Tomorrow

Some say that the apocalypse and a storm have things to do with each other. In recounting the day it started, Jess believes that the apocalypse started with tomorrow. (short story)

       Some say the apocalypse started with a storm. Some say the storm brought the apocalypse. Some say the storm was the distraction so that the apocalypse could come. Most people just say that the apocalypse started, and there happened to be a very bad thunderstorm at about the same time. Though probably in other parts of the world, there wasn’t a simultaneous storm to cause apocalyptic chaos. I think the apocalypse started with tomorrow.

I remember the day the apocalypse started. My girlfriend and I had been on a picnic in a field of wildflowers on her family’s property. We’d already eaten and were just lying on the blanket and staring at the approaching storm clouds.

“We should probably go in soon, so that we don’t get caught walking home in the rain,” I had said. She only laughed and tore purple wildflowers out of the ground and sprinkled them on my chest. I couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t a very serious person, and she loved the rain. Only when thunder shook the earth did I mention it again.

“Lin, I really think we should start heading inside.” She turned to me, reading my face to see if she could prod me to stay out longer. When she decided she couldn’t, she nodded.

“Okay, Jess, let’s go in. Are you staying for dinner tonight?” she asked, and I nodded, pushing myself to my feet. I helped her up, then shook out and folded the blanket. We put the blanket into her backpack, then started heading back to her house. Walking hand-in-hand through the wildflowers with the wind of a manifesting summer catastrophe, we did not feel as though the end of the world was coming, just that a very very large storm was coming and that it would be quite fun to watch from the large windows in her bedroom.

We made it safely to her house, walking in her back door and greeting her mother. We were heading up to Lin’s bedroom when her mother called after us.

“Hey, Jess, you should call your parents. They left a message for me telling you to call them when you get the chance. Was your phone off?”

“No,” I said, “It just doesn’t pick up calls sometimes. We need to get it looked at. I’ll call them. Thank you.” As we entered Lin’s bedroom, I took out my phone and tapped on my mom’s contact. She did not pick up. I tried calling my dad, and still did not receive an answer.

“That’s weird. I’ve always been able to make calls, just not always get them.”

“Do you want to try my phone? Maybe your phone is really going to the mud,” Lin said. I nodded and she tossed her phone to me, stepping into the bathroom and closing the door behind her. I did not receive an answer from my parents on her phone either. Putting her phone on the desk, I picked mine back up and sent several texts to both my parents, hoping maybe they just couldn’t pick up the phone or hadn’t heard the call.

Lin poked her head out of the bathroom, “Hey, do you mind if I shower real quick? I feel a little icky from the humidity.” I smiled at her, shaking my head.

“No, go for it,” I said. She smiled back, and receded into the bathroom. About ten minutes had passed when the rain finally shot out of the sky and pelted the windows. It startled me, and I got a bad feeling in my stomach. I walked over to the bathroom and knocked on the door.

“Hey, Lin?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to walk down to my house and see if my parents are alright. I’ll have one of them drive me back down, okay?”

“Okay.” Lin was understanding, and never questioned much. I grabbed my phone and shoved it into my front pocket. On my way out the door, I didn’t notice that her mother was gone nor did I realize that I hadn’t seen any of her siblings or her father or her uncle. I was too preoccupied trying to see through the rain.

While Lin lived at the very far end of the neighborhood, I lived at the very front. It was only about a seven minute walk, five if you walked quickly, and three if you ran. But in the storm, it took me probably almost fourteen minutes. Our front door was unlocked and the garage was open. The family van was parked in the driveway, and my dad’s truck was in the garage. My mother’s car was gone, but I think they had taken it to the auto shop that morning.

I walked in the house, dripping wet.

“Mom? Dad?” I called, “Are you guys okay?” There was no response. I walked around the entire house, going in every room and checking every closet. They weren’t in the backyard or the basement or the crawl-space that we called an attic. They weren’t anywhere. I grabbed the house-phone from the kitchen counter and tried calling my parents again. They didn’t pick up. Sighing, I called my older brother, who had moved to California at the beginning of the summer.

“Noah?” I asked when he picked up, “Have you heard from mom and dad?”

“Wow, Jess, not even a ‘hello, how are you,’” he joked, “What am I to you, rotten blueberry buckle?”

“Noah, have you heard from mom and dad?” I repeated.

“No, Jess, I haven’t. But I heard you guys are getting a nasty storm tonight. Wish you could give some of that water to us.”

“Noah, they called Lin’s mom when they couldn’t reach me and she said she’d have me call them back. When I did, neither of them picked up. And I called them from Lin’s phone. And I texted them. And I called them from this phone. They’re not home. I don’t know where they are.”

“Probably just went out, Jess.”

“The van and the truck are still here, and they took mom’s car to the shop and came back home.”

“Oh.” There was silence for several minutes.

“Noah, I’m scared.”

“Look, Jess, just go back to Lin’s house. Lock up everything at our house, and take a change of clothes. I’ll try calling mom and dad, and if I get a hold of them, I’ll let you know. If I don’t, I’ll call you back and you can alert the police. Okay?”

“Okay,” I paused, “Call Lin’s phone, not mine. Mine hasn’t been receiving calls.”

“Alright. Try and relax, Jess. Everything is going to be okay.”

“Okay. Bye, Noah, I love you.”

“Love you too, kid, be careful.” Then Noah hung up. That was the last time I ever heard my brother, but I hadn’t known it then. I grabbed a change of clothes and a few various other things I liked when I went to stay the night at other people’s houses, then I wrapped my phone in a washcloth and stuck it in my bag.

Before leaving, I re-checked every nook and cranny for my parents. Still not finding them, I locked all the doors and checked all the windows, then closed the garage door and started walking back to Lin’s house. The rain was not as heavy as before, but still stung when it hit my skin. Once I got there, I let myself in and went upstairs to her bedroom. The shower was turned off and the bathroom light was off and the mirror was not fogged at all. I did not find Lin anywhere. Her towel was on its hook, and her phone was still sitting on the desk.

I walked around Lin’s house, calling for her, but I did not find her. It was only then that I realized that none of her family was around. I ran back up to her room and grabbed her phone and its charger cord, and her hoodie that I often took from her. Then I walked out of her house, and started slowly walking back to the front of the neighborhood. I did not stop at my house, and I did not stop to watch for cars on the roads. There weren’t any.

I had walked all the way into downtown and to the grocery store before I met anyone else. It was a boy of about nineteen, holding the hand of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than four. He looked at me.

“Everyone is gone,” he said, “I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Me too,” I said, though I had only looked in two houses: mine and Lin’s. But it did not matter, there wouldn’t have been anyone else in the other houses.

“My name is Jorge and this is Josie. She’s my neighbor. I couldn’t find her parents.”

“I’m Jess.”

“Do you think we should stay here to wait out the storm?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I think we should. There are towels in the back, come on. You look like you were hanging out with the fishes.” I followed Jorge into the back to get some towels. I felt as though I’d been hanging out with the fishes. Sitting in the front window of the grocery store beside Jorge and Josie, I did not feel safe but I did not feel as though I was in any danger.

“Tomorrow we should walk to Camton,” Jorge said, “I’ve got a few friends there hopefully, and maybe they’ll be able to help. Besides, there’s more people in Camton, it’d be harder for all of them to disappear.” I nodded.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

But tomorrow hadn’t proved very helpful. We’d found two twelve-year-olds boys and another four-year-old girl. So we agreed on the next tomorrow, to go somewhere else. We’ve been walking ever since. There’s almost thirty of us. Sometimes one of our number dies on the way to the next tomorrow, but we keep walking. Jorge and I are the leaders, and Josie helps us pick which side of the fork in the road to take.

I miss Lin, and I miss Noah, and I miss my parents. But they cannot be gone forever. They must be somewhere.

Maybe I will find them tomorrow. 

Author's Note

Would you be interested in a continuation of this or do you think it works best alone?