Nothing exciting happened between Scranton and Pittsburgh, unless someone would want to count a dry interstate in the Pennsylvania winter as exciting. I was tired enough that I napped for an hour myself, and when I woke up, nothing really looked different. It wasn’t exactly the Eastern Seaboard with metro areas popping up every fifty miles. I finally understood why so many people hated doing road trips in the States. Once you got out of the cities, you got a lot of repetitive scenery.
I sat the rest of the way with my head leaning against the cool window, just letting random thoughts run through my brain. I’d wait to practice again later, since I wanted to pace myself a bit better. Sometimes I’d count how many of the same-colored cars I’d see, but that got confusing quick when I couldn’t tell which ones I’d already counted. There weren’t really any animals in the trees off the road either. Only the occasional farm animal broke up the monotony.
Every now and again, Lori would gently tap the steering wheel and sing along to a song playing on the radio. Whenever she noticed me adjust my position in the seat to get more comfortable, she’d apologize for being too loud, and I’d have to tell her that it was fine. She was no Rosie, though she was hardly unpleasant to listen to. She insisted to me that she’d never taken classes and just did it for fun. Her soft voice would have probably paired nicely with Rosie’s musical powers.
As we got closer to Pittsburgh, there were fewer cars on the interstate. I didn’t know what the media might’ve reported on the situation in the few days before we left, but whatever it was, it seemed to be keeping people away. Or there were police forces closer to the city to keep onlookers out. My worst fear was that there was a physical danger to the area that we couldn’t really see on TV, and I wanted to bring that concern up with Lori.
“What if the area is heavily irradiated or something?” I asked. I eyed the little GPS tracker getting ever closer to the city and I felt myself getting a bit scared. “Or what if there’s something worse going on there?”
“We won’t stay long, and we’ll stay on the outskirts. The backroads should keep us away from any police.” Lori didn’t seem completely satisfied with that idea. We didn’t have much else to work with though. I think she wanted to distract herself because she tossed a glance to the rearview mirror again. “Jeez, can’t believe he’s still out. Maybe he didn’t sleep well last night.”
It wasn’t another hour before we pulled up on the remnants of the city’s outskirts. To my surprise, I didn’t see any authorities there. There weren’t any people around when I got a better look at my surroundings. Getting out of the SUV, the scene gave me chills. It was cool outside, but there hadn’t been any snow in the forecast, so I was surprised to see some whitish flakes crunch under my feet.
“Are we supposed to hit snow on the way here?” I asked, already having a sinking feeling about what I was stepping on.
“No.” It was Alex who answered. He stepped out of the car and stretched his arms. “What’s under us is Pittsburgh. Or what’s left of it.”
I tried not to lose my lunch when I thought about it. I didn’t want to think of the possibility that what I was stepping on were the remains of a person. A building would have been bad enough, but a person would have just been horrifying. I pulled the hood of my hoodie over my head to make sure none of it landed on my head when a gust of wind kicked up. When I looked forward, it was just ash as far as the eye could see.
“It’s terrible,” Lori said. I could tell that she was getting angry again and doing everything she could to keep it in check. To help her out, I tried to force myself to be happy, but I wasn’t sure if it worked. “I was told there was still at least forty-thousand people in the city. Even with the two-week warning, people didn’t take it seriously or just couldn’t leave. I hope Mrs. Carmichael was wrong about that number.”
“I don’t think she is, but that’s all the more reason to work harder.” Alex took a few steps forward. Like my own, his footsteps crunched in the ash. My face turned up in disgust at the sound. Even though he was trying to maintain a strong façade, I could see his shoulders slumping a bit. “I don’t care what we have to do, but we can’t let this happen again. Four lives or forty-thousand lives; it doesn’t matter. If the military can’t scratch him, then it falls on us to kill McLeod.”
I couldn’t believe that a human being was capable of the level of destruction I was looking at. Even when a city got bombed, there were plenty of indicators that it was a city after the attack. Everything around us was just flat, featureless ash. There was some that had blown onto the road in the days after the attack, but for the most part, it seemed to be a perfect semicircle of damage. Beyond the cutoff of the attacked area, the road, trees, and everything else was undamaged.
“There’s really just...nothing left, is there?” I asked. I was about to take a step forward before thinking better of it. I didn’t know anything about the stability of the ground. For all I knew, I could take one step and fall right through in a giant sinkhole or strange trap. I tried looking farther for any signs of a building. Even on the outskirts of the city, there wasn’t much to work with. Maybe a bit of pipe or rebar that somehow survived was all that I could see. “This is really giving me the creeps.”
“Do you guys want to keep on to Missouri, or do you want to look around a bit more?” Lori asked. She was kneeling with her bracelet near the ash on the ground. She gave it a bit of a funny look and shook her head. “This apparently has a Geiger counter in it, naturally, and it’s not going off. It can’t account for anything else that might kill us, but I don’t think we’ll get radiation poisoning if we walk a bit.”
Lori reparked the SUV on the side of the road right before the ash began. I still hadn’t seen anyone come anywhere close to us. I could hear cars on a nearby major road, none of which I imagined wanted to come near us. A sudden, strong gust of wind from the west blew a bunch of the ash all over us, the vehicle, and the trees. I’d seen pictures of trees near a beach right after a hurricane where they were stripped and battered with sand. With the ash sticking to all of the trees around us, it reminded me of those photos.
Carefully, we strolled around the edge of the destroyed area, making sure to keep on the grass. We cleared the area with trees after a few minutes, and we were finally able to see some buildings. Turns out it was once a little suburb, with all of the buildings being small, upscale homes. Since we were still on the edge of the grass, we were walking up in someone’s backyard. Most of the house had been completely vaporized with only about a quarter remaining. It had stood for a few days now, so I wasn’t too worried about it falling.
“I’m going to take a look to see if anyone’s in there,” I said, knowing that no one in their right mind would still be inside. I just needed an excuse for myself to go. I gingerly made my way over, like the next step I took might make the remnants of the building give in. Placing one hand on edge of the wall, I peered inside. It was only around two in the afternoon, so the sun wasn’t really shining inside, making everything look a bit darker than it should. “Hello?”
There was a loud thud and a light scrambling sound, like a spooked raccoon that got caught eating out of the garbage. The suddenness of it nearly made me lose my grip and fall into the ash. I was barely able to catch and stabilize myself. After calming my breathing, I listened for any other sounds. Despite it being the middle of the day on the weekend, the entire neighborhood was eerily quiet. Normally, kids would have been playing everywhere on such a pleasant winter day.
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Slowly, I bent my body around the wall and slipped into the room. Upon a closer inspection, the room was mostly pink, with only the carpet being a different color. The room was definitely much bigger before the attack. The only thing left in the room was a disheveled bed, a cracked door to a small walk-in closet, and what I assumed was the door to the rest of the home. I ran my hand over the wallpaper that was adorned with a white flower pattern, and it came away with dust. Clicking my tongue, I wiped it on the side of my jeans to try and clean it.
I heard another scrambling noise from the closet. I looked to my right and saw a window in case I had to make a daring escape from a raccoon or something. As quietly as I could, I made my way over to door. On the ground in front of me, I noticed that there was a small trail of crumbs. The scuttling sounded bigger than something like a rat. With the state of the area, I wasn’t about to rule out any possibilities for what could have been behind that door.
When I got to the accordion-style door, I quickly flung it open, hoping to scare out any critters that might’ve made themselves at home. Well, I certainly scared what was in there, but it wasn’t anything so easy as a raccoon, possum, or rat. Instead, a terrified little girl sat trembling in the corner. Her arms and hands were over her face, either to block out the light or to protect her head.
I was stunned at first, and I didn’t know how to react. I never really dealt with children, so I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. I slowly approached her and crouched next to the tiny girl. I tried keeping my voice as calm and steady as possible. “Hey there, I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought...I thought there were animals in here. I’m sorry.”
Slowly, she brought her arms down and showed me her face. Her hair was brown like Lori’s. Her skin was a touch lighter than Lori’s. Behind some unbrushed strands of hair were eyes that held a clear intelligence, at least for someone her age. She was thin, though not worryingly so. With the destroyed house and the girly room, even someone like me could figure out what happened. Near my foot was an old and well-maintained teddy bear. As a small peace offering to her, I carefully handed it to her. She took it from my hands and clutched it close to her chest.
“Are you going to take our things?” she asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and the poor little thing looked scared beyond belief. I was impressed that she was even able to speak.
“I’m not, promise. Is it okay if I sit next to you?” She hesitated for a few moments. She checked around me and nodded. I slowly brought myself next to her and gently sat down. She clutched the bear harder to her body. Since the attack happened Thursday, and it was already Saturday, she probably wasn’t in any huge danger from hunger. Water was a different story, so I pulled out my water bottle. “Do you want some water? You must be thirsty after being here for so long.”
She didn’t waste any time taking the water bottle in one hand. She looked at it funny for a second, probably remembering something about accepting things from strangers. Her glance bounced from the bottle back to me a few times before she finally gave up and drank from it. I only had about half in there and the little girl spilled most of it on her shirt and bear. She looked disappointed when it ran out.
“That’s okay, we have some more,” I told her, returning the bottle to my side. I was dreading bringing up the next part, but knew that I had to so I could figure out just what was going on. “Some of my friends are going on a road trip and we decided to stop by Pittsburgh. Do you know where your parents are? Can you tell me your name?”
“My name’s Megan,” she said. She followed it with a shrug and a head shake. “I don’t know where Mommy and Daddy are. They went out a while ago and called the phone. They said hide in my room. Um, they said don’t answer the door. Then there was lots of screaming. They didn’t call after that.”
My heart nearly broke hearing her story. They had to have been caught up in the attack on Pittsburgh. Poor Megan had been there waiting for them to come back home. I was reminded of those few, terrible hours after my parents were taken from me. She’d been waiting for around two days. I tried to not let my sadness at her situation show. “My name is Ethan. Did the police come by? Or anyone at all?”
This time, she nodded a couple times. “There was someone yelling before. I think that was yesterday. But Mommy told me to stay put and not answer for anyone...”
I really struggled with how to bring up the death of her parents. We weren’t exactly in the same boat, but we were pretty dang close. All I knew was that we needed to get little Megan some help. “I...I’m sorry, but I don’t think your parents will be coming home.”
I could see her bottom lip quiver while she nodded in understanding. She probably knew, but was just so scared of being alone that she didn’t want to think about it. Hugging her teddy, she brought her knees up and placed her forehead on them. Megan started crying, a quiet and gentle sound. I wasn’t sure how to comfort her, if she even wanted to be comforted, so I just patted her back a few times and waited out her crying.
“My friends are outside, Megan. I bet they’d love to meet you.” I tried to smile when her crying died down to just sniffling. “Do you want to come say hi? We have some water, and since you’ve been so brave, I bet they’d want to give you some of our donuts. Then we can see about getting someone here to help you. Sound good?”
Her eyes went a bit wide when I mentioned the sweets. She wiped the tears away and shakily stood up. When she just about fell, I grabbed her arm as gently as I could. I didn’t trust opening the window with the condition the house was in, and it made me feel bad for even opening the closet door as quickly as I did. I let her gather any of the belongings she could get in the room, and she chose her bear, a small picture of her family on a nightstand, and a necklace that rested next to it. I was glad she understood that we were going to try and call the police to come help her. She seemed like a smart cookie.
It took a bit of effort, but I was finally able to guide Megan around the wall and away from the ash. Out in the sunlight, she blinked and threw a hand over her eyes. Lori and Alex were still where I left them, and they hadn’t noticed me emerge yet. When she adjusted to the light, I could feel Megan slip behind me and grip my jeans.
I prayed it wasn’t all too much for her. I was beginning to think it was a bad idea, but it was too late. Lori already noticed me and waved at me.
“We were about to come in and check on you. What took you so...” Her voice trailed off when she saw the child’s head peering around from the side of my leg.
“Lori, this is Megan. She’s done a really great job holding out here until some help arrived, so I thought we could give her some donuts and water.” I made my eyes go wide to put emphasis on certain parts, hoping Lori would understand.
“Oh, absolutely! We’d love to share, but they’re back in the car,” Lori sat cross-legged on the grass with a wide smile on her face. “Can you wait a bit, Megs? Is it okay if I call you that?”
Megan nodded and slowly walked up to her. She stuck out her hand and Lori shook it enthusiastically. Not too much that it might startle her. It was just enough to be a soothing presence. Lori was probably already reading her emotions and doing her best to work around them. She would make a great babysitter because of her powers.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Megs. I just have to let my friend know that we took a bit of a detour on our road trip.” She tapped the little detector bracelet on her hand a couple times. She looked at me, her upbeat tone not wavering. “These have something that’ll let Mrs. Carmichael know we need to talk to her urgently, but it’s not an immediate life-or-death situation. When it finishes starting up, I’ll-”
She was cut off by a rapid, low beeping sound. The display on it had an arrow pointing directly in front of her, right to Megan. The little girl bounced back a bit and I didn’t blame her. It surprised me, even though it wasn’t a loud beep. Curiously, I took a closer look at it. “Lori, what is that?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned. “That means there might be a teeny issue. The beeping is the bracelet’s way of alerting us to an Anomaly. Megan, would you be okay with walking back with us to our car? One of these nice boys can carry you if you’re tired.”
“Can Ethan carry me like a princess?” she asked, her voice dripping with earnestness. My lower back was already aching from imagining the walk back, but I wasn’t going to say no.
“He would love to, Megan!” Lori answered for me, standing up. She brushed the grass and dirt off the back of her pants. She looked at me expectedly and gave me an exaggerated eye roll. “Well? Our lovely princess has somewhere she has to be. Get to it!”