Page 34 of Them

But that idea. It fights me like a bull. Or like the wildcat scrawny little boy I used to be. That kid who never gave up, not because someone was watching him or there was a promotion on the table, but because he was compelled to by no force other than the strength of his own heart. That’s who’s been fighting me this whole time. And not just since I first hid, or when I sold my soul to keep this world compliant with our bastardized definition of “safe.” He’s been fighting me ever since I tried to forget him—ever since I tried to grow up.

But sometime recently, that buried innocence became an idea, the notion that someone might read the words I’m writing down. They’ll hear my lonely broadcasts and actually meet me in Washington. If I give up now, there’s someone down the line that’s going to pay the price for my cowardice. Anyone left needs to know it’s not their fault. I can still be of some use to this world I have wronged.

I feel it in my bones. I realize I must be halfway insane—and only half so much as I deserve—but something is different now. These words aren’t for nothing. I am sure. There will be someone to apologize to. There will be someone I can help. There will be a reason for me to gather up my guts and leave this cowardly place. I can’t believe it; I must simply know it, as tangible as the sky is blue and the monsters are real. It doesn’t matter if I sound like a madman, because the only truth left in my old, scarred heart resides within the madness.

You heard me. You must have. Through whatever invisible force binds us as a species I know that you did. Something changed. An aberration in the static. A tap on my shoulder. A whisper over my grave. Something was different today. You heard me.

The doubt has already gnawed my courage to the marrow, but I don’t care. There’s that voice within me, one that isn’t quite ready to die yet. I’m already dead so long as I trap myself inside this cage. I constantly tell that voice this is all my fault. I ought to rot or be ripped apart, whatever this dead world should judge the worst for me.

But the voice doesn’t listen. “So?” it asks, as if my crimes against Earth don’t matter. “You still have more to do.”

“But I can’t undo what I’ve done,” I tell the voice, that slice of myself that used to dream.

“But you can still do something, right?”

Yes. That’s right.

I look over my shoulder, to where the waiting door whispers.

And I know it’s time to go.

The one calling himself “L.B.” broadcast from the same station at the same time every morning, and the man was always waiting. He didn’t quite trust what he’d been hearing on the radio; ancient apocalyptic fiction had instructed him not to. That’s the cliché, right? The real monsters are the people. But the guy on the radio didn’t sound like a monster, or much of anything. The man was only sure that L.B. was on the older side, maybe in his sixties. All other points of comparison had atrophied. The voice on the radio wasn’t quite stern, nor robotic, but such were nearly the right adjectives. L.B. spoke clearly with a slow pace that lent his words a sense of patience and thoughtfulness, but there was something off about him too. It was his emotions. They weren’t exactly muted, just… muffled. As if he were holding something back.

The week following L.B.’s first broadcast was uneventful. A lone Scorpion patrolled the vicinity two days in, but it hardly deviated from the main road. The man never even saw it, only heard the clink-clink-gash and felt the foundation tremble, stirring him as dusk fell. Then it moved on without incident.

He took advantage of the downtime, scavenging a surplus of canned goods and ammunition from the neighborhood, as well as getting some much-needed head rest. While he was waiting for L.B.’s scheduled broadcasts, Rockin’ Ray’s playlist kept him company. The signal was still solid, although a bit staticky at times. He showered with bottled water and itched to use shampoo or bodywash again, but he couldn’t chance marking his scent as human. He’d only done it the last time to clean the deer shit off, but even that had been a risk.

The concussion symptoms had steadily waned, and the painful pulses only came with the sun now, but he’d found some extra pillows to stuff in the narrow windows and keep out the light. The nightmarish shades that haunted him remained, guilt clinging, but he ignored them as best he could. It was selfish, yes, but he needed to sleep. There was nothing he could do for those people now. The two from the farmhouse. The Florida man. It was cruel but circumstantial. He had to put the ghosts away if he wanted to make it to DC.

And he would make it to DC. Whether he fully trusted L.B. or not, he was going. He had to. What else was there to hope for?

L.B. spent most of the week talking about preparations for his own hike to the White House. It was obvious that the old man was well protected; he didn’t appear too concerned about being ambushed so long as he remained stationary. His gruff, raspy voice had a sly and aged confidence, almost like a teacher on tenure. As if the stranger knew the answers to whatever plot twist or pop quiz everyone else had failed to grasp. And for someone who seemed to never leave his shelter, L.B. sure knew a helluva lot about the Scorpions.

“It’s the eyes,” L.B. had said during one broadcast. “That’s where you have to hit them. Everything else might as well be brick. Even the skin beneath their armor is tougher than any creature on Earth. Aim for their eyes. But you must know that already, right? If you’ve made it this far, you know.”

On Earth. Did the stranger know something the man didn’t?

Most of L.B.’s advice had that same instructive tone. He was brief, specific, but also… practiced. Falling into something. What’s the angle? The man couldn’t tell. What’s the goal? The stranger could have any number of intentions. He imagined an ex-military doomsday prepper buried deep in the earth, salivating over his desktop transmitter at the mere idea of human touch.

Yet L.B. was undeniably helpful. “Check your map and take the highways,” the radio stranger said. “They don’t like the traffic. The mess we left behind is inconvenient for them to navigate. For us, it’s a fast and relatively safe route. Just remember to leave enough time to find shelter before sunrise.”

After that message, the man had searched the neighborhood cars’ glove boxes until he found a road map, though it took the better part of an afternoon. He was almost glad he couldn’t ask any questions—just had to point himself in the right direction and walk. That part was easy. And if the worst came to pass and the stranger betrayed him? Then only one would come out on top, and it wouldn’t be L.B.

Seven days after first contact with L.B.—seventeen since discovering the radio and Rockin’ Ray—the man packed his things, left the ranch house with the basement bedroom, and began walking just before midnight. The neighborhood was silent, dilapidated cars and crumbling shingles his only audience.

Making his way back to the main road, the man spied the blue POPLAR AVE sign resting flat on the asphalt. In the time between his arrival and departure, the corrosion had finished its work on the aluminum pole. Decay had set it. Reclamation. The man wondered if the world would ever forget his people. If it would ever forgive them.

It felt good to walk again, despite the stuffy night. That mid-Atlantic humidity brewing. A storm was coming. Sooner or later, the rain would fall, and it would draw them out of their shallow pools and lakes. Even at night, some of them celebrated precipitation. Sang in the storm. He really wanted to be in DC by then. Had to be.

But that was okay. He was walking. For the first time in a long while, he was walking, and things were good.

Although he took L.B.’s words with a grain of salt, the man followed the signs toward the interstate. If the horrors truly avoided the endless lanes of abandoned cars, the highways would provide the perfect route to travel long distances. He’d be like a cockroach scurrying about a crumbled building, small enough to slip through the debris unnoticed. Besides, even if L.B. were luring him for whatever nefarious reasons, the man would be no good to him as mandible fodder. There was no reason to suspect the tip was bogus.

Country neighborhoods alternated with long stretches of farmland and small-town strip malls. There seemed to be the husk of a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner. The man saw no signs of life, human, Scorpion, or otherwise. It was quiet. Pleasant. The full moon watched it all.

Two hours later, the man found a bench beside a seasonal snowball stand on the outskirts of a small Virginia town. The tiny building, little more than a shed with a pair of narrow windows, had already begun to rot and lean. How many winters has it seen? How many days since you were left on your own?

He checked his wristwatch. Nearly two in the morning. L.B.’s hour.