Deep Quiet
excerpt from novel in progress
Two dreams of talk shows, one where Barbara Eden was claiming that she was adopting two children, one was almost twenty “but he has a power, blood as good as gold.” When she stirred awake, Eagan could feel the deep quiet permeate the apartment. A thud from upstairs and then another - it was like they dropped a bookcase up there. Mom had left at eight for her physical and what time was it? Eagan looked up. Holy shit, 11:51am. She must have never set the alarm. Eagan sprang up. There was an odd feeling this morning - everything seemed too quiet.
She walked to the kitchen. Dumped the coffee grounds and started making a fresh batch. Today she was on the five shift with Erica. She was always paired with someone who doesn’t like to work and loves to talk. It was strange that Mom wasn’t home yet - it had been hours. Eagan flipped on the radio. She scooped up some Folgers. Why wasn’t there any music?
She never quite understood why they did so many emergency tests with that sound. What was the purpose of that sound. Eagan flipped it off and walk over to Dad’s old ham radio. She needed some tunes or sound of any kind today. There was a scream on the street. Eagan rushed to the window. The woman on the street was in blue jeans, blood all on the front. She was screaming for help and seemed unhinged. Maybe there was a car accident somewhere on another street. The woman looked back and then ran into the side tunnel. Nothing else happened after that, no one followed. It was hard to see any details from the seventeenth floor.
Eagan flipped on the ham radio. Coffee ready. Aw, the sweet smell of Folger’s. Searching for stations. Odd. Everything was out. She walked over to get her coffee. Suddenly she heard Yosemite Sam. “I’m gonna blow your head off, you Wiley Rabbit!” She had heard about this. It was unusual. It was code. Then she heard the German classroom. The student. Eagan fumbled for a pen. Shit, this never happened! “Five. Six. Nine. Two. Four. Three. One. Eight.” The message repeated and she checked the numbers. Eagan loved codes. This would give her something to work on. She scrawled Yosemite Sam on the top of the Post-it and stuck it in her pocket.
Eagan sipped her coffee in the quiet apartment. The tube wasn’t working and neither was the radio and neither was the phone. Maybe there was a building outage. She half-enjoyed this super silence, it was peaceful. Even if her Mom was there and doing nothing, she’d still feel a buzz permeating from the fact another human was there. But it was like all the humans turned off and she had waken up somewhere else. It gave her a chance to dip into a Stephen King book and enjoy the silence. But eventually, around 2pm she began to wonder what happened.
When 4pm rolled around Eagan’s peace turned into unease. She knew something was definitely wrong. The only cars she had seen pass the building these past few hours were racing by, as if away from something. They were of course on the back end of the building and it was mostly older folks here - maybe they were holed up, too. She’d have to get to work soon and Mom was her ride. She could do a bus, but it would have to be now. She tried the TV again, then finally got something. An emergency screen with violet, blue, green and white bars on it.
“This is not a test. This is an Emergency. Immediately Evacuate and Go to Large Community Shelters - YMCAs, Stadiums, Churches. Repeat - ”
And out.