Dislocated Read online

  My clothes are wet. I’m lying in something warm. I’m afraid I’ve pissed myself this time, but I can’t find the strength the lift my head.

  They say the best cure for a hangover is another beer. I’m just going to need someone to teach me how to use these opposable thumbs first.

  It appears I went to sleep on the floor. I haven’t blacked out like this since Valerie left.

  Valerie.

  I dreamt of her death. Of everyone’s death.

  What a brutal nightmare.

  My head is lead, but I find the strength to lift myself with the help of my elbows. My shoulder screams at me to stop. Seeing the torn flesh, the blood, I nearly black out again.

  No. No. No. No. No. No.

  This. Cannot. Be. Real.

  I can’t move because I’m bleeding out, not because I’m a drunk. Well, maybe a little because I’m a drunk.

  I’m lying in a warm thick, liquid. My shirt soaked. The hairs on my legs feel glued to my skin. I touch the hardwood floors and bring my hand to my face.

  I blink through the tears I can’t help but shed over the realization that these are my last, pathetic moments on earth.

  It’s white. Not red.

  I sob anyway.

  Whoever coined the term, “There’s no point in crying over spilled milk,” obviously never woke up in a gallon of it mixed with his own blood and piss, lying next to a man in a gas mask.

  Seeing Roderick triggers the surge of adrenaline my body needed to get off the floor, and I find myself slipping through milk, falling into the open fridge, and skittering like a crab to get as far away from this place as possible.

  I decide the living room is as good as “as far as possible” and collapse again.

  “Hello?” I call out. “Are you okay?”

  The body doesn’t move.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?”

  Still nothing.

  I pull myself to my feet, take two steps forward.

  The shotgun sits another two steps away. Four more steps total to get back into my room.

  I reach the shotgun. I have to get down on one knee to retrieve it without passing out. I seem to have developed a serious case of vertigo.

  “Hey!” I yell, gun raised, hands shaking. “Hey!”

  No response.

  I finish the journey back into the bedroom. I kick my friend in the side. “Wake up!”

  It’s like kicking a bear. I imagine. I’ve never kicked a bear, but the way things seem to be going today, I won’t count the opportunity out.

  The glass over his eyes reflects only me.

  I’m a ghost. An alien from another planet.

  I read the name on his jacket aloud: “Roderick.”

  I kick his leg this time.

  Still nothing.

  I scan the floor. I’ve never seen a tranquilizer dart, but I imagine it looks just like the long pointed piece of silver with a red tag on the end of it right here next to my feet. I touch my uninjured shoulder. It feels bruised. As does my back.

  I close the refrigerator door, but not before taking out a warm beer. I pop the tab, take a drink, drop to my knees next to Roderick.

  I set the gun on the floor, and rest my left hand on his chest. I drum my fingers against his green military jacket.

  I’ve spent the majority of my adult life living in denial, so it shouldn’t be too hard to pretend this isn’t happening.

  I beat my fist against his chest.

  “Wake up!”

  I hit him again.

  “Come on!”

  And again.

  “Who are you?” I demand of him.

  “What happened to everyone? Why is everyone dead? Why am I the only one alive? Is this some kind of test? Biological warfare? Am I immune? Am I super hero?”

  Sitting in the warm, curdling milk, I look back and forth between Roderick and the empty carton.

  I believe I just killed the only other living person I’ve encountered today.

  I’ve never seen a dead body before. I skipped all four of my grandparents’ funerals. With the mask on he doesn’t seem real, but rather just like the mannequin from Mr. Jones’s apartment. I leave it on him while I go through his pockets.

  First, I find a gun. I don’t know much about them, but this one appears to shoot bullets, not poison arrows.

  He has no wallet, credit cards, or cash.

  Every inch of skin is covered.

  The only piece of identification or helpful information I discover on his person is an iPhone. With zero expectations, I press the power button. The tiny white apple with a bite taken out of it appears on the screen.

  A working phone.

  I set it down on Roderick’s chest. It could be a trap.

  “Come on, come on, come on.”

  The phone vibrates.

  Roderick has seventeen new notifications.

  There are no apps on his phone.

  Just clocks. Rows and rows of clock icons.

  Each notification is an alarm which has already sounded.

  Each one titled, “Controlled Burn in…” followed by a number.

  I say the words out loud. “Controlled Burn?”

  There is a timer counting down in place of where the actual digital clock should be at the top of the screen.

  I ask the masked man on my bedroom floor, “What is a controlled burn?”

  He has nothing to say, but I demand answers.

  “Who are you, Roderick? Huh? Answer me!” I scream at him. I grab at the snout of his gasmask, ripping it from his face. I hurl it across the room, and look down at the rhino from the bar who mistook me for Adam the other night and nearly killed me with his fists.

  I change my clothes. I’m starving. There’s nothing in this place but spilled milk and warm beer. I grab a duffle bag from the closet, throw in some shirts and jeans and few pairs of clean underwear. I place the pistol and the box of shotgun shells on top. I leave Roderick to spoil along with the rest of this town. The closest major city is Pittsburgh. It’s an hour drive, maybe thirty minutes if I can take to the roads at 100mph. I will drive until I find life, until I find answers.

  I open the door, bag over my shoulder, shotgun in hand, and there’s a dead wolf in the hallway.

  In the front yard, the birds have finally found something better to do.

  They’re dead.

  Every last one of them.

  It feels as though thirty years have passed since I’ve been outside. The temperature has dropped twenty degrees. It no longer feels like summer. I notice steam rising out from the sewers carved into the curbs. I walk into the street and try to see inside. I take out Roderick’s phone hoping to use it as a flashlight. The timer in place of where the clock should be has twenty-eight minutes left.

  I arrive at my car, but the vintage 1970 Lamborghini Espada in Mr. Waterman’s driveway catches my eye. I don’t know much of anything about cars, but I’m an expert with this particular vehicle given the number of times Mr. Waterman has pulled me aside to tell me all about the stupid thing. I take a brick from his landscaping and hurl it through a bay window. The alarm wails at its best attempt to thwart me. Mr. Waterman is at his kitchen table, his face resting on the sports section of the newspaper. His pants are soggy. The entire place smells of shit and piss. The keys to the Lamborghini hang on hooks next to a calendar with the same damn kitten on it that Mr. and Mrs. Phelps have on their wall. I jiggle the keys in front of Mr. Waterman, ask if he minds, thank him, then take a knife from the kitchen counter and jam it between the kitten’s eyes.

  My apartment is less than a mile from the zoo. I go out of my way to drive by. Here I stop and stare at the mass execution of wildlife. The elephants. The alligators. The monkeys. Their lifeless bodies lay about the entrance. The place is a haunted battlefield. Whatever killed off the rest of this town must have had a much slower effect on the animals.

  I roll down my window and lean my head out to look up at the sky. What I am looking for exactly, I cannot say.
Hope? Maybe.

  I drive over to the Yankee Kitchen at mach speeds. An insatiable hunger has developed within my guts. The front door of this town’s finest breakfast establishment, naturally, is locked. Next door at Furniture World, they leave their discounted items on the sidewalk all night. I grab a wooden dining room chair and throw it through the front window of the restaurant. I fall into it a bit, glass spraying against my face and clinging to my hair, but I survive unscratched. I could get used to these dramatic entrances. I kick the shards away from the perimeter before climbing inside.

  I fire up the gas stove (so there’s gas but no electricity) and cook myself some eggs, while boiling water to accommodate the jar of instant coffee I find in one of the cabinets. I get Sunday’s newspaper from the rack by the hostess stand; take a seat at the counter. The coffee is scalding. I burn my tongue. The eggs are a bit runny. The caffeine helps curb my appetite.

  I glance at the paper, but I’m not really reading. Just looking at the pictures and thinking: could this be global? Some sort of epidemic that I, as well as a few others, am fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have immunity to?

  The eggs make me sick.

  I stand, dumping the remainder of my coffee on my breakfast before throwing the plate against the wall, telling everyone and no one at all that this place always had shitty service.

  There’s cheap champagne in the walk-in cooler. I take two bottles to go.

  I heave a cinderblock through the window at the Gas-N-Go next door. The alarm sounds. With it blasting in my ears, it’s harder to concentrate on firing up the computer systems to turn on the pumps, but I’ve been under worse pressure. Before gassing up, I take as much soda and chips and candy as I can carry.

  Roderick’s phone vibrates in my pocket. I take it out.

  The counter has reached zero.

  The gas tank tops off. I remove the nozzle.

  I stand.

  And wait.

  The sky smells like rain.

  I can make out of the sound of thunder quickly descending upon this place.

  I step away from the car and into the street, squinting into the darkening horizon, the last of the daylight being chased away.

  And I hear it. Clear as day. Not thunder.

  Helicopters.

  The ground shakes beneath my feet, stones and pebbles coming to life around me.

  Okay. Maybe not helicopters.

  Fire bursts from the sewer in the street like a caged and captured monster with plans to devour its pathetic captors after discovering newfound freedom. I stumble back, almost pissed at myself for still being surprised when something as outrageous as this happens today.

  A pterodactyl could come crashing out of the sky tonight, scoop me up, and feed me to its hideous, slimy, pterodactyl babies and I’d only be able to argue, “Sure, pterodactyls, this makes perfect sense.”

  Then the Yankee Kitchen explodes followed by the bank across the street.

  I cut myself some slack and decide it’s okay to be surprised by this.

  9

  A PERFECTLY GOOD PLACE TO STOP FOREVER AND DIE

  Driving away from explosions at seventy miles per hour is not as easy as Hollywood makes it look.

  And if you’re asking, driving away from explosions at seventy miles per hour in a Lamborghini is about as deadly as having remained at that gas station while every building around me exploded into a brilliant display of orange and red and yellow shrapnel.

  I cannot control the thing. It’s a miracle I’m not yet burning alive in a pile of twisted metal.

  I steal glances in the rearview mirror. The sun is crashing into the earth behind me.

  Mom.

  Dad.

  Valerie.

  Eddy.

  I dodge a dead giraffe and fishtail.

  The entrance to the freeway is less than a mile ahead.

  I can barely handle the wheel with the sweat on my palms.

  A fireball of flaming brick and mortar lands in front of me.

  I press down on the gas and scrape by, destroying the driver’s side of Mr. Waterman’s car. I see the entrance ramp and remember it curves around to the right. I’m too late to do anything about it, and I enter the freeway rolling instead of driving.

  The 76 West is nearly abandoned. A Semi is overturned, and I can see an accident up ahead. Small fires have broken out from the wreckage that was once my hometown. Behind me, the horizon shines so bright I can still feel the heat from here as I walk—stumble—to the Honda sitting on the side of the road with its driver’s side door open, the driver just a few feet away sprawled face-down on the pavement. His arms are outstretched, and a set of keys rests just out of reach of his right hand. He must have made a run for it, tripped, fell, and never got back up. I kneel to retrieve the keys, wiping the blood that is dripping into my eyes from the bits and pieces of the Lamborghini’s windshield embedded in my forehead. I cannot tell if those sirens I hear are another side effect of my fragile mental state, or real. I toss my bag in the trunk, set the shotgun in the backseat, and drive away.

  I make it seven miles before I have to stop to pee and vomit. I look for a good place not just to use the bathroom, but to stop forever and die.

  There’s another car in the rest stop lot. Abandoned. Naturally. It’s the end of the world, and I’m still concerned about using the proper restroom facilities. I hurry into the men’s room next to the payphone, and start thinking about the phone numbers I have memorized. The only people I call frequently enough to remember their numbers live within a ten-mile radius of home. And are dead. I curse the cellular age, and empty my bladder.

  It smells of rotting flesh and feces in here. There are so many flies I have to hold my breath. Not on account of the smell, but on the misfortune of accidently breathing in one of the pesky sons-of-bitches.

  I can’t stick around long enough to look in the mirror and see just how bad things have gotten. I’ll use the car window to the remove the glass from my face. My bones feel pulverized. Every inch of skin seems to be tightening. It’s becoming harder for me to move. Perhaps it’s the perilous amount of blood on my skin finally drying. Or I’m finally dying.

  I see a pair of boots and jeans bunched down around some ankles in the stall next to the urinals. I don’t bother checking to see how he’s holding up in there.

  I leave without washing my hands. I’ve never been so thankful to breathe fresh, smoke-filled summer air. I take in big, heaping gulps before returning to the car—which doesn’t start.

  The engine won’t turn over. I pop the hood and pretend to know what it is I’m looking at.

  I pace around the parking lot, hands on the back of my head, fingers interlocked. I can’t stop the bleeding caused by the Lamborghini’s wreck. I’m not sure I was ever behind the wheel. I hold my hands up in front of my face and try to focus on them. Hands. I can rely on my hands. I can trust my hands.

  Whatever was in those darts Roderick shot me with, it’s wearing off and the pain of the real world is settling in. Specifically what I am certain is the rabies-infected wound on my shoulder.

  I kick the passenger door of the Honda; open the trunk. I enjoy a soda and a bag of chips, and sit on the car. I finish dinner, and take the tire iron from the trunk. I smash the passenger side window of the pickup. The interior is littered with fast food wrappers and open ketchup packets. The vinyl seats are held together with duct tape, and the Virgin Mary is mounted to the dash, crusted with the dust of Cheetos. I climb inside and search for keys, but come up empty-handed.

  I wrestle with the fact that I’ll have to search my unfortunate friend in the bathroom if I ever want to get out of here.

  Surely someone must have heard the explosions. I could just wait. Waiting sounds like the best plan I’ve had all day.

  Someone will come.

  Someone has to come.

  No one comes.

  I wrap a jacket around my head, and return with reluctance to the men’s room. The number of flies seems
to have doubled during my brief absence. The stall door isn’t locked. I give thanks that I don’t have to crawl underneath. Sitting inside is a man larger than life, thighs the size of tree trunks, sixty, maybe seventy years old. Who can tell when you’re dead on a toilet and covered in flies? He sits slumped to his right, head against the stall, and a hand tucked gingerly between his legs.

  The smell is debilitating. I brace myself for fear of losing consciousness. I rip the jacket from my head because I can’t help but vomit—right onto the jeans bunched around the ankles where I’m sure the keys are hidden. I slip, falling to my knees, flies crawling in my ears and through my hair. I can feel them burrowing beneath my skin, already laying eggs. I push myself from the floor, stumble back. I run from the restroom for the second time today, relieving myself of the chips and soda I only recently consumed.

  I wipe the bile from my lips.

  I stand when I’m good and ready. The smell from the facilities is everywhere. I return to the Honda, pop the trunk. I strip naked, leaving my clothes on the ground, changing into fresh jeans, a clean t-shirt. I grab a thick, black jacket better fit for bitter winter days because I can’t stop shaking. I tell myself it’s because of the smell. Because I just threw up. Because I seem to be the only living, breathing human being left on the planet.

  I don’t tell myself I’ve finally caught whatever killed everyone else.

  That maybe I’m not immune after all.

  I close the trunk. If I ever want to get out of here, I have to get those keys.

  I pace around for a few more minutes. And in this useless task I notice the tires on the truck: they’re flat.

  All four of them.

  I try to remember if they were flat when I broke in, but I cannot recall. I’m positive they weren’t. You would notice a thing like that, wouldn’t you?

  I look around, spinning in circles, that sickening feeling of being watched crawling through my bones again.