Mark Falkin - The Late Bloomer

“Got it. Happy Halloween. Belch . Over.”

“Ask him, Bass.”

Bass pushed the mike trigger, scooted up closer. “Hey, Chris? This may seem weird, but I’ve got a friend here wants me to ask you something. Over.”

“ Belch . Sure, shoot. Over.”

“It’s kind of personal, but I guess there’s no use being all polite. So, here it is: Were you a late bloomer? Over.”

Chris paused. The pause went on so long that I thought maybe we’d lost the connection. “Chris, you there? Over.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I, uh, yeah, matter of fact I was. I was real self-conscious about it, too. I thought it was never going to happen. I remember thinking I was stuck in low gear, like I was really different. Being a teen’s bad enough, but that made it really hard for me for a while.”

Our heads nodded with grim understanding.

“But, then I bloomed with a vengeance, had a massive growth spurt and here I am, a non-virgin half-drunk monkey at world’s end. Over.”

I motioned to Bass to continue. He asked, “What about the others? Do you know? Over.”

“Uhhh, can’t say that I do. I think I know what you’re getting at, though. Let me ask real quick. Don’t hang up, okay? Over.”

Chris came back breathless to the microphone. “CQ CQ you there Austin? Bastian? Over.”

“Yeah, here. Over.”

“Yeah, all admitted to reaching puberty later than most, as far as they knew. Late bloomers. Over.”

Slowly panning his eyes across each of ours, Bass said into the mike with satisfaction, “Seems we have a pattern here, Chris. Over.”

“Seems we do. And if that holds up, there are a lot of high school seniors out there running around like us trying to make contact.”

Just as I thought I was understanding—that me and Kodie and Bass were the closest late bloomers to Fleming and, ergo, Jespers, that this is perhaps why we were still alive; to receive the message about Jespers’s Gene, to bring this understanding into the new world—now here’s this group of us in the hill country.

“So, do we go out there?” I asked the group. “Seems we’re close to food and drugstores if we need them. Going out there, we’ll be cut off. Away from kids, maybe, but cut off. The logistics of it.”

“The way Chris is talking, it makes me think that the kids will be doing the same here soon. And if they’re running them off that way by blocking their routes, it won’t be long before they start figuring out how to use materials to do their bidding,” Bass said.

What bidding? I thought but didn’t broadcast. Kodie caught me looking inward. Our eyes met. She was thinking, asking herself, the same thing— Bidden by…?

“Maybe,” said Kodie. “I’m not sure they plan on doing anything the old way. It’s like they’re starting from scratch. Like that’s what all this is about. Evolution, Rapture, whatever you want to call it.” She shrugged but had wide blinkless eyes.

Kodie had it pegged, articulated what we already knew.

“What I felt from them when I was locked in that room with them for that minute? That hostility? They seemed feral, cornered. I’ve never been so scared. My lizard brain got the adrenal-dopamine squirt. My skin prickled and my arm and leg hair stood up as if the room filled with static electricity.”

“Yeah, I mean, think about it,” said Bass. “They may be scared, but not too scared to stand in harm’s way to block a moving car. The way they looked at us at Butler? Deathly. Like a snake rattling its tail at high pitch. I don’t think they’re scared when together like that.”

“Point is, time’s of the essence. I don’t see peaceful coexistence happening with them, at least not for a while,” I said.

“So, which? Tell Chris we’re going to stay put for a while or go to them now?” Bass lifted the transponder.

And then, through the speakers attached to the ham radio, we heard the dogs of Utopia start to bark like mad. Chris had kept the line open, as if he wanted us to hear.

This went on for a minute. The next thing we heard was a whisper, sounding like Chris. “You all hear that in Austin? Get yourself a dog. I’m telling you. ’Cause they’re here. I can’t see anyone yet. It’s dark.”

I turned my head to the window to see the navy sky, knowing out there, away from vestigial city lights, with the hills and cliffs rising around the ranch, it would be darker.

“I don’t think it’s the meter reader or the FedEx guy the dogs are barking at.”

After another half minute of louder barking came close, throaty whispers, the last we’d hear, lips touching the mike, the breath stressing its metal diaphragm: “Methinks it’s trick-or-treaters.”

Chris didn’t pick up again and navy evening turned to black night. Bass folded his hand and said hold on , he was going to go out to switch off the generators to test the grid. The lights and sound disappeared.

Me and Kodie giggled in the dark. I grabbed her hand and held it tight. Her wheeze sung its see-saw song. Her head was silhouetted against the picture window. I smiled to myself at her beauty, the shape of her head, her blinking lashes.

We heard Bass curse outside, but it was the humorous curse borne of frustration or clumsiness. We chuckled again, trying to allay the fear of sitting in the dark at the world’s end on Halloween night having lost contact with Chris in Utopia.

Then, for the first time in two days while home, we heard a dog barking. We squeezed hands. Our neighbors didn’t have dogs. This one sounded like it was around the block. It barked and barked.

There’d been no barking in the neighborhood when we filled the tubs. There was nobody for dogs to be barking at because there was nobody walking dogs, no invading servicemen. The dogs had been silent until now. Silent and very hungry.

Just as I had decided to get up to grab a flashlight, the lights flickered and the static pulsed once, twice. I froze, then all was back on. We heard Bass coming back in, laughing and snorting. He stopped as he rounded the bar to the living room.

“What’s the cussing about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said Bass.

“What about this master electrician work you’re doing, taking us off the grid, putting us back on? I wouldn’t have a clue how to do that.”

“Did I fail to mention that?” There was a hint of smarm in his voice.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, a little perturbed.

“Nothing, nothing,” Bass said with mock dismissiveness. “Really.” He tried to make a serious face, but it held for only three seconds, then he snorted laughter through his nose. Then I smelled it.

“Ah. Terrapin Station. Didn’t know you still had some,” I said to Bass.

“A wee bit I found in the pocket of me coat. A little smoke for the hallowed eve,” he said in a not-half-bad Irish accent. It lit up the room and we smiled at him. Life returned in these little moments and I could see how it would be possible to get it back someday. Humor and levity may be the most powerful forces on earth.

“Screw it,” said Bass, clapping his hands once hard. “I’m going to carve a jack-o’-lantern. Okay with you?” he asked, looking at me. “Can I grab your pumpkin outside?” I said sure, buoyed by his bothering to ask me. After all, moms and dads brought home the pumpkins in October and sat them on the porches. My mom did. She always did, and it was Martin who carved. I’d usually help.

My throat got tight and I nodded after saying sure and Kodie gave my hand a sympathetic squeeze.

Bass sprang into action. Bass strode out the front door to get the pumpkin. He sat it on the floor by the ham and then called out a barrage of seek-yous. I felt useless so I got up to make myself available. Bass lifted his head and said, “You hang close to her. I’ll do the Martha Stewart thing, and mind the ham.” Bass had a talent for communicating in a way that was clear and forceful but never strident.