Jack drove home.
Johnny Cash on the cassette player had changed from “In the Sweet By and By” and its promise of a meeting on that beautiful shore, to the low, rumbling tone of “Amazing Grace.” Jack tapped impatiently at the wheel, only her cautious nature stopping her from driving her foot through the gas pedal.
As she traveled, scanning left and right for any sign of someone outside, she grew more aware of something incredibly wrong. Abandoned tractors in the fields on the outskirts of town, halfway through harvesting what may be their very last harvest, rumbled patiently for owners that may very well never return. A truck sat in a driveway with its door ajar. If Jack were closer, she would probably hear the familiar ping of the vehicle warning a driver the door was open. Looking at an ATV that had crashed into a lagoon, Jack dumbly realized she was near Bonnie Carideo’s carrot farm.
Watching, she passed by as the four-wheeler sank into the mess of shit and water—the bubbles that sputtered from its exhaust reminding her of a man descending into quicksand.
If whatever had happened got to Bonnie, then...
Grimacing, she pushed her pedal down harder, all but forcing it into the floorboard. The engine roared to life, and Jack fiddled with the stereo blindly as she turned her attention entirely to the road and ejected the cassette, swapping over to radio.
She couldn't remember what station it was on last—rock, bluegrass, opera—all she knew was that the dead static that growled from the speakers wasn't it. Running a thumb over the radio's knob, she searched the stations. There was a faint ghost of noise on one of the channels but it silenced when she tried to narrow in on it.
Turning the radio off in irritation, Jack concentrated her thoughts on driving.
The farm came into view a few moments later. She drove up the road and threw open the truck door almost before it came to a stop, slamming the car into park but leaving it running. She took off in a beeline towards the porch.
A part of her expected what she saw. A pair of knitting needles and a half-finished quilt laid on the ground. The ball of yarn had rolled off the porch, leaving a single, bright-red thread along the path that it had taken. It looked like a line of blood, popping out against the faded wood.
Rejecting the evidence before her, denying even the thought, Jack pressed on inside, shoving the screen door open with an impatient slap of her hand. It ricochet off of the heavy wooden one behind it.
“Gran?” Jack called out. Stepping through the foyer, she glanced around the living room, then entered the kitchen. A pot of potatoes sat boiling on the stove top; the water nearly evaporated from it. Jack shut off the burner and moved past the kitchen's island, loaded with cooking sheets and spatulas, then rounded by the fridge, where dozens of photos greeted her. Her brother, Malcolm, stood in one, a Goliath towering over all but the largest of men. Next to him stood Jack. She was no slouch either, breaking six feet with ease, but even then, she was dwarfed in the picture. A hand as big as a Christmas ham lay protectively on top of her Stetson-clad head, while his shoulder was a perch for Jack's younger sister. The girl sat grinning at the camera, her red curls and pink bow seeming to be mid-bounce when their Granny took the shot.
Jack stared at it for a few seconds, the thought that they might be gone stopping her dead in her tracks. Reaching into her pocket, she took out her phone and tried Mac's number. It went straight to voicemail, Mac’s lazy drawl filling her ears, asking her to call him back. The farmer stood with the phone clenched tightly against her ear until the beep sounded, then jammed her finger to the keypad, closing off the phone call, and pressed on.
“Gran?” she called again, wandering towards the stairwell leading upstairs. She turned from it, trying a door just beside it instead, revealing a stairway leading down to the basement. Determined to check everywhere, she took her first steps downward.
The place used to scare her. Mac was a little hellion back in the day—he'd hide down here when he knew granny would need canned vegetables or fruits. Thanks to her bad knee, she'd always have Jack fetch them, and way too often, Mac would reach his hands through the steps and grab Jack's ankles as she made her way down. Every time, she'd scream.
One time, the scream was a prelude to her tripping and falling to the hard concrete, prompting a trip to the hospital, where she was treated for a broken nose, broken ring finger, punctured lip, and chipped tooth.
Like most of the Apple family, she'd seen her fair share of fights, but that fight with gravity was the one that had wrecked her the most.
As she stepped into what Mac had always called ‘the danger zone’, she felt an odd emotion blast through her—a kind of nostalgic dread, in a sense, as if there would be calloused hands grabbing her ankles at any moment as she tromped down the stairs. If that happened, she wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to stop screaming.
But there were no hands, her brother’s or otherwise, to grab her and take her away to wherever they had taken everyone else.
Stop it, she warned herself. There's an explanation for this.
What is it? she asked, giving a troubled frown when no answer sprang to her.
Twila might have had an answer. She could explain some science mumbo-jumbo about solar flares moving everyone, or some trans-dimensional vortex plopping everyone into a damn field with horses in Europe, or a military-grade missile hit the town that only targeted people, or—something. Something to at least explain what was going on.
But Jack didn't have an answer. She was a practical girl, smart when it came to quick thinking and grounded plans, but lost entirely regarding higher or unconventional thought. No answers came to her, and no answers would come to her down here among canned green beans.
Looking around the junk, then once more towards the foodstuff, she rose back upstairs, going to the second floor, passing by dozens of family photos that littered the wall next to the stairs, following the slope of it upwards.
Jack cracked open the bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary. Next step was her granny's room, and the familiar scent of juniper filled her nostrils. Even after grandpa had been gone for all these years, her grandma still wore his favorite perfume. Looking from the doorway, Jack took stock of the familiar double bed, the familiar dresser (bought from her cousin Maurice at a steal, even for family), the familiar black and white photo above the dresser, depicting her grandpa in the timeless navy dress whites, during his service in Korea.
Staring at the room for just a scant moment longer, Jack pressed on farther down the hall.
Next was Mac's room. It spoke a lot about him—at least, more about him than he tended to speak of. Simple. Clean. Borderline spartan in regards to decoration. The only objects drawing even a curious glance would be the camouflage blanket covering his massive mattress, and what rested atop his chest of drawers.
A doll. A tweedy little gray man in suspenders with button eyes and a small notebook in one sock-hand; the other clutching a fake quill.
Twila's doll.
It had been a mess of a day, but Mac had ended up with the damn thing when it was all said and done. He'd tried to give it back to her a time or two, but just never got the stones. Mac was shy, painfully so around a pretty face. It was a shame; Twila had not so subtly mentioned to Jack that she'd like to get to know him better and had even planned to do just that when her brother got back from Appaloosa.
That happening seemed more and more like an impossibility.
Swallowing back emotion, she pressed on, stepping next into Alice's room. It wasn't often she went in here anymore; Alice had gotten secretive about the place. And rightly so, by the time she had been Alice’s age, Jack detested her granny coming into her own room. Their baby girl had changed from a duckling to a swan almost without any of them noticing.
Stepping in, Jack glanced over to a poster right above the bed. Some boy band she had never heard of. Luanne probably introduced her to them, if she had to guess. And in turn, Luanne was probably introduced to them by Dash.
Intermingled with the books on the bookcase sat a toy car—model, she corrected herself in the defensive twang Alice had—and below that a raggedy doll. Jack felt a small stitching of pride when it dawned on her that she'd bought the toy for the girl years and years ago at the state fair. Her smile turned bitter and she let out a weak sigh. Giving a small prod to the doll, she rubbed its stringy hair in thought, before stepping forward and letting out a tsk of annoyance.
Alice hadn't made her bed before leaving. Jack busied herself making it, giving a small pat to the bed's pillow when the action was done.
It wasn't long ago she had read bedtime stories to the girl while Mac checked the closet for monsters. Jack still remembered the shriek he gave when she had hid there once. Granny had given her holy hell for the trick, but it was worth it just to see Mac fall flat on his ass in shock.
Trying her best to keep distracted, she went towards her own room across the hall. The familiarity of it put her at ease.
It was a lot like Mac's: simple, tidy. A Bible on the nightstand, a dresser with a few knick-knacks and baubles from their mother's side—all from her uncle. The man was a globetrotter. Antarctica to Zimbabwe, as her Granny had put it on more than one occasion. The well-used lasso hung in a neat loop above the dresser, along with a few competition trophies and ribbons.
Glancing over near the bed, Jack rested her eyes on the gun cabinet.
It was a hobby—one learned to have a lot of hobbies during downtime on the farm. When work hit, it hit hard, but there were times, especially after fall's harvest, that gave the whole family a welcome break.
Granny baked, knitted. Mac learned how to use his impassive expressions and quiet nature to play cards—not to mention he had a surprisingly insightful eye for cinema, as Jack had learned over the years. Alice? She was always getting in trouble, that alone seemed like a hobby, but truthfully, she had developed a close relationship with a herbalist from Africa that had settled down nearby, and spent a lot of time talking with her.
She was a strange bird, but the African had helped Granny more times than Jack had fingers, at a fraction of the doc's cost. Arthritis, stomach aches, fevers? That woman could manage it all, and still find time to instruct Alice on hundreds of natural remedies.
Jack hoped the woman had made it out of this too, but... she had her doubts.
She had her doubts about a lot of people making it. She had her doubts that the next town over would have people, honestly.
Her gaze briefly lingered again on the gun cabinet.
It was a fleeting thought, but it was a thought. Jack wasn't a quitter. She wasn't a coward. She'd be the last person to do... that. But if this really was everything, was there much point going on? Her family was gone. Her friends? Gone, too.
You don't know that, she told herself. Just as quickly, the counter thought came: you can make a guess from a track record.
It wasn't everyone, though. If it was everyone, the thought that sparked through her as she looked at the gun cabinet would have been less of a flash in a pan. Maybe she would have got the shotgun out. Felt its weight in her hands. Maybe look down the barrel for a minute or two before putting it up.
Maybe she wouldn't have put it up.
But it wasn't everyone. Rarity was still here in this mess, and Jack was nothing if not dependable. Even though Rarity had shown time and time again to be made of stronger stuff than the gunk she coated her face in, Jack still saw the tailor as her responsibility, here. And it'd be a cold day in hell before she just gave up on something that had to be done.
She just needed a moment or two to sit back, that's all. With that in mind, she moved to her bed and laid on it, not even bothering to kick off her boots as she stared at the ceiling.
The knock froze Rarity in her seat She stiffened, felt her heart rate increase as a million thoughts crossed her mind before settling on one: that she had imagined it.
Letting out a small, nervous laugh, she rose and prepared to fix a cup of tea.
Another knock came, this one louder. The tailor jerked, stifling a yelp in her throat.
She stood, staring at the archway that lead into her main showroom, indecisive for a long moment. Finally grasping her bearings, she glanced towards the knife block on her kitchen counter. Sucking in a small breath, she grabbed a steak knife and clutched it tightly in her hand, then snuck her way forward, through the kitchen and into the shop's storefront. She wiped her clammy hand on the skirt of her dress and crept through the rows of jewelry and racks lined with clothes, past the register, until she came to the front door. Another loud, urgent knock made her nearly exclaim in surprise, but she kept silent, summoning her nerves to look through the door's peephole.
On seeing who stood on her front step, she cried out, fumbling with the lock and throwing the door open. She offered no pause as she stepped forward, letting the knife clatter to the porch, and embraced her guest.
The young boy yelped in panic, recoiling in surprise when the door flung open. As soon as he saw it was Rarity, however, he relaxed, letting himself be hugged and burying his face in her shoulder.
They broke the embrace and the tailor quickly ushered him inside.
“Rarity. What's going on?” The boy’s complexion was deathly pale, his mouth barely forcing the words out without stuttering them.
“I'm clueless,” she answered, pausing to lock the door behind them. “Jack and myself haven't an idea.” She shook her head, giving a small stroke to Spike's green hair with her fingers.
“But, it's, gracious, it's good to see a familiar face, darling. I was fearful it was just the two of us. It seemed like everyone in town simply...”
“Vanished,” Spike finished thoughtfully, ignoring the woman's touch for the moment, although at any other time, he would've melted at even the slightest of grazes from her. “I've been looking around town for a while now. I've tried Chylene's, the Corner, Isabelle's trailer, nothing.” The boy looked close to hyperventilating. “I-I guess I heard you and Jack and started walking around trying to f-find you.” Sniffing, he took in a deep breath to try and calm himself down, but his watering eyes were an obvious tell to Rarity that it wasn't working.
“Let's have a seat in the kitchen, darling. A cup of tea and a moment of thought would do us both quite a bit of good, yes?”
Nodding mutely, he followed after her. She went about making him a drink, humming a slow melody to both distract herself and wordlessly soothe him as she fretted about the kitchen.
“I don't know where to start,” Spike admitted, looking down at his hands.
“Neither do I.” She glanced over her shoulder at the boy, watching him. “I don't understand this in the slightest.”
Spike exhaled, standing and taking a slow, pondering walk across the kitchen. “If it was some sort of...” Rolling his hand, he stared upwards in thought. “A fire? An earthquake? Something. We could see where everything went. Right now though, it's like...”
“Everyone vanished off the face of the earth,” Rarity finished.
She poured the tea, adding two cubes of sugar to hers and three to his, then brought the mugs to the table and sat across from him. She reached over after a moment’s silence and put her palm upon Spike’s own in a wordless gesture of comfort. One she certainly didn’t feel herself as she sat with what might well be one of the last three people on earth.
My God, Rarity, she chided herself, since when have you become such a pessimist?
She had always thought of herself as a realist—a practical woman, a business woman. It wasn't her fault that the reality of the situation was so pessimistic.
“The radio,” Spike said suddenly.
“What?”
He rose and walked past her, then paused, turning to her. “I just thought it might... there might be a station doing a broadcast for people. I-if it's going on in more places than our town,” he explained. “Even if the phones are busted, radio might still be worth looking into.”
“An excellent idea, Spike!” Rarity exclaimed. “I've been rather beside myself at this whole situation. I didn’t even think—” Rising quickly, she stepped out of the kitchen. “I'll check the television as well. I suppose it won't change what's outside the window, but...” She went down the back hall and climbed the wooden stairs leading toward her bedroom.
Normally, she'd take a moment to freshen up. A small spritz of perfume, a check in her mirror for out of place hairs, a look over her mascara and lipstick, but today wasn't a normal day by any means.
She moved to the remote by her four poster bed and turned on the television. A multicolored symbol greeted her, with a note underneath stating simply, “Please stand by.”
She hit the channel button on the remote; the screen flickered, the numbers on the top left of the screen changed, but that symbol remained the same. Over and over, every station she switched to would not work.
“This could be national. Worldwide,” Rarity breathed out, sinking to the foot of her bed. “But...”
She held her thumb down on the channel button until the numbers in the corner picked up speed, silently refusing to believe what was before her.
But every channel stayed the same.
“Rarity!” Spike shouted from downstairs, nearly making the woman scream in surprise. “Down here!”
She ran, stumbling in her heels and nearly falling down the stairway, arriving just in time to hear the middle of a radio announcement.
“...The largest unexplained phenomenon I have ever heard of.” The announcer sighed, seeming to hesitate. “For those of you wondering, I have no clue how far this has spread or how many people are gone. I can't reach anyone outside of the city. If anyone's near Sudbury...” She paused once again. “I don't know if this is affecting the county, or the nation, or even the whole damn world. Phones are dead, net's down, the only reason I'm even still broadcasting and not swallowing pills is because my co-host found another station in the same boat as we are. More people are out there.” They heard a tapping, as if she was running a finger on the desk. “I'm a damn DJ. I filled in today because David was sick. This isn't my scene.” Another pause. “But it's better than doing nothing. The gal that hosts the classical tunes on weekends is digging up some stuff she wants me to read to everyone while we figure out some way to get in touch with more folks. Maybe this'll blow over—but maybe it won't. I'm not sure what the hell...” She sighed. “My advice? Head to the bigger towns. If you're near us, great. We're on Sudbury’s outskirts, north, near Miller road. Maybe try looking around town if you're ballsy, spread the word to anybody you see. If you're not? Head to the capital, try there. Maybe the army'll know what to do, governor Celestia, anybody. If you're staying put, well, maybe what my co-host is looking for will be useful. We'll, uh, get crackin' at that after I take a minute to get my ducks in a row. Be safe.”
A surprisingly fast and loud electronic song came on. Despite the situation, Rarity and Spike shared a perplexed glance first at one-another, then at the radio.
“The capital...” Spike said, crossing his arms. “Twila went there to visit Luna and Celestia.”
“If anyone had an explanation for this, I believe Twila would.”
“If she's—“
Rarity reached over to stroke his hair. “She's fine,” she reassured. “Without a shadow of a doubt.”
It could be a lie. In fact, judging by how many in town were gone, it was a bold faced lie that she didn't believe for a moment, but...
Spike nodded, taking her words to heart, like he always did. “You're right. I-I can't think that she's not there. She's tons smarter than me and I made it, so—”
A knock on the door made them both let out a startled gasp. Rarity's eyes lingered on the knife she had on the kitchen counter top before deciding against it. She wouldn't need it. Carrying a weapon? In her own house, in her town? Preposterous.
And it being preposterous didn't stop you when little Spikie came knocking, did it? she mentally reminded herself. Pushing the fact away for the moment, she went towards the boutique’s front door.
Opening it she was greeted by Jack, who all but stumbled in, standing for a moment, then turning and wordlessly closing the door behind her. She didn't so much stare at Rarity as she stared through Rarity.
“Are you alright?” the tailor questioned.
It took a while, but Jack finally shook her head. “I... dunno.” She blinked a few times, as if trying to wake up from a clinging dream, then shuffled forward, leaning against a glass counter. “Granny's...”
“Oh,” Rarity replied, not waiting for Jack to finish. She put her hand on the taller woman's shoulder. “I'm... I know it's...”
“Jack!” Spike's voice called out. Jack's jaw nearly unhinged when the boy came into her sights, only his upper torso exposed to her as he leaned in from the kitchen. Wasting no time, Jack took two big steps forward to him. “Wha—” was all the protest he could utter as Jack scooped him up and clutched him tightly to her.
“Oh sug...” Jack marveled. “I thought we'd lost ya too.”
He gave up on resisting and leaned into her for several long moments before Jack reluctantly let him go. They all looked at one another, words not coming, before Spike gave a weak shrug.
“What do we do now?” he asked with an expectancy to it, as if his seniors would know just the right plan to take.
“We were gonna go to the next town over. See if anyone's there,” Jack said.
“No,” Rarity countered.
“The hell ya mean, 'no’?”
“We should head to the capital. Spike and myself heard a radio broadcast suggesting people do just that.”
“I'd like that too,” the boy admitted, rubbing his arm and looking to the side. “Twila's...”
Jack's expression softened. With a small nod, she clamped her hand gently to Spike's shoulder.
“She's there. An' we should...” She nodded harder. “We should get ya to her.”