This Deep Panic

by Lisa Stowe

  “That’s good. Not being alone.” Curtis thought about the glowing red eyes. “Maybe no one should be out alone.”

  Louis said nothing as they walked down the street, the mountains around them quiet, ancient, and hiding their secrets.

  “Did you get hold of anyone?” Curtis asked. “You know, out there? When you were trying the radios earlier? Maybe help is on the way.”

  Louis pulled off his hardhat, ran a hand through his short, curly gray hair, and put it back on. “You’re the one working on the UW experiments, right? On gravity?”

  “Yes.”

  Louis stepped over a crack in the road and stopped. “Do you have any radios or equipment in the Hole?”

  “No,” Curtis said. “We never got radios to work underground. Besides, I doubt the Hole exists anymore.”

  “I was hoping you might have a CB or ham radio in there. Because I think that’s what we need to make contact with the outside world. Something old school.”

  “But the fire department has that new radio system. It cost taxpayers millions of dollars.”

  Louis smiled sadly. “Yes. That system. But the repeaters are down. The towers are up on the top of the Wall. If any survived.”

  “In other words, no contact with anyone.”

  Curtis felt his stomach bottom out as if he’d been punched. This quake, if it was the big one predicted for years, would have devastated the whole region, including Anacortes, on the coast, where his mother lived. There would be tsunamis. Was she still alive? Henry, and now his mother. He pressed his hands to his temples, and then dropped them, turning to Louis.

  “Hey. I’ve just had an idea.”

  Louis looked unimpressed as he started toward the nearest fire. “That’s nice. I see the mayor over there.”

  “No, really.” Curtis caught his arm. “I think Henry is up the Wall somewhere. And I wanted to search for him anyway. Once it’s daylight maybe we could get a group together and try to climb up to the top. We could look for Henry and also maybe figure out a way to get one of the repeaters working. I mean, you know, if there’s anything left to work with. I know some about electronics.”

  “Maybe.” Louis drew the word out as if hesitant. Or just being polite.

  “Okay, I get it,” Curtis said, his face flushing. “You think it’s a stupid idea. But I’m going to look for Henry anyway. I’m going to find a way to call out. Get us help before there’s an aftershock.”

  Louis said nothing as Curtis turned his back on the man and walked into the darkness between fires. Let them all gather in their little groups, backs to the mountains and the unknown. Let them all huddle around their fires like flame made them safe. He’d go out anyway, even if he had to go alone. One more time trying to find Henry. And maybe a solution to the repeater would be easy. Maybe it was just wires that had come unplugged or something. He could fix it. Maybe save the day.

  But not until daylight.

  11

  Ben shut the front passenger door behind his wife, and put a hand on Ramon’s arm as they stood together next to the truck. “Mayhap this might be impossible even for the Crusher.”

  Ramon glanced in the truck where his nieces waited on the cracked vinyl of the old truck’s back bench seat. Even though they couldn’t hear him with the windows up, he lowered his voice.

  “The hospital, all emergency services are going to be overwhelmed.”

  “I agree,” Ben said. “Roads are going to be clogged with terrified people with their own injured loved ones.”

  “You got a suggestion?” Ramon asked.

  “You got a gun?”

  “Maybe.” Ramon hesitated, then lowered his voice further. “How’s a gun going to help?”

  “Think broader.” Ben hooked his thumbs in the straps of his overalls. “This for sure isn’t going to get fixed in an hour or so. You may not find your brother. You got yourself two little girls, injured. We got to feed ourselves, keep our girls safe. Laws are gone now, son.”

  Ramon felt an inordinate relief when he heard ‘we’ in the old man’s words. “I got a gun in the car, if it’s not destroyed. A Glock I picked up when I was working nights on the waterfront.”

  “Get it,” Ben said. “And anything else in there you need. Then we got to find us a place to stock up. Mother and me, we got the Crusher pretty well able to be self-sufficient, traveling like we do, but we need more food, water, first aid stuff, anything we can think of. And we need it fast. Maybe faster than getting to the hospital. Your girls are stable for now.”

  “Vandals,” Ramon said, his mind racing now that Ben had shown it the road.

  “Yup. It’s going to be a hell of a free-for-all. The police are going to be overwhelmed and it’s going to be a while before the military gets here. This here earthquake is going to have devastated way more than we can imagine.”

  “Be right back,” Ramon said, and placed the palm of his hand against the back window to reassure the girls.

  He ran down the street toward his car, dodging people like him, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened, trying to find something normal to ground themselves back in reality. He stumbled to a stop when he reached the car. The yellow Hummer that had climbed up the back of the Camaro tilted at a dangerous angle. Any aftershock would topple it. He saw the driver, motionless behind the wheel, staring straight ahead.

  Ramon went to the driver’s side of his car, staying well back in case the Hummer slid. “Hey! You okay in there?”

  There was no answer.

  He couldn’t see the driver from where he stood. Carefully, he climbed up on the hood of his car, standing cautiously. His breath caught on pain under his ribcage and he pressed a hand against his waist where he’d hit the fire hydrant earlier. When the pain eased, he stepped forward. Neither vehicle moved.

  “Hey!”

  Still no response. No movement either. The guy was either unconscious or dead.

  “You coming?” Ben shouted from his truck.

  Ramon stared at the driver a moment longer, willing the guy to move, then shook his head and chose his nieces. The guy was on his own to make it or not. Ramon had no way to help him.

  Back on the ground, he wormed his way inside the gaping hole where the front windshield of his car had been and fought to free the small black box from under the front seat. It was jammed in tightly, but the side had broken out and he was able to work the handgun free.

  Bullets. Add that to the list of things they’d need. By god, if anyone went after his girls he wanted to be able to shoot.

  He backed out of the window and jumped to the ground, moving away from the two vehicles. Was there anything else in the car he needed? His wallet was in his jeans pocket. The Camaro didn’t have anything, he realized. He drove it back and forth to work, he drove it on dates, on errands, always on the assumption that he had ready access to anything he needed. His life had been complacent.

  He jogged back, thoughts ricocheting. Blankets. Flashlights. Camping stuff. Would debit cards still work? He didn’t have any cash. How was he going to find his brother in all this chaos? How would his brother find him? If he could get to the hospital, west of Monroe, then he could get to Snohomish, another ten minutes west. At least on a normal day. Maybe find his sister-in-law.

  At the Crusher, Ramon went around to the driver’s side. “You got something to write on?”

  June opened the glove box and pulled out a pad and pen that she handed across Ben. Ramon took them and went back to the house.

  “Girls with me,” he wrote. “Trying for the hospital. Call the cell when service is back.” He signed his name, tore off the sheet and impaled it on a nail near the entrance hole.

  He turned to go but then paused. There had been a brief second of movement inside. He wasn’t sure he’d actually seen something. He dropped down to one knee and leaned into the hole they’d made, staring into the shadows. Had one of them moved? Was someone in there? Ramon’s stomach bottomed instantly. Had his brother or sister-in-law
been home after all?

  No. No, there was no way. Tómas and Therese were both at work.

  Ben thought someone had gone inside the house.

  Ramon straightened up as anger coursed through him. Vandalism already. He wanted to crawl inside and grab the son of a bitch and beat the crap out him.

  Ben honked the horn and the sound startled Ramon. He turned back to the truck. Priorities. Right now, he had to think about the girls, not about how good it would feel to whack the bastard crawling around inside their home. But, as he reached the Crusher, he saw movement again out of the corner of his eye and had a sense of someone tall, gray, slipping inside the place next door. He shook his head as he got in the back seat next to Marie and checked seatbelts on both girls. People breaking and entering already. He was glad Ben had thought about protection.

  June had provided Alegria with a pillow and it was in her lap to help support the weight of her taped up arm. Marie was sleeping again, her head against Alegria’s shoulder. It had to have been painful but Alegria was silent, dark eyebrows drawn down. Ramon reached under Marie’s shoulders and gently transferred her to his shoulder. She settled against him and snuggled close without waking.

  “Gracias, Tío,” Alegria whispered. She blinked furiously and Ramon realized she was trying not to cry. “Where’s mama? I’m afraid.” Her voice was a bare whisper.

  Ramon understood that she did not want Ben or June to hear so he spoke softly. “I don’t know, baby. But we’re all afraid.”

  June obviously heard anyway. She twisted around from the front seat as Ben pumped the gas pedal and started the truck. “And there’s nothing to be ashamed of. People are going to be afraid for a long time. But you know what helps me?”

  “Having Ben to take care of you?” Alegria asked. “Like I have Tío Ramon?”

  “Well, sure, that helps.” June said, and patted Ben on the shoulder. “But what also helps is when I can close my eyes and think about the worst case scenario, the most awful thing that could happen. And then I try to figure out what I would do.”

  “Really?” Alegria asked.

  “Of course,” June said, nodding her head as if agreeing with herself. “It makes me feel like I’m prepared. And being prepared is the best, isn’t that right, Father?”

  Ben inched the truck out onto the street. “Yep. But right now we need to make a decision here. Hospital’s going to be overwhelmed. There’s that clinic in Sultan but that’s east.”

  Ramon looked at his nieces, at Alegria’s face pinched with fear, at Marie, asleep. “I say get out to the highway and see which way looks more open.”

  Ben drove the truck up over a curb and through the small parking lot of a chiropractor whose business was now in need of serious adjustments. He bounced back down over another curb and out onto Kelsey where he paused. “This might take some doing.”

  Ramon looked at the street. Debris, people in shock and injured, cars piled against each other, trees down. “No shit.”

  “We need a spotter,” Ben said.

  June and Ramon both opened their doors and got out. June dug around in the back of the camper and handed him a rain poncho, then got in the back seat to support the girls. Ben moved the truck forward slowly and Ramon walked beside it, guiding, moving obstacles where he could, pulling cable from the winch when they needed more than muscle. Ben maneuvered up curbs, over chunks of pavement, and in some places, over formerly manicured lawns.

  It took three hours just to get down Kelsey Street and on to the highway, which surprisingly wasn’t much worse than rush hour. By then full dark had fallen but the rain had at least eased to something softer. Ben pulled the truck over and got out.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder, silent. With power out there were no streetlights to illuminate the highway, but headlights from cars pierced the chaos in slanted beams. Light shown in all directions, including canted upward. People roamed the highway, climbing over and around piled cars. Sounds of breaking glass came from the few businesses still standing and voices shouted.

  A man with congealing blood covering half his face staggered into the side of the truck, mumbled something and headed down the street before Ramon could offer to help him. A family, mom and dad, infant, three young children went past, the man saying something about the hospital. Ramon saw the family reach the man who had staggered by. The father took hold of the man’s arm, supporting him as they kept going.

  As Ramon and Ben stood there, frozen in shock, a loud concussive boom rocked the truck, followed by a giant rolling ball of flame a few blocks away that went skyward so fast, and so high, that it seemed to ignite the very clouds. Ben grabbed the door handle but Ramon was thrown into the side of the truck and then hit the ground.

  Alegria and Marie were screaming. Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself upright, feeling the scorching heat as he struggled to draw in a breath. It was like the air had been sucked into flame.

  “The overpass just collapsed.” Ben clung to the door handle with both hands like it was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

  Ramon stared in horror. The concrete 522 highway overpass was gone. And in the rubble was the outline of some sort of tanker truck in the heart of the inferno.

  “No way we’re getting through that.” Ben pulled open the driver’s door. “Calm down girls. That fire’s not going to reach us.”

  Ramon grimaced. And there was no way they were going to reach the hospital, or his sister-in-law, both on the other side of the overpass. “Guess we’re headed east to the clinic then.”

  “We got a stop to make first.” Ben started the truck. “Get in, son.”

  Ramon got in the front seat, leaving June in the back with the girls. Alegria reached forward with her good hand to grip his shoulder and he covered her cold fingers with his own. Ben pulled out onto the highway, simply pushing two small cars aside with his massive slab of wood bumper. He worked his way across the intersection.

  Ramon didn’t want the girls to see the human suffering surrounding them. He didn’t want his nieces vulnerable to the people coming out in the dark. He wasn’t sure the locked truck doors would be enough. About half way into the intersection he pulled his gun out and kept it in his hand, resting across his thigh.

  The night was full of screams, shouting, distant pops and nearer explosions. The tanker fire was the main source of light. Smoke filled the air and the stench blended with smells of propane and gas. Ramon tried to breathe shallowly and crossed himself, something he hadn’t done in years. They needed to get out of there before residential gas lines completely ruptured and blew everything to hell.

  They passed people wandering as if lost and sitting right in the highway as if oblivious to the madness around them. They inched by a fistfight between six or seven young men and Ramon tensed, gripping his gun. But it wasn’t until Ben pulled into the parking lot of Fred Meyers that a young man ran to the truck, grabbing the driver’s door handle.

  Ramon shoved the door open, making the boy stagger back. He followed, grabbed the boy, and then twisted to shove him against a wrecked car.

  “Get the fuck away from us.”

  “Please,” the young man said, holding up his hands. “Please help me.”

  In the weird flickering light of the night, Ramon saw the beginnings of a black eye, the dried blood across the front of the kid’s shirt and in his short brown hair.

  “Please,” he repeated. “I have to get out of the city. I need to get home, to get to my brother.”

  “Where’s home?” Ramon asked, adrenaline ratcheting down as recognized the panic in the boy’s eyes.

  “Index.”

  “Long ways from here,” Ben said through the open window. “But we got room for another if you’re willing to help us. Mayhap we can get you partway at least.”

  “Thanks. I mean…thanks.” The kid backhanded tears from his eyes. “I’ll do anything.”

  “Come on then,” June called from the back seat. “You can sit up front with the men.”
>
  The kid ran around the canted door, climbed in, and scooted across the bench seat to make room for Ramon.

  Ramon got in and slammed the door. “We going to save the whole city?” he asked Ben, over the kid’s head.

  “Nope,” Ben said, stopping the truck. “Just the ones that ask.”

  Ramon glanced toward the department store. “What are we doing here?”

  “Shopping,” Ben said. “Then we’re going to try and get to the clinic. If we’re lucky we’ll make it there by the time they open in the morning.”

  12

  There were a few people going in and out of the Fred Meyers store, but nothing like the chaos on the highway behind them. Ramon realized, as Ben parked in a handicap spot right by the front doors, that the customers were predominantly young men carrying electronics. He snorted. Idiots. When did they think electricity was going to come back on?

  Ben reached across the kid and dug around in the glove box. He produced a handicap placard and carefully hung it from the rear view mirror. It was an odd juxtaposition between how insane the world now was, and how normal his motion was. Ramon stared at the placard a moment, then shook his head and got out. The boy followed, and then Ramon pulled the seat forward and June began the laborious process of levering herself out of the back seat.

  “No one’s thinking long term yet,” she said, wheezing.

  “Works for us,” Ben answered. “Gives us time to get what we need. We got to be fast though.”

  When they were out of the truck, except for Marie, who still slept, Ben faced them.

  “What’s your name, young man?”

  “Artair Beaumont.”

  “Think you can keep this young lady here safe?” He gestured back to Marie.

  Ramon opened his mouth but Ben held his hand up. “We need to get as much as we can, as fast as we can. Alegria, even with her injured arm, can get clothes for her and her sister.” Ben pointed a finger at Alegria. “Warm clothes, not fancy.”

  Ramon shook his head. “No way. Sorry kid, but I don’t know you.”