Page 2 of Sick(ness)

Something moved down there.

Addy froze, pressing closer to the window. It was hard to see through the layers of plastic, but there was definitely something—or someone—standing near the pharmacy. A shape, still and dark against the fading light. She squinted, trying to focus; the figure lurched forward. Not walking, not running—but stumbling, unsteady, as if their body didn’t quite remember how to move.

Her breath caught. She stepped back, bumping into the counter.

Seconds later, the last glow of light slipped away as the sun dipped below the horizon.

She stood in total darkness, her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. For a moment, she contemplated turning the flashlight back on—but the idea of being seen seemed worse than being blind.

The wind howled outside again, rattling the taped - up windows. Somewhere below, a door slammed. Followed by a sound that didn’t belong to the wind at all—a low, wet cough, echoing through the empty street.

Addy covered her mouth, as if they could infect her from out there, forcing herself not to make a sound.

She stayed like that for a long time, counting her breaths, until the silence returned.

Only then did she move—slowly, quietly—toward the couch, curling up beneath a blanket. Her body ached with exhaustion, but sleep didn’t come.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the shape in the street, swaying under the dying light.

* * *

When Addy woke, she wasn’t sure at first if she had actually slept.

The light creeping through the taped plastic was dull and gray, the kind of morning that couldn’t decide if it was still night. Her neck ached from sleeping on the couch, and her mouth was dry, her tongue thick with fear.

For a few seconds, she sat there, listening. The world outside was quiet again—no sirens, no shouting, no coughs. Only the low whistle of wind through the cracks she hadn’t sealed.

She pushed the blanket off and sat up. The air was cold now, colder than it had been the night before. The power was still out.

Her stomach growled. The sound startled her—it seemed too loud. She moved to the kitchen and opened the cabinet, carefully counting what she had left: five cans of soup, two of beans, one of peaches. A single bag of rice. She ran her finger down the rim of one can and stopped herself. She couldn’t afford to ration from hunger—only necessity.

She poured a little water from one of the gallon jugs into a mug and drank slowly, forcing herself to make it last.

At the window, the world outside looked worse than it had the night before. The cars were still there, but now one of them had its door hanging open, swaying slightly in the wind. A trash can had rolled into the middle of the street, its contents scattered. Nothing moved.

No people. No sound.

Addy pressed her hand to the plastic, the faint pulse of cold air beneath her palm.

She thought about the figure she’d seen last night, stumbling near the pharmacy. Maybe they were gone. Perhaps they hadn’t even been real. The mind did strange things when it was scared and tired.

But then again… maybe they were still out there.

She turned away from the window, trying not to let it bother her. Instead, she focused on small, human things—washing her face with the last of the cheap cucumber-scented wipes she’d bought months ago, back when her coworker Megan had insisted that “self-care” was the cure for burnout. Addy had laughed at the time, tossing the wipes in a drawer and forgetting about them. Now, they seemed like gold—soft, clean, a reminder of a world that had cared about moisturizers and bedtime routines. The faint, artificial scent filled the air, jarringly sweet against the sour tinge of bleach and dust.

She tried the radio again. Static. Then, faintly, a voice—male, distant, broken by static:

“…if you are getting this… shelter… supplies… stay inside…”

Followed by nothing.

Addy leaned closer, adjusting the dial, but the signal was gone. The emptiness that followed was worse than the silence before.

For a long moment, she sat there, staring at the small radio, willing it to come back to life. Static still hissed faintly through the speaker, soft and ghostly, like the last breath of something dying. But it, too, faded.

The silence felt personal.

She had always been kind of a loner—something she used to joke about. “I could live off the grid and be perfectly happy,” she’d tell her friends when they teased her about skipping after-work drinks or staying in on weekends. She’d laugh, and they’d laugh, and she’d mean it—at least, she had at the time. She liked her solitude, her small apartment, her quiet evenings with takeout and an old movie playing in the background.