Above the Hush

by Jacqueline Druga

  West asked. “So you’re traveling with them?”

  “No,” Shane answered. “They’re headed northwest. I’m headed northeast.”

  “Alone?” West asked. “Really?”

  Shane nodded.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” said West. “What if you fall, get hurt, choke on a peach pit. What if whatever happened isn’t done. I mean if you don’t have a choice, yes, but you do have one. Travel with us.”

  I did a double take, looking at West. What? Was he just inviting everyone?

  “Thank you, but I really don’t want to leave my car,” Shane said. “Once we get out of ground zero…”

  “Is that what you think this is?” West asked. “You think it’s this area only?”

  “I do,” Shane answered. “An attack.”

  “Right here? Do you think whoever did this has something against Stonewall Jackson? Considering the Stonewall Jackson house is about twenty miles from here and that is the only thing around with a name.”

  “Ironically,” I added. “That’s close to where the plane went down.”

  Shane looked at West. “Are you being serious?”

  “No, I’m being facetious. This isn’t an attack. It’s something else. I just don’t know what. And that is something we can talk about when we’re on the road.”

  Shane shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t want to leave my car.”

  “Then follow us,” West suggested.

  “Anyone want to ask me?” I spoke up. “I get it. I do. No traveling alone. But I have to find my family. I have to look for my son.”

  “I understand that,” West said.

  “Do you? I don’t think you do. I don’t know what time this … thing happened. All I know is my son took off on his motorcycle right before it did. He left this campsite and I don’t plan on cruising along, carrying on a conversation because I am going to be looking out the window for motorcycles the entire way, and I plan on stopping when I see one.” Having exhausted all my breath in that flurry of speech, I inhaled. “So … you want to travel together, there you have it. You two travel together. That way if one of you chokes on a … peach pit, the other can perform the Heimlich. I’m going to start looking for my son.” I reached out for Shane and took the map. “If you don’t mind, let me just look at this for a moment.” Before he could respond, I had that map opened and started walking to my truck.

  I opened the back gate and spread out the map, examining where we were and what road I could take. It looked as if heading north was my best option as it wasn’t a major roadway, so traffic would be minimal.

  “Hey,” West walked up to me and spoke softly. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m sorry that you have to find your son. That you have to carry that burden. I didn’t mean to come off like it was some sort of spring break road trip. I didn’t. I don’t have anyone to look for and I am pretty sure as shit no one will be out there looking for me, but I stand firm no one should travel alone.” He peered over my shoulder to the map. “You thinking of taking Bratton’s Run straight up north.”

  “I am.”

  “Yeah, well, twenty or so miles north of here is Augusta Correction Center. They have no power out there, which means you have no security from wanderers. Just about now it might not be an area you want to drive through alone.”

  I raised my eyes to him.

  “Not that I’m all that much protection. But there is safety in numbers.” He placed his hand on the map. “We should all go together. We will all keep an eye out for the motorcycle. Deal?”

  Admittedly I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was scared and emotional. Who wouldn’t be? I folded the map and nodded my head once. “Deal.”

  9 – DISCOVERY

  There wasn’t much I knew about Carl West or Shane ‘whatever-his-last-name-was’. Physically nothing really set them too much apart. Both were average in build, maybe slightly above average in height, they both hid their heads under baseball caps. Only difference was one of them was incredibly crisp and clean, the other looked like he would run from a bath.

  I guessed I wouldn’t get to know them because like I suggested, they rode together in Shane’s expensive black SUV. I followed behind, the plan was if I saw anything, I was to beep. The bikes were in my truck, and after getting on the northbound road, I was hopeful we wouldn’t need them. There were very few cars that were dead. The ones we did see had veered off the road.

  We waited to make sure Ralph and Doris got underway, they were taking the same route north, then they’d head west. They trailed behind, but eventually passed us in their red minivan, with a hand out the window, gesturing perhaps good luck. I guess we were driving too slowly. Shane was driving and he set the pace. He kept a good one, enabling me to look out the window. I kept about ten car lengths behind.

  My mind was full, being alone in my truck, I went back and forth between searching and thinking. The thinking part wasn’t intentional. My mind would drift to the events of the previous twenty-four hours. The horrors of the highway, those who had died in the pile up and the incinerated bodies from the air plane crash.

  I got so deep into those thoughts I mentally travelled away, almost like an awake sleep, so consumed that I failed to even see the road in front of me. The memories transported me back to those moments. Intense uncontrolled daydreams where I’d hear someone call out for help, in those daydreams people were alive.

  A part of me was happy that mine weren’t the only eyes on the road. Because had I been travelling alone, I surely would have missed something, or a sign of Michael.

  It was doubtful Michael took the north route, unless the event happened after he left. Then again, he didn’t come back. Surely, he would have come back if something that big occurred.

  Maybe not. I stopped knowing who my son was. I missed him terribly even when he was in the same room.

  My cell phone had died, I didn’t bring my car charger so I was at a loss as to if it would have picked up a signal, and if there had been one, would anyone have answered?

  Not long after Ralph and Doris passed us, maybe ten minutes, we travelled through a small rural living area that lined the road. Mainly it consisted of older frame homes and businesses long closed down. The road split at the railroad crossing and a train blocked the way from us going straight. It was just parked there as if it had just stopped. Shane veered left at the Y, probably seeing if he could go around. The train wasn’t that long and the road did loop around.

  At the end of the looping road was another intersection, as I suspected he’d do, Shane started to go right, but then he stopped and immediately turned to the left.

  What the hell was he doing?

  He pulled into the parking lot of a roadside diner. A small lot with two old fashioned gas pumps out front. The single story, copper colored building was long and narrow.

  The taillights to Shane’s vehicle shut off, then he and West stepped from the SUV.

  I shut off my ignition as well and got out. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Shane pointed. There were three cars and a truck in that lot, but at the farthest end of the diner were three motorcycles. He swung and pointed toward the church next door. A motorcycle lay on its side in the grass.

  I shut the truck door.

  He obviously spotted them when he was about to turn.

  “Thank you,” I said and walked toward the three motorcycles. I saw from the corner of my eye West ran to the one by the church.

  “There’s a body,” West shouted out.

  My eyes closed for a second.

  “It’s not your son!” he shouted. “This guy is too old.”

  Thinking, ‘Thank God’, I examined the bikes outside the diner. One was red, that wasn’t Michael’s. His bike was older and black. The other two, those similar in appearance, their plates didn’t match.

  “Are we good?” Shane asked.

  “Yes, we’re good. They aren’t his.”

  Shane put
his hands on his hips and faced the diner.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  “We need water,” Shane said. “I need water at least. We don’t have any.”

  “I have like two bottles,” I said.

  Shane shook his head. “Not enough if we get stuck somewhere.”

  “So you want to go in there?”

  “I think we should. At least get water. You don’t have to go in.”

  “No. No, I … need to see. Maybe they’re all fine.”

  West returned from the church and met us at the door. “We going in?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “We need water.”

  “Let’s get in there, get what we need and get out,” West said.

  “Maybe grab some supplies,” Shane suggested. “A simple two hour, one hundred mile trip could turn into two days and five hundred miles. We don’t know. We may be stuck in the area. It could be sealed off.”

  “You're back on the attack thing,” West shook his head. “Okay.” He stepped ahead and grabbed the door. The second he opened it a cloud of smoke poured out. In fact the entire diner was veiled in a cloud of smoke, which made it hard to see. There was no power, no lights.

  West propped the door open to air it out.

  The scent of burnt bacon filled the air, but I couldn’t make out much in the diner. The two front windows brought in a lot of sunlight, which reflected off the smoke.

  “Over there,” Shane said. “Register and a cooler.”

  “I got these windows,” West added.

  “Don’t bother,” Shane told him.

  “No, I’d like to see what we are grabbing.” West lifted the window.

  “I’ll check over here,” I said, walking slowly across the diner.

  It wasn’t very big and it didn't have many tables. Slowly the smoke started to thin out, I could make out the row of booths, and that was when I saw the first two bodies. They were seated in a booth across from each other, their coffee cups tipped over. The man in the booth had his head down on the table, the was woman sideways on the bench seat.

  “See if they have any boxes of cereal,” Shane said to me. “By the lunch counter there. Whatever you can grab.”

  The counter came into view as the smoke lifted toward the ceiling. The tables were empty, but the counter wasn’t.

  I walked closer.

  Half eaten breakfast meals were on plates spread across the counter. Two patrons had fallen to the floor from the stools, the other two, like the man in the booth were faceplanted into their food.

  I didn’t look closely at the bodies, I didn’t want to. I focused more on the shelf of mini cereal boxes positioned under the television.

  They were my focus. The corn flakes, the raisin cereal and the sugary things. I concentrated so deeply on looking only at those cereals that as I walked behind the counter and my foot caught on something, down I went.

  I didn’t land hard on the ground, because I landed on a person.

  I screamed a freaked out, and frightened “Uh”, finding myself face to face with the body of a waitress.

  “You alright?” West shouted out.

  I didn’t answer. My body went into that same panicked meltdown it had with the bicycle. So thrown and disturbed, basic movements were impossible. I hurriedly tried to get up, my hands pressing against the cold hard flesh. I thought I had it, but my fingers slipped, causing her rigid arm to shoot above her head and me to lose balance. I careened forward again, this time nose to nose with her. Then suddenly I stopped. I couldn’t move. I pulled back slightly and stared.

  “Audrey.” West reached down for me. “Are you hurt?”

  An eerie calm had befallen me, and I spoke with dazed revelation. “Oh my God. I know how they died.”

  West helped me to my feet. “What?” he asked confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know how they died, all of them.” I looked back down at the waitress. “They were electrocuted.”

  10 – CHANGE UP

  The name tag on her uniform said her name was Celia. She wasn’t old, not at all. Maybe thirty, pretty, too. Her face was a blueish gray color, but the color of her face wasn’t what made me realize the cause of death. It was when her arm shot upward and I saw the remote control to the television was fused to her hand. Her forearm was black.

  Neither Shane or West believed me at first, I know they thought I was insane. After all, how did I come to the conclusion in an instant?

  It wasn’t an instant, not really. All the information was stored in my brain, collecting there, I just needed that final piece of the puzzle to make it click, and that piece was the remote.

  Immediately, I was suddenly acting the part of some television medical examiner, walking from body to body.

  “With Celia,” I said. “It came from the television to the remote. Him …” I walked over to a man who was slumped on the counter. “His phone.” I moved to the man on the floor. “He was too close to the cooler. The couple in the booth, I don’t know.”

  “And you’re sure?” West asked.

  “Yes. The black marks we are seeing on everyone, they aren’t pooling blood, it’s burn marks, that is where the current made its way in.”

  “Electrocution?” asked West.

  “Yes.”

  “All of them?” Shane asked.

  “All of them.”

  “How in God’s name is that possible?” Shane tossed his hands up. “How? Fucking electricity would have to have jumped at them.”

  “Electric currents work like that. How and … why are the questions,” I said. “Something obviously happened in this area.”

  Shane gave West a smug look.

  “What?” West asked him. “So you may be right, it may be localized. I’m still not convinced it’s an attack.”

  “Oh, I am,” I said. “It has to be some sort of weapon.” I saw as West’s eyes rolled back, I knew he thought I was ridiculous. “What is the problem with that theory?”

  “Who in the hell is gonna attack this part of Virginia?” West asked. “They aren’t. Not here. Not in this pissant section. If it is localized, it’s a fluke.”

  “How … how do you know this stuff?” Shane asked. “Are you a scientist?”

  “Me? No.” I shook my head. “No, I work for the cable company. When your bill is wrong or cable is out, I’m the person you talk to.”

  “Really,” West said. “I thought all those people were in India.”

  Shane’s jaw dropped and he turned to West with a disgusted look. “That was really wrong.”

  West moved his hand in a shooing wave.

  Shane faced me. “So they taught you this stuff at the cable company?”

  “No, my father did. Just something he talked about,” I said.

  “Okay.” Shane held up his hand. “So right now, theoretically, we know what caused all these people to die. We just don’t know why or how.”

  “But we know when,” West said.

  I looked over my shoulder and West’s hand was pointed up to a clock on the wall. An older clock with an electric cord running from it, its hands had stopped. The clock had stopped at 7:43.

  7:43.

  Immediately I thought of Michael. He left the camp at five in the morning. He had plenty of time to get out of the area before the event occurred. Knowing that made me breathe a little easier.

  <><><><>

  I hated that we took things from that diner. Cereal, candy, beef jerky, water. West even grabbed bacon that hadn’t burned. In my opinion, we didn’t need it. Once we made it out of the affected area, everything would be fine. We’d look silly carrying survival supplies.

  I still rode by myself in the truck. Knowing what time everything stopped, I was confident Michael was far out of the area and wasn’t as diligent about looking. Although, I still looked.

  The road by the diner wrapped around the train tracks and set us back on our path north. I thought for certain at some point ahead we’d run into emergenc
y crews, possibly roadblocks, even the Red Cross. It wasn’t going to be long before we emerged back into civilization and got the explanation we needed.

  Occasionally, I’d turn on the radio. Each time I did so, I hoped I’d hear something. But there was nothing, not even static.

  I saw a sign for the Augusta Correctional Centre, it was five miles ahead and I thought about what West had said. Even as we put miles between us, there were still no signs that we were free from the affected area. Cars and vehicles were still randomly stopped on the road and off to the side. They were becoming such a common sight that I stopped looking. How I saw it … I still don’t know. Shane and West did not. They didn’t even slow down.

  I laid on the horn, beeping it. Why didn’t they stop? They were out of my view for a good thirty seconds before they returned.

  I was nervous standing outside of my truck, because I could see the prison.

  Both Shane and West jumped from the SUV and raced toward me.

  “What is it?” West asked. “We didn’t see a motorcycle.”

  I folded my arms tightly to my body and tilted my head as my way of pointing. “Look.”

  I watched as they both turned their heads to see.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me that’s not them.”

  “It can’t be,” Shane said.

  “Who?” asked West.

  Off the road, plowed into a heavily overgrown area was a red minivan. It was one of those deluxe models, the type a family would have ... grandparents. The same kind Ralph and Doris had been driving.

  “Ralph and Doris,” I said.

  “No.” West shook his head and spoke confidently. “It is not them.”

  “There’s only one way to know.” Shane headed toward the van.

  My mind kept going to the prison. What if West was right, what if it was dangerous out there, and some murderous escapee ran them off the road? When we arrived at the van, I knew that wasn’t the case.

  The second I saw Doris, her face smashed against the passenger window, I knew.