For Someone Like You

By Mason Yates

Week Two

On the other side of the spacious room, pushed up against the rickety wooden staircase in the corner and resting on top of a small bookshelf, a record player played an old Patsy Cline tune with such a wonderful sound -- almost as if the lady herself stood in the underground room. There were more records placed in a box beside the bookshelf; every kind of musical sound that anyone desired could be found there, everything from Mozart to The Beatles to Bob Marley to Blink 182 to Slipknot to Elton John and so on. But Benny Snyder, the youthful thirty-two-year-old with his back to the staircase on the opposite side of the room, hunched beside a metal shelving unit along with his hands buried in a cardboard box, liked to listen to the oldies as he worked. He brought a couple cans of food out of the box and placed them on the lowest shelf before reaching back in to grab more cans. Above him, the rest of the metal shelf was barren, but the other shelves in the room were stacked to the ceiling with all kinds of canned food goods: green beans, peas, fruits of all kinds, spinach, soups, olives, corn, chili, etc. When he finished with the cardboard box, threw it to the side, and stood up (his knees creaking as he did so), he looked around the room. It was a large space populated by an assortment of survival gear, all illuminated by a single naked bulb in the center of the room, humming as it bathed the space in a pale light. Benny stared at the light a little while, then looked at the hazmat suits, then at the gasoline cannisters, then at the bookshelf, then, finally, at the gun rack where several unloaded rifles were pointed at the ceiling. He started over to the weapons.

Another Patsy Cline tune took over from the last one as he grabbed an AR-15 and twisted it in his hands, examining the weapon with a keen eye. He smiled down at it in the same way the mother of a newborn would smile down at her child. He felt powerful with it in his hands, but he knew the Spider-Man proverb “With power comes great responsibility,” and he accepted that the same way Spider-Man had in the comics. He almost put it back on the rack, but before he did so, an idea flashed into his mind. Instead of putting it back, he grabbed two full magazines laying on a table beside the rack, then he strode over to the record player and turned it off. One moment Patsy Cline had been alive and well, singing about being lonely and sad, then the next she did not exist. He did not bother putting the record back into its correct case. Rather, he shoved the mags in his back jean pockets, then started up the stairs with the rifle in hand.

With one hand occupied with the weapon, it took him a few moments to unlock the heavy basement door and push it open. Not only was it bulletproof, but the door was also made airtight just in case of a chemical attack or something similar. He set the rifle up against the wall, then in a slow manner, shut the door. As silent as a mouse, it clicked back into closed position. The last thing he saw before it shut all the way was the yellow plastic hazmat suits at the foot of the stairs in the basement. They gleamed in the pale light.

Benny picked up the rifle and walked down the hall towards the front screen door. Out in the real world, a gray overcast sky blanketed the blue-white ocean and the white-sanded beach of his private island. He could smell the salt water before he even opened the door, and he felt cool wind ruffle his brown hair and caress his bronze, sun-kissed skin. His inky black pupils mirrored the landscape, and his hazel eyes grew in color as he stepped out onto the wooden porch. Behind him, the screen door shut with a loud whack! and rattled the doorframe. But he did not notice. A new sight drifted his mind elsewhere. Slouched in a wooden chair with her chin titled up, feeling the cool breeze with her eyes closed, his girlfriend of a few months sat beside a wooden table. A nice sight, Benny thought, to welcome himself to after spending a little while underground. Two peas in a pod, they were. He and Pauline.

Pauline Laflamme, a French model but now technically a citizen of the United States, did more than wow Benny. Despite only being in a relationship a few months, Benny loved her, and from what she told him, she loved him, too. Maybe, he thought as he strode across the porch and took a seat next to her, that was why she had been okay with flying to his private island to stay in the cabin with him. Or, he also thought, maybe it had something to do with her wanting to be the woman who was married to a rich businessman. Over the past few years, he had acquired money upon money from his business adventures, but that, he knew, was all in the past. Survival was in his thoughts now. Benny stared at the slim blonde as he thought, and he hoped to God she didn’t just want him for his money, because they were on the island for a long haul now. This was only their second week.

“Pauline,” Benny said as he set the rifle on the round wooden table in front of her, careful not to knock over her sweating glass of pulpy lemonade. He reached behind himself and pulled a magazine out his back left pocket, then one out of his right. He placed them on the table, too.

“Pauline,” Benny repeated a little louder. “I wanted to show you something.”

Pauline cracked her eyes open. He could see a slip of her blue orbs, and they investigated what was on the table before her. When she realized what it was, her eyes shot open. She sat up.

“Where’d you get this?” she gasped. “Why do you have it?”

“From the basement,” he told her, “and I have it because the dream I told you about. You remember me telling you about it?” He grabbed the AR-15 off the table and held it up for her. It would have shined in the sunlight, but with the overcast, it looked rather dull. However, it didn’t look too bland. Rather, it looked menacing even in the dull lighting. “You like it? Cool, right?” He set it back down on the table and smiled at it. He looked back into Pauline’s eyes. She stared at the rifle.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had guns in the basement?” she asked him as she gazed at it. “And yeah, I remember you saying that we had to come here because the dream was about a kind of plague that you were scared of.”

“It’s more than a plague,” Benny started with a shrug, “but that doesn’t matter. I brought this out because I wanted to show you how to fire it. Someday you might have to use it, and new shooters won’t be able to handle this properly without a little direction. Wanna shoot it?”

“I… I’m not comfortable with guns,” Pauline said with a shake of her head. “You said it was a survivalist house, but I didn’t know you had guns in the basement. You told me to stay up here and not go down there.”

“Because I didn’t want to startle you,” Benny told her. “There’s just a bunch of gear the doomsday preppers all have. Hazmat suits, a few rifles, food storage, gasoline, books, etcetera.” Benny shoved one of the loaded magazines into the lower receiver. “So, you ready to learn?”

“Benny,” Pauline said with a shake of her head. “I don’t feel comfortable shooting it.”

Benny hung his head and slid the AR-15 off the table and into his lap. “But it may come in handy, Pauline. We came out here for a reason. We… we came out here to survive.”

“I was under the impression that we came out here to have a nice getaway for a little bit,” Pauline told him with a quizzical expression written on her face. “You said it might be for a tiny amount of time, like two or three months.”

“And we are!” Benny erupted to defend himself, trying to keep his voice under control.

“Then why did you come out of the basement with an assault rifle?” Pauline questioned.

“It’s not an assault rifle,” Benny corrected her. “You’ve been watching too much news.”

“Whatever it is,” she started with a vehement tone, “it looks dangerous.”

“Because it is. If you don’t want to shoot it, then let me show you how to use it just to be sure you can fire it correctly if need be.”

“No,” Pauline said and raised her hands, palms forward, “I don’t really want to hear it.”

Benny glanced at her leaning forward in her seat now. She wore a white bikini top with a pair of jean shorts that revealed her suntanned thighs. Her breasts were perfect, and everyone agreed, especially all the people who wanted to see her nude modeling photos. Her belly was smooth, flat, and bronze like a well-cooked pancake. It gleamed in the nonexistent sunlight, almost like someone had buttered her stomach. Benny licked his lips; he had an urge to crawl over to her and kiss her skin. Instead, he put the stock of the AR-15 against his leg. He pointed to a switch on the side.

“This,” he said as he pointed to the gray switch, “is the safety. If it’s off, the gun… listen to this please, Pauline. It won’t be long. I just want you to know really quick. If you listen to it, I’ll leave you be as soon as possible.”

Pauline sighed. “Don’t you think you’re being a little too overprotective? Nothing is --”

“It’s just a precaution,” he interrupted. “Plus, this’ll take literally two minutes.”

“Fine,” she said and crossed her arms. “But don’t expect me to get this all in one go.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “I just want to give you the basics.”

“Okay.”

He pointed at the magazine that he had put into the rifle. “So you jam this in here, okay? Make sure the bullets are facing the way out of the gun. Then, you flick the safety so it’s off. It will be able to shoot, then. After,” he said and scooted closer to the wooden railings of the porch and set the handguard on it, “you can shoot, like this.”

“No!” she yelled.

But just as she yelled, Benny pulled the trigger of the rifle. A sharp bang! emanated from the gun, and the butt of the rifle kicked against Benny’s shoulder -- not too hard, though. An echo bounced off the water and sailed across the ocean, followed by a splash of the bullet. He pressed his finger against the trigger again, again, and another time. Each time, Pauline yelped and put a finger in each ear. Shocked, she gaped at Benny, surprised he had even fired the rifle.

When the magazine emptied, Benny took it out of the rifle and set it aside. He stared at the foamy white waves lapping against the sandy beach. It seemed like they were unaware that just moments ago he had been shooting at them. Silence reigned now that the rifle was out of ammunition. While Benny stared at the world, Pauline stared, flabbergasted.

“I told you not to shoot that damn thing,” she said once she had regained her speech. “I --”

“It’s just a few rounds,” Benny said and patted her on the thigh. “I’m sorry. I guess I got a little carried away.” He continued to look out into the water, and he took a deep breath. He got a good whiff of saltwater, and he felt as the sea breeze caressed his skin and ruffled his hair. The intoxicating smell of the ocean relaxed his muscles, and he sighed as he grew limp in the wooden seat he sat in. He put the AR-15 on the table again, making sure not to spill Pauline’s drink. She moved it, though, and as she did so, Benny could see that she was staring at him, intense, then an expression of pity crossed his face. He sighed again and said, “I’m sorry, Pauline. Ever since… that damn dream.”

“It’s only a dream,” she said, staring at him with curious eyes. “Just please don’t ever get it in you to shoot that gun unless there’s an emergency, okay? I’m not a fan of it. I don’t want it. I don’t want it around me at all. Keep it in the basement. You hear me, Benny?” She looked the gun up and down and shook her head. “I hate those things. A gun of war, that’s what it is. Now you got me in a foul mood.”

“I’m sorry,” Benny apologized again. “I… I just wanted to make sure you knew how to.”

“Well,” Pauline started, “now I do. Now, put it away, okay?”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Benny said. “I have a record player in the basement. I can bring it up, and we can listen to it when we swim out in the ocean tonight. How’s that sound?”

“How come you didn’t tell me you had a record player?”

“I haven’t told you a lot of things I have in the basement,” Benny told her. “But does that sound good?”

“Yes.” She nodded and turned again to face the foamy water. “After you shooting, I’m a bit hesitant to even be near you, but if there’s music, I guess it won’t be too much of a bothe

r.” Benny stood up and picked the rifle off the table. “Let me put this away, then. And I can bring the record player up when I put this back where I got it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said.

Benny grinned down at her and stuffed the two magazines into his back pockets. When it was all put away, he strode across the porch and opened the door. Before he went inside, he took a second to apologize again. Pauline accepted it, but when he disappeared back into the cabin on the edge of the sea, she sighed and started to regret ever coming to Benny’s private island. After all, she had only been dating him for -- what was it now? -- two or three months. If she really put in some thought to it, he was practically a stranger. And now, she wondered what was in the cellar.

Week Three

Benny kept the handgun, a SIG Sauer P226, concealed underneath his shirt as he picked a fresh lemon off the tree, placed it in his picnic basket, and reached up for another one. Though it seemed safe out in the orchard -- or anywhere on the island, for that matter -- he felt it necessary for there to be a weapon on him at all times. However, he had to keep it hidden from Pauline, and that was important to remember, especially after the fit she threw when he took out his AR-15. Keep it in the basement, she had told him, and he had done so ever since, except for the handguns. But for the most part, he followed her rules. He learned that if he wanted to keep her on the island, it was important to keep her happy, as well.

He put another lemon in the basket and reached up for another one, feeling the salty air as it brushed against his skin in the breeze. Behind him, a half mile or so away, the ocean waves hit against the beach. Birds screeched and cawed, and the wind whistled. The trees rustled, too, and a few lemons thumped against the ground because of it. For the most part, though, the fruit had a way of clinging to the branches, eager for Benny to reach up and pick them. Tonight, he thought it might be a good idea to put the lemons to use. Maybe he could make a lemon cake or make an unbelievably tasty meal for Pauline. She would like a surprise. She deserved it for accompanying him to the island. If she was not there with him, he might have gone berserk from loneliness. Then, he thought about Pauline’s true purpose on the island. Had he conned her into -- well, was it really a con? he wondered -- coming to the island so that he wouldn’t be lonely during the end of the world. No, he told himself, he would never do such a thing… or had he already?

Benny shook his head and gathered a few more lemons off the tree. He saw that he had a full basket, then closed it and started back towards the cabin at the edge of the water. There were a million things on his mind now. He questioned his motives on the island, questioned if the end of the world was actually on the horizon. His dreams made it seem likely, but dreams weren’t an actual reality. Benny departed the orchard by a small dirt walkway in which he walked barefoot. The soil felt like pillows, and when he walked off the pathway and onto the sandy beach, it felt a little like pillows, too.

Just as it had been all last week, the sky looked like a sheet of gray-white, and the sea had a white hue, too, mixed with dark blue out in the distance. The waves were foamy as they hit the sand, and farther out, it looked as if the water collided violently with each other. Benny strode to his cabin, walking along the seaside now. He could see the house in the distance. In his eyesight the cabin was nothing more than a light brown speck, but as he neared it, it grew. Not only did it grow, but it also produced music. Well, maybe the house did not produce it, but the sweet songs of Patsy Cline emanated from it. Pauline had taken a liking to the record player, and in the early morning atmosphere, with the sea like a painting to his right, Benny would have been lying if he said it did not feel lovely to walk and listen to Cline’s voice. The ocean breeze ruffled his brown hair. He smiled.

“I brought a basketful of lemons,” Benny said as he climbed the porch steps and yanked a side of the basket open to show Pauline, who sat in her favorite chair, the yellow contents. “Now you can make more lemonade.”

“My favorite,” she said and reached over to the wooden table beside her to grab a pulpy, sweating lemonade. She raised it up and smiled. “I can’t get enough of this stuff. I made you coffee, too, darling. It’s inside if you’d like some. I had a little earlier while you were out in the orchard.”

“Thanks, honey,” he said and opened the screen door with the picnic basket in hand. The inside of the house felt warmer than the outside as he walked through the entrance hallway. And in a way, Benny liked that. He would have rather stayed outside, soaking in the sunlight and air -- salty air, that is -- than being cooped up inside. It being warmer inside gave him an excuse to keep himself outside.

He set the basket of lemons on the kitchen countertop and stepped over to where a hot pot of coffee sat underneath the coffee maker. He reached for a mug in the cabinet above him, and it had a chip on the top of it. He did not care, though, for he poured the black coffee into it and had a smile on his face as he did so. When Benny had it filled to the brim, he sipped at it and felt a warm satisfaction as it drained down his esophagus and into his belly.

“The coffee is excellent, darli --” Benny started to say as he opened the screen door, but he stopped himself when he noticed Pauline had abandoned her position on the porch. For a second or less, he felt confused -- maybe even a little fearful, he realized later on -- but the feeling vanished the moment he spotted her walking along the beach to the far left. He closed the door, and in the seconds it took him to walk down the porch steps into the sand, he watched her, a mix of thoughts coursing through his mind, everything from how attractive she looked to how an odd fellow like himself would manage to keep a girl like Pauline excited there on his island. The girl, he knew, would eventually get tired of him. He sighed and took another sip of his coffee. It warmed his body, along with his thoughts. He started after her.

* * *

Later that third week on the island, the sun decided to creep out behind a dark blanket of clouds just in time for the sunset, blessing the world -- mostly the ocean, though -- with a wonderful display of natural color. Orange-red spanned across the horizon, and higher in the firmament, an amazing dark purple bruised the sky. The clouds descended into an inky black, and the sea had a crazy effect of sparkling diamonds on the surface of the water. No artist -- not even Van Gogh nor Picasso -- could have recreated such a scene. The sunlight bathed the beach, painting it orange. In all of Benny’s life, he had never seen anything like it. He stood with his feet sinking in the sand -- his pupils reflecting the scene like a mirror. Pauline, on the other hand, gasped at the sight. It, in a way, looked like an atomic bomb exploding in the distance.

Together, they stood hand in hand, oooing and aaahing at the sight, motionless despite an intense desire to jump for joy and thank whoever had created such an immense beauty, for it was known in that moment, of course, that nothing that beautiful could have been a coincidence or an accident that the universe had spawned out of the blue -- or, rather, out of the black void known as space. Their eyes lingered on the stunning sight, and they found themselves charmed by it, taken hold by its glamor, arrested by nature’s artistic side. No words could express their emotions, and Benny himself did not know exactly what he felt. However, after many minutes of standing still, he broke his paralysis and grabbed Pauline’s hand. He beckoned her towards the water, a grin on his face.

They undressed by the seaside, tossing their clothes behind them higher up on the sand in a desperate attempt to get into the ocean as fast as possible. Naked, they ran into the water. And it felt amazing. It splashed all around them, bucked them from side to side, foamed next to them, and spun them through a euphoric daze. Benny reached out to Pauline and grabbed her. He held her close, feeling her smooth skin against his. The sunlight painted them both orange. Salt water beaded on their shoulders, and when they kissed, they could taste it on one another. The cool air, the room temperature water, and the chill that often accompanies love engulfed the two of them.

“I’ve been searching for someone like you for a while now,” Benny whispered in her ear. The waves pushed against them, rocking them back and forth. Yet, Benny held his girlfriend in a tight grip, thinking that if he let her go, she would never come back. “I’m glad you’re here. You are a blessing for me.”

“I’m glad you invited me,” Pauline said against him. “This has been a trip to remember.”

“I was worried that you were going to leave after I brought out the rifle last week,” he felt the need to say. “I want you to stay with me forever.”

“Shh,” she shushed him. “Let’s not talk about that now.” She gazed into his eyes. It was incredible to be looked at by such a gorgeous woman -- a French model, for that matter. She put a hand against Benny’s chest and felt his skin, clawed a little at him. Benny smiled and kissed her. Salty. Sweet. Together, unknowingly, they moved out of the water and back onto the beach. He slipped away inside her, and she felt drowned by ecstasy. She gasped, dug her fingers into a tiny crevasse of his shoulders, and moaned with delight. He fell to her and dug his head into the nape of her neck. When they finished, the light in the sky had vanished.

Week Five

Benny stood in the middle of the front entrance hallway with his eyes directed at the door and waiting for something to happen, though he did not know exactly what he waited on. Maybe intuition held him there in the darkness of the night. Something had grabbed him out of bed, and it had made him stand there. He had left Pauline to sleep alone, and for the past few minutes, the feeling deep in his bones had paralyzed him in the place he currently stood. Beside him, hanging on the walls, there were a mix of photographs, everything from family photos to sunset ones, and there was even a couple of Pauline he had hung up, but they were nothing but outlines in the dark night. Benny held his hand against the wall on his right, palm flat against it to steady himself. A violent shaking started in his feet, then ran up and down his legs. His eyes widened, and he felt a pool of sweat settle above his upper lip. He licked it away, tasting its saltiness.

“Hello?” he asked the doorway, and upon speaking, his skin started to crawl. It felt like a multitude of bugs were crawling under his flesh, burying themselves deeper into him. He did not move a muscle, though, just kept upright and focused on the door. His legs continued to shake in a violent manner. Sweat trickled down his temples. He asked again, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

No response. But did he think he would get one? Nobody had forced him out of bed, but he did feel as if he had to get out of bed. There had been no wake up call or alarm clock that had beeped. Nothing had shaken him awake, just intuition. And although he stood alone, he felt like someone watched him or stood ahead on the other side of the front door. If there had only been a screen door, he could have seen out into the night, but he shut the actual door when he slept. The heavy oak door guarded him from the terror outside. But how did he know it was terrible? Well, he didn’t, but intuition told him it was horrible.

Benny glanced over his shoulder into the kitchen. Like every other part of the cabin, dark shadows filled the space. He could see nothing out the windows except for an infinite blackness -- a lacuna, an abyss, a gulf of complete nothingness. He recoiled away from the sight, taking steps towards the door. Then, he turned to look into the bedroom, which he could still see. Pauline, an amazing sleeper, was quiet as a mouse in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin despite all the humidity that weighed the air down. He felt his shoulders relax at the sight of her, but he felt… a feeling of… something creaked in the cabin. He spun around. The front door. All of the sudden it was wide open so everything outside could be seen. A yellow glow filled the hallway, bathing his face in it, and a yellow fog as thick as a board filled every inch of the outside world. He took a step closer. There were pulsating objects outside. Vines, flowers, grass. It all moved and did a thing of its own. Benny edged closer.

“What the hell?” he mumbled under his breath as he stepped to the doorframe. “What the hell is this?” He stopped beside the fog and tried to get the best view possible, but the density of the yellow would not allow for him to look far. On normal days, he could see the ocean, but now with the yellow fog, he could not see it at all. However, he could hear it. It roared as it swept up on the sand. Not to mention, the humming grew louder, too. The plants outside pulsed faster. It did so like a quickening heartbeat.

He almost took a step outside, but he refrained just as he started to feel his muscles move. Benny, instead, took a step back, but something happened. The fog started to push inside. It burned when it touched his flesh, and when he felt it, he hurried away from the fog. He made a run for it down the hallway and ran into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. He backward stepped until he fell on the bed, somehow not waking Pauline as he tumbled down. She stirred a bit but kept her eyes closed. Benny, however, did not notice. Other things occupied his thoughts. Now, the yellow fog was slithering underneath the doorway.

“What the hell?” he shouted at the fog. “What the hell is it? What is it? It’s going to kill me. It’s going to kill me! Help! Help! HELP!”

It all disappeared when his eyes blinked open. One second the yellow fog was slithering, infesting, choking his house, then the next he woke up in bed with sweat dripping off him. There was a horrible feeling in his chest, and under his skin, he still felt that crawling feeling he had felt the whole time in his dream. He scratched his arms in rapid motions. After, he looked at the closed bedroom door. Nothing seeped from underneath the door. Darkness filled the room. A comfort compared to the yellow fog. For the time being, he did not want to see light ever again. Instead, he would not mind being placed in isolated darkness for a while. Next to him, Pauline held him. When he realized she was awake, he reached for her hand and held it. It felt like a pillow, and he kissed it.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” he said as sweat dripped from his jawline and onto the cover beneath him. Perspiration beaded his hairline, and drool pooled on his lips. His eyes were wide, bloodshot. Benny rubbed them, then slid his fingers through his sweat-matted hair. “Gosh, I felt it. I felt it on my skin. It’s poison.”

Pauline raised an eyebrow and asked, “What is it? Are you okay? You’re shaking.”

“The fog,” Benny answered her first question. “And yeah, I’m okay. It was just a dream. That’s all. It was just a bad dream.” He leaned against Pauline. She squeezed him close. It was comforting, and after a few seconds, Benny stopped shaking. It had all felt too real.

“Is this the dream that made you want to come out here?” Pauline asked in the darkness.

“It wasn’t the exact dream,” Benny started, “but it was close. It had the yellow fog in it.”

“Where did the fog come from?” Pauline asked, curious to find out more about the dream and why it had reoccurred. “Did it just come out of nowhere, or was there some sort of origin?”

“It came out of nowhere,” Benny told her. “I think it’s real, though. It felt all too real.”

“It was only a dream,” she reassured him. “You said it yourself.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t think so anymore.”

“We’re safe on the island, though,” Pauline told him. Then, unsure, she asked, “Right?”

Again, Benny shook his head. “No. The dream I had was on the island this time.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It does. But we’re safe here. I need to show you the basement now.”

This time, Pauline shook her head. “No, Benny. I don’t need to see down there. I do not want to look at your guns. I refuse.”

“You’re going to need to in order to survive.”

“It’s just a dream.”

“No!” he raised his voice. “It’s not just a dream! I think something’s going to happen. I don’t know what, but there’s something. It might be a chemical leak or something. There’s a lot of weird things in the fog… alien-like things. They’re… they’re pulsating plants. And it’s like a huge infestation of shit, Pauline.”

“Then it doesn’t have anything to do with guns!” Pauline shouted back. “It sounds like a thing hazmat suits would be okay for, but there’s no need for shooting the fog, Benny. Gosh, the possibility of that happening anyway is super low. I can’t believe I’m talking about it as if it’s an actual possibility.”

“Because it is an actual possibility, Pauline,” Benny said and retreated out of her arms. “I need to show you what I have just in case you need it, and I’m going to start carrying a rifle now. I need to just in case anything happens.”

“No,” Pauline spat out. “No. You’re not carrying a rifle around when there’s nothing.”

“There might be someday,” Benny told her. “And when there is, you’re going to want an ugly gun to protect you from whatever shit comes from the ugly yellow fog!”

“You’re not carrying around a gun,” Pauline said in a calm tone, “and that’s final. Okay? Go back to sleep.” She turned over on her side to put her back to him.

Benny sighed and looked, once again, at the doorway. Nothing seeped under it, and it did make him feel a little better to see that nothingness. His shoulders fell, and he laid back. It felt a bit too real, though, and his skin had actually hurt when the fog had touched him. Nonetheless, it was not good to dwell on it. He eyed the ceiling and tried his hardest to push the dream away. A second sigh escaped his lips, and he turned on his side to face Pauline, slipping his arm under her arm to cuddle her. She did not resist.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered in the night. “It just spooked me.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Just try to go back to bed.”

But, despite all his efforts, he could not get another ounce of sleep that night. Every time he shut his eyes, the yellow fog swarmed his vision and engulfed him whole until he had to shoot his eyes open in fear of being strangled by the acidic mist.

Week Seven

Benny trudged along the seaside with his trusty rifle strapped to his back, and two hazmat suits -- deflated, of course -- were under each arm so that he could hold a gasmask in each hand. To his right, foamy ocean waves lapped against the beach and tickled his toes, and to his left, several coconut palms higher up on the beach swayed in the breeze. They towered above the foliage. In the next couple months, Benny guessed, everything would change, however. Instead of beautiful tropical views, it would be filled with some foreign yellow fog, but Benny told himself to admire what he saw while it lasted. Ahead, a rickety wooden dock stretched out into the white foam ocean, and parked alongside it, a small but suitable sized boat. Pauline stood on the dock, her eyes gazing out towards the ocean and her blonde hair blowing behind her. The air smelled like salt, and it felt cool because of the lack of sunshine due, once again, to the stretch of gray overcast that blanketed the world. Benny seemed not to mind the coolness, though. In fact, he quite liked it. There was something melancholic about it, and it fit the premonition of the end of the world about to come. While he walked, he cocked his head and watched the horizon.

“Why do you have all that shit in your hands, Benny?” Pauline asked loud and clear from her position next to the boat when she saw him step onto the dock. She wore a sundress with red flowers printed on it, and it, like her hair, blew in the salty ocean breeze. It would be a lie saying she did not look beautiful; she did, but the anger that crossed her face looked rather scary. “Why are you carrying that on your back? What did I -”

“You won’t see it except for right now,” Benny interrupted her before she could continue. “I’m putting it in the cabin of the boat and hiding it in the closet. I’m taking it just for precaution and safety. You won’t see it.”

“I don’t care,” Pauline said and took a step back. “You told me we were going to have an amazing day out at sea just you and I and that everything is going to be nice and sweet and fun.”

“It still is,” Benny said. He stepped onto the boat and set down the hazmat suits. And for the rifle, he did as he said and walked down into the cabin. He reappeared a minute later. “I’m a man true to my word. It’s going to stay in the closet the whole time, Pauline. Don’t ruin this day for us, please.”

That last part must have hit her, because when she spoke, she sounded a little different. It seemed as if her boiling anger blew away with the breeze and had been replaced by a calmer tone that felt more appropriate. “I’m not ruining it, Benny. You’re the one that brought the…”

“Let’s just act like you never saw it,” Benny said and gathered up the hazmat suits that he had put down on the deck of the ship. “Just act like you never saw it. Erase it from your mind.”

“I don’t care anymore,” Pauline said, defeated. “I never saw it. Just put it all away. Not even the hazmat suits or gas masks are going to be seen the whole trip.”

“Not unless something happens while we’re out on the water,” Benny added.

“Nothing’s going to happen while we’re out on the water.”

“It might.”

“It won’t.”

* * *

Benny concocted two strawberry daiquiris in the cabin of the boat later that day before an amazing sunset could bless the world. Like the day last month where he and Pauline had made a passionate act of love on the beach, the clouds parted just in time for the final rays of sunlight. It would be a wonderful display, Benny guessed, from the deck of the boat, and as he emerged with the two frozen drinks in hand, he found his guess to be right. At the edge of the horizon, the dark clouds parted and seeped into a Stygian black. The ocean sparkled like a sea of diamonds. Their skins -- Pauline and Benny’s, that is -- were dyed orange by the fading light, and the sky blended all the colors into one: red, orange, yellow, purple, blue, green. Everything collided, mixed together like how the great artists used to do on their palettes whenever they needed to form new colors.

Neither one of them said a word either. They gazed into the sky with wide eyes. Each of their pupils mirrored the sight like a painting or a snapshot. Benny Snyder used to travel all over the world for work, but never did he see anything like what he saw in that moment. Pauline used to do the same, and she, too, never saw such a sight. Nothing from Milan or Paris or Florence or Las Vegas or London or Athens or Beijing could compare. Sure, those sights were adored, some even beloved or worshipped, but the sunset off the coast of Benny’s survival island had to be the very best sight both of them had ever seen. They stood transfixed on the deck of the drifting boat and became silhouettes, their backs darkened by the dying light. Together, they breathed deeply, and by the time the sun had fallen below the horizon, they held each other’s hands.

Week Eight

There were no important emails on his laptop, and if he wanted to be honest with himself, there had been no important emails on it since he had sold his concrete company two months ago to another businessman. After he had sold everything in the real world and relocated to his cabin on his private island (probably the last thing he owned), everyone decided to stop talking to him -- well, not everyone; there was still Pauline, after all, but even she was starting to get on his nerves about the whole idea of living on the island and was slowly but surely distancing herself. He had to take refuge in the basement sometimes to get away from her nagging. Hell, he was doing it at that very moment. His eyes scanned the laptop screen in front of him, and he searched for a type of news story that would gather his attention. But nothing did. There was nothing about a fog or mist or anything yellow. There were celebrity divorces on the internet home screen, political hit pieces on CNN, and conspiracy theories on the lesser-known news outlets. He sighed and felt an overwhelming frustration, then closed the laptop.

Benny sat there and stared at the small computer for a moment before glancing across the room at the rifles on the gun rack. One of them, the AR-15, was missing, then he realized he had forgotten it on the boat. It might even be a good thing to keep it there, he told himself. After, he looked at the hazmat suits. He had remembered to bring back those, and they were hanging next to the stairs from tiny hooks in the walls. The record player on top of the bookshelf played Kitty Wells on a low volume; the song “Searching (For Someone Like You)” could barely be heard. It felt soothing to listen to it, though, and Benny was impressed with himself for even being able to take the record player away from Pauline for an hour. She loved the thing, listened to it so much. But he also felt bad, because it seemed to be the only thing she ever did on the island: sat outside in her chair with a fresh glass of lemonade, stared out at the ocean, and listened to the oldies sing about love, death, happiness, sadness, etcetera, etcetera.

“I shouldn’t be hoarding the record player,” he told himself under his breath and got up to turn off the music and take the device upstairs. “I need to start being a little nicer to her.”

Week Nine

“Do you care if we listen to the radio this evening?” Benny asked as he opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. The wood squeaked underneath him, but the sound of waves in the distance and the familiar songs of Patsy Cline on the record player hid the noise. In his rough hands, calloused from work he had done earlier that day, he held a bulky radio, and the smile that crossed his face screamed excitement after finding the radio tucked away in a closet in the cellar. He held it up so Pauline, who sat, as always, on the porch with a glass of lemonade on the table a foot away from her, could see. “I found it hidden in the back of a closet downstairs. I forgot that I had even bought this.”

“Yeah,” she said and turned the Patsy Cline record off. “I haven’t heard a damn thing the world is doing in so long. All I know is the island.” She sounded aggravated, but there might’ve been a hint of joy in her voice, too. She put the record player on the table with her lemonade and pointed at another table closer to an electrical outlet so that Benny could plug the radio in.

“Isn’t it nice to be away from the drama of the world, though?” Benny asked her. “I give thanks to God every day for not having to sit and listen to the bullshit of some people.”

“There’s some bullshit I’d like to hear,” Pauline retaliated in a calm tone. “Turn the radio on. What kind of radio even is it?”

“It’s a ham radio,” Benny told her and plugged it into the wall. “You can hear stuff from all over the world. We’ll get a bunch of everything.”

“Do you think we’d get stuff from Italy?” Pauline asked, her eyes aglow now. “I haven’t heard from that country in so long. I used to go there once a year to Milan. You know that? I’ll always miss Italy. They had the best of everything.” She let out a long breath and smiled. “Oh, gosh I miss it.”

“We might be able to get some stations from Italy, but it might take a while to find them. I’ll have to search around, but I really wanted to hear some American news first.”

“I can speak a little bit of Italian,” Pauline said. “If you find Italian news, I can translate. I think that would be wonderful.” She clasped her hands together and grinned with her teeth. In all her days on the island, Benny had never seen her so happy. She looked like a schoolgirl after finally going through puberty and getting breasts. In the yellow porchlight, she glowed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said and turned the ham radio on. He began by twisting knob after knob, hearing nothing but static at first. Brief words came through here and there, but they were unrecognizable. He cocked his head so his ear faced the speaker, hoping to hear something clear eventually. “It’s going to take a while.”

“We have all night, Benny,” Pauline told him and leaned in, her face inches from his.

“I’m hoping it won’t take that long,” Benny said and flicked his eyes up to look into hers. He gazed into her blue orbs for a few seconds before he refocused on the ham radio. But nothing about the radio seemed very exciting. He twisted the knobs in a slow manner, and he did a dance with his head, shaking it back and forth, as if impatient already. The speakers screeched. Other times, they buzzed. Whenever they buzzed, it droned on for a while, continuous and filled with mystery. Benny sighed and looked out at the ocean and watched the waves collide with the beach when he felt like he was getting nowhere. The roar of the water calmed his nerves, and an odd euphoria once took over for a few minutes. He knew something would happen eventually -- it was just the question of when. He twisted the knob to the right, waited, then twisted it again. An awful sound -- something electronic and alien -- they were unprepared for screamed out of nowhere. Pauline recoiled from the ham radio, while Benny winced and twisted the knob with a jerk.

“Extraterrestre,” the radio blurted out.

Benny stopped the knob but found it too late. The shouting Frenchman lost himself in an unknown part of the airwaves. Benny tried to relocate the voice, but nothing sounded except that horrible never-ending static. He whacked his hand against the top of the radio and steamed in his chair, blowing air out of his mouth. “Son of a bitch,” he cursed under his breath and fiddled with the knob some more. “Do you know what that Frenchman said, Pauline? Extra-something.”

“Extraterrestre,” Pauline told him. “It means alien. I took a little French back in college. It means alien. That’s what he was shouting.”

“Weird,” Benny said and continued to turn the knob. He repeated the French word under his breath, “Extraterrestre.” All at once, his thoughts shifted from the ham radio’s knob, and the dreams of the yellow fog engulfed his mind like a tidal wave. He turned away from the radio. It crackled and buzzed as he continued to turn the knob, but his eyes and ears were elsewhere. The ocean grabbed his attention. He watched as the inky black water sloshed.

Pauline stared at the radio; her thoughts were swirling about what the French guy had been ranting about. Although they had only heard one word, the tone of the man’s voice had signaled fear. Pauline gawked at the radio, then turned her attention to Benny, but he looked preoccupied in his own thoughts, so she looked back down at the radio. She questioned if Benny had been right about coming to the island after all. But then again, she told herself, a man on the radio talking about aliens did not mean anything. It could just be a coincidence. But like her dad had often told her during her childhood, most of the time there’s no such thing as coincidences.

“I think I’ve had enough of the radio for one night,” Pauline said out of nowhere. “About tired of hearing the --”

“-- unsure of what these could mean,” a masculine voice on the radio blurted out. “It could be an anomaly of some kind, but what could be the scientific explanation? I guess that’s up to an array of scientists to figure out, but I’m sure you can make assumptions. For new listeners in the past five minutes, the United States Space Force has released information of a fleet of objects out there in space, and they are hurtling directly towards us. The military is not sure if they are to hit us or not, and they’re unsure of what they are. They’re going beyond the speed of light. And our system for spotting these things are unable to focus on a clear image, but one released image shows that they are blurry, disk-like projectiles.”

“Turn it off, Benny,” Pauline said with a shaky voice. “Please.”

“Are you hearing this?” Benny asked her. “Are you hearing this?”

“I’m not sure what I’m hearing.” Pauline shook her head. Tears welled in her eyes. “I’ll tune it out, Benny. It’s just a bunch of garbage. Probably conspiracy theory nonsense.”

This time, Benny shook his head. “No, Pauline. I told you this would happen.”

“You don’t know anything yet. Turn it off. Now.”

“The United States Space Force could not give an exact count of the projectiles, but it is a lot, they said. An estimate says that they might reach us in a week. They’re pretty far out still. I am a little nervous myself.” The man on the radio sighed. “But I guess we shall soon see. Say a prayer tonight, my friends. Let us hope it’s only some sort of fantastical anomaly.”

Benny glared at Pauline and clicked the radio off. After he did so, he unplugged it. It felt strange to sit without noise after all that buzzing and humming and crackling static, but the ocean did them a favor with the sound of waves. Together, they sat with their heads down.

Week Ten

“I want to go home, Benny!” Pauline shouted as she yanked open the screen door, taking a step onto the front porch and watching as Benny stomped his way down the beach to the sea. In all her time on the island, she had never felt so miserable. Perspiration beaded under her hairline, and a salty pool of it settled above her upper lip, which quivered as the breeze caressed her skin. Not to mention, her arm shook as she raised it and pointed a finger at the man, whom she thought she loved but knew now that she did not, and said, “Fuck you, Benny! I’m an absolute mess because of you! You fuckin’ kidnapper! I could be in Milan right now, walking a fucking red carpet in a fucking dress with an actual fucking man holding me in his arms. But I’ll never be able to do that because you fucking kidnapped me, you sick fuck!”

Tears welled in her eyes until the dam holding them back broke and allowed them to race down her fire-red cheeks in a steady stream. She opened her mouth and released a hideous moan with a buildup of saliva drooling down her chin. Then, she sobbed and let her arm drop aside. It looked rather pitiful for a pretty woman on a beach to be crying so hard. She stepped down from the wooden porch and trudged through the pillow-soft sand with trembling legs. She desperately wanted to grab Benny by the neck and choke him, kill him right there on the beach where no one would find out. However, she could not run at the moment. She walked and watched Benny the kidnapper stop at the seaside, toes in the water, ankle-deep.

“I didn’t want it to end up like this,” Benny said with a raised voice so Pauline could hear him as he faced the ocean. Although the waves roared under the overcast sky, his voice was able to be picked up on the breeze. It drifted behind him so Pauline could hear it despite the water. It sounded heartfelt, too. “I really wanted this to be a good time, Pauline. I’m going to save you. I am going to make sure we live to see the day.”

Pauline shook her head. “You’re not saving anyone. I want to go home and see my mom and dad and friends and family. You’re keeping me hostage here.”

“Give it a few days, Pauline,” Benny said as he stared out into the ocean. He watched the horizon where the cloudy sky met the white-blue ocean. The waves foamed and collided. “They are so close. You heard the radio last week.”

“You don’t believe that shit, do you?” Pauline asked as she continued to walk towards the water. As she did so, she could almost see herself whipping a knife out and sinking it right into a spot at the back of his neck, killing him so she could take the boat and sail it back home. But she did not have a knife. She had nothing anymore.

“I do,” Benny said. “I really do.”

“Then you’re not as smart as I thought,” she said and stopped fifteen feet away from him. “I thought you were something, you know that? I thought you were something special.”

“I’m sorry I let you down,” Benny said and shrugged. Then, he turned away from the sea and stared into her blue eyes. “I’m sorry you can’t go back home just yet, but --”

“But what, Benny?” Pauline cried out. “But what? Let me go back home!”

It happened faster than the two of them could comprehend. Pauline fell to her knees as it, the shrieking whistle, sounded all around them, and Benny stood with his back to the ocean as an unknown object dropped from the sky and splashed down next to the horizon. All the sudden, an awful shutter vibrated the island, and a white sheet of water sprang out of the ocean and skyward to the clouds. Benny whipped around just in time to see a disk-like object sink into the water. A horrid boom blasted after the screaming whistle. Together, the couple clapped their hands over their ears. Pauline put her head down, terrified for her life. She screamed, but the boom made it so she could not be heard. More tears raced down her cheeks. Benny, on the other hand, stood a little like a statue, transfixed by what he was seeing take place. He took a step back.

“No, no, no, no,” he said. He shook his head from side to side. “No, no, no, no.”

“Benny?” Pauline whispered. “What is that?”

“Inside,” he muttered and stepped back again. He returned his attention on Pauline. “It’s here, Pauline. Inside. Inside. Now.”

“No,” she said and shook her head. “It’s not real, Benny. No. It can’t be.”

Yet, when she lifted her eyes and stared out into the ocean, the horizon line changed. The gray overcast sky no longer touched the water. Rather, a mysterious yellow mist filled her vision of the ocean. It seeped out of the sea like some sort of toxic dump, and it drifted towards the sky. A sharp pain zapped inside her chest, and she knew Benny must have been right about the end of the world. Somewhere far away, she could feel him try to lift her up, but she felt the need to stay where she was. She could not move. Paralysis grabbed ahold of her. A weight held her down. Benny shouted somewhere in the fugue that filled her mind, but she knew that if she remained where she was, the yellow fog would engulf her. It would kill her. She got up. And together, they ran to the cabin on the beach.