Zombie Dreams
Scaredy Cats and Little Yappy Dogs
I used to believe there was safety in numbers. That was a long, long time ago. I was never one to carouse with a crowd of friends, running from bar to bar like a pack of wolves on the prowl, but it was safer back then to surround yourself with friends, to huddle in their midst when the pack felt more like a flock at two in the morning and hyenas circled looking for the lamb with a broken high heel.
I was never the life of the party either. In fact, I didn’t really like parties much, the having to get dressed up and make small talk while sipping a drink that tasted like gasoline and turpentine stirred with a twist, or with an olive drowning in the oily depths. The friends finally sloughed off like old skin, flaking away as they planned team pursuits, couples ski vacations, flip-flop tours of far-flung places brimming with lava and tequila and sweat. I slunk away to my hidey-hole, a one bedroom in a three flight walkup midtown, happy to hear from my die-hard friends by postcard, by email, by text. And then finally, not at all.
My lifestyle changed only a little as I got older. I moved away from the city and the packs and herds and plopped myself down in a bigger hidey-hole, a house with a yard and a fence and an attic with a broad checkered stained-glass window from which I could survey my little world while I worked.
I never met my neighbors. We harbored no mutual curiosity about each other’s lives. I soon learned their routines and managed to pull my car out of my garage and through my gate on a workday without ever having to wave or smile or fake a cheery greeting. There was nothing so important that I couldn’t wait until they went to work to make my monthly run to the bulk food store in town. I’d learned to buy those huge industrial strength cans of peaches and tomato sauce, portion the contents into single serving plastic baggies and stock my freezer with anything and everything a woman could want.
I had a craving for pizza awhile back and ordered five extra-large, extra pepperonis from the closest shop that delivered. I ate a piece and froze the rest, two pieces per baggie. I knew it would last me a year. (I keep my freezer extra cold so the food will last. You should try it. It works.)
I first noticed that something was wrong as I was sitting in front of my computer writing my daily blog. I get up early every morning, make my coffee, check my email, and scan the news for ideas. My inbox was crammed with the usual adverts as well as the inspirational message for the day. As the sun came up behind my house, I watched for the usual neighborly morning rituals that always gave me a giggle: Mr. Parkerson (directly across the street) leaning out the front door to grab the paper while his little yapping dog made a break for the street. More often than not, Pepper scooted under the gate and up the sidewalk before his limping old master had a chance to curse; Maisey Childers (diagonal to the right) running out of the house with her mother behind her, chasing her with a peanut butter sandwich in a brown paper bag that Maisey desperately did not want to eat. (And I know what’s in the bag because it’s the same thing every day. “Maisey, you forgot your lunch and it’s your favorite! Peanut butter with strawberry jam!” You’d think Maisey’s mother would get the hint.); Joseph Winters (diagonal to the left) fleeing for work with his wife right on his heels regurgitating her list of things poor Joe is supposed to bring home again, the same old list that’s tattooed on my own brain: milk, bread, eggs, chips, half and half, and Coke--in case the kids stop by. I don’t know whether Joe ever brings home anything on that list. I hear his car door slam after seven every night but I never get up to look to see if he’s laden with goodies. If so, they sure do eat a lot of milk, bread, eggs, chips, half and half, and Coke--if the kids did stop by.
I don’t know about the neighbors behind me. I have a fence, as I mentioned, and their houses are one-story bungalows that are of no interest to me. As I was saying, I first noticed something was wrong because none of the usual morning rituals took place that day as I sat wracking my brain for an idea to write about. No Mr. Parkerson, no yappy dog, no Maisey, no Joe. No one came out of their houses. And then, come to think of it, no one drove by either. No cars, no trucks, no school bus with Maisey crouched down in the seat hiding from her mother. Nothing. No bikes or skateboards or joggers or runners or walkers. There’s an older couple from down the block who walk every morning. He always wears an oversized gray t-shirt that reads, Ask Me! but I’ve never had the urge to ask him what he’s hawking. Probably pills or sleep numbered beds or Jesus. She wears a bright pink t-shirt and a white golf visor, her gray hair poking out around her head in all directions. I’ve never been able to figure out who’s walking with whom. Does she walk with him because he has heart trouble or does he walk with her because she demands that he walk with her so she won’t have to walk alone? They were absent that morning right up to lunchtime which scared me just a little.
It was a Tuesday, too, trash day on our block but there wasn’t a can out as far as I could see. I didn’t go out to look, mind you. I don’t usually create enough trash to make it worth a trip to the curb more than once a month. I’d planned on doing it next week. Maybe. If necessary. I found myself listening for the trash truck, the beep beep beep of the backup warning or the clatter of trash into the belly of the truck. The day outside was sunny, bright, and sterling blue. And quiet as death. Which scared me just a little.
My blog finished and posted, I checked the news online, casting about for some idea of why the world had gone quiet. Major holidays are celebrated on Monday. This was Tuesday. I’m sure it was Tuesday because I checked the calendar on my phone which always displays the correct date and time. Tuesday, November 19th. The news seemed to be stalled for the moment, replaying stories from Monday, even showing old videos from the weekend, sports replays, scores, and such. I flipped to NPR, my go-to radio station, and found Diane Rehm in high gear. Nothing to report there, it seemed. So I went back to work.
Night fell all of a sudden, as it does for me sometimes. I get so into what I’m writing that I come to sitting in my office staring out at a darkened sky. We don’t have streetlights in our neck of the neighborhood so the only light comes from the Parkersons’ old-world style lamp at the end of their driveway, and the lights from the windows of my neighbors. The Parkersons’ was doing its duty, lighting up the end of the driveway and the walk to their house but every other window was dark. Maisey’s and Joes were dark too. Not a speck of light shined. Not even a candle. I looked at the lamp on my desk and the Grand Canyon wallpaper on my computer and realized that no, there was no power outage. I don’t have a generator (Joe does, of course. I heard it droning on and on through the night when a hurricane knocked out power for five days ten years ago) but surely I am not the only one with lights and power.
It took me a minute or two to think about the television. (Duh!) I watch so little that months often go by and I never even turn it on. It’s seven fifteen, past the news hour of six o’clock, and the reruns are in full swing. I sat down in the recliner with the remote control in hand and scanned the twelve or so odd channels that my television picks up. I’d stopped cable service years ago, refusing to pay $150 for the pleasure of watching Back to the Future or Howard the Duck. The local stations were all running the staples: Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond (except for me), and Modern Family. I waited for a banner news alert and was disappointed. I got up a couple of times, checked out the front window for lights across the street, and stared into the darkness that was broken only by that halo of light at the Parkersons.
I thought about my cell phone which had a weather channel alert app installed. That was no help. So, I tried to think of who to call. What would I say if I reached someone? “My street’s dark, no one seems to be home around here? Anything I should know?”
I have a friend in Maryland but she travels this time of year, running canoe trips into the Algonquin in Canada. I’d gotten an email from her the week before mentioning that she’d be gone the month of November. She never packed her cell, depending on a GPS service for emergency contact. I have another friend in Manchester. England. Certainly she won’t happen to be driving by and decide to stop in for chat and a cup of tea. So, that’s it for friends. There’s no one close, no one nearby that might have the skinny on what’s happening in my neighborhood. I flip through the stations again and decide to go on up to bed. As they say, I was sure that things would look different in the morning.
Nothing was different in the morning. I made my coffee, checked email, and watched out the window for the rituals that had taken a hiatus yesterday to spring back into action. Nope. Nothing but net. Not even the swooshy sound a ball would have made. The world was eerily silent which scared me just a little.
I wrote my blog and checked the stats from yesterday. Flat. No new follows; no new likes. That was okay, though. Tuesdays were always funny days for my blog. Sometimes, I’d have fifteen hundred new hits and sometimes six. It wasn’t even determined by the content, I’d learned over time. I could recycle an old blog and get nothing. I’d recycle the same blog two days later and the hits would be through the roof. Who knows how it all works? I just write and post and write some more. I get paid whether there are hits or not. It’s the nature of the business.
A little before noon, just about the time my stomach told me it was time to start thinking about lunch, I saw a dog walk by the house. There’d been no joggers or walkers or gray and pink shirted oldsters today. This was the first living thing I’d seen since . . . when? I wasn’t sure. Saturday is the day I clean my house. Sunday, I read. I don’t visit my office, I don’t look out the windows at the antics of the neighborhood, I don’t answer the door if the bell rings. That’s nothing new. I’ve never answered my door when someone rings or knocks. Unless I’m expecting company, that is. If not, whoever it is can just ring away. I don’t talk to strangers.
So this little dog walks right by my house, right down the middle of the road. Of course my first instinct is to crack the window and yell at him to get out of the road, but then I remember that there hasn’t been any traffic in a couple of days. I turned back to my work.
Sometime mid-afternoon, the growling of my stomach brought me to the surface and I went downstairs to look for something quick to tide me over until dinner time. There was a thick steak defrosting in the refrigerator and I’d just about decided not to eat anything besides a handful of nuts or a cookie when I heard barking out front. My downstairs windows are overgrown with bougainvillea and honeysuckle (just as I like it), so I sprinted upstairs to my bedroom. I keep the blinds pulled down tight all of the time, so the dust flew as I pulled the cord to open them just a smidge. The dog was standing in the middle of the road howling and barking, looking lost and bewildered. I’m not a dog person or a cat person for that matter. My heart doesn’t melt or go all gooey when an animal comes to my door, so the first thing I thought was, “Fuck!”
I waited to see if anyone else was going to come out and scoop him up, take him to safety and food and water. No one came out. I stood in the window, off to the side so the dog wouldn’t see me and shoot me accusing looks. It walked in circles for a few minutes, first north and then south and back again and again. It couldn’t seem to make up its mind. Then it took off north and I lost sight of it. Good! I thought and went back downstairs to choose between that cookie and the nuts. The cookie won.
At twilight, the dog was back, pacing in front of the house like an expectant father. He would get no cigars from me. I kept working, glancing up every once in a while as the sun dipped lower and lower on the horizon. It was a spectacular sunset, one that made me wish I was sitting on a beach with a pina colada, feeling the lap of the ocean on my toes. The dog had stopped walking and sat on its haunches, tired, I assumed, hungry, thirsty. It was nearly dark and with no lights on, I could barely make out the shape of the dog, its wagging tail as it suddenly turned its attention north and took off. I flipped off the lamp on my desk and stretched, good and ready for that steak. As I started to turn away, I saw a streak flash by the house headed south. I recognized the bark but the scaredy-cat whine was new. The dog disappeared into the dark with a final yelp. I scanned the street, up and down but didn’t see a thing. I grinned thinking that the little dog had probably just tangled with the wrong big cat. I used to see them once in a while, cats that is, walking along the back fence or slinking along the street. I heard them more often than saw them, shrieking and fighting, mating in the alleyway that runs between my fence and my neighbor’s fence out back.
I headed downstairs in the dark, familiar with my old house, cautious of the stairs that still folded down. My plan had been to completely finish the attic, replace the folding staircase, and install steps that would serve as bookshelves on both sides. It sounded good when I bought the house but I found that the folding stairs served my purpose just fine. I secretly liked the idea that if someone broke in while I was up here in the middle of the day--or night--I could simply pull up the staircase, latch it, and no one could get up there. My friend in Maryland laughed when I told her my idea. “As long as the burglar isn’t a pyromaniac to boot, you’d be in good shape.” “Well, thanks for that happy thought,” I’d said. My plan still seemed like a good one.
The sun came up the next morning a fiery red ball and drenched the houses across the street from me in glorious shades of orange and pink. I sat with my coffee cup in hand watching as the day came alive. Well, that’s not true, exactly, but night turned to day and I was alive.
Still no activity from the houses across the street. Still no activity on the streets--walkers, joggers, buses, trucks or cars. Not a single bike or skateboard either. You’d think I’d be more curious, but that’s just not in my nature. I was always the kid in the class who, when the fire-bell rang, didn’t jump up in excitement and rush to the window to look for smoke. I was the one who stood in line, followed directions, didn’t ask questions, and just did what I was told. I felt as though I was doing what I had always been told to do: mind my own business. I was very good at that.
Some part of my brain must have been going crazy trying to figure out what was going on out there in the big, wide world because I kept thinking of things that I needed at the grocery store. I developed a craving for purple grapes and Granny Smith apples, fruits that had never been on my favorites list. It was fairly easy to squelch these desires and move to more productive thoughts. I had a system: when I found that I wanted something I didn’t have in the house, I worked a math problem. If Mabel has four sixty-four ounce bottles of Coffee Mate in her freezer and Mabel uses one and a half ounces of Coffee Mate per day, how many days will Mabel’s Coffee Mate last? (My name’s not Mabel, by the way. I have to use someone else as an example because the question for me would be how many days would I have before there were two bottles of Coffee Mate in the freezer which would prompt an emergency trip to the grocery store or a more important question: Is four really enough? I have to stay away from those scenarios.)
Friday morning would be the test. I always got paid on Friday and if there was a problem out there in the world that the news on TV wasn’t reporting or Rapture had come and I was literally the only woman shunned from Heaven, I wouldn’t get paid. But, there it was, there was my pay check right there in my checking account just like normal. Actually, it was more than normal, about half again more than normal, but I didn’t really think twice about it. These things happened from time to time. I got paid a little more or a little less. Margery in accounting always figured out the problem and either shot me an email saying the error would be corrected or that it would be made up on my next paycheck. I looked at my bank balance, sighed with relief that I wasn’t struggling as I had in my younger years, and closed out of the bank screen.
I’d put a pork roast in the slow cooker before heading upstairs to work and the smell of roast pork with sauerkraut was making its way to the office. I liked to cook a big meal once or twice a week, giving myself a break from cooking by eating healthy leftovers. This would be my weekend microwave feast with mashed potatoes and peas. I’d bought about a ton of really good Irish butter when I heard on the radio that butter made from grass-fed cows was actually good for you. I no longer worried about calories and focused on the goodness of the oil that was feeding my brain. I liked that thought and went to work, ignoring the inactivity outside my window.
The long days of inactivity continued. I didn’t see the dog again although I’m sure it was the same dog I heard barking several nights ago from a street or two over. I thought he’d found his owner when he didn’t show up out in the middle of my street and I was relieved when I heard the familiar bark bark bark, glad that the cat hadn’t been successful in doing whatever big cats do to small barking dogs.
To tell the truth, I would have been relieved to see any of my neighbors come out of their houses. That little part of my brain that wanted me to make a quick run to the store had infected a larger area of my brain and I found myself stopping work much more often to gaze out the window and dream of cheese. And Maisey and Joe and the walkers who talked while they walked. I would have been happy to see anyone come waltzing down my street.
And then I did.
And he wasn’t waltzing.
In fact, he was barely walking, shuffling was more like it. And then he stopped right in the middle of the road, right in front of my house. I dove out of my chair as he looked up at my window. I caught my shin on the leg of the desk and had an angry red welt that throbbed. I crawled to the corner of the window and peeped out with one eye. He’d moved closer to my fence, to my locked front gate, and stood with his hands on the wrought iron rail. He shuffled the length of the fence and back to the gate, like the dog, trying to make up his mind (?!). I stayed low, cursing the neighbor’s tree that grows at the edge of my yard, one long limb obscuring my view. Then he walked back, his shuffling steps slowing down until he stood at my gate looking up.
I stayed on the floor for most of that day and well into the night. He stood looking up as though waiting for me to show my face, to see him waiting, and let him in. I left my perch for as long as it took me to run downstairs and grab water, a box of Cheezits, and a flashlight and zip myself in, folding the staircase up into the floor. I couldn’t see him except in snatches when the moon came out from behind the clouds and illuminated his dark form. Sometime in the night, I heard the rattling of the front gate but I drifted back into fitful sleep, terrified.
He was gone the next morning. I was afraid to go downstairs in case he’d found his way in. I mentally pictured every door in my house and realized that barring a battering ram or dynamite, no one could gain entry. But this wasn’t no one. This was something else.
By the time my caffeine headache kicked in, I had mustered the nerve to brave the downstairs. I knew that I could open the hatch and let down the stairs fearlessly but still, the thought of someone standing below looking up at me scared me just a little. Coffee won out over fear and I made my way to the kitchen without incident. I ate breakfast, drank coffee, sorted the fridge, and counted the steaks in the freezer. Then my life moved on.
It’s amazing how quickly we can get used to change and settle into a different routine. I moved my desk back away from the window, speculating that he’d never notice the missing monitor and lamp from his view looking up. I could still work, I could still peek out over the edge of the monitor to see the street in front of the house. I thought about going out to walk the perimeter of my backyard, to check the stockade fence for weakness but what good would that do? I wouldn’t be able to repair the fence, replace a board. I didn’t have supplies like that in my garage. I could hammer a nail if necessary, but I could only hope that major construction would never be required. Never? I thought. Really? Never? In the best of circumstances, boards weather, nails rust, a tree falls in a storm. Well, thanks for that happy thought! I said to myself, thinking of my friend in Canada who had failed to contact me upon her return. I tried her cell and got no answer. I sent her an email and waited but three days later, she still hadn’t replied. Nor did my friend in Manchester. Even the world wide web was silent except for auto-sent advertisements and junk mail. I kept posting my blog, however (and getting paid for it), sending it out into the ether with a wish and a prayer, hoping that there was another person like me who was locked up tight but still connected.
My phone beeped that I had a text message. I nearly had a stroke and whacked my knee on the leg of my desk as I dove for the phone. When I got to it, I realized that it was from a number I didn’t recognize. So what? I argued. See who it’s from! Suddenly, I was afraid of outside contact. No one besides my two friends knew where I lived (and I’m not so sure that Ada in Manchester even has my address). Maybe this was some scam to find out where people were, who was thriving, who had food. If I answer--even clicking on the entry--they’d know I was here. They could trace my telephone number to get my address and I’d have a gang of desperadoes banging down my door or climbing over my fence. The spikes on the top rail discourage jumping on a whim, but the fence could be breached. Even I knew that. A very determined person can get into any house they are determined to get into. I’d heard that on NPR years ago and it didn’t offer me any comfort at all now.
Time passed in fits and starts, fast and slow. I didn’t realize how much time had gone zipping by until I realized that Mabel was down to one bottle of Coffee Mate in the freezer, even having cut her consumption to one ounce per day.
I’d stopped counting the people who’d shown up in the middle of the road in front of my house. They’d stay for a while and leave. There was never much of a ruckus; they didn’t come in numbers or gangs or groups and they made no noise whatsoever except for the rattling of the gate. It was very unusual to wake up to a face staring up from the street. Most mornings were silent and empty but there was this one guy who stood out there for days, never wavering, just hanging on the gate, giving it a shake every once in a while as though he’d forgotten that it was locked or hoping that it would miraculously open. I called him Buddy for wont of something better to do, to normalize my situation as best I could. Buddy finally shuffled off one afternoon after a too-many-days-to-count vigil.
I’d been having dreams about the people in the street, wondering in my sleep if they were really survivors of some catastrophe, people alive and looking for help while I sat up in my ivory tower glowering down at them, refusing to answer the bell. I am okay with being an introvert. I am okay with being a hermit. I am not okay with being selfish or dispassionate toward my fellow man. I am not okay with inhumanity and carelessness. I woke up to find another visitor at my front gate, his clothing torn and bloody, his chest exposed. Nope. I am okay with my view from the ivory tower, dispassionate attitude intact.
The car battery is still alive. I had a moment of desperate panic when I realized that I haven’t started the car in almost six months but it started right up like a champ, ready to roll. But where to? The grocery store makes sense but what are the chances that there will be anything worth buying? The frozen food section would be treasure trove of goodies, but crap! That would mean leaving the house and encountering…them. Or maybe not. Maybe there were just a few of them shuffling around and I could just skate right by them. I could run into the bulk food store, fill a cart, and be back outside in what, ten minutes? Fifteen at the outside. What could happen in fifteen minutes? A whole hell of a lot, I told myself. But it would have to happen sometime, I reminded me. I was on the last case of bottled water from the hurricane shelter in the garage; my supply of coffee was running low, and there was no time like the present. Except for tomorrow--or the day after. Or the day after that.
I know I’m screwed. I’m out of arguments for why I should just stay in my comfy cave and wait until I run out of food and water and sanity.
I posted my last blog this morning with a telephone number just in case there’s anyone out there reading. Who knows? There might be some little old lady in Topeka thinking she’s the last woman on earth, too. Maybe she’ll have the answers I need or can direct me to the people who do--if there are any people. Or maybe Joe is alive and well right across the street, surfing the internet and wondering why I don’t come out of my house. Whatever, as the kids used to say. I’m ready, I’m set. It’s go time!
Wish me luck. I’m scared--but just a little.
I was never the life of the party either. In fact, I didn’t really like parties much, the having to get dressed up and make small talk while sipping a drink that tasted like gasoline and turpentine stirred with a twist, or with an olive drowning in the oily depths. The friends finally sloughed off like old skin, flaking away as they planned team pursuits, couples ski vacations, flip-flop tours of far-flung places brimming with lava and tequila and sweat. I slunk away to my hidey-hole, a one bedroom in a three flight walkup midtown, happy to hear from my die-hard friends by postcard, by email, by text. And then finally, not at all.
My lifestyle changed only a little as I got older. I moved away from the city and the packs and herds and plopped myself down in a bigger hidey-hole, a house with a yard and a fence and an attic with a broad checkered stained-glass window from which I could survey my little world while I worked.
I never met my neighbors. We harbored no mutual curiosity about each other’s lives. I soon learned their routines and managed to pull my car out of my garage and through my gate on a workday without ever having to wave or smile or fake a cheery greeting. There was nothing so important that I couldn’t wait until they went to work to make my monthly run to the bulk food store in town. I’d learned to buy those huge industrial strength cans of peaches and tomato sauce, portion the contents into single serving plastic baggies and stock my freezer with anything and everything a woman could want.
I had a craving for pizza awhile back and ordered five extra-large, extra pepperonis from the closest shop that delivered. I ate a piece and froze the rest, two pieces per baggie. I knew it would last me a year. (I keep my freezer extra cold so the food will last. You should try it. It works.)
I first noticed that something was wrong as I was sitting in front of my computer writing my daily blog. I get up early every morning, make my coffee, check my email, and scan the news for ideas. My inbox was crammed with the usual adverts as well as the inspirational message for the day. As the sun came up behind my house, I watched for the usual neighborly morning rituals that always gave me a giggle: Mr. Parkerson (directly across the street) leaning out the front door to grab the paper while his little yapping dog made a break for the street. More often than not, Pepper scooted under the gate and up the sidewalk before his limping old master had a chance to curse; Maisey Childers (diagonal to the right) running out of the house with her mother behind her, chasing her with a peanut butter sandwich in a brown paper bag that Maisey desperately did not want to eat. (And I know what’s in the bag because it’s the same thing every day. “Maisey, you forgot your lunch and it’s your favorite! Peanut butter with strawberry jam!” You’d think Maisey’s mother would get the hint.); Joseph Winters (diagonal to the left) fleeing for work with his wife right on his heels regurgitating her list of things poor Joe is supposed to bring home again, the same old list that’s tattooed on my own brain: milk, bread, eggs, chips, half and half, and Coke--in case the kids stop by. I don’t know whether Joe ever brings home anything on that list. I hear his car door slam after seven every night but I never get up to look to see if he’s laden with goodies. If so, they sure do eat a lot of milk, bread, eggs, chips, half and half, and Coke--if the kids did stop by.
I don’t know about the neighbors behind me. I have a fence, as I mentioned, and their houses are one-story bungalows that are of no interest to me. As I was saying, I first noticed something was wrong because none of the usual morning rituals took place that day as I sat wracking my brain for an idea to write about. No Mr. Parkerson, no yappy dog, no Maisey, no Joe. No one came out of their houses. And then, come to think of it, no one drove by either. No cars, no trucks, no school bus with Maisey crouched down in the seat hiding from her mother. Nothing. No bikes or skateboards or joggers or runners or walkers. There’s an older couple from down the block who walk every morning. He always wears an oversized gray t-shirt that reads, Ask Me! but I’ve never had the urge to ask him what he’s hawking. Probably pills or sleep numbered beds or Jesus. She wears a bright pink t-shirt and a white golf visor, her gray hair poking out around her head in all directions. I’ve never been able to figure out who’s walking with whom. Does she walk with him because he has heart trouble or does he walk with her because she demands that he walk with her so she won’t have to walk alone? They were absent that morning right up to lunchtime which scared me just a little.
It was a Tuesday, too, trash day on our block but there wasn’t a can out as far as I could see. I didn’t go out to look, mind you. I don’t usually create enough trash to make it worth a trip to the curb more than once a month. I’d planned on doing it next week. Maybe. If necessary. I found myself listening for the trash truck, the beep beep beep of the backup warning or the clatter of trash into the belly of the truck. The day outside was sunny, bright, and sterling blue. And quiet as death. Which scared me just a little.
My blog finished and posted, I checked the news online, casting about for some idea of why the world had gone quiet. Major holidays are celebrated on Monday. This was Tuesday. I’m sure it was Tuesday because I checked the calendar on my phone which always displays the correct date and time. Tuesday, November 19th. The news seemed to be stalled for the moment, replaying stories from Monday, even showing old videos from the weekend, sports replays, scores, and such. I flipped to NPR, my go-to radio station, and found Diane Rehm in high gear. Nothing to report there, it seemed. So I went back to work.
Night fell all of a sudden, as it does for me sometimes. I get so into what I’m writing that I come to sitting in my office staring out at a darkened sky. We don’t have streetlights in our neck of the neighborhood so the only light comes from the Parkersons’ old-world style lamp at the end of their driveway, and the lights from the windows of my neighbors. The Parkersons’ was doing its duty, lighting up the end of the driveway and the walk to their house but every other window was dark. Maisey’s and Joes were dark too. Not a speck of light shined. Not even a candle. I looked at the lamp on my desk and the Grand Canyon wallpaper on my computer and realized that no, there was no power outage. I don’t have a generator (Joe does, of course. I heard it droning on and on through the night when a hurricane knocked out power for five days ten years ago) but surely I am not the only one with lights and power.
It took me a minute or two to think about the television. (Duh!) I watch so little that months often go by and I never even turn it on. It’s seven fifteen, past the news hour of six o’clock, and the reruns are in full swing. I sat down in the recliner with the remote control in hand and scanned the twelve or so odd channels that my television picks up. I’d stopped cable service years ago, refusing to pay $150 for the pleasure of watching Back to the Future or Howard the Duck. The local stations were all running the staples: Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond (except for me), and Modern Family. I waited for a banner news alert and was disappointed. I got up a couple of times, checked out the front window for lights across the street, and stared into the darkness that was broken only by that halo of light at the Parkersons.
I thought about my cell phone which had a weather channel alert app installed. That was no help. So, I tried to think of who to call. What would I say if I reached someone? “My street’s dark, no one seems to be home around here? Anything I should know?”
I have a friend in Maryland but she travels this time of year, running canoe trips into the Algonquin in Canada. I’d gotten an email from her the week before mentioning that she’d be gone the month of November. She never packed her cell, depending on a GPS service for emergency contact. I have another friend in Manchester. England. Certainly she won’t happen to be driving by and decide to stop in for chat and a cup of tea. So, that’s it for friends. There’s no one close, no one nearby that might have the skinny on what’s happening in my neighborhood. I flip through the stations again and decide to go on up to bed. As they say, I was sure that things would look different in the morning.
Nothing was different in the morning. I made my coffee, checked email, and watched out the window for the rituals that had taken a hiatus yesterday to spring back into action. Nope. Nothing but net. Not even the swooshy sound a ball would have made. The world was eerily silent which scared me just a little.
I wrote my blog and checked the stats from yesterday. Flat. No new follows; no new likes. That was okay, though. Tuesdays were always funny days for my blog. Sometimes, I’d have fifteen hundred new hits and sometimes six. It wasn’t even determined by the content, I’d learned over time. I could recycle an old blog and get nothing. I’d recycle the same blog two days later and the hits would be through the roof. Who knows how it all works? I just write and post and write some more. I get paid whether there are hits or not. It’s the nature of the business.
A little before noon, just about the time my stomach told me it was time to start thinking about lunch, I saw a dog walk by the house. There’d been no joggers or walkers or gray and pink shirted oldsters today. This was the first living thing I’d seen since . . . when? I wasn’t sure. Saturday is the day I clean my house. Sunday, I read. I don’t visit my office, I don’t look out the windows at the antics of the neighborhood, I don’t answer the door if the bell rings. That’s nothing new. I’ve never answered my door when someone rings or knocks. Unless I’m expecting company, that is. If not, whoever it is can just ring away. I don’t talk to strangers.
So this little dog walks right by my house, right down the middle of the road. Of course my first instinct is to crack the window and yell at him to get out of the road, but then I remember that there hasn’t been any traffic in a couple of days. I turned back to my work.
Sometime mid-afternoon, the growling of my stomach brought me to the surface and I went downstairs to look for something quick to tide me over until dinner time. There was a thick steak defrosting in the refrigerator and I’d just about decided not to eat anything besides a handful of nuts or a cookie when I heard barking out front. My downstairs windows are overgrown with bougainvillea and honeysuckle (just as I like it), so I sprinted upstairs to my bedroom. I keep the blinds pulled down tight all of the time, so the dust flew as I pulled the cord to open them just a smidge. The dog was standing in the middle of the road howling and barking, looking lost and bewildered. I’m not a dog person or a cat person for that matter. My heart doesn’t melt or go all gooey when an animal comes to my door, so the first thing I thought was, “Fuck!”
I waited to see if anyone else was going to come out and scoop him up, take him to safety and food and water. No one came out. I stood in the window, off to the side so the dog wouldn’t see me and shoot me accusing looks. It walked in circles for a few minutes, first north and then south and back again and again. It couldn’t seem to make up its mind. Then it took off north and I lost sight of it. Good! I thought and went back downstairs to choose between that cookie and the nuts. The cookie won.
At twilight, the dog was back, pacing in front of the house like an expectant father. He would get no cigars from me. I kept working, glancing up every once in a while as the sun dipped lower and lower on the horizon. It was a spectacular sunset, one that made me wish I was sitting on a beach with a pina colada, feeling the lap of the ocean on my toes. The dog had stopped walking and sat on its haunches, tired, I assumed, hungry, thirsty. It was nearly dark and with no lights on, I could barely make out the shape of the dog, its wagging tail as it suddenly turned its attention north and took off. I flipped off the lamp on my desk and stretched, good and ready for that steak. As I started to turn away, I saw a streak flash by the house headed south. I recognized the bark but the scaredy-cat whine was new. The dog disappeared into the dark with a final yelp. I scanned the street, up and down but didn’t see a thing. I grinned thinking that the little dog had probably just tangled with the wrong big cat. I used to see them once in a while, cats that is, walking along the back fence or slinking along the street. I heard them more often than saw them, shrieking and fighting, mating in the alleyway that runs between my fence and my neighbor’s fence out back.
I headed downstairs in the dark, familiar with my old house, cautious of the stairs that still folded down. My plan had been to completely finish the attic, replace the folding staircase, and install steps that would serve as bookshelves on both sides. It sounded good when I bought the house but I found that the folding stairs served my purpose just fine. I secretly liked the idea that if someone broke in while I was up here in the middle of the day--or night--I could simply pull up the staircase, latch it, and no one could get up there. My friend in Maryland laughed when I told her my idea. “As long as the burglar isn’t a pyromaniac to boot, you’d be in good shape.” “Well, thanks for that happy thought,” I’d said. My plan still seemed like a good one.
The sun came up the next morning a fiery red ball and drenched the houses across the street from me in glorious shades of orange and pink. I sat with my coffee cup in hand watching as the day came alive. Well, that’s not true, exactly, but night turned to day and I was alive.
Still no activity from the houses across the street. Still no activity on the streets--walkers, joggers, buses, trucks or cars. Not a single bike or skateboard either. You’d think I’d be more curious, but that’s just not in my nature. I was always the kid in the class who, when the fire-bell rang, didn’t jump up in excitement and rush to the window to look for smoke. I was the one who stood in line, followed directions, didn’t ask questions, and just did what I was told. I felt as though I was doing what I had always been told to do: mind my own business. I was very good at that.
Some part of my brain must have been going crazy trying to figure out what was going on out there in the big, wide world because I kept thinking of things that I needed at the grocery store. I developed a craving for purple grapes and Granny Smith apples, fruits that had never been on my favorites list. It was fairly easy to squelch these desires and move to more productive thoughts. I had a system: when I found that I wanted something I didn’t have in the house, I worked a math problem. If Mabel has four sixty-four ounce bottles of Coffee Mate in her freezer and Mabel uses one and a half ounces of Coffee Mate per day, how many days will Mabel’s Coffee Mate last? (My name’s not Mabel, by the way. I have to use someone else as an example because the question for me would be how many days would I have before there were two bottles of Coffee Mate in the freezer which would prompt an emergency trip to the grocery store or a more important question: Is four really enough? I have to stay away from those scenarios.)
Friday morning would be the test. I always got paid on Friday and if there was a problem out there in the world that the news on TV wasn’t reporting or Rapture had come and I was literally the only woman shunned from Heaven, I wouldn’t get paid. But, there it was, there was my pay check right there in my checking account just like normal. Actually, it was more than normal, about half again more than normal, but I didn’t really think twice about it. These things happened from time to time. I got paid a little more or a little less. Margery in accounting always figured out the problem and either shot me an email saying the error would be corrected or that it would be made up on my next paycheck. I looked at my bank balance, sighed with relief that I wasn’t struggling as I had in my younger years, and closed out of the bank screen.
I’d put a pork roast in the slow cooker before heading upstairs to work and the smell of roast pork with sauerkraut was making its way to the office. I liked to cook a big meal once or twice a week, giving myself a break from cooking by eating healthy leftovers. This would be my weekend microwave feast with mashed potatoes and peas. I’d bought about a ton of really good Irish butter when I heard on the radio that butter made from grass-fed cows was actually good for you. I no longer worried about calories and focused on the goodness of the oil that was feeding my brain. I liked that thought and went to work, ignoring the inactivity outside my window.
The long days of inactivity continued. I didn’t see the dog again although I’m sure it was the same dog I heard barking several nights ago from a street or two over. I thought he’d found his owner when he didn’t show up out in the middle of my street and I was relieved when I heard the familiar bark bark bark, glad that the cat hadn’t been successful in doing whatever big cats do to small barking dogs.
To tell the truth, I would have been relieved to see any of my neighbors come out of their houses. That little part of my brain that wanted me to make a quick run to the store had infected a larger area of my brain and I found myself stopping work much more often to gaze out the window and dream of cheese. And Maisey and Joe and the walkers who talked while they walked. I would have been happy to see anyone come waltzing down my street.
And then I did.
And he wasn’t waltzing.
In fact, he was barely walking, shuffling was more like it. And then he stopped right in the middle of the road, right in front of my house. I dove out of my chair as he looked up at my window. I caught my shin on the leg of the desk and had an angry red welt that throbbed. I crawled to the corner of the window and peeped out with one eye. He’d moved closer to my fence, to my locked front gate, and stood with his hands on the wrought iron rail. He shuffled the length of the fence and back to the gate, like the dog, trying to make up his mind (?!). I stayed low, cursing the neighbor’s tree that grows at the edge of my yard, one long limb obscuring my view. Then he walked back, his shuffling steps slowing down until he stood at my gate looking up.
I stayed on the floor for most of that day and well into the night. He stood looking up as though waiting for me to show my face, to see him waiting, and let him in. I left my perch for as long as it took me to run downstairs and grab water, a box of Cheezits, and a flashlight and zip myself in, folding the staircase up into the floor. I couldn’t see him except in snatches when the moon came out from behind the clouds and illuminated his dark form. Sometime in the night, I heard the rattling of the front gate but I drifted back into fitful sleep, terrified.
He was gone the next morning. I was afraid to go downstairs in case he’d found his way in. I mentally pictured every door in my house and realized that barring a battering ram or dynamite, no one could gain entry. But this wasn’t no one. This was something else.
By the time my caffeine headache kicked in, I had mustered the nerve to brave the downstairs. I knew that I could open the hatch and let down the stairs fearlessly but still, the thought of someone standing below looking up at me scared me just a little. Coffee won out over fear and I made my way to the kitchen without incident. I ate breakfast, drank coffee, sorted the fridge, and counted the steaks in the freezer. Then my life moved on.
It’s amazing how quickly we can get used to change and settle into a different routine. I moved my desk back away from the window, speculating that he’d never notice the missing monitor and lamp from his view looking up. I could still work, I could still peek out over the edge of the monitor to see the street in front of the house. I thought about going out to walk the perimeter of my backyard, to check the stockade fence for weakness but what good would that do? I wouldn’t be able to repair the fence, replace a board. I didn’t have supplies like that in my garage. I could hammer a nail if necessary, but I could only hope that major construction would never be required. Never? I thought. Really? Never? In the best of circumstances, boards weather, nails rust, a tree falls in a storm. Well, thanks for that happy thought! I said to myself, thinking of my friend in Canada who had failed to contact me upon her return. I tried her cell and got no answer. I sent her an email and waited but three days later, she still hadn’t replied. Nor did my friend in Manchester. Even the world wide web was silent except for auto-sent advertisements and junk mail. I kept posting my blog, however (and getting paid for it), sending it out into the ether with a wish and a prayer, hoping that there was another person like me who was locked up tight but still connected.
My phone beeped that I had a text message. I nearly had a stroke and whacked my knee on the leg of my desk as I dove for the phone. When I got to it, I realized that it was from a number I didn’t recognize. So what? I argued. See who it’s from! Suddenly, I was afraid of outside contact. No one besides my two friends knew where I lived (and I’m not so sure that Ada in Manchester even has my address). Maybe this was some scam to find out where people were, who was thriving, who had food. If I answer--even clicking on the entry--they’d know I was here. They could trace my telephone number to get my address and I’d have a gang of desperadoes banging down my door or climbing over my fence. The spikes on the top rail discourage jumping on a whim, but the fence could be breached. Even I knew that. A very determined person can get into any house they are determined to get into. I’d heard that on NPR years ago and it didn’t offer me any comfort at all now.
Time passed in fits and starts, fast and slow. I didn’t realize how much time had gone zipping by until I realized that Mabel was down to one bottle of Coffee Mate in the freezer, even having cut her consumption to one ounce per day.
I’d stopped counting the people who’d shown up in the middle of the road in front of my house. They’d stay for a while and leave. There was never much of a ruckus; they didn’t come in numbers or gangs or groups and they made no noise whatsoever except for the rattling of the gate. It was very unusual to wake up to a face staring up from the street. Most mornings were silent and empty but there was this one guy who stood out there for days, never wavering, just hanging on the gate, giving it a shake every once in a while as though he’d forgotten that it was locked or hoping that it would miraculously open. I called him Buddy for wont of something better to do, to normalize my situation as best I could. Buddy finally shuffled off one afternoon after a too-many-days-to-count vigil.
I’d been having dreams about the people in the street, wondering in my sleep if they were really survivors of some catastrophe, people alive and looking for help while I sat up in my ivory tower glowering down at them, refusing to answer the bell. I am okay with being an introvert. I am okay with being a hermit. I am not okay with being selfish or dispassionate toward my fellow man. I am not okay with inhumanity and carelessness. I woke up to find another visitor at my front gate, his clothing torn and bloody, his chest exposed. Nope. I am okay with my view from the ivory tower, dispassionate attitude intact.
The car battery is still alive. I had a moment of desperate panic when I realized that I haven’t started the car in almost six months but it started right up like a champ, ready to roll. But where to? The grocery store makes sense but what are the chances that there will be anything worth buying? The frozen food section would be treasure trove of goodies, but crap! That would mean leaving the house and encountering…them. Or maybe not. Maybe there were just a few of them shuffling around and I could just skate right by them. I could run into the bulk food store, fill a cart, and be back outside in what, ten minutes? Fifteen at the outside. What could happen in fifteen minutes? A whole hell of a lot, I told myself. But it would have to happen sometime, I reminded me. I was on the last case of bottled water from the hurricane shelter in the garage; my supply of coffee was running low, and there was no time like the present. Except for tomorrow--or the day after. Or the day after that.
I know I’m screwed. I’m out of arguments for why I should just stay in my comfy cave and wait until I run out of food and water and sanity.
I posted my last blog this morning with a telephone number just in case there’s anyone out there reading. Who knows? There might be some little old lady in Topeka thinking she’s the last woman on earth, too. Maybe she’ll have the answers I need or can direct me to the people who do--if there are any people. Or maybe Joe is alive and well right across the street, surfing the internet and wondering why I don’t come out of my house. Whatever, as the kids used to say. I’m ready, I’m set. It’s go time!
Wish me luck. I’m scared--but just a little.