Make your fathers proud Raise your rifles to the sky boys Fire that volley loud

The small room was musty and old smelling from lack of air or sunshine. It was stuffy, warm, almost suffocating. The chair Henry sat in squeaked at his every movement and its old leather was worn and tearing in many different places, leaking fluff out onto the floorboards.

  Henry sat totally concentrated on the radio and various other pieces of equipment laid out across the oak desk before him. He was in the room he shared with his daughter, Elena. It was cluttered with old pieces of technology mixed with a few newer, more modern pieces. He was tinkering with a radio, connecting and disconnecting wires. For the most part, the only thing he heard back was static crackling through the lines.

  Elena lay on her bed asleep after spending most of the day helping him. They had managed to get one radio to feebly work and it was now warbling old-fashioned tunes Henry recognized as being from the war era.

  The songs continued to crackle out, flashing him back to simpler days. He smirked to himself as a certain song came on over the radio and he was instantly given a lucid vision of Aleks standing in front of him. Her hair and makeup were done just so, curly and flawless, her lips red and full. It was a cover-up to blend in with the other women, but she had looked like the perfect pinup.

  He heard Lena breathe deeply in her sleep behind him and she moved a little on her bed, turning away from the dim, electrical glow he was working under.

  His eyes fell back to the radio and a sigh escaped his lips. Those days were gone and, despite the fact that they had presented their own trials, he missed the simplicity of them. How was it that life just got worse and more complicated as time moved on? How was it that wars grew more violent and deadly? Why was mankind so set upon self-destruction?

  Henry hunted around in one of the desk drawers before pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Before all of this had happened and while Drew was building this shelter, he had apparently foreseen the shortage of these cancer sticks and had stocked up for himself. Now, as Drew was gone, Henry alone could reap the benefits of this. He lit one of the cigarettes and took a long drag on it before breathing the smoke out and calming himself. Unfortunately, he had found that he smoked more recently and blamed it on the overwhelming stress that was always hovering over his head.

  Sparks flew as he connected two wires and jumped back in his seat, startled. He threw down the machine and pushed it away from himself. It scraped loudly across the table. Henry ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it off his forehead and tried to steady his breathing to keep himself from getting too irritated. He flicked the cigarette’s ash into a tray and took another inhale from it.

  He had worked for months now in an attempt to reestablish any form of communication with the outside world. The equipment Drew had placed in the fallout shelter was either too high tech or malfunctioning because it hadn’t picked up anything for at least ten months now. Either that, or there was nothing more to pick up out there, and that Henry refused to believe.

  So, Henry had taken on the challenge of trying to get one of these old radios to work at sending and receiving signals. He had modified similar equipment back during the second War. So far, though, he had had little to no luck with the ones torn apart before him, their guts spilling across the wood.

  “Daddy?”

  He hadn’t realized that Elena had given up on sleep and was now watching him. Her hands were tucked under her cheek and her dark curls were spilling over her pillow.

  “Yes, love?”

  “Do you think they’re coming back?”

  Henry’s heart sunk. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of that question. Aleks always came back. This was almost like any other time - almost.

  “Of course,” he wiped his hands against his pant legs and swiveled the chair around, propping his elbows on his thighs and putting his head in his hands. He and Lena stared at each other for a minute in total silence, “your mother had never not come back. You know that, Lena.”

  She nodded but broke his eye contact and looked down toward the cold floor. It was covered in a ragged braided carpet. The two of them had done their very best to make their room feel like a cozy home. On one side of the room, Elena had her small, twin size bed that was covered with an old quilt of faded pink and blue patterns. Along the walls by her bed, she had collected old photographs. They were pictures of anything, really. Pictures of the puppy Henry had gotten for her when she was a little, pictures she had taken from around the world, pictures of her parents together during simpler times. The wall was papered with memories. It was even papered with clippings of dried flowers, magazine articles, pages she liked from the shredded books they came across. Anything. On her side table sat an antique volume from Charles Dickens that was a first edition Henry had bought when it was brand new.

  Henry’s side of the room was less colorful, more barren. His bed was covered with a dark blue duvet, his walls were empty. Under his bed there was a chest where he kept his letters from Aleks, he also kept all of his weapons under there as well as his journals and other random pieces from his old life. One chest managed to hold three hundred years of existence.

  In between their beds was the large desk covered in mechanical and electrical parts. Above the desk, the wall was spread with maps charting every part of the world and what was going on it. But the information was dated by at least ten months.

  “I like this music,” Elena nodded toward the radio and it made her smile, “it’s like stepping back in time.”

  Henry’s face brightened. For him, it literally was.

  “Your mother and I used to dance to this sort of music.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded, pulling himself into sitting upright and stretched out. His bones cracked at the release. He had been sitting for at least eight hours now as he fought with getting the radio to do anything else.

  “Can you show me?”

  Elena popped out of bed, her long nightgown hitting the tops of her toes as she sat in front of him. She held her hand out to Henry, not giving him the option of declining this unwanted trip down memory lane.

  “Okay,” he relented as her large blue eyes stared straight into his and her smile twitched eagerly.

  Henry stood, taking her hand and pushing the chair into the desk to make room for them.

  He pulled Elena close to him and they swayed slowly across the room between their beds, his fingers laced through hers as she hugged her arm around his strong shoulders.

  /Gonna take a sentimental journey/

  Henry’s throat felt taught as he blinked to keep his eyes from welling up with tears. His baby girl was hugging him tightly as they swayed slowly across the worn rug. His eyes landed on several pictures taped to Elena’s wall – pictures of Aleks smiling beside him with that dreadful purple hair. A bittersweet sensation drenched his gut.

  /to renew old memories/

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes, love?”

  “You miss momma, don’t you?” there was a moment’s hesitation before Elena spoke, “I do…”

  “My love, of course I do.” He leaned back and looked into Elena’s sparkling eyes, so like his own and yet he could see Aleks’ expressions so clearly through them. “’Lena,” his heart broke as he saw the glistening tears at the corners of her eyes.

  / I'll be waiting up for heaven. Counting every mile of railroad track - that moves me back/

  The song was winding down and as it did, Elena had stopped moving and instead she wrapped her arms tightly around Henry’s torso and clung to him, her tears wetting his dark blue button up shirt. He stroked her long hair, pushing it away from her face and kissing the top of her head.

  / I never though my heart could be so yearny. Why did I decide to roam/

  As Elena’s sobs choked out and Henry felt his own self crumbling at the sound of his baby’s tears, the radio warbled and faded out. He heard the sound of static once again fill the room eerily. Then even the static stopped. Elena was still quietly crying, but he was distinctly aware of another sound too.  The radio was picking up the distinct signals of Morse code. But it wasn’t the typical code he had been trained to understand, it was a code only Henry and Aleks would recognize as they had created it specifically for a situation like this.

  “Aleks…” he whispered, his heart skipped a beat and Elena must have sensed it because she sniffed but looked up and followed his eyes toward the radio.

  “Aleks.” He repeated louder as he pulled his daughter to the desk and they both waited, clinging to each other with baited breath as their ears twitched. The code had clinked off before he had a chance to decipher it.

  Henry lifted a makeshift transmitter he had connected to the radio box and spoke into it, “Hello? Hello?” again, they waited. Elena was staring intently at the radio, hovering close to Henry’s side and wringing her hands.

  That’s when he heard it. The Russian accent was so gloriously beautiful it made him feel lightheaded and full of life all at once. “Aleks?!” He was now almost yelling into the transmitter, “Is that you?!”