Chapter One: Part One

Alive in Seattle

Just leaving Seattle, the year 2020 (one year after the virus)

The RV rattled on the road, each wheel grated against the uneven tarmac. Derek turned the steering wheel violently until the thing came to a stop (almost crashing in its wake) in front of a large billboard with a ledge. His belt was loaded with spray cans in five different colours as he deciphered which one he would start his day with. He gazed behind him at the pile of the other fifty or so spray cans he'd picked up from the store the other day in his preparations for the road trip. It'd taken him three trips and a couple of trolleys to get all of them in here, but hopefully it would be worth it. If someone just saw the slightest hint of life, there might be a chance he wasn't alone.

The pile had haunted him for the last hour trying to find a suitable place for the first sign, and another hour had been spent sitting on the roof of the RV trying to decide what the message should actually say. He'd figured 'Person in Seattle' but then maybe that wasn't specific enough, so he'd moved on to the more particular 'hi I'm Derek, I live in Seattle' again not super helpful. Until he'd figured whatever he wrote no one would probably ever see it anyway so 'ALIVE IN SEATTLE' would do.

He nodded his head at that idea then looked down to his trusted advisor Gary (the volleyball) for confirmation. Gary was smiling rather brightly which Derek took as a good enough sign. He was wearing a tie round his head as an act of rebellion from his previously domesticated life and had let his facial hair exude from his chin like a bristled brush. He was grubby and his shirt was torn in three places. He couldn't be bothered to get a new one and he'd become immune to the smell anyway.

The paint stung his eyes, the thick tonic scent rising through the air made Derek wish he'd taken one of the hazmat suits. Not that it would be any better. His fear of the suits had grown with every body he saw being wheeled through terrace front doors. Apartment buildings were eventually abandoned and the dead left in public - those unfortunate enough to have died in the grocery store or in their cars, the kids who'd died in school. There were no mass graves dug - frankly there hadn't been time. People and animals had been dropping life flies and there weren't enough people in suits to sort it out.

Derek shook his head to clear his mind, he shook the spray can again and went back to the 's' of Seattle. The finished billboard was bright yellow, the colour of Simpsons characters. Derek felt a stab of pride as he finished the curl of the last letters sticking to the plastic in front of him, maybe this would mean he wasn't going to be alone anymore, maybe this sign was the thing he needed to keep going in this world of nothingness. This was only the start. As his foot pressed down on the gas pedal of the RV, the wheels grated against the gravel road. One billboard down - maybe no one would ever see them. Maybe Derek Shepherd really was the last man on Earth.

Or maybe this was just the brightest idea he'd ever had.


Seattle, Washington - January 1st 2021

No one was coming. And Derek spent New Year's at the bar. And in the supermarket car park.

"No I know that Bryce," Derek almost screamed at his favourite soccer ball, "I know I'm alone." He continued, whispering so that the balls didn't hear his sadness. Didn't hear his admission of giving up. He'd been watching a lot of Castaway lately and in truth it'd taken a few months to get used to the whole 'talking to balls' thing, but in an essence it really helped to have some faces to look at. The other day he'd been at the store and on the drive home had spotted a 'woman' in a clothing store window. Now Derek was using the term 'woman' lightly, but to trick his brain into believing that she was real he'd just decided to go with it. Since there were no people, there were no rules to this new society yet - albeit a society of one man who would surely die alone in a margarita pool surrounded by graffitied sports balls.

Derek had decided along with Bryce that he should spend New Year's setting up fireworks in cars and watching the rooves explode as he stood at a safe distance wearing safety goggles. Destroying things seemed to be his new hobby, he'd been alone for a year now and the anger he used to feel was once again bubbling up inside of him, destroying things seemed to ease some of the tension. As the sun set over the horizon and his fists clenched into a knots worthy of Gordian, he pulled the elastic on his goggles (stolen from the local high school on a supply run where he distracted himself with crayons and tiny kindergarten chairs for a few hours) and fastened them to the back of his head, slapping them in place with a thick thump. He had quite a thick skull, you see.

The fireworks erupted from their vehicle cages, some getting stuck like rockets under rooves, others bursting through the metal violently. The show was worth it anyhow. Derek told Bryce so as he folded his arms behind his head and relaxed his back into his deckchair. He wished on the stars, not something he used to believe in, but God seemed like a pretty good guy to contact right now. "Hey big guy," he started, clasping his hands together in a classic prayer pose. "I know I haven't been your biggest fan in my past life. Sorry about that, but right now there's no one else to talk to, it seems. And all those religious guys must've been right about something right? There's gotta be something up there if they're all shouting about it. Anyway, enough about them, they're all dead. If I am God - if I really am the last guy still on Earth. Then why me? Why did you pick me? I assuming you picked me, was it a tombola? Did you pick me by random, or by accident? Because I don't think you meant to, I'm not exactly sure why I'm still here if it wasn't just pot luck. And a big thanks the makers of the movie Castaway - they got it spot on. Tom Hanks was excellent in it. Anyway, thanks for listening God, and thanks for the fireworks, I found them in a stash the other day - well you were there. If you could send me some sort of response, or a woman, or just another person at this point would be greatly appreciated." Derek finished, opening his eyes to the stars and then looking back at the collection of sports balls beside him.

"What? I might as well ask!" He said defensively, throwing his hands up into the air. He imagined Jimmy (basketball) giving him a raised eyebrow and a look back. He sighed, stretching his back into the cloth of the chair and settling down for the night, he might as well stay here now he'd set up everything. The night would swallow him eventually, and he would wake up still alone.


Quite a drive out into the deserts of Eastern Washington, Washington - Novemberish 2021

Derek hadn't exactly been keeping up with the dates lately. But he did remember his birthday. The spray paint stung his nostrils and he once again condemned himself for not remembering a hazmat suit but at that moment it seemed not to matter. It was a hot day for November, and Derek had taken to wearing only sweater and underpants - for it was not quite yet that he'd become completely feral. As he stood back from the rock canvas and admired his work he looked down at Bryce and Gary and the rest of them; then he looked to the sky. God was watching this mess. Or maybe God didn't exist and Derek had been talking to himself for two years now. Whichever was true he didn't care anymore.

He also painted a bright red target whilst he was there, better to give himself something to aim for, he thought. As he stepped back, the whole world looked so small, so unimportant that at this very moment he'd decided enough was enough. The target glared at him with evil intent, shoot to kill. A pattern so profusely designed to eradicate him from this world. What would God say if he could see Derek Shepherd now? Derek didn't much care, all he wanted had been taken away from him and the crisis point had been and gone, now there was just oblivion, a black empty hole of nothingness.

"Everything I've tried has become nothing, no hobby keeps my attention anymore gentleman so today, I am giving up. It's been a good few years of blowing things up and pretending you guys can hear me. Pretending God can hear me," Derek started then looked up to the sky screaming "I know you can't hear me big guy!" Then he continued much as he had before, looking down at Bryce and hiding the frown in his tightly knitted eyebrows. "I'm sorry for giving up." He said finally, it was a calm, quiet statement with little to no intentions behind it. The honest truth from a man who made his money from lying.

He looked like a scruff, hair grown out and long down his back, tattered sweater that was littered with holes. And the makings of a spectacular beard if he planned on living long enough to see it, which he obviously wasn't. One less thing to live for. As he climbed his way across the rocks and onto the scolding Novemberish sand he slapped his hands either side of his jeep wheel and took a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle. Then he drove, slowly backing away until the distance would force the 4-wheel drive into momentum. He drove forward with speed, gradually picking up dust and rubble as he ploughed through the desert.

As the car propelled itself forwards his eyes closed, his mind taking a brief relaxation from life as he waited for the inevitability of impact. But as his eyes opened on his last possible second before death, he saw it. The flickering of hope he'd been waiting for every day for the past two years. He saw smoke. Derek instantly slammed his foot on the brakes. He saw it pluming in the distance, his periphery clouded by the grey, his grey ray of hope.

He rocked open the door of the jeep and bounded over the dunes, it hadn't occurred to him driving would be quicker, the smoke was that close. He'd stopped himself just before the eternity of the target. He said a silent prayer to God and grabbed Bryce from the rock as he ran, his shoes lifting him gracefully off the sand as he approached the little camp.

The clothes on the line were the first things he saw - a blouse and skirt with a bra. A bra! The first real signs of human life he'd seen for years. He wasn't alone.

Derek approached with oblivious caution, his mind on one thing and one thing only - there was another person alive, namely there was another woman alive. A woman for him? Maybe God was listening all along. Derek didn't care, all he saw was a pale pink bra in his eyeline. He walked slowly towards it, pulling it from the line he crumped its pastel form in his grubby man-hands. He was taking a moment to smell the laundry detergent when a figure appeared behind him, the urban click of a gun cocking as he turned around to face her...

To be continued...