Breakout by Paul Herron (notion reading list .txt) 📕

never seen it before. I reach out to touch it, but pull my fingers back before I do.

“What’s wrong?”

“Henry must have hidden this whenever I came in,” I say softly.

Sawyer frowns. “A kid’s toy?”

My eyes are fixed on the figure. “I… told him a story once. About how Amy and I were going to decorate the baby’s room with all this stuff. The Hundred Acre Wood. All the characters, you know? They were my favorite stories as a kid.”

I slump onto a stool, still staring at the toy. I feel tears in my eyes, a sharp pain in my chest. The memories rush back. Buying the little hardcover books in preparation. Way too early, but we couldn’t wait. Little onesies with Tigger and Piglet on them. Looking for wallpaper, blankets.

“We’d been trying for a while,” I say. My voice sounds distant, far away. “For a baby. Then one morning I wake up to find her staring at me. It was four in the morning.”

“Again with the staring? She liked to look at you, huh?”

“Yeah, she did. I never understood why. Never got used to it, either.” I smile sadly. “So I wake up to her staring at me, this huge grin on her face. And then she flicks the pregnancy test at me. I swear to God, I think I got some of her pee on my face.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah. Anyway, she throws it at me and starts bouncing around on the bed, screaming. Neighbors called the cops. They sent a car around. I had to smooth that over, and all the while I’m sort of just… stunned. Me, a dad.”

“But you were happy, right?”

“I was… in shock. You always hear people say how their lives change when they find out, or when the baby actually comes. A whole new life opens up for you, one you’ve never really trained for. It’s like those old choose-your-own-adventure books.”

“Huh?”

“If you want to remain happy, solvent, and child-free, use a condom and turn to page thirty-four. If you want to be broke, worry all the time, and have your sex life reduced to quickies in a locked bathroom, do not use a condom and turn to page one hundred.”

“Come on. You didn’t really think that, did you?”

I smile. “Not really, no. But when you find out, your whole world changes. Just like that. Expands into all these new possibilities. Babies, diapers, schools, college… It takes you on a different path.”

“A good path.”

“Sure. A good path. But… different.”

“You… don’t sound sure you wanted a baby.”

“I definitely did. But listen, I won’t lie. It scared the shit out of me. When I found out, it made me realize just what a total fuckup I was.”

“You’re not a fuckup. You served. You were a cop.”

“Doesn’t matter. I think it’s what every dad feels. You wonder if you’re going to repeat the same mistakes your parents made, the ones that messed you up as a kid. You wonder if you’re going to be good enough to look up to. Everything you’ve done in your life up to that point becomes meaningless, because suddenly you’ve created this innocent soul who’s coming into this absolutely fucked-up piece-of-shit world and you realize it’s on you to protect them. Suddenly there’s this terrifying need… this awareness… that you have to step up. You have to become the man you always see in crappy movies or read about in books.”

“No one’s like that. No one’s perfect. You shouldn’t put that much pressure on yourself.”

I’m silent for a moment; then I shrug. “Didn’t matter in the end, did it? Novak, Wright, and Tully saw to that.”

There’s a sudden booming from somewhere outside. We both freeze, listening as something slams onto the roof. Metal scrapes on metal, rising above the noise of the rain and wind, sounding like fingernails on a blackboard.

Enough with the wallowing. I grab the Winnie-the-Pooh figure and stick it in a drawer, then turn my attention to the makeshift radio, fiddling with switches and turning dials.

“It doesn’t look like much,” says Sawyer doubtfully.

“Henry said it’s as good as the ones you buy in the shops. He said you can bounce the signal off the rain, weather systems, that kind of thing.”

“What’s its range?”

“Hundreds of miles. At least.”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“You know how to use it?” Sawyer asks.

“Not really.”

“You ever see him use it?”

“He hadn’t used it yet. Don’t think it’s much different to a police radio, though.”

I push the power button.

Nothing happens.

“Is it plugged in?”

I lean over the back of the desk. There’s a trail of red and black wires sprouting from the back of the radio. Most loop around and plug straight back into another part of the transceiver, but there are two insulated cables that don’t. One slips down behind the workbench, while another has been nailed up the wall in a neat straight line, disappearing through the roof.

I push back the chair and get down on my knees. The wire that goes behind the workbench disappears into a junction box. The junction box itself has a thick wire that snakes out through a hole in the wooden wall of the cabin.

I straighten up, try the desk lamp. It doesn’t turn on. Neither does the desk fan when I try it.

“And now?”

“I’m working on it.”

I exit the cabin and move around the side of it, where the cable exits through the wall. It’s attached to a small generator raised on a metal trolley. Trust Henry to fix his own power source. I remember him requesting the generator when we had all those blackouts last year.

I yank on the rip cord. It grumbles and dies, like a geriatric lawn mower. I pull it a few more times until the generator finally kicks in, spluttering and chugging, the loud noise echoing in the large space.

I return to the cabin. The lights on the front of the radio are on. A hissing sound can be heard coming from the speaker. Sawyer already has the transmitter in hand. She pushes on the button.

“Anyone