Day Sixty-Five

If I'm going to fight, I need weapons. And not just the small pistol I hold in my hand now.

Las Vegas is the home of Nellis Air Force Base. Not sure what weapons I will find there, but that is my destination for today.

If this is my last post, the Silence has won.

Day Sixty-Four

Sorry that I have been away for so long. I just did not seen the point in continuing to post here. I know there's nobody reading this. But it is the conversation that I miss most. So, for the sake of my sanity, I'm back. Even if it's just for me.

But if I'm gonna do this, I should do it right. I need to start from the beginning, if for nothing else, to help me wrap my mind around the events I find myself embroiled in.

My name is Maxwell Alexander Drake, and until a few months ago I was a Sci-fi / fantasy writer. And then I woke to a nightmare stranger than any story I could create.

You see, on June 22nd, 2014 I woke up to an empty world. My wife and kids were not in their beds. My neighbor's homes were all vacant. Over the next few days as I explored the area around where I live I found the same - everyone was gone. Vanished. As to where they went, I have found no clue.

I reside in the tourist city of Las Vegas, a town of nearly a million souls that welcomes over four million visitors a year. Yet even downtown, the strip was void of life.

Electricity flowed, and the casinos were filled with lights and sounds, all trying to entice an empty room to spend money.

I did find one companion, however. The Silence. At first I thought it was just that - silence. But I was wrong. It was not simply silence, but the Silence. I could feel it's presence. The hate it directed toward me was palpable. Why it loathes me so, I still have not been able to discover. Perhaps in being the last human on Earth, I am denying it its ability to reign unchallenged. Perhaps it's simply the fact that it is pure evil, and all it knows is hate. Right now I do not know. And I may never find that answer.

All I know is that it is there. It is real. Watching me. Plotting against me. I tried to ignore it. To drive it away by filling my home with the sounds of movies and music.

But this only fueled the Silence's rage. At first it began taunting me. It called me through my cell phone in the guise of my wife. When her name appeared on my caller ID, I was overwhelmed with emotion. But when I answered, it was not my wife's voice I found... it was the Silence.

I could feel it laughing at me. Knew it hated me.

Had that been all the Silence could bring to bear I think I would be fine. But it wasn't.

I suspect the Silence also has the ability to manipulate the Shadows. One attacked me while I was exploring the strip. I shot it. Killed it. Left it there as I ran in a panic. But the next day when I returned, there was nothing there.

I have spent the past month locked in my house. Too much of a coward to take my own life, I have remained in bed hoping that God, or whatever took everyone else, would free me from this prison. But even here I have found no release.

And I am tired of hiding. Tired of waiting for death to claim me. I will not be the victim any longer.

Tomorrow I fight back, and I will use this to document my struggles in a war that I don't even know who I am fighting against.

Tomorrow I cease being the victim.

Day Forty

I still haven’t left the house. I just can’t bring myself to go outside. I just can’t make myself care.

I lie here in bed, blasting music so loud it fills the room.

Fills my ears.

Fills my mind.

The sun rises each morning, casting its light through the curtains of my room and I can’t help but wonder - What does it matter?

The Earth does not need me. It has never needed me nor any humans. We as a species always felt so important. So superior. But the truth is, the universe never needed us. It doesn’t need me.

Our rocky planet spins without lamenting the billions of missing souls that, until so recently, scurried across its surface. It rotates around a ball of liquid fire burning at the center of our solar system that does not even notice that my eyes are now the only sentient being that sees its rays of light. And our solar system revolves around the super-massive black hole sitting in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy that, for all intents and purposes, has never even known that the human race existed.

For billions of years before we walked this planet, this universe thrived. And for billions of years after we are all gone, it will continue.

The fact that there is a tiny sphere of rock and iron floating in space with one pathetic life still drawing breath is probably the least important thing.

Yet it is the only thing.

It is me.

Day Thirty-Two

My cell phone rang today. It has rung every day for the past few weeks.

As always, the screen displayed my wife’s picture and name. I stare at it, knowing it isn’t her on the other end. It’s the Silence calling, as it’s done before. It’s always the Silence. Calling to taunt me, to drive the last bit of sanity from my mind. I don’t know what it wants, and I no longer care. I wish it would just… leave me alone.

I wish I wasn’t such a coward—too terrified to end my own suffering. I’m still clinging to the stupid hope that all this is a dream. Or a figment of my own warped imagination. Perhaps the projections of a fever induced coma.

But I know it’s not.

As much as I hate the Silence mocking me, I can’t bring myself to turn off the phone. It’s nice just to read my wife’s name, see the picture I took of her while we were on vacation at the beach last year, hear the phone play the ringtone of “our song.”

I miss her. Her and my sons.

But there’s no one left. The world is an empty husk, and I am its last parasite. A parasite that can no longer bring itself to get out of bed. What’s the point?

I just lie here, dreaming that the next time I fall asleep I will be carried away like the rest of the world was, and I won’t be burdened with waking up to this reality anymore.

Day Thirteen

I’m not crazy!

I…

At least I don’t think I am.

I returned to the Mirage. I know what you’re thinking, how stupid was that? Still, I didn’t get any sleep last night. I just tossed and turned, thinking about what I had done. Who… or what, was that I had shot? It haunted me, and I knew I would never get any peace until I found out.

So I went back.

But there was nothing there! Just empty carpet, a gaudy colored pattern staring up from where a corpse should have been. No way anything could have survived that! One stopped it, three more killed it. It was dead!

Absentmindedly I went to pull out my pistol. I don’t know why. I know what I did, and I know what the pistol did. Still, I reached for it… but it wasn’t there. I patted down all of my pockets. Nothing. Panic gripped me with the realization that I was unarmed, standing in a room that had some creepy shadow-thing lurking around, perhaps alive and pissed that I shot it yesterday.

So I ran.

When I jumped into my SUV, I searched for my pistol. Perhaps it had dropped under my seat? Had I stuck it in the glove box? Laid it on the back seat? No. I hadn’t even brought it.

I tore my house apart looking for it. The bedroom, kitchen, my office… it was nowhere to be found. I had not let it out of my sight since that first day, and now I couldn’t remember where the hell I left it!

I’m not sure what took me to my closet. To the top shelf. To the locked gun box. I guess it’s just that weird desire to search everywhere when you can’t find something. It is where I had always kept it. Well, until the night the world stopped.

I pulled the gun case down, unclipped the key from its hook. Stupid, I know. There was no way it was there.

But it was there. Locked in its case. Trigger lock securely in place. And worse… nine 9mm rounds sat in the box next to the gun. Nine…

I had fired four. One to stop it. Three more to kill it. I know I did. I can still see the image in my mind. My hand still shakes when I think about that creature lunging for me. How the lights dimmed around it, like some strange localized black hole event.

I’m not crazy.

I’m not…

Day Twelve

I killed someone today.

I…

At least I think I did. I’m not 100% sure.

I went down to the strip in the hopes of finding whomever it was I saw yesterday. I went back to the Mirage and I found them. In the same room, standing on the far side of the gambling hall from where I entered, they were once again lurking in the shadows.

This time when I called they did not run. They stood there, looking back at me.

I started walking over, continuing to talk. I kept my voice calm, telling them how great it was to find someone else who had survived. When I got about half way, whatever it was screamed. A blood-curdling screech that did not sound human. A shout filled with malice and hate. Whatever it was, it launched itself into the air, leaping several tables with a single jump. When it landed, it screamed again and charged at me.

The shadows follow it, keeping it wrapped in a hidden shroud even as it raced toward me. It was as if the very light was terrified. I fumbled for my pistol. The thing was only about ten feet away when I fired. My first shot stopped it. My next three dropped it to the ground.

I stared at it laying not ten feet from me. Though even standing that close, I could not tell you what it was. I have no idea how long I stood there, but I couldn’t bring myself to approach it.

That’s when the feeling fell over me. A feeling of… panic? I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything as such… it was more that I knew I was being watched. Studied. And I realized that if I didn’t get out of there right then, I never would.

 

So I left. Or, it would be more apt to say, I ran. Like the Devil himself was chasing me, I hauled ass. And perhaps he was, I never looked back to see.

Day Eleven

I saw someone today! I’m sure of it!

I went back to the strip. Not sure why. But when I was walking around inside the Mirage, there was someone there.

Not sure if it was a man or a woman because I never got that close. When I first saw them, I froze. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It has been over a week since I have seen another living person.

I didn’t want to scare them – like me, they could be carrying a gun – so I called out. I know they saw me when they turned my way, but for some reason they ran. I tried to give chase, but my leg still hurts. I was limping more than running by the time I got to the other side of the room.

They had vanished.

I called and called, and searched the area for at least two hours, but all I found was more rooms filled with emptiness.

It could have been my imagination. I’m not taking anything for granted at this point – not even the possibility that I am going insane. But I have to believe it was more than just a shadow across an empty room. I have to believe that or I surely will go crazy.