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It was the greatest thing in the universe, as far as I was concerned. You took all the colorful little resistors and capacitors, mounted them on the main circuit board, installed the oscillator coils, and the next you knew you were rocking out.
I drooled over it on the way to the cash register, begging my mother to buy me one too. When she refused, I begged some more. All the way to Kim Balas’s house I cried and pleaded, begging her to keep it, until I was forced to dry my tears and do the only thing I really could do:
I pulled out one of the transistors and shoved it in my pocket.
If I couldn’t build my own radio, Kim Balas sure as hell wasn’t going to either. Not a working one, anyway. Later that year I’d get the same kit for my birthday, and I’d assemble it perfectly down to every last meticulous detail. All the way to that one extra transistor I still had, from the kit Kim probably threw over her shoulder the moment her party ended.
I learned two lessons back then. One, that I could sometimes be a vindictive bitch. But two, that there were other radio kits as well. Bigger and better ones. Crystal radio kits.
Ham radio kits…
All those hours spent in my room with my soldering gun were coming in useful now. Especially now that I had a multi-tool and a good length of copper wire, stripped from the walls and wrapped into a makeshift loop antenna, to boost our transmission signal.
If we ever got a transmission signal, that is.
“Warm enough?”
I glanced back to where Boone was still feeding the fire. The big lobby was impossible to heat fully, but it was becoming more and more tolerable. Especially at the little table and workbench we’d brought up from the garage and dragged before the fireplace.
“I’m good, thanks.”
Boone stood there before the flames, rubbing his hands together. “I’m gonna check the upper rooms in a few. See if the Hardy Boys missed anything.”
I tried my best not to laugh. In the last hour or so he’d called them Hamburger and Fries, Tom and Jerry, and Dumb and Dumber. He’d also called them the Icicle Brothers, a name I immediately growled at him for.
I pulled out the next resistor and inspected it in the dying light. It looked untarnished but I cleaned it anyway before inserting it back into the circuit board.
So far the storm hadn’t let up. In fact, it was even worse. The once doorway-sized opening behind us
was rapidly becoming choked off by snow. I’d come up with the idea of clearing it every half hour or so, just to keep it visible to anyone outside.
And by anyone I meant Shane and Jeremy.
The longer things went on, the more anxiety I had over their departure. Part of me wanted to think they were just fine. Maybe even better than fine. That they could already be rescued and recovered, maybe waiting for a break in the storm to lead someone back here to help us out of this shithole.
But every half hour I peeked outside anyway, before sweeping the opening clean.
And every half hour I was disappointed.
I can’t believe we’re going to spend another night here.
The thought was depressing. At the same time, we weren’t in any immediate danger. We had heat. We had light. We had… peaches.
The hours ticked by before I finally made some headway. The radio turned on, and although I couldn’t get any channels I could tell it was a reception problem. Likewise for the transmitter. When I depressed the old button on the microphone I could hear it wanting to send. There were just a few more adjustments that needed to be made.
Boone fed the fire sparingly. I watched as he gathered and broke down even more wood than Shane and Jeremy combined. He’d found a few old dressers upstairs and some armoires that had apparently been abandoned because they were too big to move.
It was fun watching him work though. Glancing up from the tedium of fixing the radio to watch the flex of his shoulders and biceps. He even worked up a sweat, setting the larger pieces sideways against the stone hearth before crushing them beneath the heel of his ski-boot. I’m not sure how many hours went by, but eventually he stopped and looked up at me.
“Did you hear that?”
I cocked my head. “No. What?”
“I heard something.”
“Was it a voice? A shout maybe?” I jumped up hopefully and started for the outside opening.
“No,” Boone said, grabbing my arm. His face was drawn with something that almost resembled concern. “I… I thought it came from inside.”
