Wind: The 360, #1

Chapter 1

Irolled over and looked at the black numbers floating on the little white tiles that flipped over with each passing minute. The clock on my nightstand read 8:35 and through the sluggish swim to wakefulness I thought to myself, ‘That can’t be right.’ I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them, blinking quickly to clear the fogginess away. I looked again; 8:35. I sat up with a jolt. Oh, shit! My stomach sank like a rock and then jumped back up to my throat. Why didn’t anybody wake me up? I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the sleep and stop the tears. Oh my God, I have to get to school! I have to get to school and write my Biology final. I’m so late! I quickly jumped out of bed and went to check my mother’s room to see if she had slept in too. She wasn’t there.

Mom!? I called out with obvious panic in my voice but got no answer. Mom, where are you? Nothing and I didn’t have time to search the house. She’s probably at work by now anyway, I thought. I headed for the bathroom.

I didn’t care how late I was going to be, I still had to brush my hair and at least try to put some makeup on. When I was thirteen, I went to Maddy Vicker’s birthday party with about six other girls that were my best friends at the time. We all got makeovers and I loved it. The woman that came to the house that day was so pretty with her eye shadows and lipsticks and she said I was a natural at applying all the different colours to my face. I had worn makeup ever since, much to the dismay of my mother and her wallet. I knew I was late but the thought of going to school with nothing on my face was almost as bad as missing my final.

Biology, I thought to myself as I roughly brushed up and down on my teeth, too engrossed with my thoughts to even look in the mirror. I wish I knew what questions were going to be on the test. I studied a little last night before drifting off to sleep but knew it wouldn’t be nearly enough. This was my final, covering an entire semester worth of classes; a couple of hours of reading through notes the night before was probably not going to cut it.

I rinsed my mouth and gazed at my reflection in the mirror. A small gasp escaped my lips. I had dark circles under my blue eyes making them look black and my mousy brown hair was all clumped together and tangled into giant heaps of wiry mess. How did it get so bad after one night? It looked like I hadn’t combed it in a month! I opened the cabinet drawer and grabbed my brush.

This is going to be fun, I sighed and bit my lip as I started to pull through the knots.

The trip through tangle hell took longer than I thought and my wrist hurt. I cringed as I realized that my face would have to go naked. If I didn’t hurry, I wasn’t going to make it! I just hoped the teachers would let me join the test if it’d already started. If not, I’d have to beg for a second chance or I wouldn’t be graduating this year.

I wondered, for the fiftieth time, why Mom hadn’t woken me up before she went to work. It wasn’t like her to just leave me sleeping and I could feel myself getting angrier just thinking about it. She knew I had this test today. I told her all about it. Dad was still out of town on his business trip and Jamie, my little brother, would have left for school by 8:00; he was still in elementary. God, I thought, why couldn’t I still be in elementary school?

I hurried back to my room and quickly threw on some jeans, an old t-shirt, a hoodie and a pair of mismatched socks. I grabbed my backpack, stuffed my Biology textbook inside, I would have to return it before writing the test, and headed down the stairs to the kitchen.

The lights were turned off, the dishes were stacked in the drying rack and the curtains were closed. It was like no one had even come in here this morning. It felt dark in the house and a shudder ran through my body but I quickly dismissed it. Maybe Mom and Jamie overslept too. Whatever, there was no time to think about it. I had to get to school. I wrenched my feet into my still laced up runners and ran out the front door.

The streets seemed quiet this morning; I didn’t see a single car the five blocks I walked to school. In fact, I didn’t see any people either. I guess the world just stepped into little work cocoons by 9:00. How boring I thought to myself, realizing that this would be my life after graduation. I got to school approximately thirty minutes after I woke up. I really had no idea what time it was because my watch seemed to be broken and my cell phone was dead. I ran up the front steps and reached for the door and pulled; locked.

Locked? That’s weird. How come it’s locked? The doors were never locked. Besides, during finals, kids were always coming and going. The doors should not be locked. I turned and made my way around the corner to the west side and tried the side doors but they were locked as well. Something wasn’t right. I walked around the school, trying different doors and noticed that both the teacher and student parking lots were empty. What the hell? Where was everyone? I was starting to feel a bit uneasy about everything.

Finally, I gave up trying to get into the school, obviously no one was there, and retraced my steps back home. I was starting to get disturbed by the no people thing now. There were a few parked cars here and there but no one was driving down the street or mowing their lawn or walking their dogs or anything. It was all so quiet and it was starting to freak me out. I tried to think of what could have happened. I hadn’t heard anything while I slept. I just assumed Mom forgot to wake me and went to work and Jamie went to school. Now that I thought about it, though, that didn’t make sense. It was the end of school and I had finals all week. She would never let me miss those.

I started to walk faster. Something was wrong. I could feel the hairs on my arms starting to stiffen as I contemplated what could have happened. Did something happen to Dad? No, she definitely would have come and told me if anything had happened to Dad. Was there an earthquake or something else catastrophic? I looked around; there didn’t seem to be any damage. The buildings and houses were still standing. Everything looked normal. It didn’t look like a disaster came through the city. There just didn’t seem to be any people anywhere. Maybe everyone had been evacuated for some reason. But why would they forget to take me? Was there no time to wake me? That didn’t make any sense either. So, what happened? Where was everyone?

I got home and, with shaking hands, put the key in the lock and opened the door. I dropped my backpack on the floor and started to look for some kind of clue that would explain what was happening. I started by picking up the phone. I could phone Mom at work and ask her what was going on. There was no dial tone; it was dead. I clicked the buttons like I saw so many actors do on TV but there was no response. I checked the cord and saw that it was still plugged in. Maybe there was a power failure. I tried the lights; nothing. I turned on the radio on the kitchen counter; nothing. I opened the fridge and stepped back from the smell. Everything was rotten; milk, vegetables, fruit, it was all rancid. How long had this been turned off?

It didn’t make sense. I went to bed last night. Last night! I knew that even if the fridge had stopped working then, the stuff inside wouldn’t have rotted out so much in one night. I closed the door and stepped back, not wanting to consider what this might mean. How long did I sleep? I went through the rest of the house, looking for anything that would let me know what was going on. I found nothing. Mom was gone and Jamie was gone. I dragged my feet into the living room and flopped down onto the couch.

What was I going to do now? I felt panic start to grip my insides. The power was off so I couldn’t phone anyone nor could I turn on the TV and find out what had happened. My cell phone was dead so that was useless. There were no people outside to ask what had happened. What else could I do? My clock was working when I got up, or so I thought. It was plugged in and should have stopped when the power went out. I ran up to my room to see if somehow the clock was indeed still working. Nope, it still said 8:35. So, what time was it really? There was no way to know. I could assume that 8:35 was the time the power went off but what day did it go off? I didn’t know. Judging  by the contents of the fridge, probably a few days ago. How could I have slept that long? I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to think of what I should do. Where could I get answers? Where could I go that there was guaranteed to be somebody that could help me? If some kind of freaky disaster hit, where would the survivors congregate?

The school, I said to myself. But there’s no one at the school. Where else would they go? Then it came to me.

The mall, I said. For sure there’d be people there. It seemed a logical place to go. Everyone knew where it was and there was every kind of supply in the stores there. I got off the bed and headed out.

It was a long forty-five minute walk to the mall and, still, I didn’t see anyone. I saw lots of abandoned cars in the middle of the road with their doors shut and the keys still in the ignition. None of them worked, though. I tried to start a couple but it was like the batteries in them were dead. Like everything else, it didn’t make sense and I was starting to feel really scared.

The mall was empty. It was locked up like the school but, unlike the school, I wanted to get inside this building. Maybe I could find something that could help me. I looked around until I found a rock big enough to break the glass doors to one of the entrances. I paused and considered whether it would be wise to break in. Would I get in trouble? Would anyone hear? Would the alarm even work? If it did, maybe someone would come and I could find out what was going on. I picked up the rock and threw it as hard as I could and jumped back as the glass shattered.

When I went inside, I noticed the stores were still locked up with their rolling iron curtains covering their entrances. I wandered around for twenty minutes, peeking in the windows of the locked up stores and listening to the hollow echo of my footsteps. I found nothing. I was alone. I thought about what that statement meant. I sat down on a bench by the food court and put my head in my hands. What was going on? Where was everyone? Was this it; the apocalypse? I looked around at the empty mall around me. So, what, the world ended and I got left behind? What the hell was I going to do?

The police station! Of course, that’s where I should go! There’s got to be somebody there, right? I mean, the police, surely one of them is still here to answer questions. Why didn’t I think of that earlier? I should’ve gone there first. I knew where it was, too. I passed it everyday on my way to school. Now, I would have to traipse all the way back to my house then head in the other direction. What a waste of time this was. I was tired now and I was getting hungry. I looked around the mall and noticed a small newspaper shop. They usually had chocolate bars and chips, so, I headed towards it. It was still locked but it had a glass window on one side that I quickly broke with a planter that held a fake tree.

My pockets were full of chocolate, chips and gum and I was almost back at my house when I heard the first sign of life. A dog was barking down the street. It sounded lost and unsure of what it was barking at. I decided to go and check it out. What could it do? Attack me? Whatever; I wasn’t really afraid. It was probably just as confused as I was. As I got closer, the barking was turning to whimpering; it was obviously scared. He saw me coming and sat down, waiting for me to approach. He was cute; some sort of Shepherd cross. He reached out his paw to me and I crouched down to pat his head. He licked my hand and I could tell he was relieved to finally find someone.

Come on, boy, I said. You can come with me if you like. I opened a bag of barbecued chips and offered some to him. He looked from the chips to me and decided it must be okay to trust me and took them from my hand. I emptied the bag and watched as he gobbled them up. He must have been just as hungry as I was.

I’m going to the police to see what happened here. You wanna come with me? I was talking to him like a person but, really, he was the only other living thing around me so why not? He sat up straight and cocked his ears waiting for me to give him more chips. No, no more chips. We should try to find something a little better than that. Let’s go see the police and if they can’t help us, we’ll go to the grocery store. I’m sure the dog food hasn’t spoiled yet and maybe I can get a can of Alphagetti or something.

I started to walk away and the dog immediately got up and followed. He touched my hand with his nose so I knew he was there and I felt a little better with him by my side. I ruffled the fur on his head and the two of us walked down the street. I talked to him about what had happened and he just kept walking, nudging my hand every now and then. It was comforting to have him with me.

The police station was just as deserted as everything else. The doors were unlocked at least, but there was no one at the desk or anywhere else in the building. The dog and I searched every room and cupboard but came up empty. I went behind the desk and scanned the paperwork. Maybe someone had written something down but again there was nothing.

Crap, I was running out of options. Either the world had gone poof or I was dead. I didn’t want to accept either possibility; better to just keep going. Keeping myself busy would keep my mind off whatever was happening. Well boy, looks like nobody’s here. Shall we go find you some dog food? The dog barked, excited by what I had said.

We need to find you a name. I leaned down and looked at the tag on his collar. There was nothing, just a number and city of Calgary stamped on it. Okay, what should we call you? How about Prince?

He growled and put his head down, pawing the air.

Okay, not Prince. Duke? The same growl. King? Rex? I don’t know. I’m not very good at this. Okay...um...Barker how about Barker? He jumped up and barked three or four times and I knew that he liked his new name.

Okay, Barker, let’s go shopping. We left the police station and headed for the grocery store where I hoped we could find something good to eat. I didn’t think I could survive on chocolate bars and chips no matter what I had told my mom every time she wanted me to eat broccoli. My mom, where was she now? I let the thought sit on the edge of my mind, not wanting to digest it just yet. I still wanted to believe that everyone was safe somewhere and I would see them later.

The grocery store was unexpectedly dark inside. I don’t know, I guess I’m not used to seeing aisles of food without the bright fluorescent lights, but seeing the abandoned store sent shivers down my spine and made me feel even more alone. I grabbed a cart and started walking up and down the rows with Barker at my side. The canned goods were still good but the perishable items were finished. Mold covered the pastries and breads. The dairy products smelled so bad I didn’t even venture over to that part of the store. That included produce and meat. Thank God they were all kept on the same side. I stayed by the soups and cans of ravioli, thank you Chef Boyardee and Campbell’s. I started to fill the cart with every variety of food you can find in a can. Then I found the pet aisle and started throwing bags of Purina dog chow on top of the cart.

This stuff is heavy, Barker. I grabbed another bag and threw it on top. I think we should take what we have to my house and then come back for more tomorrow. You never know how long we’ll be stuck here or who else might be out there trying to find food. Barker wagged his tail and barked in agreement and we headed out the door. The cart was heavy and I had to push hard to get it over the curb in the parking lot. A bag of dog food fell off and I swore as I almost ran over it, and then bent down to pick it up.

Stocking up, I see. The voice came from behind me and I was so startled that I jumped up and smacked my shoulder on the cart handle.

Shit! I started rubbing my shoulder and looked at the strange man standing before me. He didn’t look much older than me and wore a pair of green pants, a yellow t-shirt and a pair of black Converse runners. He had red curly hair and freckles that seemed to cover every inch of his body. I had never seen anyone like him before and wondered how he could have come up behind me with neither me nor Barker hearing him. You scared the hell out of me.

Sorry, miss, he smiled at me like some circus clown and I didn’t know whether to run or laugh. Just noticed you have quite a full cart there.

Yeah, didn’t think anyone would mind, I said defensively.

Well, minding’s something some people do and something some people don’t. He threw his head back and laughed. Barker growled and leaned against my legs. He must be feeling the same thing I was. Who was this guy?

"Okay, then, I guess I’ll be