Disappearance (5 page)

By now, this cat is already across the street further erasing thoughts of taking it with me. It's probably for the best; I could see it biting me and giving me rabies. I get back into the car and put my seat belt on... safety first. Then I continue my way toward Abby's office.

While I drive, I seem to have discovered some newfound optimism. I suppose it was the cat and seeing signs of life. While I would prefer to see a human being, it's mid-afternoon and this is the first time I've seen something else that breathes all day, so I'll take what I can get.

When I make it to the north side of town, it's more of the same. Instead of chicken restaurants and check-cashing stores, I see chain restaurants like Olive Garden, Applebees, TGI Fridays, etc., and your typical shopping stores like Marshall's, Macy's, and Kohls. If you enjoy the typical American shopping experience, this little congested area would be your utopia.

There are still no cars on the road, and none I can see in the parking lots either. My optimism from seeing the cat has quickly faded. I make a right turn, which puts me on Abby's office road. She's works only about a mile from here.

I'm not sure what the speed limit is on this little road but my guess is I'm doubling it. I can start to see Abby's office in the distance. I hope I see her; I miss her uncontrollably. I'd give anything if I could give her a big hug and kiss now. I don't care how stupid my story of why I'm here is, because if I can see her beautiful face it's worth it.

I pull into the small parking lot of the nursing home where there are no cars -- not a good sign. The parking lot has several handicap spots, so I pull into the closest non-handicap one. As I turn off the car and make my way toward the door I have an unusual optimism that she's in there. I reach over to open the door and discover it's locked. It's three thirty in the afternoon; why is it locked? I peek inside and see the front desk, but none of the lights are on. I reach down again to try the handle. No luck. It's now that I'm starting to freak out. I try the handle one last time and then start pounding on the door.

"Somebody let me in! Hello?"

I wait, but nobody is coming. I look around for something I can throw through the window but I only see the little red pebbles they use to decorate the outside of the building. I walk around until I discover a huge chunk of concrete that's been broken off of the parking lot. I reach down and pick it up. It's quite heavy even though it's only the size of a football. As I stand by the front door with the concrete slab in my hands, I ask myself if I'm really going to do this. I'm not one to be mischievous, and getting caught doing this would most assuredly land me in the county jail. I'm far from caring now though. I get a full head of steam and launch the concrete chunk at the door window. It makes a loud crash as it slams into the top part of the window. Chunks of concrete go flying into the front lobby.

I look at the front door, which still has pieces of glass left. I do my best karate kick to break through the rest of it. The glass breaks much easier than expected, but the move causes my leg to rip open from a piece of the broken window.

I scream in pain as I pull my leg out of the door and assess the damage. My leg is dripping with blood and I immediately start to feel nauseated. The sight of blood always does this to me. The last time I went to the doctor for shots I passed out just from the sight of the needle.

I'm standing there bleeding all over the front of the door, so I take my jacket off and wrap it around my leg to stop the bleeding. Pressing down on it I can still feel the pain, but having my shirt cover the sight of it starts to make me feel a little better. I sit there keeping the pressure on for about five minutes and think about how stupid I was to kick the glass out. I take the jacket off to re-assess the damage. My jacket is covered in blood, as is my calf. The bleeding seems to have slowed down though so I wrap it again and stand up.

I carefully reach through the window and turn the door handle, which easily opens. I look around the front desk, and I have quick flashbacks of being here with the lights on and elderly people in wheelchairs with nurses pushing them along. Now though, it's only quiet and darkness. I walk down the hallway peeking into rooms, but nobody is there. No elderly people, no nurses, no Abby. I know it doesn't matter, but I shout anyway "Is anybody there?" I pause to listen but don't hear even the faintest of sounds.

It's at this very moment that I realize I am alone. There is nobody around, and I have nowhere to go. I am alone.

As I get back in the car, I try not to think about my cut leg, which would easily earn me a trip to the hospital if it were available. It could benefit from a few stitches.

Considering the limited gas resources I have available to me, I likely will not be returning here. I decide I better make sure of my conclusions that nobody is here by driving around at least a few more minutes before heading home. As long as I don't stray far from Main Street and pay attention to where I'm going, I shouldn't get lost. Plus, the highway is pretty easy to get to from the north side of town.

I make my way to Main Street and drive around deciding as long as I'm here I might as well knock on a few doors. This is the most logical thing I can think of to do now. I make a right turn into what looks like a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood with beautiful front lawns.

I pull over on the left side of the road, not something that's technically legal. This house's lawn is so perfect, I feel obligated to take the longer way up the driveway to make it to their front door. I knock on the door once, twice, and three times for good measure. I even try ringing the doorbell but don't hear anything and assume it's because of the power outage. I don't waste any more time waiting to see if someone is coming to answer the door before I start peeking through windows.

I think back to that cat that I saw earlier, and it reminds me of all of those houses that I went to earlier. Why didn't I see any cats or dogs in all the houses I looked in? Abby and I often go on walks during the summer and when we do, we hear barking from at least one little dog looking through a neighbor's window. However, I thoroughly scanned through two entire streets and didn't hear a bark, meow, or even bird chirp.

This house has a nice big-screen TV and bookshelf on the wall in the family room -- no surprise there. I'm somewhat tempted to smash through the window to see what else they have. At the very least, I could grab some food in the kitchen. This feels so wrong though. I'm no burglar and I'm not about to steal anything. The nursing home seemed different to me because I was in a panic-stricken frame of mind when I did it. We all make bad decisions in times of weakness, and that was a rock-bottom part of the day for me. Now that I've gained some composure, I decide I'm not going to mess with this house and move onto the house across the street.

I can already tell this house has all of their window blinds closed.

"Bastards," I say to myself.

I pound on the door anyway, and images flash in my head of the door opening and a woman inviting me in for dinner and tea. In reality, I knock on the door for a good three minutes and get no answer.

It only takes those two houses to convince me this is a waste of time. I'm glad I did it though, because if I didn't I know I would have wanted to come back. I'm even more confident nobody is here.

I drive off making sure to make my way through a few more streets to see if I can find any signs of life but I see nothing. I roll down my windows just to see if I can hear dogs, cats, or even birds. Why aren't there birds chirping? I make a note to listen for this when I get back home.

When I get to Main Street, I pull over and try to think of anything else I should do while I'm here. Is there anything else I should do or observe before heading home? Any souvenirs to bring back? I still have shards of glass window lodged in my leg, and decide that's souvenir enough.

I can't think of anything else to do so I start making my way back home. My empty and quiet home.

Chapter 6

Experiencing what has easily been the most bizarre day of my life, I can't wait to get home, have some dinner, and wake up forgetting this day ever happened.

As I turn left onto the main road that leads to the highway, I still look both ways for oncoming traffic. I wonder how long it will take before I'm convinced I won't see anyone around this area in the foreseeable future. I think back to that cat and how strange it was that I only saw one freakin' cat all day. That was the only living, breathing thing that met my eyes. No people, no birds, no dogs, no ants, no Loch Ness monsters, just one stray black cat searching for its next meal.

Perhaps the cat had some kind of magical powers. Maybe it was a secret wizard cat that could turn into a human at any moment. If that were true that would mean I must have special powers too, but I know that's not true. I'm just your normal, average person

It's not that I'm unhappy; I have a good life and I'm grateful for what I have. I'm so blessed to be married to someone like Abby who I really don't deserve. I have no idea why she picked me when there are so many better guys out there.

That's why the situation I'm in seems so strange. Why ordinary me alone here? Not me and a handful of other people; just one single human being and a cat alone in this little speck of Earth. Did I lose the memo saying you're supposed to disappear out of site today? The only thing I do know for sure is I want this day to be over.

I look at the speedometer and see my new standard eighty-five miles per hour. I would put it on cruise control but my Cavalier doesn't even have that. In fact, I still have to manually roll my window up or down which embarrasses Abby every time she's in the car with me.

I breeze past the little town I stopped in earlier. I think going there first reduced some of the shock I would have experienced if I had gone straight to Chesterfield. Granted, I still freaked out and kicked a nursing home window in, but at least I didn't blow up the building in rage.

I look down at my gas gauge, "Shit!" My emergency light is on. Having experienced this several times before, I know this means I can still go about 25 miles before I run completely out of gas. Unfortunately I still have about thirty or thirty-five miles to go. How on Earth did this happen? I remember figuring in that I would be able to go down and back, and still have time for some sightseeing. Then it hits me -- it's something I remember reading about on the government's fuel economy website. For every five miles per hour you go over fifty-five, your car's gas mileage goes down. I can't remember the exact numbers, but I do recall it was a pretty noticeable mileage difference between fifty-five and seventy miles per hour. I can't imagine how poor the gas mileage I got was while going ninety-five freakin' miles per hour!

This is the last thing I need, my shitty situation getting ever worse. Immediately, I take the car down to fifty-five miles per hour. Doing this feels unintuitive, as I want to drive fast and get back as soon as possible. If all the government's testing says fifty-five miles per hour is the most efficient though, that's how fast I'm going to go. Of course, they could just be making up those statistics so people will drive slower. I've learned not to believe everything I hear.

If there were a semi-truck on the road, I would be coasting behind it right now. I've heard you can save ten to forty percent on gas mileage that way. Exactly what I need to get me all the way home. This is all wasted thought though because there are no semis or even other cars on the road. It's just my little Cavalier coasting along on an empty road.

I have no clue what I'll do if I run out of gas. If this was any other day, I could just call AAA Road Side Assistance. They know me on an almost first-name basis. During high school especially it was the most valuable gift I received each year for Christmas.

The realization of how screwed I am takes its toll. I reach for my cell phone to see if by some miracle the service is back up, but I get even more anxious when I realize my battery died. Abby hates it when I drive without my cell phone and I'm not a huge fan of it either. You never know when something is going to happen. Even though I haven't had service and still haven't seen anyone today, I wish I still had my cell phone working. The moment the service is back up, I had planned on calling everyone I know until someone picked up. And if nobody did answer, I would start calling random numbers until someone told me what was going on. The thought of tossing my worthless phone out the window crosses my mind but I calm myself down enough so I don't do something I'll regret. This phone could come in handy later.

Adding to my concerns is the realization that I can't just pull over to the side of the highway and hope someone drives by to help. I've never hitchhiked before, but if there were ever a time to join the club it would be now. Even if I didn't hitchhike I could at least beg for gas or have them drive me to the nearest gas station. Not like that would matter when the gas stations aren't working. I'm screwed if I run out of gas; there's no other way to put it.

I begin doing the calculations in my head -- if I'm ten miles short of my house when I run out, and I walk at a two-miles-per-hour pace, which I think I recall reading is a pretty average pace, that's five hours of walking. That is less than splendid news considering I can't remember the last time I walked one mile. It's starting to feel like the beginning of a horror movie, a genre I'm not too fond of. Paying to see something that makes me uncomfortable and anxious never made much sense to me. If I do get stuck having to walk home, at least I'll have a few hours of daylight for the journey. I'm trying to think of any positives I can at this point.

I look over at the exit sign and see I now have fifteen miles left to go. "Come on, Chevy! Take me home." This car and I have battled through many snowstorms and other adventures, always getting me to where I need to go. It's become a sense of pride for me.

Looking down at my speedometer it still says I'm going fifty-five, which feels unbearably slow. I have to fight the urge to floor it and make a mad dash to get home. Each mile feels like it takes forever and I make a promise to myself to never get in this situation again.