I must be dreaming.
That's my first thought as I watch the familiar blue pickup truck inch down Maple Street.
No, it couldn't be, was my second.
I'd spent six days alone with nothing but my own thoughts and the suffocating silence for company, hoping against all hope to see another human. Of course my mind would start conjuring up phantom vehicles.
But the truck kept coming. Navigating carefully around the abandoned cars scattered in the street.
The engine's rumble was too real, too solid to be a figment of my imagination.
And then the driver came into view, and my heart stopped.
Even through the glare of the late afternoon sun, even from this distance, I recognized the sharp line of his jaw, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead, the focused intensity in the way he gripped the steering wheel.
Zack.
Zack King was driving down our street like the world as we knew it, hadn't ended six days ago.
I could see his eyes sweeping across our neighborhood with growing confusion. Of course he could tell something was seriously wrong.
He pulled into his family's driveway, and I bolted down the stairs, out of my house, across the lawn.
I yank open the driver's door, wild-eyed, tears running down my cheeks.
"Journee, what-" his words barely out before I've launched myself at him, wrapping my arms around the most solid person I've felt in what seems like ages.
"You're real," I gasp, my voice cracking on the words. "You're real, you're real, you're actually real."
I was crying—full, body-shaking sobs that wrecked me and soaked his shirt. He presses my face closer against his chest.
My whole body was trembling, like I'd been holding myself together by sheer willpower and his presence had finally given me permission to fall apart.
"I can't believe you're here," I choke out between sobs. "I thought-I thought I'd be alone forever, I thought everyone was gone, I-"
"Hey, hey, it's okay," Zack says, his arms coming up to steady me even as alarm bells must be ringing in his head.
He's known me since we were kids, and has seen me cry maybe twice in all those years. But not like this. "Journee, what's going on? You thought you were alone? Where's everyone?"
I pull back, just enough to look at him. My hands move of their own volition, to his face, his shoulders his arms, as if they needed tactile confirmation that he's solid and real.
"You're really here," I whisper, almost to myself. "You're real-"
"Journee." Zack catches my hands in his, genuinely worried now.
He should be.
"You're scaring me. What are you talking about? Where is everyone?"
The question shatters something in me. Fresh tears spill down my cheeks as I shake my head helplessly.
"I don't know," I say, my voice small and broken. "Zack, I woke up and they'd just... they were just gone."
The words didn't make sense. Couldn't make sense.
But it was reality.
"Gone?" Zack repeats slowly, like the word was in a foreign language. "What do you mean gone? Journee, where are my parents? Where's Chloe?"
But I just keep shaking my head, crying harder now.
I see the moment unease gives way to panic on Zack's face.
He releases my hands and bolts towards his house, leaping over the porch steps.
"Mom! Dad! Chloe, if you're hiding, this isn't funny!"
I follow close behind as he barrels through the house, desperately searching for answers that don't come.
He goes straight for the stairs, taking them three at a time, checking bedrooms, bathrooms, closets.
All the rooms are empty.
"Chloe!" His voice cracks on his sister's name. "CHLOE!"
I plaster myself against the wall as he barrels past me, thundering down the stairs. I follow him into the living room, where he stops short.
Their huge flat screen TV is completely smashed in, the screen a spiderweb of cracks and missing chunks.
On the coffee table, lined up like evidence from a crime scene, are the DREXA devices: tablets, cellphones, the smart home hub, even the fancy coffee maker from the kitchen. All of them with their screens smashed in, just like the TV.
"What the hell?" Zack turns to me, hovering in the doorway. "Was there a break-in? Did someone-"
"I smashed them," I say quietly. "I had to. The static was driving me crazy?"
Zack stares at me. "The static? What static? Journee, where is my family?"
I flinch at the rising panic in his voice. This isn't going to be easy. "Zack, I'm trying to tell you-"
But he's already moving, pushing past me and out the front door.
"Mom!" he shouts, his voice echoing in our empty streets. "Dad! Chloe!"
I watch from the King's doorway as he goes into the my house, pounding on the front door before pushing it open.
I already know what he'll find inside.
The Richmond's house is next. Then Mr Peterson's place. The Johnsons'.
House after house, he searches. All of them are empty.
I can see the realization hit him as he exits Mrs Haggerty's place. He sinks down onto the porch, and grips his head in his hands. I can see he's trying to make sense of the impossible. Something I was still struggling to do after six days.
Everyone was gone. His parents, his sister, his neighbors. Just gone.
I slowly approach Zack, lowering myself carefully onto the porch beside him.
I don't want to startle him, so I just sit there in silence, letting him absorb everything that's happened.
"Tell me what happened." Zack finally speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. But I hear him.
I take a shaky breath. "I woke up on Saturday morning, and everyone was gone. It was like they all stepped away in the middle of whatever they were doing and haven't come back since. Breakfast was still on the tables. Cars were still running. But there was no one. Anywhere."
Zack covers his face with his hands. His mind must be reeling.
"This can't be real. This can't be happening." He says, "People don't just disappear."
"I think," I continue, voice trembling, "I think it has something to do with the DREXA devices. After everyone vanished, there was this sound—this horrible static coming from all the devices. It was everywhere."
Zack's head snaps up. He pulls out his phone—an older DREXA model he'd gotten a few years back, before the military had issued him a more secure device.
"My phone's been off since I've been at the cabin," he says. "I forgot to bring the charger with me."
"Zack, wait-"
But he was already pressing the power button.
I lunge forward, grabbing for his wrist. "Zack, don't turn it on!"