There wasn’t an answer, and Ted didn’t know why.

So he knocked again, three hard raps against the door. Before, he’d worried that he might wake Becky’s neighbors down the hall, but now he didn’t care. Now he was a bit panicked.

It was because of what he’d seen outside Becky’s apartment building. Or better explained, what he hadn’t seen.

Ted worked production at the Mount Vernon News, a small daily paper in middle Ohio. On Friday, the paper put together two editions: the day’s afternoon news and Saturday’s morning edition. Ted worked the later, from the bowels of the building, coaxing the printing press to churn out crisp issues in full color – about 10,000 of them.

Every Friday, when the press spit out its last and shuddered to a stop, Ted emerged from underground, slid behind the wheel of his compact foreign car, and drove north, two hours, to Cleveland and his sweetheart, Becky Whistler.

On this particular Friday, Ted was fighting walking pneumonia. It had creeped into his chest and wheedled a crackling cough from his lungs. Round about Lodi, the illness had bested him, and he pulled off Route 71 and into a rest area to shut his eyes, just for a moment, before continuing on to Becky’s apartment.

Before dozing, he called Becky, just to let her know, and she urged him to turn around, or better, get a hotel room, and not risk his health or his life trying to get to her apartment in the middle of the night. But he yearned to see her, hated the distance, however short, between them, and convinced her that an hour with his eyes closed was all he needed to finish the trip.

Then he snapped his cell phone shut, cranked the heat, watched an early spring snow alight on his windshield, and drifted into a deep slumber he hadn’t anticipated.

When he woke, the sun was poking through gray clouds. Ted had slept at least six hours, and his watch confirmed it. Becky would surely be worried about him. He picked up his cell phone, but the battery had run dry. He should have a charged it before he left. Bad habit.

The rest area was nearly empty this early in the morning. A couple tractor trailers, their heavy cabs still cradling sleeping drivers, were parked near the exit. Down the way, the window of a Honda Accord sat covered in light snow.

Ted bundled up and stumbled in the cold to the pavilion, where he freshened up a bit and bought an orange juice and some Twinkies from the vending machine. There was something a bit off about the experience, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

A payphone hung near the men’s room, and Ted used it to call Becky collect. The automatic voice on the line made the connection, but no one picked up on the other end. Ted tried Becky’s cell phone, too, but got the same result. Odd that she wouldn’t answer, but she did sleep with ear plugs. Her upstairs neighbors where prone to heavy footfalls and loud discussions.

In hindsight, the pavilion should have been his first indication that something was wrong. But that thought wouldn’t cross his mind until he was about thirty minutes from Becky’s apartment. After driving about twenty miles north, Ted realized that he hadn’t passed anyone on the road. And no one had passed him. His little car bebopped north with no company at all.

Later, he would decide shock had kept him from seeing the emptiness of the side roads that led to Becky’s apartment building. It kept him from registering the stillness of the air, and the quiet of what should be a bustling suburban main street.

Becky’s apartment building stood next to a Starbuck’s. When Ted parked outside the building, between an empty Chevrolet and a Nissan Altima that was running, but had no driver, his mind wouldn’t let him see – not yet, anyway – that no one entered or exited the open coffee shop. And not a soul was inside.

The apartment building reeked of stale carpet and old wood. The hallways were chilled; it was how the landlord kept costs down. Ted saw a neighbor’s door slightly ajar. He heard noise from a television set inside. He heard a coffeemaker gurgling and a faucet running water. But he didn’t hear voices.

He knocked on Becky’s door, quietly at first, in case the building was still sleeping. When he didn’t hear anything from behind the door, his concern grew. And that’s when his mind let him register all the clues that had passed before.

So he knocked again, three hard raps against the door. Before, he’d worried that he might wake Becky’s neighbors down the hall, but now he didn’t care. Now he was panicked.

When she didn’t answer again, he took two steps back and did something that, had the world been right, he would never do. He lifted his foot and kicked the door in.

The jamb splintered and the door swung in a long arc until in clambered against the opposite wall. It was loud, but it didn’t stir concern, anywhere in the building.

“Becky!” Ted shouted. He thundered down the apartment’s narrow hall, poking his head into every room along the way. They were all empty.

At the end of the hall was the bathroom, and, somewhat thankfully, he heard the shower running. For a moment, his mind let him believe that, perhaps, Becky hadn’t heard him because the water had drowned his voice. Hell, she might even still have those earplugs in.

Steam billowed from behind the door. “Becky?” he said, stepping inside.

No answer.

He reached for the shower curtain and then hesitated, fearing what he might find. No matter. He had to know.

He whisked it aside, tearing one rung free from the rod. What he found made him gag, and he vomited on the spot.

What Ted discovered was this: Nothing. No one. He was alone in the apartment. And apparently alone in the building, in the neighborhood, in the city.

Brrrriizzzz.

The little sound startled him. Brrrrizzzz.

It took a moment for him to understand what the noise was, but when he did, finding its source became tantamount to a life or death situation. Brrrrrrizzzz.

The little pocket cell phone was on the kitchen table, and it buzzed its little heartbeat, waiting for a reply. Ted snatched it up, flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Ted?”

It was her. “Becky? Becky where are you?”