Note: Shorter chapter this time. And as it might be guessed, this is based on my personal life. I read somewhere that it is always best to write about what you know (that and it keeps me from having to do massive amounts of research). So, yes, I really did have a cat that lived 19 years…and most of the other stuff here is true – but it is slightly adjusted and altered to suit the story. Simon is a completely fictional character. Small pointless fact is that I chose his name after my Kindergarten boyfriend who I haven't seen since first grade. So Simon is only named after someone I know since I have no idea what the boy I went to school with grew up to be like.

-5-

It was a breakfast like none other in the history of my life. I settled Mickey up in the isle that was home to all the cheaply made toys. I had opened a number of packages, not stopping as I dumped the contents on the floor. The isle was clear of most debris and for once in my life I didn't fret about how dirty the floor was. When the world had turned into one big matter of life and death, being sanitary took the back seat.

Mickey played happily with his new treasure of toys as Simon raided the shelves. Breakfast was a montage of Beenie-Weenie, Coco-Puffs, Spam and animal crackers. Potted meat was piled generously on the floor for Cherokee. I set a package of Oreo cookies to the side. I would take those with me. Sugar was one thing I wasn't about to be without.

Mickey looked up at me; his big eyes peering over the fork he was using to eat his canned meat. "Mama? Is this sealing?"

I smiled; holding back a laugh at Simon's questioning expression. "No, buddy boy. We're not stealing."

"Or sealing!" Simon chuckled.

As I packed the Oreos, a few juice boxes and two bottles of Gatorade in the stroller, Simon told me the shorten version of his life's story. He was twenty when he moved to Raleigh five years ago. He worked for IBM an engineer until he was laid off three years after his move. Having moved from Charlotte he opted to stay in the area and work as an IT consultant for Computer Direct. His only living family was his mother who moved to Winston-Salem last August. He was dating but so far hadn't landed on anything substantial and I could read the frustration in his voice at that.

I suppose most 25 year old males would have preferred the single life; but not Simon. I could tell by the way he made small talk with Mickey that he was a born father at heart.

In turn, I told him that I had also worked for IBM at one time. I wasn't laid off, but out-sourced to another company where I repaired computers. It wasn't my dream job by a long shot and I had been sure that when I secured a degree in engineering that would all change. It hadn't and I was stuck at a job I found no joy in but it paid the bills. I had closed on my own house, next door to my parents, only six months ago and I couldn't afford to be out of work.

It was shortly after 9 in the morning when we opted to try our luck at leaving the grocery store. The morning air was warm with a nice breeze. Standing in the silence of the parking lot, it was hard to believe that the world was under attack.

It was also easy to imagine that we were the last living people on Earth.

"Now this is eerie…" Simon mumbled.

"Why yes it is," I agreed. "I'm headed to the EAC to meet up with my brother."

I took a few steps listening for Simon to follow. He did and I was almost ecstatic. I really didn't want to be alone with a child and a dog. Every few paces I would glance at Cherokee. She was a good watch dog and I was depending on her to alert us to any danger.

"The ECA? Where is your brother now?"

I weaved around a blue Honda that had collided with a red Corvette. I almost laughed at myself. The world's most illiterate person concerning cars and I was taking notes of what types of cars I saw. Perhaps I was slowly going insane or I was taking mental notes as a way to distract myself. Either way, I wasn't thinking as I normally would.

"Shawn's coming from Granville County. It'll take him a few days unless… Unless he and Kirk stopped by Kirk's house and took the dirt bikes." I grinned at this, hoping I would be reunited with my brother sooner than I anticipated.

"Granville County? If the phones are down, how did you make contact?"

I pulled Scrap Face from my pocket and flashed it at him. "Can't call anyone, but there's no harm in text messaging."

He nodded, tilting his face away from the cell phone. "I never would have thought of that. Of course, I don't carry a cell anyway. I had one, but I dropped it in the toilet last weekend."

I had continued my journey across the parking lot, but had to stop. Smiling coolly, I turned to face him once more. "The toilet? Oh, do tell."

A sheepish smile crossed his lips as he chuckled. "Yeah, well I was at a party for Jose, this guy from the office. We were at The Ale House and things, well, things went like most parties and I had one too many."

I slapped him lightly on the arm. "Normally I would consider a group of drunk guys a very idiotic thing, but I'll make an exception since it probably saved your life."

"Tell me about it," he stated as he followed me around a yellow convertible. "One of the first things I did when all hell broke loose was curse myself for not having a phone."

"Mine was dead, thank God. I would have been a mindless twit if I had charged it."

I looked up past the grassy medium and stopped with a sudden jerk. Simon collided with my back, but not with a lot of force. He arched his neck to see around my head.

Across the street, walking in a group, were five zappies. They had to be zappies; that was all I could think. Their eyes were blank and their movements off. They walked without staggering, but there was something off about the way their muscles responded as they moved. The group consisted of four men and one teenage girl.

Two men led the group; walking close enough to hold hands with they wanted to. The bigger of the two men wore nothing but a pair of boxers. Behind them was the girl. Her hair had fallen halfway down from the pony tail she sported. She was barefooted and her clothing was soiled as if she had fallen in a mud puddle. The two men behind her were worse for wear. One had clearly broken his arm and left it to hang as it would at his side. The other was completely naked with the exception of tube socks that were once white.

"Okay, now I have seen everything."

"Um, yeah, but," Simon stuttered. "What are they doing? I mean, they aren't acting like they were yesterday."

The group passed a few hundred feet in front of us. I held my breath waiting for one or all of them to spot us. My hand instinctively dropped to the butt of the revolver hanging out of my front pocket. None of them even stopped; much less inspected anything in their surroundings.

"It's like their zombies or something. I mean, they act like their being called."

Simon cleared his throat. "You watch a lot of sci-fi don't you?"

"Well, yeah. I also read a lot of fantasy. Believe me; the things going through my mind are numerous."

At that, the scenarios came flying into my mind's eye. Aliens, parallel universes, mad scientist… and the list went on and on. I didn't discount that it could have been an act of terrorism. Or it could have been a government experiment gone wrong. We, the people of Earth, could have finally seen to our own extinction. Still, I couldn't help but to wonder if there wasn't more to the story than met the eye.

"I'm not much into the stuff myself. I might not know what the hell is going on, but I do know one thing. We need to find somewhere to camp out."

"Yeah," I hastily agreed. "It seems the zappies walk at day."

"Zappies? So, is that your official name for them?"

I started walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction from the zappies. "Yup. Can't call them people. They act more like animals or something."

Simon fell into step with me. "Animals… Yeah, it's like they are migrating or something. That is, unless the alien king from the planet Normack is beckoning them forward to the mother ship."

"I thought you weren't into that stuff."

"Nope, but I am an IT guy. It's an automatic requirement that us IT guys at least know about Star Trek and Star Wars. It's like an unwritten rule and if you don't know it you get left out of the loop."

For the next ten minutes, neither of us spoke much. Somewhere along the way, Simon had taken the lead. His steps started to take on a rhythmic tone; as if he knew where he was going.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

Walking in the silence of a Saturday morning, I kept darting my eyes around for any signs of life. In the distance, birds chirped on schedule. As far at my feathered friends were concerned, there was nothing wrong with the world. What it would be like to be a bird right now. To a point, I felt as if I had sprouted wings. The fear I had encountered in the dawn of the morning felt far off.

I felt like a soldier in the middle of a war. I had gone numb. Even the group of zappies hadn't been enough to spark any emotions other than a slight apprehension. I should have been scared witless, but instead I had just stood there and watched.

I wasn't an expert on fear, but I began to wonder if it were possible to overdose on it. Thoughts were hard to focus on and I was void of panic. I remembered shooting the man point blank. I had been sick to my stomach at the time, but now it was like I recalled that memory from someone else's life.

Helen Ashen wasn't a killer. She wasn't anything but a single mom who did what she had to do for her child. Dreams included finding a man who would love both her and her son. She wanted the all American family but maybe not the white picket fence. She even wanted another child, a girl, eventually.

Dreams like that were distant to me. I knew what I wanted but I knew that in a world like the one I found myself in, those things were not possible.

"If we're going to have to bunk down for the day, my apartment is right around the corner. I figured it would be a good place to hang 'til dark."

"Um," I hummed softly. "IT guys must make out pretty good if we're headed to South Pines."

"Yeah, we're headed to South Pines and I do okay, I guess. But I'm only supportin' myself. What about you? Huh? Just you and a kid."

I cocked an eye at him as our walk took us steadily toward Wilson Street which ran behind the grocery store we had just left. "I don't do that good. The house I bought was from a little old lady who lived there the whole twenty years my parents lived next door. She gave us a discount when she had to move into the old folk's home. I don't really make that much. I just know how to cut corners and what corners to cut."

"Still impressive. Why I…" His words died into the faintest wisp of a breath as we neared the apartment complex.

Another encounter greeted us at the entrance of South Pines Apartments and Town-homes. This encounter did spark emotions. Plenty of them. My mouth grew incredibly dry as I clicked my tongue on the ruff of my mouth.

Slumped against the wooden sign was a corpse. This one was fresh and ripe with buzzing flies. In the living world he had been a homeless man pushing into his golden years. His face was clean from any gore; doing a grand job of fully expressing the anguish he died in. Curled under him was one badly broken leg. His other leg was extended and distorted. Blood soaked his jeans to create a tie-dye effect. His left hand rested, palm up, in his lap as if begging for change to pay Phlegyas his way across the river Styx. His right arm had been torn out of its socket and laid in a pool of drying blood at his side.

The sign propped against his chest read: HOMELESS, Please help. God Bless.

I dropped Cherokee's leash around the handle of Mickey's stroller and approached the man without a single word. My mind recalled a time not long ago when I had found my cat dead on the doormat. She had been a loving addition to my family for nineteen years before age caught her. The cat I had loved for so long had departed and I was unable to touch what was left behind. I had run to my father, like a child, so he could bury her since I could not.

I did for this man what I never thought I could. I touched him only to close his eyes. It seemed like the right thing to do.

"Now you are home, friend. God Bless," I whispered through trembling lips.

I stood quickly. If I had stayed one second longer I was sure a gush of tears would flood me in an endless assault. I didn't want to cry; not in front of Mickey. If I did, then I was sure I would install my fear into him.

"Helen… You 'kay?"

I nodded softly to Simon as I repositioned Cherokee's leash around my wrist. She moaned slightly, sticking her nose to the air and sniffing. I wasn't sure if she were doing this out of doggie habit or if she were looking for something; but I didn't pay her much attention. If something was wrong, I was sure the dog would indicate such.

"Mama? Is dat man sick?"

Reaching down I stroked Mickey's cheek. "No, buddy boy. He's gone to be with Jesus. He's okay, I promise."

As I said those words to my son, I couldn't help but to doubt my faith. I knew the stories of the flood. Of how man had gotten into too many bad habits and had been eradicated save for Noah. I wondered if God wasn't cleansing the Earth again, or if this really was the domain of the devil. The thought also crept into my mind that it was neither and that we, mankind, were totally on our own.

I looked to the morning sky. Clear blue hues hung behind lazy clouds. It was almost beautiful.

"Helen? What are you lookin' for?"

I chuckled and when I did I sounded insane to myself. "A rainbow. I want to see a rainbow so I know it's over."

I could feel Simon's eyes on me. I knew he was lost as to what I was talking about.

"Simon? Ever go to church?"

"Not since I was a boy. Why?"

I lowered my gaze to his eyes. "Noah's Ark. I'm looking for the rainbow; God's promise that it's finally over."

I felt Simon's hand close gently around my arm. He pulled me tenderly toward the sidewalk. "Until the rainbow comes, let's get inside. I don't want to chance an encounter with more zappies. Thank you very much; but no thanks."

I let him lead the way. The complex was new; having been build only two years ago. The wooden shingles sported a practically new coat of dull grey-brown paint. Shrubs and bushes lined scenically along every wall. Short grass, neatly trimmed and maintained, only added to the perfection the designers had aimed for.

It would have been perfect too, if not for some damage. The damage wasn't extensive, but it stuck out like a soar thumb. Windows on every story were broken in places. Blood stained spots on the fresh paint; creating eye-soars. If there were bodies (and judging by the smell, there were) then they were not in plain sight. I guess in high value places like this; even the dead are courteous enough not to be exposed.

If Simon was inspecting his home turf, he wasn't stopping to do so. He seemed to speed up slightly and I couldn't blame him. At that very instant, I wanted nothing more than to be inside somewhere. The smell wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly good either.

We made it without further incident to Simon's place. He lived on the second floor in a one bed room apartment. It was sparsely furnished but cozy all the same. He had entered first. I stopped at the doorway, remembering my manners.

"Do you mind if Cherokee comes in. I'm sure the front office will make an exception to the pet rule just this once."

He turned and faced me with a genuine grin. I felt my heart warm up to that grin – it was a lady killer grin and I liked it. "Normally I would ask if she's house trained, but it honestly doesn't matter. I have this feeling I won't be coming back here when we leave tonight."

I removed Cherokee's leash after closing to door behind me. A huge double window in the living room was opened and the sun illuminated the area completely. Cherokee wandered into the kitchen; sniffing her new environment.

I then unbuckled Mickey from the stroller before he got tired of confinement. I found a spot on the carpet and put his backpack of toys down. He eyed his treasures contently before setting off to do his own exploring in Simon's apartment.

After reminding Mickey to stay where I could see him, I made myself at home on Simon's imitation leather couch. The walls were completely bare; leaving no room to doubt this was a bachelor pad. It was refreshing. The simplicity of it was welcomed in comparison to the world on the other side of the front door.

We passed a couple of hours talking mostly about past experiences. If not for the pending gloom pressing in from the window I would have felt more like I was out visiting with a friend.

A funny thing about end of the world experiences was that anyone could make instant friends. I have always been good natured and able to attract people for even a small amount of time, but I was never out going enough to create a plethora of friendships. Simon already felt like more than an acquaintance. In sad truth he was my war buddy.

When crankiness settled in on Mickey around noon, Simon offered his bed as a napping spot. I found odd comfort that there was no hesitation on his part to offer and none on my end to receive. Being away from home was more strenuous on the toddler than the adults, so I rested with Mickey as he slipped into sleep. Unintentionally, I slipped into my own sleep.

Edited 9/8/07