Chapter 5,
Slate
Then the end of the world actually happened. It started just over a year from the first time the world heard the Voice. I had just finished a hard day at work and picked up a twelve pack, which I intended to drink most of, when the world started to change. The thing people noticed first was the purple tinge that pushed the blue out of the sky. It started out a dark violet and quickly spread across the horizon. It crept lower and became a lighter color, turning into my dreaded periwinkle as clouds took over the horizon. John and I were both at the same store, having stopped for the same reasons and noticed the change on our way out.
“John, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but this is probably what that voice talked about a year ago.” I muttered.
“No shit,” He replied, looking a combination of scared and angry. “Eric is in Pittsburgh, I won’t be able to get to him.”
“I am sure he’ll be ok and come back as soon as he can. I say we go back inside and buy all the beer in this fucking store. Then let’s go to my place? You know I have set up my basement for something like this.”
“Slate you may be a dumbass, but I like your attitude. Let’s buy everything we can though, food is important.” John replied.
So we loaded up on chips, candy, junk food, beer, and even purchased the unreasonably expensive canned and dry foods that they had in stock. Our two trucks were loaded up with most stores stock as we pulled away. As we were headed to my place I tried to call Jessica. We had discussed plans for another major event like this and decided that she should come over like last time. We may not be able to live with each other when the world is normal, but when push came to shove, we wanted to be by each other’s sides during catastrophe.
We had not changed much, she was still ‘shopping around’ when it came to guys and I was still playing video games and cussing kids out online while in my underwear. But we both spent a few nights a week at my place or hers. To be honest, the relationship was working great. There was the small chance to lose her to a guy she decided to start dating which was slightly frustrating, but I loved the no expectations attitude way we treated each other. I would be nice to her just because I wanted to, buying presents on a holiday or birthday not because society said so, but because I honestly wanted to do something nice for her. It was peaceful not to do the traditional boyfriend-girlfriend dance, and we were able to avoid most of the preconceptions that went along with that.
We unloaded our trucks into the house and went back out front. Standing on the front porch we watched silently as the freakish purple took over the world. With visual confirmation of a possible upcoming apocalypse, the world was surely going to freak out way worse than the last time when it had only heard the Voice. This was it, this was the end of modern society. I wondered how far humanity would regress, what it would take for people to recover. Looking back, even my doomsday thoughts were mild compared to what actually happened.
I sat at the edge of the steps, opened a beer first for me and another for John. I handed him a cool refreshing can of Heinikan and said “Beer at the end of the world John?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” he replied, sitting next to me. “So how is secure is basement?”
“It’s a bunker John, not a basement. It’s not too shabby. Food for six months on top of what we got today, well water, and a natural gas generator that should run for a while even if the power plants shut down. I have a ton of ammo to go with my guns if it gets bad enough to have to fight off looters.”
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He looked over at me and nodded and we sat in silence some more.
“So Eric is still in Pittsburg?” I eventually asked.
He looked sad when he replied “Yes.”
We both knew with what was coming, the four and a half hour drive to Pittsburgh may has well have been across the world. John had his cell phone out and was continually calling Eric’s number like I was trying to reach Jess, but the circuits all stayed busy. He tried to send him a text, but either it did not go through or it wasn’t working all together.
“Don’t think we are going to hug or anything, but I am glad you are here,” I offered. “I could use the company.”
He thought about it for a long while before agreeing. “Yea, no hugging. You generally smell like shit anyways”
We stayed outside and finished another beer in companionable silence. I did not have any living family to worry about. There was just Jess, and was hoping that she would just show up soon. John on the other hand still had his parents down in Georgia and a sister in Tennessee. I knew he must be thinking about them as well as his boyfriend.
“If you’re staying, we’re going to need to move another bed into the basement. I am not sure if I trust you in mine,” I joked. “End of the World, last guy on earth and all.”
John gave a sad smile. He knew I was only trying to cheer him up a little and take his mind off his loved ones. In all reality, unless this change was short lived he would never see his loved ones again. We did not know at the time what the world would become, but we knew no one would be driving anywhere casually for a long time. I could not imagine how he must have felt.
“I assume this is part of that game the voice spoke of a while back. All though I’ll be damned if I know what the hell we’re playing,” Stating the obvious, I spent my last few moments on the porch wondering if I had done enough to get ready. Even while preparing, I always assumed it would only be for a short term event, such as we had gone through the year before. It was awful, but eventually society had reinstated itself and life went back to normal. I was not prepared for the long haul and hoped the minor preparations would keep us alive. I knew that he would eat half my food, but damn was I glad John was here. Surviving might not be worth it if I did it alone.
We sat outside in silence until the purple touched us. We both started to notice the ill effects immediately. It felt like we had been dipped into dirty water and came out again, with the oily film that floated atop clinging to us.
“Can you feel that too John?”
“Yea.”
“Well, this shit can’t be good for us, we outta get moving.”
“Yea.”
I got up quickly and made my way inside. There were still a few things to move downstairs. The PlayStation and Xbox were already set up, priorities after all, so I snagged the laptop next. I brought down some more blankets, towels and toiletries. Plenty of toilet paper had been stashed, but I didn’t think to get extra tooth paste or deodorant. I was starting to drag down the second bed when John came in and lifted the other half of it in with one his huge mitts. We got it downstairs and on its frame, and left the sheets on top of it for later. I grabbed a bunch of clothes, some of which John should fit into, and left them in boxes on the floor of the basement.
John and I boarded up the house and left up some premade signs I had made. They read, in various ways, “This house is trapped, proceed if you want to get shot”, “Trespassers will be executed”. I was going for the gun nut hermit vibe to keep looters away. I only locked the back door and front door after boarding up the window panes on them. I wanted to be able to get out if some dumbass lit the house on fire. My bunker wasn’t fire proof; after all it was really just a basement.
After we had moved downstairs and locked up steel doors we noticed that the purple was starting to come through the glass well windows. It still burned after being filtered by the glass. When working midnight shifts on the police department that I learned to cut up cardboard and put aluminum foil on the outside and place them in the windows for covers. If you got a good seal it would cut off all light from the outside. I told John about this and we cut up some boxes and got to making seals on the windows. We did a good job with it, putting them in place with the universal sealant, duct tape. By the time we finished, our skin was red and irritated from the exposure. Finished for now, we pulled up chairs in front of the TV.
The news showed the end of our world.