Free Take the Long Way Home by Brian Keene Page A

side of the road, the driver’s door hanging open. A young, baby-faced cop sat behind the wheel, his head in his hands. He looked up as we approached. His eyes were bloodshot and his face pale.
    “Let me guess,” he sighed. “You called 911 and nobody answered.”
    His voice sounded tired. Hollow. Beaten.
    “No,” Charlie answered. “We were just—”
    “Because nobody’s at the call center,” the cop interrupted. “Some of them went missing, and the others went home soon after. We were routing calls through Baltimore, but then that call center went off-line, too. We don’t even have a dispatcher answering the switchboard tonight. Cheryl and Maggie were supposed to start their shift at six and neither one of them came in. I can’t get in touch with anybody.”
    We nodded in commiseration, unsure of how to respond.
    Something squelched under my foot. I looked down and saw that I was standing in a puddle of vomit. Now I knew why the cop had his door open. I stepped back and wiped my heel on the grass.
    Charlie cleared his throat. “You don’t have a partner?”
    The cop’s voice was monotone. “No, I’m all alone out here. All alone . . .”
    “Seems to be a lot of that tonight,” Frank said.
    The cop ignored the comment. “You guys come from the interstate?”
    “From the plane crash?” Frank pointed back the way we’d come.
    The cop nodded.
    “Yeah, we cut around it,” Frank said. “The fire’s spreading, though. Any idea when the firemen will get there?”
    “I was the only person to respond,” the cop said. “Nobody else showed up. No fire departments. No EMTs or NTSB investigators. Or the TSA. No Feds. Just me. Where the hell is everybody? Even with dispatch out, you’d think they’d be patrolling.”
    “That’s what we’ve been wondering,” I told him. “It’s like this everywhere.”
    “Any of you guys got a cell phone? I thought about calling some of the other officers, but I don’t have a phone and the pay phones aren’t working. Nobody is answering their radios, except for Simmons and all he did was scream.”
    I shook my head. “Cell phones are out, too. I’ve been trying to call my wife.”
    A tear ran down his cheek, and his face crumbled. “There were parts of people hanging in the trees…intestines and stuff. I stepped on somebody’s face. It was lying in the mud. Just their face—I don’t know where the rest of them was.”
    He reached in the glove compartment, pulled out a tissue, and blew his nose.
    “There was a little girl, lying on the ground. I—I thought she was alive. I grabbed her arm, to pull her up, and it…came off.”
    “It’ll be okay,” Charlie said.
    “Her fucking arm came off in my fucking hands!”
    Charlie stepped closer. “Listen, I know you’ve had a hell of an evening. We all have. But there’s nothing you can do for them now.”
    The cop frowned. “Yeah, I know. I drove over here to escape the smell. It’s in my clothes and my hair. Can’t get away from it. I’ve just been sitting here, waiting. Not sure what to do next.”
    Charlie held his hands out, pleading. “Could you give us a ride? We’re trying to get home. Just over the border.”
    “Yeah,” Frank said. “We’ve been walking all night. A ride would be great. We’d appreciate the hell out of it.”
    The distraught man buried his face in his hands again and shook his head.
    “I can’t. Not until somebody else shows up. I’m all that’s left. You see?”
    Frank tried again. “But nobody is going to show up. They’d have been here by now. It’s like this everywhere. You said so yourself. Nobody is answering the emergency calls.”
    “All the more reason then.” The officer blew his nose again, and then sat up straight. “It’s my job. To serve and protect.”
    “We’ll pay you,” I offered in desperation, pulling out my wallet. I opened it, and a picture of Terri smiled at me from behind the plastic sleeve. “I’ve got sixty bucks.”
    “Sorry,