Sparrow Rock

by Nate Kenyon

  “If you’d let me finish,” Dan said slowly, staring at me, “it also says that we should wait until the authorities get a radiation reading and give the all clear. The point is, this fallout is unpredictable. It could be almost nonexistent a few miles away from the blast zone, and then dump a truck-load right on top of our hatch. It also depends on whether the warheads exploded in the air or on the ground. If it hit the ground, the blast zone is smaller, but the fallout can be a lot more deadly and spread over a wider area. You see what I’m saying?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really. All I know is that this is the kind of decision that should have been made as a group. We should have been talking about this stuff on day one.” I wanted to be careful with how I handled this, but I felt my blood pressure rise. I was coming close to saying Dan might have made a serious mistake, and I had no idea how he might react.

  “This isn’t a democracy,” Dan said. He got up and closed the book with a loud snap, standing over me in a way that was vaguely threatening. “That went out when the bombs hit. Decision by committee is never the best way to go when you’re under fire.” He looked at Jimmie, then back at me. “You guys agreed to put me in charge,” he said. “What, you want me to make decisions when it’s convenient for you? That’s not how it works.”

  I leaned away from him, surprised by the sudden heat in his voice. For the first time since we’d been locked away down here, I started to question whether blindly letting Dan lead was the right thing to do. He was so rigid in his authority, so strong with his confidence in making decisions, and yet he was far from the brightest of our group, and I had often felt in the past that he acted without thinking things through. What else had he kept from us?

  Finally I stood up, my heart thudding in my chest, my legs trembling with something like anger or fear, or maybe both.

  “This brings up another question,” I said. I was inches away from his face now, and he didn’t back down. “And it’s a tricky one. What if Jay is still alive out there? What if he needs our help? I kept you from going out there before, because I thought it was too dangerous. Maybe I wouldn’t have if I’d had the chance to read this book.”

  It was a shitty thing to do, Monday-morning quarter-backing at its worst. But I was so angry I didn’t care. Dan didn’t say a word. He stared into my eyes and for a moment I thought he would take a swing at me, and my hands clenched into fists and for my own sake I almost welcomed it, the tangled energy that had emerged after hearing that radio voice coiling within me and begging for a release.

  Then he just shook his head and walked a few steps away, his back to us as if gathering himself. Jimmie and I shared a glance, but I didn’t say anything else at first. I could feel my heartbeat in my neck, my mouth suddenly dry. I was still burning, my emotions simmering just below the surface, threatening to burst through all at once. I didn’t want to lose control; that wasn’t me. I was the joker, the guy who always tried to defuse a tense situation. When things got bad enough for me to snap, it was usually time to cut and run.

  “I can’t answer that,” Dan said. “I don’t know if he’s alive or not, and I don’t know if we did the right thing. What I’m saying is that up until now, there were so many variables it was impossible to make an informed decision.” He turned back to us, his face set and determined. “My dad always told me, in situations like this, you must remain conservative in your approach. You don’t leave a safe place unless you have a good idea of your odds, and what you’ll be facing. I was acting on emotion when I wanted to go after him, and that’s a mistake. I should have been thinking more rationally.”

  This wasn’t like the Dan we knew. I wasn’t quite sure how to react. “And now?” I said. “What would your dad say?”

  “Things have changed. Jay left the group, put himself at risk, and we’re facing some kind of threat down here, inside, which means we need to reassess our options. This shelter may no longer be the safest place for us. And if you’re right about that voice, there could be help on the way. Or at least there’s a place for us to try to reach.”

  “I heard it,” I said. “Don’t worry about that. It was real.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” Jimmie asked. “You guys can bitch at each other all you want, and believe me, I’m glad I’m not the one in the middle right now. But we’re not getting anywhere doing that. You know?”

  “You’re right, for once.” Dan turned again and went to the shelf, returning with the atlas of North America and opening it on the table. “Here’s where we are,” he said, pointing out the area on the U.S. map where Sparrow Island would be, although it wasn’t large enough to be marked. “Here’s Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.” He traced a path across the map to the spot, tapping it with his finger. “And up here is Alaska…” He paused, searching, until he found it. “Right here.” He tapped a spot way up near the top of the state. “Gates of the Arctic Park. This is where Sue said the Doomsday Vault is supposed to be.”

  I concentrated on the map. The way to Colorado would give us a better chance. If we headed to Alaska instead, the trip would be both twice as long, and offer fewer options in the event a main highway or smaller road was impassable. But then again, that’s where the vault was, and it was the most likely place to give us lasting shelter and the possibility of survival.

  “If we leave, Peterson is our best shot,” Jimmie said. “Anyone can see that.”

  “But we don’t know if anyone’s there,” Dan said. “We have no idea where they’re broadcasting from. Without some kind of clear instructions, we have to assume they’re in Alaska.”

  We all studied the two routes in silence for a minute. It gave both Dan and me some time to cool down. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. I wasn’t clear on why I had been arguing in the first place; I wasn’t even remotely sure that leaving the shelter was the right thing to do. We were basing everything about the vault on a faint voice through the radio, along with Sue’s recollection of the ravings of a possible lunatic and something she had read in a magazine months ago or more. And whatever threat we might face from the creatures that had attacked us down here could be ten times worse aboveground. Who knew what was lurking up there for us?

  But whatever our final decision might be, it had to be made by the group, I knew that much. And we all had to have every important detail possible on which to base that decision. No more hand-holding.

  “Any place that’s got main roads named Hickel Highway and Winter Trail can’t be all bad,” I said. “Let’s try the radio again. Maybe they’ll say something else.”

  We listened for another hour, but we heard nothing more. I’d heard stories in the past about the way radio waves could travel huge distances under certain atmospheric conditions, something about the way weather patterns formed tunnels that could bounce a signal along for hundreds of miles farther than the normal strength of the broadcast for brief periods. Maybe that had happened here and I’d been in the right place at the right time. If so, we might not hear the voice again for days. Maybe never.

  Finally I got up to go to the kitchen for a drink of water and a chance to be by myself for a minute. My head was pounding and I couldn’t seem to think clearly. I needed space.

  But I didn’t have very long alone. I’d hardly poured the water when I turned to see that Jimmie had followed me in. I hadn’t even heard him limping up in his socks.

  “I gotta talk to you,” he said quietly, glancing back once at the doorway and the faint sound of static still coming from the radio. “I can’t say anything around him, you know? But we gotta do something. I feel like I’m going to lose it.”

  He was close to whining now; I could hear the urgency in his voice, and I didn’t like it. Jimmie in a panic was a bad thing for everyone. We had plenty of examples of how he lost his head while under stress, and the last thing I wanted was to get him all worked up again. Ever since the rat attack he seemed to be all over the map, calm one minute and frantic the next, reminiscing about the old days, then tu
rning around and calling me Peter instead of Pete. It was almost like he’d become two different people. I could fool myself for a while that the old Jimmie was back, and pretend that the craziness of the past few days had never happened, but the truth was, there was something wrong with him. We just didn’t know yet how bad it was going to get.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “Let’s just take our time, figure things out.”

  “I can’t stay here much longer,” he said, stepping closer. I could smell the rankness of his body, a mix of body odor and something else beneath it, something far worse. “I can’t. You don’t understand. What happened, those things inside my leg, and now Jay and what he did…” He licked his lips, flakes of white dropping from the corners of his mouth. His breath, this close, smelled like a sewer. “I wonder if maybe I can hear them, sometimes. Those voices.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I’d locked eyes with him, my heart beating faster in my chest again. I felt alert, on edge, as if waiting for something to snap.

  “It’s like a pressure, somehow, behind my eyes, and these dreams I’m having of all these people standing there like statues, watching me, and then they start whispering but I can’t understand what they’re saying.”

  “How’s your leg feel now?”

  He looked at me, bewildered. “It’s fine, half the time I forget it’s there. I’ve been cleaning it and keeping the bandage tight. But I don’t know why it doesn’t hurt more.”

  “Your headache gone?”

  He shook his head. “No, man, no. That’s the thing. It’s still there, this dull throbbing, that makes it hard to think. I can’t—” He grabbed his head in both hands, cradling it, and the gesture was so much like Jay’s just before he left, it gave me chills. “God, I just gotta get out of here! You know? Don’t you feel it? It’s like there’s this weight pressing down on me, all these layers of rock and dirt and concrete above our heads, we can’t get away from it, we can’t breathe!”

  “There’s someone else alive out there,” I said. “Focus on that, Jimmie. There are other survivors. That means there’s hope for us, even if we have to stay put for a while longer.”

  He stepped even closer, our bodies close to touching. He had me up against the sink. It took everything I had not to slide backward away from him.

  “There’s someone else in here with me,” he whispered. He tapped his temple. Tears shimmered in his eyes. “I think I’m going crazy, Pete. You, you gotta help me.”

  “I don’t gotta do anything,” I said. I was suddenly angry and disgusted with him, tired of his complaining and his neediness, his inability to grow up with the rest of us. When I looked at him I didn’t think about old sledding hills or Star Wars figurines, I didn’t remember him waiting for me outside my window when my father was on a bender. I didn’t see my old friend anymore at all. I saw some stranger who wouldn’t back down and leave me alone.

  I didn’t have any excuse for what happened next, other than exhaustion and the remaining tension over my confrontation with Dan, but when Jimmie reached up to grab my arms, I took him by the shirt with both fists and practically lifted him off the floor.

  “You stay the fuck away from me,” I said, into his face, the force of my hissed words wetting him with spittle. My entire body was burning with anger, and I felt an overwhelming sense of disgust, the way you’d feel if a giant spider crawled out of the shower drain at your feet. The look of shock on his face changed quickly to fear, and I shoved him backward, his shirt making a tearing sound before I let go.

  Jimmie went down and cowered in the corner as everything sort of washed away in a red-tinged cloud. I felt as if I were drifting away from my own body, watching from somewhere else and incapable of controlling myself anymore; and as I drifted I seemed to go back in time to another place that was much darker and more dangerous.

  Just as I was about to go after Jimmie with both fists, Tessa appeared out of nowhere. She stepped in front of me and took hold of my wrists.

  “Easy,” she said. “You don’t want to do this, Pete. Look at me. I’m right here. Focus.”

  I did, and the cloud began to clear, my heart slowing down as I snapped back to reality. I didn’t want to hurt him, of course I didn’t, but I couldn’t always be there to prop him up either.

  Tessa understood that. When I met her gaze, she smiled, and I felt the remaining tension melt away. “I swear I could feel it building inside you from the other room,” she said. “It’s like we’re psychically linked. You remember the last time this happened? Do you?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t go there,” I said. “Not now. I’m sorry. It’s too hard.”

  “Okay. But I know about it, you told me everything. I wasn’t with you then, but I am now, and I won’t let that happen again. You’re a good person, Pete, maybe too sensitive for your own good. Your father’s death wasn’t your fault. You can’t let that rule you forever.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I do. But this place, it’s getting to me. It’s getting to all of us. Bad things come to the surface, things you want to forget.”

  Tessa nodded. Then she hugged me close, her soft body warm against mine, her breath tickling my cheek. “I love you,” she said quietly. “You know I do. I’ll always be here when you need me.”

  When she stepped away, Jimmie was staring at me, a look on his face I didn’t entirely understand. He was still sitting on the floor with his hands behind him holding him up, and now he crab-walked backward away from me and Tessa until he hit the pantry door.

  “Jimmie,” I said, taking a step forward, my hands out, placating him. “Look, man, I’m sorry about what happened. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Jimmie just shook his head, fear in his eyes. “Who—who are you?” he cried. Then he scrambled to his feet and ran from the room.

  I sighed and turned to Tessa.

  “He’ll be okay,” she said. “Just give him time.”

  I nodded as if I understood. But I didn’t believe her. I thought it might be too late for us both.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  That moment in the kitchen was the beginning of Jimmie’s final unraveling. I must have been the last thing standing between him and whatever darkness was trying to claim him, and what I’d done had broken his trust and left him alone. He mostly avoided me after that, intentionally moving to another room when I entered, sleeping on different shifts, finding any way he could to keep our paths from crossing. This couldn’t have been easy in such a small space.

  But even though we didn’t speak, I could see the strings coming loose, one by one. During the next couple of days his restlessness increased until he was pacing the floors, his eyes darting back and forth and settling on nothing. It reminded me of Jay, just before he’d broken out of here, and that made me uneasy. I started watching him more closely while at the same time trying to keep him from noticing. I didn’t want to make him even more paranoid. I heard him muttering to himself more than once, cocking his head as if listening to something, and I caught him clutching what remained of his hair and moaning low and deep in his throat once in the kitchen before he slipped out and away. Tessa tried to look at his leg wound a couple of times, but he wouldn’t let her see it.

  I should have known there was something terribly wrong then, I should have done something to stop it. But I didn’t. I let myself believe that he would come around again, if I left him alone. Looking back, that seems to be the story of my life—ignore the warning signs and pretend everything is okay, even when the walls are crumbling around you, even where your abusive father is lying close to death in a hospital room, even when the bombs drop and you’re one of the last left standing, even when your friends are peeled off from what’s left of the herd and taken down, one by one.

  Pretend everything is right in the world, and eventually it will be. Some philosophy.

  I wanted to talk about the voice I’d heard on the radio, and what it all meant for us. I wanted to weigh our options and not hold anything
back; talk about fallout and the chances of our survival if we left this place. Dan had a pretty strong opinion that we should remain in the shelter, hoping we heard some clear instructions through the radio. We sat in the dining room late one night, just the two of us, maybe trying to heal the rift that had opened up between us after the incident with the radio. Dan got out the cards and we played a couple of hands. The pack was missing the ten of diamonds, so we had to make do with a piece of cardboard, which was pretty stupid since anyone with a pair of eyes could tell it from the rest of the pack with no problem. Jimmie had drawn a picture on it; he was pretty good at that, always doodling, drawing cartoons and other stuff.

  Dan held that piece of cardboard with Jimmie’s picture in his hands, turning it over and over. We drank a few beers and smoked the remains of one of Jay’s joints Dan had found stashed under the sink in the bathroom. We talked about opening up the hatch to take a look. But that strange buzzing sound we had both heard when Jay left, combined with what Dan had read in Nuclear Winter, kept us from doing anything.

  It seemed that the rest of the group was split, with Sue in favor of leaving now for Alaska, and Jimmie seeming to want to head to Colorado. I was paralyzed with indecision. If we left, we couldn’t be sure we were headed to the right place. Getting to the Gates of the Arctic Park seemed pretty damn near impossible, with the distance and the state of the roads up there. But the alternative meant we could drive for 2,000 miles and end up in an empty air force base, nothing but ghosts among the wreckage.

  Alone for a moment in the bedroom while Dan and Tessa tried to get Sue to eat something and Jimmie locked himself in the bathroom doing God knows what, I flipped through Surviving Nuclear Winter. I could see what Dan meant; it was terrifying. Nearly every page was filled with diagrams, charts and lists, radiation levels, climate patterns and illustrations of the effect of different-size bomb blasts on structures and people. It was a dense technical read, and much of it centered on what the climate would be like after a nuclear war.