by Mark Lukens
And if he was really in a coma, then what could he do about it anyway? If this was all some kind of vivid dream he was living through, then at least he still had free will enough to choose to leave his home.
There was always the possibility that he was dead, and this was Hell. But he didn’t like to think about that idea too much.
Besides, he was going crazy in this house. At least getting out and searching for other people would make him feel a little better. He needed to do something. He had already pillaged his whole neighborhood and the small gas station down the street as much as he could. He had siphoned gasoline out of the cars and trucks in the driveways and stored it in as many gas cans as he could find. He hated siphoning, and he hadn’t been very good at it at first. But as with other skills, he’d gotten better and better as time went by.
He couldn’t forget about the nightmares.
They hadn’t gone away. He was still dreaming of Cheryl in the bedroom, a wasted version of her, some dead thing that crawled towards him, begging him to come back to bed with her because she couldn’t sleep by herself. If anything, the dreams had gotten worse. Sometimes he dreamed that she’d crawled all the way out of the bedroom and was standing over him while he slept on the couch.
Sometimes he woke up screaming.
He started sleeping more in the daytime and staying awake at night so at least he wouldn’t wake up in the darkness, swatting at the rotting dead thing that used to be his wife standing next to his couch. At least in the daylight he could recover more quickly from the nightmare. Maybe he would still have the nightmares after he left his house, but at least he would know that Cheryl’s pajamas would still be here in their bedroom, laid out on the bed underneath the covers, and she wouldn’t be able to follow him.
The second reason he wanted to leave, the reason that gave him hope, was that he’d seen something. The last time he’d been at the gas station he’d seen a blur of movement in the brush at the other end of the parking area; it was a small dark shape running away. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the thing, but he still believed it was a cat, a frightened cat bolting back into the brush.
He had spent a few minutes exploring the brush and grass, calling for the cat. He even tore open a bag of cat food and poured the food onto a paper plate. Still no luck. Maybe it hadn’t been a cat. Maybe it had been a raccoon. Or a big rat. Or maybe it hadn’t been anything at all. Maybe it had just been his imagination (like Cheryl when she called to him from their bedroom).
It could’ve been his imagination, but he left the plate of cat food and the open bag beside it just in case the cat had been real. Or the raccoon or rat. Whatever it was, at least it would have some easy food for a little while.
Jeff wasn’t sure if what he’d seen had been real, but he chose to believe it was. Why not? It gave him some hope, and it gave him some sense of purpose. If there was a cat around here (or even a rat), then that meant there were other living things here besides himself; maybe very few living beings, but there had to be others somewhere. He decided right then and there to pack up his vehicle and drive farther away from his house and explore the city.
An hour later he was loading up his Chevy Equinox. He filled the back with camping supplies including a small grill he’d found and some charcoal and lighter fluid, along with bricks to build a fire pit and wood he’d found in someone’s fireplace for a campfire. He had four extra plastic cans of gasoline and two siphoning hoses. He threw a duffel bag of extra clothes and an extra pair of hiking boots in the back seat. He brought two pillows, two blankets, two bedsheets, and a sleeping bag and foam pad. He had a pile of paperback books and an assortment of CDs and cassette tapes. He crammed in two cardboard boxes of canned and boxed food in the back along with the gas and camping supplies. He included two folding lawn chairs. He brought along a toolbox filled with tools and a few extra parts for his truck: hoses, belts, and a tire plug kit. He also stacked up a few cases of water and sodas. And of course he couldn’t forget the alcohol—six cases of beer and four bottles of liquor—something to help chase those bad dreams away at night. The last thing he packed into his truck was a handgun and two boxes of ammo that he’d found four houses down from his. He tucked it underneath the driver’s seat. He wasn’t sure why he was bringing a gun, but he felt like it was better to be safe than sorry.
He was pretty sure he had everything he needed, but he could always stop at any store along the way to get anything else if supplies ran low. At the last moment he pillaged his closest neighbor’s house for dog food and cat food. They had a small dog and two cats. He wanted to have some food in case he came across another animal. He still couldn’t get the idea out of his head that there was something else alive here with him on this now barren planet, and the thought of it brought a smile to his face.
Jeff drove down State Road 54 towards Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, which led south into Tampa. But first he pulled into the car dealership near their subdivision and parked. He went inside the building and looked around until he found sets of keys. He grabbed a bunch of keys and went out to the parking lot, pressing the buttons on the fobs until the headlights of the vehicles lit up. And then he found the one he wanted . . . a brand new Jaguar.
It was a beauty. Something he couldn’t have ever afforded . . . a luxury he never could’ve had on his salary. And now he could just drive it right off the lot. Who was going to stop him?
“I’ll be back with it in a moment,” he told the imaginary salesperson.
The car roared to life when he turned the key, the motor rumbling with power. He gunned the motor a few times, and then he adjusted the seat, the rearview mirror, and slipped his seatbelt on. He turned on the radio, pressing a few of the preprogrammed buttons, but all he got was static. He had a stack of CDs in his SUV. He grabbed AC/DC and slid it in. The thrum of guitars and beat of the drums blasted out of the speakers.
Jeff stomped the gas pedal down, and the Jaguar’s rear end fishtailed, sliding, almost doing a complete donut. He straightened the wheel and sped towards the exit out onto State Road 54, hitting the brakes and sliding sideways, out of control for a moment. He raced down the three-lane street, swerving in and out of vehicles parked all over the road, their seats draped with clothing, jewelry, cell phones, belt buckles, a few pacemakers and hip implants here and there.
A few miles down the road, Jeff turned around. He drove back towards the car lot, darting in and out of the lines of vehicles, whooping with delight, driving faster and faster until he miscalculated.
“Oh Shit!”
Jeff slammed the front of the Jaguar into the side of a pickup truck, everything coming to an abrupt halt. The airbag exploded in front of him in a millisecond, knocking him back into the seat. It felt like his nose was broken and he felt a sharp pain right in the middle of his forehead.
Everything was still. The CD had skipped, starting over at the beginning of the song. He turned the music all the way down. He sat there for a moment, mentally checking himself. Nothing seemed to be broken. Even his nose was okay he guessed, just a little bloody. He lifted his hands up in front of him in the powder floating in the air from the exploded airbag and looked at his fingers, wiggling them.
And then he began to laugh.
He couldn’t stop laughing. He unbuckled his seatbelt and ejected the CD from the stereo. The Jaguar’s engine was still rumbling, but he let it run. Wisps of smoke were pouring up from the front of the car. He laughed harder at that.
You could’ve killed yourself.
He laughed even harder, so hard he could barely catch his breath.
“You could’ve paralyzed yourself, you stupid son of a bitch,” he said through his laughter. “You could’ve been stuck inside that fucking car until you died.”
Hilarious. Maimed. Death. A way out of this dead world . . . it was just too funny.
After he stopped laughing he began trembling. Just nerves, just the shock wearing off and the weight of what could’ve happened suddenly leaning down on hi
m.
His car crash wasn’t too far away from the dealership, and he walked down the three lane road that was littered with vehicles.
“I’ve decided not to buy the Jaguar,” he told the invisible salesperson as he got back into his SUV and started it up. He could’ve taken another vehicle while he was at the car lot, but he didn’t feel like moving everything he had packed. It was late in the afternoon, and he wanted to find a place to camp for the night.
He ended up camping out at the edge of a department store parking lot. He found an area that was free of cars and trucks, and he started a campfire right there on the pavement. He laid out his sleeping bag and foam pad for later. He decided not to bring out his radio tonight. He sat in his lawn chair and ate a dinner of canned foods cooked over the open fire.
It was quiet after the fire died down. He had some wood he’d cut up with his hand ax, and he used most of it to keep the fire going through the night. He drank beer after beer, watching the fire until he drifted off to sleep near dawn.
Before going to sleep, he laid out two small piles of dog and cat food near the edge of his “camp.” He didn’t know if it would attract an animal, but he could hope.
DAY SIXTEEN:
Jeff nearly wrecked his Chevy Equinox as he veered close to a parked car to avoid the dog in the middle of the road. He stomped his foot down on the brake pedal, and the tires screeched in the silent, stale air as his truck slid down the road to a stop right next to a golden retriever that stared at him blankly, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. The dog looked like he was smiling.
Jeff jumped out of his SUV and stood there for a moment. He thought the dog might run off like the cat he’d seen a few days ago. He never thought about the dog attacking him, not this dog. No, he could tell that this dog was friendly. This dog was a family dog. He even had a collar with a little metal tag hanging from it.
“Come here, boy,” Jeff said.
The dog ducked his head and took a few steps forward. He was wagging his tail and whining a little.
“It’s okay,” Jeff whispered. “Come on, boy.” He patted his leg.
The dog took another tentative step forward.
“Hold on a second,” Jeff said. He reached inside his SUV and shut off the engine. The world was deathly silent once again. He hurried to the back of the Chevy and grabbed the bag of dog food. He had to hurry; he was afraid the dog would take off.
He turned around with the bag of food in his hand and the dog was already there, waiting.
Jeff smiled. “Good boy.”
The dog whined and sat down, his tail thumping on the asphalt. He licked his chops, his eyes on the bag of dog food in Jeff’s hand.
“You know what this is, don’t you?”
The dog whined again and cocked his head a little.
“Okay, hold on, boy. Let me find a bowl.” Jeff grabbed a plastic bowl and poured the hard dog food into it. Then he set the bowl down on the pavement and backed away.
The dog tore into the food, chomping it down. The food was gone in a few minutes.
“You were hungry,” Jeff said. Of course the dog was hungry. How much food had he found since . . . since whatever had happened? The dog might not be as resourceful as the cat he’d seen (and now he was certain that he’d seen that cat—he wasn’t going completely crazy just yet).
Jeff gave the dog some more food and then some water. Jeff petted the dog after he was finished with his meal. He had a friend now. He checked the metal tag on the collar and read the name: Winston. There was also an address and a phone number to contact in case the dog got lost.
“Winston?” Jeff said.
The dog’s ears perked up.
“What kind of name is that? Like Winston Churchill?”
The dog panted, wagging his tail.
“I guess you like it,” Jeff said. He patted his leg. “Come on, Winston. You want to come with me?”
Winston followed Jeff to the passenger door. He opened the door, and the dog jumped right inside.
“I guess you’re ready to go with me on my exploration. You’ll be my co-pilot.”
Winston panted and seemed to smile at the idea.
A few hours later, after navigating through the jammed-up cars on the road, Jeff drove along a sidewalk until he came to a side street that led to a massive collection of buildings—a hospital.
“Let’s see what we can find in there,” Jeff said.
Winston’s ears perked up.
Jeff found that he was talking out loud a lot now that Winston was with him. Before, he had felt kind of odd talking to himself even though no one else was around to hear him. But now, it was like he had a reason to talk. And Winston seemed to like it.
He pulled over on a small street between one of the main hospital buildings and a six story parking garage. The parking lots were half filled with cars, and a few cars were stalled in the roads. Jeff didn’t need to bother looking in those vehicles—he knew he would only find the clothes and any other inanimate objects left behind.
Jeff got out of his SUV, and Winston scampered out after him. “We should stock up on some medical supplies while we’re here,” Jeff told Winston. He looked at the parking garage. Maybe he would walk up there to the top and look around. But the hospital building was four stories, and that was high enough for him to have a good look around.
He grabbed a flashlight and a bottle of water and walked towards the entrance. He pushed the glass doors open, and they stayed open. He walked through the massive lobby, past the reception desk where piles of clothes lay on the chairs behind the counter. He passed the elevators and found a set of stairs beyond a metal door with a push bar. He pushed the door open and was met with pitch-black darkness. He turned his flashlight on, and the beam barely penetrated the darkness. He entered the large stairwell, holding the door open so Winston could follow him inside.
The door slammed shut behind him, completely shutting out the light from the lobby, leaving him and Winston in the darkness with only the beam of light.
What if the door automatically locked?
Jeff’s heart hammered in his chest. A cold sweat broke out, prickling his skin. How could he be so stupid? He pulled on the door, and it opened. He breathed out a sigh of relief. He could imagine himself trapped inside the stairwell. There was no reason to believe the doors would lock, but he couldn’t be sure. He had to be careful. Winston followed him back inside the lobby. Jeff found a bulky chair to wedge the door open. He knew the door wasn’t going to lock, but having the chair there made him feel better.
They entered the stairwell again, and the splash of sunlight from the lobby made walking up the first set of stairs much easier. The sunlight even managed to reach all the way up to the second level.
Jeff walked around the second level of the hospital, passing room after room of hospital gowns spread out underneath the sheets on the hospital beds. Equipment stood quiet. The rooms were murky even in the daylight. A set of nurse’s scrubs and a pair of Crocs were piled up on the floor in front of a cart with some kind of machine on it that Jeff couldn’t name. He hated hospitals, and being in this hospital was spookier than he thought it would be.
Winston sniffed at the clothes on the floor, taking his time and really smelling them. If a dog could look confused about a scent he was picking up, then this would be that look. Maybe Winston was picking up some kind of strange smells . . . maybe it was the scent of whatever force or occurrence had made all of the living things disappear; well, most of them anyway. Or maybe it was the smell of nothing, the complete nothingness that was bothering the dog.
“Come on, boy,” Jeff said as he walked back to the stairwell.
They ventured up to the top floor and then out onto the roof. Once again, Jeff found a big chair to keep the door to the roof propped open. He couldn’t tell if the roof door would automatically lock, and he didn’t want to take any chances. He could imagine him and Winston dying on the rooftop of dehydration, screaming for help out to a dead wo
rld all around them.
Moments later he stood at the edge of the roof, leaning against a waist-high block wall. He stared out at the world that was so quiet and still. The sky was hazy, almost like there was smoke in the air, but he didn’t smell any smoke. He didn’t smell anything, and he didn’t taste anything, just the stale air. Clouds drifted by lazily in the pale blue sky. Everything was muted, not as vibrant as he remembered. It was like looking at everything through a filter or a film. He looked all around them from this height, searching for signs of smoke or any other sign of life. But there was nothing.
He wondered if there could be another person out there. Or a few of them. He’d seen a cat so far, and now he had Winston. If they and he had somehow survived whatever had happened, then there had to be other living beings. They had to be around somewhere. But they could be a county away, or a state away, or even in another country. He hadn’t seen a single bird yet or a squirrel or even any insects, but the odds were that there were other living things around. Had to be.
Jeff went back down the dark stairwell, passing the fourth and then the third floors. He was now deep in the darkness of the stairwell with only his flashlight to guide his way. He had found some medical supplies on the upper floors for the first aid kit that he was building: bandages, antibiotics, medical tools, and ten bottles of various kinds of painkillers. He shoved everything into a duffel bag he’d found. A morbid thought occurred to him as he collected the painkillers. He could take a whole bottle of them if things got too bad; he could just take a whole bottle of them and slip away.
But what about Winston? He couldn’t leave Winston trapped here in this dead world by himself. Could he take Winston with him? Could he kill the dog if he had to?
Jeff didn’t want to think about that. It hadn’t gotten that bad yet.
As he moved carefully down the concrete steps, he couldn’t help thinking of his wife again. He could imagine Cheryl here in the darkness, shuffling down the steps to him.
“I can’t sleep without youuuu . . .”