3000 AD by Andrew Klawitter

 I woke up to the smell of thick smoke in the air. Exhausted from the day before, I checked the time and saw that my phone was shattered. I panicked and sprinted out of bed to find my family, but I couldn’t find anyone. Confused, I looked out my hazy bedroom window and saw smoke everywhere. There were strange figures that looked like zombies walking and swaying along my street. I kept running around the house when I saw the old family calendar and it said the year 3001. “No way” I thought to myself.

I grabbed my dad’s shotgun and loaded a few rounds into the chamber.  I nervously cracked the front door open very slowly to take a peek.  The air was stinging my eyes and made me cough.  I saw dozens of those zombie things walking and swaying aimlessly. I went closer and closer to investigate one and it wasn’t a human. The eyeless face was covered in cuts and bruises. I tripped over the curb onto my back and fumbled running and coughing inside my house. 

I yelled for my family upstairs and couldn’t find them anywhere. I looked very closely out family room window to see what was happening outside. I looked up towards the sky and I saw that there were spaceships soaring high in the atmosphere. It was starting to look like life from another planet was on earth. Now everything was clicking, I started to think to myself. The world got so horrific that everybody fled earth.  But, why am I left here?  

I closely observed the sky and zombies a bit longer. All of the sudden there was a loud scratch sound at my back door and I ducked aiming my shotgun. Cautiously, I tiptoed closer and closer and saw that it was a frail, shaking dog. I opened the door and as the dog ran inside the outside smell was so bad that I could almost taste it. The dog had a collar but no name on it. So I went with a basic name and called him Doug. 

After a day of trying to figure what the heck happened… Doug and I were hungry. I started searching eagerly for food but couldn’t find anything. I let him outside to use the bathroom when I saw a fish jump out of the pond behind our house. That’s when it clicked and I could fish for food. I first built a face mask out of old drywall and wood I found. To fish I obviously need a pole, string and some bait. I looked where my old tackle box was and found all of my old tools. While putting on my mask I went outside with a cooler filled with water to catch some fish. The water was old and muddy, making me second guess my plan to survive off fish.  After a couple of hours I managed to catch a ton of fish. I was starving, but didn’t know how I was going to cook this fish.  This was a matter of survival.  I remembered that there was a little shop down the street. So I grabbed the keys and tried to start up the old car. Nothing. I popped the hood and tinkered around with the engine and battery. “Here goes nothing,” I whispered to Doug.