Lucy realized that, if the car had killed Ethan, it wouldn’t have mattered if he had been vaccinated. From start to finish, the fact that they were alive was a testament to something larger than them. The thought reminded her of Salem’s crucifix, shoved into her pocket. She took it out and held it in her hand, then put it on and clasped it around her neck.
With the sun setting, the house slipped into darkness. Darla started a fire in the den and then yelled upstairs for Grant so they could work together to get Ethan into his wheelchair for the first time—something Darla couldn’t do on her own. He barely passed through the study door and into the living room, but out in the open he could move about freely. While Darla hunched over the fire burning brightly in the fireplace, Teddy ran matchbox cars over the hardwood floors. Between the fire and a collection of candlesticks, the room was lit in a flickering orange hue.
Everyone’s features were cast in shadow.
Grant was quiet and staring at the wall. Occasionally he’d connect with a piece of conversation but, for the most part, he remained stoic and apprehensive. Lucy couldn’t blame him. She wondered what she would be thinking about if she knew she had hours left to live. She hated that Grant was spending this time with the rest of them trying to carve out daily routines. They were catching up with each other and plotting to move forward. She got up and sat next to him and placed a hand on his knee.
Right as Lucy was about to ask him if he wanted to take a walk with her, sneak away to the darkened kitchen or the family room, Ethan cleared his throat.
“Darla,” he said and she looked up at him. “Could you get the video camera? I think it’s time to show Lucy everything.”
Following Ethan’s orders, Darla rose and went over to the bookshelf and grabbed the video camera her parents used years ago to record first steps and school outings. Handing it to Ethan, he opened up the tiny screen and handed it to Lucy and instructed her to press play.
“What am I watching?” Lucy asked. Her hand shook and she wished that she could hold it steady.
“Mom left me a message. I didn’t know if I would still be able to access my voicemail when the network went down, so I videotaped it.”
She pressed play.
The camerawork was shaky and she could hear a news report broadcasting in the background. In the video, Ethan’s phone was on the kitchen counter and he had put it on speakerphone. The Ethan holding the video camera leaned down and pressed a button to access his voicemail. Lucy deeply drew a breath as she waited anxiously to find out what she’d hear. The moment the message clicked through, she heard her mother’s voice—it filled the kitchen on the video and as Lucy held the camera, her voice filled the den as well—the first syllable was immediately recognizable as her Mama Maxine. And Lucy bit back tears. For the first time she realized that she truly believed she’d never hear her mom say another word to her again, but there was her voice, captured for her to listen to again and again.
“Ethan. Ethan. There’s no time. They took us. Dear God, they took us. Some guys, from an agency…I’m calling you from a car…a transport…I tried to get them to wait. But…” the voice was indecipherable for a moment. And then there was a click.
Lucy kept watching.
From the videotape, a woman’s voice announced a second saved voicemail and said the date and time, mechanical and rote, like any other day. Like it was just any other message.
It was their mom’s voice. Again.
“Ethan. Listen to me. Get to the airport. Get to the airport now. Get to the airport. That’s where we’re going…but I don’t know yet…”
Another click.
Another announcement of a saved voicemail.
“No time. I’m sorry. You need this message.” In the background, there was a rumble. It was the distinct and unmistakable rumbling of an airplane funneling down a runway. “I called your dad. I…your dad says…” there was a bump, a pop. Their mother was yelling and the phone was far from her mouth now, but her voice trailed after it, barely audible. She was yelling two words over and over again, screaming them, with vigor and intensity, until the line went dead and her voice disappeared.
The automated woman announced: “That is the end of new messages…to replay this message press four…” and Ethan in the video pressed four and listened to the last message again. Zooming in the camera to the front of his phone screen. Hearing it a second time didn’t make her mother’s panicked voice any less haunting.
Then Ethan turned the camera on himself.
“Lucy…I’m in a rush…I’ve got to get to the airport. But in case you get back…I need you to see this.” He jostled the camera back toward the house and out of the kitchen and through the dining room to the entryway. At the time of the video, it was only a half hour or hour after Lucy had left that area. Ethan zoomed in on Lucy and Ethan’s monogramed bags. The only bags left at the foot of the stairs. A lump formed in Lucy’s throat when she saw those—their things had been left behind.
They had been totally and completely left behind.
Then the camera panned to the entryway. And when Lucy saw it on the camera, she opened her mouth in horror and turned to Ethan, who confirmed with a nod. There had clearly been a struggle. Lucy had watched enough cop dramas on TV to know the signs—the mirror was broken, a potted plant on the floor, the vase shattered, the roots exposed. The entry table was turned on its side.
Lucy hadn’t gone through the front door when she came home, she had gone through the side door through the carport. Was this chaos still there?
Would it be a permanent reminder that something bad had happened at their house?
Not taking her eyes off of the camera, she spoke—shocked by the waver in it. “What was Mom saying?” she asked as video-Ethan opened the front door and panned to muddy tire marks in the grass which right led up to the door. A car had pulled up on their recently mowed lawn.
If what Lucy was seeing was true, then people got out and grabbed her family. In the midst of nuclear war, a deathly virus, and the end of the world and life on the planet, her family had also been kidnapped. It was mind-boggling.
“What was she saying?” Lucy asked again. The video had ended. She slammed the monitor shut and held the camera against her chest. “Do you know? Did you figure it out?”
Ethan nodded and glanced to Darla and Grant.
“Ethan?” Lucy asked again.
“Yeah,” he finally answered, his voice small. He sniffed and looked at his sister and then tilted his head. “She was saying fruit cellar.”
“Fruit cellar?” Lucy couldn’t hide her incredulity. “Fruit cellar.”
Their mom canned fruits and vegetables. As kids, she took them cherry picking and blueberry picking and made them go out and play on long canning days. Then she meticulously stored her goods in a dirt-walled fruit cellar in their basement. It was slightly raised off the basement ground and could be accessed by climbing up and over a two-foot wooden barrier. It was a fruit cellar—and their mother referred to it as such—but the children called it “the dungeon” and loathed stepping foot inside the tiny space. Monroe and Malcolm always chose to hide there during games of sardines or hide-and-seek; but they usually were left to discover on their own that no one was coming for them because none of the other kids wanted to open the giant wooden door to see if they were there or not. It was the only place in the house that elicited nightmares and phobias among each of the King kids. They hated the fruit cellar.
In her final message to her lost children, Maxine King had been shouting for them to go to the one place they dreaded more than anything.
“The dungeon.” Lucy reworded. And then she shook her head. “Mom was sending us to the dungeon? No, I don’t get it.”