Days 34
Mostly driving. There has to be a better way to find people, right? If there is, I can’t think of it. I’m about to cross state lines, though. Maybe this… reaping is regional.
The world is pretty damn beautiful when you pause to look at it, and over the next few days, I do. A lot. It’s not like I have much choice, since my phone is useless, and there’s no one to talk to, anyway. All I do is drive.
The coast is gorgeous at my side, and I savor the salty wind with my windows down. I’ll miss this when I’m deeper inland. Not that I have a clear route in mind; all I know for sure is that I need to put some distance between me and the direction I came from.
At least it feels good to be on the move.
I try not to sleep inside people’s homes if I can help it, preferring to rest in motels—it feels less personal, more…
normal. I stop for gas twice and cook my Day One groceries to the best of my ability.
Soon, my dietary options will narrow down significantly, and I try not to think about the future that awaits me, surviving on only canned foods.
I really don’t want to go around slaughtering chickens or pigs if I can help it.
Not that I see any.
I still hear the occasional bird, but as I leave the coastline and head deeper into the woods—my navigation app says I’m almost in Virginia—I try my hardest to spot one, and I just can’t. I even hear the flapping of wings, but as soon as I look up, the trees are all silent. Maybe I’m going insane.
The quiet is worse in the forest. It’s almost heavier, more pronounced.
It takes all but a day for me to decide that I can’t take it anymore and set a new, random destination on my navigation app. As long as I’m out of these woods, I don’t care where I go. It’s not like it matters, anyway.
The roads are empty, like everyone has decided to stay home collectively.
That brings me back to my questions. Pulling up to the side of the road, I take out my notebook and pen, adding another one to the growing list.
How did they vanish?
There aren’t any car pileups, no abandoned vehicles standing in silent traffic.
The roads are empty. So, they weren’t zapped out, I muse, tapping the tip of the pen against my lips.
They didn’t go about their daily lives and just…
poof. No, it’s like none of them ever got to leave the house to begin with.
But what about truckers? Night shift workers? Someone had to be on the road at night. If a divine reaping, or whatever the hell it was, happened in the middle of the night, where did they go?
Did they leave voluntarily? The image of everyone pulling to a neat, comfortable parking spot to be taken up to the heavens sounds ridiculous, even considering the situation I’m in.
Maybe they never left, points an inner voice, maybe they died.
But then there would be bodies, right? There’s nothing. Nothing but empty roads, silent buildings, and my music echoing from my car speakers.
I’ve never wanted to encounter a dead body so much in my entire life.