Day 1

I wake up groggily, a migraine pressing heavily into the front of my head. I feel like I’ve been hit by a train and left for dead. My body aches and my joints feel swollen. I’d gone to sleep fast and hard the night before so I wasn’t too surprised that I must be sick. I get out of bed slowly and walk hunched over to the bathroom.

My eyes are

 bloodshot, my hair wild around my face. I pull a thermometer out of the cabinet and stick it in my mouth. Testing… Testing… 99.9. Okay, not the worst. I check my cabinet for cold meds, and it is decidedly empty, so I brush my teeth and put on my slippers. This is not a getting dressed day. This is a pajamas at Walmart day. I grab my keys and walk outside.

The day is cool and windy. December in Michigan is so temperamental, and you never knew what you’ll get. I was just glad it wasn’t snowy so I could parade my rainbow bunny slippers about without fear of stepping in anything wet. As I pull out of the long drive onto the road, I notice how empty it is. Odd, but lucky. No traffic means no extra commute time, which means getting back to my cozy bed A.S.A.P.

The dead roads start to become mildly concerning the closer I got to town, culminating in outright confusion and when I see there isn’t anyone at Walmart. I circle the building and find a few cars parked in back at employee spots and laugh at how dramatic I’m being. I circle back around and park in the closest parking spot. I exit my car and notice an intense lack of noise. No birds, no cars in the distance, no low hum of people talking. Just wind, and more wind.

Silence.

I hurry to the door and almost run into it because it didn’t open like normal. It stays quiet and dead, staring back at me a mirrored image of my confusion on the glass. I wave a hand and do a little jig in front of the door to try and make it work, then scour the area on and around the door looking for a notice of any kind. Nothing. I walk back to my car trying desperately to convince myself everything is fine, and this was just a little weird.

As I pull out onto the main road again, the lack of cars still unsettles me, but I decide to try the Meijer just barely down the road from me. I pull in this time and notice there are at least lights on. Meijer is open 24/7 excluding Christmas, so I’m not too surprised that they’re functioning properly, unlike Walmart.

I park close again and walk up to the doors which slide open invitingly. A strange smell lightly perfumes the store, and I can’t totally put my finger on it. It smells like cherries and vanilla with a hint of rot. It’s horrid and pungent. I walk towards the front desk to ask what’s up with that and notice a foot peeking out at the end of an aisle, so I detour that way, relieved to finally see another person. As I round the corner, I noticed the smell getting stronger.

The foot belongs to a very pale worker, who is slumped over and sleeping. “Excuse me?” I say. He doesn’t respond so I go to tap him on the shoulder. A shriek bubbles up my throat and dances

down my tongue as he rigidly thumps fully onto the ground, maintaining his position. From this angle I can see that his eyes aren’t fully closed, and what’s left of them has sunken into his face.

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He’s dead.

Very dead.

I scream for help, and nobody comes. I gather myself enough to grab my phone and dial 911.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

 I’m trapped in my own personal hell as I come to the realization there isn’t going to be an answer. I dash across the store to the front desk I was originally going to, and my blood freezes in my veins.

There’s another body, just as dead as the last.

My screams don’t cease as I sprint from the building to my car and am flung deeply into an all-encompassing panic attack. When I finally pull myself together, I try to make sense of what’s going on. I decide maybe the phone lines are down, so I need to manually get help. There must have been a carbon monoxide leak in Meijer. That is the only rational solution I can come up with.

 I make my way to the police station hoping this has all been an insane dream or hallucination, but my hopes are dashed when I open the door and see another body slumped over the welcome desk.

 I crumple to the ground and lose sense of time.

Day 2

Yesterday had been a blur, today was looking to be almost as bad. The shock is still present, but I am able to function on pure adrenaline at this point. I’ve already checked all the houses in my neighborhood for anyone alive. The few doors that were unlocked led to distressing sight after distressing sight.

The faces start to blend together as I see more and more corpses, at slightly different levels of decay. The bodies are starting to get puffy and turn unnatural colors, and every doorknob that turns in my hand makes my stomach drop in anticipation of which familiar face I’d see distorted and unmoving next. By the time I had tried a few houses in most of the major neighborhoods in town, I decide this is not going to help anyone, especially not me. I start to formulate my plan.

Day 3

I spend the morning stuffing my deep freezer with as much as I can, plus the 2 extra freezers I’d taken from the Best Buy in town. I figure if this is more widespread than my town then nobody would mind too terribly that I hadn’t paid for them; If that was the case, I would need all the supplies I can save because the power was bound to go out sooner than later without people working to keep it on.

 I triple check all my solar panels and make sure the backups are functioning properly. The last thing I need is for all of this effort to go to waste while I’m gone.

I load up my converted bus named Betty with clothes and food, but I don’t have a whole lot in the realm of medical supplies at my disposal. I take one last trip to town to pack in some emergency equipment from Menards and decide to spend the next day breaking into the hospital.

Day 4

The smell is awful and had been for days at this point. I readjust the bandana on my face and wipe the sweat off my forehead. I hadn’t seen another living creature since the day I woke up alone, but I still had hope. I let the crunch of gravel under my shoes narrate my journey up the path and hope that maybe somebody else had the bright idea to gather supplies from this hospital.

If there was anyone left to have a bright idea, I guess.

As I get up to the door of the hospital I take a deep breath, knowing that the smell was only going to intensify when I walk inside. Thankfully the waiting room hadn’t been too populated when it happened, and only a few scattered corpses linger sleepily in the waiting room chairs. I make my way to the doors and wedged my crowbar in between them. My journey continues into the bowels of the building, prying doors open, and avoiding stepping near the bloating corpses as best I can. Finally, I find what I’m looking for.

The power is still on for now, and I stock up on as much medical equipment as I can, thankful I have a very rudimentary knowledge of how enough of it works to get by. Once my wagon is loaded up, I make my way back through the maze that is the back rooms of the hospital. After loading everything into my bus, I climb in myself to take note of anything else I might need for the trip. It seems to be enough for now, so I unfolded my map and started planning out the route I’m going to travel.