IT DIDN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE A DRIVEWAY, BUT THROUGH A little copse, the way widened, and then was paved. There was a lawn that seemed manicured from a distance but was actually wild, feverish. From afar the green was so dazzling, you assumed it had to be the work of man. There was a fence, and there was the house, colonial, an ersatz echo of the original American ideal, with seven bedrooms, whirlpool tubs, granite countertops, central air.
George saw the silver Range Rover and was reassured. Danny was in residence. They’d been right to come. He’d only begun to say “Let’s go,” but Clay’s need was as urgent as his, because he was already out of the car. “Archie. You stay there. You lie down.”
The boy looked up at the older man. He could see that the sky was more blue now, that it would be a perfect day for lunch outside, though what he could eat with his toothless mouth he wasn’t sure. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
The front door was a slick and jolly yellow, something Danny’s wife, Karen, had seen in a magazine. G. H. rang the doorbell. He almost knocked and then told himself to be more patient. It wouldn’t do to turn up like a lunatic. The world might have gone mad, but they had not.
Danny and Karen had passed the night as uneasily as the rest of them. The family bed, four-year-old Emma between them as the boom died out overhead. Karen almost catatonic, thinking of her son, Henry, at his father’s place in Rockville Center. Their phones hadn’t worked, and the boy was deeply attached to his mother, and she knew, they both knew, he was probably even then calling out for her, fruitless. Would his father bundle him into the car and drive him home? Karen tried to will it to be so, but among their irreconcilable differences was his inability to understand what she wanted. Danny was in the kitchen, taking stock of what they had on hand, and was irritated by the interruption. This was evident as he opened the door.
“George,” he said, recognition but not warmth. Danny was very handsome. This was always the first impression he made. Regular exposure to the sun had rendered his skin golden. Genetic predisposition had salted his brown hair. His stance was wide as his shoulders, his posture confident, because he knew that he was handsome and therefore he stood like he knew it. He offered himself to the world, and the world said its thanks. He was surprised but also not that surprised.
“Danny.” G. H. hadn’t planned what would happen next. But there was some relief in just seeing another human being. It seemed it had been so long since that night at the concert, shaking hands and praising the performers.
The sight of the man reminded Danny of work. That was just a matter of putting on a smile, reassuring people, barking orders, collecting a check; it had nothing to do with his real life—the woman upstairs reading a book about dragons to a frightened but also indifferent little girl. Once he’d seen the news alert, Danny had gone out for supplies, for news. He’d come home with groceries but little else. “This is a surprise.”
G. H. could see he’d miscalculated. He understood the man’s posture. He should have known that what he’d always believed of people was true; that social order had allowed most of them to believe themselves not social animals. “I’m sorry to bother you at home like this.”
Danny looked from George to the stranger beside him. Had he ever liked George? Not really. It didn’t matter; that was not the question. There was nothing to it. So he didn’t like Obama, either. It had to do only with the presumption of it, the fist bumping, the joviality. It insulted him, a mockery of the world as he understood it. “What—what can I do for you?” He made it clear that he was off the clock, not interested in doing anything for the many.
G. H. felt the beginning of a smile, a salesman’s tactic. “Well, something is happening.” He was not stupid. “We were driving by, and I thought I would check in on you. See if you’re here. If you’re okay. If you’d heard anything.”
Danny looked over his shoulder, back into the house, past the curlicue of the banister. He saw motes dancing in the morning light from the living room’s double-height windows. He saw everything as it ought to have been, but he didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust anything. He stepped toward the men and closed the door behind them. “Heard anything? You mean, besides what we heard yesterday?”
“I’m Clay.” He didn’t know what else to say. Clay wondered if this man would walk the woods with them until they met Rose. Would he have medicine for Archie? Would he have an internet connection? Would he welcome them into this handsome house, the size of a hotel, and would it be like a party, and if so did they have a swimming pool? He imagined the women had recovered Rose, playing in the shade of the woods. He imagined that Archie was feeling better, a temporary stomach bug. Maybe they didn’t need anything from this man and all was well, maybe they’d just say hello, commiserate, ask whether the noise—when had that been?—had cracked any of his windows.
Danny went on. “I’m surprised you guys are out.”
“What do you mean?” G. H. was trying to get something, anything.
“What do I mean?” Danny’s laugh was hard, angry. “There’s some real shit going on out there, George. You don’t know that? You can’t hear it from that nice house of yours? My guys did a good job, but I know you heard that last night.”
“My family is renting George’s house. We’re here from the city.” Clay didn’t know why he was trying to explain himself; he couldn’t understand how little Danny was interested.
“That’s a lucky break for your family.” Danny knew the man was from the city. It was clear. He did not care. “Can you imagine what a shitshow that must be?”
“What do you know? Have you heard anything?” George asked.
“I know what you probably know.” Danny sighed, impatient. “Apple News says there’s a blackout. I think, okay, we’re safe out here. I’ve got no service. I’ve got no cable. But I’ve got power. So I drive into town for some stuff. I think the store’s going to be mobbed, right? Nope. Quiet. Not like before a snowstorm, more like after a foot has fallen. No one knows what’s going on. It’s just another day. I come home, hear that noise, and think, That’s it, we’re not leaving. Then last night—the noise again. Three times. Bombs? Missiles? I don’t know, but I’m staying put until I hear that I shouldn’t.”
“You went to the store.” George wanted to be clear.
“Stocked up. Came home. It just doesn’t feel like out there is the place to be.”
“My son is sick.” Clay didn’t know how to explain that something had knocked the teeth from Archie’s sixteen-year-old mouth. It made no sense. “He was vomiting. He seems okay, now.” Clay was still hopeful.
G. H. interjected. “He lost his teeth. Five of them. They just fell out. We can’t explain it.”
“His teeth.” Danny was quiet for a while. “You think it had something to do with that noise?” Danny didn’t know that the teeth in Karen’s mouth were themselves loose, would soon fall out.
“Did your windows crack?” George asked.
“The shower door. The master bath.” Danny thought it was obvious. “It’s something. Had to be a plane. I don’t think there’s any information getting out, so I assume it’s a war. The beginning of a war.”
“War?” Somehow this had not occurred to Clay. This seemed almost disappointing, a letdown.
“Has to be an attack I think? They were talking about the super hurricane on CNN. The Iranians or whoever—they planned it right. The perfect shitshow.” Danny had seen a broadcast of a local Washington anchor in a boat to show the water standing inside the Jefferson Memorial.
“You think we’re under attack?” G. H. didn’t, but he wanted to hear.
“They’ve been saying there was chatter, this has to be what they were chattering about.” Danny pitied anyone who couldn’t see how obvious it was.
This man was a conspiracy theorist. He was crazy. Clay was a professor. “Chatter? What happened at the store? We need to go to the hospital.”
“You’ve got to read the papers. Deeper than page one. The Russians recalled their staff from Washington, did you notice that? That was in bold print, that got a ‘breaking.’ Something’s afoot, man.” Danny coughed and put his hands in his pockets.
“We’re going to the hospital.” Clay said it again, but he was less certain.
“What you do is your business. What I’m doing is staying right here.” Danny wanted them gone.
“This is what you think, Danny?” G. H. turned it around on him.
“Nothing is making a whole lot of sense at the moment. If the world doesn’t make sense, I can still do what’s rational. It’s not safe out there.” Danny nodded toward the expanse of nothing, which did not look any different, but he wasn’t fooled.
“Archie is sick.” Clay needed an answer.
George understood why Danny had closed the door at his back. George had expected human communion, but he forgot what humans were actually like. “I thought it was the right thing to do. Seek medical attention.”
Danny was not smiling. “That’s the old way, George. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“My daughter is missing. We woke up this morning, and she was gone. She was in the woods with her brother, playing, when we heard that noise. Then last night, his teeth.” Clay didn’t know how to finish so absurd a story. “I don’t know what to do.” It came out of him as a confession.
It wasn’t that Danny didn’t feel bad. There was only so much he could think about. “He’s your son. You have a difficult choice.”
“He’s sixteen.” Help us, Clay was saying, in his way.
There is no help, Danny was saying. They had misunderstood what kind of person he was. They had misunderstood people. “I don’t know what you’re going to do. I’d do anything I had to for my daughter. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m locking the doors. I’m getting out my gun. I’m waiting. I’m watching.”
Was the mention of a gun a threat? G. H. understood it as one. “We shouldn’t go to the hospital.”
“I don’t have any answers for you guys. I’m sorry.” This apology was mostly a remembered instinct. But Danny was sorry, for all of them. He shared what information he had. “Yesterday, I saw deer from the kitchen.”
G. H. nodded. Deer were everywhere out there.
Danny clarified. “Not deer, not a family of deer. A migration. I’ve never seen so many in my life. A hundred? Two hundred? I couldn’t even guess.” There were more than that. The eye couldn’t take them all in, couldn’t find them in the shadows of the trees. Only the people who knew such things knew there were around thirty-six thousand deer in the county. They were not the deer Rose had seen but were on their way to join those. A mass migration. A disaster response. A disaster indicator. A disaster unfolding.
Clay wanted to tell him that the night before they’d seen a flock of flamingos, but it would have seemed like one-upmanship.
“The animals,” Danny continued. “They know something. They’re spooked. I don’t know what’s happening, and I don’t know when we’re going to figure out what is. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is as much as we’ll ever know. Maybe we just need to sit tight and be safe and pray or whatever works for you.” They were animals too. This was their animal response.
Clay felt they’d been talking for an hour. “You told Ruth you’d be back.”
“We have time.” G. H. would keep his promise.
Danny felt there was little point going on like this. “Guys, I’m going to go inside now. I’m going to say goodbye and good luck.” He meant that last bit. They’d all require it. “If you go back out. If you—well, you can stop by. But I can’t offer you much more than just conversation. You understand.”
George felt foolish. Of course this was how Danny would be. All business. They were not friends, and even if they had been, these were extraordinary circumstances. “I guess that’s it then.”
Danny offered some advice. “I think you should get back in your car and drive to your house.” Leave, also leave me alone. “That’s the only thing I’ve got for you. Hunker down, lock the door, and—” He didn’t have a plan beyond that. “Fill the bathtub. Store water. Take stock of your food. See what supplies you have.”
“I think we’ll do that.” G. H. wanted to be back among his things.
Danny nodded, kind of tossing his chin forward, authoritative. He extended a handshake. His grip was firm as it always was. He didn’t say anything more, went back inside. He didn’t lock the door. But he stood just inside to listen to the men walk away.
In the car, Archie sat up. He looked better or the same. He seemed weak or strong. That moment was what counted the most.
They sat in the idling car for a minute. Maybe two. Maybe three. It was Clay who broke the silence. “George. What are we doing?”
G. H. had been foolish. People disappointed. He would do better. They would still be good, kind, human, decent, together, safe. “I don’t think we can go to the hospital, gentlemen. Do we agree? I don’t think we can go.”
Archie understood. Archie had been listening. “I’ll be fine. I don’t think we should go.”
Clay said it. “I want to go home. Can we go home? Let’s go home. It’s not far. We’re so close. Let’s go.” He meant George’s house, of course, and so they went, were back well before the alarm on Ruth’s phone told them that it had been an hour. Less than an hour, and everything was changed.