by J. C. Geiger
I’m sorry.
He removed more.
I’m so sorry.
He removed more sheets and the piano seemed to spring up a little, like a sagging pine bough, shaken free of snow. Griff sat on the bench. The sheet facing him was familiar.
Andante.
His piece. It was okay for him to play it.
A nervous jolt, placing his fingers. Like a current ran through them. At first, he just let them sit. Felt the weight of the keys and the hammers behind them. The tension of strings. Slowly, he allowed fingers to wander like strange animals across the keys—not too fast, not too far, still tethered by the cord around his wrist. The notes slipped like a key into a lock deep in his chest and he could breathe.
He could breathe.
It came. The flow. He could play.
Crying with gratitude. Head above water. He clung to his piano like a hunk of driftwood. Could not let go, or he would be lost. The keys saved him. They gave his fingers something else to do today and so afterward he hauled in his sleeping bag and a pillow and slept at the instrument’s rounded, brass-capped feet. Right where Leo had left them.
Hold on, he remembered. One more day. Hold on.
FIFTY-ONE
BBBADABADABADAWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Griff sat up. Blue light. Piano legs. Dark outside.
Wrong time for the siren.
The sound dipped a moment. He heard his own breathing.
“Griff?”
Doors opened. A slim blade of light.
“Mom?” he said, tongue heavy.
“Griff!” his father shouted. “Griff!”
“I’m in here,” he said. “In here!”
Griff went to the window. Peeled back the gauzy curtain.
bbbadabadabadawwwEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Outside, the neighborhood murmured like an arrhythmic heart. Doors clapping open. Lights flicking on. Dogs.
A dream. Déjà vu.
“What are you doing in here?” his dad asked, flipping on the light. Already dressed.
“I was playing,” he said.
“Let’s go,” his father said. “This one’s been verified.”
“Earthquake or nuclear?” Griff asked.
“The tsunami,” his father said. “Grab your BOB.”
Bug Out Bag. So it was real. They were leaving the house. Everything got sharp. The house felt alive. A blast of music came from his parents’ bedroom.
Was that—
His mother rushed past him in the hallway. Wild hair. Jeans and a light jacket.
“Hey,” she said. She looked a little excited. Maybe she was ready for Florida.
Griff went to his bedroom. It looked like a museum. Set piece from a bygone era. He grabbed his backpack—what else? What did he need, besides the piano? He took the Walkman, the cassette tape. Make sure it’s inside. Click, clack. Okay.
The radio.
“Griff!” his father said, filling the doorway. “We’ve got three minutes.
In the kitchen, a sound like someone dropped a fishbowl of marbles.
“Honey!”
His father left. Griff pressed the radio’s orange button.
The riff screamed out of the small speaker.
A thousand electric notes picked like a firestorm. And the unmistakable voice:
THUN-DER. THUN-DER.
K-NOW was playing AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”
He leapt up. Tingling.
“Thomas,” Griff said.
He cinched the backpack to his body. Impossible.
“Let’s knock those doors,” his father said. “Move!”
Griff stepped into the garage. His father’s truck running, puttering exhaust.
Griff removed his bicycle from its hook. Tires bounced on the driveway.
“Griff?” His mother said. She stood in the gold light, framed by the door. Backlit as she was, he could not see the details of her face. He leaned his bike and ran to her.
“I’ll be okay, Mom. I promise. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going? Griff! Griff!”
She screamed. She ran and screamed an awful scream, like her insides were burning out. Like he was being pulled out to sea, and he hummed to drown her out, made noise in his head, bicycle gears clicking, and he pedaled. His father, walking fast down the sidewalk, looked up. Wide-eyed. He mouthed words lost to the hum—
Griff pedaled harder.
Sorry, sorry, sorry—
He passed idling cars and open garages and people rattling out of their homes, moving fast, and maybe he was wrong. And if he was wrong, the shaking would happen any second and it would be over. Griff whipped onto Marine Drive and—the moon! The moon was right. He’d lost track but the moon was just a sliver shy of full and he pedaled faster, all the way to the lot, where dull red reflectors bounced back moonlight and a single figure sitting on the trunk.
“Thomas!” he hissed.
The figure leapt up. Another figure bolted from the shadows.
She ran and Griff flung his bicycle to the pavement with a clatter. She jumped and they collided in a sloppy, wild, swinging way and almost toppled, so fragile and electric and alive, and it was her! Her! He buried his face in her neck, my god—
“You came,” she whispered. “Oh my god, you’re alive!”
She looked at him, worried. Like something was wrong.
“What now?” Griff asked.
“Evacuation,” Thomas said. He was tan. Looked stronger. “Ditch the phones.”
They took them out and threw them into the Krummholz.Beneath the crash of waves, they fell soundless. The interior of Thomas’s car felt surreal, a moment from another life. Food smells, sagging ceiling, the old clinging odor and every memory of this specific car. Thomas swept a bag of chips onto the floor and started the engine.
The ThunderChicken roared. He swung them out on Marine Drive.
“So this earthquake isn’t actually happening?” Griff said.
“Oh, it is,” Thomas said, turning the wheel. “Just not tonight. Probably.”
Thomas shot into the left lane, blowing past a Mazda. A Ford pickup. Cars honked and he swerved back, blasting past an evacuation sign.
“Seven,” Charity said.
“Six,” Griff said.
In the rearview mirror, distant police lights.
“Five,” they said together. “Four.”
Wind whipped through the car. Griff remembered to breathe.
Please be there, he thought. Please let this be real.
“Three,” Thomas said.
Griff turned and looked out the back window as they climbed. His hometown, a dim, shrinking light. Like the whole Earth, viewed from heaven.
“Two,” Charity said.
“One,” they said together.
Blastoff.
SCHERZO
We don’t want to be identical, secondhand.
Tell the truth, that we are citizens of the Milky Way and we can sing. We can make love. We can dance.
—JOHN ENGMAN, Keeping Still, Mountain
FIFTY-TWO
THIRTEEN HOURS TO DEATH VALLEY.
Every set of headlights felt like the police. Every small town, a Venus flytrap. The early-morning squeals of the ThunderChicken sounded terminal—stretched belts, overworked pistons. The car shook as if whole mechanical systems were about to clunk off, dropping thrusters like a shuttle leaving Earth. They outran clouds and wildfires, eased through towering redwoods and sequoias—those ponderous, gentle giants. They listened to the whip of wind through windows, the tape on repeat.
Doubt crept in.
Some big ideas hold their substance right up until the moment you rush toward them at 70 miles per hour. By now, the town would know it was a false alarm. They would’ve traced it back to Thomas. The three of them, missing again.
“What if the whole broadcast is coming from some van parked in the desert?” Thomas said around 3 AM.
“Can we wait at least forty-eight hours before we start to regret this
?” Charity said.
At 6 AM they slipped into the early-morning traffic of Reno.
The air smelled clean.
Griff had imagined Reno like a sad, peeling Las Vegas but there was beauty here, in the way the road snugged against the tumult of a green river canyon. Turbulent water. Mountains sponged up the sunrise in mottled patches of gold, and light ricocheted from high-rise windows in the city center. A radio antenna, like a golden lightning bolt.
“Look!” Griff said. “The Most Important Radio Station in Nevada.”
Dawn broke like a slow-motion yolk, cracking over the ThunderChicken’s powder-blue hood. They played the tape again.
“I feel like an explorer,” Charity said.
“I feel like coffee,” Thomas said.
At 9 AM they stopped for iced coffees and ice. They had the Portable Early Alert System, and Neapolitan could overheat. By 2 PM, heat bled into the car, a physical presence.
Landscape shrank to gristle. Pebbles, scree. The sprawling desert floor lay flat and beaten by the sun. A yellow-talcum color, as if dimly lit from beneath.
“Look,” Thomas says. “The radio’s got the spins.”
The dial galloped to the top of the band at 1600, looped back to 550. The gray road rose into the distance like it was pointing straight up. The ThunderChicken shook with the heat, ascending.
“Lean forward, everyone. Wheels, please stay on,” Thomas said. Speed to 40, 30.
Cresting the mountains, the landscape changed. More hospitable. Touches of green speckled the valley like the leafy ends of giant vegetables.
“Irradiated carrots,” Griff said.
“The size of human legs,” Thomas said.
“A Joshua tree!” Charity said. “Can we stop?”
“Sure,” Thomas said. “Chicken needs a rest.”
Thomas pulled over. Windows down, the heat rolled in.
“It must be 100 degrees,” Griff said.
“This car feels like a bag of microwave popcorn,” Charity said.
Neapolitan squealed. Skittered in her cage.
“You can cut 20 degrees in the shade,” Thomas said.
Although stunning, a Joshua tree is not particularly inviting. A crooked octopus with morning star pom-poms, it threw small bursts of uneven shade. The ground resembled pulverized gravel. They crowded beneath the spiked tree.
Blue shade blunted the heat and cast their skin in bruised light. Things felt late-night wobbly again. Exhaustion. What were they doing? The immensity of the desert made their plan feel small.
“How much farther?” Griff asked.
“We can stop anywhere and wait for dark,” Thomas said. “Two hundred square miles is a lot of miles.”
They were hungry, tired, and hot.
“I’m going to change,” Charity said. “Don’t look.”
Griff sat very still. He listened to clothes hit the dirt. Skin sounds. Shuffling.
“Ta-da!” Charity said.
She looked strong. Glowing. Red-and-white sarong to her knees.
“You look like a flag for a brave new country,” Thomas said.
One dress changed the whole mood.
“We all look epic out here, in the desert,” Griff said.
They did! Framed by sand and sky and miles of nothing. They struck poses.
Then it was just hot. Slow time. The mood hovered between joyous and tragic, trembling on the edge of fatigue. They had to keep moving from one spiky patch of shadow to another. Griff couldn’t tell if he was angry at the tree or just starving. Thomas unboxed the MREs—Meals Ready to Eat, which came in gray-brown packages with chemical heater packs.
“No need!” Thomas said.
He tossed a sealed packet of Pork Sausage onto the blacktop.
“Thomas’s kitchen!” he screamed. “Throw those puppies right in the GODDAMN ROAD!”
The wide-open space felt ripe for cursing.
“Shit yeah!” Griff said. “Middle of the GODDAMN road!”
He tossed Beef Patty, Grilled onto the asphalt.
“Right in the middle of the FUCKING road!” Charity screamed.
She threw Chicken and Dumplings. Griff and Thomas stared.
“Don’t look so scandalized,” she said.
The packets began to stir, like something inside them was alive.
“Creepy,” Griff said.
Thomas retrieved them—ouch, ouch-eee—and brought them back. They sat in the plumpest spot of blue shade and Thomas pulled out a silver canteen. Rattled it like a cocktail shaker and poured them each a glass of ice-cold Tang. Charity took a sip and exhaled. Orange, tropical, sweet enough to make Griff’s teeth ache.
“Nectar,” Charity said. “My god.”
“So cold,” Griff said. “How did you keep ice?”
“A country boy can survive,” Thomas said.
With a full belly and a cold drink, suddenly this was a good decision. Just the flies. Little, black and buzzing. Fast with sticky feet. They landed, seemed to lap the sweat on your skin—Griff slapped them. He thought about his parents. The way his mother had screamed.
“Do you think we’ll find the Band?” Charity said.
“We’d better find something,” Griff said.
The sun shed its brightest layers—white to yellow and now orange, painting the scrub with long shadows. Thomas came back, hauling the SubWatch receiver. The copper pole cast a long bolt of darkness.
“It’s burning me through the gloves!” he said, laying it down.
“How long until sunset?” Charity asked.
Griff held his hand up to the sky, index finger flush with the horizon. Sun balanced on his pinky.
“One hour,” Griff said. Charity watched him. “Fifteen minutes a finger.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I’m a prepper, Charity,” he said. She smiled, and it felt good. Thomas beckoned them over—the sun an orange ball in his sunglasses.
“Let’s get started,” Thomas said. “We need at least one live reading.”
They prepared the hot copper. Set the frequencies. The sun smeared itself on the tops of the mountains and dimmed. Thomas put his headphones on. The light extinguished in his sunglasses.
“Surf’s up.”
FIFTY-THREE
THE MOON ROSE BOLD AND ORANGE. IT GAVE THE DESERT THE SOFT glow of a Halloween pumpkin.
The static out here was different.
Back home, near the heaving mirror of the sea, signals swarmed in a constant, refractive buzz. In the desert, even the Skip was quiet. Static bricked up tight and hard between your ears, like an invisible wall. The roar of emptiness only grew louder as light bled from the sky. Time passed. Griff’s eyes fluttered. He felt conscious of every breath.
“We are a night early,” Griff said, an hour later.
“We just need something,” Thomas said. “Any little peep, and we can track them.”
Deep nothing. Like the spins on the car’s AM dial. They held the giant copper receivers like sightless periscopes. Twisting them. Listening. Taking turns.
Then it got cold.
In the desert, light and heat turned out to be the same thing.
They put on jackets. Sarong turned back into a hoodie. Charity’s eyes fluttered and she stumbled forward with her pole. Griff took a turn while she lay on a blue blanket in the sand. The cartilage of his ears ached beneath the headphones. White noise began to whisper:
Griff. Grrriiiiiffin.
He flung off his headphones.
“Where are you going?” Thomas asked.
“I’m going to give the drone a shot.”
“Over 100,000 acres,” Thomas said.
“I’ll just try.”
Thomas shook his head. Griffin walked past the Joshua tree to the ThunderChicken. Removed the hard case from the trunk, and the drone from the hard case. Surveillance model. Roughly the size and shape of a football. Top speed of 70 miles per hour.
The best model the Preppers had.
Griff took
out Leo’s map and spread it out over the blue steel hood. He placed the drone on the scrub. Activated, it rose into the air.
Whhhhhhheeeeeee
Red light blinking.
Charity and Thomas looked up. The drone paused, then shot through the sky. Fast. Griff watched the viewfinder, racing over scrub. Thickening vegetation blurred to green waves. He got higher. The mountains ahead reared up in a loose, swirling formation. From the sky, they resembled a nautilus shell.
“Strange,” Griff whispered.
A faint glow. Maybe a reflection of the moon. He pushed toward it. Silver light limned the mountains. A touch brighter than the surrounding cliffs. He pushed forward. Over the next rise. Something.
“Guys—” Griff said.
The screen went black.
“Shit!” Griff said.
“What did you do?” Thomas asked.
“It died,” Griff said.
“That’s impossible,” Thomas said.
Griff banged the handset. It had been fully charged. Thomas and Charity went back to listening. Then Charity froze. The way she had in the ocean, the first time they’d caught a song.
“Oh,” she said.
She put a hand to her headphones. Thomas’s eyes opened wide.
“What?” Griff asked.
“The radio,” Thomas said. He took off his headphones. “It’s for you.”
FIFTY-FOUR
“YOU KNOW THE RULES,” THE MAN SAID.
The voice. He’d heard it hundreds of times, repeating the same stern mantra. In the ThunderChicken. In the Rat’s Nest. Lying in his bed at home, and again right now. Live, in Thomas’s headphones.
“No recording,” the voice said. “No preserving.”
“I copy,” Griff said. “Hello?”
“He can’t hear you,” Thomas said.
SHHHHHHHH—a blast of static.
Griff jumped. Flipped off the headphones.
“It’s real,” Griff whispered. “There’s someone out here.”
“We found it?” Charity said. “What did we find?”
“We’ll know soon,” Thomas said, grid paper out. “I got our first reading. Let’s roll.”