by Nancy Isaak
“Cold?” asked Kieran.
“Totally.”
“I’m hungry,” whined Rhys. “If they’re not going to eat it, can we?”
They both turned and looked at me.
I shrugged. “I guess it will be okay. I’ve got a ten dollar bill in my wallet. We’ll leave it for payment. You guys start eating. I’m going to finish checking out the house.”
“You want me to come with?” asked Kieran, already sitting down and reaching for a piece of bacon.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the house. In fact, I think I’ve finally realized what’s going on.”
“What?” asked Rhys, going to the nearby fridge and opening it. He looked inside for a moment, then pulled out a bottle of water.
“There was nobody moving along Kanan-Dume after Betsy stopped,” I said. “Not even that special Beach Bus that they’ve got going this weekend for the maritime festival down in Malibu—and that bus has to travel on a specific schedule. It definitely should have passed us.”
“So?” said Rhys, taking a long swig of water.
“So, I think everybody in this canyon has been evacuated.”
Kieran immediately looked nervous. He sniffed the air. “I don’t smell any smoke.”
“I don’t think it’s a fire,” I continued. “I think they closed off the canyon and evacuated everyone because of those juvies. Because there was some sort of mass escape at the probationary camp.”
“That makes sense,” Kieran nodded. “They’d do that.”
“And when they closed off both ends of Kanan-Dume, we were caught in the middle because Betsy broke down.”
“You think there’s police in the canyon?” asked Rhys, hopefully.
I nodded. “They’re probably all over the place. It’s just our bad luck that we haven’t met up with them, yet. In fact, I’ll bet they’ve already caught those guys.”
“That would be good,” said Rhys, reaching for a piece of toast. “They scare me.”
“They scare me, too, bud,” I said. “But the police will get them, if they haven’t already. You’ll see.”
* * * *
There were four bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs—all of them empty.
From the clothes in the closet of the master bedroom, it looked like there was an elderly couple living in the house. However, I couldn’t figure out who belonged to the third place setting at the breakfast table. From what I could see, there was nobody else staying in the home.
Perhaps, it was a yet-to-arrive visitor who was—at this very moment—stuck at the police roadblock at one of the ends of the canyon. Or maybe the mysterious third-setting had met up with the evacuated elderly couple and they were all—even now—eating waffles and drinking coffee together at the IHOP in Agoura Hills.
I liked that thought—it also reminded me that I was hungry.
* * * *
When I came downstairs, Rhys had his nose back in the fridge, looking for something else to eat. Kieran, meanwhile, was still at the table, working on his second helping. I noticed that one of them had placed four pieces of bacon and two rubbery fried eggs on the plate at the third place setting.
“No one’s upstairs,” I confirmed, standing at the doorway.
Kieran tapped the extra plate of bacon and eggs. “Microwave doesn’t work or we’d have nuked it for you.”
“That’s okay. I can eat it cold,” I said. “But I saw a landline in the living room. I’m going to go call the cops first. When I come back, I’ll eat.”
At the fridge, a smiling Rhys suddenly pulled out a large, pink cardboard box from a bottom shelf.
“They got cake!” he cried, happy.
I quickly went over, took the cake from him, and put it back in the fridge.
“You don’t touch their cake,” I ordered. “It’s bad enough that we’re eating their breakfast.”
“But you said that we’d pay for it,” whined Rhys.
“And we will, but only because the bacon and eggs would go bad because they left it out. What’s in the fridge is a different matter.”
“But it’s cake!”
I pointed a finger at him. “Leave it alone. I’m serious.”
* * * *
When I returned to the kitchen, Rhys was sitting at the kitchen table, pouting, his arms crossed in sullen indignation. Beside him, Kieran was too busy shoving food into his mouth to care.
I walked over to the fridge and opened the door.
“Don’t worry,” barked Rhys. “I didn’t touch the stupid cake.
“It’s not the cake I’m worried about,” I said.
Kieran immediately stopped eating. He looked up at me, concern written all over his face. “What is it?”
I slowly let my eyes travel around the kitchen—from the microwave to the stove, to the clock high up over the sink, then back to the fridge.
“They’re not working,” I said, pointing. “Not one of them.”
Rhys and Kieran looked curiously around at the various appliances.
“You’re right,” said Kieran, finally. “Is the electricity out?”
I nodded.
“You didn’t get through on the landline, did you?”
“Nope. It’s not working either.”
“Do you think that the police turned off the electricity when they blocked off the canyon?” asked Rhys. “So the bad guys couldn’t use it.”
“I don’t know. But I think we should hurry up here and be on our way. We’ve still got a long walk ahead of us before we reach Agoura Hills. No matter what, there’ll have to be phones working there.”
* * * *
But—I was wrong.
When we came over that final hill and looked down upon Agoura Hills and what should have been a bustling 101 Freeway threading through it—what we saw instead was astonishing. Kieran and I just stood there, gaping—our mouths wide open in shock.
Rhys, meanwhile, began hiccupping.
The 101 was crowded—dozens upon dozens of cars and trucks, stretching for miles in either direction—but they were all stopped.
“Is it an accident?” asked Kieran.
“I don’t see anything,” I answered, looking up and down the freeway. “They just seem to be stopped.”
“This is so weird,” said Rhys. “Like those houses were weird.”
He was talking about three homes we had stopped at on our way overland—only to discover that they were all without power or occupants.
At one—near Malibou Lake (different place than Malibu) —there had been a car in the driveway, its keys in the ignition, a wallet and briefcase on the passenger seat. It was almost as if the driver had simply parked and walked off.
The second house, just off Mulholland Highway, had simply been dark and quiet. We had moved around it, knocking on windows and doors.
Nobody had answered.
The third house had been the weirdest one of them all.
Both its front and back doors had been left wide open. There was a Fed-Ex vehicle parked in the front driveway and a package sitting on the doorstep.
Meanwhile, just outside the back door of the house, a bag of groceries had been dropped on the patio. A carton of ice cream had rolled out, creating a wet circle of vanilla pecan next to an abandoned purse and a set of house keys.
Most disconcerting of all—we found no working phones at any of the houses.
* * * *
“Look at that car over there,” I said, pointing to the far side of the 101. “Over in the slow lane heading north.”
Kieran and Rhys looked up. We were slowly making our way down the hillside and they were both watching the ground, careful of where they were placing their feet among the slippery granite.
“What’s with all that stuff on top of it?” asked Rhys.
“I think it’s the Google car,” I said.
“The one that goes around and maps all the roads?”
I nodded.
“Cool,” said Rhys.
K
ieran couldn’t stop staring.
At first, I thought he was looking at the Google car. Then I realized that his eyes were on the road just below us, the one that paralleled the 101 Freeway.
“The cars aren’t moving on Agoura Road either,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of them, but it looks like they’re all stopped, too.”
The three of us stood there for a moment—just looking—studying the cars and the roads down below.
“I don’t see anyone,” I finally said. “Do you guys see anyone...anywhere?”
Kieran shook his head.
“But there have to be people in the cars on the 101, right?” said Rhys, sounding worried. “Those cars can’t all be empty.”
My eyes traveled along the 101, searching. “I can’t tell for certain. The cars are still too far away to know for sure.”
“They’re empty,” said Kieran. “They have to be.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“Because they’re silent,” he said. “The engines have all been turned off. This is Southern California. If there were people down there, they’d be outside their cars now—talking to each other and complaining about the traffic jam.”
A chill went down my spine.
Because Kieran was right.
We were looking at a freeway of dead and empty cars.
JOURNAL ENTRY #2
I’m the oldest, so I’m supposed to be the strong one, the one in charge. Which means that I’m not supposed to be scared.
But I am.
Mom and Dad are gone and we don’t know where.
We don’t know where anybody went.
We don’t know what happened.
All we do know is that everybody is gone and we’re alone and there’s no electricity and even batteries don’t work.
And now Rhys and Kieran look at me like I’m supposed to have all the answers. That I can somehow protect them in this insane new world.
Yesterday, I was just a 16-year old guy riding a wave. My life was full of promise and wonder and thoughts of the green-eyed girl I loved.
Now my life is full of fear and concern.
Green-eyed girls who didn’t even know I existed, have now taken a back seat to worries over how to protect my two brothers and the youngest, newest member of our family…the boy.
* * * *
He was standing in the center of the baseball field in Chumash Park—a large green space, just the other side of the 101 Freeway.
Fist in his mouth, tears running down his face, we could hear the boy’s sobs from where we stood on the other side of the chain-linked fence that ran along Kanan Road.
(FYI…Kanan-Dume turns into Kanan Road in the middle of the canyon.)
“What are we going to do?” asked Kieran.
“We can’t leave him there,” Rhys insisted. “He’s just a little guy.”
“Of course we can’t,” I agreed. “Come on. Let’s go get him.”
* * * *
We moved slowly toward the boy, taking our time, following the path along the cement culvert that curved around Chumash Park. When we reached the point opposite him, we stopped. Staying hidden, we scanned the park and the neighborhood around it, searching primarily for the color orange.
“Over there,” whispered Kieran.
I quickly looked to where he was pointing.
“Where?” I asked. “I don’t see anyone.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s a Tesla. Over by the high school. You see it stopped in the middle of the street?”
“So?”
“So, it’s a Tesla. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Kieran,” I said, irritated, “do you see anybody—as in people?”
He shook his head.
“Rhys?”
“Just the little guy,” said my youngest brother.
* * * *
He was tiny, fragile-looking—about 7-years old.
His skin was a porcelain-white and he had strawberry blond hair. As we walked toward him, he pulled his fist out of his mouth and tried to stop sobbing. He gulped air, hiccupping.
I nudged Rhys, teasing. “Looks like he’s one of your tribe.”
“Not funny,” Rhys frowned.
We stopped a few feet away from the kid.
“Hey, little dude,” I said in a quiet voice. “Pretty scary, isn’t it?”
He nodded—sniffling.
“Do you live near here?”
The boy turned and pointed to the townhouse complex on the far side of the park.
“Should we take him home?” asked Rhys.
Immediately, the kid began to sob again.
I squatted down on my knees in front of him. “It’s okay,” I said, patting him gently on his trembling arm. “We’re here now. You’re not alone.”
“They went away,” he hiccupped. “They were there and then they went away.”
“Who went away?” I asked.
“My mom and my dog,” he sobbed. “And my sister.”
“Do you know where they went?”
He shook his head. “They just disappeared. We were having breakfast. Then they were gone.”
I turned and looked at Kieran and Rhys. They both looked as horrified as I felt.
“And I looked everywhere,” the little boy insisted. “I called their names but they were gone. Then I came here cause maybe they were at the park.”
“But they weren’t here?”
Again, he shook his head. Tears poured out of his eyes.
“Do you know where they are?” he asked me, hopefully. “Do you know where my mom and my dog and my sister went?”
“I’m sorry, little dude,” I said, shaking my head. “This is all kind of new to us, too.”
“Is this hell?” he asked, quietly.
I smiled. “No, bud. You can breathe easy. It’s just Agoura Hills.” Standing up, I held out my hand. “Tell you what. My brothers and I will take you back to your house. We’ll help you look for your mom and sister and dog. If we can’t find them, then you’ll come with us to our house. Either way, you won’t be alone. What do you say?”
He slowly placed his little hand in mine. “Okay.”
We started walking across the park. Kieran and Rhys followed a few steps behind.
“So what’s your name, bud?” I asked.
Looking up at me, he gave a shy smile. “Ethan…I’m a twin. My sister is Lily.”
* * * *
It was eerie walking through the townhouse complex.
All those homes and not a single person anywhere.
As we moved along first one sidewalk, then another, I kept imagining orange-suited juvie boys jumping out at us, knives raised—murder in their hearts. Rhys and Kieran must have been having the same thoughts, because I noticed that they kept looking behind us, jumping at every little sound.
“Have you seen anybody else?” I asked Ethan, as we walked. “Anybody at all?”
The little boy shook his head.
“I don’t think it’s an evacuation, Jacob,” said Kieran, looking grim. “I think something else must have happened.”
“I agree.”
“What do you think it was?” asked Rhys.
“Wish I knew.”
“It’s weird, huh.”
Kieran moved up beside me, talking quietly. “Do you think that there might have been some sort of bomb—one that took all the people, but left the buildings standing? They taught us about something like that in Social Sciences.”
I shook my head. “You’re talking about a neutron bomb, I think. That didn’t happen here.”
“How do you know?”
“Look around you,” I said. “Birds chirping, insects flying around. We’re alive. Ethan’s alive. If a neutron bomb exploded, we’d all be dead, too.”
“Maybe it’s that thing in the bible that Mrs. Holly talks about all the time,” added Rhys. “She said that all the bad people would be left behind, remember—when the world ended.”
Mrs. Holly was a busy-body neighb
or who lived in the house next to ours. She was always cornering us to talk about God and her fundamentalist views on religion.
“The Book of Revelation,” said Kieran.
“That’s it,” nodded Rhys. “Mrs. Holly said that only people who were saved by Jesus would go to heaven. She said that everyone else would have to stay on earth and go through battles and diseases and stuff like that.”
“Mrs. Holly is a cranky old fart,” I told them. “I wouldn’t believe anything she said.”
“But what if we are left behind?” asked Rhys. “What then?”
Beside me, Ethan began to sniffle. I squeezed his hand.
“Don’t worry, bud,” I assured the little guy. “This isn’t the Book of Revelation.”
“How do you know?” he asked, not looking assured at all.
“Isn’t it obvious? If only the bad guys got left behind, why would we still be here? We’re the good guys, right?”
Ethan nodded.
I turned and glared at Rhys and Kieran. “Right?”
“Right,” said Rhys quickly.
Kieran shrugged. “I still think it was a bomb.”
DID ALIENS TAKE THEM AWAY?
“This is where you live with your mom and sister?” I asked.
Ethan nodded. “And Pugly…that’s my dog.”
“Let me guess,” I smiled. “Pugly’s a pug.”
“He licks his own poop.”
“Gross!” Rhys said, disgusted.
“You’ll have to excuse my little brother,” I said to Ethan. “Rhys has a weak stomach.”
Ethan reached into his pocket and pulled out a Darth Vader keychain. It had one key on it. He looked at it sadly. “I’m not supposed to take the key unless my mom says it’s okay.”
“I’m sure your mom would be all right with you taking it this time,” I told him. “In fact, I’ll bet that she’d be really proud that you remembered to lock the door up behind you when you left.”
