Trisha cleared her voice loudly, and Chris knew what that meant. "Mae, could you give us just a minute?"
She shrugged, indifferent, and leaned over, sifting through the inside of her car.
Chris and Terry joined the others behind the SUV, and the four of them formed a tight circle.
"This is so wrong, so much I don't even know where to start," Trisha whispered. "Who is this girl? Why is she here if everyone else is gone?"
"From her appearance," said Chris, "she must be homeless. Probably lives on the streets in Orlando."
"Very convenient," Owen said in his calm monotone, "that she should happen to be homeless here, so that we encounter her right after entering the city."
Terry was incredulous. "Look at her, Beech. You don't seriously think she had something to do with everybody disappearing? Or the crash? She doesn't even know who we are."
"The shortest distance between two points is a straight line," said Owen, crossing his beefy arms before his broad chest. "Point A: everybody on the planet is gone. Point B: everybody on the planet is gone-except for this one girl. The line between the two practically draws itself"
The four of them looked at one another.
It was Trisha who broke the silence. "I'm with Beech on this one. I don't know if she's somehow related to what's happened or not, but I don't trust her. And it seems odd that she hasn't mentioned anything about everybody else vanishing around her. It's almost like she doesn't even know."
"Well, maybe she's not the only one still here," Terry suggested. "Maybe we'll come across more people like her, scattered around."
"What's most important," Chris said, waving away the various arguments, "is what we do with her. I don't think we should just leave her on her own."
"It would appear that the answer to that question has already been decided," Owen whispered, nodding at Terry's pickup truck.
Mae was throwing two large black garbage bags that were undoubtedly stuffed with her possessions into the bed of the pickup truck.
Noticing that they were watching her, she said, "Y'all done yet? Gotta potty."
Chris sighed. Under different circumstances, he might have found this comical.
"Looks like she's coming with us," Terry said with a lopsided grin, and returned to the driver's seat of the truck.
"We're headed for Houston," Chris informed her. He felt she should know.
" 'Kay," she said without a trace of concern.
Half an hour later, the two cars pulled to a stop in a housing development located in an Orlando suburb called Aloma. Chris and Trisha were in front in the SUV; the pickup trailed them.
Chris turned the key to the off position and the vehicle quieted. Like everywhere else, the housing development proved disturbingly serene. A child's swing blew in the breeze in a nearby front yard, the creaking of its rusted chains the only sound any of them could hear.
Chris' thoughts were centered on the multitude of strange things taking place around them. The evidence was mounting that something very unnatural had happened to Earth's populace, and could still be happening. Then there was the void he'd seen twice. Plus that strange light was shining so bright near Houston. And now there was the girl named Mae.
"Take as long as you need," Chris said, not meeting Trisha's eyes out of respect. He cared about Trisha enough to mean the words as he said them, yet he still felt distracted and agitated. He wanted to be in Houston. He needed answers, and he needed them now.
A simple but heartfelt nod was her way of saying thanks, and she exited the car, walked up the short, paved driveway, and approached the front door of Paul's house. The house didn't look much different than any of the other houses in the development; the lawn showed signs of two-plus months of neglect, and there were bits of trash and debris here and there, deposited by the wind. But otherwise it was a perfectly reasonable, modest little home, offering no clues as to what Trisha might find inside. The driveway was missing a car, but that didn't mean anything; Paul had likely been at work just like everyone else when he'd disappeared. They'd already established from the NASA security videos that it happened in the late afternoon.
Chris watched as Trisha knelt and rooted around in a clump of soil just beside the door until she retrieved a key. She used it to enter the house.
A burst of static filled his ear. "Hey, Chris?" said Terry's voice through the radio.
"Yeah," he replied.
"We, uh ... We may have a slight problem."
Chris was absently watching the house, seeing only the drapes covering the windows, and wondering what Trisha was seeing right now on the other side of those curtains. "What's that?"
"You know, um, Mae?"
Chris rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I think I recall the kooky homeless girl we picked up half an hour ago. Please tell me she didn't potty' in the back of the truck."
"No, she didn't. But she's ... sorta gone."
Chris spun in his seat and looked into the cab of the truck. It was empty. Mae had been riding in the truck bed beside her bags of stuff, but now only the bags remained. "Sorta gone where?"
"That would be the problem' part," said Terry slowly.
"You didn't see her leave?"
"We were watching Trisha go in the house!" Terry replied, defensive. "But Mae left all her stuff in the truck, so I don't think she's gone gone. Maybe she just needed to stretch her legs or something."
Chris shook his head. The world was empty, and Houston was beckoning; there wasn't time for baby-sitting.
Wonderful.
Trisha stood in the center of Paul's living room, and stared.
She found what she was looking at to be harder to accept than the disappearance of every man, woman, and child on Earth.
The house had been gutted.
All of Paul's belongings-everything from his favorite art pieces adorning the walls to that hideous fish-shaped lamp that she always teased him about-they were gone. The walls, the floors, the kitchen cupboards. Everything was stripped bare. All but the curtains.
Trisha felt as though her knees were going to buckle, but she dug in her heels and decided she wasn't going to go down. No, not today. That would only lead down a pain-filled path to things she couldn't hide from the others. She would not let it happen. So she focused on trying to compartmentalize.
She wasn't sure what she had expected to find, but it wasn't this. Absolutely not this.
Her thoughts drifted back to the first time she and Paul met. He was a technician contracted by NASA, working on the Ares' booster rockets. She was in town doing press for the mission, which was still a year and a half away.
Their romance had been the stuff of fairy tales, though they'd been careful to keep it out of the press. He was smitten from the moment their eyes first met; the next day he introduced himself, presented her with a single red rose, and asked her out. She hadn't been interested in a relationship at the time-and she knew NASA would frown on it, given her assignment to the long-term Mars missionbut she found that she couldn't resist him. He was charming, gallant, handsome, and when she spoke to him, he hung on her every word like a hungry puppy.
This place, this house she now stood in-she could remember the first time he'd invited her here. It was their fifth date. He wanted to cook for her. It was the first time in her life she could ever remember a man cooking for her. And his cooking wasn't half bad. He'd burned the dessert. Despite herself, she'd fallen for him. Hard.
This house was so familiar. It had been a haven for her. As a career astronaut with years of experience, she was well known by the media, and her PR duties sometimes were as physically and mentally overwhelming as her training often was. It was endless and exhausting, but such was the price one paid for a round-trip ticket to Mars.
On the plus side, those same duties that brought her to Orlando to speak to VIPs and give the press guided tours also brought her closer to Paul. She would come here to his house at the end of a long day of speaking engagements or personal tours of the Ares construct
ion site, and prop her feet up on his mahogany coffee table while he snuggled with her on the couch and they watched an old movie.
This place that was once so familiar now felt like a violation. This modest house was the closest thing she'd had in years that truly felt the way a home should feel; it was inviting and warm, it expected nothing of her, and it provided her with anything she might need, whether that be comfort, solitude, or just a warm embrace.
The house was Paul.
But he had gone, and everything else about this place that made it feel so inviting was gone too.
A shell. An empty, awful echo.
Paul, wherever you are ... I love you.
And I miss youu.
She took one last look around and wiped away the salty pools that threatened to spill down her cheeks. A deep breath in and out, and she swallowed the rising lump in her throat.
I guess a lot can happen in two and a ha f :years.
And all of her many random thoughts brought her to one, solitary conclusion. It resounded within her mind again and again and again.
I should have said yes.
When he proposed, that night before the launch ... I should have said yes.
Chris found Mae after half an hour of searching the neighborhood. She was walking down the street alone, several blocks away, carrying a large duffel bag.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
"Scroungin'."
She was either unable to pick up on his displeasure, or it just didn't matter to her. He couldn't tell which.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get back to the others."
They walked in silence for a few moments before Chris asked, "What's in the bag?"
"Stuff."
He was growing irritated. "What kind of stuff?"
"Food. Towels. Shoes."
Chris considered this. It did seem like the kinds of basic necessities a homeless person would collect. `And where did you get it all?"
Around. Figured they wasn't using it."
"So ... you know? You know that everyone's gone?"
" 'Course. All of 'em. Gone a while back."
Chris knitted his eyebrows together. `And that didn't seem strange to you? Suddenly being all alone in the world?"
Mae shrugged. Always been alone in the world."
He had no idea what to say to that. "Okay. But no more wandering off by yourself."
When they got back to the vehicles, Trisha was already in the SUV. Sitting, waiting, staring at nothing. Quietly. Owen and Terry watched in silence from the truck.
"We need to get back on the road, we've got one more stop to make," Chris directed Mae.
She climbed into the back of the truck again and dragged her big bag up next to her. She was quickly filling up the truck's bed with all of her "stuff."
Chris swung into the SUV's driver seat and glanced briefly at Trisha. He couldn't tell anything about what she'd found inside Paul's house from her appearance. She excelled at masking things. He knew this fact about her better than most.
She was staring out her side window, refusing to face him.
"Everything okay?" he asked, tentatively.
"Mm-hmm," she replied.
She said nothing for the next twenty minutes as the two vehicles made their way to another suburb, this one a historical district near Lake Cherokee.
Filled with quaint older houses along a cobblestone street bursting with ancient trees and shrubs, it was lovely, if a bit overgrown, and much like Chris remembered it. He stopped the truck at the entrance to the neighborhood.
He fingered his earpiece. "I just need a few minutes. Make sure Mae stays put this time."
"Sure thing, boss," Terry replied.
Chris exited the car and walked down the street alone.
A few minutes later, Terry appeared outside of Trisha's car window. Owen was right behind him.
"Trish? You, uh ... doing okay?" Terry nervously asked.
"Of course," she said, coming into focus, collected and all business. "What do you need?"
"Well," Terry went on, "I noticed there was a strip mall a couple of blocks back. I was thinking this would be a good opportunity to stock up on supplies. And I can't sit in the truck anymore, Trish, I just can't. I'm going crazy with all this waiting."
"Okay," replied Trisha. "Beech, you go with him. We probably shouldn't split up any more than we have to."
`And what about you?" Owen asked, referring to her remaining seated in the car.
"I'm fine here. I'll keep an eye on little miss stowaway."
The house was just the way Chris remembered it. Everything still in its place. Not that he'd expected otherwise.
Before he set foot on the property, his mind tricked him with the memory of his father's aftershave. Its sweet-but-putrid odor lingered in his nostrils long after he'd come in view of the house. The smell was one of many things he didn't miss about growing up here.
Chris stood out front, taking in the house's lovely red bricks and white wooden highlights. A proud, crisp American flag still caught the breeze on one of the front porch's posts. A giant oak tree was stationed to the right of the white front walkway, which led from the sidewalk straight to the front door.
It wasn't the oldest or largest house on the street. In fact, it was probably one of the smallest. But it was home. It was the home he'd known all his life, until he'd left to join the Air Force at age nineteen. It was where his father had lived since the mid 1990s, and his mother as well, until her untimely death when Chris was four. It had been old even then, when they first moved in.
Chris' parents had moved here years before Chris was born; it was his father's obsession with the space program that brought them to Orlando, and ultimately, Chris had to admit, what propelled him to apply to NASA.
But today, none of this mattered. He was here for just one thing, and the sooner it was done, the better.
He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and stepped off the front walkway to venture around to the back of the house.
"I'm not going to be able to stay in here long, man," Terry called out, his voice nasal from breathing through his mouth.
"Neither am I, but since we are here, we should try to find some edible items," Owen replied.
They were inside a darkened grocery store at the strip mall Terry had seen earlier, searching for any supplies that could he added to their meager stores. Food had been their primary aim, but one step inside the building-the front doors were still unlocked, though the auto-opening mechanism didn't work so they had to push them apart-and that goal became more problematic.
The store must have lost power sometime shortly after the world's population had vanished, because all of the meats and dairy products had gone bad. The milks and cheeses were sour, the bread grew fuzzy blue stuff, and the ham, turkey, chicken, fish, and eggs had all turned rotten.
The stench almost pulsated it was so bad.
To make matters worse, the store showed signs of recent flooding. The floor was wet, puddles in several places; the ceiling tiles were soaked and sopping, some still dripping. The drops hitting the floor were the only ambient sounds in the building.
"You could have been right before," Owen said.
"Of course I was right," Terry replied automatically, then stopped what he was doing. "Wait, about what?"
"Maybe a hurricane really did pass over Florida. Why else would the floor be flooded?"
Terry conceded the point. It made sense. It also made him want to get out of here all the faster. Who knew what kind of damage could have been done to the structure of the building in a hurricane?
Terry and Owen had split up right after entering the store, deciding that it was best to get in and out quickly. They each retrieved a powerful flashlight from the truck outside, and the waving lights here and there were the only sources of illumination throughout the store, apart from the floor to ceiling windows up front.
"Where'd you get that gun?" Owen shouted.
"Pardon?"
&n
bsp; "You pulled out a pistol when we encountered the girl. Where did it come from?"
"Oh," said Terry. "I kind of ... requisitioned a few items from Ordnance Storage at Kennedy. After I checked out Security HQ."
11 see."
"You think it was a bad idea," said Terry.
"On the contrary," Owen replied. "Chance favors the prepared, and we have no idea what to expect as we travel."
Terry was surprised to get Owen's approval, but decided to let it go.
"If you're near the peanut butter, grab some," Owen called out. "It doesn't go bad for a very long time. Same goes for canned soups and crackers, if they're still sealed. Maybe some sodas."
"Okay," Terry called back. "Might want to get some disposable plates and utensils too." He stopped. Looked up. "Did you hear something?"
"Like what?" Owen shouted back.
"Um, maybe ... a kind of creaking sound?"
The sounds of Owen gathering materials into his own cart stopped as he listened. Terry saw the beam of light from Owen's flashlight on the other side of the store rotate upward until it scraped the ceiling tiles.
"I believe," Owen said slowly, "that we should exit. Immediately."
Chris' steps came slower as he approached the rear of the old house, though he wasn't sure why. It seemed some part of him didn't want to go all the way.
He didn't take time to stop and reflect on this. He kept moving. He had to do it. He had to know.
At the back of the house he came across many familiar items. The old man was a lover of routine, of everything being just where it was supposed to be, and nearly everything was exactly as it was the last time Chris had been here, years ago. The old shed at the far end of the backyard, containing his father's tools and the old Chevy he piddled with from time to time. A small gazebo stood on the other side of the yard. It'd been started for his mother less than a year before she died but never completed. Nearby waited a tiny garden of homegrown vegetables-now rotten and overgrown-right next to the back porch. A shovel, rake, and other old-fashioned tools leaned up against the house, all in a neat row.
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