Emily resisted the urge to touch the red layer of dust. She was beginning to come to terms with the probability that, by some strange twist of fate or good fortune of her DNA, she was a survivor of whatever this event was, but she didn't feel the need to push her luck. It was bad enough that she was probably inhaling this stuff in with every breath she took.
Of course, there could be any number of reasons for what she had just seen happen.
Maybe
the dust was attracted to the man's skin by static electricity. The blanket was made of polyester, so when she pulled it back it could have generated enough static to cause the red dust to be attracted to the man's skin. Surely though, if that was the reason, wouldn't the dust just have headed to the blanket instead of the dead man?
Still not one-hundred-percent convinced what she just witnessed was real, Emily carefully pulled back the rest of the blanket from the body, listening for the tell-tale crackle of static electricity while exposing the man's hands to the open air. Instantly, she saw the red motes of dust still circulating in the entranceway begin to head towards the exposed leathery skin of the body. There was no mistaking it this time; the dust was making a beeline straight towards his hands. Emily watched a dust particle that had, until moments earlier, been heading out towards the street perform a meandering u-turn, before descending slowly down toward the corpse and settle into place on the man’s left hand. It had been about four-feet away from her, too far to be affected by any kind of static she was sure. It had unmistakably changed its course and headed methodically down before joining the other particles that moved gently back and forth on the dead skin like the gentle swell of lake water, as they rearranged themselves into a uniform layer.
More particles fell towards the man’s hand and Emily decided to test her experiment a little more. She pulled the blanket back up to the vagrant’s chin, careful so as not to create even the slightest disturbance to the air, while keeping her eyes on the descending particles of dust.
As soon as the blanket covered his hands, the dust that had been heading toward them slowed then turned leisurely in the still air and began moving back out in the direction of the street again.
What did I just see
? The thought lodged in the center of Emily's brain like a splinter and throbbed almost as painfully. First the red rain, now this weird dust. She had the feeling something far larger and far more complex than a simple virus was responsible for this strange new world she found herself in.
While she might be the last living human for God-knew how far, Emily had an uneasy sense that she was no longer alone.
*
*
*
As hard as she tried, she could not shake the idea something intangible was becoming aware of her. Maybe it was paranoia, but Emily felt as though a million hidden eyes had focused suddenly on her, watching her, examining her every move. Although she knew it was impossible, the feeling of disquiet it created proved just as impossible to shake. There was no explanation Emily could think of that could adequately explain the events taking place around her.
She felt bad for leaving the dead vagrant in the doorway but what could she do? She supposed she could drag him somewhere and bury him, he looked like he weighed less than she did, probably even less now that he was a regular at the great barroom in the sky. But bury him where? There wasn’t anywhere she could put him for miles. That would be a job for the rescue services if they ever came …
when
they came, she corrected herself.
So, she had left him to the red dust that swarmed and whirled around him like flies. Where
were
the flies? She hadn’t seen one since the red rain. The thought flitted across her mind for a second but she dismissed it. All she could do now was carry on with her plan, she had already lost enough time trying to figure out just what she had observed with that freaky flying show the red dust had performed. She had bigger problems to worry about and it was time for her to pull herself together and to get back on track.
Two buildings down from the florist was the corner convenience store where she had witnessed the near-riot the day before. The street was clear now. There was no sign anything untoward had happened except for a few crushed cans of what had probably been green beans on the road outside the store. The door to the shop was unlocked; she pushed it open and stepped inside.
Bing-Bong!!!
Emily let out a screech of surprise as the electronic door chime activated. For a second she thought she was going to pee herself with fear. Her heart was pounding hard enough to shatter her ribcage as a sudden surge of adrenalin pumped through her veins.
She wasn't sure how many more scares like this she could take before she simply went into cardiac arrest and keeled over. To be honest, the thought wasn't so bad, she admitted. The idea she may be the last living human was petrifying and made a sudden death seem almost attractive.
"Don't be stupid, girl," she said aloud and then began to giggle. The giggle turned into laughter as the full weight of what had transpired over the past two days and her growing realization of her predicament finally hit her.
It was an absolutely absurd situation to be in. Emily had spent the majority of her life feeling as though she was prepared for anything, confident in her own capabilities and focused on moving forward, just like everyone else she knew, but now, here she was; completely alone and unprepared. At a complete and utter loss as to what she should do next. And, wasn't it truly ironic, that the sole surviving human—that's what she felt like, after all—would be a journalist? The biggest news-story ever and there was no one left alive to tell it to. It really was just too much.
Emily's legs felt like they were ready to give way as the laughter suddenly turned to snuffling tears and a hot well of fear and desperation bubbled up from inside her. She tried to force the emotion back but she didn’t stand a chance. Emily covered her face with her hands and began to weep at the thought of everything she had lost .
Everything dear to her was gone, swept away from her in an instant. Her parents, Nathan, music, TV, the theatre, her friends and workmates, her job even; everything that made life worth living had been stolen from her in just one day, leaving her alone and wrecked. She may as well have been on Mars for all the good being alive without all of those things meant.
Her sobbing turned into a wail of despair as she realized that none of those things would ever be coming back, either. It wasn't like the human race had stepped outside for a quick cigarette break and normal service would resume when it got back; humanity was gone, finished, snuffed out in a single day. She knew it with a certainty as strong as she had ever felt anything.
"Dear God, what am I supposed to do now?" Emily mumbled through lips trembling with the unburdening of the pent-up emotion. Her shoulders heaved and shuddered as she collapsed to the cold floor of the store, knocking over a stand of magazines and sending them slithering over the tiles. She picked a magazine up and tossed it at the door, screeching in pure frustration. She felt her body sink to the cold floor again, curling herself into a fetal position as the pain just kept coming.
A few minutes later, emotionally washed-out, her body exhausted, Emily fell into a deep sleep, hoping she would never wake up.
*
*
*
Emily's eyes flickered open.
The cramp in her shoulders from lying on the chilly tiled floor of the store meant she must still be alive.
She felt better. At least, as better as she was going to feel under the circumstances. Ridding herself of her emotional burden had released her from its weight and allowed her mind, and her heart, to expel the pain. That was a good thing.
Emily pushed herself to her feet, stretched her stiff legs and flexed her aching arms as she looked around the small store's interior. How long had she been asleep? It must have been a couple of hours because the inside of the market was much darker than when she first entered. In fact, as she stared out through the storefront window, she guessed it must be close to sunset because the streetlights were beginning to flicker on one by one, their sodium-vapor bulbs casting a warm glow across the street.
Emily's breath caught in her throat. Outside the store, illuminated by the glow of the nearest light, she could see a mass of red dust. The orange flush turned the dust an ominous black, but what truly disturbed her was how much of it she could see as it floated past the light. Uncountable dots of the dust moved along the street, silently flowing in a bizarre rhythmic undulation, driven by what exactly? No wind disturbed the leaves and branches of nearby trees. It was almost as though the dust had combined into a single giant creature, and that creature was now roaming the empty streets, searching for something only it knew.
The cloud of dust moved like the giant dragon puppets she had seen in Chinatown when they celebrated the New Year; up and down, a sinusoidal wave of dust undulating past the window. It was a mesmerizing sight, but at the same time, the implication of what she was witnessing chilled the blood in Emily's veins.
She walked to the window and stared out at the whirling dust on the empty street. Just yesterday she had stood in the café and watched as the red rain had fallen; the world had changed so much since then, as clichéd as it sounded to her writer's brain, it truly seemed to have been a lifetime ago. And, Emily supposed, it may just as well have been a different life, because when the rain fell, her old world, the one where Emily was just another woman trying to make it through the day as unscathed as she could, had died too.
Okay, pull yourself together. You've got to get a grip on this situation
, she chided.
She was resisting the urge to speak her thoughts aloud. The temptation to talk to herself was almost overwhelming. It was less than a day since she had heard another human voice but she never would have imagined the effect it would have on her.
Whatever was happening outside the shop's window, there must be some kind of explanation for it. She was looking at the greatest story of her life; hell, for all she knew, while she may not be the last human left, she may well be the world's last reporter. So if she didn't document this, and if she didn't at least
try
to figure out what was going on, then who would?
So, no! No talking to myself just yet. Not until I've figured out exactly what's going on here.
"Damn right," she said aloud, allowing a flicker of a smile to cross her face as she turned her attention away from the strange red storm raging on the other side of the window, and back to tracking down supplies.
The store had been stripped clean of almost everything. Two rows of metal shelves had once held an assortment of tinned food and bottled water. One of the shelves had toppled over and now leaned against a wall. Both shelves were empty save for a torn packet of instant mashed potatoes which had spilled most of its contents over the floor.
Emily carefully picked her way through a minefield of shattered liquor bottles and crushed cans, their contents spilled and worthless after a day’s exposure to the air. Scattered pages from a broadsheet newspaper spread over the tiled floor, moving gently in the breeze of a fan whirling quietly on the counter.
Behind the cash register was a recessed pigeonhole where the owner had displayed his stock of cigarettes. It was empty now but Emily glanced behind the counter anyway. On the ground were a couple of crushed soft-packs of Marlboro Lights and an occasional orphaned cigarette. Emily wasn’t a smoker, so the cigarettes held no interest for her but what did catch her eye was a can of condensed soup—it was tomato, she
hated
tomato soup—which she picked up and placed on the counter top. Emily moved back behind the counter into the clerk’s area and opened a couple of small storage cupboards the looters had apparently missed. There were a couple of cartons of cigarettes that looked like they were well past their sell-by date and … score!!
Pushed almost to the back of one cupboard Emily found a package of two gas-fueled lighters.
She added the lighters to the soup on the counter.
A small room at the back of the store acted as the stockroom. The wooden door was wide-open hanging from a single hinge, the imprint of a large boot near the broken lock.
Emily poked her head into the storeroom; it was dark inside so she felt around on the wall until she found the light switch. A single shade-less bulb hung from the ceiling but it was sufficiently bright to push the darkness back far enough for Emily to see there was little left to scavenge. The room had been picked over and it was as much of a shambles as the front of the store; the floor was covered in torn cardboard packaging and broken bottles of Budweiser and Miller Light.
A plastic pint bottle of water caught Emily’s eye. It had rolled against the far wall of the stockroom. She retrieved it and slipped it into her pants’ pocket. She pushed a few of the larger pieces of cardboard aside and found another can of soup—this time it was vegetable, not her favorite but a step-up from tomato, at least—and a four-pack plastic pod of mixed-fruit. Two of the pods had been crushed, so she pulled those off and tossed them away.
A couple more minutes of searching turned up a blister-pack of six C-type batteries, a tin of SPAM, another plastic four-pack of mixed fruit and, tucked away beneath a shelf, a pound bag of jerky strips. She also found a box of chocolate-chip cookie mix but she discarded that, knowing the chances of her finding fresh milk, butter or eggs was going to rapidly head toward zero.
Confident she hadn’t missed anything else Emily left the stockroom and headed back out to the front of the store. She placed everything she had just found next to her stash waiting on the counter then loaded it all into a bright blue plastic shopping basket from a stack located next to the door.