At the moment he knew his life changed forever, Clint Wyatt was sitting behind the counter at Tom’s pizza slicing an aromatic pepperoni and pineapple pizza into roughly eight equal slices.

“I got an order of breadsticks with that.”

“Right here, and a side salad too, sir,” Clint said

“Hey wait a second. Aren’t you James, Matt’s son?” the man said.

“Nah that's my older brother, I’m Clint.”

“Oh, well can you tell your father that there is a problem with the plumbing in 12A?”

“He’s in Pakistan at my great grandma’s funeral, but he gets back next week. I will tell him as soon as he gets back.”

“Okay thanks, you in school?”

Clint nodded, “I’m a Junior. I go to Saint Agnes.”

“Good school,” the man said, “My friend Evan went there. He said it was tough. Study hard.”

The customer walks out of the store. Now Clint’s shift was over, so he went home to finish homework. His mother wasn’t home to yet. She was working her first shift at the new hospital in Queens. As Clint learned in his Past Events of the United States class, Queens was once a city in New York. Now in 3050, the US was just one large city, except for one place called Chambers which isn’t very far from Queens. Queens is just a section of this large city, a small, low-income section. Clint bikes from the pizza place to the first-floor apartment that he calls home. He gets in through the side door. Sitting there wide-eyed on the couch facing the TV was Julie, the youngest of the Wyatts. She was 11, almost 12, years old. She was watching the 6:30 news. On the news, that night was a horrifying video of a mob attacking each other with protest signs that read they are coming and Julie knows the answer.

“Who are they talking about?” Julie asked gesturing towards the TV.

Julie had just notice Clint standing there with the door still open, staring at the TV.

“Who are they talking about?” Julie asked louder

Still no response.

“Clint!” Julie yelled

Clint jumped, “Don’t do that you’ll scare me to death.”

Julie repealed, “You can’t be scared to death.”

“Bet,” Clint smiled.

“Big bet,” Julie smiled even bigger.

“So, who is ‘they’ on the signs and what does Julie know,” Julie asked

“ I don’t know,” Clint replied, “Do you know anything?”

“Nope.”

“Well, then I guess it doesn’t matter.”

What Julie didn’t know is that Clint did, in fact, know who “they” were. It was becoming a hot topic at school. Clint’s friends have all kinds of theories including but not limited to the government, aliens, and even people with magical powers. Clint just thought it was insane people trying to make a scene.

“What are you looking at?” Julie asked.

Clint was still staring at the TV

“Nothing, its, its, its nothing,” Clint said as he walks to his room to take a shower.

As Clint is turning the water on, there is a loud bang that sends a chill down Clint’s spine. He begins to think it was nothing and starts to unrobe, but then he heard a creaking sound. A deafening, nails against a chalkboard kind of sound. This time he gets dressed and turns off the water and rush down starts to see frightened eyes staring a hole through the TV. Those eyes belong to Julie who was sitting in the same spot, now watching a different news segment. This segment was title Breaking News: Queens Subway Train derailed. Clint didn’t think much of it because he was still wondering about the sound.

“Did you hear that sound?” Cint asked still out of breath from running down the stairs.

“No,” Julie replies blankly.

Clint begins to think nothing of the sound and the news segment until he remembers his mother. She works in Queens. She would have ridden that train.

“Mom hasn’t come home yet, has she?” Clint asked fear starting to set in.

“No?” Julie said.

Clint rushes over the fridge where conveniently his mother had clipped her work schedule and the Metro schedule. Clint was intensely reading the schedules, hands trembling. There it was in plain, neatly printed in black ink.

Emmie Wyatt:

Friday, October 5- 10:00 AM to 9:10 PM

Saturday, October 6- 2:00 PM to 11:00 PM

Monday, October 8- 5:45 AM to 7 PM

Tuesday, October 9- 12:00 AM to 7 AM

Metro-Queens:

North American Hospital- 9:15 PM

Stop #14- 9:24 PM

Stop #3- 9:27 PM

The schedule says she would get off at 9:10 and that derailed train was the last train from the hospital station for an hour. Shocked, Clint just stands there. Clint is telling himself to calm down, to keep his composure in front of Julie. Julie just sits quietly, in the same spot as before. Clint comes to the conclusion that he needs to go to the scene.

“We have to go, Julie, we have to go!”  Clint screams.

Clint runs up the stairs with Julie not far behind.

“Get your things together now!” Clint exclaims as he burst open the door into his room.

After five minutes of opening drawers and throwing clothes everywhere, Julie and Clint meet at the front door. They burst out the front door together. They get on their bikes and start pedaling with Clint leading. An ambulance speeds past them and they follow. The ambulance eventually leads them to the scene. Except, it wasn’t much of a scene. The ambulance drove right past where the derailed train was. There wasn’t anyone around the train. There were some people walking across the street at a park, but they acted like nothing was wrong. On the TV there were cameras and firetrucks and police and ambulances everywhere. Now, at the scene, there was no one. Just Clint and Julie and the derailed train.

“What?” Julie asks out of breath, “ I mean where is, where is like everything?”

Clint didn’t hear this because he was sprinting towards the train. Julie sprints even faster. When they reach the train they are both gasping for breath. Clint is the first to jump into the train, which already oddly opened, but Clint stumbles through the mess of bodies and looks through each one for looking a 42-year-old woman with a black bag. Alex continues searching fighting back the tears that are starting to roll in. Eventually, Julie comes in and asked in a shaky voice

“Have you found Mom yet?”

Clint replies with a no and instructs her to start looking for their mom. Finally, the stench of the decaying human bodies became too much for them, so they walked out of the train for some fresh air. When Clint and Julie walk out of the car, they hear a car slammed on its breaks and then a thud. Then  Julie screams and points in the air in the air towards a body falling off the bridge. Before Clint could say anything, Julie is over at the body screaming while crying, “Mom! Mommy!” Clint sprints over to the scene when the figure rises and embraces Julie. It was their mother, Alive and well and not injured in any way.

“Mom?” Clint questioned.

She shakes her head, yes, and Clint runs over to hug his mother.

“Mom, um, like what just happened?” Alex said smiling

“Long story,” She replied out of breath

“Tell us!”

“Ok, but I’m warning you it’s long.” The mom said

“So, I finished my shift at the hospital, which is very nice by the way, and got on the subway to come home. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes after the train left the station before the train just stopped. It started to fall off the side of the track very slowly making a sickening sound as it went. The weird thing is that no one on board seemed bothered by what happening or even to know it was happening. Then came the thud, we hit the ground. We hit the ground really, really hard. That's at least what I think because I passed out while the train was falling. ”

“That's the thud I heard when I was taking a shower,” Clint realized.

“Anyways, I woke on the floor after I thought I was dead. Everyone else around me was dead. I even check they had no pulse. Immediately, I get up and run out of the car and to my surprise, there’s no one outside. Not even sirens, it's like no one noticed. Like the world didn’t notice. I ran up to the hospital which wasn’t very far away to get help. I tried to explain what happened to them but they look at me like I was speaking a foreign language. I asked if they heard a sound. They just stared at my name tag. Rachel, one of the ladies up front, snapped at me, “Hun,  where did you get that tag?” I completely forgot I had my name tag on, so I just stared at her blankly. She was like “Girl,” she drew out the “r”, “Don’t you play dumb with me.” By this time the other lady, Allison, looked at me with a confused look on her face and said “Emmie Wyatt? Didn’t she died a few years ago on that subway?” After hearing this I just ran out of the building. I mean I booked it. I was scared. I was so scared that I ran across four lanes of Queens traffic and jumped off a bridge where you conveniently were. The interesting thing is instead of breaking my tibia as I should have, I landed on my feet unharmed. Another interesting thing is that while waiting in line at the hospital, I looked up that bridge right there because I don’t remember it and it turns out that bridge was built there years ago. And so yes that leads us up right now. Now you tell me why you are out here.”

“Well, Julie was watching the news and which was showing an overturned subway car. We checked your work schedule and the Metro-Queens schedule and figured you were probably on that train and so we biked over here to find nothing but the car. We searched the car, but then the stench of decaying bodies was too much so we walked out to get some fresh air and saw you fall from a bridge.” Clint replied.

“So what do we do now?” Julie asked.

“Ok I know this sounds completely insane and it is, but we may have traveled into the future. Think about it, I have no service on my phone, people at the hospital thought I died, that bridge was built there years ago without anyone of us knowing about it, and no one else seems to notice a derailed subway car,” Emmie said.

“Wait, if we traveled in the future, Dad should be home from Pakistan. Come on people we have to go look.” Julie screamed.

“The apartment is only a few blocks away, maybe he still lives there,” Clint suggested.

But before Clint was done talking, Julie was already running towards the apartment. Clint and Emmie start running to catch up. After a minute or so of running the group slows to a walk because they are out of breath. Then Julie collapses. As soon as she hits the ground Emmie is there with her checking her pulse.

“She’s alive,” Emmie yells overjoyed. “She’s alive!”

“What do we do now?” Clint questions.

“Get her to the hospital,” Emmie replies

They work together to lift Julie’s body. Once she is in Clint’s arms Julie says

“Go to the spot that is described like this, It is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the wealthy need it, and if you eat it, you die.”

Julie opens her eyes and screams.

Clint almost drops her and says “Your, your awake.”

“What happened?” Julie asks

“I’m not sure, we were walking and you just fell, then said you a riddle and then woke up,” Emmie explains

“Who cares? We need to find dad,” Julie says

“No, we need to make sure your okay first.” Emmie contradicts

“I’m fine though,” Julie replies

After a few minutes of bickering, they finally agreed that Emmie would carry Julie the rest of the way home. When the group arrives at home, they swing open the door and see a content family of four enjoying dinner together.

“Mark?” Emmie questions the petrified family.

After a few awkward seconds Emmie says, “Uh, sorry wrong house?”

The trio then sprints out of the house. Before they could make it down the stair, the man comes out and says “Emmie?”

.3.

“No, I’m yes, I mean yes, I’m Emmie,” Emmie studders

“I’m Marcus, Matt’s best friend. Um, but, he um, he went away three years ago. Before he left, he gave me this house after you disappeared and told me if you or Julie or Clint comes back to give them this note.” The man then pulls out a piece of paper the size of a sticky note and hands it to Emmie. Emmie reads the note out loud.

“Go where Julie says to go. I’m there,” Emmie says.

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t know anything,” Julie explains.

“Yes Julie, you do know. Come on people.” Clint says excitingly.

They follow Clint to the bus station where he explained how Julie knows where to go. Clint says “Julie gave them a riddle. The answer to the riddle was nothing. Go to the place that has nothing. The only spot on Earth that has nothing is Chambers, Nebraska.” Emmie used the last of the battery that was on her phone to find and print out directions on how to walk there since they had very little money. The Journey would last 25 days and so the journey began.

THE JOURNAL OF CLINT WYATT

Day #1 390 miles left

We left right after Marcus told us the message. We spent what little money we had left at a convenience store where we bought food and some supplies and went on our way, following the directions.

Day #5 310 miles left

Walking 16 miles a day if brutal. We do have pretty good food rations though. Today’s dinner was pretzels and water. We are almost ⅓ of the way to Nebraska though.

Day #10 230 miles left

Now the hunger and pains are starting to set in. Dinner tonight was water. We are eating every other day to save food. We only get about four hours of sleep at night because our pace has slowed dramatically. Like my mom is saying, keep your head up.

Day #15 150 miles left

I don’t know if I will survive this.

Day #19 1 mile left

Something very great happened. We found a set of bikes that allowed us to double our speed. We arrived 6 days early. We are still one mile away. Mom said we should just up to see father tomorrow.

Day #20 0 miles left

We saw a light and walked towards it.