all god's orphans

It had been two days since Sarah’s father had killed her sister, and she still wasn’t sure how she felt about it. She felt in her core that it was the wrong answer, but her father had always been the one she looked to for moral guidance. He’s the one who told her sex before marriage was wrong. That homosexuality was a sin. Promiscuity, also a sin. Abortion. Sin. She reflected on just how much of his moral pronouncements were sexual in nature. She had never noticed it before. Surely he would get to the important stuff at some point. Murder, for instance. Wasn’t that supposed to be wrong?

She wondered about that as she watched Raymond futz with whatever that thing he’d found was. Some kind of radio. What a waste. They’d been trying to get something on the radio since this whole thing started and there was nothing. Buying, or rather stealing, a radio wasn’t going to change that. Wasn’t stealing wrong, anyway?

Her father sat at the table in the RV reading a letter and moving dials on the radio. It was about the size of a shoebox and the front glowed with numbers and needles. There was a microphone plugged into one side and it could run on batteries if necessary. They had found it in a gun shop before they abandoned Knoxville. That first night, they’d done nothing but cry. She had fallen asleep listening to her father’s weeping as it got quieter and quieter. The next morning he’d told her they had work to do. He said he had a plan but that they needed supplies.

The gun store had been untouched in all this. She had seen other stores and buildings with their front doors smashed in. They passed a Best Buy that was in the process of burning to the ground. The gun shop they found was off the highway and behind another building. Inside, they had restocked on ammunition, grabbed a few more guns, and this radio. Her father said they needed it, though she didn’t know why and didn’t want to ask. He wasn’t very talkative ever since he’d shot Emmie.

“Watcha doin’, daddy?” she desperately wanted him to talk, but all he said was “shush”. She sat back in the passenger seat and glanced at the Bible on the dashboard. She had no desire whatsoever to read it, but there was nothing else. They were parked behind a large outlet mall and she was pretty sure there was a discount bookstore around the front, but there was no way her father was going to let her out. She wasn’t even sure she’d go if he allowed it. There was too much scary stuff going on. She looked at the sign for the outlet mall and imagined all the things she would buy to put in her own house someday. She’d always enjoyed that game. Thinking about the furniture and the decorations. There was this one print of a cat that said “La Tournée du Chat Noir” that she’d always loved. She had no idea what the words meant but it looked so chic. She would have that, and really nice vases, and a big bed. Someday. Maybe.

“Hello? Hello? Anybody there? CQ? CQ?” Raymond was speaking to the radio, not her. “Hello?” No one answered. Raymond moved the dials and listened. Nothing. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?” Nothing.

Raymond sighed and soldiered on. He had nothing else to do. This was his sole focus now, and if he had to sit here and turn dials on a radio to save his one remaining daughter, then by god, that’s what he intended to do. As he moved through the spectrum, he heard the faintest echo of a voice cutting through the distortion.

“What was that?” Sarah was suddenly interested.

“Quiet!” he snapped, moving the controls ever so carefully. The needles bounced furiously as he zeroed in on the voice. As the fuzz faded away, he heard something that turned his blood cold and tied a knot in his heart. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human. It seemed to be some form of communication. There were spikes and lulls between two different “voices”, but they weren’t speaking in any language discernible to human ears. There was an electronic buzz permeating the signal, and the alien voices were likewise vibrating. They sounded like mechanical insects or robot grasshoppers. Their “speech” modulated up and down but with a persistent chop. If this language was written down, it would be written with dashed lines. They listened to the horrifyingly strange transmission in awe. Sarah moved to her father’s side.

“What is that?” She asked quietly. Raymond shook his head.

“I don’t know.” He swallowed hard as his mind reeled at the implications.