Protecting Our Home

by Colton Lively

  Cody found the right key, the smallest on his set. When they’d first been married, Mary had given him an unforgettable ultimatum: “The only gun I want in my bedroom is the one in your pants.” And so, he’d locked it away in their windowless utility room with the washer and dryer, the gas meter, and a long-defunct table football setup.

  He had to find his way using one of the lighters, feeling like someone from the time of the Founding Fathers who was heading to the bathroom in the middle of the night. “Okay, there you are.” Quickly unlocked, the wall-mounted box swung open, revealing his trusty automatic, a 9mm with three spare magazines, all full. Before heading back to Mary, he stopped and offered a short prayer: a plea to the Almighty that he’d never need to use the weapon in anger.

  “Almost there,” Mary was saying. A collection of bags was accumulating in their hallway, while on the other side of the door, Cody could still hear Mrs. Wheeler’s litany of complaints.

  “Someone should lose their job for this! I mean, by all the saints, look at the…”

  “Daisy?” said Cody, appearing at his door and walking toward the thunderstruck old lady. He took her shoulders gently, like anyone about to deliver news that was both vital and terrible. “Something big has happened to the power grid. Everyone is going to be camping out for a few weeks. I don’t think you should stay in Flannigan.”

  “But, where am I gonna go?” she asked from behind her thick bifocals.

  His mouth opened, but then Cody realized he’d be giving her impossible advice. Widowed, and without close family that he knew of, Daisy Wheeler would have to fend for herself. There would be nothing to eat except what she already had, and who knew if someone might try to take that from her?

  “Lock your doors. Only open them for neighbors you trust, or family, or people with a badge. It’s going to be weeks before anything gets better. Can you do it?”

  She shrugged good-naturedly. “I survived Hurricane Sandy. Reckon this’ll be a cakewalk compared to that.”

  Cody gave her an affectionate smile, then kissed her forehead and sent her back into her apartment. Once her door was locked, he reached up to feel the bulky presence of his 9mm in his shoulder holster. “A cakewalk?” he scoffed. “No, Daisy. I’m afraid it’ll be a nightmare.”

  Mary was at their front door with her daypack on her back, holding two duffels and a four-gallon plastic water container. “We doing this, or what?”

  “Definitely.” He grabbed the remainder of their stuff—the tent bag, which was heavier than he remembered, and two tote bags of supplies—then hoisted his bulging backpack. “Okay, we’re gonna march like we just got thrown into basic training. I’ll take point, and we don’t stop, even for…”

  From the other side of town, back toward the workshop and the high school, there was a deeply worrying thud. It sounded as though a giant had dropped a huge box of books on an empty parking lot. Although it could have been another plane coming down, Cody figured the timing was wrong; they’d all have hit the ground in the first few minutes, surely.

  They looked at each other in speculative silence for a few seconds. “What’s going on, Cody?” she asked.

  But now wasn’t the time for answers, she knew. Now was the time to move.

  5

  Flannigan, NH H-Hour + 2 (3:15 pm EDT)

  Their route back into town followed the river for a mile, turning away from the little cluster of apartment buildings they’d called home for twelve years. Heavily loaded but determined, Cody and Mary fell into a brisk pace, matching the cadence with their breathing—four steps per in-breath, and then three as the load began to tell. No vehicles passed them, nor was anyone else marching anywhere.

  “People think they can just ride it out. Stay at home and wait for the cavalry.”

  “But you don’t think the cavalry is coming,” Mary surmised.

  “Nope, not for a long while. It’s funny,” he said with a glance back at her, “if we still relied on horses for everything, we’d be in much better shape right now.”

  She sighed theatrically. “Am I about to get one of your lectures about how we should, ‘turn back the clock’?”

  “I could lecture,” he said, self-aware enough to smile, “or I could march, but I ain’t got the breath for both.”

  They passed their first stranded motorist, a teenager who couldn’t decide which was worse: his cellphone going dark, or his being responsible for thoroughly breaking his mom’s Prius. “Are we at war, or something?” he asked the approaching pair, worriedly eyeing the pair of army surplus duffels.

  “Dunno, kid. Things are getting a little crazy. Want to tag along with us?” offered Cody.

  “Nah. I’m gonna wait for my cellphone to restart, then call AAA.”

  “Suit yourself, I guess.”

  There wouldn’t be time to clue in everyone they met, especially if Cody’s explanation fell on deaf ears, as it probably would in many cases. Instead, they left the teenager to his fate, staring at his useless phone. “Electric motor,” Cody said of the car once they’d resumed their march into Flannigan, “electric engine management, electric fuel systems, electric ignition… He’s sitting in the most fried automobile in New Hampshire, waiting for a miracle.”

  Then they heard movement behind them, and moments later, two uniformed cops on bicycles pedaled past, breathing hard. “Hey!” Cody called. “Officers? What’s the story in Flannigan?”

  Apparently, there was no time to stop. “Explosion… near MacArthur Square,” one of them said, his face reddened with the effort. “Stay out of the area! Return to your homes!” Then they were gone, ascending the small rise and following the strangely empty road into town.

  “An explosion? Is that what we heard from the apartment?” Mary wondered aloud.

  Thinking back to the sound of the incident, Cody said, “All kinds of things were catching fire on Main Street before I left. The kitchen of the café, and a bank, and some shops…”

  “But, the surge was electrical…” It dawned on her. “Fried circuits, overloads, arcing, and sparking.”

  “You got it. No limit to the damage this can cause.”

  “God, what a mess,” she said sadly.

  “The real mess,” Cody said, trying not to sound too pessimistic but determined to stay levelheaded in this crisis, “will be the way that people react.”

  “Panic,” she said, summing things up.

  “Americans aren’t used to being without personal transportation. Or, for that matter, up-to-date news and communications. There’s going to be a lot of frustration.”

  Shots rang out, five or six, from two different weapons. Cody ducked instinctively, but the sound was coming from much farther up Main Street, near the gas station. “Kinda illustrates my point.”

  “This is getting crazy,” said Mary. “Things are already falling apart.” She checked her watch, mercifully immune to the EMP. “And it’s only been… three hours. What’ll it be like in three days or three weeks?”

  “All right,” he said, rubbing his sweaty face. He’d been grimy from the workshop even before the crisis had begun, and his hands came back streaked with dark stains. “Let’s focus.”

  “Yeah,” she said, adjusting her backpack and articulating their only aim now: “The school.”

  6

  Flannigan, NH H-hour + 3 (4:30 pm EDT)

  Transformed by events, Main Street had entirely lost its neat, “rural community” vibe, becoming instead a place of smashed glass and confused knots of people, all desperate for information.

  “We need to stock up,” Cody said, cursing yet again their lack of true mobility. “But the whole town got the same idea at the same time. If there’s anything left on the shelves at the Food King, I’ll be amazed.”

  Minutes later, they found the shelves not just empty, but ransacked. Terrified cashiers had been forced to hide behind the counter while groups of people, deciding that panic buying was too much hassle, simply took what they felt they needed.

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nbsp; “Nobody gave you a gun?” Cody demanded, furious that these precious supplies, which might have fed the town for a week, had been stolen by a selfish handful.

  Mary pulled him away and back into the street. “Look at him, Cody. The kid’s, what, seventeen? I’d barely depend on him to count the correct change, let alone win a gun battle against a store full of looters.”

  “The cops just evaporated,” Cody complained. “I guess without proper vehicles, they’re as powerless as anyone else.” He urgently wanted to get the pack off his shoulders, but there wasn’t time to rest. “Let’s get closer to the school and see what’s going on.”

  The air became acrider, and before long, they saw cars that had caught fire when their electrical components aggressively shorted out. Farther along, several shops were wreathed in flames. A man dashed out of one, his hair singed and clothes ruined, carrying a bundle of papers in his arms. Tossing them into the street, he knelt and retched. When Cody came closer, he somehow caught the man’s attention.

  “Deeds,” he coughed, “and bearer bonds, from the safe. Couldn’t just let them burn.” He picked up the sheaf of papers and staggered to his feet.

  “The things we prioritize,” Mary whispered to her husband. “Legal backing for property ownership, and good ol’ money. What use are they going to be?”

  “Did you hear an explosion, about an hour ago?” Cody asked the man, but he shook his head and tried to clear his eyes of soot. “Do you know what’s going on at the school?”

  “Lockdown,” was all he managed to say before he was overwhelmed by another coughing fit.

  “Come on,” Cody said to Mary. “We’re almost there. And we’ll pass Denton’s Grocers on Maple. They might not have been so hard hit.”

  But Maple Street was the scene of carnage. Burning cars in the parking lot had ignited others, and the fire was spreading toward the neighboring hardware store. “God, that place is full of lumber and glue and plywood and…”

  Gunfire, loud and close, grasped their attention. Coming toward them, on the other side of the grocery store, was a group of twenty people carrying improvised weapons. Mary swore colorfully, pulling Cody into the entryway to McCormick’s, the town’s long-standing butcher’s shop. “What the hell? Within three hours, you’re telling me that lawlessness has descended on Flannigan?”

  Stentorian police instructions were barked over a loudhailer, but the crowd only advanced more quickly. There were more shots, from where, they couldn’t see. But then something like a firework was tossed into the middle of the crowd, and the would-be looters scattered in every direction. Three of them rallied and charged straight at the store, which was when Cody finally saw that the gunfire was coming from the two cops they’d seen earlier. One of them found his target, a heavyset man who hit the floor, bleeding profusely from his chest; the other two fled, screaming at the cops in anger, as a noxious cloud billowed around them.

  “Tear gas!” Cody exclaimed, quickly closing the door to the butcher’s shop and shoving Mary farther inside. “Exhale, exhale, exhale,” he told her. Once they were past the counter—empty except for a single gray, fatty-looking pork chop—Cody found a way into the rear storeroom. “We gotta let the smoke disperse, or we’ll be coughing for hours. Look for something we can use as masks.”

  Searching the storeroom and butchers’ tables, they found two bandanas in a drawer; Cody helped Mary fix hers in place. “Emma and Jacob are gonna think we walked off the set of a movie,” she said, imagining the kids’ stunned reaction. “We look like extras from Mad Max: Flannigan Road.”

  “I wish it were a goddamned movie,” Cody said. “This is unbelievable! I thought people around here were sensible. I mean, we had no idea what was going on, or how long the problems would last, but everyone just panicked, all the same. ‘Look after number one,’ and screw everybody else. What’s poor old Daisy Wheeler gonna do for food, now the stores have been cleaned out by armed rioters?”

  “Do you think,” Mary speculated, “maybe those cops were defending Denton’s because they weren’t cleared out?”

  Despite all the dangers and chaos outside, the slender prospect of a semi-intact store made the risk worthwhile. “Let’s take a peek,” Cody suggested. “If the cops are still there, maybe the looters will stay away.”

  “Or they’ll just shoot us,” said Mary.

  “They’re trained professionals,” said Cody, aware that it sounded absurdly optimistic in the circumstances.

  “Everyone’s terrified. That includes the cops, Cody. People don’t make their best decisions when they’re scared out of their minds,” said Mary.

  Still, they agreed it was worth trying. Back at the entryway, they could see that the smoke was mostly gone, but that the fire across the street was now consuming great tracts of the hardware store’s rear warehouse. “That’s gonna burn for days,” Cody guessed. “Probably more toxic than tear gas, too.”

  A thought occurred to him as they made their way out, and he doubled back to find a couple of items. “Don’t tell me you’re looking for steaks,” Mary chided. “I know you get hungry around this time, but we both saw how empty the place was.”

  Cody returned with a yard-long metal pole and tied a white dishcloth to one end. “Insurance policy.” They left most of their belongings in the back room of the butcher’s shop, and then warily approached the store, their pole held high. “Officers, can you hear us? We’re not armed, and we’re not dangerous. Just looking for supplies.”

  “Return to your homes,” the cop replied, rather unnecessarily using the loudhailer.

  As the couple approached, they found at their feet the paling figure of the heavyset looter; he was either dead or very nearly so. “Sir, I just want to get some basics for my family,” Cody said, holding his wallet aloft. “I’m gonna pay cash. We’ll be out of your way in a half-minute.”

  The voice was silent, and Cody felt reasons for optimism. But then more gunfire rang out, and he found he’d hit the sidewalk, Mary alongside him, only three feet from the dying man. “What the hell?”

  There was hollering and cursing from within the store, but then that voice, too, was gone. Raising his head, Cody saw only that the cops had disappeared. “Slowly,” he emphasized to Mary, “let’s stand up and get in there, okay?”

  “Who was shooting?” she wanted to know. They crept closer and saw awful red splatters on the walls of the store. “Oh, God…”

  The two cops were dead, ambushed from behind. The gunman was nowhere to be seen.

  “Cody, we have to see if they’re breathing…”

  But he had a slender list of priorities; helping the gravely wounded came below helping his own family to survive. “Listen to me. I want you to fill two baskets with cans, noodles, pasta. Maybe alcohol, if there’s any left.”

  “Roger that. We’re both gonna need a drink after this.”

  “It’s medical,” Cody explained. “Go now. I’ll grab things from the front and keep an eye out.”

  Mary headed toward the back of the store, finding half of the aisles relatively undisturbed, but that the chicken, steaks, and chops had all been boosted en masse. “One minute and we’re gone,” she confirmed to Cody as he gestured for her to hurry.

  “Hold it!” came a loud shout from the rear corner. An elderly man was standing there, his shotgun leveled at Mary. “That ain’t yours.”

  “I was going to pay for it,” she said, her voice trembling.

  “The hell you were. This place turned into goddamned Dodge City in a half-hour flat. It’s the law of the jungle. Put everything down and skedaddle before I gotta do some…”

  A click by his ear told him the tables had suddenly turned. “Move, and you’ll be as dead as those two pigs.”

  From his vantage point near the empty meat aisle, Cody saw a wild-eyed kid with short, blond hair grab the shotgun from the owner’s hands. He slid his stolen police automatic into his belt and then raised the shotgun as if to continue his killing spree.

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p; “Take it easy!” Cody called out. “No need for more trouble.”

  “‘Need’?” the kid yelled back. “Who said anything about ‘need’? This is all about fun, man. Ain’t you heard?”

  “Heard what?” Cody said, urgently motioning for Mary to join him.

  For the moment, she crouched at the end of the wine aisle, trying to remain unseen while the gunman split his focus between the owner and the largely hidden Cody.

  “It’s the end of the fuckin’ world!” he cried, and in some kind of sick celebration of the fact, smashed the owner across the face with the gun’s barrel. “Ain’t no more cops, ain’t no more jails…” He aimed the gun down toward the stricken owner, whose nose and cheek were painfully mangled. “Ain’t no one to stop me from ending this old bastard, right here on the floor.”

  “Leave him alone!” Mary shouted.

  “Come and make me, bitch!” the kid screamed back, wheeling around toward her and pulling the trigger.

  A thousand pellets fanned out, their cone of destruction tearing into the shelves of wine bottles. Red fountains erupted in every direction, laced with sharp glass, spattering the ceiling and every surface. The kid fired again, and more bottles were turned into weapons in their own right, lancing at Mary as she hid at the end of the aisle. “Ain’t no rules now!” the kid exulted, raising the shotgun above his head in triumph.

  It was yet another miscalculation. Cody came around the side of a meat freezer, his automatic drawn, finding his target clueless and unfocused. There was only a second to decide. The murderous bastard had already fired both shotgun cartridges, but he’d taken the two police pistols. That simple fact decided everything for Cody, even before the basic truth asserted itself: He just tried to kill my wife. Twice.

  The three rounds were accurately placed, punching through the kid’s back. He dropped like a discarded rag doll, the shotgun clattering away. Lots of blood followed, more than Cody had expected, quickly forming a dark lake on the white tile floor of the grocery store. Cody paused for a count of three and then dashed forward. “Mary, stay where you are, okay?”