One Second After

by William R. Forstchen

  “There’s Elizabeth!” Jennifer cried, pointing down the road.

  Sure enough, it was her, walking with that damn Johnson kid, his arm around her waist… not actually her waist but down lower, nearly resting on her backside. At the sight of the approaching Edsel, Ben quickly jerked his hand away. Jen pulled over to the side of the road and John got out.

  “Where in hell have you two been?” John shouted.

  “Hey, Dad, isn’t this weird?” Elizabeth said with a smile, pointing towards the interstate.

  She already had on her best con artist smile. Her head was tilted slightly, a bit of an “ah, Daddy, chill out,” look in her blue eyes, playing every angle. She was, of course, a sixteen-year-old spitting image of her mother and she knew that would melt him. At this moment it also was triggering one helluva protective surge.

  He turned his gaze on Ben. The boy had been a member of the scout troop that John had helped out as an assistant scoutmaster for several years. From that angle, Ben was a good kid, smart, made it to Life before dropping out because by ninth grade scouting wasn’t cool anymore. A nice kid, his dad a member of the Roundtable.

  But at this moment, Ben was a young man who had damn near been resting his hand on John’s daughter’s butt and lord knows where else over the last four hours.

  “Mr. Matherson, it’s my fault, sir,” Ben said, stepping forward slightly. “Elizabeth and I went into the mall in Asheville after school; we wanted to get something special for Jennifer.”

  “Whatya get me?” Jennifer asked excitedly.

  “We left it in the car,” Elizabeth replied. “Dad, it was weird; the car just died a couple of miles west of town, near our church. It was weird, so we’ve been walking home.”

  John glared coldly at Ben and the boy returned his gaze, not lowering his eyes.

  The kid was ok, John realized, didn’t lower his gaze or try to act like a wiseass. He knew he had been seen and was willing to face an angry father. Elizabeth and Ben had been friends when in middle school, both were in the band together, and now, well, now it was obvious over the last several months he had turned into “something different.”

  It was just that as John gazed at Ben he remembered how he thought at seventeen and what the prime motivator in life was. Jen was looking over at John with just a touch of a sly grin.

  “Ben, how’s your grandpa?”

  “Fine, ma’am. We was out fishing together on Saturday on Flat Creek and you should have seen the brookie he reeled in, sixteen inches. Made his day.”

  Jen laughed.

  “I remember going fishing with him on that same creek. He’d always bait my hook,” and she shuddered. “Lord, how I hated doing that. Tell him I said hi.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

  “You need a ride home?” John asked, finally relenting.

  “No, sir. It isn’t far,” and he nodded to the other side of the interstate. “I can cross right over from here.”

  “All right then, Ben, your folks are most likely worried; get home now.”

  “Yes, sir, sorry, sir. Hey, shortie, Happy Birthday.”

  “Thanks, Ben.” Like most kid sisters, she had a bit of a crush on her big sister’s boyfriend. And Ben, being a smart kid but also, John grudgingly realized, a good kid, had a liking for Jennifer.

  “Night, Elizabeth.”

  There was an awkward moment, the two of them gazing at each other. She blushed slightly. Ben turned away, walked over to the fence bordering the interstate, and in seconds had scrambled up and over it.

  John watched him cross. Several people standing around their cars went up to Ben, and John didn’t move, just watching. Ben pointed towards the direction of the exit into Black Mountain and then moved on. John breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me!”

  John looked over again to the fence that Ben had just scaled. A woman, well dressed, dark gray business suit, with shiny shoulder-length blond hair, was coming up the grassy slope, walking a bit awkwardly in her high heels.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  As she approached John, half a dozen more got out of their stalled cars and started towards the fence as well.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I think I know just about as much as you do.”

  “I was just driving along,” and she pointed back to the stalled BMW 330 on the westbound side, “and the engine just went off, the same with everyone else out here.”

  “I don’t know for sure,” John said, now choosing his words carefully as he watched more people approaching, four of them men in their late twenties, maybe early thirties, big guys, looked like construction workers. Some sort of instinct began to kick in as he watched them come up behind the woman.

  “Hey, buddy, how come your car’s running?” one of them asked. The man speaking was nearly as tall as John, stocky and well built. “Don’t know why it’s running; it just is.”

  “Well, it seems strange, don’t you think? All these cars out here dead and that old junker still running.”

  “Yeah, guess it does seem strange.”

  “What did you do to make it run?”

  “It just turned on, that’s all,” John said quietly, fixing the man with his gaze and not letting it drop.

  “Sir, can you give me a lift into town?” the woman asked.

  He looked at the fence that Ben had scaled with such ease. John caught a glimpse of Ben going over the chain-link fence on the far side of the highway and then trotting up the road towards his house.

  More and yet more people were approaching, an elderly couple, a woman leading a child of about six, a couple of teenagers, an overweight man in an expensive business suit, collar open and tie pulled down. A trucker over in the eastbound lane was out of his rig, slowly walking towards John.

  “Ma’am, I don’t see how you’ll get over that fence,” John said, nodding to the chain-link fence that separated them. “It’s just over a mile to Exit 64,” and he pointed west. “Don’t get off at Exit 65; there’s just a convenience store there.”

  He pointed to the lane for Exit 65 just a couple of hundred yards away that arced off the interstate just before the road curved up over a bridge spanning the railroad tracks.

  “Go to Exit 64. You can walk it in twenty minutes. There’s two motels there, one of them a Holiday Inn with a good restaurant as well. You should be able to still get a room till this thing clears up.”

  “John?” It was Jen, standing behind him, whispering. “Help her.”

  He let his hand drift behind his back and put his hand out forcefully, extended, a signal for Jen to shut up.

  In many ways, eight years here had indeed changed him. Women were addressed as “ma’am” and doors were held open for them, no matter what their age. If a man spoke inappropriately to a woman in public and another man was nearby, there would be a fight brewing. The woman in the business suit looked at him appealingly. To refuse her went against a lifetime of thinking and conditioning.

  Hell, there was even a touch of something going on here that he never would have dreamed of but ten minutes ago. Since Mary had died, there had been a few brief flirtations, even one brief affair with a professor at the state university, but down deep his heart was never in it; Mary was still too close. The woman on the other side of the fence was attractive, professional looking, early to mid-thirties; a quick glance to her left hand showed no ring. An earlier incarnation of himself, before Mary… he’d have cut the fence down to get to this woman and act as the rescuer. John was almost tempted now to do so.

  But there was that “something else” now. A gut instinct that ran deeper. Something had gone wrong, what, he still wasn’t sure, but there were too many anomalies, with the power off, the cars stalled, except for the Edsel, no planes… . Something was wrong. And at this moment, for the first time in a long while, his “city survival senses” were kicking in.

  Growing up in a working-class suburb of Newark in the sixtie
s and seventies he had learned survival. He was only seven when the big riots hit Newark in ’67, dividing off for a generation any thought of what some called diversity. Italians stuck to their neighborhoods, Poles and the Irish to theirs, Hispanics to theirs, blacks to theirs, and God save you if you got caught in the wrong neighborhood after dark, and usually in daylight as well.

  The interstate, at this instant, had become the wrong neighborhood. The way the four construction workers stood and gazed at him and the car—the one car with a motor still running—was triggering a warning. One of them was obviously drunk, the type that struck John as a belligerent drunk.

  Something was changing, had changed, in just the last few hours. If alone, John might have chanced it, and chances were nothing at all would go wrong, but he was a father; his two girls and his mother-in-law would be in that car.

  “Come on, buddy,” the one worker said, his voice now edged with a taunting edge. “Help the lady. We’ll push her over for you; then we’ll climb over and you can give us a lift as well.”

  She looked back at the four.

  “I don’t need your help,” she said coldly.

  The drunk laughed softly.

  John felt trapped, especially as he spared a quick glance back to Jennifer. Suppose the car was taken right now; it would be a long haul back for her.

  At that moment he caught a glance from the truck driver. There was a slight nod and ever so casually he let his right hand, which had been concealed behind his back, drift into view. He was holding a light-caliber pistol. There was a moment of gut tightening for John, but the exchange of glances said it all. “It’s ok, buddy; I’m watching things here.”

  John looked back to the woman.

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, I’ve got to get my kids home. You just walk a little less than a mile to the west and you’ll find food and shelter.”

  “Rotten shit,” the drunk growled, and moved to start climbing the fence.

  “Girls, into the car,” John snapped, and there was no hesitation. The doors slammed behind them. John backed up to the car, the drunk had a hard time negotiating his footing. John slipped into the driver’s seat, slammed into reverse, and floored it.

  “Son of a bitch, all we want is a lift,” and as the drunk half-dangled from the fence he flipped John off.

  Flooring the gas, John continued to back up all the way to the turnoff to their road, threw the gear into forward, and roared up the dirt road.

  “John Matherson, I can’t believe you left that lady like that. Especially with those men around her.”

  “I have a family,” John said coldly, looking into the rearview mirror to where Elizabeth and Jennifer were in the backseat, both of them silent. He could sense their accusation, that Dad had chickened out. He shook his head and said nothing.

  He pulled into the driveway, the dogs started to bound around him but then, sensing his mood, shifted their attention to Jennifer and Elizabeth.

  “Girls, it’s getting dark. Remember the hurricane last year when we all piled into my bedroom? It’ll be like that tonight. Elizabeth, get out the Coleman lantern; you know how to light it. Jennifer, you help her.”

  “Come on, Dad; I think you’re being a little uptight.”

  “Just do it, Elizabeth,” he said slowly and forcefully.

  “All right.”

  The two headed to the door, Jennifer pestered Elizabeth as to what her birthday present was.

  “And Elizabeth, after you get the lantern lit, help Jennifer with her injection. Don’t keep the medication out of the fridge any longer than you have to.”

  “Ok, Dad.”

  “Then feed the dogs.”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  The girls went in. John fished in his pocket for a cigarette, pulled it out, and lit it.

  “Are you going back to help that woman?”

  “No.”

  Jen was silent for a moment. “I’m surprised at you, John.”

  “I know I’m right. I go down to that highway and those bastards might take this car.”

  “But what about her? The woman? Does it bother you?” He looked at Jen sharply. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “That woman. And there was another one with a small child. They could be raped.” He shook his head.

  “No, not yet. Those guys weren’t all that bad. The drunk was out of hand; the loudmouth one was just trying to show off in front of his buddies and the woman. Sure, it’s strange, our car running, the others not, and if I went back down they’d be tempted to take it. Or worse yet, I’d be stuck all night running a shuttle service for everyone stalled on the highway, and running into yet more drunks with a bad attitude.

  “But rape? No, too many others down there are ok. Everyone else is sober; the truck driver down there had a gun in his hand, though you might not of seen it. He’ll keep order. That woman and the others will be ok. I wouldn’t worry about that yet.”

  “Yet?”

  He sighed, shook his head, let his finished cigarette fall, then fished out another one and began to smoke it.

  “I’d like you to stay here tonight, Jen. The girls would love it.”

  “You worried about me?”

  “Frankly, yes. I don’t like the idea of you driving around alone at night in this monster,” and as he spoke he slapped the hood of the Edsel. “I’ll stay.”

  He looked down at her, surprised there was no argument, about the cat needing to be put out or some other excuse. It was dark enough now he couldn’t see her face, but he could sense her voice. She was afraid.

  “It’s so dark,” she whispered.

  He looked around. It teas dark. There wasn’t a single light down in the town, except for what appeared to be the flicker of a Coleman lamp, some candles. All the houses rimming the valley were dark as well. No reflected lights from the highway, none of the annoying high-intensity lithium glare from the service stations at the exit, not a light showing from the skyline of Asheville. There was a dull red glow, what looked to be the fire up on the side of the mountain towards Craggy Dome.

  The stars arced the heavens with a magnificent splendor. He hadn’t seen stars like this since being out in the desert in Saudi Arabia… before the oil wells started to burn. There was absolutely no ambient light to drown the stars out. It was magnificent and, he found, calming as well.

  “Head on in, Jen. I’ll be along in a minute.”

  She left his side, moving slowly. From inside the house he could now see the glare of the Coleman and, a moment later, heard laughter, which was reassuring.

  He finished the second cigarette and let it drop, watching as it glowed on the concrete pavement of the driveway. It slowly winked out.

  Opening the door of his Talon, he slipped in and turned the switch. Nothing, not even a stutter from the starter motor, no dashboard lights… nothing.

  He reached under the seat, pulled out a heavy six D-cell flashlight, and flicked the switch. It came on.

  When he went into the house the girls were already making a game out of camping out.

  “Dad, Jennifer’s new tester doesn’t work,” Elizabeth said.

  “What?”

  “The new blood tester. I found the old one, though, and we used that. She’s ok.”

  “Fine, honey.”

  Somehow, that little fact now did set off more alarm bells within. The new testing kit was a high-tech marvel with a built-in computer that kept a downloadable record of her blood levels. In another week she was supposed to be fitted out with one of the new implanted insulin pumps… and something told him he should be glad they had not yet done so.

  “Ok.”

  Elizabeth started to turn away. He took a deep breath.

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “Ah, you and Ben,” he felt embarrassed suddenly, “you know, is there anything we should talk about?”

  “Come on, Dad. Now?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Get your sister settled in and let’s call it a n
ight.”

  “Dad, it’s not even eight yet.”

  “Like the hurricane, kid. We went four days then and by the end of it we were asleep when it got dark and up at dawn.”

  “Ok.”

  He looked into his bedroom and Jennifer was, to his delight, lining up her new Beanies along what she had already claimed was her side of the king-size water bed. Clutched under her arm was her beloved Rabs, the stuffed rabbit that Bob and Barbara gave to her the day she was born and which had been Jennifer’s steadfast companion for twelve years.

  Once a fuzzy white, old Rabs was now a sort of permanent dingy gray. Rabs had survived much, upset stomachs, once being left behind at a restaurant and the family drove nearly a hundred miles back to retrieve him while Jennifer cried every mile of the way, a kidnapping by a neighbor’s dog, with Dad then spending two days prowling the woods looking for him. He was patched, worn smooth in places, and though she was twelve today, Rabs was still her buddy and John suspected always would be… until finally there might be a day when, left behind as a young lady went off to college, Rabs would then rest on her father’s desk to remind him of the precious times before.

  The dogs had finished up chomping down their dinner and he let them out for their evening run. Ginger was a bit nervous going out, since usually he’d throw on the spotlights for them. At this time of year bears with their newborn cubs were wandering about, raccoons were out, and the sight of either would nearly trigger a heart attack. She did her business quickly and darted back in, settling down at Jennifer’s feet.

  “No school tomorrow?” Jennifer asked hopefully.

  “Well, if the lights come on during the night, you’ll know there’s school. If not, no school.”

  “Hope it stays pitch-black all night.”