by Ellis, Tara
Danny hadn’t considered that. In Helena, the fire and police shared a building so she knew the officers well. She thought of how many of them had young families and knew that Sam was right. Especially without any way to travel or communicate, they’d be hunkering down and doing what needed to be done to protect their loved ones, just like everyone else.
Glass crunched under her feet as Danny followed Sam into the building. Less than ten feet inside the doors, a wall of darkness greeted them and she squinted, trying to make out the murky shapes. One of the shapes was moving.
Gasping, Danny stepped back out of the way as an old man came stumbling toward them. He was clasping a bag to his chest, bottles of alcohol peeking out the top. His eyes were wild.
“My candle went out,” he muttered, looking back the way he’d come. “Couldn’t get it lit again. I couldn’t…” He wiped at his nose and then focused on Danny. “It’s the end, you know. Have you repented?”
Sam pulled at Danny’s arm, leading her deeper into the shadows. The old man watched them as they moved and she couldn’t seem to look away until she was swallowed by the darkness. Grace pushed into her legs and growled low in her throat, bringing them both to a stop.
“What is it, girl?” Danny cooed, reaching out to set a hand on her head. Couldn’t dogs see in the dark? Oh my gosh…
“Here,” Sam barked before pulling them both forward several more steps.
Danny bumped into something. Reaching out, she could just make out the shape of a checkout stand in the last tendrils of light from the front of the store. She looked back longingly at the dim squares, knowing those too would be dark soon as the sun finished setting.
Sam was making a racket and it sounded like he was demolishing the candy rack in the check-out line. “What are you doing?”
“Ah-ha!” His exclamation was followed by a clicking noise and then a small flare of glorious light appeared, highlighting his face. He’d found the long-neck camping lighters often stocked in the “guilt lane”, where the captive shoppers were forced to look at the last-minute items while waiting.
Danny had at least four of those scattered around her house. She gratefully took the one Sam handed to her and after lighting it, stuffed the other three that were left into her back pockets. The small circle of light wasn’t much, but it was so much better than nothing that she could have cried with relief.
“Over here,” Sam directed, moving off to the left. “Most of the superstores I’ve been in have all the food near the entrances, and the sporting and house stuff in the far back corner.”
Danny kept a hand on Grace’s back as they walked and she wished she had a leash, if only for the comfort of knowing that the dog was close by. She sniffed at the goods that were strewn across the floor, evidence of the chaos that must have ensued immediately following the original event. Danny called Grace away from a mysterious puddle as she picked her way through cans of soup and ruptured bags of cereal.
Strange noises echoed through the vast space and Danny strained to identify them. A scraping sound from far away, like someone possibly pushing a heavy item. Rapid footfalls…running? A woman sobbing, muttered unintelligible words, a man yelling in response. Breaking glass, or was it someone walking on broken glass?
As they rounded another aisle, Sam stopped suddenly and Danny barely avoided lighting his hair on fire. “Sam, you can’t—” she began, but then saw it.
Halfway down the aisle, a young woman had a baby strapped to her chest. She was holding a flickering candle and it afforded just enough light to make it clear that the child wasn’t alive. At her feet was a shopping bag that she was filling with baby food. “Shhhhh…,” she whispered, holding a finger to her mouth. The woman’s eyes darted back and forth between them and then she gathered the bag and ran in the other direction.
Danny swallowed down the rising bile in her throat. The headache she’d been nursing blossomed with renewed force and she staggered back a step. Any excitement she’d had at finding some food vanished and she wanted nothing more than to get out of there.
Sam was pulling at her again. “Come on, Danny. We have to do this.”
She knew he was right and Danny allowed Sam to lead her another fifty feet and into what looked like the home and garden section. This part of the store was relatively unscathed in comparison to the rest and her hopes rose.
“Here’s the camping section.”
Danny moved up next to Sam and tried to think clearly about what they should take. It was hard with the pounding going on in her head. “What I really need is some Advil,” she moaned, pressing her fingers to her temple.
“It’s worse?” Sam looked concerned. “I woke up with a headache this morning, but it isn’t too bad yet.”
“Yet,” Danny echoed. Although neither of them had said it, she was worried that they were suffering from radiation poisoning. All the Advil in the world wouldn’t do anything about that.
Sam held his lighter out and began moving it up and down the aisle. He stopped in front of the backpacks and picked two of the largest ones. “Here.” He tossed one at her. “Sleeping bag, tarp, rope, knife, and fire-making stuff. I’ll get a tent.”
Danny was already kneeling down at the other end and pulling items from the shelf. “LifeStraws!” she shouted triumphantly and then slapped a hand over her mouth. She’d rather not advertise their location to the other…shoppers.
Sam smiled broadly at her find. The water filters would allow them to drink safely from practically any source. It was a potentially life-saving discovery. He tossed a bottle of water purifying tablets at her. “Just in case the straw gets plugged up.”
Danny spent ten minutes picking out the necessary equipment and then jammed it all into the pack. It would be heavy, but there was no way around it. The bikes were sounding more and more like a great idea. Before she could find Sam to ask him if he thought they had bicycles at the store, she heard the tell-tale clicking of a mountain bike. She was shocked when a light clicked on, exposing Sam astride the bike. He was holding a working flashlight.
“How?” Danny stuttered.
“I had a theory.” Sam dismounted and tossed the light at Danny. “The EMP shouldn’t have affected batteries, so long as they weren’t attached to anything. Same goes for a flashlight that didn’t have a battery in it, if it isn’t an LED bulb. I simply got a new flashlight and put some new batteries in it. “Voila!” He clicked on a second light.
Danny laughed and then winced at the fresh pain it caused in her temple. For the first time, things were looking up. She grunted under the weight of the backpack and the deep ache in her arm as she donned it, but held the flashlight tightly. She saw it as a symbol of hope. She moved toward Sam and the bike with a new sense of purpose, but a wave of nausea and dizziness overtook her.
Falling to her knees, Danny dropped the flashlight and it spun across the floor as she vomited violently, until it clattered under the shelf of camping gear and went dark.
Chapter 20
TOM
North of Blackfoot, Idaho
They sat astride the horses, watching the farmhouse. The northern lights danced in the sky, reaching down and seemingly caressing the tops of the trees in the distance. New colors were appearing, including blue and white. Tom didn’t know what it meant, but assumed it wasn’t anything good.
“Are we going to go knock or not?” Ethan pushed. They’d been on the horses for more than twelve hours and they were all, horses and men, exhausted.
Tom shifted his weight, far beyond finding a position of comfort on the horse’s back. It would have been bad enough with a good saddle, and with nothing more than a blanket, his thighs were raw.
The old farmhouse reminded him of the one down the road from their own ranch, and the flickering light in the front window was inviting. Tom knew they had to be cautious, but he was also a man who believed in following his gut and right now it told him the people inside those walls were okay. It also told him that he was very hungry
, low on water, and in serious need of something soft to sit on. He urged his horse forward.
When they were still twenty feet away, Tom turned to his son. “Stay here.” He slid from his mount and his legs buckled as soon as they hit the ground, causing him to stagger sideways. Tom caught himself on the railing of the porch as the front door opened.
An older man with hunched shoulders, a large stomach, and crazy gray hair stood looking down at him, a rifle cradled casually in his arms. “Well now,” he boomed with a deep voice full of humor. “It looks as if you two might be in need of some dinner.”
A woman of roughly the same size and dimensions moved up next to the man, her hair contained in a loose bun atop her head. She wiped her hands on an apron tied around her ample waist. “Ed, put that rifle away. If the good Lord sees fit to send thieves our way, I suppose they won’t go away with much. But we’re happy to share what we have. We were just getting ready to eat. I’ll go set the table for two more.” She winked at Ethan before disappearing back in the house.
“Your horses need waterin’?” Ed asked as he set the rifle inside the door.
“Yes sir,” Ethan answered, moving closer on Tango.
“That’s a fine quarter horse you got here.” Ed gestured to Tango. “Be a shame to not treat him right.” He moved down the steps and reached a hand out to Tom. “Ed Hanson.”
“Tom and Ethan Miller,” Tom answered as he took the man’s leathery hand in a strong grip. “We were taking our horses back to my cattle ranch in Montana when we got stranded outside Pocatello.”
Ed whistled. “That’s a long haul, but I suppose man traveled a lot farther on horseback for hundreds of years, so you ought to make it without too much trouble.” He moved with purpose toward a nearby barn, taking the lead rope for their pack horse as he went. “We’ll put ’em in the back pasture. There’s a pond with good drinking water and plenty of tall grass to graze on.”
Ethan happily dismounted after an encouraging nod from Tom and they followed the man through his property as the night thickened. Tom figured it was close to nine at night and guessed Mrs. Hanson hadn’t really been in the process of setting out dinner. He smiled. “This is very kind of you, Ed. Thank you. We’ve encountered a lot of people who weren’t as generous.”
The three men worked quietly for a few minutes, removing the gear and tack from the horses, before turning them loose. As they walked back to the house, the older man finally answered. “Tom…Ethan, I think it’s easy to forget ourselves when we’re faced with the unexpected. I’ve seen it a time or two in my life and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t always reacted the right way. But it’s moments like this that define us, and after what’s happened? It could very well define the future of the human race.”
Tom hesitated at the bottom of the stairs as Ethan followed the man up onto the porch. He knew something.
Ed looked back at him and must have seen the questioning look on his face. “Come inside and eat something, Tom. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.”
Tom was astonished to find the kitchen table loaded down with steaks, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. Multiple candles were lit, providing plenty of light to see all of the food. “Mrs. Hanson, I’m not sure what to say.”
“It’s Marnie to my friends, and you don’t need to say anything.” Marnie set a pitcher of water on the table. “In this heat, the freezer lost its hold this afternoon and the meat started to thaw. It won’t be safe to eat come tomorrow, so we cooked up as much as we dared. This is dinner number two.”
“I’m going to get the smoker going here in a bit,” Ed added. “It won’t be the best jerky I’ve made, but I figure it’ll do. No sense letting any of it go to waste.”
“I don’t care why all of this food is here,” Ethan said as he pulled a chair out from the table. “I just don’t want anyone to wake me up from this dream.”
Marnie laughed and handed Ethan a glass. “You remind me of my great-grandson.” She got a far-away look in her eyes and then turned away quickly.
“Our kids are on the east coast,” Ed said, as if that would explain everything.
Tom tilted his head quizzically at Ed, who gestured to the food. “Eat,” he ordered. “Then talk.”
Forty-five minutes later, Tom sat in Ed’s comfortable living room, nursing a warm glass of Jim Beam. He wished he hadn’t eaten so much steak, as it was threatening to make a repeat appearance. The old adage that ignorance was bliss came to him and he fought against the desire to get thoroughly drunk.
Ed tapped on his own glass with his finger, staring at Tom over its rim. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
The lone candle on the table in between them lent more suspense to the atmosphere, throwing both of their faces into shadows. Tom relinquished the cup without taking another drink. He needed to stay sober. “How does this guy know the whole world was affected? How can he be sure?”
“Well, I don’t suppose he can,” Ed agreed. “But while Virgil is an angry old cuss, the man is a serious prepper. Lived through two wars, the Depression, and it’s rumored even Area 51.” Ed winked, then sighed when Tom didn’t take the bait. “Look, he’s got his whole cellar rigged against these EMPs, which is why his radio still works. Now, I couldn’t understand all the clicking that was going on, but I’ve been his neighbor for fifty years and I believe him. Says it was an explosion from space and that it impacted to the south. The whole world may be without power, Tom, and it sounds like a large portion of the population just got reduced.”
Tom hung his head. “I heard something similar earlier today. A physics professor told someone he thought it was radiation from a star exploding.”
Ed nodded. “Yup. Sounds about right. Someone just hit the reboot button.”
“Do you think Hawaii is okay?” Ethan stood in the archway between the kitchen and the family room, a half-eaten apple in his hand. Tom cringed, wondering how much he’d overheard.
Ed glanced at Tom first and then pointed at the remaining seat in the room. Once Ethan sat down the older man rose with a grunt, lumbered over to a desk in the far corner and retrieved an old-fashioned globe on a rotating stand. “Here,” he said. Setting it on the table next to the candle, he pointed toward Africa and the south Atlantic Ocean. “They figure this beam of radiation struck somewhere in here. If I had a flashlight, we could do a better simulation, but imagine this light can penetrate the ground and then come out somewhere over here.” He spun the globe to point to Russia and China. “Now, we don’t know for certain, of course, although that’s the theory, based on the reports coming in. It’s way too early to get much more than a rough idea of things, but here—” He spun the globe again, to point at Hawaii on the other side of the globe. “I reckon if they’re right, then these islands here might be the safest place on the planet right now.”
The relief on Ethan’s face was enough to soften the blow the earlier news had delivered, and Tom smiled gratefully at Ed. He raised his glass again, deciding one more drink wouldn’t hurt.
Ethan slowly spun the globe and took another bite of his apple. “How much of the population?”
Tom downed the rest of the glass. So, Ethan had heard the whole conversation. “People who weren’t killed right away are getting sick from the radiation,” he explained, deciding not to sugarcoat it. “They’re sick on the East Coast.”
“Like the birds…and the dog?” Ethan’s hand stopped and hovered over the globe. He looked up at his dad, his eyes deep wells in the flickering candlelight. “I’ve had a headache for a few hours.”
Tom’s stomach clenched and he again regretted both the meat and the whiskey. “No, worse.” There was no escaping the truth; they’d been brutally thrust into it. He didn’t know a thing about radiation, the different kinds, or what it did, so he couldn’t even pretend to explain what was happening.
“Virgil said he thinks we’ll be okay here, eventually,” Ed offered. “Said this gamma stuff isn’t the same as from a nuke, so it’s not like it
gets into stuff and stays there. Said it’s like a particle moving quickly and it goes right through ya. Small amounts don’t do enough so you feel it, but get enough of those buggers banging around in your cells and bad things happen. The bigger the dose, the faster you feel it. He said if it was gonna kill us, we’d already be dead or dying by now.”
Tom knew Ed meant it as a pep-talk, but he wasn’t feeling all that great about the news. “The dead birds? And we saw a couple of animals today that were sick.”
“Yup, I’ve got myself a headache.” Ed again rose and went to the same desk. He began rummaging around in the drawers. “Virgil said our bodies can repair minor damage like what he thinks we’ve got. We’ll feel a might crappy for a time, though we should be okay. Ah! Here it is.”
“The horses seem okay,” Ethan said.
“Some animals are going to be more sensitive than others,” Marnie said as she came into the room. “Let’s hope the larger critters and ones in our food chain aren’t impacted too much.” She sat on the arm of Ed’s chair and looked up at him as he returned, a small item clasped in his hand.
Kissing the top of Marnie’s head, Ed settled next to her and then moved the globe to the floor. In its place, he plopped his fist on the table and then turned it over, slowly opening it to reveal what looked like a dull-colored rock.
Curious, Tom leaned forward and could see that it was oddly shaped with several ridges. “What’s that?”
“A trilobite,” Ed announced. When both Tom and Ethan looked at him blankly, he tried again. “A prehistoric fossil.”
“Cool,” Ethan said. “Can I see it?”
“I want you to have it,” Ed stated as he placed it in Ethan’s hand. “As a reminder.”
Ethan held the fossil up to the candle and turned it over slowly, examining it. “A reminder of what?”
“That this little crustacean survived on this planet over five hundred million years ago.” Ed turned his attention to Tom. “A crustacean. It made it through not one, but two extinction events, Tom, and I’d like to believe that we’re somewhat smarter and better prepared than that little guy was.”