AWOL: A Character Lost (14 page)

The boys looked up at their dad who had turned to look at the two windows in the room. He walked over and checked the special plastic covering them. It was a space age plastic that covered the windows without blocking the light or the night. You could still see the world outside, so you didn’t feel like you were trapped inside a tomb even though you sort of were.

This material also held another function other than just the ability to let you see outside. It filtered out the harmful particles of radiation by taking in those particles and converting them to breathable air, so people could live in their homes without worry of running out of oxygen. This eliminated the use of a machine, because a machine was unreliable. It was okay if it handled the heat and central air, because you could live, though uncomfortably, without it until the machine was fixed; but when it came to oxygen the survival rate was much lower when a machine broke down. This handy plastic solved that big issue; and as long as the seal held, all was good, no maintenance required.

Danny grabbed a small instrument on the table and waved it over both windows. The light on it came back green, no leaks.

“What’s the matter dad?” Michael asked.

“It’s nothing, just checking, always checking.” Danny turned to face his sons as he put the instrument back on the table. “You never can be too sure.” Danny walked over and sat down on the bed. “Are you guys okay?”

“We both had a bad dream,” Michael replied.

“Can you tell me about it?”

“I honestly can’t. I only remember something about vampires, but that’s it,” Michael replied.

“And I remember being lost in all these nightmares until you found me at my grandfather’s cabin.” This time it was Johnny who chimed in.

“Can you remember anything else?”

“No. I just know they were nightmares, but like Michael, I can’t remember the details,” Johnny replied, looking up at his father.

“It’s like you know you were there, but you can’t remember anything else,” Danny replied.

“Exactly.” They both said this in unison.

“I guess dreams are just like that; at least we are still safe, and together.”

Danny, as he sat there, thought back to the days when his sons were just babies – newborns. He could remember them both lying on his chest as they slept their peaceful baby dreams. They both looked so grown up now, and he wondered how the time had slipped away so quickly.

“Well you both look like you’ve recovered from whatever it was that was bothering you. Maybe you guys should try and get back to sleep.”

The boys looked at one another. Michael spoke for them both. “Could we just hang out here, a little bit longer? We will be quiet, promise.”

Danny thought about it for a moment. “Okay. Just keep it down. I’m going downstairs for a run. Promise me you both will get back to sleep.”

“Sure,” Michael replied.

Johnny remained quiet as he nodded.

“Okay.” Danny got up and walked out into the hall. He closed the door and let his sons fall back into conversation. He walked to the master bedroom, and tried to be quiet as he entered the room. His wife wasn’t in bed, and the bathroom light was on. A second later he heard the commode flush.

His wife appeared at the bathroom door. “How are the boys?”

“Good. I’m going to go for a run.”

“I’ll probably go once you get done.”

Danny watched her walk across the room, pajama pants on, bare feet, loose fitting shirt with no bra underneath it. She was a stunner, standing about five feet tall, trim and fit, soft skin, and hazel eyes, 36 years of age. She wore her sandy brown hair short, shorter than his or his sons, and she walked with a mother’s confidence.

“Okay. I’ll keep it warm for you,” Danny replied, watching her climb into bed.

As she tried to settle back to sleep, he put on his running gear. When he was finished, he checked the windows. The light on the machine came back green, air tight and sealed, just the way he liked it.

He put the machine in his pocket and grabbed his running shoes from the closet. He had only a couple of boxes left of these shoes, and the pair he had in his hands were nearing the end of their mileage cycle. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he ran out of them, because he was hooked on everything about this brand; and as any runner will tell you, once you find a perfect shoe you stick with it.

Danny closed the closet and left the room. He walked down the hall and descended the stairs, checking each window as he went. All were air tight and sealed, just like the others, just like he liked it.

Once downstairs, Danny moved into the office and checked the one window in there – air tight, of course. He started to move out of the room and stopped. In the murky light something caught his eye. It was a course schedule. This piece of paper had been laying there for who knows how long, and he had walked by it so many times before; but today the yellowed page caught his attention.

He picked it up, blew off the dust, and looked at it.

The title read:

“Class 101 – Celluloid, a beginner’s course for dissecting film”

Below this title were three words:

“Professor Danny Tall”

Danny scanned the page and thought back to all those youthful faces and how they had looked up to him each and every day. Where were they all now? Where were those hopeful few who had dreamed of life in the cinema, a place that no longer existed? Had they known then what they know now (if most of them lived through this) would they have even chased such an elusive dream? Danny thought they would have, maybe more would have joined in that pursuit instead of going into subjects that guaranteed steady jobs and pay after their college years were done. He put down the paper, placed the memory back in its box, and made his way out of the office. No use going back to that time and place. That world was done.

From there he checked the rest of the windows, and the door that led into the garage; everything was perfectly fine, the light always reading green. His family was safe and sound, again, just like he liked it.

Finished with his inspection, he took a key off a hook nearby and unlocked the door that led to the basement. He opened the door, turned on the lights, and took a couple of steps onto the stairs. He stopped, locked the door, and put the key on another hook.

He ventured down the stairs and into the basement, which wasn’t too big of a place. It was mostly open, except for two small rooms. One was a full bath with no tub, and the other an open area or exercise area, currently being used to hold a treadmill and weights. Two small windows let in light; both were sealed, of course.

At the exercise area he put on his shoes, stretched, and climbed on to the treadmill. The treads started moving as he selected music to play. Judas Priest seemed to fit the moment. He wanted to hear the song “Living Bad Dreams” because that was what kept running through his head after he woke up.

As the music poured into his ears, he set his pace and let his mind go.

Danny found his groove.

This was going to be a good run.

While Danny is running, let me tell you about one more thing that is in this basement; something I haven’t mentioned yet. It is a dull metallic door, closed and locked tight, just past the entrance to the bathroom. There’s a tunnel behind this door, clean and shiny, smooth and polished steel. This tunnel leads to
The COMMON Area
which is an enormous space that can hold a thousand people, maybe more than that. Its limits have never been tested, so no one really knows for sure. From this main area there are six connected tunnels going off into various things we humans need in order to sustain life.

The Food Tunnel
– follow this one and you wind up in a gigantic grocery store where you can find most of what you need, including fresh produce and meats. There’s also a restaurant inside this store which takes reservations a year in advance. Currently it is booked for over two years. Along with the store and restaurant there’s a large livestock area, mostly consisting of cows and chickens.

The Hospital Tunnel
– follow this one for any emergency you might need.

The Exercise Tunnel
– follow this one to find a gym the size of a small stadium.

The Entertainment Tunnel
– follow this one to find a movie theater (the only one working in the entire Raleigh area. The rest, like I said before, are long gone), and a place to check out DVD’s. This movie theater has one large screen, stadium seating, and surround sound. Each week it shows a different movie, and those movies vary. It might be a classic one week and then a brand new movie the next, well, as new a movie as they can get these days. There are also three bars and two coffees shops here as well, and a place to hang out, for those who just need a break from their trapped homes. This hang out area looks like a tropical beach, complete with sand, beach chairs, umbrellas, and a fake ocean painted on the walls complete with sunny skies and pumped in wave crashing sounds.

The Communication Tunnel
– follow this one if you are part of the government or you have a special job to do after the war. This is the room where people sit and make contact with the outside world. This is also the place that monitors all the tunnels and will take orders for anything needed, such as a repair on an exercise bike or a leaky window in a home. Anything broken that needs fixing you tell them right here and they will find the right person for the job.

The Sixth Tunnel
– follow this one for a couple of things. First, it leads to a fully functioning police station that monitors everything connected to
The Raleigh District
. Say, Danny smacked his wife around, which he wouldn’t do because he thinks hitting a woman is a sin; but, if he did, this Police Station would have authority to arrest him, charge him, and try him with domestic abuse. There are sixteen cells, a court, and a judge to oversee it all. There’s also a small, non-denominational church for anyone who wants to attend services on Sunday morning.

Now folks, I have to stop the forward progress here for a moment. I want to take you backwards in time. I want to take you on a trip back before the bombs. I want to give you some insight into how all of this came to be. It all started with Danny doing what he does best, running, but this time he is outside in the fresh North Carolina air, enjoying a day that won’t exist for very much longer. Now let me take your hand as I guide you back to that time and place before the Earth as we know it stopped. Don’t worry I have your hand. You will be safe. So turn the page and let’s get started.

Danny stopped just as his watch clicked 7 miles. He started to walk, cooling down, letting the run settle into his body. Sweat ran off of him like a river as his wick-away clothing did its best to keep him dry. This was another good run, and he was ready for the 5K next weekend, which was only 3.1 miles, but Danny was feeling good today, so he just let his legs run until they had said it was time to stop.

He looked up into the blue North Carolina sky and sucked in the cool spring air of early morning. He loved living in this state. The weather was never so bad that he couldn’t run, even in the late summer or the deepest parts of winter when Mother Nature always seemed to be at her absolute worst.

He walked towards his house and thought about the day ahead. He had a class to teach at 11:00 that morning, and he wondered if the kids would be up for his latest discussion, because college kids came in all kinds of variety and sizes. Some were just there for the party, and in a year or so they would be gone. Some were there to actually study and to make something of themselves. While some, actually most of them, were there to do both – enliven their minds and party their asses off. He was part of that third crowd when he was in college.

Danny reached home, stopped, and did a few light stretches; the heavy stuff would come once he was inside.

His home was nice and modest – built in the seventies with a large basement area completely finished. It had soft tan vinyl siding and dark black shutters that were more for decoration than anything else. The door was white with a gold round handle. The driveway, free of stains in front of the two-car garage, the grass neatly cut, the landscaping neither grand nor large, just enough to spruce up the outside, with the knockout roses, the blooming flowers, and mulch, lots and lots of mulch. You had to mulch it up if you were going to make it all pull together. Don’t get Danny wrong, he wasn’t trying to compete with the neighbors. He just wanted it all to look nice.

The inside of the house was just as neat as the outside, clean and tidy. The way they liked to keep it, the colors matching and reflecting the choices his wife had made, from the walls to the furniture, it all matched with a woman’s sense of detail and design.

Danny finished stretching, walked up the steps, and took out his key. He slid the key in the lock and opened the door to an empty house. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and stood there a moment letting the silence take over. The wife was at work, the kids at school, so he had the place to himself for a couple of hours. This kind of time was rare, so he knew he had to take advantage of it. After his brief pause, he put his running stuff (watch and hat) on the table by the door and went into the kitchen. He re-filled his water bottle, and put it back in the fridge.

He yawned and put on a pot of coffee then made his way upstairs to the master bedroom, laid out in colors of blues and greens, with family pictures spread out on the walls, and on top of the dressers.

Danny stripped down and threw his clothes in the laundry basket. He flipped on the TV and started to stretch, because stretching before a run was wise, but not completely necessary; however, after it was over, it was crucial. You had to work those muscles out or you would wake up stiff and sore the next day.

On the TV, an older newscaster, late fifties with grey hair, and well-manicured features was busily going about his daily routine, delivering the news people wanted and didn’t want to hear.

NEWS CASTER:

. . .
The Middle East Nuclear Arms Association has stirred up more conversation today. They have announced that they have reached enough capital to take their nuclear program to the next level. We are unaware of what the next level means, but The United States and many other countries, have been pleading and bargaining with this rogue group of nations to cease all operations or else drastic measures . . .

Danny turned the channel to ESPN and finished his stretches. There was no time for nonsense like that on such a beautiful day.

Finished, he cooled down for a minute or two, and then took a warm shower. He put on his work clothes, nice jeans and collared shirt, tennis shoes on his feet. Once done, he made his way to the kitchen for food and coffee, his stomach was growling – no screaming – feed me now! Danny was wise to listen to it. He ate, surfed the net, and read the blogs he followed while the morning passed.

What he didn’t know, as he sat there, was that he was being watched. Someone was in his house just inside of the shadows, monitoring him, making sure he was the right one for the job.

*

Danny was sitting outside, enjoying the warmth of early spring, writing a haiku just after class had finished, which was one of the better times for him to write. The creative juices always seemed to flow best for him at this time. A voice pulled him out of his poetry thoughts.

“Busy?” The voice asked.

Danny looked up at the voice in front of him. This voice was attached to Barry; the one person Danny could call a friend, maybe even a best friend. Barry stood about six feet tall, a little pudgy, with light blonde hair, and lines on his face of a 40 year old man. He was dressed in a suit and tie, his everyday attire.

Barry was another professor at the school, and he taught business-related subjects. An unlikely pair, but both of these guys loved movies. They could talk movie stuff all day long; and, to the detriment of their wives, they did. Luckily for the wives, they had each other to talk to when the men were rambling on about the cinema.

“Not really. Trying to get this haiku out, but it isn’t happening.”

“That’s that funky Japanese style of poetry with seventeen syllables.”

“Yeah, 5 syllables for the first line, 7 for the second, and 5 for the third. Tough part is making it work. I have this great line in my head, but it is 8 syllables and not 7, but that 8 syllable line works best in the middle of the poem.”

“It sounds kind of tough.”

“It is. So what’s up?”

Barry took a seat beside Danny and adjusted his suit so he could sit comfortably. “Just wondering how class was going? Day to day bullshit, you know the drill.”

Danny took notice of this uncomfortable shift, and he didn’t let the moment pass. “You know, you don’t need to wear a suit. Kids will respect you just fine without it.”

“I like to keep it classy, gives off a great image.”

“Kids don’t care about it these days. Too jammed up in whatever it is they can get jammed up in.”

“It works for me. Okay.”

Danny let it drop and moved on to another subject. “I’ve been going through the B-Movie classics. We’ve been discussing The Evil Dead trilogy.”

“Can you call that a trilogy? The second movie is just a re-make of the first, and Army of Darkness is so different that it is almost a stand alone.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but in my mind it is still a trilogy. Same people working behind the scenes, same concept, same evil beings, and Ash, don’t forget Ash.”

“How could you? Bruce Campbell is the man in those movies.”

“I wish he had a bigger role in the first one, because he really shines in 2 and 3.”

“The hand scene alone in the sequel is B-Movie gold.”

Their conversation lagged for a moment as they watched some college girls playing volleyball in clothes they shouldn’t have left their house in.

“Something isn’t it,” Barry replied.

“Yeah, they seem to get sluttier with each passing year.”

“Where were they when we were in college?”

“I know what you mean,” Danny replied, smiling.

“Switching subjects, have you heard the big news today?”

“No.”

“I started running or jogging I should say.”

“Really?”

“I started yesterday after work, abandoned the cigarettes over the weekend. I didn’t run far, but I did try it. I have to lose this,” Barry replied, smacking his belly.

“I wish I would have known. I have this great way to get started.”

“I wanted to go by myself for the first time. In case I made an ass out of myself. You understand.”

“Did you like it?”

“I hated it, but I plan to keep going.”

“How about we run together?”

“I was going to ask you if you would be up for that.”

“You know how us runners are. When we can bring another lamb to the flock, we are all about doing just that.”

Barry looked at his watch. He had a class to teach in about fifteen minutes. “I guess I should go. How about this weekend we try to run together?”

“I have the 5K on Saturday, but I should be a go for Sunday,” Danny replied.

“Sunday it is then.”

“I’ll call you on Saturday, and we can figure out the time and place.”

“Sounds good. See you Danny and keep yourself focused.” He motioned to the giggling girls playing volleyball as he left.

Danny smiled. “I’ll try.”

Barry waved as he crossed campus, heading on to his class.

Danny eyed the volleyball girls a moment longer and then returned to his haiku as the day slowly passed.

*

Danny was listening to the radio as he drove home later that day. While he was driving, a news broadcast came on – one of those quick ones to just give you an update about the day’s events.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:

. . . Talks stalled today between The Middle East Nuclear Arms Association and various members of the United Nations. The president of the United States had this to say earlier – “The world will not stand for people with this kind of aggression and hatred towards others. We will not stand idly by and let these rogue factions destroy the peace and sanctity of this world” . . .

“You won’t allow violence, but at the same time you are about to create violence by destroying them. It seems kind of backwards, violence for violence.” Danny said this to himself as he flipped around on the radio for some music, garbage, nothing out there on the radio these days. Frustrated, he reached for his Hammerfall CD and pushed it into the CD player. Powerful vocals along with screaming guitars and thundering drums flooded his ears as he started to jam, not so much in a youthful agile way, but one that reflected his middle aged status. Things popped and creaked as he head banged along, and thunder shook his fist.

The light at the intersection turned red, and he stopped to wait it out. While he sat there, he saw a guy on his right, carrying one of those signs. You know the kind, the ones proclaiming the end of the world is near. Danny watched him for a moment. While he watched this guy – old, at least eighty, scraggly beard, unkempt hair, unwashed – the guy’s face blurred out, and in its place was a smiling demon. This demon’s face was jet black with crimson colored eyes and lips, ruby red, whore’s lips. The face flashed out and another one appeared. This one was angelic, light brown, with warm blue eyes, and pinkish red lips. This face flashed out as a car horn caught his attention. Danny looked up into the mirror to see the driver behind him giving him several unpleasant hand gestures. Danny ignored the driver and pushed the car forward. As he drove away, he took one last look at the guy on the corner. The old man was back to normal, and he was carrying on just like nothing had ever happened. Danny turned his eyes away, cranked up the music, and made his way home.

*

Danny lived in a small residential community, one of those where there were a lot of homes with a lot of kids. Tonight it looked like most of those kids had decided to stage a baseball game in the round circle of the cul-de-sac he lived in. Johnny was part of this game, and he waved to his dad as his dad pulled the car into the driveway. Danny waved back and then reached into the glove compartment for the garage door opener.

He paused in mid reach.

Lying on top of the garage door opener was a white business card.

Danny picked up the card and looked at it. On one side it was blank and white, slightly yellowed, and on the other, there was a hand written phone number, written in neat black ink.

Danny punched the button on the garage door opener, and the door started to rise, clicking upwards on its metal track. When the door was open, he could see his wife’s car sitting in her usual spot. He pulled his car in beside hers, and turned it off.

When you get married, you become a creature of habit. You sleep on one side of the bed, either left or right. You have your favorite spot on the couch, and usually, your car is always parked in the same spot when you arrive home. Danny’s wife always parked on the left side so she could be closest to the door to the house while Danny always parked on the right, and tonight was no different. The routine, the day to day, was still clicking along like it was supposed to.

Danny pushed the button on the garage door opener, and sat there a moment staring at the card. The garage door closed behind him, the small light above, holding the darkness at bay momentarily. It wouldn’t last long.

This odd card had him perplexed. Who in the world had put this in his car? How had they gotten in? Both of the car doors had been locked when he went out to his parking space after his last class. He was sure of it.

He sat there a moment longer – thinking. He could hear the kids outside screaming and playing. He could smell the odors of the garage seeping in through the car windows. He could see everything in this room, the tools, the yard equipment, and the decorations for all the holidays, which were stored nice and neat in their containers. He was safe and secure at home, but for some reason this card made him feel uneasy. It said danger was lurking, and he didn’t know why he felt this way. This was a simple card with simple writing on it, but it had a big fat invisible warning light flashing across it like a bright neon sign.

Danny reached for his phone just as the light shut off; the windowless room fell into pitch black. He punched the button on the garage door opener; the one that would turn the light back on, and when the light came on, a man was standing in front of the car. Danny jumped so hard he about wet himself. His heart raced, and his pulse quickened. First it was the card, and now a stranger was in his garage. The routine, the day to day, just fell off a cliff and exploded.