Radio Nowhere

by Lee Beard

  "I mean…what happens to people in general." Eric picked up the last firework from the table, a fountain sparkler, and walked it out to where he fired off the bottle rockets.

  "I don't know." He crouched down and lit the fountain, returning to where he originally stood as the sparks began to shower down. "I guess," He continued, "I guess that it will kinda be like it was in the pioneer days. When the generators break down and we run out of gasoline, I mean. There's only so much that we can take and not remake."

  The fountain ended and the yard became eerily dark.

  "Let's go back inside," Gina said, unnerved by how dark it had suddenly become.

  As she walked Hank through the door of the house behind Eric, she suddenly realized that she didn't have a plan from here.

  "It's dark outside," Eric stated awkwardly, picking up his diabetic kit off of the kitchen table.

  "Yes.”

  Hank panted contentedly at Gina’s side. Eric sat down at the end of the table and opened the kit, removing the smaller bag from the larger bag.

  "Do you," he began, halting as the pen punctured his finger, "Do you want to stay here? You don't know this town and it's dark..." he trailed off. "We don't have a guest room, but...you can take my sister Trinity's room, if you want. It has a lock on the door," he added, sensing the awkwardness in the room.

  "Thank you," Gina replied quickly. "Hank and I will be fine in there." Eric's meter beeped three times in rapid succession. He sighed.

  "I'm going to have to be here for a while," he pressed a button on the meter. "The bathroom is down the hall across from her room, just so you know. We’ve still got water for a little while at least."

  "Okay," Gina said, picking up her duffel from the floor by the door. She and Hank quickly went down the hall into the bathroom, where she habitually locked the door behind her.

  When she was done showering, Gina returned to the kitchen to find Eric not there. "Eric?" The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

  "In here," came the feeble reply from beyond the kitchen. Gina carefully looked around the corner to find Eric sprawled out on the couch panting. Next to him on the coffee table lay his kit. "Sorry," he almost whispered, "This happens sometimes when I'm waiting for the insulin to kick in." Gina watched, wide-eyed, not saying anything. Eric rolled his head toward her, his pupils dilated so much that his light brown eyes were black. "I'll be okay." He said weakly, giving a small smile.

  "Okay," Gina replied, unsure of what to do.

  "This happens a lot actually," Eric said, almost laughing. "I called them the sugar shakes." Eric once again looked warily at Hank, who was focused intently on him. "I'm fine, really. You don't have to worry about me."

  Gina shifted on her feet in the doorway. “How does that work?”

  “What?”

  “Diabetes.”

  “Well, most people’s pancreases make insulin to keep their blood sugar in check, but mine doesn’t. It did a little when I was younger, but it stopped making any at all somewhere along the line.” Eric looked up at Gina. “I’m totally dependent on insulin to keep me functioning. I have to check my blood sugar a lot and keep my kit with me or I could be in a lot of trouble.”

  “So if you don’t have insulin, you’ll die.”

  “Yes.” Eric looked up at the ceiling. “If I eat something sweet, insulin. If I have too much insulin, I have to eat something sweet.”

  “How do you know how much insulin or sugar you need?”

  Hank lay down on the hardwood floor, heaving a sigh.

  “Trial and error, mostly.” Eric let out a long breath, his voice steadying. “Luckily it kicks in pretty quick for me so I can see results fast.” He raised his hand above him, noting that the shakiness was diminishing. “Insulin lasts longest when it's refrigerated, and I've got a couple fridges full. One in the garage, one in my room."

  "That’s a lot.”

  "Yeah. My grandpa was one of those preppers, always ready for the end of the world.” He went quiet a moment, lost in thought. “It was supposed to be one fridge for me, and one for Trinity. My sister. But she…” he trailed off. “We lost her right when all this went down.”

  “I’m sorry.” Gina said after a moment.

  “It’s okay.” Eric rolled onto his side. “I miss her, but I’m glad she didn’t have to see Granny and Grandpa go.”

  Gina looked around the room. "What'll you do when you run out of insulin?”

  “I don’t know.” The boy said quietly. “I’ll have to figure out how to make it, I guess.” He glanced at his watch and rolled back onto his back. "What do you think is going to happen now that so many people are gone?" He sat up slowly.

  Gina shifted on her feet. "I think anybody left will try to find other people, maybe."

  "Nobody likes to be alone," Eric said with a yawn.

  "Yeah. Nobody likes to be alone."

  Chapter Fifteen

  After

  The girl circled her mouth slowly with the lipstick. She adjusted the leotard straps and spritzed her braided blonde bun with extra hairspray before placing the dainty rose coronet on top of her head. She smoothed the pale lavender tutu and took a final look in the dim dressing room mirror before stepping out into the wing. Fourteen years of dedicated training, months of grueling rehearsal; she beat out hundreds of other candidates for the coveted title role in Sleeping Beauty. Her entire life had been working for tonight, opening night. She took a deep breath and stepped out onto the stage, a smile illuminating her face. She looked out at the dark, empty seats and saw her parents sitting center on the first row beyond the orchestra pit. Her mother wore her best dress and her father held a bouquet of browned flowers in his lap. Their eyes were closed but she knew they were smiling. She hummed the waltz and pirouetted into the dance. As she moved, music seemed to float from the orchestra pit to join her humming. The performance was spectacular, every hour of rehearsal paying off in the role of her lifetime. She jetéd and adagéd with confidence and poise. Suddenly, the music dropped off. This was it; the grande finale. The music began its final build; the girl preparing for the vault into the prince’s arms. As the music intensified, she ran toward the front of the stage, closed her eyes, and leapt.

  ***

  The juvenile detention center’s cells were designed so that if someone tried to escape, an alarm would sound and send guards to check the detainee and turn off the alarm. At least, that’s what would happen under normal circumstances. After two straight days of trying every way the boy could think of to break out, the alarm seemed to be getting louder. If he didn’t get out of there soon, he knew he would go mad from it. He’d turned the cell cot on its end beneath the window and was teetering atop it, the sheet tucked into his waistband. For hours, he patiently hit the window with his metal food tray again and again until finally the cracked glass broke. Sweet fresh air. Tying the sheet to the light hanging above the window, he quickly climbed through the window and rappelled to the ground. As he strolled across the lawn, he made a mental checklist of what he’d need to do. Firstly, find different clothes. If there were any other people out there, they didn’t need to know where he’d been or why. Secondly, eat something. Thirdly, arm himself. He who has the gun controls the transaction. The front gate guard’s body lay slumped against the fence. He took the key from the belt, unlocked the gate, and kicked the guard’s wrinkled face until it caved.

  ***

  The humans had been gone for five days, and the calico’s bowl had been empty for four. Though the open window in the kitchen was just big enough for her to leave through, she had to stay and protect her domain until the humans returned and filled her bowl. When the humans left, they forgot to turn off the noisemaker. It played noise after noise, and the cat had begun to grow weary of it. She had tried laying on the noisemaker to make it stop, but it just tickled her stomach. She tried scratching it, but her claws got caught in the front of it. It was too hard to bite, and too big to intimidate. She soon discovered that by butting it wit
h her head, she could move it a bit. She did this for a while before she got bored and went to fish the remaining tasty swims out of the water box in the other room. Returning to the noisemaker, she eventually succeeded in pushing it off of the surface. It fell to the carpet and broke, the sounds becoming garbled static. Suddenly, there was a spark.

  ***

  “Now you listen here,” the old woman tutted, pulling on the rope leading to the pony’s halter. The palomino stamped its foot, snorting at the old woman defiantly. The woman flipped a long white braid over her shoulder and dug her heels into the soft garden soil, leaning on the gatepost for support. “You are gonna come out of there if I have to spank you.” The pony shook its head, stepping backwards onto a tomato plant. “Now look what you’ve done!” She exclaimed, dropping the rope and rushing past the pony. She knelt down next to the squashed tomatoes, smacking the pony’s hind leg to try and get it to move off of the plant. The pony lowered its head toward a head of lettuce sticking out of the ground, and the woman shouted. “Don’t you even think about it, mister,” she clambered to her feet and grabbed ahold of the pony’s rainbow halter, trying to keep it from destroying any more of her produce. The pony suddenly lifted its head, sniffing at her apron pocket. The woman stepped backwards through the gate, reaching into her pocket. She pulled out a carrot, and the pony started after her. “That’s all it took, huh? Good grief, Sunshine, you’re going to make me bald from stress.” She lured the pony out of the gate and quickly slammed it behind them, chortling to herself as she started across the yard.

  ***

  There would be no Mathletes practice that day. The boy sat in the tree house, staring at the picture he kept in his folder. Thirty-two smiling faces looked up at him. Thirty-two. Out of the thirty-two people who lived on the eight-hundred-acre ranch, there was one left. Eight-hundred divided by thirty-two equals twenty-five, the number of people in the picture who were older than him. Thirty-two minus twenty-five equals seven, the number of foster siblings he had before the sickness. Thirty-two plus twenty-five plus seven equals sixty-four; divide that by thirty-two and you get two, the number of graves the boy had dug by himself. Eight-hundred plus sixty-four plus twenty-five plus seven divided by thirty-two divided by two equals fourteen, the number of days it took to wipe out the entire town. Thirty-two adopted family members divided by one lethal virus equals one lonely twelve-year-old.

  Math never was his favorite subject.

  ***

  Her breathing was labored and shallow, chest burning with every breathe she drew. She’d woken from her sleep with a cough that morphed into pneumonia after she spent an entire lethargic day sitting in cold bathwater. She now lay on her side in the bottom bunk of the bed she shared with her sister whose corpse slept peacefully in the bunk above her. Her stomach ached, groaning in emptiness. She licked her cracked lips and thought briefly about trying to crawl to the kitchen for food. Why bother? A wheezing breath caught in her chest, sending her into a nasty coughing fit. She gasped for air, lungs refusing to cooperate. She struggled against the weight of her limbs, trying to sit up for some sort of relief. She tried to cry out, but her chest was too heavy to move. Tears blurred her vision as the world went dark.

  ***

  The hiker was walking up a steep dirt path in Kisatchie National Forest when it hit him. He passed out and toppled backwards down the hill, his backpack spilling open and scattering the contents about the road. His glass water bottle rolled off the path and down a steep drop-off, shattering in a patch of dried grass. The ground absorbed the water thirstily. The sun caught up with the bottle a few days later and tried to make friends with it; the resulting heat set the parched grass and surrounding plants aflame.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lexington, KY

  “Welcome to Lexington,” Millie read the sign aloud. “Population: dead.” She stared at the red paint sprayed over the original number.

  “Well that’s nice and cheery,” Zach said, readjusting his backpack.

  Millie started forward, walking on the left side of her bike. “We’d better get a move on. The sun will be setting soon.” Millie glanced behind her. “We need to find a place to stay for the night. I don’t want to get caught in the dark in a city full of who knows what.”

  “What, you don’t think I can take on whatever murderous boogiemen are out there?”

  “No,” Millie replied flatly.

  “…I didn’t hear that.” Zach jogged a little to catch up with her. “If I remember right, there’s a bank near the store that we could bunk at. It’s convenient, and defendable should there be any creepy things lurking in the dark.”

  “Please stop talking about that.” Millie looked quickly over her shoulder.

  “What, watched too many zombie movies?” Zach stuck his free arm straight out in front of him and reached for Millie’s head. “Braaaaaaains,” he hissed, making the hair on her neck stand on end.

  “Stop it!” She snapped, face reddening in embarrassment.

  “I was just picking at you…you don’t have to be so wound up all the time.”

  “Zombies don’t exist and they can’t exist. Once someone’s dead, they stay that way. Reanimation isn’t possible for a multitude of reasons.” Millie stated clinically. She grimaced as a chill shot down her back and made her shiver.

  "Well sorry," Zach muttered as they turned onto the next street. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I’m not scared; I’d just rather be factual than believe nonsense,” she said, following him around the next street curve.

  “M’kay, no zombie jokes anymore,” he sighed, rolling his eyes at the sky as he rounded the corner ahead of them. “I w-” he stopped short, feet freezing in place.

  Millie almost bumped into him. “You what?”

  “I think I’m hallucinating.” She followed his line of sight. There, lounging on the lawn of a convenience store, was a tiger. It leered at them, looking none too pleased that its nap had been interrupted.

  “Oh my God… Is that-?” Millie’s mouth fell open slightly as her eyes widened. Zach quickly looked around. Over his left shoulder just past a tire shop was an old antiques store; a brick propped one of the doors open.

  “Ok, there’s an open door behind us about twenty yards away. Let’s just back toward it slowly,” Zach whispered to Millie, taking a few steps back. “And maybe it won’t-” The tiger stood up. It locked eyes with Zach and let out a low, rumbling growl. It lowered its head, lip lifting in a snarl. “New plan. Run,” Zach said. Millie was frozen, eyes locked on the cat. “RUN!” Zach grabbed her wrist and took off, knocking her bike over and pulling her toward the wooden door. The tiger let out a roar and exploded from the ground, each powerful stride bringing him closer to the two. Zach reached the door and threw Millie and himself inside. He knocked the brick out of the way and slammed the door shut just as the tiger propelled off the ground. It smashed the door’s small window, showering Zach with glass and eliciting a scream from Millie. The door began to groan inward under the tiger’s weight as it clawed at the air through the window.

  Millie clambered to her feet and pulled a dazed Zach from the floor toward the back of the shop. “That door isn’t going to hold forever.”

  “I… I don’t…” Suddenly, Zach dropped to the ground, fished to the bottom of his backpack, and gingerly pulled out the revolver he’d stashed. The tiger lunged again at the door, the force knocking a rack of tin signs from their wall display. Zach stood and scanned the shop quickly. An “Employees Only” sign hung above the door behind the counter. “Go in there and lock the door,” he told Millie, pointing at the door. The tiger let out another frustrated roar and pounded against the door.

  “What are you…?” Millie looked from Zach to the gun.

  “What do you think?” The sound of splintering wood echoed in the shop. “Go!” He shoved Millie toward the door and waited until she was inside before picking up the revolver and cocking it. The tiger had framed his head and left front
leg where the window used to be, growling and clawing at Zach. The door wasn’t going to hold much longer. Five bullets. One tiger. Bad aim. Zach took a deep breath and eased toward the snarling beast, gun pointed at it. Gotta get close enough not to miss. His hands shook as he squeezed the trigger.

  Zach reeled from the deafening echo of the shot. His ears rang and his vision was momentarily splattered with tiny black dots. He shook himself out of it as the tiger roared angrily and backed off. It lunged again, knocking the door down. As it leapt toward him, Zach heard himself scream. He squeezed the trigger four times in rapid succession. Wall, wall, shoulder, head. The tiger fell, knocking Zach’s feet out from under him as it slid. Zach yelled and kicked away from the animal, scrambling to his feet. He stumbled backwards and fell over a footstool, landing on the floor against the wall. He fumbled with the revolver, but the tiger didn’t move. The gun clattered to the floor.

  “Zach? Zach!” Millie called from the other side of the door.

  “It’s dead,” Zach managed, voice cracking.

  The door flew open and Millie stood in the doorway for a moment, shocked. Her eyes scanned the scene before her, from the destroyed door to the tiger sprawled on the floor. “Oh my God…” She glanced to her left and saw Zach shaking uncontrollably beside the dead tiger’s outstretched paws, arm tucked awkwardly under him and head leaned against the wall.

  “Zach!” She dropped to her knees and grabbed his shoulders, looking him over for signs of injury. “Are you hurt?” She reached behind his head to feel if any of the bones in his neck were broken. "I thought..." She trailed off as she glanced at the tiger. She suddenly realized that her hand was still firmly planted behind his neck and looked back at him. She dropped her hands and stood awkwardly.