by J. R. Tate
The liquid streamed down into the tank, the splashes echoing in the quiet room. Emptying the gas can, she put the lid back on and stood back, contemplating her next move to get the damn thing running. There was a button next to the tank that read ‘automatic transfer switch.’ Pushing it, she stepped back again as a low hum began. The lights flickered overhead until they were completely on and she yelled out in joy at the accomplishment of getting the power on.
Alice’s victory was short lived when they blinked, mimicking how they were just before the generator had sucked up every last bit of gasoline and died on them. Hurrying back up the stairs, she went straight to the parking lot to siphon more gasoline. Her head was light from the fumes and the physicality of keeping the generator running. She didn’t want to ask for help - her staff was needed inside to help victims, but this was going to take up all of her time if someone else wasn’t able to lend assistance.
“Alice, need some help?”
Looking up, Alice spotted Rose running toward her. “How are the victims? What’s going on inside?”
“We’ve done what we can do. General first aid, patching them up, but without our equipment, our hands are tied. Are you getting gas out of that truck?”
Alice put the hose back up to her mouth to create suction and inserted the end back into the gas can, nodding her head. “Yeah. It tastes horrible but I have to hurry. That generator is going to suck it all up before I can get back.”
“Are gas pumps not working either?” Rose asked, looking across the street at the convenience store that Alice had taken the supplies from.
“Nothing is working, Rose. It’s a massive outage.”
“Let me help you so you’re not chasing your tail. Where’d you get that stuff at?”
Alice watched the gas fill up and pointed across the street. “Over there, if there’s anything left.”
Rose ran across the road and Alice pulled the hose out of the tank again, fastening the cap securely so they wouldn’t lose a drop. Following her previous steps, she ran back to the control room, relieved that the generator hadn’t stopped running yet. It was close, and likely running on fumes from the gas she just recently put inside.
“Here, I’ve got some to put in too.” Rose slipped in beside her, lifting her gas can to fill it up as well. “Four more gallons of gas added. How much does one of these things hold?”
“I’m not sure,” Alice replied, skimming her hand down the hard metal. “I don’t even know how long a few gallons will run this thing. We need to get Manny. He knows more and can maintain this.”
“Where is he?”
“The elevator shaft over by the clinics. I wanted to get the generator filled back up so we could go get him. I think this is fine for now. If we do anymore we might mess it up enough that it won’t run at all.” Rose followed her out of the control room and to the maintenance offices again. “Look for rope or anything we can use to help them climb out of the shaft. They’re in between floors and need to come up about twenty feet. I think he’s already tried to climb up the elevator cables but wasn’t successful.”
Alice dug through their storage, shocked at how organized it was. Manny didn’t seem like the type but she found several yards of strong rope that would have to be good enough. Pulling the rope tight, she patted Rose on the back and they headed back to the ER. What they needed now were a couple of strong men who could serve as anchors to pull Manny up.
Two men who seemed to be in decent health volunteered and when they got to the elevator shaft where Manny was, Alice stuck her head through the open doors again. “Manny! We got you some help!” Her voice echoed almost so loudly that it was hard to tell what she said.
“Oh, thank God!”
“We’re gonna toss the rope down to you. These two men are going to hold it so you can climb up.” She looked around for something to tie the rope to but there was nothing stable enough. Thankfully, she had their help. She and Rose wouldn’t be strong enough to hold his weight. “Is Bart okay? Do you need to get him out of the elevator?”
Manny shook his head, his eyes downcast. “No. He didn’t make it, Alice.”
“Okay. Let’s get you out and when the firefighters get here, we can have them get inside.” It was cruel to just leave Bart there but they didn’t have much time. Too many people were suffering due to lack of help and resources and it felt like only the strong were surviving. Things couldn’t be that bad. It was only a power outage, right? Alice struggled with that idea, knowing this went well beyond the electricity being out.
One of the men threw the rope down and Manny caught it. It was a struggle at first but he used the sides of the elevator shaft as leverage to pull up. Groaning, he fought his weight and the swing of the rope, along with the grease used to lubricate the cables for the elevator to be able to slide up and down. The two men serving as anchors planted their feet on the side of the wall to help with the support and Alice and Rose stood by, watching helplessly.
Manny gritted his teeth, his hands gripping the rope tight. He was just a few feet away and grabbed onto the open door, using his arm strength to pull himself up the rest of the way. The two men helped pull him completely out of the shaft and out onto the floor. Manny lay still a few seconds, closing his eyes as he tried to gain his composure, his breath heavy and labored.
“Oh thank God, you came to get me!”
“I would’ve never left you in there,” Alice replied. “I’m sorry it took so long, but we’ve got problems with the generator. I was hoping you could help out. We put gas in but I don’t think it’s enough.”
Manny sat up and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes again as he caught his breath. “I’m on it, Alice. It’s the least I can do.”
Alice looked down the shaft again at the top of the elevator that was dangling in limbo. Bart was still inside, probably dead. Another casualty to add to the ever-growing list that was changing by the second. Her heart ached for the maintenance worker. She didn’t know him well but he always came to work and he always got the job done in a timely fashion.
Hell on earth - and now that she had a second to stop and think about her own personal situation. Was Jake’s flight the one that had crashed? Was Dylan’s school experiencing the outage too? She hoped the administration had an emergency plan in place and he was safe where he was at. And Sophie was all alone in Boston - Alice hoped this wasn’t that widespread. She wouldn’t relax until her family was all accounted for, and by the looks of the chaos in the ER, she wouldn’t be able to leave anytime soon to figure it all out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sophie was hoping that the farther they got away from the campus, things would die down a bit. She continuously checked her cell phone to see if it’d even turn on but it wouldn’t respond. Either the battery was zapped or it just wasn’t working - but the battery had been fully charged just before she had headed to class that morning. She hadn’t been on it enough to have it go completely dead, so that theory wasn’t a good one.
What made the situation even eerier was all of the cars left stranded on the roads. There weren’t enough people to match up with how many vehicles were sitting vacant. Where were all the people? Did they all know something that Sophie and Danny didn’t know? The hair on the back of her neck raised up and she glanced to the side, trying to read Danny’s body language. Neither of them had said much since they had decided to get away from campus. Danny was usually a chatterbox, so his lack of input on what they were witnessing made Sophie worry even more. What was happening? Would they ever really find out?
“What are you thinking, Danny?” Sophie reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. The human contact was calming and she was thankful she wasn’t going at this alone.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” He shrugged and looked up at the sky. Sophie followed his gaze, noting multiple jet chemtrails against the gray clouds overhead. It made her think of her father - had his plane crashed or was this isolated over the east coast and Massach
usetts?
“I’m scared, Danny. Where is everyone?”
There were a few others, walking in the general direction that they were going, everyone surmising that the best idea was to get away from Boston. It was a sad world they lived in to immediately go to a terrorist attack when things like this happened, but unfortunately, it was the world they lived in. Getting away from heavily populated areas was the best idea, as that’s where the majority of casualties would take place.
“Let’s just keep walking this way. It’s south and eventually, we’ll get away from the city. Maybe we can find a TV with some news on it and can find out exactly what the hell is going on.”
Sophie wouldn’t bet on it. Her body ached and she was thirsty. They passed several stores and she couldn’t believe that looting was already taking place. Was this really that bad that people felt that desperate to start taking things? Then again, if all electronic devices were shot, the cash registers weren’t working anyway.
“We should go into that store and get something to eat, Danny. I’m hungry and the water we had earlier is gone. There might not be anything left the farther we get out of the city.”
Danny nodded in agreement and they took a detour through the parking lot up to a grocery store. The front windows were broken out and people were coming and going, their arms filled with as much stuff as they could carry. Sophie couldn’t believe what she was seeing - this was happening in real life.
Going inside, it was an even bigger disaster. Many shelves were already picked clean, there were no staff members in sight, and people were running around grabbing things, some pulling bread and milk out of the hands of others. It was a free for all, every man for themselves, and all Sophie wanted was a bottle of water and something salty to help with her appetite. She didn’t realize they’d have to fight for such simple items, but she also didn’t realize when she woke up this morning that it’d be like an end of the world novel.
The front coolers where the sodas and water were usually kept were wiped clean. She feared they wouldn’t find even one bottle to share between the two of them. Hurrying down aisles, she grabbed a box of crackers, a bag of beef jerky, and when she reached the back of the store, she ran toward a large bottle of water in the back case. It was the last one, and three other people had the same thing in mind, all of them reaching for it at the same time.
Sophie’s hand grasped it first and she pulled it away. The three other people, two men and a woman, stared her down as if they were in the animal kingdom and she had just picked off the carcass of a freshly killed antelope. They circled her, the woman lunging at her to try to pry it out of her arms. Sophie backed away, bumping into a nearby shelf. Danny was a few feet away, gathering his own food. Sprinting, her legs burned and she yelled out when one of the men pulled on her hair.
“Danny, catch!” She threw the bottle of water like a football and Danny intercepted it, hesitating to leave her there. “Go, I’ll be fine! We need the water!”
The three looters lost interest in Sophie when they saw Danny now had the water. He was a faster runner and much stronger than Sophie, so she stayed back, attempting to catch her breath. Hopefully, Danny could handle his own. Once she gained her composure, she ran out into the parking lot, the three strangers were too far back to catch Danny. After a few more seconds of chasing him, they gave up and went back to the store. That was Sophie’s cue to head in the direction Danny went.
Meeting back up with him near the freeway, he took a long pull off of the water and handed it to her. It tasted amazing and though it was no longer cold, it still quenched the harsh thirst she had felt.
“Did that really just happen back there?” Sophie asked, pointing over her shoulder at the store.
“It did. What were you able to grab?”
Holding up the items, Sophie smiled. “Crackers and beef jerky. We need the protein.”
“Good! I got some bread and cheese. It’s room temperature but if we eat it now, it shouldn’t hurt us.”
Sliding the groceries into her bag, Sophie grabbed Danny’s arm and continued to walk south, following along the freeway where all the wrecked cars remained. “We probably shouldn’t broadcast what we have. If people are already resorting to fighting like what we just saw, we’ll be targets. Over bread and crackers. Not really worth dying over.”
“How is this even possible? How could…” Danny trailed off, scrubbing his hand down the side of his face. “This is the twenty-first century. How could people be acting like that back there?”
“I wish I knew, Danny. We just gotta keep moving. There’s nothing left here.”
“Where do you wanna go?”
“Like we planned. Away from Boston. We need to get somewhere where we can find out what’s going on. Where our cell phones will actually turn on. Where there’s more people!” She waved her hand around. “Let me rephrase that. Where there’s people who don’t want to kill us over a box of crackers.”
Danny pulled his cell phone out and mimicked like he was going to throw it, but stopped himself. “Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!”
Sophie took his hand again and kissed the back of it. “I need you calm, Danny. Please… let’s work together. We can figure it out together!”
He clenched his jaw and looked out over the freeway. “You’re right, Sophie. We’ll continue walking south. There’s really nowhere else to go.”
Hand in hand, they walked in silence. Sophie’s stomach growled, she was thirsty, but after what had happened at the supermarket, the importance of rationing their food was front and center. As long as they refilled their water often and rationed their food until they found more, they would be okay.
She worried for her parents and for her little brother. Were they seeing what was happening on the news? Knowing her father, he’d be headed up that direction to get her out of harm’s way. Sophie wished she could get on a phone and tell him not to come - it’d only make things worse. But what if he was already on his way, headed toward her dorm, only to find she had fled? She was always taught in disasters to stay where she was unless an evacuation was ordered. It was the safest way for loved ones to find you but her dorm and the campus was no longer safe.
They’d find a phone soon. She’d call her mom and dad and make contact with them. Things would seem a lot better once she could talk to them. Until then, the worry would be unbearable. At least they had a plan - it wasn’t the safest or the most stable but it was better than sitting around. The future was unknown - it made Sophie’s appetite fade quickly.
***
The sun was beginning to set overhead and Jake glanced down at his watch - it was a habit that was hard to break and he looked up at the sky, trying to guess what time it actually was. They had scoured several suitcases in the past hour, coming up with some food and water, as well as some toiletry items that would come in handy. He was feeling light-headed so he and Becky were taking a break, each of them snacking on bags of peanuts, compliments of the airline.
They had shared the snacks with the other survivors and the kids ate them up quickly. Jake sat back against a tree and heaved a deep sigh. Colin’s leg had stopped bleeding, which was a step in the right direction. He felt ill, unable to even finish the small bag of peanuts. The water tasted great but he paced himself - there were people worse off than him that would need it more, and since help still hadn’t come, it was important to ration what they had.
“What time do you think it is?” Jake asked, directing his question at anyone who wanted to answer. There was a smoky haze that hindered them from seeing the moon and stars, masking what time it really was.
Colin cringed and closed his eyes. The man was in pain but wouldn’t admit it. “Evening. Probably a little after six.”
“That was my guess, too,” Jake replied. “You get enough to eat and drink, Colin?”
“I’m good. Give the rest of my peanuts to the kids over there.”
Jake rested his head on the tree trunk and closed his eyes. What was Al
ice doing? Enough time had passed that she likely had seen the news about the plane crash. She was working a twelve-hour shift and if it really was around six, she was probably getting off work about that time. How was Dylan taking it? He had a game tomorrow and now all of the focus would be put on Jake and his crashed flight. And poor Sophie - she had made plans to visit home in a few weeks. What was she doing right now? Jake would be willing to bet she was hopping on the first plane into Dallas.
Alice had a number she could call for family members to get information on pilots. Jake hoped she was doing that, demanding a search party and help get sent this way. He could imagine it now, her voice raised, clenching the phone so tight that she could break it. And she had every right to - taking this long to get to a plane crash was unheard of, and here they sat, wondering what to do next.
“Becky, how are you feeling?” Jake felt guilty for focusing on Colin. He hadn’t even taken a moment to consider her health.
“I’m fine. Bumps and bruises, but a lot better off than you two.”
Jake opened his eyes again and smirked. That was one thing about Becky - if you wanted an honest answer, you’d get it from her. “We gotta come up with a plan.”
“The safety plan is to stick as close to the crash site as possible,” Colin chimed in, letting out a groan as he shifted his weight.
“But for how long?” Jake asked, looking around at the circle of survivors. The children were beginning to fall asleep, the others looking on, still depending on what was left of the flight crew to make the big decisions.
“I’m not sure. We should stay here tonight. If you can’t tell, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” Colin motioned toward his leg, his mouth set in a hard line. “If we have to move, how do you propose going about getting me mobile?”