Jacqueline Druga - Reset

DAY FIVE AR

A flicker of light caused John to immediately wake up and open his eyes. He shut them when he felt the pain. It was all encompassing. There wasn’t a spot on his body that didn’t hurt.

Emotionally he was crushed. Even thinking about Meredith and Grant caused a physical pain in his chest.

It had to be morning. Although he couldn’t feel the heat of the sun, he knew he had to still be on that road. His mouth was dry. His arm and legs burned, the slightest movement caused a pain to shoot up his back and through his abdomen. He probably had been knifed.

His friends were gone, his supplies diminished. For all he knew, John believed he was probably fatally injured and would die at any moment. Gutted and left to die on a highway.

Why didn’t they finish him off?

He didn’t have any strength, none at all, he was completely drained. But did he want to lay there, rotting in the sun, a carnivore feast for the animals to enjoy?

No. John decided, sick or not, in pain or not, he was going to try to move. He wanted to try to get up and wander off to die with dignity. Just like his dog did years before.

John moved his fingers to grip the ground.

He paused in shock.

He groaned out a ‘huh’ in confusion and opened his eyes.

It was bright, but not daylight bright. Where was he? He turned his head to the right. A burning shot up his neck. When he did, he not only saw an open window, he saw Meredith.

She rushed over to him.

“Oh my God. You’re awake. I didn’t think you’d ever wake up.”

His eyesight was blurry, but he could clearly see Meredith. Her face was swollen and bruised, her left eye complete shut. Her lips twice their normal size and crusted over with fresh scabs.

John was immediately overcome with emotions. At first he couldn’t speak. He huffed out breaths and his eyes welled with tears. “You… you’re alive.”

Meredith grabbed his hand and moved closer. “So are you. You had me worried. You’ve been out an entire day.”

“Where… Where…”

Meredith turned her head and shouted. “Rusty. Come quick. He’s awake.”

It took John aback. ‘Rusty?’ he thought, and then against his will, he passed out again.

Home.

How many times did he have to stop on the side of the road to vomit? How many times did Malcolm black out on the drive? Passing a sign that said it was three hundred miles to Denver, and then in the next second, it was only two hundred. He had ingested nearly every ibuprofen, every antibiotic pill and used the entire tube of ointment.

He wasn’t any better, in fact, Malcolm knew he was worse. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that the farther north he drove the less overgrown everything was.

Nature hadn’t claimed that area, which meant to Malcolm that people had lived there longer. Of course it could have been a hallucination. He had plenty of those.

The best one he had was the old Spanish man with the straw hat, parked on the side of the road with a camper. Malcolm even slowed down for that one so he could read the hallucinatory sign that the man held.

‘Last stop for corn fuel before Salvation.’

He figured that sign was his sign he was dying soon.

After waving to the man, Malcolm picked up speed again. He was close to home.

His house was on a large lot of land. Malcolm had purchased it not long before the explosion in New York. It was a private home, with a road that was gated. It was once a government testing site for new aircraft, and Malcolm snatched it up for a steal and built his own home right on the land.

The gate was closed and surprisingly not overgrown. He paused the buggy to open it, pulled through, closed it again and drove up the driveway.

When he reached the top of the small grade, something wasn’t right. Was he hallucinating again?

The entire yard around his house had been made into some sort of farm. It wasn’t overgrown at all. The fields of green were organized and there was a new barn erected off in the distance.

Either he was imagining it or someone had purchased his home after they told his wife he had died.

The house was in remarkable shape. Clean and not worn. When he saw it, he knew, he had slipped from lucidity into his own world, because his home was nothing like he had seen.

Even the city of Denver was barren and in some places burnt.

Not his home and not his property. They were blessed and unscathed. Malcolm stopped the buggy and with wobbling legs stepped out.

Immediately, he cried and dropped to his knees.

He made it.

After taking an emotional moment, he stammered to a stand, walked up the three steps to the porch and opened the screen door.

He expected his wife to run to him. After all, he was in a dream.

The inside of the house, though clean, was different. There was very little furniture and it had a burning smell to it. He walked through the ranch home’s entry hall and into the family room.

The old green couch was still there. That and a sofa table were the only furnishings. Pictures in frames spread out on the table.

Malcolm took a single step toward them.

“Can I help you?” The male voice called out.

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said weakly and turned around.

A man stood there. He wore a tee shirt and jeans, was sweaty and had a glaze of dirt on him as if he had been outside working. His hair was thick and wavy. He was older than Malcolm, maybe pushing fifty. He held a bat, almost as if he was prepared to use it as a weapon against the intruder.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Malcolm said. “I used to live here and…”

“Oh my God,” he dropped the bat and ran to Malcolm. “Dad.”

Jason didn’t need the time he claimed he did. In fact as soon as the battery showed enough charge, they left and headed to Cleveland.

They talked about returning to his home. It was a good option to settle. It was already prepared for a non-electrical world and it did have the well water.

Cleveland was closed. Just the same as nearly every city they passed. Borders set up, barricades keeping people out and in. While it wasn’t fenced in, Cleveland resembled Nashville. A city submerged in a new forest. The big difference was there weren’t any cars. No sea of traffic at the city’s exit ramps.

To Nora, it looked abandoned.

One thing was for sure, they couldn’t drive through. Nora took them, as close as she could to her home, and after hiding the buggy, they walked.

It was hard to find a point of direction, a recognizable landmark to follow. The moisture and humidity from the lake caused everything to be covered in moss.

After making it to her neighborhood, Nora was able to gauge where to go. Some of the small buildings and shops had crumbled. Some had trees that had taken over and grown straight through them.

She found it hard to breathe. Even though Nora convinced herself that she wouldn’t find her family, it still crushed her when she arrived at her home.

It, like the others, looked like an old shed abandoned in the woods. The roof had partially collapsed, the windows broken.

Her shoulders dropped and she looked at Jason. “Told you they wouldn’t be home.”

“We need to go inside,” he said. “We need to see.”

“They aren’t there.”

“Maybe there’s a clue. Nora, we have to. You have to.”

She wanted to say, ‘No, I have seen enough.’ But she didn’t. She took a few steps toward the house and stopped. “Can you go in first? I don’t want to see remains.”

“Absolutely.” Jason grabbed his flashlight. Even though it was day, the wooded area was dim as he walked to the house.