by Justin Bell
“We mean, some of the technology used in the device isn’t technology that we’ve known North Korea to have experience with. We believe they likely had help.”
“Help? From who?”
“We’re not prepared to speak to that. But if our suppositions are correct, we could be talking about more than one foreign party instigating a calculated and concerted effort to destabilize the United States. It would be an act of global warfare.”
Liu didn’t reply. He wasn’t entirely sure where this discussion was going or why he was in the middle of it.
“What Rita’s trying to say is that we’ll need all the help we can get,” said Agent Swift. “We’d like you to join our team.”
“Excuse me?”
“Effective immediately, we’ll be starting a Task Force to investigate and react to this new threat, and we want you to lead the team, Agent Liu. You’ve had exposure to the threat already and have proven that you’re capable of incident response. We need you.”
Agent Liu let it all sink in. Two hours ago it was just another day. Just another rooftop surveillance mission in the pre-dawn hours. Life had a funny way of sneaking up.
“Just tell me where to sign up,” he said. He only hoped he knew what he was signing up for.
***
It had become habit more than anything else; a habit that Phil knew was foolish, but still he plucked the phone from the wall mount and punched in Lydia’s dorm number. Once he received the busy circuits message, he dialed her cell number and got the same result. Clicking the phone back in its place, he walked to his smart phone and checked the charge on that as well. The battery was now fully charged, being plugged into power almost since they arrived, but cell service was still non-existent, and the lack of Wi-Fi, or any Internet at all, felt like an insult.
Phil had never gotten along all that well with Rhonda’s parents as they were very much the natural rural types and didn’t have any of the same interests as he did. Whenever there were family gatherings, which didn’t happen often, Phil felt very much like a third wheel, not that he really enjoyed talking with them anyway.
Rhonda’s dad especially was all about living off the land and off the grid, and Phil was about as on the grid as someone can possibly be. He never could appreciate the bizarre ingrained suspicion that seemed evident with both of Rhonda’s parents, two people who were more than willing to sacrifice convenience for independence, a state of mind that felt more foreign to Phillip than Latin. So, of course, it only seemed natural that the place they would be stuck in during potentially the worst catastrophe in United States history would also be completely disconnected from reality.
A microcosm of my life, Phil thought.
“Dad, you said you were going to play,” Max said. He sat at a card table set up in the center of the living room, the knee-high coffee table pushed off to one side. Brad sat across from him and Winnie, staring blankly at the television which wasn’t even turned on.
“I’m coming, guys,” Phil said. “What did we find?”
The table was filled with a board and scattered game pieces, and as he emerged into the living room, he spotted the familiar colors of the Monopoly board.
“You need to tell us how to play,” Max said.
“How old are you?” Phil asked with a chuckle. “Thirteen, right? You’ve never played Monopoly?”
“Do we even own Monopoly?” Max asked. “You’re the one who raised us, pops.”
Phillip shook his head, chuckling. He worked his way over to a folding chair and sat himself down. He ran his hands over his blue jeans, which stretched tight over thick thighs—far thicker than they’d ever been. Phil had always been naturally fit, blessed with a metabolism that burned calories as quickly as he consumed them, a genetic trait that Rhonda never made him forget.
But something had changed in the past year or so, and he figured he hit some magic age where his body just decided he no longer deserved this magic bullet, and suddenly his waist and legs had started to slowly grow. He’d refused to buy new blue jeans, though, and now the pants dug tight into his waist and strained to wrap around his thighs.
When they got back home, he’d have to suck it up and head to the mall.
When they got back home. Could he even say that? Did he dare say if they got back home? And would the mall still be there when they arrived?
He’d heard of five cities so far: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, and Las Vegas. They’d tried and failed in Boston. Were there others that they just didn’t know about? Denver? Houston? New York? Was anyone in the country safe anymore?
“Dad, wake up,” Max said.
“Show some patience, kid,” Phil snapped back, a little harsher than he intended. He’d drifted off and he knew it, and his son didn’t deserve to be yelled at for it, but more and more often these days he couldn’t help himself.
“Patience. Right, dad,” Max said. “We’ll just sit here nice and patient while we wait for the radioactive cloud to float over and melt our faces off. Perfect.”
Bradley drew in a breath. “Max,” he whispered. “That’s not really going to happen, is it?”
“No, no it’s not,” Phil interrupted, glaring at his son. Bradley was very smart for his age and even though he was a year younger than Max, he was in the same grade. The result was a kid who was academically on the same level, but emotionally still more of a child in some ways. Sometimes Phil thought that was what drew him to Max. Max was like the cooler, older brother who actually didn’t mind spending time with him. He doubted many of the other private school kids had that same attitude. It helped that nobody really wanted to hang out with Max, either.
Where had they gone wrong with their son? He'd asked himself that frequently over the past few years especially, as the list of Max's offenses inside and outside of school continued to grow. They'd raised him with the same parenting philosophy they'd raised Winnie with, and while yes, she had her teenager moments of head scratching psychosis, she'd never been caught stealing from the student council cash box or barred from going into the local convenience store for shoplifting alcohol. Those were just the two most recent accusations and Phil knew for every one he was aware of, there were probably five that he didn't know about.
Max was only thirteen, but he had the devious mind of a seasoned adult, something that both impressed and petrified his father.
“Okay,” Phil said, leaning over the table. “You roll the dice to move around the board, and the object is to make more money than anyone else. You can buy property to charge rent, and when you land on these spots, you need to collect that card.”
Both boys stared at him with blank, startling confusion in their eyes. How could they not know how to play Monopoly? Had he really not taught any of his kids that game in his nearly nineteen years of being a parent?
Come to think of it, what had he taught them? Parenting had always been more Rhonda’s bag than his. This fact wore on him then, in a way it really hadn’t before. Phil had always been content in his ignorance of the intricacies of what was going on in his children’s lives and who was teaching them to do what. Whenever Rhonda relayed a complaint about Max’s behavior, he’d gone through the requisite motions of sitting the boy down and talking to him, but what good had that truly done?
“Jeez, dad, are you going to show them or just keep sitting there?”
Phil turned and Winnie was standing from the couch, rolling her eyes. She pulled out a fourth folding chair and sat down in it, her light weight sagging the front of the chair only slightly when she leaned forward. Phil smiled an awkward smile and withdrew from the table, patting Winnie on the back.
“I need to go see what your mother is up to. After this game we’re going to head down into town and see what we can find out. Mind showing them the ropes?”
“Yeah, sure, dad,” Winnie replied. She turned towards the two boys and began walking them through the paces of playing the game.
Phil walked past the entrance to the kitc
hen and into the hallway. He clenched his fists, frustrated with himself, as he thought about this game and how it represented a large chunk of his parenting life. He meant well. He wanted to be a good father, but life just seemed to keep getting in the way of it. Looking at the cabin, he remarked on the wood decor, which was visible everywhere, though Phil couldn’t honestly tell if it was real wood or some kind of faux enhancements to add to the forced rustic feel of the small home. He stopped for a moment and looked at a framed photograph hanging on the wall.
The photo appeared to be of the Kruellers, Rhonda’s parents, as they stood out in the wilderness, flanked by the trunks of countless trees. They both wore camouflage, and as he squinted at the picture, he thought it looked like Gerard, her father, might have had some kind of gun hanging from a shoulder strap. It had never occurred to him that they might be hunters, but this picture certainly seemed to confirm that. He glanced over towards the bathroom and saw the doorway stood open and there was no sign of Rhonda inside. Stepping forward over the threadbare hall carpet, he glanced in the first bedroom on the left, but it was also empty.
“Rhonda?” he asked. The only reply was the dull, muffled echo of his own voice. Across the hall a second hall branched off towards the master bedroom, and he stepped down it, past the master bath and looked into the largest bedroom in the place. The bed sat made and two dressers lined the far wall. Nestled in the back rear corner was some kind of tall, locked cabinet. A book shelf was in the near corner, each flanking a wide window that looked out into the trees.
Through the window the railing of the back porch was visible, but Phil couldn’t see his wife there, either.
Heading back out to the hallway, he quickly scanned both of the remaining bedrooms, and when they were both confirmed uninhabited, he walked back down the hall into the kitchen, then towards the front door.
Halting for just a moment, he picked up the phone and diligently tried both of Lydia’s numbers again, but received the same message of denial.
He pushed through the front door out onto the porch and called his wife’s name one more time, and once again, heard no response. Phil looked up into the sky, the dull gunmetal clouds of mid-afternoon drifting apart to reveal pale blue and the gravity of what had happened today hit him again. Was it really already mid-afternoon? The entire morning had passed like fog on the breeze, their heads buried inside this haze of shock, confusion, and fear. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d sat on the couch and watched television for hours on end, but they just had, while either he or Rhonda stood to try calling Lydia with a kind of perverse, unconscious rhythm. Pavlov’s dial tone.
Nuclear weapons had exploded in the United States. Within their borders. Hundreds of thousands of people were likely dead or dying. Radioactive particles were in the air, being carried by the wind to whoknew where. Sweat pooled on his forehead and his heart skipped, cramping his chest. He pressed a palm to where his heart was and closed his eyes, letting the steady rhythm convince himself that he was still alive.
Regulating his breathing, Phil rounded the corner of the cabin and followed the bent porch around to the backside of the house, then stopped, looking curiously at what he saw.
At the rear of the house, a slanted metal entryway was pressed tight against the wall, apparently leading down to a basement. As Phil watched, one of the metal doors swung slowly up and around and opened, and a leg stepped up from the stairway leading back to ground level.
“Who’s there?” Phil asked, taking a step back.
Rhonda’s face emerged from beyond the metal door, her eyes wide in surprise. “Phil? What are you doing back here?” she asked.
She finished stepping out of the basement, and Phil noticed a large canvas duffel bag strapped to her left shoulder, the narrow strap straining with the weight of whatever was inside. Rhonda dropped the bag on the grass and turned, easing the door of the basement back shut with a flat, metal clang.
“What are you doing?” Phil asked. “Where did you go?”
“Just down into the basement,” she replied, though her eyes shifted as she replied.
“What's in the basement?”
“Just some supplies. First aid, canned goods, that kind of thing. My parents have always prided themselves in their preparation.”
“I'm sure old Gerald was a fine Boy Scout.”
“Eagle Scout, actually,” she replied. “But let’s try to avoid snide remarks about my parents for once, okay?”
“I didn't mean anything.”
Rhonda ran her hands through her hair and sighed. She knew they were both on edge and their snapping at each other wasn’t going to improve anything. “Let’s just figure out when we're going into town. We've got more important things to do than argue.”
She hooked her fingers around the strap of her bag and hefted it to her shoulder as she turned away from him.
He followed her towards the front door, stepping up on to the porch as she thumbed the door handle, but in mid-stride he halted, drawing back.
“Rhonda?” he asked quietly as she creaked open the metal storm door.
“What, Phil?” she asked, at this point unable to hide the frustration in her voice over what she anticipated would be another forthcoming argument. It was a narrow, dull blade cutting every word she spoke.
“Do you know him?”
Rhonda dropped her hand, letting the duffel slide over her arm and onto the porch with a metallic clatter. She turned her head towards the driveway and spotted him then, walking towards them, boots crunching on loose stone. He passed just behind the parked minivan, walking up the driveway from the road.
“Go inside, Phil,” she said quietly. “Go inside and tell the kids to stay in there with you.”
“Who is that?” Phil asked.
Rhonda turned towards him, the color draining from her face. A look that Phil couldn’t remember seeing on her face ever before.
It was a look of abject, unfiltered fear.
***
Phil remained on the porch and watched the man make his slow approach. From this distance he could see the unkempt mop of brown hair and a layer of what looked to be nearly month-old stubble etched across a young face underneath. His skin was tanned bronze, a worn and ragged layer stretched tight over his muscular frame. A red flannel shirt was draped over his broad shoulders and was unbuttoned on the front, revealing the contours of his bare chest and stomach underneath, and in spite of what Phil guessed was a rigorous diet of beer and red meat, he appeared to be in relatively good shape.
Like the shirt, his pale and worn jeans were only the vaguest shade of blue, both knees torn, and much of the fabric stained by various materials Phil didn’t want to consider. With every step, the man appeared less and less human and more and more a walking, breathing stereotype—the kind of guy you expected to be living out in the woods in a house with no running water, power, or Wi-Fi.
“Can we help you?” Rhonda asked in a voice far sweeter than her earlier glare had dictated. She had left the canvas bag resting on the porch and strode down the short stairway to the front yard. She looked vulnerable out there, alone and exposed, especially facing off against this strange man who apparently found it appropriate to aimlessly wander up a private driveway.
The man didn’t respond, though he did stop walking, and instead tilted his head somewhat as if in curious regard of this bizarre creature who might actually communicate with him.
Phil took a few steps towards Rhonda, halting halfway down the stairs and looking past her shoulder at the man.
“Excuse me?” Rhonda said, her voice a touch louder than before. “I said, can we help you?”
He placed his hands on his hips and looked at her again, more closely than Phil was comfortable with.
“What are you doing here?” he asked finally, his voice clear in the surrounding silence.
“I feel like I should be asking you that,” Rhonda replied.
“This is the old Krueller place, little girl,” the man r
eplied, though by Phil’s estimation, Rhonda was almost a decade his senior.
“The Kruellers are my parents,” Rhonda replied, keeping her voice calm and steady, surprisingly so, Phil thought. People like this put him on edge enough when they weren’t on the verge of nationwide calamity. Ever since the nuclear detonations this morning, he’d become convinced that pretty much anyone they might meet was some well-hidden psychopathic prepper with a pistol stuffed down their pants, looking to kill him and his family and ransack their belongings.
Maybe he’d watched too many movies.
“The Kruellers didn’t have any kids,” the man barked back.
Rhonda chuckled. “Well, sorry to disappoint you, friend, but yes, I’m Gerard and Jodi’s only child, Rhonda. I haven’t been here in about twenty years.”
The young man looked at her as if trying to solve some complicated puzzle. He recognized what she was on the outside, but he couldn’t seem to rationalize what she claimed to be inside.
“You ain’t supposed to be here,” he said, apparently deciding to give up on trying to solve the puzzle at all.
“Well, the house belongs to my parents,” Rhonda replied. “I think that gives me as much right as anyone.”
He shook his head, looking confused, sad, and angry all at the same time. After looking at his shoes for a few moments, he lifted his head again but looked far less sad and confused, and far angrier.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “You ain’t supposed to be here right now.”
“Well, we are here,” Phil replied, stepping forward onto the stairs and coming up next to his wife. Rhonda flashed him a look and lifted her eyes in a ‘please shut up right now’ gesture.
“I don’t remember asking you, friend,” the stranger sneered as he took a long step forward, his hands clenching into fists, clearly demonstrating they were nothing close to ‘friends.’
Phil’s heart hammered in his chest. He’d spent his entire marriage letting Rhonda take the lead and take the chances while he’d moved from office job to office job, ignoring his children and letting her run their life. Catastrophe had struck, and it was time for him to step up and take ownership of this family. Play a role. Do his part. Man up or shut up. He could feel cold sweat forming at the back of his neck and suddenly that extra twenty pounds around his waist was a heavy weight indeed.