Page 9 of The Midnight Hour
Daniel knows what he means.Are they dead? “I don’t know that they were affected by the bombs themselves,” he replies carefully, “but everyone has been affected now, Sam. No water, no electricity, no internet, no government…” He trails off, too tired to go on.
“No government? For real?” Again Sam’s voice lilts a little with something like interest, making Daniel grit his teeth.
“As far as I can tell. There are roving gangs, homegrown militias, that sort of thing. I saw some redneck guys with AR-10s and a lot of camo gear holed up in a Walmart.” He lets out a huff of laughter even though nothing about it is funny. Maybe Sam has the right attitude, he thinks. Maybe the only way to survive is to view this new world as a video game. Unfortunately, in this version, you only have one life. There’s no reboot to reality.
“Someone told me the army tried to take control early on,” he continues, “but there just wasn’t the will. We’ve got out of the habit of sacrificing ourselves for a greater good no one seems to believe in anymore.” He thinks of the years, decades, of disaffection with government, with religion, with any kind of authority.This is where they have all ended up, and he’s not sure how they’re going to get out of it.
Then he recalls Tom and his family who he met outside Utica, their quiet faith and kindness, and he wonders if he might be able to stop by and see them again. Show them he managed to find his son, after all. The thought of such a reunion almost makes him smile.
“Wow,” Sam breathes, sounding awed. “The whole military just…bailed?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly,” Daniel backtracks as he accepts the near limitless extent of his ignorance. “Probably some died attempting to contain the blast zones, or help people affected. And others could be mobilizing somewhere else, away from the radiation. All my news has been very much local.” And very, very limited. “But,” he adds, by the way of agreement, “it’s all been pretty crazy and intense.” He keeps his voice mild, hating that, now that he has finally found Sam, he is struggling with some weird kind of resentment. What iswrongwith him? Sam is nineteen years old, has been isolated on a college campus for the last three and a half weeks. He can’t possibly grasp the enormity of what has happened, or what it means, and Daniel is glad of that. Of course he is.
A sudden change in the static from the radio has them bothjumping this time, and then they still as a voice comes on, in the middle of a speech: “…in affected areas, windows and doors should remain closed and individuals should only go outside if it is absolutely necessary. Electricity and running water will be re-established as soon as possible in all areas outside of a ten-mile radius of the blast zones. The government is also working on restoring infrastructure for telephone and internet services across the country. Martial law remains in effect, with no one to be outside after sevenp.m. at night, but fresh water, food supplies, and medical aid are available between ninea.m. and fivep.m. in the followinglocations: US army base at Fort Drum, US air force base in West Leyden, Elihu Root Army Reserve Center in Utica…” The list goes on, a monotone drone, of places in central and upstate New York.
At the end of the list, the announcement starts again: “This is an announcement regarding the recent nuclear detonations across the United States of America. This announcement serves all areas in central and upstate New York…” Daniel realizes it’s a recording played on a loop.
“That’s good,” Sam says as he turns down the volume on the recording. “There’s some organization happening, at least, right? It’s not as bad as you thought.”
“I guess,” Daniel replies. He wants to be heartened by what they just heard, but he feels numb. “We can stop by the one in Utica,” he tells Sam. “Get some supplies.” A flicker of hope licks through him, a forgotten feeling. Maybe the journey back will be easier than getting to Sam was. Four weeks on, the government is finally getting its act together, offering services and aid. They can stock up on food and fresh water, maybe even gas. Maybe they can drive all the way back to the bridge, at least, before they have to find a way across. Maybe, he thinks, the bridge will even be open; he hopes Sam thought to bring his passport. His mind races with possibility, with the tantalizing prospect of things being normal, even easy, or at least easier.
Another voice, a woman’s, ragged and pleading, suddenly comes on the radio, staticky and panicked. “Can someone please help? My daughter has been shot and I’m scared she’s going to die. I’m at 1401 Taylor Avenue in Utica…please, anyone…if you have medical supplies, any training, anything, please…” The woman’s voice chokes.
“1401 Taylor Avenue,” Sam repeats, lurching upright. “Dad, we have to go.”
To his shame, Daniel hesitates. They’re at least ten miles away from Utica.
“Dad,” Sam says again, insistent now, as well as shocked. “We have to go. We have to help, if we can. Someone’s beenshot.”
“We can…swing by, I guess,” Daniel says, wishing he wasn’t so reluctant, but he is desperate to get back to Alex, to Ruby and Mattie. He wants his son, his whole family, safe, and driving into the center of Utica, which he strongly suspects is crawling with homegrown militias and wild-eyed gangs, to help a stranger who has been shot is not on his agenda. But neither is the look of shocked disappointment in his son’s eyes.
“Okay,” he says, relenting. “We can try to find it. We don’t have GPS, and I don’t know Utica.”
Almost as if the woman on the radio heard him she restarts, her voice sounding stronger. “Please, if someone can help my daughter…I’m on Taylor Avenue, near the intersection with Square Street, across from the St.Agnes Cemetery. Someone, please…”
“We can find that,” Sam says with far more confidence than Daniel feels.
“Sam…” he begins, but he doesn’t know how to explain all he is afraid of, has already experienced—the barricaded roads, the roving militias and gangs, the violence everywhere, like a ripcord has been pulled on humanity’s savagery, and there’s no stuffing it back in.
And, he discovers ten seconds later, he doesn’t have to explain, because they experience it themselves. The windshield shatters without warning, sending a shower of cubes of safety glass over them. Daniel careens off the road, the SUV lurching wildly from side to side as he realizes they—whoevertheyis—must have shot out the windows. Thank God neither of them was hit. Sam is holding on to the door handle, pale, wild-eyed, his mouth gaping in shock.
The car screeches to a stop, but before Daniel can evendraw a breath his door is wrenched open, and he feels the cold kiss of a rifle muzzle against his temple.
“Get out of the car,” a voice growls.
FIVE
ALEX
As the sun rises on the second day in Kawartha, I steal down to the water’s edge again, savoring a moment’s peace and solitude, although my heart is still heavy, like a leaden weight inside of me. So much has happened in such a short space of time that it’s all still hitting me in waves of shock—the attack, the deaths, the loss of my childhood home and the life we’d built there for ourselves in the wake of the holocaust.
I think of the greenhouse that was Ruby’s pride and joy, the smokehouse Justine helped us build, the strawberries Mattie and I picked, the ersatz coffee Kerry and I made from cleavers, the beaver I forced myself to gut and skin for meat…so many ways in which we rose to the challenges, and, like Mattie had wryly said,thrived. But it’s all gone now.
The cottage is nothing but ruins and ash; I burned it down myself, rather than let those redneck thugs take it for themselves. I spent every summer of my childhood at that cottage—running barefoot to the beach, diving deep beneath the water, lying flat on my back on the deck as I gazed up at a sky full of stars. People say no one can take your memories from you, but, in a way, they can.
Already I feel them blurring at the edges, fading the way old photographs do, to a washed-out sepia so the images are barely there. When I think of the wilderness girl I was back then, with bramble scratches on my arms and strawberry stains on my chin, she seems like a ghost, or a character from a story. I reclaimed her a little, over the last few months, because I had to, but she’s gone now, just like the cottage, and this person in her place is hard-faced and flinty-eyed. I don’t like her much, but maybe it’s who I need to be, because, rather than waste time thinking about the past and whatwas, I need to concern myself with the future and what is—or could be.
I sit back on my heels as I gaze at the stream tumbling and splashing over rocks, a stand of slender birches on the other side of the water, and think about the journey we are going to have to make. Two hundred and fifty miles, give or take a few, to the military base fifty miles south of Buffalo, only just out of a potential blast zone, a fact that makes me both cautious and anxious. We’ll have to cross Lake Ontario, thirty miles of open water, and we don’t even have a boat. I can’t imagine it’s all that easy to stroll up to a marina and jump in a motorboat just waiting for us.
