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shape on his bike trainer.  During
his third month of solitude the government messages stopped broadcasting.  The
lights from Cincinnati were out.  Paul waited two weeks after the radio went
dead before he set out to find other people. 
    It was the beginning of December.
    An avid cyclist, Paul pulled down
one of his bikes to take a ride.  The sun was shining, it was a warm late fall
day, and Paul needed to see if there were any survivors.  He packed a light
backpack with two power bars and two bottles of water.  He included a handgun
he found in a neighbors house, and pedaled towards the city.
    His house was east of Cincinnati in
a town called Anderson.  Decades before, it was a rural area, but urban sprawl
turned it into malls, banks, and subdivisions.  Before the plague, Paul
commuted 10 miles into the city for work, and with all the people in Anderson
doing the same, it could take up to 30 minutes to go those 10 miles. 
    As Paul rode towards the city that
morning, he made several detours through popular subdivisions.  Trash was
everywhere.  Not the kind of trash he expected to find.  Not burned out cars
and destruction, but rather regular trash that accumulated over the last months
of civilization.  When everyone became sick, people stopped working or going
outside.  Garbage was not picked up.  There were mountains of trash as if there
was a garbage strike.  Birds and other scavengers ripped and picked at the black
plastic bags, spreading waste and debris across the lawns.  Grass, unmowed for
the last four months, grew out of control and went to seed, once manicured lawns
were overrun with weeds.    
    Every neighborhood Paul visited was
the same, no people, mild damage, lots of trash.  There were a few houses where
the front doors were open, maybe a few windows were broken, but nothing was on
fire or showed signs of malice.  Paul was sure the open doors and broken
windows were from people scavenging for food when the stores went empty. 
    After leaving the last subdivision,
Paul stopped at a grocery store.  He did not expect to find any usable food,
and he did not need any, but curiosity made him hop off his bike to take a look.
    Outward appearances told Paul his peek
was a lost cause.  Several of the large glass bay windows, typical for grocery
stores, were broken.  Even though it was dark inside, he could see most of the
racks were knocked over and empty.  There were paper products scattered about,
but most, if not all of the food was gone.
    He took a flashlight out of his
pack, walked through the broken front window, and strolled through the store.  When
the disease began late in the summer, and roads were closed, the trucking
industry failed.  With no one to move or deliver food around the country, stores
could only offer their remaining inventories.  The food shortage meant groceries
were ransacked and vandalized.
    This market was no different.  Paul
waved a beam up and down the aisles, but he saw no food, no spoiled meat, not
even a box of lentils, nothing.  Paul grabbed a few packs of batteries from a
revolving display toppled on its side, a box of strike anywhere matches, and
left. 
    He stopped, turned around, and
called “Hello?” 
    He waited a few seconds, “Is there
anyone in there?”  Why a person would hide in a ravaged grocery store instead
of one of the thousands of abandoned houses, Paul did not know, but he thought
he should at least try and find other people.  “Hello?”  He called out one more
time.  There was no answer.
    He slung his pack, jumped on his
bike, and continued downtown.  He passed the baseball and football stadiums,
the financial district, the urban neighborhoods, the university area, and ended
his ride through a high end area close to the city named Hyde Park.   He pedaled
slowly, calling out for people with his “hello?”  Paul received no response.
    He rode down Observatory, his
favorite street in Hyde Park.  It was a beautiful road