Last Days

I woke up to a thunderclap. And then a second, then a third.  They cracked against the air like a whip. A gardening book with a yellow jacket lay on the ottoman (chesterfield, deep-buttoned brown). Nana liked to collect things. The jacket was torn at the corners and covered in dust. Ragged newspapers were littered on the coffee table. Some actor had died, found in his bedroom eaten by crawling things. 

The walls were caulked with religious knicknacks and oil landscapes, the blue flowery sprawl of wallpaper barely peeking out. The paintings were Inno’s. He was a local painter of some renown. In the newspapers they compared him to Levitan. They always did that, drew parallels between our painters and dead European ones. But this time they were right. I saw just how similar they were; trees like spires, bleeding hills, skies drawn darker than the mud. 

I sat up. I’d slept bare on the sofa still dressed in yesterday’s clothes, a grey shirt and dark jeans. I cranked open the jalousie windows. They were behind the sofa, facing the tail of the mountains. Light slipped in from the slats and threw black bands across the floor. The sky was empty. The sun was pale. Barely awake. It must have been around seven. No clouds. No rain. Only the rolling dark green, trees rising from the mist like gooseflesh. My breath stunk.

I had managed to hide the fact that I was drinking. There were three steel flasks and a pack of mint at the bottom of my book bag. Francis stole some from his brother and sneaked it in at school. I couldn’t pass it up. This was after I’d settled here, of course. Now I could buy a pack of cigarettes and they wouldn’t know.

At the beginning Nana shook my bags out every week while Inno stood at the back of the room with his arms crossed. Mom told them everything. They looked at me funny the first few days, like they were trying to catch me doing something awful. I didn’t mind so much. It wasn’t difficult. Nothing about it was. I wasn’t addicted, didn’t have withdrawal symptoms or anything like that. But I had been thinking about it, you know, the silky feel of it washing down my throat.

Lightning reached down like the veiny arm of God. The sound of it shot up my spine. I tried to ignore it. I was so damn hungry. I’d missed dinner yesterday, came home late. Inno was already asleep, thank God, or we would have argued for hours. I checked inside the fridge knowing there’d be nothing inside. And I was right; half-rotten cabbage leaves sat limply in the chiller, the egg rack was empty save for some randomly strewn ketchup packets.

I blew air out my nose. I’d have to go into town if I wanted to eat. Normally I’d enjoy it, but my strength was gone from me after last night. I wondered if I could even make it down without fainting. Ice melted in the freezer. The box was all watery. Only then did I realize how quiet the house was. I listened for it, and sure enough it was there; the low electric thrumming of the generator. There was a blackout.

I groaned. 

“Nana, I’m going out.” I yelled. Nobody answered. Weird. They always woke up earlier than I did. 

The living room lights were still on but the generator must have run out of battery or something because they started blinking in the hallway. I passed several guest bedrooms and finally landed on Nana’s. A cross hung from a rusty nail at the head. Underneath it was an excerpt from Jude 1:15: Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all.

I knocked on the door twice, and let myself in when nobody answered. The bed was empty and made. Barely creased. The lines their bodies left were almost gone. A buttoned up shirt, boxers, and a nightgown were folded neatly on the duvet. Clean freaks. It was a Saturday. Nana was probably bargaining at the wet market, and Inno was probably painting in his studio. Still it seemed a little early.

My toes curled at the chill of the foyer tiles. Oriental curtains billowed backwards like ballgowns. The wind whistled. I looked outside, downhill. Stray cars sat on the outskirts of town. They moved slowly. Soon they were lining up the road. From here they looked like the hard shiny shells of scarabs. Something ominous.

I grabbed my navy parka from the rack. I’d made up my mind to go into town. I took my bike from the garage and bumped my way down the hills.

The town was quiet. Wind kicked up in moody gusts on the pavement. It blew everywhere. I watched a plastic cup drag along the concrete, eventually landing in a gutter. More; dream catchers swinging from dutch doors, blinds beating against windows of coffee shops. A man staggered out of a pub, damp long hair sticking out of his beanie, shouting obscenities at nothing. The sound of feathers. A murder of crows flew low, huddled like a shadow. Now the sun was a garish red. It was getting hotter by the minute. The cars had nearly doubled in the time I drove down the mountain. Like pullulating insects. Their shadows shivered in the distance. What was the deal? A spray of dust grazed the side of my cheek. I held up the collars of my coat and strode past the glass doors of the corner store.

The bell jangled behind me. It was dim inside. Power was gone here too. I met eyes with the man at the counter. His name was Fred. Faint bristles of hair grew above the corners of his mouth. He wore an embarrassing neon Hawaiian shirt and worn cargo pants. One of his eyes was always half-closed, and he had a cartoonish noise that bent in weird places. I reckoned he was in his early twenties, but I never asked.

I picked my stuff out and slid them on the counter: a pack of mint gum, potato chips, and a plastic-covered tray of sushi.

“Hey Fred.”

“Hey yourself.” He gave a wry smile and scanned my items. “Nice breakfast.”

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch. I like your shirt.”

“Judy bought it for me. Speaking of, have you seen her?” Judy was Fred’s little sister. She was fourteen like me but had skipped a grade and was already in high school. She was smart as a whip. Freckled nose, wild green eyes. Very smiley.

“No.” I looked at the shelves of antiques above his head. The black screen of the television. “Why? She’s not home?”

“Yeah. Don’t know where she went. It’s a miracle, really. She always sleeps in on Saturdays. This morning she was gone, even folded her pajamas on the bed.”

“Huh.” I said. He didn’t know it but she’d probably run off to meet with Gary, a tenth grader who’d been hanging around her recently. “What’s with all the cars?”

“Beats me. Tourists, maybe.” He leaned forward, elbows bent on the display. “That’s eight dollars and twenty five cents. Are you kidding me, Nathan, did–”

“Shit.” I muttered, feeling my pockets. “I forgot my wallet.”

He patted my head with the sushi tray. “I knew you’d pull this on me again. I’m not paying for you this time. Put it all back.”

“I really just forgot today. Come on, Fred. Please. I’ve spent all my allowance.”

He ignored that.

“I have no idea why you still hang around Francis.” He waved his arms around. “That guy’s like a black hole. I bet you guys spent it all on that weekend party.”

That’s when the power went back on. The lights turned on, harsh and icy. A fan above the counter started whirring. I felt like I’d been splashed with cold water. Francis turned around to look at the television. The newscaster wore a purple bandage dress.

“Thank God it’s back.” He said. I sighed in relief. The buzz of the ice cream freezers was back. I realized how empty the air was before. There was noise outside, too. Car alarms went off.

Suddenly there was a girl pressed against the shop window, Her hair fell across her forehead in a diagonal, and her eyes were drawn with liner and smoky shadows. She was slick with sweat, screaming at us–telling us to get out. I noticed the streets were crawling with cars. Their black sheen glinted off the glass. People were running. Francis looked at me, his eyes wide and frenzied. He was shaking. The news girl was saying something about missing persons, and she was about to finish a sentence about a storm when Francis dragged me by my wrist out of the shop.

“HURRY UP AND RUN!” screeched the girl as soon as we were on the pavement. She grabbed the crooks of both of our elbows and I was jolted into a dash.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” I found myself in a cycle of shouting and panting. 

“Bugs like you’ve never seen.”

“What?”

“You won’t believe it until you see it, kid. Everything’s changing.” She yelled in my ear. “Say goodbye to everything; to your parents, to your friends, to this town. Nobody’s coming to save us now.”

I looked behind me. The storm was finally hear. The clouds were black, swelling and rolling toward us. It was like a scene from Inno’s paintings. They came closer. Sweat dripped on my brows. I blinked hard. I realized they were not clouds, but a plague of locusts.