The Wanderer

Excerpt from “The Wanderer”

“Part of me rejoices in the chaos. Its jubilee serenades me with whispers of survival, purpose, and meaning. Peacetime has been a torturous imprisonment while the liberation of adversity has freed my soul.”

~Anonymous

Chapter 1- A Living Nightmare

“You belong with me,” her haunting voice echoed around him.

He awoke alone in a cramped space, a pitch-black space, only feeling a mattress underneath him and cold wooden walls surrounding him. “The Wanderer” by Dion could be heard playing outside. The Lost Soul’s heart banged hard, not only from being unaware of where he was, but who he was. He started to control his breathing to stop the panic attack and regain his composure, attempting to recall any memory from the night before or any time before, but found nothing. He couldn’t even remember his name. His breathing was short and shallow, The Lost Soul screamed for help, but nobody answered except the sound of waves crashing against the walls.

Reflexively, he felt the wall behind his head and found a latch. He quickly turned it, and the hatch flung open, the morning sun’s rays blinding him. He crawled out and fell hard onto the wooden deck, then took a moment to get his bearings. When his eyes adjusted, he found himself in the cabin of a sailboat. A plaque with the vessel’s name hung on the wall — S.S. Styx.

“Hello?” he yelled but heard no answer.

He hesitated to move, afraid of what might be top-side. He stood there lost and confused, afraid, but he needed answers; he needed to know how he got here and who he was. Those questions outweighed the fear of the terrifying unknown. He finally moved from his spot and began looking around the cabin for any clue of what happened to him. He found the Bluetooth speaker playing “The Wanderer” was set to play music as a morning alarm and hit the snooze button. He found a black suit jacket on the cabin’s couch and searched the pockets. Strange, he thought. He found a white rose in the breast pocket and a little black box. He opened the box and found an engagement ring gleaming in the sunlight. A smile came across his face, hope and warmth vibrating through his body. But he didn’t know why he felt like this because the ring sparked no memory, only the feeling of déjà vu. He put the engagement ring box back in the jacket pocket and went to the head.

The Lost Soul looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the man staring back at him. He was wearing the matching pants to the suit jacket, a white dress shirt with the top button undone, and a black tie loosely hung around his neck. The stranger staring back at him was a handsome man with crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes — he must have been someone who liked to smile—; but his brilliant hazel eyes stood out as absorbing and intense. His brown skin, deep black hair, and strong jaw made him look like a young Zahn McClarnon. 

“You belong with me,” the disembodied voice echoed from the cabin. He leaped out of the head in a panic, grabbed the coat, and climbed the stairs to the top deck. The bright sun nearly blinded him again as he jumped off the boat and onto the dock. He stopped for a moment to look behind him and found no one on the boat. He looked around at the other docked boats and again saw no one.

“Is there anyone here?” he yelled.

He ran across the dock, desperately beating on each boat while yelling for help, but nobody answered. He ran up the gangway and into the full parking lot but found no one in sight. Panic overcame him as he ran onto the empty city street and found abandoned cars with their doors open scattered on a once lively road now turned desolate.

“Hello! Hello! Is there anyone here?” he yelled. No one responded; not even the singing of birds or the croaking of frogs was heard. Nothing alive to make a sound.

The Lost Soul began exploring the driverless cars. Purses and cellphones were abandoned on the front seats, engines stalling and sputtering could be heard from down the street. Then he saw the blood. Pools of black and rust-colored blood clotted on some of the car hoods and the ground beneath them. The stench of rot and the overwhelming terror caused the Lost Soul to vomit.

“What the fuck is going on?” he asked himself as he spat the bitter bile from his mouth.

He looked up and read the street signs of the intersection where he vomited: -

N. Ponce De Leon Boulevard and King Street.

“I’m in St. Augustine?”

The Lost Soul stood at the crossroads and looked east on King Street, where the King Street-Bridge was barricaded by abandoned police cruisers with their strobe lights still on. The once white stone rails of the bridge were now caked with gallons of blood and riddled with bullet holes. A massacre happened here. He wanted to go back to the sailboat to hide and regain any sense of sanity he had left, but something inside him told him to head to the old district of the city. A compelling urge pushed him to venture into the mysterious destruction and eerie remains of the city of St. Augustine. The Lost Soul didn’t have an inkling of rational reason for doing so until he realized he’d unknowingly taken out the engagement ring and was holding it in his hand.

He put on the suit jacket and placed the ring back in the pocket. The Lost Soul’s need for survival was outweighed by his compelling need to go into the unknown, to find out who he was, what happened, and who the ring belonged to.

The Lost Soul felt the spent bullet cartridges underneath his shoes as he walked past the barricade and over the bridge. He couldn’t tell which direction the police were trying to fend off the attack because both ends of the bridge were barricaded, and there were bullet holes spread-out in every direction. They were firing everywhere, even in the middle of the bridge. There was so much blood that the bottom of his shoes were sticking to the cement as he walked.

“Where are the bodies?” he asked himself.

The Lost Soul looked around and found no remains of any kind. No bodies, not even severed limbs, entrails, nor any type of flesh. Only blood.

He made it across the bridge and continued east on Kings Street. The store front windows were all shattered, and their doors smashed in.

“Was this a military attack? Were we invaded?”

The streets were littered with purses, backpacks, torn clothing, and cellphones. The Lost Soul reached down and picked up a smartphone, surprised to find it still working. He dialed 9-1-1, but only static was heard, not even that piercing tone followed by the robotic voice telling you the number you dialed was not in service. He went to the phone’s web browser to search for news but found there was no connectivity. The Lost Soul then looked in the phone’s gallery and found pictures of the owner with her husband sightseeing in St. Augustine. He kept swiping until he found the last item, which was a video recording.

He pressed play and watched as the recording shifted from the street to the sky. She was recording as she was running, causing the scene to shake violently. There were other people running away, too, some already covered with blood. The phone then dropped, camera side down, which recorded only the cement, but there was still audio. “Sharon! Run! Keep fucking running! Don’t look back. Keep fucking running!” a voice screamed, which was followed by a barrage of gun fire, cars crashing, and people screaming. Then, the phone was kicked over and recorded the night sky and people running over the phone. This last minute of recording was just flashes of gunfire followed by sudden silence. A horrifying roar broke that silence, followed by somebody screaming, “Oh my God, what the fuck is that?”

The screen went black when the video stopped. The Lost Soul’s hand was shaking as he stared haplessly at the phone. He played the last five seconds of audio again and listened to the roar. The Lost Soul didn’t recognize what animal or thing it came from, but listening to it again made him nearly drop the phone. He pocketed the phone since it still had a full charge and wished everything could be explained away as a military invasion.

He passed Sebastian Harbor Drive and found the St. Augustine police station. He walked to the open door and peered inside, listening for movement from inside. He hesitantly walked into the station and found desks flipped over and apparently used as shields in a battle. But it was more of the same from what he already saw. Bullet-hole spray covered the lobby, blood caked the floor, and no bodies.

“Hello?” he said in a near whisper. 

No answer was heard.

He walked further into the police station and found nobody in the front section of the building. The Lost Soul went down the corridor and found the armory. Intuitively, he went in looking for weapons but found them mostly emptied. He found the small arms safe door ajar and opened it. To his relief, he found a Glock-19 along with a few loaded magazines. He loaded the gun and racked the slide, chambering a round. His efficiency with the gun surprised him. He also found a pistol holster and a magazine holster, which he diligently attached to his belt, properly arming himself.

As he was holstering the Glock, the phone in his pocket began to vibrate. He quickly pulled it out and saw that the number was unknown, but he answered with a feeling of relief, knowing he was going to hear another person’s voice and get some answers.

“Hello? Please help me; I don’t know what’s happening,” he blurted out.

Soft breathing answered on the other end.

“Hello, please say something to me. I don’t know what happened, and I am alone.”

The breathing stopped, and her familiar voice spoke.

“You belong with me.” said the disembodied voice.

The line went quiet, only to be sharply broken with by a loud, “BHARRARRAA.”

The roar from the maniacal laugh blasted through the earpiece, causing him to drop the phone. The echo of the phone breaking on the floor was followed by a loud clank coming from inside the building. The Lost Soul unholstered his gun and cautiously followed the clanking as it intensified. He couldn’t recall any memory of tactical training, but he instinctually knew to clear the rooms as he passed and to cut the corners so he wouldn’t be ambushed. The clanking led him to the holding cells when it suddenly stopped.

The cells, with their Plexiglas windows and heavy metal doors, were all open except for one at the end of the row. That cell’s window was covered with cardboard and newspapers from the outside. Gun pointed at the window, the Lost Soul reached his trembling free hand out to peel off the cardboard when a loud voice began manically yelling from inside the cell.

“Good and evil cannot exist without the other. If one exists, then the inverse must exist; such is the law of nature. What good is an antibody without the bacteria to cure the body? What good is a magnet if it only has a negative polarity?” the manic voice screamed.

The Lost Soul ripped off the cardboard and jumped back in terror at the impossible, gruesome sight. A headless body was facing the corner, its dismembered head with its spinal cord still attached perched on the metal bench; black mold grew around the torn flesh. The Lost Soul aimed his gun at the window, expecting the person who committed this massacre to come out from behind the metal cell door. Suddenly, the eyes of the severed head opened, and a scream poured out of its mouth. The body turned around and ran towards the door, banging against it with a metal cup in its hand.

The Lost Soul leaped backward in terror as he watched the headless body violently beat and claw at the door cell door, its fingers missing chunks of flesh, bones exposed. Without a second thought, the Lost Soul ran out of the holding cells, through the lobby, and back outside into the bright sunlight and empty streets. He was on the verge of having a meltdown when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. He spun to his right with the Glock aimed down Kings Street but saw nothing. He feared at that moment that he was losing his mind. The amnesia, the empty streets, and the headless body were all part of a schizophrenic episode; none of this was real, and he was really in some institution, sleeping in a padded cell. But his gun was still aimed down Kings Street because he knew the terrifying truth — this was real, and there was something down range of his aim.