Her Locket

I race around as quickly as I can, gathering things I’m going to need. I know they will be back. I must hurry. Now that my mom is gone, I have no one. I have no time to grieve her loss. This is how it is now. Keep moving. I have lost everything to this new world. My dad, my sister…..all of my known family. Now my mom. I kneel down next to her, removing the precious heart-shaped locket she wore around her neck for as long as I can remember. It’s mine now. It’s all I have left of the family that once was. Tears streaming down my face, I cover her beautiful face. I am gone.

One day I was a normal teenage girl, with plans for the summer. We were going to camp and swim and fish all summer long. I was going to practice for the archery tournament held at the local fair every summer. Who would have guessed that this summer would be the end of life as I knew it. That the world would implode overnight. That all hell would break loose?

The first day of summer vacation I awoke to the house shaking. I ran into the living room and turned on the TV. There were simultaneous broadcasts of earthquakes, forest fires, landslides, avalanches and all sorts of disasters happening simultaneously all over the world. What I just felt was an aftershock. The death toll was devastating. I screamed for my mom, but she didn’t answer. I ran outside and found her sobbing on the porch, phone in her hand. She turned to me and told me that my dad and sister were gone. They had been driving to the store when the road collapsed into a sinkhole, consuming the car. I turned away from her and walked back into the house, slumping back on the couch. I must have been in shock. I barely noticed my mom sink down next to me. She wrapped her arms around me and we sat there in silence, watching the carnage play out on every channel.

When night came, the stars began to fall from the sky. They were falling to the earth faster and farther than the eye could see. By the end of the night, the sky was black, lit only by a small sliver of moon. We sat huddled on the couch, afraid to move, until we finally drifted off to sleep. In the early hours of the morning, we were awoken by a report of a meteor approaching the Earth. The widespread disasters had systematically wiped out military capabilities. The meteor was approaching too fast to stop. They predicted that it would land in the Pacific ocean in a few hours. No one was prepared for the sheer size of it. It emptied the Pacific when it hit. It flooded the land for miles and miles. It wiped out parts of the power grid and we feared we would lose power for good. The television networks were warning of the likelihood of the power grid completely shutting down. We had already lost several stations.

Reports of widespread looting were all over the remaining stations. People were going crazy out there. We lived pretty isolated from the small town, so we had no idea what was happening there. We had no car now, but the roads were impassable anyway. Cars were crushed or abandoned everywhere. We planned to hole up in our house for as long as we possibly could. My mom was in prep mode. She was planning what we would eat first, in order of what was going to spoil the fastest if we lost power. We gathered candles, matches, flashlights and batteries for light. We packed our hiking packs, in case we had to leave in a hurry, and put them by the back door.

It was less than a week when the power grid went down. The last reports were that the water supply was contaminated. The meteor that landed in the ocean was radioactive. Everyone was advised not to drink the water and to stay out of all bodies of water. The world had lost close to a billion people. We had lost half of our family and we couldn’t even grieve. We were too busy trying to survive. The world as we knew it was gone. The power was gone, our connection to the outside world was gone. We were completely alone in the world.

We spent the days preparing for survival. Mom pried the heavy concrete lid off the old crock well and rigged up a bucket to a rope. We crossed our fingers, hoping the water was good, as she lowered the bucket down. When the bucket came up, the water was clear and cool. We hugged each other and jumped around whooping and hollering. Thank God, we had one thing going for us! We uncovered the crawl space access door in the house. It was gross and creepy down there, but Mom said we needed a place to hide, just in case. We put our hiking packs in the crawlspace, along with our bows. We practiced archery, in preparation for the hunting we would soon be forced to resort to. We perused the nature books dad had collected, learning about everything from edible wild plants to cooking and storage techniques. We put our knowledge to use and began to collect and store a variety of food.

We settled into a routine. In the evenings, we stayed locked in the house, playing cards, games and reading. My parents had an extensive library. I devoured novel after novel. At bedtime we lay next to each other, talking until we fell asleep. Some nights, sleep was a hard time coming. The starless nights were eerie and the night sounds put me on edge. I would lay there in fear for hours before sleep took me. I missed my dad and the way the house felt safe with him in it. I missed my sister, who would always come to my bed when she was scared, and ask to sleep with me. I would always say yes, putting on a brave face, so she would feel safe and protected. Many nights I would awaken to mom softly sobbing, so as not to wake me. I would snuggle in tight and lay my head on her chest, joining my sobs with hers.

A few months in, we were already in for the evening. Mom was in the kitchen and I was on the couch reading. We heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. Not thinking, I pulled the curtain back a bit to peek out. Mom bolted across the room and snatched me off the couch and onto the floor. She shushed me and told me to be still. We heard doors shut and footsteps approaching. There was a knock on the door. Mom put her finger to her lips and we lay there on the floor silently. We heard footsteps moving around the back of the house. Someone knocked on the back door. They asked loudly if anyone was home, as they tried the door knob. We could tell that someone was in front and out back both. There were at least two people surrounding the house. My mom whispered that we needed to get to the crawlspace. We crawled as quietly as we could to the closet where it was located. Mom opened the trapdoor and told me to go in. We heard the front door splinter as someone kicked it open. Mom told me to hide, be quiet and not to come out no matter what I hear. She shut the door behind me. I heard her put something over the trap door and close the closet door. I could hear footsteps above me and the sound of people rifling through the house. I didn’t hear a sound from my mom.

It waited and waited until I heard the vehicle leave. Then I waited some more. I figured my mom would come get me when the coast was clear. She didn’t. I finally decided to come out. I couldn’t lift the trap door, so I made my way to the outside access panel and kicked my way out. The back door was hanging open. I crept into the house with a sense of foreboding. It was too quiet. When I got to the living room, I saw her. I fell to my knees beside her and saw the knife wound in her chest. I contemplate staying right where I am. I should let them come back and kill me too, but I don’t. I can hear mom’s voice in my head telling me I must survive. I race around as quickly as I can, gathering things I’m going to need. I know they will be back. I must hurry. Now that my mom is gone, I have no one. I have no time to grieve her loss. This is how it is now. Keep moving. I have lost everything to this new world. My dad, my sister…..all of my known family. Now my mom. I kneel down next to her, removing the precious heart-shaped locket she wore around her neck for as long as I can remember. It’s mine now. It’s all I have left of the family that once was. Tears streaming down my face, I cover her beautiful face. I am gone.

I walk into the woods. I don’t know how far, or how long I walk. My back and arms ache from the weight of carrying both packs and my bow. My legs can barely carry me. I collapse on the ground and rest until I am able to make some semblance of a camp. I have no appetite. I can barely choke down water without throwing up. I crawl into my tent and sob convulsively, as the realization of how alone I am in this world washes over me, wave after wave. I cry until nothing is left and I am left empty. I lay listening to the night sounds around me and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I wake to the sounds of birds and sun shining down on me through the branches of the evergreens I camped beneath. I open my hand, revealing the locket I clutched through the night. I recall the last deep conversation we shared as we lay next to each other. She told me that she was sure that my dad and sister had moved on to a better place, and that part of her was glad that they didn’t have to go through what we were going through. I asked her why we had to be left behind. Her answer was that she didn’t know, we must still have work to do here. She believed there is a purpose for everything and that everything would work out just as it is supposed to. She had faith that we would all be together again someday. I carefully opened the locket, revealing the picture of mom and dad on one side, me and sis on the other, and the tiny mustard seed enclosed within. I pulled my hair up and clasped the heart-shaped locket around my neck. It was time to break camp and move on.

The End