The fire
has stopped at the edge of our property, threatening to tip over into my yard,
which leaves about an acre between the fire and my home. My body is sweating. I
can’t tell if it’s from the heat of the fire or running around my house or the
fact that the sun is strong today.
I’ve gone
through the steps in my head, a list of objectives that any human being would
create upon a disaster like this.
Panic. Yes, I have succeeded in
that. My heart clumped up in my throat until it purged itself out into a
scream.
Call 9-1-1. Okay, yes, I did that,
but no one answered. My friend once told me that there can be one guy
responsible for an entire county. He can have ten calls come in at once and
just not be able to take them all. That must be what happened. I’ll call again
later.
Grab the valuables. Yes, I did
that, too. I got the savings bonds, the laptop, the money. I even found the
time to change out of my bikini into some shorts and a V-neck.
Find my family. They certainly aren’t
home. I checked every single room, the basement, and then the garage, only to
find that everyone’s cars are still here. They were here when I went outside to
tan. How long was I outside? I know I went into a daydream, but how long was
it? And how could they have left when their cars are still here? Could someone
have picked them up? My reasoning seems unlikely.
This is where I am. Standing on my
porch, the valuables in a heap. I stare at the smoldering glob of metal that is
disturbingly close to my home.
I want to investigate and find out
what it really is out there. But it’s still smoking and I’m afraid.
I pick up my phone and dial my
mother.
I hear a ringtone seeping through
the cracked window in the kitchen.
What?
I press my phone against my ear to
hear the slow and steady tone. I get up and walk inside toward the ringing. My
heart pounds as I walk up each stair, nearing my parent’s bedroom.
The ring gets louder with each
step. I get closer and closer until…
My mother’s phone is lit up on the
bed. Her pink nightgown peeks up from underneath the crumpled sheets. A small
heap of something is underneath. Her phone vibrates and jingles and I fill with
terror. Where can she be? She doesn’t go anywhere without her phone.
I run to the sheets and lift them
to see her nightgown.
It’s full of the gray dust.
What is it with this dust? First it
was inside my kitchen mingled with my father’s clothing, and now it’s on my
mother’s bed… under the sheets? Inside her nightgown? Did it waft inside from
the crash?
Impossible.
I got it. She must have accidentally
left her phone at home. I’ll try Dad.
The tone in my ear continues and
continues until the voicemail. No response. But his phone isn’t inside, so
that’s good.
At least I didn’t hear it.
Anger rises up into my cheeks
creating a fury. Why have a phone if you aren’t ever going to answer it? Why
have one if you’re not even going to take it with you?
I growl, trying not to scream out
my anger in case they come walking through the door.
I guess I could try Lauren.
“Hello!”
I hear Lauren’s voice and my heart
calms, easing up.
“Lauren! I have been wonder—“
“Hello?” Lauren says again.
“Lauren! Are you there?”
“Helloooo!”
“Lauren, it’s Genevieve Where are—“
“Ha! Can’t get to the phone right
now. Leave a message at the beep! Beep!”
I throw my phone at the ground and
yell.
I cover my mouth as I get closer,
coughing out the ash that floats in the air.
And I gasp.
The small
windows.
The wings.
It’s a plane.
It’s
dismantled, the parts dismembered like a crucified body. They are scattered
across the field, burning hot like red coals.
A passenger
plane.
The people.
I’m afraid to look inside the
windows.
This isn’t my job. I can’t do this.
Are they dead?
I grab my phone again. I call
9-1-1.
“Please. Please answer. Please. Oh,
God. Please,” I say to the empty air.
It rings three times. My heart
stops as the line seems to crackle, like a phone picking up.
“Hello?” I nearly scream.
No response.
“Hello! Please, someone come help
me. There’s a plane by my yard, please, I need help and—“
And the line disconnects.
I give up on my phone and throw it
as hard as I can.
I flick the sweat off my forehead
and run toward the plane.
I don’t know where to go, where to
begin, what to do.
As I near the plane, I realize it’s
too hot. The fire is too fresh and I have to get help.
I suddenly realize what I think
I’ve been forgetting all along.
My neighbors! They must have heard
the crash, they must have called when they heard it and the ambulance must be
on its way. Of course!
I run inside and grab my keys off
the key ring. I get in my car as fast as I can and drive to the small
subdivision. I knock on the door of the house closest to mine. It’s a white
home, small in stature compared to the mansion next door.
I knock again.
I press the doorbell and wait as
long as I possibly can.
I knock.
I punch the door with my fist.
I kick the door.
“Why is no one home?” I scream from
the porch.
I make my way to the backyard.
There sits a grill, a few lawn chairs, and an inflated pool.
No people. My eye catches on a
small pile of dust in front of the grill, and I walk forward to see that there
are burgers on the grill. They’re burning.
Someone must be home then, right?
I walk up to the porch, open the
screen door, and try to just open the door myself, but it’s locked. I knock and
knock until my fist seems numb.
I guess no one is home, but how?
I try the next house.
And the next one.
And the next one.
After what
seems like hours, I give up and scream, “Where is everyone!”
I’ve tried
every single house in the neighborhood, the only houses around for a mile or
two.
I scream,
and slip down to the ground, my head in my hands.
“Why me?
Why is this happening to me?”
Those
people. In the plane. They need help now; they need medics now.
Are they
going to die? I imagine them inside, buckled to their seats, unconscious,
breathing in that smoke, dying with every passing minute that no one comes to
save them.
“Get
yourself together, Genevieve,” I say, forcing myself up.
I drive
back to my house wishing I hadn’t throw my phone in the field so I could try
9-1-1 again.
I run back
to the plane.
The smoke is still wafting toward
the sky, but the huge billows of black ink have stopped. Now it’s a dark gray,
slowly retreating to a pale gray.
I don’t know where or how to begin,
seeing that the plane’s parts are smoking hot and the parts are toppled and
turned in various ways. I peer inside one of the windows, a piece of the plane
closest to me. This part of the plane is at a level where I can actually get to
the window to see inside.
The seats are there, the seat belts
all buckled in. The magazines from the back of the seats have scattered onto
the floor. Pieces of the ceiling have ripped and shredded, parts are dented. It
looks like a plane crash all right. But something is missing.
The people.
Everything is covered in ash. That
dust.
A thin film layers everything. The
seats, the floor, even some has shadowed the windows, making it difficult to
see clearly inside.
This must be the dust that was in
my house. But how?
I can’t figure this out right now.
My clothes are drenched in sweat. I start coughing uncontrollably as the smoke
in the air catches in my throat.
Maybe there weren’t people on the
plane. Maybe there were just pilots. Yes, that must be it. That has to be it.
Do they ever do that? They must.
I feel hope now, a sense of life
coming back to me. I survey the parts of the plane that lie around me, and
distinguish the cockpit.
I whisper to myself, “Please be
alive. Please have a heartbeat. Please.”
My heart drops into my stomach when
I get close enough to the windshield to see inside.
It’s hard to see clearly, as it
sits higher than my line of vision, but it looks like everything is there. The
control board, the seats, all of it. Even the dust wafts through the air.
Except I don’t see any pilots.
As if
someone pushes me from behind, I jerk forward, knowing I must keep moving. I
must find out what is happening.
I let my
mind consider the possibilities. The plane was remote controlled. I’ve heard of
cars that are in the process of becoming robotic, but even then, they aren’t
even available to the public, and someone has to be behind the wheel to monitor
it.
The people jumped out of the plane.
And where did they go? Why would they jump? My mind skims the idea as it moves
to another option, an option that leaves an unsettled feeling behind my eyes. A
heavy headache sits down in the back of my brain.
The people disappeared.
I can’t explain it, but for now it
seems like the only explanation I can come up with.
Not a living soul answers any of my
calls, my family is gone, my neighbors aren’t home, and now the plane is empty.
Something is happening and I don’t
know what it is. I don’t know what to do now, unsure of myself, unsure of my
surroundings, unsure of just about everything including the force that jerked
me forward, urging me to press on.
I need to
leave my home as much as I don’t want to. Help is my first priority now, and I
need to get it fast. I know I should run, but I’m desperate to walk as I try to
air out my lungs that are heavy with smoke, so I settle on a steady jog to my
car. I get in my car, thankful that my keys are still in the ignition, and head
toward the small town a few miles down the road. I’m halfway to town as I cross
over the highway overpass, looking out and down at the long, flat interstate in
shock.
Disaster.
Wreckage.
I so badly
want to push the word out of my head, the word that I desperately don’t want to
deal with now, but it makes its way to the forefront of my mind.
Death.
Cars,
trucks, and semis are spewed out across the highway, into the ditches, blown
into bits that scatter into the distance.
I’m struck
by the scene, my heart rate accelerating and my cheeks becoming hot with an
impounding fear that this is the end.
The world
is ending.
The
apocalypse.
I dig my
fingernails into the steering wheel and screech to a stop.
I expect to
see splattered bodies across the highway below this overpass, blood trails and
brains spilling all over the place.
I get out
of my car and stumble to the rail, peering over it to see the reality
underneath.
There is no
blood. I don’t see any bodies.
I start to backtrack
through the last hour of my life.
No one
answers my calls, not even 9-1-1. My family is missing, my neighbors are gone,
a plane crashed in my backyard with not a single person in it or around it, and
now. Now, I stand above dozens of vehicles, most of them shredded beyond
recognition and I can’t make out a single living soul.
I shiver
despite the heat and get back in my car, figuring my vision is deceiving me. I
drive down the ramp to the interstate, and abandon my car, running to the
nearest car I see. It’s mangled and twisted, creating a deep fear inside me
that whoever was inside is surely dead.
Nothing can
ever describe the lack of sound that comes from my mouth, no matter how
articulate any language could ever be, no matter how great a linguist is with
words, no matter anything.
Nothing can
ever describe the stone-cold silence around me when the car is empty.
My chest
tightens so painfully I can barely breathe. My breaths turn into sharp gasps
for air that only become more rapid as my chest constricts tighter and tighter
like a snake narrowing its slimy grip around my ribs.
The only thing I notice before my
world turns to black is what covers the seats.
I’m being
chased.
I don’t
have time to look behind me to see the face of my attacker, but I know he’s
coming for me.
Something
in my gut says he’s going to kill me. I run down the interstate as fast as I
can, my legs almost stumbling against the force I put onto them. I have nothing
to hide behind, nowhere to turn. All there is is the long, flat expanse of
highway that stretches out into the horizon.
My lungs
push harder and harder and my legs begin to slow, unable to keep up. I sense
he’s gaining on me, and I push myself to run for my life. I imagine a knife
slicing into my back so I pick up the pace.
I finally
force myself to look behind me, but before the image comes into focus—
My eyes
flash open.
It was a
dream.
My mind is
confused as it expects me to be in my home, in my bed. Why am I on the highway?
My first instinct is to run in fear that a car will plow right over me.
But then I
am reminded of where I am and why I am here. My head throbs in pain as I stand
up. I lift my hand to my forehead and it comes away bloody. I must have
fainted, cutting myself on the debris around me.
Shards of
glass lay around my feet, and I notice a small piece of it sticking out of my
knee. I feel sick to my stomach at the sight.
I man up
and pull it out, and a small stream of blood oozes down my leg in response.
I wipe it
away and get back in my car.
I can’t
stop myself from uncontrollable crying now. I don’t bother looking in the rest
of the cars. I know something has happened. I know no one else is here.
Everyone has disappeared.
But where
did they go?
I feel
insane for letting these thoughts sit so tightly in my head. It feels as though
there is no other explanation. I drive back up the ramp and head toward the
small, local grocery store about a mile up the road.
Halfway
there, I encounter another car, crashed against a tree on the side of the road.
When I get
to the grocery store, I see a few cars lined up in the parking lot and I smile
in hope. People are here. There is some explanation for this.
There just
might be life on Earth.
I don’t
bother parking between the lines. I screech to a stop right in front of the
entrance and rush inside. I don’t see anyone at first sight. I turn to the left
where the cash register is, where an attendant should be standing.
I don’t see
anyone.
I look at
the ground where the attendant should be and am horrified by what I see.
It all
makes sense now.
I remember
when my grandfather died of cancer. When his limp, meager body was lying in the
casket. I remember the preacher reading from scripture, reminding us that death
is the punishment for sin. He read, “For dust you are and to dust you will return.”
I
remember this as I stare at the perfect little pile of dust where the attendant
should be. I think of the dust inside my mother’s nightgown, the dust covering
every surface of the plane, the dust in the seat of the car on the interstate.
I
understand now.
My
body starts shaking and heaving at the realization. Tears well up in mass
amounts, pouring from my face until that isn’t quite enough. My body lets up
rounds of weeping. A kind of cry I have never seen or felt before. A kind of
cry that immediately leads on to a series of pulsing migraines. A kind of cry
that can only be used when something like this happens.
I
cry for my family. I could remember so many things about them, so many memories,
but only one comes to mind. I think of Christmas morning and it all flashes
through my mind in what could be a matter of seconds. I remember my mother as
she hummed all the Christmas carols in her favorite slippers and my father with
his reading glasses and gentle spirit and my sister with her stupidly perfect
hair and how much she genuinely annoyed me, but I still wouldn’t give her up
for anything in the world. I remember my brother who sat in silence most of the
morning, completely enthralled with whatever gift he opened last.
I
fall to my knees, unable to support the weight of so much grief.
This
can’t be possible.
After
a few minutes, the only thing I can do is question my situation.
Why
am I, of all people, still alive?
Even
more frightening that that—is there anyone else out there?