by Ellis, Tara
Patty smiled at him in agreement, then frowned again and turned back to Jim. “The situation?” she pressed the deputy.
Jim shifted nervously from foot to foot. He was a young man of barely twenty-one who’d been raised locally and joined the force only a few months before. “Well, we got us a group of people gathering outside the store, demanding water and stuff. Sheriff Waters told ’em to disperse, but they’re refusing. He, uh, thought maybe you could talk some sense into ’em, Mayor Patty.”
Groaning, Patty hung her head and gestured for the deputy to follow her. “Come on, Jim. I figured this might happen, but I was hoping the mob mentality might spare our small patch of civilization a bit longer.”
“Want me to come?” Caleb asked. Hunched over the radio that was positioned on a cardboard box, his face was hard to read amid the shadows.
“The most powerful thing right now is information,” Patty replied. “Keep trying.”
It only took a few minutes to walk to the end of the short block, where the corner store sat…well, on the corner. Patty squinted in the early morning light at the ten or so people clustered in front of the large-pane glass windows, where signs advertised everything from carrots to video rentals. The old generator hummed loudly from the alley, a normally obnoxious sound that was now reassuring.
“Mr. Harrington!” she called to the high school principal. There were less than a hundred and fifty students in the junior/senior high combination school, but they’d been fortunate to have a principal with years of experience in a larger district. Normally a very professional and well-spoken man, Patty was shocked by his appearance.
“Dr. Olsen sent me for water,” he barked while waving a hand toward the sheriff. “I don’t understand why we can’t go in the store.” His eyes were red-rimmed and had the blank look of a person in shock. Dirt was streaked on both his shirt and jeans along with something else that looked suspiciously like blood.
“Where’s Karen?” Patty asked, referring to his wife.
“Dead.” His voice was so calm that Patty didn’t think she’d heard him correctly.
“What?”
“Dead! She’s dead, Mayor. Dr. Olsen thinks the brain implant she got last year to help with her Parkinson’s…did something. Haven’t you talked with the doctor? Don’t you know about people who have died? Is keeping people from getting water more important?”
Patty staggered backward a couple of feet. She’d been meaning to check with Dr. Melissa Olsen to get a report on injuries from the fires and car accidents she’d heard about. But people dying from implants frying them? She blinked a couple of times, absorbing the information. After spending hours helping with a literal bucket-brigade to put out the dozen house and business fires, everyone had dispersed to check in with their families, and she and Caleb went back to City Hall to take stock of supplies and get his radio working. The scope of what had happened was still an incredibly fuzzy image and Patty was now beginning to realize how much trouble they might be in.
“Mayor,” Sheriff Waters said, his deep voice getting through to her. “We need to make some decisions on how to handle the inventory of the store. Mr. Sullivan has agreed to let the city take control of it so long as he’s properly reimbursed. I’d suggest running this past the council ASAP because the longer this outage goes on, the more demanding people are going to get. Mercy might be small, but no one’s above riots or looting when they’re desperate enough.”
“Mayor Patty, I need diapers and formula!” a woman shouted.
“We’re out of water!” another man added, walking toward her. “I’m on city water. I pay for it!” His hands were balled into fists. “Why isn’t it working? When is it going to be fixed?”
Patty turned from the group and approached the sheriff. “We’re in a state of emergency; I don’t need to get approval from the council. Jim!” she said, waving the deputy over to join them. “Ask Mr. Sullivan for a notebook and pen. Take everyone’s name and whatever supplies they need.”
“Listen up!” She yelled at the crowd. “Mr. Sullivan has been kind enough to allow us access to the store in spite of the power outage. Deputy Campbell and Sheriff Waters are going to help get you what you need, but we all need to work together. Don’t take more than you need, and only what you can’t do without.”
Mr. Sullivan, the store owner, had come out the front door when he saw Patty and now held the door open. He was an older man and what they called a “lifer” of Mercy. The store had been in his family for three generations.
“Thank you,” Patty mouthed. She was poignantly reminded in that moment what it was about Mercy that was so special.
“Mayor.” Sheriff Waters interrupted her thoughts. “This is a Band-Aid and while I’m happy to help keep the peace here, if this outage goes on for another night, we’re going to need our law enforcement elsewhere, rather than playing store clerk.”
Patty nodded. “Where are your other deputies?”
“Deputy Clark was off for a couple of days and visiting family out of town. Deputy Moore is over by the power station, watching for any flare-ups in the fire. There were three more fires reported early this morning, so the fire chief and his two volunteers are running around doing their best to put them out.”
Patty tried to control her expression and not reveal her dismay. One sheriff and two deputies to control a town of around seven hundred. Only, she really didn’t know how many people were there. How many had died, were out of town, or injured? Assume the worst, hope for the best. It was something she’d learned as a nurse, when taught how to triage. They had to plan on things being this way for a while, which meant being a whole heck of a lot more organized than they currently were.
“We need to get a handle on things,” she said aloud. “Sheriff, I’ll assign a few people to come relieve you here at the store and then, if you wouldn’t mind organizing a door-to-door check, we need numbers. How many people, where, and what their needs are. Injuries, medications, water, and anything else pertinent you can think of.”
“Control the chaos,” Sheriff Waters mumbled, nodding in agreement. It was a notion first responders used when dealing with an overwhelming situation.
“I’m going to head over to the clinic now to check in with Dr. Olsen. I should have done it earlier.” As Patty walked away, she looked out at the street that was now empty of any protestors. It was still very early and as more people woke up to another day of the same confusion and unknowns the fear would grow. No matter how good a person was, throw enough fear on the fire and it would lead to explosive results. The town was a ticking time-bomb.
“Patty!”
Startled, she spun toward where Caleb was running down the steps of city hall, ready to scold him for scaring her. But the look on his face stopped her cold. It was sheer terror.
“I got through to someone,” he gasped, breathing heavily. “In Kansas. He’s made contact with several other operators. One on the East Coast, northern Europe, Canada, Mexico.”
“Caleb, you’re scaring me.” Gone was the normal playfulness and dry wit that had always gotten Patty through the most difficult times of life. Her mouth had gone dry and as she spoke her next words, she knew instinctively that things would never be the same. “Is it more than Montana?”
Caleb shook his head and a tear spilled down his cheek. “No, Patty. It’s not just Montana…it’s, it’s the world. It’s the whole world.”
Chapter 15
TOM
Somewhere north of Pocatello
“Mom! Mom!”
Tom jerked awake.
“Mom! No…”
Ethan was writhing on the blanket beside him, caught in the throes of what was likely a horrible nightmare. Reaching out in the early pre-dawn light, Tom rested a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Ethan,” he soothed. “Ethan, you’re safe. It’s okay.”
They’d managed a few hours of sleep after stopping in the middle of the night, but he wasn’t surprised at whatever story was playing out in his so
n’s head. Ethan quieted, and Tom pushed himself up into a sitting position with a grunt. It had been a long time since he’d slept on the ground and his back was protesting. Pulling his knees up, he rested his elbows on them and held his head for a moment. There was a dull throbbing behind his eyebrows and his stomach was unsettled.
Crickets serenaded them and a horse nickered softly, undermining the unnatural situation they were in. Opening his eyes, Tom peered at the lights still dancing overhead and they confirmed that the world had, in fact, gone haywire.
They’d encountered a handful of people earlier on the dark country road, all of whom were just as confused as Tom. The hills eventually smoothed out into farmland and they were now sleeping next to a small lake. With the horses well watered and grazing they should be good for another day. A sign about a mile back announced a small town up ahead with a population of 2,008. Tom was hopeful that a new day might bring some answers, and a small town would be a better place to look for them.
“What time is it?” Ethan was moving again beside him.
“Hard to say.” Tom looked at the glow increasing in the eastern sky. “Probably around five a.m..”
Ethan stood and jammed his hands into his jean pockets. “I was dreaming about Mom.”
“I know.”
“Her plane was going down and I was trying to reach her.” Ethan hugged himself and his voice had a faraway sound to it.
Tom wished he knew what to say, but he wasn’t good with words. Standing next to his son, he took a halting breath and decided the truth was the only way to deal with it. “All we can do is hope that whatever this is didn’t reach that far west. That they made it to Hawaii.”
“What about Grandma?”
Tom had been avoiding thinking about his mom. She was alone on the farm, but they had good neighbors. “Grandma Miller is the strongest woman I know. She’ll be okay.” The farm still had the original hand-pump for the well and his mom was a voracious canner of all kinds of foods.
They stood in a shared silence, the sky brightening above them. The sun washed out the northern lights, creating a veil like a mask of normalcy.
“I wasn’t going to go back.”
Tom looked at Ethan and studied his profile. Although he most closely resembled him, he had his mother’s high forehead and dimple on his right cheek. “What do you mean?”
Ethan turned to face him “At the end of summer I was going to ask if I could live with you.”
“Ethan,” Tom said forcefully when he saw the self-loathing on his son’s face. “Ethan, look at me. Your mom knows.” He took him by the shoulders and held on tightly when Ethan tried to pull away. “I heard you tell your mom you loved her before we left. Wherever she is, she knows. She will always know.”
Ethan wiped at his eyes and nodded before shrugging away. He busied himself with rolling up their blankets and Tom went to ready the horses to give him some space. As he lifted the saddle onto Tango’s back, a shot rang out, closely followed by a second.
“Sounded like a shotgun,” Tom said, cinching down the saddle.
“Think it came from town?” Ethan had their gear loaded in his arms and he dropped it on the ground next to the mare they’d been using as a pack-mule.
Tom stared out over the lake toward where at least two fires were burning on the far side. He assumed that was the town. “I didn’t see any other way to go. The only roads we passed were all private dirt lanes. Let’s just get through it quickly and keep to ourselves.”
Ethan started stacking the blankets and duffel bag on top of the tarp on the horse’s back. “I thought we were gonna try and find out what happened.”
“We are,” Tom said. “If we have an opportunity.”
They rode in silence for the three miles that led to the edge of town. It reminded Tom of Mercy in some ways, with its quaint storefronts and wooden boardwalk. The sun was bathing the main street in light as they approached, revealing an interesting scene. What at first appeared to be a small, friendly town was in fact another level of the rabbit hole they’d been falling down.
A uniformed police officer was astride a bicycle, positioned in the middle of the road halfway down the block. He was holding his service revolver at his side and surveying the area. Several residents were milling about, some of them bloody and injured, all of them sunburned. They spoke quietly among themselves, giving one man holding a shotgun in front of a store a wide berth.
Although there were only a dozen or so buildings, one of them at the far end was burned to the ground, smoke still rising from its charred timbers. The two fires they’d seen earlier proved to be in the neighborhood on the outskirts, beyond their view. Tom figured they were most likely houses, and without a functioning fire department there wasn’t much to be done about it.
“Hello!” the officer said loudly when they were still some distance out. He shifted his weapon to make sure Tom could see it. “What business do you have here?”
Tom stopped his horse with plenty of room to spare and kept his hands visible. “No business. This is my son, Ethan. We’re just trying to get home to the north.” Tom gestured to the man with the shotgun. “We heard a couple of shots. Trouble?”
“Humph,” the officer scoffed, relaxing his stance. “Looters. Lucky for them, Old Mr. Nelson here is a horrible shot.” He pinched the bridge of his nose as if fighting off a headache and Tom noted how red his face was.
“Are people already trying to steal water and stuff?” Ethan asked. He was eying the townspeople on foot nervously. Their experience the night before had left a sharp impression.
“Water?” Mr. Nelson shouted from his post near the store. He took several steps in their direction and pointed a finger accusingly at the officer. “They stole a thirty-two-inch flat screen T.V.!”
“A television set,” the policeman confirmed, shaking his head. “I let ’em run. Wasn’t worth the effort of chasing him down. A T.V.…can you believe that? One day and our moral compasses are already off-kilter.”
Tom could believe it. Even without any clocks working, he felt like precious time was slipping away while they sat there discussing the fallacy of mob mentality, so he tried to redirect the conversation. “Does anyone know what’s happened?” he asked. “Or how widespread it is?”
“Well.” The officer scratched at his head. “I was thinking it was a big solar flare. You know, people have been going on about that for years. How the sun was going to burp one up at any time and wipe out the grid. My wife even made me buy one of those buckets of MREs, as bad as they taste. Only, Mr. Sabers doesn’t think so.” He touched a blister on his nose and winced. “He’s some physics professor at the college in Pocatello. Was here having lunch when that flash hit.”
Tom sat up straighter. “What did he say?”
Glancing first at Ethan, the officer leaned toward Tom and lowered his voice. “He was going on about a star blowing up and hitting us with…radiation.”
“Radiation?” Tom’s stomach grew cold.
“Yup. Said something similar caused an extinction on Earth some two hundred million years ago.” The policeman sat back on his bike and waved a hand at the people walking around. “All I know is folks don’t know what to do without their electricity and technology. I hope it’s fixed soon.”
“What else did he say? Do you know where this Mr. Sabers is?” Tom pressed.
“Just that I needed to prepare for things to get worse, not that I know what he meant by that. And I couldn’t tell ya where he lives,” the officer said. “Not here in town. Anyway, good luck to you. If you’re headed north, you’ll want to follow Main Street here and then take the first right. That’ll loop you back up to Interstate 15.”
Tom recognized the dismissal, but they were already low on food. “Would it be possible for us to buy some food or maybe a couple of fishing poles?” he asked, eyeing Mr. Nelson and his shotgun. “We have a long ride ahead of us and I have cash.”
The officer scratched at his head again before tsking
loudly. “I wish we could help you out, I really do, but I’m afraid we have to save what we have for the people who live here.”
“I understand.” Tom briefly considered questioning some of the people walking by to see if they knew where the professor lived, but that would likely be a waste of time and he didn’t want to overstay their welcome.
Urging his horse forward, Tom frowned at a couple of dead crows they sidestepped in the road. Radiation made sense, for both the birds and the northern lights. If the ozone layer was slammed with a huge wave of radiation, would that cause it? He shook his head, regretting he hadn’t had more of an interest in space.
Ethan trotted ahead on Tango and Tom watched him go, thankful that if he had to be stuck so far from home, he at least knew Ethan was safe.
“Dad!”
Ethan was stopped at the intersection and Tom guessed he wasn’t sure if that was where they turned, but as he rode up alongside him, he saw Ethan was pointing at something.
He looked back at Tom, his face screwed up in concern. “What’s wrong with it?”
A black lab was staggering near the stop sign. As they watched, it stopped and retched violently.
A dead robin lay behind it in the grass.
Chapter 16
CHLOE
Somewhere in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, Montana
“Chloe! Wake up. The boys are gone.”
Chloe’s head swam as she tried to process the information. Gone? Opening her eyes, the memory of where she was became painfully clear. Ripley leaned over her, holding the flap of their tent open. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and nudged at Crissy’s sleeping form before glaring at Ripley. “What do you mean gone?”
“They took off.” Ripley disappeared back outside, allowing the flaps to fall back into place.
Groaning at her protesting muscles, Chloe sat up. “Come on,” she said to Crissy. “Let’s find out what’s going on.” Grabbing her friend’s arm, she dragged her out of the tent behind her.