An Eventful Package

There was a single knock on the door followed by a heavy thump as something hit the front porch.

He froze in his chair, where he had been reading *Robinson Crusoe* yet again.

For a few moments he could not think, could not react.

Was that a fading whir? And a knock?

He had been alone on his island for how long? Seven or eight years? He had lost track. Ever since the shit show on the mainland, or as the news anchors had called it before they all went black, the Event. He preferred shit show.

It had been just him, his dog, and a lifetime supply of canned food and books. The Event never made it, could not make it, to his island. Henry Bemis assumed, evidently incorrectly, that he was that last uninfected human on Earth.

That had been a knock. But who?

He slowly stood and stared at the front door. He listened. Nothing. He looked down at Helen, his dog. She had noticed his movement and was looking expectantly at him. For food. She always wanted food. She had not heard the knock and seemed unaware that anything was amiss. He reached down and gave her head a scratch.

“Hear anything, girl?” whispering in case someone, or something, was at the door listening.

Helen yawned. That would be a no.

He walked over to the door and looked through the spy hole. Nothing. No one. He looked out the side window. Nothing. No one. There was the weed filled, overgrown yard, his garden, and the thin forest. Nothing moved in the windless day. Heart pounding, he watched for maybe 20 minutes? Time was hard to measure with no watch. Everything remained still.

The door was not locked. It was never locked. Why would the last person on Earth lock his door? Only the squirrels wanted to get into the house and Helen gave them pause. He slowly, quietly, slid the chain lock in place.

Equally slowly, he turned the knob and gradually cracked open the door just far enough so he could peek out. No one there. But there was a package at the door.

He looked at the package for a long time. It was a shaped like a small pot or urn, covered in brown paper, with a string tied in a neat bow. He noticed the bows and ends of the string were identical. The paper covering was unwrinkled and the seams not visible. Whoever wrapped the package had been fastidious.

A package? From? There was no one on Earth who knew where he lived or even that he lived, much less would be able to send a package. And how had it been delivered? There was no ferry, no delivery service, no USPS. They were all gone in the Event. He thought back to the faint whir. Some sort of small helicopter?

He slowly closed the door and leaned against it. Helen sat near the door, ready to go for a walk. He slid the deadbolt into place, then reached down and scratched the dog again.

“OK girl,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk."

Helen had been with him since her brought her to the island as a pup. An English bulldog, she was an incompetent creature, unable to do much of anything on her own. She could barely eat or drink without his help. He had spent countless hours scratching and talking to the dog and she was the reason he had kept his sanity through all the lonely years. He tried not to think about what he would do when she was gone.

He walked out the back door, Helen following, sniffing the air for the squirrels she would never catch.

First he scanned the back of the house. Nothing moved. No breeze to move the trees. Only dead, humid air and the constant buzz of cicadas.

He peaked around the edge of the house. More of the same. Nothing and no one. He walked around to the front of the house and stood at the bottom of the front pouch steps looking at the front door. There was the package. He looked at it for a long time, waiting for what? For it to move? Explode? Explain itself?

He was sure that whatever was in the package, it could not possibly be for the good. Not after all that time alone on the island, perhaps in the world. No reason to pick it up. No reason to open it. Not unless he knew the who and the why of it. This was not a footprint in the sand that leads to Friday. There was no hope in the package, only malevolence. He knew better than Pandora to yield to curiosity. He decided he would let the package be.

He sighed and looked over a Helen, who was looking at the package as well. A rare novelty for both of them. She walked up the steps and sniffed it, finding nothing of interest. So he knew there was no food in the package. She didn't appear to find the package to be a worry.

"Come on, girl," he said. "Let' go for a walk. You know, you are never going to get one of those squirrels."

Helen was not convinced.

There were other houses in the area. Perhaps he should move into one of those, leaving the package behind. No. That would solve nothing. Whoever or whatever sent the package could forward it by the same mechanism it was delivered. Moving would only delay receiving whatever message the package was meant to send. A message he did not want to receive.

The more he thought it over, the more uneasy he became, increasingly sure that the package was a bad omen. If there were others on the world, those who had survived the Event, wouldn't they walk down the road shouting greetings? That's what he would do if he saw his first human in years. He would not drop off a package on the front pouch with no explanation.

No. The package could only be bad. But what to do? As he walked with the dog he was hyper-alert for any changes in his environment, but the walk was uneventful. It was silent except for the cicadas. Not even birdsong today. Quiet. Was it too quiet? He had watched too many westerns as a child.

He walked back to the house as the sun went down. In the periphery of his vision, he thought he saw a glint of light in the sky, but when he looked, nothing. He needed new glasses, but there was currently a shortage of optometrists.

The package was still on the porch. Why wouldn't it be? It wasn't an Amazon delivery to be stolen by a passerby. There were no passersby. Until today he thought was alone in the world. He now knew otherwise. Whoever else had survived the Event preferred mind games to an introduction. He knew he should leave the package alone. He also knew that was not going to last. Something would force the issue. Whoever had sent the package was not going to be satisfied with having it sit, unopened, on the porch.

He slept poorly that night, straining in the darkness to hear anything moving around the house. Just the usual silence. When he awoke he went to the door and looked out.

The package was still there.

He went back to the kitchen and stoked the wood stove to boil water for the morning coffee. Just as he put the kettle on there was another knock at the door, followed by a faint, fading whir. No thump of something hitting the porch.

He just stood there, unable to react, until the kettle started to whistle, shortly followed by Hele,n who knew that sound meant breakfast.

He took the kettle off the stove and bent down to scratch the dog.

"Looks like we have company," he told her.

He walked back to the front door, Helen following, looking for food.

He looked out at the package. Still there. Now there was an envelope on top, addressed to "Occupant."

Again he stared for a long time, unease growing, then unlocked the door, walked on to the porch, and carefully picked up the envelope. It was not sealed. Inside was a single piece on paper with four words printed on it: Open the package. Now.

Oh hell. Time to give in to the inevitable, mind games or not.

He reached down and gingerly picked up the package. It was heavy, like it was made of ceramic or clay. He gave it a gentle shake. Something with heft moved inside. He untied the string. The package didn't explode. He tore the brown wrapping to reveal clay baking pot with a lid on it.

He again paused. He giggled when he thought of those gag peanut cans where a spring snake jumped out. Like this was going to be the weirdest practical joke of all time. Half expecting something to jump out or spiders or what exactly he did not know, he very slowly removed the lid. In the pot was a revolver and a single bullet.

What the hell?

He had read enough comics and adventure stories to know what a gun with a single bullet implied. Wasn't going to happen.

Helen gave a whine and he glanced at her. Her head was cocked, ears up, like she saw a squirrel. For the first time in weeks, the cicadas were quiet. He followed her gaze and his mouth went dry.

His house was surrounded, a ring of the Eventful around his house. An arc of people, all standing perfectly still and silent, staring at him. Waiting. Somehow the Event had made it to his island.

He did not know what had caused the Event. Before the internet crashed and power had gone out, the Event was supposed to be due to an incurable virus or a bacteria or a toxin or a parasite. The most outlandish theory had been a computer virus that had jumped from virtual reality headsets directly into the brain. He didn't think that was possible, but then he would not have thought the Event was possible.

Whatever the cause, the Event had been catastrophic and in a few months almost all of humanity had been infected. As far as Bemis knew, he was the only uninfected in the world. That was about to change.

The Event led to odd behavior in the infected. The Eventful moved randomly until they encountered other infected, then they moved in almost perfect synchrony, gathering in every larger groups that wandered like schools of fish or flocks of starlings.

The other peculiar behavior happened when the infected chanced upon an uninfected. The Eventful moved in coordination with the uninfected as well. If the uninfected did not move, neither did the Eventful. If the infected moved slowly, so did the Eventful. And if the uninfected moved rapidly, so did the Eventful, leading to the uninfected being rapidly overtaken with death or worse. The one way to avoid the Eventful was to move too slowly for them to notice.

He froze and watched the Eventful. Fifty yards out, they waited. He tried to move slowly enough to not be noticed but it didn't work. They inched towards him. He froze again, sweat dripping off his face.

Helen whined again started towards the Eventful, probably hoping for food or a good scratch. The Eventful started forward.

"Helen, sit," he said as sharply as he could. He rarely yelled at the dog. Helen sat and the Eventful stopped.

It did not take long for his muscles to start to ache. Helen lay down and closed her eyes to nap, the movement causing the Eventful to move a little closer.

Now what? Nowhere to go, no way to escape, and only one bullet. He was doomed. And what would happen to Helen? Assuming that she could escape the Eventful, she could not eat or drink without help. At best she would starve to death, at worst the Eventful would have her.

He choked back a sob.

Slowly, so slowly, he put the bullet into the gun and chambered the round. The Eventful did not move.

Fifty yards. It would take them maybe 10 seconds to reach him if he moved fast. Plenty of time.

He whistled.

"Helen. Come here, girl. Num nums." The signal for food.

The dog opened her eyes, yawned, and trotted over. The Eventful moved in with the dog.

"I'm so sorry, girl," he said. He placed the muzzle against her forehead and, as the Eventful reached him, pulled the trigger.

In the sky above the house a hovering drone, barely visible, dipped and flew east.