Headlights

Lilith Kontos

The end of the world happened on a Saturday.

And before you ask, no, it didnt happen like in science fiction novels, where the
aliens come down and destroy civilization, and it didnt happen with the sun blowing up
and engulfing the earth in flames. It didnt even happen the way it does in those oldfashioned zombie slasher films. It happened like this:
I woke up at eight in the morning to grey sunlight filtering in through the
curtains, stretching and slicking my hair back into a ponytail. Nothing about that day
felt weird to me, and from the way the radio announcer talked when I flicked the switch
on the stereo, youd never know anything was wrong.
...afternoon, and tonight should cool off a bit, he was saying as I began to brush
my teeth, side-eyeing the bay window in the living room. The darkening clouds outside
looked like rain, not a swarm of locusts about to devour the entire planet. But like I said,
it didnt happen that way, so of course I thought nothing of it.
For the record, there had been some speculation that the world was going to end
that day, but it was mostly religious groups yelling about how their god had said that
today was the day we were all going to die, or scientists describing the excruciating pain
we would all suffer when the sun inevitably drew too close to the Earth and blew us all to
bits, which they thought might be soon. I didnt really buy into all that, though, mostly
because soon in scientist speak usually means like a billion years. And also, I mean, if I
was going to die, the last thing I wanted to do was to hear, in explicit, gory detail, how it
was going to happen, and thats all these scientists and religious groups seemed to want
to talk about. For weeks that had been the only thing anyone was asking each other:
How do you think itll happen? How do you think well go? I just told them it was all
the same to me. Surprise me, I said. I like surprises.
So I did the same things Id always done on Saturday mornings. I walked my dog.
I read a book. I ate lunch. I called my friend, and she said Arent you scared? and I said
Not really, which was kind of a lie, and hung up. For all the fuss everyone was making,
nothing eventful even occurred that day until 8:33 PM, when it started to get dark. It
was then that a hush fell over the world; no one dared talk in anything louder than a
whisper, for fear that whatever was coming would sense it and pounce. Every once in a
while Id catch a view of something in my peripheral vision, a weird shadow, a dust
mote, perhaps, but I told myself it was nothing. Just a trick of the light.
I was wrong.
Sitting quietly on the couch with my dog, I looked out of the window glass into
the foggy night, listening to the crickets chirp and waiting with bated breath. Twice I
swore I saw something crouching by the sill, peering in with yellow eyes. But it was just
my imagination, I convinced myself. . The scratching in the walls was in my head.

Around 10:52 I started to get tired, but I didnt want to fall asleep. It was weird try to imagine your first trip to somewhere exciting, like New York City. You stay awake
all night so as not to miss the first glimpse of the skyline, even if youre absolutely
exhausted. It was like that, almost, but in a more terrifying way. I was on red alert,
senses peaked, until I was so on edge that I started imagining things. Surely the blood
stain in the corner of the ceiling couldnt be real; surely, the faint screaming coming
from down the street was a product of my overactive and paranoid imagination.
The curtains were still open and I wanted more than anything to get up and yank
them closed, but I was rooted to the spot by fear and something else I could not name,
something deep inside of me that shrieked and shrivelled with the possibility that
whatever was outside was very, very not good. I watched the sky grow from navy, to
charcoal, to deep, inky black, so dark that I wondered whether the sun would ever rise
again, and what it would bring if it did. My dog jumped off the couch and pattered away
down the hall to curl up in the kitchen, leaving a warm imprint next to me that felt like
abandonment. I was alone, and if there was, in fact, something coming to end my life, it
was coming soon.
The phone mocked me from its place on the table, so I grabbed it, quickly dialing
my best friend, the one who had called earlier in the day. It rang and rang, taking an
eternity and twisting my guts into knots, before she finally picked up.
Hello? she asked softly, and I let out a breath I didnt know Id been holding.
Hi. Hey, its me. I just wanted to talk to you, I said in one breath. She sighed in
relief on the other end of the line and let out a nervous little laugh.
Oh thank god. Im scared. Im really scared.
Me, too, I responded, somewhat sheepishly. We talked for hours - about work,
about dogs, about summer - anything that would make us momentarily forget that this
might be the last time we would ever hear each others voices. I still ranked it as a slim
possibility, but you never know, I guess. And then, after I could no longer keep my eyes
open, I slumped sideways onto the armrest of my sofa, closing my eyes and surrendering
to sleep, almost peaceful.
My eyes didnt open again until the next morning, and it was shakily that I
unfurled my limbs and sat up. A stale summer breeze came in through the open window,
a window I did not remember having left open. My dog lay on the carpet, eyes closed,
snoring gently.
Slowly I made my way to the front door and opened it, peering out into the
unknown, expecting to find a gruesome sight beyond the porch steps. But nothing
moved; all was silent. The world stood still.
And then, distantly, so faintly that you might have missed it if you hadnt been
paying attention - something laughed.
***

On the fifth day after the last day, I got ice cream.
It took me a little exploring to figure out that I seemed to be the only human who
had made it out alive, which I suppose meant the world hadnt really ended. But the
thing about being the only person left on the planet was that I could basically do
whatever I wanted, and thats how I found myself at the gas station down the street with
two pints of Ben and Jerrys.
I guess at that point I really didnt know what to do. At first I was under the
illusion that nothing had happened, that all the speculation had built up to a great big
pile of nothing. It was Sunday, so I drove down to the grocery store as per usual,
straining to hear the bone-chilling laughter that had echoed through the empty streets
in the wee hours of that morning. But once Id gone a week without hearing it again, I
figured it had just been my sleep-dazed brain that heard it.
My first clue that something was off was that the grocery store was completely
empty.
There were no employees, no little old grandmas with shopping carts and cartons
of eggs milling about the artificially lit aisles. There were no cars in the parking lot.
There was no greeter at the door to tell me good morning and, when I left, good
afternoon. When I found a smear of blood behind the cash register, and another in the
bakery aisle, I decided to end my shopping excursion.
After that I mostly meandered around, looking for outward signs of life that did
not involve me finding any corpses. As far as I could tell, though, nobody else had
survived. A few stray cats wove around my ankles as I walked, mewling for food, but we
were decidedly the last inhabitants of the wasteland that had once been planet Earth.
It was pretty eerie, in all honesty. Like, sure, I could grab free ice cream whenever
I wanted, which sounds great in theory, but going outside was like walking into a
museum exhibit. It was perpetually July 17th, 2009, like someone had taken a
photograph of that day and pasted it over the entire world. Nothing ever changed after
that day, because nobody but me was around to change it. It was creepy, but not in the
same way that the blood in the grocery store had been. This was different, stranger - it
seemed as though Earth was holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen to
me. And even though everyone else was dead, it always felt like someone was watching.
There was the occasional bump in the night. Sometimes I swore I could hear a
train going by, or a car horn, or police sirens. Sometimes I heard things shuffling in the
walls. Sometimes, on the worst nights, I heard cackling, but I always convinced myself
that it was the shock, that I was obviously traumatized and that was why I kept seeing
shadows in the corners of my vision.
When those nights would come, Id take my car and drive for miles with the
windows down, letting the breeze wash away any fear that I had left in me. It was over, I
promised myself. What was coming had come, and was gone now. I was safe.
My hair whipped around my face as I drove and I smiled for the first time in what
felt like ages, turning on an old CD to get rid of the eternal silence that surrounded me.

It was relaxing in a sense Id forgotten existed, and I breathed in and out, newly
appreciating that I was alive. It was hard sometimes, to be thankful that I was still
breathing, that my heart, like a tiny, caged bird, was still fluttering against my ribcage
when so many others had flown away.
Sighing, I twisted the volume dial higher, letting the music fill me up and comfort
me. It made me feel a little less lonely; I could almost pretend that I wasnt the only one
out there, that somebody, somewhere, was driving on a dark highway past abandoned
buildings and stuttering neon signs and thinking about me. Under different streetlights
in a different city, someone had to be listening.
I passed dozens of houses, some still with lamps on in their living room windows.
I tried not to look for too long; it was a happy picture until I started seeing the blood
spatter on the window glass, and then suddenly everything rushed back and I would
have to realize that the people inside their cute little cottages were probably
decomposing into the floorboards, not making dinner for the family.
And so as my car continued down the long and winding road, I began to feel more
and more unnerved. Even with the gentle lull of the music and the smell of lilacs in the
air, something felt off. Shadows darted through the beams of my headlights and clouds
shifted across the moon, leaving me in brief periods of complete darkness that even the
flickering billboard lights could not illuminate.
The wind picked up slightly, adding the sound of rustling leaves to the unsettling
atmosphere of the night. It was hard to hear anything, but the whistling breeze carried
the soft sounds of screams and laughter, as if the trees themselves were coming to life,
opening their mouths and calling out to me.
Deciding to head back for home, I turned onto a side road and sped up, picturing
my bed waiting for me, covers peeled back the way Id left them this morning. My eyes
raked the horizon for signs of sunrise, even though it was barely 4:00 AM; out of habit, I
checked the side mirror. And through the thick darkness, what I saw made my stomach
drop into my knees.
Behind me, in the distance but getting ever closer, were two small but
unmistakable pinpricks of light, in a city full of dead people on an unlit gravel road in
the very early morning.
Headlights.

Reflection
I dont like horror movies. I really, really dont. So maybe it was an odd choice for
me to write a horror story for this project. But Im a big believer in trying new things, so
one of the main reasons I decided to write this story was because it was something I had
never done before. Ive written plenty of stories, but none of them horror, so I thought
maybe it would be neat to try it out. Not only that, but my interest was peaked when I
began to research popular horror authors such as Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.
Reading their stories and reading the advice of horror authors made me interested in

trying one of my own, because it sounded challenging, and I think that good authors
always rise up to a challenge.
One of the most important elements of horror fiction, I discovered from my
research, is a good atmosphere. It has to provoke an emotional, psychological, or
physical reaction in the reader that causes them fear or anxiety. The reader should be
revolted; he or she should be able to feel the eeriness, should be able to identify with the
characters fear. Thus, another important part of writing a horror story comes into play the reader needs to be attached to the protagonist(s). They need to hope for the
character so that if/when the protagonist makes a bad decision and brings danger upon
him or herself, the reader can feel the fear on a personal level. If the reader identifies
with the character, likes them, hopes for them and feels for them, then the fear will be
that much more real, and the story will be that much better. The third, and to me, best
piece of advice I found about writing horror fiction is to write about what scares you.
Many people are afraid of the dark; many people are afraid of death. But by adding in
my own fear of being completely and utterly alone, I can make those fears more
relatable and more vivid to the reader. If Im not at least a little bit scared of my own
story, then why should anyone else be? Writing about a little piece of myself allows me
to be more descriptive, and this in turn allows for that gut-wrenching, edge-of-your-seat
phenomenon that good horror stories evoke in their readers.
For my presentation method, I chose to put my story in the gallery walk. I chose
this method because I felt it would allow the rest of the class to interpret my story in
their own unique ways; horror induces fear differently, so by allowing each of my
classmates to read my story individually, I can allow them also to feel their own personal
fear, a fear that is meaningful to them and could not be brought out as effectively if, say,
I had read it aloud.
If I was doing this presentation again, I might try to find a way to make it look
more appealing. A packet sitting on a desk isnt the most interesting way to present
something, no matter its merits as related to the subject of horror fiction. I would also
maybe do a little bit more editing, and that might just be me being overly critical of my
writing, but I do feel that I could have perfected the genre a little bit more and added in
more elements from my research. However, I do think that overall I did a good job for
my first time writing a horror story, and Im somewhat proud of what I was able to do
with a little research and the skills Ive already perfected when it comes to writing.

Works Cited
Freese, Cris. "The Horror Genre: On Writing Horror and Avoiding Cliches."
Writer's Digest. F+W, 25 Oct. 2013. Web. 09 June 2015.
Gray, Robert. "13 Tips For Writing Horror Fiction." Hellnotes: Fiction, Movies,
and Art Dedicated to the Horror Genre. Hellnotes, n.d. Web. 8 June 2015.
"Horror Fiction." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 May 2015. Web. 09
June 2015.

"Lovecraft's Fiction." The H.P. Lovecraft Archive. Donovan K. Loucks, n.d.

Web. 09 June 2015.
Woodward, Karen. "17 Ways To Write A Terrifyingly Good Horror Story."
Karen Woodward. Blogger, 5 June 2014. Web. 09 June 2015.