As he sat up in his bed he frantically looked around the room.
It was just a dream, calm down.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and popped his neck a bit. That was some deep sleep for a nap, he thought as he threw his legs over the edge of the bed.
He looked towards his bedroom door and listened. No sound of the roommate. He looked at his phone: 4:30pm. He’d only been asleep for an hour, but he felt as stiff as if he’d been asleep for a month.
Tom opened the bedroom door and listened again. Still no sound of his roommate. Tom figured he must have left to go get some dinner.
Tom’s roommate Mitch generally would have planted himself in front of the TV by now. Mitch’s personal schedule was as predictable as commercial breaks; 4:00 get off from work, 4:15 sit down in front of the TV for the next 4 hours until he became hungry enough to get up and get food. So for it to be 4:30 and no sound of ESPN heard in the house was out of the ordinary to say the least.
Tom stretched as he walked into the quiet living room. He looked around the room for signs of Mitch. There was plenty of Mitch's “leftovers”, but nothing recent. Although the air had a pungent smell of spoiling food, there was nothing like an empty plate or half filled soda can to indicate Mitch's recent presence.
Tom opened the front door and looked out into the front yard. It looked forlorn and abused; the grass hadn’t been mowed in a couple of weeks and it looked as if weeding had never been even contemplated. The shaggy foliage ended where the edge of Jacob’s street began and the collage of uncontrolled vegetation gave stark contrast to the dark blacktop of the recently paved road.
Jacob’s street was the typical neighborhood road with the exception that it ran right up against the back of the city's hospital. This would have had little effect on the neighborhood traffic had the city not decided to connect it to the local bypass two years ago. Now this small neighborhood had become a regular route for many on their way to and from the hospital and the hum of traffic filled the void of the once peacefully silent neighborhood. This hadn’t been an issue for Tom or Mitch though, with the exception of the blaring ambulances that would pass by nightly. But after a year, Tom had learned how to tune it out. As for Mitch, nothing could pull him out of his own little world whenever a game was involved.
Tom stood on his porch, barefoot as he looked up and down Jacob’s street. Its quiet out here too, he thought. The low, dull sound of traffic from the bypass was strangely absent, making the neighborhood feel empty.
Tom walked out onto the grass to get a better look down the street. Nothing. No cars, no people, no sound.
Tom scratched his head as he muttered to himself, "Maybe something is happening at the lake?"
Crystal Lake was just half a mile from the hospital and was a constant center of community events, celebrations and gatherings. Tom couldn’t remember hearing of anything special happening today, but that wasn’t abnormal. He generally was the last one to know about those kind of community events anyways.
Tom looked down at his bare feet, then turned and looked toward the hospital.
"I guess I’ll just walk down the street real quick and maybe I’ll hear something happening over at the lake," he thought.
Tom gingerly walked down the paved street. He looked up at the sky, enjoying the mild temperature of the early evening. It was gray today. Not unusually gray, just the “overcast-about to rain” kind of gray. As he stared upwards, is mind raced. Tom's imagination started creating wild connections to the lack of people and the gray sky, allowing every fantastic story and movie to become reasonable and real in those few moments.
Tom smiled and shook his head as he neared the hospital. His imagination could really take off, that was for sure.
He reached the last house on the street and stopped.
Silence.
Tom's pulse accelerated as he thought aloud, "This is starting to get strange. Where is everybody?"
There was no answer. In fact, there was no sound at all except the wind and a few birds in the distance.
He stood there silent, stretching his ear for any sound aside from his racing heart when something caught his attention.
A smell.
Something was burning.
Tom looked around, peering above the treetops and houses for signs of smoke. He couldn’t see anything that pointed to a fire so he jogged back to the house and grabbed his shoes.
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So tell me....
What happens Next?
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