“Stop right there,” he shouted to one of the looters.
The boy turned around and held his arms in the air. “Don’t shoot, dude,” he said.
Another looter snuck up from behind the family man and hit him on the head with an aluminum baseball bat, stolen from the sporting goods section. They laughed as he fell to the ground. His revolver coasted across the floor, straight into the hands of one of the looters. He aimed it at a woman running by. She covered her face and screamed. Remy, peering beyond his long black hair that fell from under a bandanna, smiled.
“One minute left,” he announced, holding one finger in the air. The flames in the back of the store were growing higher, producing a thick blanket of smoke.
Julie looked to the middle of the aisle and noticed a cell phone. It had fallen from the family man’s back pocket. His unconscious body lay nearby. To Julie, it looked just like her cell phone. She crept out from behind bags of dog food and looked down both sides of the aisle. It felt very hot. The potent smell of smoke and fire stung her nose. She had to get out. She ran and retrieved the cell phone on the ground. It was the same Samsung model as hers. She reached in the pocket of her soccer shorts and pulled out her phone. She yanked the back of the man’s phone open and took out its battery. She turned on her phone just as black smoke was barreling over the aisle, making it hard to breathe.
Paul approached the store entrance and was met with a flood of people running out. He searched the crowd for Julie but couldn’t find her.
“Julie!” he yelled.
The emergency alert sirens were unending. He had nearly forgotten about Edwin’s shooting of the innocent man in cold blood. Maybe the man’s wife was right. Maybe it had been his fault. In trying to rescue Julie, he had now pushed the incident as far from his mind as possible. A crowd had formed around the SUV man and his wife, but Paul could think about it no more. His gut told him that to walk into the store was a mistake. As Paul struggled with his decision, frightened customers pushed past him with little regard. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled the phone out and read the screen. It was a message from Julie.
Julie: I’m trapped in the store. There’s a fire. People are lootin
Paul backed against the outside wall to the store. He rapidly pressed the touch screen in response.
Paul: Where in the store are you? Any police in there?
Julie: No. Most people left. The security guys were beat up.
Paul: Can you get out of the store?
Julie: I just said I’m trapped.
Paul: How many in there?
Julie: Idk. 10? 20?
Paul: Tell me where you’re at and I’ll come get you.
Paul took a moment to observe the parking lot. Cars sat, bumper-to-bumper, trying to get out. The alert siren wailed in the distance. The fire alarm to the store then went off. Its high-pitched buzzing felt like knives in Paul’s ears. He had been standing a little too close to one of the red flashing speaker boxes.
Julie: Aisle 12. Pet food aisle.
Paul: Stay where you’re at. And don’t move unless you have to.
Julie: Hurry!
Paul peeked through the tinted glass of the front of the store and couldn’t see anything. The automatic doors had been pried open. Paul ran in and was met with thick dense smoke blocking his vision. The overhead fire sprinklers went off, spraying water down below. In a brief moment, Paul was drenched.
“Hey you,” Remy said to Paul.
He had been spotted immediately. Remy was small but held a revolver in his eager hands
“Gimme’ your wallet,” he said.
Paul dug into his pocket. His wallet was in the car, somewhat to his relief, but it gave him no leverage. He reached into his pocket and slowly pulled out his phone.
“This is all I have,” Paul said, holding his phone up.
Remy’s eyes narrowed. He was not impressed.
“Man, I already got a phone. What else you got?” he asked.
Paul thought for a moment, surveying the massive damage around him. He could hear several of the other looters’ voices from a few aisles down. The sprinklers continued to rain overhead.
“To be honest with you, I came into the store to loot, just like you,” Paul said.
“Huh?” Remy asked, still aiming the revolver.
“That’s right. I came here to uh, to break shit and steal stuff.”
Remy lowered the gun. “Man, you’re a weird dude,” he said.
He took his eyes off Paul for a moment to look at his watch. He then looked back up. “You better get out of here in thirty seconds. That’s all the time we have left.”
“But I—”
“Just get the hell out,” Remy demanded.
The footsteps and hollering of the other looters got closer. Paul examined the overhead aisle sign, searching for the pet food. Just barely through the smoke, he saw the sign for the pet food aisle towards the back.
“Hey, let me go the back way, okay? The cops are chasing me. They’ll catch me if I go out the front.”
Remy became visibly nervous. “There’re cops out there?” he asked.
“Yeah, but they’re scared to come in here right now,” Paul said.
Remy smiled. “Yeah. They better be.”
Paul stepped away from Remy and kept his eyes on the revolver. “I’ll let you know if I see anyone out back,” he said.
Remy watched Paul suspiciously and then ran off in the opposite direction. Paul sprinted to aisle twelve, which was empty. It looked safe. He walked down the tile floor scanning every shelf and item.
“Julie,” he said with a forceful whisper. “Julie, where are you?”
He coughed from the smoke. He heard Julie coughing and ran down the aisle to find her.
“You should have just sent me a text,” she said as they met.
Paul grabbed her hand. “I’m so glad to see you,” he whispered. Julie nodded. Paul pulled her along with him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” she answered. They both coughed profusely.
“We have to get out of here, right away,” he said.
Julie attempted to go back the way Paul had come. He yanked her in the other direction. “What?” she asked, angered.
“We have to go out the back of the store. Trust me,” he said.
“There’s a fire over there, genius,” she said.
“I don’t mean the back, back, I mean the floral department. The side of the store. Let’s move.”
Paul held onto Julie’s hand, and they ran as the sprinklers continued to rain down on them.
They ran to the back of the store, near the outside floral department. They were met by patio chairs, tables, and large plants. The scene was inviting, almost comforting. There was no one else around. From these surroundings, the world looked normal again. They could find a nice chair, prop their feet up, and relax among the artificial nature that surrounded them. However, Paul knew better.
“This way,” he said, pulling Julie with him.
They moved through the floral department, making their way to the main parking lot. It was still heavily congested. The emergency alarm, coupled with the store fire alarm, rattled and disoriented them. The residual mushroom cloud faded in the horizon. It was a lot to take in.
“Do you remember where you parked?” Julie asked.
“Yeah, closer to the front of the store,” “Paul answered.
The entire lot was full of cars that weren’t moving. The main road outside out of town was gridlocked as well. They passed car after car of scared and restless families trying to find a way out.
“How are we ever going to get out of here?” Julie asked.
“I don’t know, but we’ll find a way out,” Paul said.
“What?”
“I said we’ll find a way out,” he repeated over the outside noise.
Smoke was everywhere. The air reeked of molten plastic. The sprinklers had done their best to minimize
the fire but were unable to stop the spread. Black smoke flowed through every entrance and exit of the store.
“Try to keep up,” Paul said to Julie as she trailed behind.
“I’m trying,” she said. “I just want to go home.”
“That’s why we have to keep moving,” Paul said. “We have to get home.”
Traffic on the main road had ground to a halt. Nothing but bumper-to-bumper traffic for as far as the eye could see. The fire at the True Save caused unneeded panic among drivers and pedestrians alike. Several fender-benders occurred as a result.
“I don’t know how in the hell we’re going to get out of here,” Paul said, taking Julie’s hand.
“We could walk home,” Julie suggested.
“Don’t be stupid,” Paul said. Normally his words would have hurt her, but Julie was too dazed to take notice.
“We’re almost there, I can see the car,” Paul said. As they approached the lane, he noticed the SUV woman still cradling her dead husband. He halted and, as a result, Julie stopped.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We can’t go this way. We can’t go straight down the aisle. Let’s go around.”
“But—”
“Just listen to me.”
He tightened his grip on Julie’s hand and pulled her along with him. As they did their best to avoid the woman and the crowd that had gathered around her, Paul took notice of their activities. Several people had wrapped her husband in some type of blanket. They carried his body to the back of the SUV and placed it inside. An old lady had her arms around the crying woman, trying to console her. The SUV had become a roadblock of sorts as cars veered past it in both directions. It would make leaving the parking lot especially difficult for Paul unless he could find some other way out.
“I want to know what is going on. You’re the adult, so tell me. Are we under attack? What are those sirens?”
“I’m not sure yet, Julie.”
“I want to talk to mom.”
Julie searched her pockets for the phone but had no luck.
“Great, I lost my phone.” She stopped and looked around in a panic. “I need to find it,” she said as she turned back to the store.
“Please, let’s just get in the car—”
“There’s no way out of here. We’re as good as dead!” Julie said.
Paul stopped and knelt down in front of Julie.
“Don’t ever say that. Everything is going to be okay. We need our car. We can’t just leave it here, we’ll be stranded.”
Tears welled up in Julie’s eyes. The alert siren continued. Horn after horn blared from the cars. The noise alone was enough to drive a person to insanity.
“There she is,” Paul said, pointing to his Passat. They approached the opposite sides of Paul’s car and got in. Much to his relief, the SUV woman had finally left the scene with her dead husband in tow. There was a line of cars directly behind him, leaving him no room to back out. It was as frustrating as it was hopeless, but there was no reason to give up hope, at least not yet.
Chapter Six
Heavy Congestion Ahead: Expect Major Delays
“So what are we going to do now?” Greg asked with his hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel. “There’s a traffic jam for the next four fuckin’ miles.”
Edwin stared ahead, unresponsive. Greg shook his head from side to side in frustration.
“You shouldn’t have shot that guy. It was the wrong move. Mr. Bennett is gonna be pissed.”
Edwin turned to Greg and stared him down from behind his new thick shades. He always carried an extra set for emergencies.
“You’re going to give me advice now?” he asked. “Who’s the fuckin’ understudy here? I liked you when you didn’t say much. Now you’re a regular pain in my ass.”
Greg looked down at the dashboard. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. What do you want to do next?”
“We find our man and get the information we need,” Edwin said.
He carefully felt along the ridges of his own nose. The blood had dried, but he was still sore. “Lucky for us, he’s a family man. So now we got a little bit of leverage.”
Greg looked around in distraction. The Lincoln crept along at a stop-and-go pace. The other three lanes were just as packed and slow moving. Greg had the air conditioner blasting but still felt constricted and uncomfortable.
“There’s something wrong with this town. I mean something serious is going on. I can’t get nothing on the radio. I can’t get nothing on my phone—”
“It’s a terrorist attack, you dumbass,” Edwin said.
Greg rolled down the driver’s side window with a push of a button on his armrest. He scrambled through his front jacket pocket and pulled a crooked Marlboro from its crumbled pack. He nervously lit the cigarette with the car lighter.
“Would you just chill out?” Edwin said.
“What do you mean?” Greg asked.
“I mean you’re freaking out, and you’re freaking me out, so stop it.”
“But you said yourself that it’s a terrorist attack.”
“So what?”
Greg took a long drag from his cigarette. “How do you know that’s what it is?”
“Shit. Don’t you listen to the news? They hit Wall Street this morning. Government raised the terror alert and now everyone is going crazy. You hear that siren? They want everyone to panic and to get all riled up. But we got nothing to worry about. Terrorists want nothing to do with this shithole town.”
“Yeah, but--I saw an explosion. Looked like someone dropped a nuclear bomb,” Greg said, blowing smoke from his nostrils.
Edwin laughed. “Well, then we better start working on that bucket list.”
“I’m not joking. I don’t think it’s safe here. We should head back to Jersey—”
“And then what? Just give up?” Edwin asked.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
Edwin put his arm around the back of Greg’s seat and leaned in, as if in confidence. “Greg, listen to me. I know you’re concerned about what’s going on out there, and I am too. But we’ve got to stay focused. Think about it, we’re safer in Beech Creek than anywhere else right now. This terrorist thing will blow over by the time we finish the job.”
“Forget about that guy. I’ve got family in Jersey. I mean the ex-wife is a bitch, but I got two kids.”
Edwin smacked Greg across the face. It was a quick and no-nonsense slap that shut him up immediately. Edwin removed his arm from behind Greg’s and tilted his own seat back.
“Just get us out of the traffic jam. I don’t want to hear anything else.”
Greg sat emotionless for a moment. He wanted to feel his face to soothe the sting but didn’t want to give Edwin any satisfaction. Edwin leaned back in his seat and tipped his hat over his eyes.
“Wake me up when you’ve made some progress,” he said.
Greg looked over to Edwin in veiled disgust.
“I’ll tell you something, Eddie. You must really have it in for this guy.”
“Who?”
“The one we’re looking for. The family man.”
“Yeah, I don’t like him.”
Greg looked back at the road. They inched forward every couple of minutes, but it seemed to not make much difference. Greg felt the growing urge to walk.
Paul and Julie had problems of their own. After ten minutes of haggling, they managed to budge their way into a line leading out into the main road with more traffic in both directions. Leaving Beech Creek was the goal. Several cars had attempted to bypass traffic by driving across the dividing median and getting into the wrong lane. There were many collisions as a result, which further blocked traffic on the opposite side.
Paul tensed at the wheel. His body ached and his back hurt. The adrenaline from earlier was wearing off. The True Save was still on fire, despite the sprinklers that had turned most flames into ash. Curiously, no fire truck ever arrived. There were no police or
fire trucks around anywhere for that matter. Paul wondered what possible failure could have led to such oversight and mismanagement. It was unconscionable. Were they expected to act on their own now?
Julie grasped Paul’s phone, repeatedly calling Samantha over and over again. She had left three messages but heard nothing back. She had also sent a flurry of text messages to no response.
“Why doesn’t she call back?” she asked in frustration.
“Just calm down,” Paul said, placing his hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll hear from her soon enough.”
Julie recoiled from his touch. “How would you know?”
Paul perked up at the sound of helicopters in the air.
“Listen,” he said. “Do you hear that?”
Julie rolled down her window and reared her head outside, looking into the sky. Two police helicopters were in sight.
“Are they going to help us?” Julie asked.
“I don’t know,” Paul said.
Suddenly Paul’s phone vibrated in Julie’s hand. Her eyes lit up with excitement, then shifted to disappointment upon reading the text.
“I was hoping it was my mom,” she said.
“Who is it?” Paul asked, trying to follow the helicopters with his eyes.
They hovered over True Save for a while. Perhaps their absence had just been a delay. Paul believed that a cavalry of first responders was just around the corner, even though he watched as fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars passed earlier without a care.
“It’s just another alert message,” Julie said.
“What does it say?” Paul asked.
“It says something about radiation levels.”
Paul grabbed the phone from Julie. She was right. His phone vibrated again, and another alert message followed. Paul read the words but thought it to be an elaborate hoax.
Dangerous Radiation Levels in the Air: Seek Immediate Cover in Fallout Shelter or Enclosed Structure
“Fallout shelter?” Paul asked himself.
End Days Super Boxset Page 118