Paul Jones - Extinction Point - The End

She sat facing the window of her apartment, sipping the remainder of the Bud Light while she stared out at her little slice of the city, watching dusk slowly descend over the buildings. Emily had never experienced such a profound silence before, both outside the apartment and within her heart.

Who knew such absolute stillness existed.

The streets were free of cars and people, the sky, usually buzzing with aircraft and birds, was vacant and clear. It was quite beautiful. A light brown haze of smog still swirled high above the rooftops, the only reminder of the millions of lives that had traversed the streets and alleys below, just hours before.

As dusk gradually edged toward night, she watched the streetlights begin to flicker silently on, casting long shadows that stretched and grew before being swallowed up in the descending darkness.

The silence quickly became intolerable, and Emily abandoned her spot at the window for the couch instead. She switched on the TV, more for the comfort gained from filling the room with any sound other than her own breathing. She felt as though her head had been stuffed full of cotton balls. It wasn’t a bad feeling, not really, kind of like a shot of Novocain for her spirit, buffering her against the pain of the reality of her situation.

On the TV screen the image of the dead news presenter stared back at her, his eyes as black and blank as she was sure hers were. She returned his stare for several minutes, then switched off the TV and dragged her sorry excuse for a body to the bedroom.

As she passed through the kitchen, Emily glimpsed the blood stained pool where Nathan’s body had lain and the splatter on the counter. She was just too tired to take care of it right now; it would have to wait until the morning. She trudged into her bedroom and collapsed on top of the comforter.

Within minutes, she was asleep. Mercifully, she did not dream.

Emily woke an hour before dawn and watched the birth of the day from the same window she had watched its death, this time with a cup of black coffee in her hand instead of a beer.

Her body still complained at her for the abuse she had put it through the previous evening but it wasn’t so bad this morning, just the dull ache of stretched muscles unused to having to work. Her head still ached though. She wasn’t sure whether that was the stress of the previous day’s events, the fire alarm induced migraine, the beer or, more likely, a combination of all of them. She still had the strange head full of cotton balls feeling, there just wasn’t so much of it this morning.

Her eyes had opened right on time for her to get up and get ready for work. She felt a subtle sense of relief as the vague memory of what was surely just a terrible nightmare fluttered from the dark cave of her unconscious mind. But as those first few groggy seconds between sleep and full wakefulness fell away it erased the cobwebs shrouding her mind and the previous day’s events cleared into terrifyingly sharp focus.

Reality had chased Emily from her bed and she had all but run to the living room window. Just in case , she had told herself. Just in case it was all a dream . As she passed by the kitchen, she glanced down at where, in her nightmare, Nathan’s body had lain and where the bloodstain should be… it wasn’t there. It was gone. Not a trace left.

Just a dream, she thought and raced on to her roost at the window. Throwing back the drapes, she pressed herself against the cold glass and stared out at the still empty streets and sky.

Emily stood at the window, watching what should have been, even at this early an hour, a bustling city filled with office workers, joggers, dog walkers and everything that made New York the only place in the world she would ever want to live. She glanced back over her shoulder at the kitchen and the spot where the bloodstain should be, the blood was definitely gone. Not a trace remained. Was it possible she had dreamed Nathan’s death, maybe even his visit, all together?

That just wasn’t a possibility. His police issue bomber-jacket lay on the sofa where she had left it yesterday, his cap sat on the kitchen table. He had been here. He had died here. But that didn’t explain why his blood had disappeared from the floor.

Emily examined the floor and the walls in the kitchen where she thought the bloodstain had been. There was no trace. It was as though it had never existed, as though not a drop was spilled.

She was sure she hadn’t cleaned it up, but, maybe in her stress induced fugue state, she had left her bed in the middle of the night and removed it. Possible? After what had happened yesterday, she supposed anything was possible. Was it likely? She didn’t think so. It certainly hadn’t cleaned itself up and she was a little old to believe the elves had done the job for her during the night.

Coffee, that was what she needed.

She opened the cover on the coffee maker, pulled out the old filter and tossed it in the trash then replaced it with a fresh one. She spooned in a couple of scoops of ground beans, and filled the carafe with enough water to give her four cups of coffee—she was going to need at least three to get her going— and emptied the water into the reservoir. A few minutes after flipping the machine’s ‘on’ switch, the smell of fresh brewed coffee began wafting enticingly around the apartment. Emily filled a mug with the steaming coffee before the machine had dripped even half of its precious liquid into the carafe. She walked to her perch at the window, sipping the delightfully strong brew.

Outside the window, the dawn sky was a fiery red above the city’s rooftops. With each passing minute morning sunlight pushed back the shadows that had claimed the streets, but there was little consolation for Emily. The streets were still empty.

With caffeine finally beginning to flow through her veins, Emily began to feel the last of the cobwebs clear from her foggy brain. She needed a plan, she decided; some kind of strategy for figuring how to get in touch with authorities and let them know she was alive. There had to be other survivors out there, it was just a case of finding them or leaving enough clues to help them find her.

She walked back to the kitchen and placed the coffee cup down on the counter, found her backpack nearby and pulled a steno-pad and pen from within. For the next hour Emily worked on compiling a comprehensive ‘to do’ list. Telephone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, social media sites; anything she could think of that would help her reach out and locate other survivors. She would need to stick to a strict timetable of calling the numbers on the steno pad every few hours. She could use the time in-between to check news-portals and social-media websites. If she stuck to that plan it would only be a matter of time until she found somebody who could help her, she was sure.

There was no way to tell how long it would take for the cavalry to come riding over the horizon, so she’d need to find some supplies to get her through the next couple of days. She toyed with the idea of checking out some of the apartments on other floors but she thought the chances were high she would only have the same result as she had on her own floor yesterday. Empty, locked apartments with nothing but the dead inside. If there was anyone alive in the building, the fire alarm would have surely brought all but a deaf person running.

She wished she had been clearheaded enough yesterday to grab what supplies she could from the dead family’s apartment. That was not an option now as she had clearly heard the door lock behind her when she closed it after dropping off Nathan’s body. She was going to have to take a trip outside and grab what provisions she could. It would waste time she would rather spend running through her contact list, but it should only take a half-hour or so, if she was fast. Besides, she could use some sunshine. That would have to be later though. Right now she needed to make a few calls.