The days were getting warmer, as Kate sat out in front of the bookstore with her back leaning against the cement pillar of the store, her forgotten book lay on her lap. Her eyes looked out over the parking lot scattered with cars twinkling in the sun. A light breeze picked up gently blowing at her auburn hair. She blinked large brown eyes, once then twice, coming out of the small trance.
She had always wanted quiet, never one for human interaction, funny, since she always held a retail job. And she had been damn good too, even though she hated each transaction. A cat darted behind her. She moved only a fraction, positioning herself more comfortably against the pillar enjoying the spring sun.
“The animals run the place now,” she said to herself. She had found herself talking more and more to herself out in the open.
“It doesn’t matter, no one is around to here,” she said and looked down at the book. She decided that she no longer wanted to read. She got to her feet, and stopped, head tilted, ears listening, she thought she heard-
“Silly, you are being silly again. You know there is no one alive.”
The human race had caught a cold. A very bad cold. A cold you never got better from, and in the end you were dead. She had caught the cold, just like everyone else. She had sneezed so hard, she swore her brain would hemorrhage and her bloody noses would never end. She had coughed so hard her chest still hurt when she thought of it. But unlike everyone else, who withered away, she got better. And she watched as everyone died, the world ended.
She made it to the door of the bookstore, and paused. “I am all alone,” she said. And she wanted it this way. But even she got lonely. She found herself sitting in the way to quite places, and wanted to hear some kind of activity. She missed having another person to bullshit with once in a while; there was something amiss with her telling jokes, and not really finding herself very funny.
Inside the store she threw the book on the counter, and looked around. She didn’t want to read, she didn’t feel hungry, and she had nothing personal to take care of.
She looked out the windows. “It’s been what three years? Sounds right. Three years. I know I am alone in town, and in the county, but who knows there could be someone still alive in the state. You know how come I survived and no one else did?”
“When are you going to stop asking yourself that question? You survived, get over it.” She had created a friend, his name was Jay. Jay usually seemed to be the sensible side of her. Always telling her to shut up, and get over the dumb questions she kept asking herself.
She walked along the bookshelves, fingers touching the books. They were real. She was real. Or was she? At first being alone was great, it was just like that episode of the Twilight Zone, the one with the book nerd who survives the end of the world, and has all the time in the world to read. But then his glasses get broken, and he can’t read. So far nothing bad had really happened to her. Some scrapes and bruises.
Jay walked beside her. “You should go out. Get more air. It sure is dusty in here.”
Right on queue she sneezed. “And do what?”
“How about visit the graves?”
She shook her head. “We did that yesterday.”
“Why not do it again. It would be good exercise. Or we could go home and put up the pool.”
She stopped to look at her friend. His black hair was cut short, he had sky blue eyes, his chin was a bit sharp, and his ears stuck out a little more than normal. “Or maybe I can just go home.”
His eyes widened. “We haven’t been there in a while.”
She nodded. “I wonder if the cats still stop by.”
She had rounded the corner and started on her journey home. Home had been where she had raised her sister and brother. Had fought to get some money to buy food for them from her crackhead mom. She had done real good raising the kids mostly on her own, and then they got sick. The kids were hit hard, it hurt to think of her babies in so much pain, so she ended it for them. She never thought of herself as a murderer, because she had stopped their pain, they were dead anyway. But she had lived.
She passed by Jay who just stood there on the sidewalk staring at her almost in surprise. “And you are staring at what.”
“You,” he said his voice just a little deeper than normal.
“Come along, it’s getting dark.”
She heard him behind her, had she ever heard him walking before? “You know I think my delusion just got more detailed.”
“Who are you?” Jay asked behind her.
“That’s my question, and you are supposed to say you know who you are.”
“No really who are you?”
Knowing it was all in her head, at least she could distinguish that, she decided to go along with him. “Fine, I am Kate. I am supreme ruler of this shithole town. The last person alive.”
“You are real.”
“Of course I am real,” she said turning onto G Street. “I am as real as I can get.”
“Kate?”
“Hmm. You know what I can go for right now? Ice cream.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I’ve lived here all my life you know that.”
“Why didn’t you die?”
“You are asking my questions again,” she sighed as she turned on Bear Creek.
“But why?”
“I don’t know,” she said almost in a whisper.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Holy crap, Jay that almost felt real. You know maybe I’m getting crazier.”
The hand tightened on her shoulder. “Will you stop, please.”
“What-“ she turned and looked at her imaginary friend. And then she noticed the changes. His hair was longer, scraggly, his ears weren’t actually as big as they had been, and his chin was rounder, less sharp. But his eyes were the same, no they weren’t, there was real life in his eyes.
“Hi,” he said. “I don’t know who Jay is but I am Jeff.”
“Uh-“ Her mind shrieked, she think she stopped breathing. And then everything went black.
She woke up sometime later. She sat up quickly. “Don’t do that,” Jay, no Jeff, said.
“Where do you come from?” she asked.
“Texas,” he said originally. “Been driving around since the Big Death.”
“Big Death,” she repeated, “Sounds about right.”
Jay finally showed up behind him, and looking she could see all kinds of differences. “What do you think he wants?” he asked. She opened her mouth and he put his finger to his lips then pointed to his head.
I don’t think he wants anything. I mean he looked as surprised as I was afterwards.
“You okay?” Jeff asked.
She watched Jay cross his arms over his chest, looking at Jeff with very unfriendly eyes. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Jeff looked out the window. He had taken her into a house right there on Bear Creek. “I started a fire,” he said.
“There is no need. It actually is getting warmer. I think I need to start on my garden again. Its time.”
“So you haven’t seen anyone around here?”
“We were one of the early towns hit, and they cleaned us up pretty well. I bet the bigger cities had stunk. I buried the rest who were left. Had too, I know what would have happened if the bodies stayed. I would have survived the Big Death to die of something else. Jane Watson, on M street was the last to die,” she paused, “Or she was just the last body I found.”
“Was it hard, looking for the bodies?”
She got off the bed, which smelt of dusty mothballs, and walked over to the window. “The army had marked the empty houses with an x. And so I checked the others out.”
“He asks way too many questions,” Jay said beside her.
“How long has it been since you actually talked to another human?” she asked.
“Three years.”
“I remember those days, the last few people stuck in their homes dying scared. I wondered around flipping off lights and stuff.”
“I fled my city. I had to stuff was getting out of hand.”
“He fled,” Jay said. “This means he doesn’t want the responsibility.”
“I would have fled,” she whispered.
“Excuse me,” Jeff said.
“I would have fled too. But I had to take care of my sister and brother.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“No need. It’s all over with now.”
**
The next few weeks went rather smoothly, the two got together really well. Helping with a vegetable garden, finding supplies, and even getting some electricity up to watch some movies. Weeks meshed into months, and soon the heat of the valley summer had finally started to vanish, bringing in a nice mild fall. With Jeff around Kate didn’t need Jay, but he still managed to show up from time to time. Making her question her sanity.
“Is this typical weather even for October?” Jeff asked standing out on the porch.
“Yes. It’ll get cold soon enough.”
“Does it snow here.”
“Maybe once every so many years, we get hail, and sometimes we flood when it rains too much.”
“So tell me,” he said coming back to the couch were she sat reading a book. “Do you want to search for others?”
She blinked her brown eyes at him. “Do you?”
He turned his head. His jaw set, which meant something was wrong. She wanted to reach out and touch him. Sooth away that aggravation. But even though they were now friends, they had never crossed that line.
“I don’t really. Look I wasn’t much of a people person, but being alone for three years was driving me crazy. I had hoped to see someone, even just to see. But lucky me I ran into someone. Although I am curious that if we survived, there has to be others right?”
“I think there is.”
“I think your friend Jeff isn’t real,” Jay said standing opposite of her.
Shut up. He is real.
“You’ve lost your mind. And right now you are just lying in some dust filled room dreaming this all up while your body is trying to die.”
“Shut up,” she said glaring at him,
“I’m sorry,” Jeff said.
“No. Sorry was thinking out loud at myself I am sorry.” She looked back at the spot and Jay was gone.
**
She had learned to pickle and jar stuff, so she could have food over the winter. Regression is hard, when all your life you grew up with technology doing most of the work for you. You wanted milk you went to the grocery store, you wanted some tacos you went to Taco Bell, oh how she missed Taco Bell, you needed something you went to the proper store and got it. Now you had to save, hunt, learn to do it by hand.
“He’s not coming back you know,” Jay said beside her at the sink.
“Why don’t you leave me alone? He just went out to hunt.”
“Or he decided to go look for other people and leave you here alone.”
“You’d like that wouldn’t you. Slowly making myself crazy. Leave me alone!” She said tossing the knife into the sink.
“Prove to me he’s real. You are the only woman, he’s been alone for almost 4 years, if you get my drift. He has made no move. No move. He is fake, just a better version of me. Jeff/Jay. Come on Kate. Look at it.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “He is real.”
“Who is real?” Jeff said.
She turned to the sink and quickly wiped the tears in her eyes away. “Nothing. How did hunting go?”
“It didn’t really go I could have killed a cow, but really what a waste if we don’t eat it all within the next few days. That is a lot of meat. I was thinking of maybe going up a little higher in the mountains maybe starting early tomorrow.”
Jay was standing behind him. “He isn’t real. He brought you no meat.”
And Jay didn’t let up. Most of the evening he would continue to pop up to say over and over again that Jeff wasn’t real. That night as they both were getting ready for bed, Jeff was staring in the bathroom.
“Maybe I can rig up a shower.”
She came out of her room looking at his bare muscular back. “A running shower would be nice.”
“Look your half naked. You are wearing a tank-top and some short shorts, and does he make a move no. He just smiles at you.”
Fine you want proof he’s real.
She stepped close to Jeff, smelling him. He smelt manly, or rather that was the only way she could think of it. Sweat, earth, Jeff.
“Kate-“ but before he could finish she placed her lips hard against his, encircling his neck with her arms. He made a small noise as her body pressed up against his.
He opened to the kiss, eating her up. His large hands gripped her hips and pressed her against the wall. He broke the kiss and ran his lips down her jaw, to her neck. Her skin vibrated with such a need that made her mind go numb. He kissed her again, as one of his hands moved to her breast. He grabbed it gently, yet hard and firm, pinching at her nipple bring a moan from her lips.
She had no memory of how he got her to his bed. She sat on the edge of his bed, watching him kick off the pajama pants he wore around her at night. Naked and hard he stood before her, her heart felt as if it would explode. He got to his knees and slid her top over her head. He leaned her back and kissed one hard nipple then the other. She moaned as he took the nipple into his mouth and sucked. He didn’t stop there, he gave perfect attention to each breast, playing, teasing. Her body tensing with each pull.
He finally came back to look at her, his face so close. “Do you really want this?” he asked.
She couldn’t speak. She nodded, or would have made a nonhuman sound. He kissed her again, and in one fluid movement he pushed himself in her. The movement, the pressure, made her come quickly. She cried out raking her nails on his back, not fazing him. He moved above her, gently, with rhythm. She locked her legs around him, moaning with each thrust. The pleasure building up as he moved faster. Building like waves, until she exploded again. He made her come once more before he did.
He finally lay beside her, holding her to him. She could feel his heart beat. He is real, she thought before falling asleep in his arms.
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