Apocalypse Wow, Pt. 01

So given the lack of information we had about what was actually going on, we planned for a few different contingencies. From what we'd seen on the TV, and heard on local radio before everything cut off, both of us agreed there was a good chance there was no one left alive in Old Sal.

Now, in this scenario, we'd essentially have to try to loot what was left of the town - assuming there was a town left at all. Simone had suggested that we split up to cover more ground quickly, she could check out the drugstore while I hit the grocery store for food and whatever, but I vetoed this on the grounds that we had no idea just how dangerous it was in town. I just thought we'd be safer to stick together.

Of course, on the other hand, maybe whatever had happened was over and there was some kind of recovery effort, in which case we imagined there'd be government folks there to tell us what to do and we'd feel pretty stupid for sheltering in place for two weeks.

Obviously, there were any number of possible realities and obviously we knew we couldn't plan for them all but of course the possibility of the town being overrun by... well, by... them, you know, that was the thing we feared most. So we did bring weapons with us.

Now, my parents weren't what you would call gun nuts or anything, but they did own guns. Two to be exact - a hunting rifle and a pretty old revolver. The rifle was a reminder of my dad's membership of a lot of hunting clubs over the years, and possibly his time in the Army I guess. And even though my mom didn't exactly approve, he'd made sure Danielle and I both knew how to clean, strip, load and fire it by the time we were teenagers.

The revolver was usually kept in a little lock box in a closet in my parents' bedroom, although on the drive to town that morning it was sitting at Simone's feet in the car. The rifle was on the back seat wrapped in a towel, along with a baseball bat I'd found in the garage.

We didn't speak on our way down the driveway or when we turned onto the road. I'm not sure whether it was anxiety or fear or a mixture of both. There was definitely some kind of excitement mixed in there as well, for sure. I mean, we finally had a prospect of actually learning something about how the world had ended. Of course we were excited.

And then, well, I was also trying to grapple with something I thought I shouldn't be feeling......... So, one of the big questions we needed answered was, where was everybody? Or even, was there anybody else left? And honestly, I couldn't help that a part of me wanted the answer to this question to be... well... no. I know, sick right?

And I hated that this feeling was there, burrowed down deep inside me... but it was. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't that I hated my life before the First Day or anything like that - far from it. I loved my job, teaching high school science, I had lots of great friends and although I'd lost my parents, I loved my sister very much. Still, I guess I was thinking that... if all that was gone, I didn't want to end up losing Simone as well, you know? I guess... I guess I was kind of getting used to it being just the two of us. So anyway, yeah, maybe those thoughts were a part of the reason I was pretty quiet when we started moving.

So I knew from experience that the road was usually pretty deserted so the fact that we didn't see any other cars for a couple of miles didn't surprise me, or didn't really tell me anything at really, one way or another. A lot of the land around the house and all around Old Sal actually is forest and the road runs right through it so it did feel a little bit claustrophobic while we drove.

I slowed down when we got to the abandoned pick-up and Simone's car by the side of the road, right where we'd left them on the First Day. There was no sign of the thing that attacked us, we still didn't have a name for them at that point, and we didn't stop to look too close.

So, yeah, then when we started getting close to town I guess we were pretty fucking scared. And it became clear pretty quickly that the scenario we'd planned for involving government types telling us what to do was not going to come to pass. We saw more and more abandoned cars and I had to drive real slow to avoid them and all the other debris and stuff that was all over the road.

"What's that?"

I nearly jumped out of my seat when Simone spoke. It was the first thing either of us had said since leaving the house. But I knew what she was talking about. One of the abandoned cars, a silver sedan, was obviously covered in blood. And there was a body beside it, on the road I mean, or what was left of one anyway. Also covered in blood.

I'd never seen a dead body before, in real life I mean, other than at an open casket funeral maybe. And this did not look like that.

Anyway, I didn't respond to Simone's question immediately but, I guess we looked at each other.

And I said "Let's keep going," and she nodded. Her face had gone really pale and the fear in her eyes wasn't hard to see but, honestly, I don't think either of us really seriously considered turning back.

And then, when we go closer to the town's only street... there were more bodies... a lot more. It wasn't clear what had killed them... just... just that there was a lot of blood... a lot of... well... violence. No sign of our red-eyed man though, or any other red-eyes for that matter.

"What the fuck happened?" Simone said, whispered really.

"I have no idea," was all I could say.

I pulled up outside the town's only drugstore. We shared another long look and nodded to each other. Simone reached down and picked up the revolver while I reached back and took the rifle from the back seat.

And then slowly, gingerly, we opened the doors and got out of the car. We'd seen explosions from the house, but there was no evidence we could see that anything like that had happened in Old Sal. There were definitely signs of violence, I mean apart from the bodies and all the blood. There was debris everywhere, the street, the sidewalk, windows were smashed. We could see the one in the radio station and I couldn't help thinking about that man's awful screams. But nothing, and no one that we could see, moved or made a sound.

And then... then there was the smell. Jesus, even thinking about it now... It hung in the air, almost like something physical, you know? You could taste it. It was like a weight pressing on me, like leaving an air conditioned room on a really humid day, and even though I'd never experienced it before, I knew what it was. I knew it was the smell of death.

I heard Simone kind of gasp a little bit and when I looked over she had her hand over her nose and mouth.

"I know," I said. "Come on, let's not spend any more time here that we have to."

So really carefully, we stepped toward the drugstore. The door was closed but not locked. One of the windows at the front had been smashed and when we stepped inside, we could see that the place looked like it had been looted already. Everything was everywhere, all over the place, like a little tornado had passed through it. And the smell was much worse in there than on the street, like overwhelmingly bad. It actually did overwhelm Simone.

We'd barely stepped through the door when she rushed back out and vomited right on the pavement. I followed her, pretty instinctively I guess and held her hair back while she... well, you know... I went to the car and got her a bottle of water we'd brought from the house.

I went back into the store and found some face masks and brought one out to her.

"Good idea," she said, and she was smiling pretty wryly, like, wish we'd thought of that sooner. Anyway, she put it on. "Come on," she said, "let's get this over with."

We'd made a list, quite a long one as you can imagine, of what we'd need. We divided it into must have, could use and would be nice sections although, obviously, at that point we had no idea how long we should be planning for, so even that was a challenge.

We'd brought garbage bags with us - although I remember garbage bags were also on the list - and we started sifting our way though the mess looking for what we needed and filling our bags.

The source of the smell wasn't hard to find. There were at least three bodies, pretty badly decomposed, in the wreckage of the store and I found two more behind the prescription counter.

Simone had the idea that we should gather some common prescription stuff on the basis that if anything did go wrong, if we got injured or sick at the house or whatever, we didn't want to have to rush back to town for supplies. So I collected as many antibiotics and painkillers and whatnot as I could find, while Simone kept gathering in the rest of the store.

And we worked pretty fast so after maybe ten or fifteen minutes, we had four pretty full garbage bags of supplies from the drugstore in the back of the SUV - everything from toothpaste and shampoo to disinfectants and band-aids and everything in between.

The grocery store was just across the street and once we'd gotten to work in the drugstore thoughts of fear or anxiety kind of faded a little bit so we weren't.... like... creeping around and jumping at shadows when we got ready to move over to it.

I moved the car across the street and backed it up as close as I could get to the door. We knew the supplies we needed from the grocery store would be heavier. There were windows smashed there too and it was kind of a mess but, in general, it was actually in better condition than the drugstore had been. It was obviously much bigger than the drugstore too so, as expected, there were definitely more bodies. And... of course... the smell. I mean, the masks did help but... still. Fuck.

Anyway, our food list was made up mostly of dried and canned stuff, right? We didn't expect to find anything fresh after two weeks, and we went pretty diligently about our business until the SUV was crammed with supplies - just masses of, like, dried pasta, canned everything, powdered milk, sugar, salt - you name it. And, of course, as much coffee as we could carry. We had plenty of water at the house but we took some more anyway, whatever we could fit.

You know, looking back now, it's kind of remarkable how quickly we felt safe that day. I mean, when we were finishing loading the car, we were actually laughing and joking around a little bit. We hadn't discussed it or anything, but I think we had both felt beforehand that there was at least some chance that we would be killed... killed horribly on this little expedition and yet, now, it was going so well. We even stopped thinking about the need for the weapons. The rifle was getting in my way while we gathered stuff so I'd left it sitting casually against the car and I'd seen Simone put the revolver back in the lock box, I assume for similar reasons.

Yes, it was probably naive, maybe even a little stupid, but I can't really explain it. I don't think either of us was naive or stupid but, while we still had a lot of questions about what happened, I think we just felt a little bit giddy to be actually doing something to help ourselves, something other than 'sheltering' anyway.

So then, when we heard it, heard that... sound... it was even more of a shock to our systems than it might otherwise have been, you know?

I'll do my best to describe it but, honestly, it was the most terrifying thing I'd ever heard. Yeah, I guess new entries on the terror scale were going to become a thing, right? Anyway, there was nothing in my memory that would allow me to even begin attempting to classify it. It was obviously made by... an animal I guess, of some kind, but no animal I'd ever imagined could make this sound. At first, it seemed like a kind of scream, like a person in pain or filled with rage, but then more elements seemed to join it so that I didn't know if it was one... thing making the sound or several. It kind of... gurgled and modulated, growing in volume and pitch at the same time.

And then it kind of broke open... ripped. Like that awful gurgling scream was a piece of paper that was suddenly torn down the middle, revealing something much more intense and frightening... like an all-consuming chorus of... of hate and... and rage that just seemed to fill the space around us. I don't know if the windows actually shook, but it felt like they did.

I can't tell you how long the noise lasted, but I can say it was long enough that I had time to wish it would stop. And while it got louder and more intense, it also got harder to identify where it was coming from - it seemed to be everywhere - but I was pretty sure when it first started, it had come from the opposite end of the street, the side of town in the direction opposite to the house that is.

And then, when it finally did stop, Simone was looking at me with just sheer terror on her face. Even in that moment, when I was just about as afraid as I'd ever been in my life, my instinct was to try to make her feel like we would be OK, so I did my best not to reflect her terror back to her. Honestly, I've no idea if I was successful or not.

"What the fuck was that?" she said, kind of hissed actually. I think we both had the instinct in that moment that, whatever had made that sound, it was not a good idea for us to attract it to us by making noise.

So I said "I don't know, and I don't want to stick around to find out either, let's get the fuck out of here." And then, softly despite the adrenaline I could feel surging through my body, I grabbed the rifle and closed up the SUV.

When I saw Simone move to the passenger side of the car, there was this new sound and while the nature of it wasn't in itself terrifying, like whatever the fuck that scream had been, what it signified was just as bad. It was the sound of movement. Something, more likely things actually given the volume, were moving. I was pretty sure that it was coming from around the corner at the end of the street, the same direction the scream had come from. And it was getting closer.

It was amazing how much Simone managed to communicate by just saying my name, just once, in that moment. I understood immediately - and agreed by the way - that she meant hurry the fuck up, I'm really fucking scared and let's get the fuck out of here right now, all at the same time.

Anyway, somehow, I managed to just ignore the approaching terror or whatever the fuck it was. I jumped into the driver's seat, Simone took the rifle from me, and we were moving in seconds.

You know how in movies and stuff, these moments always have the heroes' car pulling away with wheel spins and screeching tires just before the big menace reaches them? Well, this was kind of like that, but not really. I actually pulled away pretty softly from the store, I didn't want to attract any more attention than necessary, you know. I mean, sure, one part of me wanted to just put the thing in drive and press my foot as hard as I could to the floor, but I didn't.

And as for the menace, whatever the fuck it was, well, in the moving car we couldn't really hear it approaching anymore and although I kept my eye in the rear view mirror as much as I could while I was weaving my way through the debris on the street, I didn't see anything coming before we turned the corner and got back onto the road for the house.

And unlike the journey into town, we talked all the way home, about the supplies we'd managed to gather and all that, but obviously mostly about what we'd seen and... well, heard I guess. It was as if both of us were afraid of what we might hear if there was silence in the car, you know?

And driving along that claustrophobic tree lined road I guess I went just about as fast as I dared and Simone didn't object. My eyes spent a lot of time in the rear view mirror and Simone actually turned sideways so she could keep looking out the rear window, over the mound of supplies. But we couldn't see, or hear, anyone... or anything following us.

But even so, when we reached the house and got out of the car, without discussing it, we both stood totally still and silent, looking back down the drive, for like a full minute. I think I even held my breath. But there was nothing. No one. We agreed it made sense to table our discussion on trying to figure out what everything we'd seen and heard meant while we stowed our loot.

It was getting dark when we finished. We ate a quick dinner and then went through the open archway from the kitchen into the living room and settled into the two comfortable armchairs we'd moved in front of the huge fireplace.

I guess there was a bit of a silence for a while and then Simone said, "You know, despite everything, I guess today was a pretty good day, right?"

"Yeah," I said, "I guess you're right, I mean, the supplies we got should be enough to keep us going for weeks, maybe a couple of months and I had a few ideas when we were in town, I mean before the... whatever it was... I think there are enough supplies there so that we could survive here for quite a while."

She kind of just hummed a little in response and I wasn't sure about the tone of it, you know? She was just looking thoughtfully into the fire.

"Survive," she said and I looked over at her.

"We survived," she said, "we're still alive and from what we saw today, we may be the only ones. Round here anyway. Whatever we heard... I'm pretty sure it wasn't... it wasn't human Jim. But we're alive. That's something, right? I know we've talked about... our friends and... and family, and when I think about those things it makes me sad, but Jim," and she leaned forward in her chair to bring herself closer to me, "we survived!" She was smiling and raised her glass of wine in my direction.

"Yes we did," I said, "and we're going to stay survived Simone, I promise you that," and I clinked my glass against hers and smiled at her pretty damn earnestly. I don't know why I said that by the way. I had no idea if it was a promise I could keep but I guess, despite everything, I was feeling hopeful and... I don't know, maybe Simone's, like, irrepressible optimism was contagious or something.

"I believe you Jim," she said and she settled back in her chair. "You know," she said, "I've been thinking these last few days," and she was looking back at the fire now, "how... lucky I am... that I just happened to be here with you that day, at that time..."

"Me too," I said, right?

"No," she said, "I mean, not just that I was here - in this house that somehow escaped whatever happened - I mean I feel really lucky that I was with you Jim. I don't know if I would have survived this long if you hadn't been here but I know for sure I'd be absolutely out of my mind by now!"

She was looking at me now and, I guess it was my turn to gaze into the fire. I really hoped she wouldn't see me blush.

"That's a very kind thing to say Simone..." I said, "thank you, but I think you don't give yourself enough credit. I could say the same thing about you - you're one of the strongest, most positive people I've ever met. I don't know if I'd be alive or dead if I was on my own, but I know I'm really glad that you're here."

Now, I was feeling pretty nervous about the turn the conversation had taken, positive and all as it was, so it took a bit of effort to raise my head and look in Simone's direction. She was looking back at me and she had this warm smile on her face and a look in her eyes I couldn't immediately place. She held out her hand in my direction and I took it.

"We're gonna make it Jim," she said and I could feel her gripping my hand tightly.

And then there was this comfortable quiet that developed, and lasted. My nervousness about our conversation kind of faded, maybe because Simone kept a hold of my hand for quite a while. Anyway, eventually, I needed it back to use the bathroom but... it was nice while it lasted.