Deadfall

by Robert Liparulo

“For what?” asked Phil.

  “People, a phone, a radio . . .”

  “Guns, ammo,” added Terry.

  “Speaking of that,” said Phil, “shouldn’t you get that ready?” He was looking at the bow rising up from Hutch’s back.

  “And do what with it?” asked Hutch, but he slung it into his hands. He gazed at it the way Terry might have at his bulletless gun—a lot of potential but of little practical use.

  “Shoot the bad guys,” said Phil; he could have added, Duh?

  “I’m thinking we’re a little outgunned,” Hutch said.

  “Anything’s better than nothing,” said Phil. “Who would have thought a real estate agent with a six-shooter could have saved your butt, when the guy with the invisible grenade wanted to blow it off?”

  “At this point I’ll take a sharp pencil,” said Terry.

  “That’s the spirit,Terry,” Hutch said. “Survivors keep their heads. They don’t get panicky. Some people keep flipping through a sort of mental photo album to remember what they have waiting for them back home; others count or do puzzles in their heads. But the number one thing survivors do, that guy said, is they keep their sense of humor. They joke about things you wouldn’t think are funny—how they’ll give a bear indigestion or how their corpse will be found with its skeletal middle finger raised to the belated rescuers.”

  It was Terry’s way to say things in a slightly twisted manner, but

  Hutch knew he really meant that he’d take a pencil. Had Terry not had the gun, Hutch believed he would have been throwing rocks at Declan until all four friends were nothing but little bits of the circle of life in the Canadian wilderness.

  As if to prove the point, Terry said, “I’m more afraid of the guy with the invisible grenades than I am of some old lady with a gun. I’ll kick the doors in and take my chances.” He started for a home.

  Hutch grabbed his arm. “Whoa, the noise will just draw attention to us. And besides, don’t you think the people who went to the trouble of disabling every vehicle would have cleared the houses of anything that could hinder their plans?”

  Terry thought about that. “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “So we hit Main Street and see what’s what.”

  Without a word they continued farther into town. After a few minutes, Phil stopped. He peered up at the sky. Hutch and Terry joined him. Curtains of colors rippled across the sky: David’s Revontulet. They continued on. The houses gave way to the first public building: a school. It was dark and deserted, as it probably should have been at this hour anyway. The school was on their left. It faced the street that intersected the one they were on, but instead of dirt, it was paved and about twice the width.

  “Provincial Street,Terry,” Phil said, reading a sign.

  “So?”

  “You called it Main Street. This is obviously their main boulevard.” He gestured toward the businesses along the street.

  “Okay, listen,” Hutch said.“We came down from the north, a little west of town. Fiddler Falls sits on the northern bank of the Fond du Lac. That means the river is south, that way.” He pointed right. “Whatever commerce they have, whatever services, will be that way.”

  In that direction, across the dirt road from the school, was a large Victorian house. On the front lawn beside the walkway was a metal sign hung between two wrought iron posts capped by horses’ heads. The sign read KRAMER’S ROOM AND BOARD, INQUIRE WITHIN.

  “A boardinghouse,” Terry said. “I’ll bet the door is unlocked, at least into the common areas, the living room, kitchen.”

  “I don’t like it,” Hutch said, hoping they wouldn’t have this debate at every house they passed. “What if Declan’s gang are outsiders, and this is where they’re staying? Are you ready to confront them?”

  Terry shook his head. “Not enough intel yet.” He was tenacious but not rash.

  In the distance a dog barked. It was answered by another, deeper bark. Then another.

  “Hear that?” Hutch asked.

  “The dogs?”Terry shook his head. So what? he thought.

  “Where are they?”

  Terry listened. “Up in the hills.”

  “Not in town,” Hutch confirmed. “Places like this, they have dogs galore. But they’re all out of town.”

  “Like something scared them,” Phil said.

  They started up Provincial. The moon had risen high enough to cast its glow into the town’s shallow valley of buildings. The men remained close to the buildings, where the shadows were darkest.They passed a tackle store. The only light inside emanated from an illuminated clock advertising fishing line. Across the street was a church, St. Bartholomew’s. Its stones and mortar made it a hulking, solid part of the landscape, more like the hills than anything Fiddler Falls had to offer. They passed another Victorian house. A sign identified it as the office of Dr. Anson Jeffrey. Directly across Provincial, a less impressive house proclaimed itself the MOOSE MOUTH RESTAURANT.

  “Say that three times,”Terry whispered.

  Hutch thought that even on a Tuesday evening, this of all places would be hopping. No lights shone through any of the windows.The next building they passed was a windowless box, marked as the LODGE FOR THE BENEVOLENT AND PROTECTIVE ORDER OF ELKS OF CANADA.

  Terry leaned close to Hutch. “Get real! Have you ever seen an empty Elks Lodge?”

  “I think we know by now,” Hutch said. “Something’s happened to this town.”

  “Something awful,” Phil said, pointing up the street.

  Hutch saw what was there all along for him to see had he not been so preoccupied with the inhabitancy of each building. A block away on the right side, a burned-out car seemed crushed into the asphalt. In fact, the street directly in front of them had been damaged, seemingly by something incredibly heavy falling onto it. A circle, four or five feet in diameter, was recessed into the pavement. Fissures radiated from the circle like capillaries in bloodshot eyes. Just outside this circle, closest to their position, lay a single boot. Hutch’s stomach cramped, and he walked closer.

  “Hutch,”Terry cautioned.

  He held his hand up, hoping for silence and a moment to confirm his suspicion. The boot, what he used to call a “clodhopper,” lay sideways on the street, the tread visible. As he neared, he saw that a sock extended from the boot, an ankle joint clearly visible beneath.The sock disappeared into a pant leg, which extended six inches and ended right at the lip of the depression. Not wanting to see but wanting to know, he walked around the perimeter of the depression until the other side of the pant leg was visible. Even having prepared himself, his stomach cramped and his mind reeled. Inside the pant leg was a human leg, severed midcalf. Flesh, muscle, bone—all of it as well defined as an anatomical cutaway in a medical school.

  The deserted town, already menacing, took on another level of foreboding. Suddenly, Hutch felt watched. The air seemed to thicken. Bad things had happened here, and he sensed they were happening still. He returned to Terry and Phil under the shadowy eve of the Elks Lodge.

  “It’s a foot,” he said. “Part of a leg.”

  “What?” Phil’s voice had risen in pitch. Not yet panicky, but close.

  “No blood. Not even on the pant where the leg was cut.”

  “Like they dressed it after it was cut off?” Phil asked.

  Terry slapped his arm with the back of his hand. “No. Like it was instantly cauterized.” He looked at Hutch. “Right?”

  Hutch pointed at Terry, lost in thought. “Yeah . . . like that.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this,”Terry said. “The man in the truck, Declan, he’s got this controller or communicator that’s somehow connected to the explosions, but we don’t see anybody shooting or throwing a bomb.What’s that mean?”

  Hutch and Phil shook their heads.

  “Something’s coming from the sky,” he continued. “Maybe a mortar, shot off somewhere far away. But that doesn’t explain not seeing it before it goes off. Or a plane, way overhead, out of sight. This
Declan guy tells it where to shoot, and down comes some kind of missile or rocket or something.”

  Hutch nodded. It sounded right.

  Terry held up a finger. He wasn’t done. “Or something a little more far-out. I read about these things, these big uranium rods. They’re called . . .” He searched his memory. “Um, long-rod penetrators. These things orbit the earth and can be directed to a certain place at a certain time. Then they’re essentially turned off, which causes them to fall. They’re going so fast that when they hit, it’s like an explosion.You can take out tanks and bunkers. Maybe that’s what this is.”

  Hutch shook his head. “That depression in the street, it’s flat. These rods would go right into the ground, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yeah. I think.”

  “And it sounds like they would take some time to fall. Maybe they’d work for stationary objects. Like you said, a bunker. But Declan chased me with this.”

  “What about a satellite?” Phil said. “Something that can be aimed from way up there, a missile or a laser?”

  “A laser?” Hutch said. “Can they do that?”

  “I think so,” said Terry. “It’s essentially what the Space Defense Initiative is: Star Wars. Lasers on satellites that take down missiles before they reach U.S. airspace.”

  “I thought that got killed in Congress. No budget for it,” Hutch said.

  “No budget doesn’t mean it can’t be done or that somebody hasn’t done it. The technology must be there if they were trying to get money for it.”

  Hutch wondered what else was going to come at him from out of the blue before this trip was over. Physically, emotionally, intellectually: he felt bombarded on all fronts. He was already totally creeped out by this town, and now Terry and Phil were suggesting there were not only eyes in the sky, but death rays as well. Maybe they should have gone to Puerto Vallarta.

  Just then, the sound of an engine reached them.

  Hutch darted for a breezeway between the lodge and Dr. Jeffrey’s office. He entered it and crouched beside the Elks building.Terry and Phil skirted him and did the same. Hutch peered around the corner to see the Hummer appear on the cross street that had been right in front of them. It thumped up onto Provincial and turned toward the river, in the direction they had been walking. Its tires chirped and its engine roared to get the heavy truck moving faster than this tiny town had probably ever witnessed. It flew past the crushed car, crossed another intersection, and screamed to a stop midway into the next block. Hutch stood and leaned farther out. Both the driver’s and passenger doors swung open.

  “It’s the black guy and the kid, the really young one,” Hutch reported.

  The two from the Hummer jogged toward the same side of the street as Hutch, Terry, and Phil. A row of businesses shielded them from Hutch’s view; he heard a heavy door slam. He turned to Terry and Phil. “Something’s up. They were in a big hurry.”

  “The Hummer guys?” Phil asked.

  Hutch nodded.

  Phil shook his head. “This town is theirs. They probably killed everybody in it. Now they’re traipsing around their own private Idaho.”

  “We need to know more,” Hutch said.

  “Meaning what?” Phil said, his voice rising. “We go see what they’re up to?”

  Hutch thought about it, then said simply, “Yeah.”

  “No,” Phil countered. “Whatever these guys have—weapons, guts, I don’t know.Well, I do know something, that monster cannon-grenade thing—a satellite weapon if Ter’s right! But if that’s it or just the beginning of what they have . . .What I’m saying is, they took over this town. This whole town. Cops and all.We’re no match for that.”

  Terry gripped his arm. “Phil, this is where I slap you and say, ‘Pull yourself together, man.’”

  “That’s not funny. And I don’t care what Hutch says about joking with death and all that. David being dead is not funny. None of this is funny.”

  Hutch said, “I didn’t mean—”

  Phil held up his hand. He tightened his face. “I know what you meant. Why aren’t we running the other direction? Why aren’t we heading out of this godforsaken town? Why aren’t we finding a town that hasn’t been taken over?”

  “Because the nearest town is days away. The nights are freezing cold.We don’t have any equipment.We can’t light a fire. And these people who want to kill us are scary-good at finding what they’re looking for.You want to be out there under those conditions?”

  “Better than being here. I mean it.We are in a town that nobody else is in, except the people who got rid of everybody else. There has to be a way to get help. Can we head downriver along the bank until we find a boat or something? There has to be a boat.”

  “And if there isn’t?”

  “We make one.”

  “If you stay outside too long at night, you’ll freeze to death. If you fall in the water and can’t get out for ten minutes, you’ll freeze to death. If you’re outside day or night too long, I think these guys will find you.”

  “So we hole up. Find a place in town they’ve already searched and stay there till they leave.”

  Hutch thought about that. Not bad.

  Terry chimed in. “Until they start using their weapon to blow up buildings. You don’t think they’re leaving this place intact, do you? These guys are scorched-earth warriors all the way.You can tell.”

  Hutch couldn’t tell anything, but Terry did have a point. He thought of another one: “What if they’re holding the townspeople somewhere? If we run or lie low and find out later we could have saved people who ended up dying, I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “But you’d be alive,” Phil said, his voice nearly a whine. “And what if we find out they do have hostages? What can we do about it? Nothing!”

  “Phil, I hear what you’re saying. I do,” Hutch assured him. “But I can’t just run. I think learning more about what we’re up against is our best bet. I don’t know that for sure, but I have to go with it.”

  Phil knew when he was beaten. He nodded.

  Hutch studied his eyes a moment longer, then glanced at Terry. Without another word, he stepped around the corner and headed for the Hummer.

  22

  Laura pressed her ear to the door. Someone was sitting at the desk in the office on the other side. It was the town manager’s office, but she hadn’t seen or heard Buck since this all began. Whoever it was spent a lot of time clicking away on a keyboard. Every now and then, someone would enter and start a conversation. Often Declan was one of the talkers. The words were indistinct. Just syllabic beats. Some inflection—anger, emphasis. But she had recognized the cadence of his speech: slow and casual, as though his only audience were himself. Whenever she heard that speech rhythm, ice chilled her heart and raced through her body. Instead of pushing it aside or letting it darken her thoughts, she used it. She drew energy from it.

  They’d received several deliveries of food—sandwiches, lukewarm pizza.When Laura knocked, someone would come to take them to the bathroom.They were never allowed to go together, and the small bathroom had been stripped of the toilet tank lid and mirror. At least their captors waited outside the door, letting her relieve herself in private.

  During these restroom trips, Laura would be taken to one of the auditorium doors. Her escort would unlock and unchain it, then hold it open so she could see inside and the people inside could see her. Until recently, this area had served as gymnasium, meeting hall, community theater, and concert venue—local talent only; no one of any importance would ever venture to Fiddler Falls for the hundred or so people who’d turn out.

  Now it was a jail. At least two hundred people milled about and slept on sleeping bags, cots, the floor. They were her friends, neighbors, people she had known for years, the children and the parents of the children she had taught or was currently teaching. As a whole, the community was normally vibrant and jovial. When she stood at the door with her captors, the eyes pointed at her were sad. Conflicting emotions ri
ppled over their faces. They drew hope from her continued existence. At the same time, her presence reminded them of Tom and how bad things had gotten.

  Three times now, Lizzie Emery had stood and called out to her. “Laura? Laura, have you seen Roland? He’s not here, my Roland.”

  Her expression broke Laura’s heart. She would simply shake her head, and her captors would slam the door.

  “Mom?” Dillon was sitting against one of the shelving’s upright brackets. His knees were raised in front of him, his hands clasped around them. His eyes shone in the weak light, big and scared. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  It was only a matter of time before Declan would return for another pep talk. She did not think for a moment that he would leave her or Dillon alone. Sooner or later, the same instinct that drove him to kill Tom would send him back to them. She could not bear the thought of the same man who took Tom from them having the opportunity to kill them as well . . . or worse.

  She crawled to Dillon.The glass from the broken lightbulb crunched under her hands and knees. It didn’t bother her. Just a reminder of the conditions to which they were subjected. She completed the trek to her son. She sat next to him, pulling him close.

  “We’re doing it, honey,” she said reassuringly. “It just takes time.” She rubbed the tips of her fingers and thumb together. They were sticky with blood. And sore.

  “Are they gonna hurt us?” Dillon asked.

  “No, we’re gonna hurt them.”

  “Dad said it’s not good to hurt people.”

  “That’s true. But when you hurt somebody who is trying to hurt you, that’s not wrong. Dillon, we’re all made to love ourselves.That’s why we try to eat right and clothe ourselves and not do things that will hurt us. When you stop someone from hurting you, it’s just like that. It’s something you’re supposed to do.”

  “Can you hurt somebody who is trying to hurt somebody else?”

  “If you’re protecting somebody weaker, yes.”

  “Was Daddy protecting people when he went out to see what that explosion was?”

  When Tom had left yesterday morning, she had explained to Dillon that he was leaving to do his job. It was his job to protect and serve, and he was proud to do it.