by Nancy Isaak
365 DAYS ALONE
by
Nancy Isaak
Smashwords Edition
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
EXCEPTIONS: Brief portions of this text may be quoted for reviewing purposes.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION: This book is copyrighted material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed, or publicly performed or used in any form without prior written permission by its author and copyright holder. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation, or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and copyright holder’s rights, and those responsible may be liable accordingly.
DISCLAIMER: Further, this book is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are being used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2017 Nancy Isaak
Cover Design: N. Isaak
For my sister, Pat.
Remember when you hit me in the head with a hammer? I often wonder if you somehow jump-started my creativity that day.
We sure got on each other’s nerves over the years, didn’t we? But, guess what…you’re still the first person I would want on my tribe at the end of the world.
Nobody is better in a crisis than you.
Plus, you swing a really mean hammer.
TABLES OF CONTENTS
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
MAY
JUNE
JULY
AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
About the Author
Preview Excerpt: 365 Days Hunted
Preview Excerpt: Anarchy
End Note
NOVEMBER
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
It wasn't just the boys.
The adults and the really young kids were missing, too.
Just...gone.
Only us girls were left—ages 7-17.
A decade of girls—no one older, no one younger. Like some greater being had simply reached down and disappeared everyone else in a single moment.
But why leave all the girls?
And what had they done with the boys?
And the adults...and our parents?!
We were all so confused…I was confused.
And we tried to hide it, but we were scared.
More than anything, we were all so very, very scared.
But, I guess I should start at the beginning.
So—here's what I put in my journal, starting on that very first day, the day after Halloween.
November 1st—the day that would forever change all of our lives.
JOURNAL ENTRY #1
Maybe by writing it down like this, it will help us to figure out what has happened.
Jay and I have agreed that someone needs to keep an account of what we woke up to this morning. Might as well be me, right? I mean, I am the one with the highest marks in Language Arts, so it kind of makes sense that I keep the record.
So, okay, here goes…
My name is Kaylee Anne Michelson. I am 16-years old and I live in Agoura Hills, California, which is this mostly suburban community in the Conejo Valley, just on the outskirts of Los Angeles. I go to Agoura High School, which is one street away from the townhouse complex where I live with my Mom.
Lived with my Mom.
She’s gone now. I don't know where.
I just know that I woke up this morning and she wasn’t there.
Neither was anyone else.
All of them, all of our neighbors—the Margarita Lady in the single-level across from our townhouse who sits and drinks margaritas at a little table in her back yard; the Patriotic Woman down on the left who hands out American flags every 4th of July; the Israeli Couple two doors away who rudely insist on blocking our garbage can with their car. Even the new Korean Family from the far side of our cul-de-sac has disappeared (and they only just moved in two days ago!).
All gone…missing…disappeared.
* * * *
We knocked on every one of the doors in our section of the townhouse complex—Jay and me.
She’s my best friend—a year younger than me—but she’s small, so she looks even younger. I call her Jay, but her real name is Jayalakshmi Sitipala, which means “Goddess of Victory” in Pakistan. That’s where she was born.
Which makes me wonder…did everyone disappear in Pakistan, too?
Jay lives in ‘Section L’—just like I do—exactly six townhouses away from me. She lives in a two-level with her mom and dad and her two younger brothers; they're owners.
My mom and I live in one of the center units. We’re renters—two bedrooms, one and one-half baths. My mom has the bigger bedroom in the front that faces Chumash Park. I've got the smaller one in the back that looks out over everyone's carports.
We used to live in Malibu, in one of those big houses right near the beach, but when my dad divorced my mom for his stupid Boob-Bimbo, we had to move to Agoura Hills (which is 20 minutes away by car—straight over the Santa Monica Mountains).
My mom makes out that it's okay and everything, but I know that it's been hard on her. She’s one of those older moms in her fifties and now that she's been dumped and is on her own, she has to find a job and figure out a way to support us when her alimony ends in a few months.
Well, she had to find a job—yesterday.
Today—my mom’s gone and I don't even know where.
I just hope she's all right.
Even though we always seem to be angry at each other lately, I still hope that my mom hasn’t been hurt—or that she’s lost—or scared.
You see, my mom and I get into way too many fights these days and, in all honesty, I'm the one who is mostly responsible.
Lately, I just feel so...pissy.
Ms. Capadouca, my school counselor, says that I'm angry over the divorce and mad at my dad because he left us for the Boob-Bimbo. Ms. Capadouca also says that when I get into fights with my mom, it's because I'm taking my dad-anger out on the one person I can safely get mad at who will never leave me…my mom.
Only she did leave me.
So, I guess Ms. Capadouca was wrong.
SURVIVING WITH THE GODDESS OF VICTORY
I'd always been jealous of Jay's name.
Can you imagine being named after the Goddess of Victory? It would be like being named Xena or Mulan or Ripley. How could you not be a warrior with a name like Jayalakshmi, Goddess of Victory?!
Now, ‘Kaylee’—that’s like being named Cindy or Marsha or Jan. No warrior woman there, that’s for sure.
When I asked her, Mom told me that Kaylee meant ‘purity’. I used to wonder how I was ever going to live up to that as an adult. Being pure, I mean. Well, when all the boys disappeared, needless to say my ‘pure’ name took on a whole new meaning.
Kaylee-the-Pure—Forever Virgin.
...yippee...
* * * *
You imagine a certain type of future for yourself when you're sixteen.
In my case, it was going to be high school, to an Ivy League university, to a trip around Europe with my BFF (Jay, of course), then back to my amazing career (undecided at the time), to marriage with a handsome and kind surfer/football star/entrepreneur (and I totally was not undecided on who that would be), to twin babies (one girl, one boy, both blond), to my multi-level home in the hills over Malibu.
But when there were no boys.
When there was no Ivy League.
When there wasn’t even any high school—which at one time would have seemed like a pretty great idea—well, there wasn
’t any future, was there?
Instead, there was just...
…survival.
* * * *
If there was one good thing about waking up that first confusing morning, it was that I wasn't alone. It was the day after Halloween and my best friend—the Goddess of Victory—was sleeping over.
Jay and I were bunked out in my bedroom after a late night of too many bowls of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream, black licorice whips, and seven episodes of David Tennant as “Doctor Who” on BBC America.
I was never a big sci-fi fan, but Jay was crazy-mad over anything space and science related—“Doctor Who”, “Star Trek”, “Star Wars”, “Battlestar Galactica”. Which was kind of funny because, even though Jay was not allowed to watch television at her house, she had somehow not only seen every one of those shows—multiple times—but could quote most of the dialogue, word-for-word.
Ironic, but it kind of made sense.
See, while I was still struggling to figure out what my major in college would ultimately be, let alone my career, Jay had already determined that she was going to be the first Pakistani/American astronaut/medical doctor to land on Mars.
Of course, that was going to be a little difficult with parents as controlling as Jay’s. In their minds, Jay was becoming a lawyer—preferably corporate. Plus, they had already promised her in marriage to a second cousin when Jay was only 3-months old!
Needless to say—unlike many girls—the first Pakistani/American on Mars was not looking forward to her wedding nuptials. Then again, maybe that's why Jay wanted so desperately to go to Mars.
You couldn’t escape an arranged marriage much farther than that, could you?
* * * *
I first met Jay when I was fourteen and she was thirteen.
It was over in Chumash Park, which is this large, wandering green space directly across from our townhouse complex. The park is actually quite large, with lots of trees, a baseball and soccer field, and a play area for the younger kids.
In the summers they have concerts there, and it was during one of these that the Goddess of Victory—well, she saved my life.
Yeah, I know…‘hyperbole’…or ‘exaggeration’, as Mr. Matchling taught us in English class. So let's just say instead that, while Jay didn't literally save my life, she definitely saved me from certain and disgusting humiliation.
Here’s what happened.
* * * *
Almost smack dab center of Chumash Park is this large, rocky hill.
During the summer concerts, younger kids like to crawl all over the enormous boulders at the bottom. Meanwhile, the older kids hide up near the top, drinking beer and smoking weed. They’ve discovered that, hidden among the giant rocks, they can still hear the music coming up from the bandstand, while remaining basically hidden from the adults on the grassy lawn below.
On this particular day, there had been a Beatles-tribute band playing.
The singers were quite good and even looked the part—with crazy-mop hair wigs and Sergeant Pepper costumes. Maybe it was because of my mom (big Beatles fan!), but I'd always really liked their music—even if the Beatles were kind of ancient.
John, Paul, George, and Ringo had become part of some great Sunday suppers with my mom, the menus usually being vegan-roast, mashed potatoes, creamed corn—and belting out “Let it Be” or “Hey Jude” to my mom’s scratchy old vinyl records.
“Hey Jude”…oh, the irony.
You’ll find out why in a moment.
(First, about those Sunday dinners and the vegan-roasts. Did I mention that I’m a vegetarian? So is Jay, although she’s been one from birth. I only became one when I was twelve, after I saw this movie called “Fast Food Nation” and learned about all the fecal matter that was allowed on meat. All I could say to hamburgers after watching that film was...ewww!)
Now, back to the concert.
So, the faux-Beatles were playing, the crowd was singing along, the younger kids were climbing the rocks, the older kids were smoking weed—and I was running for my life from…Jude-the-Rude!
(Yes, I know…hyperbole.)
* * * *
Her real name was Judy Engel, but everybody called her Jude-the-Rude.
Like Jay and me, Jude was in the 10th Grade at Agoura High School. She was a year older than me, two years older than Jay, but—while Jay had been placed a year ahead—unfortunately, Jude had been placed a year back. I, of course, being of utterly normal brainpower was exactly in the grade where I was supposed to be.
One forward, one back, one in the middle—all of us in the same grade where it was definitely destined not to end well.
* * * *
I guess there’s a Jude in everyone's school.
That one girl who spends way too much time behind the weight room, smoking pot with the stoners and tripping the nerd-girls as they walk by—too innocently engrossed in conversations about “The Big Bang Theory”, black vs. brown scrunchies, and the mathematical constant of pi to see the violent storm coming their way.
Me—the only pie I was ever interested in had blueberries in it, so you'd think that I wouldn't have even been on Jude-the-Rude's radar. Yet, somehow, I was—and she disliked me intensely.
The first thing Jude did was to nickname me Barbie—and not in a good way.
(True, I do have blond hair and green eyes and I am kind of soccer-girl-okay-looking. That said, I certainly don’t have Barbie's body-parts (and absolutely didn’t at the time) and I could only wish that I owned Barbie’s dream house and fashion smarts.)
* * * *
Jude, unfortunately, was kind of…butchy.
She had blond, shoulder-length hair like me, but hers was always a little greasy. And where mine was that golden color, hers was a dirty, ash blond. Also, she had dark roots, so we were all pretty certain that Jude’s hair color came out of a bottle.
The other thing about Jude.
She had some hygiene problems—as in, she didn’t bathe too often.
Jay used to say that probably explained Jude's ‘acne problem’. I thought it was all the candy Jude was always eating that explained the face-dots—and, for that matter, the roly-poly that was rising up around her belly like a muffin top.
I mean, seriously—that girl ate chocolate bars and potato chips for lunch! In the whole time that I had been in school with her, not once had I seen Jude pick up a vegetable or a piece of fruit.
And, no…potato chips did not count!
* * * *
It was hard to be friends with someone like Jude.
I honestly tried during my first year at Agoura High but, frankly, Jude was more than a little on the vicious side—bumping the pretty girls into the lockers, snarky laughs behind your back if you said something even remotely intelligent in class and, god forbid, if you made the same mortifying mistake of wearing white pants on the first day of your period like Misty Callahan.
In all truth…that was the day that I became secretly ecstatic that my nickname had ended up as ‘Barbie’ and not ‘Bloody Ass’ like poor Misty.
Still, there was something sad about Jude.
Sometimes I would see her sitting by herself at lunchtime. The Foxes (I’ll get into them in a little bit) would be tossing bread sticks at her head. Jude would just sit there, slowly eating her chocolate bars, not looking up, even when a direct hit bounced off the side of her ear.
* * * *
Some kids said that Jude was slow. Others just plain old used the retarded word when she lumbered by.
But I knew that Jude had ADHD, because I happened to have been in the nurse's office one day when Jude came in to get her Adderall-dose. So, I figured that maybe the effects of ADHD were part of the reason that Jude always had so much difficulty in school.
That—or she was just a plain old bully.
* * * *
But, once again, back to that summer day—with faux-Beatles singing about Eleanor sitting by the window, while I was running for my life from Jude-the-Rude.
The truth was, I didn’t really even like dancing because I didn’t think that I was any good at it. The only reason I was dancing (hopping) in the first place that day was because of Jacob Riker—who actually was dancing in front of the bandstand.
(I'll write about Jacob later, but I will tell you now—think Edward Cullin and Sam Uley and a touch of the older Harry Potter combined and you will understand why I submitted myself to the embarrassment of hop-dancing just to be within ten feet of his god-ness.)
So, the hop-dancing Kaylee-the-Pure was trying desperately to catch the eye of the Jacob-god when she made the most unfortunate mistake of not watching where her big foot came down in one of her hops.
Sadly, it hit Jude right on—let’s call it—her twinkie.
* * * *