My town has its own Emergency Alert System. It has taken everything from me. [Part 1]

Have you ever seen an emergency broadcast system signal on your television? Seven vertical bars of various colors blast onto your screen accompanied by an ear piercing tone that is impossible to ignore. A robotic voice will often interrupt the shrill cry with a message indicating the variety of emergencies for your location. Thunderstorms, tornados, flash flooding. You know the type.

My town has the same federal emergency system as yours. What we have that yours likely doesn't is a local emergency warning broadcast. It does not cover weather-related emergencies or Amber Alert notifications. We still take cover when it arrives but most of us have never seen what we are hiding from.

The first emergency alert I can remember happened when I was five or six years old. I am not completely sure but it also isn't terribly important. Talking puppets on a PBS show were teaching me ABCs and how to count to ten and I was enraptured. The huge yellow bird was talking to me about ways to be kind to new friends when the screen began to crackle with static and the picture began to skip.

Pink and yellow vertical bars filled the old television screen. A high pitched whine poured from the speakers and I can still remember covering my ears in terror. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Maybe my parents had discussed this with me but my memory doesn't seem to be able to recall having been warned about it before.

With my ears covered I could still hear the overpowering hum. It seemed to be getting louder. Feeling a tap on my shoulder and turning my head I could see my mother and father behind me beckoning me to follow them. My father had a storm radio clutched in his right hand that was almost certainly blasting the same warning tone as the television. I awkwardly raised myself off of the floor while still holding my ears and followed them.

We walked from the living room, through the dining room, and onto the back porch. Dad pulled the metal hatch doors to the storm cellar open and waved my mother and me inside. Once I began toddling down the stairs I removed my hands from my ears to grasp onto the banister. The humming was still pouring from the radio but the volume was turned down and it no longer hurt my ears.

"Is bad weather coming?" I had asked my mother in confusion. The window shades were open in the living room that day and I can still recall the bright rays of sunshine stretching toward me on the carpeted floor. "It looked nice outside."

My mother turned her head toward me and held up a finger to her mouth. We continued down the storm cellar steps in silence but for the emergency tone. Behind us, my father pulled the cellar doors shut. I could hear him sliding latches into place followed by the flicking up padlocks. After he secured the door he came to the bottom of the stairs and guided us toward a secondary room in the cellar.

As my father began to chain and bolt the door to the room my mother sat the radio down on an old table, sat in a worn armchair, and pulled me close to her chest. All of these decades later I can still remember feeling her pulse hammer in my ear. Her breathing was rapid and she held me so tightly I was scared I wouldn't be able to catch my breath.

"It's going to be okay, baby," my mother said with a shaking voice. "This is just something we have to do here sometimes to stay safe."

"What are we hiding from?" I asked, juvenile fear mounting.

My mother was opening her mouth to respond when my father made a shushing noise. He pointed toward the weather alert radio on the table. The tone had now shifted from a droning whine into prolonged bursts. A robotic male voice began to speak after the last burst.

This is a message from the Emergency Alert System of the Allister Valley Safety and Protection Board.

At this time please, seek shelter in a basement, storm shelter, or interior room of your house without windows.

This is a Level Two Watch. I repeat; This is a Level Two Watch. No entities have yet been spotted.

Unusual activity has been reported on Palumbo Street and Slate Street.

Remain indoors and away from windows until you receive an All Clear message from this channel...

The same mechanical message played in a rotation, punctuated with the pulsing whine. My mother continued pressing me to her chest and the rhythmic beat of her heart and the gentle lullaby she sang had eventually caused me to drift off to sleep.

My mother and father never told me what we were hiding from that day. But I knew to fear it. I'm no less terrified today than I was as a child.

As I ate my breakfast the next morning I can remember listening to the local AM news on the radio. My father was cooking breakfast as my mother and I sat at the table reading a Berenstain Bears book when the DJ fell silent. When his husky voice returned to the air he announced that a little girl named Margret Cupsworth had gone missing the day before.

"No search effort will be made as the circumstances of her disappearance are well understood to our town," the man said. "A memorial for Margret will be held at the Hall Street Elementary School gym this evening. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations are made to Allister Valley Safety and Protection Board."

My family went to the memorial service that evening. I had never worn a tie before but my mother had taken me to the local department store and purchased one. When we arrived I remember thinking that the entire town must have shown up. A huge line was formed to comfort the family as they stood by a flower lined photo of their daughter.

Margret smiled at the camera in her pink flowered dress. Eternally happy. Eternally young.

Margret had been in preschool with me. She was not a close friend at that age. I was still firmly in the phase of life where girls were gross and scary. Still, I remember being sad that she was gone. Not that I entirely understood at the time she was dead.

Mom and dad had explained to me on the way to the memorial that people who didn't get inside when the emergency alert sounded were never seen again. They never clearly stated that it meant they were dead. As I grew older I came to understand that was the likeliest outcome.

My family reached the front of the receiving line and my father prompted me to shake hands with Mr. Cupsworth. He looked angry and sad all at once. When he took my hand he shook it gently and nodded to me. My eyes welled with tears. Grief radiated from him; even at my young age, I could feel the despair.

Mom comforted Mrs. Cupsworth so I continued down the line. Besides her mother stood a little girl, her red face streaked with tears. She couldn't have been more than four. To this day I will never understand why they made her stand there in her sorrow and face a town full of people who could not comfort her.

"Hi," I said meekly. "Was Margret your sister?"

The girl nodded her head but didn't say a word.

"She was real nice," I stammered. "She was in my class."

The little girl sobbed loudly and wrapped her arms around me. My arms were pinned to my side and I was mortified. But I stood there and let her squeeze my chest.

"Momma told her not to play so far from the house!" the little girl cried. "She knew she wasn't allowed to go that far!"

That was the day I met Paige Cupsworth. She ended up being my high school sweetheart. Short and feisty. Smart as a whip. I probably would have married her too. Unfortunately, Allister Valley and its cursed sirens had no respect for the hopes and dreams of its citizens.

Four years of college was the only break I ever received from the intermittent emergency signals from my hometown. A few times a year there would be a National Weather Service alert on campus and while most of my classmates seemed unconcerned I was always the oddball. The first time it happened I ran out of my English 102 class and sprinted to the boiler room in the basement of the class hall.

It was embarrassing, to say the least. Some of my friends in the class called my cellphone to ask if I was okay and when I explained to them that this was normal protocol in my hometown they seemed confused. I considered trying to explain the Allister Valley Safety and Protection warnings to them but it was clear they didn't have similar experiences growing up.

Paige and I talked on the phone every night and visited on as many weekends as my scrawny bank account would allow. Mom helped out where they could but I had to work most weekends to make enough money to cover expenses. Dad had passed away unexpectedly my freshman year and money was tight for her.

I still feel as though if I had gone home more often maybe Paige would still be here.

It took me a few more alarms to fight the urge to hide in a subterranean, windowless room but eventually, I was able to control my urges. Tornados were very uncommon in the area and the alerts I would receive on my cellphone were generally just to let you know bad weather was on the way. It didn't always indicate a need to take shelter. Those may have been the only completely relaxed years of my life.

Early in my last semester of college, I could tell Paige was becoming despondent. She was attending a community college in the next county over from Allister Valley. I had begged and pleaded with her to transfer to the state college with me but she wisely declined. All of the courses she needed for her degree were available at a much lower cost there.

"Are you coming back to Allister Valley after you graduate?" she asked one night on the phone.

"More likely than not," I replied. "With dad gone, I think mom probably needs more help so I hate to be far away. Besides, you seem pretty set on being a social worker there and I'd like to think I fit somewhere in your five year plan."

She paused longer than I was comfortable with. We had talked about marriage in an abstract way since I had graduated high school but had never made any official declarations. The silence had been unnerving.

"Paige," I said. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah," she said flatly. "I'm here. Not planning on getting rid of you any time soon unless you act up. Sometimes I just think… you know… we could start over somewhere else."

I was surprised to hear she was considering moving away. She had always talked about her career plans in the community. Enrolling in college so close had allowed her to be with her parents. It wasn't as though I had considered venturing elsewhere but Allister Valley had always seemed to be our future together.

"I'm not saying no," I responded. "Just kind of surprised, I guess. What has you thinking of leaving now?"

"I want to have kids someday, Chris," she said. "I don't want to have to worry that what happened to Margret will…" She began to cry softly and didn't finish the sentence.

I reassured her as best I could but it never seemed to be of much use in those days. More and more of our conversations had turned to Margaret that semester. While she was a fleeting memory to me from my childhood school days she was an ever present thought for Paige.

Every time the warning message sounded in town she would call me. Whenever another citizen of Allister Valley went missing during the emergency alert Paige would recount all of the details she knew during our calls. All of these conversations were punctuated by Margret.

My heart ached for her but it seemed to be growing into a weight she wasn't able to shoulder. More frequently she began to ask what I thought was outside during the alerts and I told her honestly that I didn't know. The alerts and warnings from my parents had always been enough to keep me inside.

"Sometimes during the sirens, I can hear a little girl talking outside." She told me one night. "Dad will yell for her to go away and mom cries in the corner. They haven't told me but I think it's Margret."

"It isn't Margret," I replied sadly. "Baby, she's been gone for a long time. I'm sorry. I know it's hard but it isn't her."

"Maybe," she said complacently. "You're right. I love you." She hung up the phone.

I wish I had known that would be our last phone call. I would have made it last all night. I would have driven home and spent every minute with her from then on. I would have done everything differently.

But I didn't. And I can't.

My phone rang late in the evening the day after finals. I was lugging boxes from my shabby apartment to my car in preparation to make the final drive back home to Allister Valley. Sliding the box from my hand onto the floor I walked to the kitchen counter to look at the caller ID.

Bruce Cupsworth's number flashed on the Nokia's green screen. I was puzzled since I didn't frequently talk to Paige's father on the phone. We had a great relationship and always enjoyed one another's company at family gathers. He just wasn't a chatty man. A phone call was unusual unless something was wrong.

"Hello," I said as I lifted my phone to my ear.

"Paige is gone," Bruce said in a wavering baritone. "There was an alert last night and she's gone."

I could hear Paige's mother wailing in the background and I could hear sniffling and the choking of sobs from her father.

"How?" I asked. It was all I had been able to manage in my shock.

"The alert sounded during dinner," he muttered. "Her mother and I headed to the basement. Paige said she was going to get her cellphone from her room to call you. When we came upstairs the front door was standing open. We haven't seen her since."

My heart dropped and I couldn't speak. I felt like I should cry but no tears came. My brain told me to wail but I couldn't. I just felt empty.

"Did Paige say anything… strange… to you the last time you spoke?" her father asked.

"Yeah," I stammered. "She… uh… she said something about a little girl's voice outside the door during the alerts. I think she said it sounded like Margret."

"Chris," he said. "I should have told…. No, never mind. We're having a memorial service for her tomorrow. Will you come?"

My heart began to race and I could feel the heat rise to my face.

"A memorial service?" I scoffed. "You should be organizing a search party! She could still be out there!"

A moment of silence fell between us.

"Aren't you going to look for her?" I begged.

"Christopher," he said in a broken monotone. "You know that isn't how this works. Paige is gone. Just like Margret."

"What the hell took her?" I shouted. "What is out there? Why do we have to hide?"

"We aren't going to discuss this," he said, anger rising in his voice. "This is hard enough with you trying to do this right now."

"Do what?" I demanded. "Ask why you aren't looking for your daughter? Ask why we have to hide in the dark and no one ever explains why? Do you even know?"

"Yes," he replied. "After Margret was taken the safety board met with us and… explained some of it."

"Some of it?" I yelled. Hot tears were streaming down my face. "Your kids vanish and you just accept it?"

The phone line went dead. I tried calling Bruce multiple times but it went directly to his voicemail. My attempts to call Mrs. Cupsworth went unanswered as well.

Paige's parents never spoke to me again and I don't blame them. They had suffered the horrific loss of their only two children but in my hot headed youth, I wasn't able to consider their sense of loss as I can now. In my early forties, I can see how unsympathetic I was to their grief and sorrow.