I woke up to the sound of Rooster barking. I picked up my phone and squinted the sleep from my eyes. 

5:03

My nap had run long. I got up off the futon and stretched my arms, feeling the familiar pop in my chest. 

“Ugh,” I moaned. “Sunday naps…phew.” I flicked my hand through the air as if explaining to someone in the room, but I was alone. 

Rooster, my young yellow lab, kept barking, the pitch rising and falling rapidly as if someone had just pulled into the driveway. I grabbed my grease-stained hat and threw it on my head.

When I stepped outside, the heat hit me like a wall, and I immediately felt the beginning of sweat on my forehead. Rooster was still barking, and as I surveyed the front lawn and the empty driveway, I began to feel a sense of dread building in my gut. 

I walked quickly over to the dog kennel. 

Rooster was standing in the corner, the fur on his back ruffled into an aggressive ridge. He was barking loudly, furiously at the other corner of the chain link kennel. In the corner, curled into a small circle, was a rattlesnake, its tail vibrating loudly.

I moved fast, my heart beating hard against my chest.

I grabbed Rooster’s collar, shoving him out of the kennel and latching the gate. He stayed at the door, his nose jarring the gate with each bark and his drool beginning to foam. 

I looked at the rattler, eyeing it quietly with my hand posed for an opening to snatch it up. I needed to catch the head just right. I didn’t know if I could catch the tail, as its head was guarding the rattle quite closely. 

The snake’s head drifted slightly and there was just enough room to make the move. 

I lunged for the head.

Before my hand reached the head of the snake, I stopped. Something in the back of my head told me that this wasn’t right. Maybe I could use a shovel, like a smart person? I thought.

The snake acted as if I had never stopped at all.

It rose into the air, striking and biting as it levitated, as if I had grabbed it and proceeded to walk out the door with it. The gate to the dog kennel opened, and Rooster stepped back, watching the floating snake bounce away, in tune with the stride of the invisible person carrying it. 

Rooster watched it go, then turned and looked at me, still crouched on the cement pad of the dog kennel, my mouth agape. His head turned sideways, as if he was as confused as I was.

The snake continued to bob through the air, still biting and struggling against its unseen abductor.

Then, without a sound, it dissolved into thousands of pixels that drifted away on the next breeze.

I stood up quickly. Rooster sat down.

I looked at Rooster and he laid down.

“What?” I said to no one, but Rooster might as well have repeated it back to me. He looked as troubled as I did. 

I stepped out of the kennel and walked over to where the snake had dissolved, Rooster following closely.

I ran my hands through the grass to find nothing.

Rooster kept his nose down, but ended up circling further and further away in his search for something out of the ordinary.

“Maybe I’ll call Dad,” I said to Rooster. “Because, you know, maybe this has happened before.” I rolled my eyes.

I pulled out my phone to call my dad, but was surprised to find that my phone no longer held his contact information.

In fact, I didn’t have a single person’s phone number in my phone.

I knew his number, so I punched it into the keypad, only to hear the line get redirected. 

My phone began ringing. A call from my number.

I stuffed my phone into my pocket.

“Let’s go for a walk, boy.” 

Rooster ran to my side and I patted his wide, labrador head. 

“No one is gonna believe this,” I said to Rooster. “Just me and you on this one.”

We walked up to Jordan’s house, my closest neighbor. I banged on the door, shaking it in the frame. 

Rooster watched the front yard as we waited, but Jordan didn’t answer. I banged the door again, hearing the wood splinter as I did. 

“Needs a better door,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Damn thing is rotten.”

I slammed the door one last time as I turned, cussing into the soft breeze. 

“Next!” I said, scratching Rooster’s ears as I walked to the next neighbor’s house. His name was Diamond Mike. He was wheelchair bound and reportedly rich. No one knew for sure because he lived in a single wide trailer, but anyhow, he never left home. If he wasn’t home, then he had died and gone to hell. 

I got to Diamond Mike’s house, and Rooster trotted up the wheelchair ramp with his tongue rolling out. 

I pounded on the door, just the same as I had at Jordan’s house.

No answer. 

I tried the door. Locked.

I looked at his old truck in the driveway, the pollen and dirt almost masking the dull red color.

I kicked in the front door of the trailer.

“Might be an emergency, Mike!” I called. “You didn’t answer, so I had to check. Mike?”

I waited for an answer.

“Diamond Mike? You tipped over in that wheelchair somewhere?”

I poked my head into the empty bedroom. 

“I’m not getting you off the toilet, Diamond Mike!”

I opened the door to an empty bathroom. Then an empty living room, and the same with the kitchen. 

“Diamond Mike is not at home?” I said loudly. “Better be in hell!”

Rooster and I left the trailer, the door squeaking as its last hinge hung on for dear life.

We walked the length of the old dirt road, checking each house. Thirty-seven empty houses on a Sunday evening in June. 

“Something ain’t right, Roo. Something is very, very wrong.”

Rooster and I cut through a pasture on our way home. I couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t a single cow in a once completely populated field. Not a fly, no rabbits, no birds, no buzzing insects, no cars on the highway; not even a text message on my phone. 

I texted my girlfriend, and as soon as the message left my phone, it returned with the NEW MESSAGE icon glaring back at me. It was as if I owned the only phone in the world. 

“Roo,” I said, stopping and grabbing his head. “I think we’re somewhere else now. Or maybe everyone else is.”

I looked around the pasture, listening for the slightest hum of traffic.

“I think if you weren’t here, I’d go crazy.” I hugged him close, feeling his panting against my chest.

“The world went on without us,” I said, standing up. “And I think I should’ve grabbed that snake.”

Rooster licked my face.

I smiled, and we continued walking home. The sun was setting in the West, and Rooster seemed tired. I was tired, too.