Hunter's Prompt Responses - 4. Prompt 539 - Creative writing

Prompt: It began last night. Everything electronic stopped working. This was followed by every vehicle no longer working. Everyone began to panic, but that was nothing compared to the fact suddenly no one, not even the animals or insects could make a sound in your town. What happened and will the town forever be silenced.

Story:

Everyone thought the world would end with a bang. A thermonuclear fireball that obliterates everything and everyone you hold dear and makes certain to leave no survivors. It’s comforting to know that it’ll be quick, if nothing else.

That’s not what really happened. The world didn’t end. Well, it did. Just not the way people thought it would. Most of us didn’t even realize what was going on. I was working on a report at the office when the lights first started to flicker. I figured that with all the snow we’d been having that power outages would be inevitable, backed everything up and went back to work. Nobody else seemed worried either, so I put it out of my mind. Everything seemed fine, until it was time to leave. I’d been working at the firm for twenty years, and I’d never seen the elevators break down. When the lights went dark, we all tried to take the elevator to go home. Of course they wouldn’t be working in a power outage.

Clamoring through ten flights of stairs with my coworkers wasn’t all that fun. By the time we were all down, we were irritable, and my blond hair was plastered to my face with sweat. After waving goodbye to my colleagues, I got in my truck and thought about the hot meal Michael would hopefully have waiting for me. Except nothing happened. I turned the key and the truck stubbornly refused to turn over. Pounding the steering wheel, I tried again and tried not to let my frustration show anymore than it already had.

When nothing happened again I checked to see if there were any problems with the car that I could see. I jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, I was surprised to see Suzanne, a fellow lawyer at the firm, standing next to me.

“Phil, my car’s not working, mind if I get a ride with you? I’m not walking home in the snow. It was working fine earlier and now it won’t start.”

I nodded, understanding her frustration.

“I’d love to help you, but the truck’s not working either. Won’t turn over or even flip the ignition. You’re going to have to catch a ride with somebody else.”

That’s when we realized that none of the cars were working. People who had already been driving were crashing into each other, they couldn’t control their cars, not even to brake or turn. Those of us on the sidewalk could only marvel at the carnage of multiple vehicles crashing into each other. This wasn’t like a typical snowstorm. Toronto was used to those, and we even prepared the roads to make sure there wouldn’t be much ice. People’s lights were off and the look of panic from the people inside the vehicles made it clear this wasn’t just a snowstorm.

Driving back to Etobicoke from the downtown core was already a special kind of hell, I had no interest in walking back in the middle of Winter. Unfortunately for me it looked as though all the vehicles were broken. Buses were stalled wherever they happened to stop, and nobody else seemed to have a working vehicle. Resigning myself to my fate, I pulled my coat tighter around me, hoping that it would insulate me better for the long walk. It was going to take over two hours to make it home at this point, and probably longer since I’d have to pick between the snow, the abandoned cars and join the streaming mass of humanity now walking to wherever it lived.

As I was walking through town, I was shocked that everything electronic seemed to be working. My first thought was to call Michael and let him know I’ll be very late for dinner, but I couldn’t get a call through. The phone was dead, and I’d charged it that same morning. It should still have a charge on it, but when I tried to call it wouldn’t turn on either.

‘This is just great. No car, no phone and it’s thirty below. How could this day get any worse?’

The walk home was long and by the time I’d gotten there, I was fed up and ready for this hellish day to be over. As I got to the house, I saw Michael outside, looking relieved to finally see me. He was standing outside the doorway, looking in my direction and waved when he saw me. I saw a bit of movement above him, and looked up just as the pile of snow on the roof started falling towards him.

I tried to scream to let him know to move out of the way, but the oddest thing happened. No sound came out. Nothing at all. I tried to yell and again, nothing happened. I could feel my vocal cords trying, but there wasn’t anything that I could hear.

The snow fell. Pounds of snow falling on Michael’s sandy hair and burying him alive. I rushed over and started to dig him out, trying to save him from freezing and suffocating to death on this day of hell. I was able to pull him out quickly, and I watched him yell at me and gesture wildly in what I could only assume were complaints that I didn’t warn him. I wasn’t sure, because he did all of this without uttering a single sound. He realized that he wasn’t able to say anything and got scared, running up to me and clinging to me. I knew this would happen if I dated someone young enough to be my son, he wouldn’t be able to cope with losing all his technology.

‘He needs comforting, but I can’t say anything. This day gets weirder with every passing hour’ I thought.

I wrapped myself around him and brought him back inside, where the remains of a hot stew were waiting. Long since cold thanks to the power outages, we ate in silence and cast about for logs or other wood outside that we could throw in the fireplace to try and keep ourselves warm. The temperature continued to plunge through the night, and at this rate we’d all be frozen by the time the sun came up again.

I wasn’t sure what else to do. We couldn’t start a fire, and it didn’t seem like anyone else in the area had any luck getting things to work for them either. It was getting late, and we were both starting to feel tired. I motioned for Michael to join me in bed, and we added a few extra layers of bedding, hoping that it would keep us warm through the rest of the night, and that things would be back to normal tomorrow.

As we went to bed, we mouthed ‘I love you’ to each other, knowing without hearing that’s what we were saying. I think we both knew this situation was unusual and that it wouldn’t end well, but we didn’t want to say anything or do anything that might make it seem like we were saying goodbye.

We went to bed.

When the sun rose the next day, we didn’t.

Fin