Victoria

The Beeping Light on the Tall Tower

I craned my neck as we moved towards the centre of the city. There was a tower that shot high up into the sky. At the very top, hidden between the dark grey clouds, was a blinking red light. I was pretty sure I knew what it did, but I wasn't sure.

The tower was attached to a building that we were steadily walking towards. Like the other buildings, the windows were shattered and the structure was crumbling. It looked menacing, but so did everything else I'd seen.

I was used to the menacing look, anyways. It had only been two months since everything began, but I'd gotten pretty used to it by now.

Sometimes-most of the time, actually-I miss the way things were before. I miss our home in Indianapolis, with its ugly green walls and its burnt out light bulbs. I missed having a bed to sleep in, even if I did have to share a room with Elliot. It beat sleeping on a bed of crunchy leaves and pointy twigs.

We entered the building through a creaking door that Elliot strained to pull open. The inside was as dark and dreary as the outside, except there were people on the inside. The people inside wandered around, looking like they had nowhere to go, and when the door made it's loud, creaking noise, they all turned to look at us. Everyone began to whisper, and I suddenly felt more nervous than I had in a long time. I inched a little closer to Elliot, holding his hand firmly.

Elliot approached a woman dressed in dirty jeans and a ripped tank top, "Can you help us?" He asked, "We're looking for the guy who runs the radio transmissions. Abe, I think?"

"Abe? Abe's that way." She said, pointing to a long hallway, "Not sure how much help he could be."

"Right. Thanks." Elliot said, following the woman's finger to the hallway.

I followed Elliot down the dingy hallway. He strode with a sense of confidence, though I don't know where he was getting it from.

At the end of the hallway was another door that Elliot had to strain to open. Behind it was a room different from the rest of the building. Despite its dusty smell, it was surprisingly clean, and fluorescent lights burned my eyes as they adjusted from the darkness.

Several people rushed around the room, some with tools in hand and some pressing various buttons on a huge, ancient-looking machine that I'd never seen.

One of the pressing-buttons-men looked over at us, "Can I help you?"

"We're looking for Abe," Elliot explained, voice as confident as his stride.

"I'm Abe." The pressing-buttons-man said. Abe had dark brown skin, so dark that if I had seen him in the hallway, I'd probably have to squint to see him. His hair was twisted into thin, short dreadlocks that were tied up in a ponytail. Mixed with an accent was the low and hoarse sound of his voice, which sounded like he had spent the last few weeks unsuccessfully trying to trap his screams into a jar, "Why are you looking for me?"

"I've heard you're the guy who can get messages sent across the country." Elliot said, "You've got some sort of radio, right? We need to send a message to Indianapolis."

"Had a radio." Abe corrected him.

"Had?"

"We had a radio. Then the soldiers came."

"The soldiers? I thought they were leaving Georgia?" Elliot asked, "I heard they were going outwards, towards the coast so they could get to all the ships."

"They're moving north. Canada's remained pretty safe. They'd like to change that, I'm sure."

"I heard the same thing about Canada." Another man chimed in, "Only I've heard they were afraid of their military defense, so they were moving south instead."

"It doesn't matter. North, south, either way, the soldiers were here. They destroyed all of our communication devices, along with most of our food and water and everything else."

Elliot turned to me, "Mal, how about you go take a look around?"

"I don't want to."

"I mean it, Mallory."

I gritted my teeth and tightened my jaw, "Fine."

I didn't wander too far, just past the heavy door and far enough that Elliot couldn't see me in the dark.

When Elliot told me he meant it, I knew what he meant. He meant, 'you're still a kid, Mallory, and because of that, you better not hear this. And by you better not hear this, you better not listen in. Really, how about you just go away?'

But, I wanted to hear what was being said. I was tired of Elliot thinking I was a kid and telling me to just go away. Fourteen is not a kid. I wasn't a kid. I wanted to hear what they were talking about, and I would, whether Elliot liked it or not.

"They dropped a bomb somewhere close to us." Abe explained, "Killed a lot of people in the city's outskirts. Reached us, too. Destroyed most of the buildings. The ones left standing had the windows knocked right out of them. Knocked the power out for a while, too. Thought it wouldn't ever come back on, but it did. Good thing, too, people started looting, robbing, mugging, all that stuff. Whole city basically went insane. Scared the people in the city, most of them left. Scared the people living outside the city, most of them came in."

"I didn't hear about the bomb. I didn't know any had been dropped since everything's begun." Elliot's voice chimed in.

"Of course not. No news, no phones or T.V. or even papers. No one hears about anything anymore." Abe said, sighing deeply, "Once the power came back on and the people began to come into the city, the soldiers came in."

Even though I wasn't in the room, I could feel the mood in the room change. Though it had been no party before, it became depressing and miserable and there was a certain tenseness to Abe's jar-hoarse voice.

Abe continued, "They killed anyone who got in their way. The unlucky ones were the ones they didn't kill. Anyone they could find that was able-bodied they shoved into trucks and took them Lord knows where. Me and my team hid along with every other unlucky person. They came in, smashed some of our radios. Some of them they pulled wires from or outright stole. It doesn't matter what they did, we don't have anything now."

"Nothing? There's no way we can send a message?"

"Believe me, kid, there's no way you can do it from here. We've spent the last two weeks trying to put what we've got left back together, we know that there's no way to send a message."

Elliot sighed, and in my mind I could see his look of frustration as he ran his hands through his dirty blond hair. I could see his broad shoulders, which he had earned after years of playing football, slump, and the deep brown eyes that I shared with him lose their hope.

My thoughts were cut off by a loud beeping that rang through the building. It was coming from high above us, probably from the tower with the red light above our heads. My hands shot up to cover my ears, muffling everything around me. I looked back into the radio room, where Elliot and Abe were yelling at each other.

I couldn't make out what they were saying, but there was something in Elliot's eyes that I wasn't sure I'd ever seen before. Elliot turned and saw me, and the look became more intense.

People were running out of the room, and Abe was rushing around the room like he was preparing something. Elliot ran towards me, ushering me out of the room. We followed the crowd that had formed in the hallway and I looked up at Elliot.

Then, I realized what the look in his eyes was: Fear.