My mom walks through the lobby and wakes me up, she tells me it’s time to go home. Daveney brings me a full spread of breakfast and a tall, frosty pitcher of ice water. My mom opens the lobby door and tells me to wake up and get in the car. I’m at an all-you-can-eat buffet where the sausage is too hot. I can feel the burn on my tongue. I’m eating a deluxe taco salad.

  I wake up hungry, confused in the dark. I can still taste the nachos, which makes me madder than it should. I sit up in the dark, wishing dreams were real, wishing my mom or Daveney would come walking through those empty glass doors and we could go find a buffet someplace.

  It’s dark, a whole new kind of dark. There are no streetlights, no neon signs, not even people walking around with their noses in their phones. It’s just moonlight out there.

  It’s so quiet, too. There are no cars, no neighbors playing music too loud. It’s just frogs and crickets and whippoorwills.

  It’s amazing the things your brain will come up with when there’s nothing to distract it. I start to regret every horror movie I’ve ever watched, every made-up zombie, every ounce of fake blood, every canned scream.

  Once I’m awake, I can’t get back to sleep. I don’t know what sorts of things might have been, or might still be, living in this couch. I still don’t know what sort of catastrophe might have happened out there, or how I would have slept through it…or something.

  My parents will be alright. They have their bug-out bags, their emergency shelter, evacuation plans, rations, anything a person might need to survive anything from a hard winter to the zombie apocalypse. They’ll bunker down, find a place to lay low, and when the ash clears, they’ll still be there.

  Daveney isn’t like them. Daveney, with his head in the clouds, who isn’t worried by unemployment or impending rent, who doesn’t see urgency in anything as long as the gaming console still turns on. Daveney, who once broke into the bug-out-bag to snack on trail rations while marathoning a TV show streamed online.

  I’m cold, I’m feverish, I’m hot, I’m tired, I’m wide awake. Something howls outside, making me sit bolt upright, heart pounding for so long I’m afraid I might have a heart attack.

  There is nothing quite like the vastness of nature to make you realize how very small and helpless you are.

  I try to settle into the couch, to stay calm and in one spot. I don’t know what hides in the dark, sharp glass, jagged metal, snakes, spiders, opportunistic predators. If I can’t see, it’s best to stay someplace I think might be safe, at least until sunrise. I’ll let the hunger, the thirst, and the worrisome cuts on my leg wait until then.

  I blink slowly. I’m trying to sleep, but this isn’t exactly a restful environment. I keep my head turned to the glass doors, broken, just in case. I count sheep, listen to the frogs, imagine the things I’m going to eat when I get home. It doesn’t help.

  I hold my breath when I see the movement. It’s a can, or something, rolling down the hill outside, to splash into the swamp at the end of the street. I lay still, cautious, wary, trying not to picture what terrible thing might be rolling cans down the hill, and hoping it’s just wind.

  It’s a kid.

  It’s a little kid, probably not even in middle school, yet, striding down the ruined street, and rolling cans or bottles or something round down the hill and into the swamp. It walks upright, it has hands to hold, to carry, to roll. It’s another person.

  I sit up, stiff, sore, my spine tied up in knots and limping heavily. The kid scrounges around in the dark, digging for more things to roll into the swamp, I guess. I stand up, feeling like I’m floating, and drift toward the empty glass doors at the front of the bank.

  There are other survivors, other people. I’m not the only one alive. Maybe the kid’s got parents, maybe they have cell phones, or they know what happened. Maybe this is all over and I can go home, and get up and go to work tomorrow, and never have to think about this again.

  “Hey,” I call out.

  The kid freezes in place, its back to me, crouched. It turns around on two-toed, reptilian feet, its weight carried on the digits, its body balanced by a pale tail. Its eyes are large and blank, devoid of color, emotion, or life. It has no mouth, just a snout, large and round, and it grasps a bare tin can in small, nimble fingers.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  It’s not a kid.

  Something tall and lean scales out of a nearby window, grasping the wire frame of a former awning in both hands and feet, securing itself with a prehensile tail. It creeps along a long-extinguished streetlight, hanging upside-down and dropping to the ground, rising up from the ground to stand at full height.

  I drop my stick and run, blindly into the bank, not particularly concerned if this thing is actually chasing me or not. My feet pound so hard against the floor that it hurts clear up to my knees, and step on something sharp.

  Blind, trapped, running through the dark. My lungs burn, itch, I find myself stopped, retching and dry-heaving against a wall. It isn’t a wall, it gives and tumbles me inside. I slam it shut, leaning against it, bracing it closed with my weight, shivering and whimpering in the dark.

  I cannot give words to the primal feeling of being hunted, of seeing an apex predator. It isn’t like watching a horror movie and seeing the monster and being glad you aren’t those idiots partying on the beach. It’s a nameless thing, a thoughtless thing, all adrenaline and nausea and the most basic part of your brain kicking into overdrive.

  I am alone in the dark, afraid to move, afraid to breathe. I feel as though I’m wrapped in a blanket, as though I can feel the darkness against my skin. There are no words, no sounds except for my heartbeat in my ears.

  I feel around in the dark, bumping into something hard metallic beside me, crying out and stifling noise with my own fists. It doesn’t move or react, but it rattled when I touched it, a loud, unforgiving noise against my eardrums. The side facing me is flat, but corners off, flat on those sides, too. There’s nothing on the top, nothing but air, but I bump into something else inside, a plastic rod, bulbous on one side with a ridge that just fits under my thumb.

  I press hard on the ridge. There’s a guttering flash of light, like a match, and a high-pitched, digital whine. I seize the object out of its hiding place and feel it rattle. I shake it hard and try again, producing a dim, brownish glow. I keep shaking, the trembling wracking my body helping me along.

  I coax a reasonable beam out of the flashlight, amazed that it still works, especially with that little bit of water in the head, and shine it around. Apparently, I’m in a supply closet, with the flashlight stuck into a plastic tote stuck sideways on a shelf, next to worn, faded boxes of ink and printer paper. A poster hangs off one corner in the back, saying something about remembering how to dispose of chemicals. Paperclips litter the floor.

  I sink to my knees, the image of that…thing still fresh in my mind, the inhuman noise it made. My hands couldn’t be still enough to eat soup. Even though I’m in a small box all by myself, I keep thinking that…thing could be in here. I shine the light in corners, under shelves, and inside boxes. I shake it until I can’t raise my arms any more.

  If I go to sleep or pass out, I’m not aware of it. All I know is that light is starting to creep in from small holes in the ceiling, under the door, and the occasional rift in the wall. It illuminates lines, shapes, becoming objects with each passing minute.

  I’m a mess, dazed, shaking. My face is sticky, I can’t stop dry-heaving. My tongue tastes like I’ve been licking the inside of a shoe.

  I’m ready to go home now.

  Even when I’m sure the sun’s out, I stay in my spot, shaking my flashlight, shivering. Cold, shivering, hungry.

  I miss that place, the one by the grocery store. It’s a little diner, a local chain, I think. It’s got burgers, fries, shakes…typical diner stuff. The food’s always been terrible, every single time I go. Some like it, but…what I wouldn’t give to be there, right now, ordering the most unappetizing diner burger I can find.

  Or, in the longest, most boring lecture I can find, something utterly meaningless with no practical use at all, or theoretical value, for that matter.

  Or in the longest, most tiring shift with the most dreadful customers and the most overbearing managers.

  Anything to not be here, anything at all.

  I close my eyes, and pretend to be at home again. I try to hold on to the feeling of my bed, of Daveney by my side. I replay in my head some of my favorite scenes from my favorite television shows, remember the smells from my favorite foods.

  My stomach growls, parts of it going numb. I retch. I haven’t had hunger pangs so bad I went numb since I was in elementary school.

  I remember drills. I remember…being awoken in the middle of the night, carried from my bed and told there was a fire, or flood, or earthquake, only there was none. There was just my dad with a stopwatch, and later with a checklist. Did I remember to watch for broken glass or sharp debris? Did I have a pair of shoes in an easy-to-reach spot? Was my bug-out-bag stocked, did I remember to grab it?

  I remember Daveney and I, and our variations. There were alien invasions and zombie apocalypses and double-checking cell phones to make sure they’re charged. It was a game to him, during the day. At three a.m. it was an annoyance.

  There’s a box on the shelf, next to the tote the flashlight was in. The box itself is delicate and faded, gnawed on, in places, but the items inside are in good, working order. They’re small, silver-colored box cutters, a little stained, but the mechanism works, and there’s a box of blades wrapped in paper.

  I take one of the box cutters and unwrap it from the plastic. It’s empty, so I open it up and take out a blade to slot inside, putting the flashlight down first. I take a few spare blades, wrapped in paper, and pick the flashlight again, holding both to my chest and trembling.

  I’m hungry again. I can’t stay in here forever. I close my eyes and try to remember what I need, food, shelter, medical supplies.

  Water. Water, my kingdom for some drinkable water.

  I tentatively open the door behind me, into a vacant hallway. There’s an opening to my right, where a doorway used to be, the roof collapsing a little over it. I think the left leads back toward the bank. I can’t remember. My head is pounding.

  I think I hear the low rumble of thunder outside. That’s a good sign, if nothing else I can just look up with my mouth open. I think I’ll dance around in the rain for a bit and get a proper shower. Maybe if I’m lucky, the rain’ll be warm.

  I poke my toes over the threshold, looking around. There doesn’t appear to be anyone around, nobody living, at least. I sort of wonder if those…things were some sort of hallucination. They certainly looked surreal enough.

  Nausea climbs up the back of my throat. I’m going to have to go back out, I guess. Water, food, medical supplies, shelter.