Reset

Hundreds of feet below they spent days with white, fluorescent style lighting. The elevator had the same clinical white lights. Jason expected when the doors opened to see the same light.

Instead… there was no light.

The door slid open and there was a wall of darkness. The elevator lamps cast enough light into the room for them to see it was empty.

No one was there.

No group of scientists, no family… not a single soul.

Tiny particles of light pushed through the slats of the tightly closed blinds on the windows to the room, doing very little to brighten the lab.

A large lab, void of people, filled with the stench of ‘stale’ was abandoned and apparently had been for quite some time.

Jason caught the sound of Amy’s whimper when he himself groaned out a quiet ‘no’ stepping from the elevator.

‘Someone jump out and yell surprise’, Jason thought. ‘Please jump out’.

No one did.

“This is a mistake,” Jason said with rushed breath. He spun and looked behind him. The others barely moved, they were in some sort of state of shock. “This is a mistake.”

Using the glow from the blinds as a guide, he hurried through the lab, bumping into chairs and other items as he made his way to the end of the lab.

He heard the call of his name, but he ignored it.

He had to see.

Where was everyone? Where were the scientists waiting to greet him? His family? Perhaps they actually woke up early. After all, Malcolm said the door timer started once the first Genesis unit revived.

At the end of the lab, to the left, was a door. A solid door with window panels on the side. He pushed on the door and stepped into a small reception area.

No bigger than a bedroom, the room had four chairs and a desk that contained a computer, no power of course. As Jason moved toward the next door, he paused and trailed his fingers across the surface of the desk.

Dust.

So much dust his fingers created an embedded mark. He rolled the dirt between his fingers and walked to the double doors in the reception area. He turned the handle.

“Jason,” Nora called his name.

He paused. “I have to see. Look at the dust, Nora.”

“Jason, listen. You only need to look out the window to…”

“I need to see. I need to feel it.” He clenched his fist and brought it to his chest, then continued on and opened the door.

He didn’t step into a hall, but rather a lobby, huge and open. It was bright, the sun blasted through the glass wall that he could only assume was the front of the building.

Through the sunlight he saw the dust, smelled it, and felt the thick humidity. It was hot.

He let his eyes adjust then turned to Nora. “Are you coming?”

She nodded and joined him.

Slowly Jason walked to the glass doors. Hands to the handle he pushed. The door barely budged.

He pushed harder and finally, with resistance, it opened.

The door wasn’t locked, weeds had grown through the cracks of the concrete and stopped the door from swinging outward.

Jason lost his breath when he stepped out into the sun. The heat added to the ‘slam’ of reality and he wheezed inward, trying to comprehend it all as he looked around.

It was a mainly concrete area, small buildings around a parking lot. But where there was grass it was overgrown. Weeds had grown wildly and high, looking more like odd shaped miniature trees. The seams of the sidewalk were filled with bright green growth. The buildings weren’t clean and shiny, they looked weather worn.

Not a car.

Not a sound.

Not a person.

After looking around, he raced toward the parking lot and stopped. The view before him was a barren world. Barren… dead.

“Hello!” He cried out. “Hello!”

His voice echoed back at him.

Face tensing with emotions, he spun and looked at Nora. She stood arms held tight to her body.

“Where is everybody?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Look at this.” He held out his hand. “This isn’t seven months. It can’t be.” He closed his eyes tight and with a painful realization that things had gone horribly awry, Jason, feeling defeated, released one quiet single sob and dropped to his knees. “What happened to our world?”

EIGHTEEN – Precautions

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be a source of support, but Nora couldn’t stay outside. Even with the sun shining, it exuded a sense of gloom and she returned to the small lab type office.

She felt hollow, empty and hadn’t a clue on how to process all that was going on. A feeling of loss washed over her. Her daughters, her husband. What had become of them? One thing Jason was correct about.

It was longer than seven months. It had to be. The growth of weeds and foliage was far too great.

When she returned, John had opened the blinds to all the windows and the room was brighter. The moods weren’t. Grant sat in a swivel chair staring out. Amy was in the corner staring at an empty backpack.

Malcolm was rummaging through desks, Meredith stood off watching him and John stood by the window.

“He’s still out there,” Nora said.

“Yes, well, maybe he is doing that praying thing he was famous for,” John replied.

“John, please.”

“He’s kneeling.”