“I noticed a micro-shift in your face when I introduced myself,” she said. “Do we know each other?”
“A micro-what?”
She laughed. “It’s hard to explain,” she said, still grinning. The skin on her cheeks was pockmarked. “I tend to notice subtle things. Have since I was a little girl. Someone at work changes their hair and I’m the first to make note of it.”
“I see. No, it’s just that you look a bit like someone I knew.”
Her features tensed. “Knew? Did something happen to her?”
“You could say that. It was a long time ago.”
“Did she die?”
“No, one day she simply stepped off the face of the Earth,” Nate said, appreciating the warmth, but wishing for a change of subject.
Jessie must have noticed another micro-shift in Nate’s face or whatever she called it, because she changed the subject. “What are you doing out there all alone, Nate?”
“Heading to Rockford,” he told her. “To my family.”
“You didn’t travel together?”
“It’s kind of a long story.” Nate reached into his bag and produced two power bars. He offered her one and she took it.
“Cheers.”
“The least I could do to repay your hospitality.” He took a bite and began the arduous task of chewing. That was the thing about power bars. They were loaded with protein and nutrients, but they could also give you lockjaw. He saw he wasn’t the only one having a tough time.
“Got anything to drink in that magic bag of yours?” she asked.
Nate laughed. “It’s far less magic than I would like it to be, but I sure do.” He plucked out a bottle of water and handed it to her.
She smiled politely. “I was thinking about something a little harder.”
Nate’s gaze dropped to his boots and he suddenly realized the clanking sound he’d heard earlier was empty vodka bottles. “Nah, sadly nothing like that.”
“Too bad. I don’t have a drinking problem or anything, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Nate glanced over and saw her eyes were sharp and alert. She didn’t look drunk, but that didn’t mean she was happy about being sober. “Your life is none of my business, Jessie. You wanna drink, that’s up to you.”
“People get judgy, is all. That’s why I worry sometimes.”
“I can see why. But we both have larger things to worry about other than bad habits we can’t seem to kick.”
She seemed to agree with that.
“Listen,” he said, closing his go-bag. “What will you do if your boyfriend doesn’t show?”
“Oh, he’ll show. Doogie can be a prick sometimes, but when push comes to shove he’s always been there for me.” She paused and studied him. “You a cop or something?”
Nate laughed. “I have that look, don’t I?”
“Yeah, a bit,” she said, sheepishly. “Well, maybe more than a bit. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I used to be a cop,” he told her, as he rubbed at his throbbing knee.
“In Byron?”
“No, Chicago.”
“Ouch, how was that?”
“Ouch is a pretty good way to put it. Was a big reason why we settled here in Byron. You see, my wife grew up on a farm and isn’t a fan of big cities. She talked me into leaving, although it didn’t take all that much to persuade me.”
“You quit the force?”
Nate rubbed his gloved hands together, feeling the warmth slowly inching into the tips of his fingers. “I did.”
“This may seem indelicate, but you ever killed anyone?”
He grinned. “No one who didn’t deserve it.”
Jessie’s eyes flashed and Nate wasn’t sure if it was fear he was seeing or something else. Talk of snuffing out a human life was turning her on. Oh, boy.
“Yeah, that’s intense.”
“Taking a life only requires squeezing a trigger. Living with what you’ve done, that can take a lifetime.”
“No kidding. So you became a farmer, is that it?”
Jessie was a funny woman. “You ever think of becoming a reporter?”
She let out a bellowing laugh. “Way back in high school I had a nickname—Snoopy, you know, like the dog? But also because I like to ask a lot of questions. So, Mr. Ex-Cop, what do you do now? Or should I say, what did you do?”
“Worked security at the power plant for a while,” he began.
“The one that just blew up?”
“The very same. If my bosses had listened, there’s a chance, slim as it might be, that Byron wouldn’t be facing this mess. At least not on this scale.”
“So you know what happened?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “You’d think we’d lose power after it blew, not before. I find the whole thing rather confusing, to be honest.”
“We were hacked,” he said, deciding he would come right out and tell her. There was no point in keeping it a secret, even if knowing couldn’t change the danger they were facing. “My brother was an engineer there, one of the heroes who tried to keep the core from melting down. Whoever did this didn’t only want to cripple the country. They wanted to utterly destroy us.”
Marie—Jessie, her name was Jessie—stared at him, not saying a word. Then: “Well, they sure did a bang-up job.”
“I know, it’s pretty crazy,” he went on. “Nuclear power plants are among the most secure facilities in the world. In part because they’re completely cut off from the internet. Hackers have no way in. Well, that was what the people who ran the plant thought. They’re a publicly traded company, you know. Out to make a profit. So when I started pushing reforms, I think they worried any word of vulnerabilities would crater their stock price.”
“So they did nothing.”
Nate arched an eyebrow. “Not exactly nothing. They fired me and enforced a clause in my contract that prevented me from telling anyone what I knew. What happened was totally avoidable. But I’d be lying if I told you it hadn’t happened elsewhere.”
“Other plants have had meltdowns?” Her eyes were wide now.
“I’ve heard more than a few nuclear plants have suffered the same fate, but not all of them.”
“For some reason I’m not feeling very reassured by that.”
“This was a sophisticated attack, perhaps the most sophisticated in history. Power plants were not the only ones hit. If you caught the news the evening before the lights went out, personal bank and investment accounts were also wiped. We’re talking trillions of dollars. Assuming we manage to claw our way out of this mess, the economy may never recover.”
“I need a drink,” she said, her face ashen. He handed her the disposable water bottle and she shook her head. “Oh, no, not that kinda drink. You know that old saying about ignorance being bliss? Well, I think whoever came up with that little beauty sure nailed it.”
“What about you?” he asked, deciding a change of subject was in order. “You work somewhere in Byron?”
“Sure, I waitress part-time at the diner on 2nd and Maple.”
“I know the place,” Nate said. “Never been there though. Any good?”
“The food or the work?”
“Hmm, both.”
“I paid part of my way through college by working at a carwash in the summers” Nate told her. “You might not be running around like a server at a restaurant, but cleaning a car inside and out on a sweltering summer day can be brutal in its own way.” And for a moment, Nate caught the smell of asphalt growing soft in the sun’s searing rays. The sound of the radio by the register belting out songs over a warm current of air. These memories weren’t merely distant, they were from a world Nate was beginning to think he might never see again.
Chapter 22
Nate’s eyes opened in a dark and unfamiliar place. For a moment, he wondered where he was. Back home in his bed, lying next to Amy? He reached over and felt someone next to him. But then the angles were all wrong, so were the smells. The odor of vodka wafted up at him. Finally, he reached a hand
into his pocket, came out with his phone and switched on the flashlight.
The glow illuminated the interior of the Corolla. Snow covered the windshield, blotting the world outside from view. Jessie was there, fast asleep, her head resting on his shoulder. He went back to his phone. The time stamp at the top of the screen read eight o’clock. There were no messages nor any reception bars. His battery life was at fifty-one percent. As reality flooded back in, it left a searing pain in his chest, the same one he felt whenever he thought about memories of home, of the life he had built with Amy. An agony made worse whenever he skimmed through the many photos he kept on his phone. Those images were beckoning him. Encouraging him to put one foot in front of another.
Get up and keep moving, Nate.
It was that voice again. A firm reminder that he couldn’t sleep, not now, not here. He’d only stopped for a momentary rest from the cold and the wind and the way the impossibly deep snow made his knee ache.
He peeled open the door with a snap and a creak and saw that it was light outside. Not daytime light, but the kind that was common in winter when the streets seemed to take on a hazy glow.
Outside, the wind might have let up a little, but not the snow. That still fell in earnest, large flakes tumbling sideways across his field of view.
“What time is it?” Jessie asked, her voice sleepy.
“Eight,” he replied.
“In the morning?”
“No, at night. We fell asleep for about an hour or so.”
She sat up and rubbed at her eyes. “Got any more of that water?”
He handed her what was left in the disposable bottle. “All yours. Listen, I’m gonna head out. You’re welcome to join me. I know I don’t need to tell you it isn’t safe to stay here.”
“I don’t think I should leave,” she said, genuinely sad.
Nate watched her for a silent moment, wondering whether he should circle around, fling open her door and drag her out for her own good. Doogie wasn’t coming. Nate knew that. The woman was clinging to a fantasy.
Someone wiser than him once said, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it leave a radioactive exclusion zone.” He decided to ask her one final time.
“Thank you,” Jessie replied, her voice firm. “But I’m going to keep waiting. Maybe we’ll see you in Rockford. You can introduce me to your family.”
He told her that would be nice and to take care of herself. And with that Nate grabbed his things and stepped out into the stinging cold. In spite of the cramped confines of the sedan, his knee was already feeling much better. He was no more than a few yards out when he turned to see she was outside, clearing the snow off her windscreen. She stopped and waved one last time. Nate did the same, still uncertain whether she was being incredibly brave or downright foolish.
It wasn’t long before Jessie was out of sight. Ahead of him, Nate caught the flash winking off a reflective street sign. He spun and spotted a pair of headlights heading his way. He hadn’t seen another working vehicle since his ill-fated journey to the plant to grab Evan. Moving off the road—the sidewalks were downright impassible—Nate stuck out his thumb and wore the kind of smile that would make a flight attendant green with envy.
The lights got closer and Nate could see it was a Tiguan, fighting through the chop. The vehicle slowed as it drew even with him and then sped past.
“Jerk,” Nate called out. He’d gotten a good glance inside as it went by. The thing was empty, apart from the driver.
The thought crossed his mind that maybe seeing the shotgun slung over his shoulder was giving people pause. He switched it to the other shoulder and carried on. Ten minutes later, he was further down the road when he spotted another pair of headlights. As he had done before, Nate moved off the road, slid the shotgun out of view, and stuck out his thumb. This time, the truck never even bothered to slow down.
He sighed. It appeared the ‘every man, woman and child for themselves’ rule was already in full effect.
Slogging along as he was, at times through powdery, freshly fallen snow and at other times through harder, wind-packed stuff, was making for slow going. If he’d gone beyond three hundred meters in the last hour, it would be a surprise to him. The tips of his fingers and toes were starting to feel numb. Strangely, his core felt like it was overheating from the exertion.
Or am I suffering from radiation poisoning?
He unzipped the top of his jacket, watching the steam escape. That was water his body was losing. Liquid he would need to replace sooner rather than later.
One hour passed before Nate reached the intersection, the one where earlier in the day he had cut across oncoming traffic, fishtailing into the backroads that led to Byron Middle School. He paused for a moment, working to catch his breath and sort out what do to next.
If he continued straight, Blackhawk Drive would eventually become Highway 2, the road that led to Rockford. The stretch between the two cities was about fifteen miles. Far too long to complete in a single hike, bum knee or not. Such a trek in July would have been child’s play. Armed as he was, Nate would have gone as long as he could. Light to see by might have been a problem, but walking out beneath the stars on a warm summer night? Heck, it almost had an inviting ring to it. Attempting the same thing now was liable to end with a man frozen to death somewhere along the shoulder of Highway 2. He did not have the slightest clue how to build an igloo or even a snow shelter for that matter. If there was no car he could break into along the way, the chances were good he would simply freeze to death.
As if to drive home the point, Nate spotted a dark boot sticking out of a nearby snow pile. He hurried over to it—of course, hurry was a relative term nowadays—and dug into six inches of powdery accumulation. With each swipe, a prone human form was coming into view. It was a man in a dark pair of blue jeans. His sneakers were black and looked battered, but expensive. Nate freed his upper body and then his head. He was dead, probably had been for hours. He cleared away the final bits around his face. This wasn’t a man at all. It was a boy, no older than thirteen or fourteen. A pair of AirPods were seated firmly, and maybe permanently, into his ears. No more than a couple of years separated him from Hunter and Emmitt. What had he been doing out here alone? Why had he lain down in the snow, never to rise again? Exhaustion?
Keep moving, Nate.
He had started hearing that voice more and more these last couple of days. That part of him determined to survive appeared to be chiming in every once in a while with a mental slap across the face. Nate’s gloves and hat were wet and caked with snow and yet this dead kid before him was dressed for Siberia. He was wearing a fur-lined aviator hat along with a pair of plush mittens. It seemed a pity to let them waste away on a corpse, however young that corpse might be. And yet the act of stripping a dead body also seemed grotesque and reprehensible.
Don’t be silly. Take the stuff. You’ll need it.
Nate stared at the young boy’s face, his youthful, innocent features frozen into something resembling a sneer. He’d read an article recently about dead climbers on Mount Everest and how their bodies acted as macabre landmarks for those on their way up. “Hang a right at Green Boots, and then a left at Yellow Jacket.” Back when things were normal, the notion had seemed rather sick to him, but many of those bodies had been sitting in Everest’s deep-freeze for decades. It was not practical or safe to chop them out of the ice and bring them down. They were part of the mountain now. A piece of the landscape. This kid felt much the same. No one but family was going to move him. Here he would lie until spring and summer when Mother Nature would complete the process.
Again came that gently commanding voice.
Nate swore before grabbing the hat. When that was done, he took the mitts as well.
He didn’t recall any religious passages condemning stealing from the dead. If the devil wanted him, he would have to wait. Nate wasn’t ready to die. Not just yet. He had too much to live for.
Like descending from the summi
t of Everest, Nate knew the journey back to his family would be arduous and brimming with danger, both natural and man-made. And like that same great mountain, the dead and dying would mark his path, a string of twisted landmarks on the way out of hell.
Chapter 23
After knocking the ice off his new hat and mitts, Nate contemplated what direction to go in. Heading straight, along Highway 2, would begin the long and difficult trek to Rockford. To the right was the side road that led to the middle school. Going that way would add time, no doubt about it. On the flipside, he would eventually reach the school itself, where he could take shelter and rest. The route along the highway snaked in tandem with Rock River and offered nowhere he could hole up to refuel his body and recharge his spirits.
Right it is then.
Thus far that little voice hadn’t led him astray. And so he was busy putting one foot—albeit awkwardly—in front of another when he realized heading toward the school offered him another advantage. If somehow, the bus convoy hadn’t yet left―doubtful as that was―or became stuck in the snow and forced to return, then there was a chance he might find them there. Without any way of communicating, him setting off for Rockford when his family had never left Byron would quickly start to feel like a sick comedy of errors. How we’d ever lived without cell phones, Nate did not know.
The backstreets to the middle school were lined with homes typical of the area, somewhere between country and suburban. Bungalows were plentiful, with generous yards on both sides. It was hard to tell how many of these homes were occupied. The town, with the county’s help, had begun the impossible task of telling folks to evacuate. This area was still seven miles inside the exclusion zone. That meant depending on the direction of the wind, everything here could be contaminated, including Nate. Contrary to popular belief, exposure to radiation didn’t guarantee immediate death or even cancer. Genetics had a part to play as well. Some near Fukushima and Chernobyl had got sick and died from the same exposure that had little to no effect on others.
Nate made a point of walking inside the tire tracks on the road. It was hard going, and more than once he lost his balance or his tired legs gave out, sending him tumbling into a cloud of snow. That was when he recalled the young boy at the intersection, imagining that must have been the way things had gone for him. He had fallen down and never found the will to get back up. Perhaps that was the difference between them. Nate had something to live for. Two things, actually, if you counted his unborn daughter.
America Offline | Books 1 & 2 | The Day After Darkness Page 10