Disappearance (7 page)

"Ha, you little piece of shit. Missed me again didn't you?"

I suppose I've hit rock bottom, talking trash to a dog by myself with nobody around. Outrunning this little monster twice now though is cause for a little gloating.

My happiness is short-lived because I realize for the rest of the day I'm stuck here. There's two or three hours of daylight left and I'm sure Cujo has no intentions of leaving any time soon. My house is only a few blocks away; if I sprinted it would take about five minutes. If Cujo is around and sinks his teeth in me, I might not make it back alive. Even though I have a shovel to protect me now, it still might not be a match for Cujo. This dog is mean; a shovel to the head might not even faze him. My best and only option now is to wait it out and hope he's gone in the morning. Then I can make the sprint to my house and pray to God he's moved on to better things.

That still leaves me here in this empty yard though. I make my way up the patio steps, and approach the back door. Please be unlocked. Please be unlocked! I turn the doorknob, "Damn!" it's locked. Well this is just great. What am I supposed to do now? Camp in the backyard all night? I'm not one to have any problems sleeping, but if it involves sleeping outside I'd at least like to have a tent to keep the bugs out.

I step down from the patio and see there's one bedroom window. I could take the shovel and bash my way in. My conscience is sending signals this is wrong, but I'm not going to sleep out here in the middle of the yard all night. Besides, my appetite is back and I'm starving.

I go back into the shed, grab the shovel, and go over my options, making sure I'm ready to commit this felony. If I were a good little boy and tried to make it home, I'm almost guaranteed to find Cujo. That's something I want to avoid at all costs. I could camp out in the backyard tonight, starving and freezing to death. Or, the third option, I smash through this window and have myself a feast on whatever cereal they have, along with a warm bed to sleep in. The only downside to option three is a moral issue. That and if the owners make their way home and see some weirdo sleeping in their bed, they'd beat me to death with this shovel.

All things considered, I decide option three is worth the risk. With my eyes closed, I make my best baseball swing at the window and hear a loud crashing sound as the shovel successfully blasts through the window. Glass explodes everywhere, but I've managed to stay safe this time. If only I had this shovel earlier today.

Unfortunately, I've learned that glass doesn't break quite like it does in the movies - shattering into a million tiny little pieces. Instead it breaks into much larger pieces, which are incredibly sharp and painful. My home-run swing has broken through a lot of the glass, but I still have to spend a few minutes jabbing through the rest in order to get through the window. Why didn't the shed have a nice pair of work gloves?

Once I've broken through all the glass, I make my way through the window and try my best to avoid another incident. As luck would have it, I make my way in unscathed. My first breaking and entering is off to a roaring success!

As I predicted, this is indeed a bedroom, although it doesn't look like the master. Most of the houses in this neighborhood are two-stories, where the master bedroom is upstairs.

I begin exploring the rest of the bottom floor, which is very tidy and clean. The family room has a big screen TV with a nice, long leather couch surrounding it. My favorite room in the house, the kitchen, is right behind it. The two rooms have a very open feel that all housewives love, being able to cook and watch their husbands watch Monday Night Football at the same time.

When I go to the pantry, I'm delighted by the plethora of cereal options. They've even splurged on the name-brand cereal, something I usually don't buy because I'm cheap. I open every single cabinet until finally the last one I choose is the one with the cereal bowls. I grab the biggest one I can find and start digging in. Normally, I eat cereal with milk like every other normal person. Milk now may be a bad idea since it's been warming for almost a day now. I'm starved, so dry cereal is more than enough for my taste buds. I am, however, a bit thirsty. It occurs to me I haven't drunk any water all day. Fortunately, at the bottom of the pantry is about a half-dozen bottles of water. I waste no time opening one and chugging the entire thing. Once I finish, I'm reminded again the power is out and I go into a panic. I run over to the faucet to see if the water works. Just as I expect, it doesn't. I've learned from somewhere that a person can live for several days without food, but much less time without water. With no faucet water, I'm left with drinking only the bottled water I can find.

It's starting to get dark so I begin opening up drawers and looking for a flashlight. To my surprise I find a nice, bright flashlight in one of the kitchen drawers.

While I still have daylight left, I begin surveying the rest of the house. I can't help feeling creepy doing this. I'm in somebody else's home, without their permission, snooping around through their stuff. If they came home now I would die of humiliation. What on Earth would I say and do if they came back? I think I'd find the first door I could and take off running. I'd rather face Cujo than experience that level of embarrassment. If I told them the truth about my story they'd probably think I escaped from the nut house.

As I peek through their rooms, it looks like they have one teenage boy and a younger girl. One room is filled with heavy metal band posters on the wall and black Misfit clothes on the floor; I'll bet this kid is a troublemaker. The little girl's room couldn't be more different. It's clean, tidy, and pink from floor to ceiling with unicorn posters hanging on the wall.

I think of anything in the house I might want to take back with me. The first thing, obviously, is all of the cereal, peanut butter, and other food that doesn't need to be cooked. I look for something to put everything in and find a large suitcase in a closet. It's a little unorthodox to put food in it, but it's easy to carry and should get the job done.

Looking through the master bedroom, there's really nothing of use I can find. I have all of the clothes and other items I need at my house. Opening up the underwear drawer, it looks like mama has a few pounds to lose. These panties are large enough to cover a small child.

Dad needs to get over his obsession with plaid, flannel shirts. Seeing these redneck shirts makes me wonder if dad is packing something else - guns. I've never actually shot a gun before, but the thought of protection sounds like a good idea. After all, how hard can it really be? Insert bullet, take off the safety, and then pull the trigger and blast away. I'm not an evil person, but I would love to take on Cujo with a gun rather than a shovel.

I make a mad dash throughout the house looking for any kind of weaponry. My father wasn't a hunter, so I'm not sure where you keep this kind of stuff. I suppose with two kids it isn't something you have lying around on the kitchen table. I check under their bed but only see another flannel shirt and a pair of socks.

I revisit the closet, but no weaponry there. I check to see if they have a basement but it doesn't look like they do. I even revisit little Misfit's room but expect to find pot more than I expect to find a gun. As it turns out though I find neither, not even a pack of cigarettes. Little Misfit must be bad boy on the outside and good wholesome boy on the inside.

I don't even bother revisiting the little princess's room; I doubt she's packing heat. I do decide to visit the last place in the house I would expect to find a gun - the garage. I don't know why someone would have a gun in the garage but it's my last hope. As I'm reminded again, garages are extremely dark when there's no electricity so I get my first opportunity to use my new flashlight.

Surprisingly, there are no cars in the garage. Did they go where everyone else went? As I scope out the area, Mr. Flannel appears to have a nice tool collection and a bench to work on. He must be a handyman. The bench takes up a lot of room, enough that they most likely can only fit one car in here. Surveying the tools, I would think some of this would be of use to me but I can't think of anything that would. There's a hammer but if I were going to attack Cujo I'd rather use a shovel. There's also an assortment of wrenches and screwdrivers but I'm not working on a car or putting a toy house together anytime soon. It's hard for me to believe, but with all of this junk I can't find anything useful to take with me. No guns or weapons in the entire house. It looks like Mr. Hunter Flannel is a poser just like his son. I go back inside empty-handed.

I can't find any clock, but the sun is getting ready to set so it's probably around seven o'clock or half past. It's starting to become very dark already, and I realize it's about to become extremely boring too. I'm in an empty house all by myself, and it's about to become pitch black. Unless I feel like snooping around the house some more with my flashlight, there's nothing for me to do other than sit here with my thoughts.

As the last few minutes of daylight shine through, I decide to sleep on the sofa. Who knows what Mrs. Big Panties and Mr. Flannel like to do in their bed.

My thoughts turn to tomorrow. Will I wake up and find everything back to normal? If so, I'm definitely taking a sick day. I'm not planning on this so I work on my strategy assuming nobody will be around. I'll take the food, bottled water, gas tank, and shovel and make my way home... hoping I don't run into Cujo along the way. I have enough food and water to keep me alive for at least a few weeks, but I don't have much gas to get me very far. Where would I go anyway? I suppose I could take off and drive in one direction as far as it will take me until I find someone. With three-quarters of a tank in Abby's car and the few gallons left in my neighbor's gas tank, that should get me around three hundred miles, provided I don't drive like a maniac again. I'm sure I could find someone to help me in that distance.

I don't think about it anymore because tomorrow, when I wake up, I'm confident I'll find somebody to talk to. It's too unrealistic that everyone took off and left without me; someone must have stayed.

With these thoughts in mind, I drift my attention to Abby. I wonder where she at this exact moment. What is she doing right now? I hope she's safe, even though I'm sure she's a nervous wreck without me. I wish there was some way to tell her I'm OK, that I'm smart enough to figure this thing out and find her. All I want right now is for her to be here with me. None of this would matter if she were here.

It's moments like these, with no distractions, that you have time to think about what's really important in life. In my life, it's most certainly Abby. "I love you sweetie, and I miss you," I say out loud to myself hoping that by some miracle she can hear me.

Chapter 8

As one might expect, I tossed and turned all night. A combination of having a lot on my mind, being worried the owners might somehow come home, and sleeping in a new environment is the perfect recipe for a poor night's sleep. I lay awake for hours just thinking about how strange and crazy these past twenty-four hours have been. This type of thing just doesn't happen to a normal person like me and I can't grasp what is going on or why.

When I get up I think about how good a shower would feel. This is something I haven't even thought of yet, but unless I start using my bottled water to bathe I'm going to be a real smelly mess soon. I haven't showered since the night before last, when I thought I would be giving a big presentation. How entirely false that turned out to be.

What other things am I forgetting that could pose real problems later? With no modes of communication, I won't be able to file my taxes! It's actually comforting to know that even if everyone on Earth has disappeared, the IRS will still come after me when my taxes go unpaid in April.

For now, as long as I have food, water, and shelter, I can survive until I get this figured out or until someone comes and finds me.

Based on all of last night's thinking, I've decided to make a trip to the local department store for supplies after I make it home. The store will no doubt be locked, but fortunately I now have a shovel to use as a key to get in. I'll stock up on as much food and water as I can today, so I can leave this town first thing tomorrow.

Throughout the night, I came up with some great ideas I hadn't thought of before. First, I found a solution to the no-gas-station situation. If I pick up a gas siphon pump, I can find a car on my drive to wherever I'm going and steal the remaining gas that's left in that car. Cars have been around everywhere I go, so all I need to do is find one when I'm getting a little low. I've never actually siphoned gas before, but I can't imagine it could be hard. Insert tube into both cars, and then do some sort of pumping action until you get the gas out of the other car and into yours. I remember when stealing gas was a huge problem in my high school years. Gas prices were out of control and climbing all the way to - wait for it – three dollars a gallon! Today, people would be dancing in the streets if prices dropped that low. It's amazing how everyone thinks and acts the same way as everyone else. If other people are freaking out about three dollars a gallon for gas, they all stock up on siphons.

Second, I stock up on all the food and bottled water here before I leave. Mrs. Big Panties has loads of cereal and water but everything else needs to be cooked. I figure I should add some variety to my food choices when I get to the store. I can make peanut butter sandwiches while the bread is still fresh. I can also snack on nuts and potato chips.

Third, I figure I better pick up some protection that's better than a shovel in case I have another Cujo attack or there's a huge zombie outbreak. And speaking of zombies, I know it sounds stupid but I remember hearing about a book that was called
Zombie Survival Guide
. I think it was meant to be a joke but it gives a serious account of what you should do if there's a zombie outbreak. Since my situation is similar to that, it might have some good tips regarding food and shelter. At the very least it would give me some entertainment in a no TV or Wi-Fi connection world.