Radio Silence

by Alyssa Cole

  She then proceeded to make a tight schedule of every moment between six and nine o’clock the next night, happily letting everyone know what games they’d be enjoying at what time.

  As I watched her preen over her schedule, which was about the only thing she had control over at the moment, I mused that she was much more like Gabriel than she thought.

  “That looks great, Maggie,” I said cheerfully. I wanted to support her, but it was also genuinely nice to have something fun to look forward to.

  “Awesome. Can I have a glass of sake to celebrate?” she said, testing her new limits.

  “Sure,” John said.

  “Hell no,” Gabriel growled, snatching the bottle from the table.

  Maggie huffed, annoyed that her gambit hadn’t worked but apparently unsurprised. “Whatever. I’m going to go see if I can find something for you guys to wear. Mom and Dad have some cool stuff in their room.”

  “Oh, please no,” John said. “I’ve seen your millennial idea of style, and I refuse to wear an ironic T-shirt or anything bedazzled.”

  “It’s casino night! You’ll dress up and you’ll like it,” she said with mock severity.

  “I’d like a feather boa, in pink, please,” I said.

  “And I’ll take a smoking jacket,” Gabriel said, trying to join in on the fun. “Just make sure the curtains are drawn while you search. There aren’t blackout curtains in their room, and you don’t want to make the place a beacon for whatever crazies are out there.”

  He said it with affection, probably just looking for something to rib his sister about and not wanting to bring up his real fears quite yet, but Maggie went stock-still at his words.

  “Mom and Dad are out there, too,” she said, her mood dipping from elated to sullen in an instant. “They might need a beacon to get back home. Did you ever think of that?”

  I busied myself with wiping off the dishes, not wanting to meet any of their eyes. We’d been avoiding any mention of their parents’ absence over the past couple of days. John and I had spoken about it in whispers, careful not to upset the others. Gabriel had been reticent about discussing them since moving the bodies. It had been over two weeks since the Seongs had disappeared, and it couldn’t be denied that things didn’t look good for them.

  “Mom and Dad will find a way home if they can,” Gabriel said, and then used a variation of the argument that I’d thrown at him when we’d clashed. “Do you think Dad would be happy if he was walking in the woods and saw our house sticking out like a sore thumb? No. He’d be furious.”

  “Gabriel’s right,” John said, placing his hand on her shoulder lightly, as if he expected her to shrug him off. “Do you want me to help you look for outfits?”

  “I want to be alone,” she said, and then caught herself. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard not having them here with us.”

  “I understand,” Gabriel said. “John and I love Mom and Dad, but you live with them. You were with them every day, and them not being around is affecting you the hardest. I wish there was something I could do to bring them back.”

  He paused, and I held my breath.

  “But there isn’t,” he finished, his voice cracking. “We just have to hope that they return soon, or that everything goes back to normal so we can get help searching for them.”

  The tension of their loss hung in the air, weighing down the silence. It hurt like hell to see them missing their parents and not being able to help. It hurt even more to think of my own parents. Had they had enough water stocked up? Had Mom re-upped on her meds, or was she down to her last pill when everything shut down? I might never know. They were so far away, clear on the opposite side of the country. There was no feasible way to reach them if things didn’t return to normal at some point. Tears pressed at the back of my eyes and my throat clogged with emotion. I’d been so happy to get away from California when I’d left for college, convincing myself that my parents were only a plane ride away. One plane ride was a hell of a long walk.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you. Again,” Maggie said.

  “It’s okay, Mags,” Gabriel said with a shrug. “Once you’ve had the chief of surgery call you an incompetent shitface in front the entire staff, everything else is water off a duck’s back.”

  “Did someone really call you that?” she gasped, her watery eyes wide with surprise.

  “I’ve been called worse,” he said, and then glanced my way. “I’m not always the easiest person to get along with.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes, yet another of the many ways she masterfully conveyed a “duh” without words, and then left the room. We could hear the stairs creaking as she climbed.

  “She’s holding up pretty well for someone her age,” I said, still unable to meet John’s or Gabriel’s eyes.

  “She’s holding up better than I am, and I’m not even talking about the head injury,” John said, flopping down on one of the kitchen chairs.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean that I feel like I’m about to go crazy. I thought when we got here everything would be better. Do you know what I wanted most?” he asked, his voice tinged with longing. “I wanted to come home and have Mom give me one of those crazy long hugs and to tell me that I needed a haircut and a boyfriend but that she loved me anyway. I wanted Dad to make fun of my jacket and get all awkward when I said something too gay for him. But that didn’t happen because they decided to put themselves in danger for this Darlene person who probably wouldn’t lift a pinkie to help them if the tables were turned.”

  “Mom and Dad wouldn’t care about whether she would have helped them, and neither should you,” Gabriel said. “They knew that it wasn’t entirely safe when they decided to go. You don’t have to like their choice, but you do have to respect it.”

  John grimaced and folded his arms across his chest. I’d seen him react this way before when he was close to emotional overload, and usually I was the only one there to look out for him. I wanted to go give him a noogie and bother him to take his mind off things, but this was much more serious than being depressed over work or a guy. I decided to defer to Gabriel.

  “I’m going to check out the radio again to see if I can pick anything up on the different wavelengths,” Gabriel said. “You’re better at that stuff than I am though. Can you give me a hand?”

  John stared into the distance as if he hadn’t heard, but then got up to shadow Gabriel. “It must be so hard for you being the hot medically trained brother instead of the one who can work a CB radio,” he griped as they left the room.

  I found myself alone in the kitchen. I felt a pang for a second, but then realized that besides the time I’d spent in the bathroom, I hadn’t really had much time to myself since this whole fiasco had started. Fear and uncertainty had kept John and me clinging to each other from the start, and he or Maggie or Gabriel had always been around since we’d arrived at the house.

  A low fire was burning behind the hearth grate, and I curled up on the floor in front of it.

  I stared at the undulating flames, following their hypnotic motion as if it was a riveting film. I’d never been able to meditate, but watching the fire writhe behind the grate helped clear my mind, which was cluttered with thoughts of parents and death and sex.

  I’d thought once we arrived that everything would be simple. Although the threats of starvation and death were drastically reduced, I was still frightened and unmoored. Now that my physical safety was ensured, I had time to think, which was even more daunting than my journey here had been. What was a few days roughing it out in the cold compared to not knowing if this was just the run-up to some new and unimaginable horror? Nothing I’d seen and nothing that we’d learned since we’d arrived had provided any knowledge that could help me figure out our situation; instead, I was even more confused. In addition to my own problems and those of a scared friend, I now had a confused teenager and an inappropriate crush thrown into the mix.

  I thought of the planes of Gabriel’s fa
ce at the moment when we’d crashed toward each other in the cellar, our logic burned away by a sudden flare of desire. It had been as if some shift in our genetic makeup had changed polarity, bringing us together suddenly and irresistibly. Maybe it was because I’d been lost for so many weeks, but his lips against mine had felt like the sweetest homecoming. It had been different during the game of hide-and-seek though. There had been a longing that seemed both familiar and entirely new.

  I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the fire soothe me. The next thing I knew, I was being hefted into the air. I awoke with a start, attributing the sensation to that strange feeling of falling that I sometimes experienced before going to sleep, but that usually didn’t come with the solid warmth of Gabriel’s chest.

  “Thought you might be more comfortable in a bed,” he said in a low voice. I could feel his lean biceps flex along one side of my body and the support of his veined forearms on the other. I released an unsteady breath and allowed myself to revel in the sensation. The house was quiet all around us; the others were in their rooms or asleep.

  We were alone.

  “I think you just have some creepy fetish that involves picking up little people,” I said.

  “Only certain little people,” he said with a laugh.

  The rumble of his voice in his chest reverberated through my body, and my skin prickled with desire in response. I settled more comfortably against him as he ascended the stairs. He smelled good, although I couldn’t quite pinpoint the scent, and it felt too weird to describe it as “Gabriel.” That was what it was though: sweat, soap and annoyingly hot doctor. I turned my head a little to breathe him in and felt the steady beat of his heart under my ear, the rise and fall of his chest. What would it be like to spend the night with him, to curl against him like this in a darkened room? And what would we do before curling up? The images that flashed in my head, combined with the memories of what his hands and mouth could do, made me flush with heat. There was no way he hadn’t noticed my change in body temperature or my racing pulse. I squirmed in his arms, but he just held me tighter as I burned for him.

  “Did you guys hear anything on the radio?” I asked, trying not to show my eagerness, although I already knew his answer from the fact that the house was silent around us.

  “No. But I think John feels a bit better. He needed something to do, too,” he said. “After watching you with Maggie, seeing how happy she was to plan something out and be in charge for a change, I realized that trying to be in control of everything wasn’t helping them.”

  “You are wise, Fearless Leader,” I said with a smile as we reached the top of the stairs. To my surprise, he stopped and placed me on my feet in front of the door to John’s room, where I’d awoken earlier.

  “This is your stop,” he whispered.

  He hadn’t been talking about his bed. I tamped down the desire that had been welling up in me and tried to pretend my expectations weren’t dashed.

  “Oh. Yeah. Good night,” I mumbled, but before I could flee into the room in embarrassment he reached down, cupped my face in his hands and gave me a thorough kiss that about buckled my knees.

  Had kissing always felt this amazing? The sensation of his lips against mine, his probing tongue demanding entry, nearly undid me then and there as if I was some sheltered virgin. He tasted minty, as if he’d already brushed before bed. The cool of the mint and warmth of his mouth proved to be a pleasurable contrast as his tongue slicked over mine. His grip on my face was gentle, but I grasped him by both wrists to pull myself in closer. I moaned into his mouth when his tented length grazed my stomach, and he growled in return before breaking away from me.

  His thumbs slid over my cheeks as he moved to release me, one grazing the sensitive skin of my kiss-bruised lips. I caught it between my teeth and flicked it with my tongue. The tremor that ran through him, the way he squeezed his eyes shut and went still from that one lash of my tongue, was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. Molten need flowed in my veins and I itched to touch him, to feel more of him. All of him. I would have sunk to my knees in the dim hallway if he hadn’t finally spoken.

  “John was looking for you earlier,” he said in a husky voice as he reluctantly extricated his thumb. His breaths were short, his words clipped. “And because I’m a good brother, I won’t be selfish.”

  I had spent most of the day with John, but Gabriel was right. Just because it was possibly the end-times didn’t mean I was going to become the woman who ditched her best friend for some tail.

  “Of course,” I said with a smirk. “Don’t be so presumptuous. I was merely going to see if you needed to be tucked in.”

  “If you come into my bedroom, that’s the absolute last thing you’d be doing,” he said. His hot gaze showed he wasn’t just talking a big game. Pleasure trembled over my skin from my neck to the tips of my aching breasts.

  “And to think, I thought you were an uptight control freak,” I mused.

  “I tend to veer into the asshole lane when I’m under stress, but I’m not uptight,” he said, feigning offense. “I prefer the term ‘dominating.’” He looked at me for a long moment as if trying to figure something out about me. “I think you will, too,” he said cockily, and turned and walked down the hall.

  I could feel the huge, stupid grin plastered onto my face as I watched him retreat. A week ago I’d been trudging toward an uncertain future, then wondering if my life would end in the middle of a snowswept field. Happiness and desire had seemed foreign, something that had been possible in the past but was just a hypothetical in this new era of confusion and isolation.

  I placed a hand to my lips, thought of the way Gabriel had looked at me right before he’d moved in to kiss me. I wasn’t deluding myself, but it was more than nice to have something solid to tether myself to in a world that was becoming increasingly intangible.

  I reined my libido in before stepping into my shared room. A tea candle burned, allowing me to see John, who lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. His gaze briefly shifted to me and he looked so utterly lost that I stopped in my tracks. I’d seen him mope and rage and even cry once or twice, but nothing like this. I went to the bed and curled up beside him, watching the profile of his face as he resumed his inspection of the ceiling.

  “John, what’s wrong? Besides everything?” I asked. “Do you need me to smash anyone for you? That might be awkward, since the only other people here are your siblings and one of them is a minor...I’ll still do it though.”

  He sputtered out a little laugh, and at the same time a tear streaked from his eye and into his hairline. My heart twisted as he dashed the tear away with the heel of his hand. I didn’t consider myself maternal—babies were several rungs below teenagers on my personal “nope” scale—but in that moment I felt like I should rock him in my arms or sing him a lullaby or something. I nudged him with my elbow instead. Sometimes tough love was more effective.

  He nudged me back, a bit harder than I appreciated, and released a shuddering sigh. “No need for Arden Smash time. I’m just wishing Godzilla or aliens, or at the very least a Russian dude with a crazy fur hat, would show up on the scene so we could know what’s going on. Are we supposed to just live like this forever? Am I supposed to grow old in this house?”

  His tears slid freely now, and I threw an arm around him, tough love be damned. His chest rose and fell jerkily as he struggled to contain his sobs. My own chest burned in empathy, but I tilted my head back to keep the tears from falling.

  “I just always thought there would be time, you know? I lived my life like everything could wait until another day, but now I might spend the rest of my life waiting for a light to come on that always stays dim. If we’re not going to get explanations, then someone needs to drop a damn bomb or something.” He gave an angry sniffle.

  I didn’t know what to say. John was usually the one tasked with keeping people happy, and seeing him give in to this despair threw me. I had no answers.

  “Something’s gotta
give eventually, John. And when it does, we’ll probably wish we were back here in bed wishing that Godzilla had absconded with Mothra instead of attacking.” I hoped my descent into nerdery would raise his spirits, but he wasn’t taking the bait.

  “Okay, then I wish this damned headache would go away, or that Gabriel had raided the supply closet at his hospital before he’d left. Getting knocked out isn’t as easy-breezy as they make it look in the movies.”

  It hurt my heart to see my friend so despondent. “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, my voice pitched higher than normal as it squeaked out around the lump in my throat.

  “You can save the day and put everything aright, if it’s not too much trouble,” he said. He settled into the mattress as the anger sapped from him.

  “Oh, you want me to do that now? I was going to wait until morning, but since you’re so freaking impatient...” I moved to get up, and he swatted me back down. He laughed, and the sound gave me a bit of comfort. I couldn’t actually save the day, but I could still make John smile. That counted for something.

  “How about you just tell me a story instead?”

  A knock sounded at the door just then. It swung open to reveal Maggie, dragging her blanket behind her like a Peanuts character. “I had a bad dream,” she said, her red-rimmed eyes proof to the severity of her nightmare. “Can I sleep in here?”

  “Sure, take my bed,” I said. “I was about to tell John a story. You look like you could use one too.”

  “You guys really need to grow up,” she said, all teenage cool as she flopped onto the other twin bed. She looked over at me expectantly.

  “You’re never too old for a bedtime story, child,” John said. “Unfortunately, most of us don’t realize that until it’s too late.”

  “There once lived a prince named John,” I began. “He ruled over Seongistan, a land that produced the studliest, most handsome men on the entire planet. All of them strove to gain his particular favor, but the prince had promised his godmother, a sexy black fairy named Arden, that he would only settle for the smartest, most humorous, most kind man in the land...”