Apocalypse

Apocalypse

W.C.=2,374

My head was spinning, the world was going crazy, it was the worst day we ever had at the network help center.  My crew of twenty logged over a thousand calls in eight hours.  We were getting ready to hand it off to the night shift when Arleen popped into my cubical to say the night crew would be late and we had to cover. 

“Late?  Where the Hell Are They?”  I was pissed.

“Orientation for tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow, tomorrow’s Saturday, what’s so important about tomorrow?”

Arleen showed her impatiens by crossing her arms and giving me that all knowing prune face.  “It’s the twenty first of May!”  Like I was supposed to know the significance of that date.  I was waiting for her to start tapping her toe.

“Judgment day, ass hole!  Don’t you read the Bible or the papers?”

I stared at her in disbelief, was she for real?  “What the hell are they telling them, to put their heads between their legs when the flashbulb goes off?”

Marilyn stuck her head in to inform me that none of the relief operators are showing up.  I dropped my pen, grabbed my temples,  “It’s ok, we’re all on overtime for…” I looked up at Arleen with a questioning look.

“Honey, figure about two hours.”

I looked at the call volume tally on my screen and the tempo was still at about a hundred calls an hour.  Marilyn rolled her eyes to the ceiling and went back to work.

“Where is this F… Sorry, Damn meeting?”

* * *

When I reached the auditorium, it was standing room only.  Cap was at the podium along with the mayor and two clergy. 

“…it is true.  I don’t know all the details, but according to NASA, the earth will pass through a full-blown solar storm.  It will begin at nine tomorrow morning and last till six PM.”

I raised my hand as Cap’s gaze locked on to me, “And just what does this have to do with the data center?”

“At the minimum, we will loose all the Grids in the Western Hemisphere.  No electrical power for an undetermined time.”

A dead silence followed that statement.  Cap continued, “And for the religious among us; who believe in the recent predictions, it will be judgment day!” 

The discussion went on for over an hour with no definitive point, other than we will be out of business on Sunday morning. 

As usual I stopped at the local watering hole on the way home and put a large buzz on.  The cab dropped me off at 4 AM.  Realizing that I lost my house keys, I opened the garage and there sat my dad’s old 1950 Plymouth, on blocks.  I crawled in and fell sound asleep.

I awoke aching and hung over.  At first I didn’t remember where I was, the musty, hot air almost made me choke.  My tongue was dry and to big for my mouth.  Realizing I was in the Plymouth, I sat up and saw I had left the garage door open.  Crawling out of the car I glanced at my watch, 10:40. 

The street was abnormally quiet for a sunny Saturday morning.  Staggering out onto my driveway I discovered that the sun was low in the western sky, looking at my watch again I saw that the second hand was not moving. 

Up the block, I saw a number of cars stopped randomly all over the intersection.  The Wilson’s front door was open and I walked up, knocked and called their name, no response.  Wandering through the house, I found no one home.  I had to go, so I used their bathroom, the light did not work and when I flushed the tank didn’t refill.  There was no water.  I went to the kitchen, a little water dripped from the freezer, it was starting to defrost; I pulled a lukewarm soda from the refrigerator and quenched my thirst.

I felt like I was in an old 50’s science fiction movie.  Wandering the neighborhood for blocks around, no people and no bodies.  Just abandoned stores, cars, homes and nothing worked.

As far as I could determine it was the end of the world, but what was I still doing here?

Going back to my house, I broke in and found the same situation.  I’ll go to the data center tomorrow, I have a bike in the shed.  From my bedroom window I looked down at the garage and its corrugated tin roof.  I remembered that my father had salvaged a large number of sheets of corrugated roofing from the army base after the war.  He redid the roof of the house and garage with it and the excess was stored in the garage attic. 

That night I made a fire in the outdoor grill and cooked the last steak I had in the freezer.  Washing it down with the last of the scotch, which again dulled my senses and allowed me to fall into a deep sleep.  I passed out in a lounge chair on the back patio, maybe I’ll be lucky and catch another solar flare; find out where everyone else went.

* * *

It’s still dark, the sound that woke me was a earth shaking boom of thunder.  There’s a driving, soaking rain pouring down on me and it was the thunder that woke me up.  After crawling off the lounge, I stagger about to get my bearings in the dark.  Funny how you miss light and so take for granted the simple thing of being able to see.  Up on the porch and out of the rain, I shed my wet cloths, dropping them on the floor and find the door.  After drying myself off I light a candle and get a can of soda, finding the remnants of the last of the ice in the freezer. 

I worked all my life in technology, all aspects of electronics and computer systems.  Now, all by myself in this world that was driven by little ones and zeros, nothing works and may never work again. 

Why even exist?  Why don’t I just go out there, hold on to a flagpole and wait for the lightning.  Better yet, hang myself. 

I go to my liquor stash and open that bottle of Bacardi Rosa gave me last Christmas.  Never liked this shit. 

I don’t remember how I got here but I wake up again but now I’m naked in the middle of a very wet street and the sun is burning.  The empty bottle of rum is broken beside my head. 

Not a bird, insect or animal.  Except for the occasional breeze the world has stopped.  I raise myself to my feet and look around.  I have to pee and decide why not. 

There is a cluster of three and four story buildings about two blocks away.  Deciding on modesty rather than bravado, I locate an open door and find boxer shorts; I can feel my skin burning.  I also locate a t-shirt, sneakers and a six-pack of bottled water.

Walking towards the buildings and recognizing the neighborhood, I know where I am.  Then I see something moves on one of the roofs, was it a wind whipping up a piece of paper, cloths flapping on a line.  I had to know if I was alone, someone had to have survived; I did!

Standing still, at a rise in the street, I studied the contour of the buildings, looking for any movement.  Without a working watch, time is ambiguous and knowing the concept is annoying.  Jamming a stick into a crack in the sidewalk, I make a crude sundial.  After watching the shadow for a short time, I determined it must be between two and three or nine and ten, that’s pretty close.

I should have looked for a hat; my forehead is burning in the sun.  I crack another bottle of water and pour some over my head.

There!  It’s a person, walking on that five-story building, the Commonwealth Building.  Grabbing the remaining bottles of water, I start to race down the street; it’s two blocks away.  I’m out of shape and can feel the pain in my chest as I run full out.

The building houses a bank at street level and offices above.  As I get there I can smell decay and death.  There are crashed automobiles and a bus on its side at the intersection in front of the bank.  There are parts of bodies lying in the shadows of the destroyed vehicles.  I rush into the bank.  No one there, moving out and back into the office building entrance, the door to the fire stairs is open.  Before climbing I pause to catch my breath.  Someone is coming down the stairs…

“Is anyone there?”  It’s a woman’s voice echoing down the stairwell. 

“Yes!  Come down, my name is Fred!”  What do you say to the last woman on earth?

The first sight of her, are her dirty bare feet in the dim light of the staircase.  She’s wearing a dress and as she cautiously approaches me, I can see her face distorted in fear and shock, it was filthy from tears and smeared makeup, her hands shaking as she broke into tears again.  She ran to me and threw her arms around me, pressing her body to mine as she wept.  I dropped the water with my hands at my sides, I slowly engulfed her with my arms and held her. 

We stood there, for a long time until she stopped crying.

“Do you want to sit, I can only offer you water?”

She looked at me in the dwindling light of the vestibule,  “Come with me, where it is safe!”  She took my hand and pulled me out to the sidewalk and back into the bank, to the dark recess of the back room and there was a light glowing in the large walkin vault with a giant steel door. 

To my surprise it wasn’t a candle, it was a flashlight; the batteries must be weak because it was dim, almost going out.  She walked ahead of me, pulling out and lighting another fresh flashlight.  “Were you in here yesterday?”

She shook her head, “Yea, I was doing the morning tally…” She stopped to hold back tears, “There was a crash outside…when the lights went out.”  Her purse was on a table and she withdrew a tissue.  “The lights never go out, they’re on batteries, but they dimmed and went out…”

“How long did you stay in here?”

“…It was awful… Mr. Higgs… There was this very bright, white, light…  he was at the door and the next second he was gone…” she caught herself again, breaking down. “I stayed here in the dark for a long time, but there was no alarm, no sounds at all…”

“This Mr. Higgs, he just disappeared?”  She pointed at a damp spot on the floor.  I took the flashlight and examined it, it wasn’t blood, just an oily damp spot on the tile floor.  “Do you have another one of these…” I held up the flashlight.

She moved to the back of the vault and there was a cardboard carton full of lights.  “It’s supposed to be a promotional gift to new depositors.”

“You take a bunch of them and follow me.”

She reached into another box and pulled out a green canvas tote bag filling it with the small flashlights. 

As we walked up the street I took her into one of the general stores and she clipped some shoes.  I noticed smudges of oily dampness all over the floors, there were none outside, but I figured the rain must have washed them away.

She walked beside me quietly, just staring straight ahead, “What’s your name?”

“Eileen … Burgess… I’m sorry…” She stopped, “Where are we going?”

“Home!”

She turned around and pointed. “But, I live back there!”

“Look around, who is there, it’s all gone, do you want to be by yourself, alone again?”

“But I…” She looked all around; her eyes were bloodshot and red from crying and being up all night.  “…I have friends… had friends… family…”

“Eileen, we are alone, unless we find someone else, we are the population of this town!”  I held out my hand to her and she slowly reached out and touched my fingertips.  “Come on and lets find something to eat tonight.”

I could tell that she was coming out of her depression as she started to walk beside me instead of trailing behind and the foggy far off stare disappeared.  She pulled me into a clothing store and had me wait while she shopped. 

We stopped at a supermarket; I came across a red wagon and we filled up on canned dinners.  The ice cream was still frozen, but would have melted by the time we got it home.  Eileen grabbed some plastic spoons and we gorged on the partially melted, creamy delicacy before we left the store. 

I had wandered over two miles last night and it was dusk before we were turning onto my block.  I guess we could have stayed anywhere, why come back here?  It was still home!

We cooked on the outdoor grill, Beef Stew, and washed it down with red wine.  It is amazing, when the sun went down, the clarity of the sky and all the stars.  When the town is lit up you can’t see even a tenth of the stars.  Eileen changed into slacks and a blouse and reclined in one of the lounges, I took off the t-shirt and sneakers and lay beside her in the other lounge.  After finishing the wine we both went to sleep. 

* * *

Neither one of us knew when it happened; we were probably asleep and oblivious of our surroundings.  It seems the sun was in an overly active period of sunspots, catastrophic magnetic storms that spew out gigatons of radioisotopes at light speed in specific directions.  On this day and at some time in the late morning the last two people of Cromwell South Dakota flashed like strobe lights and disappeared forever.  Two oily damp smudges on one lounge chair. 

The Bitter END