by Lindy Ryan
No Cowboy either, then. Seeing the stray mutt downtown had given Rachel a sense of hope that, if nothing else, perhaps her faithful canine would be found. Her knees wobbled beneath her and she almost crumbled, but Rachel gripped the back of her father’s recliner and forced herself to stay on her feet.
“Think, Mason,” she commanded. “This isn’t a sci-fi movie. People don’t simply disappear. This is an emergency. Where do people go during an emergency?”
As if in reply, a noise echoed faintly from somewhere outside the open front door. A series of beeps, and something that could have been a man’s voice.
The office. James Mason had kept an office in their old home in Boston, but his clutter and collections had become so intense post-retirement that her mom had banned him from taking over a room in the house. He’d had to sequester himself in a “he-shed” office out back, a short trek down a narrow rock path behind the house.
Rachel’s fingers loosed a faint sucking sound when she let go of the leather recliner. She raced to the back of the house and threw open the door. The sight of her father’s office, closed up tight, sent a flood of reassurance through her, making it slightly easier to breathe.
She twisted the knob. Locked. Of course. Her dad always kept his office locked. The same noise she’d heard before echoed through the thick metal of the portable building—a series of beeps, and a voice.
“Dad!”
Rachel banged on the door, twisted at the knob. When no answer came and no movement stirred on the other side of the wall, she raised herself onto her toes, reaching above the threshold to retrieve the spare key her father thought hidden. She palmed the small piece of cool metal, took a deep breath, slipped it into the lock, and twisted. The lock gave, and she pushed the door open.
James Mason’s “office” was a three hundred square foot box room, fashioned from a portable metal building and decorated with faux stone wallpaper, that sat in the center of the yard between two large Sitka spruce. Her father had been known to lock himself away for hours, chatting with his friends from around the world on his amateur ham radio. He’d picked up the hobby one year after stumbling into a ham radio festival in New Jersey while on vacation. Over time, her father’s ham radio hobby had become something of an obsession, and his personal space was filled with books and old wartime photos from his days in the Marines.
The office was warm, the old buddy heater running in the back of the building. James’s laptop sat open, screensaver dancing across the open screen, and the radio beeped a series of quick beats punctuated by a faint growl and static. But the room was empty.
A coffee mug sat on the desk, still mostly full. Rachel dipped a finger in the liquid. Room temperature. Whatever had happened here hadn’t been too long ago. She looked at the papers scattered about her father’s desk. Nothing out of the ordinary—a booklet on local radio frequencies; an open envelope from the NRA with a members’ sticker pulled halfway out; a handful of bank statements. Something caught her eye. A scrap of paper laid on her father’s keyboard, the ripped-off fold of an envelope. One word was scrawled across the page in James’s blocky handwriting: CROW.
Crow? Rachel’s mind indexed every mention of the word connected with her father, then expanded outward, but came up with nothing—except murder.
Murder. A group of ravens was called an unkindness, but a group of crows was called a murder. A chill raced through Rachel, but she walked over to the radio, turned it off, and exited the office. Out of habit, she made to lock the door, but then decided against it and pocketed the key.
Rachel moved to the small deck built off the back of her parent’s home and sat in one of the wicker chairs, icy fragments cracking beneath her. Her thoughts were tangled, unorganized. Everything spun and her body felt strange, stuck somewhere between suffocation and weightlessness. This was too weird, too unexpected, too damn scary. How could it even be real?
The soft tickle of Lucy’s fur brushed against Rachel’s forearm and she stroked the dog’s ear without thinking.
“What now, girl? What do we do?” she asked.
Noise stirred in Lucy’s throat. What mom said to do.
Rachel sighed. Ruby would have known what to do, wouldn’t she? She’d have said this was the time, what she’d spent her whole life preparing for. She’d tell Rachel to get prepared, gather her supplies, and find somewhere safe to homestead—somewhere away from where everyone else would expect her to be.
And that’s exactly what Rachel would do.
“Nothing else to fucking do anyway,” she mumbled under her breath. If the past four months and seventeen days had encouraged her to do anything, it was to sit still and die. To wither. To waste. She could have done that—would have done that—after Ruby died, but she hadn’t … if only because Ruby would have hated for her to do so. Ruby always told her to keep going, keep pushing, and that’s what Rachel was going to do, even if she had to do it alone for real this time.
Rachel pushed herself to her feet and marched back to her father’s office, threw open the door. Pulling up his chair, she scooted close to the radio and flipped it back on. Static crinkled in the air. Rachel swallowed back the feeling she had felt in her truck, forcing emotion down her throat.
Focus, Mason.
What had her dad taught her about using the radio? Ruby had been a much better student than she had six months ago when James had sat them both down to show off his new toy.
There were so many buttons and knobs she didn’t how to use, much less how to control. She snatched up the receiver and pressed the push-to-talk button on the mic.
“Hello?”
Static. Nausea swelled in the pit of her stomach. Her brows pulled tightly together, sending a sharp stab of pain that radiated through her temples.
Rachel put her head in her hands, closed her eyes, and tried to remember her dad’s instructions. How the hell was she supposed to make this thing work?
Her father’s voice echoed in memory. “First thing you want to do is put out your call sign.”
Call sign. Rachel’s head snapped up. Call sign, she knew—a series of random letters that were someone’s radio signature. She didn’t know her dad’s, but she knew where he kept it: taped to the wall just above his radio.
She spied the little slip of notebook paper, her father’s familiar blocky print. There.
Rachel grabbed the mic and squeezed the push-to-talk button. A small, digital, meter dial arched across a green LED screen on the radio. She lifted the mic to her lips and recited the sequence of letters that made up James Mason’s call sign.
“CQ, CQ, KJ6IZR.”
Rachel waited, but no one replied. She reached over and turned the squelch knob. Static rang out through the speaker, then she keyed the mic again. “CQ, CQ, CQ, KJ6IZR.''
“Who is this?” A voice broke through the heavy static, almost indecipherable.
Rachel's eyes widened. She was not alone! Her heart skipped, almost painful in her chest. Now that she knew there was someone—anyone—else out there, she wasn’t sure how to respond. Should she say who she was? What if the person on the other end wanted to take her, too? What if they knew what was going on?
“Who’s this?” she asked back.
Static rang out through the speaker when she removed her finger from the mic button. She waited.
“Where are you?” the voice asked.
Rachel leaned back and set the mic down on the table, excitement and fear vying for first place under her skin. Hearing another voice made her happy, but their unwillingness to answer her simple question made her stomach turn.
Maybe they’re just as scared as you are, she considered.
A third possibility. Another red flag.
Suddenly, another voice crackled over the radio. “Triangulation in progress. Location acquired.”
Every hair on Rachel’s body stood on end and scarlet flashed in her vision. What the hell? Triangulation in progress?
Triangulation meant someone was attempting to
pinpoint her exact geographical location—and that someone was also not willing to say who they were. Acquired meant they were successful. Rachel pushed away from the table, the sudden, harsh movement making the chair’s metal wheels squeak across the plastic mat.
“Fuck!” she said as she pushed herself to her feet. “They’re coming for us, girl.”
Rachel stormed out of the office and into the house, Lucy following close behind.
She ran into the guest room she’d claimed as her own, stopped in the doorway, and looked over the room. The truth bore down on her. Like the loft she and Ruby had shared in Boston, this may be the last time Rachel saw her bedroom. Photo frames, each filled with snapshots of her and Ruby, lined the walls, the dresser top. Clutter of her adult life merged with childhood memorabilia her parents had hung onto, creating a collage of Rachel’s life—old tags from concerts and trips to ski resorts, stuffed animals, the cap from her police academy graduation. It was all here, every piece of her.
Everything she had left to leave behind.
Rachel shook her head. Refocused. There was no time to waste—someone was coming, and she had no reason to believe they would be friendly. Everything Ruby had taught her about prepping had come down to this single moment. She lifted her and Ruby’s wedding photo from the vanity—a candid snap of them gazing at each other under the arch where they’d said their vows. How colorful everything had been then, the lush tropical paradise where they’d promised to spend their lives together so different than the inhospitable tundra where Rachel grieved now.
“Help me, Red Bird,” she whispered, drawing her finger across her wife’s face. Without giving it much thought, she peeled open the back of the frame, plucked out the picture, and folded it in half, then pushed the photo into her pocket.
Rachel allowed herself exactly eight seconds to close her eyes. To breathe. To think. Then she opened the closet door and pulled out a worn, 65-liter, olive-green military rucksack. The bag was Ruby’s “oh shit bag,” the one she kept packed and ready to go should they ever need to evacuate, to disappear. It had everything Rachel and Lucy needed to survive anywhere for at least five days—ten days, since her traveling party was cut down by half. More if she rationed their supplies. The pack also contained a satellite phone. Rachel grabbed the phone, squeezed it against her chest—should she call him? No, not yet—and stuffed it into the pack.
After tossing the bag into the doorway, Rachel went over to the side of the bed, dropped to her knees, and lifted the mattress. Underneath, tucked between the mattress and the box spring, in the spot below where her head rested against her pillow, was a small, pewter vial. She pulled it out and let the mattress fall back down, then dashed over to the rucksack. Rachel lifted the top flap and tucked the vial tenderly in before cinching the pack closed. She slung the bug-out bag over her shoulder and marched out of the room, down the hall, toward the front door.
Rachel let out a light whistle. “C’mon, Lucy girl, we have to go!”
Lucy, who had been at Rachel’s heels since coming in through the dog door without Cowboy, barked. Let’s go.
“We’ve gotta get out of here, girl,” Rachel said as they stepped through the front door. She pulled a ring of keys from her pocket and locked the door behind her.
She stepped back to look at the house one last time.
“I hope we make it back here one day,” she told Lucy. “I’m going to miss this place.” Then, together, they made their way to Ruby’s old truck, settled the pack in the cab, and cranked the engine to life, breaking the heavy silence shrouding Juneau.
4
When Rachel rounded the turn off Coleman, her parents’ home already lost in the rearview mirror, she heard the sounds of a deep thrumming above her. A deep, consistent, whipping noise, which was getting closer. Rachel knew the sound; she’d heard the same noise every sunny summer day when tourists paid for excursions up to the glacier.
Helicopter.
She stepped on the gas.
Rachel peeled down the street and whipped around another corner, driving deeper into the heavily wooded roads that led further into the wild. The paved road gave way to gravel, and Lucy hunkered, bracing herself against the seat and trying not to slide off. Her nails popped through the old vinyl cover, the sound tearing like gunfire in the quiet of the cab.
Location acquired. Was the helicopter searching … for her?
“Of course it’s for you,” Rachel snapped at her reflection in the rearview. “You’re the dumbass who told them right where you were. What were you thinking, Mason?”
Even if it wasn’t the voice who’d answered, someone else had been listening. This thing was coordinated. Tactical. But what was it—and why?
She took another turn, felt the truck lift slightly off its wheels. Lucy skidded across the seat and dropped onto the floorboard. A pull-off appeared on the right, and Rachel swung in, jerking the truck to a sudden stop. She checked her mirrors, then craned her view as best she could out of the front windows to check the sky.
Nothing.
“Maybe I was wrong,” she said. “Maybe it wasn’t looking for us.”
She let loose a sigh and rolled her eyes. Way to keep it cool, Mason.
Lucy hopped back onto her seat, glaring at Rachel as she settled herself.
“I’m sorry, girl. I guess I got into my head a little.”
The dog tucked her snout under her paw.
Rachel grunted and pulled back onto the road, coaxing the truck back to normal cruising speed. “Okay, I probably deserved that.”
She listened for the telltale sound of beating chopper blades, but the day was quiet. A few light drops of rain had finally begun to fall, glistening like dew against the windshield. If it weren’t for the knowledge that her parents were gone, blinked out of their home in the middle of drinking coffee, she might have thought she was overreacting. Losing her mind.
She almost said so. She almost turned around, ready to check the town again for any signs of life. But then the helicopter dropped out of the sky.
The black metal beast hung in the air, hovering directly in front of Rachel’s truck about seventy-five yards in the distance.
“Fuck!”
Rachel reached out, grabbed Lucy’s harness, and gripped onto the dog tight so she wouldn’t fly forward. She locked the brakes on the truck, sending the old clunker skidding forward into an abrupt halt.
When the truck had settled and Rachel’s heart retracted down her throat, settling back into its rightful place, she stared at the helicopter. She could see the pilot and a passenger, both glaring back at her. They wore military-grade tactical gear, any distinguishing features—eyes, hair, tattoos or moles or birthmarks—concealed under knit caps and behind sunglasses far too dark for the hazy day.
For a moment, the world stopped, the helicopter’s rotating blades a thumping metronome marking the passage of time. Then, one of the men opened his mouth, and Rachel slammed the truck into reverse.
Rear wheels squealed as rubber burned. Rachel slung the truck around, rocked its hood into the opposite direction, and put it in drive. She stamped the gas pedal to the floor.
“Come on, old girl,” she coaxed the truck.
The helicopter was no longer visible in her rearview mirror, but Rachel could hear the blades rotating overhead. She cranked her driver’s side window down and arched her head out, looking up at the sky.
There.
The chopper was directly above her, hovering like a shiny insect, eager to descend. Rachel yanked the truck right, sliding around a sudden corner, but her last-minute maneuver had no impact on the helicopter.
“Shit!” Rachel slammed her palms against the steering wheel. How in the hell was she supposed to lose a helicopter when it could see everything ten times better than she could?
Lucy growled in the seat beside her. Don’t give up.
Rachel’s fingers coiled around the wheel. Squeezed. “I’m not.”
The gas pedal was already against the
floorboard, but she dug in harder, her toes bending inside her hiking boot from the effort. Only another mile or so ahead, the road disappeared into the wilderness. She and Lucy could abandon the truck and disappear beneath the tree cover, hiking partway down a trail before wandering into the untrodden forest. The forest was dense there, unpredictable. Hikers routinely got lost in the area, even local folks, and even during the best of conditions. Rescue choppers were brought in, but those were mostly for show, to keep people calm while the real search happened on the ground. On foot.
“On paws,” Rachel said out loud.
Juneau’s most productive rescue teams were comprised of dogs. It took a master tracker to find someone lost in the Alaskan wilderness, and the guys in the helicopter looked more like militia fit for jungle warfare.
She reached over and put her palm against Lucy’s coat. Felt the stable beating of the dog’s heart. Rachel closed her eyes as she breathed. She could do this. They could do this. They could escape. They probably couldn’t outrun the helicopter, but they could outsmart the people inside it.
A black sedan slid out in front of her, headlights glaring in her direction. Where the fuck did that come from?
It didn’t matter. There was no time to slow down and ponder stupid questions. Whoever was driving could follow her, could be faster on foot, especially if they weren’t carrying a heavy pack and bundled up against the cold. She had to take advantage of every second, every ounce of extra speed.
Rachel grit her teeth so hard her jaw ached, but she kept her wheels pointed straight. “So, you want to play chicken, asshole?”
The black sedan swerved, closing in. Rachel knew the game—she’d played it a time or two when she’d been involved in high-speed chases with Boston criminals. The bad guy always swerved.
Always.
“And I’m not the bad guy,” Rachel growled. Her eyes narrowed, straightening into a line of focus.
The sedan was no more than a hundred yards ahead. Rachel looked to Lucy. The dog met her eyes, then dropped onto the floorboard as if anticipating an inevitable crash. Sorry girl.
