by Tracy Serpa
The night air whistled in through the jagged hole in the windshield, and she shuddered. For a brief moment, she had been able to push the last few hours out of her mind. As the images resurfaced at the edges of her mind, she turned her bleary eyes to the streets that lay before them.
With the car’s headlights off, she couldn’t see far, and it was difficult to decide if the effort of watching out the window was worth it. Her foggy mind called up the memories of getting scuba qualified with her father a few years earlier: each time they had started at the beach and headed out to a dive spot, she was the only one in the group to swim out on her stomach. The others obeyed their early lessons and kicked out on their backs, relieving the cumbersome weight of the gear. But Sarah couldn’t stand the feeling of exposure; the rational voice in her head told her it would make no real difference if she saw a giant shark appear from the depths, mouth open, eyes rolled back. But still . . . it would be better to see it coming. So she watched out the window, peering into the night. Dark outlines passed her window slowly: abandoned cars, some with their headlights still on; most of the display windows they passed had been shattered, the goods inside taken or destroyed, the violence of their appearance in stark contrast with the empty, quiet streets.
Sarah hunkered down in the seat, shifting away from where the wind blew into the car, and realized the car they had taken smelled odd; a sickly sweet, almost medicinal scent stuck to the cherry red upholstery. The gash in the front of the bench seat seemed strange, the rough edges of the material chafing her calves as she tried to get comfortable.
“Should I turn on the radio?” Heather asked, breaking the silence. “Maybe the emergency message has been updated.”
“Sure,” Mike answered, his eyes squinting as he watched the dark road in front of them. “Just have one hand on the volume . . . we don’t know what they left it on.”
Sarah peeled her gaze away from the window as Heather reached forward with both hands, one ready to turn the volume knob and the other pressing the power switch. The buttons lit, and static hissed to life over the speakers. She rolled the knob so the sound was less imposing, and started scanning through the stations.
“Will an emergency broadcast be on AM or FM?” Sarah asked.
“I think it broadcasts on both,” Mike answered, but he looked unsure.
They scanned through the FM frequencies once and heard nothing, but decided to scan again more slowly, just to be sure. Only static rattled out through the speakers.
As soon as Heather pressed the AM/FM button, a faint, buzzing voice picked up under the static.
“Wait! What’s that?” Sarah gasped, leaning forward.
They listened for a moment, but found they couldn’t make out what was being said. Heather changed the frequency, and the voice became clearer, so she moved the knob until a relatively clear emergency message was playing in the car.
—vised to stay in their homes if possible, or proceed to a local evacuation center if access to freeways has been closed off. The state government has recommended that residents drink only bottled water, and that wherever possible, use gas masks, respirators, or any available masks to guard against airborne contaminants.
The message cut out abruptly, replaced by a sound like the end of a film reel. They sat in silence, driving forward slowly, waiting for the message to start over. Seconds later, it began again:
This is an Emergency Broadcast Message, broadcast on all frequencies. This is not a test. The local government and military establishment have issued the following warning: The city of Honolulu and its surrounding areas have experienced an event of unknown origins. At this time, officials are citing possible terrorist activity, but further details are not yet apparent. Due to the lack of confirmed information, residents are advised to take all necessary precautions against physical, chemical, and biological attack. Military checkpoints have been established along all major freeways, and access to the following locations is closed: Honolulu, Halawa, Pearl Harbor, Hickam Air Force Base, Makakil City, Pearl City, and Mililani. Residents are advised to stay in their homes if possible, or proceed to a local evacuation center if access to freeways has been closed off. The state government has recommended that residents drink only bottled water, and that wherever possible, use gas masks, respirators, or any available masks to guard against airborne contaminants.
The message ended again, followed by the same flapping reel sound. Mike abruptly reached out to flip the radio off, and the car was once again quiet. A few seconds later, the freeway on-ramp came into view, barricaded by white and orange wooden blockades.
“How are we going to get to Mom if the freeway is closed?” Heather asked.
“We’ll take a back way,” Mike answered quietly. They drove past the on-ramp and continued on toward the hills. No one spoke as they turned onto a small two-lane road that wound along the base of the foothills and would eventually lead them back to the farm, and then on to Mike’s.
Once they left the city streets, Mike was able to push the car up to the normal speed limit; he flipped the headlights on, and the dark outlines outside melded together into an indistinguishable darkness. Sarah lost herself quickly in her own thoughts—blinking away tears, she wondered where her brothers were and how quickly they would follow to Mike’s. Her eyes ached with exhaustion, and she closed them briefly, her cheek resting against the sickly sweet-smelling door. The sound of raindrops hitting the windshield began, tick tick tick, tick tick, and she sank into a restless sleep again.
The next time she opened her eyes, the car had slowed again, and Mike was leaning forward over the steering wheel, his face tight with anxiety. Sarah shoved herself back into an upright position and saw that they had turned down a residential street. In the darkness ahead, she could see several people standing or kneeling on the sidewalk. Slowly, the headlights washed up over them, and she gasped.
A body lay on the sidewalk, curled up like it was trying to protect itself, too still to be alive. Around it, the other people were rooted to the spot, their eyes half-open and unseeing, their mouths hanging loose as if they were in some kind of trance. Their bodies had the soft look of utter relaxation, an ugly contrast to their swollen features and bloody clothes. Sarah counted three men and a woman, all with gaping, visible wounds on their faces, arms, or necks.
“Dad . . . should we stop?” Heather murmured.
Mike shook his head. “We have to get to the house,” he answered quietly. They turned around a corner, and Sarah watched as the grisly scene disappeared in the mirror. Shrinking back down into the seat, she remembered the jogger at her house—the strange, quiet position she had found him in downstairs, the way he had not responded to her presence, as if she had not been running straight through his field of vision. She shuddered, wondering what it meant.
They wound through the dark, abandoned streets for a few minutes until the car slowed again and Mike hung a quick right. Heather sat forward in her seat, eyes wide.
“Where are we?” Sarah whispered.
“It’s our street,” the older girl answered without looking at her, her voice thick with emotion.
It might have been a friendly-looking street of houses on any other night, with yellow light from streetlamps pooling on the asphalt, half-closed blinds revealing bright, cheerful family rooms. Instead, the neighborhood was illuminated by the light of flames devouring two of the homes that lay at the end of the cul-de-sac, sparks bursting into the air as parts of their roofs crumbled, only to be extinguished by the falling rain.
Heather couldn’t speak as Mike whipped the car into a driveway five houses away from the fires and growled, “Wait here.” Heather started to protest, but he had already shut the door, the rifle gripped firmly in his hand. He strode up to the door quickly, disappearing under the shadow of the porch. Sarah thought she saw him open the front door and move into the house.
“Is this your house?” she whispered.
Heather nodded curtly, her eyes locked on the darkness wh
ere her father had disappeared. They waited in silence, doing their best to ignore the flickering light that reflected in the windshield. Just when she thought she could stand the silence no longer, a shot rang out from inside the house. Silence followed, and then two more shots. Sarah sucked in a quick breath and looked to Heather, whose hands had shot up in a defensive gesture, her eyes wide and bright with fear. Heather’s mouth opened slightly, and her breathing became quick and shallow; suddenly her hand shot out to pull the lock on the passenger side door.
“Let’s go,” she hissed, her weight pushing against Sarah.
They tumbled out of the car and crouched against it, Heather moving around to stand in front of Sarah. Nothing moved around them except the light of the fire; the sound of the rain continued, impassive, unrelenting. Sarah kept her eyes on the darkness under the porch, where Mike had disappeared, willing her eyes to adjust. Suddenly, a hulking outline materialized, moving slowly, haltingly, out of the black.
Before Sarah could say a word, Heather had her pistol up and aimed. In a hard voice, she called out, “Dad?”
The figure didn’t answer, but continued to move slowly forward into the eerie dimness of the firelight. His eyes were almost closed, the lids fluttering as the rain splattered against his cheeks. The shirt he wore was nearly a rag, ripped at the collar so that it hung off one shoulder and dangled around his waist, covered in grime and blood. From his lower neck, down his chest, and along his right shoulder and arm, fresh blood was pumping freely from where the shotgun pellets had ripped into his flesh.
“Oh God,” Heather choked, but she kept her pistol sighted in. The man stumbled forward, a keening moan building in his throat. The blood pulsed down his torso, spreading down his pant legs and gathering in a puddle at his feet. Even in the firelight, Sarah could see the pallor creeping over his skin. When he opened his eyes, they lolled momentarily, and then focused on the girls. Instantly, he bared his teeth and hunkered down into a crouch, fingers hooked and working at the air.
“Stay where you are!” Heather said, her voice like granite.
He answered with a snarl and stumbled forward, the motion much less powerful than it might have been had he not lost so much blood. Sarah was rooted to the spot, both terrified and hypnotized by the sight of the ruined man coming to kill them. Heather raised her weapon; an earsplitting explosion rocked Sarah’s reverie, and the left side of the man’s face exploded. His body crumpled to the ground like a rag doll with a sickening thud.
As his figure dropped, another silhouette became visible in the dark house behind him. It was a smaller person, too small to be Mike, and pacing with a restless fury that was almost more terrifying than the ruined man who lay dead on the doorstep. In the darkness it was too difficult to make out anything other than a vague shape, jerking as it moved, as if it were warring with itself. Heather lifted the gun again, her breath shaking as she tried to steady her arms; the person inside grunted and jabbered nonsense, stepping forward toward the open door, then retreating a few steps.
“What’s it doing?” Sarah whispered, wishing she still had a weapon.
Heather simply shook her head slowly. Inside, the figure retreated another few steps with a loud screech of gibberish, then with a startling swiftness, it turned and ran away, rounding a corner and disappearing back into the house.
Straightening like a shock of electricity had passed through her, Heather screamed for her father. They listened to the driving rain as it hammered the car roof, the pavement, the house . . . and heard a deep voice answer from inside, too faint to understand. Heather reached back and grabbed Sarah’s shirt, her eyes still on the house.
“Sarah, get in the car,” she commanded.
Fear and a stubborn kind of pride bucked in her stomach. She was afraid to be alone, and tired of being afraid.
“No. I’m going with you,” she said, setting her jaw the way she would when Kai told her she couldn’t drive the tractor.
Heather tore her eyes away from the house and looked down at her; her gaze was cold and fevered at the same time, determination evident in the set of her brows and the hard line of her mouth.
“You don’t know what’s in there. I think it would be better if you waited here. You’ll be okay in the car,” she said quickly, but her tone was uncertain.
Sarah shook her head and pulled her shirtsleeve from Heather’s grasp.
“I’m going with you,” she said again, trying to mimic the granite in the older girl’s voice.
Heather didn’t take much time to deliberate. She just shoved Sarah behind her and said forcefully, “Stay behind me. You see something move, you shout. But do not get in front of me.”
Sarah stepped gingerly around the dead body on the porch and followed Heather, who treaded forward carefully, gun aimed, scanning the room. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that what had been a family room had been ransacked, the chairs overturned, lamps and pictures broken on the floor. The curtains fluttered behind her, driven inward by a gust of wind through the broken front window. Heather whipped around to confront the motion, then back when she realized what had happened.
She motioned for Sarah to wait.
“Dad?” she called out cautiously.
His deep voice came rolling down the stairs.
“Don’t come in here. I think there’s still someone in the house.”
“A man came out front. You shot him, and so did I,” she responded, watching the dark hallway and stairs for an attacker.
“There’s one more. I shot her too, but she ran off.”
“I saw her. She went back into the kitchen.”
Mike’s voice hardened and lifted with stress.
“Get out of the house, Heather. Now,” he growled.
“It’s no better out there.” She refused, and motioned for Sarah to follow quietly. “I’m passing the stairs now with Sarah.”
“Heather! Get out of the house now!” Mike bellowed.
“If she’s in the kitchen, I’m going to shoot her,” Heather shouted back. Sarah thought it sounded like she was trying to frighten an intruder, not issue a real threat. Nevertheless, they crept forward past the staircase, both holding their breath. Sarah cringed as they moved past the dark hallway, cold air from upstairs reminding her how exposed she was.
She moved closer to Heather’s back, following on her heels until they were at the corner of the wall that led into the kitchen. The older girl let out a slow exhale, and with her gun aimed, turned the corner. Sarah watched her move slowly and scan the room, then relax her stance.
“She went out the back, Dad,” Heather called over her shoulder. For a short moment, there was no answer from upstairs.
“Good. Now go back out to the car and wait for me,” he answered, his voice cold.
“We’re coming up,” Heather answered. Sarah knew from her tone what she expected to find, but she followed her up the stairs anyway.
They were nearly up the stairs when they heard his voice again.
“Heather . . .” It was a voice like marble: frozen, emotionless. “Do not come up here. Go back down the stairs and wait for me in the car.”
She took one step forward, and suddenly Mike was in the hallway, filling up the darkness with his huge frame, his face hard and drawn, highlighted by the fires that burned outside. They faced each other, eyes locked, completely still in the tiny, airless hallway.
“Go downstairs,” he rumbled, jabbing his finger at them.
Sarah tugged at the older girl’s shirt and whispered, “Come on, Heather. We’ll wait outside.”
But Heather suddenly leaped forward, streaking up the rest of the stairs and leaving Sarah behind. Mike lunged for her, but she spun away, ducking into a doorway on the right.
“Heather!” Mike cried out, following her in.
Alone on the stairs, Sarah felt a rush of panic slam into her, and she sprinted up to the doorway where they had disappeared.
A woman lay on the floor, a quilted blanket rolled and propping up he
r head. The fires outside lit the room with a ghastly glow, enough for Sarah to see the dark bruises on the woman’s face, the blood that trickled from her nose, and the places where skin had been pulled away from her body, exposing raw muscle and even bone. She was shaking, and tears ran down her face, mingling with blood and streaking her face with pink.
It was clear she could not speak. Her breathing sounded wet, as if her throat was filled with water; she was almost gasping as she held Heather’s eyes. With what was clearly a tremendous effort, she shook her head and gestured with her hand for the girl to turn around.
“Oh God,” Heather choked, falling to her knees on the carpeted floor.
“Please, Heather,” Mike whispered, his voice broken and heavy. “She wants you to go. Can you imagine . . . she would never have wanted you to see something like this.”
But the older girl was already sobbing, clutching at the woman’s hand, moving closer to her on the floor. It was a horrible kind of orchestra: Heather’s sobs, the woman’s choking breath, the crackling fires, and the sound of crumbling structures outside, all underscored by the pounding rain on the roof. The room smelled of filth, urine, and blood.
The woman convulsed, and Heather choked back a cry. As if he had been suddenly broken from a stupor, Mike picked his daughter up and held her to him, walking her to the doorway. Without thinking, Sarah stepped back into the hallway and reached a hand out for Heather, who moved to her numbly, tears streaming down her now impassive face.
“Wait for me in the car,” Mike said quietly.
Heather’s hand still gripped the pistol, but it hung limply at her side as they trudged back down the stairs and into the rain. She no longer watched for movement; instead, Sarah scanned the room and the yard as they moved toward the car, until they were sitting in the front seat, the doors locked, Sarah shivering with cold and shock as Heather cried softly next to her.