Robert Marshall C.

They Hunger

Sta It was rainy and dreary that October morning. It was a Tuesday and I had been on the road non-stop for the last day or so. I made a point of carrying a calendar with me in my endless trek. Even though the year for which the calendar was actually intended had passed several months ago, there were some mini-calendars on the back cover spanning an additional two years. Somehow keeping count of the passing days helped to keep me sane. Funny thing time is though. Did it really matter anymore? With no need to set an alarm, with no appointments to keep, without others waiting for you, did it even really exist anymore? Surely the sun still rose and set over our festering world, but without a title to attach to the day, how can one prove it existed? How many others were out there just like me, traversing the endless void of what once was? Did any of them bother to care what day it was? Did they even have any idea what year it was at this point? Well, I knew, and that made all of the difference. It was time itself that was at stake as man’s greatest invention to be lost. Without accounting for the passage of time, you can really only live from day to day. If, somehow, the timeline could be maintained, maybe, just maybe what little was left of life could also be maintained. My pondering, philosophizing mind wandered, and my car followed shortly behind, meandering slightly off to the grass beside the roadway. Jarred back to my journey I righted my car back into a smooth course. My previous musings on time brought me back to the reality that it had been quite some time since I had last put gas in the tank. Glancing down at the gas gauge I wasn’t surprised to see that the tank was nearly empty. This wouldn’t be a problem for long though; I had made sure to stock up on fuel before I took to the highway. It was actually a pleasant trip so far. The main interstates were ghost towns at this point. Sure some of the on and off ramps to more populated areas were a nightmarish parking lot full of cars, trucks, SUV’s, and even a motorcycle or scooter, all funneled into a lane or two at best . These means of conveyance would be coffins for their former owners had it not been for the fact that they got up and wandered off only moments after they had been half-devoured where they sat. Once you were actually driving across the open road, however, you could go for miles and miles before even coming across an abandoned car. Even so, you never really wanted to spend too much time on a roadside pit stop. Invariably they would come. First in slow trickles, gradually working their way, one by one; they would come. Slinking through wooded stretches separating the road from the neighborhoods that ran parallel to it, they would soon find you. They were never too far, and they would find you. It started with one or two, but they would draw more to you. Before long they would arrive in numbers, and even then, more would find their way until you had no choice but to run or be counted among their ranks.