The Warning

by Patterson, James

  “Apparently I passed,” he said, and talked about how he was able to breathe and run despite the smoke, how innocent people had been sacrificed for this exercise. As he went on, his eyes opened wider and wider, and sweat beads emerged on his forehead. I nodded at my mom, whose face betrayed no expression.

  “At the plant, they kept calling me Rho for some unknown reason,” Jordan continued. “And I never got to see my dad. Does he even know what happened to us?”

  “That’s a good question,” Mom said as she picked up one of her tranquilizers and readied a syringe. “We’ll get answers soon, Jordan, but for now, I want you to get some rest. This will help.”

  She injected the needle into his arm.

  Jordan wasn’t going down quietly, though, continuing to talk about the supernatural scientist and his own enhanced powers. His words grew more slurred, his eyelids fluttered and sagged, and his story faded into the ether.

  It was all too fantastic to believe. Why would this spooky scientist take such an interest in my friend? Why would the military follow suit?

  Then again, why did that officer tell Jordan they knew how to find him? Why were they keeping us in town? Even if Jordan was imagining things, that didn’t mean that things weren’t being kept from us.

  Could one of those things involve Jordan? What did they actually do to him at the sick camp?

  CHAPTER 30

  Jordan

  I WOKE UP with a splitting headache, which I guess shouldn’t have been surprising, given all I’d been through, but that didn’t make it any less painful. That shard-through-my-skull sensation made me forget about my nasty leg wound—at least until I tried walking and felt like a hundred bees were sticking their stingers into it. All in all, I felt topsy-turvy and upside-down and discombobulated and any other built-fora-fun-house phrase you could think of. I wasn’t having fun, that was for sure.

  I eventually determined that it was latish afternoon. (This wasn’t great deductive reasoning. I looked at a clock, and it said 3:47.) I found Maggie sitting out back reading a library book, Radioactive Contamination for Dummies, which made me realize I’d underestimated the reach of that series.

  “Learning anything useful?” I asked.

  She gave me a concerned look that reminded me of my mom when I would come downstairs the morning after getting the flu.

  “C’mere,” she said, and after I limped over there, she lay her palm across my forehead and said, “Better.”

  “Tell me something that I don’t know,” I said, nodding toward the book.

  “Overexposure to radiation can cause cancer,” she said.

  “Duly noted.”

  Soon we were back in her car with her once again behind the wheel. I’d asked whether we could return to my house and see whether anything was salvageable now that the place had cooled off. I also was curious whether my note for my dad was still there.

  As I gazed out the car window, though, everything suddenly looked … wrong. It was as if a haze had fallen over everything, or some Instagram filter had been activated to give the world an old-timey sepia tone. The grass was brown, and most of the trees were bare, and the few leaves that remained were twisted and gray. The white paint on the Baptist church was dirty, cracked, and peeling; the road was lined with potholes; and cracks in the asphalt were springing up with weeds.

  My head throbbed all the way in the back, by my spine.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Huh?” Maggie said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  A dead cat lay on the sidewalk while a flock of jet-black crows closed in on it from a leafless branch. City Hall’s windows were cracked, and its stone walls were streaked with black as if there had been a fire, even as I could see people inside. The Mount Hope, South Carolina, and U.S. flags flying in front were tattered, almost in ribbons.

  “The town had been looking so great and now … this,” I said.

  “Now … what?” she responded.

  On the street ahead of us crept some creepy animal: short, maybe the size of a large porcupine but without quills or fur. It looked more like an oversize bug, a beetle on steroids with a hard, shiny exoskeleton. It was snuffling in the gutter.

  “Okay,” I said. “What the hell is that?”

  “What the hell is what?” Maggie asked, exasperated.

  “Are you not seeing any of this?” I asked.

  “Jordan, I don’t know what you’re seeing these days.”

  She leaned her head closer to the windshield, as if doing so might give her a better view of whatever was catching my eye, and then the car banged into an enormous pothole, making a grating noise, like the axle or frame had smashed into the asphalt. It gave us a terrific jolt as well; my seat belt kept me from hitting my head on the car’s low ceiling.

  “Yowza,” I said.

  “That was some pothole, but I didn’t see anything weird,” she said, looking back at the road.

  “It’s right there,” I said, and pointed back toward … a dog. No, that couldn’t be right. Could it?

  “That’s a blue heeler, the Perkinses’ dog,” she said after taking a quick look. “They let it roam around without a leash. It’s not a bad dog.”

  I watched the animal recede in the side-view mirror and noticed that the road now was clean and free of weeds. Everything seemed normal again, with green leaves in the trees and the lawns all nice and trimmed. The dark veil had been lifted, and the town appeared bright and inviting once more.

  “You didn’t notice anything weird for, like, a minute?” I said.

  “Aside from what was coming out of your mouth? No.”

  I flashed back to the moment after my concussion, when the football field looked ragged and weedy before I woke up to the freshly mown turf and sunshine.

  Maggie reached her hand over to my cheek.

  “I appreciate that you keep touching my face, but no, I don’t have a fever,” I said.

  “Okay, Jordan. Excuse me for worrying.”

  “Excused.”

  Maggie turned the car onto my street, which still resembled a bomb site. A cleanup crew was hauling away rubble next to the huge dark crater where the Carters’ propane tank had been. My house looked decapitated. The first floor still stood despite the burn streaks, broken glass, and ashy chunks. What had been the second floor and attic was now a charred sunroof.

  A truck was parked at the curb in front of the house.

  My father’s black pickup.

  “Hey, is that—” Maggie started to ask.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I should have been smiling. I should have been relieved. This was what I wanted, right?

  Yet everything in my stomach curdled.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Really?”

  “Tip-top.”

  “Well, how ’bout I wait in the car, and you go have a nice visit. I brought my book,” she said, grabbing Radioactive Contamination for Dummies from the back seat. “And I know you know it, but you’re welcome to stay with us as long as you’d like.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “But you should go home. I don’t know how long this will take. I’ll have my dad drop me off afterward.”

  She gave me a long look, as if she had much more to say but was repressing the impulse. “Okay,” she finally said. “But since you can’t call me on your cell, and I don’t want you walking back on that leg, I’ll swing by here again in a bit.”

  “You don’t have to, but thanks,” I said, and started to get out. Then I stopped myself and poked my head back inside the car.

  “Really, thanks,” I said, and leaned over to give her a kiss. She turned her head, and I planted one on her cheek.

  “Good luck,” she said, and drove off.

  My head throbbed. I was about to see my father at last, and I’d never felt so alone.

  CHAPTER 31

  Jordan

  THE HOUSE STI
LL had that wet-smoke smell as I stepped inside, the scorched floorboards creaking beneath my feet. If my dad was inside the house, he would have heard me. But as I stopped and listened, there was no sound.

  “Hello?” I called.

  Nothing.

  No one was in the living room or little front parlor. I walked back to the kitchen and found him crouched in front of the open refrigerator door.

  “These peaches are still excellent,” he said, not looking back. “Would you like one?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Not hungry.”

  He closed the fridge door, turned toward me, and took a slurpy bite out of a peach. “You may want to reconsider,” he said. “They’re perfect. Though you won’t want to open the refrigerator door too much. There’s a high risk of spoilage.”

  I hadn’t even thought about the food, whatever we’d bought after we returned to town, and whether we should take any of it back to Maggie’s house. I had no idea why he was thinking about this.

  He stepped up to me and put his hands on my upper arms and gave them a squeeze.

  “Hello, son. You’re looking well. I’m glad to see you’re safe.”

  He let his arms drop down. No hug from this fella. Maybe he thought I was too old for such stuff. I wasn’t.

  He turned and walked out the back door, taking a seat under the pergola in the exact spot where Maggie was sitting when our world went up in flames. I took my place beside him.

  “This house has a lot of history,” he said. “It’s seen a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. The good things mostly followed the bad things.”

  An awkward silence followed.

  “And now it’ll be torn down,” I finally said.

  “Oh, don’t count on it,” he said. “Sometimes disasters lead to improvements. When you’ve got to rebuild something, it can become even better and stronger.”

  “Interesting,” I said, scratching the suddenly itchy surgical scar above my rib cage.

  He turned toward me. “It’s good to see you, son.” He said this like a pronouncement, like it was being recorded for the court record.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Dad,” I replied, trying to keep my voice from cracking on “Dad.” “Have you talked to Mom? Charlie? How are they?”

  “They’re in the military hospital,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to them. There’s no cellular service, and the phone at the plant was having trouble connecting. But I’ve been assured that they’re fine.”

  “You’ve been assured?”

  “I have.” He folded his hands in his lap. “What do you know about this explosion?”

  I told him everything I could remember about that horrific night: that end-of-the-world blast, the rescues, Mom’s injury, her departure with Charlie. He nodded impassively while I spoke, as if he was cataloging everything for future inspection.

  “Dad,” I said when I finished my account, “I’ve been staying at Maggie’s, but you’re allowed to come home now, right? Or take me somewhere? They’re super nice, but I want to be home, whatever that is now. I don’t have anything anymore. Everything got burned up. And I’ve got nowhere to go.”

  “I’m still required to attend to my station. I’ll speak to Renee, but I’m sure she won’t object to your remaining with them for the indefinite future.”

  I sat, speechless. Did he hear a word I said? Was he shedding all parental responsibility? I hated the whine in my voice but couldn’t help it. “Why? You’re the only family I’ve got here. Why can’t you stop work and take care of things—take care of me? Isn’t it illegal for me to be on my own?”

  He shook his head. “Things are happening at the plant that are bigger than just us, Jordan. I know you’re safe with Maggie’s family; otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Safe? Really?” I held out my bandaged arm and stuck out my wrapped leg. “Do you know how many fresh stitches are in me? Thirty-four! And that’s from going to see you at the plant! I went up to them and said, ‘Hey, yo, I’m just a poor little orphan looking for his pa,’ but did they take me to you? No, they did not. They put me in a room with these men in suits and a freakish skull-faced scientist with a sword-blade arm, and they did this. But, sure, yeah, I’m fine. No need to look out for your kid.”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder, and I warmed under his touch despite myself.

  “I’m sorry, son,” he said. I expected more, but no, that was it.

  “Dad,” I said, lowering my voice even though there was no one in eyeshot, “there’s something wrong with this town, with the power plant … and maybe with me.”

  Dad nodded, looking serious. “The scientist you met, he’s called Alpha. I regret that things played out the way they did, but you should take that as a lesson not to go looking for trouble again.”

  Wait, what?

  “I was looking for you, Dad. And this guy stabbed and slashed me. But I guess you’re okay with that.”

  Dad pressed his lips together and said nothing. The fuck …

  “Dad, did they do something to you at the plant as well? What the hell is going on there?”

  Instead of replying, he stood up and turned toward the house.

  “And who is Ishango?”

  That got his attention. He pivoted back and said in a low, steady voice, “Ishango is the name of the first math machines ever discovered.”

  “I know that,” I said. “Maggie told me all about it.”

  “How much is Maggie involved in this?”

  “She’s been with me every step of the way,” I said, then became worried that I might’ve just dragged her deeper into this mess.

  “How much does she know about Ishango?”

  “She looked it up in an encyclopedia, learned about the bone or whatever it was.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face and looked up as if he were praying, though I knew he wasn’t. His only belief was science.

  “You shouldn’t have been out there,” he said. “It’s not safe.”

  “No shit.”

  “And don’t swear, son.”

  “Stop calling me ‘son.’ You gave me a name.”

  “Jordan,” he said, “I’m trying to help you. What is happening is beyond your imagination and control. You should know that I, as your father, would not steer you wrong.”

  “Well, be a father, then. Stop living at the power plant, and let’s become a family again.”

  “I cannot discuss this with you any further.” He walked back into the house. “Watch your step, and if you hear anything creaking, move to a doorway.”

  “Everything is creaking,” I said, stepping inside. “Your friend Alpha sliced me up with a sword that shot out of his arm stump. He wasn’t aiming for my leg.”

  “I cannot tell you any more, Jordan, but you are not to go back there,” he said in a stern voice. “Or to ask any questions of the army, of the police, of anyone. Understand?”

  I stared at him. “He called me Rho, said they’ve done something to me, maybe when I was in the sick camp. I think they messed around with my body to make me stronger and faster. Not human.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  He entered what had been our front room. Pools of black, where water had mixed with the charcoal on the second floor and dripped down like oil, collected on the floor.

  “Why did you let them do that to me?” I asked.

  “How long have I been married to your mother?”

  “Uh, I—I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sixteen.”

  “We’ve been married twenty years,” he said, reaching into mom’s collapsed china-display case and pulling out a white plate with a blue design that I knew well. It had never been used for a dinner, no matter how special. Miraculously, it had survived the fire and the fight to put it out. Mom would be thrilled about that at least. “She’s had this plate since she inherited it from her grandmother. She took it on Antiques Roadshow, and it was appraised at two thousand dollars.”

  Dad
handled the plate carefully with hands that I noticed were shaking slightly, then let it seesaw off his fingers and fall to the floor. I gasped as it shattered into a dozen pieces.

  “What is wrong with you, Dad?”

  For a second I saw a fleeting expression of pain on his face. “When I tell you to stay away, Jordan, I couldn’t be more serious,” he said, locking eyes with me. “Our lives have changed irrevocably, and there’s no going back to what we knew. We are not in a position to question anything unless we wish to forfeit our lives. Consider this a warning. You must obey.”

  I had no response to that. Either he had gone totally nuts, was deep under the influence of some crazy force, or was terrified to his core. The tremor I spotted in my father’s hand made me suspect the last option, though maybe the answer was “all of the above.”

  What was he so scared of that he wouldn’t lift a finger to protect his own son? Who had been altered more by those guys, me or him?

  CHAPTER 32

  Maggie

  I HAD THIS fantasy of Jordan’s dad bringing him back to our house and coming in for a beer and a friendly chat as the four of us figured out how my friend could be reunited with his father but still spend significant time with me. But as time passed, this scenario felt increasingly far-fetched, and about two hours after I dropped him off, I swung by Jordan’s house for a look-see. When I pulled up, he was sitting alone on his front stoop with his head bowed between his legs. This was not a portrait of a happy guy.

  When I sat down next to him, he looked up with eyes that appeared puffy and streaked.

  “I feel like I’ve lost both parents,” he said in a hushed voice.

  I took his hands between my own—they were warm and damp.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  I brushed a tiny tear from the corner of his eye with my thumb. He smiled sadly. I put a palm on each of his flushed cheeks. This boy needed a kiss already. I moved my face closer to his, and all of a sudden his eyes got really wide, and he choked as if something was stuck in the back of his throat, and he pitched his body off to the side and let loose a formidable stream of vomit into the charred dirt. As he crouched there heaving, I turned away from the rising sour smell, then turned back. I guess this was what I’d signed up for.