Chapter 1

DAY ONE, NEAR GOLDEN, COLORADO, MORNING

Marc Haines slowly opened his eyes, peering up at the same old ceiling with the same old slowly revolving fan. It was still coated with winter dust, and more than a few 'dust bunnies'. In a way, it was sort of funny. It didn't matter whether he pulled the chain one time, or four times, the fan just kept on slowly revolving. He'd pretty well gotten used to it. He was well experienced in electronics as well as electrical wiring. It just didn't seem worth the effort to take the damn thing apart; or to take it down, repackage it, drive 62 miles to the Cheapmart on the western outskirts of Denver, and then drive back. So, for the last four years, it had just revolved slowly: spring, summer, fall and winter.

Well, spring was just a month away, and he could darn well wait until then to dust it off. A man of habit, he cleaned the cabin top to bottom twice a year, spring and fall. After six years, it made no never mind to him that it was never on a specific date. However, almost unfailingly, it was an outside temperature of fifty degrees that kick started the cleaning. That temperature was warm enough just to wear a light jacket. It wasn't cold enough to have to wear one of his sheepskin and fleece lined overcoats.

It wasn't until he threw his legs off the bed, and his feet hit the cold floor, that current reality smacked him upside the head.

'Shit, ' he thought, 'I should be dead, like all them others.'

The world had gotten sick and started dying, after the 'golden snow' had blanketed the mountainous areas in the West and East. The golden hued rain had drenched the lower altitudes and latitudes of the U.S. He had heard, after he came down sick with whatever it was, that it was worldwide. Every government was denying responsibility as to it being a chemical warfare agent that had been developed and released by mistake or accident.

Forgetting his thermal socks, he cold-hopped over to the radio. After turning the radio on to a preset oldies station, he immediately hopped over the cold floor to turn on the over-sized plasma TV. He had bought it, just two months ago, to watch The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, and A&E. He flipped the remote to the T.V., just as he realized that the only thing coming from the radio was hissing. Waiting a couple of seconds more, the T.V. flicked to life. The screen was immediately filled with the black and white flecks called 'snow'. He flipped to the next channel and only the stations call letters and station I.D. were showing. The next channel more hissing and snow.

Marc slowly walked back to one of the couches, ignoring his cold feet and sat down. Thoughts raced through his brain. He almost passed out before realizing that he was holding his breath in his nervous reaction to the fact that there might no longer be any radio or TV broadcasts.

'Shit! Am I the only one left alive? What the hell do I do now? Somebody else has to be alive. I can't be the only person living. If I am alive; then, logically speaking, someone else has to be alive, also, ' he thought.

He quickly flipped thru the standard broadcast channels finding several that were playing movies, but none of the news stations like CNN and Fox were operating nor were any of the situational comedies or live host shows. Then he flipped through a number of the satellite channels. Again, some movies and documentaries were playing, but none of the live specialty programs for home repair, cooking, decorating, or related were on.

Marc then realized that what he was seeing must be playing over and over again on loop. Apparently any number of stations instead of shutting down had just loaded up a loop and was running it on continuous loop mode. Well, at least no more Oprah and that Dr. whatever his name was. If it was true for TV, the same thing had probably been done at a number of the radio stations.

Reaching up to scratch his face, he encountered a heavy growth.

"Jeeze! How long have I been sick? This is several days' worth of beard."

Marc then turned and headed over to his office/computer room, which also held his coin collection displays.

Reaching up by the doorway, he flipped on the first two of the four switches on the plate. Recessed lights mounted near the ceiling came on, as well as his computer, printer, scanner, camera set up, desktop lighting and stereo. The other two switches were for the air conditioning and for his coin display cases.

Sitting down, he quickly typed in his password, 'toofrigginold'. The computer promptly booted, and he looked down at the date display. It read, 07:47:13; 2008.03.15.

"Shit," he mumbled, "I've been out for four days."

That was when the thirst hit. Marc practically ran to the kitchen sink. Turning the cold tap on full, he cocked his head under the spigot. Thirstily, he gulped down water.

Seemingly, he was not able to quench his thirst. However, knowing he would shortly be throwing the water back up, he reluctantly stopped drinking. Slowly backing away from the sink, he tried to make sense of the almost desperate thirst, but could not. Like everything else that morning, nothing made sense

With that thought in mind, Marc decided just to go about his daily routine. He had already forgotten about checking the radio stations.

He walked over to the oversized propane fired stove/grill combination. He turned two of the burners on. On the one on low, for the bacon, he threw a black flat-bottomed 12" iron skillet. The other burner, on medium, was for coffee. Filling the blue porcelain coffee pot with water and adding fresh ground coffee; he started thinking about a plan of action for the day.

Shit, shower, and shave to start with and then definitely finish cooking and eating breakfast. His stomach was making growling noises as he realized his demanding hunger. Well, after four days, it certainly wasn't surprising.

The next thing to do was to see how long it would take to get the old '55 Chevy truck started. He needed to go down the mountain, and into Golden, to see if any one else was alive.

Before he even got to the bathroom, the smell off his long johns reached his nose and he started laughing.

"Shit, I stink," he said.

He laughed all the harder as he realized that almost every thought he'd had that day had been prefaced with the word 'Shit'. It was really shaping up to be 'one of those days'. He just hoped that by the end of the day he would not be referring to his first day back alive as "Shit day." This thought set him off laughing, again.

Turning on the hot water, he stuck his hand out, testing the temperature. Soon enough, the water did turn warm, and then hot. He added cold water and got the temperature to his liking. Stripping off his long johns, Marc noticed that the hair on his legs seemed darker. There were not as many gray hairs as there should be. It was only a quick thought in his head. It was filed away in that section of that brain that is labeled 'Maybe I Will Remember It, and Maybe I Won't.' Most doctors, psychologists, and sociologists would claim that no such area existed, but Marc knew differently. Throughout his life, the infamous CRS (Can't Remember Shit) syndrome was definitely a part of his character and personality. Earlier in life, he had recognized this for what it was. Some things in life were not particularly important to him. Why should he try to remember or really to take notice of matter or things he considered trivial?

However, this memory had barely made the file bin, when it was summoned back with an immediate urgency. Upon getting the shampoo, he put a small portion in his one hand and placed the shampoo back on the holder rack. His hands went to his hair to start shampooing. Immediately they encountered thicker, longer strands, plus hair where there shouldn't be any.

Marc flung back the curtain and stepped out, dripping water. He looked in the mirror and couldn't believe what he saw. He had a nearly full head of hair. His eyebrows were no longer twisted and gnarled, and his face looked at least ten years younger than his current 63 years of age.

It had only been the last four or five years that he had started going bald. When it had, it had hit with a vengeance. It had stripped the front four inches of his hair back from his forehead to nothing, and then another inch or so on either side of the foremost hair.

In disbelief, he ran his hands through his newly regained hair, and realized that there was no dandruff either. Maybe it was too soon to be afflicted once again with his nemesis: 'Dandruff'. It had plagued him since he was twelve. A wry smile crossed his face at that thought.

Stepping back from the mirror, he began taking stock of himself. Most of his paunch was gone, as well as the love handles around his waist. His chest had also regained some of the musculature it had once had.

"Not bad, not bad at all," he mumbled. "Maybe some good has come out of this god-awful plague. I am not going to 'look this gift horse in the mouth', that's sure. I wonder what else has changed."