Alone

“How was it?” he was anxious, though not concerned, and it seemed right to ask. After all, Tom had been gone for days, and now he had just walked in and dropped himself into one of the old wooden chairs. It creaked as he shifted his weight. He stared at the floor as though counting the grain in the boards.

Steve had been waiting in this small house on the edge of town since Saturday. He didn't even know the name of the place they were hiding in now. It was dark when they'd arrived. Really dark. They could have walked right by one of the large stone monoliths that seemed to dominate the landscape around here, and the only thing that might have given it away would have been the sudden lack of stars against the horizon. As they made their way into the town they'd found this small farmhouse, and after making sure it was empty, Tom had left him here to wait while he looked around the town. They still had plenty of food left, so Steve found a place where he could lie comfortably, and he waited like Tom asked.

With his leg, it was difficult for him to get around, so he made himself a nest with all the things he would need. He had the small brown bag that he kept his share of the food they'd collected in and the larger green pack that held his bedroll and extra clothes. Even that wasn't too heavy. When you carried your house on your back, you traveled light, or traveled slow. From time to time, they had wanted to move quickly, and had learned to view personal possessions with a penurious eye.

Closest to where he was sitting was the leather pouch which never left his side. Usually, it hung under his arm, but now it lie open on the table in front of the couch he was resting on. It's contents spread out near him.

A small bottle of oil he'd taken from a general store a few weeks ago.

A plastic bag carrying a few dozen cotton squares.

A toothbrush with dirty matted bristles.

A short wire brush.

A box of ammo.

A .45 pistol.

Before Tom had entered the house he had been careful to make sure that Steve heard him coming. They had worked out signals a long time ago, and now making sure each knew when the other was coming or going had become second nature. There wasn't much privacy in a relationship that required you to let someone know every time you went to the bathroom, every time you woke up in the night, every time you had to go out to smoke a cigarette, whenever they had cigarettes, but they had quit caring about privacy a long time ago.

So when Steve heard the knocking coming from the wall near the front door, he relaxed a little, but he still kept the pistol at hand. They had given up on assumptions long before they gave up on privacy.

Tom finally looked up from the floor. He seemed distracted. For a moment, he just stared at Steve. He wasn't bothered by the pistol, he carried his own weapons. Neither man went anywhere unarmed, ever. Pistols weren't their only weapons.

“What did you say?” he sounded almost, dejected. Or maybe lethargic.

“I asked how it was. Did you find out where we are?” From his mood, Steve could already tell that Tom hadn't found what he'd been looking for.

“More or less what we expected. There's a store a few miles away, we can get some food there. If we look around for a few days, we can probably find a few interesting supplies, but there aren't any people here.”

No people. Just like every other town they'd been too. It had been months since they'd seen anyone other than each other.

Tom and Steve hadn't known each other at all before the day they had met. Though they'd become companions in the days since, maybe even friends after a fashion, their relationship was forced from the beginning.

Steve had come home from work on a Saturday night, watched some tv, smoked a joint, and then fallen asleep on his couch. Nothing different than any other Saturday night. Or any other night.

It wasn't until the next afternoon that he realized something was wrong.

He woke up late that Sunday. He didn't care for sports, and he didn't care for Jesus, so Sundays didn't hold much of interest for him. By the time he bothered to turn the tv on, the sun was shining through the blinds that covered his front window and filling his living room with light. Instead of the usual garbage on Sunday morning cable, he didn't seem to have a signal.

It didn't concern him right away, other than the usual frustration of having to deal with his cable company. He tried calling their customer service, but no one answered, so he gave up after a while. They probably weren't even answering the phone on Sundays, he thought to himself. He decided to go out and get some lunch before coming back home to invest the rest of his day in marijuana and video games. That's when things started to seem strange. Even for a Sunday, there didn't seem to be any cars on the roads, and when he got to the restaurant it was closed.

Steve sat there in his car for a second, confused by how his day was unfolding. He craned his neck around and tried to see the stores around him.

All around, there were dark buildings. No cars seemed to be traveling on the roads, no people walking on the sidewalks. He turned on the radio but got nothing but static. He pressed the scan button and the display cascaded numbers as it moved through all the frequencies, but after it went through twice without stopping, he shut it off.

For hours, Steve drove through the empty city. At the gas station, the movie theater, the grocery store, there was nothing. He tried calling his friends, his family, the police, nothing. He tried to find a logical explanation, then he tried to wake up, and when fear began to take hold, he tried to pray.

Nothing.

That was when he saw Tom.

He approached the man standing alone in the middle of the intersection slowly. At first, he was excited just to find another person, but as he drove closer, he began to become apprehensive. He didn't know this other guy. What if this guy was the source of whatever was happening? What if this guy was dangerous?

What if this guy wasn't really there?

That was the fear that began to grip Steve. What if, in his desperate desire for this all to be a dream, he was beginning to, see, things? What if the man, standing still, in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in town, was just a figment of his imagination? Could he handle that? What if he was truly alone?

That was when the man turned towards him and began to wave his arms. Suddenly, relief washed over Steve in a cool wave, and he pulled up to the intersection and leapt from his vehicle.

Tom had a similar story to tell. He'd woken up in the morning to find his girlfriend gone from the home they shared. Thinking at first that she had run out to get breakfast, he had simply gone back to sleep. Hours later, still waiting for her to return, he got up and found his tv not working, no one answering the phone, and none of his friends online.

They spent the rest of the afternoon searching the city for anyone else. At the end of the day, neither of them were willing to go home alone, so they broke into the mall and spent the night in the furniture department of Macy's. For a time, they hoped that security would arrive and detain them, and joked about how they'd explain themselves.

But when they woke up the next day, each in their half sized display model beds, it was obvious that no one was coming. At that point they made a plan, or at least the beginnings of one.

They went to sporting goods and picked up some small arms, camping gear, and duffels. They went to clothing and got some warm weather outfits and hiking boots. In home improvements, they picked up some duct tape, rope, nails, and a tool set. In home and garden they picked up some flares and tarps. After that, they drove to the grocery store and stocked up on small canned goods and dried foods. They weren't planning to leave the city right away, but since they didn't know what had happened yet, they wanted to be sure that they were prepared to if it became necessary.

They spent the next week searching the city. They checked the schools, the stores, the government buildings. It became clear within days that the city was completely abandoned, but they were reluctant to give up. After all, they'd found each other within hours, surely they could find more within days. But after a week, they realized that there wasn't anywhere left to search, without going door to door, and they'd been driving around making as much noise as possible to try to bring people out. It was time to look elsewhere.

So they did. They drove from town to town. When they ran out of petrol and couldn't get a new vehicle, they hiked. In each town they picked up supplies. Along the way, they discarded the tool box, and the tarps, when they realized they were just weighing them down. There were animals, and trees, life went on. But there were no people. Anywhere.

Not in big towns. Not in small towns. Not in hospitals, or churches, or police stations. Each town they came to, they checked, and never found a soul. It had been months now. Months without anyone but each other for companionship. In the cities and villages they found, the electricity had long since failed with no one to work at the plants, so they relied on natural light and fuel lamps. They moved into empty homes, and drove abandoned vehicles. They never left each other for long, and they never went unarmed, even though there didn't seem to be any threats. This new world was frightening, and neither man wanted to die in it, or worse, be left alone to live in it.

But then they had seen this town below them in the valley as the sun went down, and decided to try to make it there in the night. It was dark, and Steve had fallen badly as they worked their way down the small rise. His leg wasn't broken, but it wasn't much better, so Tom had left him to recuperate while he reconnoitered the area. At first, being alone for the first time in months, really alone, was, unsettling. The silence was what seemed the most bizarre. But his leg really was injured, so there wasn't much he could do besides wait. Still, when Tom returned, he felt more at ease, as though a part of himself had gone missing, and then been found again.

And Tom hadn't found any people. They still didn't know any more than they'd known that day months ago when they found themselves in an empty world. Everywhere they went, there were homes people had lived in, cars people had driven, clothes people had worn. There were pictures of people on mantles, and videos of people in vcrs, and recordings of people on cd, but no people. They knew the world they remembered was real, because they were surrounded by its shadow. In some ways, maybe that made it worse. If there was no evidence of people, maybe they could have convinced themselves they were imagining their memories, but with the evidence everywhere, they weren't even allowed to give up their fruitless quest.

What had happened? Where had everyone gone? Was it local? Global? Disease? War? They didn't have the answers, or even most of the questions. They simply found themselves traveling endlessly in an empty world.

So it wasn't surprising that Tom sounded dejected, or lethargic. It was tiring, being the last men on earth. They couldn't even propagate the species like Adam and Eve. They were simply alone, waiting to die, so that mankind could finally be erased from the history books. Steve laughed at that thought.

“What?” asked Tom.

“I was just thinking about the tree. You know, if there's no one there to hear it?” Tom just looked at him. They may be companions, and maybe friends, but they didn't share a sense of humor. “Forget it. My leg's nearly healed. What do you want to do?”

Tom didn't seem overly excited at the prospect of doing anything just then, but there was really only one answer. The same thing they always returned to. Move on. Keep looking. Maybe find someone tomorrow. Leave messages in case someone comes behind us. Hope we're not alone.

They both knew what they wanted to do. They both knew what they would do. In some ways, perhaps that was the easiest. Not knowing what had happened, or where to go, or what to do, left them with only one option. Not knowing made their lives as predictable as candied corn.

There wasn't much conversation left in them. What do you miss? What did you like? What do you regret? After months of constant companionship, and no respite, they had already discussed all of that. They traveled, they scavenged, they looked for others, but slowly, inside, they lost hope.

Steve already knew. They would look and look and look. For months. For years. But they would never find survivors. Whatever happened had wiped the rest of humanity away like steam on a bathroom mirror. They didn't even know what common thread kept them here, or brought them together. Privately, Steve often wished he hadn't survived, or hadn't found Tom. Then he wouldn't have to continue this endless journey.

He thought of himself that way, as a survivor, as though the rest of humanity were dead and gone. They were gone at least, and if dead didn't enter into it, what difference? No, the two of them were alone, with each other, and Steve knew, as sure as he knew what tomorrow would bring, that eventually, when the conversation stopped completely, when hope disappeared, that they would be alone even in each other's company.

Completely alone. In an empty world. With one other person, who might not even be there.