Alone (3)

>>> Alone (first part) is here.

>>> Alone (second part) is here.

Her worst enemy is panic. She fight to control it, to mantain a regular rhythm of breathing and to keep away tears from her eyes. Even if something real bad was happened there is to be a reaction somewhere, other people in her situation.

Her family lives in another town but here she have friends, coworkers, contacts of all kind. The city looks like a desert movie set, lesser than real in its silence. She walks slowly in the direction of the town hall, arms wrapped around herself and eyes frantically scanning both sides of the street.

A bike abandoned in the middle of the sidewalk, a newspaper carried by the wind against a street sign, a police car parked with both doors open, everything tells a tale of a sudden action, like something really fast happened without warning.

A few minutes walk to reach the town hall, just to find nothing new. The flag that waves from the first floor looks new and bright, familiar colors dancing in the wind. She finds another police car, pull the driver’s door open. An empty uniform, full of objects in every pocket.

Forcing herself not to puke she pick up a Maglite from the car, tries to swtich it on. No results, batteries are dead. Then she collect a Swiss army knife and after a while the semi auto from the officer’s sheath. Dead man, she keeps thinking, I’m stealing from a dead man. She tries to switch on the lights, the siren, to honk with no success. Dead car, dead patrolman.

She starts trembling again, giggling against her own will. Dead man, dead car, dead town, dead dead dead…