The Disappearances: Chapter 2
Tellurian Series Book 1
Chapter 2
The following day, I woke around noon with a slight headache. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I’d forgotten what had happened the previous day, so when I saw the bright light beaming through our bedroom curtains, I jerked into a sitting position with the notion that I’d overslept and left my father-in-law to fend for himself.
“James, the alarm didn’t go off,” I yelled, springing out of bed without seeing if James was beside me. I took it for granted that he was and headed to the door. “You’re late for work.”
I rushed out of the room without making sure James had heard me. I pushed George’s door open, praying he’d also slept in. George usually did. He slept a lot, but some days, he was up early and stayed awake all day.
Due to the blackout curtains we hung when George started sleeping in, the room was too dark for me to make out much.
“George,” I called, flipping on his bedroom light. I prayed doing so wouldn’t startle the old man too severely. On the rare occasions I had to wake, I usually turned on the bedside lamp close to the door and opposite him. The bulb in that lamp only gave off a soft yellow glow, allowing him time to wake up. I didn’t turn on the overhead light until he sat up and was ready to take his meds.
I stood in the doorway, staring at the bed in confusion. George’s bed was empty, but his bedsheets were pulled up as if they were still covering his body.
Without realizing it, I copied my actions from the day before and rushed to his side of the bed, fearing he’d fallen on the floor, but the floor was empty.
“George?” I called, rushing out of the room.
“James, where’s your dad?” I asked, hurrying back to our bedroom and flipping on the overhead light.
For the second time, I froze at the door, looking at the empty room, the rumpled bedsheets, and the clock on James’ side of the bed. My forehead wrinkled in confusion. The alarm wasn’t due to go off for another fifteen minutes. I could have sworn it was much later than it was. I sighed in relief at that knowledge.
I refused to acknowledge that my husband wasn’t in bed or up and rushing to get ready for work. Instead, I let myself believe James had gotten up early and was already prepared for work. I told myself that he must have gotten his dad up as well because George had an appointment today that I’d forgotten.
Satisfied with my justifications, I walked to the attached bathroom. I peed, returned to the bedroom to turn off the alarm before it started blaring, and went to the living room.
“James? George? What are you two up to so early this morning,” I asked as I approached the archway that divided our living room from our dining room. I glanced into the living room and saw no one. The dining room and kitchen were the same. I also didn’t see a note on the extensive wall calendar in the kitchen that told me the two had gone off somewhere.
“All right, guys, this isn’t funny. Where are you?” I called again, going to the garage to see if James’s car was there. It wasn’t.
Feeling pissed and worried, I went back to the kitchen to where the only landline in the house was. The date on the screen didn’t feel accurate. The lack of calls was strange but not unheard of since we moved George into our home. We hadn’t had a landline in a long time, but George and Darlene still had one, and everyone they knew called them on that number, so we’d had it transferred to our house. They had cell phones but rarely used them, and with George’s memory going, we thought it best to cancel their plan. Anyone who needed my father-in-law would call us or their landline.
I ignored the fear growing inside me as I stared at the screen and hit the number to call my husband’s cell.
The phone just rang. As it did, memories of what had happened the day before started creeping into my mind. I tried pushing them away. I tried telling myself that yesterday was a dream and everything was fine, even though it clearly wasn’t.
When James’ phone went to voice mail. I hit the number that would call Tanner’s cell. I didn’t care if I called while he was in the middle of class. Something was wrong, and I needed answers. When his number did the same, I started pacing the living room. I turned on the television and found many stations off the air.
It was then that, despite my best efforts at staying in denial, I allowed the voice in my head to remind me of what had happened the day before. I broke into sobs as the memory flooded me, and I collapsed on the sofa. I cried for a long time.
Seeing my laptop on the coffee table—where I never left it—and my cell phone on the living room charger—where it’s never plugged in at night—added the reality of what I was telling myself to be true. I sagged against the arm of the sofa. I didn’t cry, though my entire body trembled with fear.
When I thought I could walk, I stood and went to the kitchen to pour myself a shot of whiskey, which I hadn’t done in years, to calm my nerves enough to face the morning.
Once my hands stopped shaking, I made coffee, grabbed my cell, and resumed calling my family. I cycled through every number on my phone before making myself eat two pieces of buttered toast, shower, and dress for a day out of the house, not that anyone would see me.
After dressing and calling my husband a dozen times, I stepped out the side door of my house with my purse, cell phone, and car keys in hand. The day was silent. I hadn’t noticed the quiet the day before. My constant screaming of my father-in-law’s name echoing through the neighborhood had helped mask the stillness. The absence of noise caused me to pause on my stoop to strain to hear something—a distant car, a bird, anything, but there was nothing.
I lived two blocks from one of the main roads through our state. I should’ve heard cars, trucks, motorcycles, construction vehicles, and other typical city noises from where I stood. I heard nothing. Absolutely nothing.
A chill ran up my spine, and I hugged myself tight before stepping off the porch and going to my car.
“Surely, not everyone is gone,” I said in a low whisper as I slid behind the wheel.
I knew that not being able to reach anyone by phone, not seeing posts on social media, or receiving news on television should’ve been a clue that I was alone, and it was, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea. Such a thing wasn’t possible.
I told myself that as I pulled out of my driveway and headed toward my husband’s office. The streets in my neighborhood were mostly clear. As far as I could tell, nothing had changed since the day before. Not that I’d paid too much attention to my surroundings in my frantic search for my father-in-law.
“No one is coming, you idiot,” I told myself as I sat at a four-way stop sign, looking to my left and right to see if anyone was coming in either direction.
That might be so. I mentally scolded myself as I drove through the intersection, but that isn’t a habit you want to break, just in case.
I came across several cars that looked as if they’d veered off the road for some reason, but none looked wrecked or as if they had stalled. The first one I encountered was about two blocks from my house. The driver of the car had come to a stop, half on the road. The car’s other half was in the driveway of a home that I suspected wasn’t the car’s owner. I pulled along the road behind the car and got out slowly. I inspected the area to see if anyone was lying on the ground somewhere hidden from view or pinned under the vehicle.
Next, I opened the unlocked driver’s side door to see if anyone was still inside, but it was empty. A cup of coffee that had long since grown cold sat in the cup holder, and there was trash on the passenger’s side floorboard, but that was all.
No one came from the nearby houses to ask me what I was doing. After shutting the car door as quietly as possible, I left the scene and returned to my vehicle.
The second car was two more blocks up the road. Its driver had merely pulled over to the side of the road. Its right wheels were in the grass, and the left was barely on the pavement. If it had been in front of a house, I would have assumed they’d parked there, but the person had stopped in front of an empty lot. I didn’t get out to investigate.
Surprisingly, my anxiety stayed level until I turned onto a side road that led to a red light at an intersection with the main road through town. At lunchtime on a weekday, the highway should’ve been swarming with vehicles, but the streets were empty when I got to the red light.
If everyone disappeared at once, wrecked cars would be everywhere. As close as I lived to that road, I should’ve heard hundreds of vehicles crashing into one another, street poles, or the front of buildings at whatever time the event occurred. I’d heard none of that, and that was because there hadn’t been any wrecks.
I turned right at the light when it turned green—another habit I told myself I couldn’t get out of—driving as slow as I could, not that I risked running into another car. The road was all but clear. Only the occasional car sat stranded in the middle of the road or at red lights. On the other hand, the parking lots were littered with vehicles.
It didn’t take me long to realize what must have happened.
Whoever had taken the people had forced everyone to pull off the road and park. The idea was ludicrous, but I had no other explanation.
The view was scary and organized. Someone had thought out and executed the disappearances well.
My husband worked for a small tech company five minutes from our house. The drive took me ten minutes because I drove slowly to take in the view around me. I strained to find signs of life anywhere along the road.
Nothing moved but me.
I pulled alongside my husband’s car in front of his office and scanned my surroundings in awe. My heart sped up as I approached his car, but I’d seen inside the empty vehicle when I’d passed behind it. He wasn’t inside.
“What the hell happened?” I asked aloud, peeking into the windows of his car.
James’ coffee cup sat in the cupholder. His cell phone lay in the passenger seat beside his laptop case. He’d never made it out of the car. He tended to forget his phone, but he would’ve never left his laptop behind.
He’d left the driver’s side door unlocked, so I opened it and leaned inside to get the phone. The device was dead from ringing off the hook all day. A further examination of the car showed that the keys dangled from the ignition only barely in the hole, and the engine was off, which meant the battery worked. It would have made sense if he had disappeared after pulling into the lot.
I went to his office in case he’d left the car without his stuff to investigate what was happening. Someone had locked the main door to his building.
“James?” I said, knocking on the glass door. “Melanie? Sean? Anyone? It’s Laurie. James’ wife. Is he there?”
My voice echoed down the street and sent a chill up my spine, but it didn’t stop me from knocking three more times and calling for my husband or other employees in the building.
Unsurprisingly, no one came to the door.
In frustration, I pounded on the door with the side of my fist but stopped myself from doing more. I didn’t let myself inside with James’ key because I didn’t see the point—no one would be inside. The locked door meant that James had been the first to arrive and had not entered the building.
Screaming in frustration, I returned to our vehicles. At first, I had planned to get into my car and go back home, but I decided to take a walk. After locking James’ car, I returned to mine, put James’ stuff in the passenger seat, and closed the doors. Scanning the parking lot, I decided to walk south among the rows of vehicles along the side of the road, looking for what I didn’t know.
Every car I checked was like my husband’s, unlocked but shut off. None showed signs that the occupant had lived through the disappearance, like an open car door or a car facing the wrong way on the street. Purses, briefcases, diaper bags, rotting bags of food, and other detritus littered the cars, indicating that their owners had vanished, leaving them behind.
“This isn’t possible,” I said aloud as I passed an empty school bus taking kids to summer day camp at the local YMCA. The sound of my voice startled me. The silence had quickly become normal, and speaking was rare.
This isn’t possible. I thought the words as I stepped away from a minivan with three different-sized car seats.
What could’ve forced every car off the road in a precise fashion? Who made their owners shut off their engines before kidnapping them? And how could it have happened to every person in town? The world?
Nothing.
Nothing human that was.
God? I didn’t think so. I was sure it wasn’t the rapture. I wasn’t a saint. I believed in God and was a damn good person. God had strict rules. I wasn’t sure if I would be one of the chosen to go to heaven, but I knew for a fact that not every person who’d disappeared was. If God had come for his people, he would’ve taken me over the man working at the gas station near the house. He’d gone to jail three times in the last two years for beating his wife. I had no reason to think the man was gone, but the world around me said that was a distinct possibility.
Feeling the tears returning, I walked back to my car. I stood before my husband’s office, looking at both cars and wondering what to do. I couldn’t drive them both back home.
Wiping away tears, I told myself to search his car again for anything personal or valuable, so I did. He didn’t have much in the car: an umbrella, a charging cord, and trash. He only drove it to and from work. We took mine everywhere else because it was more extensive, and my father-in-law could get in and out of it better.
I hated leaving James’ car behind since it felt like I was leaving him behind, but I had no choice.
When I slid into my car, holding the random, unimportant items belonging to my husband, I broke into hysterics. I don’t know how long I sat there crying, screaming, and beating my fists against the steering wheel, not caring about the blood and snot pouring from my nose in my grief. None of it mattered. I let my grief flood me wave after wave until I couldn’t cry anymore.
Eventually, I was able to gain control of myself. I jerked my shirt off and used it to wipe my face and neck as best I could. Once satisfied that I was clean and had stopped shaking, I told myself it was time to leave. I couldn’t figure out what was happening by sitting there blubbering. However, I was tired and wasn’t sure I could talk myself into doing anything besides heading back home.
The car engine was loud in the silence, and I screamed when it came to life. I waited five minutes after starting the car, hoping someone would come out of one of the businesses nearby to investigate the noise. No one did.
I decided to pull up to my bank on my way home since it was on my way. Someone had left the front doors unlocked, which gave me fleeting hope that someone was inside. I looked scary, with my face, neck, and chest blotchy and stained. Luckily, I had a tank top under my shirt, so I wasn’t wandering around in my bra, but the top was pink in areas where the blood from my nose had seeped through.
“Hello,” I said into the quiet building and entered the circular lobby.
Of course, no one answered. The place was empty, and the sight of the counter and desks on either side of the lobby was eerie.
“Is anyone here?” I called again, knowing I wouldn’t get an answer.
I was not brave enough to go behind the counter and look in the back of the building, so I walked to the ATM to see if it was functional. It was. I withdrew a hundred dollars from my account, not needing money for anything.
Pocketing my cash and card, I walked to the “Employees Only” door to see if someone had left it unlocked. They had.
“I’m coming back. Please don’t shoot. I’m just checking to see if anyone is home,” I said into the short hall.
I searched the entire place and found no one, which I expected. I discovered purses left under desks that told me people had been there the morning before.
If I’d been more curious and not so terrified, I might have tried to open the tills or see if I could access the vault, but none of that crossed my mind. I merely searched the place for a living person and then left. As I went, I thought I should’ve gotten someone’s keys and locked the door, though I didn’t know why I felt that necessary. I was the only person alive in the city, though I hoped not the world, and even if I wasn’t, paper money and coins no longer held any value.
Surely, I wasn’t the only person left, I thought, getting back into my car. If I was alive, others had to be as well. Right?
Logically, I knew that had to be so, but I was lying to myself then.
Eight out of ten spaces were occupied by cars, so I parked three stores in front of a sandwich shop. A block and a half up the road sat a pet store. Curious about whether the animals had disappeared, I entered the parking lot.
The door to the pet store was unlocked. The bell over it dinged and scared the shit out of me. I felt the emptiness after the sound stopped echoing throughout the quiet room. No birds chirped at me. No critters scratched at their aquariums’ glass or their cages’ bars.
I slowly walked the room, looking into each habitat to see what remained. Surprisingly, snakes, hermit crabs, spiders, other reptiles, and fish were still alive. From what I could tell, all the missing animals were the ones someone might consider domesticated pets. I nearly burst into tears when I saw those animals resting quietly in their homes. The knowledge was disturbing and reassuring because it gave me another hint at understanding what was happening.
I knelt before the fish tanks and watched them enjoying their existence, mesmerized by their carefree swimming. The tiny creatures didn’t know what had happened to the world around them, nor did they care. Other critters seemed to sense something was off because they repeatedly tried hiding. I didn’t dare speak to them for fear of frightening them even more.
Before leaving the store, I snatched a t-shirt off the rack with a picture of a black cat and the words, “Pay attention to me ignoring you.” After slipping it on to cover my blood-stained tank, I walked the store again and fed the animals I thought might need food. I told myself to come back the next day to feed them again. I also figured I should free them if people didn’t come back by the end of the week because I couldn’t be responsible for them.
I leaned against the glass door outside the store, looking up and down the street, trying to remember if there was another place in the area, like the pet store. All I could think of was the vet’s office, but I was sure any animals they might have been housing overnight would be domestic animals and would be gone.
Before returning home, I made one last stop at the gas station. I didn’t need gas—my gauge was sitting at three-quarters of a tank- but I wanted to know if the pumps still worked and gather the newspapers they had to see if there was anything about the disappearances. I knew they wouldn’t, but I wanted to check.
The pumps worked, and I still had to pay before filling up, which I thought was funny. Inside the store, a rack by the checkout counter held four newspapers. I picked up a USA Today and glanced through it. The date on the front page was from the day before the disappearances. I read each headline as I flipped through the pages, but nothing in the paper indicated what had occurred.
The other three papers were just as helpful. The disappearances happened in a blink, so no one was around to report anything. If anyone had known that the entire world would disappear instantly, they most likely wouldn’t have told anyone, as it would’ve started a panic among the few who’d believe the claims.
Disgusted, I wadded the papers and threw them into a large trash bin near the food counter. It was then that I registered the burnt smell in the store. Hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken tenders, and pizza slices sat behind the glass, drying out from the heat lamps. I didn’t know what to do, so I left the store. I wanted to go home, where I could hide behind my curtains and locked doors to pretend I wasn’t alone.
