There was no one left.
He had neither seen a living being, heard a voice, nor felt a touch from anything alive, in just under a year. What had happened was unknown to him. He had simply awoken one morning, March 1st to be exact, to find nothing, not a solitary soul in existence save himself. The only thing that kept him going was some inherent, indefinable drive to survive. It wasn’t hope, but he found it ironic, given that he had once been accused of not having the will. When he contemplated it, in his darkest hours, the same thought settled into his mind: At least it took her.
For the first few months he had searched in vain, as if he would die without some sort of companionship, even a housefly, just something to talk to. He kept the radio and television on at all hours, though nothing was broadcasting. It had only taken a few weeks for the infrastructure — the phones, the internet, and, finally, the power — to stop working with no one to man it. The greed of the mid 21st century, the endless privatization, had cut so many corners that collapse had been assured, even if the people had still existed. This mysterious apocalypse, it seemed, had just edged out another.
He would have been happy to find even some zombies. Then he could at least have rationalized what had occurred, to what fate everyone he knew had succumbed. But he reasoned with himself that that would be worse, as then he would have to contend with why only he had not fallen to the plague. Stupid ideas of the Rapture had crossed his mind, but he was certain that, if he had been wrong his entire life and all of that were true, that most of the people he knew would have been left behind.
It had occurred to him, one day a few weeks in, right after the power failed, to gas up his car and drive from town to town with the hope that people existed somewhere else, outside of his area. Maybe he would even have spotted a dog or a cat. But, when he went to the gas station, he found that, since all the pumps had been changed over to digital initialization, he was unable to get any gas. He had tried siphoning some from cars, but, when he could get the gas caps off, he quickly found that mid 21st century “security” had made taking the crucial and expensive fluid impossible. There were still bicycles, skateboards, and the like, but he didn’t see the point in them, as, being, essentially, confined to the area, walking was preferable.
Then a brilliant idea shocked him out of his mental malaise, and he remembered that many of the houses in the area had generators. Though he was rather attached to his house and his things, the chance for some power, for some light, for some heat was too good to pass up. And, from then on, he would hop from house to house, staying only as long as the gas in the generators lasted. He thought about siphoning the gas from them, but he decided that he’d rather have the more comfortable housing than aimlessly drive across the county, especially given that he did not expect to find anyone. With power, he could watch videos, listen to music, and cook, and there had been no signs of human life, much less animal life, in any form, not even smoke from fires. The small creature comforts helped make life livable.
There was a strip mall only a few blocks from his own house, with a grocery store in it, and there were two convenience stores only a little farther away. That was how he had been subsisting, slowly dwindling down the available supplies, along with odds and ends he found in the cupboards of the houses he raided. All of the dairy had, of course, spoiled in short order after the power went. He didn’t eat meat, and, oddly enough, he never felt any craving for it. That feeling was heightened when he got a smell of the rancid butcher section. He had become extremely sick of warm soda and tea, but, with temporarily working fridges at his disposal, he was ecstatic when he could have a cold drink. The weather of late December was changing. It hadn’t snowed yet, as the years had been getting progressively warmer and drier, but it was getting cold enough that he could have left drinks outside to cool. Beer. He’d wanted a beer, and having gone to the liquor store in the strip mall, one night, he engaged his longing … only to find that he didn’t like being drunk by himself, having always been a social drinker. And he was doubly sorry for it the next morning.
A few weeks later, after ringing in the New Year alone, bored to death and driven by curiosity and a need for a change of scenery, he contemplated walking over to one of the other towns. They were close together, not big at all, more like one large town with arbitrary divisions. He knew where the stores were and, more than sure that he was not going to find any people where he was, he decided to relocate in the least-convinced hope that he might find someone.
* * *
Having moved into a house with a generator, not far from the strip mall where he had used to shop, as the grocery store near his house had always been too expensive. He settled in, looking around to see what the place held. It was similar to the other houses he had inhabited in his nomadic circumstances. It had the same overpriced furniture, plenty of electronics, and a wealth of clothes, many of which seemed to have never been worn or only worn once. He found it depressing. He wondered what had been the point of collecting all this stuff, which was now, essentially, trash. This was how people had lived, what they had lived for, and, now, it was beyond meaningless, except for the few things useful to him as he passed through. All that wasted time in pursuit of expensive trash.
He stood at the window and assayed the area. Clouds were coming in, portending possible snowfall, and he was glad for the heat. But the drear that was created suddenly weighed upon him, sending him into am almost instantaneous depression. It had been happening more and more, and he wondered if a lack of companionship would, eventually, take his life on its own. With nothing to make his heart beat, nothing to really live for, the days had no significance for him.
What the hell was that?
He could see a large building, an apartment building, not far from where he stood, one that had been built fairly recently and did not mesh well with the local structures. As such, it seemed garish and all eyes were drawn to it unwillingly. But, in that building, only a few floors up, he could have sworn that he had seen movement. His heart beat now. It beat so loudly that he could barely hear himself think, and he had to stop himself from allowing it to fill his mind with what could not be true. But it was impossible for him to let go of the idea, and he was compelled to investigate.
Running up the street, having neglected to find a jacket, he shivered both with the turn of the weather and delusional expectation. He judged the window he sought to be on the third floor, and he entered the building. It was warm. There was a generator somewhere. He quickly reasoned that, if it were automatic, it would have exhausted its fuel long ago. The realization made it hard for him to breathe, and harder still to climb the stairs.
Coming to the third floor landing, he felt it necessary to creep up to the door that coincided with the window he was looking for, half from fear of disappointment, half from wanting to relish the moment. The door was open. As he peered in, his hands started to shake and he stopped breathing altogether. There, sitting on the floor, going through a record collection, was what appeared to be a woman. She had not heard him approach and had her back to him. He could not speak. He had no words. And he did not want to scare her. So, afraid to tear his gaze from her, afraid she might disappear, only a mirage, he forced himself to backtrack and, this time, he made a racket on the top stairs and stomped as he neared the door once more.
Before he could gain the door again, the woman ran into the hallway and stopped dead, staring at him with her mouth open. He knew by her look that she had seen no one else in all that time either. But, as the moment dawned upon him, as he looked her full in the face and peered into her eyes, his heart fell out of his chest and lay crumpled on the cheap carpeting, palpitating in agony.
“YOU!”
* * *
Before he could say anything else, she ran to him and threw her arms around him, holding onto him as if he too were only a mirage that she could not risk letting slip away. She was small, frail., with her head upon his chest, and he recognized the scent of her lotion. He knew it all too well. Memories flooded in upon him … bad memories.
“Get off me!” he finally shouted, pushing her away.
She looked at him, stunned, and then began to tear up. But he could see it, behind her eyes, a knowing, confirmation of what she had done. “You can’t be serious,” she began to plead.
“You,” he said again, softer this time, almost with a simmering rage combined with a loss of will to be. “Of all the people in the world … you.” His mind could not fathom why fate had done this to him, trapped him in an empty world … with … her. He just stared at her, unable to comprehend the cosmic cruelty. But, when she moved toward him again, trying to soothe him, to win him over with touch, he bolted. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he needed air, frigid or not, and he ascended the stairs to the roof, where he had to calm himself to keep from vomiting.
She soon followed. “I know. I know you hate me … and there is nothing I can do about that. But … it’s just you and me now … for all we know there is no one else. I haven’t seen anyone in almost a year … until you. Fate … “
He had been staring out at the town and unconsciously tracing the perimeter wall around the roof that was only two feet in height. Then he turned to look at her “Don’t talk to me about fate! You don’t believe in it. You … you … left me to die alone.”
She smiled at him, the coy smile he had known years before. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she said with a matter-of-fact tone. “You weren’t going to die. There’s nothing that can be said about any of it now. Look, we’re together … like you always wanted. We’re it. You can’t just leave me alone!”
“No. I could not live with myself if I left you here, knowing you exist. But how can I ever be around you again?” His mind could not accept the idea. He knew how false she was, how cold. And he could tell that she still was, even now, being the last two people in the world as far as they knew. He could not walk away from her. He knew it. But he could not see any way to exist with her.
“You made me a promise once. Do you remember it … even if you only said it in a moment of despair?”
He knew she was working him, but she was right. “Yes. I promised you that … if I were still alive and you needed me … that I would be there for you.”
“And now I need you,” she said plainly, taking a step towards him. “We need each other … I’m sorry.”
For years, he’d though that if she apologized, his heart would forgive her. But, as she spoke the words, he found that it did nothing. He did not believe her. She had been inhuman, and her existence now, in front of him, did nothing to heal him, did nothing to convince him that another person was before him. His soul was tortured. “Thank you,” was all he could muster.
“Just come here … and everything will be okay again. I need you. I can’t imagine another day alone. You have to feel the same way. I can’t be alone anymore!” She took another step toward him, but he held out his hand to stop her.
“I promised you that if I were still alive and you needed me that I would accept you. And I plan to keep that promise. I accept you now. I am here right now, in this moment, and I accept you. And now I will help you. I will help you understand what you have done with your life, how you have wasted it in pursuit of nothing and trampled people for no reason … You will suffer the way you made me suffer and finally understand.”
And with that he let himself fall backwards over the low wall, and his soul breathed in the cold air, free of burden, as he plummeted.
Snow began to fall.
THE END