by Max Brooks
How long before someone spoke? Time really does crawl in those moments. But it couldn’t have been that long before Vincent looked back at us with earnest surprise. “We did it.”
Did he permit the group to accept this outcome or did they permit him? Once he said it, the sighs that broke out, the sudden choked sob from Bobbi. “We did it!” A hissing whisper, squeezing her husband’s waist, shutting eyes that sparkled at the edges. “You, you did it!”
Carmen hugged her daughter with one arm and reached out to touch her wife with the other. And Reinhardt, nodding as if he approved, gave Vincent a hand-rolling salute.
From my interview with Senior Ranger Josephine Schell.
Wood knocking seems to be pretty common in eyewitness encounters and no one knows for sure what it means. Likewise, no one knows how a wood-knocking response will be received. Language is tricky, even among our species.
She holds up her rounded thumb and index finger.
In this country it’s “a-okay,” in Brazil it’s “you’re an asshole.” And when you include the extra layer of inter-species contact…
She raises her head slightly, showing a discolored scar under her chin.
Six years old, over at my cousin’s one time, I didn’t know their old beagle would take my staring contest as a challenge. And for all we know, wood knocking denotes a challenge, which Vincent Boothe unwittingly accepted.
JOURNAL ENTRY #12 [CONT.]
The mood shifted; it was suddenly like a cocktail party. Everyone hugging and chatting, and a few people, Bobbi and Effie, wiping droplets from the corners of their eyes. Reinhardt was the first to leave. Beaming proudly for some reason, he placed a hand on Vincent’s shoulder and said, “Tomorrow, I believe we should begin collaboration on a paper detailing this historic anthropological discovery.”
Vincent, who was a little overwhelmed by his own achievement, just nodded. “Yes, yes, by all means, tomorrow…thank you!” And with a dramatic bow, Reinhardt stumped off.
“We should all have dinner tomorrow night!” That was Bobbi, correcting herself with, “Tonight!” It was after midnight by then. “Here in the Common House, all together. We need a healing moment.”
Carmen echoed, “We do, that’s brilliant! Like when we first welcomed them!” And, smiling at me, she gave Bobbi a big hug.
“Tonight”—Bobbi waved back at us—“see you tonight.”
Carmen called, “Thank you, Vincent,” as he, arm around Bobbi, headed home.
I watched them a little ways, her head on his shoulder, hand rubbing his back, before Carmen’s next conversation caught my ear. She was talking to Dan about coming over tomorrow to “muck out” one of their two biodigester tanks. I knew Dan, “new Dan,” would totally be into it. A gross demanding job that only he, the village handyman, could do. He practically did the Superman stance, hands on hips, with, “Don’t worry, I got this.” And as I turned, Carmen made sure to invite me over to pick out their payment. At that moment Effie, who clearly had something to say, touched Carmen’s arm. “Oh, and we were thinking,” that was Carmen, “if it’s all right, could Palomino volunteer to help in the garden?”
I said, “Sure,” then added that there really wasn’t much to do at this point since nothing had come up. Effie spoke for herself this time. “Maybe you could dig for worms. I’ve heard they aerate the soil and their castings make great fertilizer.”
As I gave a positive shrug, Carmen added, “Palomino would love to do that. In fact, it was her idea.”
I think, if it had been any other time, she might have matched the enthusiasm of her moms. But at that moment, all that little girl could do was dart her head around like a nervous squirrel. From the trees, to the spaces between the homes, to Mostar, where her eyes lingered just long enough for contact. And that contact, Mostar’s face. The exact same expression she wore at the end of our first emergency meeting. “So, this is what I’m working with.”
She didn’t say that out loud. Instead, as we walked home, her only comments were, “I hope Vincent’s right. I hope they all are.” Now it was her turn to scan the ridgeline. “You two should get some sleep. You’ll need it. And I’ll need you later tomorrow after you’re done in the garden and,” to Dan, “shoveling shit.” I should note that she was gesturing to us with the bamboo spike. “And if you need me, I’ll be…”
We didn’t need to ask. In her workshop sawing more bamboo. And that eventually, we’d have to join her, and that, probably, if no one else came on board, that perimeter of stakes would only encircle our two houses. Nothing had to be said, with her or between us.
Dan and I didn’t talk about what had just happened, or if we believed in what Vincent had done. We didn’t talk about anything on our way home except Dan’s new and dangerous job. And I really was convinced it was dangerous. I mean, crawling around in other people’s feces? Who knows what kind of germs would be crawling around with him? Isn’t human sewage dangerous? Doesn’t it have to be treated? Heavily? What if he got an infected scratch? What if he just inhaled something?
I can’t believe I did that, bombarding Dan with worries. But just like with the solar panels, I didn’t care about looking like a nag or about his feelings, or about anything except keeping my partner safe. And he took it, all the way back to the house. No argument, no obvious ego wounds. Nothing but acknowledgment and, I believe, genuine acceptance of my argument.
Until, about two steps from our front door, he suddenly turned on me and stuck out his hand for silence. My heart jumped. I thought I’d gone too far. I was swirling between surprise, fear, and, yes, sudden anger at being shushed. Then I realized that his eyes weren’t on me. He was looking out toward the night, listening.
I shut my mouth, opened my ears.
thmp
That’s what he must have heard. Soft and dull. Nothing like the sharp hard knocking from before.
thmp
There it was again. A little louder. Closer?
Now I was looking out too. Up to the trees, over the rooftops.
I saw it from the corner of my eye. Small and fast. Coming down in a puff of gray dust near Reinhardt’s house. I took Dan’s hand, led him out to where I saw the impact. Although I didn’t know it was an impact until I spied the other one right in front of us. It had landed about halfway between Mostar’s and the Common House, lying in a “crater,” which is the only way to describe it.
You know those pictures from the moon, the ringed holes? That’s what we were looking at, except this hole had a grapefruit-sized lump half-buried in the middle. We knelt to examine it as another thmp sounded on the other side of the driveway. Dan dug in the dust and held up a jagged, roundish rock.
Two more thmps sounded, one far, one so close we both jumped, then a crisper thnk as a third rock hit and rolled off the Common House roof.
Then a loud KSHHH as someone’s window shattered.
And suddenly the sprinkle became a torrent.
A thmpthnkthnkthmpthmpthmpthnk of rocks all around us, crashing down amid the rising howls from the darkness.
“INSIDE!” My voice over Dan’s shoulder, turning him, pushing him, running through the hail.
I don’t know how we managed to make it home without being hit. Were they aiming for us? Could they see us? They must. One or two at least. Purposeful shots.
I remember the whistle. I couldn’t have imagined that. The cliché I’ve always heard of a bullet speeding past someone’s ear. This version wasn’t so much a high whistle as a deep whoffff. Right past me, bouncing off the front doorframe just before we jumped inside.
Most accounts tell of giant boulders being hurled against the cabin, and say some even fell through the roof…
—FRED BECK, I Fought the Apemen of Mt. St. Helens
JOURNAL ENTRY #12 [CONT.]
A rock struck the door as
I slammed it. I can still feel my hand vibrating. Dan pulled me upstairs. I shouted, “Lights! Get the lights!” I meant from the master switches at the top of the stairs, not the central control from his iPad. But that’s what he tried to do, halfway up the stairs. He stopped to fumble with his tablet. “No…not…,” but he’d already dropped it. The glass face cracked as it hit the naked wooden step.
“Go!” I yelled as the house shuddered, kneeing him in the butt as he swiped up the iPad. “Go! GO!”
We ran into the bedroom just as the balcony doors took a direct hit. I yelped at the loud hollow BOP and turned to protect my face from the glass. But the doors stayed together. Like our iPad, and maybe our car’s windshield, the plate just bulged in a spiderweb of sparkling cracks. I had maybe a moment of shock, gratitude, then I yelled, “Drapes!”
We split up, yanking the cloth covers together, then turned to do the same with the front windows.
I can’t believe I did that. Hesitating for just a few seconds. But the view of our entire village, rocks sailing in from all directions, bouncing off roofs, kicking up ash geysers.
If I hadn’t stopped to look.
If Dan hadn’t noticed.
“Lookou—” His voice, his weight. The force of his shoulder in my chest. We hit the floor just as the window above us shattered. I felt little cold flakes pepper my neck and ear as the baseball-sized rock bounced across our bed.
Panting on the floor, Dan picked glass from my hair. “Don’t move.” The warmth of his breath, the pressure of his fingertips. “Here…ow…here…here’s one.” Maybe a minute, maybe longer, before it felt safe to move. Squat-walking to the bathroom, the only glass-free space. As I flicked off the light, Dan found the master switch on his iPad. I noticed some of the screen’s finger smudges were red. “I’m fine.” He showed me a tiny bubble on the end of his forefinger. “It’s not from the screen.” That had been the ow when he’d checked me for shards. Now it was my turn, crouching in the shower with the curtains drawn, using the flashlight from my iPhone, looking for any sparkling hints.
thmpthnkscrkthmp
That was our soundtrack, a symphony of impact sounds that, after a couple of minutes, we could pick out like instruments in an orchestra.
Thmp. The ash.
Thnk. A roof.
Thomp. Our roof.
Ksssh. A window.
And one big, crazy kssssh…weeeeueeeeeueeeeeueeeee. A car, its alarm wailing like a wounded animal.
Then footsteps. In the house! I looked at Dan, who reached for his stabber that wasn’t there. He’d left the coconut opener downstairs on the kitchen table, just like I’d left the javelin in the bedroom.
Time to get it? I wondered for a second before rapid strides clattered up the stairs.
Then a frantic banging on the bedroom door.
“Kids?” Muffled shouting. Mostar!
“Kids! Are you in there?”
We practically flew to the bedroom door; it was so dark we nearly felt her arms before actually seeing her. Shaking, all of us, on our knees, crouching in a group hug.
A second, a sob, then Mostar breaking to grab a face with each hand.
“Danny, downstairs!” twisting his head to the living room. “Get a…two…two seat cushions from the couch! Go!” No argument. Dan bolted.
“Katie!” Still clutching my jaw. “Come with me! Come, come, come!”
I ran across the upstairs walkway, past Dan’s office with its newly broken window and basketball-sized boulder in the middle of the floor. Into my office where Mostar, crazily, started opening the windows! I couldn’t understand. I was halfway under my desk. But when that little oblong, mango-shaped rock came spinning in through the open window, the words “what the fuck are you doing” were almost out of my mouth. Those words stopped short as the “mango” bounced harmlessly against the back wall, then rolled to a stop at my feet.
No window. No glass!
“Katie!” Mostar motioned to my side. I jumped up, opened the window, then pressed myself up against the wall as a rock whooshed through open space. This one, ironically, almost hit Dan, who’d just come puffing in with the cushions.
Mostar yelled, “Here!” She grabbed one of the cushions and jammed it against her half of the open window as Dan copied the action on my end.
thmp
His cushion recoiled slightly as a rock bounced harmlessly off the other side.
Simple. Genius. Mostar.
She was already sliding my desktop monitor behind her cushion when I slid over next to Dan.
“Behind me!” Taking the soft barrier from him, I jerked my head to the two smaller steel shelves against the far wall. Dan got it, rushed over, and tipped their contents on the floor.
As he lifted the first into place, I felt another rock punch my cushion. The impact nearly knocked me down. “Are you…” Dan’s hand on my back.
“Fine!” Nudging him away. Shifting my weight, widening my stance, I barely felt the next two hits.
Across the room, Dan grunted, “Look out,” and plopped the second shelf on the desk. Then restocking; files, printer paper, printer—the Ikea desk groaned under their weight. But they held! An audible thmp, a quick sliver of light between cushion and windowsill. But it held! I did the same, hands free, stepping back. A soft thmp and rattle of something hard and loose on my shelf.
Barely audible above the rest of the bombardment. That’s what Mostar called it, resting on the floor, back to the wall. “They never warn you,” she breathed, “they always come in before the sirens.” I heard her sniff, hard, then cough. “Never get caught in the open, always away from the doors. The old streets are best, narrow. They shield you from shrapnel.” More cryptic Mostar-isms.
She yawned, breathed some indecipherable foreign phrase, and then dropped right off to sleep. Seriously! Snoring! Louder than Dan’s! He’s at it too, now, by the way. Both of them, like characters in a Disney movie.
At least Dan waited for the “shelling” to stop. It petered out about an hour ago. Maybe ten minutes in total? God, what a ten minutes! Mostar’s still sleeping upright against the wall. Dan’s curled up at the foot of the closed office door. I was worried that we’d suffocate in here, but he insisted we keep it shut. “The alarm’s out.” Those were his last words before dropping off. “I’ll fix it tomorrow…fix it…I’ll fix it.”
I guess I shouldn’t worry. The barrier’s not airtight. I can feel little drafts of cold air drifting down around my desk. That’s where I am now, next to it, wedged into the corner, writing all this down.
My fingers are cramping. I need to pee. I want to sleep but I also don’t. I’m afraid of tomorrow.
Why did the rocks stop? Why did they start? What does it mean?
I can’t hear anything outside.
I really need to pee.
From my interview with Senior Ranger Josephine Schell.
Like wood knocking, rock throwing is deeply embedded in the lore. Again, there’s a lot of conjecture. It might very well be a peaceful…well…nonlethal means of intimidation. That might explain the howls as well. One theory is that they use it to drive another troop or individual away. That would make sense, given that chimps sometimes throw rocks at each other, or at people, like at that Swedish zoo.* Santino probably wasn’t looking to kill anybody, just make them leave.
JOURNAL ENTRY #12 [CONT.]
So much to do this morning, so much to do today. I have to get this down quickly while it’s still fresh. The pain in my neck woke me up. Sleeping on the floor, on my side, arm for a pillow. I’ve had neck aches before but oh my God. Shoulder, ribs, face! And so cold! Last night it was kind of nice. The room was so hot and stuffy. But now, the chill outside, it must have dropped twenty degrees. I can see my breath. This is what Frank must have been talking about, that plunge
in temperature right before winter.
While the rest of me was freezing, my bladder was absolutely burning. Not only did it cause me discomfort, but when I opened my eyes, I almost peed out of fear. Dan and Mostar were gone, and the door was wide open!
I called out for both of them, and got nothing back. I stood up, shivered, sneezed repeatedly, then poked my head out of the office. The house looked empty, the front door was open. The curtains covering the living room window were raised. I checked my phone, a little past eight, but the darkness…Lead gray, obscuring everything. I couldn’t see lights from the other houses, or the other houses. It was like they’d had been teleported to another world.
I ducked into the hall bathroom quickly, then came out and called again for Dan. No answer. I could hear voices, distant but clear. I hobbled downstairs, rubbing the blood into my needle-stung right leg, and half limped over to the front door.
Fog!
Dark and thick. And cold! I could feel it through my skin, seeping into my bones. The village was barely visible, but I could just make out the small group by the Common House.
Dan was there, talking to the Boothes, along with Carmen and Reinhardt. Vincent was all decked out in his hiking gear, boots, poles, CamelBak. The pack itself was bulging, crammed with stuff it wasn’t meant to hold. So was the laptop bag on his hip, round and overstuffed. And Bobbi’s pink yoga mat on the other hip, tied around his shoulder with an improvised rope of shoelaces. And around the mat was a blanket, one of those ultra-soft airport types you buy at Hudson News. It was wrapped with more tied-together laces that typified his entire ensemble.
“I don’t need to worry about getting lost.” Vincent kept gesturing down the road. “Just follow the driveway to the bridge…”
Dan countered with, “But then what? If there’s no bridge…”
“I’ll just follow the lahar.” Vincent swallowed. “It must have cooled by now. Or hardened, whatever the proper term…”