After the Silence

The sirens haven't started yet.That was the first thing Mara thought when she opened her eyes. She lay still beneath the quilt, listening to the house. The refrigerator hummed downstairs. A pipe clicked inside the wall. Wind brushed against the bedroom window. Three ordinary sounds. Mara counted them because counting helped. One refrigerator. Two pipes. Three— Nothing. She reached beneath her pillow and pulled out the little battery-powered radio. She clicked it on; static. Mara turned the dial. "...advised to remain calm..." Static. "...diplomatic discussions are continuing..." Static. "...the government has not confirmed reports of—" She switched it off. She didn't want to hear the rest. She knew what the rumors said. Everyone did. She climbed out of bed and looked through the curtains.The city was visible in the distance. Not clearly. It was nearly twenty miles away, beyond fields and a ribbon of highway, but on clear mornings Mara could see the tallest buildings rising above the horizon.This morning, the skyline was hidden behind a pale yellow haze. She closed the curtains again. Her house stood at the end of a gravel road with no neighbors close enough to walk to. It had belonged to her grandmother once, then to her mother, and eventually to Mara. "Eventually" had come sooner than anyone expected. Mara had been living alone for six months.She had gotten used to the quiet, mostly. She went downstairs, the kitchen table was covered with supplies. Canned beans, rice, bottled water, batteries, flashlights, a first-aid kit, a battery-powered radio, a stack of blankets. A notebook filled with lists. She checked the water first, twenty-four bottles, then the food.She counted everything twice. She had learned that preparation was mostly counting. Counting cans, batteries, days, the distance to the city. Counting how many things could go wrong. Mara opened her notebook. At the top of the newest page, she had written: IF THE SIRENS START: 1. Stay inside. 2. Close curtains. 3. Turn off ventilation. 4. Take the radio downstairs. 5. Do not go outside. 6. Wait for instructions. Underneath, she had written: DON'T PANIC. She stared at those words, then, she crossed them out as they sounded stupid. She replaced them with: THINK. That was better. Mara ate a granola bar while checking the basement. The basement was small and unfinished, with concrete walls and a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. She had spent the last three weeks making it livable. A mattress lay in one corner. Food and water were stacked against the far wall, a flashlight beside the mattress, another flashlight beside the stairs, another in her emergency bag. She had learned not to trust having only one of anything. She crouched beside the emergency bag and checked it again. Clothes, socks, batteries, first-aid supplies. A flashlight, radio, a notebook, pencils. A photograph, causing her to pause. Her mother and father with Mara herself, much younger, standing between them. She turned the photograph facedown, she didn't like looking at it anymore. Not because she didn't love them, but because she did and there was nobody left to call. Mara zipped the bag shut as the house creaked. She froze, and for several seconds she didn't move; then she heard the wind outside. "Get a grip," she whispered, her own voice sounding strange in the empty basement as she stood. Upstairs, the clock read 6:17. Mara walked to the kitchen window, but She didn't open the curtains. She simply stood behind them, listening. A car passed on the distant highway, then another, and then nothing. The silence felt wrong. Sataic filled the room as Mara checked the radio. She turned the dial. Nothing happened for a moment, then— A tone. A horrible, piercing electronic tone, causing Mara to nearly drop the radio. An emergency broadcast. She turned the volume up louder to hear the message being played. "This is an emergency message." Her heart began beating faster. "Residents in the metropolitan area and surrounding counties are advised to remain indoors." A bit of static came through the speaker, making the next words difficult to hear. "Do not travel toward the city." She looked toward the window. "Do not use public roads unless instructed by emergency personnel." Her hand tightened around the radio.The message repeated, then stopped. Mara waited for several seconds, holding her breath. Nothing, no explanation, no instructions, just static. "Okay," she whispered. She didn't know who she was talking to, maybe herself. Maybe the empty house, maybe the people who had once lived here. She picked up her emergency bag. Then she heard the sound, a low rumble in the distance. Mara stopped breathing. The windows trembled as a picture frame rattled against the wall. Another rumble followed, this time louder. Mara's eyes went to the curtains as she wanted to look. Every part of her wanted to look, but she remembered what the radio had said: Stay indoors. Don't travel toward the city. She backed away from the window as the house shook again. Mara grabbed the radio, then the flashlight and her emergency bag. She ran downstairs, the basement door slamming behind her. Mara stood in the darkness, breathing hard as she switched on the flashlight, the beam shaking in her hand. She looked at the mattress, the water, the food, and the radio. Everything she had spent weeks preparing. Everything she had convinced herself she might never need. Another distant boom rolled across the earth as Mara sat down on the mattress. For the first time since she had started preparing, she allowed herself to cry; only for a minute, then she wiped her face. She opened the notebook, and at the top of a clean page, she wrote: 6:20 A.M. She paused, then added: Something happened. Mara looked at the ceiling, she was alone. There was nobody coming to tell her what to do, to tell her whether the city was safe or to tell her whether the world was ending. So she wrote one more sentence. I have to figure it out myself.