Jeffrey - 25th September

Sitting here in the dark, with the stinking wind wailing around me and that bizarre sky above me transformed into a dark and swirling vortex of colour as night rages on, the full extent of this situation begins to hit me. I found no life in the town. None at all. Not even a rat or a fly, everything is dead.

Skeletons litter the streets like strange props, and I’m hard pushed to look at them and think that just over 24 hours ago, these piles of bones were people. They’re impossibly clean, with no traces of flesh and only the barest scraps of clothes clinging to them. It was like whatever event had destroyed all life on this planet and left me behind had taken the time to strip the clothes and flesh, and bleach the bones of each and every one of these bodies.

As I passed what used to be someone’s home, I saw the skeleton of a cat sitting on a windowsill, the bones of its tail curled around its tiny porcelain paws. It seems that no creature was spared. I saw cars filled with the skeletons of families who were driving to god knows where, and will never reach their destination. The streets are deathly quiet, and they are terrifying in their normality. Nothing was destroyed except for life. There weren’t even any car crashes as people presumably died while driving. It was like everything just stopped dead.

When I had imagined the end, I didn’t see it like this. I imagined a big bang, like the one that some folks seem to think started our great and terrible world. Not this endless silence, it was like snow on the television after a fantastic movie or static on the radio after your favourite song. All of that noise, that cacophony of life and movement and then suddenly, silence. It felt like it might drive me insane.

I tried to whistle, hum, or even sing to smash the quiet into pieces but the noise and sound just scared the shit out of me. Every noise I made as I picked through the empty town, like my footsteps on the sidewalk or opening a door, sounded like a gun being fired and felt like a terrible sin. It felt like I was trespassing in this world of the dead, and I found myself tiptoeing and being as silent as I could, sometimes even holding my breath.

Sometimes the vile wind would blow litter around the streets, or bang windows and doors against their frames, and even though the noises made me jump each time, they were a comfort. They sounded oddly natural, not like the noises I made. They sounded like the sound of air escaping from a bloated corpse, which was something I had heard and even smelt plenty of times during my time in the war. These noises belonged in this world of the dead, where the only movement was the illusion of it created by the gusting wind. I felt like I was intruding with every step. That didn’t matter much though, because I didn’t think I’d be alive for much longer.

There are things, things I can’t even explain. It feels like the clock is ticking, I can almost hear it, every rolling can or slamming door sounds like a ticking to me. I can feel the hand of death moving towards me. Firstly, this damn air that seems to be everywhere. I can’t get a single mouthful of fresh air anywhere. Even when I open something that obviously hasn’t been opened since the sky fell down (I’ve taken to calling it this, ‘The End’ sounds too scary, too final) the same reeking air hits me in the face.

When I tried to climb stairs when investigating the town, I would be out of breath halfway up. Walking down the street I had to pause for breath. I’m getting on in age but I’ve never been unfit, and even though it’s been a while since I’ve ate or drank, I’ve got longer without before. Then there’s the coughing, and my lungs feel heavy and soupy, and I bet I’m not far off from hocking up a lungful of something nasty.

I might even hock up my lungs. It’s only just dawned on me that the air is probably poisonous or irradiated, and I might end up wishing that I had been turned into Skeletor before too long.
And then, there was the food and the water. This really defied all explanation and it really made me wonder what exactly I had slept through in that modest white fridge. I walked into a supermarket looking to forage for some food and water. I came across the tinned goods isle.

I’d read enough pulp fiction and watched enough Sci Fi movies and television shows in my youth to know that in any sort of apocalypse, canned food was the holy grail and your best bet for some munchin’. I lifted a tin of baked beans and pulled out my pocket penknife to cut the lid off it, and when I did I breathed deeply, waiting for that beautiful smell of tomato sauce and cold beans.

I promptly vomited all over my feet. Since I hadn’t eaten in a while this involved mostly just a bit of heaving and a lot of bile and mucus. Beautiful.

The beans were rancid, hell they were beyond rancid! I had never seen anything so badly rotten, and of course there was no maggots or flies within because they were presumably extinct now. But still, the contents of the tin basically resembled thick black, stinking sludge and the smell was worse than death. But how was that even possible? The tin was sealed. I checked the ‘best before’ date on it just out of curiosity and I swear I thought I was going nuts when I read it. It said:

“Best before: When the sky falls down!”

I came across bottled water, and the contents looked like particularly awful diarrhoea, and they all said the same thing on them. I walked on through the supermarket, past the skeletons scattered everywhere. Here was a baby still strapped into its buggy, some of its bones held in by its restraint, most of them lying in a pile on the floor. A cashier was presumably in the process of handing a customer change and its hand lay flat on the counter like a baseball glove, with a scattering of coins lying between its fingers like ancient and precious jewels that it was guarding. I fought the urge to pocket the money. Old habits die hard.

Again, more and more ridiculous sell by dates, all saying the same thing. I steered clear of the fruit and vegetable isle when I smelt the rot before I saw the thick sludge running in rivets off the shelves and onto the floor, like the creature from the swamp or something.

I looked to the roof and saw a massive notice informing the customers that if they hold a club card they can ‘BOGOF on all fresh fruit!’ I don’t think anyone would take them up on that offer now. Below it, in the small print, I could barely make out,

“While stocks last! Offer ends when the sky falls down! Terms and conditions apply.”

I hauled ass out of there as fast as I could. Even in the cupboards and fridges of people’s houses I found the same thing. When I tried to turn on a tap and drink from it (not my best idea) I got a mouthful of that sludge and I swear I’ll taste it for the rest of my life, however long or short that may be.

So that’s it, no food, no water, and not a soul left alive, not even a rat or a maggot. Being the last man alive always sounded so much more romantic and exciting in fiction. If this poisonous air doesn’t kill me, I’ll surely die of thirst or starvation. In the morning I will keep moving further afield, maybe heading towards the river a few miles from the town and see what I can find there, but I don’t fancy my chances. I can’t decide if I’d rather die from starvation or thirst, or if I’d rather succumb to poisoning. Neither choice is appealing really.

Something else has started too. That scream I heard when I awoke yesterday morning… I was hearing it again. I was hearing loads of them. They rang out in a dark chorus outside, and it was impossible to count how many there might be. They sounded very far in the distance, but not far enough to be a comfort. I hadn’t heard one all day since the first time, so maybe whatever it was only came out at night.

I prayed it was just the wind blowing or some sort of strange echo from the sky falling, but I knew I probably wouldn’t be so lucky, I hadn’t been lucky so far. I was almost certain that something that could make that noise wouldn’t be very friendly so I wasn’t going to be stupid enough to venture out in search of it. Who knew what horrors the end had left behind? Maybe it was a roaming demon seeking to claim my soul. Maybe it was death himself hunting for the last man alive. Who knew? All I knew was that I was terrified.

As I write this I am sitting on the second floor of a rather nice house, in the closet of the master bedroom. I have a small candle to write by, and though the light is comforting, I’ll put it out when I’m done. I don’t want to take the risk of it being seen, though I don’t know why. I’ll sleep in here tonight, using these coats and shirts as a makeshift bed.

I would have slept on the bed but apparently the previous occupants were either having a lie in or still asleep when the end came. It was hard to tell when it came, I didn’t have a watch and I might have woken up late in the day when the sky fell down, as in this bizarre sky I couldn’t even see the moon or the sun.

But nevertheless, I couldn’t bring myself to take those skeletons out of the bed and then sleep in it myself. It seemed like a despicable thing to do, and seemed like it might invite bad fortune or maybe the couple would haunt me for it. I didn’t need any more bad luck, and I definitely had enough ghosts and demons both in my head, and possibly outside howling in the dark.

It was time to try and sleep, I could only assume it was past midnight because it had been dark for some time and the day had felt so very long. In the town, all of the clocks and watches were blank. I don’t mean that digital ones were dead; I mean that every single type of clock had nothing on it. Even the large clock face on the church in the middle of the town had no numbers or hands on it. How that possible? How was was any of this possible?

Maybe when I wake up in a few hours’ things will be better; maybe I’ll have better luck when the sun rises again. I only pray that I can ignore that howling outside and my terrible hunger and thirst long enough to get a few hours of respite. The end of days is a shitty and lonely time to say the least.

- Jeffrey Winchester - 25th September