To me, it looked like black-and-white footage of the sky before dawn. But I knew it was at least eight a.m. Maybe ten.
“We’re not seeing much,” Niko said. “Are
“It’s dark,” Jake said. “But I can see. I don’t want to turn on a flashlight because I feel like it would attract attention. But I’ll tell you, it’s darker than I expected out here.”
So now we knew something. It was darker out there than we were expecting.
The image jounced with his footsteps. We could see faint spots of color and different areas of grayness, but we couldn’t make out anything.
“I’m in the parking lot. The cars are still here from the storm. They’re all beat to heck. Check this out.”
He brought his torso close to a car. In the light reflected from the walkie-talkie, we got a close-up of the surface of the car. It looked rough and pitted. Wafers of paint sat atop the rusty, flaky surface.
“I think the compounds are eating away at the metal.…”
We could tell he started walking again by the loping bounce of the image.
“Just picking up the pace a bit,” Jake said. “My eyes have sort of adjusted out here. Don’t want to waste any time.”
According to the route we had all worked out, Jake was now heading through the parking lot and across Old Denver Highway. He had maybe a quarter of a mile to go to reach I-25.
Just past it, on the other side of Struthers Road, was the Lewis-Palmer Regional Hospital.
“Okay, now. I can see the highway,” Jake said. “There’s lights, actually.”
“Oh my God!” Josie said, excited.
Alex came running back.
His face was red, fresh-scrubbed, and he wore new clothes.
“Did I miss anything?” he asked us. He went right to the walkie-talkie and took his place in front of it.
“He’s walking through the parking lot,” Niko said. “There’s lights near the highway.”
On the screen we could see circles of light, the size of a Tic Tac, bouncing in the distance.
“There’s the lights!” shouted Henry.
Jake’s footfalls sped up for a moment, and then they slowed.
Suddenly, the image went black.
“Someone’s coming,” he whispered.
“What’s happening?” Chloe said. “Why can’t we see?”
“I think he’s crouching down,” I said.
We waited.
“Ask him if he’s okay,” Alex said to Niko.
“No,” Niko said. “If he’s in danger, they could hear the sound from his earpiece.”
Finally Jake spoke.
“They’re gone,” he said.
“Who was it?” Niko asked. “Could you tell?”
“It was two people. Walking together. They have suitcases. The rolling kind.”
Two postapocalyptic nomads with rolling suitcases. Surreal.
“They were all bundled up so I couldn’t see if they were women or men or anything.”
“Jesus,” Josie moaned. She looked stricken. “They could be anybody.”
It was true. They could be people we knew. But Jake couldn’t stop them and ask them. They might rob him or kill him or God knows what.
But they could have been people we knew (and loved).
Like our parents.
I looked behind me and caught sight of Astrid. I guess she’d left Brayden in Sahalia’s care.
Astrid was sitting cross-legged on the floor at the back of the group. Luna had her head in Astrid’s lap and Astrid was rubbing the old dog’s head absentmindedly.
On the screen, the lights got steadily bigger. Every few moments they would dip or blink off, as Jake’s motions took his torso away from them, but then they would come back.
“The ground’s real boggy,” Jake said. “The plants are all dead and everything is, like, rotting.”
He slowed.
We could hear his breathing, amplified by the face mask he was wearing.
We all shifted in our seats. Caroline and Henry were gripped on to each other like they were a life raft.
“Here’s what I’m seeing,” Jake whispered to us. “The highway is mostly clear. There are cars every once in a while, but at least one lane is clear. There are some kind of military-looking lights at the side of the road in intervals of, I don’t know, fifty yards apart, maybe.
“There are lots of cars pulled off on the sides. Looks like they’ve broken down, but I can’t tell how long they’ve been there. Could be from the hail, or more recent. The road’s in bad shape. The quake broke it up in places. The quake broke everything up.”
Jake’s breaths were rhythmic and steady. It seemed too intimate a thing, to listen to his breathing like that.
And then it grew faster.
“Just… picking up… the pace a bit…,” he said, slightly breathless. “Hard to breathe in this thing.”
There were a few streetlights on, which was somehow surprising to me.
“Okay,” Jake said. “Just a nice stroll on a nice quiet street.” His voice was nervous.
“The streetlights are on?” Niko asked into the walkie-talkie.
“Yeah, and I’ve got the gun out. Just in case anyone’s watching me.”
Jake walked in the darkness, for what seemed like forever.
The kids ate their popcorn and I wanted to shush them, but I couldn’t even spare the breath.
Jake approached the hospital.
“It’s not looking good,” he said quietly. “It’s dark. No lights anywhere.”
We saw a ghost of a building, windows crashed out.
“The hospital’s dead,” Jake said. “There’s nobody here.”
“Shoot.” Niko dropped his head into his hands. “What are we going to do?”
On the screen, the walls of the hospital seemed to be fluttering, moving.
“What are we seeing?” Alex asked into the walkie-talkie, taking it over from Niko.
“There’s flyers up. Letters, notes, pictures,” Jake said.
He drew close so we could see.
A flyer of a photo of a middle-aged man: “Missing, Mark Bintner. Last seen on Mount Herman Road.”
“Have you seen my daughter?” A photo of a pretty blond toddler.
A hastily scribbled note: “Grandma, I’m still alive! Going to Denver.”
“Everyone’s gone,” Jake said as he continued to scan over the flyers.
There were multiple flyers saying the same thing: ALL SURVIVORS GO TO DENVER TO BE AIRLIFTED TO ALASKA. DEPARTURES EVERY 5 DAYS ON THE FIVES.
“Every five days on the fives,” I said.
“What day is it?” Josie murmured.
“It’s the twenty-eighth,” Niko answered grimly.
There was a photo of a girl in a prom dress.
A photocopy showing someone’s grandmother.
A picture of a woman taped to a paper: “Anne Marie, Find me at DIA!—Lou”
And there, our Christmas card.
“Stop!” I screamed. “Tell him to go back. That’s our Christmas card! That’s our Christmas card!”
Niko told Jake to go back and he found the card.
My mother, my father, Alex, and me.
Standing in front of our house.
Smiling, waving.
