Shaun Harbinger: Rain

“What happened, man?” Mike’s voice had never sounded so good.

I went over and leaned on him, panting, trying to catch my breath. “I… there was… mad hiker… attacked… fell.”

“Whoa, man. Take it easy.”

Lucy and Elena looked more worried than Mike. I don’t think Mike would be worried if he were abducted and woke up in the trunk of a serial killer’s car. He’d probably wait until the killer opened the trunk then give him a shit-eating grin and say, “You don’t want to kill me, man.”

And knowing Mike’s luck, the killer would probably reply, “Yeah, you’re right,” and let him go free.

Knowing my luck, I’d probably suffocate in the trunk before the killer even opened it.

I managed to get my breathing from panicked to just heavy. “There’s a crazy person back there,” I said. “He attacked me but I tripped over a rock and rolled halfway down the mountain. I got away but there were some other hikers behind me. I… I don’t think they made it.”

“What? Are you sure?”

I shrugged. “I couldn’t see anything because of the mist but I heard screams.”

“Ah,” he said. “Screams of terror or surprise? Maybe they knew the guy. Maybe he jumped out of the mist to scare them. He thought you were them and he jumped out at you by accident.”

“It was no accident and the screams were screams of terror. I’m not stupid, Mike. He really attacked me. His face…” I tried to recall exactly what his face had looked like. “The flesh was blue. His eyes were yellow.”

“Sounds like you got attacked by a smurf.”

Elena laughed.

Lucy spoke up for me. “Come on, this is no laughing matter. Alex looks scared. What if there really is a crazy person back there?”

Mike tried to look serious but I could see he didn’t believe me. He was such a dick at times. “Then I guess you should call the police, man. And we’ll have to wait for them to arrive. You’ll need to give a statement. They’ll take forever asking you questions. It’s already getting dark. I don’t want to be putting up the tents at midnight.”

“What if I call them anonymously? I just tell them what happened and hang up. They’ll come out to investigate but we’ll still get to the camp site on time.”

He shrugged. “Sure thing. Just don’t stay on the line too long. We need to get moving.”

“I won’t.” I dialled ‘999’ on my phone and waited, listening to it ring at the other end.

I waited two minutes. There was no answer. “I thought this was supposed to be the emergency services?”

“Maybe they’re busy,” Lucy offered. “It’s Saturday night. They probably get busy on the weekend.”

I hung up and redialled. The phone at the other end rang and rang but nobody answered. I looked at the screen of my phone. Everything looked fine and I had a signal. “There’s nobody there.”

“I’ll try on my phone.” Lucy took her phone from her pocket and dialled. She flicked her long blonde hair from her ear as she placed the phone there. I didn’t hang up, letting the ringing go on and on. Lucy listened to the same thing on her phone for at least three minutes before she hung up. “Nothing.”

“Well, we need to get moving,’ Mike said. “You can try later.” He set off along the path.

I caught up with him. “You don’t think it’s strange that the emergency services number isn’t working?”

He shrugged. “Like Lucy said, they’re probably busy, man.”

Elena took Mike’s arm and looked at me with something like pity in her eyes. “Don’t worry, Alex. The world isn’t ending.”

I sighed and dropped back to where Lucy was marching behind them. She gave an occasional glance into the mist behind us. At least she believed me. “Don’t you think it’s weird that there’s no answer from the emergency services?” I asked her.

“It’s strange. Maybe it’s because the signal is bad here.”

“But I could hear the ringing sound. I was connected.”

“Maybe there’s a fault on the line or something.” When she saw frustration on my face, she added, “We could try again later.”

“Something doesn’t add up,” I said. In fact, I was hoping it didn’t add up because if there was a connection between the strange radio broadcast earlier, the mottled blue skin and yellow eyes of my attacker and the fact the emergency number was dead, then something was seriously fucked up. Get a hold of yourself, Alex, I thought. Maybe these are just a bunch of unconnected incidents. Maybe you’ve been playing too many video games and you aren’t thinking clearly. This unfamiliar environment has affected you, not to mention the fact that you are walking next to Lucy Hoffmeister right now.

That thought drained all my confidence away. My throat went suddenly dry. I had talked to her easily a moment ago because my mind had been on other things. Now that I thought about talking to her, I couldn’t do it.

She sensed my discomfort and looked at her phone, pretending to be interested in something on the screen.

I took out the radio and turned it on. The station crackled and emitted white noise. I rotated the tuning dial, seeking a voice from the outside world. There were no live stations.

“The signal here really is bad,” Lucy said.

“It isn’t that. See that green indicator? That means the radio is tuned to a digital channel. There’s just nothing on the channel.”

“Try a different one.”

I adjusted the tuner.

A woman’s voice came through the static. Her intonation was flat, as if she were reading from a script. “This is the BBC emergency broadcast. Stay in your home. The military and police are dealing with the current situation. Stay inside and lock all doors and windows.” A pause, then the recorded message was repeated. “This is the BBC emergency…”

I ran up to Mike. “Listen.” I turned up the volume.

“…And police are dealing with the current situation. Stay inside and lock all doors and windows.”

“What the fuck, man?”

“It’s the Emergency Broadcast System. They only use it if something really fucking bad has happened. We’ve got to get home. We can’t be out here in the middle of nowhere if something’s happening.”

He stopped and looked me in the eyes. “Alex, is this a joke? Some sort of prank?”

I shook my head. “I swear it isn’t.” The EBS continued to repeat on a loop.

“Turn that fucking radio off.”

I did so gladly. I couldn’t stand to listen to it any longer, either.

“Maybe it’s a test,” Elena suggested. “They test these things all the time, right? They have to know it works in case they need it in a real emergency.”

“Yeah, they do that all the time, man. They close underground stations and practice for biological warfare and shit like that.”

“Not on every station. I can’t get anything else at all on the radio. No music, no news, nothing.”

He took out his phone and jabbed at it. His eyes flickered over the screen and his face went pale. “Oh, fuck,” he muttered.

Elena put her head on his shoulder and looked at his phone. “What is it, Mike?”

“There hasn’t been an update on the internet news channel since two hours ago. It just says ‘Virus Outbreak.’ Nothing else. There’s nothing else.” He pressed the screen on his phone a few times. “I can’t get shit on here.”

“We need to go back,” I said.

“Alex is right,” Lucy added.

Mike ran his hands through his hair and paced back and forth on the trail. “We should keep going. Make camp. It’s a lot farther back to the cars then it is to the camp site. If… if the shit really has hit the fan we might be in the best place out here. It’s getting dark and it’s going to rain. We need to set up camp. Come on.” He stormed off down the trail. Elena went running after him.