Open Short Story Competition 2020 - Runner Up

I’m the last man on Earth.
There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. How does it make me feel? Terrified? Humbled? No, neither of those things. Proud? Special? No. There’s nothing special about me I’m just a fifty three year old divorced insurance salesman with a bald spot and a bad back. I can’t even swim. I never learned to drive.
Yet here I am. The last one.

It’s been two hundred and seventy three days – about nine months – since everyone disappeared. At least I think it’s been that time. I possibly lost a couple of days in the confusion of the early days. But it’s about that.

I live alone, so didn’t realise at first that everyone had gone. I had woken up late, around 11. (It was a weekend and the night before I had finished off some Macallans I had found at the back of the cupboard). Getting up, I realised first that there was no Wi-Fi and then there was no electricity at all. And then I saw I couldn’t get a phone signal, not even on the landline.  I went out, walked past all the houses on my street, and thought …how quiet it was. No traffic, no passing…you know - buzz.  It was the weird stillness I noticed. I hadn’t realised until then was how noisy the world was. Have you ever been in an office when the air conditioning gets switched off? And you hadn’t realised until then that it was even on? It was like that, except multiplied by a hundred. I could hear every tap of my footsteps as I walked along the pavements, the gurgle of rain water down the gutters, even the flap of bird wings.

When I reached the village centre, all the shops were open – and that’s the only reason I know whatever happened, happened after eight - but there was no one in them. In Tesco I saw discarded trollies, full of food, in a line at the checkout - as if the people waiting with them had just vanished. I went back home and found an old analogue radio in one of the boxes in the attic, and switched it on. But there were no stations broadcasting. Just a blank, crackling static. So I went out again, and knocked on the doors of the neighbours I knew. Then I knocked on strangers doors. After that I didn’t know what to do. So I went home.
And then I just waited. Waited for the police or the army or anyone in authority or even a passing stranger to arrive and explain what had happened and tell me what to do.
But no-one ever did.
Everyone had gone.

I’ve gone through various theories as to what happened.  Couldn’t have been a disease because there would be dead bodies.  Something religious? Everyone Ascended into Heaven? Well I suppose I’m not religious, but still, this doesn’t seem realistic. Why would I be left? I also considered that I was lying in a hospital bed and this was all a coma-induced fantasy. But I don’t think so. For a start I can read. I just re-read Great Expectations. Everyone knows that when you pick up a book in a dream, you can’t read the pages.  But the words in all the books are as clear as day.  I thought about something scientific - maybe a rip in the space time continuum. True, I don’t know much about space time continuums, but I can’t see anything scientific explaining this.

Anyway, I stayed in the house. Day after day. I would only leave to walk to the Tesco Express to get food, then come back, eat, read, sleep. After a few weeks Tesco began running out of stuff so then I walked the five mile trek to the nearest Aldi. I would fill what I could in a trolley and bring it home.
And I survived.
In some ways it wasn’t too difficult. In post-apocalyptic books and films the hero has to contend with something. Zombies or extreme weather or other humans trying to kill you. I had none of that. It was cold yes, but not too terrible. I’m a loner by heart so no people didn’t drive me crazy like you might expect. True, no plumbing or electricity took some getting used to. And I had to deal with a lot of vermin. There are lots more foxes and rats and flies. And I was always coming across packs of dogs hunting together. They would stop when they saw me, and look at me kind of hopefully, as if expecting me to take charge of them. But I didn’t, of course, and they would just run off again.  
I’ve tried to think of things I really missed. Hot cooked food, yes. Netflix, no doubt. But overall, I can’t really complain. And I could have gone on that way. Lived out my days surviving.  
But that wasn’t to be.

About four hours ago it started. I was sleeping in my bedroom when I heard it. The knocking, at my front door. It was like a hammer crashing through this new world silence, waking me up with a gasp. A dull, steady thudding. Not hurried, not desperate. Slow. Methodical. There were no calls or shouts. Just knocking. Not – and I’m not sure how I know this, but I’m certain I’m right – human. Not unintelligent. But no, not human. If I had to describe the knock I’d say it was a debt collectors knock. Patient, but insistent. An undertone of come on sir, please don’t keep us waiting. Polite but firm. Nothing personal in it. And it went on and on. Thud after thud against the door.

I thought, vaguely, about running - scrambling to my feet, stuffing things in a bag. Leaving by the back window, then running and running until I’m miles away. But as quickly as the thought formed, I dismissed it. What, really, was the point? They’d found me. I couldn’t outrun them.
So I waited. And eventually, I heard the front door creaking open. Then  - not exactly footsteps but noises, certainly, on the floorboards downstairs.
Then on the stairs themselves.
Then on the landing.
And now, I’m certain, they’re outside my bedroom door.

I don’t think they’ll knock on my bedroom door now. They’re done knocking. They’ll just wait, then, finally, when they want to, they’ll open the door. I’m facing the other way but I’ll hear it because it will make that creak because the hinges need oiling. And I’ll turn and I’ll see them.

And that will be it.

I don’t feel terrified. More resigned. And it kind of resolves things for me. Brings a sort of peace. They did a check, realised I wasn’t there, came back for me. I’m the one that got away. They want me back. It makes a sort of sense.

It’s got me thinking, though, as I sit here waiting. Got me to writing this all down. And I - I wish, I suppose, I had been someone better. Someone more worthy. The best I can say for myself, looking back at my life, is that I wasn’t an evil person. Didn’t kill anyone. No dodgy images on my computer. But when the best you can say for yourself is the things you didn’t do, it’s not great. Maybe this was a test for humanity. A human being chosen to represent his species. And perhaps then it’s not so surprising after all that I’m the last one left. Maybe I truly am the average human being – that if you take all the most evil aspects of humanity, everything loathsome and cruel and selfish, and mix it up with all that’s good and brave and heroic - you get me. And maybe if I’d done well in these last nine months, been braver and more resourceful, instead of staying in my house reading books, then humanity would be spared.
If so, then sorry folks. I let you all down.

I think of all the things I could have done. Done something, anything, to find out what happened. Or at least draw attention to the fact I’m here. Lit a fire in the back garden. Spelled out the word “HELP” in rocks in the street. But I didn’t do any of that. I have a daughter. She’d be twenty four. But I haven’t spoken to her in ten years. Don’t even know where she lived. If this was Hollywood film, I’d have journeyed across the country to find her. But this isn’t Hollywood. And I’m not that sort of person. And I knew she’d gone too - because everyone had gone. So what was the point?

Anyway, I’ve decided to leave this note. I’m the last human so I think I ought to do something to acknowledge what happened. It’s not like somebody might find it. There are no somebodies left.  But it’s something. And it seems the right thing to do.

But I’ll write one last thing. Nothing important. Just a memory. When I was three years old, I was out with my dad in our back garden. It was a cool summer night and the sky was clear and the stars and moon were bright - so bright - in the darkness. And my dad picked me up and lifted me in his arms and before I could say anything, threw me right up into the sky and said, catch the moon, son, catch the moon. And he threw me so high! I really thought I could get it! And I tried, really tried.  Reached out my arms and clasped my hands together and for a second I almost thought …
 And then I landed back in his arms. He was laughing , and he held me close. I could feel the warmth from him and smell the smoke from his shirt and I closed my eyes and felt like I could do anything, anything, and nothing could ever hurt me.

Anyway, just wanted to write that down bef-
The door is crea -