Nightfall

  Chapter Three

  The sun was well up by the time he woke, and Mike wearily rolled over in his seat with a deep yawn. It was cold for April, and he started the Jeep so they could run the heater at least for a little while. He felt like he’d slept on a block of ice all night.

  “Are you awake, Joey?” Mike asked, looking over at the other seat. Joey was curled up in a ball, trying to stay warm himself. But he stirred when Mike called his name.

  “Yeah, I am now,” he said, sitting up to stretch.

  “Come on, let’s get up and go see if we can see anything,” Mike said.

  “Hold on a few minutes till the heater warms up. I’m freezing,” Joey said.

  “Yeah, me too,” Mike admitted.

  Eventually the heater had been on long enough that they stopped shivering, and then Mike killed the engine to save gas.

  He quickly grabbed his binoculars from the back seat and stepped outside onto the wet ground, not waiting to see if Joey followed. He could still hear occasional gunfire from the direction of town even though the bombing seemed to be over, and the very first thing he wanted to do was to get a closer look and maybe figure out what in blue blazes was going on.

  The woods were much too thick for him to see anything from ground level, of course, but the huge magnolia tree had given him an idea about that. It grew on a slight rise, and from the top he just might be able to see something.

  He’d run off from the house last night with no shoes on, but the magnolia bark was fairly smooth against the soles of his bare feet when he started climbing. Before long he’d made it as close to the top as he dared, and he braced himself against the trunk so he could have both hands free. Then he broke off two or three branches so he could see out through the dense foliage.

  “Can you see anything?” Joey asked, climbing up beside him.

  “Just a second,” Mike said, still trying to get himself situated well enough so he wouldn’t fall out of the tree if he let go. The only thing he saw at the moment were several plumes of thick black smoke rising heavily on the morning air above what was left of the town. It looked ominous.

  When he was finally able to lift the binoculars to his eyes, he immediately focused in on a scene of devastation. Almost every building was bombed or gutted by fire, and there was nary a living soul to be seen. For a second he stood staring at the town in shock.

  “What happened?” he finally asked aloud.

  “Let me see,” Joey said, and Mike handed him the binoculars. From Joey’s sharp intake of breath, he was every bit as stunned by the destruction as Mike had been.

  “It looks like somebody destroyed everything on purpose,” Joey said, and Mike had to agree.

  “But who? And why? And where did they come from? It sure did look like we were alone in the middle of the woods, yesterday,” Mike said, and of course there were no answers for any of those things.

  “Do you think we should go back down and see if anybody needs some help?” Joey asked. He had an uneasy note in his voice, like he thought it might be their duty to go back to town but he sure didn’t want to. Mike sympathized, since he felt exactly the same way himself. But while he hesitated, Joey spotted something.

  “Hey, I see something,” he said.

  “What is it?” Mike asked.

  “Um. . . looks like some more guys in army gear. They’re just walking along the street hunting through houses and stuff, looks like,” Joey said.

  “Let me see,” Mike asked.

  “No, wait. . . looks like they found somebody. They-“ he started, and then the binoculars slipped out of his hands, bouncing off branches and dropping all the way to the ground nearly sixty feet below.

  “What? What happened?” Mike asked.

  “They killed him,” Joey whispered, eyes big.

  “What?” Mike asked.

  “They killed him, right there in the front yard,” Joey said.

  “This is crazy,” Mike muttered.

  “No, this is way beyond crazy, buddy. We passed the crazy mark a long time ago. But I think we better get away from here while we still can, or else we’ll be the ones with bullets in our heads before long. Those dudes look like they mean business,” Joey said.

  He was right, of course. Mike’s .22 deer rifle was still in the back seat, but there was no way they could hope to fight off trained soldiers with nothing but that. All they’d succeed in doing would be to get themselves killed too, without helping anybody else in the process.

  “You’re right. Let’s go,” Mike agreed.

  They quickly climbed back down to the Jeep and retrieved the binoculars from where they’d fallen. Then Mike carefully backed out from under the magnolia limbs and started following the line of the creek, looking for a place where he thought they could cross it. They finally found one, being careful to get out and erase their tracks as much as possible afterward. Then it was simply more of the same, driving slowly through the empty woods. There was nothing to eat except an old can of beans and wieners left over from last deer season, and Mike wished a thousand times they hadn’t been so quick to unload all those groceries.

  “Do you even know what direction you’re headed?” Joey asked after a while.

  “Yeah, south,” Mike said.

  “Any particular reason?” Joey asked.

  “No, not really. Just trying to get as far away as fast as I can. I figure we’ll have to come out somewhere eventually,” Mike said.

  “You think?” Joey asked.

  “Yeah. It stands to reason, you know; those soldiers had to come from somewhere. The trees can’t go on forever,” Mike said.

  And indeed, late that afternoon they arrived abruptly at a chain link fence topped by razor wire. It vanished out of sight in both directions, and on the far side was a gravel access road.

  “Well, now that’s interesting,” Mike said, stopping the Jeep and staring at it.

  “I don’t know that interesting is the word I’d use. I was thinking more along the lines of awesome and thank you Jesus,” Joey said.

  “I could probably go along with those words, myself,” Mike agreed.

  “At least it means we’re finally getting back to civilization,” Joey said.

  “Yeah, sort of,” Mike said, thinking about the brutal destruction of the town. People who could do something like that in cold blood were nowhere near what he’d personally call civilized.

  “So how do we get out, then?” Joey asked.

  “Well, we’ve got some cutting dikes in the toolbox. I think we can make a big enough hole to drive the Jeep through,” Mike said.

  They got to work, taking turns with the cutter to give each other a break now and then when their hands started to cramp up. It didn’t take all that long before they had a wide gap through the fence, and then Mike drove through.

  “Maybe we should fix that hole a little bit so it’s not quite so obvious, you think?” Joey asked, and Mike nodded. That turned out to be quite a bit harder than cutting it open had been, but eventually they were able to make it look semi-normal from a distance. Anyone who passed by and saw the place would know immediately that somebody had broken through, but hopefully no one would. The access road was grassy and overgrown, so it couldn’t possibly be used all that often.

  “Which way, do you think?” Joey asked.

  “East,” Mike said decisively.

  “Why’s that?” Joey asked.

  “So the sun won’t shine in my face,” Mike said, and Joey laughed.

  “That’s a really scientific way to choose,” he said.

  “Can’t think of any better reasons. Can you?” Mike asked.

  “No, I guess not,” Joey admitted.

  So they headed east, and barely a hundred yards from the spot where they’d cut through the fence, they spotted a steel sign fixed to one of the posts. Mike stopped the Jeep to read it.

  William T. Clark Containment Zone

  North American Defense Fo
rces

  No Trespassing - Violators Will Be Shot on Sight

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Joey asked, staring at the sign.

  “I guess it means they’re pretty serious about keeping people outside that fence,” Mike said.

  “Yeah, but why?” Joey said, and Mike shrugged.

  “Don’t know, buddy. You’d have to ask the North American Defense Forces, whoever they are,” Mike said.

  “Yeah, that’s another thing. I’ve never heard of anybody called the North American Defense Forces,” Joey said.

  “Me neither, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Mike said, and started driving again.

  They made much better time on the road than they had in the woods, even as old and rutted as it was in places. About two hours later, they actually came to a gate that pierced the fence, and a T-junction with a paved road which seemed in slightly better condition than the one they’d been using.

  “I say we turn here,” Joey said, nodding at the new road.

  “Yeah, I agree,” Mike said, and did so.

  About five miles later, they abruptly emerged at a junction with what looked like an interstate highway.

  They both sat there for a few minutes, struggling to make sense of what they saw. Cars whizzed past in front of them at high speed; all of them strange models that Mike had never seen before, sleek and unfamiliar.

  “Where are we?” he whispered under his breath.

  The access ramps were blocked with ancient pieces of concrete, but of course the Jeep had no problem getting around those. Mike pulled out onto the freeway and continued eastward, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. No easy task, under the circumstances. Heads were turning in every passing car, much as they might have done to stare at a Model T Ford back in Mike’s day.

  “Do you think this is a good idea? I mean, we stick out like sore thumbs, dude. We’re the only Jeep on the road,” Joey finally said.

  “We won’t have to worry about it for much longer if we don’t find a gas station soon,” Mike said.

  Before long a big overhead sign appeared above the road, and for the first time Mike had a chance to get some confirmation of where they might be. Rockport – Hot Springs – Ouachita National Park, I-34, Next 2 Exits it read.

  “This is Rockport?” Joey asked, staring across the ditch at what they could see of the town.

  “Apparently. Changed a lot, hasn’t it?” Mike said.

  “You can say that again. I don’t even recognize the place,” Joey said.

  “Well, at least now we know for sure where we are,” Mike said.

  “I’m a lot more concerned about when we are than where we are,” Joey said.

  There was a filling station right by the off-ramp, and Mike quickly pulled in to one of the bays. The Jeep was almost on empty. But as soon as he got out to fill the tank, he noticed an anomaly.

  The station didn’t sell gas at all. Instead, it sold hydrogen by the liter. Nor was that some kind of strange exception, either; they visited several other stations nearby and found that not a single one of them sold anything but hydrogen.

  “That’s truly weird,” Mike commented, getting back in the Jeep after visiting the last one. The Jeep was still getting a lot of curious glances from people, and he quickly decided that needed to come to a halt as soon as possible. There was a parking garage just ahead, so he pulled inside and parked in the darkest corner he could find so they wouldn’t be seen, and then killed the motor.

  “We must have skipped ahead an awful lot of years. I mean, look at those weird cars, and the hydro-stations. Look at Rockport, for goodness sake. And since when did they have a Ouachita National Park, or an Interstate 34, or some cripey Containment Zone where they shoot people for trespassing? This is a long way out, buddy,” Joey said.

  “Well. . . I saw a library a while ago that looked like it was still open. Let’s walk back down there and see if we can find out anything. It couldn’t be more than a few blocks,” Mike said.

  “Might as well,” Joey agreed.

  So that’s what they did, and the old red brick library building looked pleasantly ordinary amongst all the weirdness they’d seen lately.

  “Do you think they’ll let us go inside with no shoes on?” Joey asked, and Mike hesitated. There hadn’t been a chance to pick up a pair of shoes yet. Nobody paid attention to things like that at filling stations or even on the sidewalk, but the library might be another story.

  “Pull your pants legs down over your feet and maybe they won’t notice. I’ve seen several people wearing them like that since we’ve been here,” Mike said.

  They both did so, and Mike curled up his toes the better to keep them hidden. The cuff of his jeans was barely long enough to drag the ground, even when he pulled them down as low as possible. Joey had an easier time since his legs were shorter. As soon as that was done they waited for a chance to cross the street, and then quickly climbed the front steps.

  The place looked nothing like a library inside, or at least not the kind Mike was used to. Instead of endless shelves of dusty books, now there were only endless rows of dark gray cubicles. As they stood there staring at the place, unsure of what to do next, a lady at the front desk spotted them.

  “Can I help you, gentlemen?” she asked, in the same warm and cultivated tone of every librarian Mike had ever encountered. If she noticed his toes sticking out then she didn’t see fit to comment.

  “Uh, yeah. We need to use a computer,” he said. It seemed to be the only thing they could do in such a place, since there were no books.

  “Make sure to sign in, and remember we’ll be closing at seven,” she said, handing him a reassuringly familiar clipboard with a sign-in sheet and a pen attached to a string. He quickly signed his name and Joey’s, and then handed her the sheet back.

  “Number fourteen,” she said, nodding her head toward one of the cubicles. Mike thanked her absently and went to the specified cubicle, shutting the door behind them. There was nothing inside except a chair and a black shelf; no computer or anything remotely resembling one.

  “Do you think she gave us one where the computer was missing?” Joey asked, sounding puzzled.

  “Surely not,” Mike said, sitting down uncertainly.

  Immediately a touch-screen keyboard lit up in the middle of the shelf, and a holographic display screen appeared in the air in front of him, automatically adjusting itself whenever he turned his head so as to be most comfortable for his eyes.

  “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” he marveled.

  “The amazing wonders of modern technology,” Joey said dryly.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know; stuff like that is trivial and we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Chill out a minute and we’ll get down to business,” Mike said. Then he started typing on the screen. The keyboard felt flat and strange under his fingertips, though he supposed it probably kept dirt and spills from getting down into the guts of the thing.

  Where am I? he typed, although he didn’t know if the computer was smart enough to understand such a question or not. Apparently it was, because he quickly got his answer back.

  You are at the Hot Spring County Public Library, located at 201 Main Street in Rockport, Arkansas.

  Well, that was nothing they didn’t already know. Now for the much more relevant and scary question.

  What is today’s date? he typed.

  Today is Friday, April 26, 2136.

  Mike felt a chill in the pit of his stomach and swallowed hard. Suspicions were one thing, but to have it confirmed in stark print was something else again. The tachometer had kicked them ahead exactly a hundred years, right down to the very hour. He supposed a perfectly round number like that was reasonable, coming from a circuitry glitch. He could only thank God it hadn’t been a thousand years, or even a million or a billion. At least here things were somewhat normal and familiar.

  “I can’t believe it,” Joey said in a
low voice.

  Well, we better get used to the idea pretty quick, buddy boy, Mike thought to himself.

  “That can’t be right, Mike. It just can’t be. What are we supposed to do in 2136? Everybody we know is gone by now. We’ve got no money, no ID that anybody would ever believe, a car we can’t buy gas for and nowhere to go in the first place. What are we gonna do?” Joey demanded.

  Mike fought down a rising sense of panic himself and tried to stay calm.

  Then he thought of something that might save them after all.