“Visual aid for what?”
“I’m getting older, L, and my mind doesn’t work in the same way yours does—especially when learning a new language.”
Lauren looked curious. “What new language?”
“Why am I not surprised you’re asking me that?” Alan grinned. “It’s continuous wave.”
One of Lauren’s brows elevated. “That sounds more like a surfing competition or a movie about a killer tsunami.”
“That’s just a term some ham radio guys call it on occasion. Sometimes they refer to it in shorthand as CW, which stands for continuous waveform.”
“Okay, thanks…for the info. But what is it?”
Alan gestured to the radio. “You’re listening to it right now.”
Lauren turned her head away from him and gazed at the radio while she listened intently to the beats reigning over the static noise floor.
Alan slid a sheet of paper to her from the other side of his desk, which displayed letters and numbers in a table, each corresponding to a series of dashes and dots, or decimal points. At the top of the paper, the title written in bold lettering read ‘Morse Code’.
“Why didn’t you just tell me you were trying to learn Morse code?” Lauren asked quizzically. “I know what that is.”
“CW existed before Morse code came about, and they’re not exactly one and the same. Morse is interrupted continuous waveform used to convey a message. I tried learning the code when I was your age around the same time I got my first set of walkie-talkies for Christmas.” Alan pointed to the sheet of paper with the code index he’d provided Lauren. “They had a table similar to this one written on them in raised lettering that felt almost like braille, and I was fascinated by it. Ever since, I’ve always wanted to learn more.”
Lauren cocked her head to the side. “So why did you wait until now?”
“Learning a different language isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world, L…at least for some of us mentally challenged folks, anyway. Initially, I tried learning it like you see it now—as a series of dots and dashes on a sheet of paper. After getting my ham radio license, I was told I’d been doing it wrong the whole time. The best way to learn it was audibly, and instead of looking at the code as dots and dashes, it was far better to learn by thinking of them instead as sounds…dits and dahs.”
“That’s kind of what they sound like, more or less.”
Alan nodded. “Yeah, more or less. Granted, I’m still learning, and I’ve managed to learn a lot more since I changed tactics, but I still have a long way to go. I suppose I’m lucky in a way, at one time if you wanted to upgrade your license and use the longer distance HF bands, you had to prove proficiency with CW. But the FCC removed the requirement a while back, and I was able to snag my general without passing a Morse code test. A long time ago, anyone who wanted to transmit on the lower frequencies had to learn CW, and by learning it, that meant being able to send and receive it at twenty words per minute. They lowered that number from twenty to five not long before you were born and then eventually did away with it altogether, which is unfortunate.”
“What makes it unfortunate? If they got rid of something that was difficult, it made taking the test easier.”
“It’s unfortunate because Morse code is much more than just a mode of communication over the airwaves. It’s a universal language.” Alan turned to her. “Think about it, L. We’re talking about a simple series of dots and dashes, dits and dahs, that can be encoded and decoded using a number of methods, audibly and visually. You could use a flashlight or a signal mirror to send Morse code if it’s all you had. And that makes it not only a universal language, but a powerful asset…the ability to communicate without having to make any noise.”
“Do people still use it?”
Alan nodded his head. “A lot of people do, especially the older generations. For some of them, it’s their preferred method of communication, the only mode they utilize, and believe you me, there are hundreds of different modes you can use on the ham bands.”
Lauren hesitated, her youthful expression displaying her fascination. “Is it something I can learn?”
Alan laughed heartily. “Lauren Jane Russell, it has always been my contention that the mind the Lord blessed you with is capable of pretty much anything, up to and including becoming proficient with interrupted continuous wave.”
“But I don’t know anything about your radios.”
“You don’t have to,” Alan said. “Universal means universal. It’s like learning and knowing any other language. You can use it anywhere, and it becomes an advantage to you and to anyone else like you.”
Lauren’s face brightened. “Just like sign language.”
“Exactly like sign language. You know by personal experience there are folks out there who can’t communicate any other way…so think about it. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. What if you only had one way to communicate? What if using your voice wasn’t possible because you’d lost it somehow, or it was too loud? What if you didn’t want to make any noise? It would come in handy then, wouldn’t it?”
Lauren nodded her head.
“A similar phenomenon happens often in the radio world. A lot of times, band conditions prevent me from maintaining voice contact on certain bands due to atmospheric or environmental conditions. Sometimes, it’s a simpler explanation, like time of day or weather activity, but there’s been times where I’ve had to break from a conversation because I could no longer hear the station I was talking to, or the other way around. For some reason though, CW seems to always get through, and that’s why a lot of hams simply refuse the notion that it’s outdated, and I agree with them.”
Lauren pointed to the computer screen and watched as the audible dits and dahs became letters, and the letters themselves formed words and sentences along with intermixed punctuation. “So you’re using a computer and an app to decipher it for now until you learn it,” she surmised.
“Pretty much. I come home some days and listen to it and try to tune in on it, but when I’m not at home, I use this.” He held up a small black plastic box with an LCD screen.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a Morse code reader,” Alan said. “You can set it up to read or send the code to you at different speeds. It has different modes, too. You can choose to learn the alphabet in sequence or out of sequence, or you can have it read words or full sentences to you, and you can either write them down or copy along in your head. I’ve been doing a little bit of both.”
Lauren reached for the code reader and studied it. “Do I need one of these?”
Alan smiled at her. “You can have that one if you want. Something tells me you’ll pick up on it a lot faster than me and I’ll get that reader back before I even know it.”
Lauren looked to him, uncertain. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Alan said. “It’ll give us another way to talk to each other in case we ever need it. And you never know, L, with the way the world is going, someday it just might benefit you somehow. And me.”
Chapter 1
Kristen Perry’s residence
Trout Run Valley
Saturday, November 30th
Mark Mason’s thoughts wouldn’t allow him solace. He was restless and agitated, sitting in an unsteady wooden chair perched before a two-person dining table. The chair across from him, visually identical to and just as rickety as the one he was using, sat lonely and empty.
Beside him, on the dust-covered hardwood floor, lay scattered pieces of the shredded garment that made up his homemade ghillie suit. It was the camouflage he typically wore while assuming his duties with his brother, Chad, or any one of the Brady boys at the Wolf Gap barricade.
The table had been placed beside a window in a diminutive kitchen area during Kristen’s move, and through the cloudy, cobweb-covered panes, it provided Mark with a view of an unkempt backyard, which hadn’t been visited by a lawnmower or a weed trimmer in a while. In fact, the grass wa
s so tall now, it nearly obstructed the view of the forest on the other side of it.
Seized by a moment of deep contemplation, he glanced over the yard’s feathery tops and beyond, high into the leaf-barren trees, and sorted through his thoughts. But as rampant as they were, he just couldn’t make sense of them. It was much easier to simply stir, hum tunes from memory, and fidget.
Mark used his fingers to twirl around a glass of homemade sweet tea—but it wasn’t just any sweet tea. It was a special formula to him, one that his mother, Kim, had perfected over the years and, in recent months, had been obliged to reinvent.
Before the collapse, the Mason family had normally consumed a gallon of the most sugar-replete tea imaginable each and every day. Sugar had been easy to come by then, but it wasn’t anymore. Still, Mark’s mother had done what she could to replicate the formula without the use of popular store-bought sweeteners, using natural honey from her apiary as a substitute.
Even without the extravagance of ice cubes and deprived of sugary sweetness, Mark found it enjoyable. It was a familiar and soothing taste to him, one that reminded him of family, his youth, home, and the way things had once been.
On the table beneath Mark’s hand lay an unfolded, faded, and somewhat tattered map displaying most of Shenandoah County, with locations indicated in a specific area not far outside the town limits of Edinburg. It had been given to him by the same person who had also provided information of an incoming attack the previous month. The information had turned out to be valid and had likely been the key reason for their victory against an invading force of enraged, psychopathic killers.
A set of footsteps descending the cabin’s staircase broke his attention away from his daydream, and Mark turned to see his brother, Chad, entering the kitchen across the threshold with his chin lowered, looking a bit distraught.
“So? What’s the verdict?” Mark asked, his brow raised. “Is she going to live or what?”
Chad didn’t answer him directly. He took a quick stroll around the kitchen, studying the manner in which Kristen had begun unboxing and arranging her belongings; then he walked to the rear window and squinted out into the backyard.
“Well?”
“Dude, seriously. You need to calm down,” his brother replied. “Getting information out of Kristen isn’t exactly easy right now. She’s been a zombie lately, and with everything we’ve got going on now, that lady friend of yours upstairs is the least of her worries.”
“Whatever.”
“Whatever nothing,” Chad snapped back. “She’s running late for that meeting at the church. She also said something about needing to go check on Peter…and Liam.”
“Their little boy is sick too now?”
“Looks that way.”
“Damn. Everyone is getting sick,” Mark said, looking away. “This isn’t good.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Chad…look, I’m sorry for being…wound up. It’s just that it’s been over a month now, and…nothing. And I’m really bothered by how it all went down.”
“I know you’re bothered,” replied Chad. “Hell, I’m bothered, too, I’m pretty sure we all are. But you’ve been all over the place ever since—and like it or not, you’re going to need to stow that shit and get focused, and I mean soon. You and I need to get back to work.”
“Yeah…”
Chad paused a moment and shrugged. “Dude, look. That woman—I know you care for her. I have no idea why, but it’s pretty obvious. I haven’t seen you this preoccupied since you dated that Jennie girl back when you were a freshman. But the chick is in a coma and has been for over a month now. She’s breathing, but other than that, she’s been totally unresponsive. There’s just no way to know how this is going to pan out.”
Mark exhaled a labored, drawn-out sigh. “Why can’t we have a doctor living nearby?” He took a drink of his tea, set the glass down gently, and licked the sweetness from his lips. “That would fix everything right now. A doctor would know how to handle her coma…and this poisoning thing that Lauren figured out—which I still can’t believe is actually happening.”
“But it is.”
“Yeah, I know it is, Chad.”
“And we have to keep moving forward, bro.”
“I know that, too.”
“Then stop living in the past.”
Mark glared at his brother. “I can’t help it. I’m not exactly over the past.”
“Here we go again…”
Mark sighed. “I seriously can’t believe one of you guys shot her.”
“Mark, we’ve been through this. I didn’t shoot her…I’ve told you that a hundred times.”
“I know. And I believe you. One of those Bradys probably did it and will never own up to it. None of those idgits can shoot worth a damn.”
“No, they didn’t, either,” Chad disagreed. “I was there. I saw her go down when she got hit in the chest. The shot had to have come from one of her own people.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it does. Just not to you. She was running away from them, Mark. I could see it in her eyes—the woman was scared shitless. My guess is they somehow found out what she did, and when she tried to get away, they followed her for no other reason than to permanently cancel her membership.” He paused. “Bottom line is we killed them, every last one of them. We just couldn’t stop them from shooting her first. And I am sorry for that.”
“Maybe you’re right about all that, but saying you’re sorry doesn’t make it right, and sorry will never make her okay,” said Mark. “She helped us. Without her, we’d all probably be dead right now. If it weren’t for her, we’d—”
“Mark, I get it. Believe me, bro, I get it. I’ve ran what happened through my head a bunch of times, and I’m telling you, it couldn’t have gone any other way.” Chad peered down to the map underneath his brother’s hand. “I see you still got that map.”
Mark let out a breath while trying to calm himself down. “Yeah.”
“If you don’t put it away, your sweaty palms are going to ruin it.”
“My palms aren’t sweaty.” Mark turned his hands over to examine them, realizing his brother was right. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve memorized it.”
“Are you serious?”
Mark huffed. “Of course I’m serious. I haven’t let go of it since she gave it to me.”
His brother nodded, pursing his lips. “Then it’s pretty obvious you haven’t let go of something else, either.”
“She asked me to make her a promise—and wound up sacrificing herself for what she believed in. Some of the things she said hit me pretty hard. It was like she knew she had nothing else to live for…and knew she was going to die…like she knew she had to die. And she was okay with it. I’ve never seen someone be so resigned—and gutsy at the same time, before. Sorry, Chad. I can’t just let that go.”
“Dude…did you fall for this chick or something?” Chad asked, a shrewd grin etched on his face.
“No! Seriously? What the hell?”
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Shut up, Chad. Really.”
Chad took a couple of steps closer to the table. “Okay, maybe I misread. But you’re still thinking about doing what she asked you to do.” He paused. “Am I right about that?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Mark nodded as his features hardened.
“Mark, bro, listen to me. It’s been a month.”
“I don’t care,” Mark snapped. “I don’t care if it’s been three months. I still have to know. If what Sasha told me was true, then those girls are still there, locked up in some basement. No one else knows about them but us, because everyone who did know is dead now—besides her; and she obviously can’t do anything to help them.”
“And you have to be the one who does something about it?”
Mark paused to contemplate, his expression falling flat. “Who else can it be?”
Chad nodded, folding his arms across his c
hest. He sighed and hesitated a moment. “You know, if Dad heard any of this, he’d crack you upside the head with a boot heel. And he’d make me run twenty miles just for listening to you.”
Mark nodded, his eyebrows setting sail.
“And there’s no way he’d consider letting us go.”
“What did you say?”
“I just said there’s no way Dad—”
“No. I heard that part. You said us…as in letting us go.”
Chad smiled and shrugged apathetically. “Come on, Mark. You’re my brother. The only one I got in the world. I can’t just let you go and do something stupid…all by yourself.”
“Wait—so let me get this straight. You actually want to go with?”
“Now, don’t get all sentimental on me,” Chad replied, holding a palm outward. “I don’t like the idea of leaving the valley. With FEMA crawling around and lurking behind every corner, it’s dangerous over there. But, yes. I’ll go, so long as we find a way to keep from getting caught by the feds and by Dad. I don’t need another family court-martial. I’ve been through enough of those already.”
Mark pulled his tea glass close to his lips. “I’ve already thought through a plan. It’s close to being foolproof, just gotta work out some of the minor details. Edinburg isn’t far from here, and we can leave at first light and use back roads—we’d be in and out and back home in no time.”
Chad laughed slightly and stepped over to the table. “Sounds way too easy. Oh—before you finish that glass, is there any more tea where that came from? Or did you drink it all again like you usually do?”
Mark set his glass down. “No, I drank it all again,” he jested straight-faced, awaiting his brother’s response to his lie. When Chad reached for Mark’s glass, he pulled it abruptly away. “I’m joshing you. Mom made a batch for Kristen, and I brought some for us in a thermos. There’s some in there you can have—not much, but some.”
Chad smirked and nodded. “Let’s take what’s left up to the barricade.” He turned, looking over his shoulder as he advanced into the adjacent room. “It might help our Brady compatriots be a little more sympathetic to your cause. If you’re serious about this plan of yours, we’re going to need their help to make it happen.”
Divided We Stand Page 2
