The Echo

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jorge reached the compound with the sun already slipping below the western horizon and throwing violet shadows across the sky.

He’d nearly gotten lost, taking a wrong turn on a footpath, and he’d also veered well out of his way to avoid any armed soldiers who might be patrolling. The gunfire was sporadic and off in the distance, and he silently cursed Franklin for stirring up a hornet’s nest. The two of them could have easily slipped into the forest and returned without a confrontation.

Now, the soldiers would likely be scouring the forest looking for them—assuming they didn’t kill Franklin and believe him to be a lone wolf.

Once, he’d seen movement in the trees, but he couldn’t tell whether it was a wild animal or a Zaphead. He’d ducked behind a tree and remained still for fifteen minutes, then continued on his way. By the time he found the well-disguised trail leading to the front gate of Wheelerville, he was scratched up, thirsty, and exhausted.

“Rosa!” he called, when he was within site of the gate.

There was no answer. He wasn’t alarmed by her absence, because even the most tireless person wouldn’t be able to stand vigil on a raised platform for a full day. She also had a caretaking role. Marina was too young for the responsibility, and Cathy had her hands full with her baby.

Instead of directly approaching the gate, Jorge moved through the trees the way Franklin had taught him, so as to not wear a direct path that others might discover. When he came to the fence, with its concealing vines and bushes, he parted the leaves until he could see inside the compound. No one was in sight, and the place was silent except for the low bleating of a goat.

“Rosa!” he called again. She couldn’t hear him if she was inside the cabin. He didn’t want to risk raising his voice, so he decided to try the gate.

After easing back into the woods and approaching again, he found the gate locked. Despite his weariness, he smiled with satisfaction.

Rosa followed our instructions. At least one of us has some sense.

Jorge reached inside the hollow of a split log and found the plastic connector that deactivated Franklin’s solar-powered alarm system. If he had to scale the fence, at least he’d lower the likelihood of being shot by his wife.

He put his back against a slim maple tree and extended his legs against the chain-link fence, scooting his way up until he reached one of the lower branches, then began an easy climb. When he’d pointed out to Franklin the weakness in his defenses, the old man had responded, “Zapheads are too dumb to climb and the government would just burn us out anyway.”

When Jorge was at the top of the fence, on eye level with the lookout platform, he surveyed the compound. Still no sign of his family. The goats milled in their pen and the chickens had settled in their roosts, but otherwise Wheelerville was eerily calm.

The cabin door was closed, so Jorge didn’t bother calling again. He stepped across onto the strand of vine-enwrapped barbed wire that topped the fence and then swung over, snagging his trouser leg and nearly tumbling to the ground in the process.

He soon descended the fence and made his way to the cabin. He called his wife’s and daughter’s names so they wouldn’t be startled, but he still got no response. He even knocked on the cabin door. No answer. He tried the handle but the cabin door was also locked, and Jorge’s gut sank like it was full of mud.

Panicked, he tugged at the handle and hammered at the door, imagining their corpses ripped apart, organs littering the floor and blood spattering the crude pine planks of the walls. The door didn’t budge. The only windows were high, inset slabs of glass that didn’t offer enough room for entry. The cabin had been designed for defense as much as habitation.

Jorge rushed to the little woodshed and grabbed an ax. He bashed the blade into the door handle, then hacked at the wooden frame until the door swung open with a creak. Ax in hand, he rushed into the dark cabin. The beds were empty.

Rosa’s pack and Marina’s satchel hung on pegs by the door, along with Marina’s jacket. Her coloring book was open on the table, crayons spilled across the pages. The food supply appeared to be intact, and Cathy’s baby blanket lay across her makeshift bed on the floor. He couldn’t imagine the woman leaving it behind.

But how did they get through two locked doors? And why would they leave?

It was possible to lock the cabin door from the outside, but only Franklin had a key. The gate, however, could only be locked from the inside, because it featured a steel restraining bar that slipped into a sleeve to reinforce the gate’s strength.

His dead boss, Mr. Wilcox, had once returned from a fishing trip to the North Carolina coast and told the farmhands about the “Lostest Colony,” an English settlement that had vanished without a trace several hundred years ago. Mr. Wilcox believed the settlers had been hauled off and chopped up by savages, but Jorge had been fascinated by the idea that a whole community of people could just disappear into thin air.

Mr. Wilcox said the only clue left behind was a word carved into a tree, but he couldn’t remember the word and he was pretty sure it wasn’t an English word, anyway. “Probably one of them redskins done it,” he’d concluded, content with the version that confirmed his own xenophobic, hostile view of the world.

Perhaps Rosa had left a similar clue here. He lit an oil lantern and searched the cabin, finding nothing unusual. Rosa’s few personal items were still in her pack, and a pot of vegetable soup sat on the still-warm woodstove. His heart sank when he discovered the rifle leaning in the corner. Wherever she was, she was unarmed.

But maybe not helpless. She’d already proven herself, fending off Zapheads back at the Wilcox farm. But this time she had her daughter, another woman, and an infant to protect.

Jorge explored the compound, although it offered few hiding places. He checked the small building that housed the batteries for the solar power system, followed by the dug-out hollow that served as a root cellar, which barely had enough room for one person, much less four. He even looked in the goat shed. The goats bleated with hunger, but he didn’t take the time to toss them some hay. Dusk was settling by the time he returned to the cabin.

“Marina,” he whispered, touching the crayons. Her favor color, pink, was worn halfway down, a waxy fray of wrapper extending from one end. She’d been working on one of the Disney princesses, although he didn’t know if it was Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. His heart ached with absence and helplessness.

Then Jorge noticed the corner of the page had been torn away. Marina was meticulous with her art, almost obsessive, and he’d admired her ability to focus on such detail while the world fell apart around her. She would never damage her page that way. He immediately began looking around for the scrap of paper, hoping it contained a secret message, while at the same time wondering what sort of situation would merit such a message.

He found it tucked beside Franklin’s short-wave radio. The two words were scrawled in blue crayon, the last letter interrupted as if Marina didn’t have time to finish:

“He’s mad.”