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- Author: Christine Pope
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The only one in the world….
The thought whispered through my mind, and I did my best to ignore it. Surely if I were immune, and not just having extremely delayed-onset symptoms for some reason, that meant other people had to be immune, too. How many? I couldn’t begin to guess. I didn’t know the mortality rate of the disease. Even if 99.9% of the population was dead, that would leave around a thousand people still alive in the greater Albuquerque area, if I was doing my mental math correctly.
I turned on the overhead lights in the kitchen, then went through the house, turning on all the lamps. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest thing to do — maybe advertising my presence would do more harm than good. But I couldn’t sit there in the dark, not after everything I’d been through that day. Besides, when I peeked out through the curtains, I saw mine wasn’t the only house on the street that was all lit up. Most likely the others just had their lights on because no one was around to turn them off, but it did make mine seem less conspicuous.
“Are you there?” I asked of the darkness. Even a voice that was only a product of my imagination was better than this deep, deep silence, the kind of quiet you should never hear if you lived in a big city.
No reply, of course. My gaze shifted to the remote control, still lying where I’d last dropped it on the coffee table. I didn’t want to turn on the television, not after what I’d seen the last time around. Would it all be static by now, or would that one station still be showing blaring red text with more quotes from Revelations?
I was too much of a coward to pick up the remote and find out.
But there was still the stereo, and all the CDs my parents wouldn’t get rid of, despite Devin and me telling them all that plastic just took up space and that they should just rip all their music off those CDs and then play it through Apple TV or something. And now I had to be grateful for their stubbornness, because that meant I could get up and choose something to blot out the silence. My father liked country, but old country, like Hank Williams and Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline, and my mother preferred classical. That sounded better to me right then, so I found her favorite, Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, and put that on.
It actually was better, with the sound of an orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy on the piano drowning out that awful stillness. Or at least it was better until I realized that no one would ever play that piece live again, that there would be no more symphony orchestras or Arcade Fire concerts or anything, ever again.
“Oh, God,” I gasped, pushing myself up from the couch and running into the kitchen, where I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water in my face. As if that could begin to help. It was all too big to comprehend, so awful and enormous that I could literally feel the horror of it beginning to sink in, like some noxious chemical seeping into my skin.
And then it was as though strong, invisible arms wrapped around me, bringing with them a soothing warmth. Unseen lips brushed against my hair, and I heard the voice again.
Be strong, my love. Be strong for just a while longer.
Just as suddenly, the presence was gone. I held on to the tile of the kitchen counter, feeling the cool surface beneath my fingertips. In that moment, I truly wondered if I’d lost my mind.
What other explanation could there be?
More because I knew I should eat something than because I had any appetite at all, I gathered myself enough to put a few slices of wheat bread in the toaster. Once they were done, I buttered them and set them on a plate, then headed back out to the living room, where Rachmaninoff still played to the empty space. Just as I was setting my plate down on the coffee table, the lights flickered and went out, and the CD slurred to a halt. Silence reigned once more.
Heart slamming painfully in my chest, I waited a second, then another. Surely this had to be just a glitch. In a second or two, the power would come back on.
But it didn’t. How could the power plants run, with no one left to manage them?
The blackness was absolute. From my camping days, I knew how dark, how very dark, our desert skies could be. This seemed worse, though, because this wasn’t the expected dark of a night out under the stars. I was in the heart of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Luckily, my mother loved candles, and so there were already a pair of pillars in wrought-iron sconces on the mantel, and another pillar candle sitting on a metal leaf-shaped dish on an end table. She kept a long-handled lighter in one of the coffee table’s drawers, so I reached in and fumbled around for a few seconds before locating it. As soon as I pulled it out of the drawer, I pressed the button to activate the flame. That pushed back on the darkness a little, and it got that much better when I lit the candle on the table next to me. Then I had enough illumination that I could get up and light the candles on the mantel.
From there I went into the kitchen and found the sugar cookie–scented jar candle sitting on the breakfast bar, and lit that as well. Upstairs — well, I’d worry about that later. At least now I wasn’t blundering around in total darkness…and the candle flames weren’t bright enough that they would be seen through the drapes and blinds, all of which I quickly closed.
All the same, I knew there was one thing I really needed to do.
On the ground floor was a study that my parents shared, although in reality it was mostly my mother’s space, housing her desk and computer and several shelves full of books. On the opposite wall, though, was my father’s gun safe.
I knew the combination. He’d trusted me with that, just as he trusted me to be responsible when we went shooting and to clean the guns I used and follow all the safety rules he’d taught me. I wasn’t sure if Devin had known the combination, although I somehow doubted it; my father hadn’t given me that information until I turned twenty-one. And even though I might be the only person left alive in Albuquerque, no way was I sitting alone in this house without some means to protect myself.
The lock turned easily, of course. My father took as good care of the safe as he did the guns inside. There were a lot, too — in addition to his service Glock, he owned an AR-15 rifle, two shotguns, a small .22-caliber hunting rifle, a Ruger, a Beretta, and my favorite, the Smith & Wesson .357. Sort of an old-fashioned gun, but my accuracy had always been good with it. Besides, with a revolver, you didn’t have to worry about the gun jamming.
I set the candle I’d brought with me down on my mother’s desk, then opened the safe. Hanging from one of the sleeves on the door was the .357, and on the shelf directly opposite the gun, boxes of spare ammo. My father wasn’t exactly what you’d call a survivalist type, but he did believe in maintaining his supplies. If necessary, I could waste a lot of bad guys before I ran out. Not that there were probably any bad guys left. This was more for my own peace of mind than anything else.
After lifting the S&W from where it rested, I pushed the latch forward to release the barrel, then moved the latch outward. As I’d suspected, the chambers were empty — my father didn’t believe in leaving loaded handguns lying around, even in the safe. One by one, I dropped the bullets into the chambers, then closed the gun back up.
Habit made me shut the door to the gun safe as well, and make sure the lock was fully engaged. Maybe I was the only person left alive in Albuquerque…and maybe not. No matter what the reality of the situation might turn out to be, I didn’t think it was a very good idea to leave a fully stocked gun safe accessible to just anyone.
Picking up the candle with my free hand, I went back out to the living room.
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