There were six other tenants in my building but I had not seen anyone and the next day, it occurred to me there might be a reason why the smell didn’t go away. I thought it best if I didn’t go banging on doors. Instead, I checked, and Dave’s apartment door was unlocked so I used his landline to call the police department, and after finally reaching someone, I advised them there might be dead bodies in the building. They advised me that they were shorthanded, that there were dead bodies everywhere, and they would send someone as soon as they could.
The next morning one lone, haggard cop showed up. He asked me to go with him as he knocked on all the doors. Other than Dave’s, only one was unlocked and he hastily closed it after swinging it open. Shaking his head, he went back to his car and radioed it in. That afternoon a couple of guys in hazmat suits arrived. I watched as, one by one, they carried the rest of my neighbors out in body bags. I was the only survivor from the building.
On the fourth day, I could no longer bear being in the place, so I loaded everything I could get into my car and left. I slept in the car for a week surrounded by my things because I was afraid to go to any of my friends or relatives homes. I didn’t know what I would find and I couldn’t take anymore right then.
I was bothered only once. Parked and asleep in a shopping center lot one night, a noise snapped me awake. I didn’t say anything to the man scratching at my car door. His eyes widened as he realized I was awake and had my gun pointed at his head. Rage surged in me and I almost pulled the trigger. He looked into my eyes and I don’t know what he saw and maybe it was simply seeing the gun aimed at him, but a look of terror crossed his face and he backed away and left running.
The next day, I drove aimlessly through the city listening to the car radio, which was the only thing I could do since the TV in the dashboard didn’t work. Even if it had, it would’ve been dangerous to watch since autodrive was no longer in operation and I needed to keep my eyes on the road. I spotted a “For Rent” sign hanging crookedly in the window of a building ahead on the right. I pulled over and stopped. I couldn’t keep sleeping in my car. It wasn’t safe. After what happened the night before, I knew it was time I found another place to stay.
It was an old mixed usage building with a smoke shop downstairs and two flats upstairs. One was empty. The owner of the shop, Lowell Hampton, lived in the occupied one and was happy to show me the other. It was two rooms that weren’t much bigger than closets but I took it anyway.
Thus began my new life.
Chapter Six
IT WAS BEFORE I FLED MY APARTMENT AND while listening to my dad’s radio I’d brought from the house, that along with everyone else, I learned that the shit to which everything went didn’t take just the city of Charlotte with it. No, it encompassed the entire world. Everywhere had meandered down the thoroughfare to Hell. I didn’t learn much more than that the week I spent wandering around because annoyingly, the car radio kept cutting in and out and I finally turned it off. I didn’t know if it was because the signal was flaky or if something was wrong with the radio. I’d never tried to listen to it before, as I’d always only used the TV, so I kind of suspected the latter since it was an old car I bought used right out of college.
After I moved to my new place, the first thing I did was plug the radio in and continue to monitor the news. The accounts coming in were dismaclass="underline" riots, rampages, shootings, looting… I wondered what they were looting. Guns, I supposed, and perhaps they were taking radios since the radio stations – the ones with enough personnel left for broadcasting – came in clearly, and though it was still plentiful, maybe they were stealing food or clothing in anticipation of supplies running low.
One of the reports cleared it up for me: sure, food, and in some cases, clothing, along with gaming devices, but looters were also going for TVs, cellphones, and computers. I could kind of see taking gaming devices since they could be operated manually though connecting to distant players was no longer possible, but there’d been no television since the brief telecast the first day, and cellphones had finally given up for good. I’d not been able to pick up a wireless signal on my laptop anywhere, so the countrywide ‘net wasn’t working either. I thought it was pointless to steal those particular items, but I suppose the thinking was that it would all eventually come back.
The day after renting the new place, I went back to the old apartment to get the things I’d left behind because I couldn’t get them into the car. My eighteen-year-old cousin, Will, was sitting on the steps of the porch.
He jumped up when I pulled into the parking lot and rushed to the car as I got out. The darkness that had wrapped itself around my soul lessened a little. Here was somebody, a part of my family, who was alive. I was glad to see him.
“Tenn?” He stopped and stared at me, his hazel eyes narrowing. “For a minute I thought you were your dad. You okay? Thank God you’re still alive! I was afraid everyone was gone. Hey, where’s Zoni?”
My mind paused. “Dead.” No point in trying to pretty it up.
He stopped, his eyes going big. “Oh. I’m sorry. I’d hoped… what about Uncle James and Aunt Katherine? I went by their house but no one came to the door…”
My stomach muscles clenched. “They didn’t make it, either, Will.”
“Oh my God! Both of them?”
I nodded. I couldn’t talk about it, or tell him I’d buried them in the back yard. Not without trembling. I think he saw I wasn’t ready to discuss it because he grew quiet and didn’t ask any questions. I started walking toward the porch.
I asked, “What about Aunt Lily and Uncle Charles?” They went to Jamaica to visit relatives right after Will’s graduation.
He shook his head. He reached up and pulled his long dreadlocks back, and tied them into a knot at the nape of his neck as he walked with me. “I don’t know. They were supposed to fly back for your and Zoni’s— um, they were scheduled on a flight the day of… on the 27th, but they never got here and I haven’t been able to reach them.” He shook his head. “God I wish I would’ve gone with them! They wanted me to but I wanted to keep working so I could save more money for school in the fall – you know, to have some extra cash.”
I knew what he meant. I did the same thing the summer after I graduated from high school.
He gave a frustrated sigh. “Cellphones aren’t working worth a damn. I used the phone at the house but that didn’t do any good either. I guess cellular is out all over. You heard what happened to all the planes on that… that… day, right?”
I lowered myself onto the steps, and he plopped down beside me and leaned back on his elbows.
I nodded. “It was on the radio. Everything airborne that morning when… it happened… fell from the sky and now no airplanes can get off the ground.”
We sat in silence for a minute, then Will said, “Mom and Dad said they were taking a ten a.m. flight and that would’ve been after the… afterwards. Weren’t Missy and Jon coming back later that day, too?”
“Yes. They tried to get their flight changed so they could fly back with your mom and dad but it was filled so their plane was supposed to leave that evening.”
“You haven’t heard from them, yet?”