Friday Snippet: 36 Hours After the End of the World

Alright. This week, we meet Iris Garrick, Dell's estranged long-time friend. She has no way of knowing she (and quite a few others) missed the end of the world. Hope you enjoy! Let me know and leave a link to your own snippets! Also, if you want to catch up, links to past snippets are listed in the left sidebar under Dispatches.

Copyrighted, do not reproduce, material liable to change. Etc.

The sun set low below the South Carolina hills and the world gleamed amber and ghost-blue. Iris Garrick stood in her studio doorframe, watching the stars burn through the cloudbanks piled up from the coast. She tossed her towel into the golden shadows of the glassed in room. She locked the door and took the winding side path down the hill toward town.

The last summer heat pushed down like the hand of God and Iris pulled her long burnt auburn curls into a fitful bun. Long strands escaped, but most of it tangled and stayed once the she wrapped the elastic band in a near-Gordian knot. Almost thirty-six hours before, the power had gone out. No downed traffic lines, no problem at the plant.

Cell phones all over town were dead and the landlines crackled with static. More strange was what happened when she tried to crank her car. The engine wouldn’t even stir. Iris knew there was no hope for the library’s desktops because of the power outage. But two things worried her more than anything. First, not even the battery power on her laptop would bring the thing to life. Second, the power outage and the death of every automobile in town occurred simultaneously, as near as she could figure.

As she came around the curve, she stepped carefully through the debris of one many wrecks strewn across the highways. She cringed from that thought. Those who wrecked their dead cars in town were lucky. But those on the country roads – those she heard from her studio – those drivers could not be saved. No ambulance. No helicopter. No phone to call for help. Nothing.

She wouldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t.

Passing the tree line, she saw the town’s baseball diamond and shielded her eyes against the sun. Children’s voices and the crack of a bat. The catcher leaned back on his heels as the ball arced high. Iris raised her hand and smiled. She palmed it out of the air. The catcher, a child of maybe ten, threw off…her mask, planting small fists on her hips.

A mop of black wavy hair spilled over her ears and plastered her forehead under the catcher’s mask. Iris almost choked. The girl’s frown and the jut of her chin brought life to memories Iris thought were six years dead. It was her face. Dell’s face. And that was when Iris made her decision. She would talk to Andrew. She tossed the ball back and ran.

She sprinted to the library instead of her little rent house squashed between two suburban monsters. The library doors and windows were shut: a sure sign Andrew was gone for the day. After the heat sweltered over them last night, he took scissors to his honey-colored locks this morning. That was a mistake she wouldn’t let him make again. His hair stuck out in shaggy spikes. No doubt, he wouldn’t stay in a library without open air.

With the day dying, Iris didn’t reach his home until after moonrise. She saw him before he saw her. Crossing the yard, a stack of books under his arm, Andrew paused. Moonlight dusted his blond hair and sweat-darkened shirt. He saw her standing in the road and waved. She smiled helplessly. He came up close and she clenched her fists. She couldn’t stop now.

“I need to ask a favor, Drew,” Iris said. “I’m tired of waiting for news. We all know something’s happened. So I’m going to Ashville. And I need a horse.”

So say we all.
Bri