In addition, Wesley took it upon himself to learn how the generator worked, and in no time had the electricity running. He also started fiddling with the ham radio equipment in what he was now calling "the radio room." He got the main console powered up and searched across all the bands, trying to get a signal. He was sure that eventually people like us would stumble upon similar equipment, which they would use to attempt to communicate with others in a feeble attempt to regroup. Civilization might be gone, but the satellites we'd launched into space were still up there orbiting the planet. "We have to be aware of our own kind," he told us one night over dinner. "We have to know what's out there, what's going on in the rest of the world." I agreed. It was better to know how the rest of the world was faring than to not know.
On July 2nd Wesley and I drove into town in the Jeep. We saw no primitives, no signs of human life. In addition to getting supplies such as food—mostly canned and dry goods—first aid supplies, household goods, and more weapons and ammunition, we also found a couple sets of two-way radios. "So we can communicate better on trips like this, and around the grounds," Wesley explained. He also scooped up a CB radio kit and several books on short-wave and ham radio. I found a couple of medical books, some kids books for Emily, some DVDs to try out on the entertainment center in the great room (might as well take advantage of the way our benefactor powered his property), among other things. Our last stop was the real estate office where we searched for other references to the cabin and destroyed those we found.
On July 4th we had our own Independence Day celebration. Martin grilled hotdogs and hamburgers from the supply that was still in our benefactor's freezer. Emily wanted to play with sparklers, which Tracy and I forbade. "We don't want to start a fire," I told her. Emily didn't like it, and we were probably going a little overboard, but it was a different world now.
That night as the darkness crept in, we watched Emily chase fireflies. Lori, Tracy, and I stepped out to join her, running through the fields, laughing and chasing each other around while Wesley stood watch on the deck. Later we all congregated on the back deck, and as Emily reclined with Tracy on a La-Z-Boy, Martin summed up what I think all of us were feeling. "Over two hundred years ago, people in this country sacrificed their lives for their independence. How could their descendents fuck it up so quickly?"
None of us had an answer for that.
Two days later we came up with a basic plan of survival for the coming months and years. All of us had some kind of watch patrol, and that went on twenty-four seven. Our individual strengths and talents were utilized for other things. Martin admitted to being an amateur chef and was deemed the house cook while Tracy, who once had multiple first aid certifications in her youth and spent some corporate time at an HMO, was deemed the house MD. Of course the guys we had were pretty able bodied and strong, so we all joined in for any kind of manual labor that needed to be done. Lori had been into gardening in her past life and she took it upon herself to take stock of the surrounding vegetation and draw up a list of what she wanted to cultivate next spring. "Maybe next trip into town you can pick this stuff up in the greenhouse section of Wal-Mart," she said, handing me a list of herbs and vegetables. No problem.
There was no real official leader. With only six of us in our group, one of us being a child under the age of five, we all pretty much fell in to our duties and took charge of other things. I think the only defacto "government" type of meeting we had was one night a few days after July 4th when we agreed to assume all non-primitive humans were hostile. Wesley clarified things by saying, "Anybody comes across here, we try to take them peacefully. If they're not peaceful, we kill them."
"What do we do with them if they are peaceful?" I asked. "Tie them up and chain them to the posts in the basement?"
"Yes," Wesley said. He wasn't kidding. "I've participated in interrogations. I'll be able to tell if they're telling me the truth. We find out what they know and we'll use whatever information we learn to base our next decision on."
It made sense, especially in our neck of the woods where the human population seemed to be nonexistent. I had a feeling that if James Goodman were still with us, he would have been the lone dissenting voice in that decision. That last gasp of good old-fashioned liberalism straining to hold on.
Meanwhile, every day, Wesley spent time in the radio room poring over books, twiddling knobs and switches, teaching himself the ins and outs of ham radio. We'd already tried the computers and failed at connecting with the Internet. I always wondered how this guy would have connected to the Internet way out in the middle of bumfuck anyway without a landline. I asked Wesley how this was possible one night and he pointed out the small satellite dish on the roof as possibly being military.
Tracy was beginning a home schooling program for Emily. Lori assisted when possible. Still grieving over Eric's loss, Tracy would often retreat to our suite and not emerge for hours. One day I went up there to see if she was okay and she was crying hysterically. She was clutching his baby pictures in her lap. "Go away! Please, leave me alone!" I retreated, afraid for her sanity, realizing that she'd never get over the loss of her firstborn child. The few times I tried to bring it up to her she'd say, "I can't talk about it right now," and turn away.
Lori Smith became my sounding board, my personal therapist, for all things concerning Tracy and Eric. "She just needs time to heal," she told me one afternoon. We were sitting on the back deck, watching Emily play with her Barbie dollhouse on the lawn below. "Right now Emily is her world. She's keeping herself together because she has Emily. If she didn't...even though she loves you, I think she'd be in worse shape than she is now."
Lori was right. All I could do was try to be supportive and learn to read Tracy's emotions. I cared for Emily as much as I could during those weeks, and we allowed Emily to run free and live her childhood as much as we could that summer. I played with her frequently. There were afternoons when Emily and I would run in the fields and I'd pick her up and swing her by her hands, listening as she laughed. Then I'd tickle the soft skin of her belly and she'd giggle hysterically. It was times like that when I forgot everything that had happened, when I wished I could envelop Tracy and Emily into a world of endless fields where we'd play and be childlike, without a care in the world. I felt so good about giving that to Emily, giving her this opportunity to be a child, that if I could die with happiness that would be my crowning achievement: making my little girl feel happy. Alive. Cared for. Loved.
Those feelings solidified for me late at night when I'd creep into our bedroom on bare feet, Emily nestled against Tracy, both of them fast asleep. I'd pause for a moment, watching them sleep so peacefully, so calmly, and then I'd cry for a world our child would never have...a life she'd never have or experience. I'd cry for her future, for the future of others, the world.
But despite that, we soldiered on.
And we saw no primitives.
Or normal people for that matter.
I began to settle into the notion that perhaps it would be okay if we were the last sane people on earth. We would do okay on our own. We would survive.
Besides, if there were other people somewhere, say in larger metropolitan areas, who hadn't been killed, surely many of them had banded together in their own civilizations. The old system of government would be gone and, as we'd discussed before, tyrants would emerge and rule by force and fear. Surely we were better off by ourselves, far away from the possibility of living under such harsh conditions.
There was no way to find out if this was happening. And we had no desire to send somebody out to scout outlying areas and report back if this was happening.
Besides, the primitives would eventually die out, right?
And then one night in late July, as I was preparing to head upstairs to my suite, Wesley called me over to the radio room.
It seems he'd made contact with somebody.
Our world changed again that night.
Eleven
Tracy and Emily w
ere in our quarters, already in bed, and I was downstairs in the living room thinking how easily Emily was adapting to our new life here, and how I was going to get Tracy out of her depression over losing Eric, when Wesley called me over.
"What's up?" I walked over to the radio room, rifle slung over my shoulder nonchalantly.
Wesley's features were grave. "Come here. Listen."
The radio equipment was on, and as I stepped into the room I heard, amid the hum of static, a human voice. "...so wherever you are, please...if you hear this, do whatever you can to seek shelter..."
"What the—?" I began.
Wesley held up a hand, motioning me to silence. We sat and stood in that radio room transfixed by what we were hearing.
"—I've seen this thing and it is exactly...no it is the thing they've been drawing ever since the world changed. It's an actual being! It's fucking real, man, and this... thing...this demon...it's awake now and its always been with us, it was just sleeping, lying dormant for thousands of years because those who once believed in it and worshipped it eventually died out and it was their belief in it that sustained it, that kept it alive, but when they died it died and now they're back, they're back with a vengeance and there's more of them so now it's stronger, much stronger than ever before and it's roaming the earth, gathering all its worshippers under its power and those of us it finds it...it...ah, shit man, I don't know how else to describe it but...it...it possesses them! It's like it gets inside them and turns them into things that are even worse than the cavemen! And the cavemen fucking bow before it and—"
"Am I hearing this right, Wesley?" I asked. I suddenly felt weak. I slid the rifle from my shoulder and leaned it against the wall, stock down. "Please tell me this is a joke."
"No joke," Wesley said. I've never seen him look so scared since this whole mess started.
If I thought the end of the world started that day when everything started falling apart, when society went awry, I was wrong. As terrible as that had been, as awful as it was to fight to stay alive, to endure what we did in fighting the primitives, escaping Los Angeles, coming across more bands of primitives and fighting them off, dealing with Heather's closet racism and her and James's deaths, coming here to this secluded cabin seemed like a glimmer of hope. There was light at the end of the tunnel and we were heading toward it.
Now that light was growing dim.
It was being closed off.
The guy on the radio was crying now. "I've been holed up in this shithole for three days without food and I haven't seen a single real person in over a month! The primitives have found me and they've been gathering outside and...I don't think they know about my radio equipment, otherwise I think they would have smashed it, but I had to take the risk, had to see if I could contact anybody else alive and normal and warn them and—"
"There's no way he can tell where we are, right?" I asked Wesley, feeling the unease grip the pit of my stomach.
"No," Wesley said. "Only way ham radio operators can tell the location of those receiving is if you answer back with your call sign prefix. I haven't heard this guy give his, and I'm guessing he has no idea what it is. Those days are long over."
The guy stopped talking and was crying on the air now.
"So you don't know where he is?" I asked.
"No."
"Can you respond to him?"
Wesley looked at me. "Think we should?"
"Yeah." The burning need to reach out to this guy, to establish more human contact, was strong. I think Wesley felt it too. "Just don't give away our location."
Wesley nodded, leaned toward the console, picked up the microphone and depressed the button. "I read you, partner," he said. "I read you loud and clear."
The sobs stopped abruptly. The guy had obviously heard Wesley.
Wesley tried again. "Please...we're here...talk to us..."
"Oh my God, there's somebody out there?" the guy said. He sounded halfway on the verge of shouting in joy.
"We're out here alright, buddy. You can count on that."
The guy started babbling again. "Have you seen it? I don't know where you are, but if you've seen it please—"
I signaled for Wesley to make sure the guy couldn't hear us talking. Wesley nodded, and I whispered. "I'm going to wake up Tracy and get Lori and Martin down here."
Wesley nodded and I headed out of the radio room.
Lori and Martin were still up in their respective rooms. When I told them the news, they headed downstairs as I went to my suite and gently shook Tracy awake. "Wesley came across a guy broadcasting on the radio," I said quietly. "We're talking to him now."
At the sound of this, Tracy was up. She was dressed in a pair of panties and a T-shirt and followed me out of our suite to the stairs. "How'd he find him?"
I quickly explained what I knew and by the time we got back down to the radio room Lori and Martin were grouped around the console, listening with grave expressions as the guy went through his previous monologue. "—this thing fucking flies, okay! It's got wings, and it flies. I am not shitting you man, I've seen it with my own eyes!"
I saw Lori and Tracy exchange a glance as we entered the room. For the first time I noticed that Martin had his handgun with him.
"How often have you seen it?" Wesley asked.
"For the past...I don't know...two, maybe three weeks."
"Where do you see it?"
"Outside, man! It's fucking outside, in the...generally in the hours between seven and nine at night."
"And it doesn't see you?"
"No. At least I don't think it does. It's always far away. At least a good mile, maybe two miles."
"So how do you know it looks like the drawings we see everywhere if it's that far?"
"Because it fucking turns its head my way and I can see it!" It sounded like the guy, whoever he was, was beginning to get a little irritated by the questioning. "I know it sounds crazy man, but this thing is big, okay? I mean, big big. Like bigger than a fucking jet. I've been watching it through binoculars, through my telescope, and it's far enough away that it doesn't see or sense me, but I can see it clear as day and it's fucking monstrous!"
"Which way is it going when you see it?" Martin asked.
"It's flying north to south in a zigzagging direction heading west," the man said.
Wesley glanced at the rest of us quickly and turned back to the console. "The rest of our group is here now," he said. "You've already met Martin, Lori, and myself. I'd like you to meet David and Tracy."
For a minute I was stunned that Wesley had identified himself to the guy—why do something like that? As I was trying to shake myself out of that shock, Tracy mumbled a quick hello. I think the guy said hi to her, then I heard him identify himself. "My name's Stuart. Stuart David Schiff. My call sign's WB3SDS. What's yours?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that Stuart because I don't know," Wesley said calmly. "We just kinda came across the equipment we're talking to you on and I taught myself the ropes. I'm not sure of the previous owner's call sign."
"That's okay," Stuart said. "Can you tell me where you are?"
"Can't do that either, partner," Wesley said quickly. "No offense, but call it security."
Stuart seemed to get the message. "Okay, yeah, I can dig that. Sure."
"No need for you to give us your location," Wesley said. "I know you're somewhere east of the Mississippi judging by your call sign."
"Yeah, that's right," Stuart said. "You really think anybody else could be listening in?"
"Better to be safe than sorry later."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." The guy paused a moment. "I haven't seen anybody in weeks. Probably a month. Plenty of those crazy people...those that have lost their minds, but nobody like us."
"We call them primitives," I said.
"Primitives," Stuart said. "Yeah, I can see that. Like cavemen. It fits."
"You said something earlier about this thing, this thing that flies...that it was possessing people," W
esley said. "What do you mean?"
"I live downtown, okay? On the corner of First Street and Commonwealth. I'm on the top floor, and my apartment is in the corner. I see a lot from up here and what I saw...shit, it's hard to explain."
"Just take it slow and do your best," Wesley said.
"Okay." Stuart took a deep breath and took the plunge. "About a week, maybe a week and a half after everything went to shit, I was looking out through my telescope. I used to do that before, just to look at the stars and stuff, but when all this happened it became more of a habit in order to survive, you know what I mean? So I can check to see if shit was happening, or about to happen. Eventually most of the chaos died down and the primitives, or whatever you call them, headed uptown. So anyway...I'm checking things out, and it's around twilight. And I see a bunch of those...primitives or whatever...I see them about five blocks north of me toward the business district. There's like a town square in that area, and they're gathered around there. At first I thought it was the National Guard or something and I got all excited, but then I saw it was them...they were all naked, some were wearing like...I don't know...fur coats or something, while others were partially dressed. And they were dancing around in front of this wall. Then...one of them...he was like...the leader I guess. He points to the sky and they all raise their hands like you do in church. I could hear them from where I was...I had the windows open...and it was like...I couldn't quite understand what they were sayin' 'cause it was all gibberish, but it just...it just felt like they were prayin' to something."
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