Breakdown: Episode 8 Read online

  Breakdown

  Episode 8: Twisted Mettle

  A Piece of SHTF Fiction

  Jordon Quattlebaum

  © Copyright 2015 by Jordon Quattlebaum

  Breakdown is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Chapter 1 – Radio Silence

  Red stared hard into the bathroom mirror and breathed steadily. The face staring back at him looked haunted, pale, and gleaming with sweat. Red held up a hand, his fingers outstretched, and marveled as it shook against his will. His stomach trembled, and he burped up something sharp and acidic just before he fell to the floor.

  Then Red hugged the toilet, preparing for what he knew was going to come next.

  His stomach gave another quiver before it contracted violently, forcing the majority of the morning’s breakfast into the toilet.

  Red held that position for a long while, refusing to stand again until he was sure his body was finished. When he finally stood, his knees buckled, and his legs felt weak. He felt like his world was ending, like he was about to die.

  Anxiety. He was having an anxiety attack. A bad one.

  It was something he’d battled for a few years now. Paired with bouts of depression, his anxiety paralyzed him at times, making it nearly impossible to get even the simplest of tasks done—and that was before their world had been turned upside down.

  He knew the signs, and he knew how to cope with them. But today, with all of the excitement that he and Herbie had been exposed to, he’d ignored them until it was too late. Now he was paying for it.

  Red’s reached into the pocket of his jeans with his left hand and retrieved a pill bottle. He shook it, hoping to hear the sound of a renegade pill rattle and echo from within the plastic, but it was empty, as he knew it would be; he’d run out a couple days ago.

  He opened the medicine cabinet behind the bathroom mirror before he could even process what his hand was doing. Aspirin, Neosporin, some sort of anti-diarrheal medicine…but nothing that he could use to calm his badly frayed nerves.

  There was a knock on the bathroom door.

  Red jumped. “Yeah?”

  “We’re heading downstairs. Mitch’s son might be able to rig up a radio so we can communicate without making this hike anytime we need a cup of sugar. You coming?”

  “Uh, yeah. Just let me wash up.”

  Red tucked the empty bottle away with a sigh and splashed some cool water from a bucket onto his face.

  “Ok, man,” he said, staring sternly at the face in the mirror opposite him, “Time to get it together.”

  He took a deep breath and held it. It felt good. Life-affirming. He was alive, and breathing. Another breath, and he opened the door to find himself face to face with Herbie.

  “You all right, kid?” the old man asked, a look of concern in his rheumy eyes.

  “Yeah, Herbie. Feeling better. Let’s go talk radios.”

  They were two steps down the wooden basement stairs when the smell hit them: burning plastic, solder and the underlying scent of Funyuns permeated the air. Other smells were layered in as well: dust, and the smell of rot from a nearby trashcan that overflowed with food wrappers and empty cans of Code Red.

  The smell hit the men in much the same way as a physical punch would.

  “He’s not usually like this,” Mitch said as they entered. “He’s usually pretty good with keeping the place clean. Doesn’t like being dirty. Says he ‘Prefers a sterile working environment.’ I tried getting him to come up and take a breather so I could clean the place but he just kept telling me he was working on something important, that a shower could wait.”

  There was a hulk of a man huddled over a workbench. He wore a black track suit with white stripes, a pair of tennis shoes, a pair of safety goggles, and an overly large set of leather gloves. He held a soldering iron in his right hand. He held up a single finger to let them know it would be a moment before he could talk.

  When he eventually turned to face the men, his face was devoid of emotion. “Mitchell, what are these men doing in my workshop?”

  Mitch smiled at the men and whispered, “Sometimes he calls this his workshop; sometimes, his lab. It’s where he tinkers with things—takes them apart, puts them back together. Fixed our toaster about a week before all of this happened. Smart kid.” Mitch made a sweeping gesture toward the boy. “Gentlemen, meet my son, Roger, Boy Genius.”

  “I thought you said his name was Alex?” Herbie asked.

  “Long story,” Mitch laughed. “The kid likes radios, so his mom and I started calling him Roger as a joke. It stuck.”

  “Well?” Roger asked, ignoring his father.

  “Well what?” Red asked.

  “What are you doing in my lab?”

  Mitch stepped in, “These men are our new neighbors, Roger. They’re staying with Mrs. Jackson, helping her out a bit with the farm until whatever this is passes by. They’re here to talk to you about radios. They’d like to help us.”

  Herbie smiled, “My name is Herbie, and this is Red. It’s nice to meet you, Roger.”

  “You like radios?” Roger asked, glancing in Herbie’s direction. His face shifted ever so slightly, showing a glimmer of interest.

  Herbie nodded, playing along. “Love them.”

  Roger pulled off his safety goggles with one meaty hand, looking Herbie over from head to toe.

  “What is your objective?” Roger asked.

  “Objective?” Herbie said, perplexed by the frankness of the young man.

  “Yes, objective—what are you hoping to gain by talking with me now? Most communications have a desired outcome. I’d like to know what yours is.”

  “We’re hoping to gain access to one or more radios.”

  “For what purpose?

  Herbie closed his eyes and thought for a moment, wanting to ensure he worded their goals properly.

  “Well, Roger, we’d like a way to collect information from the outside world in order to plan more intelligently, and react to potential threats with greater speed. We would like to include you and your father as members of our group. We would work together to feed one another, take care of one another when someone falls ill, and defend one another should the need arise.”

  His explanation was met with silence.

  Herbie cracked his eyes open ever so slightly. The boy was staring at him.

  After a long moment Roger nodded, satisfied. “I accept your terms.”

  Roger spun quickly around and fumbled under the workbench, where he retrieved a large metal box. Upon closer inspection, Herbie realized it was a microwave oven, and smiled.

  Red looked on, confused. “We need radios,” he said, “not a microwave.”

  Roger pressed a button on the microwave, and the door popped open. A sealed foil bag sat inside. “Inside, you’ll find four radios; please remove three of them, and leave the fourth for us. Once I’ve finished repairs on my system, I will monitor the radio waves for outside contact and report any news to you through our handheld systems. I would advise against broadcasting unnecessarily. We are unaware of who could be listening. This should be suffic
ient to achieve your objective, correct?”

  Herbie nodded, the smile still on his face, “You’re sure they’ll work?”

  “They’ll need to be charged, but they should work, yes.”

  “How?” Red wondered aloud. “I thought everything got fried?”

  Roger smiled proudly, patting the microwave. “Not everything. For that, you can thank Dr. Faraday.”

  Herbie glanced at Red, who looked confused. It was a common occurrence since they’d set out this morning.

  “I’ll explain on the way home. What do we say to our new friends, Red?”

  Red smiled. “Thank you.”

  Roger nodded curtly while Mitch looked on. “Roger?”

  A long sigh issued forth from the eccentric young man, followed by an eye roll. “You’re welcome.” He turned his back and replaced his safety glasses, neatly dismissing the visitors to his lab.

  Mitch nodded and patted his son firmly on the back, then walked the two men upstairs and to the front door, where they shook hands.

  “Thank you, Mitch,” Herbie said, “These will go a long way toward helping our community thrive. We appreciate it.”

  Mitch nodded, smiling when he saw that Red still wore a slight look of confusion on his face. “Go ahead, Red…you can say whatever’s on your mind,” Mitch offered graciously. “We’re friends here.”

  Red opened his mouth, and frowned, closing it. After a breath he opened his mouth to try again.

  “Your son…is he...?”

  “A genius? Yes. Yes he is.”

  “But is he autistic or something?”

  Mitch laughed, “Before I answer that, I’m going to ask you a question of my own—fair enough?”

  “Yes…sounds fair,” Red admitted.

  “Would the answer I give change anything about who my son is, or what he’s just done for you and your friends?”

  Red shook his head. “No sir. I suppose not.”

  Mitch nodded. “Well, then…I suppose it doesn’t much matter, does it?”

  Red shook his head, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

  Mitch couldn’t help it. His mouth split into a grin. For some reason, making the boy feel uncomfortable struck him as funny. It probably had something to do with the fish-face he kept making.

  “Now, I’m a man of my word, and since you answered your question honestly, I’ll do the same. No, Roger’s not autistic. He just has some difficulty with social interactions, and a touch of OCD. You aren’t the first to ask that though. The kid walks to his own beat.”

  Red smiled. “Sounds like an engineer.”

  Herbie chuckled. “Hey now…you’ve used up your stereotype allowance for the day. Give the poor engineers a break. We’ll need a lot of good ones before all of this is fixed.”

  “Anything else we can help with, you know how to reach us.” Mitch offered.

  “We do. Thanks again, Mitch.” Herbie said.

  Half way down the gravel drive, Red turned to Herbie and asked, “Herbie, how in the world are we going to charge these radios?”

  Herbie sighed. “Remember what I said about needing some engineers?”

  Red smiled.

  They were about a hundred yards down the gravel drive, nearly to the main road, when they heard Mitch yell out from his front porch. “Come on back inside! The kid got the shortwave fixed, and you guys aren’t going to want to miss this!”

  Herbie and Red’s eyes met for an instant before they sprinted to the house, eager to hear the news.

  Chapter 2 – Escape and Evade

  “RUN TALIA!”

  The only sound her brain now registered was that of her heart pounding in her ears, that and the echoes of Linus’ scream.

  Run.

  Her feet flew over rock and earth, the fight-or-flight part of her brain firmly in control for the time being.

  She saw him fall, saw the blood begin to pool around his head.

  There had been no report, so he hadn’t been shot. She would have heard it at this range, even if the gun had been suppressed.

  Her nurses’ brain kicked into overdrive as the body settled on the gravel path, replaying the scene with clinical detachment. Lots of blood. Head wound. Blunt force trauma. She noted that his chest still rose and fell rhythmically. Good. Still breathing. Still hope. There was nothing she could do for him now, except to honor him by taking heed of the warning he’d given: run.

  So she ran.

  In her logical mind, she knew it was meaningless. Between Juliana, Nathan, and her pack, she was carrying her own body weight at a sprint. The adrenaline surging in her veins would sustain her for a few moments, but soon her body would recognize the depletion of valuable oxygen in her blood. The buildup of carbon dioxide paired with the lack of readily available oxygen and glucose to fuel her body would cause her to stumble and slow. Her body would be busy converting glycogen into additional glucose to boost her endurance, but it would come too late.

  She would slow, and she would be caught.

  She knew all of this, but she ran anyway, defying logic, cursing the biological mandates that kept her body from achieving the impossible.

  She had a head start on her pursuer, but it wouldn’t amount to much. She needed to change her tack. Instead of outrunning the man, she needed to outsmart him.

  Talia’s eyes locked on a large outcropping of rocks, fallen from a bluff further up the hill a long time ago. There. She’d hide there and pause to get a better look at her surroundings.

  She shifted her body weight and pivoted to adjust her course, but the downhill run, combined with the slippery layer of partially decayed leaves that littered the forest floor threatened to send her tumbling end over end any second. Her luck held for a while longer, until a hidden root caught her trailing foot.

  For one clumsy moment Talia’s balance hung on a razor’s edge, and somehow she managed to defy gravity. In that moment, time seemed to slow. Her body twisted, and she looked up the hill to see that her pursuer had yet to crest the first hill, putting her out of sight for a few precious seconds.

  She kept her feet under her and slid clumsily down the embankment one foot, wondering with a strange moment of clarity if this was what it felt like to surf…then time came rushing back into full speed.

  Piles of leaves kicked into the air as Talia’s body slammed hard into the earth. The wind was knocked from her lungs. She tried to slow their fall, digging her heels into the muddy terrain, and she tried in vain to protect her children from the tumult of earth and stone, shielding them with her own body when possible. Their descent was eventually stopped by the hard reality of a tree stump.

  Talia stood up, heart racing, ready to run, and realized a moment too late that she’d injured her back in the impact. She crumpled to her knees as the pain stabbed through her like so many blades, radiating through her nervous system, spreading along her spine.

  The anguish was immeasurable, but to cry out would be a death sentence. So instead, she bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed; felt her teeth sink into her own skin. The taste of copper in her mouth provided a strange sense of reassurance; she was alive. Her heart still beat, and her blood still pumped.

  My children.

  Panic hit her with nearly as much force as the tree stump had. She’d forgotten to check her children for injuries.

  She motioned gently for Juliana to lie down on her back. The girl quickly obeyed. Talia’s nimble fingers deftly removed layers of leaves and mud, checking on any abrasion or contusion that might be more than just surface wounds. Her strong hands took Juliana’s tiny limbs through a series of slow movements designed to make sure her skeletal system was in good shape. Once she was satisfied, she ran Nathan through the same exam. It was awkward with him strapped to her chest, but she did the best she could. T
here simply wasn’t time to take him out and put him back in. Aside from a few scrapes, they appeared to be ok, and miraculously they were silent. They cried, but the tears fell without so much as a whimper.

  Talia sighed. Relief flooded her system, and the joy that came with it threatened to overwhelm her.

  Her babies were ok.

  The smile left her face a second later when she heard the sound of boots crashing through the underbrush further up the hill. Her stomach sank; she knew it wouldn’t be long until he noticed the trail they’d clearly left on the hillside when she’d fallen.

  The trail that led straight to their resting place.

  Her eyes darted in several directions, looking for a way to escape. East and west it was nothing but the same. Trees dotted the landscape, but none were large enough to hide her little family. North would put her right into the hands of the men who were hunting them.

  South. It had to be south.

  Talia spun to face her chosen direction, her eyes quickly scanned the terrain. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest that she could feel it thrumming in her ears.

  Her vision locked onto something, and she flashed a bloody grin.

  Further south there was a bluff that dropped off to a seasonal creek, just barely flowing at a trickle. Part of her laughed inside, recalling the conversation she’d had with Linus what seemed like just a handful of minutes ago. They were looking for water, and now here it was, just down the craggy limestone bluff at the bottom of this little valley.

  A crunching branch not far off drew her mind back to the task at hand.

  The bluff would break their line of sight. It would give them a chance to gain some ground without being noticed, but only if they moved quickly.

  She turned to look at her daughter, clinging to her as she held her. “Juliana. I need you to be brave. I’m going to help you climb down to the bottom of this little bluff, ok?”