After an hour of fraught creeping he managed two messages, both glaring from the rooftop in brilliant, scrawling red. One slope said simply:
SOS
The other:
WE ARE HERE
He wondered how much of that last one was a cry for help, and how much was simple defiance.
Both pointless, he told himself. There's no one to see these. It was a stupid risk, climbing around on the roof like that—for what? They hadn't heard a running car in days, hadn't seen so much as a hot air balloon in the sky. It's theirs now, he thought again. Everything is theirs now.
"Did you get the message on?" his son asked when he descended.
"Yep."
"What does it say?"
Alan told him, then explained what SOS meant.
"Oh! That's really good. Someone will see that for sure."
The bottom of his stomach fell out. First Heaven, now rescue. Why not tell him Santa Claus is bringing macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight? It was a bad idea, telling Todd everything was going to be okay. He was a smart kid. He was going to realize they were alone. And when he did—
Alan gave his best fake smile. "I hope so."
In the afternoon they went out for more gas. The generator was ravenous. Depending on what they used it for, sometimes they would end up filling it three or four times a day. Alan wanted to keep pace with its consumption but also build a reserve, just in case, and that meant a lot of siphoning.
Siphoning wasn't hard—he was getting more skilled at it by the day—but it wasn't comfortable kneeling on the asphalt, and every car's gas compartment was a little different. This one needed a key, that one had a latch hidden under the driver's seat. Half the time, even when he did get into the gas compartment, he'd find the tank nearly empty.
He paused as they pulled in to the station parking lot, staring at the pumps, and felt a surge of regret. If he could've relived those first two days, he would do everything differently. He'd hit the grocery store immediately, maybe even try to hook up a generator there instead of at home. He'd come to the gas station while its generator was still on, and fill every gas can he could find—maybe even use the cars' tanks as storage.
Regret was pointless. His mind pivoted, started trying to figure out what he was screwing up now.
They parked and got out. For the first time in his life, he wondered where the station's gas was stored. He glanced around for some kind of giant tank, thinking maybe he'd just never noticed it before, then abruptly felt stupid. He took a quick look through the inside of the store, to make sure it wasn't cleverly hidden behind the cooler. Nope. Must've been underground.
He checked behind the counter for some kind of manual override switch, something that would function even when the power was out. All he found was a picture, taped to the back of the counter, of one of the kids who had worked there. He had an arm around his girlfriend. They were both smiling.
Had that kid stolen glances at that picture while he was working? Had it given him a little strength to draw on, while enduring a tedious eight-hour shift?
Alan tried to angle the picture to mitigate the glare from the window, but he accidentally pulled the tape loose. The picture fluttered out of his hand, landing facedown on the dirty floor.
It was garbage now, just like everything else.
40
He decided to empty all the cars. He pulled out every gas can the station had and a few others that he found in back seats or trunks. The lot was littered with full gas cans and shiny fuel puddles when Todd found a book of matches.
"Whoa. Give me that."
"What is it?" The boy opened the front, inspecting the matches inside.
"Now, Todd. Give it here." Alan sprinted over to his son.
"Why?"
"'Cause it'll blast your ass to kingdom come," Alan muttered, snatching the pack away.
Todd laughed—not a chuckle, but a full-blown belly laugh. "What?" he cried. "Blast my ass...?" He dissolved into hysterical snickers and snorts.
It's not funny, pal, Alan started to say, but the thing is, it was kind of funny. He chuckled despite himself. "To kingdom come," he said, and Todd completely lost it, staggering backwards to the nearest car, clutching his stomach.
"What—? What—?" Todd was gasping, his face turning red. Alan had never seen him laugh like this. He felt himself grinning like an idiot. "What does that even mean?"
The scholar in Alan's head tried to jump in, and the father ran him down. He shook his head. "Who fuckin' knows."
Todd had finally started gasping for air, but this was lightning in a dry field. He sprawled over the back of the trunk, tears streaming down his face, hands drumming like a wrestler tapping out. By now Alan was laughing nearly as hard himself.
"I can't..." He fought for the words. "I can't... believe that."
"I got a million of 'em."
"Blast my ass," he cackled again. "My ass. It's so funny!"
"Yeah," Alan said, coming down a bit. "Well, just leave the matches to me, okay?"
"Okay." Todd wiped his eyes, shuddering with snickers. "That is crazy. 'Blast my ass to kingdom come.'"
Alan was still smiling. It felt good. "All right. Help me get these cans over here, okay? Carefully."
But his son needed a minute to recover, and he let him have it. As Alan started loading gas cans, Todd said, "Hey Dad, what do you call a pig crossed with an oyster?"
Alan had heard this one, of course; Todd was always telling it to anyone who would listen. Although, he suddenly realized, Todd had never told it to him. "I give up."
"An oinkster!" he cried.
Alan grinned. "Nice."
"Why did the school kids cross the road?"
"I don't know," Alan obliged.
"To get to the other slide." He beamed.
Alan laughed, not because it was funny, but because Todd was always so damned happy to tell it. "Do you even know what the original joke was?"
"Like the first joke?"
"Yeah... like, that joke is a take-off of a different joke. It's a really old joke."
"'Why did the chicken cross the road?' That one?"
"Yeah. Do you know why?"
"Yeah," he said, with a tone that said duh. "To get to the other slide."
41
On the way home, Todd asked what day it was. Alan opened his mouth to answer, and came up blank.
Shit. Oh, no way.
"Is it Saturday?" Todd said. "It feels like it's Saturday."
"No." It had been Sunday when everyone disappeared. He ticked the mornings forward in his head: Grandma's, the old couple's house, the funeral. Three nights—four nights?—at home. "Pretty sure it's Friday." How could he not know what day it was? He felt like an old man with Alzheimer's, trying to hide the fact that he was losing it.
"Okay." Todd had the window down and one arm out, his hand riding the wind. "I guess it doesn't matter."
That gave Alan a shock. "Of course it matters," he retorted. "Why would you say that?"
"Well, there's no school anyway, no matter what day it is. And you don't have to work anymore."
No school. Of course. What were the days for, if not marking time until you had to go back to school? "Well, that's true, but we still need to know what day it is."
"Why?"
"Well..." Alan chewed on this. "Because we should know how long it's been, for one thing. And we need to know how long until winter comes, so we can be ready for it." That was true, but he didn't like to think about it. Even the part of him that really believed they were all alone couldn't accept that they'd still be stuck here by winter. "So really," he went on, "I guess it doesn't matter so much what day it is as what date it is. But we should definitely keep track of that, and if we're keeping track of that, we might as well know what day it is too."
That was all well and good, but there was a deeper reason, of course, which was that naming the days was part of what made them human. As long as they named them, they were in control of them.
>
We can't lose track of the days. We just can't. He resolved to start keeping a calendar at home.
"Yeah." Todd was staring past his bobbing hand, into the vague distance. "I wish we had solar panels."
"Wow," Alan said. "Yeah. That... that would be pretty great." He indulged the fantasy for a minute. He didn't know how to install solar panels, but there had to be some homes in the Twin Cities that had them. He wondered if it would be worth spending the time and fuel to find one.
"Dad?"
"Yeah."
"What do you think those blurry things wanted?"
He hesitated. "I'm not sure. There's really no way to know."
"Do you think they made all the people disappear? And the animals, too. Because did you notice the animals are gone too?"
"Yeah, I did notice that. And I don't know if they did, but... put it this way, it seems hard to believe that they didn't."
"Yeah." Todd's hand tilted back, catching the wave and riding high before diving again. "I'm afraid they want to get us. Like they missed us the first time and now they want to come back and get us."
Alan took a deep breath. "I don't know," he said again. "I worry about that, too. But I'll tell you this: if they wanted us and were able to get us, don't you think they would have done it the other night?"
"Probably." Todd sighed. "I'm just glad we keep the lights on now so they can't. Because they can't go where the lights are, right?"
He hadn't made the connection to the flashes of blue Alan had seen in the daytime. Alan debated whether to tell him, but couldn't see how making him more scared would help the situation. If they were coming, they were coming. Did it really matter what he believed? "I think that's probably right," he hedged.
They pulled into the driveway, and went inside to find a calendar.
42
That night, someone saw the message on the roof.
A helicopter woke Alan, its thrumming blades making the glass shake in the windows. The light was blinding, like something out of X-Files when the aliens came. He woke Todd and dashed outside, waving. Their rescuers dropped a rope. They both climbed up and were whisked away to safety.
It turned out there were other survivors, and they were holed up in a secret, abandoned military base in the Rocky mountains. Upon landing, Alan and Todd were swarmed by refugees.
They were of all ages and walks of life, from all parts of the world. They'd built a school and were cultivating a farm just large enough to support everyone. They used an old ham radio to reach other survivors. The Blurs can't survive at this altitude, they explained. We're safe here.
Waking from this dream felt like drowning.
43
He made pancakes and bacon for breakfast. The motions were old and comfortable; they gave his mind something to do that wasn't despair. When Todd woke up he had him set the table, hoping the routine might help soothe him, too.
"Omegabeam has the best long range light attack," Todd said without preamble as he carried a pair of cups into the dining room, "but if you have Darklaser you can still block it. I just wish there was a way to break that stupid Darklaser."
"Look out for all the crap in there."
"The crap? What crap?"
"The... boxes, and batteries and stuff, in the dining room."
"Oh, yeah. But you actually can break Darklaser, but to do it you need a Megaclaw, and I only had one and that stupid guy with the meladion stole it."
Alan brought the milk in and set it down. He was actually following what Todd was saying, more or less. He didn't know the particular game that well, but he was a game lover. He knew his Zeldas and Metroidvanias. Some basic game tropes were timeless.
Todd would be perfectly content rambling on with no engagement from his father. Brenda had often needed to shush him to get a word in through his monologues. Alan jumped in anyway.
"Well, is there a way to get it back?"
"Probably, but I don't know how, and the bad part is, now I can't even find out."
"Why not?"
Todd's look said, Seriously? "The internet is down."
Alan's tongue moved like it was possessed by the ghost of grandpas past. "Oh, poor you. You'll have to figure it out yourself, like I did when I was growing up. There wasn't always an internet, you know."
My God. He felt like he'd just vomited words all over the table. Did I really just say that?
"Well I've tried but I just don't know where he is!"
"All right." Alan forked up some pancakes and tossed them on his son's plate. "Well, what do you know about him? Is he a good guy, a bad guy...?"
"The guy with the meladion?"
"Yeah. Okay, first, what's a meladion?"
"It's a circle thing, like a necklace, that he wears." Todd's hands were always moving: grabbing the napkin, twisting it, tossing it aside, grabbing the fork. It had always driven Alan crazy, but suddenly, he wondered if Todd was even aware he was doing it.
"Is it magical or something? Did he use it against you?"
"Yeah, he gets like, some kind of powers from it, I think." Todd waved it off. "But it doesn't matter. He got the meladion from Shorso and he's basically a bad guy."
Alan frowned. "You mean medallion?"
"Yeah, medal-un? Medal—?"
"Medallion?"
"Medallion."
Better. This was something he could understand. "All right. Well, your dad knows a thing or two about games, man. I may not know your medallion guy, but believe me, I've seen plenty like him."
"Yeah."
"Sometimes two minds are better than one. I can try to help, if you want."
His son looked at him seriously. "That would be amazing."
You should be looking for other survivors, Alan's dad scolded. Storing up supplies. His stupid game doesn't matter.
But Alan wasn't sure that was right. He thought maybe it was the only thing that did.
44
After breakfast Alan tried to take the garbage out, but the bin in the garage was full. So was the recycling container. He tossed the garbage on the garage floor and turned to go back inside, but a vision stopped him: the garage, packed to the rafters with trash bags, reeking so badly they could smell it from the house.
He cursed, then called for Todd. When he came, Alan nodded at the trash bag. "We're out of space for garbage. We're gonna do something kind of weird."
"Why?" Not what, which is what a different kid might have asked, but why. That was Todd.
"Well, the garbage truck obviously isn't coming, and we can't just start throwing trash on the floor in here. We'll smell it in the house; it'll be disgusting."
"Oh, yeah. We could throw it in the basement, maybe."
"That's close to what I was thinking, but I was thinking maybe we throw it in a different basement."
He peered at Alan. "Oh, yeah, like a different house?"
"Right." Alan waited to see if he'd catch on.
"Like the Davises' house!" He grinned, and Alan laughed.
The Davis family had been a bunch of bona fide jerks. They'd had one son, Jason, who was a couple years older than Todd and had bullied him on the school bus: stealing his hat and throwing it out the window, twisting his fingers, calling him names. When Brenda and Alan had gone across the street to talk to them about it, they'd accused Todd of lying and refused to address their son. Eventually Brenda had gone through the school to get the bullying stopped, and Mr. Jason Davis had ended up with a bus suspension.
After that, the kid and his little friends had adopted a policy of sustained juvenile vandalism. One night they had tee-peed Alan and Brenda's yard; another, they'd stuffed their mailbox with snow. In warmer months they would play Ding Dong Ditch after dark, or, if it was an election year, steal their lawn signs. Alan and Brenda tried again to talk to Jason's parents, but came away with the impression that the Davises not only knew what their son was doing, but were probably feeding him ideas.
Alan thought their basement would make a perfect garbage dump.
"Yeah. Come on. You bring this"—he tossed Todd the bag he'd brought out—"and I'll wheel out the cart."
The Davises' front door was unlocked, their clothes in tidy piles on the living room furniture. "Hey, Carl," Alan said to one of the empty shirts as he rolled the garbage cart through. "Mind if I use your basement?" Todd chortled.
They made a little game out of tossing the bags down the stairs, competing to see who could throw his farther. Afterward, Todd ran upstairs to loot Jason's room.
Alan waited, sitting right on Carl's shirt. "You lose, asshole," he muttered. He'd never been a very vindictive person, but he wanted to try the words out. It was disappointing to hear them ring hollow.
45
A week passed, then two.
They spent the evenings locked up in the bedroom with the lanterns, reading about the Ingalls or hunting down Medallion Man. Every morning Todd ran out to the driveway and stared at the roof, as if he expected to find a helicopter had landed there overnight. Alan saw more blue flashes, but never mentioned them to his son. And he had more dreams of rescue, every one a kick in the stomach.
The grass in the neighborhood started getting long. The lawns had never been pristine—most of the local suburbanites had mowed and raked and that was about it—but they'd been well-kept. No more. The cul-de-sac started to remind Alan of the pictures he'd seen of Chernobyl, years after everyone had evacuated: empty, overgrown, quiet.
Their final fresh meal was a good one—steak and potatoes, the last of the meat. Todd didn't appreciate a good steak, but he loved his baked potato. They didn't quite get to the last gallon of cold milk in time. When Alan opened it, it had turned.
This made him think. Rotten milk was just milk that had started growing bacteria, right? That—and the fact that he could still digest food—had to mean that bacteria, at least, was alive. It hadn't all vanished. So where was the line? How small was small enough to have survived?
He tried to remember how many insects he'd seen since everyone vanished. He would've sworn he'd at least noticed a bee or a fly, but when he tried to pinpoint a specific memory, he came up empty. Todd couldn't remember either. With the grass so high, bugs should have been swarming everywhere. There was his answer, then: no bugs.
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