When he finished coughing up pizza bits and swallowed it all back down with soda, he read the headline again. He struggled to comprehend the words because the photo showed a very skinny, very battered version of Maggie. The words ‘hit and run’ were all that stood out to him. He clicked the article and tried to read it but couldn’t calm his emotions.
He gave up two sentences in and called her. Her boyfriend answered.
Dean cleared his throat. “Hey, can I talk to Maggie?”
Jack’s voice came out low and soothing. “She can’t talk right now.”
“I saw the news. Is she okay?” Without thinking, Dean had gotten up from his lunch and walked into the hall. He saw someone grab his tray and dump it to take his seat. He turned his back to the cafeteria windows.
“She’s fine, Dean. She’s just asleep right now.” In the background, Dean could hear Jack open and close a door and then what sounded like street noise surrounded his deep voice.
“Have her call me back. As soon as possible. Please.”
“I’ll give her the message. Thanks for calling.”
“Oka—” Dean’s phone beeped. The call had ended before he’d even finished talking. Dean had left her messages before, but they were rarely, if ever, returned. Sometimes she would text him that she fell asleep studying or something and forgot to call back, always promising she would when she had some time. It hurt him that she didn’t care to keep in touch. They had always been really close.
* * *
Two days passed with no word from Maggie. His parents said they’d spoken to her, and they planned to go see her as soon as Dad could break away from the project he was running at work. She was fine, they told him. And they apparently had also spoken with Jack, who assured them she was recovering fine and was honestly too embarrassed for company.
He begged his mother to take him to see her, but she insisted they wait for his dad. Dean knew his dad, and he knew the day his dad was no longer busy would never come.
He stayed glued to his phone, waiting for anything. A text, a call, a private message online. Any proof of life. He’d read the few articles that covered the accident. They hadn’t found the person who’d run over Maggie.
Meanwhile, he’d also seen about a dozen articles from leading conspiracy theorists claiming to have evidence that the government was hiding something. Something big. What, exactly? No details there. Typical.
That Saturday, around 4:30 in the morning, Dean’s phone rang. In a haze, he patted around his bed, trying to find the device, but he missed the call. He called the number right back, and it went straight to voicemail. When he hung up, he stared at the phone for a few seconds before a voicemail alert came through. He checked the message. Maggie’s voice.
“I miss you. I miss our talks.” It was her voice, but detached. Almost like she was a stranger, not his sister…his best friend before she fell in love with Jack.
He called the number again. Straight to voicemail. He tried Maggie’s phone. No answer.
He was tired of the mystery. He was tired of every piece of information his entire family had about Maggie being secondhand. Sure, Jack probably had all the best intentions, and maybe Maggie hadn’t wanted to talk to any of the family directly. After all, they’d all had a huge fight before she and Jack left for college over two years ago.
But this time Maggie had called him. Directly. She was reaching out.
After a few hours of staring into the darkness of his room, he got up. He was going to go see her. Why hadn’t his parents gone yet? Because his dad was working, and Jack said not to come? Jack had been Maggie’s high school sweetheart, and Dean’s parents loved him like part of the family. Dean got that, but surely they wanted to see Maggie for themselves. Dean sure did. And even if Maggie really didn’t want to see them…well, tough. He was family, and she would have to just get over herself. Period.
* * *
On the road, he found himself anxious to check his phone but didn’t dare mess with it while driving. He’d heard alerts for different apps but none were from phone calls or texts, he knew that much.
When he got to town, he navigated to the student housing based on the address from the birthday card Maggie had sent him her freshman year. When he arrived, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. He checked his phone. It was ten in the morning, and he hadn’t gotten a screaming phone call from his parents yet, which was a huge shocker. Something pretty serious must have been going on with his dad’s work.
He traipsed up to the building. Someone with two duffel bags bulging with clothes pushed past him rather aggressively, almost frantically. The girl rushed to her car, and Dean didn’t take his eyes off her until the door had almost closed. He slipped his fingers in at the last second and then slid into the building. He peeked at the envelope and navigated to the indicated dorm number and knocked.
“Hey,” he mustered when a sleepy blonde opened the door. “I’m Maggie’s brother, Dean. Is she here?”
The girl crossed her arms. “Maggie doesn’t live on campus anymore.”
“What?” Dean eyed the folded envelope again.
“She moved into an apartment across town with her boyfriend. And it’s gross.” Her voice was laced with…something.
“Oh.” Dean shook his head. “I saw the news.”
“Oh, the accident? Yeah, that’s a real head-scratcher.” The blonde glanced at her phone; something caught her eye and she started scrolling. She mumbled, mostly unintelligibly. “…freaking out, hysteria. What the…” She sighed. “Sorry, I have to pack up. The ‘rents are demanding I come home right now. Like we’re in some kind of national crisis? The apartment is on Mercury Avenue. I don’t know which number.”
Dean glanced over his shoulder and realized more kids were storming out of the dorms with bags hastily stuffed full of clothes. He followed them outside and saw traffic beginning to stack up.
Dean hopped into the car and pulled up a news feed.
Panic in the U.S. Head to major cities for government protection. Food and shelter. Seek cover. Stick together.
All the makings of a public fiasco.
All the makings of a Dean-panic attack too, if he wasn’t careful. Already a little prone to anxiety (and maybe paranoia), Dean was instantly torn between freaking out and finding Maggie. But he knew he had to find Maggie. Even more so now. Maybe if he just focused on that, it wouldn’t eat him alive that he didn’t know what was going on, and that he didn’t have time to read more to figure it out.
It took him over an hour to get to Maggie’s apartment complex with the traffic. And when he got there, his phone rang. Dad.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” His dad’s voice was so loud it hurt Dean’s ear.
“I’m looking for Maggie. Dad, did you know she doesn’t live on campus anymore?” Dean scanned the apartments in every direction, not sure how he would narrow it down.
“Dean, listen to me. Get your sister and get back here as soon as possible.”
“Okay, Dad—”
“Listen to me!” he shouted. “Avoid crowds and cities. Get Maggie and get home. You hear me?”
Dean had never heard his dad like this before. His eyes began to water as the fear he’d kept at bay upon reading the news finally gripped him. Hearing his dad confirm that there was reason for panic, Dean was actually starting to panic.
“Yes, sir,” his weak voice managed.
He shook his head as the call ended. This was crazy. He turned on the radio and flipped channels until he heard news, which wasn’t hard because most of the channels were discussing it.
“…an unknown threat. We aren’t even sure if it’s just a threat on the United States or if other countries have been targeted. And the scariest part is no one will tell us what we’re all running from.”
He flipped the channel. “The President has just ordered all citizens to travel to the nearest city for government protection. I don’t know about you, Chase, but no matter what this is, driving all
of the population into major cities couldn’t possibly be the safest—”
He flipped again. “—have a right to know! We have to demand the truth. Until they tell us what this is, I’m not moving a muscle. I think we all agree, we’re safer in our own homes.”
Again. “We just have to trust our government. Their job is to protect us—”
The sweat beading on Dean’s forehead dripped into his eye. He wiped it away.
“—a matter of public safety and possibly national security.”
Dean shut the radio off. He would have to figure out what was going on later. Right now, he needed to find Maggie. He drove back and forth through the complex, looking for Maggie’s car and couldn’t find it. Maybe she wasn’t home.
On the third pass, he spotted a champagne-colored Honda that he vaguely recognized. Maybe it was Jack’s car. Dean pulled into the space next to the Honda and got out. Peering in the windows didn’t give him any clues about the owner, but he looked at the building closest to the parking spot and assumed their apartment would be there.
He took a deep breath and approached the first apartment he came to.
“I’m looking for Maggie Jenkins,” he said to the groggy man who answered the door. The man shook his head and went back inside.
He tried the next door. Same drill.
“I don’t know a Maggie,” the lady said.
On and on Dean went, more disheartened with every knock. Several tenants rushed out of their apartments with packed bags without even acknowledging him.
The first apartment he came to on the second floor had a flowery doormat and a porcelain cat figurine next to a potted plant. It was no surprise when a sweet old lady answered the door. And she knew Maggie.
“Yessir. Number 347. Y’all be safe now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, unable to wait long enough to give her a proper thank you or goodbye. He jogged to the stairs and took them two at a time, then pounded heavily on the door to 347.
Jack answered. He didn’t appear to have been awake very long.
“Dean?” Jack pulled on a t-shirt and hiked his gym shorts up higher on his waist.
“I’m looking for Maggie. Something big is going on. Have you seen the news?” Dean couldn’t keep his voice from going all high-pitched the way he hated when he got too excitable.
Jack’s furrowed brow seemed to ease, and he pushed his shoulders back, his expression changing from one of confusion—presumably from seeing Dean at his door—to one of a relaxed sort of confidence. “Of course I’ve seen the news.” He glanced over Dean’s shoulder, taking in the scene playing out behind him. The parking lot slowly emptying of cars, the streets full of reckless drivers with no regard for one another or the law. “Come on in,” Jack said, clapping a hand on Dean’s shoulder as he ushered him inside.
The apartment complex looked like total junk on the outside, but Dean had to admit, the inside was meticulously kept. He wasn’t so sure Maggie lived here at all. Not the Maggie he used to share a bathroom with.
“Mags, your brother came by for a visit,” Jack called out. “Get yourself together a little before you come out.”
Dean was confused and shocked. He knew something bigger than this was wrong, but Maggie had always hated the nickname Mags. She was ‘too young’ for a name like that.
Jack turned on the TV to the news but didn’t seem too eager to watch. “I’ve been following it all morning. What do you make of it, Dean?” Jack poured himself a cup of coffee, not looking at Dean as he addressed him.
Maggie came out of the bedroom in a bathrobe, her hair a mess from sleep. Her bruising from the accident had gone down a little. The stitches on her eyebrow were uncovered. She had what appeared to be yesterday’s makeup forming dark circles around her eyes.
Dean ran to her. She groaned when he threw his arms around her. “I’m so sorry!” He’d forgotten that she was injured.
“Dean, what are you doing here?” she asked softly, her eyes flitting over to Jack then back to Dean.
Dean hesitated to answer truthfully, not wanting to offend Jack or somehow imply he had anything to do with Maggie’s prolonged absence from their family. So for now, he’d pretend. “Dad sent me to pick you up. Something crazy is going on—”
“Yeah, it’s really something,” Jack said, sipping his coffee, brows knit. “Why don’t you fill her in with the gist of it.” Everything about his demeanor and body language seemed confident and overly casual. Dean didn’t know what to make of it.
“Right…so…we don’t really have any details. The government is trying to herd people into the cities but Dad said not to listen. Said we need to go home right now. Maggie, you have to get packed.” He looked back and forth between them, pleading for them to listen.
Jack didn’t move. Took another sip. “Hmm,” he pondered, almost condescendingly if Dean wasn’t imagining things.
Dean could see that neither of them was in a hurry. He peeked through the blinds at the commotion outside and made a decision. He turned back to Maggie. Never mind Jack. He touched Maggie’s shoulder, turning her toward the bedroom. “Come on, Maggie. Where’s your suitcase?”
“Hey!” Jack’s hand shot out and grabbed Dean by the arm. When Dean’s eyes had grown as wide as possible from shock, Jack explained. “She’s been in an accident. You can’t just grab her like that.”
Dean followed Jack’s gaze downward at his shirt where he’d spilled coffee. “Look what you did,” Jack mumbled. He sighed and made his way to the bedroom. “Maggie, pack your bag, sweetheart. We’d best get on the road. It’s a two-hour trip to where we’re going.”
“Wait… Where are we—”
“We,” Jack emphasized, gesturing to himself and Maggie, “have other arrangements. You go home and be with your family.”
Maggie’s eyes were weighted with an apology. “I love you, Bean,” she whispered, smiling a little at the memory of her childhood pet name for him. It was as if she were dying of cancer and had fully accepted it. People didn’t smile like that in the midst of crisis.
Dean’s heart thrummed in his chest and his face contorted while he tried to understand, and yet somehow he’d known from the moment he’d arrived that it was crazier inside this apartment than it was outside. And outside was nuts.
He leaned closer to Maggie. “I can’t leave without you. Dad’ll flip. C’mon, I know I’m a spaz and all that but at the end of the day, I trust Dad. I know you do too.” He waited for her to meet his gaze, and when she finally did, there was a flash of something, a flash of awakening. He knew she was listening now. “Maggie, we have to go home. Dad knows what to do.”
Their father, Chris, was a contractor with the Department of Defense. Matters of national security were definitely within the realm of his expertise.
Jack put his hand on his chest. “I know what to do. I’ve been taking care of Maggie just fine all this time, thank you very much. And where has your family been? Sweetheart, don’t let him manipulate you. They’ve all disappeared while I’ve been here for you. Me, not him. And not your father.” Jack had swooped in with no warning at all, arms around her waist, staring longingly into her eyes, his gaze haunted, like they’d somehow survived unimaginable horrors together.
Dean shook his head. “Wait, what?” Jack had it twisted. They hadn’t disappeared. She had! Dean hadn’t abandoned her. “Maggie, you know I’ve been calling. I’ve left voicemails, sent messages. Freaking letters, even. Jack…” Dean’s eyes shifted between the two. “Tell her, Jack. About…” Then a light came on. Dean could feel his face contort, but it was nothing compared to what he felt inside: a knotted mess of anger and confusion. “You didn’t tell her,” he whispered.
Maggie’s eyes were far off.
Jack pulled Maggie closer. She leaned into his embrace. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you wanted to reach her, all three of you knew how to.”
“Maggie, he’s—”
“Get out of my house, please,” Jack sai
d calmly as he moved to the door and opened it, pulling Maggie along with him.
“Maggie, please.”
Her eyes made the short journey from Dean’s face to the open door and peered out. The noise from outside filled the small apartment.
“Maggie,” Dean whispered. “Come with me.”
Clarity seemed to seep into her eyes, the glaze slowly giving way to logic…or something. She shook her head, just a little. “Can he come with us?” Dean realized she was talking to Jack, not him.
Jack scoffed. “Mags…”
“We can’t send him out into that. He’s just a kid.” Dean noticed she wasn’t looking either one of them in the eye. He wondered why. Was she on drugs?
The moment that passed felt more like a million moments to Dean.
All three of them took a deep breath at the same time. Jack shook his head, his lips tight and jaw tensed. He groaned before finally saying, “Fine.” Dean met his eyes. There was a warning there. Dean gave a nod to reassure his sister’s boyfriend that he wouldn’t cause trouble. It was unspoken, but at the moment, it was all Dean could muster.
Jack walked away, leaving Dean to close the door. When he turned around, they had both disappeared into the bedroom. Dean didn’t have anything to do while they packed up behind a closed door, so he sank into their sofa and started scanning his phone for information on what the heck was going on. He also sent his dad a text.
GOT MAGGIE. WE’RE SAFE.
He left it at that. He didn’t know how he was going to explain that he wasn’t coming home. With the streets the way they looked, odds weren’t good they’d make it home anyway. While he pored over articles, his chest tight and throat thick, he hoped that Jack actually had a decent plan. And he had every intention of demanding that Jack fill him in. Until the pair walked back in the room, then Dean’s courage wavered.
“Where are we going?” Dean managed.
Jack cracked his neck, bag on his shoulder. Maggie came out behind him with her own backpack weighing her shoulder down. Dean glanced at Jack, who backtracked when he noticed Dean’s scowl.
The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Page 15