Shadows Have Gone (10 page)

Carly remembered what Justin had said when they were crossing the American border on their journey from Alaska.
 

“The survivors will be forming something like the Kingdom of Springfield, if anything. Democracy is a luxury for wealthy civilizations. In this new world, where we all cling to survival, strength will determine the ruler, not a tally of votes.”

“So, we’ve devolved back to warlords and fiefdoms?”

“It’s what I’ve seen in every nation when the centralized government went to hell. Society has been stripped to its bare bones. There’s nothing to stop the strong or more aggressive from preying on the weak. People will band together under a strong leader and hope for safety in numbers. And the criminals will band up, as well.”

Carly remembered what she had said in response, as well.
“We can still be Americans if we want to be. We’re starting over, and this time, maybe we can get it right.”
But was that possible anymore? Or did she need to start thinking like those who were considering territory and borders?

“That’s for another time,” Carly said again. “Right now we need to concentrate on getting everything back to normal. We have a little break before harvest, so there are maintenance things we need to work on. If you want Justin to go check out these people, fine, but if they’re not going to bother us, I suggest we don’t bother them.”

“They’re still several days’ travel away. If you want, Carly, I can wait a couple of weeks to see if they leave a message, indicating they’re even interested in contacting us, or headed this way.”

She nodded. “That’s what I’d prefer.”
 

She was just tired. Tired of worry. Tired of threats on the horizon. Tired of being away from her baby. She wanted to get back to farming, soapmaking, and even washing clothes. She wanted normalcy for a while.

“We’ll keep up the patrols we started when Marcus’s group came in,” Justin said. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve for checking to see if anyone has been sniffing around. As you say, if they leave us alone, we won’t go looking for trouble, okay?”

Carly glanced out over the group. “Okay?” she asked them.

Most of them nodded. She saw doubt on a few faces, but no one voiced an objection.

“Okay, on to maintenance, then,” Justin said, and Carly smiled.

The evening was cooler when they stepped out of the courthouse, and there was a steady breeze. Carly lifted her hair off her neck and sighed with pleasure as the wind cooled it. She ought to cut it, she thought, but she knew Justin would mourn for her long, caramel waves. He didn’t even like it when she put it back in a ponytail and had been known to hide her hair ties.

Mindy and Stacy emerged behind them. “We’re going over to check on Miz Marson,” Mindy called over her shoulder as they headed off across the green.

Carly lifted a hand in a wave. “Let me know as soon as you talk to her, okay? And tell her not to worry me like this again.”

“Will do.”

Pearl’s boots clomped wearily on the steps as she followed them down to the sidewalk. “Let’s sit down for a minute,” she said, gesturing at the bench on the commons, which was shaded by tall arborvitaes.

Austin took the chance to wander around the commons, pausing to read the war memorial. He glanced back at them a few times, as though to reassure himself they were still there, but he kept himself apart. Carly wondered if he feared he wasn’t welcome.

They all took a seat, Justin stretching his long legs out with a sigh. Sam curled up at Carly’s feet. She laid Dagny’s blanket over the grass and sat her down. Dagny began plucking strands of grass and studying them before tossing them aside to pick another. She got up to go toward more interesting vegetation near the arborvitaes, but her mother plopped her back onto the blanket. Dagny’s lip quivered, and she seemed to consider crying about it but was distracted when Carly offered her the dry erase board again. She yawned and rubbed her eyes with her fist as she gripped the marker in her other hand.

“I keep going back to something Dawson said.” Pearl leaned forward. “Do you remember that he said something about a radio message?”

Justin frowned. “Yeah, he did.”

“From who?” Carly asked. “Was he meaning that it was an army thing, like from his unit’s superiors?”

Pearl frowned. “He didn’t say that. Was that the impression you got?”

“Well, who else could it be from?”

“Wasn’t Bryce using that solar panel to broadcast on that ham radio, looking for his family?”

Justin froze, and his eyes widened. “Yeah, he was. Shit . . . you don’t think . . .”

“I don’t even know if it’s possible, but maybe we should ask him.”

“Fuck,” Justin muttered. He raked his hands through his hair. “Dammit, why didn’t I consider—”

“You can’t think of everything, Justin.”

“I’m supposed to. That’s why they pay me the big bucks, remember?” Justin’s voice was grim.

He held out a hand to help Carly to her feet. She scooped up Dagny, and he took the baby from her to carry as she folded the blanket. Dagny was offended to be rudely jerked away from drawing on her board, and her chin began to quiver in the way that usually preceded a full-blown wail. Justin sighed and lifted her up to his shoulders. He made loud snuffling noises and then gave a fair imitation of Shadowfax’s whinny.

Dagny squealed in glee and gripped Justin’s hair in her fists as he began to trot, gently bouncing her on his shoulders as he made his way toward Bryce’s house. Pearl and Carly exchanged amused glances, and Carly looked back to see if Austin was following. He was standing stock-still, eyes wide, as he watched one of the leaders of the new free world play horsey with his daughter.

When they reached the porch of Bryce’s house, Carly could smell tomatoes cooking through the screen door. He must have put his dinner on before he’d left for the meeting. They tapped on the wood frame and heard footsteps as he approached.

“Hey, Justin! Carly, Pearl.” He surveyed them with a bit of surprise, but his smile was welcoming. “Come on in.”

They stepped inside. Bryce’s house was small and cluttered. He lived alone, and it seemed he lived on the principle of keeping everything within easy reach, along with having a general indifference to housework. A pile of pans teetered in the sink, and the breakfast dishes were still stacked on the table. Carly itched to start organizing.

“You guys want something to eat? I’m just finishing up my stew.” He gave the contents of a pot boiling on the stove a quick stir. The spoon spattered tomato sauce onto the counter as he dropped it back down onto the plate he was using as a spoon rest. Carly bit the inside of her lip.

“No, thanks,” Justin said. “We stopped by because we needed to ask you something.”

“Sure.” Bryce sat down at the kitchen table and indicated the other chairs. They politely declined.

Dagny reached toward a stack of dishes, and Justin deftly stepped out of range. “What, exactly, have you been doing with those broadcasts you’ve been making?”

Bryce’s eyes brightened. “My radio transmissions?”

“Yes, those.”

“Well, the solar panel has been wonky this week, and David has been kind of a dick about sharing it. ’Scuse the language, ladies. But he can’t get it to work at night, so he says—”

“That’s not what I’m getting at.” Justin scrubbed the back of his hand over his brow. “I meant
what
have you been transmitting and how?”

“I’ve been hoping to find my family,” Bryce said. “My brother was into ham radio, too. If he’s alive, he’ll be scanning the channels, listening for any broadcasts, or broadcasting himself, if he can. I scan the channels, too, but I haven’t heard anything yet.”

“But doesn’t ham radio only have a small broadcast area?”

Bryce nodded. “Unless you’re using a repeater, and since the world ended, most of those aren’t in operation. No electricity or batteries, you know? Like the cell phone towers. But ham radio operators can use satellite repeaters.”

“The satellites are still running without any guidance from NASA?” Pearl asked.

“Oh yeah. They’re powered from their own solar panels. The one I use wasn’t sent up by NASA. It belonged to a ham radio organization and was launched by a Russian Soyuz rocket.”

Pearl shook her head in amazement.

“The satellite essentially operates on its own, repeating signals back to earth. The batteries will probably last for another decade or so.”

“Doesn’t it have to be steered in some way,” Carly asked, “so it doesn’t get pulled back to Earth?” She remembered movies set on spacecraft near Earth that had to adjust their orbit using blasts of gas.

Bryce’s eyes were shining, and she supposed he was excited because he rarely got to talk about this stuff. “You’re talking about orbital decay. Satellites don’t usually adjust their orbit once they’re put in place. Its orbit will eventually decay, and one day it’ll be drawn back into the atmosphere and burn up, but that’s hundreds of years from now.”

“So you’re able to bounce a signal off of it as long as the rechargeable batteries last,” Pearl said.

Bryce nodded. He got up from the table and went over to the closet. He withdrew a handheld antenna that looked to Carly like the ones that used to be mounted on top of houses to get television reception. It had a wooden central pole with long metal rods of differing lengths sticking out of it, attached by a cord to a radio about the size of a handbag.

Bryce turned it on. “I’ve been listening since the Crisis. At first, people were exchanging information—how bad the Infection was in their area, death tolls, places they heard were safe—but over the next month or so, it just faded out until I was the only one. I took my radio with me when I traveled, charging it up when I could—which wasn’t often. I kept broadcasting, in case anyone out there just had a receiver, but couldn’t transmit back. Maybe someone out there needed to hear a voice, you know?”

“How far can your message reach?”

“It depends on the satellite you hit. Almost all of the continental US, for the most part. You can get over a thousand miles of range using satellite repeaters.”

“A thousand miles . . .” Justin’s mouth fell open, and Bryce seemed delighted by his shock.

“It’s tricky until you get the hang of it, but essentially, once the satellite crosses the horizon, you can bounce a signal off it. You just have to track its path and adjust the megahertz to account for the Doppler effect. The sophisticated operators used to use a computer for tuning, but you can do it this way. You only get a short window of time, so you gotta pack in as much information as possible.”

“What have you been saying?” Pearl asked. “In your messages, I mean. What have you been telling your listeners?”

“Where we are. That we’re safe. People’s names, in case their friends are out there looking for them. I know the chances are slim that anyone is listening, but—”

“Carly!” Mindy stood in the doorway, gripping the frame, and from one look at her face, Carly knew something was terribly wrong. An electric chill swept through her, and she felt her nails bite into her palms.

“What?” she asked, dreading whatever Mindy was about to say next, knowing it was something she didn’t want to hear.

Mindy seemed to be having trouble forming words. “Miz Marson.”

Carly stared at her. “What?”

“Carly, she’s—something happened to her.”

Mindy couldn’t mean that. She couldn’t. There had to be a mistake. But the sorrow in Mindy’s face was undeniable. “Is . . . is she—”

Mindy took her arm. “Come with me.”

Carly let her draw her across Bryce’s lawn. Miz Marson lived only a couple of doors down. Carly didn’t ask Mindy any questions. Her mind was racing so badly, she couldn’t pick one to ask. She felt sick. She wanted to sit down and let the dizziness pass but kept her feet plodding along.

They entered Miz Marson’s house through the screened in front porch. The central hallway led to the kitchen on the right, and in the doorway, a pair of slippers protruded outward, the toes pointing to the ceiling. Carly heard a soft whimper and realized she had made the sound.

When they rounded the corner, Stacy was kneeling on the linoleum next to Miz Marson’s motionless form. The elderly lady lay on her back, her hands draped over her stomach, her head tilted to one side.