The Vanishing Point

Before the sun had even risen, Heather woke up on the sterile, cold kitchen floor. She felt terrible. Yesterday went about as badly as it could have gone, and waking up with barely any sleep felt even worse. She already had both of her sister's bags packed to leave when more responsibilities came upon her. It seemed to her that however much she did to try to help last night, there was always more to be done. 

Before breakfast she tried to call her parents and her sister Madeleine on her phone. The phone lines were down; Madeline probably didn't even notice. As she walked outside, she noticed thick, gray clouds covering over the dark sky.

As she loaded her truck, she realized that she only had enough supplies to last everyone about 3 days; they would have to stop somewhere along the road to stock up on food and gasoline. Miriam came out. She had beautiful curly brown hair and blue eyes. "Where are we gonna go Heather?" Miriam asked. "I'm not really sure yet, but first we need to find food and supplies. Tell Julia and what's-her-name to get ready." Heather replied while loading the truck's cargo bed full of cardboard boxes stuffed with her belongings. After Miriam left, she put her elbow on the bed rim, pressed her face against her hand, and started to cry. 

She didn't spend a lot of time outdoors, unlike Madeleine, who could identify a delicious puffball mushroom from an "Angel of Death," and she didn't find her odds of surviving a nuclear age to be very high. She was confident her Madeleine was still alive, somewhere. It seemed to her that Maddie was made to survive an apocalypse such as this. When Heather was still in college, she would look out her bedroom window and see Maddie outside playing with the garter snakes that gathered in the grassy part of the alley behind their apartment. She loved to be outdoors, not to say that she wasn't smart; she loved to read books about nature and animals. When she was younger, Heather was often surprised to see little Maddie take her high school biology book off of her shelf and start to read it. Heather was quite certain that Maddie had learned more about cell functions than she did that year.

Miriam and Julia came out with Dana and Jude following closely behind them. "We're ready!" Miriam proclaimed not knowing the full weight of what was going on. Once everyone was in the truck, Heather started to head north. She noticed some cars on the road, but not as many as she thought there would be. As the sun rose, the horizon turned into a beautiful shade of orange.

A few miles down, Heather saw a Great Lakes camping store in a strip mall on the side of the road and decided to stop for supplies. She wondered if the people that owned the camping store were still there or if they left everything behind. She hoped it was the second possibility; she didn't have much money with her. The shop looked dark and abandoned. The twin glass doors made a loud "Creak!" as she went into the small shop. "Julia, Miriam, stay close to me, alright?" Heather whispered, "Dana, you look after Jude."

Heather grabbed a handful of protein bars from the checkout section and placed them into her bag before heading into the first aisle. "It's going to get really chilly soon, so I think we should get some coats. Put these on," she said to Julia and Miriam as she handed them ridiculously oversized black coats. Julia's coat went down to her knees, but Miriam's went all the way down to her shins; at least she would be warm when winter came!

She heard the door bell ring; Dana and Jude were leaving the store. Heather let her sisters stay in the checkout area to look for candy while she walked around looking for a car radio to find people that could help. She found more iodine and batteries for her flashlight as well as camping books; she needed to have something to distract her from the harsh reality. Once she was done shopping, she headed out with her little sister in tow.

As soon as they got in the car, Julia exclaimed, "Look Heather! I got CDs at the record store next door, now we can play some music!" "Where did you leave Miriam?" Heather asked, "I left her at the store, she's fine. She was eating some candy when I left. Where is she?" Julia questioned. "We left her." Heather said, "No we didn't!" Julia shouted. "Yes, we did. I'm going back." As soon as she realized that Miriam was left behind, she immediately turned around and started driving in the other direction on the two-lane highway.

When she got back to the camping store, she searched the entire building for Miriam, but nobody could find her. Julia even looked in the record store for her sister, but she wasn't there. Heather didn't know what to do; it seemed like things would only get worse for her as things started to unfold, and she didn't feel ready to take on the challenge herself.