The Warning Page 5

  “Well, yes,” Mom said, “but we can still go north up through Canville.”

  “Closed off,” Rachel said. “Kent drove there just this last evening—he was headed up to the gun show—and he said they’ve got a tank on the road and a bunch of barricades. He was told we could get shipments in, and we won’t run out of food, but no one can go in or out for now.”

  “How long is that going to go on?” Mom asked.

  “Who knows? It’s not like we can check online or the TV for updates.”

  “How about the Sentinel?” I asked. “That should be back, right?”

  Mom waved a hand. “That’s hardly a paper. It’s Ronnie Stevenson’s two-page diary with ten pages of ads.”

  Rachel lit up another cigarette. “So, they haven’t taken away freedom of the press, just access to the worthwhile press.”

  “How is this not a big story?” I asked. “A whole town under lockdown, with no way to communicate with the outside world. You’d think Dateline or somebody would be out here with news vans and helicopters.”

  “Right,” Mom said. “Send ’em an email.”

  Mom wasn’t usually the sarcastic type. She seemed rattled.

  “But, hey,” she said, stepping out from the door and onto the concrete, “they fixed our sign.”

  I glanced up at it. The “u” had been burned out for years, so it had read “24-Ho r Emergency.”

  “We never did get to experience a twenty-four-whore emergency,” Mom said.

  Rachel laughed—a coarse, tobacco laugh. “If Mount Hope is going to be our lifelong prison, you two will be good cellmates.”

  I smiled for the first time since waking up, but this nice moment was interrupted by a spasm of barking from inside. Rachel’s dog was waking up.

  “Do you want the ashes?” Mom asked Rachel. “Some people do.”

  “No,” Rachel said, tapping out her cigarette. “Dispose of him how you like. Tiger’s never been a pet; he’s a workin’ dog. Chasing the goats, rounding them up. We’ll get a new one. I heard Eugene out by the drive-in just had a litter of border collies. We’ll pick one up and get him to work.”

  Mom nodded. “I delivered those pups. They’ll be good, not a runt in the bunch.”

  “Well,” Rachel said, “thank you for this.” She held out her forearm, marked by a dog bite, deep and ugly, that Mom apparently had stitched up. “You’ll send me a bill? I’m sorry to get you up in the middle of the night.”

  “That’s why we’re here, Rachel,” Mom said.

  After an exchange of handshakes, Rachel gathered up her rope and muzzle, loaded them into her pickup, and drove off.

  “I hope we’re not trapped in this town. What if we have a medical emergency?” I asked. I still hadn’t decided to tell her what I thought was going on with me.

  She shrugged. Apparently, we were on our own.

  Chapter 12

  Jordan

  WHEN I WOKE up and looked at my watch, I was surprised to see it already was 9:45 a.m. I didn’t usually sleep that late. Well, I had a concussion—and my head ached like a guy suddenly cut off from a heavy coffee habit—so maybe that was a factor.

  Coffee sure would have hit the spot around now, preferably something made with freshly ground beans (light roast, please; African origins preferable to South American) in a French press or a pour-over. I was a connoisseur, so I suffered in the camps as they used up what must’ve been a stash of Maxwell House cans dating back to the 1960s. ADHD medication is basically a stimulant, and I had found that a good, tall morning mug of coffee—with that oh-so-popular stimulant, caffeine—helped me to focus. Right now, I certainly needed to do that.

  When I opened my bedroom door, I didn’t smell coffee but something even more pleasing: bacon. Fatback. That could mean only one thing.

  I didn’t bother getting dressed, just ran down the stairs in my T-shirt and basketball shorts and rounded the kitchen door to see…

  “Dad!”

  There he sat at the kitchen table. He’d shaved his head and had lost the close-cropped beard he’d worn ever since I could remember. He was clean-cut, like a different person. Mom stood at the stove, three frying pans going, a cast-iron family heirloom in the back with slices of fatback sizzling and popping.

  Dad stood up and wrapped his arms around me. I shook off my recollection of the nightmare and rubbed his bald head. “Please don’t tell me this is from the radiation,” I said.

  “Radiation gives you cancer,” he said seriously as he sat back down at the table. “Chemotherapy is what makes you lose your hair. I’ve never had my radiation tag go off, and I’ve certainly not been prescribed chemo.”

  Charlie spoke up. “Dad said that he’s on R and R. Rock and roll!”

  Dad smiled, yet I could see him forcing it. I aimed a theatrical wink at Charlie while Mom placed a plate of pancakes on the table next to a bowl of her signature peach compote. She was going all out.

  “What’s it been like?” I asked. “What do they have you doing?”

  “My role is the same. I monitor a workstation and make sure that our cooling systems are working.”

  “Did you paint the house?” I asked. “And tend the garden?”

  “That was the military. They’ve gone to great lengths to make sure your return was smooth and positive.”

  I nodded. I realized that after many months apart, our free-flowing family dynamic might need to shake off the rust, but still, something was off. It was in the clipped way he spoke, how he wasn’t joking with us or cracking a believable smile. Maybe he’d grown too used to talking to other engineers and military folks. Or something else was occupying his mind.

  “Does the Tin Man need some oil?” I asked him.

  “What?” he said, turning to me with steely eyes.

  “You seem a little…tight,” I said, my voice growing softer with each word. I liked to joke around with my dad, but I didn’t sass him.

  He kept his eyes fixed on me for a couple of uncomfortable beats, then put on a stiff smile. “It’s good to see you, son.”

  “You too, Dad.” I changed tactics. “So what’s the scoop? We’re not getting much in the way of the 411.”

  Mom slapped a serving fork onto the table. “Jordan, when have you ever dialed 411?”

  I turned back to my dad. “How goes the cleanup?”

  “There is no cleanup. Everything worked exactly the way it was supposed to work.”

  “Then why did the evacuation take so long?”

  “You’re familiar with how the plant operates?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Nuclear fission, fueled by uranium, heats water to become steam, which drives turbines, which power electrical generators.” My dad was one of those physics guys who’d given me little choice in learning this stuff.

  “Right,” he said, “and then all the steam turns back into water in those big cooling towers and gets reused while the electricity supplies us with power.”

  I waited for him to say more, but instead he took a leisurely bite of pancake. “So what was the problem?” I asked as I loaded pancakes onto my own plate and slathered them in compote. “Are we all getting irradiated?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I finally said. “So what happened here?”

  “Like at Three Mile Island, there was human error: The wrong valve was opened when someone thought the pipes were empty. Before the water could be contained, one of the turbines exploded and threw radioactive material several miles, mostly on the east side of town. The reactor was damaged, and there was no way to save it, so we’ve spent the last year sealing it off like a sarcophagus. Inside the lead-lined room, there’s a deadly force that can destroy whole populations.”

  “Holy shit,” I blurted out, prompting a dirty look from Mom, giggles from Charlie, and nothing from my dad. And here I’d thought we lived in an inconsequential little town. “Are you building the sarcophagus?” I asked him.

  He shook his head and put down his fork. “I’m a mechanical engineer. I’m trying to get the power up and running in the remaining reactors. The military did all the concrete work on the sarcophagus.”

  “So, bottom line,” Mom cut in, “is it safe to be here?”

  He stared down at his plate. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  I chewed my pancakes slowly, taking this all in while trying to think of a way to keep the conversation going—and to knock Dad off of autopilot. He hadn’t even asked me about my time at the camp or how my injuries were healing. Maybe he was just tired.

  “Who’s Ishango?” Charlie chirped up.

  Dad gave a start and caught himself—I saw it. It was as if he’d willed his face to turn to stone. Charlie was oblivious, jamming a huge pancake wedge into his mouth.

  “Where did you hear that name?” Dad asked quietly.

  “You,” Charlie said with his mouth full. “When you were on your walkie-talkie.”

  “Is that who you’re working with?” I asked Dad, trying to give him an out. I knew he was dealing with lots of classified information that he couldn’t share with us.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s who I’m working with. I can’t say much about it.”

  “Ishango,” Charlie repeated, and I swear Dad gave another start. “Ish-AN-go.”

  “That’s enough, Charlie,” Dad said.

  “Sounds like he’s from AF-rica!” Charlie added.

  Dad gave a mirthless smile. “In a way.” He stood. “I have to go. My furlough was only for the morning.”

  Charlie hurled himself into Dad’s arms but was rewarded with only a limp pat on his head. I bristled—after almost a year away from us, why wasn’t he being nicer to Charlie? Or to Mom? Or to me, for that matter? He was so formal.

  “You’re leaving?” Mom asked.

  “Afraid so,” Dad said, not breaking his stride out of the kitchen. “Good-bye,” he called out, not looking back as he opened the front door and shut it behind him. Mom stood stock-still in the kitchen, the spatula in her hand. He hadn’t kissed her good-bye or given any of us a farewell hug. I took the spatula from her and turned on the faucet to start the dishes.

  “Wasn’t it nice to see Dad, Charlie?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “He looked weird,” Charlie said. “I miss his beard. It made him funner.”

  “Me too,” I said. “I think we all miss his beard.”

  Mom still was standing there, a bit of liquid rimming her eyes. I put my lips up to her ear and muttered, “I think some of the plant’s coolant might have escaped up Dad’s ass.”

  She did a dry spit take and whipped her head toward me, trying to look annoyed—one doesn’t say such things about one’s father—but unable to hide a softening around her eyes. “You can get away with that just this once,” she said, and kissed my cheek.

  As I turned up the water and ran the brush over each plate’s sticky surface, I pondered this change in my father. Maybe it was simple: he was overworked, exhausted, stressed out from containing a situation that might be even more dangerous than he’d let on.

  But those explanations didn’t quite cover it. He acted as if he didn’t know who we were anymore.

  And didn’t care.

  Chapter 13

  Jordan

  THE TWO-MILE bike ride from home to school was going faster than ever. I was nervous; that was it, sure. It just so happened that everything I was doing lately was at a greater speed than at any previous time.

  I knew I’d have to run laps once I arrived and make up for lost time, but I felt decent, other than the headache that still lingered a bit. I knew this was the concussion’s aftereffect, but I’d decided to power through it. I’d beaten up Troy and Luke with the injury still fresh, after all, so I could handle a practice where I got to wear the don’t-hit-me-I’m-a-quarterback green jersey.

  And, hey, if anyone wanted to get revenge for what I did to those two guys—well, I felt ready for that, too. In my mind, I still didn’t know how to fight. I shouldn’t know how to fight. But I realized there was evidence to the contrary.

  I was supposed to lead the team now. I hoped I wouldn’t have to fight everyone to get their respect. I dreaded the eyes that would be on me in the locker room, but that just made me pedal harder—the sooner to get it over with.

  Up ahead of me, a squad of soldiers stood beside a few Humvees. One of the men waved for me to stop. They weren’t in the desert camouflage worn by the modern army but rather digital green-and-gray camo. The vehicles matched their uniforms.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as I pulled over.

  “Routine patrol,” said the soldier who had waved. I recognized the patch on his shoulder: three chevrons with a curve on the bottom. A staff sergeant.

  “I’m just going to football practice,” I said.

  “Do you have your school ID on you?”

  I nodded and pulled it out of my shorts. It was worn from years of going in and out of my pocket, and the lettering was beginning to wear off. The picture hardly looked like me anymore, or anyone.

  The staff sergeant swiped the card in his reader, and he looked at the screen.

  “You’re the one who found that bear,” he said.

  “Yeah, or it found me,” I said, vaguely pointing to the east. “It was thataways, behind the lumberyard.”

  “Hey, Conners,” another soldier said. It took me a minute to recognize him with his helmet and sunglasses.

  “Ears,” I said, remembering him from the camp. He was a radio operator, and his office was in the same building as the mess hall. He wasn’t much older than me, maybe a couple of years. He must have joined up on his eighteenth birthday or lied about his age. “What’re you doing here?”

  Ears turned to the staff sergeant. “He’s okay. I know him.”

  The sergeant handed my card back to me.

  “We’re looking for a coyote,” Ears told me. “Have you seen anything? Paw prints in the mud, scat, newly dead animals?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t realize we had coyotes around here.”

  “They’re uncommon this far south,” the sergeant said. “But it’s also uncommon to find a bear in town. I think some creatures moved in after everyone moved out.”

  “So, wait, they dispatched a whole squad and two Humvees to track down a random coyote?” I asked.

  “Disease,” Ears said. “At least that’s what we were told.”

  The sergeant scowled at Ears, apparently not happy to hear his input.

  “You should call the vet here in town: Dr. Gooding,” I said. “She deals with that kind of stuff.”

  “We can handle it,” the sergeant said sharply. “Now head off to practice.”

  Ears kind of smiled, a little redness in his face. “If you see anything, let us know,” he said. “Here, let me give you my number. Call me when you join up.” He scrawled his number on the back of an “If You See Something, Say Something” flyer.

  “Will do.” I hoisted myself back onto my bike seat and put my foot to the pedal before I stopped myself. “Hey, Ears. Do you know about anyone called Ishango or something like that?”

  Ears’s eyes widened, and he started to move his head from side to side before the sergeant stepped in front of him and pointed down the road. “I said move!” he ordered.

  Yipes. I put a big grin on my face and said, “Thank you, sir. Good luck with that coyote.” And I rode off, though not before I shot Ears a sly wink.

  As I went on my way, I thought about Maggie’s dog and that mad bear. Maybe the animals were pissed that we’d come back to their homestead. But Maggie’s dog was with her family the whole time, and that didn’t explain why she kept launching herself into the cage bars. Ouch. I wondered whether I’d see Maggie at practice so I could talk to her about it. I was surprised to see her at the previous one. In the meantime, I stuck to well-traveled streets for the rest of the way to school just in case. I could do without encountering a batshit-crazy coyote in an alley.

  When I arrived in the locker room, everyone got quiet. In my head, I heard Charlie exclaim, “Crickets!” As I walked to my locker, Tico gave me a fist bump.

  “Welcome back, buddy,” he said softly. “Now we can get started for real.”

  I opened my locker and retrieved my pads.

  “Hey, Conners,” came a gruff voice behind me: Jimmy Dubnar, an offensive lineman and one of a handful of black players on the team. He was enormous—six foot four and probably more than three hundred pounds—yet wasn’t even our biggest lineman. That was Sammy Justice, who had to be six eight and liked to be called “Two Tons of Justice.”

  “QBs don’t wear pads at practice,” Jimmy said. “Here. Coach told me to give this to you.”

  He flung me the green quarterback jersey. Aiden Cole, also wearing a green jersey over his slight frame, watched me pull it on.

  “Don’t worry,” Jimmy said, leaning into my ear. “Luke was a good running back, but everyone knows he’s a jackass. Even his own mom could see that. That play where we let the D-line through, I swear, we thought it was a screen.”

  I sat on the bench and tied on my cleats.

  “This should be Cole’s position,” I muttered back to Jimmy.

  “Don’t even start,” Jimmy scoffed. “Cole’s a baby who only got the QB spot because his daddy made a big contribution for the new scoreboard. My nana throws a tighter spiral.”

  The large lineman turned to the group and banged his fist against his locker.

  “Listen up! Y’all saw what Conners did out here. That was some serious shit. And I’m talkin’ ’bout his play on the field, not what happened in the locker room. He’s the genuine article, and if anybody in here has a problem with him, you can go through me. I don’t want to see any more ‘accidental’ hits on him on the field, and I swear to the baby Jesus that there won’t be any more off the field, either, or I’m gonna take care of it. Unless Conners decides to put you in the hospital, too. Got it?”

  Everyone in the room nodded.

  I gave Jimmy a fist bump, and he muttered, “Keep throwing the ball straight and running past people, and we’ll be good.”