Distinct

by Hamill, Ike

  It was hard to be sure, but…

  “I know him,” Romie said. “That’s Luke.”

  CHAPTER 4: GLADSTONE

  BRAD KNOCKED.

  ROBBY LIVED in a tiny house. Brad could look through the little window in the front door and see through the back. The young man could have chosen a house where he could spread out and not go crazy in the winter, but Robby said that the house reminded him of where he had grown up. Now, apparently, he had left.

  He knocked one more time.

  The dog barked.

  “Robby?” Brad called.

  Robby ran down the stairs, followed by Gordie. He waved at Brad and then opened the door.

  “I never lock it. You can come on in.”

  “You know what I always say,” Brad said.

  “Good walls make good neighbors,” Robby said with a smile. He waved Brad into the living room.

  They sat down. Gordie put his head in Brad’s lap and waited to be scratched.

  “I was afraid you had already left.”

  “You know I wouldn’t do that,” Robby said. “I told you guys that I would have one last lunch with you first.”

  “Well, you couldn’t or wouldn’t explain your motivation last night, so I figured you must have some information or deduction you weren’t willing to share. So my conclusion is that your next move is going to be unexpected.”

  Robby considered Brad’s logic and then nodded.

  “My people skills are getting worse,” Robby said. He smiled. “When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I fit in okay. It took up a lot of my effort.”

  “I’ve always thought you fit in fine.”

  “It took up a lot of my effort,” Robby said.

  Brad laughed.

  “Do you have any sense of how long you’re going to be gone?”

  Robby looked off through the sliding doors. It was a beautiful day outside. The wind turned back the tops of the swells and gave the ocean a deep blue shade. The water held endless secrets in that bottomless blue.

  “We don’t have the luxury of normal anymore, do we?” Robby asked.

  “Sorry?”

  Robby looked back to Brad with a sad smile. “I was thinking—we’re getting so used to everything again. We’re being industrious and setting up everything the way we like it. It’s easy because we have all the tools laying around. You set up power and a network.”

  “You figured out the whole hydroponic garden house,” Brad said.

  Robby nodded.

  “We could live here, trying to recreate the world we came from, and be perfectly content, couldn’t we?”

  “You’re too young to be so philosophical,” Brad said. “You’re supposed to be running around with other teens, trying to get laid.”

  Robby blushed and grinned.

  “Why does this mean you have to leave?” Brad asked. “You don’t want to be comfortable?”

  “I don’t have any information or deductions that I’m not willing to share,” Robby said. “That’s the problem. I know some change is coming, but I don’t have any information about it at all. I need to go out and get perspective on everything. We’re trying to make everything normal here, but we’re missing something—I’m sure of it. We don’t have the luxury of normal anymore.”

  Brad frowned.

  “Aren’t we stronger together? What if you figure out what’s bothering you, but then you’re all alone? If you’re right, it sounds like we should all consider going.”

  Robby shook his head.

  “Give me a little time. I’ll be back. I can’t say exactly when, but Gordie and I will return.”

  “Stay safe, okay?” Brad asked.

  “You too.”

  Robby stood up. Brad took that as his signal to leave.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  It was a short walk back to his own house. Brad took the long way. He followed the power line that was draped along the fenceposts until he reached their greenhouse. The place was just another residence, but they had taken up the rooms with their vegetable crops. Brad shut the door quickly behind himself. The indoor temperature was carefully regulated.

  The kitchen smelled of swampy life.

  Racks of plastic totes held nutrient-rich water that bubbled from aquarium pumps. Draped into the water, networks of white roots fed all manner of crops. Brad moved from room to room, checking on the health of their plants and executing the daily maintenance. When he was finished, he checked off the chores on the clipboard in case Lisa came by that afternoon. Like Romie, Lisa preferred the outdoor gardening, but at least Lisa didn’t object to helping out with the indoor plants.

  Brad reached for the doorknob to let himself back out into the real world. Their hydroponic house was like a sealed terrarium. It was a bubble of life that was independent of the outside environment. There was comfort in that thought, but it was also confining.

  He paused and turned around.

  The door to the basement wasn’t latched. He recognized it instantly—he had known something was off, but until that moment he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. The door being ajar must have caught his eye.

  Brad swung the door open, ready for anything.

  He flipped on the lights.

  Everything looked perfectly normal. Brad started down the stairs before his brain could make up things to be afraid of.

  They didn’t use the basement for growing. There was very little natural light down there, and the room housed the furnace, fuel tanks, and the water pump.

  Once upon a time, the people who lived there had used the space as a gym. Robby and Brad had shoved all of that equipment over to one side. Brad glanced around, wondering why someone had come down there. They wouldn’t need to get the furnace ready for months. The pump required almost no maintenance. There was no reason that the door should have been ajar.

  Brad’s eyes settled on the treadmill.

  There was one footprint in the dust.

  Brad knelt to get a closer look. Someone had stepped up on the belt with one foot. By the size, Brad guessed it was Robby. Brad took a step back. The only thing he could figure was that Robby had stepped up to look at something on the wall. Someone had decorated the paneling with a good dozen framed newspaper articles. Moving closer, Brad remembered a conversation with Robby.

  They had stared at the articles one day and Robby had made a comment. All the clippings were from the same reporter. Robby guessed that they were written by the daughter of whomever had owned the house. It was a random detail in the personal life of someone who had died at least two-and-a-half years before. Why would Robby return to the basement to look at the articles again?

  Brad couldn’t guess, but he was starting to wonder if it had something to do with Robby’s sudden desire to leave.

  Brad scanned the articles again.

  It was a Connecticut newspaper, but the articles all took place down in New York City, as far as he could tell. He stared at the one that was directly over the footprint. A smiling woman in a heavy coat, hat, and mittens was next to a headline that read, “MLK Day March Brings Hope, New Friends.”

  He took the framed article down from the wall. Brad walked it over to better light and started to read the tiny print. The article didn’t have any bearing on his life. Race relations from decades before were of no importance, and that seemed to be the only thing the article addressed. His eyes drifted back to the face of the smiling woman in her winter gear. Brad wondered if Robby had recognized her.

  “Maybe this isn’t even what he was looking at,” Brad mumbled to himself.

  He climbed the stairs with the article still in his hand. He shut off the lights and closed the basement door, being sure to latch it shut. He figured he would show the article to Lisa and Romie and see if they had any insights.

  Outside, the day was beautiful.

  Brad took another look. The woman’s winter coat seemed absurd in the heat of summer. Still, there was something about the phot
o that drew his eye. It was something about the woman’s smile, or maybe her hat. He looked up to the top of the clipping. The date was clipped off, leaving only the year—2002.

  The problem with the photo hit Brad like a brick.

  Suddenly, it was difficult for him to take in a full breath.

  He tucked the photo under his arm and ran back towards Robby’s house.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Lisa was on her knees, trying to pull the root without breaking it.

  Brad came around the corner of the house in a full sprint. Her head snapped up and the weed’s root broke off between her fingers.

  Brad’s foot hit a stone and he flew forward. He had a picture clutched in one hand. His other went to the ground to catch his fall. Brad skidded to a stop on the grass.

  Lisa jumped up.

  “Jeez, Brad, are you okay?”

  Brad swallowed and tried to catch his breath. “Have you seen Robby?”

  “He’s not here yet, as far as I know. I was just about to make some cookies for his farewell.”

  “He’s gone,” Brad said, as he pushed up to his knees.

  Lisa put out a hand and helped him to his feet.

  “I just talked to him this morning, but he and Gordie are gone. They must have left just after I saw him.”

  “He’ll be back. He said he would have lunch with us. Come on inside. Did you scrape your hand?”

  Brad rubbed his hand on his shirt.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Brad said. “Here—look at this.” He held out the framed article.

  Lisa took it from him and spun it around so she could read the headline.

  “Martin Luther King Junior Day,” Lisa said. “My sister lived down in Arizona when they refused to recognize the holiday. I told her she should fight it, move, or stop whining.”

  “Right,” Brad said. “What else?”

  He tapped the photo.

  “New York City? Some woman I don’t know? World Trade Center? I don’t know what you’re getting at, Brad.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “What’s the date?”

  He pointed at the corner.

  “The date is cutoff. The year is 2002.”

  “Nothing about this seems odd to you? September 11th?”

  She blinked and tried on half of a smile. Lisa shrugged and shook her head.

  “Oh!” she said, looking back at the photo. “This was taken the year before the Twin Towers were blown up?”

  Brad lowered the photo as confusion spread across his face.

  “What? No,” he said. “September 11th was in 2001. My point is that this photo was supposedly taken in 2002, but the World Trade Center is still standing. It should have been knocked down by this time. In fact, nobody was really smiling much in New York City just three months after 9/11.”

  Lisa stood up, brushing her dirty hands on her legs. She kept her eyes glued on Brad, who was staring at the photo in his own hands.

  “Brad? Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The attacks on the World Trade Center and U.N. were in September of 2003.”

  Brad shook his head. When he looked up at Lisa again, his mouth was hanging open.

  “No.”

  “Come on inside.”

  CHAPTER 5: UPSTATE NEW YORK

  IN THE LOUNGE OF the clinic, where they gathered items for the trip, they bickered about what was essential. Outside, they didn’t say a word to each other. Ty insisted that they pack the car in the dark.

  The dogs stayed inside until the last moment.

  Tim taped a sign to the door, instructing the sick and injured to head to Dr. Matthew’s, and ushered Cedric and Murphy out to their vehicle. Ty was behind the wheel. Tim slipped into the passenger’s seat and pulled his door shut quietly.

  The car rolled forward, lit only by the moon.

  Ty turned right so they would get away from the settled area as quickly as possible. They would have to loop up and around town, but it was the best way to leave without being seen. Tim turned around to watch the light of the clinic grow smaller. In the back seat, both dogs sat up straight and attentive. They knew something was happening.

  “I think we’re being a little paranoid,” Tim said.

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  “If we had waited until morning, we could have flown.”

  “If we move fast, we can be there by morning.”

  Tim nodded and settled into his seat. His eyelids started to get heavy as Ty accelerated. The trees carved deep shadows on the road. As soon as they were away from town, Ty turned on the parking lights and then grew bold enough to turn on the headlights.

  Ty took a sip from his travel mug.

  “What I wouldn’t do for fresh coffee,” Ty said.

  Tim sat up straight. He opened his window a little for some fresh air.

  “I think we would have to move to South America.”

  “Or Hawaii,” Ty said.

  “I wonder if we could,” Tim said. “GPS is shit now. I wonder how we could navigate out there and actually make it.”

  “People did it for hundreds of years, didn’t they?”

  “True,” Tim said. His eyes wandered to the right. They were passing through a patch of forested emptiness. “I told you that I flew as far south and west as I could. I never got past the burned-out area. I don’t know if South America or Hawaii still exist.”

  “There was a story that people told at dinner one time,” Ty said. “Some guy came up from West Virginia. He said that a big void spread over the land and sky, like the world was being erased.”

  “I heard that too. From the air, it just looked like a forest fire had blackened everything down to nothing, you know?”

  The terrain beside them dropped away. Tim saw a light through the trees on a parallel road. The hill rose again and he lost sight of it.

  “Ty.”

  “What?”

  “There’s someone to our right. They’re moving in the same direction as us.”

  Ty killed the lights and slowed down. As soon as they were stopped, he cut off the engine and opened the windows. They heard the distant whine of a small engine.

  “Sounds like a motorcycle,” Ty whispered.

  Tim nodded. He fumbled with the latch for the glove compartment and dug out the map.

  “Where are we? About here?”

  He angled the map into the light from the glove compartment.

  Ty nodded.

  “So that road will intersect with this one in, what, a mile and a half?”

  “About that.”

  “We’re not doing anything wrong,” Tim said. “We could just be going out for supplies or whatever, right? Even if they track us down, what are they going to say?”

  “Depends on who it is,” Ty said.

  “Why is it that I was the one at the meeting, but somehow you are more disturbed by what was said?”

  “Maybe I have more experience with irrational people who are looking for a scapegoat.”

  The sound of the engine faded.

  Ty listened for a moment and then consulted the map again.

  “They must have gone south.”

  He started the engine again.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Ty drove slower and without the headlights. With the hills rising around them, the shadows were deep and the double-yellow line was all Tim could see.

  They didn’t make it far.

  A single light came on in the road, pointed directly at them.

  Ty stood on the brakes and cut the wheel at the last moment. In the back seat, the dogs piled up in one corner. Tim gripped the frame of the vehicle through his open window as Ty stabbed the gas and brought the rear end around. The tires squealed and then caught.

  Tim heard the whine of the motorcycle’s pursuit. He turned and saw the headlamp overtaking them. He could barely see Ty, but he sensed the man tensing his muscles and getting ready to act.

  “Wait!” Tim yelled. As the motorcyc
le drew up next to them, Ty was ready to jerk the wheel and eliminate the threat. Tim recognized the driver. “Stop! It’s Jackson.”

  Ty skidded to a stop once more.

  Tim heard the giant man panting, trying to catch his breath. He lowered his window.

  “Jax, what the hell are you doing? I almost ran you down,” Ty yelled.

  “I had to cut you off. You can’t go this way,” Jackson said. “Follow me. Fast.”

  With that, the kid revved his motorcycle and took off into the night. Ty accelerated fast to follow.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  He didn’t have any choice, he had to run with the headlights on. The roads that Jackson took them down were twisted and unpaved. At one point they crashed through a shallow stream and hoped that Jackson stayed upright. The car was moving so fast that if the kid had ditched, they would have plowed right over him.

  Finally, when it seemed that they were lost in the wilderness, Jackson flashed his brake lights three times and stopped.

  “Kill the lights,” he said.

  Ty was already reaching for the switch. He shut off the vehicle and took his foot from the brakes. They were in total darkness under a tall umbrella of trees.

  Ty and Tim got out.

  “What the hell is going on?” Tim asked. “Where are we?”

  “Interstate 87 is over that hill,” Jackson said. If he was pointing, it was lost to Tim. He could barely see the shape of the young man in the dark.

  “They have a roadblock about a mile down. It’s not manned, as far as I know, but they run patrols back and forth between the town and the roadblock.”

  “Roadblock? Why?” Tim asked.

  “And who?” Ty added.

  “I don’t know why, but it’s The Origins. You guys know my friend Billy? He took up with those guys a week ago. He tried to recruit me, but I told him I would have to think about it. I followed him down here, and that’s when I found the roadblock.”

  “They know about this dirt road?” Ty asked.