-
Newsletter
- Author
- 04/09/2025
- 1,624 Words
- 2,241 Views
- 60 Comments
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
The Last Boys in Clinton - 1. Waking Up Late Again
“Shit, shit, shit. I slept through my alarm again. Mom said she wasn’t going to wake me if it happened again. I guess she didn’t. Fuck!”
Thirteen-year-old, eighth grade student George Dunlop rushed through getting ready for school. A quick run through the house seemed to prove his mom had already left for work. He ran out the back door, locking it as he left. He was lucky in a sense because he lived just on the other side of a wooded area from the school. He could get there in just a couple minutes.
The janitor had left the main door unlocked. George didn’t think anything of it, being in a hurry. He was late, but if he could get to class before first period was over, he might not be in very big trouble. He should have had to ring the bell and wait for someone in the office to let him in. He missed that fact as well.
‘Great, first period hasn’t let out yet. The halls are all empty.’ He thought to himself, stopping at his locker to swap books. Rounding the corner into where his first class was held, he stopped for a moment to catch his breath and take a couple puffs from his inhaler. He opened the door to room 112.
“Sorry I'm... What the fuck?”
Nobody was there. He looked at his cell phone. Wednesday, May 8, 8:21 AM. The classroom should have been filled with kids. He turned around and went to the room next door. Empty. He randomly opened a few more doors; again, all empty. Then, he happened to stumble across Mr. Adams, the head janitor, lying on the floor in room 118.
“Mr. Adams. Are you OK?”
Mr. Adams didn’t answer. Dead men don’t talk.
‘Shit. What the hell happened to him?’ He wondered. ‘I gotta go get help.’
George went back outside. When he got to the road, he saw a few cars stopped in random positions. Most of them had crashed into something. Every single car had one or more people in it, all apparently dead. Panic set in. He took out his cell phone and called his mother.
“Come on, come on. Answer, mom.”
It went to voice mail. He tried again. After four attempts, he sat down on the curb, dumbfounded. He tried his father. George Dunlop, Sr. lived with his new wife near Knoxville, Tennessee.
“Hello?”
“Oh, thank God.”
“What’s the matter, son?”
“Everybody here is dead. I can’t get hold of mom.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got to school late and there was nobody there. Well, Mr. Adams, one of the janitors was there, but I guess he was dead. Out on the road, cars are all over the place. The people in them look dead too. Mom’s not answering her phone. I’m afr...”
“Okay, son. Calm down we’ll figure things out.”
"I'll try."
"Where are you now?"
"Um, just around the corner from the school."
"Okay, here's what you do. Head to the police station and tell them what's going on."
"What if they're all dead too?"
"We'll cross that bridge if we get to it."
"OK. It's on the other side of town. I guess I'll head back home and get my bike."
"OK. Do that. Call me back after you talk to the police."
"OK."
George headed home. When he opened the garage door, he saw his mom's car.
'She came home?' He thought. He touched the hood. Cold. Going back inside, he knocked on her bedroom door. There was no answer, so he went in. She was still in bed and looked asleep.
"Mom. Wake up. Mom?"
Shaking her didn't make a difference. He took his phone out of his pocket once again.
Fighting tears, he shouted, "She's dead, dad! Mom's dead too!"
"Fuck. Alright. Head to the police station, like I said before. I'll call them in the meantime. I'm sorry about your mom, son. We'll get you through this."
The roads had all been at least partially blocked on his way home. He would have taken his mom's car but knew it would be difficult to get through all the wrecks, not exactly knowing how to drive. He hopped on his bike and headed across town.
When he got to the police station, things looked normal. That is, until he got inside. It wasn't crowded, but everyone that was there was dead too. He sat down on the floor and started crying.
'What am I gonna do?'
His thoughts raced.
"Helloooooo. Is anybody here?"
No response. 'Geez, am I the only person alive in town?'
Hungry because he skipped breakfast, he decided to head down the street to Clinton Bagel, thinking he could buy himself breakfast. Obviously, when he got there, the store was devoid of life. Only the clerk was there, behind the counter, lying on the floor.
"Fuuuuuuck! I'm tired of seeing fucking dead people. I can't even buy a bagel."
It took him a moment to realize Clinton Bagel had become a self-service shop. Hell, everything in town was now self-service. He buttered himself a cinnamon-raisin bagel, grabbed a juice out of the cooler, and sat down to have breakfast. He realized he never called his dad back.
He called. It went to voice mail.
"Come on, dad, don't fuck around."
He thought, 'Maybe he's on the phone to someone else.'
Trying again in two minutes, he got voice mail again. A third call ended the same as the second.
"No. No. Noooooooooo!"
He looked up the phone number for the Perryville state police station. Called. Voice mail.
Paraphrasing the message, he thought, 'Call 9-1-1 if it's a fucking emergency.'
He tried that. "Please hold, all of our agents are busy."
"All of your agents are busy being dead, you mean."
George decided to try his dad one more time. It still went to voice mail. It was 9:19 AM. The death cloud had apparently reached Tennessee. After sitting there, crying for a few minutes, he decided all he could do at the moment, besides wonder what the fuck was going on, was head home. On his way there, he decided to ride through his neighborhood, to see if anything else was moving. Shortly after turning onto Highfields Road, he heard someone call out.
"Hey! Wait!"
He stopped and looked around. Running out of the yard behind him was a boy who looked to be eight or nine years old.
"Hi."
"Hi. Um, my mommy won't wake up. I tried calling 9-1-1, but nobody answered."
"Yeah, there's nobody there. That's where I just came from."
"How come nobody's there? It's a police station."
He didn't know how to answer a little kid with the fact they were all dead. "I... I don't know."
"Can you come in and see if you can wake mommy?"
George got off his bike and walked back to the house with the boy.
"I'm George. What's your name?"
"Lionel Smart."
After walking into the house, and the kitchen, it was obvious Lionel's mom was dead, like everybody else.
"Can you try to wake her?"
George shook her by the shoulder, saying her name, knowing it was pointless, but it did a good job delaying giving Lionel the news.
"Um, Lionel. Your mom's, um. She's not going to wake up."
"Why not?"
"Do you understand what dead means?"
"She's dead? Noooooooooooo!"
The word trailed off into a wail. All George could do was wait. After a few minutes, Lionel calmed down enough to talk.
"Wha... What am I gonna do?"
"I don't know Lionel. My mom's dead too. I guess we'll have to figure out something together."
"So, were the police all dead too?"
"Yeah. They were. Are you hungry?"
"Yeah. Mommy usually makes us breakfast before school."
"Us?"
"Yeah. I couldn't wake up my little brother, Jimmy, either."
After confirming Jimmy was in the same state as his mom, George opened the refrigerator and took out a couple eggs and the tub of margarine. He found a frying pan, and bread, to make Lionel toast as well.
George asked Lionel about his father. Lionel said he was at work in Whitehouse. George looked around the kitchen and found a phone list. He called Lionel’s dad’s cell phone. As he suspected, there was no answer. George told Lionel they were alone.
After Lionel ate, he wondered what was going to happen next.
"Will you stay with me?"
"Yes, Lionel. We'll stay together, but I think we should look around and try to find more people. Do you have a bike?"
"Yeah. Do you think there are more people around?"
"Yeah. I think so. I mean, you and I are still here, so there are probably at least some more."
"I gotta ride slow, I've been kind of sick lately."
Lionel would have been going to his doctor's office that afternoon if things hadn't gone to shit. Neither knew it, but having asthma and an early-stage cancer was the common thread that prevented the two of them from dying. The miracle cure that Mission Critical Labs discovered, once mixed with water and inhaled, not only destroyed cancer cells, but it also attacked brain cells. Having asthma somehow prevented the compound from reaching the brain. But Lionel and George were, from that morning on, cancer-free.
The two boys ventured out on their bicycles. They initially covered the area immediately surrounding their houses. Less than a minute after they turned onto Austin Hill Road, a car drove by. They missed it then, but the driver, sixteen-year-old Marie-Louise Small, was doing exactly what they were doing. She was also roaming the streets hoping to find someone else alive.
Next Up - "Two Becomes Three"
-
10
-
9
-
16
-
6
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.