I hope you will consider this a warning. The city used to be as bustling as any other. Parents took their children to school, people went to work and went about their lives, there were people playing in the park or going on dates to coffee shops. Now, it is dead quiet. The cars that used to line the streets, honking and revving, now lie in crushed, rusting heaps. One of them is even upside-down. Instead of rush hour, there is nothing at all. A diner on the corner has its windows smashed in and the yellow benches and tables inside have been overturned. The eerie flashing of the traffic light does little to aid in the overall atmosphere. If there are any people left, they sure aren’t coming out. A sign on the corner used to read “FURNITURE SALE” but painted over it in deep flaking red is the word “MURDERERS.”

The flower shop nestled between a smoke shop and an antique store still has glass windows intact, and they are clear enough to see that inside, all the plants are dead. Weeds in sidewalk cracks have grown three feet tall, claiming the concrete for themselves. Why shouldn’t they? Humans aren’t using it.

In the distance is a yellow, two-story home in desperate need of a mow. The curtain in the second-story window flutters. It could have been the wind. Only there isn’t any wind today.

A siren in the distance. Wailing and ear-splitting. Nothing moves.

Dark approaches, the sun sinking below the horizon. As the shadows grow longer and longer, looking to all the world like monsters on the abandoned landscape, something does begin to move.

The city is not abandoned after all. The inhabitants were simply waiting for the sun to go down before they came out of overturned cars and smashed in buildings, caved-in homes and from inside dumpsters. They come, in numbers too many to count, and in the distance the wail takes up once more.