The Gates_The Arrival

by Max Wyatt

  “Okay, my turn to drive. It was probably just a deer or something. You’re tired…”

  “Not a deer, a person!”

  They were on a country road in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Trees rose up in front of them, fields of corn rustled out the rear window. Harper felt suddenly exposed, sitting there like this, sideways, in the middle of the road. “Tara, honey, we need to get turned the right way. What if someone comes along?”

  She wanted to offer to drive, but didn’t want to get out of the car. The world felt too…big. Uncertain. And if there was someone out there…

  Tara gave a slow, jerky nod and eased the SUV into reverse, then stopped. “Which way were we going?”

  “Not east…” Harper said, looking at the speedometer which gave a directional reading just below the mileage indicator. East meant the coast and more people. “You yourself said we needed to go west. And south.”

  “Oh…right. Sure.” But still she stayed where she was, as though uncertain which way to turn the wheel.

  “We’re facing south…We need to turn right.”

  Panic lodged in Harper’s throat. Tara was exhausted. She’d been pushing too hard for too long and it was starting to show. Smart, savvy Tara was making mistakes, and a bottle of water wasn’t going to fix it. “We need to get some rest. Maybe there’s a motel or something not far. Do you remember how far it said we were from the next town?”

  Tara kept staring out the window at the trees in front of them.

  “Tara, c’mon, we need to get moving. You’re scaring me.”

  “I really did see someone out there.”

  Her voice seemed to be coming from a million miles away. She’s in shock. What am I supposed to do for shock? I don’t know. It’s been years since I took a first aid class. Driving isn’t a good idea though. That I do know for sure. And something about keeping her warm.

  “We can’t stay here, Tara. Look, I need you to help me out. I’m going to drive, Tara. So I need you to put the car in park for me, okay?”

  “I’m not stupid, Harper!” Tara turned her head sharply, pinning her with a glance.

  Harper stared her down, not about to be intimidated. “Okay, fine then. Drive the damn car. But we have to get out of this road before someone comes along and hits us.”

  “Out here?” Tara’s laugh was hollow, forced. “There’s no one out here except Amish farmers. Didn’t you see the signs back at that last town?”

  “Amish…?”

  It explained the lack of lights. The way there had been no traffic in forever. “I wonder if there’s a bed and breakfast or something…”

  “We don’t have money, Harper. Remember? We’re out. I spent it all on gas.” With that she wrenched the wheel to the side. The engine roared as she hit the accelerator, the car moving jerkily down onto the shoulder on the driver’s side, sending Harper’s head banging against the glass for a second time. She winced, and bit her tongue. Her mouth filled with the iron-metallic taste of blood. She winced but said nothing.

  Tara was losing it. How long had they been in motion now? It had been a million years since their lunch, back when Harper’s bank account was the most pressing thing in the world. And now, just like that, it didn’t matter.

  “So what do we do?”

  Somewhere in that mess they had a tent, a couple of sleeping bags. But the idea of setting up camp felt risky and strange out here. Even if a farmer would let them stay on their land, the idea of leaving the SUV unprotected didn’t set well with her. Harper pressed a tissue to her lip to stop the bleeding and pondered this as Tara hit the accelerator.

  The car lurched forward and stopped.

  The decision had been made for them. Tara didn’t need to say the words for Harper to know. They looked at each other in the darkness, eyes wide. Harper swallowed hard, willing herself not to cry. She’d done enough of that. “Okay, so we have a flat tire,” she said finally. “How about we find someplace to pull over. We catch a few z’s and then worry about changing it in the morning when we have some light to see what we’re doing.”

  Tara looked at her a long time, then turned her attention on the road again in front of them. Looking for…whatever it was that had caused the accident in the first place. Harper looked too.

  What if they weren’t alone after all? What if Tara really had seen something?

  Her stomach knotted. This was becoming an all-too familiar feeling. “Tara?”

  “I think I see some kind of driveway ahead. Maybe we can get some help there.

  “It is…safe?” She pictured an Amish farmer coming to the door with a shotgun. Did they use shotguns?

  “Do we have a choice?” Tara snapped, easing the SUV forward. The car limped ahead. Harper braced herself away from the door with one hand, trying to keep from banging her head a third time.

  It wasn’t a driveway. Just a road into the cornfield next to them, something that allowed for farm machinery to have access to the field. Headlights showed little more than a dirt path running between the trees and the corn. Animal eyes gleamed from the darkness.

  “Is it safe?”

  They looked behind them. The road seemed distant. A million miles away.

  “Safer than out there…” Tara said so softly that Harper almost didn’t hear her. The corn was late-summer tall, green leaves reaching higher than the roof of the SUV. On the other side of the road, long branches from ancient oak trees spread over the road, blotting out the stars. It was like being in a cave.

  Maybe it was safe.

  Safer at any rate.

  But what if someone was truly out there?

  Tara switched off the engine. The sudden silence was deafening. Harper listened to the cooling sounds of the engine, the soft ticking and thumps seeming loud in this wilderness. Eventually the night reclaimed the shattered spaces of silence they’d brought with them to this place. Crickets chirped, night birds called. Owls, she thought dimly. Those were owls. She became aware of the way the wind moved through the corn, the quiet rustle of a million leaves half dry with the summer near gone, giving them a rattling, crackling sound.

  She imagined footfalls though it was stupid to think so with the windows up. You’d never hear someone coming through the grass, the soft scrape of boot against stone unless you cracked a window and listened for it. As though reading her mind, Tara turned the key until it clicked, and reached to press buttons on the door next to her until she had every window cracked open at least half an inch.

  “Good thinking,” Harper murmured, not sure why she was whispering. But sounds carried in the night. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. Further still came the faraway sound of an engine, another lonely traveler out on the roads in this rural wasteland.

  The interior of the car quickly chilled. Nights were cool now, fall coming early this far north in Pennsylvania. Harper reached in back for a blanket and dislodged the water bottles she’d grabbed earlier. They tumble down amidst the scattered bags and bundles on the seat. Everything a chaotic mess. They hadn’t been neat in packing.

  “It’s going to be a real bear getting out that spare tomorrow,” Tara said, taking the blanket from her and spreading it over them.

  “We’ll deal with it in the morning I guess. Maybe you can organize things better while I take care of the tire.”

  “You can change a flat?”

  “Finn showed me once.” It had been a long time ago. A summer excursion out to the state park for a day of hiking. Another day that hadn’t gone as planned.

  “Since when did Finn ever spend more than ten minutes with you that he could show you how to change a tire?”

  Harper felt her face go red. She hadn’t told Tara. She hadn’t told anyone that she and Finn had tried dating once. Last year, off and on. Six dates it had been. Just six with a mutual parting of ways, leaving an awkwardness between them whenever their paths crossed. She’d been amazed that Tara hadn’t picked up on it at Thanksgiving, when Erik had brought him home unexpectedly to share
the holiday.

  “You and Finn? And you didn’t tell me?” Tara twisted in her seat, taking Harper by the shoulders, forcing her to face her. “What gives? How long? What happened?”

  “It wasn’t long…we…tried it.” She didn’t want to explain it. Her eyes fell on the radio, and she grabbed at it thankfully, needing something to change the subject and amazed that neither of them had given it any thought until now. “You have satellite radio, don’t you?”

  “Wait…what? You’re not getting off that easy. I want details—”

  “Tara, shut up and listen to me. You have satellite radio. We can find out what’s going on.” It was Harper’s turn to grab at Tara’s arm, trying to get her to listen, because they’d both been so caught up in running away, that they’d never thought to find out what the rest of the world was like that they were running to. Maybe things weren’t as bad as Erik had said. Maybe this was a panic local to New England. Rumors that had gotten out of control and nothing more.

  “My God, how could we be so stupid.”

  Tara turned the key again, bringing up enough juice that the radio would work. Static filled the car, the volume too high. Tara listened to a lot of music when she drove, singing loudly along with any song she knew, making up lyrics when she didn’t know the words. Harper had finally begged her to keep the singing for when she was alone in the car; Tara couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

  More button pushing. The volume fell to a level that didn’t leave Harper’s ears ringing, which paired nicely with the headache she’d developed since they’d stalled out. Another button, and another yielded the same results.

  “No one is broadcasting.” It was a terrifying feeling, finding programmed stations off the air. Desperately, Tara switched them over to AM. Until…finally…a snippet of words burst forth, garbled and making no sense. Tara overshot the station and had to go back to find it, Harper holding her breath, crossing her fingers, and trying to remember every deity she’d ever heard of just so she could try prayer in case luck wasn’t enough.

  The voice wavered, came back in. Slow. Steady. Reassuring. The President, she realized. They were listening to the President of the United States.

  “…I repeat, we will not negotiate with terrorists. In the history of freedom, there have always been those who would suppress it, deny it, try to destroy not only freedom, but those who value it, demand it. These people will be stopped, must be stopped. To treat with them, to insinuate that they are somehow legitimate because they were able to worm their way into a controlled area is not only ludicrous, but a slap in the face to every man and woman who ever put on a uniform and offered his or her life in the defense and propagation of freedom and liberty. These are cowards who hide behind threats and limited power and proclaim themselves better, smarter, stronger. They are not. There is no stronger man or woman, no smarter foe than the one who defends freedom, the one that stands firm in the face of tyranny and terrorism and refuses to be bullied, refuses to let others determine his fate and that of her family.

  “At this time, we have a few delusional extremists who have control of a few light switches. Children who think they can have their way if they annoy their elders enough. I promise you, their hands will be slapped. We will find these people and we will bring them to justice in the world courts. We will find their sponsors, their backers, the country in which they reside and we will exact justice, we will have an accounting before the entire world. This will not go unanswered, but it will not be the answer they seek. It will be the answer we give them regardless of the price or the fallout.

  “We will find these perpetrators. I have ordered this to be the prime focus of the government second only to restoring order and law in effected communities. I ask that you exercise patience and faith, prayer and meditation for those hardest hit. Open your doors and your hearts to your countrymen who need and stand fast. We are restoring power, we are restoring the country they tried to take. We will deliver these terrorists, dead or alive. Thank you.”

  It was Harper who finally reached across and turned off the radio with fingers that fumbled at the dial, unfamiliar with the layout of control panel. The radio announcer was cut off mid-analysis. They didn’t need to hear the rest. Talking heads would go on all night about the deeper meaning of the words, speculating endlessly about what this would mean. “We know more than they do,” Harper said by way of explanation. “I mean, the reporters. We know more than them. Thanks to…Finn.”

  She said the last hesitantly, but Tara was too deep in thought to notice. She was curled up sideways in her seat, knees drawn up to her chin, feet resting on the center console. It looked uncomfortable, but very Tara who would endlessly find tiny places to scooch into when she was stressed. “Even that is little enough.”

  Harper looked at her phone, sitting on the dash in front of her. Stupid dead piece of plastic. She would have given anything to talk to Erik right now. To get the details she should have asked about earlier. What kind of place were they going to? What kind of people would they find there? Would they be welcome? Too many questions. No answers at all.

  “So…what next?” she asked, realizing she’d been asking Tara to lead her all along and wondering if at some point she was the one who should be trying to answer the questions.

  “We sleep. I’m dead tired and rushing around in the dark isn’t going to get us anywhere. Tomorrow we deal with the tire and then see if we can get some directions around here. Someone is bound to have a map. Being in Amish country is probably the best place to get lost right now. They don’t rely on GPS the way we do. We shouldn’t be more than a couple hours away at this point.”

  It was a solid plan. One that would get them…there. Wherever there was. A camp of some kind, it had sounded like. Survivalists? She had images of crazed gun-toting hillbillies living in tumble-down shacks in the woods. Harper shuddered. Was this truly their life now?

  She opened her mouth to ask Tara if that’s what she thought, but saw that her friend’s head was tilted to one side, resting against her hand. She’d fallen asleep, just like that. Of course she had. Plans were Tara’s comfort. Having a clear goal would have calmed her. She’d worry about the rest when they got to it.

  Harper sat awake a long time. Someone should keep watch. What if someone is out here?

  She thought about the person that Tara had thought she’d seen in the road, the one that they’d swerved to avoid. Had there really been someone there? Tara had certainly seemed to think so. She’d nearly wrecked the car for it.

  She might also have just been that tired. It was easy to think you see something in the dark when you were exhausted and already scared out of your mind.

  That was surely it. If anyone had been there, they’d have made their presence known by now. An hour had passed since the accident.

  The trees overhead creaked in the wind. The air was full of the earthen smell of approaching rain. Thunder rumbled a million miles away. A summer storm brewing.

  Harper’s eyes drifted shut. She’d rest…but only for a minute.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harper

  DAY TWO 5:43AM

  They weren’t alone. That feeling brought Harper out of a sound sleep, only to jerk upright and bang her head hard enough on the dash, right above where she just knew she has a fresh bruise from last night. It hurt like blazes and it took a minute for her vision to clear from the sudden tears that filled her eyes. When she could finally focus again, it was only to stare into a pair of intense grey-blue eyes on the other side of the glass.

  Waking Tara up with a scream probably wasn’t the best way to start the second day of an apocalypse.

  “What is it? What is it?”

  The sun was just rising, golden pink rays lighting the east in what would have been a spectacular sunrise had it not been the end of the world. The eyes in question belonged on the face of a young girl who wore a white cap covering her hair. She jumped backwards at Harper’s scream, her dark dress catching on the we
eds at the side of the road, and snagging. She bent to pull the fabric with her free hand, the other holding a woven basket.

  The child couldn’t have been more than ten. Surely she was Amish, with that dark blue dress covered by a long white apron. Whatever the girl had wanted, Harper had scared her good. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, Harper scrambled from the car, tumbling to the grass tangled in the straps of the rucksack that had caught around her feet. Lying there, with her nose in the mud, she could only think what an absolute idiot she looked. A feeling underscored by the sound of soft laughter.

  A moment later, Tara’s hearty bellow joined the laughter of the girl. Harper looked up, a sheepish grin on her face. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” she said, but the girl only sat down hard on the roadside, laughing, and unable to speak.

  Some things, it seemed were universal. Slapstick apparently being one of them.

  “Harper, seriously, are you okay?” Tara got out of her side of the vehicle and came around to help her up, clucking over her worse than any mother hen.

  Rubbing at the mud on her face was only making it worse. Harper could feel the grit down her cheekbone now, itching all the way down to her neck. “Oh I’m fine. Just fine. I’m the terror of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.” She glanced over at the girl. “I really didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?”

  The girl had sat down hard in a puddle and stood now, twisting to try to see the back of her dress. “I don’t think my Mam is going to be real happy with my dress. But yes, thank you, I’m fine. I brought you some breakfast.”

  “Breakfast?” Harper and Tara exchanged looks.

  The girl shoved the basket into her hands then backed away, unsure. “We live just over the hill yonder there. My Da says that he saw your…” she waved her hand at the SUV like she wasn’t sure what to call it, “…go off the road last night. He feels badly that he might have caused your accident when he was walking back from his brother’s house last night. He told me to tell you,” the girl screwed up her face, lines creasing her forehead as she thought, “He told me to tell you that if you could wait for a bit, that…I think it’s Silas Yoder. Or was that Samuel? One of the Yoders will be along to help you with your tire. He would have come himself, but he had to leave for town while it was still dark.”