“Yeah, yeah,” the man replied.
The woman had come to stand in the hallway. I could see her from my hiding place behind the laundry. She was one of those unusual people I’d seen last night. Everything about her smacked of vampire, except she seemed fully alive: rosy cheeked, beautiful, glowing. And she also seemed in the know about Rumor’s plans. I wondered then what kind of unholy alliance these otherwise seemingly human people had entered into with the vampires.
Just then the radio attached to her hip blared with a loud static sound. “Office,” someone called.
“Now what,” she grumbled. “Go ahead.”
“There are two guys creeping around on the second floor. Go chase them out, please.”
“I’m on it,” she replied, and with a huff, headed down the hallway where Jamie and Buddie had gone.
I slid out. When the woman turned the corner, I motioned to Kiki.
She followed behind me. We went into the office. In a room behind the main desk we saw another, smaller room. The door was just slightly ajar.
“There,” Kiki whispered.
We quickly entered the small radio room. I closed the door behind us. The roof-top antenna was strung in through a window. I stood in front a mass of equipment I did not recognize.
Kiki, however, sat down and right away slid on the headphones and began adjusting dials.
“You said you did a project in school?” I whispered. Her deft hands told me that she knew more than just one project.
“I’m studying engineering at the university,” she whispered. “Well, I was.”
As Kiki turned the dials, I saw her listening intently. I noticed then there was a large map of the Great Lakes region taped to the wall. The map was dotted with small pins. Hamletville was marked with a red pin.
Papers were strewn across a desk. I leafed through them.
“I got something. I’m not sure what it is,” she said, listening.
I leaned in and listened with her. “That’s German. They are broadcasting contamination reports in German cities. You can get Germany on this radio?”
“Shortwave can pick up for thousands of miles. We didn’t pick up much, but I wasn’t sure if that was because our radio was so poor or if there was nothing to pick up.”
She began moving dials again. I picked up a paper. On it had been written the words Barcelona Lighthouse and numbers relating to bands and kila-and mega-hurtz. I handed it to Kiki.
She adjusted several dials and then listened. After a moment, she pressed up the volume.
“Barcelona . . . Spain?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she said and then listened, “they are saying Barcelona Lighthouse in Westfield, New York. They are on Lake Erie,” she replied, listening. “They have a looping distress call running.”
I heard the static of a walkie-talkie again.
“Yeah, I’ll get it. It’s just over in New York. I forget the name.” The woman was returning.
Kiki pulled off the headphones. I dropped the paper and pushed open the window. “Jump,” I told Kiki. Following behind her, I bounced out of the window. For the second time, I landed on the roof of the porch. I did not like that this was becoming a trend. Motioning to Kiki, we ran down the porch roof against the side of the building. I waited breathlessly for the woman to shout but heard nothing. When we were a good distance from the window, I motioned to Kiki. We went to the side of the porch and carefully climbed down a flower lattice. We dropped onto the porch, surprising two older women who had been sitting there half-sleeping.
“Nice day today,” I said, and grabbing Kiki’s hand, we ran down the porch toward the front of the hotel.
“Oh my god, it’s like they are rounding people up,” Kiki said.
“Not anymore. What do we need to do to take that radio out?”
“We can pull down the antenna—that will hurt them. If I can get back into that room, I can kill the radio for good.”
“That’s what we need to do then,” I replied. “I guess we’ll need a distraction.”
“Set something on fire. That always works in the movies,” Kiki replied.
Kiki and I reached the front of the hotel. We scanned for Jamie and Buddie and for the right diversion.
“There,” Kiki said.
I followed her gaze. There was a small building sitting near the end of the hotel.
“Looks like a lawn shed or something,” Kiki added.
“Perfect, gasoline to keep it interesting and located in exactly the opposite direction of the antenna. You’re good,” I told Kiki.
She laughed. “Well, we Hamletville girls are hardy stock.”
A moment later Ethel and Summer came up on the porch, croquet wickets in hand. They were both smiling. I wished then that our escape to the HarpWind had been just that, an escape. How different things would be now.
“Layla, honey, that lady told you to leave off your guns,” Ethel said.
“I was going hunting,” I replied.
“Okay, honey, just be careful,” she said, patting my arm as she passed by.