ALONE

The last time I thought about the date, it was May 8 or 10, 2023. Close enough, I guess.

I’m finally getting used to the situation. It still seems like a bad dream: sitting here on this concrete slab surrounded by endless piles of rubble for as far as I can see. Maybe I should record all that’s happened. I have to believe that someone, somewhere on this planet, is still alive and will find me… hopefully, before I die!

Chicago used to be such a thriving city – magnificent with its towering skyscrapers, sprawling communities, and refreshing shores along Lake Michigan. In an instant, maybe less than 5 minutes… it’s all gone! Dang… man up now, Jake! Tears don’t do any good towards changing things. (Sigh!)

Let’s see… my battery is dead on my phone so I’ll have to find some paper. The library over there might have some.

I never was any good with English… hated it actually. How ironic that here I am faced with journaling in a place where I’m not even sure anyone will ever read what I write.

Man! This door is really jammed shut. What about a window? Better yet, there’s a side door into the basement. Can’t seem to step anywhere now without crunching glass or crumbling debris underfoot. Okay. Here it is. Damn, it’s locked. Let me see. Here’s a piece of wire. A LONG piece of wire. Gotta shorten it … back and forth, back and forth. Yea, it’s breaking. Great! OK, let’s see if I can learn to pick a lock. Hmm. Dang! Not as easy as I thought. Oh! Wait. I feel something. YES! AWESOME!! Huh, I never knew I could do that.

I’m glad there are a few skylight windows in this place so I can see my way around. OK. Paper. There’s a desk over there. Here we go! There’s certainly no lack of pens or paper here. Wish my phone’s battery hadn’t died. It’s way easier to record stuff.

Man! There is dust everywhere! Guess I’ll have to use my sleeve to wipe off the desktop.

Huh! I just realized I’m always talking to myself these days. Silence is so deafening when it’s all there is. I spent days wandering through the rubble, kicking stones and throwing broken pieces of whatever I picked up at smashed cars, water tanks, windows… anything that made a good noise. I couldn’t stand the silence and making noise helped me realize I was really still alive. The echoes of my own screams the day I walked into this mess still haunts me. I haven’t seen a single person or even an animal for weeks. Hell! Maybe even a month or more. Never thought to keep track… not that it even matters.

If it wasn’t for the Morelia Supermarket, I’d probably be dead. Their shelves were still full of undamaged canned goods and no short supply of manual can openers either! I even scored enough supplies to cook whatever I needed to. Thank you, Morelia!

So, where to begin? Ugh! This pen dried up. Huh… pens rattling in a wooden desk drawer make a nice sound. This pen works. So… page one:

It was a normal day like any other. My parents left early for work. My kid sister took the bus to school leaving me home to lock up before going to school myself. I drove to my friend’s house to pick him up. Deak was standing at the curb when I pulled up. He opened the door and jumped into the passenger’s seat.

“Hey, Man. How’s it going?” Deak said the same thing every morning of our lives. Must have been a catch phrase from his old man’s youth. His dad was deacon at our church so since Deak hated his real name – Walter – we called him Deak instead. It was strong sounding, manly. That was cool.

I’d heard lots of stories about asteroids hitting the Earth, but never thought it would do any serious damage. Most asteroids would burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere or were too small to cause any real alarm. Scientists said that if a really dangerous one threatened us, we may not have enough warning to stop it. I guess they kind of sneak up on you, traveling in the blind spots behind other planets or something. Still, I heard the government made plans to fly rockets into them, set off bombs near them, and devised all sorts of plans to protect us just in case it ever happened. Now I sort of wonder if the government knew all along that one was coming for us and just didn’t warn us because they had no solution to stop it.

My first period class was an elective: mechanical engineering. The troubleshooting skills I learned in that class really helped a lot since this catastrophe happened. Mr. Stewart was a great teacher, but sort of boring at times. Funny… I’d be happy to hear another of his boring stories right about now. Just hearing any other voice besides mine would be encouraging.

Mr. Stewart needed some tools from the storeroom in the building’s basement and I volunteered to get them for him. I was downstairs when it hit. Deafening! Like a bomb went off above ground. It knocked me to the floor and I blacked out. When I came to, my ears were ringing. I tried to sit up and felt dizzy, like I was going to upchuck. (Yea, I know that word, but can’t spell it so I’m doing the best I can.)

I laid back down and must have fallen asleep for a while. When I woke up, it was pitch black. I crawled, feeling my way to the light switch beside the basement door and stood up. No electricity. I turned the door handle and the door pushed me backwards into the room dumping a massive amount of rubble at my feet. By the time I was able to navigate the debris and make my way upstairs and outside the building, it was sunset. I stood in shock at the sight before me. Barely a building was standing. Dust filled the air. An unearthly purple-red sun glow pierced the western sky and I knew it would be dark within minutes. I felt for my phone. It wasn’t in any of my pockets. It must have fallen to the floor of the basement. I hated to crawl back over the rubble to get it. Maybe I’d left it on my desk. I went to where I could see that part of the building. Though some areas were still standing, the area where my classroom had been was gone.

What now? I began calling out for anyone who might hear me. My cries got louder with each step I took. No answers. I started to panic, tears rolling down my face, yelling for survivors as I choked on my words. I told myself to stay calm and sort this out logically. Eventually, I slumped down against a section of remaining brick wall and bawled my eyes out until there were no more tears left in me. The moon had now risen in the east. Was it my imagination or was it wearing a stupid grin on its face as if nothing bad had happened here? All was deathly silent.

Perhaps the basement offered some level of safety, not knowing what had happened or what dangers might exist outside. I intuitively made my way back to the shelter of the school’s basement, scrambled across the loose debris and searched the floor of the basement for my call phone. My left hand brushed something lightweight away from me ant I heard it hit a chair leg. It was my phone… probably fell out of my pocket when I hit the ground. I turned it on. It was working. I tried calling my parents, Deak, anyone else in my contacts who might be nearby. Then I realized there was no Internet service. I decided to wait until morning before exploring the damage outside.

The next day was the first of many spent walking, searching, calling out for someone to hear my voice. My car was obliterated and the streets were mostly unpassable anyway, so I walked everywhere I went. No one was anywhere to be found. It’s as if they’d all evaporated from some extraterrestrial radiation or something. The destruction was so broad that if this was caused by an asteroid, it had to be larger than a few miles across. The trail of damage looked like someone with a huge shovel had scooped the surface of the planet from southeast to northwest as far as the eye could see.

I spent my nights sleeping in the basement where my life was spared. I relied on the moisture in the plentiful canned foods to give me liquids since I didn’t trust the bottled water.

During the days, I dug through piles of concrete, brick, steal, and glass; everywhere I thought someone might have been buried. But I never found even so much as a dead bird or rat. Everyone was gone. After many days, I started to believe I was going crazy. Nothing made sense. How could I be so alone? Certainly, if I’d survived being underground, others must have as well. Chicago had many buildings with basements. What happened here? Where were the people? Why were there no bodies? Even if aliens took the people, there should be a stray cat or dog roaming the area.

"Then I realized the plants were all gone as well. My high school campus had lots of trees and grass. Now it was only dirt. No charred tree trunks. No dried leaves or dead grass. Not a single sign of life existed anywhere I looked.

I’ve come to realize that I can’t stay here forever. I know I must make a decision. If I leave the city, how far could I get and which direction would give me the best chance of survival? I’ve heard no aircraft overhead. Even if someone else is still alive, would they come here looking for survivors?

There are more questions than answers. For now, I’m exhausted. Perhaps tomorrow news will come.

I felt drugged when I opened my eyes this morning. I focused my eyes on a heart-shaped locket dangling from the neck of a woman leaning over me! My brain snapped with excitement to realize I wasn’t alone after all!

She had shaken me awake and backed away to give me some space. “Well, sleepy head”, she said cheerfully. “That must have been some dream you had last night.” My eyes blinked in the bright light, trying to see who was there. Then I recognized my mother’s voice. “You were groaning and mumbling for quite a while before I could shake you awake. Are you going to school today or not?”

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