Nightfall

by William Woodall

  Chapter Five

  Mike scrambled backward instinctively and fell off the ledge onto the floor before catching himself. He glanced around wildly for Joey, heart pounding. The other boy was nowhere to be seen, and when Mike glanced at the spot where he’d been, he saw only a handful of gray dust sitting on the ledge.

  He forced himself to calm down, and then approached the ledge cautiously. Nothing happened when he poked the dust with a pen, and immediately a thousand questions cropped up in his mind, clamoring for answers. Was that dust all that was left of Joey? If so, was there any way to fix him? Should he bury it somewhere? He wondered crazily if Joey might want him to scatter it back home on Coca Cola Lake instead.

  At a loss for anything else to do, he quickly trotted to the Jeep to fetch an old envelope from the glove box, and then carefully collected the pile of dust inside. If that were really Joey’s remains then he needed to make sure they didn’t get lost.

  He sat down in the driver’s seat of the Jeep to wait for Cameron and Joan, still shell-shocked from the experience. How he’d explain Joey’s disappearance he couldn’t imagine, since he didn’t have the slightest shred of an explanation for it himself.

  It wasn’t quite an hour later when a sleek silver car came rolling up beside him.

  Philip and Joan Carpenter were an oddly matched couple, he couldn’t help thinking. The top of her head barely reached his chest, and they differed in other ways, too. He was blond and muscular, she was dark-haired and slight; his eyes were bright blue and hers green as beech leaves.

  He recognized Cameron from old pictures at Joey’s house, but it was jarring to see him still so young. He couldn’t possibly have been more than twenty, just like Joey had said he would be. Mike knew that it shouldn’t have surprised him, logically speaking, but then again feelings aren’t always logical. He was so used to thinking of Cam as an old middle-aged man that it was hard to accept reality at first.

  In addition to wedding bands, they both wore the matching silver rings that marked them as Avengers; ones who had sworn an oath to God to fight evil in all its forms, to the utmost of their power. Mike knew quite a bit about that particular group, since Zach had been one too.

  But he didn’t have time to notice anything else, because just then the rear door opened and another girl got out who resembled Joan so much that they could only have been sisters.

  “It’s nice to finally meet you, Mike. I’m Joan, and this is my husband Philip and my sister Annabelle. Where’s Joey?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. He disappeared,” Mike said.

  “What do you mean?” Philip asked.

  “I don’t know what happened. He was here one second, and then he screamed and vanished. I don’t know what to think,” Mike admitted.

  “Where did it happen?” Philip asked.

  “Right here, about forty-five minutes ago,” Mike said, leading them to the very spot.

  “There was nothing left behind? No other clues as to what happened?” Joan asked.

  “Nothing but a handful of gray dust. I collected it in an envelope, just in case,” Mike said.

  “There was no one else around? Nobody following you? Nothing like that?” Philip asked.

  “Not that I could tell. We were alone in the garage and he got sick all of a sudden, then screamed and vanished and left this little pile of dust behind. There was a little popping sound when he disappeared, like when you stick a needle in a balloon, and that was all. I haven’t seen him since,” Mike said.

  “I see,” Philip said, sounding just as baffled as Mike himself was.

  “I hate to say it, boys, but we all know it’s not safe to linger here too long. The NADF could show up at any time,” Joan said, and Philip nodded reluctantly.

  “You’re right, babe. I’m just worried about Joey, that’s all,” Philip said.

  “I know it. But we can’t help him if we get ourselves killed or locked up in the meantime,” Joan said.

  “Come on, then. We’ll finish talking about it in the car,” Philip said, heading back toward the Jeep.

  “Is there anything you need to take with you?” Joan asked.

  “Maybe my deer rifle and my binoculars. Nothing else that I can think of,” Mike admitted.

  “All right, then. The Jeep won’t do you much good anymore, I’m afraid; everything is powered with hydrocells now, not gas,” she said.

  “Yeah, we sort of figured that out,” Mike said dryly.

  “You might sell it to a classic car buff, I guess; it might actually be worth a good bit of money since it’s in such good condition,” Philip said.

  “How would I go about doing that? Put an ad in the paper?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, something like that. I think it’ll be all right if we leave it here in the meantime, though. We don’t have much petty crime anymore these days,” Philip said.

  “I would take anything that has your name on it if I were you, and your license plate, too. If they track down the Jeep before you can get rid of it, that’ll make it a lot harder to figure out who you are,” Joan said, and Mike nodded.

  He grabbed his title and registration papers from the glove box, and soon had the license plate off as well. Then he put everything he wanted to keep in the trunk of Philip and Joan’s car. The Jeep sat there looking forlorn and abandoned, but Mike knew it was no time to get sentimental.

  “All right, let’s go,” Philip said, and they all got back into the Carpenters’ car. Mike and Annabelle had a car seat strapped in between them in the back, which made for a tight squeeze.

  “How old is your baby?” Mike asked politely, glancing at the infant beside him.

  “Ten months. His name is Christopher, but we usually call him Chris. Don’t worry, though; he usually sleeps most of the time when he’s in the car,” Joan said.

  “I’m sorry you had to make such a long trip, but thank you, though,” Mike said.

  “That’s all right; it was kind of nice to make it back up to this neck of the woods for a little while, anyway. It’s been a couple years since we had a chance to come back and visit,” Philip said.

  “Yeah, I was born and raised here myself. Don’t think I’ve ever been more than two or three hours away from home in my whole life,” Mike said with a little laugh.

  That was a slight exaggeration, of course; he’d been to Dallas or Houston a few times, and even to Pensacola once, but those were only short-term vacations or shopping trips. He’d certainly never spent more than a few short days far from home. The idea that he was about to permanently abandon all his old haunts was kind of intimidating, actually, even though he would never have admitted such a thing.

  Thankfully, Philip and Joan seemed not to notice.

  “Yeah, I’ve been to your house a time or two. You weren’t born yet, but your father did me a favor I’ll never forget,” Philip said, which only served to remind Mike that his parents were surely dead in this time. That wasn’t something he wanted to think about too much, either.

  Philip quickly maneuvered the car out of town and back onto the freeway, headed west. For a while that made Mike uneasy since it took them directly back toward the Containment Zone, and that was the last place on earth he wanted to be. The very thought of it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  But Philip almost immediately took another exit which turned them sharply back eastward onto I-34, which hadn’t even existed in Mike’s day. He relaxed again as the Containment Zone receded into the background.

  “Everything’s so different,” he finally said.

  “What do you mean? The freeway?” Philip asked.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t here last thing I remember,” Mike said, and Philip chuckled.

  “There’ll be a lot of things like that you’ll have to get used to, I’m afraid. New roads are the least of it,” he said.

  “I feel like I don’t know anything at all,” Mike admitted.

  “You’ll lea
rn faster than you think. But in the meantime try to remember there’s no such thing as a stupid question. You need to ask about anything you don’t know, so you can learn to fit in as soon as possible,” Joan said.

  “Okay, then. Here’s my first stupid question. What exactly is the Containment Zone and why are they so determined to keep people out of it?” Mike asked.

  “Well, it’s a circle about thirty miles across, surrounded with razor wire. They’re not really as serious about keeping people out as they used to be, though I don’t doubt they’d still shoot you on sight if they caught you inside the fence. There was some kind of explosion right in the middle of Arkadelphia about a hundred years ago; a huge one. Everything was completely destroyed for miles in all directions. So they fenced it off after that and won’t let anybody inside. They rerouted all the roads to pass around it and I’ve heard they won’t even let planes fly overhead. So I guess something must still be going on in there, but your guess is as good as ours what it might be. They say it’s because of high radiation levels, but I’m not sure I really believe that,” Joan said.

  “So then what’s with the shooting trespassers on sight business, if that’s all it is? Surely that’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Mike asked. There was a brief silence at that, and then Philip cleared his throat.

  “You may find that the government here is a bit. . . harsher, than you’re used to,” he finally said.

  “What do you mean?” Mike asked.

  “I mean they don’t look kindly on people who won’t do what they’re told. They really won’t think twice about putting a bullet in your head if they think you’re a threat of any kind. Or even just a scofflaw or a troublemaker, for that matter,” Philip said.

  “But that’s. . .” Mike said, and then trailed off.

  “Unfair? Immoral? Unconstitutional, even? Are those the words you were looking for?” Philip asked.

  “Something like that,” Mike said.

  “Maybe it is. But you might be surprised what people will put up with and even applaud in the name of safety. It’s a dangerous world we live in nowadays. In North America we still have a certain amount of peace and prosperity, and most people are willing to turn a blind eye to anything it might take to guarantee those things. Lots of other places are much worse, and however much people might fear the loss of liberty, they fear the loss of security even more,” Philip said, and the disapproval was thick in his voice.

  “You have to forgive Philip; he tends to get on a soapbox about this issue whenever anybody gives him half a chance,” Joan said.

  “And so I should. It’s like Benjamin Franklin said; people who are willing to trade freedom for safety don’t deserve either one,” Philip said in righteous tones.

  “See what I mean?” Joan asked, smiling a little.

  “All right, I’ll shut up for now. To be fair, ninety-nine percent of the time you won’t even notice how heavy-handed they are,” Philip said dryly.

  “You really think they’ll come after me?” Mike asked

  “Did they actually see you inside the Containment Zone?” Philip asked.

  “Yeah, they tried to shoot us. They bombed and shot up the whole town night before last, right after we first got here,” Mike said.

  “You brought the whole town with you?” Philip asked.

  “Well, not the whole town. Only a circle about a mile and a half across,” Mike said.

  “I didn’t think the tachometer could handle anything that big,” Philip said.

  “No, neither did I. But obviously it did,” Mike said.

  “And you say they bombed the place?” Philip asked.

  “Yeah, bombed it, burned it, and killed anybody they could locate who was still alive,” Mike said.

  “Well, I’m not really surprised,” Philip sighed.

  “They saw me drive off into the woods in the Jeep. I don’t think they could see very well; it was pretty dark that night. But I’m sure they know somebody slipped the noose,” Mike said.

  “I wouldn’t doubt several people did, if they managed to run off into the woods in time or maybe hide somewhere the soldiers didn’t think to look. But I’m sure the NADF knows that, too. They might do a mop-up operation to try to get rid of the survivors or they might not bother. It’s hard to say, not knowing what their motive was,” Philip said.

  “I see,” Mike said.

  “It really just depends on how much of a threat they think you might be and how busy they are with other things, Mike. Hopefully they’ll decide you’re not worth the trouble,” Joan said.

  Somehow, that wasn’t much comfort.

  They talked about that and many other things during the long trip back to Florida. Mike had only been that way once before, on the way to Pensacola, and he’d forgotten how far it really was. He’d had far more than his fair share of sitting in the car by the time they got there, that was for sure. He also learned quite a lot about this future time he found himself in, some of it to his liking and some of it most definitely not. But at long last, after traveling more miles than he cared to think about, he finally found himself trudging up the concrete walkway in front of Philip and Joan’s place in Tampa.

  The house was a small stucco, painted a garish lemon yellow color. It looked awfully small, and when they got inside Mike soon found that that was an understatement. The house contained only three rooms; a combination living room and kitchen, a bathroom, and a single bedroom the exact size and shape of a cracker box. He wondered how three people plus a baby had ever managed to fit inside, and where they might squeeze in a fourth person he couldn’t imagine. Cramped was too mild a word for it.

  “It’s not much, I know, but you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to,” Joan said, watching him stare at the tiny living room.

  “I was just wondering about sleeping arrangements, that’s all,” Mike said guiltily, not wanting her to think he was ungrateful.

  “Annabelle sleeps on the couch, but you’re welcome to take the recliner. I’ve slept in it lots of times myself. Or we can get you an air mattress to put on the floor; that might work better,” Philip said, and Mike nodded.

  And so it was. He settled in fairly quickly, and truth to tell he didn’t mind the cramped conditions so much after he once got used to them. Philip and Joan barely had space enough to shut the bedroom door, and they had to crawl across the bed itself to reach the dresser drawer where the baby slept. Joan had padded the bottom of the drawer with quilt scraps to make him a bed, since there was no room for a crib anywhere.

  But they made do, and even seemed happy, and one day Mike asked her how that was possible, considering how tough their circumstances seemed to be. Joan only laughed.

  “Oh, Mikey; your circumstances are only as hard as you think they are. If you focus on all the things you don’t have then yeah, your life will be pretty miserable. But it doesn’t have to be that way. When Cam and I first got married, we decided to spend at least fifteen minutes before bed every night thanking God for all the things he’s blessed us with. How could we not be happy, after He’s done so much for us?” she said.

  “That sounds like something my mother would say,” Mike said.

  “Then she was a wise woman,” Joan said.

  “Yeah, I guess she was,” he agreed, playing with the silver sixpence in his pocket. He hadn’t had time or money to get another chain for it yet, but he still liked to keep it close. It was a link to memory, and he found that he needed that during those first few days and weeks. He was lonely and homesick, and then there was the nagging worry over what might have happened to Joey and whether something similar might not catch up with him sooner or later. Let alone whether or not the Defense Forces might be searching for him or what they might do if they found him. All of it together was enough to keep him tied up in knots.

  Philip and Joan both had jobs to go to during the week, he as a helper at a construction site and she as a nurse’s aide. Annabel
le had school at the University of South Florida three nights per week, but during the day she stayed home to babysit Christopher and help take care of the household chores. She never said much, but Mike had no one else to talk to and found himself telling her all kinds of things just for the sake of socializing with someone.

  So he told her about his tachyon project, and his family back in Texas, and the ranch where he grew up and anything else that came to mind. Sometimes he took out the garbage or mowed the grass or did whatever else he could think of to make himself useful, since he found it hard to sit idly by and do nothing while everybody else had work to do.

  Annabelle couldn’t drive, it turned out, and Mike himself dared not, but she did like to go walking sometimes, to get out of the house for a while and give the baby some fresh air. There was a large park only a few blocks from the house, with an artificial lake and a paved walking trail around it, and that was one of her favorite haunts when the weather was nice.

  Mike usually tagged along on these expeditions, if only for the company and the chance to see a little bit more of the future. He soon got used to the changes in music and fashion; to wearing loose and colorful clothes with dark wraparound shades, to cutting his hair differently and wearing more jewelry than he was used to and all the proper slang to use, not to mention a thousand other things. Learning how to fit in was a full-time job all by itself.

  But he didn’t mind, or not much. It kept his mind from dwelling too much on his circumstances, and that was all to the good.