Authors: Rob Stennett
There was nothing to do but wait.
Jeff leaned against the squad car and tied his shoe as tight as he could so his ankle wouldn’t swell anymore. Mike leaned
against the squad car next to him. When Jeff finished tying his shoe the two stood there in the dead silence for a moment.
What was there to say? After a minute, maybe two, Mike lit a cigarette.
“So,” Mike said.
“So,” Jeff answered.
“How are things at Hansley?” Mike asked.
“They’re picking up. I’ve got a couple of good leads.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said. He always felt awkward talking about work with Mike. Even when there were much bigger things to think about
— like a missing and/or critically wounded family member — Jeff still felt uneasy about this subject.
He’d been best friends with Mike for twenty years. Or maybe he’d been best friends with Mike twenty years ago. They had both
been on the baseball team, Jeff the lefty pitcher and Mike the catcher, and they both planned on going to college together.
But when Jeff got Amy pregnant everything changed. Emily was Jeff’s own mini-apocalypse. After she was born he started to
drift apart from Mike and the other guys in high school. Jeff was always working on odd jobs and Mike decided to go to the
police academy. Mike saw how much Jeff was struggling with work and tried to convince him to join the force. “There’s a steady
salary, full benefits, retirement plan, and you get to make a difference,” Mike said with bright eyes and a hopeful tone in
his voice. Jeff didn’t know how to tell Mike he didn’t want to make a difference. And if he did want to make a difference
he didn’t want to do it by handing out speeding tickets.
So, whenever work came up, Jeff tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. Tonight he did so by saying, “How’s the remodeling
of the basement going?”
“Great. We’re installing a projector in the basement. It’ll project in HD. We’ll have you guys over once it’s finished. We’ll
barbeque and watch a Royals game.”
“For sure,” Jeff said. But he wasn’t thinking
for sure
. He was thinking Will loves the Royals. How could he ever watch a Royals game again if his son was dead? What else out there
would be daily reminders of his little boy?
Then, thankfully, other squad cars started pulling up. He’d never been so happy to see flashing red and blue lights.
Once the search party assembled outside the cornfields, Jeff thought they had a pretty decent group. There were deputies with
search dogs. There were friends, co-workers like Kevin from Hansley Auto, and Fred Johnson himself even came out. His help
would be invaluable; he knew the fields backwards and forwards.
Mike, the senior officer on duty, made a plan for the search party. They would fan out in groups of two, but stay well within
earshot of each other, and thoroughly comb through each section of the field. When one section of the field was complete,
they would go on to the next. Mike gave each one of the teams a flare gun and instructed everyone to fire a shot in the air
the second they found the boy. Finally, Mike had one of the deputies call the paramedics. They should be on standby. Just
in case.
Mike’s final instruction was, “Okay men, Jeff’s boy is out there. He needs us. Let’s not waste anymore time.” At that the
search party fanned out and marched into the field, focused and determined. But again, Jeff barely made it into the field
when his flashlight burned out.
“You have got to be kidding me. Again?”
“Again what?” Sam the deputy asked.
“My bulb burned out.”
At that,
flash
, Sam’s light was out.
“What’s going on, Jeff?”
Jeff didn’t have time to answer. He could see the other’s lights, and one at a time, like dominos falling, they burned out.
A chorus of “hey,” “what happened,” and “my light just died” swirled around him. He grabbed a flare out of his back pocket
and cracked it open. “Come on,” Jeff said to Sam. They found the closest group. “Here’s a flare,” Jeff said. “Use this, find
the other groups, and guide them out of here. It’s dangerous in the dark and we don’t need anyone getting hurt. I’ll head
east and do the same.”
They went much too slowly for Jeff — they had to take their time so everyone could see using the minimal light the flares
cast off — but finally all the teams were found and brought back to where the cars were parked.
“What just happened?” Mike asked.
“The flashlights burned out,” Sam said.
“Thank you Sam,” Mike said. “But how?”
“They ran out of batteries?” Kevin Grabowski proposed.
“All at the same time?” Mike asked.
“It’s possible,” Kevin said.
“It’s not possible,” Mike said.
“Electromagnetic storm,” Sam said.
“And what is that?”
“It’s a storm, something about the magnetic poles shifting and ions getting into clouds, and it does all sorts of weird stuff
to machinery. Shorts it out, and you know, stuff like that,” Sam said. “I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
“And we just happen to have an electromagnetic storm here?” Mike said.
“This is Kansas, man. We have the weirdest storms on the planet,” Sam said.
Silence. He kind of had a point.
“Fine, we’ll load up on batteries and go back out there,” Mike said.
“It won’t matter. I was out there before you got here. Same thing happened to me,” Jeff said.
“So what do we do?” Mike asked.
“We need light the old fashioned way. Torches, flares, any kind of fire,” Jeff said.
“You’re not taking fire into my cornfields,” Fred Johnson said.
“Are you serious? Crops? You’re worried about your crops?” Jeff said.
“Since it’s my livelihood, yes I am. But that’s not all I’m worried about. You get one of the dry husks on fire, and you’re
not going to be able to contain it. If your boy’s out there, he’ll burn alive. And so will anyone else who’s trapped in the
middle of the field.”
“Maybe I should have the fire department on standby as well,” Sam said.
Again, silence. This was the worst search party ever assembled — a search party who couldn’t search.
“Mike, you have extinguishers in your squad cars?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Mike said.
“We split up into groups again. One man holds a flare — we won’t use torches, the flames are too hard to control, but a flare
should be safe. And if something does catch fire, the other man walks with an extinguisher, puts it out right away.”
The party stared at Jeff. This was the most half-baked plan they’d ever heard of. They weren’t convinced. Jeff knew what their
stares were saying. He took a deep breath and nodded. “Or, I go by myself, which I was ready to do an hour ago anyway. My
son is out there. I can’t wait till morning. You guys can. So, I’ll see you later. Thanks for wasting my time.”
“No, Jeff, I’ll help you find your boy,” Mike said.
“So will I,” Sam said.
“So will I,” Kevin Grabowski added.
At that, there was one “So will I” after another, after another. And that’s what’s so great about a small town like Goodland.
Everyone sticks together — they were family. If one person is hurting, everyone is hurting. This was the type of
Dead Poets Society
moment that would have really touched Jeff if his son wasn’t lost and he wasn’t freaked out of his mind at whatever was causing
the bulbs to burn out and if the flare he was holding wasn’t singeing all the hairs on his hand.
They quickly loaded up with flares and extinguishers and headed back out to the field. Jeff held his flare low to the ground,
walking at a sprinter’s pace through the cornfields. He scanned the ground and looked through cornstalks. He listened for
cries or screams — for breathing or whimpering. His mind was clear. He was completely focused on the task at hand. This had
gone on long enough. He would not be deterred anymore. He would face whatever was in here: storms, demons, or any other unspeakable
evil. They would be sorry to cross his path.
And then,
crack
. A flare soared through the night sky — it looked as if Tinkerbell was lit on fire and shot out of a cannon. They found him,
Jeff thought. All the possibilities rushed through his mind: Will with leg snapped, Will shivering and crying, Will not moving
at all, Will hugging an officer and telling his story.
Crack
.
Another flare shot above them. Jeff ran towards it. He didn’t wait to make sure Sam was following, or that his path was clear.
He just ran. He pushed through stalks and anything else that was in his way. And then he burst through one final stalk and
saw his son. He was standing there, without a shirt, coated in dirt and gravel, and looking a little cut up. Jeff didn’t run
toward him right away, because no one else had. Something didn’t seem right. Instead, the entire search party stood there,
creating a circle all the way around the shirtless, cut-up boy. The entire party clutched their flares, creating a neon glow
on Will, and his eyes and his teeth seemed to reflect the red light perfectly.
“Will. Are you okay?” Mike asked.
Will smiled.
Jeff went over to Will and crouched next to him. Jeff felt Will’s ribs, his legs, and his face to make sure nothing was broken.
And nothing was. Everything was fine. His son was fine. Jeff hugged him and through tears he said, “I was so worried about
you.” He let go and looked his son in the eyes. “So worried.”
Will put a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. It didn’t feel like the hand of a boy, it was much older, firm and confident. “I have
a message for you Dad.” Then Will looked past his father and at the entire search party. And with the confidence of a prophet
he said, “I have a message for all of you.”
Sergeant Mike Frank still remembers a time when students had drills for the apocalypse. However, the apocalypse the elementary
students were running drills for had nothing to do with God or Jesus. Rather, the impending doom was a by-product of the United
States of America’s inability to coexist with Russia.
And vice versa.
Both sides had been arming themselves with nuclear warheads for years. And soon everyone had too many weapons. The governments
of these powerful countries couldn’t just buy all of those weapons for nothing. That would be frivolous, a waste of the taxpayers’
hard-earned money. Therefore, the responsible thing to do would be to attack. It would go like this: Once one country (Mike
was pretty sure Russia was going to attack first) launches their weapons high into the air, the other country would have to
respond, they would have to rain down retribution, and in the end, if everything went according to plan, most of the planet
would be a lifeless, smoldering, radioactive wasteland.
To protect against nuclear blasts, teachers had students hide underneath their desks. This was the great plan for safety.
Even at the age of eight Mike was pretty skeptical of a small wooden desk’s ability to shield him from an atomic bomb. He
tried to bite his tongue. He tried to obey every other Thursday as the drill bell rang and everyone put down their classwork
to crouch under their desks. But one Thursday, towards the end of the third grade, he couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t
willingly just accept that this was worth anyone’s time. So, while the other kids slid under their desks, Mike just sat up,
proud, with his hands folded in front of him. When Mrs. Peacock looked up from underneath her own desk she was horrified.
“Michael, what are you doing?”
“I’m not going on with this charade anymore,” Michael said.
Charade
was a new word that Michael had just added to his vocabulary. He learned it from playing the game Charades.
“Charade?” Mrs. Peacock squawked, wondering where he learned that word. That was a fourth grade word.
“We’re going to die anyway so why does it matter if I hide under my desk,” Michael said.
Mrs. Peacock walked over to Michael, seized his arm, and tugged him into the hallway. “What has gotten into you Michael Frank?”
she asked.
“I just don’t know why we’re charading around with this desk drill,” Michael answered. He still hadn’t mastered his new word.
“Because if something does happen, and God forbid it does, we need the students safe. The blast probably isn’t going to hit
our town, which means parents will be looking for students, which means there will be lots of fear and we’ll need order —
”
Order
.
Now, thirty years later, it made a lot of sense to Mike. The desks weren’t about safety — they were about order. Keeping things
under control was the highest priority. Because truthfully, when it came to the masses, people were cattle. The entire town
could be easily spooked, and if that were to happen, disorder and looting and lawlessness bring just as much damage as the
original disaster ever could.
And as rumors and gossip about the impeding Goodland rapture started to spring up, Mike knew that soon his primary job would
be to keep Goodland orderly.
Tonight, the battle against hysteria would start with figuring out what to do about Jeff Henderson’s boy. Will said some weird
things in that cornfield, and it wasn’t just what he said, it was the
way
he said things that had riled everyone up. Just an hour ago Mike had seen grown men — calloused brave men — turn stark white
at some of the things Will was saying. Heck, Curt Benson, a twice-decorated veteran from the Korean War, looked like he’d
wet himself by the time Will finished —
(
prophesying
)
— talking.
The key to keeping things under control would be keeping their stories straight. They needed to be careful about what they
said, especially to their wives. Mike had already briefed the other men in the cornfield. He told them, “Will was lost and
we found him sleeping. That’s all anyone else needs to know.” He hadn’t discussed things with Jeff yet because he was so emotional.
And rightfully so. His son had been lost.
But after they found Will, Mike convinced Jeff to let him take them home. He’d have one of the other men take Mike in his
car later on. And now that they were getting close to Jeff ’s house they needed to decide how they were going to frame the
story to Amy.