The Dead Road

by Seth Patrick

  ‘Have they had anything much to say?’ asked Annabel.

  Cathy shook her head. ‘I didn’t get much detail. A few equipment failures were mentioned, but it sounded like they were grasping at straws and really don’t understand why the power’s gone. I’m going to try and filter out the stronger signals and see if there’s anything else we get. It’ll take a few minutes.’ She plugged her headphones back in and got to work.

  The others drifted to the kitchen.

  ‘Any chance I can steal some power to make a coffee?’ Annabel said to Never.

  He frowned. ‘If you’re desperate, eat it raw,’ he said. ‘If the batteries get full while the sun’s still shining, then you can have some.’

  Jonah shrugged and took some cans of Coke out of the fridge, then handed them out. ‘So this is happening,’ he said. ‘Exactly what the news spent all day yesterday saying couldn’t happen. And people think it’s just temporary.’

  ‘What’s coming, Jonah?’ said Annabel. ‘The thing Kendrick saw . . . I mean that can’t really do much harm, can it? Quickly? And all this . . .’

  ‘Does it need to be quick?’ said Never. ‘In a few days, things will get very nasty indeed. We’re only ever four meals away from anarchy, isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘They knew this flare was coming,’ said Jonah. ‘It knew. It must have known for a long time, for its people to set everything else up. Making sure to cripple everything that could be crippled.’

  Annabel nodded. ‘Destroying the communications infrastructure means nobody can find out what’s happening, nobody can plan. Everything falls apart and there’s no way back.’

  Jonah couldn’t help but picture the Beast, striding across the landscape. ‘It feeds off souls,’ he said. ‘And it enjoys it. Maybe it wants to relish all of this. In a week or so the people of the world will be at each other’s throats for the last scraps of food, or fuel. It’s in no hurry.’

  Cathy came in. ‘I picked up another couple of transmissions, one from Pittsburgh and one from Louisville, sounded like civilians comparing notes. Joking, almost. Power’s out across the country.’ She looked at them with a sour expression. ‘You were right about that. I owe you ten dollars, Annabel.’ She shook her head. ‘I think your suggestion of bringing my daughter and her family here makes a lot of sense.’

  Annabel nodded. ‘As I said, if you’d rather not go alone I can go with you.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it,’ said Cathy.

  Jonah handed her a Coke and they all returned to the radio. Cathy put it back onto speaker, and there was currently nothing but a very faint hum. ‘The dropout is where the stronger signals swamp it, or the interference had strengthened,’ she said. ‘We just need to wait.’

  As they listened, Jonah had the same sense he’d had before of his mind creating voices from nothing.

  Then he heard it.

  Almost buried by static, a voice was talking rapidly in a foreign language he couldn’t place. The voice was agitated, desperate.

  ‘Record it,’ Annabel told Never urgently. He rushed to take his phone out, and hit record.

  It faded, came back, faded again. Short bursts of sound, and then a long section, uninterrupted, the female voice joined by a male one, equally agitated.

  When the voices faded again, they waited but heard nothing else.

  ‘What language was that?’ said Annabel. ‘Russian, maybe?’

  ‘Might have been,’ said Cathy. ‘Eastern European, if not. Petro is originally from Ukraine, we should ask him if he can translate it.’

  Annabel nodded. She swapped her phone with Never’s. ‘You two, keep listening. If you hear anything else, record it, OK?’

  They nodded.

  Jonah wanted to go with them, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear what Petro would have to say.

  Something had cut through the language barrier already. The people in that recording were terrified.

  12

  Petro’s house was three hundred yards further up the road.

  ‘What’s this guy’s story?’ said Annabel, driving. ‘I called by a couple of times when we moved in but nobody answered.’

  ‘Petro’s fairly shy,’ said Cathy. ‘You wouldn’t think it when you meet him, but he is. If he doesn’t know someone, chances are he’ll just ignore them. Used to be a civil engineer, smart guy. US citizen since ’95, but he still talks like a mix of Schwarzenegger and Dolph Lundgren.’

  Annabel smiled. ‘Well, you met Never. You’d think he left Belfast a week ago, not fifteen years.’

  Cathy returned the smile, but it faded. ‘He cuts a lonely figure, Petro. His partner of thirty years died, what, seven or eight years ago. He’s only mid-fifties, but it took a heavy toll on him. He has no other family, and his partner was the social one of the two. There’s been a joke we’ve had around here for a while now: on this road, we’re all leftovers. Until you moved in, everyone was on their own. Me and Petro are about the same age, and my son-in-law keeps trying to suggest we pair up.’ She raised her eyebrow. ‘My son-in-law means well, but I’m the wrong gender.’

  They parked in the drive, and by the time they got halfway to the house, a tall burly man, balding with short-cropped hair, had opened the front door. He hurried over.

  ‘Cathy!’ he said. He gave her a long hug, his expression almost distraught. ‘Philip told me about your grandson. I didn’t know whether I should come and say something. Such a shock. Such a shock.’ His emotion was genuine; his eyes looked wet.

  ‘It was,’ said Cathy, but she was clearly not eager to talk more about Grady. She looked to Annabel, instead. ‘Petro, this is Annabel. She moved in to Harlan’s place last year, she called by but you didn’t appear. I guess you were out.’

  Petro looked uncomfortable. He reached out a hand, which Annabel shook. ‘Good to meet you,’ he said. ‘Come in, come in!’ He led the way inside to his living room, turning back to Cathy as he walked. ‘Are you OK with this power cut? You need help at all? How long before all this crazy shit stops, huh? You should know, of all people.’

  ‘Well, that’s why I’m here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been listening for radio transmissions, Petro. I heard people across the country talk about the power being off. It’s everywhere.’

  He frowned. ‘Everywhere?’ He sat in a well-worn leather armchair, and gestured for Cathy and Annabel to take the couch.

  Cathy nodded. ‘Then I heard this. I wondered if you could take a listen.’ She nodded to Annabel, who held up Never’s phone and played the recording.

  Petro listened to the frightened voices, and as the recording played on, he grew pale. When it was done he stared at Cathy. ‘Is that real?’ he said, and Cathy nodded. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘What did they say?’ asked Annabel.

  Petro told them.

  *

  They brought him back to the house, where Jonah and Never had been listening to nothing but static.

  ‘Anything come through while we were gone?’ asked Cathy.

  ‘Not a jot,’ said Never.

  ‘OK,’ said Annabel. ‘This is Petro. Petro, this is Never, and Jonah.’

  Petro shook Never’s hand, but Jonah declined. ‘I’m a reviver,’ he said.

  To his surprise, Petro smiled. ‘Ah! My partner’s cousin is a reviver in Quebec. I know, I know, the funny feeling thing, right?’

  ‘Chill,’ said Jonah, nodding.

  Annabel got them to sit. ‘Petro listened to the recording,’ she said. ‘If I play it again, Petro, can you translate so Jonah and Never can hear what was said?’

  Petro didn’t look happy. ‘If I must,’ he said.

  Annabel played it.

  Petro spoke over the top as the fearful voices began. ‘This part,’ he said. ‘Confusion about what happened. Hard to hear. “Tidal wave,” someone says. Broken transmission. Very weak.’ He listened. ‘Here: “People are fleeing the city in darkness.” “Tell them what you saw.” “A sea of . . . of poison rose up. The dark rats came.” I say rats, m
aybe vermin is the better word. “They tried to get into my car, but couldn’t get to me. Seal yourself inside.” The woman says something about mist, but it gets lost.’

  Annabel paused. ‘That was the first part. Then we had the longer sequence, clearer. Ready, Petro?’

  He nodded, and Annabel continued the playback.

  ‘“We are reporting to those able to hear us”,’ translated Petro. ‘“An attack . . .”’ He shook his head as static cut in briefly, then continued. ‘“Soon after night fell, the power failed. The sea itself attacked us in the dark. We are reporting from Gatchina.”’ Another voice began to speak. ‘“People have returned to the city to see what’s happening now. Nobody has come back yet. Nobody else is willing to go into the city until morning.” Someone asks: “Are people hurt?” “My God yes, my God yes. And the . . .”’ The static returned. ‘That’s all,’ said Petro.

  ‘Gatchina?’ said Never.

  ‘Gatchina is south of St Petersburg,’ said Petro. ‘Twenty miles or so.’

  ‘So it’s Russian?’ asked Never.

  Petro nodded. ‘Yes. It doesn’t make sense what they say, but these people are scared. You can hear that already. What’s going on? Do you know?’

  Jonah and Never shook their heads, but Petro was watching them with a wary eye.

  *

  Annabel and Cathy got ready to leave, to bring Cathy’s daughter, son-in-law, and their other child back with them.

  ‘You want me to go with you?’ said Petro. ‘I have a gun at home, maybe things will be bad by now?’

  Cathy patted his arm, with a smile. ‘I think society’s breakdown isn’t quite here yet,’ she said. ‘We’ll be back long before dark.’

  Annabel shared a glance with Jonah. He knew she’d had a gun in her car ever since Winnerden Flats, but her father had always been vociferously against them. Pulling a weapon, he’d said, was like trying to put out a fire with napalm. ‘It won’t be that long before people start to hear that this is across the country,’ she said. ‘People will be doing what we’re doing – getting family, going somewhere they think is safe, but some will be driving a few hundred miles to do it, and they’ll see that everywhere’s the same. Word will spread, and panic will spread with it. Looting could start tonight, but I guarantee people will be hoarding by tomorrow.’

  ‘Sooner we go, the better,’ said Cathy.

  Annabel nodded. She looked at Jonah. ‘Keep listening. Record anything you hear. We’ll be back in two hours.’

  *

  Jonah, Never and Petro sat by the radio.

  ‘I should have gone,’ mourned Petro. ‘Here, what use am I?’

  Over the past hour, there had been the occasional breakthrough from the radio, but it had all been local transmissions. People were finding the gap in the shortwave static and making use of it, but it meant that the more distant signals were being overpowered.

  Annabel’s pessimism about the way people would behave in the situation was preying on Jonah’s mind. ‘What the hell do law enforcement agencies do when something like this happens?’

  ‘Something like this?’ said Never. ‘They’d have to ad-lib. It’d be a mishmash of post-nuclear planning and natural disaster strategy. Except with no significant casualties to deal with. Well, not yet.’ The other two were looking at him. ‘Uh, I’ve spent too much time around Sly. We’ve talked about this, trust me.’

  ‘Sly’s a friend,’ Jonah explained to Petro. ‘She works in national security.’ And while that may have missed out a vast range of important aspects of Sly’s background, it was basically true. He turned back to Never. ‘Any other insights to offer?’

  ‘Like I said, me and Sly have talked about this,’ said Never. ‘It’s very different for short- and long-term problems, but I reckon for this it’d be mainly a widespread natural disaster strategy. That’s when little or no help from outside is expected for a period of days. Stabilize the area, maintain visible police presence for reassurance and information. When communications are compromised, they maintain contact by shuttled physical messenger. Essentially Pony Express.’

  ‘And the post-nuclear stuff?’ said Jonah.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Never, almost with a wince. ‘The problem there is that the rules change completely. The moment they decide to adopt those plans, it’s shoot-to-kill for looters and the expectation that everyone will go fucking ape-shit.’ He sighed.

  The radio had been nothing but static so far, but suddenly they could make out something more. There was a definite signal in there somewhere, although nothing clear yet.

  ‘Shit,’ said Never, scrambling to get his phone recording again.

  ‘Hurry up,’ said Petro.

  ‘Trying,’ said Never. Finally, he got it going.

  There was very little they could make out, mostly brief fragments of speech. It was enough to tell that the people speaking were terrified, just as those in Gatchina had been.

  Then a panicked voice came on, speaking in accented English: ‘It killed them! It came out of the water and . . . oh, God, oh my God, it was over everything, it covered everything. It tore . . .’

  The impenetrable static returned.

  The three men stared at each other for a moment.

  ‘What language was that at first?’ said Never. ‘Spanish?’

  ‘Portuguese,’ said Petro. ‘I think. And I’m sure I heard them say Lisboa.’

  They waited a little, until they were sure there was no more coming, then played the recording back.

  ‘Lisboa,’ said Jonah. ‘I heard it too.’ He caught Never’s confusion. ‘Lisbon,’ he said. ‘Your geography’s not that bad, surely?’

  ‘Do you have an atlas?’ Petro said.

  Jonah thought about it and shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Never. ‘Because Internet. Who needs physical maps?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Jonah, then he remembered something. ‘Wait.’ He went to the kitchen and came back with a mug that had an antique world map on it.

  ‘Seriously, fuck off,’ said Never.

  ‘Do you have a better atlas, wise one?’ said Jonah as he gave the mug to Petro, but Never ignored the comment.

  ‘OK,’ said Never. ‘Where’s St Petersburg?’ Petro pointed it out. ‘Really?’ said Never. ‘Wow. My geography does indeed suck. Although Lisbon is about here, right?’

  Petro nodded. ‘Both coastal cities. The St Petersburg witnesses described the sea as being the attacker, whatever that means.’

  ‘So, St Petersburg,’ said Never, marking it with his finger. ‘Then Lisbon. Twenty-four hours for the whole thing, so that little bit is, what, about four hours as the world turns? Then . . .’ He moved along the same distance. ‘East Coast USA. South America. Canada.’

  Jonah stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, what’s next?’ said Never.

  Petro nodded. ‘Big city by the coast,’ said Petro. ‘Take your pick.’

  ‘New York,’ said Jonah. ‘Miami.’ He thought of Sam Deering, down in Florida. At least he was in Ocala, about as far from the sea as you could get in the state.

  They heard a vehicle’s tyres scrunching on the gravel outside. Jonah jumped up and went to the door, relieved that Annabel was back, but it wasn’t her. It was Sly. ‘Hey, Never, your girlfriend’s here.’

  In a flash, Never was beside him. ‘Don’t ever say that around her,’ he muttered. ‘She’d murder me.’ He frowned, looking at her van. ‘God, I hope she offloaded Kendrick’s body.’

  ‘Don’t say that around her either,’ said Jonah.

  She came in with a laptop bag, and held out a USB memory stick. She handed them both to Never. ‘Make a copy of this, fast as you can. And put Kendrick’s revival footage on there, too.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Never, pointedly. He took the memory stick and the laptop through to the kitchen.

  ‘I hate to bring bad news,’ she said to Jonah. ‘But this power cut is widespread.’

  ‘We’re aware of that,’ said
Jonah. ‘We’ve been listening to radio transmissions. There are things you need to hear.’

  ‘Where’s Annabel?’

  ‘Our neighbour wanted to fetch her family, Annabel went with her.’ A sudden fear hit him. ‘Are things still safe out there?’

  Sly raised an eyebrow. ‘Safe? I think you’d better get me up to speed. Fast.’

  Jonah took her through everything they knew, and in return she explained that the memory stick held a full record of Kendrick’s files. She wouldn’t say where she’d been to get them, just that the roads had seemed normal enough, just quiet.

  ‘I stopped at a gas station on the way here,’ she said. ‘Their pumps were off, but they were still open for cash sales of everything else. The power had been off for five hours by then, and wherever people had come from they had the same story.’

  ‘Were they worried?’ asked Jonah.

  ‘Mostly about their frozen stock,’ she said. ‘A few others I talked to had the same kind of deer-in-headlights look, basic denial that this would last much longer. No signs of panic, though.’

  A moment later, Never reappeared. He handed Jonah his phone. ‘I’ve copied the recordings of the radio we picked up from St Petersburg and Lisbon onto the USB stick,’ he said. ‘You should play them for Sly while I make a backup of the rest.’ He went back to the kitchen.

  Jonah played the recordings, and Petro translated again.

  Sly listened in silence. When the recordings finished, she looked at Petro. ‘Write it down,’ she said. ‘I need your translation.’ He did as she asked.

  ‘All done,’ Never said, returning. He handed her the USB stick and the laptop. ‘What are you going to do with them?’

  She took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘I have an old friend to meet. Jesus, I’d thought we’d have more time . . .’

  ‘What’s in Kendrick’s files?’ asked Never.

  ‘Detail,’ she said. ‘Lots of detail that seems a little pointless right now, but I have a duty to tell them what I know. The revival footage is more important, and now the radio transmissions. I don’t know if I can convince them. I don’t know if it would make any difference anyway.’