The Drive Home

A flash fiction story.

The road is empty.

I drive with the windows down, letting the night air fill the car. For thirty-six hours I sat underground, watching a white dot drift closer to Earth. In eight, it will tear into the Pacific. The end of the world is set to a clock.

Yesterday, the lock-down began. Shelter-in-place orders rolled across every screen, every radio. Everyone obeyed. Everyone but me.

At the first red light, I stop. Instinct, muscle memory. The streets around me are deserted. The storefronts shuttered. Neon signs dead. And that’s when I hear it—what’s left of the world.

The hum of the power lines. A low, steady vibration overhead, stretched across the silence like a thread. No trains. No planes. No cars. Just that electric thrum in the dark.

The light shifts green. Out of habit, I press the gas. The silence follows, louder now, as though it’s chasing me. Another red light. I ease off, glance left, glance right. Nothing. Only the wires above, singing their thin metallic song.

Block after block—closed gas stations, fast-food joints dark, no voices, no movement. The city looks staged, as if life itself has been ordered off-camera.

Finally, I pull into the driveway of a modest two-bedroom home. I kill the engine. The last hum fades, leaving only the power lines whispering overhead.

Then—the door bursts open. She runs to me, arms out, colliding into my chest. Her embrace nearly knocks us to the ground.

And in that moment, I know: I can die smiling.