Young Writers Society

“Paper or plastic?” The bagger smiled politely.

I was on my cell phone, repeating to my mother what I had grabbed on her list of groceries for dinner tonight. She was always worrying that I'd forget something. “Drive home safely,” she’d said before hanging up.

I closed the phone and answered the bagger’s question hurriedly, “Doesn’t matter. Whatever’s easier for you, thanks.”

I was in a rush to get home. My favorite show started in half an hour and it was a twenty-five minute drive to my house from the neighboring town I was in—-not counting the time it took to bag the groceries and load them into the family van.

“Thirty-two dollars and seventy-six cents,” the cashier read her monitor when she’d finished swiping my items.

“Debit please,” I told her as I entered my mother’s pin into the little keypad.

Just as she tore my receipt from the machine, a resonating ‘BOOM’ echoed from somewhere in the distance. The frame of the store trembled and rattled in response and then everything went dark. A power outage. The remaining shoppers let out a general murmur of confusion and frustration, everyone wondering what had triggered the loud noise.

I was close enough to the sliding glass doors to hear the cries and shouting that ensued from the parking lot. I used what little evening light filtered through the glass doors to see, and thanked the cashier before taking the receipt from her frozen hand and walking briskly toward the exit.

The surrounding shoppers were either waiting for the power to return or else abandoning their carts all together and making for the exit like me. For reasons I couldn’t explain, goose bumps formed along my arms and legs as I discarded the cart at the door and grabbed my bags.

Though nothing looked amiss--because I half expected the noise and tremors to be the result of a bomb--the parking lot was a scene of chaos. People were running in every direction while some stood in place, screaming for what I guessed was help. I began jogging toward the van and asking anyone along the way what had happened, but none of them could give me an answer, being just as confused and afraid as I was.

I tried to hear what a man I passed was shouting, but the rush of the growing multitude in the parking lot pushed me forward. I was nearly hit by a car before reaching the van and was a little shaken when I jumped in and threw the sacks on the passenger seat.

Then I was driving.

I followed close behind a small SUV in front of me, hoping that they might clear the path ahead. When it stalled, I swerved around and barely missed a young couple running through the lot.

"Sorry!" I yelled out the window. I inhaled sharply and focused on calming myself enough to make it home in one piece.

I breathed a little easier on the open highway. Cars sped all around me, impatiently honking, but I was free to drive at my own comfortable pace. I pulled out my cell phone and called my mother to let her know what happened but that I was safely on my way home.

The house phone was dead—of course, a landline. So I called my father’s cell phone and was grateful when I heard my mother’s worried voice on the other end of the line, “Honey, are you ok? Is the power still working out there?”

“No. There was a huge boom and all the power went out. What’s happening, Mom? Everyone’s acting like maniacs--AHH!”

Right on cue, a car tried to bypass me and collided head on with a car in the next lane driving in the opposite direction. Pure fear mixed with the emotional stress I was under, and I began to bawl into the receiver.

“Mom, there was just an accident!” I tried to sound coherent through my sobs, “A guy just tried to pass me and…” I couldn’t finish, I was crying and glancing in my rearview mirror at the smoke rising from the reformed metal behind me. It only took seconds for the rush of traffic to conceal the wreck from view.

There was a moment of hesitation before my father was on the line, “Listen to me, Honey. Pay attention to the road but put your phone on speaker and keep it in your lap. Stay on the line with me until you get home.”

My father had been a police officer for years before a terrible accident made it necessary for him to retire from the Force. His voice was in authority mode, and it helped to calm me as I obeyed his instructions.

“Ok, Dad. It’s on,” I used my free hand to wipe the tears away and concentrate.

“Good, Sweetheart. Now tell me what you see.”

“Everything’s a mess, Dad. People are running through the streets and I can hear screaming. Cars are rushing all around me and in the parking lot at the store I was almost hit by one.” I negated the fact that I’d almost hit people, too. Mentioning that would be the opposite of helpful right now.

“I’m sorry you’re out there all by yourself, Honey.” His voice was shaky.

“Dad, what’s happening? What was that noise from before?” I saw flashing lights in the distance and kept going.

“I don’t know. We were watching a breaking news story on the television about some weird epidemic up north. Their best guess is terrorists, but it doesn't sound right. They said it's sweeping south and that's when we heard the explosion and the power cut out. We can hear horns and shouting in the distance but everyone’s fine. We’re all just worried about you.”

I felt a brief sense of relief at hearing that my family was safe. I strained to look at the road ahead and realized that the flashing lights I'd seen were policemen. My breath caught when I saw that they were refusing cars to pass, motioning for them to turn back.

Panicked, I shouted, “Dad! They’re making everyone turn around!”

“Who?"

“The police! They’ve blocked off the exit! What do I do?”

“Stay calm, Baby. Pull up and explain that you live out of town and you’re trying to get home.”

There were half a dozen of them using their cars to block off the road. When it was my turn, they signaled for me to turn around but instead, I pulled up and rolled down the window.

“Officer, I don’t live here. I’m trying to get home to my family.” I threw out in a hurry.

“Sorry,” he answered in a husky voice. “No one’s allowed in or out of the city. Please turn around and head back.”

“But—-” I tried to protest but the look he gave me silenced my retort.

I pulled a U-turn and heard my father huff in frustration. “What do I do, Dad?”

“You need to find a way out, Honey. Try the back roads—-I know you’re not used to that route, but keep me on the line and I’ll talk you through it.” His voice was hard, determined.

“Dad,” I tried to say without letting my voice break. “I love you.”

He paused before answering, “I love you, too. Now keep driving and pay attention to the road.”

Just then the car began shaking violently and I stomped on the brake, put the car in park, then wrapped my arms around my head instinctively. I looked out the window and realized that everything else was shaking too. Cars were halted all around me and the horrified looks of the passengers mirrored mine. Screaming filled the air and I realized we were experiencing an earthquake. Wasn’t there supposed to be some kind of signal warning?

With a jolt of terror, I became aware that the screaming had not issued from outside, but from the speaker on my phone. "Dad, what's happening?! Is everyone ok?!"

He didn't answer and their screaming suddenly stopped. I inspected the phone and found it was dead. Could an earthquake affect a cell phone signal?

I crouched into the seat--arms over my head--as I continued to wait out the tremors, my mind racing with worries about my family. Smoke and dust polluted the air before the earthquake ceased. I could barely make out my surroundings and screamed when someone pounded on my window.

A panicked man was shouting as he pointed to my cell, “Miss, could I use your phone? Mine’s just gone out!”

“Mine too!” I showed him the dead phone and he rushed back to his stalled car in the lane beside mine.

I looked around me and found that everything had been reduced to crumbled buildings and broken road--some of the ruins were even on fire. People were running and screaming all around me and my eyes widened as they skimmed over bodies lying in and around the rubble. I tried to convince myself that they were merely injured and not worse.

I was staring in shock when a few cars passed me and I remembered that I should continue to drive. Instinct had me lock the doors and proceed slowly on the uneven road. I wasn’t familiar with the back roads, but I could stop and ask for help if I absolutely needed to.

I monitored the clock as it grew dark and after twenty minutes of driving through rubble and crazed pedestrians without success, I tentatively rolled down my window and asked a man who was resting on the corner, “Could you please point out the direction to Seven Highway?”

“Why should I help you when my wife just died in the earthquake? We’re all about to die anyway, might as well sit back and enjoy the ride. It's the end of the world folks!” His speech was slurred and I noticed then that he was holding a flask of whiskey. He laughed to himself as he raised the flask in toast toward me then took a deep, long drink.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said before shivering and pulling away.

I drove for a quarter of an hour before I noticed movement inside what appeared to be three out of four walls belonging to a gas station. I pulled up and parked the car, grabbed my cell phone and then ran in planning to ask someone inside for directions. The clerk was yelling at shoplifters and I was seized by the realization that it wasn't very smart to leave my car running and unlocked during a time like this. People wouldn’t be too busy to ignore it, they’d be desperate to steal it.

When I turned around it was reversing away.

“Nooo!” I screamed in frustration.

I ran outside to chase after it, knowing my attempt was useless. A passing car nearly swiped me, forcing me to stop in the middle of the street. As I fought the urge to cry, I felt a cold gust of wind whip past me and thought I saw everything around me shiver infinitesimally in its wake.

At this, every car stopped in place and went dead: no engines were left running to break the pressing silence and no headlights were left alight to interrupt the engulfing darkness.

Without stopping to think about what this meant, I seized the opportunity to catch up with the auto thief and sprinted toward the mass of cars. I wove in and out of the stalled metal, looking furiously for my family’s maroon van. Groups of people surrounded me, some inspecting their cars while others hurried in all directions. But the atmosphere had calmed considerably.

It was quiet, the quietest it’d been since checking out at the grocery store. I still hadn’t found the van when I heard thunder in the distance. Confused, I stopped to catch my breath and felt the slightest tremble beneath my shoes. I looked around at the others who had stopped too, becoming alert just as I was.

That’s when I heard it: screaming. It was getting louder just as the trembling thunder grew stronger. I squinted in the direction of the screams and saw a dark mass making its way toward where I stood. They were running, weaving through the street in my direction, running towards me.

My heart sank and my stomach plummeted to the asphalt. My options were to run or else be crushed. I immediately spun and took off in the same direction as the mass, running from whatever it was they seemed so deathly afraid of.

I was sure it was a dream. What all had seemed like reality just earlier today had somehow blurred in the cloud of terror that now hung in the air. I was running for my life from something I couldn’t fathom in the darkest depths of my mind. Panic ensued as the people I'd just left caught up and surrounded me and I listened as the screams of horrified people abruptly withered down and became nothing.

Silence.

The few of us left were too frightened to scream, leaving only the sound of our pounding footsteps and heavy breathing.

In that moment, fear gripped me and I could feel my legs--along with the rest of my faculties--fail me. Regardless, I pushed on. Morbid curiosity had me glance over my shoulder to see what had become of the screaming mass.

The same horde that had been running with me to save their lives was now slowly walking, with identical glazed expressions covering each of their faces. They were—-for lack of a better term—-zombies.

I ran faster. With all the strength, adrenaline and fear my body had left to exert. As I ran, I realized that I had no idea to where I was running, only the knowledge that I was running from something.

Suddenly, I heard a sickening sound that made my stomach lurch. The sound was that of crunching but it sounded strangely off. I afforded myself one last glance over my shoulder, and wished with everything in me that I hadn’t.

The zombie-like people were suddenly collapsing—-as though fainting-—but I knew it as soon as I saw it: they were dying. I knew it because as they dropped, the following multitude continued forward, crushing the collapsed under the weight of their mass.

Knowledge struck as I realized why the horrifying crunch had sounded wrong. There was no screaming to accompany it. Like the once-human bodies couldn’t feel their impending deaths. Like they had died while in the trance, and crushing their mortal bodies did nothing to hurt them.

I twisted forward and willed my legs onward. They felt like logs now and part of me-—though only a small part-—welcomed the Phantom Reaper. I had been running for what seemed like hours, and I was utterly spent. It seemed a peaceful ending to me: to not realize you’re dying before it happens.

Of course that was only a theory. Perhaps though they could not scream, they very much wanted to. Maybe they could feel every single crack their broken bones formed until they were permanently silenced.

I shuddered--better not take the chance.

Just then, as my brain searched for reasons to keep going, to stay alive, I saw them. The faces of my family sped through my mind like a slideshow on fast-forward. I briefly wondered if this was ‘one's life flashing before their eyes,’ as I’d heard so many times before from people who claimed they’d experienced this while on the verge of death.

How absurd, their pre-conceived notions of imminent death! It felt as though I was in more mortal danger at this very moment, than any other person in the history of the world had ever been. Death wasn’t a possibility, it was definite.

The Executor appeared to have no preferences--everyone was a target. It seemed that the only thing slowing the Phantom Reaper from claiming me was my pathetic ability to elude it.

That did it. I continued to run, eyes open, but I began to say a quiet prayer in my mind. It was all that I could think of to save myself-—a last resort. My prayer was pitiful. It was short and pleading, but straight to the point.

I prayed for the safety of my family and myself and hoped in vain that somehow, at least they would make it through this living hell. I prayed that they would survive and live to tell this story to future generations of our family who had yet to be born.

When I finished, I realized that the entire walking mass--including the few running people that once surrounded me--had vanished. I didn’t look back but kept moving. I knew they were dead, and pausing to mourn for them now might allow the Reaper to find me and make me victim to that same fate.

I ran for what seemed a lifetime, though I knew it was only hours. Running from street to street, trying to make sense of the crumbled buildings. I was trying to get home, to be with my family at the very end, if in fact, this was to be our end.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of rapid footsteps approaching me. I was filled with joy at finding anyone else who had managed to survive so I sprinted forward to close the gap between us. I rounded the corner and came to a halt at the sight of a small group made up of about eight people.

They stopped and I felt their eyes sweep over me, no doubt searching for any traces of the glazed expression or slowed movements. Relief flooded their countenances as they saw none.

“What’s happening?” I asked the most vital question first, hoping any of them could give me a reason. I matched their pace to a brisk walk, still looking for more survivors along the way to find my home, my family.

“We’re not sure,” the tall man that led them explained. “But from comparing our experiences, we think that anyone who’d said a prayer, just before dying, was saved. You prayed too, didn’t you?”

Something caught in my throat as I nodded. Tears filled my eyes as I felt someone grip my shoulder while another patted my back. Tiny gestures with colossal meaning: they knew exactly what I had gone through and understood exactly what I was feeling. We walked in silence, each contemplating the meaning behind this miracle.

I felt a sudden vibration in my pocket and immediately ripped the phone out, answering with a shaky voice, “Hello?”

“Honey!? Thank goodness you're all right!” My father’s voice was incredulous but the most beautiful thing I’d heard in my entire life, “We’re all OK, everyone is just fine.”