Sunset: Survivors

Chad Grable Wichita, KS October 5th, 1991

I knew this was going to happen. Well, not this exactly but I knew something was going to happen. They all laughed at me and told me to move to Montana with those militia people. Who’s laughing now? Those fucking militia guys are probably running the state up there. They were prepared. They knew something like this was going to happen. So did I. I could have been more prepared but it’s not like I was totally unprepared. I have a gun. No one knew I had a gun but I do. I was afraid to tell anyone. I figured they would rat me out to my parents or someone.

It happened two days ago when I was walking home from work. Since graduating from high school two years ago, I have worked at Movie Time, the local movie rental store. It’s a cool job when the jackass manager isn’t yelling at me to get to work. I get to watch the newest movies before anyone else in town and they are free for employees to rent. I also don’t have to do very much. Put tapes away and run the cash register.

Anyways, I was walking home from work like I do every day. I’ve been trying to save up for a car but my dad says I’ll never be able to afford a car working at Movie Time. He says I better get my act together soon or he is going to kick me out on my ass. Fuck you very much, dad. My mom wants me to either go back to school or get a better job. She says I am wasting my life working there and hanging out with losers. The bitch is half right. I do hang out with a bunch of losers. Randy is my closest friend but he thinks he’s so much smarter than everyone else. Sometimes I would talk about the end of the world and what it would be like when the government no longer ruled our lives with their taxes and laws. He would laugh at me and call me a dumb ass. “You wouldn’t last two minutes without the government telling you what to do.”, he’d say. Well, I’ve lasted almost 3 days so far. You’re the dead dumbass.

It was about 5:15 in the afternoon when I first noticed something was wrong. As I walked home I thought I heard some yelling from behind me. I turned to look and noticed that there was smoke coming from the parking lot of the grocery store across the street from where I work. I couldn’t hear what the people were screaming about. I figured it was a traffic accident or something. I kept walking home. A few minutes later, I heard a loud crash and an explosion came from a couple blocks over. There is a gas station over there. Someone must have run into the gas tanks or something. Man, what the hell is going on?

When I got home the house was dark and empty. I called out that I was home but no one answered. Usually my mom beats me home. She works at the bank on the other side of town but she gets off at 4:30. Usually she is sitting at the kitchen table when I walk in. She then welcomes me home with some advice about my hair or my job or my life. No advice today. (Or ever.)

I went upstairs and got in the shower. I had plans to hang out with my girlfriend Sheila that night. We planned on hanging out at the bowling alley or something. She’s not that good looking but at least she puts out. I showered and changed into some jeans and a Bart Simpson “Don’t have a cow, man” t-shirt. When I went downstairs no one had gotten home. I went out the back door and cut through the alley to head to Sheila’s house. I could still smell smoke.

Sheila has been my girlfriend for about six months. We get along pretty good when she’s not being a pain in my ass. I would have dumped her a long time ago but I have come to the realization that fucking her is better than jacking off.

Sheila lives about three blocks away from my house so it is only about a ten minute walk. Thinking back on it now, it was odd to have not seen anyone on the walk over. But when you’re twenty years old and have nothing on your mind but getting drunk and getting laid, not much else matters.

When I got to Sheila’s house I knocked for five minutes but no one answered the door. The neighborhood was really quiet. As I stood there I realized that I hadn’t seen anyone since I left the movie store. What’s going on? I stood on Sheila’s lawn and looked up and down the street. It was like being in a dream. There was no noise except for the wind swaying the trees. Not a person in sight. At first I started getting pissed off thinking Sheila had stood me up. The little guy in my head was whispering something else though. I couldn’t make out what he was saying and I don’t think I wanted to. I wasn’t ready to admit that there was anything seriously wrong yet.

I decided to head over to the gas station to see what the explosion was about. I got about half way there when I noticed an old man laying in his yard. It looked like he had been gardening. He was laying face down in the flowers he had been tending to. It looked like he had been planting a new row of roses along the walk that led up to his house. I ran over and yelled at him to see if he was all right. The old fart didn’t move. I shook him by the shoulder and he still didn’t move. I felt his wrist like they do in the movies to see if he had a pulse. Nothing. He must have had a heart attack or something. Sucks for him.

I kept moving toward the gas station. I had to find someone. I figured I would talk to a cop or a fireman and let them know about the old man. As I came around the corner to the main street at the end of my neighborhood, I could see the flames from the gas station two blocks away still burning out of control. They flames had to be at least fifty feet high. The smoke it was giving off was as black as severe storm clouds. It was rolling into the sky like a never ending waterfall but in reverse. There were no fire engines or police cars around either. There was no one around at all. All I could see was a mess of cars here and there. No one was moving. No one was doing anything. As I walked up the street, I looked into the cars as I passed. I didn’t need to feel their wrists. They were dead. Everyone was dead. Some had blood coming from their eyes. Others had it running from their nose or mouth. A girl about my age was slumped over toward the driver side window with her hand hanging out of the car. She appeared to have been driving when she died. Her car smashed into a light pole and her head must have smashed against the steering wheel. She had an upside down U shaped dent on her forehead. It was almost like she had a bruise unibrow.

I thought I was going to be sick. It was like walking through some kind of weird graveyard where people were buried above ground in their cars. Almost all of them had their eyes open and most of them looked terrified.

The heat became unbearable as I drew near the gas station. The orange flames continued to churn upward toward the darkening sky. A van that takes the retards to and from school had run into the gas pumps. It was on fire and so was everything else around it. I couldn’t get any closer if I wanted to. My face burned when I looked directly at the flames as if I had my head in an oven. There was nothing I could do anyway. There was no one to save. Everyone was gone.

After that I went home. It was starting to get dark and I didn’t want to be outside when it did. I was scared shitless. I did my best not to look at the bodies as I passed them but I couldn’t help myself. I was afraid they were going to move or I would turn around and find a group of them quietly following me.

When I got home I tried the T.V. but all I got was snow. The phones didn’t work either. I sat on the couch in my dark and cold living room and waited. For what I don’t know. No one came home. They must all be dead.

That was 2 days ago. I have eaten almost all the food in the house. Most of the food went bad before I could eat it so I was forced to eat canned meals. Cold canned soup isn’t so bad. Canned vegetables make me want to puke but I can’t afford to be very picky at this point. The lunch meat and milk went bad almost immediately. The refrigerator smells horrible every time I open the door so I try not to. I need to go out for supplies but I am scared. I should have been more prepared.