The end as we know it

Alone in the house, I looked out of the window. It was a cold December night. There was a thick blanket of snow on the ground. I heard the front door open downstairs, “Hello?” I asked. There was no response. I reached out to get my phone and tried texting my parents but the text wouldn’t go through. I got up from my desk and walked downstairs with my phone and saw that the front door was wide open. My heart started to race. I heard a bang from the garage. My hands started to shake and I looked at my phone again. There was a text from my mother saying she and my father were stuck in traffic and wouldn’t be home for another hour. I could hear my heart hammering in my ears. Then I heard heavy footsteps retreating from the garage and I knew I had to get out of the house fast-so I ran out the front door. My breath formed clouds in the air and I wrapped my arms across my chest. I ran to the middle of the street and looked out to see if any house had a light on. All of the houses were pitch black. I turned my focus back on my house and saw a man standing in the doorway. He was tall with lanky arms. His head was a perfect oval. I squinted at him and he cocked his head to the side. Right at that moment, the moon came out of the clouds and the light reflected off of the man’s face. He had large eyes and a peculiar smile. I gasped and started to run through the snow down the street. Every few moments I would look back behind me to see if he was following me and he just stood in front of my house staring at me. I looked back once more to see that he was . . . gone. I turned back around and there was a house about half of a block down with lights on. It started to snow again so I hurried up and shuffled to the house as fast as I could until I stopped dead in my tracks. The man was dancing in front of the house. He was doing an unrecognizable waltz. He didn’t even look at me, he just kept staring at the moon while wearing the peculiar smile. The house with the light on had it on no more and a woman came out and joined the man. Soon other people came from around the corner and they were all dancing. I started to back up to go to anywhere but here and when I turned around the man was right in front of me. He leaned into me. There was a dark red-almost black color to his eyes. He was so close, our noses were almost touching. I could feel his cold breath on my face when he said, “We all have it. We are all infected.”

Kara