Robert Wilson - The Quiet

He knew exactly where to look for the old microscope. He hadn’t used it since college, but he used it enough then to make up for the many years since. He took a deep breath and blew the top layer of dust from the top of the box. The word Olympus appeared in bright orange letters. The sight made James smile with nostalgia.

He was back in his kitchen 20 minutes later with the dusty old microscope set up on the counter. He cleaned off its lenses and several slides. Then he turned the water down until it merely dripped. Putting the first slide under, he collected one good drop then carefully put it in the microscope. Pulling a small bottle from his pocket, he took a second slide. Opening the bottle, he let a drop of the murky liquid inside drop onto the slide. He set that one next to the other. On the third, he lightly spit and slid it into place with the other two.

He focused in on the first slide. It was more transparent than the glass itself. He couldn’t see a single living organism. Next, he looked at the murky water, gathered from the neighborhood pond behind the housing edition. Aside from murky clouds of soil, he saw no evidence of anything that was, or had ever been, alive.

The third one interested him the most. He expected to see what the other two lacked, but found nothing more than thick, slimy liquid along with traces of mucus and remnants of food. James didn’t remember much from microbiology, but one thing he did remember: the human mouth flourishes with life. But the slide with his saliva contained nothing alive at all.

Nothing seemed different as James drove along the highway, avoiding the empty cars and collisions. The noise of the engine relieved him in place of the dreadful silence he’d endured at home for several days now. But even still, an oppressing fear hung over him as he made his way toward his brother’s house. Not a single person, alive or dead, appeared at any point. Who was he kidding? He’d seen no signs of life save for a tree and his own reflection. Checking the Internet only added to the number of questions swirling in his head. About half of the pages he attempted to load brought up nothing, and those that did come up hadn’t been updated since before everyone disappeared.

Even the roar of the car’s engine wasn’t distracting enough from the desolation that surrounded him. At first he was only nervous. He told himself whatever happened was probably localized to the south side of town. But as he made his way around the circular highway northeastward, his nerves frayed toward panic. The pileup along the 65 South exit had really jarred him. He’d never seen so much carnage. Hundreds of cars smashed together, more than half of them on fire and smoking profusely. The heat through the closed window came through in waves, even from the far side of the highway. The horizon above blurred in and out of focus from the flames. But still he saw no bodies. Not a single one.

The city streets weren’t much different on the east side of town. Those not desolate contained wayward cars and the remains of several explosions. One major thing was different here, though. House fires, a lot of them, littered the area. From what James could tell, it looked like some of them had spread from one house to another. It was everything he could do to keep from breaking down as he watched the smoke roll up from those houses. For 20 terrifying minutes, he imagined finding his brother’s house burned to the ground, Joel’s body the first one for James to find. But relief came when he turned down Hopkins Road and the entire street looked completely unscathed save for the lack of anything green or growing. Joel’s red Corsica sat in the driveway as James pulled up to the curb. He killed the engine and sat there for a long moment, studying the house. The shades were drawn and the door was closed. Looking around, he didn’t see a single house with an empty driveway or any other signs of normal activity. It appeared just like his neighborhood. Just as deathly still. After a few deep breaths and a long, hard swallow, James pulled the keys from the ignition and got out of the car. He walked with short strides through the dirt yard, taking his time and examining the soil with his shoes.

With the front step of the porch just a stride away, he stopped still and gazed into the front window. He could make out the outline of the dining room table and various ceramic decorations Cheryl, his sister-in-law, had put up. He kicked the dirt off his shoes and started up the porch, toward the door. Holding his keychain up in front of his face, he stared at it, unable to find the key. He knew it was there, but he just couldn’t find it. Then he snapped himself out of it, pulled aside the proper key, and used it to unlock the door. The door creaked and moaned as he opened it. Sebastian, the family’s golden retriever, who usually attacked James by throwing his front paws onto James’s chest and smothering him in doggy kisses, was nowhere to be seen. James called out as he stepped around the dark blue recliner.

“Joel? Cheryl? Sebastian? Here boy?”

He headed for the table he’d seen in the window. Looking to the right into the kitchen, he saw no one there. On the floor he found Sebastian’s food and water bowls, both partially empty. He’d started for the bedroom when he heard a low pitched boom from outside of the house. It went on for a moment until finally it rattled the walls and all of the nick-knacks for several seconds and then faded away. Even though James knew the sound had probably been a distant explosion, it still made him jump when he heard it. He entered the hallway. On the right side, the guest room door stood ajar, while on the left, Joel and Cheryl’s bedroom door remained closed. Straight ahead, James saw the wide open bathroom door.

James tried the guest room first looking for any sign of Sebastian. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was stalling, but it helped him deal with his fear, so he went along with it. Under the guest bed, he saw a sparkle of shiny metal. He tapped the object with his foot so that it rolled out from under the bed. It was a collar that said, “Sebastian” on it. He told himself it could’ve just been an old collar. After confirming the guest room was empty, he went to the bathroom, flipped on the light, and looked in the mirror. He turned on the water and ran it over his hands. Then he ran his hands over his face and through his hair and took a deep breath. He dreaded what he would find in that room and didn’t want to look anymore. If they were gone, he wondered if he could convince himself they were merely somewhere else. Worse yet, what if they were in there, frozen stiff. The different possibilities terrorized him. He couldn’t take it anymore. With tears streaming down his face, he burst through the bathroom, and flung the bedroom door open. Joel’s glasses and two cell phones sat on the nightstand, one of them flashing. James walked over to them and picked up the flashing one. Joel’s. He flipped through the menu until he found the recent calls list. His own number and no other filled the missed call log.

James stood alone in the room. The blanket lay ruffled on the bed as if whatever it covered had simply dissipated. James walked around to the other side of the bed. A crunching sound from under his shoe startled him. He bent down to take a look. Little pieces of curved, pink plastic lay on the ground, some of them shattered from his footfall. He picked up the pieces and then flung them when he realized what they were.

Fingernails.

He gagged for a moment, having to grip the dresser to keep from falling over. Then he realized as he took a deep breath what he’d not gathered at first. They were fingernails, all right, but not real fingernails. They were press-on nails. Although he lost some of the queasiness, James didn’t feel any relief from this revelation. He gripped the blanket and, standing up, flung it from the bed. On the other side of the bed, a long, thin, dark rod with an adjacent screw at each end lay a third of the way up from the foot of the bed. The nausea came back ten fold and James vomited onto the gray, carpeted floor. He was sure the rod had been in his brother’s femur before Joel’s body disappeared.