by Tom Abrahams
“I got it,” said Dub.
Barker didn’t protest and swung open the door. He led Dub back onto the second level, and the two of them marched closer to the bridge. Dub could still taste the hint of fruit and spices unique to Southern Comfort. He wished he’d drank more than a couple of healthy pulls. It would make the coming task easier. Not easy, but easier.
Dub shrugged his pack on his back and tried to prepare himself for what he was about to do. On the same day he’d seen his first dead body, he was about to create another. He was going to kill a man. Or a woman. Or a child. Even if it was the right thing to do, it was taking someone’s life. The grease of sweat loosened his grip on the rifle, and he tightened his fingers around the stock and barrel.
He’d already attached the magazine but thought that using one of the handguns might be better for the task at hand. A knife was too personal, too bloody.
He’d resolved to use one of the handguns, despite Barker’s suggestion they needed every bullet they could keep, and was ready when they crossed the bridge. As he got closer, he could see the mess of a human on the floor hadn’t moved since they’d left it there.
As they approached, Dub expected it would lift what was left of its head and wail as it had before. It didn’t. In fact, it wasn’t doing anything.
Dub squatted at its side, not yet having taken the pistol from his pack, and eyed its body for any sign of movement. There was none. It wasn’t breathing. Its swollen eyes were rolled back. The thick saliva that had oozed from its agape mouth was stagnant.
“I think it’s dead,” said Dub.
Barker sighed. “I’m glad.”
“Yeah,” said Dub. “Me too.”
They stayed there for a moment, Dub having gotten back onto his feet, and stood in silent vigil. He wondered if this awful death, in some way, awaited all of them. Maybe not with the burns or the disfigurement, but with the undeniable agony. He thought of the ash.
“We should find the pharmacy,” said Dub. “Grab whatever we can.”
“I think some dudes on the Hill already took stuff from Ashe,” said Barker, referring to the Arthur Ashe Student Health & Wellness Center on campus, “but it can’t hurt to have more.”
Dub stepped around the heap and followed Barker’s flashlight beam to the T-intersection, where they turned right and followed the thin blood trail back to the stairwell. Along the way, they found directional signs leading them to the pharmacy, which they found in a corner on the first floor.
They had to use a fire extinguisher to break the glass and enter what amounted to a stockroom of a variety of drugs. Dub’s pack was full. There was some space in Barker’s pack, so Dub walked behind him and stuffed whatever would fit into the remaining gaps in the pack’s main compartment. He wasn’t even paying attention to what drugs he was sliding from the counters and into their possession. It didn’t matter. Whatever they were grabbing would help in some way. Even if it only later served as something with which to barter, it would be useful.
Once finished in the pharmacy, they worked their way back to the emergency area through which they’d first entered. Both prepared themselves for the odor and did their best to hold their breath until they’d squeezed outside into the chill.
The ash was falling again, heavier than when they’d entered. Dub slid his goggles down, pulling at the elastic strap. He spat into each lens, coated the inside of each with the saliva, then drew the goggles over his eyes.
“That’ll keep them from fogging,” he said to Barker, who was looking at him askance.
“That’s gross,” said Barker.
Dub chuckled, thinking about what they’d seen inside the hospital: the dead bodies they saw and the ones they could smell, the bloodcurdling wail of a dying, irradiated shell of a human, and even the maggot-infested food left uneaten on the counter. All those things and he thought Dub spitting into his goggles was gross.
“Whatever,” said Dub with a smirk. “Let’s go see what luck they’ve had with the radio. It’s getting dark.”
***
Michael keyed the radio, as he’d done countless times before. He held it up to his mouth and sighed, sure this effort wouldn’t produce anything more than static.
“Hello,” he said, not familiar with ham radio parlance or procedure. “Is anyone on this frequency? Is anyone listening? This is Michael. I’m in Westwood.”
Though he was a novice at amateur radio, he did understand frequency transmission enough to understand that, without a repeater system, his message wouldn’t travel far. He also knew the atmospheric conditions weren’t favorable. They wouldn’t be for months, potentially longer. But he had to keep trying. That was his end of the deal. If they were going to leave their home on the Hill, they needed somewhere solid to go. They’d agreed that wandering around aimlessly was as pointless as it was suicidal.
He counted to ten and repeated his transmission.
“Hello. Is anyone on this frequency? Is anyone listening? This is Michael. I’m in Westwood.” His voice was monotone, devoid of any enthusiasm for the task.
He let go of the key.
Keri was lying in Dub’s bed. Michael was at his desk on the opposite side of the room. He glanced at her over his shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked. “I’m sure I can find some Tylenol or Advil.”
“I took some,” she mumbled. “Thanks though.”
“How often do you get the headaches? I think I’ve only seen you get one a couple of times.”
“It varies,” she said. “They come in clusters.”
Michael shifted his body in the chair to settle in for a conversation. “My cousin used to get them. He would see spots and puke.”
Keri was pinching the bridge of her nose. “I don’t see spots,” she said. “I get nauseated and have pretty severe light and noise sensitivity.”
Michael took the hint and lowered his voice. “Sorry. I’ll stop asking questions.”
Kerry gave him a thumbs-up. He sheepishly pivoted back to his desk and the radio that emitted nothing but static. He adjusted the frequency.
Michael was never great with social cues. He tried. He’d gotten better at it. Dub and Barker had both helped him assimilate into the social ocean of college, which hadn’t been easy. His social ineptitude, of which he was acutely aware, manifested itself with fiery outbursts. They were childlike and happened at the worst possible times, when he was around strangers. He’d learned to control it with his roommates’ guidance. Dub, the psychology major, was especially good at getting ahead of a potential meltdown.
Michael was always a good student. He loved math and science. Writing wasn’t his strength, but he was proficient enough, and sometimes putting words to paper was the easiest way for him to express himself. He wasn’t on the spectrum, as some might have thought. He was an only child, raised in suburban DC to parents who were both self-involved enough not to notice his tics or, if they had, didn’t care enough to do anything about them.
It wasn’t that they didn’t love him. They did. He knew they did. But they both worked in demanding careers that had them leaving early and coming home late. Coping with a spirited child like Michael on top of that was too exhausting. A nanny had been the only one to put boundaries on Michael and to demand he bend to the world, not the other way around.
Because of his nanny, Michael was bilingual. He spoke fluent conversational Spanish. It frequently surprised people when the redheaded nerd offered a flawless accent and keen understanding of what Spanish speakers around him were saying. He’d caught people talking about him, not realizing he understood everything they were saying with perfect clarity.
Michael wasn’t much of an athlete. He loved basketball and always played with the roommates when they hit the gym. They didn’t seem to care that he couldn’t jump as high or run as fast. And when he had an open shot, they always encouraged him to take it.
In a lot of ways, he idolized his roommates. Dub was an all-around good guy who thought of others. Bark
er, despite his relentless sarcasm, was fiercely loyal as a friend. The three of them, as odd a trio as they might appear, had been the perfect complement to each other. Michael’s anxiety about living with strangers had dissolved immediately once the others had put him at ease and made him understand they were on his side.
Michael hadn’t gone home to the East Coast since he’d first arrived at UCLA. His parents had visited him during the short Thanksgiving breaks and he’d vacationed with them in the Canadian Rockies during Christmases. He’d stayed at school both summers, trying to take some of his more writing-intensive general education classes at a time when he needn’t worry about complicated math and science classes.
He ran his hand along the top of his head, lightly brushing his fingertips along the thinning patch of hair at the crown. He wondered, as he often did, if losing his hair was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Could it be that the more he thought about it, the more he worried, the more likely it was he’d go bald?
Those thoughts were less frequent now. Losing his hair had become so trivial in the wake of the attacks that he felt stupid even thinking about it and would internally chastise himself.
He pulled his hand away from his head and balled his fingers into a fist. Then he picked up the radio and tuned it to a new frequency, one he hadn’t tried before.
The radio was an exercise in patience and, to this point, futility. As he sat there keying the mic and repeating his mantra, Michael regretted suggesting the radios as an option. It got the others’ hopes up.
They’d gone through batteries quickly. They’d been using them in a detachable battery pack that connected to the handheld radios. Thankfully, the ones they’d taken from Ackerman were plentiful enough to sustain them. Still, it wasn’t endless supply, and eventually they’d have to figure out an alternative source of power or go find more batteries to feed into the radios.
In the weeks since they’d taken them from Boelter Hall, Michael had learned how to use the Yaesu more efficiently than the Kenwood, and he tended to use it more often. He’d never managed any sort of connection with the Kenwood. With the Yaesu, he’d heard other transmissions twice. The first of them was on the first day he started listening.
He’d turned on the Yaesu, and the radio had beeped, and the LCD screen displayed information about the frequency, the last to which the UCLA club had it tuned.
147.36 DARN Mt. Disappointment
Barker had been over his shoulder. “Is that a joke?” he asked. “DARN Disappointment?”
Michael had clenched his jaw. He’d already been stressed about properly working the radio. Having his smart-ass friend offering an unneeded commentary didn’t help.
“It’s not a joke,” he’d said. He’d figured that the radio worked much like the walkie-talkies he’d used as a kid, so he’d held the push-to-transmit button on the side. A red light had illuminated on the top of the radio.
He’d pulled the radio toward his mouth. “Hello? This is Michael Turner. I’m…we’re in Westwood. We’re survivors. Is anyone out there?”
He’d let go of the button and waited, receiving no response.
After trying it a few more times, and ignoring Barker’s suggestions, he’d rotated the channel button on the top of the radio and the display changed to a new frequency.
146.52 Natl Simplex Call Frequency
Like the previous channel, Michael had no clue as to what the designations meant. He assumed, though, that the first frequencies to pop up were probably the ones that the club had used most often. That meant, in a best-case scenario, they’d be the channels on which he’d be most likely to connect with someone.
What he hadn’t known was the 146.52 was a common emergency frequency. It was one astronauts aboard the International Space Station might use to communicate with Earth.
“Hello,” he’d said, pushing the PTT again. “My name is Michael Turner. I’m in Westwood. Is anybody out there?”
He’d waited a moment, and then the red light on the top of the radio turned green. The hiss and crackle had given way to a voice.
“Station calling, please repeat. Please repeat,” came the call of an older-sounding woman. “Your signal is very weak. Please up your power. Repeat your call sign and message. This is K6XMA. Over.”
The green light flipped red. Michael and Barker had exchanged wide-eyed glances of excitement.
“What do we do?” Barker had asked. “Can you power up?”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t know how. Hang on.”
He’d pressed the PTT button on the side of the Yaesu. “Hello. Who are you? Where are you? I’m not a ham. I’m not sure how to power up. Repeat, I am not a ham.”
The red light had turned green again.
“Okay,” the woman had said. “I copy that. You are not a ham. That’s okay. Your signal is weak though. I’m having trouble understanding everything you’re saying. Turn up your power. If you can’t do that, then you have to move to higher ground. A roof. A hillside. The higher the better. Over.”
Michael had immediately responded. “What if I lose you?” he’d said. Then he’d added, “Over.”
“I will stay on this frequency until you move,” she’d said. “Don’t worry. My name is Nancy. I’m K6XMA. Over.”
“Okay,” Michael had responded. “Please don’t go away. We’ll move.”
Michael and Barker had climbed the stairs to the top of the dorm. They’d pressed themselves against the glass in a common room overlooking the area plaza and tried again but had not been able to reconnect with Nancy. For more than an hour they’d tried without success.
The second communication had come a week later. They’d reconnected with Nancy, and for whatever reason, she’d heard them more clearly from their room.
“You’re a five and nine,” she’d told them. “It’s ham lingo for me reading you loud and clear.”
They’d learned during their short conversation that she was part of a group called ARES, Amateur Radio Emergency Services. What few of them had survived were taking shifts scanning the airwaves for others. Nancy had told them that in the time she’d been searching, she’d only connected with three others, and one of them had piqued her interest. She’d told him they were looking for survivors to join them.
“Join them?” Michael had asked.
“Yeah,” Nancy had said, chuckling. “They kept going on about knowing the end was coming. They’d been preparing for it. They have a bunker, supplies, and it sounded to me like they’re inviting anyone who wants to join them.”
“Are you?” Michael had asked, hoping for more specifics.
“Am I what?” Nancy had asked.
“Joining them.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Nancy had answered. “I’m self-sufficient, and I don’t think I could travel the distance. They were near the coast, if I remember. Plus, I’m not going around advertising it and looking for strangers to join me. I want to help people. But that’s a little much. There’s benevolence and there’s crazy.”
Barker had thumped Michael on the arm. “That sounds like heaven,” he’d said. “Ask her more about it. Where are they? Who are they?”
Michael had tried, but the signal had given out. Since then, there had been no reconnecting with Nancy or anyone else.
He kept trying though. He sat at his desk awaiting something, anything, from the nebulous outside. His eyes on the red light, he listened for any response. And then, as if magically answering his prayer, the light on the top of the radio turned green.
“Hello.” It was a man. The signal was clear. “This is K6VWV. Do you copy, Michael? Over.”
Michael rubbed his eyes and stared at the light as it turned from green to red. He looked over his shoulder at Keri, seeking confirmation his ears hadn’t been playing tricks on him. She was buried in blankets, wrapped like a mummy, snoring lightly. He grimaced and turned back to the radio.
He picked it up and pressed the PTT. “Hello, K6VWV, can you hear me clearly? Where are you? Over
.”
“I can hear you, Michael,” said the voice. “My name is Victor. I am in SoCal like you. Do you have a call sign? Over.”
That wasn’t helpful. Of course Victor was in SoCal. Michael knew enough to understand that his radio was line of sight. The curve of the Earth and the atmospheric conditions, plus the relative low power of his handheld Yaesu running on triple A batteries didn’t lend to long-distance transmission or reception. Still, connecting with anyone was progress. He pressed the PTT.
“I don’t have a call sign,” he said. “The radio belongs to W6YRA. I’m borrowing it. Where in SoCal are you? I’m in Westwood. Over.”
Michael leaned forward on the desk. The light changed back to green. It was like waiting for the phone to ring. He hadn’t heard a phone ring since the attack.
“You’re at UCLA,” said Victor. “That’s not too far from my location. Are you a student? Are you alone? Over.”
The signal was crystal clear. Unlike the connections he’d made with Nancy, there was very little static when the green light was on and Victor was transmitting. He was either much closer than he was letting on, which might account for his being coy, or he had a high-powered radio and functioning antenna.
Michael pressed the PTT and then released it. He ran his fingers along the crown of his head and thought about how best to respond. He eyed the radio as if Victor were looking back at him.
“I’m not alone,” he said. “What about you? Over.”
The response was immediate. “Not alone. How’s your health, Michael? Over.”
Michael stared at the radio, his brow furrowed. “That’s weird,” he said to himself. “Victor, you’re a little weird.”
He glanced at the door over his left shoulder. He wished Dub were here. He’d know how to respond. He’d also know how to get Victor to answer questions. Dub had a way about him. That was what would make him a brilliant psychologist. Well, it was what would have made him one had the world not blown up. He had an incredible skill in which he would ask a litany of questions, poking and prodding for information, all the while making it seem effortless. Dub wasn’t here though. Neither was Barker. Barker was blunt. If he had a question, he asked it. If he had an opinion, he offered it. It was what made him endearing and frustrating at the same time. Either of them would be better at talking to Victor than him.
