Darren Wearmouth - First Activation

We slowly made our way to the window and looked inside. A medium sized, middle-aged man with a bulbous nose was sitting in the room reading a book. I nodded at Jack, and then crept towards the door, knocked loudly three times and stood to the right-hand side with my Glock ready.

“He’s coming straight to the door. I don’t think he’s armed,” Jack whispered.

“Who is it? Who’s there?” a voice called out from behind the door.

“It’s your new neighbours. There are two of us here,” I said.

“Two of you? Why did you come here? What do you want?”

Jack slid up to the other side of the door, “We don’t want any trouble. We’ve had a bad few days and wanted to check if you were okay. This is the first place we’ve seen with a light on since the power went out almost two days ago.”

“Why do you want to know if I am okay? I’m just fine.”

I took a deep breath, and then moved left, making my profile visible through the small glass square in the door. I could see the outline of the man’s head.

He took a step back, so I stood closer to the glass.

“We just want to talk, that’s all. Haven’t you noticed anything strange in the last few days?”

“Yes, but how do I know I can trust you?”

“We could say the same thing to you,” Jack replied.

“We could have just shot you through the door if we wanted, or through the window while you were reading your book,” I said, peering through the glass.

“You were watching me?” He paused for a moment then said, “We can carry on talking here.”

“We could, but I think I’d rather kick your bloody door down,” Jack snapped.

I didn’t think his threat would be helpful, but surprisingly, after another ten seconds of silence, the door unbolted and the man opened it up.

“I don’t want any trouble. You have to understand, I had to make sure.”

We lowered our weapons and I held out my hand, “I’m Harry and this is my brother, Jack. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Jerry. Come in.” He said, shaking both our hands.

Jerry led us to the room he had been sitting in before and offered us a seat.

“I would offer you both a drink, but you smell like you’ve already had a few.”

“Thanks, a couple of beers would be good,” Jack replied.

Jerry brought us a can each and sat down in his chair. He was evidently well supplied, as he brought out a bowl of pretzels for us to nibble on.

We sat in an awkward silence as Jack and I opened up our can and had a few of the snacks provided.

“So, Jerry, what have you been doing for the last few days?” I said.

“I’d love to know what you’ve been doing. Where have you come from? What have you seen? Are there only two of you?”

“Yes, there’s only two of us. Harry, you tell him the story.”

I wondered why Jack told Jerry there were only two of us, but went along with it. I told Jerry what we had experienced since landing at JFK, our meeting Maureen and what happened in the police building. I skimmed over the details of our time in Elmhurst, and then told him about our trip to Montgomery. Jerry looked slightly shocked at the tale and mopped his brow a couple of times with a handkerchief.

“When did you see the vapour trail again? Did you actually see anything in the sky?”

“Today, and no,” Jack replied.

“Who was the guy you met from Maybrook? Did you get a name?”

“He was called Greg. Do you know him?” I answered.

“Greg from Maybrook? Can’t say I do. So you’re at the Watson’s place?”

“If that’s the name of the couple we buried in the back garden, then yes. It’s the big white house half a mile up the road,” Jack said.

“That’s the Watson’s; I noticed you’re both wearing his clothes. So what do you plan to do now?”

Jerry seemed to be getting a lot of information from us without giving much back in return, I wanted to know his story, so I ignored his question.

“Jerry, take us through what you experienced since Friday.”

He sighed.

“There’s nothing much to tell, really. I thought there’d been a small earthquake or something last Friday. I went out of my front door to have a look around and received a blow to the back of my head; I think I was out for a while. When I regained consciousness, a dead man was lying next to me, it was like he was looking into my eyes.”

Jerry shuddered and hugged himself.

“Did you know him?” Jack asked.

“No, I don’t really mix with anyone, that’s one of the reasons I moved out here.”

“Did you feel any strange urges?”

“If you mean did I want to kill anyone? No I didn’t. I moved the body away from the house and tried to call the police, but I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile. I tried to get in touch with people online, but it was like nothing had been updated since I felt those tremors, nobody was responding. There wasn’t anything on the TV or Radio.”

“So you just sat tight here?” I asked.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I had an idea that something dangerous was going down, so I decided to keep out of the way of whatever it was. After a couple of days, the power went and I fired up the back-up generator. You two are the first people I’ve seen alive since Friday. I was starting to think I was on my own.”

Jerry was the first person that we had come across who could remember the last few days and explain what he had seen. It wasn’t that much.

I started to become conscious of the time and didn’t want Bernie or Lea to notice that we were gone.

“Can we come and see you tomorrow, around lunchtime? We’re a bit tired and could do with some sleep,” I said.

He agreed and we left on pleasant terms. I was quite confident now that killers were no longer a threat.

“Why did you tell Jerry there were only two of us?” I said, on our way back to the house.

“Because we know nothing about him. I’m finding it hard to trust anyone we don’t know at the moment.”

“He seems okay, a bit of a geek, but that’s hardly a crime.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We might even get a decent lunch out of him tomorrow,” Jack laughed.

When we arrived back at the house, Lea was sitting on the porch. I waved as we approached, but she appeared far from happy.

“Where the hell have you two been?”

“The farm you pointed out to us earlier,” I answered. “We went to try and find supplies.”

“And you had no problems leaving us unprotected?”

“We met a man there called Jerry. Do you know him?” Jack asked.

“No.”

“We told him there were only two of us,” I felt compelled to admit.

Lea rubbed her face in frustration.

“Do you ever learn from your mistakes?”

“He’ll understand. You did, after all,” I shrugged.

Lea seemed angry with us and I couldn’t quite figure out why. We weren’t noticeably drunk.

“Whatever. It’s still probably a good idea to be a little cautious. You should at least tell me next time. Did you plan to sneak away as soon as I went upstairs?”

“No, we decided to go after you went upstairs. There’s no harm done. We’ll make sure we consult you next time,” Jack snapped.

Lea shook her head and went back inside the house.

Jack and I stayed out on the porch, trying to keep ourselves awake. We talked through all the events since landing to see if we had missed anything of note, but we couldn’t think of anything new. Eventually, Jack dropped off.

I lit another cigar and smoked it slowly to help keep myself awake. I thought about Jerry’s farm and how well he seemed to be doing. Maybe he could help us get power to our house with a generator. He could be a very useful person to know in the area.