Threnody (010).

(This is a 500-word-a-day novel project.)

She stepped up to the open entryway, noting the frayed edges of rope hinges affixed to a post that indicated a gate had been here once – hesitating, fingers tapping on the aged fence beams, she finally forced herself to plunge forward down the next section of the road where the dead crops created a soundless canyon that was unnerving. After passing symmetrical fields of exactly fifty rows per plot of land, divided by either cheap fencing of scavenged sticks looped with string or by slender access paths, she came to an area where the acres were torn to pieces as if something had exploded from beneath. The road was buckled into waves, and crossing was difficult; as she navigated the damage, stepping into a drift, she barked her shin hard and spat curses, standing on one leg while she inspected the slash in her jeans and the darkening knee beneath it. The offender was a buried metal strip lined with reflective piping – a guardrail that dogged the side of the now-blacktop road as it descended into a shallow river valley. She limped to the where the road began to descend, seeing the town spread below her. There were no lights anywhere, and no people that she could see. She wove through vehicles left in intersections with their doors open and keys dangling from the ignition with model names like the Ford Comet and the Chevy Atlas. Most windshields were bashed in. The windows of the bank and the diner were all broken in; a brick building that declared itself the Police Station was missing its front door. Something furious had gone from door to door and dragged these people out from their hiding places, leaving behind dried blood spatters on cracked door frames.

Under the Gas’N’Go awning were destroyed pumps that had been ripped free from their moorings. Inside, Jessie found the coolers gutted, and broken beer bottles and shredded liters of soda pop piled on a river of congealed, rancid ooze. Gouge marks on the counter showed signs of a missing register; hanging askew on the wall was a calendar listing months but no year. She dropped it onto the newspapers and dollar bills at her feet and went back outside, crossing the street to the first house she saw on the corner of Westfield and Wagner, navigating a brown yard filled with toppled birdbaths and garden gnomes. The front door was cracked in half and would not open; the empty picture window next to it was useable and she crawled inside, minding the shards, finding herself in the living room, which despite the coating of frost on the couch and TV set looked as undisturbed as if the family had stepped out only moments before.

The kitchen was a different matter: cupboard doors and counter drawers had been ripped away, the contents upended on the floor. Long furrows were raked diagonally across the countertop, ending in a dot of frozen gore that might have been a painted fingernail.