Leah slipped the rest of their bread down the right sleeve of her puffy winter coat and the small jars of peanut butter into the inner pockets on either side of her hips. She zipped the pockets back up, lifted her empty tray and headed back to the line.
Most people shuffled right past the paltry display of peanut butter, jelly, and stale bread. The lunch lady stood behind the counter waiting to offer help that no one wanted. She looked cold and miserable. Her face lit up as Leah approached.
"You mind if I get some more?"
The woman behind the counter laughed. "Honey, you can have all you want. Ain’t nobody else takin’ any of this." She looked over her shoulder and then rummaged under the counter, emerging with a plastic bag. "Here, take this."
"What is it?" asked Leah as she took the heavy bag without looking.
"Ssssh!" whispered the woman. "Not so loud, child. This here bag's full of jelly packets. They'll be a lot easier to carry than them big ol’ jars. I got my car parked out back. I'll take the jars and you take the packets."
Leah hesitated but smiled at the mischief in the older woman's eyes. "You're okay…with this?"
"Like I said, bread's already stale—ain't nobody want it. Can't say as I do either, but beggars can't be choosers. I got me three kids to feed and the grocery stores ain't open, so we need to clear this out before trouble starts."
"Trouble?" asked Leah, holding the bag with both hands.
The sound of breaking glass shattered their conversation. Leah turned and saw one of the large floor-to-ceiling glass windows collapse near where she and Thom had been sitting. People outside sent up a ragged cheer and stormed through the gaping hole, heading for the food. Leah watched, rooted to her spot as newcomers staggered into tables and chairs, groping in the darkness.
"Like that," the lunch lady hissed. "Now get." She shoved the bread at Leah. "Here, take as much you can and run, child. Lord have mercy, they're gonna shut us down," she warned.
Shouts of surprise from those in line quickly turn to anger as the people outside poured in toward the sliced meat and pastries stacked up at the end of the service counter. Accusations flew back and forth just before the first fist and within seconds the lunch room erupted into a free-for-all.
Amid the shrieks and screams of students and locals, Leah stuffed her coat with as much crusty bread as she could and grabbed an extra jar of peanut butter before trying to force her way out of the chaos.
At first she struggled against the incoming tide of students who'd just come in through the door, but the commotion behind her convinced enough people the dining hall was not the best place to be. Then the tide shifted and Leah found herself carried forward by a surge of bodies, relishing the meager warmth of being so close to so many people.
She struggled to maintain her footing against the press of bodies and winced when an elbow hit her smuggled cargo. In the end, she was expelled out into the weak twilight and scurried away to a clear spot. She sat down on a nearby bench and watched as the crowd ebbed on the back side of the building, flowed around the side, while others smashed more windows.
Several troublemakers had pulled T-shirts and scraps of cloth up over their faces. They chanted something she couldn't understand, but it sounded like give us food. The cry coming from so many desperate mouths vanished into the background roar.
A few students waiting in line moved around to witness the random violence or scattered, joining the flow of others rapidly leaving the area. Several looters emerged with whole pies and armfuls of cookies, bread, and milk.
Leah sat there on the cold bench, hoping the landscaping blocked her from view. Changing her mind, she got up and moved to a new bench, further away from the dining hall entrance, hoping her bulky appearance wouldn't attract too much attention from the looters.
Eventually the number of students pouring out of the dining hall forced her to stand on the bench to look for Thom's head in a sea of panicked faces. The ruckus inside the building spilled outside and the stream of students turned into a flood.
Leah had no choice but to hop down from her bench and work her way back toward the dorm alone. She found a knot of students talking excitedly to each other about the locals trashing the dining hall and tagged along with them.
"—don't even pay tuition!" one muttered.
"Yeah, if anybody deserves that food, it's us!"
"—townie trash."
As soon as a side branch on the path appeared, Leah slipped away from that group. She kept her head down as she walked, trying not to draw attention to herself. Three blocks away from the dining hall, she could still hear the muted roar from the school's attempt to provide food to the students.
Leah didn't turn around until she smelled smoke. When she looked back toward the dining hall, she saw a thick, black column of smoke drifting up into the air as it spread out over campus, born on the cold wind aloft.
"Yeah, they're burning it down," Thom observed.
Leah squeaked in surprise and dropped her bag of jelly packets.
"Sorry," Thom said with a grin as bent to help pick up the loot. "Where'd you find these?"
"One of the workers gave them to me," she muttered. "We need to get this off the street before someone sees—”
"Well, well—they giving everything away today?" asked a cocksure voice behind them.
Leah's heart raced and her palms grew damp. She stood and turned to face not one but three young men, all wearing similar jackets with Greek letters stitched on their arms.
Shit.
"Hi Brett."
Thom stared at her. "You know these guys?"
"No," Leah began. “Well, yes—”
"Leah?" asked Brett. He turned to the others and laughed. "This is Erin's roommate. Remember? Leah?"
The one on his left grinned, the other frowned. "Yeah, you're that stuck up bitch who thinks she’s too good to talk to me."
Leah blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I tried hittin’ you up a couple times at the party last night. You acted like I wasn't even there."
Brett punched his glowering fraternity brother on the shoulder. "You're too stupid, Danny boy. Don't worry about it—"
"I ain't stupid." He flexed his shoulders.
Leah swallowed. Danny had big shoulders. She didn't remember him at all from the party but her mouth was too dry to speak up in her defense. Her mind raced to remember what had happened that made Danny so mad…
"So, you pissed off Erin because you didn't do shots with her—"
"I didn't even want to go!" Leah complained.
"—and you pissed off Danny here because you think you're too good to hang with us—"
"That's not fair! No one wanted to talk to me!"
Brett continued, counting on his fingers. "And now it looks like you're leaving the scene of a crime—"
"What crime?" blurted Thom.
"No one's talking to you, so do us all a favor and shut up," snapped Danny.
"What crime?" Brett laughed and looked at his brothers. "I'd say looting the dining hall—official school property—is a pretty big crime. Maybe even worthy of expulsion."
It was Thom's turn to laugh. "You're serious, aren't you? Didn’t you see the skies this morning? Didn't you notice the power's out? They were giving the food away—"
"That's what looters say," sneered Danny.
"It's not like that, we didn't—" Leah began.
"So what, it's the end of the world, then? The end of law and order?" demanded Brett.
Leah realized Erin's well-bred crush was about to spring a trap a split-second before Leah could warn Thom.
"That pretty much sums it up," said Thom, a hint of suspicion in his voice.
"Well," said Brett as he narrowed his eyes, "I guess that means we can do whatever we want, doesn't it?"
"Fuck yeah," chanted Danny and the other guy as they high-fived behind Brett.
"What you got there?" asked Danny as he stepped forward and reached for Leah's bag.
She
stepped back, pulling it out of reach. "Nothing that’s yours." Leah expected them to react with anger—she'd even braced herself for a punch. She frowned when the three thugs laughed at her.
"Come on, let's get out here," Thom whispered as he tugged at her elbow.
"Hold up there loverboy," Brett said, arms akimbo to block Danny and his compatriot from moving forward. "See, we didn't have time to score any of the free food. Why don't you give us that—”
"Are you kidding me? It's mine!" snapped Leah.
"Well, she's got spirit," observed the one on the left. He winked at Danny.
"That's why she didn't like you Danny—you only go after the drunk ones."
Leah felt her face redden. "What's the matter, out of roofies?" She snapped her mouth shut, knowing she'd made a big mistake when Danny's face changed three shades of purple.
One of these days that mouth will get me killed.
"You a freshman?" Brett asked in a deep voice.
"What of it?" Thom asked, trying to stand up as tall as he could.
"Shut the fuck up."
Maybe today, Leah groaned silently.
Thom stepped directly in front of Leah and blocked her with his own body. "Come on guys, nobody wants any trouble."
"Just so happens my name is nobody," said Danny's partner. He looked older than the others. "And trouble’s exactly what I'm looking for," he said, his eyes never leaving Leah.
Even from four feet away, she smelled the stink of cheap beer that had made her head swim at the party. "Look, I know you've been drinking—you probably missed the light show. Things must be pretty confusing right now," she said, trying a different tack. "Why don't you just head back home and get some more—”
"They closed down all the grocery stores around here, there's no more food or liquor or anything," explained Brett in a calm voice as he stepped forward.
"Where's Erin?" Leah asked in a trembling voice.
Brett smiled. "Oh she's resting. Don't worry about her."
"We got some of everything we need right in front of us," muttered Danny.
Leah tightened her grip on the bag. I can't believe this is happening…
"Hey, don't hog it all, babe," the tall one said, stepping around Brett. Thom moved faster than she would have thought and slapped away the frat boy's hand.
"Back off," he said in a commanding voice.
"You see that shit? He attacked me," exclaimed the tall, skinny fraternity brother with anguish in his voice that looked completely opposite the smile on his face.
“My dad’s a lawyer in Washington—I’ll sign an affidavit that you attacked him,” Brett intoned.
"Oh it's on, now," said Danny, cracking his knuckles.
"Leave us alone," said Thom, still holding his ground. Leah watched him subtly shift his feet and bend his knees.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
"Just stay behind me."
Screams rent the air toward the dining hall. Brett turned back to Leah and Thom and smiled. "Boys, let's get this over with and go see what other excitement we can find today."
The tall one jumped forward and met Thom's foot, planted square on his chest. He went down with a whoosh of expelled air and wide eyes. Danny ignored his fraternity brother and raised a cinderblock of a fist and almost took Thom's head off. Almost.
Leah heard herself scream as Thom flinched away from the attack and landed an elbow to the bridge of Danny's nose, followed by a kick to the side of his right knee.
In a few heartbeats, both of Brett's friends were gasping for air on the ground, rolling and clutching their legs. Brett took a moment to calmly assess his friends' conditions, then looked on Thom with such hatred that Leah took another step back.
Thom readjusted his stance and waited. "Leave us alone."
"I'm going to make you bleed, freshman."
Leah looked at Danny, trying to wipe blood from his eyes as he rolled on the ground moaning. The other guy lay on his back, arms spread wide, fingers scrabbling at the ground, his chest working up and down. He made little choking-gasping sounds and his face turned pink.
Leah smiled. "Brett, it's over. Back off and I won't have to tell Erin you had a hand in this."
Brett laughed. He actually threw his head back and laughed. "You think I give a shit what that slut thinks?" He pointed at Leah. "She told you we're going to get married, huh? You think I could marry someone…like that? I'll marry a debutante from D.C. picked by my father, not some party-whore from Dayton."
He struck like a snake and whipped his right arm in a perfect jab at Thom's face. Leah screamed again as Thom ducked sideways, only to step into the massive uppercut from Brett's left hand.
Thom grunted and staggered back. Brett recovered faster than Leah thought possible and threw a haymaker from the right, catching Thom on the side of the head. Thom cried out in pain and went down. As he jerked his hands up to his face, several individual cartons of milk tumbled out of his jacket and hit the ground.
"You got food!" Danny roared from the ground. He wiped the blood from his face with the back of his forearm and staggered to his feet.
Thom jumped up and struggled to regain his balance as he backpedaled away from the fraternity brothers, keeping his hands up in front of his face as he squinted at his attackers. Danny lunged and Thom smacked him, but Brett caught his jacket.
Leah screamed again as the kicks and punches flew.
She stood helpless as Thom struggled against his attackers, giving at least as good as he got. The one on the ground got up and joined in, wheezing, only to find himself face down on the dirt again after a vicious roundhouse kick from Thom to the face. Thom grunted with the effort and left himself open to attack from the other two.
During a brief lull in the pummeling when Danny moved to check on his fallen comrade, Thom ripped the zipper down his coat. Cartons of milk and packets of crackers, cookies, and bread tumbled onto the pavement. As he turned, Brett grabbed his coat again, but Thom shrugged out of it and bolted.
"Run!" he screamed.
Leah ran.
CHAPTER 5
JAY SLAPPED AT THE alarm on his phone and rolled over, still half-asleep as he tried to snuggle closer to what should have been Kate's bare shoulder. When his arm instead landed on the pile of extra blankets he'd thrown on the bed the night before, Jay closed his eyes and fought back tears. Even through his closed eyelids, he could see the swirling, writhing pink ribbons of light on his ceiling.
You can't be gone…
Mac's harsh words over their cobbled-together dinner came back to him in a rush of pain. "Let her go, son. Your daughter needs you now. There's nothing you can do for Kate—if she's still alive out there—we can't help her."
Jay clenched his jaw. She's not dead. And neither is Leah. He rolled over on his back and adjusted the hood of his sweatshirt. He normally slept in nothing but a t-shirt and sweatpants, but the temperature in the house had continued to plummet, forcing him to don multiple layers of clothing to avoid freezing to death in his sleep. He took a deep breath and shuddered as the cold air filled his lungs and brought him to full alertness.
Kate isn't dead and when I go get Leah, we're going to find her.
Jay reluctantly pushed aside thoughts of his wife and got out of bed, frowning at the light show outside. It was time to leave.
He met Mac throwing the last of his supplies into the monster he called a "truck". They exchanged whispered greetings and made the last of their preparations.
"Here," Mac said, handing over a small radio. "It won't reach more than a handful of miles, but that should be fine—we need to stay close out there, anyway. Just keep it on channel three and push the transmit button to talk. Remember to let go if you want me to respond."
Jay held the radio but said nothing, eyeing Mrs. Peabody's house across the street. Like every other home in sight, it was completely dark. He could almost feel her eyes on him. Jay checked his watch—he wouldn't put it past the old bag to be keeping tabs on
him at 3 in the morning.
"You planning on coming back?" asked Mac.
"I have to know."
The old man shook his head. "I hate to think of you risking your life—and Leah's—to come back here for nothing."
"It won’t be for nothing if Kate's here," Jay snapped.
"And if she's not? How long are you going to wait around?"
"We went over this last night," Jay sighed, watching his breath explode in a cloud of vapor. "I'll decide when I think it's been long enough. God, it's cold out here. Can we get going?"
Mac's mouth compressed into a tight line. "Have you reconsidered?" he asked, offering a holstered pistol. Light from the aurora made it glow pink in Mac's hand.
Jay frowned. "No. I'm not taking that."
"You may need it—"
"I won't."
"How can you be so sure?" hissed the older man. "Jay, that shit up there has really screwed us over," he said, jerking his thumb at the sky. "You heard the reports over my HAM rig—it's bad out there and liable to get worse, real quick."
"That doesn't convince me I need a gun, Mac. I've never shot one in anger and I have no intention of shooting anybody now."
Mac frowned but tucked the gun under his fur-lined parka. "Not even to save Leah's life?"
Jay stared at the ground. Yesterday's storm had brought bitter cold winds but little accumulation. He was glad for that at least—it meant no snow to remove from the driveway and the roads would still be relatively clear for their departure.
"I'm sorry," Mac said. "I just don't understand why someone wouldn't use the best tool they could for any particular task."
Jay crossed his arms. "I won't have to shoot anyone."
Mac put his hands up in defeat. "I'll say no more. You ready?"
Jay sighed again. "As I'll ever be. Let's go before someone wakes up and sees us standing out here talking."
"Agreed. The last thing we need is people to figure out we left. They'll clean us out before sundown."
Jay looked to the glowing heavens for support. "Really…? Good grief, Mac, we know these people. Our houses will be fine—you'll see."
Solar Storm (Season 1): Aftermath [Episodes 1-5] Page 14