by Roger Hayden
“Tell them to put their guns down.”
Mike nodded to Tom and Nelson and they placed their rifles on the ground in front of them.
“Kick them away from you,” Beth said.
Tom and Nelson complied sending the guns sliding across the gravel. Mike placed his gun down last, but kept Billy close.
“You all right, Billy?” Beth asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
Beth walked toward them keeping the barrel of the gun pointed at the three of them. The sun reflected off the steel of the shotgun. When she got close enough Mike let Billy go and he ran for his mom.
“Mom, it’s okay. They’re not going to hurt us,” Billy said.
Beth kept the shotgun pointed at them. She paused for a moment taking all of them in, their hands in the air, waiting for her judgment.
The barrel of the gun finally dropped and Tom and Nelson let out a sigh.
“Thank God,” Tom said.
“The cart’s around back. How bad is she hurt?” Beth asked.
“She took a bullet to the shoulder, but she lost a lot of blood. She’s not strong enough to walk yet and we need to move her quickly,” Mike said.
Mike followed Beth around the side of the house and his eye fell on an old wooden cart. It was six feet long and stood four feet high. The wood was cracked and splintered along the bed. Two long handles jutted out from the front, where it looked like it would normally be pulled by a horse, or ox.
“That thing looks like it’s about to fall apart,” Tom said.
“It’s sturdy. We still use it to push around some of the livestock feed,” Billy said.
Mike grabbed the front handles and turned it around.
“We don’t have a lot of options. Nelson, grab the other handle and help me pull. Tom, grab the guns on the way out,” Mike said.
Tom tossed Billy his rifle back and collected their guns from the ground and put them on the bed of the cart, shielding his mouth from the dust kicked up by the wheels.
Jung held his wife’s hand. Her eyes were half open. He had pulled out his sleeping bag and laid her down on it. The white bandages covering her shoulder were soaked red. Sean kept their two children preoccupied by playing a game with them. Jung watched from a distance as their two small children tried knocking an empty can from a tree trunk with a rock.
“Jung,” Jenna whispered.
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” Jung said. “Mike went to get us something to carry you in and then we’ll go to his cabin. Mike said he’d be able to help you more once we get there.”
Jung tilted her head up and pressed a bottle of water to her lips.
“Do you remember that vacation we took to Sea World last year? I kept complaining about flying all the way to California for a week filled with nothing but sea animals?” Jung said.
“You tried to convince the kids to just take a weekend trip to the coast.”
“And they wouldn’t even budge because of all of the pictures you showed them. They were so excited and when we finally left for the trip and we made it there they wanted to leave right away, but you couldn’t peel me away from it.”
“You kept wanting to get your picture taken with penguins.”
“They were so cool, but they smelled awful.”
Jung’s face broke into a smile, reflecting Jenna’s. The creases of his eyes wrinkled up, while the dark circles underneath seemed to be under more stress.
“You were right about that trip. It was a good idea. We should do it again,” Jung said.
“I’m glad you liked it.”
His smile faded. The circles under his eyes darkened. Tears began running down his cheeks.
“Jung,” Fay said. “Mike’s back.”
Mike and Nelson dragged the cart all the way through the field to the edge of the trees.
“Tom, come help me get Jenna on here,” Mike said.
Mike and Tom scooped her up while Jung grabbed the bags underneath her. Jung spread the sleeping bags on the bed of the cart. Mike and Tom laid her down. Jenna winced as the guys set her in the cart.
Jung managed to put Claire and Jung Jr. in the cart with their mother. Jung and Nelson pulled while Fay, Tom, and Mike kept watch on the sides and front of the group. Sean kept close to his father while Clarence brought up the rear.
The rickety cart’s wheels clattered against the pavement, the handles vibrating in Jung and Nelson’s hands.
Mike knew they’d be slower now, and he wasn’t sure how the group was going to get the cart up the dirt path to the cabin, but for now they were moving and that was priority number one. Fay came up behind him.
“So, what happened back there? How did you get the cart?” Fay asked.
“I asked for it,” Mike answered.
“Are you going to bring it back to her?”
“If it survives the trip.”
With their rifles loaded and the dirt path to the cabin only a few more miles up the road Mike let himself hope. He hoped that his family was there. He hoped that they were all okay. He hoped that Jenna would make it.
It was a feeling he hadn’t let himself experience since they left the neighborhood. He didn’t want to let false expectations get in the way of having to do what needed to be done. He knew the trip would be hard. He knew there wouldn’t be any guarantee that he would make it to the cabin and that there wouldn’t be any guarantee that his family was there when he did arrive, but being so close to the finish line caused the hope that he kept at bay for so long to creep in.
“We’re close, right?” Fay asked.
“Yeah, we’re close,” Mike answered.
10
Day 11 (Cabin)
“I don’t want you going outside by yourself,” Anne said.
“Mom, I’ll be fine,” Freddy answered.
Freddy hadn’t been outside since his grandfather brought the three girls back from town. He was kicked out of his room, so they could have his space, and moved in with his grandfather. He heard his mom arguing with his grandfather about it the other night. She was still worried about what happened in the town nearby.
The three toys Freddy brought with him were starting to bore him and he wanted to explore outside, but his mom refused to let him go alone.
“I have to get lunch ready. If you want to go outside then ask your sister if she’ll go with you,” Anne said.
“But she never wants to go outside. She just sits in her room all day.”
“Well, maybe she’ll change her mind today.”
Freddy threw his head back in exasperation and marched over to his sister’s room. The door was shut. He gave it three knocks.
“Kalen, will you come outside with me for a little while?” Freddy asked.
The room was silent. Freddy knocked again.
“Kalen, open up. Pleeeeease, mom won’t let me go outside unless you come with. I’m dying in here.”
Freddy slumped his whole body against the door. He pathetically clawed the wood and jiggled the handle. He almost fell over when Kalen jerked the door open.
“What do you want?” Kalen asked.
Freddy caught himself from falling face first onto the floor when Kalen swung the door open.
“Please, please, please, please, please come outside with meeeeeee?” Freddy asked.
He dropped to his knees and clenched his hands together, begging her. Kalen rolled her eyes and walked over to her bed. He saw her reach for her shoes and slide them on.
“Yes!” Freddy said.
Mary, Erin, and Nancy joined them outside. There was a storm in the distance and the sun was hidden by clouds, but Freddy didn’t care. He ran around the cabin, exploring everything he hadn’t been able to see since they arrived.
After doing a lap of the cabin he circled back around to Mary and Kalen sitting on the front steps. Freddy held his arms out, closed his eyes, looked up into the sky, and spun around.
�
��Happy?” Kalen asked.
“You have no idea,” Freddy answered.
Freddy opened his eyes back up and they widened with excitement as a thought occurred to him and he gasped.
“Do you guys want to play Agent Match and Dr. Doomsday?” he asked.
Erin and Nancy looked at him questioningly.
“What’s that?” Erin asked.
“It’s a comic book that I read. Agent Match works for a super top secret agency and his nemesis, Dr. Doomsday, tries to destroy the world,” Freddy said.
“That sounds dumb,” Nancy said.
“It’s not dumb, it’s fun!” Freddy exclaimed.
Erin was the only one smiling.
“I’ll play,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll be Dr. Doomsday and you can be Agent Match. You have to stop me from building my Doom Ray and destroying the world.”
Freddy grabbed Erin’s hand and pulled her to a cluster of bushes in front of the cabin. She giggled. Nancy joined Mary and Kalen on the front door steps of the cabin.
“Okay, so this is your headquarters. Now you stay here and count to ten and I’ll go to my base where you try and find me okay?”
“Okay.”
Freddy took off and headed around the back of the cabin. There stood a cluster of trees in the back with a few low hanging branches. He rushed over to them and climbed up along the trees and perched himself as high as he could go.
He heard Erin yell ten and watched her run around looking for him. He could see the top of the cabin, all around the house, and deep into the forest. Beyond the trees he could see the town that Erin came from. It didn’t look dangerous from where he sat. He wondered what his mom was so worried about.
Erin checked around the cabin, peering into bushes, looking around trees, but she never looked up. Freddy smiled at her running around searching for him. After about ten minutes he climbed down the tree and decided to sneak up on her and scare her. She was to the left of him as he quietly descended the tree.
Freddy stepped lightly on the ground. Erin was crouched down looking through a bush when he snuck up behind her and poked her in the back and screamed.
“AHHHHHHH,” Erin yelped.
Freddy fell onto his back laughing. Mary, Kalen, and Nancy came running around toward them, their eyes frantic.
“Freddy!” Kalen yelled.
Freddy looked up from the leaves, dirt, and grass he’d fallen in and saw Erin crying. Nancy came over and wrapped Erin in her arms. She tossed a nasty look at Freddy.
“What did you do?” Nancy asked.
Freddy’s mouth hung open. He pushed himself up off the ground, wiping the dirt from his pants.
“We were just playing. She couldn’t find me, so I snuck up behind her. That’s all. I didn’t mean to make her cry like that,” Freddy said.
Anne came marching toward them, upset. Her hands were stained with bits of berries from some of the surrounding bushes.
“What is going on?” Anne said.
“Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare her,” Freddy said.
“Frederick, get in the house now.”
“But, Mom.”
“Now!”
Freddy kept his head down. He lumbered to the front of the cabin. Before he reached the door he gave one last look at the trees around him. He figured he wouldn’t be allowed outside for a while.
Anne marched him inside and took him to his grandfather’s room. Freddy sat on his bed and his mother towered over him.
“What is wrong with you? Don’t you know what those girls have been through? You can’t sneak up on them like that,” Anne said.
“Mom, I didn’t mean to scare her. I swear. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. We were just playing.”
“You stay in this room and you are not to go outside. Do you understand me?”
“But it’s not fair!”
Freddy slammed his fist into the bed. His face turned red, his eyes were getting wet. He jumped off the bed and stomped to the window.
“Do not take that tone of voice with me, young man,” Anne said.
“I don’t care! Everyone’s worried about other people. You helped Ray, Grandpa helped those girls, but nobody went back after Dad! Nobody cared about Dad!”
Anne’s face softened as Freddy collapsed to the ground. She walked toward her son, and knelt down. She lifted his head up, tears streaming down his cheeks and he buried his face in her shoulder. Anne stroked his hair.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay,” Anne said.
“I miss him.”
“Me, too”
Freddy and Erin made up by dinner, although Nancy was still flashing Freddy dirty looks.
Ray was finally feeling better enough to join them at the table. He’d been on his back for most of the past few days from the fever after his leg became infected. He still needed help moving around, but he was eating again.
Once dinner was over Kalen was the first to get up and head toward her room. Anne stopped her.
“Honey, wait. Why don’t we all play a game? I think there are some old board games downstairs.”
“Mom, do we have to?” Kalen asked.
“I think it’ll be good for everyone. Freddy, go downstairs with your sister and bring us something up. We’ll play it in the living room,” Anne said.
Freddy smiled. He shoved his hands against the table, his chair squeaking as he pushed back. Kalen followed less enthusiastically.
Freddy swung the lantern past the shelves to the box in the corner where the games were stashed. He tore the lid off and started sifting through the choices.
“What about Monopoly?” Freddy asked.
“Well, that would be a good way to pass the time for the next three months.”
“Okay, how about Life?”
“You want to play that one because the one we’re in is so great?”
Freddy dropped the game back into the box.
“Fine, Kalen, you pick,” he said.
Freddy moved away from the box and his sister walked over and looked inside. Freddy stood back, lantern in hand, when something caught his eye on one of the shelves next to him. The light from the lantern reflected off a metallic box on the bottom shelf. He moved over to get a better look, and then set the lantern down.
The box wasn’t large or heavy when Freddy pulled it from its place on the shelf. It had tin foil tightly wrapped around the outside of it. He ran his fingers along the sides feeling the smooth, slick metal.
“Kalen, what’s this?”
Freddy held out the box and Kalen stopped her search of games to examine it.
“Probably something you’re not supposed to touch,” she said.
Freddy snatched the box back from his sister and rushed upstairs. Everyone was gathered in the living room. Ray lay stretched across the couch, Ulysses sat in the armchair, Anne was stoking the fireplace, and Mary, Nancy, and Erin were sitting on the floor.
“What’d you get?” Anne asked.
“I don’t know. Whatever this is,” Freddy said.
“Wait, I know what that is. It’s a Faraday cage,” Ulysses said.
“A what?” Freddy asked.
“It’s a homemade Faraday cage. It protects electronics from EMP blasts,” Ulysses said.
Freddy brought the box over to his grandfather and sat it in his lap. Every eye in the room turned to Ulysses.
“What’s in it?” Mary asked.
“Is it a phone?” Nancy asked.
“A computer?” Kalen asked.
Ulysses peeled the top off the box and his jaw dropped.
“What is it?” Freddy asked.
“It’s a pair of radios,” Ulysses said.
Ulysses pulled them out of the box. They were medium sized, black, and each with a long antenna.
“They look like they’re used for long range communication,” Ray said.
“Do they work?” Anne asked.
Ulysses turned the knob on top and the radio squealed on. The roo
m was completely silent except for the static of the radio. Ulysses scanned the frequencies, slowly.
Everyone leaned forward. Each of them prayed that something would come through the speaker other than the clicks and pops of static. After ten minutes of silence Ray finally spoke up.
“You should turn the battery off, Ulysses. We don’t want to waste it,” he said.
“You’re right.”
Ulysses clicked it off. He put the radios back in the box and handed it to Freddy.
“Go put them back downstairs, Fred.”
Before Freddy could grab them Nancy cut in between the two of them and snatched the box out of their hands. She clutched the box to her chest, protecting it.
“No! We need to keep it on. We need to call for help!”
“Nancy, put it down,” Mary said.
“We can use it to call help for Mom. She doesn’t have to be with those people anymore. We can save her.”
“Nancy, put it down now!”
Nancy handed the box back to Freddy and collapsed into a pile of tears.
“It’s not fair,” Nancy said.
“I know,” Mary said.
Freddy walked back down into the basement. He set the box back on the shelf, but stared at it for a moment. The tin foil shined against the lantern of the light like a star in the darkness. He set the lantern back down and pulled one of the radios out. He turned the knob on and the same hum of static blew through the speakers. He squeezed the talk button on the side. He brought the radio close to his mouth.
“Dad? If you’re out there we need your help. Everyone’s sad. We’re all scared and we need you. I miss you a lot.”
Freddy let go of the talk button and more static blew through. He waited, listening, hoping that he would hear his father’s voice come through to tell him it would be all right, but it never came. Freddy turned the radio off and put it back in the box.
The rest of the cabin was sleeping, but Kalen was wide-awake. She lay on her bed staring out the window. Most of the cluster of trees around them blocked out the night sky, but there was one patch of space open where she could see the stars in the cloudless night. She was on top of her sheets, drumming her hands on her stomach.
