Above the Hush Read online

  I felt stupid for even trying. Like a fool.

  He didn’t want to talk or play a game, he was mad that I made him be there. And using the excuse he wasn’t feeling well, he went to bed.

  Like an idiot, I was pacifying. “Okay, Michael, I hope you feel better. Get some rest.”

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  After stealing one of his cigarettes, I sat by the smoldering fire warming the coffee in the pot. I made up my mind that the next day we’d leave. It wasn’t worth it. Fate tried to tell me not to go and I ignored it.

  Little did I realize I would soon find out fate actually had played a role in it all, and more than anything, I believe I was supposed to be right there at that camp at that exact time.

  3 – JAMMED

  The five o’clock in the morning shuffling told me the trip was going to end even earlier than I thought.

  “It’s not you. It’s me,” Michael said. “You can’t fix anything, until I fix me. And I don’t know how to do that. I just know it’s not here.”

  Then he left.

  He asked if I wanted to walk up with him. I declined, I would stay. At least another few hours. I wasn’t ready to go home, to face Ken and hear him say, ‘I told you so.’

  It wasn’t a fresh start for me and my son, it was just another round in the same game that we played over and over.

  I was able to fall back to sleep and when I did, I slept hard. I dreamt of Pole Guy, which made sense. I hadn’t really dealt with what I had witnessed. In the dream I watched him fall from the pole. He fell in super slow motion, making a whistling sound as he did, like a bomb falling. He even landed with a boom.

  I saw his face all over again, his pain filled eyes and melting skin. Only in the dream I reached down to touch him. The second my hand lay upon his arm, I woke up with start, sat up on the cot and gasped in a huge breath, as if I had exhaled every bit of air from my body in the dream.

  My heart raced in the aftermath of waking so suddenly. I took a second to calm myself, then left the tent. I lit a Sterno under the grate and heated the remaining coffee while I packed my items.

  It didn’t take the coffee long to heat, and I took some time to sip a cup and make myself a promise. While I wasn’t giving up on my son, I was going to stop trying, at least for the time being.

  The gear was a lot for me to carry alone and I wished I would have told Michael to take some. The mile walk took me forever, and I had to stop several times.

  Finally, I made it to the check-in cabin and I placed my stuff in the back of the truck. I was embarrassed to go tell Charlie I was leaving, so I tried to be quiet as I hit the locker for my phone. The office was dark, but through the window I could see Charlie in the chair. His head slumped, he was sound asleep.

  After retrieving my phone, I switched it on as I walked to my truck, tossing it on the seat as I got in.

  When the phone was powered up I checked it hoping to see a message from Michael, but it was still searching for a signal.

  I figured I’d have to wait until I was farther away.

  It was still early and my plan was to stop on the way home, sit in a diner, and have a cup of coffee and me time.

  But something was terribly wrong, I felt it and knew it the second I made it out of the park and took the exit for I-64.

  As soon as I entered the highway and began descending the small crest I saw smoke in the distance. A thin line of black smoke shot strongly into the sky. My first thought was there had been a bad accident on the highway ahead and immediately I panicked. Not even getting a third of a mile on the road I spotted all the stopped cars.

  It was an accident, I thought, a bad one, too.

  I slowed down making the approach, but when I got close I realized they weren’t stopped in some sort of traffic jam, there was no orderly stopping, no tail lights, the cars were all part of a pile up.

  “Oh, my God.” My foot hit the brake and I turned the wheel to pull off the road.

  With that many cars in a collision where were the emergency workers?

  Grabbing my phone to call for help I stepped from my truck and looked for oncoming traffic. It was then I realized, there wasn’t any.

  No cars were driving my way.

  In fact, I had been so lost in my own world and my own thoughts, I never noticed on the other side of the highway cars were at a standstill. Some off the road, some sideways.

  My hands trembled and I fumbled to call 911.

  There was no call to be made … there was no signal.

  There was also not a sound on that highway. Not a single sound.

  All those cars, all that wreckage and not a soul walked about, nobody cried out. Engulfed in an eerie silence I headed toward the wrecked cars at an anxious pace.

  I focused forward and a few steps into my run my ankle twisted a bit, I nearly lost my balance when I stepped on something. I looked down. It was a dead bird.

  There were dead birds all over the place.

  Instantly, I filled with panic. What was happening? What was going on?

  My hands slammed down on the trunk of the first car I came to. A dark blue, four door sedan. My hands scaled across the driver’s side until I made it to the door. Somehow, I don’t know why, I didn’t expect to see anyone in the car. Yet, I jumped in surprise when I saw the body of a man. He leaned against the window his head tilted back, neck arched and mouth wide open. The windshield was intact, the airbag hadn’t deployed, there was barely any front end damage to the car.

  Yet he was dead.

  I didn’t get a good look and didn’t check for injuries, I jumped back and bumped into the car behind me. Spinning around it was the same horror. Two passengers in the car, both dead.

  I ran forward to the next car, a body had ejected through the windshield, it hung halfway on the hood, arms spread, eyes wide … not a drop of blood anywhere.

  My breathing raced and became hyperventilated as I moved from car to car on the highway.

  Cars smashed or not, it was the same thing.

  “Hello!” I called out. “Anyone?”

  Car check … body.

  “Is anyone hurt? Alive! Anyone?”

  No response. No sound.

  Body. Body. Body. Body.

  No!

  I found myself in the middle of this massive pile up of vehicles. Where did it end? How far did it go? I started to run. The cars, SUVs and trucks on the road created a maze and I zig-zagged my way through barely looking at the dead occupants. Only trying to get to the end.

  At the end of the pile was an overturned, tractor trailer that blocked the width of the highway, serving as a vehicular dam.

  Surely on the other side there was something.

  I ran to the median strip, slipping and sliding as I made my way down and finally around the truck.

  I broke free.

  A long stretch of highway was before me.

  No more massive pile up, but it wasn’t done.

  For as far as I could see, cars and trucks were scattered about the road. Some off the road, some into the guardrail, some spun out and overturned.

  It was endless.

  I not only reached the end of the wreckage, I reached … my end.

  I felt as if I left my body, my only reaction was to scream.

  I screamed in horror, long and loud.

  Then I screamed again.

  I couldn’t stop. I dropped to my knees and kept on screaming.

  4 – WITS ABOUT

  In the form of a turtle, legs tucked under my body, forehead to the concrete, I outstretched my arms, scraping my fingernails against the surface as I cried. Something horrible, something positively horrendous had happened on that highway and I hadn’t a clue what it was. All I knew was it was never-ending. The smoke on the horizon was something else devastating that I didn’t want to face.

  My first thought wasn’t that it was widespread or global, or even national. it was that something big had happened in that small spot of Virginia.
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br />   Where was the help? The helicopters flying overhead? Maybe it happened so early no one knew. I even considered it was a nightmare and I was still sleeping.

  Wake up. Wake up.

  Get it together, I told myself. You are stronger than this. Get up. Get help.

  But what kind of help could I get? What sort of help would do those people on the highway any good? They were all dead.

  Following my hysterical breakdown I stood wiped my eyes and ran as fast as I could back to my truck. Through the wreckage, past the bodies, hoping against hope when I reached the other end, finally someone else would be there.

  Nothing.

  No one was there.

  My truck was parked on the side where I left it and not a soul was around. I got in turned around and headed right back up that same side of the highway. Only this time I was keen about my surroundings. I paid attention. I noticed the cars, the trucks.

  They were there, they just weren’t moving.

  I drove on the wrong side of the road all the way back to the Gridlock Camp Resort. Even using the entrance ramp to the highway to get off. It brought me to the road that led to the campsite.

  At the very least Charlie had a landline, I recalled seeing it on the counter at the check-in cabin.

  Driving faster than I should have, I pulled into the parking lot and right up to the cabin.

  “Charlie,” I called out as I stepped from my truck. My feet thumped against the wooden porch and I opened the door. “Charlie, I …”

  Charlie was still in the same position I had seen him earlier, in the chair, slumped over slightly in a completely dark room.

  My voice lowered, “Charlie?”

  The door slammed closed behind me causing me to jump and shriek. My heart thumped in my chest and I walked around the counter to where Charlie was seated.

  Please be sleeping. Please be sleeping.

  “Charlie?” I turned his chair around, and when I did he fell to the floor.

  A slight scream escaped me, I brought my hand to my mouth. I didn’t notice it until that second, the slight sour odor to the room. Charlie was gray, his eyelids were open and his eyes were rolled back causing them to be all white.

  His lips were colorless yet he had black marks on his nose, cheek and fingers.

  I reached down and touched him and he was cold, ice cold.

  With a gasp I moved back bumping into the counter. I lifted the receiver to the landline … nothing. No dial tone, like Charlie, it was dead. The phone dropped from my hand and I bolted out of there.

  The question repeated in my mind, “What was happening? What was going on?”

  While I asked that question, never once did I try to surmise an answer. It was beyond the scope of what I could imagine at that time.

  I noticed a few cars in the parking lot.

  Campers. There were campers at the resort. Find them, find people. That was my thought. Surely they were in the same place as I was, maybe they were shielded as well from whatever had happened. Just as I left the cabin to hit the trail, I saw the bikes on the stand for Charlie’s bike rentals and I grabbed one. Taking a bike would be faster than walking down that mile long path to the dead zone that was the off-the-grid area.

  My entire body shook so badly that I controlled the bike about as good as someone needing training wheels. It swerved left and right, my mind went blank on how to even slow down and stop. I kept trying to peddle backwards when I remembered, I wasn’t ten, the brakes were on the handle bars.

  I arrived at the end of the mile where the path split and signs pointed to the different camping areas. I veered to the right slowing down some and calling out, “Hello! Anyone? Help!”

  As I approached where we had stayed I could smell coffee and food. Almost in a state of shock and mixed with panic I was yelling out on autopilot, repeatedly for anyone and for help.

  Just before campsite six a man appeared in the road. He looked as though he had raced out, maybe he heard me, I didn’t know. I tried to slow down, but I couldn’t. I was out of control as much as the bike. He reached out to try to stop me. I shot to the left, went off the path and the bike slid out from me, turning on its side and throwing me to the ground.

  “Whoa, hey, are you alright?” he asked. “I heard you calling out.”

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.” Those were the only words to come from my mouth.

  “Let me help you.” He reached down for me. He was slightly older than middle-aged. Maybe in his late fifties, early sixties. Clean cut with a flannel shirt, probably his first time camping like me. He grabbed ahold of my arm and helped me to my feet. “You’re bleeding. Come on …”

  Bleeding? I was bleeding? I didn’t even feel an ounce of pain. I tried to respond, but I couldn’t. I was grateful someone was there. My mouth moved but I couldn’t speak.

  “Ralph?” a woman emerged, saw me, then gasped. “Are you okay? Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Ralph said. “She seems to be in shock.”

  “Bring her to the camp,” the woman said. “Maybe head to Charlie …”

  “Dead.” I blurted out.

  “What?” the man asked.

  “Charlie. Dead.” I wheezed out.

  “Dear God,” he gasped in shock. “Charlie's dead.”

  I nodded then shook my head. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

  “Calm down. Who?” Ralph asked. “Who is dead?”

  It took everything I had not to cry, not to sound like a mad person, but I answered his question the best way I knew how. He asked who was dead. I answered, “Everyone.”

  5 – LONG WAY

  My hysterical state, along with my brush-burned and bloodied knees, had Ralph and Doris treating me like a child. The words from my mouth were no more different than those from a kid, in his bed crying about the monster in his closet.

  “It had to be scary,” Doris kept saying. “You probably were so scared. You poor thing.”

  They didn’t believe me. They pretended they did, but I knew the second Doris handed me a cup of coffee that anything they heard coming from my mouth they believed was a fantasy.

  “I’m not lying. I’m not seeing things. I’m telling you ... they’re dead,” I repeated my earlier statement. “Sixty-four is one big graveyard. And Charlie … he’s dead, too.”

  “Look,” Ralph held up his hand. “Suppose that is the case …”

  “It is!” I barked.

  “Hey, we’re just trying to help,” Ralph said.

  “And we gave you a band-aid.”

  “Oh my God.” I handed them the coffee cup. “There are people in this camp. I’ll find them, see if they’re alive, because those people on the highway are not. Something is going on. There are no police, no helicopters, nothing. Nothing but dead people and a million dead birds.”

  “Chemical,” Ralph said and looked at Doris. “Had to be chemical. A chemical spill during the pile up would have killed everyone.”

  “What about Charlie?” I asked.

  “Could be entirely unrelated.”

  “Thank you for your help, but ...” I headed from the camp. “I need to find out what’s going on. You should, too. You may not want to go to the highway, but Charlie is only a mile away at the cabin.” I walked out. I thought really hard about going to another camp. How would they treat me? Probably like I was nuts, just like Ralph and Doris had.

  They’d find out though, the moment they tried to leave, because the highway wasn’t really all that far.

  I grabbed the bike and decided to walk it up the path. I moved slowly, my knees were burning. I thought about what I had seen, and what my reaction should be. I mean, how does one react? It was hard to process and it seemed as if it wasn’t real when I stepped away from it.

  Half way up the path I heard Doris call for me to stop.

  I did.

  She made her way to me. “Ralph wants us to wait right here. He went to the other camps. He thinks it might be best if we all went together to see Cha
rlie, then to the highway. Less scary that way.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Dear, it’s hard. Look at this day. It’s a beautiful day. You’re telling us that not one car is moving on the highway and everyone is dead.”

  “Yes. Why would I lie about that?” I asked.

  “Not saying you’re lying.”

  “Maybe a delusion?”

  “Possibly.” She nodded. “Because really, a pile up, yes, but what in the world would make everyone on the highway die, along with Charlie.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t,” I said. “But something did.”

  <><><><>

  There were eight of us waiting outside the cabin while Ralph went inside. No one said anything until he emerged.

  “Well?” someone asked.

  “He is dead. I don’t know what killed him,” Ralph said. “Could be viral, I don’t know. He has some strange marks. However there is no power in there. We all need to face the possibility that we are under some sort of attack.”

  “How did we survive?” another asked.

  “Luck.” Ralph shrugged. “We were in that gully. We’re awfully close to D.C., an attack of sorts would explain those people on the highway.”

  ‘We don’t know what’s on the highway,” said another from the group.

  “No, we don’t. We can stand here all day and theorize, but I think we … all of us should head down to the highway and see for ourselves. Either way, we need to go call someone for Charlie and that’s not happening here.”

  Everyone agreed and we drove in our vehicles down to the highway.

  I had seen the wreckage before, they had not. My initial shock from the scene was gone. I witnessed first-hand, their horrified reactions.

  At first there was quiet. No one said anything, they calmly walked through, then a man ran out of the wreckage and vomited.

  Ralph followed him out shaking his head. There were tears, groans and cries of disbelief. One woman was almost as hysterical as I had been. I was still in a state of shock. I had screamed all that I possibly could already.