The Snap

Chapter 1

"Mom? Mom, where is Dad? He wanted to drive me to Jessica!", Joanna shouted from the first floor.

"He is in the garden, cutting the roses" Nora Hollister went on with preparing the lunch. She heard her daughter's footsteps moving downstairs and a few seconds later the backdoor.

"Dad? It's about time, we are late!", she heard Joanna saying. Joanna came into the house, joining her mother in the kitchen.

"He isn't there. I will be late! You know that Jessica hates it when I'm too late!", she claimed.

"Maybe he is in the garage, searching for tools", her mother said. "Paul!", she shouted in the garages' direction. "Joanna is waiting, hurry up for Christ's sake!" No answer.

"I take a look", Joanna said.

"Maybe he went to Mike. I remember him saying something like that. Try it there and tell him, lunch will be ready in five minutes!" Joanna looked at her mum.

"He can't eat it, we need to drive immediately!"

"I know, but it will motivate him to hurry up. Do you have enough money for the Diners?", her mum asked. Joanna nodded.

"I go, if he isn't with Mike, I'm really pissed! Jessica is going to kill me!" Joanna rushed through the front door and walked to her neighbours. Kelly and Mike were literally the nicest people she had ever met. Five months ago they got parents again. Little Jonathan was a surprise but loved from the first moment. His older sister Karen was already seventeen years old, but she loved her brother as much as possible. Joanna rang the bell and waited. She suddenly heard Jonathan crying. She waited a minute and rang the doorbell again. Nothing happened. Joanna glimpsed through the front window and saw Jonathan in his crib.

"Kelly? Mike? Dad?" She tried it with heavy knocking at the door, but no reaction.

"What's up with them? Johnny is there, where is everybody else?" Joanna decided to take a look in the garden, but there was no one. Jonathan was still crying. A bad feeling went through her body. She returned home, addressing her mother.

"Mom, there is something strange. You need to come! Where is the duplicate key of Kelly's house?", she asked, slightly in panic.

"What's wrong?", Nora asked.

"Nobody is answering my ringing, but Jonathan is crying in his crib. There is something wrong. Nobody is there, not even in the garden!" Nora turned off the oven and grabbed the duplicate key from a little hook next to the kitchen door. They left the house and hurried to their neighbours. Just at the moment when Nora put the key in the lock, Mrs Norrison from the other side of the street stepped out and screamed hysterically.

"Gerard!", she screamed, "Oh my God, please!"

"Joanna, go to her, I look after Jonathan and then I will come to you" With a worried feeling, Nora opened the door to her neighbours' house and headed over to Jonathan. The little blonde boy stopped crying for a second when he saw Nora, then started crying again.

"Shhhh, sweetheart! Everything is fine, come, we look for mommy and daddy, ok?" She grabbed the baby boy and hugged him softly.

"Shhh, shh!", she tried to calm him down. "Kelly? Mike? Paul?" Nora went through the house, but it was empty. "What the hell is going on?" She heard the loud crying of Mrs Norrison. With Jonathan on her arm, she returned to her daughter. Joanna was talking to Mrs Norrison, but the old lady seemed to be out of her mind.

"Agathe? What happened?", Nora asked in a calming voice, but Mrs Norrison was still hysterical.

"Gerard! Gerard is gone!", she screamed. Nora and Joanna changed looks.

"What do you mean with "gone"? Does he need help? Did he have an heart-attack? Agathe! Look at me, does he need help?" But Mrs Norrison only gave her an insane look.

"He is gone! Gone!" Joanna recognized that other neighbours stepped on the street, some of them crying, others shouting names.

"Mom, what happened?" Joanna couldn't hide her panic anymore. Something really terrible must have happened.

"Agathe, please, tell me what you mean!" Nora tried desperately to get an answer from the old lady, because she felt panic in her rising, too. Agathe Norrison tried to calm down a bit.

"We had lunch and were talking about Mary's wedding next week and then..!" She paused and started heavily crying again.

"What, Agathe?"

"He turned into dust!" Agathe broke down, cried and screamed and clawed her hands into the ground.

"Into dust?", Nora asked confused. At this moment the screaming of the other neighbours got louder and inhuman. Jonathan's whining became more determined and now Nora and Joanna knew that something was terribly wrong. They left Mrs Norrison alone and walked over to Mr Parish, who lived three houses further. He didn't say anything, but his face was a grimace.

"Mr Parish, are you ok?", Nora asked. His shocked eyes tried to focus on Nora's eyes.

"Sandra is...she is...I don't know. She turned into dust. She...dust...woosh, away. Dust" His expression was empty and he was obviously not paying any attention to Nora and Joanna. Nora tried to comfort Mr Parish a little bit but was interrupted by her daughter.

"Mom! Look!" She pointed at the sky. A few miles away an airplane quickly lost altitude.

"Oh my God, it will crash!", Nora shouted. The other neighbours recognized the airplane, too. Even Mrs Norrison lifted her head up. Nobody was moving. Jonathan stopped crying. An eerie silence overcame the scenery. They all looked at the plane, which was pointing downwards. A few seconds later it vanished behind the horizon and then exploded.

"Mom!", Joanna screamed, "Oh my God, it crashed!" At that moment, the ground was shaking a little bit and they felt a light shockwave. Nora woke up from her shock.

"911!", she yelled. She pushed Jonathan into her daughters' hands and reached for her smartphone, which was in her pocket. She dialed 911, but the line was busy.

"Busy", she mumbled.

"Try again!", Joanna said, but every time Nora dialed the 911, the line was busy.

"I'm sure, someone already had success!", she tried to calm herself.

"Mom, do you think dad turned into dust, too?" Joanna couldn't hold back her tears anymore.

"I really don't know, sweetheart. Oh my God, what shall we do now? I really don't know. It's the first time as a mother that I don't have an answer for you, sweetheart" The sky at the horizon turned black from the thick smoke. "Let us go back to the house. Maybe there is something in the news and I think, Jonathan needs some toddler cereal"

"We don't have any!", Joanna said, still crying.

"I know, but Kelly and Mike have. I know where everything is. Come, Joanna, you go inside with Jonathan and I go for the cereal. Turn on the tv" She turned around to Mr Parish.

"Mr Parish, do you want to come with us? I don't think you should be alone right now" Mr Parish didn't answer. He shook his head and turned around, heading back to his house. Nora left him alone. She then asked Mrs Norrison, but she refused and said that she wanted to sit where she was. She was still crying. Nora left her and returned to Kelly's house for the milk then went back to her own house. Joanna already had turned on the TV.