The Park Service 01: The Park Service

by Ryan Winfield

  “I want to talk about it now,” I say, stepping closer.

  “This is hardly the place,” he says, nodding to his sick wife.

  My hands clench in my pockets, the left one gripping my father’s tobacco case.

  “You didn’t seem to have any problem talking about things right after you slaughtered my father.”

  “Enough!” he shouts, leaping to his feet and pointing to the open door behind me. “Get out of here.”

  Hannah tugs his shirt tail. “You don’t need to yell, Daddy. Aubrey’s right, we do need to talk about things.”

  “Your mother is ill,” he says. “This is not the time.”

  Hannah looks at her mother. “She’s dying, Daddy.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes I do. She’s dying just like the others.”

  “That’s no reason to disrespect her here,” he quips. “Or to abandon her life’s work. Now, enough of this damn arguing. This is hardly the place, and it’s certainly not the time.”

  Gloria removes the towel from Mrs. Radcliffe’s head, and dips it again in the bucket, the draining water loud in the heavy silence. I remember her telling me that the Radcliffes took her and her brother Tom in when they were both young, raised them like their own. But wasn’t it the Radcliffes who killed her family? At least the Park Service killed her family, which makes the Radcliffes responsible for it. I was planning to let things be, to wait for the right time to act, but I’m tired of all these lies.

  “Why not now?” I ask. “You worried Gloria will find out that it was you who killed her family? You worried she’ll find out that you and Mrs. Radcliffe are the Park Service?”

  Gloria drops the wet cloth with a splash, her hands frozen above the bucket. When she looks up, she eyes Dr. Radcliffe and cocks her head, her face scrunched up in confusion.

  “That’s what you people do down there?” she says. “You run those evil machines? You hunt people?”

  “That’s an oversimplification,” Dr. Radcliffe says, blinking.

  “I guess murder is too simple a term for you,” I say.

  Gloria shakes her head sadly, mumbling to herself.

  “It’ not possible. Mrs. Radcliffe? It’s just not possible. Is it?” Then she reaches back into the bucket, wrings out the towel, drops it again. “Dr. Radcliffe,” she implores, looking up, “is it true?”

  “I’m leaving,” he says.

  I cross my arms, blocking the door.

  “Nobody’s going anywhere until we settle some things.”

  Dr. Radcliffe turns to me, his fists balled, his face red.

  “You little bastard,” he slurs. “I bring you up here out of that grimy anthill home of yours. I show you our paradise, offer you the world to protect. I give you my beautiful daughter. And you’re gonna tell me when and where I’ll go in my own home?”

  “I’m not yours to give to anybody, Daddy,” Hannah says.

  “You know what I mean,” he dismisses, waving her off.

  “No,” she says, crossing her arms. “I don’t.”

  A strange but welcome confidence rises in me. I remember Jimmy’s mother talking about the butterflies. About needing to let part of ourselves die so another part could live. I decide to let my fear die and my hope live.

  “I know this much,” I say, feeling bolder by the sentence, “we’re setting the people trapped in that grimy anthill free.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” I say. “We’re opening up Holocene II.”

  “We most certainly are not.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “You’re not in charge here anymore.”

  Dr. Radcliffe stands there shaking with rage, wide-eyed and lip twitching. A vein in his forehead swells, snaking its way across his temple. He looks from me to Hannah, as if wanting her to say something, to deny what I’ve just said. She doesn’t—she just looks down. Dr. Radcliffe lifts his chin and looks at the ceiling, as if asking some god above to intervene. Then, with the swiftness of a much younger man, he strides to the bureau, slides the drawer open, pulls out a pistol, and points it at me.

  Hannah’s hand leaps to her mouth, Gloria drops the towel again. I stand alone in front of Dr. Radcliffe, staring at the gun.

  It’s old, really old. The barrel is blued steel with delicate floral engravings that look cheerfully out of place on a weapon, and the wooden handle is stained black so that Dr. Radcliffe’s knuckles look as white as bone clenched upon the grips.

  “Whoa, wait just a minute,” I say, holding up my hands. “There’s no need for a gun here.”

  “So it was you, you little turncoat bastard.”

  “What was me?”

  Dr. Radcliffe waves the pistol at my raised palms, the dark potassium stains there plain as day.

  “You plan to shoot me?” I say, trying to act unimpressed. “Really? You’ve stooped to this? I thought you were a pacifist?”

  “Oh, I am a pacifist,” he says, “but sometimes a peaceful outcome requires violence. I’ll be damned if I’ll let you undo my work because of a lousy sentimentality towards humans.”

  “You’re insane,” I say, shrugging and looking to Hannah and Gloria for support, but they stand mute with blank faces and fear for me in their eyes, so I turn back to Dr. Radcliffe. “Whatever. That old thing probably doesn’t even work.”

  He cocks the hammer back with an audible click.

  “Oh, it works,” he says. “I restored this myself. It’s from the American Civil War, you know. It was good enough for killing traitors then, and it’ll be plenty good enough for killing traitors now. So move out of my way. I’ve got work to do.”

  I look at the gun, my guts growling with fear, and I almost step aside. But then I think about Jimmy’s slaughtered family. I think about my dad murdered in that chair. And I think about all those people trapped down in Holocene II. A strange feeling comes over me, maybe courage, maybe something else, but I know I won’t be able to live if I let him kill any more people.

  I spread my arms, blocking the door.

  “I’m not letting you leave here with that key.”

  “What key?” he asks.

  “I know what you’re going to do,” I say. “You’re going to flood Holocene II. I won’t let you.”

  He shakes his head and lets out a laugh.

  “Why is courage wasted on the young?”

  Then he steps forward, leading with the pistol pointed at my chest. I stand firm. He pauses just feet from me.

  “I’m giving you five seconds to step aside and then I’m shooting you dead.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I say, “you’re nothing but a murderer anyway. Don’t even bother counting because I’m not moving.”

  I look him in the eyes and hold his stare. He frowns, blinks three times. The room is silent. His fingers tighten on the grip, his wrist muscles tense. Then Mrs. Radcliffe lets out a moan. And not just any moan, but a sick bellowing moan that fills the room and fades away, leaving all heads turned toward the bed.

  Hannah thinks faster than I do—

  She rushes up and grabs her father’s arm, pushing the gun down toward the floor. He jerks free, whipping her face with the barrel, and she lurches back with a bloody gash on her chin.

  I jump to her side and catch her in my arms.

  Dr. Radcliffe steps toward the open door, but not before Gloria grabs his belt from behind.

  He wheels around with the pistol and fires.

  Gloria falls to her knees, her hand caught in Dr. Radcliffe’s belt, her arm wrapped around his waist.

  Kneeling there in the fatal silence following the shot, she has the appearance of some shamed subject hugging her king’s legs and begging for his forgiveness. But it’s he who should be begging for hers. A red hole appears in the back of her yellow dress, growing as the fabric wicks the gushing blood.

  The gun barrel smokes.

  Hannah screams.

  Dr. Radcliffe staggers backwards, Gloria’s head slumping limply agains
t his legs. Then he turns to rush from the room and drags her body several feet, her hand clutched in a death grip around his belt. He panics, making little choking sounds as he waves the pistol at Hannah and me, struggling to loosen his belt buckle with his free hand. I move toward him, but Hannah pulls me back, tears welling already in her eyes. He steps into the hall, his belt slipping free of its loops and falling to the floor with a soft thud where it lays gripped by Gloria’s corpse.

  Hannah releases me and rushes to Gloria, sinking to the floor and gathering her head in her lap.

  I race after Dr. Radcliffe.

  The house is shadowed now, the sun behind the roofline, but the grounds outside are washed in bright light, and I have an odd feeling of running past windows to some other world.

  I plunge downstairs and into the dark basement just as the safe room door is closing, the wedge of light shrinking on the tile floor. Reaching out as I run, I snatch Hannah’s microscope from the table and dive for the safe room, sliding across the tile floor and thrusting out the scope and wedging it in the door.

  “Damn stupid kid,” Dr. Radcliffe mumbles from inside.

  He kicks at the microscope, attempting to dislodge it, but it doesn’t budge, and he stubs his toe and curses with pain, his shadowed silhouette hopping on one foot in the thin sliver of light leaking out onto the tile floor.

  “Son of a bitch!” he shouts.

  Noticing a fire extinguisher on the lab wall, I jerk it free and stick the nozzle in the crack of the door and blast the panic room full of white smoke. Then I hook my arm through the crack and slap blindly at the wall, feeling for the green button. I hit it and the door swings open.

  I rush inside the smoke-filled room toward the sound of Dr. Radcliffe’s coughing, catching him just as he’s reaching into the panel that hides the doomsday switches. I smash his head with the fire extinguisher, a hollow ping echoing in the small room. Then I grip his collar, walk him to the door, and toss him out into the lab. I smash the keypad off the wall with the extinguisher, and chuck the extinguisher at Dr. Radcliffe where he lies bellowing on the floor. Then I kick the microscope free from the floor and palm the red button that closes the door.

  It all happens so fast. I lean against the wall breathing hard and coughing myself. The smoke swirls, clears some. The key is in the switch panel, its chain dangling over the desk edge. The panel lid is open. Did he do it? I look to the monitors—

  The lake is peaceful and calm. The Foundation cavern is hazy red in the smoke of Eden’s fire. The Holocene II Transfer Station is awake and working, loaders moving across the floor carrying pallets, men stacking supplies into open elevators.

  I lean forward and look down. Both toggles are untouched with the safety covers in place. I let out my breath and laugh.

  “You’re dead, you punk!” He pounds on the door.

  I slap the red button again, just in case. Then I search the safe room floor. No gun here. That means he still has it.

  The pounding intensifies.

  “You’re all dead, you got that?” he screams. “You punk! You think I don’t have other ways to flood you parasites out? You think I’m that stupid?”

  Then he stops. Then he’s gone.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Wave

  Smoke sucking through the ceiling vent.

  My hammering heart slows, my breathing relaxes.

  I look back at the monitors and see a terrible sight—

  The boat speeds across the lake toward the dam, piloted by Gloria’s brother Tom, Dr. Radcliffe sitting behind him with the gun trained on his head. I replay his parting words:

  “You think I don’t have other ways to flood you parasites out? You think I’m that stupid?”

  He’s going down to the Foundation to flood Holocene II. The moment that it hits me, I know what I need to do. My eyes jump to the toggles, remembering his doomsday directions: Phase 1 floods Holocene II, Phase 2 floods the Foundation and triggers the explosion that sets off the tsunami. The only way to stop Dr. Radcliffe from getting to the Foundation and flooding Holocene II, is to trip the Phase 2 toggle, detonating the wave. That must be why he brought Tom along. It’s another moral dilemma from the doctor of doom himself.

  Tap-tap-tap—

  Someone’s knocking on the safe room door.

  “Aubrey? Are you in there?”

  Oh, no, Hannah! How had I forgotten about Hannah? And Jimmy, too. I palm the green button, opening the door. Hannah rushes into my arms. When I pull her away and look into her eyes, they’re red from crying, but determined.

  “Daddy’s on the boat,” she says. “We have to stop him.”

  “I know,” I say, nodding to the monitor where the boat speeds toward the dam. “You have any ideas?”

  She looks past me to the switches.

  “There’s only one way.”

  “You know about the wave?”

  “Of course I know,” she says. “My mother didn’t raise me to be a dummy.”

  “What about your mother?”

  Hannah’s face drops. “She’ll be dead soon either way.”

  “What about Tom?”

  She frowns.

  “Collateral damage.”

  “That’s sounds like something your dad would say.”

  “I know,” she says. “But we don’t have a choice.”

  Looking at the monitor, I watch the boat speed toward the dam, skipping across the lake, getting smaller by the minute. I look back to Hannah and cup her beautiful face in my hands, wiping blood away from the gash on her chin.

  “Are you sure?”

  “We need to hurry,” she says.

  “Okay, we’ll do it. But here’s the deal. You run to Gloria’s and get Jimmy. Have him take you up to the bluff where I first saw you. Don’t tell him why or he’ll want to come down here.”

  “No way,” she says, shaking her head. “You go get Jimmy, I’ll stay here and pull the switch.”

  “No deal. These are my people down there, Hannah. And I need to stay behind and do it.”

  “What if you can’t get out in time?”

  “I’ll get out in time.”

  “You promise.”

  “I promise. Now please hurry. Find Jimmy, and get to high ground. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  I take her in my arms and kiss her.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, pulling free. “I’ll see you in a few minutes on the bluff.”

  She wipes a tear from my cheek.

  “Not if I see you first.”

  I watch her run across the dark lab, her silhouette rising against the rectangle of light coming down the stairs. She stops, hesitates, and turns.

  “Aubrey …”

  “You don’t have to say it.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”

  “Yes, I do. Now go on and get my friend to safety.”

  She laughs, shaking her red hair and flashing me a smile, then she turns and disappears up the stairs.

  The minutes crawl by, the boat crawls across the monitor toward the dam. I have no way of knowing when Hannah and Jimmy are safe, so I wait. I wait and I watch the screens.

  Hazy red smoke fills the Foundation cavern, and I know the scientists are down there still struggling to put out the fire Jimmy and I set. The Holocene II Transfer Station is dimmed for rest hours now, the machines parked, the men gone back to their living quarters. On the third screen, the sun glints off the lacquered boat approaching the dam, the monolith of stone hanging precariously above it to the right.

  I look at the toggles tucked away in their panel, violent in their simplicity, only their clear-plastic safety covers between fatal disasters for all three of these separate screens.

  I plan to leave Phase 1 untouched, protecting Holocene II. I’ll toggle Phase 2, flooding the Foundation and setting off the blast that will free the landslide and raise the wave. I’ll twist the key free, deactivating the panel, and race for the bluff. />
  I just hope I can make it in time.

  Lifting the safety cover, I slide my trembling finger over the Phase 2 toggle, the plastic smooth and cold. I look in the monitor at the receding boat, an outline of Tom’s torso barely visible at the wheel.

  “I’m really sorry Tom.”

  I look in the other monitor at the hazy Foundation cavern where two white-coated scientists stand on the path observing the smoke rising from Eden.

  “I’m sorry for you guys, too. Even though you deserve it.”

  I close my eyes, preparing to pull the switch. I’m reminded of the last question on my Foundation test, seemingly so very long ago now—an impossible choice between sealing off a lower level to save Holocene II, or letting fate take its course by doing nothing. I remember closing my eyes and making a blind choice, a choice I now know was the wrong one. I think about Mrs. Radcliffe lying in her bed, dying but not dead yet. I think about the scientists down in their cavern. I think about Tom driving that boat with a gun to his head. I open my eyes.

  The steps are steep, my feet heavy as lead.

  I cross the living room and step out onto the terrace. The water is calm, not a ripple on its surface. Far across the lake, the boat is just a distant speck of color against the gray face of the dam. I’m numb and unsure. I’m sad. I don’t know whether I made the right choice or not. I doubt I’ll ever know.

  Just as I’m turning away, a silent puff of powder bursts from the mountainside. Confused, I stand and watch. Several seconds pass and then a terrible explosion reaches my ears, and the granite monolith slides down the mountain in a mammoth tumble of dust and broken stone.

  But I didn’t touch anything, I didn’t throw the switch!

  The boat arcs left, turning away from the landslide.

  A gray wall of water rises up—way, way up.

  The wooden boat lifts, tossed like a tiny fallen leaf riding the monster surf, and then it disappears forever beneath the crushing whitecap break, rolling and thundering as it rises into the sky high enough to hide the entire dam from my view.

  I’m mesmerized by its magnificence, frozen by its horror, and in the sheer gray face of the advancing wave, I see a mirrored silhouette of the bluff behind me, the tips of pine trees, the mountains beyond, as if the wave itself were a canvas upon which the setting sun is painting the landscape ahead, recording it there one final time before the wall of water rolls on and devours it forever.