Strangelets

by Michelle Gagnon

  Pressing closer to the glass and tilting his head all the way to the side, he could just make out a strange print set off a bit from the others. Anat was right, it was similar to the one in the cafeteria: large, about twice the size of a man’s foot. The bulk of it was a pad, with four long claws extending out from it.

  “Another bear?” he said doubtfully. He’d had no experience whatsoever with bears. It wasn’t the kind of thing you encountered much in Galway, or hell, anywhere in Ireland.

  “Maybe,” Sophie said, squinting at it. “But that noise it made … bears don’t scream, do they?”

  Declan was fairly certain that no bear had ever made a noise like that. The memory of it sent a shiver up his spine again.

  “I do not think it was a bear,” Anat said in a low voice. Her expression spooked him more than anything else; if Anat was afraid, the rest of them should be positively shitting themselves.

  “What, then?”

  “Maybe the journal says,” Sophie offered.

  “Right. Let’s read it, then.”

  “Okay. Into the kitchen,” Anat ordered. “Now.”

  It had fallen to Sophie to read the journal. She still didn’t quite get why but was too exhausted to argue. The reasoning (courtesy of Anat and Nico) seemed mainly based on the fact that this was her native country and language. She’d been tempted to balk, but a look from Declan settled it.

  They were spread around the kitchen table, with her at the head. Everyone’s attention was focused intently on Sophie, making her feel like she was under a microscope, or worse, onstage. She’d never liked performing; during the kindergarten school play she’d spent her five minutes in an egg costume sobbing out of fear and embarrassment.

  Clearing her throat self-consciously, Sophie flipped through the book. The entries were recorded in a smooth cursive, all the words exhibiting an identical slant. It made her feel slightly ashamed of her own barely legible handwriting. The author was obviously female, and probably older. The first entry was dated January 1st, so she probably started a new journal every year. Sophie pictured someone like her grandma, who had worn her long gray hair in a braid down her back and had bifocals dangling from a chain around her neck. The kind of woman who wasn’t fat, exactly, just pleasantly plump. The thought brought unexpected tears to her eyes. She skimmed the first few pages.

  “Read it out loud,” Anat urged impatiently.

  “Well, the earlier entries … I mean, they’re just about her life, really. How much snow they were getting, that sort of thing. I guess I should start on the last day we all remember, right?”

  “Around then, yes,” Declan said.

  “All right.” Sophie flipped ahead. “August twenty-ninth, thirtieth—”

  “What do you mean, August?” Nico said. “It’s April sixteenth.”

  “What?”

  “April sixteenth. Yesterday was the fifteenth,” he said impatiently.

  “The last day I remember was August thirty-first,” Sophie said after a beat.

  “Me, too,” Declan chimed in. “Anyone else?”

  “It’s September first,” Anat said firmly.

  Nico looked around at them, clearly confused. “Are you joking with me?”

  “Strange thing to joke about, yeah?” Declan said. “Didn’t it strike you as a bit warm out for April?”

  Nico blinked. “I assumed it was a heat wave.” He sounded defensive, and confused.

  “Wait a minute,” Sophie said. “You seriously don’t remember anything after April fifteenth?”

  Nico didn’t answer. He was staring intently at the ground, as if something in the worn linoleum might explain it.

  “Sure you didn’t take a blow to the head?” Declan said. “ ’Cause you seem to be the odd man out here.”

  “It’s April,” Nico said stubbornly.

  “It does not matter.” Anat waved a hand. “Let him believe what he wants. Read the journal.”

  “It’s strange, though, isn’t it?” Sophie said.

  “Read,” Nico commanded. His tone didn’t invite further discussion.

  Sophie hesitated. She felt weird about continuing as if this was no big deal. The fact that the rest of them had ended up at the facility months after Nico … that had to mean something, right? Had he actually been there longer? But no, he couldn’t have been; there was no food. A dozen questions spun through her mind, but Declan caught her eye. Taking the hint, Sophie continued, “Let’s see … so on August thirty-first, she writes that they were having a heat wave, and her air conditioner wasn’t working—”

  Anat made an exasperated noise.

  “I’m getting to it,” Sophie said. “August thirty-first.” She hesitated. The writing here was different. The words were larger, sprawling; they took up nearly twice as much space, as if the pen had been unable to keep up with the pace of events:

  Today the strangest thing happened. I was watching the news—not the usual pretty blond girl, but a man who really wasn’t handsome enough to be on camera. He wasn’t even wearing a suit, and was terribly flustered. He said something about sudden, unexplained mass disappearances, not just in Long Island, but everywhere.

  At first I assumed it was some sort of ad for a new movie. But when the emergency broadcast system started flashing onscreen, I really did wonder … so of course I immediately called Kathleen to see if she’d heard anything. But she didn’t answer, which was so strange—ever since she got a cell phone … I swear she takes it to the bathroom with her, she’s so worried about missing a call.

  After that I tried to drive into town, but less than a half mile down the road came upon an enormous pile-up. At least twenty cars had crashed into each other, but the drivers were nowhere in sight. I was looking in the windows, trying to decide if it would be worth going forward on foot, with the roads blocked so badly. But then I heard a child crying …

  She was all alone, still strapped into her seat in the back of a station wagon. Completely fine, which was nothing short of miraculous; the car looked like it had been through a meat grinder. Just a beautiful little girl, her name is Megan, and she’s five years old. I’ve tried asking what happened, but every time I do she gets terribly upset. All she keeps saying over and over is that her mommy is gone. When I push for more details, Megan says that she “went poof.”

  I couldn’t find anyone else in their cars, and there was no question of trekking into town until I’d taken care of Megan. So I took her home, gave her cookies and milk, and put her down for a nap on the couch.

  I’ve been calling 911 all day, but keep getting a busy signal. The non-emergency line for the Yaphank police isn’t being answered, either. And no one else is home. I tried both Nancy and Dan several times but there was no answer. Not that they usually pick up when I call, but still, you’d think that if there had been a major emergency here, they’d want to make sure I was okay.

  There’s nothing on the television now. I flipped through every channel to check, but they’re all showing the same emergency symbol. Which is frightening. It brought me right back to when we were kids and used to have those nuclear war drills. Is that what happened? If so, shouldn’t they be telling us what to do? It occurred to me that even though the car accident happened hours ago, I still haven’t heard any sirens.

  I’ve spent the day wandering from room to room, trying to decide what to do. Should I take Megan down to the basement? What if there’s fallout? New York is so close, if a bomb went off I should have heard or seen it. And the man on TV didn’t say anything about a bomb, did he?

  Why didn’t he come back?

  But what else could it be? The gorgeous weather outside somehow makes it even worse.

  Thankfully I have plenty of food in the cupboard—Kathleen was right, that home delivery from Costco makes it so much easier. Enough for a few weeks if need be, and thankfully the power is still on.

  I’m going to try to go to bed now, though I doubt I’ll sleep. Maybe this will all turn out to be just a bad dream.
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br />   Sophie looked up from the book. “Did we check the basement?”

  They glanced at each other.

  “No,” Declan said. “Didn’t realize there was one.”

  “Where does that door go?” Nico asked, jerking his finger towards what Sophie had assumed was a pantry.

  Declan stood and went to it. His hand hovered over the doorknob for a minute, then he yanked it open. A gust of musty air poured out. “Stairs going down,” he reported. “Definitely a basement.”

  “Do you think they’re still down there?” Sophie asked. Her throat felt dry from all the reading. They hadn’t exactly been quiet, tromping around up here. If the owner was holed up downstairs, wouldn’t she have investigated the noise?

  Unless, for some reason, she couldn’t.

  “I will look,” Anat offered, getting to her feet.

  “I’ll come with you,” Nico said.

  Anat flicked the switch by the door; nothing happened. “We’ll need light.”

  They all scrambled. Nico found some candles in a kitchen drawer, and Declan managed to scare up a pack of matches from a bedside table upstairs. Sophie watched as they lit the candles. According to the journal, the power was on yesterday. What had happened since then? No mention of a hurricane or earthquake, either …

  She and Declan waited at the top of the stairs while Anat and Nico slowly descended, the smell of sulfur drifting up behind them. The stairs creaked beneath their feet. Sophie tugged at her scrubs. A size too big, they hung loosely off her small frame, but she was hardly going to complain, considering what a relief it was to get out of that stupid nightgown. Her feet throbbed, hot and sweaty inside Anat’s boots—she should see if there was another pair of shoes in the closet upstairs. Maybe the woman was closer to her size, and had left some behind.

  Or maybe she’d never left the house at all.

  Sophie fought back the thought. Reading that journal, the author stood out clearly in her mind—a nice woman who had instinctively helped someone else in a crisis. A mother whose grown children didn’t call enough, who lived her all by herself. A sense of loneliness pervaded the words, as if the writer knew there was little chance anyone would ever bother reading them.

  Sophie wanted the woman to be okay. She wanted to give her a big hug and tell her that the journal did matter, that it was important, that her life was important and not to give up on it.

  But who was she really feeling sorry for? Sophie’s thoughts were running away with her, the way they used to when she lay in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling, pondering the unfairness of it all. The woman was probably fine. She was making a big deal out of nothing.

  Murmurs from downstairs.

  “Anything?” Declan called.

  “No one,” Anat yelled back.

  The sound of stairs groaning again as they climbed back up. Anat emerged first, with cobwebs dangling from her hair. She brushed them away. “It’s filthy down there,” she grumbled. “Just some boxes and an empty freezer.”

  Sophie heaved a sigh of relief. No bodies, then. She couldn’t explain why she’d had such a strong sense that the woman and girl were dead. In all likelihood, the girl had been reunited with her mother, and the older woman was staying with relatives, or her friend Kathleen. She might walk in the door any minute and completely freak out at the sight of five teenagers rummaging through her things and pilfering her food.

  Anat plopped down in a kitchen chair. “Let’s keep reading.”

  Sophie turned to the entry for September 1st. The writing was calmer here, but still not as contained as the earlier passages:

  Barely slept last night. Poor Megan was tossing and turning in the guest room. Finally at 3 A.M. she crawled into bed with me, nearly gave me a heart attack! Although I have to say it was comforting to have a warm little body beside me, especially since the night was so strangely silent. Well, except for a terrible racket right before dawn. Like cats fighting, but louder and more piercing (if you can believe that).

  Probably just my imagination getting the best of me after a sleepless night.

  At least Megan seems better. She asked when her mommy would be back, and I told her I didn’t know, then set her up with Nancy’s old doll house. She seems perfectly content. Meanwhile, my nerves are so wracked I can barely eat. Still no answer anywhere, even 911 clicks over to an automatic message. The television is still blank, too, and I’m not picking anything up on the radio.

  It’s nearly time for lunch, and I haven’t the faintest idea what to do. Why has no one else come by?

  “There’s nothing helpful here,” Nico said, glancing out the window. Late afternoon sunlight slanted across the table. “We should get going, otherwise we won’t make it to town before dark.”

  “How many more pages?” Anat asked.

  Sophie flipped forward. “Seven.”

  “We have time,” Anat announced decisively. “I am not going back out there,” she added, lowering her voice, “until we know for certain what’s waiting.”

  “But we’re so close,” Nico argued. “A few more miles and we’ll be in town. My father—”

  “After we finish reading,” Anat snapped.

  Nico grunted irritably, but Declan nodded. “Agreed. We’ve got some time.”

  “All right,” Sophie said, but suddenly she didn’t want to keep reading. She was sore everywhere, her feet ached, and her eyes throbbed with fatigue. She’d walked more in the past twenty-four hours than she had in the past several months. Honestly, she’d rather go upstairs and fall asleep; the rest of them could go on without her. A real bed in a real house sounded like heaven right now. Maybe the old woman and the little girl would come back, and they could all play Go Fish while Declan and the others hiked to town for help.

  “Keep going,” Anat ordered.

  “Okay. There’s a break here,” Sophie said, flipping the page. “Then she starts again. Looks like it was later that same day.”

  “Wait, the same day? But that’s today, right?”

  “Maybe it’s September 2nd,” Sophie said doubtfully. “We might have spent a night asleep in the infirmary, right?”

  Declan didn’t answer, but she could tell by his eyes that this unsettled him.

  “What’s the date on the final entry?” Nico asked.

  Sophie flipped forward again, scanning the writing for the next date. Her heart clenched a bit when she found it. “September third.”

  “So we lost more than a day in the infirmary?” Declan asked. “How?”

  “Guess you’re not sure what day it is after all,” Nico grunted.

  “We know it’s not April fifteenth,” Anat snapped.

  “Apparently it’s not September first, either.”

  “Enough. Keep reading, Sophie,” Declan said.

  “Fine. Finish, so we can go,” Nico muttered, rocking back in his chair.

  She tried to ignore his glares as she picked up where she left off:

  I’d just given Megan lunch (it had been absolutely forever since I made grilled cheese sandwiches! Such a wave of nostalgia, I went right back to standing over the cast iron skillet on a snowy afternoon, making grilled cheese and tomato soup for Nancy and Dan. Amazing how a smell can bring you back …) Anyway, we were just sitting down to eat when I heard a car in the distance. I nearly broke my ankle getting outside, convinced that they were finally clearing the roads … then the engine abruptly cut out. I wasn’t sure what to do. No sirens, but perhaps the police weren’t using them, since the accident happened yesterday?

  The sound of metal being sheared, truly awful and loud. Megan was terrified, so I got her back inside and waited on the front porch. I have to admit, part of me was tempted to go dig John’s old gun out of the upstairs closet—”

  “There’s a gun?” Anat interrupted. “We could use a gun.”

  “It’s not going anywhere if there is one,” Declan said.

  “Might as well hear what happened. Now I’m dying to know.”

  “What are yo
u reading?”

  They looked up to find Yosh standing in the doorway. She swayed slightly on her feet, but her eyes were clear.

  “Have a seat, bird.” Declan leapt to his feet and guided her to the nearest chair.

  “What is that?” Yosh asked as she sank into it.

  “A journal,” Anat said. “We found it in the living room.”

  A flash of something swept across Yosh’s features—fear? Confusion? Sophie wondered if she was still in shock. Maybe they should insist that she stay in the living room a bit longer. “Journals are private,” Yosh said with a frown.

  “We think it might tell us what happened,” Sophie explained. “That seems more important.”

  “Besides, we’re already sitting in someone’s kitchen eating their food,” Declan declared with forced cheer. “Practically family now anyway, aye?”

  “We’re wasting time,” Nico grumbled. “Keep reading.”

  Yosh started to protest again, but Anat shushed her. Sophie continued:

  Within a few minutes an enormous truck, the kind they use to plow the roads, came into view. It was picking up speed, about to pass the house entirely!!! I ran off the porch, nearly tripping and killing myself again, waving the dishcloth I still had in my hands. Fortunately, the driver saw me and stopped the car.

  It turned out to be a young man, in his twenties. I’d never met him before, but he looked familiar—I’ve probably seen him around town. He went to Longwood, same as Nancy and Dan, but years after them, of course.

  I invited him inside for a drink. At first he didn’t want to come in, but then I explained about the situation with Megan. As he drank the lemonade, he fidgeted terribly. He seemed frightened to death of something, although I couldn’t imagine what—it certainly couldn’t have been us.

  After he finished, I got him to come into the living room. He kept mumbling about getting back on the road, but when I offered him a sandwich he agreed to stay, at least for lunch. I asked again if he knew what was going on.

  He got the strangest expression on his face then, and looked at Megan. I understood immediately—he didn’t want to discuss it in front of the child. I bustled her into the kitchen and set her up with pencils and paper for drawing (reminding me of those boxes of crayons that Nancy loved so much, with the sharpener built into the side of the box. I wonder if I still have one stored in a closet somewhere?) The whole time I had this sense that it was all much worse than I’d imagined.