January 9th

 1


I drove through the night. In the morning my car was getting low on gas and I started looking for somewhere to stop.

I saw a gas station in the distance and slowed, worried about what I’d find. I stopped in front of a pump and got out, looking around for any onrushing hordes of insane people. I had decided to call them “Insane”. It seemed to fit. How wrong I was.

Nobody was there. It was eerily silent. I filled my car with gas and started to get back in when I heard Erin. It was only a whisper but I could hear it.

“Are you one of them?”, was all she said.

I looked everywhere but couldn’t see where the voice came from so I called out “No, I’m safe.”

She immediately poked her head out from behind a tree. “Don’t speak so loud. I don’t know if any of them are near!”

And that’s how me and Erin started traveling together.


2


We drove through the day. There wasn’t much to do other than talk. “What do you think is happening?”, I asked.

“It’s the internet stuff. That twitter and facebook stuff.”, she said, looking straight out the window. 

“But how did that get so bad so fast?”, I had already thought about that but maybe I was wrong.

She shook her head, “It was always this bad? It’s mind control? It’s something in the water? I don’t know. I know that man… the one making the tweets… he seems to be the one directing it.” 

After that we didn’t talk for a long while. There didn’t seem to be much to say. Then she spoke, “They got my husband.”

I wanted to ask what happened but even a quick side glance told me not to press it. She was crying, silently, in her seat. I could imagine what it had looked like.I could see the splotch of dried blood on her shoulder.


3


Another two hours of driving and I found a motel. “Wanna chance it?”, I asked.

“Unless we want to keep driving we’ll probably have to.”, she said. Her voice sounded resigned.

I pulled into the parking lot and looked around. There were no other cars near the building and the lobby was dark. “Do you see anyone in the building?”, I asked.

“It’s too dark to see very far in but no, not as far as I can see.”, again that resignation in her voice.

I stopped the car and got out, opened the door to the building. I called out “Is anyone here?”

Not getting an answer I went in and tried my best to look in every direction at once. I turned around and almost screamed when I saw Erin standing roughly an inch from me. I had assumed she’d stay in the car but she just gave a small smile and said “I wasn’t about to stay out there alone.”


4


We decided to stay in the lobby. It had a vending machine for food and neither of us wanted to chance walking to rooms. We sat on the floor, behind the front desk, hiding from the world.

“I’m sorry about your husband.” It was all I could think to say.

Her hand crept up to touch the blood on her shoulder and she said, “We were discussing getting a divorce just as those people burst into our house. They ripped him apart. I slipped out a side door. I don’t think they even noticed I was there.”

I tilted my head. “That’s odd. They seemed really directed to me.”

“I had responded to that question - whether I’d be willing to do something to pursue my glee.” she said. She must have seen something in my eyes since she followed up with “But it was to say no.”

We sat for awhile longer before I think we both fell asleep. 

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