by James Hunt
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 room 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.
She thought about the men down there in the town. She thought about what they did to Mary, Nancy, and Erin’s family. She thought about how someone like them hurt her, made her afraid.
Silently, she slid out of bed. The bedroom door creaked when she opened it, sounding loud in the quiet of the cabin. She stood frozen making sure no one had heard her. After a few moments of waiting she didn’t see anyone come out, so she headed for the basement.
She kept the door shut and almost slipped down the stairs in the darkness. She didn’t want to turn the lantern on until she was all the way at the bottom, afraid that someone would see the light through the crack in the door.
She took the lids off the boxes in the far corner of the room. She rummaged through them, looking for a spare key she knew was somewhere amidst the junk.
“C’mon, where are you?”
The floor of the basement was lined with sheets, gauze, and winter clothes from pulling the materials out of their containers. She kicked one of the coats across the floor in frustration.
She let out a sigh and started packing up what she’d torn apart until a small black box caught her eye. She snatched it up. The insides were lined with spare batteries, ammo, and a ring of keys.
She took the keys and they jingled in a lock on a safe against the wall. Kalen pulled the safe door open and a row of guns lined the inside. Rifles, shotguns, and handguns organized neatly together. She picked up a 9mm Glock. She felt the plastic composite around her hand. She gripped the pistol in her hand, remembering what her dad had told her when shooting.
Keep your right hand high on the handle. Thumbs over thumbs. Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to squeeze.
She brought the pistol up to her eye and pointed it at different objects around the basement. She kept her finger hovering over the trigger, never letting it touch. She ejected the magazine. It was fully loaded. She shoved it back in and racked a bullet into the chamber. She tucked the pistol behind her back and headed upstairs.
She snuck back to her room down the hallway when a whisper caused her to turn around. Mary was leaning out of her room into the hallway watching her.
“What are you doing?” Mary asked.
“Nothing. Go back to bed.”
Mary stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind her. She tiptoed to Kalen who kept waving her to go back into her room. When Kalen finally determined that Mary wouldn’t go she pulled her into her room and shut the door.
“Why are you up this late?” Mary asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Kalen wasn’t sure how Mary would react to the gun, so she kept it tucked behind her back. Mary walked over to the bed and sat herself on the edge.
“I don’t sleep much anymore,” Mary said.
Should she tell her? Should she let her in on what she was planning to do? Kalen figured that Mary had just as much right as she did to hurt the people in town, but she wasn’t sure if she would go through with it.
“It’s because of them isn’t it?” Kalen said, gesturing in the direction of the town.
“Yeah. I keep seeing my mom’s face, or my dad’s lifeless eyes just staring back at me. It doesn’t scare me anymore it’s just… I don’t know.”
“You want to do something about it.”
It was the way Kalen said it that made Mary look up at her. The faint moonlight coming through the window cast pale shadows along Kalen’s figure.
“Do what?” Mary asked.
“Make them feel what you felt. Make them suffer like you suffered.”
Kalen watched Mary’s face carefully.
“How? They have guns. They have more people. They don’t care what they do. They have no conscious. They’re-”
“Animals.”
Kalen wasn’t sure if that was the word that Mary was going to use, but looking at Mary’s face she knew it was the right one.
“You have to hate them as much as they hated you, because that’s what made them do it. They didn’t do it because they were bored. They didn’t do it because they were forced to. They did it because they liked it,” Kalen said.
Mary’s answer came out like a whisper. A realization of what Kalen spoke of.
“Yes,” Mary said.
Kalen pulled the pistol from behind her back. The black metal glowed from the reflection of the moonlight. Mary took the pistol from Kalen’s hand. She laid it across her palm, flat.
“I can get you one,” Kalen said.
Mary looked up at her. She placed the gun down next to her on the bed and got up quickly. She started shaking her head and moved toward the door.
“No, I can’t do this,” Mary said.
Kalen rushed up behind her and grabbed Mary’s arm. She spun her around. Her fingers dug into Mary’s arm, hard.
“Stop it. Let me go,” Mary whispered.
“You want to just hide out here for the rest of your life? If you don’t do something now you’ll die here. Those bikers in town may not be the ones who do it, but someone like them will. They’ll come through here and rape your sisters, then kill them in front of you, and just before they put a bullet in your head they’ll have their way with you too.”
Kalen had Mary’s face less than an inch from her own. Kalen’s teeth gritted together. She could feel the harshness of her words. The sting they sent with each syllable.
Mary stopped resisting, but it wasn’t from Kalen’s words, it was from something she was looking at past her. Kalen could see a faint orange light in the reflection of Mary’s eyes and she turned around.
Through the trees out of the window there was small twinkling of a fire. Kalen moved closer to the window to get a better look. The flames were in the distance, dancing into the night air.
Day 11 (The Bikers)
Jake walked along the line of his men standing in front of him. The sun was sinking in the west, sending a golden glow across the town that gave it a false beauty with the pile of bodies circled around a post where Hannah was tied and bound.
A red metal container of gasoline sat on the ground next to Frankie, who looked up at Hannah, blew a kiss, and smiled.
The blood from Hannah’s lip dripped onto the pile of bodies below her. She looked at the faces of, not the bikers around her, but of the blank stares of the rotting corpses. Some eyes were closed; some were open, while flies and maggots picked at the flesh on their faces. She could taste the stench of the bodies.
“Our club has been around for over fifty years. In those fifty years we have never let anyone walk over us. Not the cops, other clubs, no one,” Jake said.
The rope wrapped around her wrists and ankles was rough and tight. Her hands and feet had gone numb. She listened to Jake’s calm, even tone.
“We never let anyone walk on us because the only thing that matters in this world is strength, and we are strong.”
As the bikers clapped and nodded she could feel her muscles tightening.
“The Diablos have never lost a fight. We beat the Warriors, the Rebels, the Suns, anyone who’s come up against us has lost, and I’ll be damned if I let anyone beat us now. Those bitches that killed Garrett will come back. They’ll come back for her,” Jake said pointing at Hannah.
Hannah felt her body start to shake when the cheers from the bikers exploded. Strands of her hair covered her face, but she could see Jake pick up the red container of gasoline.
When the gas made contact with the open cuts along her body she cried out. Her skin burned. The taste of the dead below her was replaced by the taste of gas. It burned her mouth, her eyes, everything.
Jake pulled out a box of matches in his pocket and lit one. He pinched the match in between his fingers. The sun had disappeared below the horizon and glow of the fire in his hands accentuated the encroaching night sky.
Hannah thought of her children. She thought of her husband. She could see each of them as clear as if they were in front of her now. Their smiling faces looking up at her, letting her know that she would see them soon.
“Everything we touch. Burns,” Jake said.
He dropped the match onto the pile of bodies and the massive flame spread upwards into the sky. The flames swallowed the flesh and when the heat reached Hannah she began to scream. The fire crawled up her legs, consuming her body. She thrashed on the pole, her screams piercing through the cheers of the bikers. She could feel the fire tearing at her flesh. Finally, her body went limp, engulfed in the orange flames dancing along her charred body.
Jake watched the bodies burn. The fire danced in the reflection of his eyes. He’d always loved fire. It had ferocity, beauty, and power. He closed his eyes letting him feel the heat from the flames, his cheeks reddening from the burning flesh. He pulled Frankie away from the group and the two of them headed toward the lobby.
“You think they’ll come back?” Frankie asked.
“They will. They’ll want to know what happened to their mother, and when they do come back, and whoever they bring with them to help, will burn.”
Day 12 (Mike’s Journey)
The sun rose above the horizon. Mike had pulled the cart carrying Jenna the entire night. It took them twice as long with the cart as it would have without it. The path up to the cabin was meant for a vehicle with four-wheel drive capabilities, not two men dragging an injured woman in a cart from the early 20th century.
Everyone begged to stop, but Mike wouldn’t let them rest. He was so close to his family. Every time he slipped on the trail, or he felt the pain in his hands, legs, and back he thought of them.
Jung was the only one as motivated as he was to get there. He pulled the other side of the cart along with Mike when everyone else was giving up. They were less than a hundred yards from the cabin now. It wouldn’t be much longer.
The wheels of the car bumped along the roots and rocks of the beaten path. With the sun coming up he searched the ground for tire tracks that he hadn’t been able to see in the dead of night. They approached a stretch of mud and Mike saw the familiar tread of his Jeep’s tires in the soil.
Mike’s heart leapt. They made it. His family was there. Mike could feel his legs losing their fatigue. His eyes lost their weariness. His hands gripped the wooden handles harder.
“We’re almost there,” Mike said.
He could see the cabin now. The Jeep was parked on the side. Everything seemed to be intact. There wasn’t any damage that Mike noticed. His feet trudged faster through the mud and dirt.
When he finally reached the cabin and stood in front of the door he felt like he was in a dream. None of it seemed real.
“Tom, Jung, grab Jenna and we’ll get her inside,” Mike said setting the cart down.
Mike rushed to the door, flinging it open. The first person he saw was Ray lying on the couch in the living room. Ray opened his eyes and his jaw dropped.
“Mike?” Ray asked.
“Anne? Freddy? Kalen? Dad?” Mike called out.
Mike didn’t acknowledge Ray’s presence. He could only think of his family. He heard the creak of doors opening. The first person out was Anne. Mike stood at the end of the hallway when she stepped out of their room. She gasped as her hands covered her mouth in shock.
The next door that opened was Freddy, then Kalen. The hallway was silent as the four of them stared at each other.
“Dad?” Freddy asked.
A tear rolled down Mike’s face. His son, his daughter, his wife, they were here. They were safe. They were alive.
“Dad!” Freddy yelled.
Mike dropped to his knee as Freddy rushed toward him. He threw hi
s arms around Freddy and wrapped him in a tight hug. Kalen came in next to her brother and Mike pulled her in. He clutched his children, kissing the tops of their heads. Each of them squeezing back as hard as he was.
Anne walked slowly toward him. The sight of her children with their father was better than seeing Mike alone. She wanted to join, but she didn’t want to miss what she was seeing. She finally made it to the three of them. Mike opened his arms and she stepped inside the circle. The four of them just sat, huddled on the floor, holding onto each other.
