Alone
This story is the start of a new series between J Gordon Curtis and Walker Creates Photography wherein Walker Creates is providing a photo that J Gordon Curtis is using as a prompt for a short story. This week’s photo and short story can be found below:
Pungent smells of food long rotten penetrates the bandanna that Rolan has over his mouth and nose. He is holding a shotgun that has a dark metal barrel and camouflage stock. Attached is a light leather strap sagging toward the ground as he holds the barrel forward like a flashlight to guide the way.
Even he knows that it’s borderline comical to be armed.
According to the timeline he keeps repeating to himself out loud, it has been three years, four months, and twenty days since he last laid eyes on anything with breath in its lungs. While he knew that it was unlikely that he’d come across anything that meant him harm, it’s worth noting that it has happened before. Now he keeps that mantra going alongside his breathing so he doesn’t fall out of vigilance.
A leaf gives up its skeleton as Rolan crushes it while patrolling the outside of the grocery store, yelping and whooping all the way. In between exasperated yelling, guiding his ears this way and that, listening for the sounds of anything scampering away. The idea of it drawing somebody or something toward him never really occurred to him anymore.
It (the leaf) is the first of many yet to come. Slowly but surely the weather has diligently been descending over the past few weeks. Autumn nears. It will be even less likely to find anything now. Rolan see’s an image in his head from before everything fell apart. A family. Not his but he can’t figure out whose or why he’s remembering it now.
Doctors weren’t able to decipher what was happening before it was already done. By the time any animal had its first nosebleed (universally accepted as the most common initial symptom,) they were already out the metaphorical door. After that it was swift and mostly painless for those experiencing it. Of course, it was pure agony for Rolan who, for reasons he was never able to understand, never contracted the disease.
A doctor reached out to him and expressed relief at the hope that somebody could be immune. He had seen the video. The one with Rolan on the news giving mouth-to-mouth to one of the first casualties of the disease before the world realized how dangerous and contagious it was. He asked Rolan to come in at once for a blood sample and Rolan provided verbal consent that he would be there expeditiously.
In the one hour it took for Rolan to get dressed, walk to his car, and reach the lab, the doctor that had contacted him had already passed. Moreover, all of his staff either had done the same or were dabbing the specs of blood away from their upper lips. He asked a woman on the ground what had happened to them.
She didn’t respond though. Eyes glazed and focused apparently two inches above wherever Rolan’s head was. He moved to the side and her eyes followed that spot just above his head. Fear was on her face. She moved her lips as if to make a word with them but, instead, coughed up a little blood on her shirt and died.
Rolan was beside himself. Sitting down next to the body, he noticed she was holding a photograph, he began to cry. This was the moment when he first realized that there would be no coming back from this. He knew that this was the end.
Reaching over, he grabbed the photograph. It was the woman with three kids. She was beautiful in the photo with a radiant smile that was photocopied by all of the kids. After taking a deep breath and rising to his feet, he crumpled up the photograph and dropped it on the poor woman’s body.
Stumbling back to his car, reality couldn’t seem to keep up with him. He lost himself in his reflection on the driver-side window.
Rolan can still taste the pollution — now long gone — in the air from that day.
He remembers that he was wearing his favorite jeans. The ones that were overly broken in and looked terrible but not bad enough yet for his wife to have objected too much. The shirt was red and had a front pocket and a v-neck design. It barely covered his stomach. He was overweight at the time.
He places his hand on his stomach and feels that life again. Before he had to work so hard to never fall out of shape again.
He had made that decision after he ran across somebody two years after he thought humanity had vanished. What was that guy’s name again? He cannot recall despite the fear that was placed into that date by him. Afterwards, he vowed to never skip working out for more than two days again.
It’s weird for him to think about being emotional that day. He feels like it was a different person entirely. He hasn’t felt anything in years.
Currently standing in front of a grocery store that he has already broken into and looted once, he seems lost in his own reflection on the non-functioning sliding glass door, mouthing along “Three years, four months, twenty days.” Then, he says it out loud. An invitation accepted as his body rejoins him from another universe. A slight nod of his head and a clicking noise as he turns on the flashlight and steps inside.
Glass crunches and pops underneath his foot from when he was there last.
Step one, he sweeps the place.
Not seeing anybody yet doesn’t mean nobody is here. He begins to position himself in front of and then quickly turns inward toward aisle after aisle before deciding to give the place his “stamp of approval.” Such approval is evidenced by the positioning of his rifle on his back utilizing the light-leather strap he found with it.
Step two, baking aisle.
Baking mixes hold up well enough to cook on the propane grill that was located at the house he moved into last month. A warm brownie is no steak but it will do in a pinch. Sometimes Rolan will set it on a plate, light some candles, pour a dark red wine (say a Tempranillo or a Chianti,) and cut into the brownie as though it is a slab of meat. Or chicken parmigiana. Or spaghetti with meatballs (obviously harder, imagination-wise.)
Step three, canned goods.
Rolan has thought fondly on the topic of death and not having to eat canned garbanzo beans again. There’s nothing canned that Rolan enjoys anymore. Occasionally he will feel excited to open a can of pineapple slices or “Bean-n-Dogs.” Those times were few and far between, though, and he mostly made his thrice-daily decision on food based solely on what made him the least sad to think about.
There’s a noise outside that Rolan is almost certain to be a tree rustling alongside the building but he decides it is better to check. Walking outside, he keeps his shotgun on his back until he notices a piece of debris stuck in the windshield wiper of his truck. Positioning his gun forward, he begins to walk over to the truck and pulls the note out of the wiper. It reads:
I hope so much to get to meet you but I hope you’ll understand if I ask you to place your shotgun on the ground beforehand. I mean you no harm and I’m sure you mean me none either. :)
-Kels
Forcing an expression of excitement, Rolan gently reaches down and places his gun on the ground in front of him. “I’d love to meet you, Kels” he says (and means, truly.)
Stepping forward from the bushes is Kels. She’s gorgeous with dark complexion, black eyes, and curly, well-kept hair that was pinned back along the sides. As she walked near him, Rolan noticed a bright smile and a pleasant scent. Lavender?
“Are there others?” He manages to say (he knew the answer.)
“Just me, I’m afraid. I haven’t seen another person in eight years.”
Why isn’t she telling me the truth? “Just about the same for me as well,” he lied. “I can’t believe that I’m looking at another human right now.” Then, twisting his mouth into a smile, he walks up to hug and admire her.
The day after the doctors died, Rolan quit his job — or, rather, he ceased going into his job — so he could die at home with his family. He figured that it was unlikely that he would NEVER get it since there were no reports of any survivors or immunities. Maybe he just got lucky before. Or, maybe it was, like, divine intervention.
When his wife, Cheryl, first had the specs of red coming out of her nose, Rolan took his index finger, wiped it off from her lip, and plunged his finger into his mouth. If she was going, he would go with her. He felt proud of himself for stepping up like that. Cheryl was mostly unphased thanks to the drugs that the government had sent out to help everyone deal with their impending death.
She had literally squealed the day they arrived at the house, three weeks prior, and had made seldom a noise ever since. They arrived in a powder blue box with gold lettering. Rolan remembers thinking that this must have been a conscious marketing effort. They couldn’t have just incidentally picked such calming colors.
“You won’t be needing yours,” Cheryl said with a grin on her face. “I’ll just take both of ours.”
Rolan contemplated if she had been desiring them for years prior to the current extinction they were facing. He tried talking to her and asking her about it but was never able to catch her again before the pills took her away. She had made it a point to wake up before he did.
After her nosebleed, he walked her to the bed, pulled back the covers, and placed her body in them. Walking around the bed, he pulled back the other side of the covers and got in with her. She turned her back to him and he turned over and spooned her as she passed away. Rolan, all the while, waiting for his own destruction.
Rolan and Kels pull into the driveway of one of the McMansions in the neighborhood that he had taken over most recently. Walking to the backyard with firewood, Rolan builds a fire and invites Kels to have a seat and she begins sharing her story.
She had also been married, though, not happily as Rolan believed he was. Her husband was abusive. Her children were their only link to stay together. She stated that her kids were “terrible” because of how poorly she got along with their father.
“Heaven forgive me,” she says and the pauses for a long time “I’m free.” A tear falls down her face and an apology spills out of her lungs. “Seeing another human. I’m just-”
“-I get it,” Rolan interjects. He gives her a gentle smile. “This has been an extremely exhausting day. How about we find another house for you to stay in for the night and continue this tomorrow?”
“I could just stay at your place,” she hinted.
Rolan wouldn’t have that though. He lied and told her it had something to do with “not moving too fast.” Immediately after saying that he began worrying she would call him on the bluff. What does moving too fast even mean in a post-human world?
“I must admit,” he began probing “I am a little bit disappointed to find that there aren’t more survivors with you. I guess I always hoped that, when I found another person, they’d be with a group of people.”
“Well, if I’m being honest…” She took a breath like she was re-emerging from spending several minutes underwater. “I wanted to make sure you were safe before telling you this so I hope that it doesn’t offend you that I lied.”
I knew it, thought Rolan. The lavender.
“Three months, five days — ” then, looking down at his watch “fifteen hours.” There was no countdown before this one. Before this countdown, days merged and danced with one another. Liquor and a stash of some particularly dank weed that he had located in one of his first empty mansions washed over them.
Unbeknownst to him, it had been two years between the death of his wife and when he met Damien: the one that would awaken the need for him to remain vigilant and present. Three months later, Rolan couldn’t close his eyes without seeing his face. His apparition hung heavy over Rolan’s life. This was to be expected. He talked to Damien regularly in those days.
Sure, at first Damien tried to guilt Rolan about what he did but Rolan refused to be bothered. The countdown was on day two when Damien first rose from the grave. Rolan maintained his straight face and let on no emotions one way or the other towards seeing somebody that he had two days prior killed, cooked, and eaten.
“Why’d you do it?” The spirit begged of him.
“Come on, you had it coming.”
“How do you possibly think that I had this coming?”
“You were alive, right?”
“Yes?”
“Well, Damian, look around you.” He gestured with his hand outward. “Life is over. I’m not even really alive anymore. Nobody is.”
“What about, like, human contact? Why would you kill somebody knowing they could be the only chance you have at keeping company?”
“You’re taking this too personally. First off, company is overrated. I’ve had company before. I had a wife. Before that, a roommate. I had a job and friends and relatives. I was miserable. Things are better now that I’m alone. In fact, you want to know something really fucked up?”
A nod.
“I’m proud that I killed you. Humanity should end. We inflicted so much pain on the earth that she had to wipe us out to save herself. You remember the pollution, the collusion, the corrosion that ran rampant within our societies. Not one of us was redeemable. I kill so that I can try and feel like I have redeemed. So I can die peacefully, knowing I did my part to ensure that I carry on the work that the Earth has started.”
It is worth noting Rolan believed at the time (and still today) that this was a virus that had been frozen in one of the glaciers and unleashed on us from global warming. He wasn’t really right about that.
“Why don’t you kill yourself then if humanity is so bad?”
A chuckle. “I wondered the same for a long time. I drank away however long it had been before you.” Rolan raised a finger upward towards where he believed the voices were coming from. “Now for the second point, and I think this one is really going to throw you for a loop.”
An exasperated throwing of the arms outward before moving his open hand outward as if to say “after you.”
“You’re still here. I still have your company, even though I don’t want it.”
“You know it’s not real though, right?”
Another shrug. “Real enough.”
Rolan thought for a while that Damien would never leave him. The two of them became quite close. Rolan’s version of Damien forgave him for what he did. He even made jokes about it sometimes. He’d come in, flailing his arms and clowning his voice whenever Rolan was feeling down and ask him “what’s eating the man who ate me?” Rolan would snort from laughing every time.
Turns out, Damian only lasted until the next one. After that, the ghosts didn’t follow Rolan anymore.
The next morning, Rolan wakes up and walks over to the home that Kels slept in. He knocks on the door and hears footsteps lightly thudding down the stairs. Swinging the doors open, Rolan notices a smile immediately. “Are you ready?”
“Can’t wait. Are you packed?”
“Sure am.” She pulls out a slip of paper. “Here’s the way there.”
Rolan’s stomach drops. It’s a map. An honest-to-god map. There’s a circle or a dot or a star or something that will lead him directly to the community of 20 that Kels had promised. This time, his smile is real.
“I think I saw some trek poles in your house yesterday, can I come in?”
“I don’t really even think of this as my home. Come right in.”
Walking into the house, Rolan smelled the pleasant odor of Kels’ perfume. It mingled and danced a bit with the decaying smells of the house. Water seeping through the pipes, family members dead in the home for a few months before being spotted. There’s only so much that bleach and a candle can do. The perfume helps though.
Kels walks over to her bag and bends down to inspect the contents of it. Rolan sees the opportunity and slowly unsheathes his pistol from his waistband. There is no expression on his face but he manages to utter the word “sorry.”
Upon hearing the noise, Kels turns her head rapidly so that her forehead is pressed up against the pistol. There is a faint gasp and then a bang. Rolan remains expressionless. Why’d I say sorry? I’ve never done that before.
Kels lay on the floor, Rolan walks up, puzzled, with his head cocked to the side. He goes through her bag and finds the map. It’s even more detailed than he had hoped. Feeling something metallic, he pulls out a pistol and tosses it to the side. The armory down the street will have better. He’s going to have to have something much stronger than a pistol. “It’s not personal,” he exclaims loudly at her.
“I’m sure,” he thinks he hears her reply.
Taking out a large knife, Rolan cuts a chunk of flesh off of her for the road. Electing for the flank, he cuts from the top of her thigh twice downward for three inches. Removing the knife, he reinserts it horizontal on the top and bottom of the marks previously created, connecting the parallel lines located 3–4 inches apart. He wraps the chunk of meat in a cloth and carefully stores it in his bag.
Stepping over Kels, he opens the door and embraces the warmth and sunlight that he knows will be over soon.
0 days, 0 hours, 30 minutes he thinks to himself. Consulting the map and his compass, he faces west and begins walking.
