The Last Night
"The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind. The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday"
7:45PM, August 27th, 2024, Houston, TX
Marc Johnson walked into his condo building in downtown Houston, after working a very long shift in the ER. It has been a long time since the pandemic of 2020-21. For the most part, his work has returned to the normalcy. A day for Dr. Marc is largely made up of people coming in from overdoses, car accidents, but also your garden variety bout of the pneumonia from the flu. Today was a long day, 12 hour shift, a bit busier than normal.
Dr. Johnson was excited though - he was expecting offer to join a private concierge medical practice. While he loved his ER work, he was ready to slow down a bit, as the grind was really getting to him. When he entered his building, his doorman gave him a FedEx package. Marc was excited. It’s finally happening. He hurried to the elevator, where he had a bottle of good Pinot waiting so he could wind down from the long shift.
Eagerly anticipating looking over the terms of his agreement, he poured himself a glass, walked about his condo, looking out on the city from the 30th floor, sipping the wine. Finally, he sits down, and opens the package.
When he opens the package, a strange smelling powder seems to escape when it opens. Finding that strange, he continues to read the first page of the document inside, which strangely has just one phrase on it:
“The wages of sin is death”
As he reads this strange document, he suddenly starts to cough, then choke. Before Dr. Johnson can reach his phone to call 911, he falls unconscious. He dies 10 minutes later.
8PM, Boulder, CO
Lori and James Scott just came home from their anniversary dinner. Boulder, even today in 2024, is one of those charming cities that your typical upper middle class couples might own a single family home primarily purchased through working in big tech and moving up the ranks into middle management.
They pull into their driveway, and park their Tesla SUV in the garage, plugging it into the wall as the cliche would dictate about your Typical Upper Middle Class Tech Couple. They enter their kitchen, pour themselves a glass of sparkling wine to celebrate Lori’s promotion to Senior Manager that also happened earlier that day. It was particularly exciting, as this promotion would make it a bit easier to start doing the IVF treatment.
Lori and James spend roughly an hour discussing the future, talking about their plans, laughing at jokes that James seems to just crack with ease on a late summer evening with the wine flowing. Then suddenly, they hear an explosion in the distance. Before they realize what is happening, the power goes out. One minute later, after trying to look up on their phones what is going on, in a flash, their house explodes, obliterating the house and everything in it, including Lori and James. At 9:11 PM.
9:20 AM, August 28th, Outside of Seattle, WA
Jay Carter and his family are returning from camping near Mt. Rainier. Out for 5 days, a well deserved family vacation after a particularly long stretch of long hours at work. As he drives down the mountain and back towards civilization, he encounters a armed checkpoint. A police officer checks his ID. Pulling up his information, he looks back up, worried look on his face, and tells Jay:
It is not safe for you to go home. To keep you safe, you need to come with us.
Alarmed, he asks what is going on. The officer won’t say anything, other than
You are not safe. If you do not comply, we will make compliance compulsory
A law biding person who tends towards trusting authority, Jay complies, though he is deeply confused and concerned. He and his family exit the car, and are whisked towards a field tent where he and 3 other confused families are waiting. 2 hours later, all the families are whisked into a bus that arrives, with several other families already on board.
As the bus gets closer to the outer Seattle suburbs, it becomes something of a motorcade. Smoke from fires all around the city rises. Authorities, a combination of police forces, military, seem to be everywhere. Jay becomes more and more confused and concerned, as others on the bus seem to not have any kind of internet connectivity. Kids start crying, and one of the other couples starts to panic. Did we get attacked by Russia? North Korea? China? What the hell is happening?
Looking outside as they pass through, they see some people going about cleaning up debris around houses, which seem to have an odd pattern of about 1/3rd of houses still standing, like a hurricane that passes through and randomly leaves some of the houses untouched.
After picking up a few more families at checkpoints, the bus pulls into something resembling a refugee camp just outside of Everett, WA. Guarded by what looks like national guard or perhaps military, the bus enters the camp, where people are in lines, waiting to be processed. Jay starts to panic… Why Can’t We Go Home? What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?