“Man, you don’t look too good.” Joe said.
“You don’t either” Darrel said back. “Want another beer?”
“Sure, why not.” Joe answered. “Although I don’t know why. Can’t really taste them anymore.”
Darrel comes back and hands Joe his beer. “Here ya go.”
“Thanks." Joe says. Darrel sits back down in one of the rocking chairs he and Joe have been sitting in for years as they drink a beer together and swap shit, as they would call it.
Joe and Darrel have been neighbors for a little over 35 years. They both moved into the neighborhood with their new wives at the same time when the houses and the neighborhood were new. They watched each other's families grow. Watched the kids play together and the wife's gossip, mostly about Joe and Darrel and the other wives in the neighborhood. There had been plenty of parties at each other's house especially when Joe had a pool put in, which Darrel and his family were allowed to use anytime they liked. And in return Darrell would help maintain it.
There had been a few fishing and hunting trips, even though Joe wasn’t much of a hunter. He never saw the sense in getting up at three o’clock in the morning to go sit in the freezing weather just to come home empty handed when you can sleep in until nine and go down to the store and buy a T-bone steak and grill it for less than half the price that it cost to go hunting. There were a few arguments, too, but nothing so serious as to ruin the friendship. A lot of beer had been drank between the two. Not just neighbors. Friends, true friends. There for each other. Always.
Joe was a carpenter by trade, and a good one. So good in fact that he could name his own price when taking a job, and he would get it. The inside of his house looked like something out of a French chateau. And he had built a few pieces of furniture for Darrell's wife which she just adored and always showed anyone who was interested her beautiful furniture her neighbor made just for her. Which wasn’t exactly true, of course. Joe had made many things for other people in the neighborhood, but they had to pay.
Darrel wasn’t a carpenter by any means. In fact, Darrel couldn’t hammer a nail in straight if he tried. He just wasn’t very good with his hands. But what he was good at was numbers. He had a brain for money and that’s why he was a CPA passing the test on the first try. He also made a good living at being a financial adviser by helping people invest, do their taxes, and make other people richer. He too could name his own price because people knew he could and would help them.
Yes, Joe and Darrel have been neighbors for a little over 35 years. And they never wanted to leave even though both of them were rich enough. These were their homes. And through all the years of watching the news, seeing presidents come and go, new world leaders being elected, assassinated, pushed to the side, new advancements in technology, medicine, warfare, and space, had discussed and even disagreed over politics, they never, neither one of them wanted to leave, nor thought that they would live long enough to see it come to this.
The world was ending.
Or at least, their world was ending.
They didn’t know what was happening anywhere else but in their own little part of the world they were the only two left.
It started slowly at first. So slowly that you didn’t really notice it. People just started disappearing. Maybe someone you know, maybe someone you didn’t know.
It didn’t really hit close to home until John across the street disappeared. His wife was frantic. She couldn’t find him, didn’t know where he went to or when he left, he was just gone. When her kids went, well, she just couldn’t take it anymore. They found her hanging in her garage after they had been trying to check on her and when she didn't answer the door on the third day, they broke in and, well, that's where they found her. They took her down and buried her in her back yard.
But when it really hit home, when it really got both of their attentions, was when Joe’s son disappeared. He was coming home for a visit, and both mom and dad were excited to see him. All of his favorite meals would be made for him; his room would be fresh and clean waiting for him to take a nap when he got there like he always did when he came to visit. But he never made it. The last anyone saw of him was when he left work and started his trip to see his parents. Both Joe and Darrel went looking for him. Driving around for hours just to try to find any trace of him. They never did.
Then it was Joes wife. Then Darrel's kids, Joes kids and then Darrel's wife, one after the other. And during all this time, everyone else in the neighborhood disappeared too. Until there was no one left. No one but Joe and Darrel.
"What do you think it was, Joe?" Darrel asked. "What do you think made everyone leave?"
"I don't know." Joe replied. Joe had heard these questions already. He was tired. Tired of hearing it. Tired of wondering.
"I mean, there's got to be a reason for it." Darrel said. "Got to be a reason for everyone to just up and leave."
"They didn't leave, Darrel. Not on their own anyway. They disappeared."
"But why? How? Did someone take them? Did aliens come down and get them? I mean we are both pretty smart guys. We should be able to figure this out."
"I don't know." Joe said. "All I know is that we have been over it a hundred times and their still gone. It's not a war, that we know of. It wasn't a disease, hunger, fire, or a zombie apocalypse, or aliens for that matter. I don't know what happened Darrel and asking me again and again isn't gone to make me come up with an answer."
Darrel was quiet for a moment and then asked, "Was it the rapture, Joe?" Darrel was looking at Joe with eyes that spoke full of desperation for an answer.
"Damnit Darrel." Joe said looking at him now with a little more anger this time. "I don't know! Now would you please quit asking?" Regretting he snapped at his friend and the only person left in his life he reached out and put his hand on his friends' shoulder "Look Darrel. I miss them too."
Darrel looked down at the ground, tears welling up in his eyes again. "I know you do. I do. I miss them terribly." He sets his half-finished beer down and stands up. "I think I'm going to go take a nap."
"OK." Joe says. "I think I'll stay out here. Maybe somebody will pass by." He said this knowing damn well no one would.
"OK, see you in a couple of hours."
Joe tips his beer to him and Darrel goes inside to lay down.
About three hours later Joe wakes up. He had fallen asleep in the rocking chair where he had been sitting when Darrel went inside. He stands and stretches his back and shoulders, turns and goes inside and calls out to Darrel "Come on Darrel. Wakey, wakey sleeping beauty." When Darrel didn't answer Joe starts down the hall.
"Come on Darrel, wake up. We need to go hunting for supplies before it gets too dark."
Still no answer.
Joe gets to the bedroom door and knocks. "Darrel? You awake? You aint doing anything in there an old man shouldn't be doing are ya?"
Still no answer.
Joe opens the door slowly. The bed is empty. "Darrel?" He looks around the bedroom, in the closet, and under the bed. Nothing. He runs back down the hallway, as fast as he could, and goes to the kitchen. He finds nothing that shows Darrel has been in there. No coffee brewing, no dishes in the sink, no trace Darrel had eaten a snack. He turns and runs toward the living room, nothing, then back down the hallway to the bathroom, nothing, and the other bedrooms, searching, calling his name. Still no Darrel. He's searched everywhere in the house.
Joe runs outside calling for Darrel, saying his name again and again and louder each time until the realization finally sinks in that Darrel is gone too. Disappeared. Just like all the rest.
Joe falls to his knees. "Why" he asks. "WHHHHHYYYYYY" he screams pounding the ground.
Crying.
All alone.
