Chapter 1

Day 0: The Shift Occurs

It was 5pm on a Tuesday in mid-June. I took a deep breath and looked over what I’d accomplished this afternoon. I’d managed to cobble together a Powerpoint presentation just in time for a staff meeting at 3:00. After that, I’d had a follow-up meeting with my supervisor, Nathan, at 3:45. There were still several small items I wanted to take care of before calling it a day—I’d be working into the evening hours once again.

I took just a second to stretch and gaze out the window from my seventeenth-floor office. In June, it often rains at this hour but today was an exception. The late afternoon South Florida sun was beating down relentlessly on the people scurrying along the waterfront. Beyond that, I had a prime view of the bay, the marina, and the cruise ship terminal beyond. Far in the distance stood the high-rise condos of South Beach.

However, I was starving, and I didn’t want to wait until I was back home to grab something to eat. It was time for a quick break. I considered asking a co-worker to go with me, but I knew at that point in the day, I wouldn’t find any takers. Well, there was always Nadia, but I’d been avoiding her of late. Nadia was a finance professional who, in her late thirties, was about ten years my senior. She was Colombian, gorgeous, and in the very recent past, had been dropping hints. She also had a husband. Even though I was single and unattached, I wanted no part of that drama.

I decided to head off own my own for a bite to eat; there was a takeout place that served Thai and Vietnamese nearby. I got off the elevator and made my way across the lobby of the building, which was virtually empty at this hour. I braced myself for an onslaught of Florida humidity once I stepped out of the building. Coming from the Northeast, I still wasn’t entirely used to it. A native of suburban Connecticut, I’d gotten an MBA from Columbia, and had been working here as an investment strategist for the past two years.

I entered the large revolving door which led to the outside. When I say large, I mean large. The spacious enclosed area could accommodate multiple people. Sharing the space with me at present was a younger black woman who appeared to be in her early twenties. She was wearing business casual attire—perhaps she was an intern or a temporary worker of some kind. Upon reflection, I recognized her as someone I’d seen around the building before, had passed her in the hall a couple of times, but I didn’t even know her name. At that moment, my Bluetooth earpiece went off. It was Nadia, asking about something that had been brought up at the meeting.

“Yeah, tell Nathan I’ll circle back tomorrow morning. He’ll want eyes on the...” My voice trailed off, for I was now outside and something looked... different.

The young woman from the revolving door proceeded to bump right into me, for I hadn’t been paying attention. “Ugh ... people and their Bluetooths,” I heard her say under her breath. Then, more politely, she said, “Excuse me...” before her voice trailed off as well, for she’d noticed the same thing that I had.

The sun was bright. The humidity was, as expected, stifling. But those were the only things that were as they should have been. There were no city sounds. Cars remained motionless and quiet in the street. Silence—I mean total silence—reigned, except for the conspicuous sound of birds chirping.

“What the hell?” I blurted out.

The young intern—or whatever she was—was also looking up and down the street with confusion, seeking answers, but finding none. The massive glass buildings reflected only themselves. A traffic light changed from red to green pointlessly. A breeze lifted a stray napkin and sent it skating down the sidewalk.

“Where is everybody?” she inquired, asking the obvious question.

My response was an uncertain half-laugh. “It’s Miami. There’s never nobody out here.”

“It’s quarter after five,” she replied. “There should be people ... everywhere.”

“Are you still there, Nadia?” I said into the Bluetooth. No reply. The thing was as dead as a doornail.

I pulled out my phone and began to attempt to call everyone I knew—Nathan, Nadia, other co-workers—even my mother in Connecticut. Although the display on the phone was fine, I couldn’t place a call. No sound, no dial tone, no nothing. I noticed that my companion was doing the same.

“This is ridiculous,” I uttered. “Probably a cell tower outage. Or some city-wide drill. Or—”

“Or we missed the rapture,” she threw in.

She and I exchanged a look; I raised my eyebrow. She shrugged, apparently trying to hide her own unease. From somewhere down the block, a car alarm began to wail, seemingly unprovoked. Then silence again.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m heading back in. Something’s off.” Then, with not so much as a glance at the young lady, whose name I hadn’t bothered to ask, back I went through the revolving door. I rode the elevator back up to the office.

There was no one in sight. No Nadia, no Nathan, no other co-workers. Did they all suddenly leave for the day at the same time? Extremely unlikely, especially since the office lights remained on, and several laptops remained booted up. This was beyond bizarre.

Next, I went out into the attached multi-level parking garage, to retrieve my car. But there was a new problem: my BMW was prevented from leaving the garage by a long line of abandoned cars blocking the exit. My car wasn’t going anywhere until this situation was resolved.

Helpless at this point, I went back around to the front of the building. There, I could see the young woman once again. She was walking aimlessly in the middle of the street, looking at the cars, all of whose drivers had vanished.

That’s when I gave voice to what had occurred, if only to myself. “Everyone’s gone. Everyone. Disappeared into thin air.”

The woman saw me approaching, as she meandered among the eerie mass of motionless, driverless, mostly upscale vehicles. BMW, Lexus, Mercedes—there was even an unoccupied yellow Lamborghini. She looked at me with resignation. “My car is blocked, and I can’t drive it. Yours too?”

I answered her with a curt nod. I knew that my workday was over at that point. Damn, I need to get home, and it’s a long walk. I lived in a high-rise condo unit about three miles to the north.

“I’m Amara Ellis,” she said. “I’m an intern in the PR department. I have a degree from FIU. I majored in communications.”

“Charlie Shaw,” I replied tersely, sharing no more about my background.

She nodded. “Guess we’re in this together, right?”

“Don’t bet on it.” There we were, strangers in a suddenly dead city, and I was simply not in the mood for small talk at present.

She let that rude dismissal go. “Where’s home for you?’ she asked. I told her.

“I guess I’ll be walking back to Liberty City alone then,” she remarked. Nice neighborhood, I thought sarcastically, although I was smart enough not to say it out loud. She set off in one direction, and I in another.

About halfway home, I remembered that I was hungry. The Thai/Vietnamese place was well behind me now, and I kept my eye out for any establishment that might provide me with something edible. I wandered into a 7-11, which was as empty as anyplace else. It was certainly not a place for sampling fine cuisine, but I was famished enough to consume anything at that point. I grabbed a cold drink from the cooler. Passing by the hot finger food section, I noticed several hot dogs and taquitos rotating on a heating device, and they were piping hot. I shrugged and helped myself to two taquitos and one hot dog. There was even a relatively fresh roll for the hot dog, as well as mustard and ketchup. Believe it or not, I consumed them all while standing there in the store. No one was around to care, right? When I was finished, I checked my wallet, and I had enough cash on hand to cover what I had eaten. With a shrug, I threw the cash on the empty counter and went on my way.