The Disappearances: Chapter 4

The Tellurian Series Book 1

Chapter 4

The following morning, I was expecting to wake up alone. Therefore, I didn’t cry or rush out of bed to check on my father-in-law the second I opened my eyes. Instead, I hugged James’ pillow tightly, let my tears fall, and told myself everything would be all right. I didn’t believe my words, but I had to say them. I had to keep saying them until they came true.

Once I’d had my fill of my husband’s fading scent and could no longer ignore my bladder, I looked over at James’ alarm clock. The bright red letters told me the power was still on. That was a plus. At least I’d have a good hot cup of coffee.

I rose and went about my morning routine.

Half an hour later, with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, I sat at the kitchen table, opened my laptop, and went to the local news site. I didn’t expect to find any news of the disappearances, but that didn’t stop me from crying over the lack of information. The cry didn’t last as long as the ones I’d had the previous days, and I felt calmer afterward, not tired and scared.

Okay, maybe a little frightened.

That feeling would never go away, but each round of tears brought a bit of solace with them and helped ease me toward resignation.

The articles on the site were days old, like on the more prominent news sites. No one had reported on the event anywhere. The news stations’ social media sites were the same. I checked the comments section on all the posts I commented on, but no one had replied. That was disheartening but no longer surprising, and it didn’t stop me from commenting on the same and other articles to reassure future viewers that I was still there. I also added another post on all my sites and sent another round of emails and messages.

Later, I had breakfast in front of the television. Reruns were on their scheduled loop, but nothing filmed live was on the air. Even though it was fruitless, I painstakingly cycled through my available channels to ensure no new shows were airing.

After about an hour of channel surfing, as I cleaned my kitchen and table, I realized my trash can was packed, and I wasn’t sure what to do with its contents. I couldn’t take the garbage outside to the large green bin the trash collectors picked up because that can was full of waste. The trash collector wasn’t due for another day…but the collectors wouldn’t come if the people didn’t come back.

“Well, shit,” I said, wiping crumbs off the counter and into the palm of my hand. “If the trash piles up outside, I’ll get bugs.”

After dumping the bits into the sink and rinsing off my hands, I returned to my laptop, opened a browser, and searched for ways to deal with the trash. The easiest way I discovered was to haul it to the dump, but the county landfill was a bit of a drive from my house, and I didn’t think I’d feel up to driving there every other day. The next way to eliminate it was to burn it. I found a site that suggested getting a burn barrel.

“That’s an accident waiting to happen,” I said as I scanned the instructions for setting up the barrel.

“I should do it, in any case. Gas and electricity won’t last long, and I might need the heat from the barrel this winter.”

I hoped neither was the case, but I had to start thinking about such things. I didn’t want the power going off to catch me off guard because I’d been in denial of what was happening and hadn’t planned for my future.

Another Internet search showed that the local large home repair chain store had several stainless-steel burn barrels I could choose from, though I didn’t think they would fit into my car.

It wouldn’t fit in James’ either, I thought.

“I’ll have to steal a truck,” I said to no one.

I had no reason to speak aloud, but certain things needed saying, not thought, for me to believe them. I’d never stolen anything. Even as a kid, I’d never shoplifted something as simple as a piece of gum.

“Okay. But from where?” I asked, trying to remember if anyone in my immediate family had a truck I could “borrow” until they returned. Nothing came to mind.

One of my neighbors had a truck, but taking his felt wrong.

“Just take one off a car lot,” I told myself. Doing so made me feel more criminal than “borrowing” a neighbor’s vehicle.

After much deliberation, I decided that borrowing from my neighbor felt safer and less like stealing, and even if it were, they’d be more likely to understand why I took it.

If Darrell, my neighbor with the truck, had been home the morning of the disappearance—I hadn’t paid attention when I’d been looking for my father-in-law—his vehicle would still be in his driveway.

“Well, don’t just sit here twiddling your fingers,” I said, pulling my notebook closer. “Get your shit together and get on the road.”

I made a list of the supplies I’d need if the home store didn’t have a premade barrel and other items I should look for before showering.

An hour later, I walked down my empty street toward Darrell’s house, straining to hear any signs of life.

“Yes.” Darrell’s truck was in the driveway. Unfortunately, it looked like he’d been in it when the disappearance happened. His cell phone was in a holder on the dash, and his gym bag was in the passenger seat. His protein shake sat in the cup holder, causing the cab to wreak of soured milk.

“Forgive me, Darrell. I promise to pay you back when you return,” I said to the driver’s seat before removing the protein shake and gym bag and setting them on his doorstep, then climbing into the truck.

Once behind the wheel, I worried that he’d somehow left the truck running when he disappeared and the battery had died. A glance showed the keys were on the floor. I retrieved them and slid them into the ignition. The motor roared to life.

One last time, I apologized to Darrell, rolled down the windows to air out the vehicle, backed out of his drive, and headed to the hospital, looking for answers because it was closer to my home than the police station or the home store.

I’d expected the hospital to be empty, but I hadn’t expected it to wreak to high heavens when I entered. Everyone was gone. Yet, the smell was so intense that it pushed me back out of the sliding doors to the emergency room and caused me to vomit in the bushes next to the entrance.

“Oh, fuck me,” I said, wiping my mouth. “What happened in there?”

I stared through the glass doors into what I could see of the emergency waiting room. From my limited vantage point, I spotted a leg lying across one bench, an arm propped on an armrest, and the back of someone slumped over in a chair. None of the bodies moved. I was almost sure they were dead.

“Holy shit,” I said, straining for a closer look without opening the doors again.

There had been other survivors. I knew there had to be. It didn’t make sense for me to be the lone survivor.

My body stood frozen, watching the people inside, but my mind raced with excitement and dread. I had to get control of myself and think.

My brain didn’t want to think. It wanted to keep shouting that I wasn’t alone. I let it freak out momentarily, then crushed it by saying, “I wasn’t alone. Or at least, I hadn’t been when the world ended. But those survivors hadn’t lived long after the disappearances, judging by the smell. So, what happened to them? Were they exposed to something inside the hospital that killed them? Like a gas leak? I hadn’t smelled gas when I entered, but that wasn’t saying much, considering the stench from the bodies.

Scenario after scenario filled my thoughts until I stumbled on one that I didn’t want to consider but couldn’t shake because of its implications.

Had whatever happened to the rest of the world killed those people because they were already dying or injured? Or had the process that had made the world disappear killed them?

The last thought caused my body to shake.

Had I been that close to dying? I wondered.

I hadn’t seen anybody anywhere else. Granted, I hadn’t been inside more than two or three places, and I hadn’t been looking for bodies because I hadn’t thought anything would be left behind.

I should check on my neighbors, I thought. And my mother and grandmother.

From day one, I had been gathering my strength to check on my family, but I seemed to need more motivation than I had to do it. Once I knew not everyone had disappeared, I made a mental note to prioritize it. I couldn’t let them rot.

“But not today,” I told myself. “The bodies in the waiting room were another clue as to what happened, and I needed to get inside to examine them, but fuck. That smell. I can’t face that smell again.”

I paced outside the building a bit before forcing myself to go inside to find the power button on the automatic door. I knew there had to be one. However, I didn’t think I could program the door to stay open.

I could.

The process was simple.

I set the first set of doors without vomiting.

The doors stayed open.

Huh, I thought, you learn something new every day.

I’d barely gotten both sets of doors propped open before I was vomiting again. The smell of my vomit mixing with the aroma of death from the hospital had me stumbling back to the truck for a water bottle.

Relishing the chilly air from the vehicle’s vents, I stayed in the truck for twenty minutes before pulling myself together and returning.

After leaving the emergency room area to air out, I walked around to the main entrance and programmed the doors to stay open. The smell there was noticeable but not overwhelming.

The lobby was empty and dark, which I found odd. Even though the day was bright enough to see what I was doing inside the building, I flipped on all the lights. A cursory examination showed me that the power was still on, but everything that was not needed was off, just like the cars outside.

“That’s not possible,” I said to myself, unable to wrap my head around the oddity of the situation.

A rotten food smell came from the cafeteria down the hall to my right. The food on the buffet tables was spoiled. I knew that without checking. The bank of elevators at the other end of the lobby was also a no-no. I was not getting stuck in one of those. With my luck, the power would go out between floors.

I turned left and passed halls that I thought led to offices and a set of large glass doors. Those doors led to the emergency room from inside the hospital and weren’t automatic. I propped them open with chairs from the lobby.

Once the door was secure, I stood back to let the smell dissipate as much as possible. The smell was just as bad from that direction, and it took everything I had to keep from vomiting. I hoped the building would air out soon with the two entrances and the dividing doors open. However, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the bodies, but I needed to know what had happened to them. It was too bad it would be a while before I could enter that area, as I wanted to get that part of my excursion over so I could move on to the police department or home store.

Wanting fresh air, I left the hospital to circle the ground level, looking for more entrances to prop open. At the ambulance entrance near the emergency room, I found another body. The gurney sat between the outer and inner doors. I stepped toward it, and the exterior doors sensed my arrival and opened.

The smell from inside smacked me in the face.

I nearly passed out from it. I had to brace myself against the ambulance’s back doors as I gagged.

Once I could breathe again, I glanced inside the vehicle and saw they had masks I could use to cover my mouth and nose. I hadn’t worn one since the first year of Covid and hated using them then. At that moment, though, I welcomed one. However, I quickly discovered that they wouldn’t protect me from my vomit breath.

I removed the mask, swished some water in my mouth, spit, and put it back on. I stepped toward the hospital, then turned around and put on a second one before returning to the bay and wheeling the gurney out of the entrance and into the ER.

The masks didn’t help much, but they were better than nothing.

I told myself to grab some VapoRub before coming back…if I returned.

I set the gurney beside a long desk to get it out of the doorway. Next, I programmed both sets of doors to stay open. Even though I didn’t want the body in the building with me, I didn’t have the heart to leave it outside, so I wheeled the gurney into an empty room and shut the door. I wanted to know what had happened to the person I’d just brought in, but the stench was too overwhelming to linger.

The smell inside that section of the E.R. was worse than that of the waiting room. I passed by two rooms, one empty and one with a body. Before the smell overwhelmed me, I rushed outside to walk the parking lot and parking deck.

I didn’t find much outside the building aside from one body. The older woman appeared to have stopped to rest on her walker after getting out of her car. I approached her with caution in case she was another survivor like me. When I was three feet away, I said hello, but the woman didn’t answer.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” I asked, knowing that she wasn’t.

I could smell her. The stench wasn’t as pungent as inside the hospital, but it was too much to bear.

I said hello again once I was within arm’s length of her—still nothing.

I noticed something I should’ve realized much earlier for the first time. The woman had died outside in the elements. The smell indicated that she was rotting, but nothing else was happening. I expected birds, rats, or flies to be all over her, but she was free of that.

For the first time, I wondered if whatever killed these humans left behind a scent that repelled those creatures.

Not wanting to, but knowing I had to, I touched the woman on the shoulder to ensure she wasn’t napping. She wasn’t. Her head flopped back when I shook her. Her dead eyes looked up at me. The expression on her face was awe, not panic or fear. That made me wonder again if what had happened had been the rapture.

I’d sinned. I was far from perfect, but my sins were nothing compared to many I knew. Therefore, it couldn’t be the rapture. I wouldn’t be here if the rules were so lax—no one would be. And God wouldn’t have made a mistake or forgotten me. At least, I hoped that wasn’t the case.

The look on the woman’s face comforted me a bit. Her expression made me think that whatever had happened hadn’t been painful or scary, meaning my husband and son hadn’t suffered.

After putting on a pair of gloves that I found in the ambulance, I searched the woman for marks or injuries but found no apparent cause of death. Next, I laid her out in the vehicle’s back seat. I found a blanket in the trunk to cover her with, too. We were too far from the hospital entrance for me to carry her back there, and I didn’t have the heart to leave her out in the open in case the rodents returned.

The older woman was the only body I found in the car lot, so I returned to the building. The smell was still too much, but it had diminished enough that the face mask helped.

I checked on the person on the gurney first to see if he had the same expression as the woman. He hadn’t. His expression said he was in agony. He was a man in his late fifties, so he might have been in the middle of having a stroke or heart attack. So, I felt confident that his look was from whatever he was dying of when he got to the E.R. and not from whatever happened to the world.

I went to the other room I’d seen with a person in it. Their expression was also one of fear and agony, but they had a gunshot wound in their stomach.

Thank God the rest of the E.R. beds were empty.

As I explored, I found medical supplies I might need, so I filled the bag I’d brought.

Eventually, I returned to the E.R. waiting room to see the bodies I’d spotted earlier. They were like the older woman. Their expressions were peaceful. One lay across the seats as if trying to sleep. Had she been sick? One had a leg propped in a chair in front of him. The appendage was swollen and bent at an odd angle. A bloody bandage covered the third’s hand. I didn’t open the dressing to see how nasty the wound was.

Tired and feeling sick from the rotting meat smell, I left the hospital after checking the entirety of the E.R. and went home. The burn barrel, the police department, and everything else I had planned to do that day could wait until the next day. I was exhausted both physically and emotionally. And I desperately wanted to shower and burn my clothes.