eyes were away for no more than a second or two. I have no clue where he could have gone; he should be right here.

  I stay by the walls and walk sideways, that way he can't come up to me from behind. Listening intently for any sounds, I make it all the way to the front corner of the store but still don't see him. Making the turn, I sidestep my way to the front door.

  I see my ax, take one quick look back to make sure he's not there, and then reach down and grab it. With my gun now in my left hand and the ax in my right, I still feel unsafe even though the ax allows me to get at least one good swing at him if he gets close.

  Standing here in the open I know I need to act fast. I could make a run for the car or I could go back and get my CDs and phone charger.

  This seems like a no-brainer – safety first right? I really want what I came here for though. The CDs would help my sanity and the phone charger would let me know if my cell service is working yet. If it is, I could call Abby and get out of all this mess.

 
Deciding I don't want this little trip to be for nothing, I sidestep my way back to where I was before. If I were being filmed in a movie right now, I would look like the most uncool hero ever. This is about survival though, not fashion points.

  I make it all the way back to where I thought Cujo would be lying dead and I see the CD's and phone charger on the floor. I'm just going to make a run for it, grab everything I can, and run out the door. If Cujo attacks, I hope I'll be able to fend him off with my ax enough to get to the car.

  Thinking there's no better time than the present, I run for it. With the gun and ax in my left hand, I start picking up the charger and CDs, stuffing some under my left arm and the rest into my right hand. Wasting no time, I run as fast as I can to the car. I see laptops and HD cameras tempting me to reach for them, but they aren't worth risking my life.

  I make it out the door and to the car where I drop everything and look to see if Cujo is coming after me. I don't see him anywhere, but I know he has to be close. My gut tells me he's somewhere in the store hiding behind one of the shelves.

  I open the driver-side door and start throwing everything in. The last things I grab are my gun and ax before I get in the car and close the door.

  I don't know why but my first instinct is to look in the backseat to see if he somehow made it in here, but he didn't. If he comes now, I'll gladly run him over. I'd even provide the courtesy of turning around and driving him over a few more times just for good measure. In scary movies, I hate when the hero shoots the villain one time and expects them to be dead. That's not going to happen in my story, I'll put every last bullet I have in him.

  I turn the car on, taking one last look for a sight of him, and drive away.

  Chapter 12

  "Well that was more adventurous than I was expecting," I say to myself as I pull out of the parking lot.

  I know I need to fill my tank up soon, but there's no way I'm doing it until I get far away from where Cujo might be. I drive back to the main road keeping an eye out for anything else worth investigating.

  I have food, booze, clothes, and now CD's and a phone charger - what more do I need? I do some quick calculations in my head and realize I'm not going to be able to make it all the way to Mobile today. My weak drunken moment and my bout with Cujo #2 are to thank for that.

  I stop the car in the middle of the road and pull out the map. I've highlighted the route I plan on taking, so I look for a good stopping point ahead. Since I'm not going to make it to Mobile, I might as well take my time and enjoy the ride.

  It looks like Nashville is another couple hundred miles away, which means I can make it in about three hours of driving. That would make my ETA somewhere around eight o'clock. I don't enjoy driving in the dark, and I imagine it will be even more difficult since none of the street lights will be working – unless those use solar power. I'd like to make it all the way to Nashville today but I can pull over at any time if I get tired. If I give myself some extra time I can even try to find a hotel and a room to break into.

  Since I'm still in town, I start looking for any nearby gun stores. Besides protection from Cujo and Cujo #2, a real gun would be a lot of fun right now. My pellet gun isn't doing it for me anymore. It's like when you build a tolerance for a drug like caffeine. At first it only takes one cup to make your heart beat out of your chest, but after a week or two the same amount doesn't satisfy you any more.

  This is how I feel with my pellet gun. Sure, it can crack through some windows and scare off Cujo #2. But now I want to blast through windows - and Cujo's head.

  It also sounds fun to just go shoot stuff. I look around and see buildings, cars, and other great target practice items. I also would like to get ahold of some dynamite. Do they have that at gun stores? I'm not sure but I know it's something you don't pick up at Wal-Mart.

  On second thought, I probably shouldn't be messing with dynamite. If I'm careful with a gun, the worst that can happen is a shoulder injury or having debris come back and hit me. With dynamite, I could easily blow myself up, especially considering I have no clue what I'm doing. I don't even know where to buy the stuff!

  Again, I wish I had Internet access. All I would have to do is type "guns" into Google and it would automatically figure out my location and display any stores in the area.

  My generation takes the Internet for granted. We've had it our entire lives, and I'm starting to get a taste of how much more difficult simple things like this are without it. How did people even find stores back then, look in the phone book? I honestly have no idea.

  I reach for my new phone charger to see what happens when I plug in my phone. Who knows, I could get lucky and be able to make a Google search or call someone. I start to get excited about the possibility, but remind myself it isn't very likely to come true. First, I have to figure out how to even open this stupid thing without cutting myself to death. Can we please learn to ship products in something other than impossible-to-open hard plastic?

  After repeated attempts, I get out of the car and, gripping my ax, start beating down on the corner of the package like I'm chopping wood. After a few swings, I've cut off enough of it to get the charger out. I then plug my phone in and wait a few seconds to see what happens.

  Nothing does, but then I realize I need to have the car on in order for it to work. When I do, my phone lights up and I say a silent prayer for it to start working. Life would be so much easier if it did. I wait and wait for it to find a signal and change the "No Signal" display to at least one bar.

  After a few minutes go by, I know it's not going to happen and I throw the phone down. I risked my life for the small chance of getting a signal, and now I realize that was all for nothing. The only thing I got out of it was a near heart attack and a few Beatles CDs. It makes me so angry and depressed I want to drive full speed into the nearest building.

  Since I don't have any Internet access and I'm in a big and unfamiliar city, my hopes of finding a gun store seem unlikely. As much as I would like a real gun, I don't see any sense in getting lost and wasting gas while I look. If I'm going to make it to Nashville today, I need to leave now. I'm sure there will be plenty of gun stores when I get there.

  After driving away from Cujo, I've gotten a little side-tracked from where the highway is. My map doesn't have a close up of the city, but I know if I stay in one general direction I'll hit the outer belt eventually. As luck would have it, I see a sign for I-65. I have to re-check the map because I thought I would have to get on another highway before merging onto I-65, but sure enough it runs straight down the middle of Louisville.

  After following the signs, I make it onto the highway. I never plan on going to Louisville again. Now that I know where I'm going, it's as good a time as any to pull out my new CD collection.

  I have to start with the Beatles – the sticker price was $130, after all. I got it for an absolute steal.

  I'm not a die-hard Beatles fan by any means but, like most people, I've heard their music on the radio and know they had a million good songs. I grab the first CD and put it in. I wasn't expecting it, but hearing sound of any kind is really quite soothing. Over the last three days, the only things I've heard are myself muttering curse words and Cujos #1 and #2 telling me how much they want to eat me. Hearing human voices singing makes me remember people again – real-life human beings who talk and laugh and sing.

  A few days ago I never would have believed how depressing it is to be alone. I thought I might actually enjoy it to some degree; how wrong I was.

  Listening to the Beatles makes me think most of all about Abby. I know it sounds sappy like the music she listens to, but I love her dearly and miss her like crazy. I wonder how different these past few days would have been if it were me and her together, instead of just me.

  Where would we be now, and what would we be doing? Would I have convinced her to head south instead of staying home? I think it would have been a tough sell to go to Mobile. That option probably wouldn't even have come up. My guess is she
would have wanted to go to California, which I would have been more than happy to do. It's so beautiful there.

  Now that I think about it, Abby brings up LA a lot. She doesn't directly say she wants to move there or anything, but she makes comments about what's going on there and how amazing it would be to live there. Abby is a very passive person who would never come out and say she wants to move, but I think she does.

  Three days ago I never would have considered moving because we both have safe, secure jobs and our cost of living is quite low. It's so easy to maintain the status quo, but the winters are awful in Ohio and there isn't much excitement around here.

  Breaking into homes and buildings changes a person though, and I feel I'm already more adventurous and daring. Packing up everything and moving to California seems like such a small risk now. Yeah, it might be tough for a few weeks or months. In the short term, it won't be as good as what we have now. But life is a marathon, not a sprint. If moving to California would bring more happiness in the long run, then that's exactly what we should do.

  I don't know where Abby is now, but whenever I see her again, I'm going to ask her if she wants to move and if she says yes, do it. After all, the only reason we are in Ohio is because we grew up here, went to school here, and naturally found jobs here. The world is a gigantic place, and there's no reason we should be limited to the one small area in which we grew up. It doesn't have to be California; it could be anywhere. We could move out of the country if we wanted to. The worst that could happen is it not working out and we come home and beg our bosses to take us back. We both have family who would support us no matter what we do. As long as I'm with her, I know I'll be happy.