A Recent Dream

Something went wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. The world I had known vanished. No time for reflection; no time for lamenting; no time for understanding. Survival—that is what remains. And it is upon me, omnipresent and all-encompassing.


I don’t know where I am, or rather, I knew where I was, only now it looks completely different. People—there are others. Some I know. Most I don’t.

In the first few hours, survival means not being alone. The ones I know, even if only tangentially, become instant partners, instant allies.

A few days later I’m in a building on the second floor. I’ve never been here before, but I’m surrounded by “my” people—people who, in another life, in another time, were fellow followers of Christ. What are we now? No time to consider.

We cannot stay here much longer without supplies. Are there any to be found? Will we have to kill to get them? The others scoff at the idea or else are repulsed by it. Are they in shock or are they blind to what happened—to what is happening?

Two of us will go. Nancy’s father owns a grocery store. She hasn’t seen or heard from him. Privately, I think it is unlikely we will find him and highly likely that the shelves of his store will be empty—all goods sold, possibly, but more likely looted.

They tease me as I slip my Glock into my belt at the small of my back. They laugh, but they don’t tell me not to take it.

We walk out the door. Chaos reigns in the streets below. I immediately pull my gun out. Nancy laughs a little, but moves closer to me. The doorway leads onto a metal staircase, leading straight to the alley below. Amazingly, Nancy’s car is parked there, unmolested by looters. I lead the way to the car, my eyes constantly scanning, looking for signs of trouble.

I’m not a cop or a soldier. Days ago I would have felt ridiculous in this posture, but now I know—I can feel—that our lives depend on my vigilance. I am as I was before—getting older, terribly out of shape from sitting for eleven years behind a desk. I’m in no shape for anything like this. More clarity than I would’ve expected: if I’m to survive, if I survive, I will soon be in shape for this, through stark, painful necessity.

Nancy’s car is a 4-door sedan; silver and otherwise nondescript. There is an unfolded sleeping bag across the backseat. I don’t question this. She has opened the back door on the driver’s side and I’ve done the same on the passenger side. I see him out of the corner of my eye. He seems to be stumbling, falling, about to crash into the car. In that split second I cannot tell—is he crazy, drunk, old, or as stunned as I feel? I reach out to catch him. Old instinct clashes with new: poor old man falling and I want to help versus dangerous man, threatening my survival. My attempt to catch him fails—did I hesitate in uncertainty about his intentions? He lands face-first in the back seat. Fast, much faster than I thought he’d be, he slides all the way through the car, taking the sleeping back with him. I move around the car, gun pointed at his back. I’ve pulled the trigger before I even realize it.

Roar of the gun, explosion of blood out of the man’s midsection. But no, only a click. The gun doesn’t fire. Why? Nothing in the chamber. I’m shaking. Did I try to kill a man over a sleeping bag?

Something has gone terribly wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. The world I knew has vanished. The person I knew me to be has vanished in the click of a gun. I didn’t, but I would have killed him—I tried—to kill him. The man has disappeared, gone as quickly as he came.

We’ve gone back upstairs. Nancy is shaken. I’m—I don’t know what I am. The people are a blur around me. Words are spoken but unheard by me. Inside I know I’ve just crossed a line, some sort of threshold. Outwardly I’m still shaking, but inside I’m calm, made so by this realization: the need will come again to pull that trigger, and I can do it.

It is too dangerous, they’ve decided, for Nancy to make the trip. I will go, along with another man. Do I know this guy? Maybe, barely, a little. The two of us are about to put our lives in each other’s hands, and I can’t even remember his name. We must have food and supplies, though. Survival trumps all.

He drives, so now he is The Driver. Somehow I didn’t know we’d be going to a different town. A little larger than here, but not much. I know this place, or knew it years before, as a child.

We make it to the town without incident, but not without worry. The gun never leaves my hand. The Driver doesn’t comment on it, but after yesterday’s scare, no one is making fun of me anymore.

The traffic lights aren’t working—no surprise. Our town has no electricity either, but it doesn’t matter. There is no traffic. People are about, and at first glance, things appear calmer here. No violence, at least not on the main streets.

This grocery store isn’t like the large chain places. Family owned and operated. The parking lot is small and mostly empty. A few cars remain, but they already look abandoned. How quickly the permanent things we’ve made start to show their impermanence. White boards are hung over the windows of the store, or maybe they now replace the windows. I can’t tell. It looks abandoned, too, but I’m not sure.

Again it occurs to me that most likely this store has been emptied out, but we have to try, and that the windows have been boarded up means that someone has tried to protect this place. I get out of the car first, pistol in hand. There is a bullet in the chamber now. Another mistake like yesterday will likely leave me dead. In this new world, most of us aren’t savvy yet, but in a month, a moment of hesitation or an oversight like not having a bullet in the chamber will likely be my demise.

People are around, and it is tense—I can feel it in the air—but nobody threatens us or even approaches us. We reach the door, which has also been boarded over. The Driver tries the handle, but it is locked.

I see him coming, but it is too late. He hits me across the middle with a broomstick. The stick hits hard against my elbow, and the gun falls from my now-numb fingers. He grabs it quickly—before either I or The Driver can move. People on the sidewalk and in the parking lot quickly wander off. They are surviving too, and getting caught up in someone else’s fight isn’t conducive to survival.

I’m bracing myself for another hit and trying to decide if I should run or fight, but the next hit never comes. My attacker is holding the broom in one hand and my gun in the other. He’s small—no taller than I am—and older, maybe in his 60s. He’s Asian. An Asian man, here, I wonder. “What you want?” he asks, not threatening, but not inviting either.

“Mr. White, it’s Tommy Anderson, Nancy’s friend,” The Driver says. “She sent us here.”

Without lowering the broom or the gun, he says, “Follow me.” I can’t process this. Nancy isn’t Asian. At least, she doesn’t look at all Asian.

We walk around the corner, down an alleyway, to the back of the store. He looks around to make sure no one else is there, then starts pushing against the side of a dumpster. I can’t imagine what he’s doing, but then I see it. The dumpster is huge and shouldn’t move, but it does. Somehow he’s pushed the whole thing almost two feet. He drops to the ground and crawls through a small hole in the wall, revealed when the dumpster moved. The Driver looks at me bewildered, but we follow anyway.

Through the hole we find ourselves in the back storeroom of the grocery store. Mr. White is pulling a chain, and I can see that the dumpster is sliding. With a thud it locks back into place. “Won’t move when locked,” Mr. White says.

He looks hard first at me, then at The Driver, and then back at me. “Put that away,” he says, handing me back my gun. I wince as I reach out my arm to take the gun. “You hurt?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” I assure him, sticking the gun back in my belt.

“Mr. White,” The Driver says, “Nancy will be glad to know you’re okay.”

“Nancy is okay?” Mr. White asks.

“She’s fine.” The Driver stops for a moment. “Well, she’s not fine. She’s like the rest of us—confused, shaken, scared. But she’s alive.”

Mr. White nods. “I knew she would be okay. She’s a survivor.”

“Do you have any food and supplies left?” I ask. I know I should be more concerned about Mr. White and his family. I ask anyway.