The Post Sunday Experiment | COMPLETED 2020

Chapter 12

Buzz, buzz, buzz! Mae was just on her way out to grab some coffee before the subway took her to the bus stop to pick up Ody and Penny.

Picking up the phone, her brow creased as she noticed the caller ID. The caller was Eric Bhurr. He should be on the bus by now.

"Hello, this is Mae. Eric, what's up? Is everything alright?" She spoke as her mind started to rush through all the possible things that could have gone wrong.

There was a pause before Mae was able to make out Eric's voice on the other end of the line. "Ms. Winter, is there any way- you can hop a bus to come down to Cazenovia this afternoon?" Eric's voice shook as he spoke.

"Eric- uh- no, I have work. If I miss another day I will be surely fired or something. I cannot, Eric. What is happening?" her voice said shakily as she climbed into her car.

"Mae... this morning I- I got up to take Ody and Penny to their bus and- neither one of them were in their beds."

Mae's face drained of color. She dropped her wallet where she sat. She was dreaming. She was dreaming. She repeated the words over and over again, but she knew deep down that they were wrong.

"Are- are you- you sure they are not outside?" her voice stuttered as she climbed back out of the car to race up the stairs and to her apartment.

"Yes, Mae. I checked the whole house and called Ody's cell several times. Should I call the police?"

"Wait, he took his cell?"

"I believe so."

"I can track him then. Give me a second." Panic made Mae's words spill out of her mouth in a jumble. She frantically searched through her apps. Opening the Find Friends , she waited for it to load her son's location. When it finally did load, she squinted hard.

"Where is he?" Eric sounded stressed.

"I-"

"Can you send me a screenshot?"

"Eric, can you still hear me?" Mae's voice grew weak with fright.

"Um, yes? What's going on?"

"E- Eric, my- my phone just went black when I clicked on his location. Entirely black. Something is blocking the signal and it is not some contraption of his. This is way beyond his capabilities."

"Can you close the app?"

"No. I think I might just have to restart my-" Mae began but paused as the words started appearing on her phone screen.

"Mae? You still there?"

"Um- uh- yeah..." her voice trailed off in confusion. "Eric... what is The Post Sunday Experiment...?"

***

Hours later, Penny woke up on the soft blanket of leaves in the forest. Her brother, Ody was rounding his back over the notes Penny saved. The circles under his eyes were dark. He continued to examine the notes and read the journals.

Sitting up, Penny came to sit closer to her brother.

"Have ya found anything interesting?"

"Nothing besides an excessive amount of research on how different types of plants affect mental health, but I am sure that is just him trying to fix himself. He really should have gone to a therapist instead of trying to help himself if it was that bad," Ody sighed, not bothering to look up from his notes.

"Have ya seen if that car took those people away yet?"

"Nope. In all honesty though, I haven't been watching it. After all, I can't see it from here. You would have to climb that tree or something."

Putting both hands on her hips, Penny's eyes drifted up the bark of the closest tree.

"Don't do anything stupid, Penny," Ody said melancholily without even looking up from his work.

"Oh please, ya sound like our father," Penny laughed as she put one foot up on a branch of the tree. That brought a smile to Ody's face.; it filled him with a sense of pride he didn't understand.

It didn't take Penny long to safely maneuver herself to a seat seven feet above the earth in the tree. It was a strong tree with many low hanging branches so not a particularly hard one to climb.

Looking out over the woods, she breathed in the fresh forest air and her veins pulsed with adrenaline in her blood. There was something miraculous about being in the wild that made her feel as though she was flying. It had an element of healing that Devlin had spent his life trying to understand.

"Ody, what time is it?"

"I don't know," he replied. She looked down to see him holding up his phone with a familiar message displayed on the screen: 'The Post Sunday Experiment.'

"It appears the military somehow took down all traces of electronic usage. It's probably so people do not take pictures or something along those lines."

"Huh, that just makes me want to really know what they're hidin', ya know? Like what's so secret that they'd take down any usage of those cell phones?"

"I'm not sure. Anyway, do you see anything?"

"Yeah, but it looks like the car is still there so we can't go back just yet. Ya think they went lookin' for us after we left?"

"Probably, but I wouldn't be surprised if they thought we went home. You looked pretty terrified."

"Hey!" Penny scowled playfully down at him. Ripping off a branch, she threw it down on top of him.

"Don't make me come up there," he said as he raised his eyebrows in a threatening way.

"Ya wouldn't dare," she smirked and crossed her arms.

Giving her a look that screamed 'try me', he stood up and grabbed hold of a branch.

"Okay, okay," she laughed, "I'm coming down.