A Long Walk From Chicago

I spend most of my time now looking back on the first day, so I guess I’ll start there. I was in a dank smelling bathroom, standing and facing the mirror. It was like I had just woken up, I swear I just opened my eyes and I was in a completely foreign place. But obviously I had been awake for a while considering the bags under my eyes. I remember being almost scared by my own reflection, I looked sickly. I reached for my necklace, it had this silver heart shaped locket with a scratch on the back I would trace when I was anxious, but it wasn’t there. I was confused more than anything at that point, so I left the bathroom in search of someone who could tell me what was going on.

The room I stepped into was also unfamiliar, but I understood it was a hotel room judging off of the cheap art on the wall and the peephole in the door. Luckily I was alone, which meant I hadn’t gone there with someone sketchy. I still didn’t understand why I was there. Trying to rationalize, I told myself that maybe I had just gotten too drunk to go home the night before and wound up getting a room. I tried to remember what I had done leading up to then but I couldn’t, it was like that day before was completely wiped from my memory. I looked for any of my belongings but I didn’t have any, so I just left the room. I walked down the hall and found the elevator. I tried to go down, hoping to find someone to help. It didn’t work, so I went down the nearest stairs. It was a long stretch down but I reached the ground floor. The lobby was empty, and despite ringing the bell on the front desk repeatedly still no one came.

About ten minutes went past before I broke, I walked around the counter, looking for a phone to call my parents. I sighed in relief when I saw one. It was one of those landlines, I had never really used one before but there’s a first time for everything, right? I picked it up, and dialed their number. Nothing, not even a dial tone. I tried it again and again, thinking maybe I was just doing it wrong. Still nothing. I wasn’t going to keep waiting to get this thing to work, so I walked out of the hotel. Instead of people, I was greeted with a mostly empty parking lot, spare a few cars. I guess it wasn’t a very popular hotel. I walked up the sidewalk towards the road. The streets were filled with stopped cars, like all these cars had just suddenly stopped moving on their own. It was a surreal sight. No one was on the sidewalk, so my next best option was approaching these cars. I felt ridiculous but it was my best bet. I went up to the closest one, a minivan, and knocked on the window. I saw a woman and a man in the front, neither of whom even acknowledged me. They just continued to face forward, almost like they were frozen. I tried again, but still nothing. My nerves were running through the roof, I didn’t know what else to do so I opened the door. Dead. They were dead. I screamed. In fact, I didn’t stop screaming as I ran up to the rest of the cars, banging on their doors to find nothing but more death. It was like walking into a graveyard.

You’d think a person would grow tired of screaming after a while, but I didn’t. I moved on from the cars and started combing the streets, in fact I spent the rest of the day searching for a familiar face, or any face really. But besides the dead, I was alone. After a few hours I think I just shut down, stopped reacting to what was happening around me. When it got dark, I went back to the hotel and found the first empty room I could, and slept, despite not being tired. I guess I just didn’t want to be awake anymore. Believe me, I wanted to go home but I didn’t even know where to start. I didn’t know what town I was in but it definitely wasn’t Chicago. Before all this happened, I found my way using GPS, never learned how to read a map, not that I even looked for one. I think at the time, my thought process was if I ignored everything and pretended this was all normal, when I fell asleep I would wake up back home. It would have been all a dream.

When I woke up on day two, still in the hotel, it clicked that this was reality, and I had to get my shit together. I went to the nearest gas station, grabbed a map, and got going. I found that I was in Arizona, in the middle of a town named Sedona. It was actually the town where my grandparents stayed for their honeymoon, where my grandpa gifted my grandma her little heart shaped locket, which she then passed on to me. I remembered I had been planning a road trip there with my friends for quite a while. I had actually been saving up for it for almost my entire high school career. Since Sedona was just a few miles from the Grand Canyon, we planned to stay there then go see the sights. It was my dream to see the canyon before I went off to college. I guess we decided to go, but I still can’t recall any part of the trip down there. I also didn’t understand why I was alone. It's not like I would take the trip on my own, but it wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen, clearly.

I wiped my curiosity from my brain and stared down at the map before me. I had to get back to Chicago. I followed the roads out of town and began walking north, doing my best to stay on track. I thought maybe a car would pass and I would tell them what happened. They’d be able to explain everything to me, they’d have all the answers to my questions and everything would be okay. It was a comforting thought. No cars passed as I was walking, though. I did find a couple stalled cars, but I couldn’t build up the courage to look inside. I continued my walk for quite a while, I think I walked half a day before I decided to give it a break. I wanted to give up, my hopes for finding people, well, living people, were dwindling away as more time passed. I sat on the side of the road, staring out into the nothingness that is the Arizona desert, the sun was finally setting.

I waited until it was dark to keep moving. I walked until I found a town, Flagstaff, which was just another ghost town. I slipped into the closest unlocked building I could find and spent the night there. Come morning, I grabbed some necessities and left. I’m not going to continue to bore you with the details, so I’ll just say this. It takes about a month to get to Chicago from Arizona on foot. About a week into my hike when I had yet to find one more living person, I made peace with the fact I was alone. My family, most likely, was dead. That’s when I gave up.

I stopped moving on day eight in Colorado Springs. Who knows how long I stayed there, I sure don’t. I stopped caring about the days passing or holding onto any sort of hope for regular life. I considered ending it for a while. Is life worth living when you have no one to share it with? It used to be, when I felt like this, I would hold on to my locket. I would close my eyes, trace the little scratch, and remember what my grandma told me when she gave it to me.

“Your heart is a terrible thing to waste. Keep this with you at all times, and you will be safe.”

I’ve never forgotten those words, even though I’m pretty sure she stole them from a movie. After she passed, that necklace was the only thing I had left of her. I never took it off, just like she said.

Which is why it was so weird it was gone in the first place, the only time I took it off was to sleep. Thinking back on it, the last time I saw it was on my bedside table back at home.

When I thought of my locket, it was like I was given a fresh breath of life. My mission had restarted. I got off my ass and started moving. I had about two weeks worth of walking left to do, then I’d be back home. If I had nothing else, I’d at least have my locket.

...

So, now you’re caught up on how I got here. I’m almost to Chicago now, actually just entering Illinois from Hannibal. I should be there in less than five days, four if I hurry, and believe me I’m hurrying. If I’m being honest, I feel like I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t slept or eaten in days, not that I can’t, I just don’t feel the need to. No matter what I eat it tastes bland, I just can’t enjoy it. I don’t think that’s what’s making me crazy, though, I think it’s the loneliness. The human species is nothing without each other. Did you know people can die from social isolation? It shortens your lifespan. Before this, I almost never was alone. I love people. I don’t know why I was dealt these cards, but if this is the universe's way of torturing me for all the wrong I’ve done, they’re doing a damn good job.

By nightfall I made it to Macomb, my goal is to get to Peoria by tomorrow night. So, on I go. As I get closer to the city I pass by more and more bodies, just laid out on the sidewalk or left in their cars. At this point I’m desensitized, it’s no shock to me. Yet the question doesn’t leave my mind, what happened? I don’t know if I’ll ever get an answer… if I’m really the last one left, it’s just a matter of time until I’m gone too, and all questions that are left will be gone with me. Maybe this is the world's way of getting back at us, humans have always been a plague on Mother Nature. Maybe she just decided she’s had enough. Or maybe it was aliens? A solar flare? A worldwide suicide pact that I was left out of? Well, that’s assuming this is worldwide. Maybe it’s just America, not that I could find that out too easily. I need to focus, the more time I spend dwelling on these questions the more miserable I’ll be. Right now, all I care about is my necklace.

I made it to Peoria. I think I'll be in Ottawa by tomorrow. I’m so close now, I’ll be in my city, in my home, in my bed so soon. But then what?

I’m in Ottawa. Should just be a day left until I get home.

I’m just a mile from home now. I’m running, running as fast as I can. Relief floods over me as I see my house in the distance. Jumping over the bodies in the street, I book it through my front door. The first thing I see is my parents. Well, what’s left of them. I forgot about this part. I think in my heart, I still believed they were alive, despite my brain telling me otherwise. I want to cry or scream or anything but at this point, I have nothing left to give. I turn from their lifeless bodies, cuddled together on the couch. At least they were together.

Walking up the stairs felt like a dream, it was so surreal being in my own home again. I wished for more of a comforting feeling, but all there was was hollowness and grief. I walk into my room. And there I was, on my bed, clutching my necklace. Now, I scream.