What Next?

As dawn approached, the sun, red, struggled to push through the ever-present dust that hung low in the cool morning air. She cautiously pushed at the door of the basement, peering with one eye through the crack for signs of danger, movement of any type. It had been five days since, what? She still wasn’t sure. It felt like the end of the world but not like the movies portrayed it. There was no screaming, no explosions, not even an invasion of the military, peaceful or otherwise, just quiet and this thickening dust.

Hopeful that it was safe, she ventured out and warily ascended the stairs entering the kitchen on all fours. Still no noise, no movement. Her usually busy street, vacant. No birds talking to the rising sun. No breeze moving the trees. No kids complaining about getting out of bed or forgetting their homework, little Mabel singing. She seemed to sing all the time. Her heart sank as she recalled their still, pale bodies, laying in their beds. She couldn’t rouse them, why couldn’t she wake them up? Then her mind went to the backyard, her suburban cemetery, her three babies and the dog. That was four days ago.

She remembered how hard it was to dig the holes, the dust was everywhere, it was in her lungs, the harder she worked, the more she choked on it. Through sobbing tears and the choking dust she kept thinking that the holes had to be deep so nothing could get to her precious ones, but she was never going to be able to finish such a task, they were too shallow. She began to search in the yard for anything to cover them, plywood left over from the cubbyhouse her husband built, bricks, unused bags of cement, a tarpaulin, logs from the wood pile. At the end of her labour, she had created a shrine to her loved ones, made of things they had been part of, their bikes and toys and placed on top was little Mabel’s favourite thing of all, a straggly, dirty, soft toy that once resembled a dinosaur.

Her thoughts returned to the kitchen, the here and now. She hadn’t cried for two days now. She had nothing left to cry for, all she felt now was numbness. The fear and panic that had all but consumed her was replaced with a strange clarity, she didn’t want to die. There was some hope her husband was still alive and to this hope she clung desperately. Her will to survive had made her too cautious to leave the house, but today she was weighing up her need to find food and clean water and what may be lying in wait for her. The flimsy paper masks she had left over from the Covid lockdowns, not so long ago, were running out. The dust clogged them so quickly. She would need something to replace them. Her house had been safe so far, but reason had been arguing with need and until this morning, reason was winning. This would have been shopping week, and her pantry was all but empty.

Wandering carefully through the house, listening for the slightest noise, she searched for everything she thought she would need to journey outside. Weapons, or at least things that could be used as weapons. Sturdy clothing. The motorcycle leathers her husband bought for her, the ones she refused to wear, because she was too scared to passenger with him on his bike. The helmet might be too much, but maybe her bicycle helmet would be less cumbersome. She wasn’t sure what to be prepared for. In the movies it was either aliens, alien monsters or radioactive fallout. The latter could still be a possibility, she didn’t know. What she was really worried about was other people, scared angry people, men, men who would like to use their strength to take advantage of the weakness of others, of her. She had no memory of being scared of men in the past, but something told her she should be wary now.

Not wanting to come home to any surprises, she locked every door and window and double-locking the front door behind her, she ventured quietly into her front yard. Armed with a small baseball bat and as many kitchen knives as she could safely hide on her body, she turned left and staying in her garden approached old Gladys’s house. Pushing through the low hedge that separated the properties, she peeked through the windows. There was still no noise, from anywhere and peering through the loungeroom window, she spied poor old Gladys still sitting at the dining table, face down in her evening meal. She never really liked Gladys, she was an old busybody, but seeing her there, she realised how lonely she may have been, she never got visitors and rarely left her little house. It seemed so sad to die alone.

Sticking to the neighbours’ gardens for as long as she could, she made her way to the road at the end of her street, Main Road, the road that led into town. It was only about a kilometre to the local shops, but it felt like 100, the dust being so thick and the rising sun causing it to glow as the suns light refracted through it, keeping visibility to about one or two metres. Resolved to move forward, she did just that, making her way along a path she knew well.

Her jaw set and her ears alert, she quietly moved forward, eventually reaching the outlying shops of her little suburban shopping strip. With no traffic to worry about, she moved to the centre of the street. She felt safer out there. Coming to where she thought the supermarket should be, she turned a sharp left, hoping to have judged it well.

Finding ‘Loraine’s Flair for Hair’, she smiled, she had missed her target by one shopfront. The supermarket door was open, and she became more alert, wondering if it had been broken into or had the proprietors succumbed as her children had, as Gladys had, as it seemed, everyone but her. She pondered the reason for this. Until now, she only considered this in relation to her children, but she had found no sign of any other life. For five straight days, there was no evidence of life. No people, no birds, no animals, no flies, not even the unkillable cockroaches that she and her husband could never quite eradicate. Was this some alternate reality perhaps? She had already ruled out it being a nightmare, she could still feel the wound she made on her arm, testing that theory. She assumed she was the only one left on earth and continued through the store. The dust wasn’t as thick here, and she could see a little further in front of her. An odour that she noticed as she entered was strengthening, the further she went down the aisle. Noticing a dark mass in the corner at the back of the store, she approached cautiously. To her dismay, she found Bob the store owner, his wife Janis and their daughter Cheryl, Bob’s arms wrapped around his family, in a final embrace, their faces contorted from their efforts to breathe their final breaths.

Why not me? She thought again. She had once asked the question, what happened? But that seemed unimportant now. Something happened, something big. Phones were down, no power, so no television, no radio, no internet. She laughed at the thought that all the teenagers probably committed suicide when ‘the net’ went down, then she began to cry and slunk to the floor, as she recalled her own young teenage girl, hidden under rubble in the backyard. WTF mum, LOL, she would say to her when she was trying to feel grown up. That will never happen now.

She stayed there for a while until the smell of decay became too much and stealing a shopping trolley, began to take what she needed. Tinned food, bottled water and masks were the most pressing of those needs, but a bottle of scotch was what she really wanted. Sobriety seemed unimportant.

She pushed the packed trolley from the store and hoping it wouldn’t clatter too much on the road, started her way back. Guessing she was somewhere near her street she turned sharp right, only to crash into the gutter. She may as well have been blind for what she could actually see. As she was about to drag her load onto the footpath, she heard what sounded like crying. A child, or perhaps a puppy whimpering. She couldn’t tell. The woman decided to investigate, but she didn’t want to lose her stash. What to do? The sound came from the left, not her planned route. She started toward it, counting her steps, and watching her feet, hoping she was moving in a straight line. Staining for any sound, stopping when it repeated itself. Coming upon a car, she tapped on the bonnet and waited for some reply. There it was. She guessed it was inside the car and made her way down the side looking for a handle or open window. “Hello”, she called, trying not to be too loud but enough to get another response. “Can you hear me? Make a noise if you can”. She paused and waited and just as she was about to move further, she jumped and screamed as something touched her ankle. Moving a step backward and trying to get control of the shaking that was threatening to overwhelm her, she crouched down. “Hello”? She detected a scraping sound, like something being dragged on the asphalt, then slowly and cautiously a little face came into her view, little Billy Sumner. He went to preschool with her own little one, Mabel. They were good friends. “Hello Billy, it’s Mabel’s mummy. You remember me, don’t you sweety? Billy nodded and without warning, threw himself at her. In her crouched position, she did not take the hit well, and they both ended up on the ground. “Oh, Billy, you poor thing. Is there no one with you?”. He shrugged his shoulders, like he wasn’t sure. “Do you know where your Mummy is”? He nodded yes. “Is she moving”? He shook his head no. “OK, how about we go back to my house? You must be hungry and thirsty; I have lots of food and water. You can keep me company, I was feeling very scared on my own”. Scrambling back into a standing position, she reached for the little boys’ hand and found he was clutching something in it. “What do you have there, Billy”? Reluctantly, he opened his hand revealing his prize. It was a heart shaped locket with lovely filigree on the front, and an inscription on the back, ‘to my loves’. She opened it and found a small photo of Billy as a baby in one half, and one of his father in the other. “Was this your mummy’s”? Billy nodded yes and began to cry. “Come on darlin’, I might be able to fix the chain at my place, so you can wear it.”

Together, they made their way over to the trolley, which wasn’t too difficult, then walked the short distance to the house. The woman detected the same smell of decay she smelt at the store and was quietly glad that the ever-present dust hid the reality of it, from Billy. At the house they unloaded the trolley and put all their booty on the kitchen table, then the woman went about tending to the boy, as she would have, her own children. She spent the rest of the day quietly coaxing words from the mute child, until exhausted they went to bed.

Waking in the morning, the woman detected movement outside the window, wind in the trees. Looking out the red dust had all but gone, revealing the horrific scene she feared. What now?