Mr. Loveless in Room 719

It’s not looking good for the Angels. Top of the seventh, Game 6, series tied up at three a piece, and the Giants are leading 4-0, just ten outs away from winning it all. Francisco Rodríguez is struggling on the mound after allowing a home run from Barry Bonds in the top of the sixth, and now, insult to injury, an RBI line drive single from Jeff Kent. Kenny Lofton scores easily. 5–0 Giants.

Does it sound like I know a lot about baseball? Because I don’t. Three weeks ago, gun to my head, I could not have told you who won or even played in the 2002 World Series. Finger on the trigger, hammer cocked, I could’ve named maybe eight or nine Major League Baseball teams at most. So you would be right to ask why I’ve watched the entirety of the 2002 World Series approximately five times, all the way through over the past twenty-three days. Answer: It’s the only thing I’m allowed to watch. By which I mean, it’s the only thing they’re piping through my hotel TV, and I’m trying not to go crazy. You might then be compelled to ask why I don’t simply leave this hotel room. Answer: They won’t let me. Who are ‘they’ you ask? Another great question. They are, as best I can figure it, the man on the phone and whatever governmental or extra-governmental entity he represents. FBI, CIA, some other acronym I’ve never heard of. On this, your guess is as good as mine.

The Angels rally in the bottom of the seventh, setting in motion a remarkable comeback that would finish in an improbable 6-5 victory over the Giants, before going on to win Game 7 and along with it, their first World Series. Maybe you already knew all that, but I didn’t. Not until three weeks ago anyway, and watching the crowd go absolutely wild during that Game 6 rally is enough to put a smile on this non-baseball-fan’s face, even in spite of everything that’s happened to me. And yet: If I ever get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is find a television and watch something—anything—else. Right after I suck in a few hundred lung fulls of fresh air, of course. When I get out of here. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

I turn off the TV, hop off the bed, and walk over to the window. I draw back the curtains and find the lone lit room on the 9th floor of the Marriott, just across the courtyard from where I’m standing on the 7th floor of the Crowne Plaza. I wait there for a few minutes before I see her silhouette appear, pitch black against the yellow light of her hotel room. I’m surprised when she pulls back the curtains. This is the first time I’ve seen her in days. I extend my arms up in a Y shape, and she begrudgingly, eventually puts her own arms up, bending her elbows to place her hands on her head. M. I curve my arms to the right. C. She reaches up, forms a mountain peak. A. Our little tradition. I think I’m going to die in this hotel room.

****

Here’s what I remember. I checked into the Crowne Plaza in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania around 5 pm, after a two-and-a-half-ish hour drive from Washington, DC, where I live. I was in town for a medical technology conference—please don’t ask me to explain it in any detail beyond that, it will bore you to tears—and after getting settled in my hotel room, I showered, watched a little TV, and then left around 7 p.m. to meet up with a couple work acquaintances (I guess I could call them friends) at a bar called McGarry’s, just a ten-minute walk from my hotel.

At McGarry’s I had a cheeseburger and fries, half a dozen beers, and more than one shot of tequila. For whatever it’s worth, I’m not usually a heavy drinker, but my friends are, and I’ve always been what I would self-charitably describe as a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. And everything that particular night flowed toward me getting very drunk. I stumbled back to my hotel around 1 a.m., set my alarm for an unreasonably early hour, undressed, and promptly passed out.

For obvious reasons, everything between falling asleep and my alarm going off is a blur, but there are a couple things I vaguely recall that didn’t seem like anything terribly important at the time—more like temporary interruptions to my drunken stupor—though of course now I know differently.

The first: Early in the morning (I’m talking, early, early, like before 5:00) I was woken by what sounded like a group of three or four people rushing down the hallway, and the hushed, frantic urgency of a father scolding what, I assumed, was his children. This was followed by several more groups of people, their footsteps rushing past my door. If I felt any alarm about this, I don’t recall it. In truth, I was only half-conscious of this happening.

The second: A little after 6:00 a.m. I was more completely woken by the sound of power drills and hammering from what sounded like directly outside my room. I braced my throbbing head and checked the time, laying there in total disbelief that anyone would be doing construction this early. I put a pillow over my head to block out the clamor and try to steal at least another hour of precious sleep. To no avail. I’m hardly a confrontational person, but the drilling and banging quickly became too much to bear, and I made moves to get out of bed and tell whoever it was to consider doing this some other time when 99% of the hotel wasn’t fast asleep. But as soon as my feet found the floor, the construction abruptly stopped. I crawled back under the covers and tried in vain to fall back asleep, before finally deciding to wake up and confront my raging hangover with a shower and a cup of shitty hotel coffee.

Dried off and dressed, and more or less ready to greet the world (or at least a sleepy medical tech conference that promised to have more coffee) I grabbed my phone and wallet, slung my messenger bag over my shoulder, and made to leave my hotel room. But by now, you know, I never leave this hotel room. When I tried the door, it was completely sealed shut. I jiggered the lock and deadbolt, preposterously waved my room key around the handle, before finally trying to pull the door open with brute force—an image that would surely make you laugh if you could see me. The door did not budge at all, and my hangover quickly dissipated as I started to connect the construction I’d heard earlier with my current predicament.

I checked my phone, which appeared to be momentarily signal-free. I tried the hotel phone, which yielded only silence, no dial tone, and was unnervingly incapable of letting me dial out. It was then, having exhausted my other options, I turned on the television, and if there’s one major regret I will always harbor about that morning, it’s this: The first station was a golf tournament, the second station was some kind of infomercial, and the third station was a news network plastered with all of its 5-alarm-fire BREAKING NEWS panic graphics. I caught a snippet of the anchor, a woman, saying “--in hotels across the country--” and I remember she emphasized the word hotels just like that, like it was the greatest source of disbelief in the sentence she was uttering, a sentence I never got to hear the end of, because at that moment I idiotically flipped to the next station (cartoons) and the next station (weather) before realizing my mistake. I frantically backtracked to the news, but by the time I arrived, it had been replaced by a bright and empty blue screen. Along with every other station I tried after that. My cable had been cut off.

I wish I could remember more clearly what else I’d seen and heard on that split second of breaking news I’d stumbled upon, before I stupidly switched it. There was a glimpse of police cars and fire engines, I know, surrounding a building—maybe a hotel, maybe not. I remember the words “unexplained disasters” written on the screen and maybe the word “fatalities” but anything beyond that is likely just my brain desperately trying to fill in missing gaps.

I gave up on the television after a few minutes, and turned it off. And then the hotel phone next to the bed started ringing. After three rings, I answered it.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Loveless? Mr. Doug Loveless in room 719?” It was a man’s voice, older than me. Maybe in his late 40s, and a slight accent I couldn’t place.

“Yeah, that’s me. Who is this? Do you work for the hotel? I can’t get out of my room.”

“No you can’t,” he said. “We hope this is temporary but for right now, no, you cannot leave your room.”

“Who’s we?” I asked. “Is this a joke? What’s going on?” I was a dizzying font of questions. They rattled around calamitously in my skull.

“It’s no joke, I’m afraid. For your safety and the safety of those around you, you will need to remain in room 719. You will be well taken care of, rest assured. Meals will be delivered at 8 a.m, 12 p.m, and 6 p.m. You may want to jot that--”

“You’re fucking with me,” I interrupted, growing indignant. “This is a prank.”

“It’s not, I assure you,” the man said. His tone was patient and steady, as though he were addressing a child. “Look outside.”

I set the phone down and walked over to the window. Seven stories below me the street was filled with police cars, a couple fire engines, a handful of ambulances. There were military personnel in fatigues setting up barriers around the hotel and redirecting a stream of confused pedestrians. I noticed that many of them were looking up in the direction of my room, even though I doubted they could see me from their vantage point. I could hear very little through the thick and unmovable glass, but the scene below was tense. Urgent.

I walked back to the phone. “What’s going on?” I asked the man. “What’s happened?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge much more than I already have. As I said, this is for everyone’s safety.”

“You’re just trapping us all in the hotel?” I said.

“Everyone else has already been evacuated,” the man said. “You’re the only remaining guest.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, my voice cracking, head spinning. “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. You can’t just lock me in here for no reason.”

“We have reason to believe you’re a source, Mr. Loveless,” the man said. As though I was supposed to know what that meant. “Breakfast will be delivered at 8:00 a.m.” And then he hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, at exactly 8:00 a.m. sharp, there was a knock on the door. I went to answer it, and this time it opened to reveal a pane of glass that had been installed on the other side of the door. I reached out and tapped on it, and immediately registered how thick it was, almost certainly bulletproof. I could see nobody in the hallway, and at the bottom of the glass there was a black box, with doors on either side. I opened it to find a tray with breakfast—eggs, toast, bacon, hash browns—a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee, cream and sugar. I removed the tray from the box, closed the box’s door, and then shut the hotel room door behind it. When I tried to reopen the door, I couldn’t. It had already been locked again, presumably remotely.

I had no appetite. I set the food and drinks on the dresser under the television, and tried the remote again. After cycling through several more minutes of blue screens, I turned it off.

I spent the remainder of the day pacing around my hotel room, in quiet incredulity that this was really happening. I frequently returned to the window to find more barriers being erected outside, more military vehicles with more and more axles arriving, more people with big muscles and camouflage and massive weapons. By sundown, I had arrived at the most plausible theory: There was a new pandemic. Something viral, potentially quite lethal, and the man on the phone, and whatever agencies he represented, believed I was a carrier. It squared with the heavy police and military presence surrounding the hotel. It squared with the breaking news I’d glimpsed on the television earlier that morning. It squared with the man on the phone claiming I was a “source.”

Before I went to sleep that night—or tried to—I noticed that the Marriott hotel, about fifty yards across the empty lot from my window, was completely dark except for one illuminated window on the 9th floor. And then a silhouette filled that window, a person whose features were hard to make out, but I could sense that they were looking at me, just as I was looking at them. I raised an arm to wave at them, and they waved back in slow motion. I drew my curtains and spent the next two hours staring at the ceiling.

****

The next morning, after I finished breakfast, the hotel phone rang again. Again I let it ring three times before answering, and again the man’s voice greeted me.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“This is bullshit,” I replied.

“Fair enough,” he said.

“Am I being quarantined?” I asked.

“Something like that.”

“Because I feel fine,” I continued. “So could you just send in some guys in hazmat suits to draw blood or check my vitals or whatever, because I’m not doing another day of this.”

The man paused and seemed to choose his words carefully. “I don’t believe that what you have is contagious. But it is deadly. And if we sent people into your room, I doubt that would be safe for them. So we’re in a bit of a holding pattern right now.”

I sat down on the bed with slumped shoulders, rubbed my forehead. “This isn’t legal.”

“We’re bending the laws a bit right now,” the man said.

“What are you? CDC? FBI? CIA?” I asked.

“One of those, perhaps. Think of me as your personal caseworker.”

“Just tell me what I have to do to get the hell out of this room. I’m going crazy,” I said.

“What would be most helpful,” the man said, “Would be if you could answer some questions for me.”

The man on the phone’s idea of “some questions” ended up being about three hours’ worth of questioning covering every minute and insignificant detail of my life, my childhood, my job, my hobbies, my habits, and all the events that had led to me checking into the Crowne Plaza in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania two nights ago. Specifically, the two and a half hour drive from DC to Harrisburg, a drive that I recounted to him countless times, leaving no stone unturned, including the exact route I took, the rest area I stopped at to take a piss, and the gas station an hour outside Harrisburg where I’d filled up my car. This unexceptional and entirely uneventful journey was an apparent point of intense interest for him and whoever he represented, and no matter what tangents our conversation spun off into, it always came back to how I got from DC to Harrisburg. He verified everything I told him with credit card statements, cell phone tower analysis, and security cameras, all of which he’d managed to procure at lightning speed. I wondered if the FBI was too basic for him. I imagined him calling me from an inner ring of the Pentagon, the country’s national security apparatus buzzing around him.

After he had seemingly exhausted his artillery of questions, he ended the call with assurances of further phone calls and more questions to answer, and I assured him, again, that I would answer any and all of them. Whatever he wanted. I had nothing to hide. I hung up the phone and remembered the silhouette in the Marriott the night before.

I went to the window and scanned the ninth floor, trying to recall which room I’d seen them in. Then, with a breathtaking shock, I saw a woman standing in the window. She must’ve been there for who knows how long, likely trying to get my attention. It was hard to see her well through the distance and the glare of the sun on the glass. But she was there, a petite figure, with long hair, and when she saw me too, she waved her arms at me. I waved back. She motioned a “wait right there” hand gesture, left her perch in the window and returned a minute later, holding up a sheet of paper with something scribbled on it, but it was way too far for me to make out. I tried my phone, centering her in my camera and then zooming in on the paper as close as I could, but there was only pixelated gibberish on my screen. Defeated, I pocketed the phone, put my hands up and shook my head, in an exaggerated shrug.

For a while we just stood there, regarding each other and our blank, featureless faces across the distance. I formed a Y with my arms. Then a gradual M. Then a C. And then an A. She didn’t react to this, and I worried I’d messed this up. She’d been trying to communicate something urgent and significant to me with her sign, and I was treating it like a joke. And then she put her hands in the air, too. Formed a Y-M-C-A, before returning her arms to her sides. I smiled at this and gave her a thumbs up. I wondered if she was smiling, too.

****

The days ticked by, and I could feel myself slipping. There weren’t nearly enough square feet in room 719, and I craved fresh air, any exposure to the outside world at all. My kingdom for a window that could actually open. During one conversation with the man on the phone—a daily occurrence at this point, though the times were always random and selected by him—I taunted him. Told him how I was sure that with enough of a windup I could sail a chair through the window, jump out, end this once and for all.

“On a scale of 1-10, how close would you say you are to attempting that?” the man asked.

I sighed, didn’t feel like bullshitting. “Like a 2.”

“Good. For what it’s worth, I’m fairly certain you couldn’t break that window. Hotel regulations are pretty firm on this.”

“What about her? The woman in the Marriott?” I asked.

“What about her?”

“Like, what’s her story? Is she in the same boat as me? You’re holding her captive in there because she’s a—whatever you called it—a source?”

As always, the man carefully considered his words. “Yes. You’re in the same boat.”

“How much longer are you going to keep me in here?” I asked.

Instead of answering, the man signed off with “Channel 122. Check it out.” And hung up.

I clicked through to channel 122, where a baseball game was in progress. My heart leapt, thinking I’d finally had some line to the outside world, but as the game progressed I realized it was at least twenty years old. The 2002 World Series played on a loop on channel 122 from that point on. When I asked the man why, he told me he’d pulled some strings. Like I should’ve been grateful or something. Said he convinced his “higher ups” (his term) that I needed some regular entertainment, a preventative measure to keep me relatively sane while I was cooped up in such a confined space.

“I’m not really a baseball guy,” I told him.

“I know,” he said. Between our regular conversations, his meandering lines of inquiry, and what he was able to dig up through research, he knew quite a bit about me at this point. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t creep me out.

The room felt smaller and smaller with each passing day. I tried breaking up my routine where I could—difficult to do when three meals are delivered at the exact same times every day—tried sitting in different parts of the room, bathing instead of showering, sleeping on the other side of the king-sized bed, rotating my body 180 degrees with my head at the other end. My phone never worked. I asked for a book to read. They put in a John Grisham paperback with my lunch. I asked for something else. They gave me a different John Grisham paperback.

The mysterious woman and I tried communicating across the lot, but we couldn’t coordinate our hand signals and gestures in any way that led to anything meaningful. I sensed she had something she wanted to tell me, something important, but I had no way of ascertaining what it could be. On the street below us, the cops and military held the line. From my vantage point I could see around the block, and after a week in room 719, I stopped seeing any civilians altogether. I began to wonder if all of Harrisburg hadn’t been evacuated, just like the Crowne Plaza. Just like the Marriott. Just like any number of hotels and residences across the country, around the world for all I knew, but I had no way of knowing what was happening out there. Nothing beyond my window. And it drove me crazy.

During my second week in room 719 I started seeing less and less of the woman in the Marriott, and pretty soon I stopped seeing her altogether. I kept a lookout at all hours of the day and night—my sleep schedule by this point had grown erratic and unpredictable—but her curtains remained drawn 24/7. I asked the man on the phone if she was okay, but as usual, he was less than forthcoming. Every question I asked him was an excuse to pivot to another question about my life, about what I was doing in Harrisburg. As it became clearer he had no intention of releasing me anytime soon, I grew cagier and less straightforward with my answers. I began snapping at him, cursing him out, hanging up on him before he’d barely finished a single sentence. I didn’t care anymore. I was angry. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see my parents again, my friends, my coworkers. My life. And none of that would’ve been nearly as bad had I simply gotten some answers about what was happening to me, and why.

****

The Angels just won the World Series again. The players are tackling each other, celebrating on the field, losing their minds. The crowd is erupting. The phone next to the bed rings. I consider letting it go to voicemail (if I had a voicemail) but reluctantly answer it.

“Good news,” I say. “Anaheim won.”

“A wonderful series,” the man replies. “Let’s talk about Sheetz location 4410.”

“Jesus Christ, you can’t be serious.”

“You pulled into the Sheetz off exit thirty-eight at approximately 4:05 p.m. To get gas, correct? Walk me through it,” the man says.

“I’ve walked you through it. Over and over again. I have walked you through it so many times, I have blisters all over my feet,” I say. “What stone could there possibly be left to turn. Why do you care about this so much? I got gas, I paid, I left. End of story.”

“Right, we have the receipts and security cam footage to verify. You paid at the pump, with a credit card, but you still went inside the gas station. Why?”

“I already told you,” I try to keep my voice measured. “The receipt dispenser wasn’t working. I needed a receipt for a travel reimbursement. From work.”

“So you went inside to get your receipt. And you got some candy while you were there,” the man says.

“Correct.”

“Starbursts,” the man says.

“Still correct.”

“Can I tell you something interesting I discovered?” the man asks.

I massage the bridge of my nose, on the verge of hanging up. “Please do,” I say.

“You had never bought Starbursts before in your life. At least not with a credit card. We’ve combed through every credit card statement, debit cards, every purchase. No Starbursts.”

“Wow, you’re right,” I say. “That is super interesting.”

“You know we have security footage from inside the gas station,” the man says. “You’ve known it all this time. Why do you keep leaving this part out?”

I sigh heavily. I don’t know why I’ve been so stubborn about this. Maybe I felt like it gave me a little power. It doesn’t matter. I’m too tired to play games anymore.

“There was a little boy,” I say. “Throwing a fit. Like a full-on meltdown. Begging his mom to buy him some Starbursts. I don’t know why she wouldn’t.”

“Ahhh,” the man says, satisfied. “So you were just being a good guy. You bought some Starbursts and slipped him one.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Why, was the kid diabetic or something?”

“To the best of my knowledge, no. He and his mother left the Sheetz without incident, returned to the family patriarch waiting in their SUV, and all four of you left the Sheetz lot at basically the same time, you northbound, them southbound. Noah, was the boy’s name, by the way. Noah Sanford. His mother Jane Sanford, father Mike Sanford.”

“Good to know,” I say.

“At around 4:25 p.m. their SUV was doing sixty miles per hour on Route 15 when multiple eyewitnesses claim the top of their vehicle was suddenly ripped open. All three members of the Sanford family were then lifted out of their speeding vehicle and suspended screaming above the highway for several seconds, before each of their bodies were ripped apart into six separate pieces. They then vanished in what one person described as, and I quote, ‘a bright red vertical flash of lightning.’”

I listen to what the man has just said, his words echoing in my mind like an empty gymnasium, and then I rush for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before puking. I splash water on my face, return to the phone.

“What the fuck are you talking about,” I ask. “I didn’t lay a finger on that kid. I mean, what are you even saying?”

“Are you a religious man, Doug?” the man asks. “I mean, of course I already know you aren’t. What am I saying.”

“No, seriously, what are you talking about? I just gave the kid a Starburst. You already saw it in the video.”

“That’s true. You just gave him some candy. Would you like to hear what happened to the young woman who checked you in an hour later at the Crowne Plaza? Or how about the men you went carousing with later that night at McGarry’s Pub & Tavern? Do you want to hear what happened to them?”

“You’re lying,” I say, trying and failing to feign indignance. “You’re making this up. You said I was a source. A source for what?”

“Source may have been the wrong term,” the man says. “More of a portal, I think.”

“A portal to where?”

“Well, try to picture this, ok? You’re driving along on Route 15, minding your own business, and then suddenly you see a beautiful family of three lifted into the heavens and violently separated into six pieces. 6-6-6. The world has really gone to hell in the last three weeks, let’s just say that.”

The room is spinning. I need to sit down. “I am not a fucking portal to hell. Are you even listening to yourself? And even if I was, if I was as evil as you’re saying, then why not just kill me? Blow up the hotel? Nuke Harrisburg?”

“We’ve tried that,” the man says.

“You’ve tried killing me?”

“We’ve tried killing others. There are many others. Millions. It always backfires. Makes everything considerably worse. Containment is our only move,” the man says.

I suddenly realize something. “Why are you telling me all of this? You haven’t given me shit in three weeks, and now you’re just putting it all out there?”

“My higher ups are a little checked out now. Bigger fish to fry. In fact, I think most of them have fled. The President says this is a holy war between good and evil. He addressed the nation a few nights ago. It did not go well,” the man says. “Like you, I’m not a churchgoer type myself, but I have to concede there’s a certain biblical symmetry at foot. You know? So much centered around hotels. No room at the inn, and all that. And if you saw some of the footage coming out of Bethlehem right now, well… let’s just say you might think twice about wanting out of that hotel room so badly.”

“I don’t care. Just let me out. Please. Let’s say I believe you. For the sake of argument, say everything’s falling apart like you claim. Then just let me go,” I beg.

“Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the power to do that. I’m sorry. I actually am really sorry,” the man says, and sounds like he means it.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“Arlington, Virginia.”

“What’s your name?”

And then the line goes dead. There’s a deafening silence, and room 719 feels even more suffocating than usual. I’m certain I’m going to throw up again, but just before I do, I hear a commotion outside. I walk to the window, dizzy, uncertain of my footing. The scene on the street seven floors down is intense, more chaotic than usual. Something’s happening. All of it is muffled through my window, but I can hear shouting, the squawk of walkie-talkies. Soldiers are running back and forth. And then, without warning, a chair slams into the sidewalk, bouncing briefly in a splintered mess. A shower of glass falls around it, and I look up to the ninth floor, at the gaping hole of a window in the woman’s room. She’s standing there, looking directly at me, her eyes locked onto mine. She waves, but I’m too stunned to wave back.

Of course, I know she’s going to jump before she does. And of course, I can’t watch. But I hear the sickening thud and the screaming and shouting that follow, the vehicles spinning out, sirens, “GO! GO! GO!”, even gunshots, which is ludicrous. Who is there to shoot at? When I finally muster the courage to look, I see the woman’s broken and abandoned body lying face down on the sidewalk, sunlight reflecting in the shattered glass around her. I see the last of the Humvee and squad cars speeding around the block and out of view. The only movement left: A plastic bag skirting along the pavement.

I hear a click at the door, and walk to it. Unlocked. I’m confronted with the pane of thick glass when I open the door, and when I reach out to touch it, it falls away, tipping all the way back and colliding with a hard thud against the wall across the hallway. I don’t think the man on the phone was lying to me about this. I don’t think he had the power to let me go. But I know if I think too hard about who opened these doors, I won’t like where my mind goes. I step around it and into the hallway. Finally free.

The hallway is dark. The elevator doesn’t work. I find the emergency stairwell and descend seven flights to the lobby, which is, of course, abandoned in mild disarray. I make my way to the exit and as soon as I step outside I breathe in a chest-bursting lung-full of fresh air, cough a little when I taste smoke, a suggestion of chaos and suffering somewhere on the horizon. The street is totally silent. Harrisburg has been abandoned. I have a feeling that for the past few days now it was just me and the soldiers surrounding the Crowne Plaza. And the woman.

I walk around the block until I see the Marriott, cross the empty lot to her. I can’t look too long at her body, but I find a camouflaged tarp nearby, in a haphazard pile of abandoned debris. I drape it over her body. I pin the tarp down with a fire extinguisher, a walkie-talkie, a couple cinder blocks.

I spun around, trying to get my bearings. Believe it or not, this is my first visit to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And no offense to the people who live here—lived here—but I strongly suspect it will be my last. All of a sudden, my phone starts vibrating in my pocket, exploding with texts and news alerts, far too many for me to deal with right now. I power it off, return it to my pocket.

I start walking down the road. I am not a source of evil, or a portal to hell, or a harbinger of doom, or anything else. I’m just some guy. I know that sounds ridiculous, maybe obnoxiously humble, but it’s true. I’ve never hurt anyone. I would never harm anybody or anything. I know that for a fact, no matter what the man on the phone or anybody else tells you. Whatever’s happened to the world has nothing to do with me.

I walk a few blocks over to the bank of the Susquehanna River, glimmering and peaceful in the sunlight, so grateful to finally feel the sun on my face again, and I’m overcome with a curious mix of sadness, fear, and maybe hope. I stand before a bridge, empty Harrisburg behind me, the rest of the world on the other side. I’ll keep walking until I find people. Maybe in some kind of encampment or shelter, wherever people are hiding and living together while they ride this thing out. Maybe you’ll be there. You’ll see that I’m a good person. Nothing vengeful or angry or monstrous. You won’t find one mean bone in my body. You’ll see that there’s no way I could’ve done the things they’re saying. You’ll know it as soon as you see me, and you’ll welcome me with open arms, bring me in close, feed me, care for me, treat me no differently than you would your own brother. You’ll see.

About the Author

Chris Scott\'s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Observer, Maudlin House, Flash Fiction Magazine, Weird Lit Magazine, Flash Frog, and elsewhere. He is a regular contributor for ClickHole, and an elementary school teacher in Washington, DC. You can read his writing at https://www.chrisscottwrites.com and on social media at @iamchrisscott.