Imaginary Reader, the warehouse walls shook last night again. The wide open space surrounding this desk and my bed amplifies sound too much. I can’t sleep with the banging and rattling.
I don’t know if I should open the door and look outside. The last time I left the warehouse was to bury Evelyn. The sky looked darker than I’d like that day. I didn’t say a prayer for her after I piled the last of the dirt upon her body. I should have said a prayer, or at least tried. She would have wanted that.
I don’t know if I should open the door. The sky looked frightening that day, 37 etchings ago. Something is coming for me, and it is outside. I shouldn’t open the door. So, my prayer for Evelyn will need to be done inside, not at her grave. I don’t know how to pray.
These storms are increasing in frequency. All of the destruction of the last years must have changed the atmosphere. I suppose this is what climate change produces. Storms with terrifying frequency.
The throngs of humanity caused this, but I am alone to see the effects. I think I lived responsibly. I recycled. I took the bus when I could. I walked. I am not the culprit. The villains are all dead. I am just the witness.
I should pray for Evelyn.
God: Please protect my friend. She deserved better than she got. My understanding is that you reward good people for being good people. She was a good person. She cared for the people around her. She had a bad husband, but she maintained her goodness. Why did you give her such a bad husband, God? Sorry. You have reasons, I’m sure. Maybe her bad husband was necessary to make her a good person. I don’t want that to be true. Why would you do that? You are not a very nice god. Sorry. I don’t mean that. I think I don’t understand. If you exist, please be understanding of me. But, I mean, look at all of this shit. Why did you do this to us? This is not a good prayer. Sorry. Please protect my friend Evelyn. Amen.
It’s not a good prayer. I’ll try again later.
I’m having a bad day. The banging on the warehouse walls is getting disconcerting. I should look outside. Maybe. I’m conflicted about it. It might be dangerous, and I’m the last person, so I need to write the history. I should stay inside and write the history.
The next part is important, too. When the five of us woke up in the truck stop, we were no longer five people, we were dozens.
Fred woke up first, screaming. His scream was unlike any scream I had heard before. He was at the age between boy and man, and at that age the voice gets weird. Pubescent boys have a lot of terror, but most of it is internal. They yell when playing sports or video games, but those are the creaky yells of tweens hoping for heroism. Fred’s scream was like the sound presaging the silence of a hydrogen bomb’s silent aftermath. I should know.
We were surrounded. Grubby, dusty human figures stood around our little group of poorly-rested refugees. They didn’t look dangerous, despite Fred’s horrifying shriek. They just looked dirty. Haley held Fred in her arms while Jeremy lept to his feet, fists clenched at his waist, ready to murder the first person to approach his kid.
“Get out,” I heard Evelyn say quietly. Then louder: “Get out!”
I stood up, knowing full well I was not the leader of the group, but feeling a little insecure about that.
“Who are you?” I asked, possibly stealing Evelyn’s thunder. “This is our store. Leave.” I was suddenly feeling ownership of the Global Petrol and its evil, nonfunctional showers.
One of the grubby, dusty human figures spoke: “We saw there were people here. We need to stick together. Come with us. We’re going to the City.”
My read of the situation changed, but Evelyn was quicker than I was. “We are too. We need to know we can trust you, though. There are more of you than us,” she said, reasonably.
“You can’t trust us until you travel with us. We have no ulterior motive. We have nothing, but we also aren’t taking anything. I give you my word, even though I know you can’t believe it right now. My name is Walter. I can vouch for these people.”
Walter Grisholm seemed like a good man when I first met him. To give myself some credit, Evelyn thought so too, and she had a relationship with God.