The Hours

by Robert Barnard

  The camera shifted off the news anchor’s face and to an aerial view of three ranch style homes, side by side to one another, each engulfed in flames. The helicopter filming the blaze circled steadily above the homes while Dan, the eyewitness to the scene, spoke via telephone.

  “I tell ya, Jessica,” Dan said over a static-plagued connection. “It is an eerie sight out here tonight. From what I understand, the home you’re seeing in the middle of the three on fire was the first to catch at approximately forty-five minutes ago. You can see now that there’s hardly a shell of it left. The houses on either side of it caught next. Fire fighters have refused to extinguish the blaze. The neighborhood has been surrounded by an impressive showing of tanks and other artillery. Emergency personnel have yet to approach the burning buildings. I’ve been told that they’ve been ordered to stay outside of a 100 yard radius of the fire.”

  “It’s frightening,” the news anchor said, “that there’d be such a deliberate attempt by police, firefighters, and paramedics to not approach the scene. Obviously, those are the people you’d want to come rushing in during such a terrible crisis. Has there been any explanation offered for this?”

  Dan cleared his voice, the phone line popped and hissed with static. “Well, Jessica, the Pemberton Heights Police Department has declined to comment on the situation, so we’re left to wonder what the reasoning may be. This is a neighborhood filled with families, and we can’t confirm who is or is not inside those homes, but you have to assume that there’s at least the possibility of families being inside. So to not go in and try to help—that’s, that’s just devastating—the only way to wrap your head around it is that there’s some greater threat posed by going in there.”

  “Tragic news,” the anchor said, and the aerial view of the neighborhood cut to static. “And Dan—are you there, Dan?”

  “Sure, Jessica,” the voice on the phone line said.

  “Our newsfeed was just disrupted, can you tell us more about that?”

  “All news media have been ordered out of the area,” Dan continued, “and the airspace over Pemberton Heights was just declared a no-fly zone, so our helicopter had to leave. That’s why you lost the feed.”

  The screen cut back to Jessica at her desk. She sat stoically and shook her head. “Stay tuned to GCN and we’ll have all the latest updates for you as the situation in Austin unfolds. Of course, this bizarre neighborhood fire comes on the heels of an inexplicable double homicide in Los Angeles this afternoon. Following the attack in L.A., California governor Scott Spence initiated a statewide travel ban for all persons going in and out of the state. This ban comes less than forty-eight hours after congress lifted a federal-wide ban barring interstate travel for the first time in two years, following the NYVO event in New York.”

  Chloe marched back into the living room. Sherri, Jim, and Nolan were all glued quietly to the television screen. Jim was the first to turn around, notice that Chloe was headed towards front door.

  “Where are you going?” Jim asked.

  “That was my sergeant,” Chloe said. “They want all new recruits at the police department by seven for an emergency meeting.”

  Nolan spun on the couch. His feet hit the wooden floor with a whack, and he stood up so fast he dizzied. Sherri leapt towards him, caught him by the shoulders, and steadied him, worried that he might collapse.

  “No,” Nolan said. “You can’t do that.”

  Chloe frowned. “Nolan, I gotta go.”

  “Come on,” Jim said, and he waved Sherri towards the back of the house. “Let’s give them a moment.”

  Jim and Sherri vanished from the living room, and Nolan hobbled towards Chloe, put a hand on each of her shoulders.

  “You worked eleven hours today,” Nolan said. “What more could they expect from you?”

  “I have to be there. I took an oath.”

  “So did your dad,” Nolan said, “and he was smart enough to break it when the shit hit the fan.”

  “The shit hasn’t hit the fan,” Nolan.

  “We’ve been through this before!” Nolan shouted. “It’s like you don’t remember. It’s like none of you remember. There’s scary shit going on this afternoon, and I don’t want you out there in it.”

  “This is why I signed up for it,” Chloe said. “For just this kind of moment. To keep it from ever happening again.”

  “This is stupid, Chloe,” Nolan said. “We survived New York, and the government dumped enough money into our laps that we wouldn’t have to work for a decade if we didn’t want to. We could go anywhere. Do anything. You don’t need to be a cop, you don’t have to go out there and face whatever’s going on. We can just pick up and get out of here.”

  “No, Nolan,” Chloe said. “If there’s a single thing I learned after New York, it’s that there’s no running from this. It needs to be faced head on.”

  “You’re leaving me,” Nolan said. “You’re leaving us. I can’t believe you’re really doing it.”

  Chloe kissed Nolan on the cheek, said, “I need to pick up Hannah. I had to be on the road ten minutes ago.”

  “Be safe,” Nolan said, and he stood helplessly in the doorway, felt his vision start to blur again as all six feet of Chloe bolted out the front door. “And come back soon.”

  “What do you think’s going on?” Hannah asked.

  Chloe’s Challenger careened off of Hemming and on to Main.

  “I don’t know,” Chloe said, and she slapped around her dashboard, her eyes fixed on the road. “Where are my goddamn smokes?”

  “Have you been watching the news?”

  “Have I been watching the news?” Chloe scoffed. “I have a boyfriend who won’t stop watching the news. Hasn’t for two years.”

  “I think it’s related,” Hannah said, confidently. “What happened in L.A. today and what happened in Austin. I can feel it, like there’s a sour knot at the bottom of my stomach.”

  “Well bravo for your intuition,” Chloe said.

  “You’re the expert on this. What do you think?”

  “I think,” Chloe said, “that if we’re not at Cherry Valley High in the next five minutes, we’re going to be out of a job.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Hannah said. “You try too hard. You know as well as anyone that law enforcement agencies can’t keep stock since NYVO. They might as well have a revolving door on the front of the C.V.P.D. building. You could walk right up to sarge, smack him across the face, and you’d still be employed tomorrow morning.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Chloe said.

  “I am right,” Hannah added. “You’re just a little kiss ass, that’s all. You’d do anything to impress sarge.”

  “Shut up,” Chloe said.

  “You don’t think none of us have noticed the way you smile when he gives you orders—?”

  “Shut up,” Chloe said, and she smacked her steering wheel. “I have enough on my plate without your junior year cheerleader bullshit today.”

  Hannah smiled, feigned offense. “Why my dear Chloe, I think I’ve struck a nerve.” She leaned her head against the passenger door window of the car, stared out at the fast passing scenery. “Lighten up, Chlo. It’s going to be a very long night.”

  The Challenger skidded to a stop in the parking lot of Cherry Valley High. Chloe and Hannah hopped out, jogged to the top of the hill, then toward the school track, and met with their other cadets.

  Chloe was confused, there was hardly anyone else there. At least a dozen or so soon-to-be officers were missing. She checked her watch: 7:14 P.M. Where had everyone gone?

  Sergeant Fuller stood at the front of the track’s bleachers, his hands clasped behind his back. When Chloe and Hannah had reached the small group of cadets that circled him, he spoke.

  “The lieutenant in charge of hiring your sorry asses,” Sergeant Fuller said, “just about wrung my neck when I told him how many of you I wanted to hire for the fall academy. ‘Forty students,’ he said. ‘You must be out of your damn min
d.’ See, in past years our spring and fall academies typically held about twenty students. Sometimes twenty-five. Sometimes as few as fifteen. But typically, twenty. So to tell him that I wanted to double that number, why he just about blew a gasket. To think, some piss-on sergeant like myself, who doesn’t have rat shit for brains when it comes to understanding hiring budgets…I’d have been better off just asking my lieutenant if I could sleep with his wife.”

  Sergeant Fuller paused to examine the faces of the new hires that surrounded him. “But look who’s here. Look around you at who bothered to show up tonight. Each of you got a phone call this afternoon asking you to be here. Each of you had the same choice to make—stay home with your loved ones, or answer that call. I needed twenty good cadets this fall. So I asked for forty. Because when you trim the fat, that’s what’s left. Twenty good cadets.”

  Sergeant Fuller scanned over each face, paused when he reached Chloe’s. For a split-second, Chloe was certain he smiled at her. Hannah was certain of that, too.

  “There’s a lot of scary news out there today,” Fuller said. “And while we have no reason to believe that what’s been happening in California, Texas, and Florida could happen here, we are putting our community on high alert. We’re doubling the number of patrols. We’re taking a hands on, proactive approach to this.”

  “Excuse me,” Chloe said. “What’s happening in Florida?”

  “You haven’t heard?” a cadet mumbled.

  Fuller cleared his throat. “The coast guard just mobilized there. They stationed soldiers from the tip of Key West all the way up to southern Miami.”

  “Why?” Chloe asked.

  Fuller shrugged. “No one knows.”

  Chloe swallowed, then chewed on her bottom lip, just like she always did when she was deep in thought.

  Or nervous.

  “The twenty of you here tonight,” Fuller continued, “are hereby sworn officers of the Cherry Valley Police Department. Now, you’ve already been allowed to carry a sidearm, thanks to the special benefits provided for officers who’ve yet to graduate as provided by the NYVO commission. So you were almost there, anyways. We’re just skipping the cake and awkward celebration with your families next weekend. You’ll be paired off, assigned your own vehicles, and begin shift work immediately. In the old days, this isn’t how it’d fly. Not even close. You twenty wet-behind-the-ears cadets would still have six months of training ahead of you. But, the old days are long gone, training be damned.”

  Hannah tugged nervously at her uniform. She thought of Max, her toddler back at home, and how her mom would be looking after him for the rest of the night and at least early into the morning.

  “Lieutenant Beckman is waiting in the rear parking lot of the school with ten cruisers and a list of partners. You’re all to report to him immediately.” Fuller cleared his throat, examined the twenty faces frozen with panic that stared back at him. “Do I need to repeat myself? Roll out.”

  Chloe, Hannah, and the other eighteen cadets turned away towards the school.

  “Except for you, Miss Whiteman. I need to chew your ear for a moment before you hit the streets.”

  “Go ahead without me,” Chloe said to Hannah. “I’ll be right there.”

  “You better be,” Hannah said.

  Chloe strode towards Sergeant Fuller as the rest of the cadets shuffled to the rear of the school.

  “What is it, sir?” Chloe asked.

  “Out of all of them—all the new hires, all of us at the department—you were the only one in New York on the day of NYVO.”

  Chloe nodded. “I didn’t know that, sir.”

  “Cut the ‘sir’ bullshit,” Fuller said. “From this moment forward, the two of us are starting a much more informal chapter with one another.”

  “Sure, sarge.”

  “You were the only one to see it up close. EV1. You were just some kid, and you made it out of the whole thing alive. Dragged that goofy boyfriend of yours right out of the fire along with you. I read your entire resume and entrance essay. I was the one that hired you. Because I was impressed.”

  “I hope to not let you down. To not let any of us down.”

  “Good,” Fuller said. “Because that’s what I’m going to need from you now. To be impressed. You’re two years older and have four months of the best law enforcement training Colorado has to offer. I’m expecting greatness.”

  “Is it—,” Chloe cleared her throat. “Is it happening again?”

  “Since NYVO, every police agency in the country has been outfitted with a direct line to the Department of Defense. Every morning at seven o’clock sharp, every agency gets an automated call from that number informing us of the day’s threat level for possible EV1 exposure. For the past two years, I’ve answered that call nearly every time it rang in our department. The threat level was consistently classified as minimum.”

  “So then the call you got today was fine?” Chloe asked. “There’s no risk? All of this violence and militarization, it’s all just a coincidence?”

  Fuller shook his head, crossed his arms. “Tonight, around five thirty—I was getting ready to leave for the night—the phone at headquarters rang. The secure line, from the DoD. You could have knocked me out with a feather. For two years that phone rang at seven AM on the dot, and never any other time. I answered, and there was no automated message. Just about ten seconds of silence and the hiss of static. I figured it was a fluke, was about to hang up, when a worried voice said: ‘Hello?’ We introduced each other. The gentleman on the other end of the line informed me that every local and state law enforcement agency in the U.S. was to mobilize in preparedness for a ‘possible eco-terroristic, nuclear-terroristic, or bio-terroristic attack on U.S. soil.’ Before I could get one more word out, the call dropped. For a split-second, I thought it was some kind of idiot pulling a prank call. I had my men in the computer lab confirm that the line was still hardwired to the DoD, hadn’t been tampered with. After that, I called the Rock County Sherriff’s Department, the Willowtown Police Department; hell, I even got in touch with a buddy of mine at the Colorado State Troopers. Chloe, they all got the same call.”

  “Holy shit,” Chloe said.

  “I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I have a feeling something big is coming,” Fuller said. “I need you to stay safe out there tonight. And I need you to keep everything I just told you between you and me. Of the twenty cadets I have left, five of them look ready to vomit and faint at any second. I have every man on my force working tonight. I can’t afford to have anyone getting spooked and running out on us now. Understand?”

  Chloe nodded. “I understand.”

  Fuller pulled out a wallet from his back pocket, opened it. He slid out a business card and handed it to Chloe.

  “If you need anything at all,” Fuller said, “and you can’t reach me at the station or over the radio, this card has my private cell phone number. The moment you need me, don’t be afraid to call.”

  “Got it,” Chloe said, and she turned to sprint towards the waiting cruisers in the rear parking lot.

  “And be careful out there,” Fuller hollered, but she was already out of earshot, her hearing clouded by the chugging of ten motors.

  Fuller paused to watch the cadets as they scrambled towards their cruisers. Then, he turned away and toward the setting sun, and sniffled. There was something in the air—something electric, something palpable—but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He closed his eyes and whispered a quiet little wish out loud, so soft that no one nearby could hear it. He wished, that, whatever benevolent force might be out there, that it would keep a close eye on Chloe. That it would keep her safe and keep her whole.

  And, most importantly, that it would bring her back to him.

  NINE

  Jim stared at the screen on his cellphone. No new text messages. No new voicemails.

  He’d tried to call Dana at least a dozen times since that morning, and each time she either didn’t answer at all or th
e call went straight to voicemail.

  It’s over, he thought. It’s probably over. And even if hadn’t been before that day, the two and half hour romp he enjoyed with Sherri earlier in the evening more than likely solidified the end of his marriage.

  His thoughts wandered away. What would it cost to hire a lawyer? Who would keep the house? Almost everything they shared over the past two years, they shared as a couple. Undoubtedly, difficult times were ahead.

  Sherri walked into the bedroom. Her gaze fell on Jim, seated on the edge of his bed, fixated on his phone.

  “Nolan’s going to be just fine,” she said. “I brought him to bed, checked his vitals one last time. He’s evened out.”

  “Still playing nurse, even all the way out here?”

  “Oh, always,” Sherri said, and she smiled.

  “The coast guard mobilized in Florida,” Jim said. “My daughter just called, said her and her friend Hannah are working their first shift tonight with C.V.P.D. They don’t graduate for a week.” Jim laughed a weak, nervous laugh. “Sherri, what’s happening?”

  Sherri slid next to Jim, sat beside him on the bed. “It’s too soon to tell.”

  “I should have never let her become a cop. I begged her not to.”

  “Jim,” Sherri said. “You can’t live her life for her.”

  “It should be me out there. I ran for cover the second the shit hit the fan in New York. I abandoned my post. And I’m still paying for it.” He felt the scar on his chest throb.

  “You did what any sane, rational person would do,” Sherri said. “You were a beat cop, Jim, and New York became a war zone. It wasn’t on you to save the day. It was up to the soldiers that rolled into New York in tanks. What could you have done that they couldn’t?”

  “I quit too early,” Jim said. “People paid for that with their lives.”

  “Planes were falling out of the sky for Christ’s sake,” Sherri said. “You took your daughter, you took her boyfriend, and you took Dana…and you all got the hell out of town. And you all survived. You did the best that anyone could do.”