Instinct (5 page)

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Tim’s eyelids fluttered. He heard the dog panting and the scraping of a body against sandy pavement. He felt the grinding on the back of his head. The scraping sound was him.

“Okay, okay,” he said. His voice was slurred. He was stretched out on the side of the highway. From his belt, the leash was stretched tight over to Cedric’s harness. The dog was still pulling, dragging him down the road. “That’s enough. I’m awake.”

Tim was careful to close his eyes as he rolled over to his stomach. Cedric ran over to him. His legs were tangled in his leash and his tail was wagging so hard that it created a breeze.

“Thank you,” Tim said. He pushed up to his hands and knees and then touched the back of his head. It was sore, but not bleeding. Tim unclipped the leash and then removed it from his own belt. He crawled down the length of the retaining wall until he was sure it would block out the far wall with the graffiti.

The camera dangled from the strap around his neck. Tim covered half of the display with his hand and powered the camera on. The first thing he checked was the clock. It read 11:50am. It wasn’t accurate, but it would tell him how much time had elapsed. He checked the time on the first picture. It read 11:25am.
 

“That was twenty-five minutes,” he said to Cedric. The dog was digging in the sand at the side of the road. “That’s the longest yet. That thing must be huge.”

He scrolled through the first few pictures. They wouldn’t have an effect as long as he kept his hand over half of the image, but he didn’t want to take a chance. He only looked at half of them before he shut the camera off.

Cedric unearthed a tennis ball from the sand. He squeezed it in his jaw with his tongue hanging out to the side.

“That’s disgusting,” Tim said. He pulled his bag from his shoulder and tucked the camera inside. He dug around until he found a new tennis ball. “You want this one? It’s clean at least.”

Cedric dropped the ball he’d found and looked off into the distance. Tim turned slowly to see what the dog was looking at.

“Shit,” Tim said. He dropped the ball he held and ran.

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Tim tried to focus on the preflight checklist, but his breath was coming fast and his eyes wanted to glance back over his shoulder. Cedric emitted a low and steady whine.

“I know, I know, I know,” Tim mumbled as he worked his way down the list. “Fuck it.” He tossed the book over his shoulder and ran up the throttle. The plane didn’t move.
 

“Chocks!” he yelled. Tim reached for the door handle. His eyes locked on the sky and he froze. Each funnel cloud was spinning clockwise, but the whole circle of them revolved counter-clockwise. They rose up and down like needles on a destructive sewing machine.
 

Tim licked his lips. They were numb.

Behind him, Cedric barked. Tim whipped around and in the corner of his eye he saw the wheel chocks on the back seat. He had remembered to remove them after all. Tim looked down and saw that the brake was still engaged. When he released it, the plane began to roll.

Tim fumbled through a hasty takeoff. As soon as he cleared the power lines, he turned east to put the tornadoes at his back. The plane bounced through choppy air. Tim fumbled his headphones on as soon as he could. Blocking out the sounds of the plane brought him more focus. He retrieved the laminated book with the checklist and worked his way through. Even in a panic, he’d managed to do most of the items. Flying the little plane was starting to become instinct, but he knew he needed to maintain his diligence.

When he’d been through the list twice, and was sure that the plane would stay in the air, Tim worked on Cedric’s harness. He got the dog clipped in and comfortable. Tim finally took a deep breath. He used the bodies of water and highways to place himself on the map and set the plane on the proper heading to get him home. It wouldn’t be difficult once he got within a hundred miles. He’d flown enough to recognize a ton of landmarks around his house, especially on such a clear day.

“I think we should head north tomorrow,” Tim yelled to Cedric. The dog turned towards him.
 

The ground marched by steadily below them. Hills transitioned to a valley, where roads branched out to service a community. Tim let his eyes wander to the south. Somewhere below that haze, where the land met the sky, was the end of the intact world. He’d flown that way a few times, but promised himself he’d never go back. It was too depressing to see all that black earth, ravaged by fire and patrolled by columns of multicolored flame.

Cedric didn’t like going south either. It was probably something in the air. Some smell made the dog whine whenever they got within ten miles of the scorched land.

Tim let himself zone out while the plane floated along. The air was smooth here and the sun heated up the interior of the plane. It was peaceful and relaxing to listen to the drone of the engine. Even Cedric’s head was beginning to droop when Tim spotted the familiar ridge. He sat up straight and Cedric woke up too.

“There we go,” Tim said. “Better alert the tower.”

His thumb strayed to the radio’s trigger, but he didn’t press it. At night, he could trigger the runway lights with that switch, but there was no need in the middle of the afternoon. Tim executed his checklist and brought the plane down gracefully.

When the engine was off, Tim released the harness. Cedric bounded off towards the house.

Tim dragged the hose over to the tank’s inlet and walked back to the hand pump. He had an electric pump hooked up to a generator, but it seemed to silly to waste gas to pump gas. It was just as easy to pump by hand. Before he put the plane to bed he ran through a list of his own. He had a number of chores that other pilots might consider superstition. Tim liked a routine. He liked superstition.

When Tim walked across the lawn, Cedric dropped his bone and picked up a frisbee. He dropped it at Tim’s feet.
 

“Not right now,” Tim said. “I want to copy these pictures and start dinner first.”

There was plenty of time for play. It was a beautiful evening and the sun would be out until at least eight.
 

Tim compromised. He started some rice cooking on the propane burner and set a timer. Then, he took his computer out to the back deck. Cedric brought him a ball and he tossed it into the tall grass. He settled back into his chair and put his feet up on the picnic table.

He opened his images.

The window that showed the images was placed carefully so that he could only see half of a photo at once. All he really cared about was the edges anyway.
 

The latest images were the most powerful he’d seen. Even looking at only half of it could make him feel dizzy. As he knew from earlier that day, if he looked at the whole thing, he might be unconscious for twenty-five minutes. The laptop monitor was set to shut itself down after one minute, but he still wanted to be careful. The rice would be done in twenty.

The image showed the big concrete wall next to the highway. Along the bottom, someone had used black spray paint to write, “BRO,” down the length. That paint was faded compared to what Tim cared about. Tim was interested in the big red symbols. They probably stretched down fifty yards of the wall and some of them were fifteen feet in the air.
 

Cedric dropped the ball at the side of Tim’s chair. He reached down and picked it up. He held it while he spoke.

“They must have used a ladder, or maybe one of the those bucket trucks,” he said.
 

Cedric sat and panted, waiting for Tim to throw the ball. Tim stared at one of the big red symbols painted on the wall. It must have been four feet high. On his screen it was only a couple of inches. It looked like a spiral made of right angles. The line went up, took a right, went across, took a right. The lines weren’t exactly parallel as they spiraled in though. They were off by a few degrees so the thing looked like it twisted clockwise as the segments got smaller and smaller. The lines were thinner too, almost like they were getting farther away. The twisting lines could have been painted on a tunnel that went right into the wall. It was a place you could walk into and explore…

Cedric barked.

Tim shook his head and covered the symbol with his hand. He tossed the ball for the dog and scrolled the image so the spiral would move off the screen.

“Powerful,” he muttered.

At the edge of the mural, he saw something familiar. The red symbol almost looked like a rough representation of a person sitting in a chair. He’d seen it before. Tim had the other images named for the places where he’d found them. He pulled up an image he’d catalogued as “Roanoke: Edges.” This would be just the edges of a mural he’d photographed down in Virginia. There it was—on the right side of this image, a symbol matched the one he saw on the left side of his Dayton picture. A couple of smaller glyphs were a match as well.

Cedric dropped the ball. He had mud on his front feet.

“You’re filthy,” Tim said. “What do we do about your hair in the summer? Did they used to shave you or something? Does it need brushing?”

The timer went off in the kitchen. Tim threw the ball again and closed his laptop.

After dinner, Tim confirmed his find and verified the other edge of the photograph. He had his laptop on the round kitchen table.

“That’s it,” he said to Cedric. The dog looked up and tilted his head. He was sitting on the braided rug in front of the stove—his favorite place. Tim noticed that the dog had brought his muddy tennis ball inside. “We’ve got pictures of the whole thing, I think.”

On one of his maps, he had made notes of all the locations. Tim unfolded the map and spread it out.
 

“The closer the mural is to the burn zone, the bigger it is, generally. They make a semicircle that ends down in Wilmington. I wonder if there are any under the ocean.”

Tim smiled at the idea of an underwater society with big red murals painted on coral reefs. His smile faded fast.
 

“What do you think would be at the center of the circle if we were to follow it inward?” he asked Cedric. The dog lowered his head back to the rug. “I bet there’s something. It’s either in the ocean, or it’s in Canada, or Maine, or maybe New Hampshire.” He ran his finger over the map.
 

“What do you think?” he asked the dog. “Now that we’ve finished the mural project, it seems like we should come up with something to do. Should we explore towards the center of the circle?”

CHAPTER 4: NEW HAMPSHIRE

T
HEY
PASSED
BETWEEN
THE
dark buildings and began to climb the hill on foot. They didn’t use either sidewalk, but walked right up the middle of the road. Brad glanced up at the dark windows on either side of them. The rows of two-story buildings on either side of him reminded him of the old west. They were walking up the middle of the street like gunfighters. But it wasn’t high noon, and they had no guns.

At least Robby was walking on his own. Brad was happy he didn’t have to carry him.

Romie touched Pete’s shoulder.
 

She leaned in and talked low. They were all a bit spooked.

“There’s a parking lot behind the buildings over there. Do you think you could hot wire one of the cars?” Romie asked.

“Of course not,” Pete said.

About a block up, a residential street led off to the left. The five of them stopped in the intersection. The tall trees on either side of the street were just starting to get their leaves.
 

“I imagine we could find something up that way,” Pete said.
 

Nobody moved.
 

“Come on,” Romie said. She led the way.

They walked in a line except for Brad and Robby. Brad kept his hand on Robby’s elbow, guiding him forward.

“That one?” Romie asked. She was pointing towards a house.

“No,” Lisa said. “The door’s open. More likely to find keys inside if the door is closed.”

“If you say so,” Romie said.

“She’s right,” Pete said. “Think about it. In a lot of cases, the person who had the house keys also has their car keys on the same ring. If they left…”

He stopped talking when Romie put a hand on his shoulder. She was looking back towards the intersection.

“I saw something back there,” she whispered.

“What?” Pete asked.

“I don’t know, that’s why I said ‘something’ instead of what the thing was.”

“That house. Let’s go,” Pete said. He pointed up the street. They broke into a trot. Brad pulled on Robby’s hand and he adopted a shuffling gait, just fast enough so that Brad didn’t pull him off his feet. As they crossed the yard, Brad got a look at the tiny car in the driveway. It would never hold the five of them. Pete got to the front door first and threw it open. He waved everyone inside and locked the door behind them. Romie and Pete fanned out and spied through front windows at the dark yard.