Pox by P X Duke

 
     
    POX
    It can happen here
     
    ONE
    Russell
     
    No one ever noticed my spying.
    I liked to sit in a chair at a corner of the large,
south-facing window in the front of the house. I’d crack the bottom
corner of the curtain just a bit and look out over the expanse of
neighborhood. I enjoyed observing the sun on its early-morning
climb, bringing light into the dark corners of the yards in the
cul-de-sac surrounding my new home.
    Sometimes, in the evening before sundown, I’d do the
same thing. I’d take up the chair and wait for the sun to set; for
the daylight to darken; for the same neighborhood to go black. When
that happened, I’d let the curtain drop to its rightful place.
    I don’t know why I bothered keeping watch. Perhaps it
was from some perverse sense of responsibility, knowing as I did
that I was the only one left to guard the knowledge of what had
happened. Or perhaps I hoped beyond hope that one day, I’d look out
and there would be someone in my world just like me.
    Open and welcoming as I thought I would be to the
prospect of another human being entering the world I inhabited,
there was still the chance that whoever showed up might not be in
the same frame of mind.
    I took precautions, just in case.
    Under no circumstance did I want even a single ray of
light to make its way beyond the blackout curtains to illuminate
any part of the night. I couldn’t have anyone walking up to a
window wondering why there was light coming from the house. It
became part of my routine to go to each window, checking and
re-checking the curtains for leaks.
    When I relocated, I had gone around the cul-de-sac
and pulled the curtains in almost all of the abandoned homes. I
wanted all the houses to look normal from the outside. I wanted
everything to look normal. I had to convince myself that there was
nothing that appeared abnormal in my surroundings.
    Only then would I permit myself to fire up the
generator.
    I had light. I had heat. I had food storage. I had
hot and cold running water.
    I didn’t care about anything or anyone else, as long
as I felt safe.
    I didn’t care if I ever saw another human being
again.
    Lie though that was, I truly might not have cared,
but for the loneliness.
     
    I’m not sure when the craziness began. I’m not even
sure what started it all.
    The best I could come up with on my own was that it
began with a report that meteor showers would occur over a couple
of days. The media encouraged everyone to get outside and have a
look at the spectacle as it unfolded. Plainly visible through night
and day, the exploding bright flashes were accompanied by smoky,
dusty trails extending behind for miles.
    Plenty of television and radio coverage at the
beginning of the two-day extravaganza turned into rabid fever when
experts couldn’t, didn’t, or wouldn’t explain why the meteor
showers continued for two weeks past the forecasted end date. That
the broadcasters then turned to amateurs espousing all sorts of
religious hokum and fakery came as no surprise. After all, the
quacks and shysters made for colorful visuals and exciting sound
bites.
    Not a one of them, be they expert, quack or
bible-thumper, had any reasonable or believable explanation for why
the sky had been turned into a never-ending light show that had
gone on for weeks on end. What had been billed as a one-time
explosion of meteoroids suitable for viewing by both adult and
child alike turned into a side-show event.
    Only the ticket booths were missing.
     
    At the end of the first month, a fresh batch of news
and television reports were pushed out by bored commentators when
the six-tailed asteroid was discovered. In keeping with initial
reports of a two-day meteor shower that lasted for thirty, none of
the supposed experts that the government called on knew anything
about six-tailed asteroids.
    A spectacle such as that was brand-new to them,
too.
    At least the asteroids could only be witnessed by
those designated to peer through huge