by Ike Hamill
Finally, she saw the trees part and Ashley’s relieved face pushed through. Penny was at her feet, bounding through the brush again. Tim brought up the rear.
“What happened?” Ashley asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you wander off like that? You completely veered off the heading and then you disappeared.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Lisa said. “I was the only one interested in moving in a straight line. Tim wanted to swerve right to get to higher ground. You wanted to stop.”
Ashley and Tim looked at each other for a moment. When Ashley looked back to her, she had a look on her face that Lisa knew all too well. When one of the kids would try to explain something technological to Lisa or Romie, they always adopted a particular look. Lisa thought they looked like a teacher who had to stop the whole class to take extra time with one of the slower students. When faced with that look, Romie would always say, “Don’t you dare look at me like that.” Lisa was tempted to say that in response to Ashley, whatever she had to say.
“Just come with us,” Ashley said, reaching for Lisa’s arm. “We’ll get you back on the right heading.”
Lisa glanced around, ready to explain to Ashley that she knew very well which way they should be headed. She realized that there was no sign of any orange marks on trees behind her. How could there be? The patch of woods that she had found was so thick that she couldn’t have seen marks unless they were painted every few feet, and Ashley had been way far behind. There was a chance that Ashley had a point.
“Yeah. Okay.”
She let Ashley take her arm and lead her.
They stopped at a small uphill slope. It was the first patch of dry ground that Lisa had seen all day. A fallen tree made the perfect spot to take a break. Ashley found some dried figs in her bag and she shared them with Lisa and Tim.
Penny drank from a collapsable bowl that Tim balanced on a rock.
“We’re going to be out of water again soon,” Tim said. “If we don’t find another pool, we need to dig a hole in the next swampy area and filter whatever groundwater we can collect.”
Ashley nodded. She dug deeper in her pack and unzipped an internal zipper. Tim leaned close to see the pages that Ashley was flipping through.
“What do you have?” Tim asked.
“The satellite photos. I think that there’s a chance that we’re…”
She didn’t finish her thought. Tim reached forward, grabbing for the papers in their plastic sleeves.
“Where did you get those?”
Ashley pulled them back to her chest.
“They’re the ones from my father. I showed you these,” Ashley said.
Tim shook his head violently.
“I don’t think you did,” Lisa said. “I don’t remember you sharing any satellite photos with us.”
“What do you mean?” Ashley said.
“This place is impossible,” Tim said. “It steals memories. You think it’s from the magnetic interference?”
Ashley didn’t answer. She was staring down at her photos.
Lisa finished her fig and took a swig of water. Tim was right about the water. They were getting down to their last few swallows. They had been lucky so far, finding pools and little streams when they needed them. Food was scarce, but Lisa found that it didn’t mean that much to her anymore. Hunger was a welcome distraction from the all the leaves around them.
“I think I see something,” Ashley said. She traced her finger across the image.
“What? Green?” Tim asked.
“No, black. Look,” Ashley held out the image and they all leaned in a little closer to look. Even Penny raised her head and appeared to be looking at the image.
“If this band here is the swampy area that Lisa was trying to follow back there, and this darker spot is the area where we camped last night, then this area must be where we’re sitting right now, right?”
“We don’t even know the scale of these pictures,” Tim said. “Or where we are in relation. I tried to take pictures of this region—they all came out foggy. It’s impossible to get a clear image of these woods from above.”
“From an angle, sure, but not directly above. My dad got rid of all the side views, because they were fogged, like you said. Look, you can even see that the edges of these are fogged. But from directly above they’re clear enough. I think this is where we are.”
“So what?” Lisa asked. “What good does that do us?”
“Because it means that if we swerve a little, we’ll be going south. Then, we should get to the river within, I don’t know, a few hours maybe? How long would you say we’ve been walking today?”
“Forever?” Lisa asked.
“It’s worth a shot,” Tim said. He drank the rest of the water that Penny had left in her bowl and then stowed it in his pack as he stood up. “Come on.”
“Ugh,” Lisa said. “I just got comfortable.”
Chapter 26: Brad
“We certainly have a lot to think about,” Carrie said. She stepped to the front of the room, commanding everyone’s attention. “I suggest we reconvene in the morning to discuss next steps. That will give our guests some time to rest from their travels and we’ll all have some time to think about what we should do.”
“Wait,” Robby said. “Before we break up, does anyone have anything else to report? I know that the water thing is enough, but I think we should be careful to not let it overshadow anything else that might be odd.”
People glanced around. A lot of eyes landed on Sariah, but she had already made her big pronouncements for the night.
Brad almost let it go. What was in the back of his head was too preposterous. He had to take a deep breath to find the courage to bring it up.
“Gravity,” Brad said.
Everyone looked to him.
“How do you mean?” Carrie asked.
“Has anyone seen anything irregular with respect to gravity?” Brad asked.
Heads shook. Eyes narrowed.
“It’s just that, when we stopped in Albany, Jim said that the dog with puppies had levitated,” Brad said.
Robby shook his head. “They would have said anything to get some more time to try to catch one of those puppies, Brad. I’m sure they would recant if we asked them now.”
“I wouldn’t,” Brad said. “I mean, I don’t. I saw it as well.”
“Saw what?”
“I saw the mother dog, sort of, levitate back over the overturned table to get to her puppies. I guess I assumed that it was a trick of the light at first, or she was just really light on her feet, but I keep thinking about it. There were no tracks over that table. There was no other way back to where her pups must have been. How was she getting in and out of her den without leaving tracks? I mean, I saw her hop up over that table. Her legs were moving, but I’m not sure she was touching anything.”
Robby was still shaking his head.
“We should check this out,” Mike said. “Right? We need to check it out.”
“Investigation is useless,” Sariah said.
“Listen,” Mike said. He put a hand on Sariah’s arm. “You might be right. I’m not saying that I have the answers, but we’re not all caught up to you on this yet. Maybe your idea will make sense to us if we see something else unexplainable with our own eyes.”
Sariah tilted her head and then agreed.
“Can you take us there, Brad?” Mike asked.
“We need sleep,” Robby said.
“I don’t,” Brad said. “I’ll go.”
Brad’s hand gripped the armrest. His legs were unconsciously pushing himself backwards, away from the horror in front of him.
“I don’t advise other people to take this road,” Mike said. “You have to know every inch of it or it’s a deathtrap.”
There were enough lights mounted atop the truck to sharpen every detail of the road ahead. But the lights also made everything appear flat, like they were driving at an unbelievable speed
right into a photograph.
“You can go a lot faster if you stop riding the brakes,” Jackson said from the back seat.
Brad glanced over his shoulder. Jackson was insane if he thought they should go any faster. It turned out that Jackson wasn’t even watching the road ahead. He was looking down at a camera, paging through the pictures on the display.
He held it up to Brad.
“Here,” Jackson said. “I found the pictures that Corinna wanted you to see.”
“Not that one,” Corinna said. “The next one.”
“Oh,” Jackson said. He took the camera back for a second, the two collaborated over the camera, and then Jackson bumped it against Brad’s shoulder until he reached around to take it. Brad didn’t want to tear his eyes from the road again. It felt like any second might be his last.
The photo on the screen was of a corpse.
“Why did you want me to see this?”
“We thought you might know the guy,” Corinna said. “Remember, a few years ago you told me about that guy who came to your house before the blizzard?”
“Who? Herm?”
“Yeah. Is that him?”
Brad looked back to the photo and figured out how to manipulate the controls. When he zoomed in, he finally understood why Corinna had made the leap. The shirt that the man wore was all bleached out from the sun. Only after zooming in could Brad see the pattern to the fabric.
“No,” Brad said. “This wouldn’t be him. This guy has long sleeves on. Herm wasn’t allowed to wear long sleeves, if I’m remembering correctly.”
“Wasn’t allowed?” Corinna asked.
“It was like a uniform. The higher the rank, the more covered up the person was. The figure in your photo has long sleeves, and it looks like socks too. Herm didn’t have either of those. This person is a higher rank.”
“There are more on there,” Jackson said.
Brad switched to the next photo.
“These are weird. Where did you say they were?”
“Out in the street,” Corinna said.
“Why do they look mummified?” Brad asked.
“They’re like the bodies that Merle found in one of those bunkers. Remember? They look like those guys,” Jackson said.
Brad nodded and braced himself as Mike skidded around a turn.
“Yes. That bunker was, like, sealed though. It made sense that those bodies didn’t decay.”
“That’s not what Ty said,” Corinna interjected.
“Oh?” Brad asked.
“Yeah. Ty said that the bacteria inside them and on them should have made them decay, unless the atmosphere was strange.”
“Hold on,” Mike said.
Brad tensed up. The vehicle jolted over the transition from dirt road back to chunky pavement. The lights swept across a few buildings and then turned down a straight stretch of road.
“Are we in Albany already?”
“Just about,” Mike said.
Jackson handed a map between the seats. He put a finger on one of the lines.
“We’re about there.”
Brad searched the grid like a maze, trying to find passable roads that would take them to the right spot.
“Slow down through here,” Jackson said.
Mike laughed. “I never would have thought that you would tell me to…”
Brad was thrown forward when Mike stomped on the brakes. He looked up to see a couple of deer bound across the road.
“Game trail,” Jackson said.
“Guess I’ll slow down.”
Jackson wanted to park a couple of blocks away, in case the dogs were still there. Mike and Brad stayed put in the truck, waiting and watching the night through the truck’s windows.
“I’m sure she would have moved her pups by now,” Brad said.
“Probably,” Mike said, “but she might be less wild than you think. There was a family that was living on the outskirts down here. You remember Helen?”
“The woman with all the vine scars?”
“That’s her. For a while, they were living down here, trying to farm deer in the gym. Fields got flooded out a few years ago and they gave up. But, while they were here, they were trying to tame some of the local dogs. There was a decent population of strays that were tamed. The dog you saw might have been one of the half-tamed ones.”
Brad nodded.
In the distance, the dark shapes of Jackson and Corinna moved around the corner.
“Why would they give up because of flooded fields? Some of our best farms were built in flooded areas after trenches were dug—natural irrigation.”
“Honestly, I think they decided that they didn’t want to be out here on their own. Some people say that Donnelly is getting too crowded, but when push comes to shove, they want to be pretty darn close to other people. Before cars, when it took an hour to go a few miles, distances seemed shorter. They would have been satisfied living one or two valleys over.”
“What do you mean?” Brad asked.
“I think that because we can get down here pretty easily with a vehicle, that people think it’s a reasonable distance to live from the rest of us. They don’t realize how lonely it’s going to feel. Even when you’re only three hours away by car, if there are too many miles between you and the next group, it’s going to feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“So you think that people have a maximum distance that they want to be from others?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t buy it. I lived in the middle of nowhere back in Maine.”
“How many miles to a neighbor?”
“A couple.”
“See? Maybe you didn’t talk to them every day, but you knew that they were there, didn’t you? It’s different now. They described hearing things. The whole family swore that the emptiness was whispering to them.”
“How come this wasn’t reported? I thought we were supposed to be sharing anything out of the ordinary?”
“They did. We talked about it up in Donnelly and decided that it was nothing more than cabin fever. The family didn’t experience anything that could be reproduced or documented, and there were no long-term effects. They moved back and everything was fine.”
“I don’t like it,” Brad said. “For so long it felt like we were getting a grip on everything, you know? I don’t like the idea that all this inexplicable shit was going on under the radar. It feels like we let the strangeness creep back in.”
“If you ask me, the strangeness was always there—even before the end of everything. People have been working hard to ignore it or cover it up since long before you and I were born. Human nature demands that we carry on and ignore anything that doesn’t match our perception of the way things should be. Look at the most successful cultures in history—the ones who conquered and spread the most. The less that a culture was tuned in and observant of the world around them, the more they were able to take over.”
“Huh,” Brad said. He sat back in his seat and looked out at the darkness.
The radio squawked and Corinna’s whisper came over the device.
“Antoine’s?” she asked.
Brad shrugged in the light from the radio’s display.
“Don’t know,” Mike said, keying the radio.
“It’s a bakery with footprints leading through the grass? The awning is collapsed?”
Brad nodded.
“Yeah,” Mike said into the radio. “That’s it.”
“We’ll check it out.”
Chapter 27: Robby
“We can camp out somewhere,” Robby said. “We don’t need anything this fancy.”
“Bullshit!” Romie said under her breath. She came forward, nodding vigorously. “Thank you, Zane, you’re too kind. We’ll clean up before we go.”
Romie shook the young woman’s hand and walked her to the door.
“Wait!” Jim said. “Are we all alone here?”
“No,” Zane said. “Someone lives in the basement, as well.”
“Thank heaven,” Romie said. “The last time we came up here, we had to live in that cottage. It barely had electricity and no bathrooms. I wasn’t about to go through that again.”
Robby moved to the window. “It’s a nice view from here. I wonder why more people don’t live in this building.”
“The stairs,” Romie said. “Who is going to bother with all those stairs?”
Janelle ran down the hall, talking about which room she was going to pick. Jim ran after her. Both kids had to realize that Romie was going to pick first, regardless of what decisions they made. Robby didn’t even feel the need to point it out.
“So why wire up the building at all then?” Robby asked.
Romie shrugged. She moved to the couch and sat down with a sigh. “Stop trying to talk us out of a good thing.”
Robby smiled.
He went to the sliding door and let himself out onto the balcony. From up there, he could see the cable that ran along the ground. In some places, the people of Donnelly had used underground cables to supply power. This cable, bright orange, was simply running across the yard and down a path to the nearest transformer. Robby leaned on the railing and looked over the tops of the trees as he thought about it.
Behind him, the sliding door opened again. By the way it slammed shut, he knew who had joined him.
“Did you give your sister the big room?” Robby asked.
“Nope,” Jim said. “You and her are going to have to share. There are only four, and I bet that Brad is coming back tonight.”
“He’ll probably stay with Mike and Sariah. That’s what he did last time.”
“Oh,” Jim said. He joined his father at the railing. “Is it safe?” he asked, reaching out to shake the metal railing.
“Seems to be.”
Jim joined him, putting all of his weight against the metal so he could look left and right. Little pockets of light pooled around the inhabited homes. They looked like little dollhouses—tiny models of order in islands of light.
“Is that thunder?” Jim asked.
Robby cocked his head. “That’s the horses. We’re pretty close to the ranch. Remember your riding lessons?”