The Man Who Watched The World End

by Dietzel, Chris

  More recently, would men have bothered with billion-dollar sports stadiums, bridges across lakes in China, or expeditions to space? Maybe not. Maybe, if you told someone that the end of man would occur in another hundred years, they would have thought to use those billions of dollars for another purpose, something better than getting people more quickly from point A to point B or rocketing chimps into outer space. Greater men than myself would have to worry about those things. I worry about simpler things: getting through another day, getting Andrew through another day. When life is simplified to this degree, worrying about anything else seems silly. So I try not to think about anything other than how to get Andrew through another year, knowing that for him to get through it, I must do the same. That’s all. The men who spent millions on fancy monuments or oversized shopping malls are welcome to look back and reassess if that was worth their time and money now that we are all q4"edo getting a little older, fading away a little more.

  I like to think the truly great men would have not only done all the same things they did, knowing the end was approaching, but maybe they would have fought even harder if they knew there was a clock ticking in the distance. Maybe Washington would have told his men, “We have to get it right, this country, before the end. A constitution of men has been forming in our collective minds for thousands of years. Let’s do it now and show everyone what we were capable of all along.” Maybe Tesla would have said, “Only another century? Then I’d better conduct even more drastic experiments so they can benefit people as long as possible.”

  January 26It’s been a long time since I was singularly fixated on something like I am these days with getting to the Johnsons’ house. In elementary school I had my heart set on getting the G.I. Joe F-14 for Christmas. In High School I had a terrible crush on Christie Elendorf. For the past fifty years, though, I’ve been happy to just live my life day-to-day.

  Each day I wonder if I’m exaggerating the monstrous smell or if it really is as bad as my senses tell me. It could just be my nerves playing tricks on me. Other people hear imaginary voices when they have mental breakdowns, maybe I smell imaginary odors. I ran (hobbled quickly) to the window yesterday because I was sure I heard a car driving down the street. With a clear view of the neighborhood I realized there was no vehicle to speak of. The sound vanished in the clamor of me getting to the window, much the same way the smell fades away when I’m completely engrossed in taking care of Andrew.

  The stench reminds me of when I was ten and a small mouse died behind our kitchen wall. It was amazing how terrible those three inches of dead rodent could make the entire house smell. Spraying air freshener every day didn’t do anything to conquer the stench of its rotting flesh. Opening all the windows did nothing. My father couldn’t get rid of the tiny carcass without tearing open part of the wall, something he wasn’t crazy about doing. After a couple of days we were eating all of our meals on the porch because the smell made us sick to our stomachs. All because of a tiny mouse. When we absolutely had to be in the kitchen, we covered our noses and mouths. The smell snuck in anyway. One tiny mouse was capable of polluting our entire home with the smell of death. It only took six days before my dad hammered a hole in the kitchen wall and found the dust-covered rotting carcass. Two days later everything went back to smelling fresh again.

  The task of getting to the Johnsons’qston thoughsp home mocks me with how simple it is. All I have to do is walk to the end of the street, not journey to another community. Yet it’s still inaccessible because the neighborhood has been handed over to the beasts. The other reason for my difficulty has to be acknowledged: I’m an old man.

  I pissed myself a little bit yesterday. How’s that for old age? Andrew was all cleaned up for bed when I realized a little bit of my own urine had escaped. My pants were stained at the knee. It must have run down my leg without me realizing it. How is that possible? Andrew was on the sofa, still as clean as when I left him; I was the one who needed to change into new clothes instead of my invalid brother.

  None of that will stop me from getting to the Johnsons’ house. My hammer and gun are ready. I didn’t want to have to take my pistol but the cats outnumber me by too much. I have one of those little white masks that people use for painting. Hopefully that will keep the smell away. I even have a sandwich in case I get hungry while I’m there. If I read this entry tomorrow I’ll laugh at how it sounds like I’m heading out for a day-long journey instead of a simple walk down the street.

  As soon as the sun is peaking in the sky I’m going to leave Andrew once again and make my way down the road. I refuse to let this neighborhood have the final say in my life. I refuse to let it become a place where I’m afraid to leave my own home. I won’t prove the Johnsons right in their belief that I was too scared to leave my house. That was probably why they didn’t say goodbye, not because they were rude, but because they felt bad for me.

  I made myself laugh last night thinking about how I would react if I was in the Johnsons’ home when they came back. They would open their front door after an extended family vacation, or maybe they would get to New Orleans, realize it wasn’t what they expected, and drive back to Camelot. There I would be, standing in the middle of their kitchen, eating a jar of peanut butter, a guilty look plastered on my face. We would stare at each other in astonishment, and then we would burst out laughing and I would welcome them back to the neighborhood with hugs.

  Even if they were lucky enough to make it all the way to a group community, though, they would never make it back here again. No one’s luck is that good. More likely, they would have broken down somewhere along the way and been forced to settle in someone else’s abandoned house. Their SUV’s tires would go flat before they could make it halfway. An axel would get irreparably bent.

  Their house looks just like all of the other empty houses now—like it has been abandoned for years. Bird crap covers the entire roof, making it look like a watercolor painting of whites, grays, and blacks. The windows are all cracked. It’s possible that it always looked that way, that the only qit do difference wasn’t how it looked, but that I knew there were people inside. It’s possible that’s the reason the Johnsons left: because their house was already overgrown and abandoned, it just took them a while to realize it. And it took them leaving for me to realize it.

  None of that stuff matters right now. The sun is coming out over the trees. When it’s directly overhead I’m leaving for the Johnsons’ house. This is the first time I’m writing one of these entries in the morning instead of at night. That has to be a good omen. The sun is almost overhead. It’s time to go!

  January 27I made it to the Johnsons’ yesterday. Words can’t describe what I saw. How did things get to this point? Staying here in Camelot with Andrew was the wrong decision. I understand that now. We should have gone to one of the final communities a long time ago. The Johnsons have shown their true colors.

  Why did I insist on staying here? Because it was a continuation of the life we had before everyone grew old and died? Or was it because, a long time ago, it was the type of neighborhood my parents always dreamed of living in? Most likely, it was because I was scared of change and of the unknown. As long as I stayed in this neighborhood, in our home, I felt like I could hold onto that old life for one more day. I’m disgusted with myself and with the Johnsons. I would never sit down for a meal with them again. I would never talk to them or so much as look in their direction. But they’re gone, so at least in that regard they were smarter than I am.

  January 30What’s this journal for if it’s not for capturing the difficulties we face? I certainly didn’t feel the need to write down the day’s events back when everything was okay (relatively speaking). That’s why I’m going to write about what happened at the Johnsons’—not because I want to, but because not writing about it would only keep me up at night.

  I can’t guess how many times I went there as a friend while they still lived in the neighborhood. Now the only thing I can think about is that last
trip. I wasn’t prepared for what was there, and quickly became overwhelmed by everything around me. That much I can be sure of. Maybe my eyes didn’t really see the details I thought they saw. Maybe the smell wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be. The air a giant brown bear lumberan about . There seemed so putrid that even its taste made me gag. But was it really that bad, or did I merely think it should have been that awful?

  I should have known something was amiss when there wasn’t a single animal to threaten me in between my house and the Johnsons’—a bad omen if there ever was one. Looking back, I imagine that the pack of house cats from my unsuccessful trip down the street was trying to protect me rather than eat me. They didn’t want me to see what had happened at the Johnsons’. The entire walk to their house, I looked around, continually expecting a former house pet or a forest predator to be hiding at the edge of a bush, crouching and ready to attack when I least expected it. I even stopped halfway there and then again at the edge of the Johnsons’ driveway, but no animals were to be found.

  The painter’s breathing mask, intended to provide peace of mind, made me feel like I was suffocating. After a couple of deep breaths I decided I could get by without it and took it off. With it off I actually looked like a normal guy walking down the street instead of somebody from an old apocalyptic movie. By the time I got to the Johnsons’ house, though, the smell had intensified again. At their driveway, the stench seemed as bad as it ever had. The breathing mask went back on.

  Most of the windows around their home were cracked. The gutters were clogged. Those things were to be expected of abandoned houses. But then I looked back at my own house and was shocked at how dilapidated it also was, especially compared to the vision I had of it. In my mind it was the only house left on the street that could still be considered attractive and well kept. The impression stuck in my head, however, was of how the house looked when we first moved into it. An outdated image if there ever was one. It looked this way in my thoughts, not because it was my house, but because it was the only house remaining that had living people inside it. My roof was identical to the others, though. My windows were cracked too.

  The Johnsons’ garage was in front of me. The garage door was closed. I stepped up to one of the small glass panels to see what was on the other side. The fogged panes only allowed me to make out vague shapes. I saw their car leave the neighborhood, and it had never returned, yet something, the same basic shape of a car, was there in the middle of the garage.

  I bent down to peek through the hole where the garage handle had been. Just from bending slightly, my knees creaked and my back hurt. The only thing through the hole was darkness. Just then, as I was starting to pull away from the makeshift peephole, the hissing, angry mouth of a cat snarled against the hole, an inch away from my face. I nearly shit myself. If the garage door hadn’t divided us the animal would have had a clean shot at my face. I yelled a curse before falling backward.

  There was a tiny hole at the corner of the garage where an animal had broken through. I never would haveq the lastedo noticed it unless I was sitting on my ass like an idiot when the cat darted out. It hissed the entire way from the Johnsons’ house to the woods.

  If I had tried to stand up right away I probably would have stumbled like a punch-drunk fighter and fallen right back over again; it was better to stay on the concrete, let my heart slow back down, and let my ass stop hurting before I tried to move.

  Not a single dog came out of the forest to inspect the silly, old man on the ground who was nearly scared to death by a cat. For a moment it was almost as though all of the animals decided to pack up and leave Camelot, just as all the people had. Then, from far off in the distance, I heard a roar that made me break out of my stupor. It took the remainder of my old man’s strength to stand up again. Sliding my fingers under the bottom of the door and lifting, the garage was suddenly filled with daylight.

  The Johnsons’ old kitchen table was in the middle of the space where I thought a car might have been. It was a big rectangle of wood, oak I think, right there as though people should dine next to their cars. A large white blanket, maybe a bed sheet, was crumpled in a pile on top of the table. The sheets were stained through with blood. I’m proud of myself for not gasping at what should have startled me. In fact, I almost touched the sheets out of simple curiosity. My hand hovered over the fabric until my better judgment returned and I realized it wasn’t a science fair project but someone’s or something’s blood that I had no explanation for.

  Other than the table and bloody sheet, the rest of the garage looked normal. Their collection of camping gear was missing from one of the corners. The sleeping bags, tent, lights, and axe were all gone. It was safe to assume they took it all in case their SUV broke down and had to be ditched. A spare pillow had been left behind, but a cat or some mice had torn it apart. I assumed at first that it was random destruction before finding tiny bits of blood and bones and realizing a family of mice had made it their home before being ambushed by the cat. The constant reminders all around me made it impossible to forget that every living thing was one step away from being eaten by something else.

  I opened the door leading from the garage to the house. A stench hit me. Even after putting the painter’s mask back on, the odor was overwhelming. I found myself gagging in the same hallway in which I had taken bottles of wine over for dinners. And to think I used to take my shoes off when they were wet to keep from tracking dirt into their house! It reminded me of the smell of lima beans when I was a little boy. As soon as I got a single whiff of them I was conditioned to gag because I knew that was what I would do when I put them in my mouth.

  “Hello?” I said, even though I knew the house was empty. I don’t know what compelled me to say that other than dumb, old habits. a nice, quiet neighborhood

  There were no sounds. Everything was still. With the blinds down I could see the dust floating in the air. Part of me expected a pack of German Shepherds to appear out of a bedroom doorway, but the house seemed free of wildlife. Like everything else in the neighborhood, it was a matter of time until the animals penetrated the walls and the Johnsons’ house became just another extension of the wilderness.

  The kitchen left me as confused as the garage. A large butcher’s knife and a smaller serrated knife were in the sink, both covered with dried blood. The flies had long since feasted on anything of value. The only explanation I could think of was that the Johnsons cut packs of raw meat before leaving so they were assured of not running out before they got to New Orleans or Miami.

  The living room carpet was also covered with blood. As was the sofa. I started wondering if a band of murderers hadn’t made their way into our neighborhood and, left with the choice of two houses to pick from, randomly selected the Johnsons’ house to butcher everyone. Then the murderers had taken the Johnsons’ SUV and left. I kept that thought in mind until I got to the steps leading to the front door.

  A note was there. Of course they would have thought I would enter through the front door. I picked up the piece of paper and mumbled the words out loud.

  We’re very sorry for not saying goodbye, but we couldn’t stop by your house on the way out of the neighborhood. We knew you wouldn’t understand. We barely understand it ourselves. I know it’s impossible, but please don’t think any less of us. Times have been difficult on everyone, but tougher on some than on others. You always seemed to take everything in stride. We were always jealous of the way you made it seem easy to take care of Andrew. We always wondered how you did it.

  PS: We thought about just burning the place down.

  That was the entire note. I wished they had known how much I struggled to take care of Andrew by myself. One of the dinners together would have been better spent talking about how discouraged I got by growing older and not being able to take care of my brother as well as I used to. Maybe that would have changed things. Maybe they would have sympathized with the sadness and anxiety that comes from being forced to make every decision fo
r yourself and for another person, a person who is always affected by your plans but never has a say in them.'>I went to Mark’s bedroom. The drawers and closet were empty of clothes. I went to Mindy’s room. It was in the same condition. The only bedroom remaining belonged to the Block twins. At that point I still thought Mark’s note was apologizing for all of them leaving the neighborhood without saying goodbye.

  Then I got to the last bedroom and saw the twin sisters. The girls were lying on their beds. I thought of them as girls, even though they were Andrew’s age, because I had known them for so long and because they had to be taken care of as though they were little girls. The blankets were gone from the beds. Only a thin sheet covered each girl up to their shoulders. My hands involuntarily clenched. It was only then that I realized my knees and hands had been shaking ever since I’d entered the house.

  Their skin was rotting. Maggots were slithering all over them, making it look like their flesh was twirling in small circles, a thin sheet of life draped over the remains of a person. Both twins were in the same condition. Seeing them made the smell even worse. It’s funny how that happens.

  I gagged again. Positive I was going to throw up, I bent down and put my hands on my knees. Nothing came out. I still didn’t understand where all the blood had come from, so I took another step toward one of them—I couldn’t tell which because they looked as much alike as deteriorating corpses as they had when they were alive.