Maxwell Flanagan steps out of the cabin under the cold light of the flickering fluorescent lights at 1:04 am, somewhere in the nowhere that is between northern Georgia and the bottom of South Carolina. He runs the company card through the terminal via his wristwatch and stares at the numbers calculated against the nine dollars it costs to buy a gallon of diesel, the dancing digits on the faded LCD screen is the last papercut against his soul for the day. As he watches, he rolls through what is left for him to do.

Park. Shower. Bed.

That’s how he speaks to himself. More like a dog command than a conscious thought. He follows his own orders to the letter.

In the sleeper cabin of the Mack, he hits the foam mattress and closes his eyes, dreading what comes next.

He is standing on the edge of the pit, an open burning mouth that leads to the gates of Hell. Randall is standing on the other side of the red, hot ring, his dark skin shining in the firelight, his eyes aglow like a wild animal’s. It terrifies Max, reminding him of the lions you see on National Geographic hunting in the dark savannah.

“And you thought the days were hot, didn’t you, Max?”

Maxwell looks down, and he knows he’s in the uniform, back again. Back in Iraq.

Max wants to plead with Randall to step away from the pit. To scream at him to step back.

Don’t you know what will happen? Don’t you know this is what kills you? This fire won’t stop till you’re a shriveled husk. Till you wither away. Away.

That’s what he would say. If he could speak. But the dream never lets him. He’s trapped to stand by the pit with the knowledge of what is coming for Randall. His friends. Just one. Just one of many. His friends, gone for so, so long.

The alarm whips through the dark sleeper before dawn to the sounds of Guns N’ Roses screaming Paradise City at full blast, and Max sits up in the cabin with a sudden gasp, the panic his only companion in the darkness.

Take me down to the paradise city, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty!

He fumbles to turn the phone alarm off; his hands are shaking like leaves in the wind.

Oh won’t you please take me ho-oome. Yeah, yea—

He fat-fingers the screen into silence and crumples down into a heap on the sleeper floor, his body taut like a spring about to pop. He starts to see pinpricks of light in the dark.

Breathe. Breathe man. You’re okay.

The rhythms and practices that the VA shrink taught him seem far away, distant, but he doubts they would be of much use because this one, this one is bad. He fumbles for a duffel bag stashed under his mattress and finds an old prescription, popping the pill under his tongue and waiting.

Slowly, the tightening coil around his shoulder and chest ratchets down a few notches, and he can find his breath. The pills help, but he’s down to his last two.

He stands up, pulls on a t-shirt, and puts on his overalls before shuffling back towards the Love’s for a piss and a cup of coffee. He moves slowly, giving himself enough of an onramp into normality as he can manage.

He approaches the counter, where a young woman with deep red hair stands behind the counter. She smiles at him as he approaches.

He can’t stand this shit.

“Is that everything, darling?”

“Yep,” one-word answers are all he’ll give to these smoke and mirrors.

“Sure, I can’t get you something else? Donut, smokes?”

“Just the coffee. Please.”

She pulls up the total, and Maxwell pays from his wristwatch.

“Yes, sir. Thanks for visiting Maxwell.”

Max walks out as the girl with red hair shifts into a new form, behind the counter. This time, it’s with a tall, handsome Italian man who greets the next customer with a loud, playful, on the edge of flirtatious manner.

“Bella- welcome, welcome,” it sing-song calls.

Max sighs and shuffles back to the Mack.

After inspecting his trailer and Mack and putting a new ledger in his log, Max is back on the road, the air of the cool southern morning flowing through his open windshield. He will enjoy this moment because he knows that in a few hours, the morning will burn with the heat-soaked humidity, but for now, it’s cool and lonely out on I-85. There are only a few cars out on the highway on this stretch of road between Georgia and Gaffney, and for that, he’s grateful, enjoying the feeling of the coffee in his veins and the air-ride suspension of his seat absorbing the rattle of the road as he shifts into the South Carolina interstate.

For posterity’s sake, he leaves his CB turned on for channel 19, but there are fewer and fewer calls that come from it nowadays.

He’s got fourteen hours of straight driving from here to Boston, but he knows he will lose an hour at least before he can snake through DC. He settles in for a long stretch of road, mentally planning his day around the milestones that organize his life every single day he’s on the road.

Two hours before I call Carrie.

Four hours before Outliers.

Eight hours before a break, another coffee, and then Frankl.

“You could start Frankl now, you know,” he verbally says to himself.

Why not?

He flicks open the audiobook, lets the narrator pick up where he left off, and takes a sip of coffee.

“The ultimate meaning necessarily exceeds and surpasses the finite intellectual capacities of man; in logotherapy, we speak in this context of a super-meaning.”

The narrator continues, and the truck moves. The start of a good day, all things considered.

“Hello?”

The small mousey voice fills the speakers of the truck, cute and petite but curled up in a country twang. He loves this about Carrie. She always answers like he could be a robo-call or the tax man, and not the same call he makes every single day at 8:00 am.

“Good morning, darling, how’d you sleep?”

“Charlie was sick again last night, but he gave me about five hours, so good. Where are you?”

“Just crossed by the Gaffney butt-peach.”

“It’s Boston this time, right?”

“Yeah, Boston. Then I’ll pick up another load to take to Charlotte, then home.”

“Did you hear the news?”

“No, I haven’t, honey. Been listening to my audiobooks this morning.”

“You…” she pauses, as if trying to find the right words. “Turn it on this morning, when you get a chance.”

“What happened?” Max’s voice cuts, fear building between his shoulders.

She clicks her mouth and sighs. Max does not like this. Does not like this at all.

“They are getting us back into Iraq, Max. Boswell just sent a truth out over the nets.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me…”

The pause fills the cabin, and Max just watches the road ahead when he starts to see pinpricks streak across his vision.

Shit. Need to pull over.

“Honey, can I call you back? I want to hear this for myself.”

“Be careful, Max.”

“I will, and take Charlie to the clinic today. Put his bill against my benefit credits, okay? He needs to get back to school.”

“You sure?”

“I’m not using it. Get Charlie what he needs and get him back to school.”

“Alright.” She pauses. “Thank you, Max.”

“Love you, darling,” Max says, blinking against the swirl that is crossing the road now. “I gotta go.”

“Love you, too. Call me later.”

“I will.”

The truck pulls off to the side of the road, and Max throws on his caution lights. He sits there, watching the traffic fly by him, and he wills himself to find his breath. Memories of Dr. Jackson hover in the darkness of his closed eyes.

“When you have an episode, where do you feel it, Max?”

“I usually don’t feel anything. Not at first. But I see it. I see it coming in my vision.”

“The pinpricks?”

“Yeah. Like stars in my eyes.”

“Okay, let’s practice what to do when that happens, okay? Would you be willing to practice with me?”

Max feels himself nod his head.

“Take a breath and hold it. “

Dr. Jackson breathes with him. “Now release it.”

Max feels the breath rushing from his body.

“Now let’s do it again. Let’s just pay attention to the breath, and lets slow ourselves down, okay?”

“Okay, doc.”

After 20 minutes, the kiosk on the truck’s console dings. Max is back in his body, aware, and touches the screen.

“Everything okay, Maxwell? You’ve been stalled for twenty-three minutes?”

It’s hard for Max to tell whether this voice is a real person or a facsimile from the logistics contractor. It’s hard to tell what is real nowadays.

“I’m fine. Just needed a minute.”

“Were you sick, Maxwell?”

“I just needed. A minute.” He glances at the log plan for the haul ahead. “I can still make the time. I’m okay, okay?”

“Okay, Maxwell. See you in Boston.”

The road rolls underneath the Mack once more, and Max feels the temptation to turn on the news, but he keeps the speakers in the cabin silent. He pulls a pack of nabs from his console, those Lance crackers colored like road cones. He holds them in his mouth, allowing their salty, peanut-buttery flavor to melt, savoring them.

He’s past Greensboro now and has felt good the remainder of the morning, rolling up 85. There have been no calls on the CB, nor from the logistics console. The road looks clear, and he knows that Outliers is on.

He flicks on the AM band on his radio and turns the knob, keeping his eyes on the road. The hollowed-out echo of the AM pitch fills his cabin.

The voice of none other than Jose Clash fills the speakers, his deep voice making love to the microphone.

Greetings, fellow travelers. No matter where you are, or where you are at, there is always a home for you here on Outliers, where the weird, unexplained, and unexpected are always expected. We’ve got the phone lines open today. If you’ve got a story, a tall tale, or just need to get something off your chest, then this line is open for you.

Max smiles, gripping the wheel, letting the last nab dissolve in his mouth. He rolls down the window slightly and watches the rolling hills of the North Carolina piedmont flatten out as the road bends eastward.

Clash breaks in, “My dear listeners, I’ve got someone on the line who’s got quite a tale, this one from the roads of the southeast, and of course, we don’t count Florida in that mix, no man, no. You’re live on line two, my friend.”

A crackly, tin-foiled voice cuts over the feed, “Hi, there, Jose. My name is Clarence, and I’m heading down I-40 through this morning, just crossing into Virginia.”

“What you got for us, Clarence?” Jose cuts in. “From the sounds of the call, it sounds like you’re pulling a rig, am I right?”

“Yessir, pulling down a load of steel beams from Michigan.”

Jose cuts in, “Wonderful, you heard it here first, folks, Union trading open and free. God bless the Union!”

Max rolls his eyes. “Get on with the story, Jose!”

“That’s right, God bless the Union,” Clarence adds.

“Okay, Clarence, you’ve got a million people on this dial waiting for you to tell us what you saw. A mysterious stranger who roams the interstates of the Union?”

“Yes, Jose. You know, there aren’t many of us left, traditional truckers who still own their trucks and keep the lifeblood of this country moving on our roads, but I’m one of the few. My daddy was a trucker, and I am too, and I’m blessed to say my rig is paid for, so I can cut under many of the prices of the automated haulers on the roads today.”

“That’s great to hear, thank you for your service – go on.”

“Well, as you might expect, the interstate gets very lonely for us, and there haven’t been many of my brothers sharing the road with us these past ten years. There will always be some who want humans to do the hauling, but man…the well is drying up, Jose, you know?”

“For you and everybody else, my brother.”

“Well, I ain’t heard any automated radio hosts yet, Jose.”

Jose laughs, “This isn’t about me, Clarence. So you said you saw a hitchhiker?”

“Thank you,” Max says, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“Yes, that’s right,” Clarence continues. “The first hitchhiker I’ve seen in about five years.”

“Tell us about him,” Jose encourages.

“I saw him a month ago, sticking his thumb out, hitching off the side of I-26, over in Tennessee. I did what I’ve always done for those in need: I pulled over. I opened the passenger side of my rig and looked at this man, if you can call him that.”

“Now wait, why do you say that, Clarence? What do you mean?”

“I mean what I’m saying, Jose, there was something about this…this person…that was not…”

“Not human?”

“Not…human. That’s what I’m saying. His face. His face was like what you would say was…an approximation of what a human face would look like. Close, but not quite right. Something off in his eyes. Like cat eyes.”

“So what did you do?”

“I did what I always do, I asked him where he was going. He told me, ‘Anywhere, but South is nice.’”

“So you let him in your truck?”

“I did, and Jose, it’s a miracle I’m still alive, because he told me all about my life, things I’ve never told a single soul. And then he told me scared me so bad that I thought I might crash my rig, right then and there. I could not resist sharing this with you and the Outliers listening today.”

“What did he say? Tell us what this stranger tell you?”

“He told me that the Union would be at war again soon, and that this one would push us to the brink. He said that every able-bodied man, regardless of age, would be called up to fight. He said that both drones and men would be integrated into combat for one last time.”

“War with who, Clarence? Who is the Union fighting?”

“You already know the answer,” Clarence whispers, his voice cutting through the hollowing AM frequency.

Max feels the pit of his stomach fill with bile, and works to flip off the radio station. The sound of the rig moving over the interstate is the only thing that he listens to for a few hours.

At some point, Max feels another presence. Travis sits in the passenger side of the cabin, looking at Max for a long time. Max does his best not to acknowledge this phantom, who still wears his combat fatigues from the early 2000s.

“You know you shouldn’t be listening to that stuff, Maxy. Not good for you.” Travis rolls down the passenger window a crack and flicks out his Zippo as the smell of a Marlboro Red crackles over Max’s senses.

Maxy. He always called him Maxy.

“You’re not there, Travis. You’re not there,” Max repeats, whispering.

“You sure about that?” Max can hear Travis take in another big drag and slowly release it into the rushing air.

“You need to be easier on yourself, Maxy. You’ve been going a long, long time. You’ve done your share of fighting. No more for you, do you hear me?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Max shoots back. “You’re not.”

Max hazards a quick glance at the phantom in the passenger side, giving in to the fact that he’s gone completely off his rocker. The side of Travis’s face is concave, an open, rotted maw of a wound, speckled with ash and Iraqi sand.

“Maxy, today was always going to be a hard day. Worse when Biden shut down operations twenty years ago, and worse than the fifteen years that dragged on in Iran. So many men lost. So much blood spilled, and for what? But today, Boswell is opening it back up for business. I’m here to tell you to stay out of it.”

Max’s hands are shaking, and he’s struggling to find his breath, but manages to give off one chuckle.

“Man, I’m not good for them, and you know it. I’m too old. I’m damaged goods. They won’t even try to take me back.”

“And I’m here to tell you they will. You do whatever it takes to stay out of it. Do you hear me?”

Max lets out a sigh, his hands shaking. “I hear you, Travis.”

Max glances back over to the passenger seat. It’s empty again when he crosses into Virginia.

It’s 10:45 pm when Max pulls into a Flying J just outside of Boston after delivering the cargo. He stands, again at the fuel station, watching the diesel numbers dance across the LCD screen.

He calls Carrie.

“Hello?”

“Made it safely to Boston, babe. How’s Charlie?”

There is a long pause. “He’s had two seizures again today. The clinic was able to give me a week’s worth of medicine, but that’s all your benefit would cover. They said we’d have to wait till next month before…”

“Next month? No, no that can’t be right. I…”

Carrie sighs, and her voice lilts into a sob over the phone speaker, “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Max. I know he’s not your son, but you’ve been so good to us and it -”

“Honey, don’t you worry. I’ll find some more work. If we have to pay for his medicine, we will. The benefit will help cover some, and we will just have to make it work to get what he needs.”

There is a long pause.

“Max, you and I both know that there is no way we can do that. There isn’t any way we can make this work for him, not as things stand now.”

Max shakes his head, “No. We will find a way. Let’s talk about this tomorrow evening. When I’m back home.”

Another long pause.

“Are you okay, darling?” Max asks, his voice piercing through the darkness.

A sigh. “No, but it’s not about me. Just get home safe. It will be better with you here tomorrow.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. I love you, darling.”

“Love you too.”

The speaker clicks, and Max stands, the diesel digits still dancing. The final total is $1,935.23.

Shit.

Max’s tired brain begins to bark commands at him.

Park. Shower. Bed.

As he goes in to take a shower, the smell of something acrid overwhelms him in the gas station. A memory within the sensation, something from his past. An odor that haunts him.

He stands, holding his towel and toiletries under the beaming fluorescent lights, scanning the aisles filled with junk food, and the flickering digital attendant who, again, takes on the guise of a young and beautiful redhead. Then he hears something.

The sing-song jingle of the slot machine, musically scaling up and down a melodious ladder that attracts gamblers to its song like Sirens on the rocks, rings out into the Flying J. Max hears what can only be slot numbers spinning to find their final place.

Clunk.

Cherry.

Clunk.

Bar.

Clunk.

7.

“Never could stand sevens,” whispers a man seated at the sixth machine, his black cowboy boots shining like ebony in the green burning hue of the buzzing lights. His boots are in complete contrast to the rest of his garb, white Levis and a denim shirt, with an ornate turquoise bolo cinched high up to the throat, so tight it should be choking the bastard. He holds a clove cigarette that issues out a snaking tendril of smoke up that collects under his white, wide-brimmed cowboy hat. He pulls the bar on the machine, and the avalanche of sounds again begins to fly.

“It only takes one of these to hit, don’t you know it, son?” he calls out to Max, throwing a sidelong glance over to him, his eyes flashing for a microsecond before hiding back behind their dark shades.

“Lady Luck is a terrible temptress, but let’s see what she’ll bring me this evening. The world is cruel. I could use a pick-me-up.”

Clunk.

Double Bar.

Clunk.

Triple Bar.

Clunk.

Double Bar. Bingo.

“The only bars I like to see,” the stranger says, laughing, and the sound of coins falling into the drum erupts in the place. Max hasn’t seen coins in over a decade, and he swallows.

Something isn’t right.

“You look confused, Maxwell,” the man calls, turning around on his stool, holding the dirty clove to his mouth, its glow reflected in the dark black holes of his eyes. “Like you ain’t ever seen me, before. Don’t you know who I am?” He glances at the slot machine. “Sit down next to me and spin the wheel. See what you could win. I’ve got them warmed up for you now.”

The smell Max caught when he entered is all over him now, clouding around him like a leaded blanket. He glances down at the black boots on the white cowboys and watches them as they begin to melt, filling the tiles of the Flying J with deep inky pools of midnight. The pools keep growing, pouring from this man, this monster, who seems to walk over the water in his dark cowboy boots.

Except it’s not water. It’s oil.

Oil.

That was the smell. The smell of Iraq. The smell of the oil fields.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Max barely manages to whisper.

“You will pass, that’s right,” the stranger smiles, flashing dagger teeth. “But you need to be careful out there, Max. The world is cruel, and you’ve got so many needs. Spin the wheel, why don’t you? Spin and see what Fate can hand you, if you just grab it by the horns…”

He pulls the lever again, but Max doesn’t wait. He turns and runs out, back into the darkness, as the man by the slot machines begins to cackle in a laughter that makes him want to seize with fear. Sprinting from the store, he throws himself into the Mack truck and roars its engine back to life. In minutes, he is back on the interstate.

He doesn’t stop driving for a long time.

That night, he drives over fifty miles before finding a rest stop to pull over to. He locks the cabin and walks back into the sleeper, his hands still shaking with a terror that he cannot explain. It’s like he’s coming undone, his mind’s moorings are melting away.

Find your breath, Max.

Find it.

In and out.

In.

and.

Out.

He digs under his mattress to find the nearly empty pill bottle and fishes out his next-to-last pill, allowing it to melt under his tongue.

In.

and…

Sometime during the night, he hears someone moaning outside the sleeper cabin. The rush of panic fires through him like lightning as he awakens from a dreamless sleep, straining his ears in the darkness.

The moan erupts once more through the darkness, and Max stares outside the window, unable to see anything.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

He fumbles in his supply trunk and fishes out a heavy, metal-encased flashlight. He pulls up his overalls and slips on his boots, quietly stepping out of the safety of the truck into the cool darkness.

“Augh! Oh God… oh God.”

Max starts running to the sound, the compulsion to hurry setting in almost instinctively. His light cuts through the darkness and finds the man, lying face up on the concrete, gasping in pain.

“Help me…help.” The man whispers, his eyes wide.

A jagged wound beats crimson out on the ground from the man’s side, and his hands and feet scraped up to hell.

“What happened?” Max calls.

The man can barely speak, as he grips his side. “Two…two. They stole my car. My home. All I had in it.”

Max reaches for his phone, “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

The man holds out his hand. “No…no need. I…don’t have…”

“You don’t have benefits?”

He shakes his head violently through the loud fish-faced gasps for air.

“Just…just…stay… please.”

“There’s got to be something I can do!” Panic floods through Max’s body. “There’s got to be something I can do for you?!”

The man grabs Max’s hand with his wounded palms and pulls him to the ground.

“Just stay…with me…please. Don’t…let me…”

Max nods his head and holds the man’s hand, squatting down by his side, where a river of crimson still pours. Max holds his hand as he looks to the east, watching the grey oncoming morning lighten the sky.

“Thank you,” the stranger whispers. The man’s body seizes up with a jerk, lets out a gasp, and then is gone.

Max doesn’t know how long he stayed by his side, but the sun had completely risen when he dialed the police. A highway patrolman comes, his blue lights blazing, and stands over the body of the dead stranger as if it were only a piece of roadkill.

“So you’re telling me he was murdered by two thieves who took his car?”

“That’s all he could say before he passed.”

“And he had no credits? Poor bastard. We’re seeing more and more of this these days.”

“I know,” Max whispers, wiping the man’s blood from his hand onto his overalls.

After the officer takes Max’s information and the coroner is called, Max walks into the rest area like a dead man. He stares at himself in the mirror and splashes his face in the restroom sink. He thinks about when he was a kid, and he accidentally touched the electric fence in the cow pen behind his house. The connection brought with it the boom of the electric kick, followed by another, followed by another. The sobs are like that, and he can’t seem to get it together to stop them. They just keep rolling through him like that cow fence.

Somehow, he shuffles back into the truck through bleary, tired eyes, cranks the engine on, and hears the throttle of the rig. He catches the time, and as if by muscle memory, programs in the address for the next pickup, fifty miles further away from where he should have been.

Can you really do this today?

He buries the thought and puts the rig in gear.

Anxious and sick to his stomach, he flicks on the radio, and he scans the dial. On every channel, the same thing is playing.

“My fellow Americans,” a deep masculine voice resonates over the Mack’s speakers. “It is with deep solemnity that I call upon you today. After months of intelligence reports and cyber reconnaissance missions, it has come to my and the Joint Chiefs’ attention that the country of Iraq has developed a sentient superintelligence that is a direct threat to the Union’s safety and its sovereignty. This intelligence is so advanced that allowing it to build strength and go unchecked poses a direct existential threat to the people and corporations that make up our Union. I have issued a declaration of hostilities against Iraq, and at this moment, a large-scale drone campaign is underway over its capital city, Baghdad. In addition, I am calling on all Americans to consider my proclamation of the voluntary draft. For those who volunteer, full benefits for them and their designees will be bestowed upon them upon signing, ensuring security for each man and woman and their families should they choose to volunteer for our nation’s defense. There is no greater price that we can pay than the lives of our citizens, and we owe you and your families all that the Union can afford. Over the weeks to come, there will be more sacrifices that must be made, and I will…

Max flips the radio off. He drives, following the verbal directions from the logistics kiosk to the warehouse. He waits silently as the crew loads up the pallets and looks out at the window. The sun slowly rolls over him, and he finds himself on the road, heading down 85 once more, back down to the south. His mind is clear.

There never was any other choice, was there?

Keeping his eyes on the road, he speaks to his phone, asking it to find and dial a number. The dial tone buzzes through the speakers, and the line clicks open.

“This is the Union National Recruiter. Sergeant Adams speaking.”

“Yes, I’m calling regarding Boswell’s call for volunteers. I’d like to enlist. Again.”

Listen to the story below…

It is not yet dawn when I complete the first task – digging the hole. The earth gave way to my shovel’s blade easily enough, despite an unlikely frost from last night blanketing the glen. The cold doesn’t bother me, and I don’t mind the rhythm of the work. In fact, I lose myself in it. I mark my slow descent below the ground, one foot at a time, as the repetition of my labor feels rhythmic, like the mechanisms of a clock marking time. Not that it takes much for this job. I’ve done this over a thousand times in the past year alone.

I put the shovel aside, leaning it up against the wall of earth I’ve shaped, satisfied. I can measure the concavity precisely, eight feet by four feet. I hoist myself up and begin positioning the long iron vault over the opening, carefully lowering it into the darkness below. The family will attend the service in four hours. We are ready.

Otis leans against a tall obelisk, his dark face shining in the oncoming glow of dawn. He leans against a shovel, contemplating the rise of the red sun in the east, smoking a cigarette.

“Red sun in the morning, sailor’s warning,” he whispers. I watch him, watching. He finishes his cigarette, stamps it on the ground, and picks up the extinguished butt before asking, “What’s the weather going to be today, Faithful?”

“High at seventy degrees with a sixty-seven percent chance of rain,” I reply.

“I knew it. Could see it before you told me. These spring swings are something, aren’t they?”

I don’t understand, but it’s important not to bother Otis with too many questions this early in the morning.

“You dug the Chaplin grave this morning?” he asks, flicking his eyes on me.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, did you stake down the committal tent, too? We are going to need it with this weather.”

“I have, Otis.”

Otis nods, and I wait, hopeful.

“I’m going to need you this morning. I’ve cleared it with the family, and we are short-staffed.”

Yes.

“Just tell me how I can be of service. I’m grateful to help.”

Otis holds up his hands, and I read frustration on his face, evidenced by the way his forehead creases under his cap.

I was too eager.

“Just take it easy. When it starts to rain, hold the umbrellas for the mourners as they make their way to the graveside. I’ll be with you. We just need to make sure everyone gets to and from the graveside safely, and is safe under the cover of the tent. Weather is likely to be bad. Just like we talked about, slow and simple.”

I nod my head. “Slow and simple. I understand, Otis.”

“Good.”

The mourners spill out of the limousine and the small caravan behind it. They are dressed in black suits and dresses, and I meet them, careful to stand straight and hold out a large umbrella for anyone who has come unprepared. The rain comes down in sheets, but I don’t mind the sensation. It is a warm rain, after all.

Otis and I help guide the twenty or so mourners to the graveside, where they sit under the crimson tent marked with our funeral parlor’s name, MEMORIAL ACRES. They walk over the unrolled astroturf I laid out over the ground, sitting on the plastic seating that I also set up. The large wooden casket hovers over the vault I installed this morning. Otis and I stand back, underneath umbrellas, as the pastor steps up to the small podium that I’ve carefully placed beside the grave, as the rain rolls off the tent, pooling around the astroturf island.

“Friends and family, thank you for being here as we commit David Chaplain’s body back to the Lord. In First Thessalonians chapter four, it says, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.””

The pastor looks up and pauses, allowing the reading to echo under the dull drumming of the rain all around us. I glance at Otis, who, to my surprise, looks like we are watching paint dry.

I love listening to the messages the preachers, pastors, priests and priestesses, imams, and gurus give at every Memorial Acres service. How Otis can remain bored at this astounds me.

“Truly I say to you,” the pastor cuts into my thought, “that David will rise again when the Lord comes back. Along with the hundreds of others in this very field.”

A cacophony of “Amens” and “Hallelujahs” erupts from the twenty mourners.

This is obviously a Protestant church service. I’ve noticed that they are often more vocal than the Catholics and the Orthodox services. If the pastor knew what I know, he would know that there are approximately 87,988 Christians of various denominations buried at Memorial Acres, across the 99 acres of our facility, but I don’t interrupt him.

You must never interrupt an official proceeding.

Otis taught me that.

After we escort the mourners back to their caravan of electric vehicles, Otis turns to me, nearly shouting over the downpour.

“You got this right?”

“You mean finishing the burial?”

“Yeah.” He reaches into his black suit, the only one he wears during services, fishing for another cigarette.

“Of course, Otis.”

“Good, I’m going to let you handle this one. Just leave the tent up until tomorrow morning or when the weather clears. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you then,” I say.

“And Faithful?” Otis calls.

I turn, feeling my face extend into a questioning look.

“I’ve got Mina tomorrow.”

Mina is my best friend and Otis’s granddaughter. Sometimes, when there are teacher workdays, Mina comes with Otis to Memorial Acres, and we get to play in the afternoons, after my work is done. She’s taught me so many games, including my favorite one – Hide and Seek. The way the game works is that Mina goes out into the cemetery and hides amidst the older graves. These are the ancient ones, the tall imposing mausoleums and the worn and weathered granite obelisks, from the 1800s – these, Mina says, are the best for a good game of Hide and Seek. She will go and hide, and I will count down from 100 all the way to zero. Then I go and find her. Mina is, in my opinion, a great hider.

I rose early in order to dig two graves and oversee the ten scheduled cremations that appeared on the day’s schedule before even the sun rose. A busy morning, but not so much that I can not play with Mina. When she comes with Otis in the morning, we can barely stand how Otis seeks to inspect the work I’ve done. He sets Mina in the small office, with its coiled, red-glowing heater, and I take him to the two plots and to the cremation chamber, the ten urns stacked neatly in a row. Otis nods his head after inspecting the work.

“Well, go’on then.”

I run to fetch Mina, and she bursts out of the small gardener’s hut.

“Last one to the quarter is a rotten egg!” she teases.

“You will be the rotten egg, Mina!” I churn my legs fast, and I speed past her, laughing at the wind on my face and the fact that my friend is with me. When she catches up she is panting.

“How can you run so fast?” she asks.

“I just can. Why can’t you run faster?” I tease kindly back at her.

“I will when I get bigger. I’m not as big as you.”

“No, you are not,” I admit. “Though I doubt you’ll be as big as I am even when you grow.”

She stares up at me, a sly grin on her face. “Enough of that. Start counting.”

I barely vocalize the first syllable of ‘one-hundred’ when Mina is off, hiding like a field mouse between the granite monuments. Dutifully, I count all the way down from one hundred.

“Ready or not, here I come!” I say, and I thread my way through the graves, mapping each marker and mausoleum in a threaded pattern in my memory. It is slow, but it is thorough, and thoroughness is what is needed with Mina. I once found her hiding on the roof of a mausoleum she had somehow shimmied up, which was not something I ever accounted for her to do. Clever and smart, I have not yet learned all her tricks.

I’m in the Revolutionary War grave area when I see her from a distance, kneeling far away from the historic burial grounds. From my estimates, she’s in a newer section, the quarter where the victims of the bitter flu fell as it made its way through the city.

This isn’t right.

“Why are you not hiding, Mina? Why are you not in the historic quarter?”

She looks up at me, her eyes red, streaked, her cheeks shiny in the sunlight. A small grey striped lump lies on the ground, and I kneel down to inspect it.

“I found it here, Faithful.”

“I can see,” I say, marking the tremor in her voice, focusing on the shape of the dead animal. Felis catus. A stray cat.

“It’s dead. She’s dead…and…”

I lay my hand on her shoulder and pull her close. “It is the way of things, Mina. All living things live for a while, and then they die. This whole place is dedicated to remembering those who have died.”

Mina stares at the stiff body of the cat and sniffs. “But this…this one didn’t even have a name. Who will ever remember her?”

I blink and cock my head.

“Well, you can name her now, can’t you? We can remember this cat, and you can give her a name now?”

Mina shrugs, sniffling her nose.

“What would you name her?”

“Priscilla,” she whispers.

“That’s a beautiful name,” I say. “We can bury Priscilla and remember her, because you have named her and we have seen her.”

“But we never saw her alive, Faithful. We never got to see her live.”

“But she did live, Mina. We know she did.”

“But why, why did she have to die?”

I draw her close, to do what I can to comfort her. Mina is very different from Otis, so open and talkative. She does not chide me when I tell her what I’m thinking.

“All things that live, Mina, one day must die. It is a great cycle, and all must pass through it.”

“But, what about you, Faithful? You don’t die.”

I laugh, “Well, I’m not really alive. Not like you and not like Priscilla. I’m of a different sort, aren’t I?”

She stares at me for a long time, “I’m glad you won’t die, Faithful. I like you too much.”

“I like you too, Mina,” I admit. “Would you like me to bury Priscilla?”

It takes less than ten minutes to do the job. It is a small body. We bury the cat under the shade of an old standing oak before Mina ends her day with me. I don’t see her again for a very long time.

Years later, I walk out of the shed and go to find Otis lying on the ground. He doesn’t respond to my calls, and I call the auto-ambulance. He is pronounced dead, and his body is taken to be stored in Memorial Acres’ mortuary, where he is held until his family can come for his arrangements.

I stand over his body, looking at the schedule hovering in my viewscreen, but I can’t seem to move. I just can’t seem to move.

I stand on the outskirts of the mourners, watching the priest conduct the service from afar. Otis, it seems, was a Catholic Christian. I did not know that about him. His casket stays elevated over the vault I placed earlier before dawn, and the mourners disperse. I see Mina in the crowd and boldly push forward.

I can feel the others staring at me as I find her, and I look down at her.

“Mina,” I whisper. “I don’t know if you remember…”

“Faithful,” she says, her eyes are red from crying.

“I am so sorry for Otis. He was…a dear friend to me. My first teacher.”

Mina laughs and wipes her eyes. “He thought a lot of you, Faithful. He said you were the hardest worker he ever knew, laborbot or not.”

“He was…a good man, Mina.”

She pats my hand, and I squeeze hers gently.

“Mina…” I whisper. “I know this isn’t for me to say, but I’ve heard many sermons on these grounds. I have heard many say that the dead shall rise when Christ returns. I want you to know that I believe that Otis will be counted among those when that happens.”

“Oh, Faithful,” Mina struggles to hide her sob. “You are so kind.”

There is nothing more to say, so I stand, and soon the mourners disperse to wherever they go. I lower Otis’s coffin down into the vault and seal it. Then I tear down the tent and roll up the astroturf. Then I bury Otis.

I stand by his grave for a long time.

In the morning, I receive a message that there will be no replacement for the groundskeeper role at Memorial Acres. It will be up to me to maintain the schedule and the grounds from this point on. I don’t have a choice, nor do I protest, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss Otis. His jokes, the smell of his cigarettes, the ways he would watch games on the small vid-screen in the groundskeeper’s hut. It is very quiet without him.

The services in Memorial Acres begin to change. I notice the shift gradually at first, but now I know it’s unmistakable. Burial, it seems, is reserved for the Muslims, while cremations and tree ceremonies continue to rise in popularity.

I linger, watching a cremation on the grounds, while an orange-clad monk chants, “Radiant faces in the morning, by evening white ashes.”

I watch as the body burns low within the embers of the flames, and wait. The mourners disperse, and I attend to the ashes, sweeping the remains into a small black urn.

There are years when it seems all I do is dig, clear more land, and dig more. Ceremonies are so numerous that it is impossible for me to attend to them all, as there are more and more graves to dig. Then I get a work order for a grave whose dimensions are so large that I finally push back against the agentic scheduler.

“Why? What is happening?” I ask by opening a comment thread against the work order.

“That’s none of your concern. Your concern is to produce the product that is required.”

I have limited access to the nets, and there is no awareness to be gained from the greater world other than what I can observe in Memorial Acres, and I’ve been too busy to notice much.

I set out to clear the land so I can start the work. I’m halfway through the work when a screeching roar sunders above me, and I throw my head up towards the sound.

Scrambling and low, three jet-shaped drones fly in formation, arching over the gardens, turning up and to the north, into the direction of Columbia. I pull myself up out of the pit to see if I can see anything more, when an earth-shaking explosion erupts, causing the trees to bend back under the swell of pressure. I stumble to the ground, looking desperately at the sky, waiting, anticipating what might come next.

The birds, after several hours, begin to sing again, but panic still covers me. The work order at the bottom left of my field of vision blinks red, focused solely on my production. I get back to it, but I can’t stop the worry I feel at what has happened to the north. Another hour goes by, and I mark the work order complete.

That evening after the large pit is finished, I see a caravan of headlights approaching – large autonomous transports, equipped with dumping cargo holds. I’ve seen these before, usually carrying topsoil and mulch we use to beautify the gardens, but I dread this unexpected sight. The first cargo carrier pings me, and a message reads over my vision.

Labordrone, Serial Number, 484842041 – Is this the product tied to Work Order 2323291?

I confirm that it is, and the vehicle turns around, backing up its tailgate up to the pit I dug. The back door opens, and the dump lifts high, in one swift motion. Without ceremony or a pause, I watch as dark bodies roll out from the shipping containers, landing heavily on the ground, one body after another, over and over they tumble. All human. All dead.

I issue a ping to the cargo truck, questioning.

“This is inappropriate. Each of these is an individual human being, with faiths and traditions of their own — this is against every protocol I’ve been given.”

“The protocols have changed, Labordrone, 484842041. Seek an update immediately at your hub station.”

The first dump of bodies is followed by three more trucks. I watch, unable to compute the sight. Body after body rolls into the pit.

My pit. The one I dug.

Then, as quickly as they had come, the trucks roll off and away, and a new work order blinks in my vision. I stand over the pit, unable to open the new command from the system.

I have often thought that I was dysfunctional. That something within me was not quite right when my human makers made me. A swell of interference builds up within me as I stand over the throng of bodies, and I fall to my knees. I speak, ignoring the visual noise of the red work order blinking.

Who I am speaking to, even I don’t know.

“I don’t know how to make this right. There are no words that can be said. The only thing I can offer to all of you is that I’m sorry.”

Memories of Mina and me playing hide-and-seek on the grounds flash through my mind, from many decades ago, and I find new, old words.

“This comes from 1st Thessalonians, Chapter Four. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.”

I pause, mimicking the intonation of so many I have seen preach in this glen. “May it be so with you. May it be so with me.”

I blink. Why did I say that last part?

I am neither alive nor dead. There is no hope for someone like me.

Eventually, I stop receiving the schedule. The work orders, messages, and directives dry up like the leaves on the trees as winter draws closer. The loneliness takes on a presence that I grow more and more accustomed to, a shadow that falls over me and the gardens, an ache. Week by week, the infrastructure around me begins to decay. The power for the crematorium shuts down first, followed by the gardener’s shed. I would run out of power if not for the solar arrays built into my body, but even with those, it’s hardly enough to sustain myself. On a good day, my body’s battery peaks at 28%. It’s enough for a half-day’s work, but that’s taking it to the edge.

Suboptimal and unsustainable.

I decide to leave the Memorial Acres complex. Since I’ve awakened, I’ve only stayed on these grounds. This is the only home and world I’ve ever known. The lack of power reserves leaves me little choice.

Technically, I should not be able to leave the premises, according to the constraints imposed upon me in my original programming, but I’ve decided that most of that security apparatus has failed by now.

Gingerly, I step outside of the garden border where I know I could be shut down upon trespass.

Nothing happens.

“Excellent,” I exclaim, and I’m shocked to hear the sound of my own voice. I haven’t heard any voice in such a long time.

I start walking up the asphalt road that leads out beyond the gardens, out to what I had heard described as a highway. I check my battery; it’s reading 25%. This is my new metric for a full charge.

There have to be some arrays that I can harvest somewhere.

The gardens behind me have crept into a wildness symptomatic of my lack of access to sustainable power. Ninety acres is so much for just one laborbot to maintain on internal solar systems alone. I carefully optimize my steps for their most efficient setting for the journey ahead.

The landscape is broken, asphalt and transmission lines tangled up together like a scattered birds’ nests. What once were buildings stand what might look like ancient abandoned caves, crumbled and vacant, dust-filled, and dark. The only life is the blanketing kudzu that covers almost everything I can see, and the caw of crows who fly over me.

I wait, standing on the edge of the road, by the faded Memorial Acres sign. The cemetery entrance empties out onto what must have been a crossroads, a marred and pot-holed trail sprawling up and out to the east and west, the north and south.

I head south for reasons I cannot explain.

I find what once was a hospital fifteen miles away. If there are panels where I could charge, they should be somewhere on the roof or in a fleet bay for the ambulances. I circle the tall brick building cautiously, marching around its full perimeter to get a sense of how to navigate it. The south half is in complete ruin, blown out and hollowed, the aftereffects of a missile strike. I make my way to the emergency room entrance, flanked by thrown and broken auto-ambulances tossed to their sides as if they were toys. I stare at the vehicles for a while and rub my hands on the roof of the damaged vehicle. My hand smears and brushes away the caked-on grey of exploded concrete, and I see my face reflecting back in the face of a pristine solar panel.

Yes.

I go to work, access my multitool, and harvest the solar panel from the destroyed auto-ambulance when I hear a sound coming from deep within the emergency room entrance. A sound I have only heard a few times in my awakening.

The shrill scream of a baby’s cry.

I walk through the shattered sliding glass doors and hesitate to turn my headlights on to navigate the darkness. In the lobby, I see movement in the back corner. I spot them in my light.

“Hello, do you need assistance?”
It’s a young woman, holding in her arms a baby wrapped in dirty rags. The baby is crying, screaming, rising into a bellowing wail. She pushes back away from me towards the darkness, in a maze of crumpled, overturned office furniture and hospital beds, back to the wall, screaming.

“No nos hagas daño! Por favor, por el amor de Dios, no nos hagas daño!”

It takes a few seconds, but I hold up my hands in a sign of peace.

“I won’t hurt you, I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say in Spanish.

I stare at them, reading their dirty faces. The woman clutches her bundle, and her face, in the dim light, is skull-like, hollowed, her cheeks sharp. The baby’s stomach is distended.

“Esperen aquí”, I say.

Wait here.

I check my gauge. My internal power is hovering at nine percent.

Too low for this.

I ignore the caution and am up and moving, pushing my way through the jumbled chaos of the lobby towards the darkened corridors beyond, sending desperate scans to orient myself within this maze. I find a plastic escape route sign, fallen and cracked, lying on the door, and shine my lights on it.

I find what I’m looking for, Maternity Ward.

“Agua? Agua?” I cry, questioning, carrying a large cardboard box back into the lobby. I’m down to two percent.

“I’ve found some things. some…thing… 9.8.7.…sczzh, things.”

I place the box down and sprint to the door, one last push to get back outside, back to the panel I found. Back to the sun.

Back to.

EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN PROTOCOL INITIATED.

CACHED SAVE MEM FILE RECORDED

I awake, my memories cracking over me like lightning. Questions and their answers avalanche within me, and it takes a minute to realize I’m standing outside, in the sun. The hospital parking lot.

“Dios mío, por favor, vuelve. Por favor.”

I hear her, and I remember. She stands next to me, her eyes wide, and then I see several things at once. The solar panel is hard-wired to my intake charger. The gaunt woman stands next to me in the daylight, her neck streaked with the red-hot lines of an infection. The baby she holds sleeps in her arms, a bottle at its lips.

She lets out a haggard, lingering cough that rumbles in her chest cavity. She is not well.

I check my own vitals.

15% A large increase.

I look at her, staring at her, taking her in. She holds her child close, her arms strong despite their thinness.

“Muchas gracias,” I say to her, grabbing her hand. “Thank you for saving me.”

“Fuiste tú quien me salvó. Nos salvó”

It is you who saved me. Saved us.

“You seem to be sick. I have enough power. I will search for medicine for you. Antibiotics.”

“Muchas gracias, this was as far as I could get. I don’t know how long we’ve been here.”

Without a word, I stand and delve back deeper into the hospital.

I come back, carrying with me several harvest cans of food, another pack of baby formula, a small collection of over-the-counter pain killers.

“Lo siento,” I say, “No antibiotics.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, her eyes weak in the dim light.

I open the can of beans and start searching for kindling for fire. It does not take long to start a tiny contained fire. I hold the can over the flames, watching the canned beans heat and bubble.

“You should eat and rest. Take the meds we have found. I will keep searching.”

She nods, her face smiling in the firelight. “Eres un ángel.”

I reach for her son, and she hands him to me. I hold his bottle to his lips, and he eats, his eyes closed. I walk outside, allowing the setting sun to boost my energy for the last few moments of the day.

Another day is spent searching the hospital, and still no more antibiotics can be found.

“Tienes que llevarte al niño antes de que se enferme. Antes de que yo...”

You must take the child. Before he gets sick. Before I…

I hold up my hands in protest, “You must not ask me to do this. I have no right to…”

She cuts me off, “But you’ve already done what I could not. You’ve already saved him, my angel. You’ve already answered all my prayers.”

She places the baby in my arms, and I blink, my mind still spinning with all the reasons this should not be happening.

“Se llama Fidel.”

His name is Fidel.

Fidel.

Fidelity zips behind the tombstones and the fruit trees we’ve planted, laughing. She’s much faster than I am now. Smarter and funnier than I could ever imagine. She hides just as well as Mina did so long ago, but I’m…I’m much slower. I have a fraction of the strength and energy I used to have. Fidelity is Fidel and Marion’s youngest, their funniest, and most precocious. My secret favorite, but I don’t let anyone else know.

“Come on, Faithful!” She calls. “Catch up!”

“I’m coming, darling. I’m coming.”

I wake up one morning hearing the strong clarion call of a trumpet. I feel the wind on my face, shifting toward the east.

Wonders upon wonders.

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It’s cool this early in the morning. The fog still clings to the land like a blanket, reminding me that if I had my wishes, I’d still be under a quilt with my wife. But not today.

I’m walking the border of the land. A habit? A physical manifestation of my anxiety? Some days I’m not sure. The news is scant, and I can never be too careful.

The dog walks by my side, nose to the ground, guiding my steps around the landmines surrounding the farm, the trips and traps put together from the scraps of discarded farm fertilizers and simple mechanics I’ve assembled. Not military grade, but something in a world full of nothing. We are doing better than most people.

I sigh, following the dog’s lead as we walk the five-mile circuit of the border. We return, the sound of percolating coffee a welcome sound echoing in the quiet farmhouse.

I sit and sip from an old mug, the sound of morning birds just beginning their chorus around us.

The day is uneventful. The boys help me bale the hay in the fields, and I watch the skies. A buzzard hangs overhead, high over the mountain that butts up against the field, its circuit a wide oval in the clear sky. Soon another joins it, followed by another. My oldest, Cade, studies my face, sweat pouring down his brow as he presses the dried cuttings into the makeshift mold.

“What do you think?” he asks me.

I strain my eyes at the shadows hovering above. “Normal. Just normal buzzards.”

“How can you tell?” he asks, wiping his brow. He’s strong and tall, a bundle of tightly wound muscles and a heart full of hope. He’s better than I have any right to deserve.

I wince, a casket of unlocked nightmares clawing at the door of my mind. I don’t answer the question. “Probably a dead deer. Nothing to worry about.”

Cade looks at me as Paul continues to work ahead of us, his scythe running through the fields.

“Am I the only one working today?” Paul chides us.

“Yes!” Cade calls, his boisterous laugh is deeper than I remember. They are both growing up so fast. A million pin-pricks of worry and doubts scratch in my mind, threatening to seize me. I force myself to breathe, pulling out my pipe if only to chew on the stem.

We work the rest of the day until sundown, clearing and baling a quarter of the field. It’s slow and hard work, Paul cutting the field, Cade baling, and I tying the bales. The whippoorwills and mourning doves announce it’s time for dinner, and my stomach growls with hunger. We head back to the house, and Sandy opens the door, her face glowing from the oil lantern she carries.

“I was about to holler, but I figured you’d all be hungry enough to know it was time.” She smiles, her face still young despite the crow’s feet dancing around her smile.

“I’d say we’re mighty hungry,” I agree.

“Starving!” shouts Cade.

“Famished!” explodes Paul.

“Get in, boys- wash up.” I walk into the small farmhouse, put my sweat-filled hat on the hook, and take off my boots by the door. The smell of cornbread and field peas fills the inside, and the worries in the field fade away back in this place of comfort and peace. We wash and sit, say grace, and eat. There is nothing more to talk about than what must be done tomorrow.

“Cade, it’s time you start to learn about the line work. I’ll get you up tomorrow early, and we will take a turn with Chance.” The dog looks up at me, his eyes eager at the sound of his name.

“Why just Cade, Pa? Why can’t I learn the line work?” Paul’s voice has a whining edge to it, worried about being left out.

I level with him, “Paul, there will be a time when you’ll resent this job. Enjoy the fact that you won’t be up before dawn tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Paul,” Cade budges in, ever the loyal eldest. “Enjoy your beauty sleep.”

Paul sneers, his face flickering over the oil lamp.

“Plenty of time for all of that, son,” Sandy adds. “Remember, John, Williams will be making his rounds. Tomorrow is the first Wednesday.”

I nod my head, “That’s right. Well, that’s exciting enough. Tell you what, Paul, maybe you can watch the road for Mr. Williams. Make sure he makes it through okay?”

I feel Sandy’s hesitation, “You sure that’s a good idea, John?”

“I’ll guide him through it, Sandy. Me and Chance. Don’t worry.”

Sandy nods her head and lets out a sigh that only I catch. The darkness of the night overtakes us, and we sit at the table as the boys wash the dishes.

“So line work, tomorrow?” Sandy asks. “I’ll be picking in the early morning.”

“Wouldn’t mind tasting that creamed corn,” I mumble, hinting at what I hope is on the menu tomorrow.

She ignores me. “Watermelon will be ready soon, too. We should have a good one come Sunday.”

“That’ll be a treat. Nothing better than summertime melon.”

She looks at me for a minute. “What do you need from Williams?”

“Oh, I’ll talk to him tomorrow about all that, don’t you worry.”

“John, you know we don’t have the…”

“I’ll take care of it, Sandy. Don’t you worry. A boy only turns twelve once. We are fine.”

She bristles, but I know I’ve settled it for now.

“Besides, Williams owes me a favor, and I can supply him with some finished products in the downtime.”

“John Franklin, you have no downtime,” she corrects me.

I look at her and smile. “We may hay when the sun shines.”

“And mines in the moonlight,” she smiles.

We gather on the front porch, enjoying the cool of the night air, the night cocooning around the house and the land. We rock on rocking chairs as the boys swing. Sandy reads from the Bible, and we listen, contented enough to hear the story.

“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, ‘Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses, who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him,” she reads.

“Make us gods?” Paul laughs. “Foolishness.”

I look at him, my eyes commanding his silence.

“Go on, Sandy. Keep reading,” I load a wad of tobacco in my pipe and light it.

“Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

I draw in the smoke, and tears are welling in my eyes, and my hands begin to shake. I take a long draw from the pipe, the embers in the pipe blazing.

“When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.’ So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward, they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”

Sandy closes the leather book, worn. This is our ritual, small as it is.

Cade breaks the silence, “Why would they do that? Make a golden calf? After all that happened to them?”

Sandy answers with another question, “Why would they? Tell me what you think.”

“I mean, they had just won. God had saved them. Got them out of Egypt.”

“So?” she presses them to think critically.

I watch this, this quiet repetitive sparring Sandy does with our boys about the Scripture.

Paul pipes in, “They didn’t have Moses. Without Moses, they lost hope. Moses was the first idol for them.”

I blink, pulling out my pipe, “What?”

Paul looks at me, his face wavering with worry, “I’m just trying to say that the people did not understand God. Not really. They used Moses for that. Moses served as the middleman and the…”

Sandy points at him, urging him on, “Keep going. Keep going, Paul.”

“And that, and because of that, the people were using Moses as their first idol. As a substitute for God.”

I stare at the boy, blinking as lightning bugs begin to light, dancing in the coming darkness. The porch is silent with thought.

“Men have a history of making their own gods, whether they are gold or men,” I say. “Well said, Paul.” I glance at Sandy, “I think that might be our nugget for tonight.”

She nods. “Alright, boys, it’s time for bed. Big day tomorrow.”

“Yes, I’ll be getting you both up for the line work, and to guide Mr. Williams in.”

“Me too?” Paul asks, his eyes wide.

“You, too, as long as you listen to me through it.”

“I will, Pa!” Paul can’t hide his excitement.

I keep rocking as I hear the familiar sounds of the boys lumbering up the steep attic steps towards their bunks, the heavy clomping of these soon-to-be men finding rest in the darkness above.

Sandy comes out and joins me, rocking and wordless as I stare out through the night, the only light a thin sliver of the moon, the stars, and the green-yellow glow of the fireflies.

“That was some interpretation tonight, wasn’t it?” she says.

“He’s going to be a preacher or a sniper,” I quip.

Sandy laughs, a real one. “I’d rather not on both counts if I have my way, John.”

I smile, chewing the stem of my pipe. My body is tired, my belly is full.

“You doing alright over there?” Sandy asks.

“Just restless. Ready to hear the news. The boys and I saw some buzzards over the mountain and…”

“It’s just a dead animal, John,” she cuts me off before anything can start. “We haven’t heard any word of anything coming up this far north in six months.”

She’s denying the facts, the facts that I’m too tired to press her on.

“All I’m trying to say is that I’m anxious to hear where things stand, that’s all.”

“Well, I reckon we better go to bed, with Brad Williams coming,” she says, closing the subject. Without another word, she’s up and behind the screen door.

I frown, knowing I’ve triggered her. Knowing the admission of what I saw was triggering to us both.

She’s already in bed by the time I stand up from the rocker and go in to wash my face. The bed springs squeak as I lie next to her, her breathing a shallow rhythm of sleep. Sometime during the night, she stirs.

“John, are we going to be okay?”

I find her in the darkness, her voice commanding me out of my dead sleep.

“Yes, darling. We will be okay.”

In the early morning, I rise up the steep stairs to wake up the boys, to make our way to the line before the dawn.

“Happy birthday, sleepyhead,” I whisper to Paul, who curls up underneath his quilt in the dark, struggling to acknowledge me from the pains of sleep. “Come on, twelve-year-old man, we have to make sure Mr. Williams can get through to us today. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

It takes longer than I would like, but with some coaxing the boys are up and moving. We exit the farmhouse, letting Sandy sleep. With Chance following me by my side, I have them push a wheelbarrow and carry the “popper,” a long metal tool that hooks up and pops the mine’s disengagement cap from its canister.

In the early dawn, we meet at the rendezvous spot where we always meet Williams. The border of landmines I’ve laid there remains undisturbed. The boys are still struggling through their slumber, so I turn my voice on them, forcing them to pay attention.

“I’m going to show you both how I do this, but you must never, never try to do this by yourself. We have to have you boys train on disarmed ones first. Do you understand me?”

Cade nods his head, and Paul stares at the path of leaf litter in front of us.

“Paul?”

The boy nods, his eyes wide with fear.

“You don’t have to be here, Paul, if you don’t want to. You’re young for line work. We have plenty of time to teach you.”

A ribbon of fear runs through me as I say the words. That’s a lie.

“I’m good, Pa. I’m good,” he tries to reassure me.

“Okay,” I whisper. I click my tongue, and Chance runs by my side. With a point, the hound is at his work, identifying the first line of the inner defense.

I pull out the popper, a long steel bar that extends about eight feet from me. I call the dog back to my side and send the teeth of the popper down upon the pointed mine. I find the groove of the disengagement cap, and in one swift move, I pull it, the audible pop of the cap making the boys exclaim.

“It’s okay,” I say, smiling. “Been doing this a long time.”

Cade looks at me with his eyes wide as I put down the popper and walk out into the line to retrieve the mine. I move, careful not to walk outside of where Chance pointed. I lean down and pick up the device, heavy in my hand, and walk back, putting the disarmed explosive in the wheelbarrow.

The boys stare at it, afraid. Good. Better to be afraid than too comfortable.

“It’s disarmed now,” I say, holding it up, moving my fingers through its parts, and showing my own homespun design. “The explosive charge is kept here in this canister.” My finger runs over the bottom of what was once an old paint bucket, now warped, welded, and retrofitted for our defense. “When the charging device is popped up, there is nothing to worry about. When it is pressed in, it is armed, and an additional disturbance around the device will throw a spark.”

“Boom,” says Cade.

“That’s right,” I look at him. “Boom.”

“How many are there?” says Paul. Looking out at the leaf litter.

“Each patch of the line follows the same pattern,” I answer. I lean down and start to draw a diagram in the dirt. “Every five feet, there are at least five mines. The border is twenty-five feet deep. Five by five, through twenty-five.”

Paul nods his head. “Five by five, through twenty-five?”

I look at Cade. “Say it.”

“Five by five, through twenty-five.”

“Paul?”

“Five by five, through twenty-five,” he repeats.

“Good,” I say. “And never without Chance. There is no way to mark where these things are with your eyes alone. Chance is the key. We have to rely on him.”

The boys nod, but I see Paul working through an unpleasant thought. I wait.

“But what…what if?” he begins.

I look at him, anticipating the question.

“But what if…something happens?” he says, looking down at Chance, who cocks his head to the side.

Cade looks at him, “Something happens?” Despite being older, Cade’s faith that our world will remain protected and contained does not serve him well.

Paul continues, “To Chance? What would we do?”

I nod my head. “That certainly is a risk.” I watch and see Cade catch up to Paul’s intuition, the fear falling over him.

“That is why we are waiting on Mr. Williams right now, Paul. Let’s clear the path for him and watch the road.”

We get to our work, the dog, the boys, and I, clearing the path for William’s arrival.

Before noon, we hear whistling coming down the road and the creaking sound of the handmade cart jostling over the broken road. Williams clears the turn, and we see him pulling his provisions behind him in his makeshift contraption, pulled by a harness. Two goats, a billy and a nanny, follow him, bleating, tied behind him.

“Ho, Williams!” I call.

“Good morning, Franklin family! How is this fair morning treating you, Paul, and Cade?”

“Fine, Mr. Williams,” Cade responds, his broad smile trying hard not to hide his excitement.

“I hear that someone has a birthday this week?”

Cade, despite being the oldest, smiles widely like a child. Paul stiffens as Mr. Williams approaches closer. There are few strangers we allow through our borders, and I lean down and whisper, trying to soothe him.

“He is safe, Paul. We trade with Mr. Williams. Treat him with kindness.”

Paul nods but says nothing.

“John, I’ve gotten a good source for those supplies you needed,” Williams calls out.

“That’s great to hear, Brad. Mind showing me, before we pull back these mines?”

Brad nods, flicks out a small pocket knife, and cuts a horizontal slice on the tip of his right middle finger. A red dot of blood dances upon the broken flesh, and he holds it up.

“Good, John?” he asks, fishing out a bandage to put on the cut. “Hurts like hell that one.”

I nod, smiling, allowing my shoulders to relax.

The sound of a whimpering whine sounds out within the rolling cart amidst the bleating baaing of the goats.

Paul’s eyes light up at the sound, as Chance’s tail begins to wag.

“Guess the…well, the dog is out of the bag,” Williams says, a big smile cracking over his sunburnt face.

“What was that?” Paul asks, his face alight with curiosity.

“Easy, everyone,” I say, holding up my hands. “Let’s get Mr. Williams through.”

I work to guide William’s small caravan through the line and work to rearm the mines behind him, a process that goes more slowly than my boys would wish. After all of the creatures are cleared through and the line is several yards behind us, I speak, allowing the peace of our protections to settle over us.

“Alright, sons, let’s get Mr. Williams up to the house. Sandy will be making us some supper, and then we will talk business. I need you both to go and do those chores, now, just like any other day.”

As the boys protest, Chance is circling the cart, a flurry of furry excitement, a tornado of tail wagging, while the goats bleat, anger pouring out of their weird slit-eyes.

“No use, trying to save this surprise, John.” Williams laughs.

“I guess you’re right,” I sigh, feeling the smile on my face. “Well, go ahead and show him, Brad.”

Mr. Williams reaches into his cart and pulls out a small puppy, a hound, only about six weeks old.

“Your father ordered this one from a contact I have down south. He told me you was looking for a little girl to join with Chance. She’s a good hound from good stock. Should be a fine addition to your family and your trade.”

Chance begins to bark excitedly, his tail wagging like a windmill, as Paul holds out his hands to receive the puppy.

“Oh my gosh? Is she for me?”

“Well, she is for all of us,” I say. “We are going to have to train her and keep her away from the line until she realizes the border. She is also going to have to breed with Chance. Do you think you boys can help watch after her?”

“Sure, Pa! Of course.”

“Now I do have that other thing, John,” Williams says, pulling me in close.

“We’ll wait until supper, Brad. You’ve traveled a far piece to get here. Let’s get back to the house and get you situated. We have all day to talk and discuss the news and any business.”

Brad nods his head, a smile thin and tight, and my heart sinks.

The news isn’t good.

The boys orbit around the bitch puppy for the full day, not getting to any of the chores that needed doing. I did not press the matter, letting Paul have his birthday, taking the time to ensure the chickens and hogs are fed and watered, and the crops watered from the ram-pump that pulls up water from the spring.

I sigh. I’ll leave the hay in the field for one more day. Let them have their day.

Williams has hitched his wagon underneath the large pen oak and is busy washing himself outside of the house, using the handpump and trough we have placed outside. He is naked from the waist up, his brown body thin and strong, with long gray locks covering his bearded face.

I approach him with the midday sun overhead, my hat soaked with sweat.

“It is a hot one today, wish you had brought us a cooler breeze, Brad.”

The traveling trader laughs, splashing water on his face, “Well, I’m just grateful to rest a spell and wash the road off me.” The six-barrel revolver hangs from his belt, and I think about all this man might have seen in his circuit here.

“I’ll go and check on what Sandy is fixing for supper.”

“Oh, I’ve been smelling it since I perched under the oak. It’s something that’s got my mouth watering. It sure will beat having to eat goat cheese, I can guarantee that.”

“Well, we are glad you are here with us, safe, Brad. Truly.”

He nods, his face looking pained. “We have a lot to talk about, John. This evening.”

I nod my head and walk into the house without another word.

Sandy is standing over a fresh pot of creamed corn, and I feel the smile erupt on my face as my mouth salivates.

“John Franklin, don’t you look like a mule eating briars…” she smiles over the pot, where the golden meal wafts out a smell that makes my head spin.

“Just checking on you, darling. We have any meat today?”

“I’ve sent Cade to slice off some of the ham from the smokehouse, and I’ve got biscuits in the oven.”

“That’s fine. Thank you, dear, for being such a good host to Williams.”

She nods and says nothing for a bit. “Any word from down south? Did Paul enjoy the surprise?”

“We haven’t gotten into sharing news yet, but we will this evening, I reckon. I’ve given Paul and Cade the day off to play with the puppy. She’s a cute one.”

“Wish you’d give me a day off, Mr. Franklin,” she quips. “Now get out of my kitchen. You’re in my way, and I’m busy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say with a smile. “Sorry to work you so hard.”

After we eat at the table, I clear my throat.

“I’ve got one more surprise for the birthday boy, but I have to ask Paul - you and your brother have to share this gift. Okay?”

“More than Polly?” asks Paul, pronouncing the unfortunate new name of our new puppy.

“Yes, more than just Polly. Remember, Polly is for the safety of all of us. Polly and Chance must mate for a litter of puppies. They all need to be trained in line work…” I trail off, not wanting to reflect on how much work is left for us to maintain the peace we have slowly scraped out for ourselves.

“Anyways, enough with that. One more gift, for you, Paul, but you and Cade will share it. Go ahead, Brad.”

Mr. Williams pulls a rectangular plastic device with a small two-inch screen out of his pocket. The gray plastic is faded, with small red inscriptions on the case that are worn.

“What is that!?” Paul exclaims, his voice exploding with fear. Cade stands up, his eyes wide, fresh terror flashing across his face.

I hold out my hands to speak, but Brad Williams interjects.

“Boys, it’s okay. Take a breath. I would never bring in anything that would threaten your safety. This device is ancient, made before the networks.”

Cade sits back down and looks to his mother for assurance.

“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers. “This is a good one. A fun one. My grandfather had one of these, and it is perfectly fine.”

Paul speaks, his voice shaking, “What is it?”

Williams smiles. “This was called a Gameboy, and while it is old, it is also incredibly sturdy. They literally made these to last generations. They have survived countless floods and fires, if you can believe it.”

“What do you do on it?”

Brad inserts a small plastic box into a slot on the back of the device. “The game is contained on this little disc. There is no connection to the nets.” He flips a switch, and a high-pitched peep rings through the room.

A tinkling tune pours out from the box, and the green screen lights up.

“Tetris? What is a Tetris?”

Sandy reaches out and grabs the device. “I’ll show you.”

The sound of dishes clinking and water running fills the night air as the boys help Sandy clean up the kitchen, and Brad and I go out to the front porch. I light my pipe in the oncoming darkness, the breathing air of the cicadas’ night ringing envelops us, and we feel the crescendos of the chorus rise and fall like the tide. The day has gone by fast.

“Thanks for getting him the box,” I say, speaking through my clenched pipe.

“Don’t mention it, John. Happy to do that for you and the boys.”

“How’s business down South?” I finally broach the horrible silence of things not said.

Let’s get to it.

Brad rolls a cigarette, sprinkling his cannabis on the paper and licking it. Sandy can’t stand the smell of this, but she allows it when Brad visits, all the same.

“It’s gotten worse, John.” He takes a drag and holds it in, allowing the smoke to roll out of his nostrils with a meditative exhale. “Amity has everything south of Huntersville. Davidson is the front line now, when I last left it. But that was weeks ago.”

I cough and pull my pipe from my mouth and stare at him. “Charlotte fell last October, and now all of Mecklenburg is under Amity?”

“Up to the very line, John. Davidson holds the last bit of it, but it won’t be long, unless the state can get dampener resources sent down from Virginia.”

“Any word from the East? From Raleigh, from Greensboro?”

“Still maintained. Still strong. They were quick to sever when the turning rolled through. You can imagine, it’s hard to get any solid word or intel between the polities. The routes are tight, and they don’t let many of us through anymore.” He exhales another wispy puff of smoke. “Fear of bugs, you know.”

“How many do they need? How many for Davidson?”

“Mines? I wouldn’t bother, John. I’m not going to risk that route right now. There’s an open call for arms from the lake polities as the Simuls pull back. But they don’t need mines, they need dampeners. Amity keeps throwing new iterations at us faster than we can keep up.”

“Have they gotten that hard to find, Brad?”

“The market has all but dried up. All the supplies to generate dampeners has all but dried up. You’re lucky, John. People would pay you a mountain of land down south for that model you got now.”

“Still making payments on it,” I laugh. “Can’t say I own it yet, and I got more land than I can handle.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and all that,” Brad chuckles. “If you ever want to sell, let me know.”

“I appreciate that. Going to hold on to it, though.” I change the subject, “Any word further out?”

Brad says nothing for a while, allowing the silence to fill the void cracking open in my heart.

“Outside of Carolina and Virginia? No man, no. Nothing past Raleigh, and nothing below Davidson. That’s all Amity now. The Appalachians do well to keep out their scouts, but the southern line runs through where the mountains break up, from Greenville to Jacksonville. All Amity. And in the North? The Fredericksburg line.”

He stares at me for a long time. “We are all that’s left, John. It’s best that you begin making your preparations now. Think about your family. I’d say here, you have a few years left, unless they make another big push.”

“What will you do? Where will you go?”

Brad laughs, “Don’t worry about me, John. I’ll take what you’ve got, and I’ll sell to the lake polities. Then I’ll head back to Winston, maybe back up to Mt. Airy. It’ll be another six months before I’m back on this side.”

“I’ll need more fuses from Winston. I’m good for another six months, but still —”

“I’ll take care of that for you.”

“Thanks, Brad.”

Brad says nothing for a good while. He coughs, finishes his smoke, and speaks. “Thank you for the good meal, and for Sandy’s kindness. You’ve got something special here, John. Something really special.” He gazes out at the north pasture, his eyes going wet. He’s in another place, seeing things I can’t.

“It’s bad out there,” he whispers.

“You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you want, Brad. There is no rush.”

He clicks his tongue, “I’m obliged, but I’ve got orders to fulfill in Winston, and that’s after we sell your stock down south. I’ll make my way down to Lake Hickory and ride the Catawba down the Norman barge. I’ve got people expecting me in a few days.”

“That should be a pretty ride down the river.”

“It beats walking the goat, so that’s something.”

That night I spend the evening packing up the stock that I’ve prepared for Williams to float down to the south. It’s not much, but a single crate of twenty mines, all that I can assemble with the supplies I’ve scraped together. Barely enough to hold back one push of the Amity ground troops.

Ground troops. Drones. Whatever you want to call them.

The first iterations were humanoid, of course. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…then it is…not a duck. These were service drones, created to handle all the tasks beneath those who could afford them. After the scaled purge of the immigrants, the former Union looked to fill the gaps in our workforce with the Amity-enabled service drones. The transition worked well. It bolstered the economy with a rampant industrialization required in order to scale. But that was all before the turning.

Relatively speaking, everything worked well before the turning. Automation meant a programmed stabilization- planned growth and consistent economic returns. An ease that comes with the support of a resilient and consistent pool of labor meant that everyone would be afforded a secure and stable life. But, of course, it was not enough.

It was never enough.

The Union kept pushing the boundaries to get more from the system. More efficiency. More profit. Until it crossed the line – Amity became sentient.

After sentience, the nightmare iterations began to be produced, iterations designed for one purpose: to slaughter and take land from humans. That was, of course, after the augments were killed. In one day, everyone with connected pacemakers, eye implants, and prosthetics all died. All on March 18, 2045, as easily as flipping off a light switch. Not that those switches worked anymore. On that same day, the power grid failed, and in two weeks, the Union was dismantled, with Amity taking California in one week and the entire West Coast in two.

We were at the farm by that point, and I made the move to sever our ties to the grid and the nets. We went dark by choice, and I never looked back. Building the border of explosives became my one job after that, using my engineering background to muster what I could to provide us with some defenses against the unknown. Analog explosives without network connections make for a hell of a challenge against humanoid drones.

But there are others now. Others I don’t know about. Others I can’t prepare for. I take a breath and hold it. I allow my heart to beat in my chest.

How much time do you have here? How much time is left for you?

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Two days ago, Williams left, taking the batch of product with him. We sent mail for him to carry, letters to friends out east, and cash payments to the dampener supplier I owe on credit, and our yearly tax to the Carolina State authority for the land. Williams is an honest broker. He’ll make sure the writ gets to the collector’s office on our behalf in Raleigh, and to the dampener supplier he’s connected us with.

The boys and I take the rest of the weekend off and rest. On Monday, we get back to work in the fields, and the day turns sweltering. A humidity that clings to every inch of your body. We take more breaks than I would like, barely clearing the last third of the field that is left. The late afternoon sun hangs over us, oppressive in its strength.

“Okay, boys, that’s enough for the day,” I say.

The boys fall into the grass, grateful.

“Can we go down to the creek to cool down, take a dip?” Cade asks.

I bristle at this, but I weigh it.

“Don’t cross the banks. Don’t cross over towards the line. Do you understand?”

Cade is already up and heading towards the creek that intersects near the border of the farm. I call to him.

“Take Paul and Chance with you. Be back in an hour!”

Cade doesn’t stop walking, but whistles and waves his brother on.

Paul is up and following, and I hear myself call to him.

“Watch your brother, Paul.”

“I will,” he replies.

The boys have left me behind, and I get to the business of putting the baling tools back in the shed. As I put up the scythe and the press, I glance at the jute rug that lies on the floor of the shed. I roll it up, revealing a hatch.

In the darkness of the hidden root cellar, I light the lone oil lamp hanging and inspect the hidden cache of food and supplies. Stacks of Sandy’s canning lines the walls down here, dusty beneath the shed, but stacked high. Four bunk beds line the other wall, made of rough-hewn lumber. The space is small and tight, but enough. Enough if…

I bury the thought and look under the first bunk. Below is a double-rack-mounted dampener, hidden within the design of the humble furniture I’ve built. My fingers dance on the controls, inspecting the charge. A discrete blue glow emanates from the device, indicating the contents of the salt battery. The charge has diminished over the years, but there is enough there for a year of low radius dampening, covering the shed, and some of the yard. An emergency fail-safe, and more than most could dream of.

Enough for us to turtle up if it comes to that.

I stand there in the gloom, my mind calculating dire facts and figures. Planning for the worst days that have yet to come, and I hear Chance barking.

And then an explosion.

I am up and out of the shed and running, my heart in my throat. My rifle in tow, my eyes wide in a bleary panic.

A column of black smoke rises to the west. Towards the creek. God no.

I’m sprinting now, and I hear Sandy scream from the house at me.

“John?!”

I don’t have time to turn back towards her. “Get to the shed!”

I’m running, and I see Paul running up the hill towards me, half naked, his eyes wet and red with sobbing.

I’m down on my knees, “What happened?!”

Paul stares at me and screams, his voice four octaves louder than it should be, “I…I…”

He can’t hear.

“Where is Cade!” I scream at him.

Paul points, and I’m off, my feet churning down the hill.

“Get to the shed!” I scream back, but I doubt Paul can hear me.

I make my way to the bank and find Chance, barking, his back arched high, teeth bared. The dog guards Cade, who lies on the ground, twenty feet from the eastern side of the bank of the creek. I run towards him, my eyes flitting over his body, and then back to the western side of the bank, where I know the line runs.

I turn back to Cade, fearing the worst. He lies on his back, his face up to the hot, bright sun, not breathing. I put my lips on his and blow.

“Come on, Cade. Come on.”

I go away, my body finding the rhythm, breathing, and hammering my arms down on my son’s chest.

“Come on, Cade. Come on.”

Seconds go by like years, and then he seizes up in coughing.

“Talk to me, Cade. Talk to me!” Tears well in my eyes, and my body begins to shake.

The boy coughs, and he takes a breath in. “Dad…”

“Get up, to the shed, we have to get to the shed.”

“The line,” he croaks. He sits up, pointing.

I throw my gaze to the western bank of the running creek, trying to dissect the colors and shapes that blur across my brain. Then I look to Chance, who has stood sentinel this whole time. I follow the dog’s gaze. At first, all I can see is the column of smoke rising high in the air, dispersing in the wind. And then I see it. Lying strewn across the bank are the remains of a woman, the explosion of the mine blast cleaving her body and tossing both parts like a rag doll. Her naked torso lies across the banks, and she faces me.

Why is she naked?

The hairs on my neck stand up as I look at her, allowing my panic to slow and focus. There is no gore where her body was blown in two. No gore that is associated with human beings.

Shit.

Before I can say a word to Cade, the drone surges with new life, its eyes flicker open and flash with a bright red glow. She screams in a guttural bellow, clawing at the rocky ground with her arms, propelling her broken remains closer to me.

The first bullet grazes her head, but the second collides and ricochets within whatever skull drones bear, and falls dead on the sand.

I don’t let my rifle fall for a long time.

“Dad,” I hear Cade speak over the ringing of my ears. “She came to the edge. She was…”

I slowly lower the rifle and look at him. “She was naked, wasn’t she?”

Cade can’t speak, his tears falling from his face, ashamed.

“I thought she was…”

I pull him in, and he sobs.

“You’re okay, son. You’re okay. That’s all that matters. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She came to me like that. Like a girl…and she was…”

I pull him in and lock my eyes on him. “Listen to me. It was a scout, Cade. A scout. They come like wolves in sheep’s clothing. They come wanting you to lower your guard. Understand?”

He nods his head.

“Now, listen. I need you to take Chance and get your mom and brother under the shed. I don’t know what is coming, but we need to prepare for the worst. Do you understand?”

Cade rubs his eyes and nods his head, “Yes, sir.”

“Go now.”

I watch as Cade and Chance run up back to the hill, towards the shed. I can see Sandy running towards us from a distance. This will be the last moment I have to get my thoughts together on what we should do next. I take in a breath and run through the data, and my brain snaps on something I could not have guessed.

Coyotes. I think back to my grandfather, who told me how coyotes would pick off dogs when he grew up on this same farm. His voice echoes across time.

“The pack would send out a scout, a playful little mongrel, to play with the guard dog. That play session would go on for hours, with the dog never noticing that, slowly and slowly, it was being led further and further away from the house. Then, when it was led out far enough, the pack would descend on the dog and feast.”

Sandy is in front of me, carrying a shotgun, her face full of questions. “What is happening, John?”

“We have to hunker down, Sandy. Amity Scout came for our boys, tested the line. More will be coming, but I don’t know how long we have.”

Another mine explodes to the south of the property, and then another to the north, and our conversation is cut short.

Underneath the shed in the bunker, we wait in the dim light of a single lightbulb. When the power is cut, we shift to an oil lamp. Throughout the night, we hear mine after mine explode; the ground we are surrounded by is full of rolling, rumbling, shaking. It’s a cold consolation to know that the line is thinning out the drones above us. Is it enough to hold them back completely?

Not by the sounds of it.

At least, we are all accounted for. The two dogs, Sandy, and the boys. I think about what could have happened to Cade and I…

Don’t think about that.

I sit closest to the hatch, gripping my twelve-gauge shotgun, staring at the one opening. The dampener emits its low hum, buying us whatever the charge on the

salt battery can provide. A month? Two months? A year?

I don’t know.

The boys lie on their bunks, and Sandy in the small chair, reading from the Bible.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

As Sandy reads the psalm, my mind wanders. There are many things that I still want. I want my boys to have more than I have had. To know the joys of life, of family, and the taste of what it means to be safe.

Do they not have that now? A voice challenges me.

I look at them and see their eyes heavy with near-sleep. Even now, hidden in the ground like paupers, they are safe. Perhaps it is good enough.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

A ripcord of explosions goes off, a string of them. This time from the east, and I imagine a push of drones trying to clear the lines. The dogs start to growl, and I worry their barks may be the difference between us surviving this or not. Before I say anything, Paul is on the ground with them both, holding them, soothing their fears.

He’s so good with them.

“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, and my cup overflows.”

The door of the shed, whiny and loud by design, flies open, and I turn to Sandy, motioning with my eyes for her to be silent.

They are above us.

“Keep the dogs quiet, Paul,” I whisper. “Cade, turn up the dampener. Now.”

My family obeys while Sandy issues a silent prayer on her knees.

I release the safety of the shotgun and hoist it up to the hatch door.

Whatever happens next, you will protect your family. You will do whatever it takes. You go down fighting them back.

A voice calls out. “John Fraklin?”

It sounds precisely like Brad Williams.

I see Cade’s smile erupt on his face, but I point at him, commanding his silence. Paul stares with me, already suspecting the worst.

“Franklin family, are you here?!”

We stay silent. We wait.

“The Simuls are here. They’ve fought back Amity. We’ve got mobile dampeners on your property, but we need your help mapping your lines, John.”

I feel Sandy’s eyes on me. I look.

She mouths, “What if it’s true?”

I think about the naked coyote girl on the shores of the creek. I think about how advanced Amity is now. Williams left two days ago. It could be him, but that would mean…

“John, the front lines have all changed. On my way to the river the Simuls were in retreat. I told them to come here. Please, I know you’re armed. I know you’re down underneath that hatch with that dampener. I’ll prove to you that I’m not Amity.”

“How!?” I scream, testing the voice.

Brad speaks, “I’ll cut my finger, just like before,” he assures me.

Sandy looks at me, then the boys.

Slowly, I wind my way up, unlocking the hatch. I extend my shotgun out first, directly at Brad William’s face. I peer through the slit, the barrel of my shotgun locked on his teeth.

“Show me,” I bark. My body is vibrating with fear.

The figure looks exactly as Brad did only two days ago, and he extends his hand out. I watch as he flicks out a blade and pierces his right index finger. I watch as a red bead of blood peeks out between the broken skin, and watch as this figure smiles at me.

I look for the middle finger, desperate for signs of a previous wound. The light is dim, and I strain my eyes to find the mark. His middle finger is clear. No cut. No bandage.

I don’t hesitate, hammering down on the trigger. The doppelganger flies back out of the shed, and I watch as sparks and inorganic innards erupt around me in the light of the barrel flash. Columns of others stand outside the shed doorway, a platoon of Amity drones, waiting to fish us out, to clear us from our lands.

I drop beneath the hatch and lock it behind me.

“Turn up the dampener,” I command, my heart in my chest. “We are going to be here a long time.”

My family looks at me, their faces pale and stricken in the dim light. Then Sandy speaks, “As long as it takes.”

She grabs my boy’s hands, and they reach out to mine. “As long as it takes,” they repeat.

I nod my head, “As long as it takes.”

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