By the fourth night on foot, Cronauer had stopped counting the miles. His boots chewed through gravel and broken pavement like a ritual. The rhythm of his steps was the only clock that mattered now. He moved silently along the tree-choked edge of Highway 61, staying close to the shadows, guided by moonlight and memory.

The buggy was gone. The horse too. Now it was just him, his pack, and the rifle slung across his back, pushing west toward Viroqua. Still somewhere out there. Still just a name on a map.

He passed through Liberty Pole around 3 a.m. — a place that barely qualified as a town. Just a sagging church, a shuttered general store, and a rusting water tower that leaned slightly south like it was tired of the view. No people. No dogs barking. Just wind and ghosts.

An hour before dawn, Cronauer veered off the road and ducked into the brush. He found a hollow beneath a collapsed deer stand and spread his blanket. His muscles ached, but he didn’t sleep right away. He was too wired. Too restless.

He pulled out the ham radio.

Powered it on.

At first, just static. Then, faint voices — fragments of survival. A couple arguing over canned food. Someone in Iowa offering to barter gasoline for antibiotics. The air felt like a graveyard with echoes.

And then he heard something different.

“…repeat: gridlock near Park Street and W. Washington Ave. Suspected armed movement near the Capitol corridor. Patrol Alpha-Three, adjust position. Over.”

Cronauer tensed.

That was no rogue broadcast.

That was military.

He turned the dial slowly, narrowing the signal.

“Copy, Alpha-Three. Two A-10 Thunderbolt IIs circling the isthmus. AH-64 Apache running recon west toward Middleton. No engagement unless fired on. Relay coordinates back to Truax.”

Truax Field. Madison. The Air National Guard.

Somehow, they were still operational.

And they had Warthogs and Apaches in the air — the old workhorses, not the fragile F-35 Lightning IIs the politicians were so proud of. That detail hit him deep. Like something solid still existed in the chaos.

The Warthogs were old, analog beasts—built to survive the apocalypse and keep flying on duct tape and diesel fumes. Unlike the digital toys, they could still hold their own.

Park Street. W. Washington Ave.

That was WORT’s neighborhood.

Norm’s bunker.

His fortress.

Cronauer’s stomach turned.

He pictured the concrete shell of the station, barely held together by spit, wire, and stubbornness. If bands of armed scavengers had taken over downtown, how long could Norm have held out? Was the Ghost of Tom Joad still breathing in that booth, fingers wrapped around a soldering iron or a mic?

He didn’t dare transmit.

Not yet.

The repeater in Viroqua — the one they installed years ago to link rural LPFMs — might still be intact. If Cronauer could bring it online, he could punch a secure signal through the drift and maybe reach Norm without drawing unwanted ears.

He shut the radio off, exhaled slowly, and leaned back in the grass.

The weight of the world pressed against his spine.

And with that weight came a decision.

He wasn’t going to use the station’s original call letters.

WDRT had been a good station, once — a humble LPFM out of Viroqua built by volunteers, music lovers, and people who still believed in community. But the system that licensed it was gone. The world it belonged to was dust.

When Cronauer reached Viroqua, if the tower was still standing, if he could rebuild the studio and wire the rig, he would rename it.

Station Zero.

Because if there was any hope left — any path forward — it wouldn’t come from top-down systems or federal restoration plans.

It would start here.

Grassroots.

Handmade.

Stubborn.

Every new beginning starts from zero.

From silence.

From breath.

From a stolen voice whispering through the static: You’re not alone.

He closed his eyes, letting the hum of memory roll through him.

The bombs. The blackout. The death of systems.

But also the people.

Norm. Eli. The Ghost. The Simple Farmer.

Voices trying to stitch something back together from the ruins.

That’s what Station Zero would be.

A spark in the dark.

Not a blueprint.

Not a broadcast.

A lifeline.

He drifted off to sleep with that thought cradled in his chest, the rifle still within reach, the pack still beneath his head.

Tomorrow, the road would call again.

And if he was lucky — if the gear hadn’t been stripped, if the building hadn’t been burned — tomorrow night, he’d light up the sky.

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