Cronauer moved through the trees like a shadow. The dirt was damp underfoot, the kind of damp that clung to your boots and never let go. He stepped carefully around a collapsed fence line and paused at the crest of the ridge, where the canopy thinned just enough to let him see the town.
Viroqua.
From here, it looked almost untouched. The water tower still stood, the streets looked clean, and a few rooftops even held solar panels. But he knew better. It was too quiet. No buzz of traffic. No hum of HVAC units. No distant bark of a dog or clatter of garbage bins. The town wasn’t dead, but it was holding its breath.
He reached into his coat and turned up the volume on the radio just a hair. Static. Then, underneath it, something else. A tight digital squawk — a government signature. The kind they’d buried in redundant bands, meant to survive when everything else failed.
“This is Emergency Command Broadcast Three. Unauthorized detonation confirmed in Zones Six, Nine, and Fourteen. Maritime imports compromised. Reported vector: commercial freight. Repeat — nuclear events confirmed via indirect delivery. Retaliation protocols under review. Shelter in place. Maintain blackout. Broadcast terminates in…”
It clicked off mid-sentence.
Cronauer didn’t breathe for a full ten seconds. It wasn’t just what the voice said — it was the fact that it was still looping. Still running. Which meant someone, somewhere, had power.
He dropped to one knee near the base of a wind-split tree and scanned the horizon. Viroqua was quiet, but not abandoned. He could make out what looked like a garden in one yard, freshly tilled soil and makeshift fencing. He saw a line of laundry flapping gently on a second-story balcony. Someone was still here. Living. Maybe surviving.
The road into town was blocked by an old truck with its tires shredded and windows bashed out. A message was scrawled across its side in black paint: “NO FUEL. NO FOOD. NO LEAD.”
He didn’t plan to test it.
Cronauer cut across the wooded edge, following a deer path that dipped toward the back side of town. The church steeple was still standing. The radio tower — not the one he was looking for, but close — leaned at a slight angle, held upright by tangled guy wires and hope.
He ducked into a treeline and slowed his pace. The smell hit him first.
Woodsmoke.
Not wildfire. Hearth fire.
Someone was burning clean, dry wood. A fireplace or a stove. And that meant shelter. That meant people. That meant stories — or warnings.
He moved toward it slowly, radio in one hand, eyes on the horizon. Just beyond a rusting playground, he spotted it: the library.
Still intact. Lights off. Doors closed. But not abandoned.
He took one step closer, then another. And then he heard it — faint, but unmistakable. A voice.
“About damn time.”
Cronauer exhaled for what felt like the first time in hours.
Dave was here.
And the story wasn’t over yet.
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