Can Anyone Hear Me?

A short story

“Can anyone hear me?” a woman asked.

Colin Hayes opened his eyes and swiveled his head from the radio to his phone and then to the television, even though his electronics went silent weeks ago when the electricity stopped. He glanced at his wristwatch: 3:13 a.m. He had fallen asleep on the couch—again—and dreamed of that voice.

Tepid moonlight filtered through his living room window. 

Colin traced his finger along his phone’s black screen. Without electricity, his phone was a barren photo album. He wondered how his twins were. If they were. The last he’d heard from his daughters, Cassie and Elia, was two months ago when Cassie messaged that Bowdin was in lockdown. The last he’d seen Lyna, his wife, was ten days ago when she went to the supermarket. They had argued over that trip. Colin said it was too dangerous, and the market would undoubtedly be bare. Lyna said they were almost out of food and had to try. 

He wished he could see their pictures. He wished he could hold them. He wished for many things. 

The pandemic had been bad for weeks, but then it got worse, like a rollercoaster hurtling off its rails. Three percent mortality and the world muddled through, then ninety percent mortality, and the planet went silent in sixteen days. 

Colin fired up his propane stove to make coffee. Over the flame’s steady roar, he heard the voice again. 

“Can anyone hear me?” 

The voice simultaneously came from nowhere and everywhere. He heard it in the middle of his brain as if it had materialized there. 

I’m going crazy. I thought it would take longer, but maybe this is for the best. 

“This is Inessa. Somebody, please answer me.”

Surprised by hearing a name, Colin’s hand slipped into the flame. He screamed, “Fuck, fuck, fuck” as he spun, blew on his fingers, and shook his hand wildly. He bolted to the sink—water still flowed from the tap—and ran cold water over his hand. Blisters erupted on his skin.

“Did somebody curse?” Inessa asked. 

“I did?” Colin thought. 

“Thank goodness. You’re the first person I've talked to since Eloísa.”

“Eloísa? Who is this? What’s happening?”

“I’m Inessa like I said. What’s your name?”

Colin thought about it for a moment, and assuming that he wasn’t insane, wondered if he should answer. Over the past days, there had been gunshots, screams, and tanks rumbling along the nearby streets, vibrating his entire apartment building as they passed. Ninety-percent mortality meant that a lot of people were still alive. The roars of death outside informed Colin that he should be careful.

“You should worry about the guns and tanks,” Inessa said. “They’re the enemy today. Not the virus. If you’ve survived this long, you’re immune.” 

“How did you—?”

“I’m an ESP, like you, Colin.” 

Colin rubbed his temples as a deluge of thoughts filled his mind. “You’re a veterinarian in Moscow. Your full name is Inessa Belyaev. Your husband died from the plague seventeen days ago. I’m sorry. You’ve been eating vegetables from your garden and are thinking of going hunting because you won’t eat any of the animals in your charge. Eloísa is an ESP in São Paulo, but you haven’t heard from her in three days, and you worry she’s dead.”

“Yes.” 

“Why now? Why couldn’t we communicate by ESP before?”

“While most people aren’t ESPs, all eight billion humans who once walked the Earth sent out a signal. Though weak, those signals interfered with our ESP, like voices at a crowded party blocking you from hearing the person you’re talking with. That interference is gone. At first, you can hear but not transmit. Intense pain turns on your transmitter.”

“My burn.” Colin blew on his hand. 

“The world is rapidly growing more dangerous. You must come to me. We’ll build a new world for ESPs here, safe, secure, and harmonious. You’ll like my garden."

“To Russia? I’m in Boise, Idaho. How do I get to you?”

“You walk. Start now, and the ice will be frozen by the time you reach Big Diomede in Alaska, which is—”

“Impossible.”

“No, it was never impossible, only risky because you once had to cross a patrolled border. But there are no borders. There is no Russia anymore.”

“Okay.” 

“How soon can you leave?”

Gunshots smacked into the building next door. Every minute made Boise more dangerous. “Tonight.”

He grabbed a backpack from his closet and loaded it with food, water, clothes, and his phone. Maybe there’d be power one day, and he could see pictures of his family. He slipped his Swiss Army Knife into one pocket and a flashlight into the other. Whatever else he needed, he’d find along the way.

A muscular man with a shaved head released Inessa’s hand. “Good performance,” he said. ‘There is no Russia’ was a nice touch.”

Inessa looked out the window. Red Square was an empty, lifeless void, St. Basil’s Cathedral, pale and wilted. Funnels of leaves and dust swirled where Muscovites and tourists once tread. 

Illya repeated Inessa’s conversation with Colin. 

A second man, General Dmitry Bocharov, lowered his Makarov pistol. “You have a disciplined mind, Inessa. All those chess championships paid off. Good thing, too, because if you had ESPed the truth to the American, Ilya would have told me, and I would have put a bullet in your brain.”

“He’s coming. Now what?” Inessa hissed. 

“There is Russia. There is America. But the conflict between our two countries will be over soon because when we have all the ESPs, Russia wins.” 

Ilya Zaitsev covered Inessa’s head with a copper and iron helmet and locked it. 

"This will prevent you from warning the American when I’m not monitoring your thoughts,” he said.

Colin spread the map on his dining room table and marked the route from Boise, Idaho to Washington, DC with a yellow highlighter. One day, he and Inessa would meet—she promised—but first, he had to deliver Inessa’s warning to Washington: Tell your government about the ESPs and the ones like us who can communicate without being intercepted, but most of all, tell them about Russia, who’s still your enemy. 

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If you liked Can Anyone Hear Me? I think you’ll also enjoy my short story, The Day Oliver’s Father Died.