by Ryan Husk
“If we were being fired at,” he said, beginning to pace, “and assuming it wasn’t just a mistake made by some trigger-happy rookie, then that roadblock is not there for our protection. It’s there for everybody else’s. By everybody else, I mean anybody outside a certain perimeter. It’s probably the first of many roadblocks, a…a series of measures meant to keep us in. Beyond that roadblock, there’s probably two or three others, terminating at some kind of wall that’s being erected.” He continued to pace. “Or a fence.”
“A wall?” asked Margery. “How is that possible? You can’t just build a wall around all of Atlanta an’ its surroundin’ suburbs an’ counties. That’s not—”
“I don’t mean the Great Wall of China, Margery. I just mean chain-link fences, probably topped by razor wire, with sandbag walls used to reinforce and hamper anyone from trying to climb over. It’s actually not that hard to do, we set them up all the time in the Iraq whenever we had to completely encompass an area we suspected of having WMDs. Never found any WMDs, o’ course, but we used this system of blockage just the same. Same basic method as when you fortify roads against flooding.” He paced a bit more. “Now, if we observe the facts, we can see that it’s probably not a biological agent that the government is worried about.”
To this, Wade nodded. “If it was, then those soldiers all would’ve been wearin’ HAZMAT uniforms, or at the very least masks.”
Edward pointed to him. “Bingo, Detective. Now, surely fallout is gonna be a concern for those soldiers, so by the end o’ the day I expect they’ll all probably have such masks, but the fact that they don’t have them right this instant says that it’s not a priority. At least, the upper echelons don’t think so yet. The soldiers were deployed to stop folks from getting out. The HAZMAT suits will come later. Mayabe.”
“So, what is it?” asked Jeb, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. “What the fuck’s goin’ on around here?”
“Jeb,” said Wade, exasperatedly. “Language.”
“Sorry,” he said, replacing the cig between his teeth.
Edward sighed. “You’ve all seen F-16s flying overhead twice now,” he said. “Gordon, Janet and I saw some flying overhead earlier. And I don’t think I’m the only one who’s noticed how low they are?”
“Fuck y—I mean, yeah,” said Jeb. “Nearly gave me a heart attack both times.”
“That means they’re scanning. But F-16s don’t usually need to fly that low for a scan, they’ve got advanced FLIR, infrared, vascular and all sorts of other scanners that can do the job from a mile up, maybe more if they’ve got the newer MOAR sensor packages. But flying low does keep them off radar. So that tells me they’re looking for something very particular, but they’re afraid of being detected by something if they fly too high.”
“Like what?” said Jeb.
“I don’t know.”
“Think maybe they’re just flyin’ low so they can scan fer terrorists? Maybe that’s all they’re worried about, yeah? I mean, they’re wonderin’ if the ones that did this could still be here, tryin’ to get out. Maybe that’s what those soldiers were shooting at us for. Just a little anxious to stop us from gettin’ out, thinkin’ maybe we’re the bad guys.”
Edward nodded. “Maybe.”
Wade was looking at him closely. “You don’t sound like you believe that.”
He considered for a moment. “There’s another piece of evidence maybe we’re overlooking, but first I need to check a hunch. Jeb, Wade, Marshall, do you guys have your cellphones on you?” They did, and each man took his out. “Colt? Greta?” The old man fished in his pockets, and the old woman went to get hers out of their Chevy. “Try to use your phones, see what you hear.”
It only took a few seconds. Marshall switched his on first, then jerked his head away from the phone like it had shocked him. A high-pitched tone emanated from it, and then abruptly ended. Marshall put the phone back to his ear, then tried dialing something. “It’s totally dead. No sound, no dial tone.” Jeb tried using his touch-screen, but it wouldn’t even activate. Colt’s phone gave the same high-pitched squeal as Marshall’s, and went dead. Greta’s wouldn’t even turn on. Wade was about to use his when Edward advised him not to.
“Leave it. Maybe switching the phones on fries them. I know that if government officials want, they can use SPECTRUM to hack into phones that are switched on, and drain the batteries fast. Leave yours off, Wade. We may be able to use it later, once we get to a safe zone.”
Wade pocketed his phone, and said, “What is it you’re working on, Ed?”
“I dunno, it’s not…” He trailed off.
“It’s not what?”
“It’s not terrorists,” he said. “I can say that much. At least, not just terrorists. It’s…it’s something else.”
“Like what?” the big biker pressed.
“Can’t say. But this is all being handled strangely. The phone lines might be jammed, and there might be interference from radiation, but all of your phones have made that exact same high-pitched sound. Reminds me of a blackout shroud. The government can use them to cause total media blackout—like in Ukraine back in 2009, when they didn’t want knowledge of the H1N1 flue pandemic going global. I think this entire region is being blanketed right now by radio saturation and targeted electronics scramblers.” He shook his head. “Most people will blame the EMP, but if it was the EMP then nothing would work. Not the cars, not the stoplights, nothing.”
“But why keep us locked in here with it?” Gordon asked. “And why keep us in the dark?”
“They’re blocking us from getting out so that we can’t talk about anything we’ve seen, or spread knowledge about it, in case we’ve come into contact with whatever it is. That’s also why the phones are being shut down, the radios scrambled.” He looked at them each of them in turn. “There’s something in here with us, and they don’t want it out. They don’t even want knowledge of it getting out. They’re hunting for it. And here’s what bugs me. If those soldiers that fired on us weren’t just a bunch o’ rookies overreacting, if they were following orders to shoot any suspicious persons, it suggests that they don’t know what they’re looking for, either.”
They fell into silence.
Finally, Gordon shook his head. “I dunno, Edward. Sounds overblown to me. Tensions were probably just high, those guys were probably shooting because they’re on edge, been dealing with civilians shouting at them all day, driving through their roadblock—”
“The blackout is the key, Gord-O,” he said.
Gordon sighed. “Would you please stop calling me that? It’s very condes—”
“Why create a blackout? Why? Name me one good reason.”
Gordon snorted. “Maybe, I dunno…maybe it’s like a telephone bomber, right? Like when a terrorist uses a cellphone, dials a number and sets off a bomb miles away. Like that. Maybe they’re afraid the guy who dialed the number to activate this bomb might still be in here with us, and might be trying to dial the number to another series of bombs—”
“Gordon, there’s about a dozen things wrong with that, most of which have to do with basic bomb-making logistics—”
“Oh, and you know allllllll about those, don’t you?”
“As it happens, I do. But one of the problems with your theory is a problem with basic logic. If a terrorist could detonate a bomb this size from miles away, then what the hell is he doing this close to it in the first place? If he’s really that sophisticated that he could just dial it up with a phone, then he could’ve detonated this thing from Hawaii. He could’ve made a collect call from Aruba.”
“Well, okay, Mr. Expert, then tell us all what it is we’re locked in here with!”
“I don’t know,” said Edward.
“Then this is just scaring us needlessly. You’re scaring Janet and you’re scaring—”
“Honestly, Gord-O, if I’m a little rattled, then you ought to be a little rattled.”
“Why’s that?”
“Becau
se I planned for a lot—I planned for water, I planned for the rush on stores and medical supplies, I planned on beating the traffic, I planned on having at least two fallback spots if this kind of thing ever happened—but what I didn’t plan for was my government enacting a total blackout on its own people, and shooting at those that tried to get outside quarantine zones! Hell, I knew they’d have roadblocks set up for those with radiation sickness, and in case of a biological attack and infection, but shooting at us?”
“Aliens.” Everyone turned to look at Colt O’Hare. So far, the older gentleman had kept his mouth shut for the entire discussion, he and his wife just darting their heads between those speaking, as if they were trying to follow a tennis match. Presently, the old-timer looked a little defensive. Seeing all eyes on him had perhaps done that. “Oh, like you all aren’t thinking it? You’re all trying to forget the Face, like it never happened.”
“Don’t think it’s aliens, friend,” said Wade.
“Well, what else is it? Ed here makes a strong case for it not being terrorists. And if it isn’t a biological agent, then what is it?”
“Aliens?” said Janet. “Are we, like, seriously talking about aliens?”
“No,” said Edward, turning back to Marshall. “Nobody’s talking about aliens. Marshall, you found us another path yet?”
“Well, like I said, I’m pretty sure this is us right here.” Marshall ran a finger along the map. “If we head east, the road plum stops. Dead end. If we head west, though, it looks like it connects with Orson’s Road, and if we follow that north, we come to La Grange Road. If we turn west here, we’ll be wide open on Joe Frank Harris Parkway—”
Edward was already shaking his head. “JFH Parkway goes right into Highway 41, they’ll know about it, it’ll be blocked.”
“But maybe they haven’t set up adequately,” said Wade, leaning against the Wrangler’s hood, looking over the map. “Maybe this wall you mentioned hasn’t been sufficiently established?”
“We can’t take that chance, Detective. We need a guaranteed way around, and I know that area is already clogged, and that it’ll be blockaded.”
Wade stroked his great red mane. “Wait a minute…wait a minute…I know of a farm.”
“What farm?” Edward said, eager to latch on to any hope.
“Before I retired, I worked a security detail out that way. There’s a farm where they bring the Budweiser Clydesdales. Ya know, the horses they use in parades and in commercials sometimes?” He ran a greasy finger up a trail that looked like a tortured snake, and tapped a large blank spot with a grease-covered fingernail. “Madison Farm. That’s it. They train the horses there, have acres an’ acres o’ land, an’ a mock racetrack in the back for runnin’ a few competition horses. We used to get calls out there a lot. The owner, he’s…well, let’s just say the man an’ a few pals of his like to hole themselves up in there on the weekends while they tie a few off.”
“Roads?”
“Lots o’ private roads through the area. But eventually we’ll have to cut through some old trails, maybe the woods on the perimeter. But the land covers somethin’ like four hundred square acres, so that’ll get us through five or six miles, well around any roadblocks in this area.”
“All right, I’ll take it,” Edward said, pointing at the biker. “Wade, you and Marshall take the lead. The rest of us will follow behind. Anybody needs to stop, here’s the signal we hold up.” He made a simple fist. “If we need to warn each other about something we see, we do this.” He opened his hand, waved it in a big, circular motion. “Colt, Greta, how’re you guys on gas?”
“Over half a tank,” Colt answered.
“Good, that oughtta do us. Uh, what else…what am I forgetting…?” He closed his eyes, thought for a second, snapped his fingers. “Janet, your blood-sugar. I saw you shaking—”
“I’m okay, but I might need another injection here in a minute. The more nervous I get, the more—”
“Right.” Edward sighed. “Just relax. I think we may be doing all right, especially if Wade’s plan comes—” He stopped talking, listened. There was a noise, like a voice coming from a radio. “Anybody hear that?”
They all stopped and listened. The voice was faint, but definitely coming through a static-filled transmission. “…anybody out there…identify GA-WK-one…”
Gordon stepped to the back of the jeep. “Edward, it’s your ham.”
*
Wade looked at him. “Why would the ham be working, but not our phones?”
Edward didn’t bother answering him. He jogged to the back of his jeep, opened the door, took the radio mic off its hook, and held it to his mouth. “This is GA-WK-one, broadcasting outta Bartow County, Georgia. Who is this, over?” Static, but a few words were definitely somewhere in that snowstorm. Janet watched hopefully as Edward made a slight adjustment to the dial. “Say again, over.” A few seconds went by. Nothing.
Then, all at once, a crystal clear transmission. “…hearing us now? Come back, GA-WK-one. We read you. Can you read us? Over.”
Edward sighed, and fought back hope. It wouldn’t do to get too jubilant now. “This is GA-WK-one. My name is…is Steven.” The others looked a question at Edward. “Say name and location, friend. Over.”
A pause. Then there came a fellow with an unmistakable Northern accent. “This is Paul Edison, I’m over here in Canton. How’s it going? Over.”
“Not bad, Paul. We just barely made it outta the blast zone when it all went kablooey. We made it up here to Bartow, but all the roads are closed. Are you seeing the same thing in Canton? Over.”
“Yeah, Steven. We’re seeing the same thing. Lots of roadblocks all over the place. What’s your exact location? How are you getting around? Maybe we can help each other out. Over.”
Edward was about to press the send button with his thumb, then hesitated. He thought for a second, then transmitted, “Uh, we’re actually stuck in traffic right now, Paul. You know where the CVS Pharmacy is on Huffington Road? That’s where we’re at. Plum trapped, man, no way out. What about you? Any ways outta Cherokee County? Over.” Edward looked at Wade and the others, and they all just stared back at him.
Another moment. Finally, “Uh, that’s a negative, Stevie. No real way out of this joint. Not many ways of communicating, either. Cellphones are out, I’m sure you’ve noticed. Is that why you’re using the ham? Probably got one of the newer ones, huh, with the radiation-hardening casings and signal boosters? Have you contacted many other people using it? Over.”
Edward stared at the map on the Wrangler’s hood. His tongue touched the roof of his mouth, moved slowly over his teeth. He looked at Wade, who nodded knowingly. Edward looked at Janet. “Janet, you follow your school’s sports?”
She shrugged. “Somewhat, yeah?”
“Who won the last game between your school’s football team and Canton’s?”
“Why?”
“Just tell me.”
The young girl blinked a few times. “The Warriors, I think. Yeah, the Warriors beat the Hurricanes by, like, a lot. They have an awesome football team. Least, that’s what I hear everybody say. The quarterback has, like, a rocket for an arm—”
“What’s the quarterback’s name?”
A few more blinks. “Tyrone…something. Tyrone Breithaupt.” Jesse was actually the one who followed sports the most, and she had listened to him go on about it.
Edward hit the send button, and said, “Not many people, no. We’re actually in dire straits out here. Feel like we’ve been whooped at every turn, like when our Cartersville boys put a beatin’ on your Warriors. I guess you remember that one, right? That quarterback Jefferson, he sucks big time! Heh! When are you boys gonna get a guy with a decent arm? Over.”
They all waited in silence.
The reply came promptly. “Yeah, well, what can you do? I don’t really follow local sports too much, but yeah, I’ve heard he sucks. Listen, can you describe the members of your party? Who’s all with you? We m
ight be able to help you reach some relatives or loved ones. Over.”
Edward looked at the assembled adults. “Anybody know the name of the last mayor of Canton?”
Everyone looked dumbfounded, all except for Colt, who answered at once, as though it was common knowledge. “Gene Hobgood.”
Edward pressed the button. “Uh, there’s five of us, Paul. We’re about to see if we can’t take Umber Road, see where that takes us. Three women, two men, including me. But I’ve got one guy here saying that he heard a rumor from somebody that we’re to report or turn ourselves in at the nearest roadblock. Izzat right? That citizens are supposed to report to the roadblocks an’ submit themselves to, like, some kind of a test screening? He said he heard the last Canton mayor Tyrone Breithaupt on the radio just before it went out, or somethin’, said that Breithaupt was talkin’ with the current mayor, an’ they both said that it was best to report in to the roadblocks. Can you confirm that? If so, we need to get ourselves right over to a roadblock ASAP. Maybe you should, too. Over.”
There was a long, long silence. Edward looked between his assembled group, and all of them just looked right back at him. All of them seemed to understand the implications here, except for Gordon and Janet, both of whom just looked at him with mouths slightly parted, the unasked questions waiting in their throat.
When Paul Edison finally came back, he said, “Uh, actually Steven, we’ve heard the same. We were actually thinking of doing the same. Might be the best thing to do, considering. One of our people here just returned from a roadblock, said that there was an inoculation tent or something. Nothing serious, just a check-up. I’m probably about to head out myself. If you go that route, which roadblock do you think you’ll head for? Over.”
Edward sighed heavily, and lowered his head. Then, he dropped the mic and stepped away. He felt the laughter rising inside of him, and when it came, it felt justified. He shook his head, then shouted angrily, “Son of a bitch!” The others just watched him. Finally, Edward turned back to his radio, lifted the mic from where it swung by its cord, and said, “Who are you?” No answer. “Did you hear me? Who are you really?”
