Next World Series (Vol. 1): Families First

by Ewing, Lance K.

  “Well,” she said to Ringo. “It’s just you and me, big boy, a glass of wine, my 9mm pistol, and a good book. She was thankful that Lance had left a couple of headlamp lights in the faraday bags, along with a dozen or so other items, like radios, walkie-talkies, flashlights and chargers.

  She dozed off quickly, exhausted from the day, with Ringo laying on the floor right by the couch.

  Lucy returned home to find a large crowd of neighbors in her driveway. The jovial party atmosphere from earlier was replaced by a serious tone. “What’s going on?” asked Lucy, not trying to sound overly concerned.

  “We have been talking,” reported Jeff, “and we want some answers.”

  “What did you say?” asked Lucy. She was getting upset now at Jeff’s tone.

  “We heard what Joy’s boys said and I tried to talk to her but she just brushed me off,” he continued. “Something is happening and we deserve to know everything.”

  “Nothing is happening tonight,” replied Lucy sternly. “Lance will be home by tomorrow and I will tell him what you said. I’m going to bed and I suggest you all do the same.” With that, she walked into her house. Thank you for the flashlight, Joy, she thought.

  The group remained outside in her driveway for another two hours, only able to see by the light of the barbecue coals and a few cigarette lighters. The conversations ranged from going back to work in a few days to the Zombie apocalypse portrayed in the popular series The Walking Dead.

  Around 10 p.m. they all found their way home.

  * * * * * * *

  Chapter Seven ~ Plano, Texas

  It was getting dark as we walked towards the exit from their neighborhood. We had ten miles to go and at three miles per hour we could be at my house by 11:30 tonight. That thought made me smile.

  We were making good time, with Danny in Jake’s cart napping on top of all their worldly belongings. There were a lot less people on the road than earlier in the day. I guessed most travelers had made it home by now.

  I wondered about all those poor people who were farther away from home, maybe hundreds of miles or states away, like Tina’s boyfriend. Would they ever find their way to their loved ones? How did Tina think she would find her boyfriend in all of this? Would my families be OK?

  I grew up in Colorado but the other half of my family lived in Lake Charles, Louisiana. They would no doubt head to their hunting and fishing camp on Toledo Bend Reservoir. The large lake borders both Louisiana and Texas and is about 100 miles from their home in Lake Charles. My natural father, stepmother, two brothers, a sister and their families would all find their way there quickly.

  I had been out there a few times duck hunting and was looking forward to taking the twins, starting this year, now that they were four. I had always thought they had a good setup if things went bad. There were plenty of deer, ducks, squirrels and fish to keep even a large group viable for years. It made me feel good, knowing they would be OK even if I never made it to the camp.

  We continued on with our carts. I knew the way like the back of my hand. There were no lights on the street, like there used to be, and we all agreed to keep headlamps and flashlights off so we didn’t end up being a target. Thankfully we had a near-full moon and clear skies.

  My mind drifted to my childhood days in Colorado, when we would stay up way after dark and hike into the mountains behind the Ranch with nothing but a full moon and clear skies. We could see like it was daytime. It was peaceful and there was no better feeling of freedom in the world.

  In about an hour we were at the junction of Preston Road and the 121 Freeway. Sam Rayburn, I think it was called, but everyone called the freeways around here by the numbers instead of the names. All except for the George Bush Tollway, which was just called “The Bush” by most.

  From this point, we were about six miles from my house. The air had cooled and walking was much easier than in the heat of the day. We were finding our stride and making good time, weaving around stalled-out cars to stay on the paved road. The former occupants were all gone. I wondered if they all got home… Surely some would be ten to hundreds of miles from home.

  We headed around a dark-colored minivan and we could hear someone crying softly. I was in the lead and told everyone to stop.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked Jake.

  “Yeah,” he acknowledged. “We need to check it out… Nancy, cover us,” he told her.

  We walked around the front of the van to the passenger side. The front of the vehicle was smashed in and the windshield shattered. I looked around to see what the van had hit but realized it could have been any other car I saw on the road. Most of the cars on this freeway would have been going at least the posted speed limit of 70 miles per hour when they abruptly lost all power.

  As we approached I said, “Hello! Are you OK?” The crying intensified and we heard “Please help us… Please help.” There was no doubt now that this was a young girl’s voice. Jake and I got the side door open and shined our flashlights into the back. Two girls lay in fetal positions in the back of the van, sobbing, with their faces stained by dried blood.

  “Don’t be afraid,” we told them. “We are going to help you.”

  “What about Mommy?” asked the older-looking one, who was probably six. “She went to get help a long time ago and didn’t come back.”

  Jake called to Nancy to bring the first-aid kit. “It’s OK. We have some kids here,” he added. Nancy opened the first-aid kit. She and Tina got the girls sitting up before checking them for injuries.

  “I worked as a nurse in the Guard,” she told me, without looking over. “Where do you hurt, Sweetie?” she asked the younger one, who was about four years old.

  “On my face,” she said. She had multiple cuts, with none looking too serious. Even a small cut on the face will bleed like there’s no tomorrow. They gave the girls some water. It was clear they hadn’t had anything to drink for a while.

  “My name is Nancy,” she said, “and this is Tina. What are your names?”

  “My name is Suzie,” responded the older girl, “and my sister is Veronica.” Suzie and Veronica were the sweetest African American girls. Jax and Hudson had just learned about that in their elementary school class. Their teacher was African American and she taught them that she had brown skin and they had peach-colored skin. That was the only difference in their minds, including all other races. Jax would ask me why my and Hudson’s skin was brown and his was white, even though we all were considered Caucasian on government forms. When I heard this, I realized how much society and politics shape our youth.

  After a thorough check, Nancy declared them both to be OK. “Suzie has a bump on her head and both have cuts from broken glass, but they are going to be all right.”

  “Are you going to leave?” asked Veronica, starting to cry again. “No, Honey,” said Nancy. “We won’t leave you.”

  I pulled Jake aside and said, “I don’t think their mom is coming back. This accident would have happened around 10 a.m. and she probably went looking for help soon after. We have to take them to my house, but I’ll leave a note with my address and directions, just in case their mom comes back.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jake agreed. Nancy and Tina got the girls out of the van and into Nancy’s cart.

  “What about Mommy?” asked Suzie. “We’re going to leave a note for her with the address and directions of where we are going, so she will know you are safe.”

  “OK. I hope she comes back soon,” said Suzie. “Me too, Sweetie. Me too,” I replied.

  We continued down the road. Even though I wasn’t looking to add to our group, I felt good having helped these little girls. I didn’t think their mother was coming back, although I’m sure she had every intention to do so. I knew my boys and Danny would love having these girls around, even for a short time.

  We had four miles left and I was thinking, Good! Just about an hour and a half or two left and we will be home. The girls seemed relieved that they were going somewhere
, anywhere...

  We were getting close to home and I had to talk to Jake. I hung back just a little and got a few minutes with him. “There’s a grocery store about a half mile from my house, called Market Street,” I whispered.

  “We need to go there tonight after we drop off the group at my place. It will be ransacked in the next day or two—the food and the pharmacy.

  “We don’t just have a family now,” I continued. “We have a small community that is depending on us to provide for them.”

  “I get it,” acknowledged Jake. “Let’s not tell the ladies about it yet,” he added. “In the old-world, meaning yesterday, it would have sounded real bad to knock off a grocery store. Now it’s just survival, but it’s going to take a little longer for most of our group to realize it.” We got back in line and headed down the road.

  In an hour we were at the 121 Freeway and Stacy Road exit. We were just about two miles out. I could feel home now. I could smell it in the air. We were so close.

  The girls were quiet, not saying anything, but they had stopped crying. I was feeling bad for them, knowing their lives would never be the same. That was true for all of us now, but at least my kids still had their parents.

  I vowed to talk to the girls tomorrow to see where they lived and if their daddy was around. Maybe we could still get them home safe.

  Not long after, we came up to the corner of Ridge Road and Eldorado. This was my subdivision. I pointed across the road to Market Street and gave Jake a nod.

  I was now feeling my stomach knotting up. Were my wife and kids OK? Were they even here? I said a silent prayer that I would find them safe and sound.

  * * * * * * *

  Chapter Eight ~ McKinney, Texas

  I could hear Ringo barking as we got to my driveway. This set off a chain of barking dogs across the neighborhood, with some dogs indoors and others out.

  He sounded intimidating, even from the inside. “It’s OK,” I told the rest of the group. “That’s Ringo and he’s a big baby. Just don’t tell anyone,” I added, as I winked at the girls. They both smiled for the first time tonight.

  I was looking for my key when I saw a light from upstairs through the window. It had to be Joy with a flashlight or lantern, I thought. Before I could say anything, the light shone bright in my eyes. I reached up to block the light but it was gone in an instant. A minute later the front door was thrown open from the inside, and there were Joy and Ringo. She was smiling from ear to ear and I just knew the boys were OK.

  “Honey,” she beamed, “I’m so glad you’re home. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the neighbors were still here,” referring to the group I had brought home.

  “No, Honey,” I replied. “These are not neighbors. They are the people who helped me get home safe to you and the boys. They will be staying with us for a while.”

  “Well, then I had better get some sheets, blankets and pillows,” Joy stated. “Please,” she told everyone, “make yourself at home.”

  I was happy Joy was so gracious to our guests. How often can you show up with six extra people in the middle of the night and have your wife be OK with it? I fully expected a conversation about it, but it would have to wait. Jake and I still had a long night ahead of us.

  We got everyone inside and Joy, with Tina’s help, went right into making a late dinner for everyone. I was pleased to see that Joy had gotten the two-burner Coleman stove out of the garage, and a one-pound mini propane tank was already hooked to it on the back porch.

  Tina opened two large cans of Chef Boyardee raviolis and a large can of corn. This was going to be good, I thought. The girls seemed excited about it too.

  Little Veronica even spoke, saying, “Yay, spaghetti!” “Tastes just like it,” I joked, “just in squares.” Everyone laughed at that, and for the first time since it happened we all relaxed for a minute.

  After dinner, Jake and I told the ladies we had to go out for a while to check on things. They weren’t very happy about it but didn’t ask a lot of questions.

  We met in the garage and grabbed a pry bar and lock cutters. We left the carts, knowing we could most likely get one there and didn’t want to draw any more attention than we had to. We headed the half mile back down the road to Market Street, opting not to use our flashlights or headlamps until we were inside the store.

  Who else might be there? I thought. A manager or maybe some other folks who knew, like us, that this would be their only chance to beat the herd tomorrow. They may have paid in cash today but tomorrow it would be a tense, if not violent, free-for-all, with no money exchanging hands. The store was open until 10 p.m. tonight, so they would be closed now but they probably closed much earlier after the power didn’t come back on.

  We walked across the parking lot, about fifty yards from the front of the store. There were a few other people just walking around but they looked harmless. The front of the store was all windows so we could look for any light inside. I didn’t plan on going through the front door but wanted to know if we would likely run into anyone inside.

  We watched for about ten minutes, with no signs of anyone inside, so we went around to the loading dock in the back of the store. I tried the metal door out of habit but it was locked. “Glad we brought the pry bar,” noted Jake, as he worked the door. A few minutes later I heard a pop and the door swung out toward us. “Nice job,” I told him. “I can tell you’re not a rookie.”

  “You have no idea,” replied Jake. “Just stay on my good side,” he quipped jokingly. “Oh, you know it,” I said, as we slipped into the store.

  It was eerily quiet. I guess I never noticed all the sounds there usually are. Music, freezers running, carts banging, cash registers ringing and people talking.

  “OK, Jake. Let’s be quick and efficient,” I remarked. “If we are careful, and with a bit of luck, we might be able to get more than one trip in. We won’t get another chance like this.”

  “Yep,” he agreed, “but let’s stay close together. If we get compromised, I want to know right where you are.”

  “Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’m not big on being hit by friendly fire!”

  We agreed to start at the pharmacy since it was on the far side of the store and not near any windows. If we were careful, we could use our headlamps and not be seen.

  The lock on the roll-down cage door was clearly to keep out a wandering customer only and was no match for the bolt cutters. We were in quickly and scanning the shelves. “Call it out when you see it,” I commented. “Antibiotics and pain meds,” said Jake. I added epi pens and rescue inhalers. I grabbed three bottles of insulin from the fridge, not knowing yet who it might help.

  We proceeded through the rest of the over-the-counter pharmacy goodies, like Tylenol, Imodium, Benadryl, and cough syrups. We grabbed first-aid kits with extra gauze and a few dental-filling repair kits. We rounded out the first cart with a good assortment of vitamins for adults and kids.

  The next isle we looked for had rice and beans. Not real glamorous food but it would fill you up and keep you alive. We filled the entire second cart with just rice and beans.

  “Well shit,” I blurted. “We are going to need more trips.” We headed out the back door quietly with our goods and saw no one. After repositioning the door to look closed again, we made a beeline for my house. We made it there in under ten minutes, cutting through the ally.

  “No point in stopping yet,” I declared, as we left the carts in the garage. All would be asleep by now. Ringo didn’t even bark this time.

  Joy, Nancy and Tina got the girls down to sleep in Hendrix’s old room. They made a bed out of his crib mattress and some blankets. They were clearly exhausted and out within minutes of lying down.

  The ladies stayed up a while longer and talked over a bottle of Whiplash red wine. Joy liked Nancy and Tina, but none of them discussed what happened on their journeys here. There would be time for that tomorrow.

  Jake and I headed back down to the store for another round. As we reached the
back door, we found it ajar.

  “We closed that door when we left, didn’t we, Jake?” “Yep, let’s go in easy,” he cautioned. “There’s plenty here for more than us.” We pulled out our weapons and kept low, stopping every few steps to listen.

  “Let’s sweep the store,” Jake whispered before we get started. After fifteen minutes we had run the entire store and found no one. We grabbed two carts and stopped still as we heard a door open behind the courtesy desk.

  “Shit,” I muttered in a low voice. “We didn’t check the manager’s office.” There were two voices coming from the office and heading straight for us. They were laughing and sounded like teenagers. We backed up slowly but couldn’t get out of the way without being heard.