Walking Toward a New World by Shane Wilson

It was a Thursday. A Thursday like any other Thursday, he thought, except that on this Thursday, Thomas was running late. He had slept through his alarm—twice—and the coffee pot had been unplugged. Still, if he ran out and could hit traffic just right, he could still make it to the time clock just in time to clock in.

He pulled his jacket over his shoulders and threw open the door to his second-floor apartment to step out into the open-air stairwell. He locked the deadbolt and began his descent to the parking lot. At the bottom of the stairs, though, something caught his eye. What he saw was a long, thin tail curving out of the vinyl siding that covered the exterior of the building.

The tail moved like a snake and could have very well just been the back-half of one. We don’t say snakes have tails, after all. Snakes are tails—tails with little heads. And that’s what the tail reminded Thomas of on that Thursday that was like most any other Thursday except that he was so late that he couldn’t give much thought to the snake or the tail. He only noted, as he approached the bottom step, that it seemed the tail had curled in on itself as the creature attached to the other end crawled further behind the vinyl panel at the base of the stairs.

Once Thomas was settled in at work, and he had a moment to think, thoughts of the tail began to be the source of much concern. He remembered a college classmate who had a pet snake. One night, her snake escaped its enclosure. The classmate found that the wire lid of the terrarium had been pushed off by the creature’s sneaky strength. She had searched frantically for the escaped snake, but she didn’t find it until days later when the neighbor started screaming.

The story of the escaped snake that appeared in a neighbor’s apartment always haunted Thomas. He considered whether he should call the apartment’s leasing office and let them know about the tail he saw that morning, but he decided he was being paranoid. He was certain everything would work out and that no mysterious creatures with a long, snaky tail would be discovered inside the building.

***

That night, Thomas lay in bed listening to the sounds of something that he couldn’t quite place, though he was worried what it might be. He could hear something moving in the walls of his apartment. It was too loud to be a snake, though, which somehow made him feel a bit better. He was always afraid of snakes, and he thought that whatever it might be in the walls, he would probably be alright with it as long as it wasn’t a snake.

It was hard for Thomas to sleep on that first night—a Thursday night like almost any Thursday night except for the fact that he was acutely aware of a living thing moving around in the walls near his bed. In fact, if he placed his palm firmly against the wall, he could feel the vibrations from the creature’s movement. He only tried this once, though, and that was enough for him.

By the following Sunday, the creature had settled somewhere beneath Thomas’s feet. He could tell that the creature had grown tired of the second floor, and he heard it scurry through the walls back toward the first. What happened after that would be difficult to know. Maybe, he thought, the creature has found its way back out of the vinyl siding and into the crisp, clean air.

Thomas rested better on that Sunday night and for many more nights. Eventually, he almost forgot about the creature. He didn’t hear it scratching inside the walls, and the more time that passed in silence, the more he felt at ease about his decision not to alert the property’s management.

***

Several days went by with no scratching in the walls, but slowly over time Thomas became aware of a new sensation—something he couldn’t hear but something he could feel. When he was very still in his apartment—eating dinner or watching television or falling asleep in his bed—he could feel a gentle rumbling from somewhere below—like an earthquake that was somehow building.

“Have you felt the rumbling?” Thomas asked Mary one day at the mailbox in the hallway on the first floor of the apartment.

“I’m sorry?” she asked. She looked up at him, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He looked into her eyes for the first time, his stomach suddenly upside down. “The rumbling," he started again. "Have you felt it?”

 “It does seem like I’ve felt some rumbling now that you mention it," she said. "Do you know what it is?”

“I don’t. I did see a tail crawling into the vinyl siding on the apartments a while ago, and then I did hear the scratching in the walls.”

“I heard the scratching in the walls, too,” she said.

“What floor are you on?” he asked.

“I live on one.”

“And you heard the scratching before you felt the rumbling?”

She nodded.

“Do you think we should tell someone?” she asked. “About the tail and about the scratching and about the rumbling?”

“I think it will work itself out,” he said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “These things tend to work themselves out.”

***

The rumbling did not stop, though. From time to time, the rumbling would become so intense that something would fall off of his shelf and break on the floor. He spent his days sweeping things up and throwing them away, and he spent his nights staring into the rumbling darkness. He thought most often of Mary, and how he bet her pretty eyes also had a hard time closing against the rumbling that vibrated up through the floor of her first floor apartment.

***

One day, the property manager slid a note under his door. The note said “We are sorry you are experiencing the rumbling. We are doing our best to find the cause of this rumbling and will do our best to fix it.” He thought of the tail and wondered again if he should say something. He thought of his conversation with Mary, though—these things tend to work themselves out—and he said nothing.

***

Weeks passed, and the rumbling was just a part of his life. It seemed to him that he would never know uninterrupted sleep again. He tried to convince himself he was accustomed to the sound, but each time the rumbling would start—which was frequent and sporadic—it would jolt him awake. Finally, he thought he should say something.

“Hi—I’m Thomas, and I live in Unit 17,” he said to the woman at the desk in the front office. “I wanted to talk to you about the rumbling.”

“Of course, sir,” she smiled back at him. “We are aware of the rumbling, and we are investigating the cause. We assure you that this problem is under control, and we have maintenance working on a solution.”

“Thank you, but I think I might have some information on the rumbling,” Thomas said.

“I can certainly take down any information you think maintenance may find helpful.” The woman retrieved a notepad and a pen from a drawer in her desk. “Now, what is it that you would like to report regarding the rumbling?”

“Well, several months ago—on a Thursday—I saw a creature, I think—”

“A creature?” she asked, scribbling furiously.

“Yeah—I think it was a lizard or something. I only saw its tail, but the tail slithered behind the vinyl siding of the building. That's when the scratching started.”

“The scratching?”

“Yes. And then, after a while, it was quiet. Then, the rumbling started. I’m not sure if it’s all related, but I wanted to make sure I told you just in case.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m sure you know this, but critters get into the walls of the building frequently. These critters are, uhm, dealt with, usually without much fanfare. We are certain that the cause of the rumbling is unrelated to the tail you saw, but we will be sure to keep an eye out for any creatures that may be the source of the rumbling.”

She finished writing her notes and smiled up at Thomas.

“Thank you,” Thomas replied, and he walked out of the office and started back to his apartment. He felt better having told them what he knew, even if he was also quite sure that they wouldn’t take his report seriously.

He approached the stairwell that would take him up to his front door when he saw Mary exiting her apartment.

“Hello,” he said to her, his hand resting on the railing of the stairs.

“Oh, hello,” she replied.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said.

“It has been a while, hasn’t it?” she asked.

“How are you getting on? What, with the rumbling?”

“It’s very bad,” she said. “I was talking with Father Seymour yesterday. He said that the rumbling is worse on the first floor than anywhere else in the building.”

“That makes sense,” Thomas replied.

“You’re lucky to be upstairs. It sounds like every being in hell is trying to come through my floor all at once. It’s impossible to sleep.”

There was a beat of silence between them. Mary lingered, pretending to search for something in her small purse as an idea came to Thomas. It was an idea that would have been more immediately obvious to nearly anyone else, but it was an idea all the same.

“Hey, you know, if you wanted to try sleeping at my place sometime, I wouldn’t mind," he said. "I could sleep on the couch.”

“That’s very kind.” She looked back up, her eyes finding his, and she smiled a kind and exhausted smile. It struck Thomas that, even in spite of how tired she must have been, Mary was still quite pretty.

“I’m in Unit 17,” he said. “You can stop by any time. It won’t be much better, but it might be some better.”

“It certainly couldn’t be worse,” she laughed.

“Maybe I’ll see you later,” he said.

“Maybe,” she smiled, and they parted ways.

***

That night, Thomas was certain that the rumbling was the worst it had ever been. He tossed and turned violently. At times, the rumbling would soften. That's when Thomas’s eyes would feel heavy, and his lids would droop down, plunging him into sudden but temporary sleep. Moments later, the rumbling would break out in violent vibrations, once more jolting him awake—his heartbeat pounding at his temples. He decided he would not try to sleep anymore on that night, and he went to the kitchen to make coffee.

As he was scooping the ground beans into the filter, he heard a knocking on his apartment door.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

“It’s Mary,” came the response. “From downstairs.”

He put the filter into the coffee maker and moved to the door. He unfastened the series of chain locks and opened the door to find Mary standing in the hallway in her pajamas—a matching shirt and pants set with a friendly and bright pattern—holding a pillow.

“The rumbling is so bad tonight,” she said.

“I know,” he responded. “It’s bad here, too. I can’t sleep.”

“I think I would like to come in anyway,” she said. “Even if the rumbling is just as bad, I would like to spend some time with another person. Talking will allow me to hear something other than the rumbling.”

So, he let her in. They brewed a strong and full pot of coffee and sat on the sofa throughout the night. They played music on the old record player, and they chatted about their favorite movies. After they drank coffee, they realized it was still too early in the morning to go to work, so they made more coffee, and they sat on the sofa and moved closer to one another as the building continued to rumble.

***

Hours later, Thomas felt hands on his shoulders, shaking him awake. He found the fact that he had slept at all surprising, but there was an urgency in Mary’s shaking that commanded his attention.

“Thomas?” she said. “Are you awake? Something has happened.”

He wiped his hands across his eyes, and he noticed immediately that the building was, for once, quiet and still. “When did the rumbling stop?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Her voice trembled in a way he hadn't heard before. “But you should come see this.” She walked to the window and lifted the blinds. Light spilled into the room, and Thomas's eyes hurt with the pain of early morning sun. He squinted and planted his feet on the floor. He moved to the window, his body standing close to Mary’s.

His eyes adjusted to the bright light that pushed in through the glass of the window, but he still had trouble processing what he saw. The street where their apartment building stood was gone. The buildings on the other side of the street were also missing, as was the parking lot where he parked his car. All Thomas could see through the window was blue sky and white clouds.

“I hope this doesn’t sound strange,” Thomas said.

“It won’t,” Mary interrupted.

“Where is the ground?” he asked.

“I’m not sure, but I assume it is down there.” She pointed down through the glass.

That was when the two of them were sent stumbling sideways toward the wall by a sudden and unexpected shift in the building’s location. Thomas planted his foot against the baseboard behind him, and he wrapped his arms around Mary to keep her from falling. He expected the movement would cease soon—like an earthquake might—but it didn’t. The building continued to be filled with the force of a forward propulsion. Their bodies eventually got used to the movement—as a body would become accustomed to the thrust of a jet or a motorboat—and they were once again able to move through the room in the apartment. Mary walked immediately to the door.

“Where are you going?” Thomas asked.

“I’m going to see what I can see from the stairwell,” she said. Thomas agreed that it was a good idea to go out into the open-air stairwell to see if they could get a better picture of what was happening.

Outside, Thomas noticed his knees were shaking? Or was it his legs as a whole? And were they wobbling? There may not have been a great word for it, but they certainly felt less stable. It must have been the wind shooting through the hallway and the way the building rocked back and forth—like a boat, he thought. He made his way to the top of the stairs that would lead down to the first-floor hallway. Mary kept close behind him, her hand on his back.

On the first floor, Thomas first noticed the crumbling of the cement at the edge of the hallway. This would have been sidewalks, and it would have led to a parking lot. Now, though, it led only into the sky. The wind here seemed less violent than it had upstairs—like something was blocking it from the other end of the hallway. In spite of the lower winds, the swaying remained, and with the absence of the roaring wind, Thomas noticed an occasional booming sound—like bombs dropped in the distance or far below where he stood.

He walked to the end of the hallway, his hand pressed firmly against the wall. He approached the end of the corridor, and soon, he was peering over the edge of the broken cement.

His eyes widened. He was unable to process what he was seeing, for there, what must have been hundreds of feet below him, was the unmistakable shape and entirely familiar motion of a long, reptilian tail.

It was longer than the tail he had seen—longer by multiple football fields’ lengths. It was thicker in every place. But it was without doubt the same tail he had seen all of those weeks ago. How else could he explain it? What other explanation could there be other than the one in which he woke up late one Thursday that was like any other Thursday and saw the tail of a reptile slither into the vinyl siding of the building? In which he heard the scratching and felt the rumbling for weeks? In which Mary spent the night with him? In which they woke up to find their entire apartment building perched high in the air on the back of a giant lizard that had been nesting and growing beneath their feet this whole time?

***

“I can’t believe it,” Thomas said when they were back in his apartment.

“Is that—” Mary didn’t quite know how to ask her question, but she didn’t have to ask it. He knew what it would be.

“I believe it is,” he said. “I believe it is the creature that belonged to the tail I saw all those months ago.”

“The cause for the scratching?” she asked.

“And the rumbling,” he confirmed.

“What do you think we should do?” she asked.

“I guess we have to wait,” he said. “These things have a habit of working themselves out, right?” He smiled at her.

“I guess,” she said, flashing a tight, nervous smile.

Thomas looked down through the window where he could almost make out the scaly legs of the creature stomping below. At least it's not a snake, he thought.

***

The electricity in the building had been out—understandably—since the morning. Thomas didn’t realize it at first—being distracted, as he was, by the missing street, ground, and buildings, but that evening, when he clicked the lamp on the side table on, it failed to illuminate. Of course, he thought. The lizard would have torn the wires loose from the building when it decided it no longer wanted to live beneath it.

“I think we should go downstairs,” Mary said in the evening. “Now that the rumbling has stopped, and now that we have the wind, the first floor is quieter than the second floor. It might be nice downstairs. And I have candles. You can stay with me until this whole thing blows over.”

“Do you think it’s sudden?” he asked. “For us to live together?”

“Sure,” she said. “In any other time, I would not have asked you to move in with me. But now, it seems like the best option. Who knows how long we’ll be stuck up here?”

“I guess I could sleep on your couch.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said with a smile. “You’ll sleep with me. You’ve been so kind, and welcoming. You were even honest with me about seeing the tail. If this is our lives now, I could think of worse ways to spend mine than with you.”

Thomas, who had thought about waking up next to Mary’s beautiful smile every day since the first time he saw her, agreed, and they worked together to pack clothes and food so that Thomas could move in with Mary on the evening of the first day of what the residents would come to call “The Rising.” 

In those early weeks of The Rising, Thomas and Mary settled into a rhythm appropriate for their new world. They slept whenever they wanted. They ate whenever they wanted. They read books for fun and listened to a battery-powered cassette player, even though they only had five cassettes between them. And even though they did have five cassettes between them, they spent most of their time in those early weeks listening to homemade tapes filled with old recordings of FM radio stations.

***

One week into The Rising, Mary kissed Thomas as they were lying in bed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why are you apologizing?” he asked. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first day I saw you at the mailboxes.”

“Then why haven’t you?” she asked. “We’ve been stuck inside all week. I assumed you didn’t like me—that you had grown tired of me already.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I just wasn’t sure if you could ever feel like that about me.”

“I suppose these things happen,” she said with a sigh, her eyes moving around the candle-lit room, watching the shadows dance with the flickering of flames. "But I have grown quite fond of you."

And in the soft orange glow from the candles, they made love for the first time—in a bed in a room in an apartment in a building on top of a giant lizard with no idea of the love his insistence birthed into the world.

***

Sometimes, the lizard stopped walking, and the residents would postulate that it was sleeping. The apartment building had been on the lizard’s back for three weeks then, and the residents would get together when the creature's movement would allow it.

“Community is important,” Father Seymour said when he knocked on the door to invite Mary and Thomas for tea. “I hope you’ll consider coming.”

So, the two of them got dressed in real clothes for the first time in weeks and made their way down the hallway to see Father Seymour.

The gathering was full of people Thomas had never met. There was Levon, the man who had saved his phone battery as long as possible to keep track of the lizard’s movement via GPS. There was Abigail and her wife, Nairi, who had moved into the building just before the rumbling started. There was Jaclyn, the oldest woman in the building, who had an entire walk-in closet dedicated to nonperishable food items—too much stockpiled food for just one person. Thomas and Mary sat with each other on the sofa next to Abigail. They held hands when they weren’t drinking tea or having a bite of a cookie.

“You two are so cute together,” Abigail whispered to Thomas. “How long have you been together?”

“Oh, only since The Rising,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We were together when it happened, so we moved in together. We’ve been together this whole time.”

“That’s really lovely.” She smiled. “Mary is lovely.”

***

In the fifth week, invitations were slid under all the doors in the building for the wedding, which was held in the hallway just outside of Father Seymour's apartment.

“Do you, Mary, take Thomas to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

“Do you, Thomas, take Mary to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

And they were declared husband and wife—the first couple to be wed in the building since The Rising. At the reception, Jaclyn served individually packaged cinnamon rolls and Hawaiian punch made from a powder. Thomas wrapped his arms around Mary’s waist, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. From a small boombox in the corner, the crackling static texture of the old FM radio recordings accompanied the song they had chosen as their first dance as Thomas and Mary swayed together in the hallway that ran through the building that rocked on the back of a giant lizard.

***

“What do you think it will be like?” Mary asked one evening during the seventh week. “When The Rising is over.”

“What do you mean?” Thomas responded.

“You know—life in the world. Don’t you think it might be a moment of great rejuvenation for the people in the building? Like, maybe all of this time we are spending alone with each other will change our perspective on things? We haven’t gone to work in so long. Certainly, none of us will have jobs after this except maybe Father Seymour. Living in this building on the back of the lizard has given us a chance to slow down, you know? Don’t you think that will impact how we live afterward? Like, maybe we’ll find the value in the little moments or we won’t spend so much time on unimportant things?”

Thomas considered her position that when The Rising had run its course, the people who endured it would somehow be better for it.

“Maybe,” he said. “It would be nice, right? It’s possible the changes could even extend beyond the building. Maybe people will be more understanding.”

“That would be nice.” She paused for a moment and looked into the eyes of her husband, reaching for his hand. “I mean, it brought us together, right? If The Rising could do something like that, maybe it can do even more great things.”

“Maybe.”

“I hope so.”

“So do I.”

Mary reached over to the small radio and clicked the play button to summon music from the speakers, but the sound was garbled and warped.

“Are we out of batteries?” Mary asked. Thomas nodded. “Well, we had to run out sometime, right? I guess everything about The Rising can’t be beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“And you’re beautiful,” she said.

And the two of them stood and their bodies met in the center of the room where they sang their favorite songs together to fill the silence until it was time to sleep.

***

One day during the ninth week, Thomas was jolted awake by a knocking at the apartment’s front door. He nudged Mary’s body until her eyes fluttered open.

“Are we expecting anyone today?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Who knows?”

The knocking continued, and Thomas called out that he was on his way. He dressed quickly and went to the door. It was Abigail.

“It’s over,” she said, smiling.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“The Rising,” she responded. “It’s over. We’re on the ground.”

“What? How?” Thomas pushed past her to the hallway where he could look out, and he saw immediately that she was right. They were on the ground.

“No one knows. We just woke up, and we were down.”

“Mary!” Thomas called back into the apartment. “Come quick! The Rising is over!”

Mary emerged from the bedroom, pulling a t-shirt down over her body, and the three of them walked down the hallway together and found the rest of the residents standing in the open outside of the building—their toes wrapped up in grass.

“This is it,” Mary whispered to Thomas. “It’s the new world.”

The residents embraced one another and collectively exhaled a sigh of relief for having endured such a great and potentially catastrophic event.

“Where are we?” Thomas asked.

“We aren’t sure,” Father Seymour responded.

Just then, Thomas was made aware of the sound of an approaching engine. He looked up to see a helicopter clear the trees nearby. As the whirring of blades approached, the chopper's back door slid open and someone inside dumped a bag full of white envelopes over the side. The white envelopes flittered down through the sky like confetti, and at first, Thomas thought their safe landing was being celebrated. When the chopper's cargo had been emptied, the vehicle continued its flight, eventually disappearing into the distant sky.

As the first envelopes found the ground, Nairi bent down to retrieve one that had landed at her feet.

“What is that?” asked Mary as Nairi tore at the envelope and retrieved the folded paper inside.

"No way," Nairi said, her eyes running across the lines of text on the included document.

"What?" asked Mary again.

"It's a notice for the collection of late rent."

The residents stood in stunned silence. One by one, they each stooped down to retrieve and read one of the envelopes, all of which had been addressed uniformly to "Residents." Each letter was the same, and each letter demanded that late rent must be paid promptly if the residents hoped to continue living on the premises.

Nairi and Abigail looked at each other and began to laugh. Levon picked a white flower from the ground at his feet, plucking the white petals and watching them drift on the wind toward the grass. Father Seymour was praying—his head bowed and his hands held together in front of his body.

Around them was nothing but empty wilderness. They could see no evidence of a city existing nearby. There were no trails or roads in sight. Only large footprints carved into the earth.

Thomas reached out and took Mary’s hand. He dropped an unopened envelope on the ground and walked with his wife back toward the apartment building where they walked into their first-floor apartment and closed the door behind them. Soon, the other residents did the same. They would all see each other again—for a pot-luck or a game night. It was a new world, after all. They had all the time in the world.

And just over a nearby hill, a giant lizard, with nothing on his back, was still walking and walking.

Shane Wilson is an award-winning author of speculative fiction. His novels, A Year Since the Rain, The Smoke in His Eyes, and The Woman with a Thousand Faces are available through all major retailers. His short fiction has appeared in Miniskirt Magazine, The Daily Drunk Magazine, Door is a Jar, and Livina Press. His story, "Wanted: Fourth Wall Repairman" was nominated for Best of the Net (2024). He prefers to chase the day with a strong whiskey and a rerun of The Office. He is currently at work on a new novel.