Dianne Salerni - The Eighth Day

In spite of the promise she’d made on the day Riley took him away, Naomi hadn’t fought for Jax very hard. The court hearing had been canceled with no explanation, and he heard from Naomi less and less frequently. Jax opened a chat box:

Jaxattax: hi naomi can we chat?

He heated some canned chili for dinner while waiting for a reply. Eventually a new message appeared.

Naomi: hi jax. been meaning to call you.

Jax threw himself into the chair and typed:

Jaxattax: do you have news for me?

Naomi: sorry it’s been hard since ted lost his job. lawyers are expensive.

Jax ran his fingers over the keyboard, trying to think of a tactful way to remind her she’d get money from his father’s estate if she won his custody from Riley.

Naomi: the case worker who met you last month reports you’re settling in and happy so i thought things were better.

Jaxattax: she said what?!?!

What Jax had told the caseworker was that Riley had forgotten to pay the electric bill and almost missed the gas bill; that he only bought as many groceries as he could carry home on his motorcycle; that he could barely take care of himself and was in no way capable of taking care of Jax. Jax had thought , from the caseworker’s thin-lipped expression, that she was ready to put Jax in her car and drive him back to Delaware herself. How had that turned into “settling in and happy”?

Jaxattax: i told her what i told u. its awful here!

Naomi: she doesnt think its a good idea to move you again so soon

Jaxattax: no it IS. asap

Naomi: honey you know i want whats best for you but i kind of agree with her

Jax swallowed hard, his fingers hovering uselessly over the keyboard.

Naomi: gotta make dinner for the kids. happy birthday jax.

Before he could respond, Naomi left the chat.

Jax slept poorly and woke up before his alarm the next morning. Flailing out an arm, he flipped the switch before the buzzer could go off and rolled out of bed without looking at the clock. He pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, glanced in a mirror long enough to run his fingers through his tangled brown hair . . . and that was good enough.

Once again, there was nothing in the house for breakfast. The refrigerator didn’t hum when Jax opened the door, and the lightbulb didn’t light. Had it finally died, or—? He reached out and flipped a switch on the wall. No lights, no electricity. Again. Heaving a sigh, Jax took cash out of the kitty and picked up his backpack. He’d have to buy a breakfast burrito from the corner convenience store before the bus came.

The morning sky was strangely pink and purple when he left the house, like it might storm. Jax ran down the sidewalk, looked both ways before crossing the intersection . . . and then stopped and looked again.

There were no cars on the road in either direction. Although this was the usual time for people to be driving to work, the street was empty, and there was only one car at the corner store, parked in the back by the Dumpster.

Was the place closed? It never closed. He pushed open the door, and the lights were on, if a bit dim, but nobody was in sight. “Hello?” Jax hollered. He helped himself to a breakfast burrito and popped it into the microwave but couldn’t get the oven to turn on. It figures. My life is a cold burrito.

He took his unheated burrito to the counter and fished two dollars out of his back pocket. “Anyone here?” he yelled. Maybe the clerk was on the toilet. As for everybody else . . .

Jax looked out the windows. There were still no cars passing by. No kids were gathered at the corner bus stop. At the Blum house, nobody was watering the precious sod. His eyes wandered up toward the bizarrely pink and purple sky.

Oh, crap.

It could be tornadoes. Had he missed a siren? Was everyone hunkered down in their basements waiting out the danger while Jax Aubrey bought a breakfast burrito in a store with walls of glass?

He flung the money and the burrito down and pelted for home. Maybe he should have run for the nearest house and begged to be let inside, but he felt a weird responsibility for the one person dumber than himself. “Riley!” he hollered, bursting in the front door. “Riley, are you up there?” He took the stairs two at a time and threw open the door to his guardian’s room, only to find the bed empty. Dude, I ran back here for you, and if you went to the cellar without me . . .

Jax pounded downstairs, grabbed his phone from his backpack, and ran outside to the wooden cellar door against the side of the house. It was heavy, and he had to hold it over his head with one hand while he clambered down the stairs. When he let go, it felt like the door missed his head by inches. “Riley, are you down here?” Jax called, trying to light up his phone screen. It wouldn’t turn on. Resigning himself to darkness, he sat on the dirt floor, faced a wall, and covered his head, just like he’d been taught in school.

He waited more than an hour, he thought. But he heard no wind. No sirens. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he climbed the cellar steps and pushed up on the door. Outside, the sky still looked weird, but it was more pink than purple. Jax heaved up the door, latched it open, and climbed into the yard. This time he really looked around.

The neighbors’ cars were parked on the street and in their driveways, just as they normally were in the evenings. Jax checked the shed at the back of their yard, where Riley kept his motorcycle, and found the Honda 350 missing. Of all the people in the neighborhood, it looked like only Riley had gone to work this morning.

Jax crossed the yard and banged on Mrs. Unger’s door. “Mrs. Unger, are you there?” He made his way around her house, peering in every window and through the kitchen door. When he backed away and looked up, he thought he saw a curtain flutter on the second floor, as if someone had just let go of it. “Mrs. Unger!” he hollered. He stared at the window, but there was no further movement and no answer, so he gave up and ran across the street to another house.

He pounded on every door up and down the block, shouting for help and growing more frantic by the minute. He looked in his neighbors’ windows shamelessly, and at every house, it was the same. There were no signs of struggle, hurried packing, or anything out of the ordinary.

But he didn’t see a single soul.

Billy Ramirez lived a block down the street, and no one answered his desperate knocking there, either. Jax knew they kept a spare key shoved up the nose of a ceramic tiki head on the back porch, and he used it to let himself in. The house was eerily silent. Calling out again and receiving no answer, Jax tried to turn on the TV, but like his phone, it wouldn’t come on. The clocks on the microwave and the DVD player displayed 12:00, as if there’d been a power failure and they’d reset—except they didn’t blink.

He almost didn’t go up to the second floor, afraid of what he might find there, but after two false starts and a long time standing by the front door with his hand on the knob, ready to chicken out, Jax heaved a deep breath and ran upstairs. He flinched every time he threw open a bedroom door, but there was nothing to see—no bloody horror scene out of a movie. The beds looked slept in, but Billy and his parents were missing.

After leaving the Ramirez house, Jax retrieved his bike and rode into the center of town. The streets were empty. The traffic lights were on, but frozen green, red, or yellow.

He thought about zombies.

He thought about alien abduction.

He thought about Spongebob Squarepants and the episode where everybody took a bus out of town to get away from Spongebob for a day.

He thought about the old movie where Will Smith and his dog were the last creatures left on earth.