James Hunt - Broken Roads

“Freddy!” Kalen yelled.

Freddy looked up from the leaves, dirt, and grass he’d fallen in and saw Erin crying. Nancy came over and wrapped Erin in her arms. She tossed a nasty look at Freddy.

“What did you do?” Nancy asked.

Freddy’s mouth hung open. He pushed himself up off the ground, wiping the dirt from his pants.

“We were just playing. She couldn’t find me, so I snuck up behind her. That’s all. I didn’t mean to make her cry like that,” Freddy said.

Anne came marching toward them, upset. Her hands were stained with bits of berries from some of the surrounding bushes.

“What is going on?” Anne said.

“Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare her,” Freddy said.

“Frederick, get in the house now.”

“But, Mom.”

“Now!”

Freddy kept his head down. He lumbered to the front of the cabin. Before he reached the door he gave one last look at the trees around him. He figured he wouldn’t be allowed outside for a while.

Anne marched him inside and took him to his grandfather’s room. Freddy sat on his bed and his mother towered over him.

“What is wrong with you? Don’t you know what those girls have been through? You can’t sneak up on them like that,” Anne said.

“Mom, I didn’t mean to scare her. I swear. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. We were just playing.”

“You stay in this room and you are not to go outside. Do you understand me?”

“But it’s not fair!”

Freddy slammed his fist into the bed. His face turned red, his eyes were getting wet. He jumped off the bed and stomped to the window.

“Do not take that tone of voice with me, young man,” Anne said.

“I don’t care! Everyone’s worried about other people. You helped Ray, Grandpa helped those girls, but nobody went back after dad! Nobody cared about dad!”

Anne’s face softened as Freddy collapsed to the ground. She walked toward her son, and knelt down. She lifted his head up, tears streaming down his cheeks and he buried his face in her shoulder. Anne stroked his hair.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay,” Anne said.

“I miss him.”

“Me, too”

Freddy and Erin made up by dinner, although Nancy was still flashing Freddy dirty looks.

Ray was finally feeling better enough to join them at the table. He’d been on his back for most of the past few days from the fever after his leg became infected. He still needed help moving around, but he was eating again.

Once dinner was over Kalen was the first to get up and head toward her room. Anne stopped her.

“Honey, wait. Why don’t we all play a game? I think there are some old board games downstairs.”

“Mom, do we have to?” Kalen asked.

“I think it’ll be good for everyone. Freddy, go downstairs with your sister and bring us something up. We’ll play it in the living room,” Anne said.

Freddy smiled. He shoved his hands against the table, his chair squeaking as he pushed back. Kalen followed less enthusiastically.

Freddy swung the lantern past the shelves to the box in the corner where the games were stashed. He tore the lid off and started sifting through the choices.

“What about Monopoly?” Freddy asked.

“Well, that would be a good way to pass the time for the next three months.”

“Okay, how about Life?”

“You want to play that one because the one we’re in is so great?”

Freddy dropped the game back into the box.

“Fine, Kalen, you pick,” he said.

Freddy moved away from the box and his sister walked over and looked inside. Freddy stood back, lantern in hand, when something caught his eye on one of the shelves next to him. The light from the lantern reflected off a metallic box on the bottom shelf. He moved over to get a better look, and then set the lantern down.

The box wasn’t large or heavy when Freddy pulled it from its place on the shelf. It had tin foil tightly wrapped around the outside of it. He ran his fingers along the sides feeling the smooth, slick metal.

“Kalen, what’s this?”

Freddy held out the box and Kalen stopped her search of games to examine it.

“Probably something you’re not supposed to touch,” she said.

Freddy snatched the box back from his sister and rushed upstairs. Everyone was gathered in the living room. Ray lay stretched across the couch, Ulysses sat in the armchair, Anne was stoking the fireplace, and Mary, Nancy, and Erin were sitting on the floor.

“What’d you get?” Anne asked.

“I don’t know. Whatever this is,” Freddy said.

“Wait, I know what that is. It’s a Faraday cage,” Ulysses said.

“A what?” Freddy asked.

“It’s a homemade Faraday cage. It protects electronics from EMP blasts,” Ulysses said.

Freddy brought the box over to his grandfather and sat it in his lap. Every eye in the room turned to Ulysses.

“What’s in it?” Mary asked.

“Is it a phone?” Nancy asked.

“A computer?” Kalen asked.

Ulysses peeled the top off the box and his jaw dropped.

“What is it?” Freddy asked.

“It’s a pair of radios,” Ulysses said.

Ulysses pulled them out of the box. They were medium sized, black, and each with a long antenna.

“They look like they’re used for long range communication,” Ray said.

“Do they work?” Anne asked.

Ulysses turned the knob on top and the radio squealed on. The room was completely silent except for the static of the radio. Ulysses scanned the frequencies, slowly.

Everyone leaned forward. Each of them prayed that something would come through the speaker other than the clicks and pops of static. After ten minutes of silence Ray finally spoke up.

“You should turn the battery off, Ulysses. We don’t want to waste it,” he said.

“You’re right.”

Ulysses clicked it off. He put the radios back in the box and handed it to Freddy.

“Go put them back downstairs, Fred.”

Before Freddy could grab them Nancy cut in between the two of them and snatched the box out of their hands. She clutched the box to her chest, protecting it.

“No! We need to keep it on. We need to call for help!”

“Nancy, put it down,” Mary said.

“We can use it to call help for mom. She doesn’t have to be with those people anymore. We can save her.”

“Nancy, put it down now!”

Nancy handed the box back to Freddy and collapsed into a pile of tears.

“It’s not fair,” Nancy said.

“I know,” Mary said.

Freddy walked back down into the basement. He set the box back on the shelf, but stared at it for a moment. The tin foil shined against the lantern of the light like a star in the darkness. He set the lantern back down and pulled one of the radios out. He turned the knob on and the same hum of static blew through the speakers. He squeezed the talk button on the side. He brought the radio close to his mouth.

“Dad? If you’re out there we need your help. Everyone’s sad. We’re all scared and we need you. I miss you a lot.”

Freddy let go of the talk button and more static blew through. He waited, listening, hoping that he would hear his father’s voice come through to tell him it would be all right, but it never came. Freddy turned the radio off and put it back in the box.

The rest of the cabin was sleeping, but Kalen was wide-awake. She lay on her bed staring out the window. Most of the cluster of trees around them blocked out the night sky, but there was one patch of space open where she could see the stars in the cloudless night. She was on top of her sheets, drumming her hands on her stomach.

She thought about the men down there in the town. She thought about what they did to Mary, Nancy, and Erin’s family. She thought about how someone like them hurt her, made her afraid.