ISS (3 page)

Morning came and Jack opened one bleary eye and looked at his bedside clock. It was time to try and make contact again. His mind was fuzzy and he had trouble dragging himself out of bed; he slept fitfully and felt deeply fatigued. This was day number five of trying to make contact with the space station and he was feeling discouraged. He didn’t know if the laser would be visible in daylight but he was unwilling to risk going out at night. He was beginning to think the whole thing was a waste of time and he lay in bed wondering if he should bother to keep trying. He sighed; the truth was he had nothing else to do all day and trying to contact the ISS gave him hope. Without hope there was no reason to get out of bed at all. He pulled on a pair of sweat pants and munched a stale energy-bar as he climbed the stairs. He opened the skylight and climbed out into brilliant desert sunlight. Shielding his eyes he walked barefoot to the far end of the roof and, gazing at the empty town and distant mountains, urinated over the side.

He sat down and pointed the telescope at the horizon and checked his watch but before he could start transmitting he saw a flash of light. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Then there was another flash and then two more in quick succession. He wasn’t sure if he believed what he was seeing. Was ISS sending him a signal? While he was wondering if it were true there came anther quick sequence of flashes.

“Yes, yes!” he shouted, recognizing the pattern. It was Morse code. His plan worked. He unfolded the energy-bar wrapper and used it to record the sequence of flashes that came over the next fourteen minutes. When ISS passed out of range he ran down to his bedroom to decipher the message. That is when the full impact hit him. The message he held was from the the International Space Station.

“They’re alive!”

Hot tears splashed his hands and the wrapper as strong emotion swept over him. He read the message again out loud.

C

B

Radio

Shack

Antennae

This was real. He hooped and yelled and danced around the room.

“They’re alive,” he shouted.

He fell backwards onto his bed clutching the wrapper to his chest overwhelmed with relief and more important, hope. He was elated that there were others alive, people who can think and talk. This meant he was no longer alone. He cried with relief as the unfamiliar sensation of hope washed over him. The news that the astronauts were alive revived his spirits and he understood, for the first time, exactly how lonely he had become and how desperate. The feeling of hope unleashed a wonderful reeling sensation of dizziness. He read the message over and over again his mind alive with questions. The message told him what he needed to get to speak to the crew onboard ISS. He did not know what the letters C and B stood for but he would figure that part out later. He wondered if he deciphered the message wrong and he checked it again. No it was right, the single letters C and B. He thought it must be a certain brand of radio or antennae. He recognized the part about Radio Shack and knew generally what an antenna was but then a horrifying realization struck him. There is no Radio Shack in Eloy and the nearest one is in Phoenix.

The thought of traveling that far from home terrified him. It was one thing to drive around his hometown in his mom’s car with the doors locked and the windows up but it was another thing altogether to drive fifty miles to a city with millions of dead people and find God-knows-what waiting for him. It was not a question of whether he would go; if he wanted to talk to the astronauts he had to have a radio. He would check around Eloy first to see if he could find a radio but if he couldn’t he was going to Phoenix.

***

Eloy was a bust, he could not find a CB radio anywhere. He was going to Phoenix. He got a sheet of paper and started planning his trip to the city. If he was to survive this adventure he needed to be prepared. He would need supplies for the trip, bottles of water, food and a map of the city. He had been to the mall where the Radio Shack was located many times but he wasn’t driving and never paid attention to how his mom got there.

One positive thing about the trip was he saw fewer survivors lately. They were disappearing, probably dying off, he thought. He hoped this would be true of the survivors in Phoenix. No matter what the risks it was worth it to have the ability to talk to the ISS. He was afraid of what he might find in the city but he was more afraid of being alone. The survivors he saw in Eloy were creepy and disgusting but they were not like the zombies in movies. They acted more like deer and except for the naked old guy they did not try to chase him; that did not mean they wouldn’t if he gave them the opportunity but he wasn’t too worried, the majority of them were pretty feeble. Thinking about the old man made him remember the dead pharmacist and, shuddering at the implications, he added a gun to his list.

His dad never owned a gun, at least not one that he knew about, and he did not think his mom would let him keep it in the house if he had. So where would he find a gun? He knew that lots of people owned hand guns but he did not want to spend time searching strangers houses. He considered going to the Sheriff’s Office but he remembered the time he got lost as a kid and had to wait for his mom to come and get him and he was still terrified of the place. One possibility, he thought, was Mr. Osterman. He coached the little league team and he was a policeman in Phoenix. He reasoned that if anyone was likely to have a gun it was him and he lived almost next door.

The street was quiet but he was not taking any chances. He got in the car and drove the half block to the Osterman’s house and parked on the lawn as close to their front door as possible to limit his exposure. He was armed with a baseball bat and the paring knife. The Osterman’s were only a few doors down but it had been almost a week since he’d been outside and he was being cautious for good reason. The last time he went searching for food he came across the body of Mr. Murray the pharmacist, he was laying in the middle of Grant Street with his insides spilling onto the pavement. A bunch of birds, mostly crows, were fighting over who would eat his entrails. Recalling the scene made him feel queasy; it was not like something on television or in a movie, this was real. One crow was perched on something black poking out from the pharmacist’s chest. It took him a little while to figure out what he was seeing. A knife.

Mr. Murray had been clean and dressed in proper clothes; he had been a survivor like him and someone killed him. The Osterman’s house was unlocked and there were no bodies inside, he knew because he was inside it a few weeks ago looking for his family. He reached for the doorknob to turn it but stopped and pressed his ear to the door listening, he heard nothing. He waited a bit longer before opening the door preparing himself for whatever he might find inside.

The living room was undisturbed and as empty of life as the last time he was there. All the homes he checked, at least those without bodies, looked like the owners had momentarily stepped out and would return shortly. He went into the kitchen and opened cupboards and drawers searching for a gun. The kitchen and living room were a bust though he did find a tepid can of Coke amongst the rotting food in the fridge. He made his way down the hallway to the master bedroom sipping the warm soda and when he entered the room he jumped back in surprise spilling pop on his shirt.

It looked for a moment like there was someone curled up on the bed but it was the way the blankets were heaped. He came in and sat on the end of the bed his heart pounding hard in his chest the room swirling. His head cleared and he got up and started searching again. He found a drawer full of shirts with one cool one that had a Phoenix Police Department shoulder crests. He stripped off his wet tee shirt and put it on and checked himself out in the mirror, it was too big for him but he liked the way he looked wearing it. Inside their walk-in closet he found a small metal safe with a combination lock. He would not have known what was inside except for the helpful picture of a handgun engraved on the exterior. He laughed when he saw it. Its purpose was to keep the gun away from crazies but the picture kinda gave away the contents. There’s no way I’m going to get this thing open, he though but when he grabbed it by the handle to drag it from the closet for a closer look the lid popped open. Great security, it wasn’t even locked. He looked inside and saw a serious looking black handgun tucked into a bed of grey foam with yellow boxes of ammunition tucked around it. He picked it up, he’d never held a real gun before, it felt good, heavy but not too heavy. He examined it and discovered out how to release the magazine and discovered the gun was loaded and ready to use. He replaced it and pulled the slide back loading a round into the firing chamber.

Slapping a serious “don’t mess with me” look on his face he swung the gun around in a wide arc squint sighting on the Chinese lamp sitting on a bedside table. The grin disappeared when the gun unexpectedly jerked in his hand and the lamp exploded in a cloud of glass shards. Holy shit I didn’t even touch the trigger, he thought. He realized, as the ringing in his ears subsided, he was going to have to be careful with it or he could shoot himself. ‘Geez talk about a hair trigger,’ he mumbled.

He figured out where the safety was and clicked it on and then tested it by trying to shoot the mattress. The gun did not fire. Satisfied it was safe he tucked the weapon into the waistband of his jeans. He used a pillow case for the boxes of ammo and loaded it all into the car. He thought that it might take all day to find a gun. There was no reason not to leave for Phoenix right away. He felt the weapon pressing against his belly but even with this newly acquired firepower he was not looking forward to the trip.

The Outback station wagon was perfect for the trip he only wished he had more practice driving with a stick shift. He bumped along slowly, grinding gears, entering the ramp for the freeway heading north to Phoenix. He did not have to worry about finding gas his mom was always a freak about keeping the tank full. He could easily make it to the city and back on what was in the tank.

Though he had been alone for more than a month it was still weird seeing the freeway with no traffic. He drove carefully avoiding derelict vehicles and various bits of debris including the bodies of people. After two hours of slow cautious driving he came to the outskirts of the city and what he saw did not boost his confidence. A towering column of black smoke rose above the city high into the dead calm desert sky. As he got closer he could see whole sections of the city had been destroyed by fire. He put up the windows; the smell of the burning city was unbelievable, like burning hair and dog shit mixed with vinegar. It was like nothing he’d smelled before, worse than the rotting corpses back in Eloy. It made his skin itch when he imagined what it was that was burning and making that smell.

He kept driving, slowing to a crawl when the smoke thickened making it difficult to see. He tried turning on the windshield wipers but it did not help. After ten minutes of slow choking progress a breeze shifted the smoke away and he saw an exit for the Shamrock Mall ahead. Looking down from the overpass he estimated that more than half the mall had been consumed by fire that was now out. The portion that remained looked okay and luck was with him the Radio Shack was in that part of the mall.

He drove onto the sidewalk and parked as close to the entrance as possible. Turning off the engine he rested for a while before picking up the gun and flipping off the safety; he would not have time to look for it if he ran into trouble. He put the window down and listened, watching to see if his arrival had attracted any attention. There was nothing moving, at least not that he could see; the whole city, just like Eloy, seemed to be dead. He put the window up and opened the door and stepping out locked the car with the remote. His back ached from tension and his eyes stung from driving through the smoke.

“
To boldly go where no man has gone before”,
he mumbled and, with the gun leading the way, he walked a few paces into the building. He stopped and waited while his eyes adjusted to the dim interior. What he could see of the mall looked normal, he had expected signs of looting and damage but the stores looked like they usually did, except with no people. Walking in the direction of Radio Shack he grew tense worried about the deepening gloom.

He had watched too many horror movies and his mind was not his friend. His thoughts naturally turned to those scenes where the zombie lurches from a dark corner and bites some poor slob on the neck. As he walked deeper into the gloom he made a promise to himself, if he survived this, he would never watch another. The Radio Shack was in perfect condition, the doors were wide open, there was no sign of damage, and they had a clearance sale on. He began by looking for a flashlight. He found one and tore off the packaging and loaded it with batteries.

When he turned it on the light helped to dissipate the hordes of zombies lurking in the shadows of his imagination. He roamed deeper into the store and found the section with radio equipment and discovered that the letters C and B in the astronaut’s message stood for Citizens Band. He picked out two CB radios opting for the higher priced ones reasoning that they would be higher quality. He found a cart in the back and loaded parts onto it. He took lots of batteries of all types, a high end GPS, and all the other components he would need including two extra-long whip antennae.

He wheeled everything out to the car. One item he could not get at Radio Shack was a gas powered generator. It had not been on his shopping list but he was tired of pedaling that damn exercise bike to recharge the battery and he would need reliable battery power for the radio. He drove around looking for a building supply store or equipment rental company; figuring they would probably have what he was looking for. He found a Builder Barn and went in through the open roll-up door driving up and down the aisles pushing stuff out of the way until he came to the tool department.

It was fun driving inside a store and there was no point in lugging the generator any further than he had to. He found a Honda gas powered generator in aisle seven. It had wheels and he rolled it to the back of the car then found two wide planks in the lumber section to roll it up and into the hatchback. He was hungry by the time he finished but it was getting late and the sun would be going down soon. With darkness coming and with all the smoke in the air he did not bother to look for food, not that he would be able to eat with that smell in the air.

As he was climbing into the car he heard something. He was not certain what he was hearing but it sounded like a human voice. He backed the car out of the Builder Barn and turned off the engine to listen. He heard it again and drove in the direction the sound was coming from. He turned the corner by Wal-Mart and saw a someone standing on the roof of a brown delivery van in the middle of the empty parking lot. As he drove nearer he could see that it was a young girl and he also saw the reason she was screaming. There were eight dogs pacing around the base of the van looking for a way to get to her. He pulled up to the delivery truck and was not surprised when the dogs did not pay his car any attention. The most menacing dog in the pack was a bull terrier and while Jack was thinking about what to do the bull terrier jumped onto the hood of his car, he felt the full muscular weight of the animal in the depression of the car’s front suspension.

The dog jumped up to give it a better shot at leaping onto the roof of the Purolator van. Jack picked up the gun from the passenger seat and buzzed the window down just enough to allow him to stick his hand out. He saw the dog bunch its rear leg muscles preparing to jump and, using his left hand and without actually aiming, he flipped off the safety and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun was deafening as it bucked in his hand. The bullet slammed into the dog tearing a sizable chunk from the back of its skull. The animal flopped over onto its side with mouth agape and all four legs twitching. Jack and two of the smaller dogs watched the animal’s progress as it slid off the hood its blood providing lubrication. He heard it land with a meaty thud on the pavement. The other dogs watched their friend hit the ground but did not run away. They were all of differing breeds and had clearly been family pets and as a result did not fear humans.

He aimed a shot at the brown lab standing with its paws up on the hood of the truck barking at the girl. This shot clipped a hind leg knocking it down and that is when the other dogs got the message and ran off. He rolled the window all the way down and aimed carefully shooting the crying animal in the head silencing it. Looking around carefully in every direction he opened the door and put one foot on the pavement and stood up staying well inside its swing radius of the door ready to dive back inside. He watched the retreating dogs until he was satisfied they would not be coming back then turned his attention to the girl. She had stopped keening and except for the distant sound of the burning city the parking lot was quiet. The girl did not immediately climb down as he expected; she was staring at him blankly.

“Are you okay?” he said.

If she was infected like the others he did not want anything more to do with her. He watched as she slowly nodded her head up and down and he figured she must be in shock. He looked around again and got back in the car.

“Come on, are you coming?” he said.

He was not looking at her he was scanning the area for dogs. The girl did not move and he looked up at her through the windshield and wondered if she understood English. She was really beat-up looking and maybe only eleven or twelve-years-old; way too young to be on her own, he thought. He remembered a line from an old movie he liked and he stood up again and yelled at her to get her attention.

“Hey!”

The sound startled her and she lost her balance and almost fell but it worked she made eye contact with him.

”Come wiss me if you vant to live.”

She made a weird throaty sound that could have been laughter but also sounded a little bit crazy. At least it worked to break her out of her daze, he thought. As he waited for her to climb down from the roof of the van he continued scanning the area.

She slipped and fell the last few feet landing on her butt and immediately sprang to her feet with a terrified shriek. After being chased by dogs her instincts told her if she is down she is dead. He studied her a moment before unlocking the door on her side. He hoped he was not making a mistake she looked like everyone else he’d seen in the last thirty days, disgusting.

She was covered from head to foot in filth. He could not even tell if she was wearing long pants or shorts, her legs were caked in so much muck. When she came closer he saw blood oozing from a gash on her forearm. A dog bite, he thought. Her face was covered in so much dirt he knew he would not recognize her if he saw her cleaned up. He could not tell what she looked like or even make a reasonable guess at the colour of her hair. He’d never seen a dirtier more pitiful looking kid in his life and, the truth was, he’d never been happier to see another human being. She got into the car and he began driving immediately it was beginning to get dark and he did not want any surprises. He glanced at her after he got them on the freeway headed back towards Eloy.

“What’s your name?”

It took her a long time to answer. It seemed like she was searching her mind for the answer.

“Sara” she whispered.

“I’m Jack. Are you alone?” he asked though the answer was obvious.

He glanced at her but not being a confident driver did not take his eyes off the road for long. He saw her eyes well with tears; the drops making muddy tracks down her cheeks. Her thin shoulders hunched together as she hugged her arms tight to her body and trembled.

“My dad,” she said, her voice a hollow whisper of disbelief,” left me.”

He saw by the look on her face that she couldn’t believe that her dad would do that to her.

“It wasn’t his fault Sara, something happened to people, something really bad,” he said trying to explain the unexplainable. She struggled to control her emotions and when she relaxed her shoulders clumps of dirt fell from her to the carpet.

“Your arm looks bad,” he said.

It took her a while to respond and look at her arm. At first she looked at the wrong one then at the injured arm and she moved her head a tiny bit nodding in agreement.

“Does it hurt?”

She stared at her injured arm but did not answer, they drove on in silence and when he thought of another question to ask he glanced over and she was slumped against the door asleep. He checked her every few minutes but she was completely out of it. He wondered how long it had been since she felt safe enough to sleep. After a few miles he had to put his window down to let air into the car because she smelled. It was dark when they got to Eloy and he parked the car up close to the door on the lawn. He looked around carefully before getting out and running to the front door. He unlocked it and went inside and found a candle to light. Exhausted from the trip he stood at the window looking out at the car.

He did not want to go outside in the dark but he was torn. He wondered if she would be okay in the car or if he should go out and bring her inside. His decision to go out and get her was ultimately a selfish one, he was worried she might die or runaway, and he would be alone again. He ran to the car and opening her door slowly so she would not fall out he shook her shoulder to wake her but she did not stir. He didn’t want to touch her, she was filthy, but he was worried about being outside, so he reached in and picked her up and ran with her in his arms back the house. He was breathing hard when he kicked the door closed behind them as he went through but it was not because she was heavy it was from fear and adrenaline in equal measure. She seemed to weigh too little for her size and he wondered how long it was since she’d eaten. He set her down on the sofa and when he let go she startled awake and let out a shriek.

“Hey it’s okay we’re home now.”

He watched the word ‘home’ work its magic as the terror leaked from her face. She peered around the semi-dark living room as if awaking from a long sleep trying to recall where she was. When her eyes came to rest on the television she turned to him with a look of hopefulness. He shrugged, smiled sadly, and shook his head,

“There is no electricity,” he said and she sagged a little lower on the couch at this news.

“My mom and my sister are gone too. I’ve been waiting for them to come back home,” he said.

He spoke the words though he no longer believed what he was saying; he knew his family would not be coming back. He saw hope leave her eyes and blank despair take its place as the meaning of his words sank in. They were alone.

“Are you hungry?”

He watched with amusement as she tore open a third bag of Doritos wolfing them down with both hands. She washed that down with a second can of warm Pepsi. While she was eating he got the first aid kit from the upstairs bathroom and by the time he returned she was asleep with an open bag on her lap. He knelt on the floor beside her and used wet wipes to clean dirt from the skin around the punctures on her arm. She did not stir when he touched her, she was completely out of it. There was one gash deeper than the others and he was concerned enough about it that he risked going outside again to get the new flashlight from the car. He wanted to look inside the wound because he saw lots of muck and crap. He figured it would become infected even if he did manage to clean it out. He used Q tips dipped in rubbing alcohol to dig out what he could; but it was hard to see inside the wounds so he dripped alcohol directly onto them, flushing them out as best he could.