A Small Gray Dot

Then I spent some time trying to reach my sister Missy and her husband Jon, who’d gone to Jamaica on vacation but should have gotten back… two days before… to attend my wedding. I never got an answer. I began to try phone numbers: members of my extended family and friends, and Zoni’s parents, but got nowhere with those either. Cellphone reception was sporadic so I tried calling landlines – the ones for which I had the numbers – and reached answering messages on a couple, but mainly I got busy signals or that fast-busy that kicks in when all the circuits are tied up. I attempted 911 again but didn’t get anyone.

I turned on the television. It flashed a couple of times but never came on so after my clothes dried, I got dressed and went outside. I knocked on some of the neighbors’ doors. It didn’t take long to discover there was no one left on the street – or no one alive, anyway. I went back to the house and in switching on the small, antique radio my dad kept in the kitchen, I found it worked. I listened intently but the few news reporters and DJs were as much in the dark as I was, and, they kept playing that music put on when a disaster strikes – funeral music I call it – so I turned it off.

I went out and cleaned my car then I spent the rest of the day and the morning of the next day sticking near the phone in hopes someone would call. No one did, so on what would’ve been Zoni’s and my wedding day, I shut the house up and went back to my apartment.

I was relieved that someone had removed all the bodies from the parking lot and taken away the remains of Dave but whoever performed that duty didn’t do any cleaning. The lobby reeked. So did my apartment when I stepped in. The first thing I did was to take the bed mattress down and toss it into the dumpster out back. I wasn’t ever going to sleep in that bed again or even in the bedroom. The couch would be good enough.

Then I rounded up a bucket, detergent, and bleach, and scoured the apartment clean before going down and tackling the lobby. The same as at my parents’ house, the cleaning ‘bots wouldn’t activate, so I found the ancient manual machines kept in the downstairs maintenance closet and vacuumed and scrubbed. I washed down the lobby couch and set it out on the porch to dry but there was still a smell in the air and all of the stains weren’t coming out of the old carpet. I pulled out the big carpet cleaner, loaded it up with sudsy bleach and took about all the color out trying to get rid of the stench, however, the odors lingered.

There were six other tenants in my building but I had not seen anyone and the next day, it occurred to me there might be a reason why the smell didn’t go away. I thought it best if I didn’t go banging on doors. Instead, I checked, and Dave’s apartment door was unlocked so I used his landline to call the police department, and after finally reaching someone, I advised them there might be dead bodies in the building. They advised me that they were shorthanded, that there were dead bodies everywhere, and they would send someone as soon as they could.

The next morning one lone, haggard cop showed up. He asked me to go with him as he knocked on all the doors. Other than Dave’s, only one was unlocked and he hastily closed it after swinging it open. Shaking his head, he went back to his car and radioed it in. That afternoon a couple of guys in hazmat suits arrived. I watched as, one by one, they carried the rest of my neighbors out in body bags. I was the only survivor from the building.

On the fourth day, I could no longer bear being in the place, so I loaded everything I could get into my car and left. I slept in the car for a week surrounded by my things because I was afraid to go to any of my friends or relatives homes. I didn’t know what I would find and I couldn’t take anymore right then.

I was bothered only once. Parked and asleep in a shopping center lot one night, a noise snapped me awake. I didn’t say anything to the man scratching at my car door. His eyes widened as he realized I was awake and had my gun pointed at his head. Rage surged in me and I almost pulled the trigger. He looked into my eyes and I don’t know what he saw and maybe it was simply seeing the gun aimed at him, but a look of terror crossed his face and he backed away and left running.

The next day, I drove aimlessly through the city listening to the car radio, which was the only thing I could do since the TV in the dashboard didn’t work. Even if it had, it would’ve been dangerous to watch since autodrive was no longer in operation and I needed to keep my eyes on the road. I spotted a “For Rent” sign hanging crookedly in the window of a building ahead on the right. I pulled over and stopped. I couldn’t keep sleeping in my car. It wasn’t safe. After what happened the night before, I knew it was time I found another place to stay.