by Platt, Sean
They didn’t talk much about the nightmare. The few times Ed asked about the helicopters and the men, Teagan brushed it off as a crazy dream that seemed silly in the rational light of day. And while the dream might have been, and probably was, perfectly innocent rather than some ominous sign of things to come, Ed couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it than Teagan was saying. But he didn’t want to upset the girl anymore than she already was.
Though he couldn’t remember his own dreams at the hotel, he did remember an odd feeling when he woke, as if something else were in the room with them. Something that was probing his mind as he slept. Something he would have missed entirely if he’d not been snapped to battle by Teagan’s scream. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, or whether or not it was something his mind had manufactured to help him stitch together the scattered clues found across a day packed full of mostly unknown.
Along with the human mind’s ability to flip The Switch, it also worked constantly to find connections between disparate data. To make sense of the world and find connections. To learn through sleep and refine the animal mind. Nothing more, nothing less. It was the ultimate puzzle solver. Sometimes, though, the process, if closely monitored, led to more confusion than clarity.
It was in that confusion that many people attributed special meaning to ordinary things. Ed didn’t believe dreams were magical, psychic gifts, divine province of the Gods, or anything other than the brain’s hardwired response to stimuli. People who needed magic to explain science were simply not appreciative of the everyday magic of reality.
Still, even with his firm belief that psychic dreams were bullshit, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that someone could foresee things through some scientific means we had yet to comprehend. He’d once read a book by some scientist about quantum physics. Though the book was supposed to have been written for the layman, most of it was beyond Ed. The one thing he got from it, or at least he thought this was the scientist’s point, was there is no past, present, or future, and all times co-exist in the same moment. In which case, perhaps some people were more tuned to such things — and saw these moments without realizing it, but our brains aren’t wired to make sense of such things, as we’re used to linear time, so our brains found other ways to make sense of the data — dreams.
Whatever the case, Ed figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for helicopters.
After a long silence, Teagan stirred from a nap in the passenger seat, “What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“You said you had ... have a daughter. What’s her name?”
“Jade. She’s a little older than you, lives with a roommate in Georgia. Goes to college for art. A good kid.”
“Do you know if she’s okay?”
“No,” Ed said, “I tried calling her a few times. But the lines are dead. Were dead at the hotel too. So, I’m gonna drive out after I bring you home.”
“Were you close?”
Ed glanced at Teagan, thought again how much she looked like his own daughter, and felt as if some ghost of Jade were asking questions, rather than this stranger he’d just met. A doppelganger who would transmit his answers to Jade, wherever she was. For a moment, he wondered if he hadn’t died in the car crash and he was in purgatory working through his issues with his demons, represented by the person he’d done the most damage to.
“Not as close as I would have liked,” he said, in a rare candid response, rather than the vague phrasing he usually used when discussing his daughter.
“Why not?”
“Were you close with your parents?” Ed asked, turning the tables and dodging the question.
“Not since this,” she said, rubbing her tummy. “They’re strict. My dad is super religious, old-school religious, if you know what I mean.”
Ed nodded.
“He called me a harlot, and actually brought me to the pastor, begging him to see if I’d been infected by Satan.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, good times. My mom isn’t quite as bad, but she’s afraid of him. And never really rocks the boat. I think she was even sort of happy I was pregnant, in some weird way. Like a baby in the house might bring some joy back into their otherwise miserable lives.”
“And the father of your baby?” Ed asked.
“He doesn’t know. This kid, Jesse Gold, that I liked, but dad wouldn’t let me go out with him because he’s Jewish. Dad asked me who the father was, but I wouldn’t tell him. I don’t know what he’d do if he knew the baby was Jesse’s.”
“You think he’d hurt him?”
“There’s no telling. He might have even made me get an abortion, even though he doesn’t believe in them and talks all the time about how abortionists are the devil’s workers. I had an older sister, Becky, who got pregnant when she was 17 from this black guy she was dating. Dad made her get an abortion.”
“What a fucking hypocrite,” Ed said, shaking his head. “Wait a second ... what do you mean, had an older sister?”
“Becky killed herself last year,” Teagan said, eyes wet again, but refusing to close them or wipe the tears. She just stared out the window.
“I’m sorry,” Ed said, “Do you know why?”
“She left a note in my room which just said, ‘I’m sorry,’ with no explanation. It was about six months after her abortion. Her boyfriend got really mad that she went through with it, that she didn’t ask him, that she let our father have so much control over her life, over their child. She was devastated.”
“That’s so awful,” Ed said, not knowing what else to say.
They drove in silence for a full five minutes, until he spoke.
“Jade and I weren’t close because I was a horrible father,” he said.
Teagan turned to him as he continued his confession.
“I was never there for her. I told myself it had to be that way. I had a dangerous job and made enemies. I couldn’t risk my family, so I had to leave. And it’s all true. I was a threat to them. I needed to disappear. But it wasn’t always like that. I could have quit the job before I got in so deep.”
“So you left for her?”
“I tell myself that. But truth is, I left because I was addicted to the job, the danger, and...”
“What?” Teagan asked.
“Nothing. Some thoughts you shouldn’t let out of their cage.”
**
They drove for five hours and only had to turn off the highway a couple of times due to congestion, but each time they found their way back without incident. Though the storm clouds seemed distant, they drove into buckets as soon as they hit Beckley, West Virginia. The dark sky just opened up and dumped its deluge on them.
The rain was so bad, Ed could barely see out the window. He got off at an exit and searched for a place to ride out the storm. Teagan had to use the bathroom, so they stopped at the first gas station they found. He parked beneath the canopy, then led Teagan inside the store.
“What do you want to drink?” Ed asked, surveying the out-of-power cooler case as she went into the bathroom with one of the portable lanterns. “We’ve got warm Coke, warm Pepsi, warm Gatorade, warm water.”
“Warm Gatorade sounds good; see if they have the purple one.”
“Purple grape, or purple Ice, whatever the hell that is?”
“Ice,” she said, “maybe it will make it a bit cooler.”
Ed laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
The rain fell harder, and the wind howled as the storm grew teeth.
“We might be here a while,” Ed said as he opened a purple Gatorade and took a swig. He wasn’t sure what it tasted like cold. At room temperature, it was surprisingly okay.
There’s an advertising campaign, “Slightly better than piss, try it today!”
Teagan left the bathroom just as Ed was going in. “Sorry,” she said, her face red.
“Don’t worry,” he lied, “I’ve got a cold; can’t smell a thing.”
He was pissing, gun sitting
in the sink, when he heard Teagan shout, “Ed!”
He shook the last of his piss, zipped, and ran out into the store, gun ready. Teagan was staring out the store windows.
A big red pickup truck pulled into the station.
“Get in the cooler,” he said, then followed her inside. The door into the cooler had a window where they could see all the way to the gas pumps. The red Chevy pulled up behind Brent’s SUV and stopped.
He clicked the safety off on his gun. The cooler was just dark enough that whoever was outside probably couldn’t see in from their position. He could see them perfectly though.
Two men, big guys with flannel shirts and caps, jumped from the truck and approached the SUV. Both had hunting rifles.
“Fuck,” Ed said.
“What is it?”
“We’ve got company. A couple of men with guns, scouting our truck.”
She pushed herself further back into the cooler until she was pressed against a wall of beer cases.
One of the men glanced into the store as the other opened the SUV.
Why didn’t I lock the damned doors?
The man looking in stared straight at Ed, then turned his gaze to the front of the store. Ed was sure the guy couldn’t see him.
“What are we gonna do?” Teagan whispered.
If he were solo, as he should have been, the solution would have been easy. He would go outside, give them a chance to back down. If not, he’d end them both without a second’s hesitation. But now, he had baggage. He had to worry about a child with child. If he made the wrong choice, she’d be left to deal with his consequences.
“Fuck,” he said, forgetting what she’d asked.
He debated whether he should allow the men to take his truck, all their stuff, and let things go. They’d had no problem finding stuff so far, so he wasn’t overly concerned. They would find another vehicle and more supplies, but it could be a big inconvenience which would slow them down.
“Maybe they’re friendly,” Teagan offered.
“They’ve got guns; I doubt it.”
“You’ve got a gun.”
“Well,” Ed said turning to her with a grin, “I’m not friendly.”
While he was glad to see other people, he wasn’t glad to see them with guns. He couldn’t take a chance that they might be friendly. He would either have to engage and kill or stand down and ignore them. He was leaning toward the latter when one of the men opened the door and entered the store, rifle at the ready.
Ed glanced back at Teagan, who was frozen in place.
“Come out!” the man shouted as he aimed the rifle at the cooler. Ed could sense fear in the man’s voice, which made him all the more likely to do something stupid.
The man was aiming blindly at the center of the cooler. He couldn’t see inside to where Ed or Teagan were hiding. But Ed had a line on him. He aimed his pistol between the man’s eyes and fired a single shot.
The gunshot thundered through the cooler. Teagan screamed as the man dropped to the ground, dead.
Ed pushed through the cooler door and rolled out of the cooler, just as the second target entered the store. The man was aiming high, but Ed was on the ground, aiming up, and shot him twice, once in the chest and then again in the head. The man fell back into the candy rack on the front of the cashier’s counter, dropping the rifle, which sent a shell into the fountain drink station.
Ed jumped up, marched outside, gun aimed straight at the pickup, ready for anyone else.
No others were there.
He went back inside, opened the door to the cooler, and said, “Come on, we’ve gotta go. Hold my hand. Don’t look down.”
**
In the back of the pickup, Ed found a hose and some gas cans. He siphoned gas from the truck to the cans, then filled his SUV. He went back into the store, retrieved a few Cokes to wash away the taste of gasoline. He grabbed the Remington rifles and ammo, and tossed them into the back of the SUV.
Once in the truck, he saw Teagan in tears.
“Why did you shoot them? You didn’t even find out if they were good or bad.”
“I couldn’t take the chance,” Ed said matter-of-factly, as he left the gas station and headed back into the storm.
“You just ... shot them. Dead.”
“Would you rather it was me? Or you?” Ed snapped, “Because those men had rifles. If they got my gun, then they had the advantage. They called the shots. And you’d have to do whatever the hell they told you to do. Men with power are hardly gentlemen in the normal world; you don’t want to know what they’re like when everything goes to shit.”
Teagan shook her head, “I just can’t believe you...”
Ed didn’t bother to say anything else. Either she’d get it or she wouldn’t. He didn’t have time to convince her. And to be honest with himself, he’d be better off if he didn’t have to worry about her. So if she got pissed and took off on her own, his life would be that much easier.
He considered pushing her buttons, to get her to act, to get her to leave. Really piss her off. But when she looked at him again, so much like a younger Jade, and with such innocence in her eyes, and baby in her belly, he couldn’t be a dick. Couldn’t do what needed to be done.
He couldn’t flip The Switch.
****
BRENT FOSTER
They took West End Avenue to West 93 Street, then cut to Central Park, all the while, keeping an eye out for stranded cars, other people, or the nefarious creatures Brent had yet to see.
The fog had grown thicker, if that were even possible, turning Manhattan into an alien landscape where once globally recognized buildings and landmarks had moved from immediately identifiable to silhouettes of their original form. Everything had taken new shape — gloomy shadows shrouded in clouds of milky murk.
Luis stopped the car along Central Park West and took out the two-way radios. Static fuzzed in the car. “You guys alright?” he said to Stan and Melora on the other end.
“Yeah,” Stan said, voice excited, “Did you hear the radio?”
“Don’t have it on,” Luis said. “What’s up?”
“Turn it to 88.8 FM; there’s a broadcast.”
“Okay, hold on,” Luis said, giving the radio life.
There was static, but it wasn’t the empty static of a dead station. It was the lively static of an attempted broadcast.
A man’s voice, loud and strong: “Attention, survivors. The Department of Homeland Security has set up a safe zone on Black Island. We are running ferries from East Hampton Docks every four hours starting at 8 a.m. We advise anyone traveling to do so only during the day. We’ve had reports of strange sightings at night. Repeat: It is not safe to stay in the city. If you are indoors at night, we advise you to wait until morning to travel.”
A long pause followed, then the recording looped and started over.
“Black Island?” Brent said, “That’s the place where Homeland Security has a complex and research facility, right?”
“One of a few islands like that out there, I think.”
Luis picked up the two-way radio again, “Okay, Stan, we’re gonna drive around the park once more, then head back if you all want to get ready to go with us.”
“Melora isn’t sure,” Stan said, “She’s thinking we should stay.”
“Jesus,” Luis said, venting the frustration Brent was already feeling with the woman. “You’ve gotta do what’s right for you, Stanley. You think on it; try to talk her into coming. I’ll call back in half an hour. If you haven’t made up your mind by then, we’re going without you.”
Luis looked at Brent, as if only realizing at that moment he’d forgotten to ask if Brent was coming along.
Brent nodded, but as Luis ended the call, he remembered his midnight commitment.
“Shit, I can’t go. Not tonight, anyway. I left a note for Gina saying I’d be back at midnight.”
“Yeah, but if she’s not there when you get home, you know she didn’t see the note, and you can
leave a new one telling her where we went.”
“Yeah,” Brent said, “but what if she came and then left? And she came back again at midnight looking for me?”
“You don’t think she’d leave a note, or hell, just wait for you?”
“I suppose,” Brent said. Luis made a good point. If Gina had come home, she wouldn’t leave. And if she did leave, she would definitely write a note updating Brent on her status. She left notes for everything; she’d definitely leave one when the world was circling the drain.