Radio Silence - Part 12

“Now this is more like it,” Joe said out loud, though quietly. He glanced quickly into a field, and then away again. It wasn’t something he wanted to have etched in his memory, but he could tell, even from the quick look, that the large pile in the middle of the field was bodies. Bodies that had, thankfully, been burned into something only vaguely recognizable as human. “This is what I thought it would be like. The end of the world. The apocalypse. It would be me, and…well, just me. Me and cars that are full of people still, even now.” He shuddered. “People that died as they were driving.” He said, as if he were explaining the situation to someone else that had no idea. He gave a wide berth to just such a car that had swerved off the edge of the road into the wide ditch at the side that bordered the wood and barbed wire fence that surrounded the dry, dead grass field. The back end of the car was sticking up in the air, its wheels off the ground. He was about to snake around the trunk when a thought occurred to him and he stopped. He pounded the trunk with a fist and then tried to pull it open. He grunted. It didn’t budge.

“Dammit,” he said, with another slam of his hand against the once bright red of the car that had now dulled to the colour of brick. He skidded down the embankment into the ditch, feeling little stones through the soles of his shoes. He opened the driver's side door. What used to be a woman, Joe gathered from the clothes now hanging from nearly skeletal remains, was face first in the deflated airbag. He averted his eyes, and reached down below the steering wheel to pull on the latch that opened the trunk. He heard the familiar pop of the trunk releasing, and pulled himself back up the ditch with the help of straggly thick weeds. He glanced in the back seat of the car, like he did with all cars that he passed. There wasn’t anything except a discarded coffee cup, a paperback that had fallen into the footwell and one of those Garfield toys that you could stick onto the window with suction cups on each foot. He grabbed onto the door handle to give him one last push up and stumbled back onto the road.

He pushed the trunk up, his heart hammering in his chest from the exertion and also from the anticipation of what might be inside. He coughed at the stench.

There were bags of groceries that had turned rotten months ago. A loaf of bread had turned a hideous colour of blue black, and looked as if it was trying to grow a new loaf.

Behind the bags was a large golf umbrella and a couple of folding chairs. Nothing useful. He was about to close the trunk when he saw something against the side. It was rolled up and tied with straps, in brown camouflage. He picked it up and undid the velcro strap, unrolling the fabric. It was a line of hunting knives, all neatly spaced in a row. “This could come in handy,” he muttered as he grabbed a small knife, and rolled the others back up. He stuck the small one he’d removed in his belt. “You never know when it’ll come in handy.”

Even though he was alone, it helped to talk out loud. It helped with the quiet, with the monotony. Yeah, he might look crazy, but who cared? There was no one around to care. He smiled at the thought. “Who cares if I might be crazy!” He shouted upwards to the eternally slate grey sky. He hadn’t seen the sun in months, not even as a blurry watery glow shining through layers of cloud. Or ash or whatever the sky was made of now.

He adjusted his backpack. He’d wished he’d packed another pair of shoes, not just extra clothes. He could already feel the pavement through the sole of his left shoe. That’s what walking god knows how many miles will get you, he thought bitterly. He zipped up his jacket as he saw a single snowflake drift slowly down in front of him and disappear the instant it hit the asphalt. He shook his head, not quite believing. Snow? In… he stopped walking. When was it? What month? He didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. He opened up his backpack, and after some searching pulled out a notebook that had seen better days, frayed to downy softness at the edges.

He opened it up to the most recent page that was filled with black lines, one representing each day. Like what people in prison movies scrawl on the walls of their cells to count the days, months, years of imprisonment. The small lines did look like little bars of iron in a cell, Joe thought, and each slash through them to indicate five days was like an extra bar of security. The page was half filled with clusters of four bars secured with a fifth across it. He paused, in the middle of the road, and counted, calculating. May? Was it May? Or close to that. Maybe it was April, or even June. He hadn’t started keeping track of the days in the beginning. He didn’t have any reason to. His phone had worked back then, and it had a calendar. He still kept it. He couldn’t throw it away, no matter how much he knew that it was now just a chunk of plastic and electronics.

The single snowflake had gained some friends, and now small dainty flakes were falling all around him but perishing the moment they touched the black pavement. He dug in his bag for some gloves, and pulled them on, sighing when some of his fingers poked through the tips of them. Something was better than nothing, he reasoned. He turned and looked back the way he had come. A long empty stretch of road, with cars dotted here and there. The road went up in a hill and then disappeared from view about a mile or so away. He looked down at the road. He was walking right on top of the central yellow line that divided the lanes.

“I’m like Dorothy,” he said, out loud again, to himself. “Walking the yellow brick road. All I need is a tin man and cowardly lion.”

He looked around, trying to avoid looking at the bodies in cars, and the odd person on the road for whatever reason. He saw a large crow, perched on one of the fence posts, looking at him sideways, watching. He paused in front of it. It ruffled its feathers, puffing itself up, but didn’t fly away, just kept staring at him with its beady dark eye. “Are you my Toto?” Joe asked it.

The bird squawked at him once and fluttered to the trunk of the car he’d just taken the knives from.

“Not my Toto, then,” Joe said, continuing onwards. The black of the road was slowly turning white as the snow became thicker and fluffier.

It looked like the sky had come down to the ground, and surrounded him like a dome. The sky was a uniform white all the way to the horizon.

“I’m trapped in a planet sized snow globe,” Joe said, laughing at the absurd image that popped into his head. The most boring snow globe ever if all it was was this road surrounded by fields full of corpses, stopped and broken down cars and a single person walking his own personal yellow brick road to…he didn’t know where exactly, but he doubted it was the Emerald city.

Up ahead, on the opposite side of the road, a structure hulked in the falling snow, like a monster waiting to pounce. It was a small barn. Beyond it, Joe could just make out the shape of a large, rambling farmhouse, almost obscured by the snow.

He was getting cold. And he was tired. He’d been walking for hours. He veered off the yellow brick road and headed towards the house. By the time he reached the front door, his shoes were caked with snow. Out of habit he raised his hand to knock and then stopped himself. What are the chances? He wondered. Then thought about what might happen if he was wrong and just barged into a house with people in it. These people were farmers. They most likely had guns. He knocked loudly and waited.

~*~

Despite the downstairs of the house being empty, Joe was still cautious. He stood at the base of the tall wood staircase. “Hello?” he shouted up. “Anyone up there? Anyone with guns? If there are, I’m not armed,” he said, not thinking of the small knife in his belt, nor the others tucked securely in his backpack as being any kind of weapon up against firearms.

He took a step, stomping down loudly just in case anyone was upstairs and missed his speech. “If anyone is up there, I’m coming up. I’m just passing through. It’s snowing out and I’m cold and tired and thought maybe I could stay here for a bit. Just take a nap, and change my clothes, and then I’ll be on my way again.”

Silence greeted him. He took the rest of the stairs normally. When he reached the upper landing he removed the small knife from his belt. Somehow that made him feel a little calmer, a little less anxious. Not that it could help him much against any gun toting psychos or any crazy person with a baseball bat. He held it out in front of him, as if it were a flashlight and he was in the dark. He swung it back and forth in a sweeping motion.

“Hello? Anyone?” If he was telling himself the truth, he was disappointed there wasn’t anyone that jumped out of a room pointing a gun at him, or running towards him maniacally swinging a baseball bat. At least that would mean there were still other people. He glanced into the first room. It was a small bedroom, messy, its duvet thrown in a messy heap on top of the bed. The second door he came to was a narrow washroom. The one at the end of the hall was the master bedroom. Large and drafty, with two small windows whose curtains tied back with small ropes showed nothing but whiteness, as if he wasn’t looking outside but just at white sheets hanging up.

The room was neat and tidy, unlike the first. But just as empty as the others. He left and headed to the last room on the upper floor.

It was another bedroom, tidier than the first one. But that wasn’t what caught Joe’s eye. Sitting on the bed which faced the door, sat Melanie, with her knees bent up tightly to her chest, a large knife gripped tightly in her hand. She stared at him, her mouth dropping open in surprise. He saw her clench her knife more tightly in her fist.

“Mel-,” Joe stuttered. “Melanie? Is that you?”

She slid her legs out and moved to the edge of the bed, not speaking.

“Why didn’t you answer the door when I knocked? Why didn’t you say anything when I came up the stairs?”

“I told you I didn’t want to talk to you again. Or see you. Ever again. And I meant that.”

Joe put up his hands, still holding his knife.

Melanie’s eyes narrowed at him. “I thought you said you weren’t armed?”

“What?” Joe caught sight of his knife and he lowered it. “Oh. Well, I don’t consider a knife to be any sort of match against someone with a gun, that’s all.”

Melanie glared at him again.

Joe slid the knife back in his belt. “Happy?”

“No. I thought I’d never see you again, and I was happy about that.”

Joe sighed. “Okay, I get that. But can I just ask, how long have you been here? And how did you get here before me?”

“I said I don’t want to talk to you,” Melanie said, pushing herself up off the bed. She held her knife low, down by her hip.

Joe sighed again. “Okay fine. Well, can I at least just go lie down and get some sleep? I’ve been walking for hours out there, and its cold and snowing.”

Melanie did one of her now trademark shrugs.

“And can I be sure you won’t try and stab me in my sleep?” Joe said, the hint of a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth.

Melanie’s blue eyes turned steely. “No.”

Joe’s smile faded. I deserve that, he thought. And then said so. “Okay, well, I’ll just go to the room across the hall then and get some sleep and maybe eat something. Is there any food in this place?”

Melanie was not forthcoming.

“Well, as soon as I do that, I’ll be out of your hair again and leave you to your happy life playing farmer.”

Melanie didn’t respond, except to take a step forward, raising her knife menacingly.

Joe took the hint and left, backing up slowly and keeping his hands raised, as if trying to calm down a vicious dog.

He went to the small room and shut the door. And then went to the window and looked out. There was a section of roof jutting out just below the window, leading to the gutter and then a drop to the ground. “Good,” He said quietly. “An escape route.”

And then he crawled under the jumble of duvet and sheets and pulled them around him. It had been a while since he had slept in an actual bed. He didn’t even have time to think anymore of Melanie being in the next room with a knife and a grudge before he had fallen fast asleep.

Joe sat up with a start, his heart thudding and filling his ears so he could hear nothing clearly except his heartbeat. What was that? He’d heard something. Was it just a dream? He untangled himself from the covers and the first thing he did was go to the window and look out. Old habits died hard. Outside he could see nothing but a blank slate of white.

He picked up his backpack which he’d laid next to the bed and put it on, before tiptoeing toward the door. Like in the movies he leaned against the door and pressed an ear against it, trying to listen past his heart in his ears.

~*~

He pressed his ear against the door, listening hard. He heard a shout, then the unmistakable sound of gunfire. His heart pounded. He waited, listening. Then he heard the shout again, followed a few seconds later by another gunshot. It was Melanie. Slowly he opened the door and peered out. "Melanie?" he said softly, just to confirm his suspicions. There was no answer from the room across the hall. Slowly he moved down the hallway, creeping like a burglar must. He stood at the top of the stairs, waiting, hesitant. He heard Melanie again, this time her voice was clearer. "Hey!" she shouted. "Why don't you die, you bastard!" At that Joe ran down the stairs so quickly he almost tripped at the end and went sprawling into the railing at the bottom where the staircase turned to deposit you in the hall.

"Melanie?" he said, a little louder. But her voice sounded too far away. She couldn't hear him. It sounded like it was coming from the back of the house.

He moved through the spacious kitchen toward the back door. He opened it. At first he saw nothing but utter whiteness and for an irrational split second had thought he'd suddenly gone blind - a strange sort of blind where you saw white, not darkness. The snow blew fiercely everywhere, but he could vaguely make out Melanie standing a few hundred yards below, and she was holding a long barrelled gun, a rifle of somesort.

"Melanie!" His voice sounded unnervingly loud in the muffled silence of the snowy air. He moved down the four wide back steps to the backyard and moved towards Melanie slowly, pausing when he lost her for a moment here and there when the snow swallowed her up entirely, but then he would catch another glimpse of her purple hoodie and her army green pants.

He was about to jog the last few feet towards her when he suddenly saw what she was shooting at. About twenty yards away, the size of the giant farm kitchen he had just passed through, was a figure that appeared and disappeared with the blowing snow.

Cautiously he arrived at her side. "Melanie," he said softly. With a yelp she swung the gun toward him and he jumped back instinctively and raised his hands in front of him. "It's just me. Joe. I'm not going to hurt you, I just heard you and your gun. What's going on?"

He couldn't really see her face even though they stood a couple feet apart. She turned her gun back on the figure and lifted it up.

"There's that man there," she said. "I heard a noise so I came out here. I'd seen they'd had a stash of guns when I first got here and first searched the house, down in the basement."

Joe squinted through the snow at the intruder. "You better leave, man!" Melanie shouted. "Move on, find your own place!"

Joe watched but the intruder didn't come closer. "But, why're you wanting him to go?" Joe asked, confused. "Aren't you happy there's another person? That's why you got mad at me earlier, remember, because I killed Frank, the other last living person you said?"

He could just barely make out that she had turned her face to him. "Yeah, well," she said defiantly, holding the gun up. "That was before. Now we have to protect ourselves."

Joe could smell the alcohol on her breath suddenly as it wafted in his face. "Well, why don't we just reason with them, instead of trying to shoot them?" he asked. "Let me go talk to them, see what they say."

He couldn't tell if she was still looking at him but then saw the indistinct shape of the gun lower. "Fine," she said petulantly.

"Thank you," he acquiesced. "We're reasonable people, we can figure this out without guns." At least he hoped so.

Joe raised his hands and moved slowly toward the other person, having to lift his feet with every step to move through the snow. He could feel the snow seeping into his running shoes, soaking his socks.

"Hello there!" Joe raised his voice and made himself sound cheery. "I'm coming toward you. I'm unarmed."

"No you're not!" Melanie shouted toward him and he winced, cringing. Great, thanks, he thought. Make me seem a liar.

"I mean, I don't have a gun. Just some knives. But that's just...as a security blanket, nothing more."

The figure stood silent, making no move to come closer.

"What's going on?" Melanie shouted through the blowing snow.

"Nothing yet! Hold your horses." Joe yelled back. He turned back to the intruder. "Sorry about that, she can be a bit impatient, it seems." He reached the man who didn't move a muscle at his approach. "Are you blind or something?" Joe reached out a hand and touched something hard and bony. and then something strangely soft and...crunchy? he put his other hand out and felt with both. His hands met a face made of fabric, and the brim of a giant straw hat which he knocked off his head. He laughed out loud as he explored the rest, including the straps of the stereotypical overalls covering its thin, wiry body. He laughed again. "Sorry to disturb you Mister Crow," he said to the scarecrow. "I'll get my friend to stop shooting at you and wasting bullets. I was going to say precious bullets but if there's nothing left to shoot, then they aren't really precious are they?" He picked up the fallen straw hat and placed it firmly back on the scarecrow's head. Even this close he could barely make out its face. "You know what? This would be something to tell the grandkids, if something like grandkids still existed, and I eventually had some." He stopped talking then, realizing how foolish he must seem standing in the middle of a snowstorm having a conversation with a scarecrow.

"False alarm!" He shouted back to Melanie. "Apparently we're not in Kansas anymore!"

"What? What does that mean?" Melanie's voice floated back to him.

"It means it isn't a person that you've been shooting at," he said, making his way back in the general direction of her voice. "It's just a scarecrow!"

He walked a few more feet, and didn't see her, or anything. "Where are you?"

"I'm right here!" she said, her voice coming from right next to him. He screamed and spun around. "Ah! don't do that to someone!"

"You were the one that asked me where I was," she replied.

"Well we should get back inside. It's cold out here." He stopped. "Which way is the house?" He couldn't see a thing.

"Um..." Melanie looked around a moment and then pointed. "I think it's this way."

~*~

"Do you think Frank was responsible for all this?" Melanie asked.

"He said he wasn't. He said he was just some sort of numbers guy." Joe shrugged.

"I don't think one person could do this anyway. You think a single person could cause the end of the world?" Joe looked at her.

Melanie did her trademark shrug. "I don't know, maybe. Ever heard that story about Pandora and opening some kind of chest?"

Joe raised an eyebrow at her. "I think it was a box."

"Box, chest, same thing, isn't it? What I'm saying is that Pandora was just one person, and she caused the end of the world," Melanie said taking another sip from the bottle of wine she had found in the basement. She was leaning against the couch in the living room, sitting on the floor, her legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles.

"No she didn't. Not the end of the world, not like this," Joe countered. "She just unleashed all the evil into the world that had been sealed in the box by the gods, or something. But she didn't end the world. Not like this. She just made it a bad place to live. Sometimes I think I might prefer the world now, how it is." Joe said, thoughtfully. He reached his arm out toward the wine. Grudgingly, Melanie eventually passed it to him.

~*~

“There was Frank. There has to be someone else. Maybe not someone else that could have actually helped us.” Melanie said.

Was. The word hung in the air between them like a boulder.

“Maybe we’ll find someone better. Better than a murdering psychopath,” and Joe realized how hypocritical he sounded uttering those words. Not the psychopath part, the murderer part.

They stood in the kitchen, on opposite sides of the room. Melanie had the rifle aimed at Joe. “Okay, you’ve had your say,” she said.

“Well, I haven’t really, actually,” Joe said. He was pressed up against the stove, the door handle sticking painfully into his lower back. “I said I’m sorry, even though I don’t even think I should be in the first place. Frank was a psycho killer.”

“Que-es-que se?” Melanie replied, the corner of her mouth quirking up at that. “Well, he might’ve been a psycho anyway, but you’re the killer,” she said, adjusting the long rifle to point it more squarely at his chest.

“Maybe I went about it the wrong way,” Joe admitted with a small shrug. “But he was the one that was chasing me with a knife, not the other way around. I did what I did out of self defence.”

Melanie tossed her head in some sort of agreement. “I guess,” she admitted. “Anyway you’ve had your rest, you can go now.” She gestured out of the kitchen toward the front door with the rifle barrel.

“Aren’t you coming too?” Joe asked, taken aback.

“No,” Melanie shook her head and the gun waved back and forth. Joe winced.

“Why not?” The handle of the oven in his back, though uncomfortable, actually was reassuring. This whole situation was so surreal, it was nice to have something real behind you, to ground you, even if it was just a stove.

“Because, I found this place and I’m going to stay here,” she said, frowning.

“By yourself? Don’t you…” Joe threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know, want to be with other people? Haven’t you heard that Richard guy’s message? That he’s going to try and start a colony or something on the San Juan islands? We can rebuild, start a community. So we aren’t alone.”

Melanie shrugged. “I’m fine with being alone.” The muzzle of the gun fell slightly and she raised it up again, regaining her focus. “No one’s stopping you from going there, from starting up a real life Lord of the Flies situation.”

Joe raised his hands in front of him. He gave up. “Okay fine, I’ll leave. Can I just take some food with me first?” He’d grabbed some stale crackers and old cheese from the last place he found, which wasn’t much by the time he cut off all the mold from the cheese. He’d had the presence of mind to take a can opener too. Thankfully most places had canned goods, but he’d already had his fill of peas and carrots.

Melanie didn’t say anything except shrugged once more. He moved to head to the pantry “Oh, except the peaches. Leave the peaches for me.”

Joe nodded. It was no skin off his nose to not take peaches. He filled his bag with a variety of tin cans, minus any peas or carrots, and then left without another word, being followed out of the house by a young girl toting a rifle that was aimed at him. It was a strange feeling having a gun pointed at your back as you walked away. He didn’t dare look back over his shoulder. He just kept walking.

~~~~~~

Check out part 13 below to continue the story! (or part 1 to go back to the start!)