“Shit!”
Now he was absolutely mystified. There was no power, no phone service and no sign of his family or friends. He stared at the phone a few seconds then flipped it shut and shoved it into his back pocket.
Unsure of what to do next, Tom finally decided to run next door and see if the Chandlers were home. Maybe Bill or Marge would have an idea of what the hell was going on. Maybe they even knew where Peg and everyone had gone.
He fled the house and trudged across the driveway to the Chandlers’ front door and rang the doorbell. Realizing that their power was most likely out as well, he knocked on the door and peered through a window to see if he could see anyone. He waited a few seconds then started beating on the door when he noticed their only car parked in the driveway.
“Bill, Marge – are you guys in there?” he shouted.
When nothing happened, he walked around to the rear of the house and peered through the dining room window. There were no signs of life anywhere. Certainly odd, seeing as the elderly couple rarely went out with anyone and their car was here.
Tom decided to try Gary Morris, who lived directly across the street. He knew for a fact that Gary was home because he’d seen him pull into his garage just as he left for the supermarket.
He ran through the driving snow across the street to Gary’s and beat on the door.
“Gary, it’s Tom!” he cried, wanting nothing more right now than to simply see another human being. He knew that Gary Morris had a penchant for keeping an eye on the neighbors and their goings on. If anyone knew what the hell was happening around here it would be good old Gary.
After another minute of pounding and shouting, Tom ran around to the side of the house and peered into the garage window. Inside he saw Gary’s blue ‘99 Buick. He continued around the side to the backyard gate and lifted the latch. He strode over to the back door that led out from the kitchen and began beating on it. A moment later he went over to a window and peered inside. Tom saw nothing but a darkened room.
Gary lived in a single story ranch that had no basement, only a crawl space. In this tiny house, he most certainly would have heard all of the beating and shouting by now.
Tom went back over to the kitchen door and tried it. It was locked, just as the front door had been. He made a quick decision: he would bust out a window and go inside. Gary was either dead somewhere in there or had vanished mysteriously like the others. He had to find out.
He spotted a snow shovel leaning against the siding and picked it up. He went over to the kitchen window and poked the handle through a single pane of glass near the middle of the frame. The muffled tinkling sound of the shattered glass was all but lost in the raging snowstorm. Tom reached in and turned the latch, hoisted up the window and stuck his head inside.
“Gary-it’s me, Tom! You in there?”
When no reply came, Tom slipped fairly easily though the window and onto the linoleum floor. It was dusk now and he could barely see his way around in the kitchen. He rummaged through the drawers until he located a flashlight and switched it on. The first thing he did when he spotted the wall phone was try it. The line was dead. He replaced the phone and went into the dining room.
Tom knew the house well. The living room was straight ahead and the two bedrooms and bath would be to the right. He felt his heart race in his chest as he moved cautiously into the living room.
He flashed the light around the entire perimeter. Gary’s easy chair was in its usual position in front of the television. A neatly folded newspaper sat on the coffee table and the remote control rested on a small table beside the chair. Tom went over to the television and touched the screen. It was still warm, just as he had expected it would be.
But where was Gary?
Tom felt like a nervous cat burglar as he crept slowly toward the hallway where the bedrooms were located. He knew that the first room on his left would be the spare bedroom. He peered inside and saw nothing but a single bed, nightstand and a dresser. He walked past the bathroom to the only remaining room in the house. The door to Gary’s bedroom was closed. Tom took a deep breath and turned the doorknob slowly, dreading what he might find on the other side.
“Gary?” he called softly, startled at the sound of his own voice in the eerie silence of the house.
He swung the door open gently.
He aimed the flashlight first on the queen sized bed then all around the room.
Nothing. No body. No Gary.
He was gone, just like the rest.
Tom felt his heart sink like a lead weight.
Where in the holy hell is everybody?
At that moment, something inside Tom snapped.
Like a raging lunatic, he tore out of Gary Morris’s house across the yard to the Williams house and beat on the door furiously with both fists.
“Mike, Carol-open the door! It’s Tom Grayson! Please come to the door and talk to me!”
He only waited a moment before turning the doorknob to see if it was locked, which it was. He ran over to their driveway and saw the Williams’ teenage son’s Mustang parked behind Carol’s Sonata. Mike’s Explorer was parked out front on the street.
Tom sprinted back to the front door.
“I know you guys are in there-answer the damn door!” he cried.
In a fit, Tom ran around to the side of the house and looked through a window for any signs of life. Then he ran around to the backyard and tried the sliding patio door. Miraculously, it slid open.
Not really expecting to find anyone there, Tom entered the Williams house as though he lived there.
“Just dropping in to see if anyone in this fricking neighborhood is still around – hope you don’t mind!” he hollered as he sashayed across the family room into the kitchen. He picked up the phone, which was of course dead, then made his way throughout the house. There were signs that someone had been home recently-the television in the den was still warm as was Jason’s iMac in his bedroom. But, just like everybody else, the entire Williams family had apparently vanished from the face of the earth.
Tom entered the living room and plopped down on the soft leather sofa. His mind was awhirl, trying to put all of this into some sort of reasonable perspective.
It wasn’t possible to do.
He considered the facts thus far. It was a fact that every person he had tried to locate since returning from the supermarket was gone. Where they had gone, he did not know. And, they all appeared to have been in their homes before their sudden disappearance. Everyone involved also shared the following circumstances: the power to their homes was off and their phones didn’t work.
Theories, Mr. Grayson?
He had none.
Deductions?
He hadn’t an inkling.
What to do now? What would be the most logical thing to do?
Tom pondered this for a moment. He only came up with one obvious answer: he had to find out if anybody, anywhere was still around, period.
And he needed to do it pronto, before it got any later.
Because the last thing he wanted to do tonight was go to bed in utter darkness and total isolation, knowing that when he woke up nothing will have changed.
Tom exited the Williams home and returned to his home. It was pitch dark inside so he gathered up several candles and placed them throughout the house. Afterwards, when he tried the phone again only to find it was still dead, a thought suddenly came to mind: his iBook! It ran on battery power-maybe he could get on the internet!
Smiling to himself at the prospect, he went over to where his laptop computer was plugged into the wall near his fax machine and clicked opened the lid. He recalled that it had been a bit low on power that morning so he had attached it to the charger. It should be fully juiced up by now.