He said, “Amy…”
She turned, and Zachary wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her. Not a peck, either. He kissed her like the movie stars kissed in the movies.
Amy, caught totally off guard and not quite knowing what to do, did the only thing that came to her mind. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back.
It was a kiss of only a few seconds duration, but it was long enough to get his point across.
He broke free and took a step back. Somehow both of his hands found hers, and he looked into her deep brown eyes.
“Amy, I love you. I’ve always loved you. I just wanted you to know that.”
Amy didn’t say a word. She was still shocked by what happened, and didn’t have a clue what to say.
But it didn’t matter. No words were necessary on her part. Zachary did what needed to be done. He smiled at Amy and winked at her, then turned on his heels and walked out of the classroom.
Most of the girls stood watching with their mouths hanging open. One of the boys said, “Wait until Danny finds out.”
Another said, “Zach will be dead meat then.”
Mr. Jenkins called out, “Zachary, where are you going?”
He got no answer.
Zachary walked out of the class and into the semi-darkened hallway with the strangest smile on his face. And despite all the chaos that was going on outside the school at that moment, he was on cloud nine.
-27-
“Ball! ball!”
Jordan was wide open. He’d lost his man and had a clear line to the basket. He looked up court and caught his buddy Jason’s eye, and Jason let loose a long cross court pass aimed right for him.
The lights in the gym suddenly went out, half a second before the basketball hit Jordan squarely in the face.
“Dammit!”
He immediately tasted blood from a busted lip and felt the trickle of warm blood slowly rolling from his left nostril.
He went down to one knee.
The P.E. coach, Coach Garner, yelled, “Okay, nobody panic. Everybody just feel your way over to the door and we’ll wait outside.
The P.E. gymnasium at Oliver Wendell Holmes High School was not attached to the school. It was an outbuilding separated from the school by the faculty parking lot. The gym had no windows, and it was pitch black inside.
Jordan pinched his tender nose and tilted his head back to stop the bleeding, all the while hoping it wasn’t broken. He slowly made his way toward the exit, and when he was halfway there one of his classmates found it and propped it open. Sunlight came flooding in to mark the way to the outside world for the rest of the boys.
He was drenched in sweat. When Jordan played ball, he played for keeps. The breeze outside the gym felt good. His lip and nose were another matter completely.
Coach Garner came over and asked, “You okay, Harter? You need to go see the nurse for an ice pack?”
“No, sir. I’m okay.”
Jordan and his friends chased each other through the parking lot, killing time while waiting for the lights to come back on in the gym.
They stopped as soon as the vice principal, Mr. Martin, came out of the admin building and headed for his car.
They watched as Mr. Martin tried using his keyless remote to unlock his car, and chuckled at the baffled look on his face when it wouldn’t work.
They continued to watch while he manually unlocked the door and got inside the car. Twenty seconds later, he stepped back out of the car, raised the hood, and peered under it.
One of the boys behind Jordan muttered under his breath, “That’s what you get for buying a piece of crap.”
He’d never say that loud enough for Mr. Martin to hear it, of course. But in his mind, it strengthened his street cred and got some laughs from some of his buddies.
Perhaps it was because his attention was still focused on his sore nose and bloody lip. Jordan had just witnessed a blackout, and the vice principal’s car breaking down.
But it still didn’t click.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, Jordan saw something else.
At the entrance to the parking lot, a few minutes before, another teacher had been pulling in. His car had also stalled, fifty yards away, and he was also out of his car and looking under his hood.
The light finally came on in Jordan’s head. He slipped away to the edge of the parking lot and climbed on the hood of a pickup truck. From his higher vantage point, he could see over a row of shrubbery and down to Ingram Street in front of the school.
To a sea of dead vehicles and frustrated drivers.
Jordan immediately turned and headed back into the gym.
It was still pitch black, of course. The sunlight only penetrated a few feet into the doorway. So very slowly, and very carefully so as not to hurt his already damaged face, he felt his way along the outer wall of the gym.
At one point he tripped over a pair of gym shoes someone had carelessly thrown up against the wall, but he didn’t go down.
At the end of the west wall, he turned a corner and felt his way along the north wall of the gym twelve feet or so until he came to the doorway leading into the boys locker room.
Through the door he went into another sea of darkness. He knew that straight ahead there were five banks of lockers. He walked slowly though the blackness, both hands in front of him, until he felt the cold steel of the lockers.
From here he was home free. His was the second locker from the end and was easy to locate. He took the locker key hanging from a chain around his neck and used the fingers of both hands to insert the key into his padlock.
Once the lock was open he let it fall away to the floor. He knew he wouldn’t be needing it again.
As he changed in the darkness, his mind raced a mile a minute. He knew he had to get out of here, and he knew how. What worried him was what his sudden departure would do to Sara. They hadn’t been going together for long, but they’d hit it off great from the start. He really liked her, and she’d already confessed in a tender moment a few days before that she was falling in love with him.
There were two things that worried him. The first was that he still hadn’t told her about the blackout, or his family’s plan to disappear into the hill country when it happened.
The second thing that worried him was that Sara was a very sensitive girl. Not unlike a very delicate flower. She seemed somehow quite vulnerable, although she still hadn’t explained to him exactly why.
It was because of that vulnerability that he worried what effect his sudden disappearance would have on her. Would she feel betrayed? Heartbroken? Abandoned?
He was suddenly very sad that he wasn’t going to have a chance to tell her goodbye.
It took him a full twenty minutes to get dressed. When he was finally done, he turned slowly in the darkness and made his way back into the gymnasium.
This time traversing the gym was a piece of cake. With the double doors still propped open on the far side of the gym, he had a beacon of light to guide him, and nothing to block his way. He merely aimed himself at the light and jogged toward it.
A couple of his friends, sitting on the steps outside and still in their P.E. gear, were surprised to see Jordan coming quickly out the door in jeans and a t-shirt. As he jumped off the stoop, they shouted after him, “Hey, man! Where are you going?”
He ignored them and went on his way.
The student parking lot was on the opposite end of the main building. It was a relatively short walk though one of the main hallways, but when the hallways were black as the night, it would take too long to get through them. He figured it would be quicker to walk around the school.
And it was while walking around the school, past the orchestra hall, that he encountered Sara.
-28-
Linda was in her car that Monday morning, going out to do a home visit on one of the clients for her home health company. She’d been in the Cruz home several times in the past, and had always walked away with a smile on h
er face.
They were a sweet old couple who’d been married for forty something years, and were still very much in love.
During her last home visit, Rosa Cruz asked Linda out of the blue if she liked to waltz.
Linda said she didn’t know how.
Rosa said, “Oh, you should learn ballroom dancing. We were watching a television program last night, called ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ They were doing the waltz, and it brought back so many memories.”
Her loving husband Charlie, as if on cue, got up from his easy chair and walked over to her. He held out his hand and said, “May I have this dance?”
Rosa blushed, as she probably did for their first dance fifty years before. And then she stood up and let him whirl her across the floor. Linda just stood back and watched. And smiled.
Somehow these two always managed to restore her faith in love and humanity.
She was looking forward to this morning’s visit with Rosa and Charlie and had even stopped to buy Rosa a bouquet of flowers.
As Linda sat at a traffic light on Bitters Road, She saw what she would later describe to Joyce as a mirage-type wave in the distance.
“You know, like when you’re driving through the desert, and way ahead on the road in front of you, the highway seems to get all wavy and blurred. It was kinda like that. All the buildings in the distance suddenly got blurry.
“Then the traffic lights went out, and my car died at the same time. It freaked me out, but just a bit. Then I looked around and realized that everybody else’s cars had also died. The marquee at the movie theater there at the intersection, that had been advertising movies and show times just a few seconds before, was now black. That’s when I really started to freak out.”
Linda froze in her car seat, unsure of what to do. She stared straight ahead for a full two minutes, wondering if Scott’s prediction was really coming true.
She had only half believed him about the blackout. She’d always known that he was a smart man, and not prone to wild conspiracy theories or outlandish tales. But at the same time, she didn’t want the blackout to happen. And that part of her always hoped that he was just crazy, and that his prediction would never come true.
Finally, she knew she had to act. After trying her ignition key a couple of times, just to make sure, she stepped out of the car. She took her keys and her purse and carefully locked her car. Then she laughed at her own stupidity. It wasn’t like anyone was going to get in it and drive away.
She went to her trunk and opened it with her key. Reaching into the back of the trunk, she dragged the backpack forward and opened it up. She took her pocketbook and a few essential items from her purse and threw them into the backpack. No sense carrying both for the long journey that was to come.
Scott had showed her how to assemble the bicycle in her trunk. He was patient with her, because he knew that she had no aptitude for anything mechanical.
“There are just three steps,” he’d explained.
“Take the frame out first and put it upside down. I bought you one of the lightest frames on the market. It may look heavy, but you’ll be amazed at how light it is.
“Put the back wheel on first. You can tell the back wheel because it’s the one with the sprockets on it.
“Be sure you remember to wrap the chain around the smallest sprocket and then to slide the wheel all the way back in the channel. Then tighten the wing nuts as tight as you can get them.
“After the back wheel is on, put the front wheel on. Again, tighten the wing nuts as tightly as you can. Once the front wheel is on, you’re ready to ride.”
Scott had even had her assemble the bike three or four times in front of him, just to make sure she could do it. And when she assembled it without problems, he had her ride it around and helped her adjust the handlebars and seat.
With the memory of Scott’s training as her guide, Linda was able to assemble the bike and ride away from her car within five minutes or so. A couple of people tried to flag her down to ask her for help. As Scott had instructed, she ignored them and rode right past.
“You don’t know who may be a good person, and who may just push you aside and take your bike,” he’d said. “And besides, there will be absolutely nothing you can do to help them. You cannot give them a ride. You cannot go to a telephone and call for help. You are no use to them at all. So just pass them by and get yourself to my house as quickly as you can.”
Even with a bicycle to aid her in her journey, Linda was still almost twenty miles from Scott’s house in north San Antonio. She would indeed get there as quickly as possible.
But it would still take awhile.
-29-
Scott rolled over in bed and through groggy eyes wondered why it was so bright in the room. Then he noticed a note from Joyce on the pillow beside him.
He’d had a rough night’s sleep, tossing and turning most of the night and trying to get comfortable. He’d strained his back the day before. Nothing serious, and he didn’t even realize how he did it. All he knew was that even after six Tylenol, he was still looking at the ceiling at three in the morning wondering if he’d ever sleep again.
He’d obviously dozed off sometime after that, and had managed to sleep through his usual Monday morning routine of getting up, having breakfast with Joyce, Linda and the boys, and bidding them all goodbye as they left for the day.
He rubbed his eyes and read the note Joyce had left.
Hi honey.
Decided you needed your rest more than breakfast so I turned off your alarm. Jordan is taking Zach to school. I expect a late day so I’ll pick them up at your house and bring them home tonight. Expect us around seven. Let me know if you want me to stop and pick up dinner. Love you.
Scott smiled and thought how lucky he was to have a woman in his life as thoughtful and sweet as Joyce. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep.
He never even noticed that his bedside clock, and everything else in the house, was no longer working.
-30-
At John Jay Middle School, the halls were dark. Luckily, the doors at the end of each hallway were propped open during most of the school day unless the weather was bad. And today was a beautiful day.
Zachary stepped out of his algebra class after doing something he should have done years before but didn’t have the guts. Now he felt accomplished and emboldened. He turned to his right and strode down the hallway with a purpose.
Luckily, his locker was close enough to the exit doors to be dimly lit. He only screwed up the combination once. He second time he slowed down a bit and nailed it.
He took the black backpack down from the hook where he dutifully hung it each day when he got to school. He never used it during the school day. He was smart enough to not need most of his textbooks, so unless he had a specific reading assignment in American Lit, he seldom took his books to class. This “doomsday bag,” as he had come to call it, therefore sat on its hook from morning to afternoon, when he’d retrieve it just before getting on school bus 245 for the long ride home.
But not today. Today the doomsday bag was being liberated a little earlier than usual.
“Shouldn’t you be in class?”
Zachary turned to see Coach Zarzamora.
There wasn’t any love lost between the two. Coach Zarzamora was the man who terrorized Zachary on the track on a daily basis, belittling him for his lack of athletic skills and forcing him to run an endless number of laps.
“Nope. Not anymore.”
Coach Zarzamora was not used to being sassed.
“Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Zachary put the black backpack on his back, slammed the locker shut, and turned to face the hated coach. And for the second time on this day, he found the inner strength and courage to do something he never would have thought of doing before.
He looked Coach Zarzamora in the eyes and said, “Figure it out yourself, dumbass.”
Then he walked out the door and never looked back.
He walked across the school parking lot and was stopped by a desperate motorist.
“Excuse me,” the man said. “I have to make a phone call. Which way is the office?”
“It’s through that door over there. But none of the phones are working.”
He saw the look of disappointment on the man’s face and felt bad for him. But there was nothing he could do to help, and he had his own problems to deal with.
He tried his best to remember everything his father had told him.
“If the blackout happens while you’re at school, you’ll have to walk home. I know it’s a long way. But trust me, son, you can do this. I have faith in you. You are strong in body and mind, and you can do it.
“The pack has bottles of water and granola bars. Do not take them out in public. People will be desperate to have them and might take them from you. If anybody asks what’s in the backpack, tell them school books and keep walking.
“Walk down the freeway. It’s the most direct route. It will look like a parking lot. All of the cars will be dead and abandoned.
“When you get thirsty or hungry, crawl inside one of the abandoned cars. Only then do I want you to take the water and granola bars out of the bag. Duck down in the seats as much as you can so people cannot see you have food and water. If they see you, they may try to take them from you. And they may be violent when they do.
“While you’re ducking down in the seats, I want you to take the little metal box out of the backpack. Open it up and take out the walkie talkie. There’s a card in there also. Read the instructions on the card and follow them to the letter.”
To a good kid like Zachary, who was used to following all the rules, he felt like a fish out of water.
He actually felt guilty walking off campus in the middle of a school day, despite the circumstances. It just seemed to go against his grain, and he even turned around a couple of times to see if the school’s truant officers were following him.
When he got to the street corner, he instinctively stopped and waited for the “walk” sign to illuminate. After a few seconds, he realized his folly and stepped out into a once bustling street that now more resembled a parking lot than a thoroughfare.
Countdown to Armageddon Page 12