by Mike Kraus
“I said leave me the hell alone!”
“Lady, you took way too much gas! Hand over your keys, let us empty out your truck and you can go!”
“Like hell! I keep telling you assholes I was here before this whole shitshow started! That gas is mine—bought and paid for, unlike what you morons are trying to do!”
One of the four, a tall muscular man in a t-shirt advanced on the door, holding a metal pipe in his hands. He tried to be sneaky, but the building had a wraparound window and the woman spotted him before he got close.
BANG!
The shot threw up a spray of asphalt in the man’s face as the ground in front of him exploded. He dropped the pipe and threw his hands up to his eyes as he backed up, and the shouting began anew.
“We’re not leaving here till you give us those keys, lady!”
“Screw you!”
The four gathered in a huddle, with the tall man keeping a wary eye on the outbuilding. They held a hasty conversation before the older woman cast an evil grin toward the outbuilding and the woman trapped inside. “Don’t say we didn’t try to do this the nice way!”
The woman inside the outbuilding frowned as the group of four backed up, away from the outbuilding, and then shouted at the crowd near the pumps. “Hey! There’s gas over here! This lady’s got her truck and this building loaded down with cans!”
It took a moment, but the crowd slowly responded to the cries of the four, and several more people began migrating toward the outbuilding. Frank’s eyes narrowed as he watched the situation rapidly devolve, wondering what he could do to help. The woman had managed to hold off the four without much trouble, but with a larger crowd it would only be a matter of time before they rushed her. At best she would lose her vehicle and at worst… well, Frank didn’t want to consider that.
“Dammit.” Frank whispered to himself as he looked around for a way to help the woman trapped inside the outbuilding. The crowd was becoming increasingly hostile, and he was afraid of what might happen if she started shooting again.
Up the hill from the gas station, a few dozen feet away from Frank, sat a beige sedan. The paint was peeling and it looked like it had been out in the elements for a few years. It was parked in the grass off of the feeder road and pointed at the direction of the outhouse, which gave Frank an idea. He ran to the sedan and peered inside, noting with great satisfaction that it had a manual transmission. Frank tossed his backpack on the ground next to the sedan and pulled on the driver’s side door, which opened with ease.
“I guess if you have a car this ugly you don’t worry about somebody stealing it.” Frank mumbled to himself as he slid into the seat, his pants scraping over layers of old duct tape that were the only thing holding the upholstery together. The interior of the car was caked in a greasy yellow film while cigarette butts and ash were overflowing from the ashtray next to the shifter.
Frank glanced up at the outbuilding one last time as if to confirm his decision. The original four were now climbing on and inside the woman’s truck, having broken the driver’s side window to gain access to the interior. The woman inside the outbuilding wasn’t able to do anything about it, though, as the larger crowd was still shouting at her and harassing her. The only thing that appeared to be holding them back from rushing at the outbuilding and the gasoline they thought was inside was her gun, which she kept pointed at the crowd as she shouted for them to back off.
“Why is it I’m doing this?” Frank shook his head and put his foot on the sedan’s brake. “Because if I don’t, they’re going to kill her.” He popped the emergency brake off. “Of course, she might kill one of them first. Or me.” The shifter stuck as he jammed it out of first gear and into neutral. “Then again this might kill me, her and any of those assholes, too.”
Frank sighed in resignation as he let off the brake. The car began rolling forward slowly and he held tight to the wheel, trying to keep the car moving straight. When it was going a few miles an hour, he opened the driver’s side door and jammed his arm down on the horn. The noise cut through the shouting of the crowd like a knife, and they turned in unison to see the source.
Frank jumped out of the sedan and rolled twice on the grass before he could stop. He turned and watched as the crowd parted like an ocean, their attention immediately drawn to both the car and the man who had driven it into their midst. Frank cupped his hands and shouted at the woman as the car bounced along the pavement. “Run!”
Already sensing the opening, the woman was halfway out the door by the time Frank called out to her. She chased after the sedan as it rolled across the parking lot toward her truck, then impacted against the back side, bouncing off and continuing its path out behind the gas station. Two of the people in the crowd had been slow to get out of the way, and had been grazed by the sedan’s mirrors as it hurtled through their midst.
The ones who really suffered, though, were the original four who were in the midst of ransacking the woman’s truck when the sedan hit it. The two who were standing in the back throwing gas cans out onto the ground were knocked off the truck immediately, and fell to the ground with howls of pain. One was standing near the front of the truck when the sedan struck, and the truck moved several inches forward from the impact, knocking him down.
The older woman who had been shouting with the owner of the truck was in the driver’s seat, feeling around under the seats. After the sedan bounced off the side of the truck she opened the door, only to find a shotgun inches from her face.
“Get out of my truck. Now.”
The older woman snarled as she climbed out, and the owner of the truck clambered in. She locked the doors and started the truck, threw it into reverse and hit the gas as hard as she could. The wheels of the truck shrieked against the ground, throwing smoke into the air as they bit into the pavement and strove to find traction.
After watching the sedan make the crowd near the outbuilding scatter, Frank had hurried back up the hill to grab his backpack. He was planning to try and slip away when he heard the roar of an engine heading towards him. He turned to see the large green truck flying up the hill, sending dirt and grass into the air as it skidded to a stop next to him.
“Hop in, quick!” The woman gestured to the seat beside her. Frank hesitated for a split second as he looked at the crowd down at the gas station. The group that had been scattered by the sedan had regrouped. Led by the four people who were originally harassing the owner of the truck, they were streaming up the hill, shouting obscenities.
“You going to get in, or should I leave you here to talk to them?” The woman shouted at Frank again and he leapt into action, scrambling around the front of her truck and climbing in just as she hit the gas again. The truck continued backward, following the same general path Frank had taken to reach the gas station, until they hit the road. The woman spun the wheel and the truck skidded around to face the neighborhood before she put the transmission into second gear and took off.
With his pack still on his back, Frank sat sideways in his seat, awkwardly trying to keep from sliding onto the floor, bouncing up against the roof and falling sideways against the woman driving. His fingers and knuckles were bone white by the time the truck started to slow down and finally stopped after making several turns over the course of a mile.
Frank looked up at the woman, opening his mouth to comment on her driving skills when he saw the barrel of a pistol pointed straight at his chest.
“Get out.”
Frank raised his hands slowly and scooted back across the seat until he felt his pack press up against the window and door. “Hey, whoa, what’re you doing?”
“Nothing personal. I appreciate the help back there, but I don’t need any passengers.”
Frank snorted in derision and shook his head. “What the hell, lady? You were about to get eaten alive back there and this is the kind of thanks I get?”
The woman shrugged. “Like I said, nothing personal.”
“So you’re going to leave me here
with… what? Nothing? To just walk? Where am I supposed to go, exactly? Back into town for one of those maniacs to see me and remember who I am?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed and Frank saw the barrel of the gun waver ever so slightly as she weighed what he said. After a long, harrowing minute, she lowered the gun and nodded at him. “Fine. You can ride along as far as the state border. After that, though, you’re on your own.”
Frank dropped his hands slowly and let out a long sigh of relief. “I’ll take that over a hole in my chest, thanks.”
The woman slid the pistol beneath her left leg, leaving it in a position where she could easily grab it again. She motioned at Frank with a roll of her head. “Better get your pack off and on the floor and get a seatbelt on. No telling how bumpy this ride’s gonna get.”
Frank unclipped the waist strap for his backpack and shrugged it off, then slid it down onto the floor between his feet. As he reached for his seatbelt, he gave the woman a long glance, studying her in depth.
She was taller than he thought at first at around six feet, slender and sporting light tan and blonde hair pulled up into a tight ponytail. She was wearing jeans with mud and grass stains around the cuffs and a button-down long-sleeved work shirt that was rolled up to her elbows. The woman looked to be in her early thirties and she and her truck both smelled like motor oil and gasoline. The stains on her arms and the backs of her hands spoke to the fact that she had been working on some sort of vehicle recently.
Frank stuck out his hand as she jammed the truck into gear and coughed. “My name’s Frank, by the way. Frank Richards.”
The woman glanced at him, then at his hand, then back at him without taking it. “Linda Rollins.”
Frank withdrew his hand slowly and turned away to look at the window, rolling his eyes as he did. “Great to meet you, Linda. Thanks for the ride, by the way.”
Linda merely grunted in response, and the pair sat in silence as she drove through the neighborhood, winding her way out to the feeder road where Frank had come in. When he saw where they were going, he spoke up again. “Uh, why are we going back to the highway?”
“It’s the fastest way out of here.”
“Yeah… see, I kind of need to get to a phone. I was a few miles down the road eating lunch when my truck just sort of…”
“Exploded?”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, basically.”
Linda grunted again.
“You, uh, saw it yourself?” Frank probed gently, hoping to get her to open up a bit.
Linda didn’t say anything for a few seconds as she swerved around the remnants of a tractor-trailer that was spread out across the highway. When the truck stopped weaving and was driving straight again, she glanced over at Frank. “You don’t know much about what’s going on here, do you?”
Frank shook his head slowly. “I… I don’t know. I saw a few seconds of the news before the power went out. Some kind of big terrorist attack.”
Linda snorted. “Some kind? This is the attack.” Frank felt a shiver go down his spine as she continued. “My brother’s a SIGINT analyst down in Washington.”
“What’s SIGINT?”
“Signals intelligence. Intercepting electronic communications. He called me yesterday, out of the blue, haven’t talked to him in weeks. He sounded freaked out on the phone. Said I needed to get as much fuel as I could and then get as far away from the major cities as possible. He couldn’t tell me any more, but he sounded genuine. I woke up this morning and packed a few things, went to the station and started filling up cans. Next thing I know half the trucks driving by are exploding, the power’s flickering and everyone starts going insane.”
Frank nodded silently as he recalled the panic that had gripped those in and around the diner. “Is that when you got stuck there?”
Linda rolled her eyes and sighed. “No. I was an idiot. I had plenty of gas to get to my parents’ place down in Tennessee. But I wanted to make extra sure I was prepared. So I stopped back at the station after getting a few more things from my house. I thought I’d be able to fill up another can but… well. Yeah. You saw.”
“It was insanity.”
“That’s not even the worst of it.” Linda reached down to the radio and turned it on, then spun the dial as she tried to find a station within range. “I don’t think anybody’s still broadcasting, or if they are they’re the ones lucky enough to still have power. After I fueled up the first time and headed back home I stayed glued to the radio.”
She stopped speaking for a moment as she navigated another wreck on the highway and Frank asked the obvious question. “And? What did you hear?”
“That this is a hell of a lot bigger than a few trucks blowing up.”
Chapter 4
“Anything new coming in?”
A balding man with a sweat-stained collar and loosened tie shakes his head without looking up from the screen of his computer. “Nothing new. More places are losing power from the cascading failures. If the Texas or California grids take another hit then nobody will be able to get them back online.”
“Got a source for that?”
The balding man grabs a piece of paper off of the desk next to him and hands it over his shoulder to the woman standing behind him. She pats him on the back. “Keep doing what you can. I’ll get this on air ASAP.”
The woman carries the paper out of the dimly lit room and down the hall. The air in the building is stifling hot. Though it’s already autumn the weather is in the nineties, and the small Kansas town is wilting under the intense heat. Fuel in the station’s backup generator is dangerously low, leaving the station manager a choice between extending their broadcasting abilities by a few more hours or cooling down the building.
As the woman enters the broadcast room, she slows down and circles around the ring of cameras that are pointed at the two on-air personalities. With the small station one of the few left with power in the region, it has become a central hub of information that is being rebroadcast across the nation. A station that once counted a story about a new restaurant opening in town as its story of the year is now responsible for disseminating information about the breakdown of society itself.
The pair that sit in front of the cameras are out of their element. The bright studio lights cause their makeup to run, they are sweating, stumbling over their words and unable to cope with what they are reading. Their broadcast goes out over radio, television and the internet. It is coarse and imprecise but it is one of the few sources of information left.
“We, uh, just got this in.” The woman holding the paper walks quickly up to the desk, drops it in front of the hosts and leaves. The man sitting at the desk glances nervously at his co-anchor, then picks up the paper.
“We’re looking at reports from power companies in both Texas and, uhh… California. They’re reporting that the cascading blackouts are only going to get worse, and a total failure of the electrical grid isn’t far away.” The man wipes the sweat from his brow with an already-soaked handkerchief and looks at the camera.
“For those of you out there who can still hear us, we’ve got about three more hours until our generator is dry and we can’t broadcast anymore. If you’re in a large city, we encourage you to shelter in place and follow the instructions of your local law enforcement and government officials. We have no new information on…” The man glanced down at a few other pieces of paper. “No updated information on FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineering and their attempts to restore power, but we believe they are still working with power companies to get things working as quickly as possible.”
The man glances at his co-anchor and she nods, then picks up where he left off. They ad-lib what they are saying, as the teleprompter isn’t functioning. “If you’re in one of the affected areas, we want to remind you again, to shelter in place. If you need supplies like medicine, food or water, federal and state agencies are working to set up distribution points, so you shouldn’t try to venture out on your own. Also please keep
in mind that the White House and FBI have declared the ongoing situation as active, meaning that they believe that more terrorist actions may be forthcoming. For that reason you should stay away from heavily populated areas, avoid vehicles and any forms of transportation.”
“That’s right, Lacey.” Her co-anchor takes over again. “Most major public transportation systems have been shut down after the devastation caused in Manhattan’s subway system and, of course, all flights have been grounded indefinitely until we can figure out what’s going on.”
The woman who delivered the piece of paper to the anchors watches them for a moment before slipping out of the broadcast room. She heads back down the hall, doing another round to pick up any new information gathered by the journalists who are scattered about the building. With only a precious few hours left, every single piece of information that comes in may prove useful.
Chapter 5
“Wait a second. What do you mean nobody’s driving?” Frank stared out the front windshield of the truck as it barreled down the highway, slowing only when there happened to be an odd car or wreck in their way.
“Okay, so there are a few people still driving—like us, for example. But that’s what I heard earlier, and you can see it now. We’re pretty much the only car on a highway that should be packed to the gills.”
Frank rubbed his eyes and shook his head, having trouble coming to terms with what Linda had spent the last half hour explaining to him. Earlier in the day she had picked up a radio broadcast from a New York station that was rebroadcasting from a station that was in the Washington, D.C. area. The broadcast was a mixture of informational reports and cautionary tales from stories across the country.