Bad Glass

I stepped over to the window and stared out at the bright afternoon. “Is there an attic or a cellar?” I asked. My hands were still shaking with adrenaline, but I could feel my heartbeat starting to slow. “Is there someplace they could hide? I mean, they have to be here, right? We saw Devon just a couple of minutes ago. And that blue glow …”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Floyd exclaimed, a hint of surprise in his voice. “Did you see this?”

I turned away from the window and found him moving toward the far side of the room. There was something tucked away in the corner, something I hadn’t noticed earlier: a small metal console, about the size of a shoe box.

“It’s a radio,” Floyd said, settling down in front of the box. He hit a switch, and it hummed to life. A bright digital display illuminated the front panel, and static crackled from its speaker. “Some type of CB radio. Battery-powered. And that’s not all.” Floyd reached behind the radio and picked up a pair of binoculars. There was a worried look on his face as he handed them over; his eyes kept darting back and forth between my face and the sleek black piece of equipment. He understood exactly what the binoculars and radio meant.

I took the binoculars back over to the window and raised them to my eyes. I scanned across the front of the house, spending brief seconds on each of the upstairs windows before finally panning down to the open living-room blinds. I adjusted the focus, zooming in on the sofa. It was a good pair of binoculars. Staring through those high-quality lenses, I could make out the stains in the sofa’s upholstery. Hell, I could count the number of crumbs trapped between its cushions.

I spent two nights on that couch! I thought, letting out a frustrated grunt. Somebody could have been watching me the entire time.

I lowered the glasses and returned to Floyd’s side, giving him a faint head shake as I crouched down on my heels. He took the binoculars from my hand and set them back where he’d found them.

“I thought radios didn’t work here,” I said, nodding toward the console. “I thought the military was jamming all of the channels.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were keeping some frequencies open so they could communicate with each other.” He frowned. “But they’d be monitoring those lines, keeping it all military all the time.”

“Do you think this is military business, then?” I asked, pointing to the radio.

“Devon? Military?” Floyd grunted in disbelief. “No way! I just can’t believe that.”

“Then who?” I asked. “Who was he talking to?”

Floyd shrugged and leaned forward, studying the radio more closely. There was a large “transmit” button on the front of the console, and the frequency was set to double zero. Floyd leaned over the top of the box and began running his hands along its back side. “Wait a second,” he muttered beneath his breath. “What do we have here?” He got up into a crouch and started moving his hands across the wall behind the console. “There’s a wire here, coming out of the radio.”

“An antenna?”

Floyd shook his head, more interested in following the line than answering my question.

I got up off my heels. I could see the wire now, a thin white line pressed into the angle between floor and wall. Once he got to the door, Floyd stood up straight, following the wire as it continued up along the outside of the door frame. The thin white line touched the ceiling, then continued down the length of the hallway, back the way we’d come.

“It’s held in place with staples,” he said. “We’ve got to follow it, find out where it goes.”

“Hold on a second,” I said, turning back toward the room. “We left the radio—”

I halted, shocked motionless before I could take a single step back into the room. The console was still lit, illuminated by the sharp digits glowing bright on its face. Double zeros, drawn out in glowing blue lines.

The light was bright enough to bathe the entire room in eerie electric blue.

I groaned, suddenly feeling very, very stupid.

It’s nothing but coincidence, I chastised myself. The glow in the apartment building, this room … it’s just a fucking color.

I shut off the radio and followed Floyd out of the room.

Floyd had a tiny flashlight on his key ring. He focused its narrow beam on the wire, tucked up against the ceiling, and started following it down the length of the hallway.

“Tell me about Devon,” I said as we followed the tiny white line. “I’ve barely seen him. It seems like he’s gone all the time.”