Yield

by Johnson, Bryan K.

  He moves silently across the rear of the warehouse, his hands trembling. The shadow stops at the largest cluster of people. Without a sound, he rummages through their bags and belongings. The shade moves quickly from person to person, stealing every valuable and memory he can. His frayed pockets soon overflow.

  The white slits dart around for more treasures, spotting another odd group on the other side of the warehouse. He moves like night itself. The shadow slows next to a solid-looking redhead and a fearsomely tall black man. He can’t tell for sure, but it looks like the redhead’s dress shirt is spattered with blood. The thief’s stomach flutters, wondering if he shouldn’t leave well enough alone. His fingers twitch. The shadow turns to leave, but his feet quickly stop in their tracks.

  Barely perceptible in the darkness, even to his sharp eyes, he sees two smaller and more attractive bodies in the men’s company. The thief rubs at the coarse stubble along his face.

  He leans closer, breathing in a particularly inviting ginger scent from a Hispanic woman’s long, thick hair. His hands twitch again. Almost on their own, they begin to reach out towards her. The shadow looks back at the two intimidating men rustling just feet away. His eyes narrow. Quickly, he lifts the woman’s purple bag into his arms.

  The sound of the metal zipper teeth slowly unclasping shreds into broken innocence.

  Chris groans, trying to shake the fog of sleep from his mind. Caught somewhere between his dreams and a nightmare, he feels something tugging at him from behind. His eyes widen once he realizes what they want.

  He reaches back for the Beretta’s grip, but it’s already too late.

  The gun barrel is pointed up into a scared and dirty face. A man dressed all in black stands several feet from them holding Isabel’s purple Huskies bag. His angular eyes are broad with fear.

  “Not again,” Terra whispers. Hate burns from her sapphire eyes. The teenager’s finger squeezes against the trigger. “Never again.”

  “I…I’m sorry,” the thief cringes. “I haven’t eaten. I…” The man covers his face, cowering from the rage he sees pulsing from the girl.

  Chris gets to his knees and puts his hands slowly up toward Terra’s. Her hands shake. Still the trigger continues back.

  “Terra!” Isabel screams.

  “Please, Terra,” Chris says calmly. “It’s alright. He’s probably just hungry.”

  “I won’t let them touch me,” she says. Her eyes flash with a need for justice, even through her own tears. “Never again…” Violence throbs within her. It consumes all shreds of restraint, calling her tortured soul to defend. She stares unsympathetically at the thief, readying to fire.

  “Look at me, Terra!” Chris yells. He tries gently to pull her hands off their target, but they won’t budge. “Remember what I said? What I promised? I won’t let anyone hurt you, Terra. Not again.”

  Her hands ache to let loose vindication, and erupt the fatal power from what was powerless only hours before.

  “Please. Just put it down,” Chris whispers. He feels her hands tense again. His eyes shoot wide. “Put it down!”

  The weapon bucks violently backward as it fires. The blazing red flames of ignited gunpowder send the chamber barrel hurtling back in her hands. Tears of immeasurable pain run down Terra’s face. She watches the bullet scream without regret into the cheek of her attacker. Never again…

  His lunging body barely misses a fatal wound.

  Images of her mother flicker in Terra’s mind. Through the flames, white-eyed animals look down at her hungrily from the shadows…

  The world fades away, leaving only the evil that cowers in front of her. Terra takes aim again.

  Chris jumps up, pulling her finger off the depressed trigger. He forces her arms down, his own body now shaking.

  Terra looks up at him. Her sapphire eyes plead for forgiveness. She releases the gun and falls forward into his arms. Sobs quake through her. The beautiful woman trembles against him, all strength rushing out of her.

  “Crazy bitch,” the thief sputters. He holds a bloody hand to the side of his face. “It was your filthy kind that did this, chink!” He kicks the bag back to them and scrambles away into the shadows.

  “What’s he talking about?” Isabel whispers to Devin.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  The warehouse’s awakened inhabitants stare back at them. Shattered peace flashes from dozens of accusing eyes.

  The fireman cocks his head, about to tell this pissy horde to sod off when his ears suddenly twitch. The sound of electronic static grows louder from somewhere behind them. An alert tone bleeps several times in the distance. Its piercing cry is mixed with voices thick with distortion. He strides toward the noise, hearing the words become more distinct in the static.

  “Hey, I got something,” a young boy cries by one of the other drums. He holds a small wooden radio on his lap.

  “Turn it up,” Devin says. The muffled voices are infuriatingly close to being understood. Isabel quickly joins him, still wiping the sleep from her eyes. She leans her body against him, drawing from the fireman’s body heat.

  “Not ‘til I get something to eat,” the boy demands. He pulls the radio protectively back to his chest.

  “For God’s sake, child!” Devin blurts. All their answers are muffled in the boy’s dirty shirt. He glares defiantly up at the redhead, his lower lip pouted out.

  Devin’s green eyes dart around for his bag. The black canvas is on the floor fifteen feet from them.

  “Here,” Isabel smiles, gently handing the child two granola bars.

  Devin stares questioningly back.

  “What?” she asks. Her hands rub against the sides of her bulging stomach. “I keep snacks on me in case I get hungry. I am pregnant, you know.”

  The boy sets the radio on the concrete in front of him. He turns it up loud enough for everyone in the warehouse to hear.

  “….broadcasting….” the crippling alert tone fades in and out. It digs into the sound waves before slowly losing ground to a familiar voice. “…from Queen Anne, on the north side of the Seattle ruins,” the reporter continues. Kevin Green’s voice rises reassuringly through the static. “We’ve driven across the dead city for hours, and may be all that’s left. I don’t even know if there’s anyone left to hear this…” he pauses.

  The bodies once scattered across the warehouse now cluster around the radio. Re-stoked fires illuminate dozens of eager faces. “There was some sort of tone blocking our broadcast. But we’ve patched around it at our north Seattle tower. We don’t know what it was or why we were prevented from relaying the details of today. What we do know is this…” The static hisses. “Yesterday at 12:22 P.M., Eastern Standard Time, a preemptive declaration of war was issued against the United States of America…by the allied countries of China…Russia…North Korea…and Iran…”

  A choir of gasps echoes around the warehouse. The words eat through doubt and hope alike.

  “The first strike was comprised of four maximum-yield nuclear detonations…with zero points just above ground level in Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles…and Seattle…” Kevin’s voice grows quiet. “These blasts were soon followed by a demand for the immediate…and unconditional surrender of the United States…”

  Devin closes his eyes. His stomach starts to spiral, plunging downward with mankind’s descent into a third World War.

  “The allied countries have threatened more attacks if the U.S. does not comply with those demands…”

  Bodies listen in silence to the rustle of papers through the radio. Its truth irreversibly changes everything in its path.

  “May God save us all…”

  Isabel looks on, her hopes burning with the ashen drums. The cries of those around them begin with a despairing fury. The sound is heartbreaking. Empty.

  Chapter 33

  What’s left of the KOMO news department huddles around the open van door. They stand just in front of their reporter, their faces drained o
f emotion. Armageddon’s message has filled each of them with a deepening regret. All the experiences they will never have rain down from their eyes. More than anything, a shared wish hangs fervently from their lips—hoping beyond all hope that the news is not as it is… The world could be made right again. Their lives could continue, just as they were days ago. Children could play. People could love and believe in a happy ever after again…

  But nothing will ever be the same.

  That realization shreds through all the remnants of their shattered dreams, leaving nothing but desperation and darkness in its wake.

  “We won’t be able to broadcast any new information for a while,” Kevin whispers into his stick mic. “Like the rest of the city, our station is gone. The generator giving us power is using the same gas we need to get out of Seattle. So please,” the reporter says more intensely. Tears sting in his eyes. “If there is anyone hearing this: do not give up. Do not give in to the tragedy of this day. Stay alive, and find whatever safety you can. The world needs each and every one of us now.” Kevin looks around at the faces of his co-workers and friends. “Good luck.”

  Dave brings the master audio slider down. Pulling the headphones off his ears, he rests them on the polo cuff at the back of his neck. “We’re clear,” he says. The young engineer gives his customary thumbs up for the clean transmission end. The gesture’s irony almost makes him laugh.

  He jumps back into the driver’s seat and turns the generator switch off. The device knocks loudly several times before sputtering into death. The interior lights of the news van dim, resuming their normal level after the extra juice cycles down.

  “We still need to feed our footage to the network,” Jean reminds. The EP leans in through the van door.

  “I know,” Dave says. He tries to avert his eyes from the attractive woman’s low-cut red blouse, hanging even lower than usual. His eyes dart around, finally finding solace on a familiar equipment rack. “I have to do that from the sat truck. The network’s broadcast path is a lot higher than the van’s mast can carry.” He pulls the quarter-inch shielded audio cable they just used to transmit from the rack’s router, coiling it up into neat circles.

  “How long will that take?” Jean asks. She sits inside, pulling her blouse up to stop the engineer’s squirming.

  “Depends on if there’s a satellite dish still there that’s able to receive us. We could try to send through the galaxy transponder from here, but the network will still need to know it’s coming.”

  “How the hell do we do that? None of our phones have worked since the blast.” Jean pulls the former center of her universe out of a Gucci bag. The iPhone screen is still black and lifeless.

  “Just make a flashing slate leading into the feed,” a deep voice rumbles behind them. His shadow almost completely blots out the night peeking in through the sliding door. “That should catch their attention.”

  “What do you mean?” Jean asks. She looks up into Jonathon’s eyes, glowing like navy blue stars above her. His hands are braced against the top of the roof just over her head. The warmth of his body feels so close to her skin.

  He sits down next to her, letting his right leg rest against hers. “Well, if we can’t call the network, maybe we can just annoy them enough that someone decides to roll on it.”

  “Could that work?” Jean asks, turning for her engineer’s counsel.

  “Maybe,” Dave shrugs. He scratches the back of his head, trying to shake away the fatigue settling into his normally quick mind. All he can think about is getting a couple hours of rest. His neck aches from driving over the wreckage. The rugged terrain shot through his shoulders at every bounce.

  “Patch the feed into the XDCam,” Jonathon says to Dave. He turns, then stops to hold his hand out. A plan sparkles from his eyes.

  “What do you have in mind?” Jean asks. He pulls her body gently up. A curious smile creases the edges of her mouth.

  “I need your help,” he says, forgetting to let go of the soft hand still in his. Jon’s long legs accelerate toward the sat truck, pulling her almost weightlessly with him.

  Dave uncoils another cable and snaps one end into the sat truck’s router input. He plugs the other into the back of their XDCam. The engineer cranks on the sat truck generator, flipping on switch after control panel switch from memory, like a musician playing an instrument he helped build. The satellite dish atop the rig begins to rotate and point upwards into the dense, burgundy clouds. It sifts across the sky, tracking through the coordinates Dave entered. The dish slows to a stop, eventually facing east-southeast.

  “That’s odd,” Dave says, double-checking the direction. “Should be south.” He switches the sat controls from receive to send and jumps out. “We’re hot whenever you power up.” He passes the XDCam to Jonathon. “Just push play to roll the disc.”

  Jonathon nods. He pulls Jean back toward the driver’s side door. “Most of the footage is so dark there’s no way the network will know what it is. They won’t even know to look for it with all their other feeds coming down.” He gestures to the front of the truck with the lens of his news cam. “I’ve got an idea. I know it’s a little low-tech, but I need you to flip the truck lights on and off and honk the horn for me when I signal. I’ll be pointed right at your headlights.”

  “I always did like it when you looked at those,” she grins.

  “I didn’t…” he stammers. Jonathon adjusts his silver-rimmed glasses, looking down from her pressing gaze. “You always did know how to make me squirm.”

  “I thought that’s what you loved about me,” she smiles. Jean leans against him. Her violet eyes flash. “I may not have been the one you brought home to Mom. But I was always the one you wanted to go home with.”

  “Easy now,” he sighs, feeling his chest tighten. “We’ve got work to do.” The delicate curves of her face almost glow in the moonlight, her eyes catching the light like purple jewels.

  “Later then, lover,” she winks. Jean throws a low slap when he turns toward the front of the sat truck. His eyes whip back to hers. Jonathon’s smile is stifled at the public spanking, but cracking through the usual emotionless armor he always wears at the office.

  “Dave, I’m feeding bars,” Jonathon shouts behind him. He backs away slowly to the sat truck. Jean stares at him in challenge.

  Jon flips the switch on the side of the camera from VTR to BAR. The brightly saturated strips of color jump to his viewfinder, signaling to the network the beginning of a new feed. “Give me some baseline audio!”

  “You got it,” Dave says. He brings up the master fader and scrolls through hundreds of tracks recorded on his DigiCart. Dave’s eyes suddenly light up. “Oh, I got something real nasty for you, Jon!”

  “What?”

  “Just call it a little karma from the tone gods that should get our network’s attention.” The young engineer grins ear to ear as he punches up a recording of the emergency tone that hacked them. The doctored tone squeals out through his headphones. The single note is like a symphony attacking across the sound waves. “Let’s see how you like it.”

  Jonathon looks down at the cracked glass on his Rolex. He times out a minute on the pieces still ticking with precision inside. “Alright, kill the tone!” Jon pulls the camera up to his broad right shoulder, flipping the switch back to CAM. “Jean! Give me some light!”

  She turns the lights off and on in slow rhythm, accompanying it with horn blasts right into the face of the kneeling creative director.

  Jonathon crouches four feet from the sat truck’s right headlight. He grimaces back the pain beginning to shoot through his knee. The echoing sound rings in his ears. Jon closes his eyes, feeling the light pulse in waves against his skin. It silhouettes his body against the blackened, ash-covered ground.

  “Kill it!” he yells to Jean, his right eye buried in the viewfinder. He snap-zooms the camera out from the dimming headlights and flicks on the mounted camera light in one smooth motion. “Logo card!” he shouts. His vo
ice booms out with a command gained from decades of directing shoots.

  Neal Adams pulls the color balancing card out of his bag and drops to a knee two feet in front of the camera.

  Jonathon’s hands spin against the lens rings. He quickly sets focus on the large KOMO logo emblazoned in the middle of the multi-toned cardboard surface. His body is stone, holding perfectly still as the warm night air blows ash all around him.

  “And clear,” the creative director says. His finger gently eases the play button down atop the camera. The XDCam disc instantly spins up and begins playing through his viewfinder. Shots of Seattle’s ruins slowly roll past their news van. The video looks more like a junkyard than a city.

  Jonathon pulls the camera from his shoulder and glances back up to Dave. “How’s the signal strength?”

  “Good enough to hit space from here,” the engineer says.

  “Alright, then let’s finish feeding these clips up and get ready to move.” Jonathon looks back down the peak toward the brilliant reds flickering in the night. Fires continue to grow and ravage through the ruinous miles still below. “We should be out of the city by dawn.”

  Chapter 34

  Easing off the sluggish throttle, Dave banks the sat truck into a sweeping hairpin turn. It creeps through, heading north onto the Ballard Bridge on-ramp. He squints as they approach a thick wall of gray.

  The rig shudders to a stop.

  The engineer rubs the back of his hand on the vehicle’s dusty windshield, thinking there’s condensation on the glass. But the colorless veil is all around them. It blocks all visibility past a dozen feet. Dave flips the wipers on high. Knots twist through his stomach. Almost on cue, the skies open up again and begin dumping huge droplets of Seattle rain onto the windows.

  Vapors from the burning city fill the black waters of Salmon Bay. A breeze blowing toward the ocean currents has pulled the fog with it over the water. The smoke totally obscures any view of the other bank, still a quarter-mile away. The four-lane drawbridge just disappears into a gray abyss, taking any chance of the survivors’ escape with it.