Jakarta Pandemic, The (50 page)

“Looks good, Mom,” Ryan added reassuringly.

“Thank you, my favorite little man,” Kate said, giving him an appreciative smile.

Emily couldn’t contain herself. “He just said it looked like dia…”

“Never mind, sweetie. It’ll be delicious, and we are very, very lucky to be eating this. Let’s thank the chef,” Alex interrupted before she could complete her sentence.

Everyone thanked Kate at pretty much the same time.

“Let’s eat up. Dinner’s a little late, and we need to close up shop down here,” she said.

Alex heard spoons hitting soup bowls as he gazed at the long shadows cast by a few of the trees at the rear of their property line. He turned his head and looked across the table, past Kate and out of the great room windows. The sun had already ducked behind the Walkers’ house. Even without seeing the sun, he knew that it was probably only a few degrees over the artificial horizon formed by the thick trees to the southwest. They had about fifteen minutes to finish eating.

“Is seventy percent enough for the batteries?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah. We’ll be fine. I think we have a small storm brewing for later tomorrow and part of Friday, then some decent weather for the weekend. We should all make sure to take showers tonight, clean off. We might set the thermostats a little lower to keep the furnace from running as much,” he said.

“They’re already set pretty low. Fifty-seven in our room,” Kate said.

“I know. I don’t want to set that one any lower, but the heat keeps coming on at night. I can feel it seeping out behind our bed.”

“Our room’s cold because it’s over the garage.”

“I think if we take it down to fifty-four, we’ll be set. I got up to check the room temperature last night when the heat kicked on, and it hit fifty-six. I’ve never seen it below fifty-five in our room, even with the heat off. We’ll have to burrow in a little deeper under the covers.”

“We can try it,” she said.

She’s not buying into it.

“So what are the two of you up to?” Alex asked, digging into his bowl of lumpy brown stew.

“Nothing,” Emily said, “just reading a book on Mommy’s iPad.”

Ryan shook his head. “Nothing much. Xbox. That’s about it.”

“Anything good, sweetie?” he asked Emily.

“Mommy downloaded like five of the
Alissa Storm
series books. I just started reading the series at the beginning of the school year.”

“That’s the series where Alissa can time travel in her sleep, or something like that?”

Ryan gave him a look.

“What?” Alex asked.

“She sees the future in her sleep, like a dream, and she learns to control how far in the future she sees and also what she sees. She solves mysteries, prevents disasters, stuff like that,” Emily explained.

“Sounds cool, sweetie. Not a word from you,” he said and stared at Ryan, who was on the verge of what Alex could only presume was a statement likely to drive Emily to tears.

“The books are middle school level reading. She’s really doing awesome. I’m going to download as many as possible before the service is interrupted,” Kate said.

“You might want to get them all tonight, Mom. I keep losing my Xbox live connection. I think the internet is close to dead,” Ryan said.

“Doesn’t surprise me. We might be living on whatever is recorded in the two DVRs,” Alex said.

“That would kind of suck,” Ryan said.

Alex just raised his eyebrows. Kate didn’t even notice a word that would have been censored from the kids’ vocabulary a month ago.

“Maybe we should download some books for you, too. After dinner, we’ll sit down and you can pick some books,” Kate said.

“Cool,” Ryan agreed.

The light continued to drain from the room as the sun sunk further below the tree line, leaving an orange glow on the horizon to each side of the Walkers’ house.

Not much time left here.

“Let’s eat up and secure the perimeter. We can chat upstairs later. If the internet and cable is down, we’re gonna have more quality time together than either of you ever dreamed possible,” Alex said.

“More Scrabble?” Emily asked.

“And we might start to allow bad words, though that might put your mother at an unfair advantage.”

“Nice,” she said.

“Keep eating, guys. Upstairs in a few minutes, please,” Alex said. He caught Kate’s warm smile, and they both relaxed for a few moments.

“Your cell phone’s ringing!” Kate yelled over the sound of automatic weapons fire and military radio transmissions.

Alex put down the game controller and got up from the couch in their attic. “Pause it,” he said to Ryan and flew down the carpeted stairs.

Kate stood at the bottom of the attic stairs. “I don’t think you guys should have that on so loud. Especially at night,” she said with an acutely serious face.

“Yeah, I know. Where’s the phone?” he asked in a “what the hell” tone, glancing from her empty hands to her face.

“On your nightstand. Where’s your machine gun?” she snapped right back.

Great.

Alex walked briskly toward the master suite. “It’s upstairs. I’m headed right back up,” he said, then muttered, “Couldn’t bring the goddamn phone…”

“Do you think playing that game with the volume so high is a good idea?” she asked, following him.

“Why are we fighting?” he asked. He heard the phone’s ringtone.

“Because I’ve been calling you from the bedroom, and you’re up there blasting away at top volume with your son on that stupid Modern Warfare twenty-five game,” she said.

The phone stopped ringing as he reached the bed. He turned around to face Kate. “Sorry, you’re right. We got carried away. It’s not a good idea, given our circumstances. Sorry. Seriously,” he said.

“Thank you. Sorry to be a bitch.”

Alex grabbed the phone and checked the caller ID.

Charlie, and he called twice.

“Charlie. And it’s three,” he said.

She sat on the bed. “What are you talking about?”

“Modern Warfare. They’re only up to number three.”

“I know very well they’re only up to three. I was just giving you a glimpse of your very sad future. You’ll be playing Modern Warfare Twenty-Five when you’re in your seventies, and hopefully your son will have moved out by then.” She flashed a victorious grin.

“I thought you wanted him to stay home forever?” he asked with a similar smile.

“Not so the two of you can sit upstairs all day and night playing video games.”

“Don’t worry. By seventy-five I won’t be able to make the trip. We’ll have to move the whole setup down here into the great room. Probably be in 3D by then. Surround sound. Some of those nice leather gaming chairs for my bad back,” he said, touching his lower back.

“I think we need to consider the energy impact of running the Xbox and TV,” she said and lay back on the bed.

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Right after we consider banning hot showers,” he said and playfully pinched her left foot.

She yanked her foot back with a stifled scream. Kate was deathly ticklish. The cell phone started to ring again.

“You better pick up, or your redneck rampage buddy might fire a signal flare at our house to get your attention.”

“Be nice to our friends.”

“Are we gonna have to hang out with them when this is over?”

“They might be the only friends we have left on the block. I foresee hunting trips and bison burger barbecues,” he said and answered the phone.

“Hey, Charlie. Sorry I missed your first call. Busy with something.”

Kate shook her head as Alex walked out of the room.

“Alex, did you hear anything weird a few minutes ago?” he asked.

Charlie’s voice sounded distant, almost muffled.

“Hear what? Are you guys all right?” Alex asked, walking down the hall to the attic stairs.

“Did you hear gunfire?” Charlie asked.

“No, I didn’t hear anything. To be honest, I was upstairs playing a video game with Ryan. The whole neighborhood could have erupted in a gun battle, and I wouldn’t have heard it.”

“You shouldn’t…” Charlie started.

“I know. We got carried away. Kate already read me the Riot Act. What did you hear?”

“Well, the girls were watching Iron Man 3 in the bedroom with the volume kinda low, and I thought I heard some kind of popping sounds. Like when you’re driving up the road at the Fish and Game club. I jumped up and turned off the TV, and by the time the girls quit bitching… I’m pretty sure I heard a shotgun blast.”

He reached the top of the attic stairs and turned the corner. Ryan lifted up from the couch and nodded. Alex held out a finger and whispered to him, “Go ahead. I have to take care of something. And turn the volume down. Way down.”

In the muted glow cast by the paused TV screen, Alex saw Ryan mouth okay and nod.

“Did you see anything outside?” Alex asked Charlie.

“No, I rushed everyone downstairs into the basement. I’m starting to think we should just stay down here at night,” he said.

Alex grabbed his assault rifle and backpack, which were both leaned up against the back of the couch. The backpack contained his binoculars, night vision scope, and spare ammunition for both the rifle and the pistol. He headed back downstairs toward his office.

“Probably not a bad idea if you think you heard shots. I don’t mean this to sound condescending, Charlie, but are you absolutely sure you heard gunshots?”

“I’m pretty sure about the last two. It was pretty quiet in the room at that point…aside from some bullshit hysterics,” he said, raising his voice. His twin twelve-year-old girls were obviously within earshot. “My dad was reading in his room. He said it sounded like the Tet Offensive out there.”

“Your dad was in Vietnam?” Alex asked.

“No, and he can’t hear squat, but he swears he heard a gunfight. Small and hard calibers he says.”

“Hard calibers? What does that mean?”

Did he ride with Jesse James, too?

“Hold on…what?” Charlie yelled.

Alex heard someone yelling in the background, and then Charlie’s muffled voice. He yelled something about someone not being able to hear anything.

“Sorry about that,” he said, then lowered his voice. “My dad is driving me crazy. Anyway, he heard booming shots and smaller ones, like sharp cracks. It’s what I thought I heard over the TV. Small pops followed by louder thumps. Shotguns.”

“All right, we should take a look around. Use your night vision. I’ll take a look, too. I can’t see the Murrays’ house, so you should concentrate there,” Alex said.

“Sounds good. Call you in a few.”

Alex hung up and dug into his backpack for the night vision scope. He raised the shade in his office a few inches and poked the scope through, aiming toward Charlie’s side of the block and scanning the area. He increased the magnification and started to comb the area for more detail, focusing on the houses that he could see from his office window: the Coopers’, Bradys’, McCarthys’ and part of Charlie’s. He could see the house occupied by the surgeon and his wife, but the angle was shallow, and only two side windows faced him.

Nothing unusual. Flickering lights in most of the houses. Candles.

He pulled the shade down and called Charlie. “Hey. I didn’t catch anything on the scope, but I don’t have much of a view from here. Did your dad say how close he thought it was?”

“He said it had to be across the street, but with my dad’s hearing loss, it could have been in the kids’ bathroom. Either way, it had to be pretty close for him to hear it. His room faces the street. Could have been from down your way, or up past the Bartons’. I don’t know, but I don’t plan to sit on my ass and wait for those criminals to bust into my house and shoot it up.”

“I don’t think anyone’s shooting up houses, Charlie.”

“You don’t sound very convinced, Alex.”

“Let’s sit tight and observe. In my experience, when there are more unknowns than certainties, it’s the best course of action.”

“Sometimes sitting around and doing nothing is the worst thing you can do. We need to take the offensive. Bring the fight to them, on our terms…”

“Charlie, come on. We can’t just storm their house commando-style and blast anything that moves,” Alex said.

“Maybe we can set up an ambush outside their back door. Catch ’em by surprise when they head out,” Charlie said and cleared his throat.

“Too many unknowns. We’d have to set up on their turf, on their timeline. It’s way too risky. These guys may be psychotic, but I don’t get the sense that they’re stupid. Too many things can go wrong.”

“We should at least start going door to door and checking on people. Make sure they’re all right.”

“And stand out in the open knocking on the door of a possible murder scene. That’s definitely not a good idea, Charlie. We need to step up our observation and gather more information,” Alex insisted.

“We’ll see. I’m not gonna sit around forever.”

“I agree, but we need more to go on here. Let me know if you see anything.”

“All right. Later.”

**

Alex disconnected the call and walked over to the bedroom with the backpack and rifle. He found Kate lying on the couch with Emily, a recorded movie playing on low volume. She made eye contact and raised her eyebrows.

“What’s up?” she asked and propped herself up a little more, shifting Emily.

“Not too much,” he said, signaling for her to follow him.

Kate apologized to Emily and got up from the couch, following Alex into the darkened hallway outside of their bedroom. He leaned the rifle against the wall and dropped the backpack.

“Charlie is pretty sure he heard some gunfire in the neighborhood…”

“Are you sure he didn’t just hear you guys playing Xbox?”

“Ha ha ha. Seriously, his dad heard it too. Two distinctly different guns. Probably a pistol, and Charlie thinks a shotgun.”

“Well, if anyone knows the difference, it’s probably Charlie. Did you guys take a look around?” Kate asked.

“With night vision. Neither of us saw anything.”

“Did you check all of our doors?”

“Yeah, and I set all of the noise makers. I’ll set up the one on the stairs, and then we should all head into the bedroom. I really hate that we have to live like this in our own house.”