After backing out of the garage, she got out to close the door. Leaving the car idling in the driveway, she retrieved the trash bag and flung it into the rear of the vehicle. She would have to dump it somewhere, but it felt wrong to leave it in the woods.Ishould have brought the other trash.She didn’t produce much garbage, but she’d collected a sack of food wrappers.
Driving along the gravel lane, she encountered only a few stalled vehicles before she reached the paved road.
As she’d expected, smashed and stalled cars blocked the on-ramp and were scattered helter-skelter across the highway. Drivers and passengers had been vaporized while attempting to flee, but the vehicles had kept running until they hit something or ran out of gas. She’d expected as much, but the sight still came as a shock. It looked like a scene from a religious movie about the Rapture.All good Christians have been beamed up to heaven.
And then there’s me.Never a believer, she wasn’t going to start now.
Navigating the obstacle course on the highway would be challenging at best. She swerved around a pickup truck and headed for the scenic farm road. As she drove, she scanned the fields, keeping her eyes peeled for movement and other signs of life. She spotted no aliens or humans; however, a reassuring abundance of deer grazed in the fields.The animals are coming back.At least they didn’t kill everything.
When an area got vaporized, all pets and wildlife died, too. Charlie, her parents’ black lab, had been killed. She knew all the animals at the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield and the cats at the National Tiger Sanctuary in Saddlebrooke—located in the vaporization zone—would be gone.
On the outskirts of Big Creek, she stopped at a gas station and tossed the bag into the dumpster. “No trash pickup today.” No trash pickup ever.
She proceeded to Big Creek.
Her hometown resembled a Hollywood studio movie set, rows of building facades with a few cars parked along the curb for props. Arriving at the empty town on that fateful day, she’d heard the sirens blaring—and had raced to her parents’ house to find them gone. Praying they’d escaped, she’d run through the woods to the cave.
Vacant.
The sirens were silent now, having petered out with no electricity to power them.
The scarcity of automobiles here and the clutter on the highway showed people had been vaporized from the air as they fled. Tears slid down her cheeks as she drove slowly through the devastated town. “I hope the Progg all got colds, the flu, and COVID!”
Storefront-window placards valiantly proclaimed, WE SHALL WIN, DEFEAT THE ALIEN BASTARDS, and LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE. Although fearful, people had remained determined through the end.
American and Missouri state flags drooped from their poles outside the post office. No wind today. Most of the ice had melted, too, she noted—and then fishtailed around a corner as she hit a patch of it.
The Progg were gone—but would they return to the scene of the crime? That was the big question. Smaller, but no less important question: What had drawn Grav to the area?
She braked alongside a two-floor green building. Big Creek General was a tiny rural hospital of twenty-five beds. People needing major surgeries or specialized care went to Cox Medical Center or Mercy Hospital in Springfield, but Big Creek General served most of the medical needs of local residents with a caring heart and community-minded spirit. Patients weren’t just organs or conditions requiring treatment or a way for the physician to get another Mercedes. She’d been proud to work there.
I should get some antibiotics, pain relievers, and medical supplies.There was no point stockpiling a huge amount because medications lost their potency over time and expired meds could be dangerous. But, it wouldn’t hurt to have some on hand for as long as they were good. The prepper had left supertankers of OTC pain meds, but they’d expired a decade ago. She could check the pharmacy, too.
But that’s for another day.Today was a brief reconnaissance mission, and it didn’t seem wise to leave her prisoner unguarded for too long.
A couple of blocks from Big Creek General, she parked outside the hospital annex, aka her apartment building. Most of its residents had worked at the hospital in some capacity. It was so close Laurel had walked to work every day.
Fortunately, her mom had a key to her apartment on her ring because she’d left hers under the mat in her car.
She climbed the stairs to the second floor and let herself into her unit.
The apartment remained as she’d left it—not an item out of place, and like her parents’ house, covered in dust. She dragged her finger across the bar separating the functional kitchenette from the living space. She’d eaten her solo meals at the bar rather than at the small table.
On her days off, she’d go out with friends to Springfield or hang out at her parents’. While the apartment hadn’t been a home, just a place to crash, a pang of loss ricocheted through her. She’d been robbed of whatever possibilities life would have offered.
She slid the patio door open and stepped onto the tiny veranda to survey the street and its environs, peering over rooftops. The hospital and the apartment complex were the sole two-story buildings. The town sprawled in front of her, tragically still and quiet. Life would forever be divided into before and after.
“It’s just me and the alien.” Her murmured comment sounded loud in the silence.
Except,somebodyhad shot him. Had the shooter moved on or remained in the area?
She went back inside and got her binoculars then studied the area again. Not a single solitary sign of life.Good—because that meant no Progg, butbadbecause deep down she’d been hoping somebody alive remained. Somebody human. She’d hoped that some people, like her, had been gone the day Big Creek had been vaporized and maybe returned.
Would it ever be safe to live in the open again? And what about the colluders? She assumed more ofthemhad survived. They may have had advance knowledge of which towns were targeted and would have steered clear.
With a heavy sigh, she went inside.
She collected some clothes, tossing into a duffel three pairs of jeans, a pair of leggings, four warm shirts, pj’s, underwear, socks, and her running shoes. Then she removed two of the jeans and substituted more leggings. She had to wash clothes by hand in water hauled bucket by bucket from the creek. She used a mechanical clothes wringer to squeeze out the excess water, but denim took a long time to air-dry.
