But nothing grabbed me, no one shot me, and as Callie settled down and my eyes got used to the mid-day sun, everything became a little clearer.
I didn’t know what to expect exactly, but the sheer silence settling over me definitely wasn’t on the list. Except for the slight breeze rustling the leaves overhead, profound quietness engulfed me, and nearly sent me to my knees.
Something wasn’t right, but I remained upright, trying to figure it out. No cars, no sounds of vehicles rumbling in the distance. No planes—which normally filled the sky since we lived only a handful of miles away from the airport and a military base. Not even the sound of a bird broke the extreme calm.
I lowered the knife, but continued to hold it firmly in my grip.
The bunker door had taken quite a beating. Bullets left large divots and pockmarks in the surface, and most of the paint had been either blown off or scraped away. Someone had even attempted to dig around the door as if trying to find a way to pry it open. Whoever it was had put a lot of effort into trying to get inside before giving up—thank goodness.
I dropped the door into place, but knew if I locked it, there would be no way to get back inside if I needed to. Unlocked, others could raid it, but locked would make it useless to everyone including myself. The choice was an easy one.
The snow that had covered the ground in a thick layer of fluff only two months before had long since melted, and now tall grass, several inches high, needed to be mowed. I had packed my duffle bag anticipating the snow and cold, remembering everything the same way I’d last seen it, but flower buds escaped their dirt beds and hinted at an early spring. Yellows and pinks pushed upward—Mom’s flowers—tulips and crocuses she’d planted several years ago right before she had started chemo. They kept returning year after year.
Everything looked normal, except for the back of the house, which crumbled in on itself, and the family car in the driveway covered in dust with all of its windows shattered.
I didn’t know what to do, where to even begin, but my feet dragged me forward one step at a time until I reached the open wall that led into my father’s bedroom. Curtains fluttered and electrical wires hung from the beams. Dirt covered everything and large puddles of water sat stagnant in the middle of the bed, and a large section of the floor.
My boots crushed the glass as I stepped inside Dad’s room, and the sound of it seemed louder than normal. Nothing looked safe to touch, so I kept my hands to myself, but I took in everything—the way the bed sagged from all the debris, the wedding picture of my parents still hanging on the dilapidated wall, and all the clothes on hangers in the closet.
I entered the hall, afraid to look at the rest of the house, but needing to.
Toby’s room looked like a tornado had hit it, but I had no idea if the mess had occurred before or after the night I went into the bunker. He wasn’t known for his cleanliness. His windows were blown out, like the rest of the house, and several of his treasured posters hung limp and crinkled on the walls, ruined by the weather.
At the door to my room, I stood in the hall and stared in at my broken bed, shattered windows, and all the things I’d loved at one time, destroyed by almost two months of winter snow and spring rain. None of this seemed real, almost as though I was looking at someone else’s life.
But this had been my life, my home, my everything.
Now my home had been wiped away as though no one had ever really lived here at all. Like a set in a bad horror movie—vacant, eerie, disturbing.
I swallowed and moved quickly through the other rooms, not wanting to spend any more time thinking about a life that was no longer an option for me or my family.
“Dad?” I eased open the bathroom door, the den door, the kitchen door.
Of course he wasn’t here, but as long as the possibility remained, and as long as I didn’t see his body in the rubble, I would call for him—I’d always call for him.
The front door fell onto the porch floor, leaving the house wide open to the neighborhood, so I climbed over it and walked down the cement steps toward the middle of my front yard in search of someone, anyone, who could help me make sense of what had happened.
Cars with broken windows lined the streets. Several large trees had fallen across the road and a house three doors down from mine was nothing but a pile of wood and bricks. In an ironic twist, the house’s mailbox stood with its red flag upright.
Electric poles had tumbled like a row of dominos and the wires snaked into the streets, falling over cars and trees in their path. Leaves blew across the sidewalks with the breeze and the faint smell of charred wood encircled my senses.
“Hello?” I cupped my mouth as I glanced from one direction to another, searching.
“Hello?”My own voice echoed back.
“Anyone?” I called again.
Abandoned homes and cars stared back at me. Something moved in one window, and hope filled my chest, but it soon deflated as only a set of broken window blinds clinked and moved with the wind.
Several minutes ticked by without a response, and my arms dropped to my sides. Where did everyone go?
The world spun around me, turning with increased speed, though my feet remained grounded to one spot. The stillness grew larger, almost deafening, until Callie gave a soft meow. Her single protest brought the spinning world to halt, and I took a deep breath to calm myself. I wasn’t really alone—I had Callie.
If people weren’t here, they had to be somewhere, because whole cities didn’t disappear. They just didn’t. They couldn’t.
I shifted the enormous bag on my shoulders, distributing the weight evenly, then looked left and right and left again before stepping into the street. Habit. I felt a small smile curve my lips and I closed my eyes briefly as I realized the absurdity of what I’d done. A speeding car would have been welcomed at that moment.
I hoped all the sit-ups and jumping jacks over the past several weeks had made me a physically stronger, tougher person, because there wasn’t anything left to do but start walking.
A ragged U.S. flag hung from the pole in front of my high school. Half the building had crumbled in on itself while the windows along the rest had sprayed glass across the yard below. Several cars in the parking lot were crushed, leaving only flat tires on bowed rims, and a couple of other cars lay on their sides as though an invisible hand had picked them up and set them down that way.
Papers littered the ground while others continued to flutter out of open windows whenever the breeze took hold of them. They floated in the sky for a moment then drifted to the ground like a paper snowstorm.
School had never been my thing, but to see the building in such a shamble didn’t fill me with the relief I’d always figured it would. I mean, all kids joked at one time or another, myself included, about hoping the school would burn down or be whisked away by some unseen force, but now that it had actually happened, it didn’t feel like a celebratory moment at all. It seemed sadder than anything.
I walked up the unstable cement steps, avoiding the ones with the most damage, and pushed against the partially opened door. Debris on the other side made it difficult, but I shoved my shoulder against it and managed to squeeze inside.
Doors on many lockers hung from their hinges. Others were blown off and lay scattered on the linoleum floor. Text books, backpacks, and papers added to the mess, and I made sure to be careful as I stepped over them.
Air whirled from the open windows and caused ghost-like sounds to come from under several of the closed doors. I drew the straps of the duffle bag tighter and quickly moved past them. A musty smell drifted from several corners where the roof had caved in. It mixed with the cafeteria smells—how is that even possible?—and churned my stomach. So gross.
I passed Mr. Stanger’s science classroom. The door remained shut—one of the few—but the tiny rectangular glass window was gone. Tiny shards of glass lined the frame. I never did care much for science, but Mr. Stanger had prided himself in being a good teacher and
to see his classroom wrecked—the periodic table shredded and hanging from only one tack and thick science books spread out over the floor in between turned over desks—almost brought tears to my eyes. He was one of the few teachers I had actually liked, even if my grade didn’t reflect it.
I’d never liked school before, not really, so I didn’t know how to process these bizarre feelings. Instead of trying to understand them, I moved past classrooms, and made my way down the junior hall, refusing to look inside any more rooms.
The further I went into the middle of school, the darker the hall became, but enough light filtered in from under doors to pick out the larger objects to avoid. My locker, near the end of the hall, was one of the few with a door intact—strange how things can be so random—and I turned the lock, following my combination, until the door popped open.
A jacket, a brush, several books, notepads and pencils, in no organizational order, came spilling out. I didn’t need any of those things and I kicked them aside as I reached up and ran my fingers over the top shelf.
My phone.
Our school had a strict policy of no phones in class, so I’d stored mine in my locker, like everyone else did, but I’d forgotten it in my hurry to get home and enjoy my weekend away from quizzes, reports, and stupid assignments.
It had been nearly two months, long enough for it to lose its charge, but I held the power button down, hopeful that maybe, just maybe, it still had a little bit of life in it.
The screen lit up, illuminating the entire hall and took me by such surprise that I almost dropped the phone.
Holy crap, it works!
No bars, no signal, but seventeen messages flashed at me. The battery icon was in the red zone, so I didn’t press play even though I really really wanted to. Finding a signal and calling my dad outweighed the need to hear any of the two-month-old messages. Those would have to wait.
I turned to leave with the idea I’d find a signal once outside, but before I could press the power button to save what was left of it, my glowing screen highlighted Mr. Stanger’s face, staring right at me.
I stumbled backward and crashed into my open locker, cutting my arm on the jagged frame and causing Callie to start screeching. Blood pounded in my ears like a base drum over her meows while warm blood dripped down my elbow. My stomach tightened into a ball as though I’d done a hundred crunches in less than ten seconds. Breathing... how do I even do that?
People shouldn’t appear out of nowhere, not with everything so insanely crazy outside. He should know better. Even though I was only seventeen—happy freaking birthday to me—I was pretty sure heart attacks didn’t care about age. “Jeez, you scared me.”
His eyes stayed transfixed on me, open, wide, unblinking. He didn’t say a word in response. He didn’t move. He didn’t do anything.
“Mr. Stanger?” My words squeaked out as I tried to understand his hesitance.
The strange cocking of his neck caused me to cock my own, and I managed to take a step toward him. “You okay?”
One step and no more.
I couldn’t move.
Foam oozed from his gaping mouth. His eyes, the color of chalky clouds, stared at nothing. Half his skull was crushed in, like an optical allusion. Brain matter, dried and chunky, clung to his left ear, cheek, and covered the wall behind him. A large teacher’s desk, pressed into his middle, pinned him to the wall and kept him upright but he had slumped awkwardly to one side. A bloodied bat marked THE PROPERTY OF WESTLAND HIGH, lay near his feet.
My hands shook as I took in his lifeless form—broken, beaten. The sight and smell of death rolled my stomach and I retched my morning’s breakfast on the floor, adding to the already gruesome scene.
I’d never seen a dead body before. Not like this. It took me several minutes of bending over and holding my knees to settle my stomach.
His death wasn’t an accident, but why? Who would want to kill him? Kill Mr. Hoffman, the biology teacher, sure, but Mr. Stanger? Everyone loved Mr. Stanger!
Poor Mr. Stanger. Someone should really do something with his body, something proper, but that someone would not be me. I hoped he would forgive me for leaving him. The idea of him being here, dead, for all this time, bothered me. No one, not even the government, had hauled his body away. That had to mean something.
I wiped my mouth and scanned the hallway, looking both directions, not sure for what. Only the sound of wind whistling through the halls, nothing else. Whoever had done this wasn’t here. Even in the near darkness I could tell Mr. Stanger had been dead for a while, but the very idea of someone using a bat to kill him put me on edge.
The world had gone to hell and people were killing one another? Why? Why? Were these the kind of people who had tried to get inside the bunker? My stomach coiled in on itself again, but this time I didn’t vomit.
I had to get out of there. Every dark hall and hidden corner freaked me out. With my cell phone now in my possession, there was no reason to stay.
Callie kept right on meowing and had someone been in the building they would have heard her and killed the both of us by now. I needed to do something about my cat, and when she started hissing and clawing at the duffle bag, I realized it needed to be sooner rather than later.
I tucked the cell phone in my pocket and made sure my knife was accessible if it came down to it.
My arm stung and would need to be taken care of, but with a dead guy in the hallway, half the school blown apart, and a cat screeching in my ear, it would have to wait.
I stumbled over broken desks and chairs, and pushed a banner announcing the winter formal aside as I made my way toward fresh air and daylight.
The fading sun had never felt so good—visually and physically. The outside air may have been tinged with the smell of burnt wood, but I took in a huge lungful and held it before releasing it slowly.
Were all the buildings like my school? Were there more dead bodies inside them and if so, how many? From where I stood on the crumbled sidewalk in front of my once historical high school, every abandoned building seemed to hold horrendous possibilities. What would I find in the post office on the corner? Or the mini-mart down the street? How about Julia’s house? Or Nathan’s?
I swallowed hard, gulping down my rising emotions as I thought of my friends, and started walking. Maybe it was best I didn’t know.
Callie howled in my bag like a lamb being led to slaughter. I needed to remedy the situation before attempting to call Dad.
I’d never hear him answer with the way she carried on.
The strip mall with its rows and rows of stores looked terrifying but not in the usual way. Nothing appeared misplaced or out of line. All the windows were intact and only a handful of cars sat in the parking lot where their owners had left them. It actually looked much the way I’d expect it would on Christmas morning—vacant, but ready for business on the twenty-sixth.
I’d kind of hoped I’d find sections of it in rubble like the high school so getting inside wouldn’t require me breaking and entering. I hadn’t seen a soul—well, a living soul—but the idea of smashing in one of the windows didn’t seem right.
I passed by the nail salon, the tax store, and a chiropractor’s office without looking in the windows, avoiding the possibility of dead bodies.
In front of the pet store, I cupped my eyes and peered in the window. No human legs stuck out in the aisles and the space behind the cash register appeared empty.
Callie kept right on clawing at the bag, and her ruckus annoyed me. I placed the duffle bag on the ground at my feet. “I know, I know! You’ll be out of there in a second.” Freaking impatient cat!
The door was locked, of course, and except for a metal garbage can, I couldn’t find anything to break the large glass window. I tried using the metal lid off the trash can, but it only came bouncing back at me when I threw it against the glass. Not even a crack. Seriously?
The one time I could have used some debris to smash the window happened to be the one time I was
standing outside a building unaffected by whatever had caused some of the others to crumble. Damn my luck.
I knelt beside the bag, ignored Callie, unzipped the main compartment, and dug out my gun. That should do it.
It had been quite some time since I’d last shot the thing—maybe a year or more—but I concentrated on the steps my dad had taught me. Feet apart. Shoulders level. Both hands on the gun. I aimed and steeled myself for the impact as my finger squeezed the trigger.
Glass sprayed out in all directions, and I turned in time to avoid being pelted by flying pieces. My ears rang as the blast rocked off the brick walls surrounding me on three sides. The security alarm blared and added to the high pitched humming in my ears.
I scanned the parking lot, worried all the noise would bring unwanted people. Strange how Mr. Stanger’s death had changed my desire to find people into fear that I might find them. I continued to hold the gun in front of me and Callie continued her crazed hissing.
Several minutes ticked by, enough for someone to come at me, but no one came. I stood there, aiming the gun first one way and then another, but saw nothing.
The alarm slowly faded to silence as whatever backup system it used wore down. With the ringing in my ears settled, I assessed the damage.
One bullet had caused quite a bit of destruction to the window, enough for me to crawl in if I knocked some of the larger pieces from the frame. A fish tank had taken the brunt of the bullet and shattered, splashing green murky water all over the floor. Dead fish and slimy gravel bits littered the ground.
The smell hit me, and I pinched my nose. Pet stores usually smelled bad, but this smell was worse than Mr. Stanger’s dead body. The odor caused my eyes to water, and I gagged several times. I hate this day! Had I not thrown-up earlier, I probably would have right then.
Dead birds lay in piles on the bottom of their cages. Some bodies had been picked clean, eaten by the birds that had outlived them before they, too, had succumbed to the lack of food and water. The rodent and reptile cages looked even worse—hamster skulls, bloated rats, and bloody bedding. The fish tanks were so murky, I could hardly see inside them. Nasty.
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