MAY 23
As soon as I opened my eyes, I knew something terrible had happened.
Shit, I cursed inwardly, and tried to unzip myself from the sleeping bag.
That failed miserably, as in I was hopelessly tangled in the sack, and no amount of wrestling managed to get me free.
Calm down, I urged myself. You must look like a jackass flailing around in here.
“In here” was the back (the cargo space and folded-down rear seats) of a rented SUV, in which I was camping at a racetrack. Every year, I take - or, I suppose at this point, took - a vacation to the track near my hometown, picking a particular racing series and staying there from Wednesday night to Sunday evening, enjoying the week’s events.
The reason I was so flustered is because it was light outside. During race weekends, the action was going from dawn to dusk (and, if you were camping there, much past dusk, with the “local wildlife” providing plenty of entertainment). Usually, the loudspeakers around the track began playing music at sunrise to rouse people “gently” prior to the big-horsepowered machines thundering around the course.
I forced myself to stop moving, and took a deep breath. I wrestled one arm out of the sleeping bag and tried to grab the zipper pull, but somehow, I wasn’t able to take hold of it. Frustrated and fed up, I kicked and shoved until I got myself free, cursing the stuck zipper.
I tried to pull on the handle for the back door of the SUV, to let myself out. I have to piss like a racehorse. Again my attempt to grab for something was stymied, and I fumbled around with my other hand for my glasses to try to figure out why.
I couldn’t find my glasses, and it felt like that hand was asleep or numb or otherwise deadened too. I turned to look around at my hand, and screamed in surprise.
Instead of a hand at the end of a poorly-tanned arm, I was staring at a grey fuzzy… thing.
Both my arms had been replaced by grey fuzzy things, maybe three inches in diameter and eighteen or so inches long. There was a joint in the middle like an elbow, except it could bend in all kinds of directions my elbow never could have, and of course they were joined to my body - which, as I looked down at myself, was also coated in grey fuzz or fur or something.
At the other end of the appendages, now that I was looking at them, was a hard material of some sort with a sheen to it. As I twisted my fore… arm? … around to inspect it, it finally dawned on me what I was looking at.
Holy shit, I exclaimed in my head. These are fucking hooves.
It finally dawned on me to look up and over the front seats into the rear-view mirror. Staring back at me was a pair of impossibly huge light-purple (lavender, I guess?) eyes surrounded by a dark grey equine face.
“What the fuuu…” I began to say, but my brain kind of crashed when I realized I could still talk despite being a miniature horse. I just sat there staring at myself in the mirror, mind vapor-locked.
I saw - not sure that at that point it was registering, though - that I was a small dark grey horselike creature, with huge eyes (with far more white than I’d ever seen on any horse) and a long, smooth … purple? … mane.
I still hadn’t picked up on the fact that something else was awry, but I quickly clued in on part of it, as I started looking around to see if anyone had noticed the strange creature inside my vehicle.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. Nobody was up and about, even though the sun was well on its way through its ascent. There was no noise from the track loudspeakers, no cars or bikes roaring around the track, and not a sound to be heard.
I finally found a way to lever the door handle open with my hoof and popped the driver’s rear door ajar. Two things became obvious at that instant:
One, there were sounds to be heard, namely birds twittering off in the nearby trees - but nothing else;
Two, as a dog-sized horse, the folded down back seats of an SUV were really freakin’ high off the ground.
I tumbled gracelessly out the door as it pushed aside from my weight against it, going, as my mother used to say, ass over teakettle once or twice before finally landing on my back.
“Ohhh,” I groaned, and the sound of my voice gave me pause. I blinked a couple of times, and then rocked back and forth until I could roll myself up onto my behind. I stretched my neck and dipped my head down to take a closer look at myself, showing a complete lack of decency.
And I’m a… I guess the term is a ‘mare’, to boot, I declared.
I struggled to my feet - hooves? - feeling unsure of myself standing on four limbs instead of two. When I felt I had my balance or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, I staggered my way towards the next campsite over, cautiously approaching the tent.
“H-hello?” I called out softly in the alien voice. No response was returned.
The tent was zipped up to guard against the mosquitos the residents and tourists jokingly called the Ontario Air Force. I managed to wedge a hoof and foreleg (see, I’m learning the terms) under the weather fly and gingerly unzip it.
Inside were two sleeping bags, looking like they’d been occupied at one time, but not now, and not thrashed aside as mine had been.
Did I miss the rapture? I joked to myself. The more likely answer was that I had accidentally left the truck running overnight and gassed myself on carbon monoxide fumes, or was deliriously clinging to life crashed against a tree somewhere in the rural wilderness off a side road, but I decided to go with what I was experiencing, even if it was a fever dream.
Still stumbling around like a newborn foal, I checked out a few other campsites and found them just as deserted. One still had a fire going - or at least embers smoldering mildly - and a couple of half-full cans of beer either upended or resting near lawn chairs. The liquid reminded me of what I’d been thinking of when I first tried to get out of the SUV, and so I staggered over to the nearby copse of trees.
At a loss for how to go about my ‘business’, I lifted a leg like I’d seen dogs do, and - well, let’s just leave the rest of that there. I’m certain nobody cares to know every gory detail (and if you do, you need more help than I did at this point).
Resuming my search for anyone - or anything - else alive, I recrossed the road to the trackside campsites again, checking the last two before getting to the pedestrian bridge that went over the course between turns 1 and 2.
I actually think I whimpered, thinking of how hard it was to walk properly, looking at the stairs on the bridge. The tunnel that went under the track at turn 1 was a long way away compared to this (formerly) easy walkway.
In the end, I struggled up the stairs, wrapping my forelegs around the center handrail and all but pulling myself up one step at a time. The metal decking of the walkway didn’t feel as bad as I thought it would on my bare feet - I mean, hooves - but it was still all alien to me.
Then it came time to descend the other set of stairs on the inner part of the track. Because of the elevation changes on the course, I had twice as many steps to navigate as I’d had climbing up. Briefly, visions of me just pulling a Leeroy Jenkins and galloping down the stairs was replaced by a fuzzy little grey horse lying in the gravel at the bottom with its neck snapped, so I turned around and did the reverse of my climb up on the other side. The whole thing took over twenty minutes, whereas I’d done it the day before in as many seconds, but finally, I was on solid ground again.
The nearby concession stand was still buttoned up like it was closed, but they normally didn’t open until nine or ten in the morning. Idiot, I chastised myself. You didn’t check what time it was before you got out of the car. Then again, that hadn’t been my priority just then. From the position of the sun, my wild-ass guess was that it was mid-to-late morning.
The inner part of the track’s campgrounds were just as dormant. I went down the hill toward the main road - the service road that links all the campgrounds and facilities, that is - and, after crossing it, climbed the incline on the other side toward the paddock.
Smirking a little at the term ‘paddock’, I approached the fence to see that it was closed and locked, just like it would have been in the middle of the night. I hadn’t expected this - I was hoping that I could have gone right in, up to the main building, and then… what? Tried to find someone? Asked if they knew how come I was equinified and everyone else vanished? Get a refund for the last two days’ races that obviously wouldn’t be happening?
What the hell do I do now?
It was probably after noon by the time I got back to my campsite, and I was starting to get hungry. The cooler in the truck, though, was smelling awful.
Crap, what if I was out for more than just overnight? I wondered. What if it wasn’t really Saturday, but Sunday or later, and all the food had already gone bad?
I figured out how to get a stick in between the door handle and body of the truck, and use the stick as a lever to unlatch the door. Pawing the lid of the cooler off and holding my breath, nothing looked particularly off in there. A half-dozen frozen burger patties were still mildly pink, the cans of Coke were nestled in between what remained of the ice, and the wrapped cheese slices were still yellow. Then again, my father had often quipped that processed cheese slices were “just one double-bond away from plastic”, so maybe they really would be a staple of the apocalypse.
The problem was, even with hands, the individually-wrapped slices were hell to peel open. It was probably a toss-up which would be more difficult - getting the propane grill lit to make a burger, or unwrapping some cheese.
Under the knocked-aside lid of the cooler, I spotted the clear plastic bag of the loaf of bread I’d bought. I couldn’t reach it, and had nothing to grip with on the end of my appendages, so I gave up and reached in with my face, grabbing the bag in my teeth and pulling it out to the ground.
I frowned as I looked at the bag with its plastic tag closing it up. Would I be able to slide it off? If I did that, would I be able to reach inside for a slice of whole grain goodness?
Finally I decided on a course of action. Placing my left hoof “below” the tab but not on top of the bread, and placing my other hoof next to it, I pushed down hard and spread my hooves apart. The lightweight plastic easily tore and opened up a hole in the end of the bag. I couldn’t close it any more, but at least I could eat.
I repeated the process, sort of, with the bread in between my hooves, and managed to push a couple of slices out onto the ground as if the loaf was a tube of toothpaste. Sitting down on my butt (haunches? flank? whatever), I gingerly cradled one slice at a time between my front hooves, turning it this way and that to blow the dirt off it from its 4 seconds on the ground, and then popped it in my mouth.
It was even more bland than I figured it would seem. Dry bread with nothing on it. I might as well have been eating just oats or grain.
Keep it up, smartass - you might very well have ended up doing just that, if you hadn’t kept what’s left of your sanity.
Four or five slices of bread later, I was satiated enough that I didn’t feel the need to fight with the cheese or the BBQ grill. I nudged the door shut, making sure the stick stayed in place, and went to the tailgate of the truck to sit down, under the EZ-Up in the shade, and ruminate.
The only sound I could hear was the gentle wind through the trees and the occasional bird. No race cars, no fellow campers, no mechanics, no traffic going by, no planes or helicopters overhead, and no explanations booming down from on high.
Not that I expected that last one, but it would have been nice considering the absence of all the rest.
An ear twitched again and I heard something familiar all of a sudden. It was the chirp of my smartphone, somewhere inside the truck, warning of its battery getting low.
I scrambled to my feet - dammit, hooves - and hurried back to the driver’s rear door, which I’d left open when I fell out earlier. Rearing up, I planted my front hooves on the folded-down seats, and with one of my hooves and my nose (snout? muzzle?), shoved clothing and the sleeping bag aside until I found the device.
7% battery life left.
I found another stick and opened the driver’s door, then deposited the phone on the driver’s seat. Mashing the phone with one hoof to keep it still, and ignoring the chirps and beeps of complaint that I was entering my unlock pattern incorrectly, I searched for the charging cable. Once I found it, I grimaced at my predicament. There was no way I was going to hold a cable with a hoof.
Eventually, I wrestled the phone up onto the center console, with the end protruding over the edge of the arm rest. I ever-so-tentatively took up the cable in my teeth, hoping the connector was pointed the right way, and craned my neck, contorting it and my jaw in all kinds of unnatural directions as I fumbled blindly for the phone’s charging port.
Doo-ding!
“Yes!” I exulted, then froze, fearing I’d jarred it loose from speaking. I carefully pulled my head back and turned to look at it.
6% and charging. Saturday, May 23, 14:48. 37 notifications.
Hooves were not going to work to unlock the phone, so I clambered up into the driver’s seat partially and ducked my head towards the screen, touching it with my nose.
Seven tries (and 45 seconds, since I’d done it more than five times in a row incorrectly and the delay kicked in), I was able to get in.
The notifications were mainly automated things like sports scores, news stories, Facebook replies, and similar things, plus of course the low battery warning, which was now rectified. As I scrolled (having to mash my face into the phone to use it, then back away to read), a pattern became known: the last notification I received, automated or otherwise, was at 3:21 AM.
That prompted me to look at the signal strength. Five bars, just like normal.
Oh man, am I really going to do this? I asked myself. If someone picks up, what do I say?
I decided the disappearance of an entire racetrack worth of people - close to a couple thousand by my ballpark guess - was worth the insane response I was going to get when or if somebody responded and found me in my current state.
I lowered my nose once more and touched the phone icon, then released; then parked it on the 9 and let it sit there for five seconds.
EMERGENCY CALL, the screen indicated in bold white text on an orange background. I nosed the speaker icon - there was no way I was going to be able to hold it up, much less position it next to my ear - and listened to it ring.
After three rings, the click of the line being answered made my heart skip a beat.
“You have reached 911,” the woman’s voice said. “Operators are currently busy with other calls. Do not hang up. Your call will be answered.”
As the recording repeated, a chill went down my spine. Like hell they were busy with other callers - I volunteered with the amateur radio club once in a while, and knew enough about the 911 system that I knew that recording played both when all the lines were busy - and you wouldn’t hear a ringing tone at all in that case - and when all lines were logged off. And if nobody answered a phone within four rings, it was automatically logged off so that someone else in the center could pick up the call.
In other words, there was nobody in the 911 center.
I ended the call and tried a couple other numbers, just in case, but they were to relatives and friends on the other side of the continent, far away from me - even if they answered, what would they be able to do for me?
When the last of them went to voicemail after ringing ten times, I shivered once again as the reality of it hit me. I’d just called the other end of the country and got no response. That means this isn’t local.
I could very well be the last person.. or person-turned-little-horse.. on Earth.
I don’t remember the next couple of hours. To tell you the honest truth, I think I was lying on the floor of the truck, sobbing. If I’d gone insane, or perhaps lost all sentience and simply ambled off to nibble on some grass, it might have been for the best.
But I didn’t. And so here I am.
As the sun was on its way towards the horizon, the phone’s display blinked on briefly, showing that it was fully charged. That caught my attention, and I looked up at it, then blinked and focused on what lay behind it, affixed to the dash.
Worth a try, I mused.
I had to climb further into the truck and wriggle into a quasi-seated position, which felt uncomfortable in my new form, but it had to be done if I was going to use the ham radio.
I mentioned earlier I was a volunteer with the amateur radio club. Whenever I travelled, I brought along a vehicle-installable radio, which I’d set up in the SUV as soon as I got into it on the rental company’s lot. A couple of alligator-clamp cables and a magnet-mount antenna and I was “on the air”, as they say.
The power button was small, but I was tired of bumping things with my nose. I was bound and determined to make these hooves work, so I reached out and twisted my foreleg back and forth until I figured I was in the right position, and then pushed forward with the very edge of my hoof.
HELLO!! came the default power-up message on my radio.
“Fuck yes!” I exclaimed, only peripherally noticing that I moved my foreleg like I was doing a fist-pump.
It took a couple of minutes to gain the finesse required to turn the channel knob, but eventually, I dialed in a local repeater. I reached over with both hooves (leaning painfully over the center console against my ribcage) and scooped up the mic, then sat back up straight and squeezed it.
“CQ. CQ. CQ. This is…”
I paused. I wasn’t going to give my actual call sign, for a couple reasons. One, maybe a non-ham would be the only one listening, and I didn’t want to confuse them. And two.. if a genuine ham did hear me, and the Internet still worked, they could look up my call sign and cross-reference it to a name, and … well, explaining why this voice didn’t match that name was something I wasn’t ready for yet.
I took in a breath and squeezed again.
“...Hello. This is… a survivor. If… If you’ve had the kind of day I’ve had, you have more questions than answers. I don’t have answers. But I’m here. You’re not alone.”
Please confirm I’m not alone, I kept to myself.
“I’m at Mosport. There’s nobody else around. Something … unbelievable has happened. If you can hear this, please… no matter how bad you think you have it … please answer me. I know what you’re going through. If we stand any chance of making it… we need to stick together. … Over.”
The only sound was the hiss of the repeater closing, and then the fan on the radio cooling the device down.
I repeated a variation of the above a couple times, then tried to figure out how I could make it repeat. My radio wasn’t new enough to have a stored voice component. Then I remembered my phone. After a few dozen attempts, I got the voice recorder working, and stumbled through three or four ‘takes’ of my distress call. When I got it sounding the way I wanted, I propped the phone and mic up together, wedging the mic in between the seat and the console so the push-to-talk was depressed. Every few minutes the time-out function would kick in, cutting off my transmission, and I could just un-wedge and re-wedge the mic to start again.
With it all set up, I got out of the front of the truck and retired to the back again, lying down facing the radio, listening to my new voice plaintively beg for another to respond, as I chewed on bland bread and watched the sun go down on my first day as a miniature alien horse.