Alone (the end)

>>> Alone (first part) is here.

>>> Alone (second part) is here.

>>> Alone (third part) is here.

>>> Alone (fourth part) is here.

>>> Alone (fifth part) is here.

>>> Alone (sixth part) is here.

>>> Alone (seventh part) is here.

She leaves her house at dawn, after a night full of vague nightmares and scary noises forced by the unnerving winds. Everything looks better with the sunlight, she thinks, even the worst situation possible. Her plan for the day is try the direction of the port, start to cover as more ground she can to look for survivors.

Survivors. She can only hope about that. Just thinking about being the only living being in town is enough to trigger a nervous shakedown, she has to confine that tought in the darkest area of her mind just to stay sane. She dares to look in the direction of the Moon, a grey and white shadow dimmed by the light of the Sun. The three scares are still visible.

Keeping her eyes down, on street level, she recovers the bike and start slowly in the generic direction of the port, cautiosly avoiding all the rubbish. The situation looks the same. Abandoned cars, nobody in sight. The only sound is the slow scratch of the bike tyres. She can feel a gentle breeze from the sea direction, once again the smell of salt evokes memories from the past.

She stops at once, just in front of the city hall. Something is missing and for a while she simply can’t tell what. The slow ticking of her Timex carries away ten seconds before the answer. The flag. Still in its place but colorless now. Her gaze falls on the front of the building, the bronze letters that proudly spell the name of the town are gone.

She looks all around, dazed by her new discover, only to be surprised again. Every form of writing has been cancelled. Car license plates, shop insigna, even the graffiti. Slowly she look at her own bike, only to find the red letters of the trademark almost deleted. Everything goes wrong, she thinks, this couldn’t be happening to me. She really wants to cry but she can’t.

Later she finds the energy to go away and resume her original trip to the port. She is deeply shocked, almost robotlike in her movements. When she reaches a good view point she steps down from the bike, staring at sea with red-rimmed eyes.

Three large cargo vessels are anchored about a mile from the port, the sea is quite calm and grey. She stares at the horizon for a long time, overwhelmed by fear and pain. Alone. She is alone. The last living being in town. Maybe the last living being at all.

Shortly after noon she notice a grey line at the horizon, a dark grey line that grow bigger while advancing to the seaside. The sheer dimension of the phenomenon is so large to defy even fear. She keeps looking at sea, at the incoming grey line. Until the line itself connected with the vessels at bay.

In a matter of seconds the cargo ship disintegrate, thousand of tonnes of metal turned in grey vapor without a sound. That scares the hell out of her, forcing her aching muscles into action. She fumbles a bit with the bike then start pedaling her way back into town.

Leave me alone, leave me alone, it’s all she’s thinking now, not daring to look at the grey line again. Already she can sense it, as a malevolent creature giving chase through the city. She goes on and on, her bike swaying from side to side under her frenetic action.

After five miles she stops, too tired to go on. She dares to turn in the direction of the sea, to see if the grey line still follows her.

It does.

With all her efforts she gains less than half a mile, just a matter of seconds before the impact.

At the very last moment she screams.

Alone (7)

>>> Alone (first part) is here.

>>> Alone (second part) is here.

>>> Alone (third part) is here.

>>> Alone (fourth part) is here.

>>> Alone (fifth part) is here.

>>> Alone (sixth part) is here.

The noise of the wind wakes her hours later, in a bedroom slightly illuminated by moonlight. Trembling, with puffy eyes and a dull pain in the forehead she reaches the window to see what’s going on.

Dry leaves and random piece of paper, little branches and rags tumble here and there on the streets, forced by savage gust of wind from the sea. A strong smell of salt reach her nostrils, a flavor of good days of the past that almost forces a smile on her lips.

Everything was dark outside, except for the pale light from the Moon and the stars. The city without power looks scary and mysterious in the night with the fury of the wind that screams between the buildings. After a while she looks at the sky, clean like never before, free from the reflection effect of city lights.

She looks at the Moon and stare, unable even to cry. The Moon is full, its landscape clear in the sky. With three new, black, enormous scares, going from north to south, marks of a change out of scale of any human action. A tiny cloud of debris surrounds the satellite, glimmering in the dark.

She shut the window closed, pull down the drapers, refusing to see more. Her loneliness feels even greater than before, with the costant howl of the wind outside.

Alone (6)

>>> Alone (first part) is here.

>>> Alone (second part) is here.

>>> Alone (third part) is here.

>>> Alone (fourth part) is here.

>>> Alone (fifth part) is here.

 

On her way back from the city hospital she comes to a decision. Resist. No matter what’s going on in town, she will face it and find a solution. The inital shock leaves room to a quiet sense of wonder where an empty town looks like a kind of nightmare.

The Event, she call it in her mind, has happened in the first hours of the day, say about seven o’clock. An unknown force wiped out the electrical power everywhere, knocking off every other living being around. That get her a lot of pratical problems to solve, just to stay alive.

While going away from the hospital she finds an old Timex wirstwatch, that for the comfort to know the time of the day and to hear the little thing noisy ticking. Her first stop is at an hardware store, one of the few shop with the portcullis up. Using the gun she brokes the glass door and recovers a gas stove, a wind-up torch, two boxes of white candles and a red canteen.

A twenty minute ride takes her back home. She moves in a hurry, carrying home the newfound supplies, forcing herself to avoid looking around. The silence becames an invisible companion for her, a void that echoes her worst fears. Despite her weariness she finds the will to exit from the safe shell of her apartment to provide two six pack of water bottles.

Once at home again she sits on her bed and starts to cry again, this time almost without a sound. In the bedroom the clicking of the old Timex cradles her into a deep sleep.

Alone (5)

>>> Alone (first part) is here.

>>> Alone (second part) is here.

>>> Alone (third part) is here.

>>> Alone (fourth part) is here.

It takes her a full minute to adjust her vision in the dim light. The waiting room is in a complete disarray. A styrofoam cup lies in the middle, coffee splashed all around. Shoes and clothes here and there, a rag soaked with dried blood on the floor near the doors.

She calls out, louder and louder, for help. No response at all. When she spots a pair of blue children shoes on a bench she starts to cry, overwhelmed by loneliness. Not the babies, she thinks, please not the babies too. After a while, teardrops still on her face, she clims over the counter. Time to explore the hospital, to look for somebody.

Three floors, ten divisions, plus a little mall and a church. It takes her three hours to complete a full search of the building. She choose to investigate even the morgue in the end but the complete darkness of the basement and the strong smell of formaline stops her dead on her tracks.

She stops in the main hall for a rest, hungry like never before. Without esitation she picks up a metal chair and smash the glass door of the cafeteria. The noise is welcome, its echo booms thru the empty space of the main hall like a bomb. She starts to eat compulsively chocolate snacks, taking big gulps of coke to wash down the stuff.

Ten minutes later a quasiness in her belly stops her. Cheap sugars and caffeine kick in, transforming her hunger in a powerful headache. Think, she commands to herself, think. There is an explaination to everything. There must be a way to find somebody else.

Alone (4)

>>> Alone (first part) is here.

>>> Alone (second part) is here.

>>> Alone (third part) is here.

BLAM!

The sudden blast from the gun dazzles her, halting abruptly the panic. The bullet get lost somewhere, leaving echoes behind.

The shock get her on her thoughts again. The town hall looks empty and even a gunshot doesn’t get any reaction around. Slowly she looks all around, there’s something more that doesn’t fit. Where are the birds?

No pidgeons, no sparrows, not even a seagull. She cannot remember a single day in her life without seeing them. For a second she wants to scream then her conscious mind comes back in place, restoring a layer of rationality. She looks at the semi auto, force the safety to lock. A few steps at her right she find another abandoned bike and start again, this time in the direction of the city hospital.

Going on, right in the middle of the street, she rings the bike’s bell every few seconds, the merry sound incongrous in the empty town. From the city hall to the hospital she spots a number of abandoned cars, a couple of bus. Nobody around, no other sounds. Every set of traffic lights looks dead, the same for the shops and the houses. Still no birds around, the same for any kind of animal. Only the Sun looks the same, bright and powerful in a sky without clouds.

After twenty minutes she reaches the emergency entrance of the hospital. There’s a couple of ambulance parked, no sign of life. Slowly she steps down from the bike and start walking to the entrance, mind full of images from every horror movie she can recall. The hall is full of darkness.

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…

Alone (2)

 

>>> Alone (first part) is here.

Of course elevator is not an option without power and the stairs echoes her footsteps, louder than ever in the general silence. When she reaches the hallway she stops for a moment, listening intently the sounds of the house. Nothing. No TV sets, no words from other people, not even a dog’s bark.

Slowly she opens the door, almost hoping for something bad to happen. A little whirlwind scatters dead leaves on the sidewalk, carrying the scent of an early summer. One step at a time she leaves her house, eyes frantically looking for any sign of life. Nobody in sight, only cars and bikes parked as usual on both sides of the street.

Habits push her to the left, in the direction of the nearest newsstand. Near the entrance there are black plastic boxes with the old magazines and a pair of black shoes, just next of a pile of clothes. She steps down the sidewalk, look inside the shop. Nobody in sight. Another pair of shoes, pink runners about her own size and more clothes scattered on the floor. There is money on the counter, bills and coins ready to be used for change.

A few more steps and she reaches the road crossing, quiet like never before. The traffic lights are off. The station wagon in the middle of the intersection looks empty at a first sight. Then she discovers another pair of shoes near the pedals and more ragged clothes on the driver seat.

 

Alone (1)

It’s the morning light that awakes her. Bright yellow strays under the curtain, a warm touch that drift her consciouness to reality once again. To realize it’s late and the alarm clock malfunctioned. She gets up in a hurry, fumbling through sheets, already thinking about an excuse for being late on the job. It takes her a full minute to notice that there’s something wrong.

Silence. Not a sound from the street, no noise from the house. Just the distant hiss of the wind. She checks her cell phone only to find it dead like a stone. Power is down and her wristwatch looks dead too. Slowly, very slowly, she approach the windows and raise the curtain. For a moment sunlight block her vision, then she can look at the street, two stores down. No traffic. Just a car, an old tattered station wagon, lies in the middle of the near intersection like a discarded toy.

After a while she takes a step back from the window, scared but still in control. There could be an explanation for everything, she toughts, it’s just a blackout, maybe the phone got itself shortcircuited, that’s all. In a hurry she dress herself, then goes to the bathroom. The noise of the toilet flush is welcome, a sign of normality. But there is no water from the tap, just a few drops and a bunch of little noises. She bit her lower lip, keeping curses at bay. Seconds later she’s ready to go, stuffing the dead phone and keys in her purse.

Time to get some answers and face the thruth.