Dead Fall

by Joseph Xand

  At first, he wasn't sure what to do. He opened the top desk drawer and dug through it, not sure exactly what he was looking for. Then he found it. A box of rubber bands. He pulled one out and wrapped it twice around the back of the telegraph key, overlapping the arm just behind the wiring posts. The tension held the arm aloft. Thad tapped the knob a few times and it bounced against the contact as he remembered it should.

  The power source was nothing more than a 12-volt car battery that supplied the ham radio and teletype. The cables were currently attached from the battery to the ham radio, but not to the teletype. Thad could remedy that easily enough. Before he did, he touched the wires together, expecting nothing to happen. Instead, he was surprised by a sharp crack as sparks flared from the wires.

  Thad inspected the battery. It wasn't new, but a sticker on top showed it was still under warranty. Still, he was amazed the juice hadn't drained down to nothing. Thad secured the wires to the teletype.

  Next, he checked to see if the telegraph key was connected for communication, which was confirmed by the 1/4" mono wire plugged into the input jack of the transceiver, which, in turn, connected to the binding posts of the telegraph key.

  Thad took a deep breath and let it out. He flipped the power switch on the telegraph key and…nothing happened. Of course, he didn't expect it to. The key was nothing more than a switch for the transceiver. Even so, with a device from such an early era, he didn't expect to hear the hum of electric power, nor were there lights to indicate it was on and ready to go.

  He fired up the ham radio and heard the crackle of static, which he'd also expected. It would have been too much to hope to hear a voice, someone shooting out a message of their own, the moment he turned it on. Not that he could have answered with a voice of his own. Eddie shared his grandfather's distaste for microphones.

  When Thad tapped out a message, he'd be doing so blind, with no way of knowing if his message was going anywhere at all.

  He looked to the bulletin board above the desk and found that the protocols for sending out such a message were still there. Before they had been crudely scrawled in a child's handwriting on a sheet of notebook paper. Now they were neatly printed on computer paper.

  The top line of the typed page said:

  QRL? DE KD2UJ K

  QRL? was a simple query regarding whether or not a frequency was in use. It literally meant "are you busy?" in code-talk. DE meant "from", and KD2UJ was G-Pa's personal call sign, which Eddie likely inherited. The K at the end was the Morse equivalent of "over."

  Typing that message was the procedure Eddie had used anytime he attempted to make a general call to anyone using a telegraph key.

  If he tapped it out and got no response, then there was a secondary protocol, which was typed on the same sheet of paper below the first:

  CQ CQ CQ DE KD2UJ KD2UJ KD2UJ K

  The CQ was a general call to any station (pronounced "seek-you" for a reason). Both that and the call sign were repeated three times in case one or more of them got wiped out by static.

  Thad sighed. That all seemed a bit too complex for him. He wasn't a telegrapher and didn't plan on becoming one today. The message he hoped to send out was simpler, more direct.

  But first, he had to compose it. Tacked to the same bulletin board, below the message protocols, was a piece of paper, now yellowed and torn at the edges. It apparently had not been updated as had the protocols. On the paper was the alphabet with the corresponding Morse code below each letter. Thad found some scrap paper in one of the lower drawers and snatched a pen from a coffee cup on the desktop to write down what he planned to say.

  Up to this point, he hadn't thought of what his message would be. He never expected to get this far. He was sure the telegraph key would be gone or broken beyond repair or that there would be no way to power the equipment. But none of that was the case and now he inexplicably had a message to write.

  Thad knew the message needed to be short. If anyone were listening, the message needed to be succinct enough that they could follow it easily. Brevity would also save Thad a lot of tapping and a lot of potential mistakes. Plus he knew he would likely have to send the message out over and over again to increase the chances of it being heard.

  At the same time, he had to be sure the message was conveyed clearly along with the importance of it. Thad scrawled several possibilities only to scratch through them until finally he had something workable. It told enough. It was simple but carried with it a sense of urgency and hope, even if it did sound a little far-fetched.

  Thad read over it a few more times, then wrote it again on a clean sheet of paper with larger letters spread apart. Just six words divided among three lines stretched across the width of the page.

  Next, he conferred with the Morse code chart over the desk and transcribed the lines and dots that symbolized each letter.

  That done, Thad was ready to tap his message out into the world. He pulled the desk chair up and sat in it.

  Thad remembered that the Hudson Valley Code Talkers had arranged to meet on a frequency in the CW part of the 80-meter band at 3,540 KHz every day at noon. If the frequency was in use, G-Pa would move up the band 5 KHz at a time until he found "clear air," as he had called it.

  Thad tuned the ham radio to 3,540 KHz. Then he pulled the chair up so that he was tight against the desk, He put his left index finger under the first letter of the message, the letter I. His right index finger hovered over the telegraph key's knob.

  And then he…did nothing.

  He stayed in that pose, ready to tap, but suddenly wasn't sure.

  Wouldn't this just be a waste of time? Just how conceivable was it that someone else might be out there ready to translate a Morse code message? How far could his message possibly go, if it went anywhere at all? A hundred miles? Fifty? Certainly nowhere near New York City where the chances were better someone would be listening. There could be military bases with soldiers manning radios and teletypes in hopes of picking up messages from survivors. West Point was not all that far away. But Thad didn't think so. How many months had it been since he'd seen a single air force jet or army copter traversing the sky?

  Thad leaned back in his chair. Had all this today been for nothing?

  Then an idea occurred to him. Just like G-Pa, the other Code Talkers used some sort of Morse code reader to display a received message. A couple of the Code Talkers used computer monitors, even way back then. At least one of them used an electric typewriter. G-Pa preferred the old-fashioned teletype.

  Thad could turn on the teletype and leave it alone. Come back next week. If someone out there was listening for telegraph messages, they would likely be sending them as well. If he came back in a week and there was a message scrolled on the ticker tape, he'd know spending time sending out his little telegram might be worth the effort.

  He sat up and switched on the teletype machine. Nothing happened.

  At first he wasn't sure why. He checked the power again and saw that it was, indeed, attached to the car battery. He stared at the teletype dumbfounded.

  Then he saw the problem.

  A mono plug was going to the teletype, but not into the audio output of the transceiver. Thad got out of the chair and stooped down to fish the other end of the cord out from under the desk. Then he stood up and plugged it into the output jack.

  Suddenly, the teletype came to life, rapidly ticking and spitting out tape. The intrusion of noise was frightening. Thad jumped back, then tumbled over a box behind him. From the floor, he stared up at the machine as if it were an object possessed and that the message being sent could only be from the devil himself.

  When the teletype ceased its racket, Thad leaped to his feet and ripped the cord out of the output jack, then jumped back again like he'd just tossed a lid on a grease fire. Eventually, he regained his composure and approached again slowly. He reached for the ticker tape and with one quick yank, severed it from its spool.

  Thad stretched out the tape between his hands a
nd stared at it in disbelief. Not because of what it said, but because there was anything on it at all. It wasn't a full message. It wasn't even five full words. Yet it said so much.

  …ERE IS NOTHING LEFT [STOP]

  * * * * *

  Thad made it home earlier than he expected, yet still no sooner was he in the door that Karen threw herself into his arms. He'd only glimpsed her face, but it was enough to see she'd been crying. He wrapped her up tight and kissed the top of her head. She started crying again.

  "Don't ever leave me again," she said into his shoulder.

  "I won't," he said.

  "Promise?"

  "I promise."

  She pulled away and looked up at him. "I kept hearing those things falling," she said.

  Thad had quieted one of them on the way back down the drive that led to the house, and he'd noticed new depressions in the yard as he walked to the front door.

  "I'll go take care of them." Thad picked up his stab stick again, which he'd barely had time to lean against the wall.

  Karen jumped against his chest again. "Not now, okay?"

  "Okay. It can wait until tomorrow."

  "Good. I can set up Candyland if you want to play."

  "That sounds fun! You do that, and I'll make us a late lunch."

  Karen let him go and ran off towards the dining room.

  "Hey, no cheating this time!" he called to her, smiling.

  Karen giggled and ran around the corner.

  Thad removed the backpack and set it on the couch. He unzipped the outer pocket so he could put the 9MM and spare clips in a safe place.

  But his finger lighted on a piece of paper first.

  The message he'd written.

  The one that was never sent.

  Thad told himself the reason the message was never sent was because the telegram he'd received was so bleak. But he also knew that shouldn't matter. His message was one to inspire hope. To give anyone listening something to live for if they'd only just hold on. To once and for all erase the bleakness of the world and replace it with something else entirely.

  He pulled it out and stared at the words again.

  "Daddy, it's reeeadyyy! And I'm not gonna cheeeat!" Karen called out.

  Thad smiled. Maybe he'd send the message next week. Maybe he'd bring Karen with him. She would probably get a kick out of all that telegraphing equipment.

  He folded up the little note and shoved it in his shirt pocket as he walked towards the kitchen. Right now, he'd rehydrate some chicken and make sandwiches for lunch.

  Then he'd go lose a few games of Candyland.

  Maybe a lot of them.

  Epilogue

  T HE OLD BLACK MAN STOOD behind the deuce-and-a-half staring at the contents inside but not really seeing any of it.

  He was in a state approaching shock, fascinated that he was standing there at all.

  Until now there had been no real proof that he was on the right track. He'd only been following his gut, because there were scant few options to follow anything else.

  But he'd trusted his gut and ignored his guilt-ridden uncertainty.

  At last, it had paid off. He'd found the convoy, or a piece of it, anyway.

  The wind picked up and woke him from his daze. He looked passed the deuce to the semi stretched across the highway.

  He nodded. He'd be able to walk his bike around it without much of a problem.

  "Hold on just a little longer," Keene said aloud. "I'm coming."

  He looked at the ground. He kicked a spent M-16 casing. They had a lot of guns. They had a lot more bullets. None of that would matter.

  He'd made a promise to someone. Someone who reminded him of his own daughter.

  And he intended to keep his promise.

  "I'm coming."

  Coming Soon:

  Dead Fall:

  Zero Day

  Go to

  JosephXand.com

  for updates on this and other upcoming novels.

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, thanks goes out to my wife and my kids, who are always more than patient with me while I spend hours at the computer when I should be spending time with them. Ironically, before them, I could barely string a sentence together.

  The bacterial infection I wrote about in Interlude 1 actually happened. I changed some of the details, but you can read about it in a Scientific American article called "The Enemy Within" by Maryn McKenna (April 2011). The zombie apocalypse may not be as far-fetched as we would all like to think.

  I also want to thank my Beta-readers, Yasmin N. Abdou and Liliyana Shadowlyn. Their comments were precise and insightful. Hopefully, they'll be around for the next book.

  In one scene, Thad attempts to use a telegraph key. To make sure I got the details on telegraphy right, I reached out to a ham radio/telegraphy expert in Bob Molloy. He went above and beyond, researching what was needed to make the scene work as I envisioned it. The call sign used in the scene (KD2UJ), by the way, is Bob's actual call sign, which he was kind enough to lend me for the scene. If you have a ham radio or a telegraph key, maybe reach out to him and tell him what you thought of my book and his contribution to it.

  Finally, a great amount of appreciation goes out to my good friend Neil Butters. Originally, he signed on to be a Beta-reader, but soon began calling me on my B.S. explanations of the zombie plague. Turns out he is Neil Butters, Ph.D., having doctorates in pharmacology and toxicology, and he helped me realize how little of the scientific jargon I'd gotten right in my initial draft. The rewrites were long and often arduous, but he was patient and walked me through them. I'm sure there is still some of the clinical stuff I got wrong, despite our best efforts. For instance, I know ELISA results can take days as they often have long incubation periods. But I needed my character to get the results back in hours, so I used a little something called creative license. Just know that what is wrong is my fault and not his. Aside from keeping my story straight from a medical standpoint, he also found about a gazillion typos, grammar issues, and other errors. His contribution to this project was invaluable.

  If you would like to apply to be a Beta-reader, go to the contact page of my website (JosephXand.com) and shoot me a message.

  Author's Note

  Thank you for reading my book. Please be aware that a portion of the proceeds from the book goes to support the Zombie Apocalypse Prevention Society (Z.A.P.S.), a watchdog group that is at the forefront…just kidding. There is no such thing as Z.A.P.S., unfortunately.

  But if it makes you feel any better, a portion of the proceeds from the book will go towards my kids' college funds, which is also a pretty good thing to contribute to, if you ask me.

  Any success this book finds also means I'll keep writing more books, and there are so many stories I hope to tell you.

  I want you to meet a group of boys who find a basement full of bodies, and the detour their lives take when they desecrate one of them. We'll head into the country where an architect has bought a fixer-up home, the remodeling of which will unleash an unspeakable horror. We'll visit a old house deep in the woods that occasionally calls to little boys and girls, and has for as long as anyone can remember. You'll make the acquaintance of a disgraced homicide detective who is working what should be an open-and-shut case, but he follows the evidence where it leads. And it will lead him into the impossible and the very heart of terror.

  And, if you'll be my plus-one, the Liberty Coast cruise liner castes off soon, and there are still tickets available.

  But don't worry. I realize we still have a reunion on a mountaintop to get to. We won't keep Thad and his daughter waiting long.

  So, come with me. I won't lead you astray. The paths we take may be dark and scary at times, but I'll be by your side the whole time. Just take my hand, and step where I step.

  Please visit my website, JosephXand.com, and sign up to receive emails/newsletters as to the progress of my next books. I'll sometimes post early chapters of upcoming books. Also, I'
ll be in need of a small army of Beta-readers, so you can apply to be one of them. You'll be able to download reading group questions should you decide to feature something I've written in your group. I may also start a blog to discuss horror books I've recently read and horror films I've recently seen. Plus, there you can buy Dead Fall T-shirts, hoodies, and coffee mugs! 25% of all proceeds go to the SPCA of Texas.

  I love to talk about writing and the writing process. As I write more books, I'll take time to discuss my ideas and where they came from, how a story changed from its original concept to the finished product, and methods I used to put it all together. I would also love to hear about and share the writing processes of other writers. I've taught writing classes before and ran writing groups, and I could see us doing something like that on a national scale, if anyone is interested.

  But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is only my first book. Let's see how it goes.

  —Joseph Xand

  About the Author

  Joseph Xand has been (in no particular order) a carpenter, pizza deliverer and cook, psychology clerk, dishwasher, resident assistant, security guard, community organizer, CAD designer, cabinet maker, line feeder, forklift driver, warehouse worker, hall director, political organizer, writing instructor, screenplay analyst, reach truck driver, editor, non-fiction author, granite fabricator, secretary, janitor, Union organizer, website and graphics designer, convenience-store clerk (for one day), cashier, record-store clerk, screenplay club founder, and computer tech.

  Now he can add novelist to the list.

  He lives in Texas with his wife, three kids, three dogs, and three cats.