The Fifth Day Read online

  But her conscious mind couldn’t accept it. She had the sudden overpowering urge to laugh, but stopped herself. In this mood, if she started, she might never stop. She went to the closet, got a broom, swept up the pieces of the broken drinking glass, then sponged up the orange juice. She picked up Julia’s robe, and draped it over one of the kitchen chairs. Then she fixed herself some scrambled eggs.

  Afterwards, she cleaned the omelet pan. Leaving dirty dishes in the sink was one of the things that could set Julia off. She carefully wiped the pan out, making sure not to scratch the non-stick surface, and rehung it on the pan rack. She wiped up a sticky spot of spilled orange juice she’d missed, and found with one bare foot.

  The whole time, one part of her mind screamed for attention—the part that usually had the upper hand, the scientific part, the part that worked by logic and evidence. But the emotional side of her had gone into screeching overload and collapsed. It heard thoughts saying, There’s been a catastrophe, you can’t walk around like nothing’s wrong, but was unable to pay any heed. So she took a shower and got dressed.

  When there was still no one in the house upon reemerging from the bedroom, she went outside into the cool, sunny morning. She heard the unearthly silence, the lack of traffic noise, the lack of any sign of humanity, and still couldn’t accept it. Julia’s bicycle leaned against the wall on the front porch, chained to one of the rails. She turned the dial on the lock, set with Lissa’s birthday as the combination, until the hasp popped open. Then she picked it up, carried it to the street, and got on.

  —

  FURNESS WAS A ghost town.

  There were wrecked cars, empty sidewalks, empty streets, and not a whole hell of a lot else. Lissa let her eyes move across the scene as she pedaled past, her face calm, while her mind shrieked, Look at this! Look at all of this, woman! Figure out what has happened here!

  But figuring out what had happened was beyond her. Every time she turned her thoughts to it, her mind rebelled.

  People vanishing. That violated the First Law of Thermodynamics. Even God can’t violate the First Law of Thermodynamics. There had to be some kind of rational, logical mechanism that explained what had happened, but nothing in Lissa’s training as a physicist gave her the slightest inkling of what that might be.

  So she kept pedaling. It was the only thing to do. The ocean roared on undiminished to her right. The wind brought the sharp, salt smell and the keening of gulls.

  This could not be a dream. There was nothing in the least dreamlike about it. She was experiencing reality, but it was not the reality she knew.

  This left two possibilities. Either something catastrophic had happened, something entirely outside of conventional science to explain, or else she had gone completely insane.

  The blocky tan edifice of the Furness branch of Coastal Savings & Loan loomed ahead. Despite the drought California had experienced over the past years, it had an immaculate, emerald-green lawn, irrigated regularly, that sloped down toward the road. And lying in the middle of that sunlit sheet of green was a man.

  The shock of seeing an actual living human made Lissa swerve, and she almost collided with a car that sat diagonally across First Street, nearly blocking both lanes.

  “Jesus!”

  She applied both handbrakes and skidded to a stop.

  The man sat up. He was shirtless, and had been using his balled-up shirt as a pillow. His curly hair was cut short. His eyes were so dark they looked almost black, and his skin was tanned a rich golden-brown. A broad chest, thick arms, and narrow waist spoke of a lot of hours spent in a gym.

  He stretched, and said, in a lazy sort of voice, “You the only one left?”

  Lissa stared at him, open-mouthed.

  “You can’t talk?”

  “Yes. I can talk.”

  “Oh. Good. It’d suck if the only other person in the world was someone who couldn’t talk. Or if we didn’t speak the same language, or something.”

  “That would be a bit ironic, yes.”

  “You don’t sound American, though. Where are you from?”

  “Belize.”

  “Hell, I don’t even know where that is. Is it in Africa somewhere?”

  “No. Central America.”

  “Oh.” He seemed to lose interest in the topic. “You haven’t seen anyone else, though?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “What happened to all of ’em? I got up to go to work this morning, and when I got there, the place was dark and all locked up. I work at Doug’s Auto Body Shop, right down the road.” He gestured with one hand. “I thought I mighta, you know, not realized it was Sunday or a federal holiday or something. But then I remembered that I hadn’t seen no one on the road. So I came up here because there was a lawn to take a nap on and catch some rays. I figured that if anyone passed on the road, I’d see ’em.” He paused. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Lissa George.”

  “Gary Suarez. So, you don’t have no idea where everyone is?”

  “No. None.”

  “Well, this is the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She nodded. “Do you have any idea when it happened?”

  He shook his head. “Naw. I usually get up in time to take a shower and drink a cup of coffee and get my ass out the door. Didn’t even realize what was going on until I got to work. When did you figure it out?”

  “When I got up and my… boyfriend was gone.” The old lie came easily to her lips. Especially around a macho guy like this. “I found his robe in the kitchen, next to a broken glass, like he’d simply vanished.”

  “Weird.” He frowned at her for a moment, and then his face brightened. “Look, if we’re still here, maybe other people are, too. We should search. You think?”

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  “I’ve got a motorcycle. You want to go for a ride?”

  She gave him a wry smile. He was just a big kid. Let’s go for a ride on my bike. Simple guy living in a simple world. “No, I think I’ll stick to my bicycle. Maybe we should scout around Furness, see if we can find anyone, and meet back here. You have a watch?”

  He held up one tanned arm. “G-Shock, baby.”

  “Good. How about noon? Come back here, and bring along anyone you find who’s willing to come. We can find some food and then see what to do next.”

  —

  BUT TWO HOURS’ search, Lissa on her bicycle and Gary on his motorcycle, turned up no one else.

  “Shit, Lissa.” Gary suddenly sounded very young and very scared. “This is creeping me right the hell out. It’s like, row after row of houses and businesses and stuff, and no one. I stopped and banged on a few doors, to see if someone would answer. Nothing. So I went inside this house, up on Purcell Avenue, you know, up near the bowling alley? It felt weird, walking in like that. I don’t know why I did it, but I wanted to see. And it was like you said with your boyfriend’s robe. There were these piles of clothes, like the people disappeared and their clothes kind of settled down. The weirdest one was this girl’s dress. On top was a hair clip and ribbon, and then a dress. I picked it up, and underneath were underwear, and socks, and these little shoes.” He sounded as if he were on the verge of tears. “These little shoes, sitting there, like the feet that were in them had… I dunno….”

  “Evaporated.”

  “Yeah. Evaporated. That’s it. What the fuck could do this?”

  “I don’t know. I’m a scientist, and I have no idea how this could happen. I thought at first I must be dreaming, or hallucinating, or something, but it seems that I’m not.”

  “No shit? You’re a scientist?”

  She nodded. “Physicist. UC Berkeley. I was down here for a couple of days to see my boyfriend.”

  “I gotta be honest, I don’t even know what a physicist does. But if you don’t know what happened….”

  She nodded. “I know. We need answers. But first, let’s find some food.”

  —

  IN THE
END, they went back to Julia’s house and raided the fridge. Lissa surreptitiously picked up the framed photograph of her and Julia with their arms around each other, taken six months previous at a carnival, and slipped it into a drawer. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to indicate the gender of the person who had lived here. Any obviously feminine touches Gary would probably assume had come from her.

  And he was remarkably uncurious about Lissa’s vanished boyfriend. “Cool house,” was all he said upon entering.

  She made sandwiches, and they decided to try again that afternoon to find other survivors.

  Better than sitting around trying to make conversation with Weightlifter Biker Dude.

  “You went out to the east, near the bowling alley?” she said.

  Gary nodded. “Yeah, up Durrell Street, past the high school.” His voice was indistinct around a mouthful of tuna salad.

  “Maybe I’ll head north, then, and you can head south along First Street and down toward the pier. That’s where most of the businesses are, so I’m guessing that if anyone else in Furness survived, they’d go there.”

  “You sure you don’t want to go with me this time? It’d be more fun.”

  “No. We can cover more ground if we separate.”

  Gary looked disappointed, but acquiesced. “That makes sense.”

  “Let’s meet back at the bank, like we did before. It’s centrally located. Say, at six or so?”

  “Sure.” He frowned. “But what if we don’t find anyone?”

  What if, indeed. Just her and Gary Suarez. No one else on Earth. Now there could be her own personal version of hell. And what if he turned out to be dangerous? He seemed okay so far, but wait till he got horny, and it really sank in that they might be completely alone. She’d never had to use her karate to defend herself, but she was glad she had it.

  —

  SO THEY WENT their separate ways. Lissa pedaled slowly through the surreal maze of empty streets, winding her way around stalled cars. The afternoon passed in a gradually increasing sense of disconnect. She felt disembodied, as if the world was in slow motion, and she herself underwater, looking out at this incomprehensible world through the transparent walls of an aquarium. The glassy silence rose around her, drowning her in paradox.

  —

  AT FIFTEEN TILL six, she was back at the bank. She had found no one, and no further clues regarding what happened. She was paying for this complete lack of success with an aching butt and a sunburn on her face. She leaned her bicycle against a light post and sat on the grass, arms wrapped around her knees, staring at a sign across the street that said, Darla’s Family Restaurant! Come One, Come All! We Have Room for Everyone!

  Yes, Darla. You do. All you need is a table for two, and you could seat the whole world.

  Ten minutes later, the snarling roar of Gary’s motorcycle echoed in the distance, sounding loud in the preternatural silence. Soon he came into view, helmetless and shirtless again.

  Of course. Gotta show off his Greek god torso. How long would it take before he suggested they spend the night together?

  “No one?” she shouted, as he braked to a stop and shut off the engine.

  “Nope. Entire city is abandoned, far as I can tell.”

  “I can’t believe this.” It came out in a flat monotone.

  “Me either. It’s like one of those zombie apocalypse movies, you know? I wonder if tonight all of the missing people are going to show back up, and be all dead and falling apart.”

  “That’s a cheerful idea.”

  Gary shrugged. “You got a better explanation?”

  “That is not an explanation. That’s called fiction. Whatever happened, it has nothing to do with zombies.”

  “I hope not. Those motherfuckers are scary as shit.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. And with her laughter, some of the tension in her drained away. Maybe he wasn’t going to be so bad after all. “Yeah. Yeah, they are. But I don’t think we need to worry about that. Look, I’m worn out, so I think I’m going to go back to the house for now. We should meet here tomorrow, and see if we can figure out what to do next.”

  “We should search some more. There have to be others. There have to.”

  She nodded. “I think it’s likely, too. There’s that whole neighborhood east of downtown that we haven’t checked yet. But I’m too tired to do it now, and in any case, it’s going to be dark soon.”

  “You—you want—” He gave her a crooked smile. “You want me to come with you?”

  Of course. There it was.

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Seriously. You’ll be alone, you know? What if someone is out there?”

  “I’m safe. I have a black belt in karate. Some guy tries something, I’ll kick his balls so hard they’ll rattle around in his skull for a week.”

  Gary’s eyebrows flew upward.

  Well, that made an impression.

  “Seriously? You know karate?”

  “Yes.” She poked him in the chest with one finger. “So don’t get any ideas and make me use it on you.”

  “I won’t.” His tone was reverent.

  They parted ways after some awkward words of farewell, and Lissa cycled back northward toward Julia’s house. By the time she got there, the sun was sinking toward the horizon, and the sky was blushing crimson. The house felt hollow, like an empty shell of what was once a living home. Lissa’s sneakers clunked on the hardwood floors, and the shadows stretched out toward her as if they wanted to surround her, take her away as well. She switched on a light, and squinted in its harsh yellow glare. But even with the lights on, the house was like a derelict that had been abandoned for years, whose furnishings had lain in stasis, with none but the dust and the cobwebs for company.

  She went to the bathroom, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was real. That meant that this was real.

  Whatever this was.

  “I’ll figure this out. I’ll find out where you went, Julia. Tomorrow. The sun will rise, and it will be light again, and there will be answers.” Her throat tightened, and the last words came out in a whisper. “There have to be answers.”

  She turned on the water, and rinsed her face. The coolness centered her, and confidence flowed back into her. She looked down into the sink. There was something strangely mesmerizing about the way the water swirled down the drain. It was slow, turning in a lazy circle, then faster and faster as it approached the center. And at the center was….

  Lissa gasped, and stepped back, banging her heel on the bathtub. With a reflexive swat, she shut the water off, and the sink drained with a gurgle.

  What the hell was that?

  She wasn’t even sure. She’d only seen it for a second….

  She approached the sink, and looked down, her eyes wide.

  It was empty, a smooth bowl of white porcelain.

  Then, down in the trap, there was a hollow glurk, and a little splash of water sprayed from the drain, and splattered her face like a dark baptism.

  8

  AND THE SIBYL said:

  Do not despise the wisdom of your ancestors; for they understood better than you do. You have knowledge, but they had wisdom, and they knew that the two are not the same, for knowledge exists in the mind but wisdom in the heart. For all your knowledge, you will not stand fast against the storm. Those with knowledge stand stiff, thinking their minds will save them; those with wisdom bend with the wind, and their hearts will keep them rooted to the ground. Abandon knowledge and embrace wisdom if you wish to live. It is the only way.

  —

  THE MAN SITTING in front of the church was named Jeff East, and up until that morning he’d worked as the groundskeeper and custodian for the Furness First Baptist Church. Zolzaya and Margo introduced themselves, and each of them told their stories. They were remarkably similar in gist, if not in detail. Jeff was inside the church when it—whatever it was—had happened, he said. He’d walked into the church at six AM, with the intention of
running a vacuum over the carpet and setting up the chairs for that morning’s Bible study group. When he entered, there was the usual bustle of people heading to work and getting breakfast in the deli, and when he walked out an hour and a half later, everyone was gone.

  “I knew this would happen sooner or later,” he said. “Reverend Morris always said so. He didn’t know when, of course. No one did. Matthew twenty-five thirteen—‘Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of Man cometh.’”

  Margo looked around. “I don’t see a Son of Man.”

  “There’s all sorts of stuff that’s gonna happen first.” Jeff began ticking off points on his outstretched fingers. “The Beast with Seven Heads, and the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And the streets running red with the blood of the unbelievers.”

  “There aren’t many unbelievers left,” Zolzaya said.

  “Are you unbelievers?” His voice was curious, not hostile.

  “Pretty much.” Z decided she shouldn’t tell this guy that up until yesterday, she made her living doing Tarot readings. Bad enough that Margo let it slip that she was from Bulgaria. He looked like the kind who was suspicious of everyone who wasn’t American, and thought that the Second Amendment was one of the Ten Commandments.

  “I used to go to church, but kind of got out of the habit,” Margo said.

  Jeff nodded knowingly. “There you go, then.”

  “Well, between the two of us, we don’t have enough blood for the streets to run red with it,” Zolzaya said. “We’d hardly make a puddle.”

  “And in any case, you don’t have to sound so cheerful about the possibility.” Margo scowled at him through her thick glasses.