The day they all disappeared was bright and warm. Later on I would wonder why it wasn’t raining, or thundering, or even hailing. You would think that such a horrible day for man kind would leave some sign of destruction on the earth. But I guess we were the destruction, and that day was a cleansing.
The first day was like something out of a dream. My parents were gone, but my brother wasn’t. I think that if I’d lost him too, my story would’ve played out like the others.
We had panicked, when we realized that our parents were gone. The cars were still in the driveway, and there was no sign of foul play in our house. My brother couldn’t stop crying, but even then I knew I didn’t have the luxury. I dialed 9-1-1. The phone rang over and over again. No one picked up.
This made me angry.
And when we walked to our neighbors house and pounded on the door, I became even more mad. Both cars were in the driveway. I knew the Morrisons didn’t like me, but this was ridiculous. Fighting the urge to kick down the door, I sat down on their porch and finally took a look around. It was 9:30 on a Tuesday morning, but every driveway had cars in it.
“What the hell is going on?” I muttered.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” a deep voice from behind me answered. I jumped up and turned around. A dark haired guy in a leather jacket was standing in the Morrison’s doorway.
“Who are you?” I asked suspiciously. I knew everyone on the street, but I had never seen him before.
“I’m Luke, the Smith’s nephew,” he answered, “I’m staying at their house for a week.”
“Where are they? I’m kind of having an emergency.”
“They’re gone. I’ve spent the last hour looking for them. No one’s home on the street, either.”
I cursed. “Where the fuck is everyone? ”
“I don’t know what happened. I called my aunt and uncle, but their cell phones were on their dresser.”
“My parents left theirs as well. They left everything.”
“Let’s take a drive down to the police station. They didn’t pick up when I called, but this is way too important to ignore for even one more second.”
We piled into his uncle’s pick up truck and sped down to the station.
“The streets are empty,” my brother said. “Why aren’t there cars on the road?”
“There’s a car,” I said. We looked in horror as a blue Volkswagen emerged over the hill in front of us, and began to speed down. There was nobody in the car. “Luke…” I whispered.
“I know.” He kept looking forward. He didn’t even blink when the car hit a store front and exploded. Simon whimpered in fear, and I reached out to grip his hand. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that something was wrong, Everything was silent, there was a sort of emptiness in the air that I had never felt before. I tried to copy Luke’s nonchalant demeanor, and managed to hold it for exactly one minute. It broke when I saw the bus in front of the bus stop. Its doors were open, and the engine was still running. A briefcase lay on it’s side on the sidewalk.
It only became weirder. Most stores were dark, but some had their open sign up, with their doors open. We walked into the first coffee shop we saw. There were two cups on the pick up counter, and another one leaking on the floor. Luke hopped over the counter and fiddled with some machines.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m thirsty. How do you like your coffee?”
“I can’t believe you! Do you even realize what’s going on? How can you be making COFFEE at a time like this?” I realized I was screaming, and abruptly stopped talking. My words sounded even louder in the silence, and I became self conscious.
“Look, I know there’s something really fucked up going on, ok? But I think a lot better when I have my morning coffee.”
We left the shop with lattes, and walked down to the Police Station. The doors were open, the lights were on, but nobody was behind the desks. The entire downtown area was empty. We went back to my house, and I logged on the computer, while Luke turned on the TV. There wasn’t anything on my newsfeed from around six o’clock. Normally people were on here all night.
I was abruptly aware of how stupid I was. The whole town was missing, and here I was on Facebook. I went into the living room. Luke and Simon were staring at a grey screen. My brother looked up, “Every channel is like this. Why?”
“Nobody’s controlling the channels anymore,” Luke answered. “Whatever’s going on, it’s not just in Iron River.” He finally looked at me, and I realized that even though he sounded fine, he was as terrified by all of this as I was.
I tried to get a grip on things. "OK. We're still here. Maybe other people are left."
My brothers head jerked up. "Who cares? Mom and Dad are gone, and I called everyone! No one picked up! Who cares who else is here?"
"Simon, there are probably people left all alone. They're probably as scared as we are."
"I agree with Simon," Luke said. "We need to worry about ourselves right now. We can look for people tomorrow."
I sat down on the couch. "So what are we supposed to do?"
Luke had his cell phone to his ear, "I need to go back to Georgia."
I was confused, "Go back to Georgia?"
"I can't reach my family. I need to go back and look for them. Maybe some of them are still there."
"You can't leave us," I begged him. "We need you." I already knew how true those words were. I'd only known him for an hour, but I knew I couldn't carry on with out him.
"I'm sorry," he said and stood up, putting on his jacket. "I'll be back after I find them. I'll come back as soon as I can."
As he pulled away from the house, he was still talking, "Find everyone you can. There's not going to be any electricity left, you're going to have to grow and make everything by hand." He cupped my chin with his hand, "Don't worry. I'm going to come back."
He smiled and drove away. I didn't realize that I'd been crying until I tasted my tears.