by William Oday
“Those two must really like their football,” Hudson said.
The joke landed flat, but the fact that he’d even made it was a good sign.
The looting didn’t surprise Cade, but he didn’t find it funny either. It was a sign of what was coming. The fraying and eventual failure of law and order. The heavy-handed response of a federal government fighting to retain control. The coming crackdown on personal liberties to better control the masses. The splintering of civilization into isolated fiefdoms ruled by ruthless tyrants.
Maybe it wouldn’t devolve to that point.
Maybe.
“Wait, they aren’t going to be able to watch that TV anyway, are they?”
Cade shook his head.
Other looters streamed out of the store carrying computers, gaming consoles, and more. One lady that looked like an average everyday housewife was dollying out a washing machine.
“Let’s go,” Cade said. “We don’t want to be around when things go south.”
Hudson nodded and they got back into gear.
They made sure to swing over to the opposite side of the road in case any of the looters decided expensive road bikes had more appeal than whatever was left in Best Buy.
Sure enough, they were riding through the next intersection when gunshots and screaming echoed down the street. They paused to check it out.
More gunshots and the crowd was spilling into the street, everyone running away at top speed.
“Let’s go,” Cade said as he started off again.
Hudson didn’t move.
“Hudson! We’re moving!”
He snapped out of it and caught up a few seconds later. “It’s just so crazy. I never would’ve believed anything like this could happen in our country.”
Cade was about to tell him that it was going to get worse, but decided against it. He’d see for himself soon enough.
They continued on a ways, staying in the bike lane which was remarkably free of obstructions. Abandoned cars littered the street. Some missing windows and surrounded by shattered glass. They made sure to ride around those. The last thing they needed was to blow a tube. Hudson had a repair kit and extra tubes, but they would be needed for the long road ahead.
Multi-story apartment buildings rose on both sides. A group of skaters loitered on the next street corner. One was flipping his board doing a series of tricks while the others watched with cigarettes and bottles of beer in hand. One of the ones watching noticed Cade and Hudson approaching and brought it to the attention of the rest of the group. They turned as one and shouted out colorful threats.
Cade didn’t want any trouble and was hoping they didn’t either.
The group walked into the street to intercept them, some acting belligerent while others were laughing and clowning around.
Cade pulled the pistol out of his waistband and held it out to the side in clear view. They glided to a stop a good distance from the skaters now blocking their path in the middle of the street.
“We’re just passing through. We don’t want any trouble.”
The one in front wore a sleeveless denim jacket with a green spray-painted pot leaf on the chest. Tattoos sleeved both arms and more scrawled out of a ratty t-shirt across his neck. His head was shaved on the sides with a tall mohawk sticking up in the middle. Hair didn’t do that easily. For someone who obviously wanted the world to believe he didn’t give a crap, he definitely cared about his hair. If Cade was reading them right, they were the kind that wanted easy prey. They weren’t hardened killers looking to take another life.
“This is our street. If you didn’t want trouble, you shouldn’t have come this way.”
None of them were armed that Cade could see. That didn’t mean they weren’t though. And seven against two wasn’t good odds.
“Sorry, we don’t know the rules. We’re not from around here.”
“What do you have in them bags?” Mohawk asked.
“Laundry. Just riding home from the laundromat and took a wrong turn.”
It was weak. He knew it as soon as it came out.
“Thought you weren’t from around here?”
“Well, not this neighborhood.”
“Give us the bags and you can go,” Mohawk said as he started forward. The rest of his crew fanned out behind him.
Cade lifted the Glock and aimed it at him. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
Mohawk started to reach behind his back, maybe for a gun tucked into his pants.
“Don’t do it! You don’t want to die today!”
He laughed derisively, but stopped coming forward and stopped reaching for whatever it was. He looked left and right at his crew. “Be smart. Drop the bags and get the hell out of here. Think you can take us all down? ”
“Hudson, back away,” Cade whispered. In a louder voice, he answered. “No. But I can definitely kill you from here. Two to the chest before moving onto your friends.”
The grin on Mohawk’s face faltered.
Good.
He didn’t have a death wish. Cade’s read on the group was more or less right.
Cade backed away with the muzzle zero’d on Mohawk’s center mass. If he did have to fire, he’d take him out and dive behind a car for cover. With any luck, they’d scatter after seeing one of their own killed.
Mohawk watched as they retreated. His face twisted with a mixture of fury and uncertainty. One of his crew launched a bottle. It sailed through the air and arced down.
Hudson dodged to the side and it exploded on the pavement, splashing his pant leg with beer.
The skaters broke into howls of laughter and another round of threats and insults.
“Keep going,” Cade whispered.
“Come around here again and you’re dead!” Mohawk yelled.
They made it to the previous cross street and both jumped on their bikes. They turned and took off, for the first time in minutes remembering to breathe.
They continued on a while with Cade in the lead, doing his best to keep them headed east through a maze of streets that were anything but straight or straight forward.
Hudson eased up next to him. “Would you have really shot him?”
“Yeah.”
Hudson’s eyes went wide with surprise.
In the last twelve hours, the kid had been through hell. Nearly dying in the plane crash, losing his fiancé, and leaving his home for good.
It was a miracle that he wasn’t curled up into a ball, crying his eyes out. Or worse, a hollowed out zombie stricken with shock. Maybe he was stronger than Cade first thought.
Or maybe so many things were constantly changing that there wasn’t time to reflect on what had happened. They were in survival mode and that required total attention to the present moment.
Because they had no idea what was around the next corner. Nor the one after that.
The easy predictability of everyday life was slipping away.
And the journey had only just begun.
32
Sam slipped the Haltie onto Dennis’ muzzle and fastened the strap around his neck. From long habit, he knew that meant they were going for a walk and he couldn’t have been more excited. His back half was swinging back and forth along with his long destroyer of a tail.
Boxers usually got their tails clipped, but he was a mixed breed rescue and the organization they’d adopted him from hadn’t done it for whatever reason.
Which suited Sam just fine.
Sure, it was long and heavy as a rope and was a constant danger to any glasses within swinging reach. A faded red wine stain on the couch was one casualty among many of his exuberant wagging.
But his tail was cute and it completed the sine wave of movement that ran through his body when he was excited.
She grabbed a couple of poo bags and stuffed them into her pocket. A couple because Dennis sometimes went for a surprise round two on longer walks.
She zipped up her lightweight jacket because mornings were always brisk in Durango. She’d be peeling off laye
rs later when the summer sun burned through the morning chill.
Ethan sat at the breakfast table with a spoon in one hand and a graphic novel in the other. His eyes were glued to the pages while the spoon somehow scooped cereal into his mouth without spilling a drop of milk. His bony shoulders jutted out making it look like he didn’t get enough food. Which couldn’t have been more wrong because he was more or less always eating. Growing teenagers had gaping maws for mouths.
“Remember to shut off the generator after breakfast,” she said.
He didn’t respond.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Earth to Ethan.”
His eyes bounced to her like she’d appeared out of nowhere.
“The generator. Turn it off after you finish.”
“Will do. You leaving?”
Hadn’t they just gone over this a few minutes ago?
“Yes, Dennis needs a walk and I want to check on Grams.”
“Give her a hug for me.”
“I will, but you really need to go for a visit yourself. It’s two miles away and you haven’t been in a while.”
“I know, I know. I will. I’ve just been busy with school and stuff.”
“Well, you need to make time for your grandmother. She won’t be with us forever.”
“Okay, I will. Can you get off my back already? It’s not like she remembers whether I came by or not anyway.”
“Ethan!” Anger welled in Sam’s chest and it was a feat that she didn’t swear at him for being an insensitive idiot.
He cringed and knew he’d stepped in it. “Sorry.”
“We’ll discuss it later,” Sam said before grabbing up the leash and stomping out the door with Dennis in tow. She started down the driveway and her day took another turn for the worse.
Her least favorite next-door neighbor was walking over. Had Brenda been waiting all morning to ambush her the second she went outside?
It was definitely possible.
Brenda met her at the end of the driveway. “Samantha, may I have a word with you?”
Sam suppressed an eye roll. It was better to get it over with because this woman never let anything go. “Sure, what?”
“A loud commotion woke me up in the middle of the night. And you know how much I need my sleep. I looked out the window to see who would be carrying on at such an hour and was disappointed to see you and Mr. Hensley were the culprits.”
Commotion? Culprits?
They had had a brief conversation that at no point reached an unreasonable volume, and certainly never qualified as a commotion.
“Sorry about that,” Sam said in a voice that she sincerely hoped her neighbor realized was completely insincere. She turned to leave.
“Well, what could be so important that you had to discuss it at that indecent hour?”
“Ask Gary.” Sam tugged the leash and got into stride. She smiled as she walked away because Brenda hated talking to Gary about anything because he didn’t even pretend to be nice. The only thing Brenda hated worse than talking to Gary was other people knowing something she didn’t.
Sam knew it was petty, but it still made her smile.
She and Dennis got into stride. She took a right on Arroyo and followed it down to Main. The route skirted along one end of the trailer park. She glanced up the street as she passed. Some kids were playing basketball. Nothing out of the ordinary.
After pausing for Dennis to do his business, she followed Main Ave north. Several stores were already open for business. More were in the process of opening their doors.
Sam waved at a few familiar faces in passing, but didn’t stop for conversation. She was worried about Grams. This power outage or EMP or whatever it was meant the nursing home didn’t have power and that worried her.
Why, exactly? She couldn’t say.
She always worried about her mother. Worried if she was getting the care she needed. Worried if she was having a good day or a bad one. Worried if her own mother would know who she was the next time she saw her.
Parkinson’s was a cruel way to go. It stole your essence before it finally took your life.
The walk helped. Getting her blood flowing and her lungs pumping always did. She turned right on Thirty-Second Street and crossed over the river that ran through the middle of town.
The Animas River was one of the things that made Durango such a special place. The blue-green water passed through a series of meandering oxbows to the north and then straightened out as it ran through the heart of town. It then continued south to the San Juan River and eventually fed into the mighty Colorado.
It was big enough to never go dry but still slow enough to offer abundant opportunities for recreation. Perfect for swimming, floating on tubes, fishing and more. It was the lifeblood of the community.
Some of her earliest memories were playing and splashing in the river with her parents. She and Cade had done the same thing with Lily and Ethan when they were old enough.
She waited for Dennis to sniff and pee on a signpost and then continued along Thirty-Second. She picked up the pace. The retirement home was a few blocks further and she was anxious to get there.
She looked both ways at the intersection and was about to cross when something caught her attention.
There was someone standing in the middle of the cross street wearing a blue robe and green slippers.
33
She recognized Mr. Ferguson when he turned around with a lost expression on his face. He was one of the residents at the retirement home. Her mother didn’t like him much. She said he watched TV so loud she could hear it in her room at the end of the hall. And that he sometimes smelled bad. Sam regularly spent time at the home and had never personally experienced either of those issues with him. So she suspected there was something else behind the bad feelings.
Maybe her mother had asked for his chocolate pudding and he’d said no. It was probably something like that. Marjorie Bowman held onto grudges like they were gold nuggets to be guarded and treasured forever.
“Mr. Ferguson!” she called as she hurried over. She stopped in front of him while Dennis sniffed his legs up and down. “Mr. Ferguson, what are you doing out here?”
His clouded gaze sparked with recognition. “Samantha?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Thank goodness. I…” he looked around. “I don’t know what happened. I got lost. I was walking through the gardens and then…”
The thought trailed off into nothing.
“How about I walk you home?”
He smiled. “That would be wonderful. I always tell Marjorie what a wonderful daughter you are.”
“I try,” Sam said as she hooked an arm through his and steered them in the right direction.
Thoughts swirled through Sam’s head. All of them worrisome.
How had he wandered off with no one noticing?
Why had no one come looking for him?
What was going on at the retirement home for this to happen?
And the biggest one of all.
Was her mother okay?
It took longer than she wanted because Mr. Ferguson couldn’t move faster than a snail’s slither. “Did you know I used to race cars back in the day?”
She knew.
Anyone that had ever spent more than a minute with him knew.
“Really?”
“Oh, yes.” And he launched into a familiar story.
She listened and responded when prompted and they finally turned down the street to Sunshine Gardens Retirement Home. She let out a small sigh of relief. A part of her was expecting it be on fire or all the residents to be wandering around outside unattended.
But no. It looked like it always did.
From the outside, at least.
They followed the driveway up and she tied Dennis to a pole. She gave him a few scratches on the head. “Be back in a minute with some water.”
He plopped down into a sit and licked Mr Ferguson’s hand.
They e
ntered the lobby of the main building. A young woman Sam didn’t recognize was sitting at the reception desk. She glanced up as they arrived.
“Mr. Ferguson! Where have you been?” She circled around the desk and took his arm, and then glared at Sam “Who are you? Did you take him off the grounds without signing out?”
Sam almost exploded. “My name is Samantha Bowman. My mother, Marjorie Bowman, is a resident here.”
“So why are you walking in with him then?”
Sam gritted her teeth and somewhat kept her cool. “Because I was walking over here to check on my mother and ran across Mr. Ferguson. He was standing in the middle of the street a few blocks away! All by himself and wondering how he’d gotten there!”
The woman cringed. “Really?”
“Yes, really! Who are you?”
“I’m Alice. I started last week. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m just exhausted. And freaking out a little.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“It’s the power outage last night. Only one person on the night shift showed up. And only me and Gabriella showed up this morning. She knows what she’s doing but she’s swamped. And Ms. Hopkins has gone MIA! Hasn’t been seen since last night! We can’t handle all these people by ourselves! I don’t even know what I’m doing!”
Sam’s anger melted as she felt the waves of panic radiating off the poor girl. “It’s going to be okay.”
Mr. Ferguson pulled his arm away from Alice, his eyes suspicious. “Who are you? I don’t know you.”
“Let’s all calm down and take a breath,” Sam said. “Mr. Ferguson, this is Alice. She’s new here and she’s very nice. She’s going to take you to your room.” She turned to Alice. “Alice, did you know Mr. Ferguson used to race cars?”
Alice grinned. “I heard a rumor about that. Is it true?”
The old man’s expression softened and he placed a hand over his heart. “On my honor, it is.”
Alice mouthed thank you and guided him away.
Sam dashed down the hall, through the recreation room and turned into the wing to her mother’s room. She skidded to a stop in front of an open door.
“Mom?” she said as she went inside. The bed with the patchwork quilt. The chair by the window that got flooded with light in the evening. The dresser in the corner with a TV on top. A black and white picture of her parents on their wedding day. Both of them smiling. So happy and young and ready for the life that had now passed. Reading glasses on the bedside table.