Chapter 2 Static on the Air #2
A hand pump and two yellow cans sat beside it.
For the first time since Sallow Creek, he felt something close to luck.
Rosa watched the office.
“I don’t like the windows.”
“Tinted glass offends you?”
“Things behind it do.”
“Then offend them first.”
They approached the office together. Dane kept left, Rosa right, not because they had agreed on it but because both of them knew how not to crowd a doorway. The front door was unlocked. A small bell above it gave a pathetic jingle when Dane eased it open.
Inside, the air was stale and warm. A counter divided the public area from two desks, a coffee machine, a microwave, and a bulletin board covered in safety notices.
Someone had slept on the floor behind the counter.
Blankets, canned beans, water bottles, empty snack wrappers.
A dried trail of blood led from the blankets to the restroom door.
The restroom door was closed.
Rosa’s grip changed on the rifle.
Dane pointed to the counter, then to the back office, telling her without words to check what could hide there. She understood, though she gave him a look that said understanding did not mean acceptance. He stepped toward the restroom.
Before he touched the handle, a voice crackled from the radio on one of the desks.
“—anybody at Kilroy Station, please don’t shoot me. I’m very alive, mostly unbitten, and emotionally opposed to being murdered.”
Dane froze.
Rosa turned, eyes wide.
The radio hissed again.
“I heard your truck. I also heard the door bell, which, for future reference, is the world’s worst stealth instrument. If you are the road-tax guys, I am not here. If you are dead, I respect your journey but ask you to continue it elsewhere. If you are regular people,
please say something before I run out of nerve and do something embarrassing.”
Dane stared at the radio handset hanging from its cradle.
Rosa whispered, “Where is he?”
A dull thump came from above.
Both of them looked at the ceiling.
The voice returned, smaller under the static.
“I am in the roof crawlspace. There is a ladder in the storage closet. Please do not open the restroom. Former Supervisor Glenn is in there, and Glenn has become a poor listener.”
Dane looked at the restroom door.
Something bumped it from the other side, as if offended by the review.
Rosa crossed to the desk and picked up the handset.
“Who are you?”
“Oh, thank God. A woman with diction.”
“Name.”
“Otto Crane. I was the overnight board operator for KZLR until radio became mostly screaming, hymns, and men threatening each other over canned peaches.”
Dane moved to the storage closet. The door stood ajar. Inside were paper towels, road flares, two mop buckets, and a folding attic ladder pulled halfway down from the ceiling.
Rosa pressed the handset button.
“How long have you been up there?”
“Since yesterday morning.”
“Why?”
“Glenn.”
The restroom door thumped again.
Otto added, “Also some men in denim with rifles came by asking about a girl and a doctor, which felt above my pay grade.”
Dane stopped with his hand on the ladder.
Rosa’s eyes met his.
She spoke into the handset, her voice careful.
“What did you tell them?”
“That I had never met a doctor, a girl, or a reliable dental plan. Then I hid in the ceiling because one of them seemed unconvinced by my charisma.”
Dane took the handset from Rosa.
“Did they leave anything? Markings, directions, a vehicle?”
A pause.
“Oh. New voice. Gravel-based. You must be the truck.”
“Answer.”
“They had two pickups and a tow rig. Black circle logo on the doors, white line through the middle. One of them said Reeve wanted the clinic watched, then they drove east. Except two stayed behind for a while. I think they went into town after the bell.”
Dane handed the radio back to Rosa.
She said, “Those were the two at the truck.”
“Were, as in past tense?”
Nobody answered.
Otto cleared his throat over the radio.
“I will interpret that optimistically.”
Dane pulled the attic ladder down the rest of the way.
Dust fell. Above, in the square hole, a pale young face appeared upside down behind crooked glasses.
Otto Crane had hair the color of straw left too long in the weather and a nose that looked as though it had been broken once and then politely ignored by medicine.
He wore a faded radio station hoodie and held a screwdriver in one hand as if it were a dagger.
Dane looked at him.
“You bitten?”
Otto blinked.
“Straight to intimacy.”
“Answer.”
“No. Scratched by insulation, emotionally mauled by loneliness, but not bitten.”
“Show your arms.”
Otto sighed with theatrical despair, wedged the screwdriver between his teeth, and rolled up both sleeves while balancing awkwardly in the opening. His forearms showed red fiberglass irritation and old acne scars, nothing with teeth behind it.
Rosa lowered the rifle.
“Come down.”
“I would love to. I have spent nine hours regretting every life choice that led me to an attic above a dead weigh station.”
He started down the ladder and nearly slipped on the third rung. Dane caught the back of his hoodie and steadied him without ceremony.
Otto dropped to the floor, saw the shotgun, the blood on Rosa’s scrubs, and Dane’s face, and decided against whatever joke had been forming.
Then he looked through the office window and saw Tomber.
“Oh,” he said softly. “That is an ugly truck.”
Dane said, “You want back in the ceiling?”
“No, sir. That is a majestic truck. A noble truck. A truck with inner beauty and external warnings.”
Despite herself, Rosa gave a short laugh.
It made the room feel briefly less dead.
The restroom door struck its frame hard enough to rattle the handle. Otto flinched.
“Glenn has opinions.”
Dane moved to the door.
Rosa said, “Dane.”
“I know.”
He did not want to waste ammunition inside a room the size of a closet.
He opened the door two inches, then stepped back as what had been Supervisor Glenn shoved through.
Glenn was still wearing a state transportation vest, bright yellow over a torn shirt, name badge clipped crooked over his chest.
He came fast but badly, one foot dragging, both hands reaching.
Rosa fired the rifle once.
The shot slammed through the small office, loud enough to turn the air solid. Glenn dropped at Dane’s feet. Outside, inside Tomber, Nell jerked upright.
Otto pressed both hands over his ears.
“I hated Glenn,” he said shakily, “but not enough to enjoy that.”
Rosa worked the lever, eyes on the door.
“Noise just became a problem.”
“It was going to become one anyway,” Dane said.
He crossed to the window. Beyond the pumps, Nell stared from the cab, cooler clutched tight. Farther out, across the road and near the ditch, two infected had turned toward the station. Then five. Then shapes behind them, rising out of the grass and from the shadow of the stalled semis.
Dane looked at Otto.
“You alone?”
“I was traveling with three people. We tried to broadcast from here because the tower still had backup juice. Then the Milemen came. Then Glenn developed a biting personality. Then my three people made a run for the interstate.”
“Did they make it?”
Otto’s face answered before he did.
“I heard them on the radio for about eleven minutes.”
Rosa’s expression changed, not soft exactly, but human in a way she had been trying not to be.
“What can you do?”
Otto looked from her to Dane.
“In general? Disappoint my father, repair transmitters, splice cable, make bad coffee, identify most regional emergency frequencies, and panic in ways that remain surprisingly productive.”
Dane said, “Can you get the pump working?”
Otto brightened with relief at a problem that had wires instead of teeth.
“Possibly. If the tank isn’t dry and the pump motor isn’t fried. The station’s generator is out back. It kicked off last night, but I think it still has fuel. Glenn turned it off when the noise pulled in walkers.”
“Walkers?” Rosa asked.
“Dead, infected, biters, whatever. I started calling them walkers because calling them people was bad for morale and calling them zombies made me feel like the universe was being tacky.”
Dane looked back outside. More were coming now, not a horde yet, but enough to make the open lot smaller by the minute.
“Generator first,” he said. “Then fuel. Then we leave.”
Otto swallowed.
“We?”
Dane did not answer immediately.
Rosa did.
“If you help us, we’re not leaving you here.”
Dane glanced at her.
“That a medical policy?”
“That’s me deciding fast.”
Nell honked the truck horn once.
Everyone turned.
At the far end of the lot, beyond the burned semi, two pickups rolled into view from the service road, moving slow, headlights off. Mud streaked their sides. On each driver’s door, a black circle had been painted with a white slash cutting through it like a mile marker broken in half.
Otto’s voice shrank.
“That’s them.”
Dane felt the day narrow around one simple fact: they had not been followed by accident.
The Milemen had watched the roads, watched the clinic, watched the places anyone with sense would need to stop.
Reeve Calder might not know Dane’s name yet, but he knew the shape of the problem. A truck. A girl. A box. A route west.
Rosa lifted the rifle.
“How many?”
“Two trucks,” Dane said. “Could be four. Could be eight.”
“Can we run?”
“Not with half a tank and no idea where their other people are.”
The pickups separated, one angling toward the pumps, the other toward the office. They were not rushing. That troubled Dane more than speed would have. Speed meant excitement. This was procedure.
A loudspeaker crackled from the lead pickup.
“Folks in the weigh station, you are currently occupying managed road property. Lay down weapons and step outside. Keep the girl visible. No one needs to get hurt over a misunderstanding.”
Nell honked again, longer this time.
Dane muttered, “Kid’s got timing.”
Rosa’s mouth was tight.
“They know.”
“Yes.”
Otto looked as if his bones were considering leaving without him.
“What girl?”
Dane turned to him.
“There’s a generator out back?”
“Yes.”
“Can you start it quietly?”
Otto laughed once, high and humorless.
“That is an emotionally complicated question.”
“Can you start it?”