A Day in Life

Another Day

The sun peeks over the tree line. Its early morning. The pink and golden rays intertwine and put a shimmer on the dewy grass. It reflects off the remaining windows of a blue and white house. My house. My old house.

There was a solid door at the entrance of the patio. Huh. That wasn’t there before. Pulling the draw string the hook lifts and the latch opens. One hand on the door as it slowly swings open. “CREEEK”.

Loud. Too loud. Quickly stepping into the patio, the door closes and latches. As quietly as possible my body slinks along the patio and up three stairs to an elevated deck. The sliding glass door in less than ten feet away. Odd. It’s not broken.

My hand rests on the handle. Pulling, the door slides open. Surprising. Glancing around the place looks empty. Walking inside I offer a low but auditable “Hello?” Subconsciously my bowie knife appears in my right hand. Tension is high. No response. No noise at all. I wait a few more moments before moving.

My bike ran out of fuel a couple miles back along I-9 near the unofficial center of town, known as Frontier Village. I’m not sure what I expected coming back here. It had been years.

I needed to clear my head and get away from the ghosts. Of course, coming home wouldn’t really solve that problem.

Closing the door behind me I look around, get my bearings. A painting on the wall, slightly off center, catches my eye. A cowboy on a bucking bull. The bull’s back legs extended out behind it three or four feet up in the air. The rider, one hand flailing wildly while the other was lashed to the horn of the saddle was in a perfect position to not get thrown. A good painting. Reminds me of my dad. He used to do that rodeo stuff while he was in high school. Used to have a good black and white photo of him on a bronco in very similar position. Used to have a lot of things.

Slowly I go room by room downstairs. Each room, closet, and bathroom are clear. The garage is devoid of life as well. Other than dust and cobwebs, you never know what you might find in an abandoned house. Time to go upstairs.

The steps groan dully with each step. Cautiously I ascend to the top. Immediately to the left is, when I lived here, my daughter’s room. Clear. The closet too. Next the bathroom, the laundry room, and finally the room my son would stay in during the summer. All clear.

Now to take a closer look at everything in the house. As I rummage through cabinets and dressers my mind wanders. How many years has it been? Five? Ten? I’m not sure anymore. I’ve been a vagabond, a drifter for so long now I’ve forgotten. Or maybe forgotten is the wrong word. I work to suppress those memories. They lead to nothing but pain and hopelessness.

Shaken free from those thoughts by an item I find under some rags in the bottom of a drawer in the back closet on the first-floor’s master bedroom. A tape recorder. Popping open the panel on the back I see that its missing batteries. It takes triple A batteries. I just happen to have two. Sticking the batteries in and replacing the panel I flip the recorder back over and press play.

A frantic female voice starts exuding from the speaker. “This is Molly Hagerty. I – I don’t know what to do. My family is missing, no one can help me and I’m running low on food. The whole world has gone mad!” I let the recording play to its conclusion. I don’t know why I listened to it. The stories are all the same. I wipe the recording.

I head upstairs to what once was my son’s room. The bed within is busted but the mattress is still in decent shape. I take the mattress off the frame and lay it on the ground against the door. Laying out some food, I eat a handful of berries. I prop my ruck so I can use it as a pillow. Removing my coat, I lay it over the broken bed frame. Taking a swig from my thermos of water, I pull out the recorder. Deep breath. Then I hit record.

“My name is Sam. Sam... well, just Sam. If this is uncovered in some distant future, know this is my account of events that have transpired.

“What year is it? I believe last I knew it was 2034. Course it’s been a couple months since I was told that information. Truth be told my source wasn’t the most reliable so I’m not really sure what year it is. But it feels like it’s been a century since things were normal.

“The year this all started was 2022. And it started a mess. Coming out of a pandemic and bad political policy, that did more harm than good to all sides, was just the beginning.

“Society was metaphorically on drugs. Nothing was what it seemed. Politicians gaslit, lied, and pushed propaganda for their side so hard, neighbors stopped trusting each other and started hating each other. Mistrust loomed everywhere. The media propagated this and sold the lies to each side in a bid to see the escalation reach a crescendo of bloody proportions. And bloody it became.

“Ya see, there are really four types of people in this world. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m about to give you a clichéd metaphor. But it holds true.

“The largest group of these types of people, are the sheep. They band together and generally follow the herd without question. Where the herd goes, they go. Individualism isn’t really needed. As long as they believe they belong to something for good or ill, but for something, they are fine. Its an easy way to turn off their brain and escape the blame.

“The next largest group, which is much smaller than the sheep, but still larger than the other two, are the wolves. The wolves are the predators. They prey on the sheep because the sheep are easily manipulated. Get part of the herd to change direction the rest will follow, without question. What makes the wolves so dangerous is they conceal themselves within the herd pretending to be one of the sheep.

“Third is generally what’s classified as the zealot. These people devote themselves, regardless of logic or reason, to a cause. Political, religious, anarchy, or anything else taken to the extreme. Fanatic sycophants determined to follow their path no matter the cost. They are easier to see but just as dangerous.

“Finally, you have the smallest group. The sheep dog. Like the name’s sake these people do what they can to protect the sheep from the other two groups because sheep cannot protect themselves. These people cannot simply turn off their brain and follow the herd, nor are they willing to relinquish their morals to manipulate the sheep, and they’ve spent their whole life fighting against the zealots.

“Of course, there are some folk that don’t belong to any of the four groups. These folk are usual vagabonds and drifters. Outcasts.

“What am I you might ask? I used to be a sheep dog. Perhaps I still am…just not as open with my position. I tend to stick to myself. I help folk that need helpin’ and I dispatch folk that need dispatchin’. I do what I can for the small pockets of civilization I come across in my travels. But I never stay too long.

“Anyhow, war was brewin’. On a scale the likes of which had not been seen since the Civil War. This time it would be much worse. The country had too many people in it, too close together. Sure enough, it happened…on September 11th of all days.

“A gathering and parade of first responders and military were attacked by an armed group of radicals, in New York’s Time Square. And not the standard protests that were a bit rowdy but not overly deadly from a couple years before during a period sarcastically known as the “Summer of Love”.

“Tensions were high within society and had continued to escalate since that point. Legal and illegal police incidents fueled the fire. Once again media and politicians from all sides stoked the flames.

“The attack was a massacre. Anyone wearing a military or police uniform were executed almost immediately and without discrimination. Firefighters and medical personnel were beaten and/or killed for associating. It was terrible. Blood ran through the streets. Vehicles and buildings burned. Total chaos erupted. And it was all conveniently viewable on every news broadcast.

“And so the catalyst for war had come to pass. Like minded folk banded together. Swaths of the country joined one side or another. The military fell apart as soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines all abandoned the government to take whatever side they felt was right. The President died from a heart attack that same week and the Vice President disappeared. Congress and the senate were abolished…bloodily. Within a month the United States of America’s governing body was gone. In its place was a war-torn mess.

“You think that’s bad? It got worse. Foreign actors released a chemical weapon into several zones of the United States’ atmosphere. Texas, the Pacific North West, New York, California, the Dakotas, and the Great Lakes. This bioweapon killed off millions. And it didn’t take long. Within 6 months of September 11th, 2022 America was dead.

“Pockets of life existed of course, but from the approximate 360,000,000 Americans that lived, maybe twenty or thirty million remained scattered across this once great nation.

“Living in Missouri at the time my family had escaped the destruction of society by heading to a Texas Air Force Base that a friend was in command of. The base was decently secure and those military members and families who had stayed had kept the evils of the world at bay. Then the chemicals came. I was on a patrol to help scavenge for food when the base was hit. It was like a mist that enveloped the area. We couldn’t get near it we knew. Me and my six patrol mates sat and watched. Watched our loved ones whisp away with the chemicals.

“One of our number couldn’t contain himself. Sobbing and blubbering he ran into the contaminated area. We didn’t’ try to stop him. He broke. He wanted to die with his loved ones. Who are we to deny him that?

“24 hours later the chemicals dissipated. 24 hours after that we entered the base. Everyone was dead. After several hours I found them. My family. They were at the base park when they died. My wife…my daughter…my son.

“Over the next week the six of us buried everyone. Every person. It was the worst thing I have ever done. I still have nightmares about it.”

Tears streaming from my eyes. Words caught in my throat. I can’t continue.

A loud crash knocks me from my despair.

“COME OUT SAMUEL! WE JUST WANNA CHAT!” came the gnarled voice followed by a chuckle.

Pulling the broken frame in front of the door to block it I pull out my .45 colt. Four bullets left. How had they found me so fast? My ghosts.

I turn the recorder back on. “Whoever listens to this in the future, please I beg you. Learn from our mistakes. Don’t be culled into a false sense of security. Don’t be manipulated into hating each other for superficial reasons. Love one other!”

I drop the recorder on the floor as something hits the door hard. Again, something slams into the door and wood shards fly everywhere. Part of the door falls to the ground. A head pokes in. “There you are. Time to die.”

“Yeah? You first!”

End