The First Hours

by Christine Conaway

  Ryan jerked his head up, whipping it around, trying to see the people. “Where?”

  “In the bathroom. I tried to go in, but someone was holding the door shut.”

  “Are you sure it just wasn’t locked. I’d think if the rest area was closed, someone would lock the buildings.”

  “No. It was unlocked. The door started to open, and someone pushed it closed. Darn near broke my wrist,” she told him while cradling her wrist in her left hand. Teagan wiggled her fingers, and they all moved, but it was the wrist joint she felt the pain in.

  “Well, at least it still works. Let’s go see if we can find out who’s in there.” He stopped walking, “You know there’s no water there, right?”

  “Why not? It’s the water I want. Not light…oh.” Teagan shook her head and grinned at Ryan, “I forgot the water has to be pumped.”

  “Trevor, want to give me some back up here?”

  “Sure, but just so you know I’m a lover, not a fighter. Ain’t that right babe?”

  Teagan couldn’t see Deena to witness her answer, but she didn’t need to. She heard Deena’s grunt but didn’t know if she was confirming his statement or merely acknowledging that she’d heard him speak.

  He walked up to Ryan, slapped his brother on the back, “I’ll back you until your nose bleeds, then I’m out of here. I’ve never been a fighter. You should know that.” Trevor chuckled, stuck his chin out and cupped it with his hand, “Can’t be bruising up this face.”

  “Jesus Trevor, just go away.” Teagan looked at Ryan as she pulled the pistol from her pouch, “I’ll back you up, Ryan.” She smirked at Trevor and didn’t care if he saw her expression or not. She knew her words would have the effect she was after. Trevor was nothing less than the narcissistic person she’d always thought him to be, “Couldn’t help but notice the huge pimple sprouting from your chin.”

  Ryan chuckled, “I wasn’t going to say anything about it,” Ryan said, backing up Teagan’s words. He shook his head, “Come on, Teagan. Let’s go see who’s in there.”

  They could both hear the sound of Trevor’s hand hitting his face as he searched for the offending pimple. They also heard Deena’s snicker from somewhere behind him.

  “Hello?” Teagan spoke from the side of the doorway. She wasn’t about to stand in front of it, just in case. “I know you’re in there. We only want to talk.”

  “Go away. We aren’t going to open the door,” said a male voice. “We don’t have anything. We just want to be left alone.”

  Teagan rolled her eyes at Ryan but realized he couldn’t see her face. “We don’t want or need whatever you do have. We just want to make sure you’re okay. I actually wanted to use the bathroom.”

  They both heard the buzzing of two voices. Teagan thought one of them may be a woman. Then they heard a baby cry.

  “Do you have food and water?”

  “There is no water so you can’t use the toilet. Go in the bushes.”

  “Okay. I can do that, but if you want to talk, we’re going to be right outside. We just need a safe place to spend the rest of the night. We’re moving on at daybreak.”

  “Moving on?” The voice asked. “Where are you going?” The interest in his voice told Teagan she’d caught his attention.

  Teagan started to answer when Ryan touched her arm, shaking his head. She frowned at him and mouthed, “What?”

  “Home,” Ryan said. “We’re just trying to get home.”

  “Fair enough,” the voice said. “Tell you what. We’ll stay in here, and you guys make yourself comfortable out there, and we’ll have no trouble. As soon as it’s light, we’ll all be on our way.”

  Ryan took Teagan’s hand and led her away to a stand of pine trees, “I didn’t want to give them too much information, just in case.”

  Teagan knew Ryan was right. She had the habit of trying to help everyone. Which, in normal times, would have been the proper steps to take. She would have to adjust her thinking until she reached her home. She had every confidence her father would have a plan of action already in place and was sure it involved helping everyone. He was the sheriff, after all. Teagan wanted to bite the tongue of her brain. Sometimes she didn’t know where the thoughts came from. Just the day before she had been complaining to herself how he wanted her under his thumb and how she was almost an adult capable of making her own decisions and now here she was whining because he dared to put the community first. It was his job, and he was good at it. As far as she knew, he had never unholstered his sidearm or shot at anyone. If her thoughts were correct, Teagan felt sure big changes were forthcoming.

  A scream broke the silence.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tom worked his way up his driveway and dropped behind a bush when he heard the shots. On his belly, Tom worked his pistol out of his holster, automatically checked that a round was chambered and strained to identify the voices.

  He frowned. Was that Simon? Who was he yelling at, and why had he come back to the house? Several rapid shots rang out. Tom instinctively ducked his head. When they stopped, Tom belly-crawled further up the side of the drive, careful to keep the sporadic bushes of the hedge between himself and the house.

  “Drop it right there,” Simon yelled.

  Tom froze, unsure who Simon was talking to. He lifted his head and scooted around the bush. To his horror, he saw a bulky figure holding a torch. The flames leaped high as if the torch were soaked in a flammable fuel.

  Apparently, Simon stood in the dark shadow on the front porch invisible to Tom, but Tom saw movement in front of him. Someone else also used the hedge as their hiding place, and they were working themselves toward the house.

  “You ain’t got no stake in this Carson. Either come down from there, or I’ll burn it down around your ears.”

  “What do you want to go and do that for? There ain’t nothing here.”

  “Bullshit! You think I’m stupid. Coopers got stuff here. I saw FedEx and UPS delivering parcels to this house many times. He was always talking about being prepared for disaster.”

  “I heard the same things you did, but he didn’t say he was prepared. He was simply trying to get everyone to have supplies set back for an emergency. Remember Columbus Day back in 62? That’s the type of emergency he wanted planned for, not this. This is nothing more than a power outage. You want to find yourself back in prison?”

  “You don’t know what you’re preaching Carson. Old man Dewey told me someone dropped a nuke on Seattle, and it’s gone. Blown clear to hell. Now, the way me and the boys see it, you can come down from there or like I just said, we’ll burn you out.”

  Tom crawled closer while Simon had the invaders attention. He didn’t know why Simon came back, but he was glad he did. Tom could have walked right into a bad situation and put Carrie and Nancy in jeopardy. If Teagan were there, Tom felt sure Simon would have sent her into hiding or at least had her with him. Tom saw no indication she was there.

  Tom recognized the voice of the man holding the torch. It was from Jack Burger. A man Tom had put away for two years. It had only been a couple months since he’d been carted off to the minimum-security prison in Baker City. How had he gotten back so quickly? Tom had never understood why he’d been sent to Baker City in the first place. This was his third strike, and he should have gone away to someplace like Walla Walla for a long time. The man was known for using his fists to punctuate his sentences when he was drinking. Then Tom remembered the news. A group had walked away from the facility the day before the power went out, but how had he gotten back to Gardner so quickly?

  As Tom crawled, he spotted several other forms spread across his front yard. Jack wasn’t blowing hot air when he said the boys. Spread-eagled, alongside the hedge in front of him, was a man looking down the barrel of a rifle. Tom could just make him out when the flame from the torch shone off the guy's glasses.

  Tom had a choice to make. Expose himself, shoot Jack, or shoot the man lying on the ground in front of him. He couldn’t se
e if Simon was armed or not but hoped that he was because when Jack said the word, Tom suspected the guy was going to shoot Simon. Tom couldn’t let that happen. As near as Tom could tell, Jack was armed with only the torch.

  “Beckman!”

  Tom was sure the guy in front of him had to be Beckman when he almost jumped out of his skin when Jack yelled for him. It must have been prearranged because the guy dropped his head again as if sighting Simon in.

  From his position on the ground, Tom pointed and pulled the trigger, setting off a host of reactions. The man he shot pulled his knees up, screaming and writhing in pain. Jack dropped the torch and ran along with several other men who had been hiding on the property. Simon ducked back into the shadows of the porch to hide.

  “Simon! Hold your fire. It’s me, Tom.”

  “Tom? Bout time you showed back up. Jack was about to torch your house.” There was a pause. “I couldn’t let him do that.”

  “What are you doing here?” Tom spoke softly. While Simon was trying to find where he was hiding, Tom had quickly made his way behind the hedge and now stood at the corner of the house. “I thought I told you not to come back here?”

  Simon dropped his hand to his side and sighed. “You did. I didn’t know where else to go. I went home like you said, but the folks went to Tacoma yesterday. Mom left a note for me. Dad had some kind of a doctor appointment.”

  “Hold that thought a minute.” Tom felt for the lighter he always carried in his pocket out of habit, from his smoking days. He struck the wheel, cupping the flame in his hand. In front of him was the door giving access to the crawlspace under the porch. He stooped, fumbled around until he found what he was looking for and pulled the manual start. As soon as the old generator kicked in, Tom flipped a switch, and the front yard was lit up by powerful lights mounted from the roof and several trees.

  He had to wait several seconds for his eyes to adjust, and then he waved toward the car that now sat fully exposed in the driveway. More importantly, the men had disappeared. Tom knew they’d be back, but they wouldn’t find an empty house.

  “They get in the house?” Tom asked Simon as he watched the car come up the drive.

  Simon shook his head, “Nope. They haven’t been here long. I saw them before they saw me.”

  A moan drew the attention of both men, and they hurried to the hedge. They found a man bleeding from various parts of his body, but still alive. Tom rolled him over. Simon reached for the rifle, moving it from the man’s reach.

  “You know him?”

  “Nope, but I recognize the uniform. I think he’s one of that bunch to walk away from Baker City, but how did they get here so quickly and why come here? That doesn’t make any sense. You think they’d have bigger fish to fry in larger towns.”

  “Jack Burger. He has reason to come back here. He swore he’d get even with me for sending him away. Guess he brought his own reinforcements.” Tom nudged the guy on the ground and turned him over with his foot, “Now, what are we going to do with you?”

  “Take him to jail or the clinic?”

  Tom looked at Simon, frowning, “Are you going to go and guard him, and how’s the clinic going to operate without power? I’d be really surprised if it's open.”

  Tom bent over, staring the man in the face until he opened his eyes. His black-framed glasses had fallen off, two drops were tattooed at the corner of his eye. The security lights reflected off his shaved head. Tom began an inspection of his injuries.

  “Damn! Check this out. I only took one shot and hit him three times.”

  Tom had been lying on his stomach, trying to keep his head down and shot at the man never thinking he would actually hit him. The bullet went through his heel, the cheek of his ass and skimmed the top of his shoulder. One bullet three injuries. Tom didn’t think it got any better than that. All of them could be fatal wounds if he were right about the clinic being closed. He didn’t know what he was going to do with the guy, but he sure wasn’t going to haul him off to jail only to be responsible for him.

  “Oh my!” Carrie said when she walked over. Nancy stood peeking over her shoulder.

  “Is he dead?” Nancy squeaked.

  “Long way from it, but he’s probably going to wish he was.”

  “What do you want to do with him?” Simon had finally come to the logical conclusion that he wasn’t going to incarcerate anyone he would have to stand guard over.

  Tom held a keyring out to Simon, “In that shed where the car is, there’s some rolled up tarps on the shelf to the right of the door. Can you bring one of them here?” He looked at Carrie and Nancy and realized the reality of the situation may be too much for either of them.

  “Carrie why don’t you and Nancy go on inside. There are candles just inside the door, on the table. Maybe you can fix something for us to eat? As soon as we get him loaded, I’m going to drive him back to his friends.” At the distress he saw on Carrie's face he added, “It’ll only take a few minutes. Lock the door but keep your gun handy.”

  With a nod, Carrie put her arm around Nancy’s shoulders and steered her away. Tom didn’t miss Nancy’s distress at seeing the injured man. He wondered how she would do in the future. Minimal injuries would just be a thing of the past when every injury could kill you. Tom hadn’t prepared for medical emergencies as well as he should have, but until Teagan was back with him, it would have to be put on the back burner.

  Simon left without his usual series of questions. Something had changed him, and Tom wondered what. In retrospect, Tom was puzzled by Simon’s being there at all after their last encounter. For Simon to have returned, knowing Tom was gone made him question Simon’s intent, but he would wait to see what the younger man had on his mind.

  Simon returned with the tarp and stood to stare down on the guy, “We going to wrap him up in this?”

  Tom laughed, “Not exactly. Put it on the backseat. I want to protect the upholstery, and we’re going to deliver him to his friends. We’ll make him and his injuries be their responsibility.”

  Tom lifted the guy under his arms and began to drag him toward the car. Simon climbed in from the passenger side and pulled the man onto the seat.

  “Is it safe to leave the girls alone?” Simon asked. He’d turned worried eyes, scanning the land between the road and house. “Do you think those guys really left?”

  “I do, but we need to get these lights off. No sense of advertising, that we have power to anyone else.” Tom turned and went back under the porch.

  The lights died with the turn of the switch. Tom thought about leaving the generator on until he got back so the women could see the surrounding area, but he hadn’t hooked up the spotlights in the back of the house so they wouldn’t be of any use to see back there. The few minutes they’d be gone, Carrie could handle anything that happened, or he could leave Simon behind and take Carrie to help him unload the guy. He scoffed that idea away because he still had no idea what Simon had in mind and even the short drive would give him time to pick Simon’s brain. He’s always believed Simon had the potential to be a good officer, but where his loyalties would lay now, Tom had no idea.

  In the car, bumping down the driveway, Tom thought about what he wanted to say, but Simon spoke up before he had the chance to open his mouth.

  “I had to come back.”

  “Had to? Now, why would that be?”

  Simon held his silence as if thinking. “Like I said, my folks went to Seattle the day before yesterday.”

  Tom waited, but Simon remained silent. He wondered why Simon wouldn’t have chosen to stay at his house rather than risk Tom shooting him if he came back. He’d given him fair warning and still chose to ignore it. Then, it hit him. He knew the answer and would let it rest for now.

  Tom made the turn onto the road, accompanied by soft moaning from the back seat. Simon didn’t have to say anything else for Tom to understand. In light of what Jack had announced, Simon’s parent wouldn’t be coming home. If Jack were right, Simon’s fol
ks would have already been there when Seattle was vaporized.

  “Do you think Burger was right? Could someone really have the balls to nuke us? I mean, what would be the point and what about Portland? Why not them?”

  “We don’t know that they didn’t, but I expect we’ll find out soon enough if they did.”

  Tom couldn’t see but felt Simon watching him and realized Simon had no idea the consequences of a nuclear event as close as Portland. Had they had a southerly wind, it would have been too late already. The same could still be said if news about the blast in Seattle were true, which he didn’t know, but he was going to act on the premise that it was until he knew differently.

  Tom had his V8 moment and realized he wasn’t as prepared as he’d once thought. He gave himself a mental pat on the back with his food stores, but he’d been negligent with the preventive side of his preparedness. He knew nuclear and even biological warfare were distinct possibilities sometime in the future, but if he were honest with himself, he hadn’t seen it happening in his lifetime.

  If he had, he would have built a fallout shelter to survive the radiation poisoning. His father had told him just before Tom was born that during the late fifties and early sixties, amid the tension of the Cold War, people were sure they would be annihilated by nuclear bombs and families had constructed home fallout shelters as a way to protect themselves from radiation. When Kennedy was elected, he delivered a speech in October of sixty-one, that he believed that people owed that kind of insurance to their families and their country. He sent the message that families could come out of a nuclear war intact and survive a nuclear blast. Many families had built them.

  In retrospect, Tom figured with the size of families back then, people would probably commit suicide from being cooped up for so long inside ten by twelve boxes with literally no room to move. He and Teagan had discussed shelters, and the radiation fallout as opposed to dying from radiation poisoning and Teagan had said she would rather be vaporized than live her life confined to a cement hole in the ground. Secretly, Tom had agreed but hadn’t voiced his opinion.