Chapter 1: Wanda

When the end of the world came, it did so quickly.

I’ve always wanted to write that: a bold, dynamic opening line. The truth of the matter is, I copied it out of an old notebook I found from my senior writing class. I have no idea why I kept it. I wanted to pen a nice post-apocalypse story as a final paper in creative writing. Too bad the real thing got in the way before I could finish high school.

I’ve always loved the old classics: Earth Abides; I Am Legend; Day of the Triffids; World War Z; Alas, Babylon. I especially liked Lucifer’s Hammer. I have dozens of them on my shelves. They were all wrong, of course. When the world ended, it happened none of those ways. No plagues. No zombies. No comets. No excitement.

But, back to my melodramatic opening line. Yes, the world ended quickly ... but quietly. In point of fact, most of the survivors didn’t know, at first, that it had happened at all.

I was probably one of the first to realize it in my little corner of this earth; and I confess, it took me far too long to figure it out. Likewise, a bit later, I was probably one of the first people to suspect WHAT had happened. Of course, once all the facts were known, it was the only scientifically feasible solution to that problem. Most of those that attacked the puzzle before me just didn’t know enough to ask the proper questions. And, I have to admit that I sort of tripped over parts of the answer accidently, myself.

Survivalism is a state of mind. After “The Event,” those that had it flourished. I did not. Have it, I mean. Not on that day. But, ‘round about late morning, my state of mind starting shifting. Fast.

I was one of the sixty-percenters. In Oregon, sixty percent of the folks tended to be slightly left of center. We were inclined to get along with our fellow man, we rode the bus, we hated guns, we trusted the government, and we liked to roast marshmallows and sing Kumbaya. Most of us lived in a single valley between (and including) Portland and Eugene that hosts one of the few north-flowing rivers in the U.S. (the Willamette – rhymes with dammit), and we tended to believe trees were for hugging, not for cutting down.

Most of the remaining forty percent of the state’s population (those who were more right of center) lived in the remaining 90 percent of the state’s area; and they included the vast majority of the survivalists, the people who had the greatest chance of making it through The Event. But they didn’t. Make it, that is. Well ... some of them did, of course; but not that many. Being prepared for it had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you were here after it happened. How unfair can you get? Bummer.

That valley I mentioned is fenced in by two mountain ranges. The Coastal Mountain Range runs almost from California to Washington, and is rather low. Mary’s Peak, near Philomath, is the highest point at barely over 4,000 feet. They extend unevenly from the Pacific Ocean eastward for sixty or so miles; and the terrain can get pretty gnarly. It’s the Cascades that most folks think of when you mention “Oregon mountains;” and they, of course, can tower well over ten grand. They run up the middle of the state and into Washington to the north, as well as merging into the Sierra Nevada range, down south in California.

My little town of Acton is nestled into that former (Coastal) range, on the eastern slope, west of Eugene. I suppose it was probably considered a great place to grow up. The residents included farmers, lumber and forest workers, people that owned little retail shops and restaurants. That sort of thing. There was a small hospital near the center of town where my mother worked. A few people had jobs at the Eugene Airport, twenty-five miles northeast of us. Most of the others made the drive into Eugene itself, which was closer.

The Event happened on Monday, September 8th, 2053 at 7:47 in the morning, Pacific Daylight Time. I should probably set the stage for you a bit, since things have changed since then. What was common at that time is no longer the case. An abundance of people changed the climate; a lack thereof changed it again. Eastern Oregon has always had its own climate and weather patterns. Back in the first half of the century, we normally experienced a long dry period in the summer; and then it would start raining about mid-fall. Global Warming exacerbated that; so that by the 50s, it often wouldn’t rain a drop from late May until almost October. And then it would rain and rain and rain, all the way to spring. We adapted. Dry red wine grapes thrived in the low mountains, and hundreds of cutesy-themed vineyards sprang up everywhere. Out in the valley, massive orchards of hazelnuts often stretched to the horizons.

That morning was cool and dry. The weather report said the high would be just shy of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The low that night would be in the mid-50s. No rain. Same as the day before. Same as the day after. Most lawns were dead brown, but that would all change the next month. They’d all green-up when the rains came again. Everybody planted a type of grass that simply went dormant when the dry season hit.

My alarm went off at six thirty, and I slapped the top of the device before it had squawked for a single second. My room faced east, and the blinds weren’t down, but the only thing that invaded the room from that direction was a sliver of bright pink. Early days at school sucked, but I only had to put up with this crap until May. I hadn’t been accepted yet, but I felt confident. I considered myself Berkley bound, and I didn’t care one whit that on my way down, I’d be passing all of those Californicators as they made their way up here, where life was easier and oh-so-much cheaper. But I couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

For no other reason than I could, I bellowed a war-cry that echoed around the empty house. Mom had spent the weekend in Salem with her latest boyfriend, and she planned on making the hour-and-a-half drive back this morning in time to get to work. I suppose I should have felt jealous or something; but I liked this one, and I hoped it worked out for her. Lord knows she deserved a little happiness in her life.

I stayed a little overly-long in a shower that was a little overly-hot, and I relished the feeling. I’d worked out with my weight set last night, and I’d tumbled into bed while I was still sweaty and grungy. Mom wouldn’t have approved, but she wasn’t there, and it was time to change the sheets on my bed, anyway. I used a towel to wipe the steam from the bathroom mirror, and I carefully studied a face that only a mother could love, deciding that I had to bite the bullet and shave this morning. That would add a few minutes I hadn’t planned for.

Shaving was a painstaking affair. Everything about me was too big. My mouth, my nose, my ears, my whole head; and my face was creased with crags and imperfections. I never knew my father, but these weird characteristics must have come from him. Mom was a delicate little thing with fine features that drew smiles from all those around her. But I bordered on the grotesque, and more than a few fellow students at school harbored the opinion that a guy that was built like (and looked like) an ox probably had the mental capacity of one, as well. That was fine by me. Let them think whatever they wanted. I knew. The teachers I respected knew, as well; and they often spent the time needed to teach me the things I yearned to learn ... not just the things the curriculum demanded. Coaches pestered me with a fervor boarding on lust; but I dodged PE by hiding behind a piccolo, and any prowess on a sports field was limited to speculation on their part.

I popped two slices of bread in the toaster on my way to the washing machine, where I deposited the sheets. Mom was going to have a fit. She hated it when I left the house with the machine on, having heard horror stories of houses flooding due to broken pipes while there was no one home (as if the house flooding while we WERE home was somehow better). Back in the kitchen, I slathered peanut butter and jelly on the toasted bread, folded the slices together into a sandwich, and looked around for my keys.

Mom’s birthday present to me this year had been to buy HERSELF a new car and give me her old one. Fine by me, even if I did feel a bit like a big clown in a small car. At least I had wheels, and the dinky Honda Hybrid never let me down. I polished off the last of my breakfast as I parked the thing in the student lot, grabbed my textbooks and backpack and started the long trek toward the school buildings. I don’t know why I remember so vividly glancing at my watch. To this day, I can see it, clear as a bell. 7:47. It’s a type of airplane, I remember thinking. The really big one. The one that hasn’t been used in decades because it was so bulky and inefficient. Seven forty-seven.

For some reason, Greg Sharpton chose that day to start giving me shit in first period home room. Mr. Bosworth was late ... again, and nobody had taken attendance. I would have just gotten up and left, but I didn’t want to be counted absent. Sharpton, a halfback on the football team, somehow had it in his head that the offensive backfield would be a much safer place with me on the line somewhere; and further, that my failure to provide such service was a personal affront to the whole school’s team spirit. I blatantly ignored him.

The eight o’clock bell ceased abruptly mid-ring when the power failed, causing everybody to groan in unison. A man was yelling something down the hall. Two girls next to me were complaining about their phones. “Hey, Jones! You listening to anything I’m tellin’ you?” Sharpton shouted, too close to my left ear.

I stood abruptly, causing the jock to back away a step, startled. “Does Mr. Bosworth still have that fishing cabin on Fern Ridge Lake?” I asked him quietly.

He looked at me like I had three eyes. “What?”

“Bosworth,” I told him flatly. “He has a weekend cabin on the lake, doesn’t he?”

“Uh ... How the fuck should I know?”

“The guy out in the hall, down near the principal’s office,” I countered. “He’s yelling something about a big traffic accident on Highway 36, south of town. Mr. Bosworth’s not here yet.”

“Uh...”

There were some gasps around the room as a few of the girls figured out what I was insinuating. Instead of following that train of thought further, I turned to the two girls that had been complaining about their digital devices. “Let me see your phone,” I ordered the nearest.

“What?”

I snatched it out of her unresisting fingers and looked at it. She’d been texting a friend in Eugene, but the comm chain was being ignored, and she hadn’t heard anything back in ... I checked my watch ... thirteen minutes. The last message had been sent at 7:47 AM. I tapped her “Settings” button. It might make sense if she was using the school’s Com-Link, but she was using her phone’s account. I handed it back and plucked the phone from the second girl. She’d been on a major social media site, but it had been unresponsive for exactly the same amount of time. Again, it was using her phone’s network. A different network.

I felt prickles go up my spine. Grabbing the earpiece from my shirt pocket, I crammed it into my right ear and ordered “Call Mom” to my wristwatch. It rang five times and went to voicemail. “It’s me. Call me right away. It’s important,” I said, and disconnected. This wasn’t right. Her shift started at eight-thirty. She should still be on the road, probably somewhere between here and Junction City. There was no reason she shouldn’t answer. I tapped my watch’s holo-display and triggered her car’s location. Yep. There she was. Still on the road. I watched it. And watched. And watched. It wasn’t moving.

I spread my fingertip and thumb, expanding the holo-view. There was nothing anywhere around her. No intersections, no shops, no restaurants, no pull-offs, no structures. And the car was just sitting there. If the location services were correct, she wasn’t actually on the road, she was slightly off of it, maybe ten or twenty feet from the edge of the shoulder.

I don’t remember picking up my backpack, but it was in my hand as I pushed the front door open, striding toward the parking lot. I can remember thinking pretty clearly; thinking about driving safely, rather than tearing off down the road full tilt, like I really wanted to do. The earpiece was still in my ear. As I got into the car, I tapped my watch and told it to dial 911.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“I’d like to report an apparent traffic accident, please.”

There was a long pause. “Apparent? Are you at the scene?”

“Um ... no. Not yet. I’m on my way. It looks as if the car has run off the road ... um ... about four and a half miles south of Junction City on Highway 99.”

There was another long pause. “I’m sorry. This is Acton 911. You’ll have to contact Junction City 911.”

“How do I do that?” I pleaded, exasperated.

“Just a moment, please.”

I had to slow way down at an intersection because the power failure had disabled a traffic light. Cars were proceeding one-at-a-time, too carefully. Then, finally, I was nearing the edge of town, and the speed limit increased to 55, which is as high as it ever gets in rural Oregon.

“Are you still there, sir?”

“Yes! Yes, I’m here!”

“I’m sorry, but we’re unable to get through to Junction City Emergency Services. Or the Lane County Sheriff’s department. Or the highway patrol. I don’t know what’s wrong. There’s really nothing we can do from here about your concern. We seem to have numerous reported traffic accidents all around town. Once again, I’m...”

I slammed on the brakes as I topped the next hill. “Well, here’s another one,” I interrupted. “There’s a car off the road on Highway 36, eastbound, just outside of town. I’m at the scene.”

“Are there any casualties?”

I pulled forward and craned my neck. “Um, no. There doesn’t seem to be anybody in the vehicle. It’s a red Ford EV truck, up against a tree, but there’s no one inside.” I finally took my eyes off the thing and looked forward. “Um ... and I can see three ... no, four more vehicles ahead of me. All off the roadway. In ditches. In fields.”

“I’m sorry sir. I have to go. Thank you for the information. Good luck to you. I hope you find the vehicle you’re looking for safely. Goodbye.”

Well, shit! Shit shit shit shit! Every fiber of my being told me to stop and help, but the situation was getting increasingly weird. I crept past a couple vehicles that hadn’t overturned or gone plowing headlong across a farmer’s field, but I never saw another soul anywhere, either inside or around of any of them.

Fifty-five, be damned! I held down the accelerator and drove for all I was worth. That pace held for another nine miles, until I came to the intersection of Highways 36 and 99, where I encountered a massive tangle of cars and trucks, all snarled into a tremendous accident that seemed to encompass the entire road juncture. Up until that point, all the abandoned vehicles had meandered off the paved surface before coming to a halt. But this ... well, this was utterly impassible. And there was not one single person. Anywhere.

Fortunately, there was a side street just prior to the intersection that went left, north. Unfortunately, it’s only exit to 99 in the direction I wanted to go was a turn the wrong way, going northbound in the southbound lanes. Big deal. I hadn’t encountered a single vehicle in motion since I’d left Acton. Why should I start worrying now? But I did, of course. Worry, that is.

State Highway 99 is a major roadway, and there were a lot more trucks here. Funny thing about physics ... it makes consummate sense AFTER something happens. The automobiles all seemed to drift, either left or right, into ditches, medians and other surfaces designed for drainage; and the vast majority of them had come to an eventual halt in a generally upright frame of reference. Not so the big eighteen-wheelers. Most of them wound up on their sides after they’d drifted off the paved roadway. And, holy cow, there were a lot of them! They reminded me of a picture I’d once seen of a forest that had been decimated by a volcanic explosion. And yet, like their smaller counterparts, very few of them had come to rest on the highway itself. They’d all managed to somehow depart the pavement before their forward momentum had been thwarted, usually by toppling over sideways.

There was a decided lack of fire. I was reminded of a podcast I’d heard once decrying the use of exploding cars in movies and videos. Cars don’t explode, the guy was arguing. Some cars are of full of gasoline, the narrator countered. Gasoline doesn’t explode, the guy had said. It burns. And only then if it’s combined with the proper amount of oxygen and a catalyst, such as a spark. Keep it in the tank, and it won’t burn. And it almost NEVER explodes. Cars only explode in Hollywood; and only when a director stuffs the vehicle full of dynamite.

I remembered this, travelling on Highway 99, northbound in the southbound lanes, as I drove into a spreading puddle of liquid being disgorged from a tanker truck, lying on its side in the median. This sucked. I found a cut-over lane, a surface that connected the two sides, with a stern sign that declared it was for official vehicles only. I suddenly considered myself official, or the closest thing to it thereabouts.

There was a single plume of dense black smoke on the horizon in my rearview mirror. It took me a while to realize that it was coming from what I figured was the general direction of the Eugene Airport. Maybe I’d think more about that ... later.

I came to a traffic light, still working, at a major intersection with one of the farm roads just south of Junction City. Here again, there were vehicles on the roadway. Lots of them, crammed and smashed together like logs in a narrowing river. But I was overjoyed to realize that a turn lane to the far right was clear, and it provided a way around the mess. I was close now, less than a mile from Mom’s signal, and only five miles from Junction City itself.

I was on the wrong side of the road, of course. She’d chosen a weird color for her new car; Ocean Sandstorm, the documentation called it, a sort of swirling mixture of azure and tan. Pretty distinctive. I spotted it easily, slightly nose-down to the right of the southbound lanes. I had pulled to a stop, right in the middle of the opposite side, and I was out of the car and halfway to the median before sanity took over. The vehicle locked itself while in motion. Most of them did. Taking a deep breath, I turned back and popped the hatchback of my grungy little go-mobile, then rummaged around the toolbox I kept there. I had two hammers, and I passed over the clawhammer for the ballpeen. Gripping the thing with white knuckles, I strode over; and, taking a deep breath, I looked inside.

It was empty, of course. No one there, just like all of them. But then I looked closer. Her clothes were crumpled in the driver’s seat. With a wracking shiver that crawled over my whole body, I tried the door. The car was still on, all the displays still brightly lit on the dashboard, so it made sense that the door wouldn’t budge. Taking a deep breath, I swung my tool toward the forward bottom corner of the front side window, and it shattered, raining glass particles over the articles of clothing that were all that was left of my mother. I touched the lock button next to the window controls; then, I pulled the front door open.

The power monitor registered three-quarters, with roughly 380 miles to go before the primary battery was drained. She must have charged it over the weekend at her boyfriend’s place. Music was coming from the speakers, and I recognized a song from her favorite playlist. The communication console showed one incoming call, and registered a voicemail pending. The last thing I wanted to hear right now was my own panicked call.

Her blouse had gently collapsed onto the waist and hips of her skirt, and by looking straight down at the loose pile of clothes, I could see the bra inside. The toe of her short-heeled right shoe was resting on the accelerator pedal, but not depressing it enough to make the vehicle move. Taking a shuddering breath, I leaned in and shifted the short gear knob to “park,” then I touched the master button, turning the thing off. I backed away a few steps and studied the scene.

Physics made so much sense afterwards. The car had barely been moving when it departed the road’s surface. Her shoe, after it lacked the weight of the foot inside, had allowed the vehicle to decelerate naturally; the steering tight enough on the straight road to keep the car on the highway for a long, long time. When it finally did wander past the shoulder, the front wheels encountered soft sand, and the stop had been very gradual as it finally bogged down in the gentle surface. That’s why the clothing was still sitting in the driver’s seat, rather than being thrown forward onto the floorboard.

I could have tested this hypothesis, of course, but why bother? I KNEW what I would find if I checked out any of the other vehicles. Why check a hypothesis, when you already know the answer? Well, the answer to THAT question, anyway. There were so many more. But ... they all had answers, too. And, sooner or later, I’d figure them out.

I considered, for a moment, taking a memento. My mother, after all, had been my only friend in life. For all of my existence, I had been a loner; and I had never cultivated friendships, either at school, in my neighborhood, or anywhere else. There were a few teachers that I respected ... quite a few, as a matter of fact. But they hadn’t been friends. Not really. Not like my mother. However, keeping a phone, an article of clothing or anything physical; well, it would serve no purpose. It would only accentuate what I had lost in life.

I strode back across the highway to my little piece-of-shit Honda; but I paused before I clamored back aboard, looking right, south, and at the thin line of black smoke coming from what I could only imagine was making it at the airport; and then back to the left, north, where the low buildings of Junction City were just visible against the flat horizon. Nodding, making up my mind, I drove away from my old life and into my new one.

Junction City was a modern ghost town. I saw not a single human being; but now that I knew what to look for, I spotted the signs. Everywhere. Small piles of clothing on the sidewalks or in the crosswalks. Unable to suppress some sort of natural urge, I stopped the car and checked out a baby carriage at a street corner, but the only thing therein was a thin blanket and one very odiferous diaper. Not a living soul. Anywhere.

I’m not sure if I actually had a plan, but when I saw the storefront, the idea formed immediately, and I somehow knew that this was my only logical course of action. The sign above the door bore only a single four-letter word, but it spoke volumes: Guns.

I stopped the little car in the middle of the street and got out, then checked my watch. It was nine-sixteen on a Monday morning. There was no way the place had been open before ... whatever had happened, but it would be the height of stupidity to bust into the place if the door was unsecure. I walked over and tried it. Locked. Of course. Like an idiot, I knocked. Nothing. Of course. How long did I have before somebody else showed up? Glancing around, I saw the door to a hardware store standing wide open. I nodded. I knew just what I needed, and I knew just how to use it.

Less than five minutes later, I had one end of a logging chain attached to the front door of the gun dealer, and the other wrapped around the rear axle of the little car. If it broke the axle, no big deal. There were literally hundreds of vehicles all around me, and I could have my pick. But, of course, the handle of the store’s door simply ripped right off, leaving me, if it’s at all possible, even further from my goal.

Back in the hardware store, I chose my next weapon: another logger’s tool. I had always called the thing a “come-along,” a solid stainless-steel bar, five feet long, and weighing about twenty-five pounds. It was round-handled at one end, and had a large, squarish, chiseled tip at the other. Some of its counterparts had big, hinged hooks at one end, but I liked this one. Normally, when your chainsaw started binding up most the way through a cut, this thing was used to turn the whole log over so you could keep going. And, this one could also apply enough force to break almost anything. Weight times Arm equals Moment. More physics stuff. It still took me the better part of five minutes to crack the top of that stupid door, though ... and that was only to find out that there were at least two more locks, lower down on the thing, that were still holding. I had the idea figured out now, though, and it didn’t take me much longer to get into the place, leaving the metal-reinforced door warped, twisted and defeated, clinging to a single hinge.

The power was still on, so I was expecting an alarm to sound. When it did, thirty seconds later, I was ready with my trusty steel bar to skewer the siren/speaker on the far side of the shop, near the back counter. It issued one last, sickly, dying squawk, and fell mercifully silent; but it had a partner, somewhere up near the front door, and I turned in that direction to murder my second blaring accuser. Instead, I froze in my tracks.

In the exact center of the store, calmly examining an automatic pistol in her right hand, stood a young, pretty, athletic girl of African-American descent. I guessed her age to be somewhere around twenty, and she wore a pair of blue jean cutoffs, tactical camo boots, and a crop top that tried valiantly to support a truly magnificent pair of breasts. Her short hair accentuated a long, graceful neck, and her clear complexion and delicate facial features reminded me of my mother. As I gaped at her, she raised her left hand to shoulder-level and waved at me.

I took a step or two forward, and she suddenly looked startled, backing up a pace. However, despite having been so interested in it, she didn’t seem to consider using the gun for her protection. I paused again and tried to communicate. “If you’ll just allow me to...”

“What?!” she yelled. I could only just hear her above the din. Giving her an impatient look, I pointed to my steel friend, and then pointed toward the blaring siren above the front door. She turned to look, then seemed to get the gist of it and nodded, backing away toward the side of the shop.

It took me a minute, but I eventually battered the shrieking alarm into submission. My ears ringing, I turned back toward the girl.

“I think I can trust you,” she told me levelly. “I can, can’t I? Can I trust you?”

I walked toward her. For a moment, she looked as if she was going to run, but she held her ground instead. She looked blankly at my extended hand.

“My name’s Jacob Jones.”

She reached out and let me shake, but instead of reciprocating, she said: “God, your hands are huge!”

I regarded her curiously, but she seemed content to let me take any conversational leads. “It’s nice to see somebody else that’s real live flesh and bones,” I ventured. “Where, exactly, did you come from?”

She shrugged and pointed toward the front. “I decided to get a soda. I was across the street in that café, and I’ve been watching you trying to get into this place. Looks like persistence finally paid off.”

I thought about that for a few seconds. “Yes,” I told her. “Yes, you can.”

Now, she was confused. “What?”

“Yes, you can trust me. However, I would strongly recommend that you not trust other men who break into gun shops.”

She gave a short laugh that was almost a giggle. I very purposefully blinked and looked down. I thought it would be exceedingly bad form to blush right now, but every time I looked at her, I couldn’t help letting my eyes drift in the direction of her boobs. Finally, I turned toward the back counter, and I pulled an assault rifle off the wall and studied it. “Do you know what type of ammo these things take?”

She shrugged and looked down at the pistol again. “Don’t have a clue. I hate guns. Never fired one in my life.”

I nodded. “Same here; but we don’t have all day, and we need to figure this stuff out. Quick.”

She glanced at the brow-beaten alarm over the counter. “Do you think the police are coming?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. If there were cops here, they’d have somebody out on Main Street looking for survivors. But someone from somewhere is going to investigate this town eventually.”

“There are others?” she asked me hopefully. “You really think so?”

I nodded. “Definitely. Everybody in my home town is still alive and kickin’, though there’s apparently nobody between here and there.”

“Where?” she asked pointedly. “What town?”

“Acton. In the hills, west of Eugene.” I was fiddling with my watch. Miraculously, I found a search engine that was still functional. “45 millimeter 556 or Remington 223,” I said aloud. “I have no idea what that means, but that’s what we’re looking for.” I started rummaging behind the counter and stacking boxes on top of it. “By the way,” I said sheepishly, “I’m sorry I stared.”