…
As they were all coming out the front door, Rachael spotted Carey in his front yard. He looked like he had caught himself in mid stride coming back from somewhere when he saw them come out. When he saw Sheri, he headed in their direction.
“Hey Sheri, any idea how long the power’s going to be out this time?” He asked.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue Carey. This time I really don’t.” Sheri replied.
“Not even a ballpark?”
Sheri looked at Chuck and then back at Carey, and sighed. “Tell you what, why don’t we get everyone we can up to the cabana by the pool at, say, 11:30. That should be enough time to spread the word, and I’ll let everyone know what I know. Sound fair?”
“Sounds like a plan. How ‘bout you give me heads up now, though, so I don’t get blindsided. After all, I am the HOA president. My word I’ll get everyone up there at 11:30.”
Sheri tried not to snort, “I guess I can tell you anyway.” She was watching the rest of the group out of the corner of her eye. She could also hear Joel in the garage getting some coolers packed into their Suburban. “It looks like the power is going to be out for a while. I honestly don’t know how long, but it’s going to be longer than a couple of days, or even weeks. Chuck here,” she inclined her head in Chuck’s direction, “is my supervisor at the power plant and he can vouch for what I’m saying, but the grid took a spike this morning that shorted out turbines in the dam.”
Carey looked stunned. No, he looked pole-axed. Sheri had heard her grandfather use the term growing up but had never been able to internalize the expression until now. Poor Carey.
He shook his head as if to clear it and then took in the group as if seeing them all for the first time. “Ok, 11:30 it is then. Right. See you at the cabana.” Then he turned and went inside his own house.
Just then there was a muted clank on the sides of the garage door followed by “THAT was shiny” from inside the garage, followed by a pinging sound around the middle of the garage door, and then the door slid upwards. “Heh, power’s out. Garage door opener doesn’t work. Had to disengage the opener trolley thingy before it would open manually.”
“Good point. I’d hate to wrench my back when there aren’t any doctor’s offices open.” Eric said.
“Yeah, speaking of which, Rach, hon?” Joel looked at his wife.
“I’ll get the Lortab.” She was shaking her head and laughing as she went inside and everyone else headed to their own homes.
Chapter Seven
As Joel and Josh left for the store, Chuck let Sheri know he was going to head out to his place and start packing so they wouldn’t have to make any last minute detours.
“I feel like the odd man out here and I don’t want to be the reason we have to make any changes of plans, that’s all”
“Oh nonsense, Chuck. If they hadn’t felt comfortable with you, you’d have gotten the cold shoulder as soon as you walked into Joel and Rachael’s house. They invited you in, sat you down, and even gave you coffee.”
“But I understand. Hurry back, I don’t want to have to worry about you. Remember, I’ll need you here at 11:30 as an expert witness.” Sheri squeezed his arm and turned to go inside.
As Chuck pulled out of the driveway, the sun was shining on her living room window but he thought he saw Sheri watching him drive away through the glare.
It was almost 10:00 when Joel and Josh got to the grocery store, which was, in fact, open—and hand writing receipts for what people were buying. Eric had mentioned getting as much dry ice as they would sell, and to do it on the sly with the manager, if he could, so as not to cause a run on it or get himself mugged as he left the store.
Joel and Rachael had been shopping here for almost ten years and knew the manager, so Joel was pretty sure he would take a check or run the credit card manually. He still waited until he could get him alone and that took about fifteen minutes as the store was actually quite crowded, considering the power was out. Really, it was barely controlled chaos and Joel was pretty sure there was a fair amount of shoplifting going on--but there was no way to be sure, and he alone couldn’t have stopped it.
“Mike, I’ve got a favor to ask but I’m sure I’m not the first one to say that to you today,” Joel said.
“If I had a nickel… Heck, if I had a wooden nickel for every time I’d heard that today I could build another store. Whatcha’ need Joel?”
“First, would you take a check and second, do you guys sell dry ice?”
“From you, sure, I know you’re good for it and the power’ll be back on eventually, and yeah, we have dry ice. Surprisingly, you’re the first one to ask, too. Do me a favor, Joel, don’t clean me out, huh? ”
“Deal. You tell me how much you want to keep for you and whoever you want to treat real nice, see?” Joel was doing a really bad James Cagney. “And I’ll take the rest, see?”
“Ok, as long as you never do that again,” Mike chuckled.
“Done and done.”
As it turned out, there was a small cooler of dry ice up at the front of the store but there was a substantially larger cooler in the meat section in back. There was no way Joel and company could have used it all and Mike cut him a deal for $1/lb since the power was out and it was all likely to melt anyway. They pulled around back to load up, so as not to draw attention to themselves, and they hauled off almost 200lbs of it in slabs. Cooling, even freezing, their food was not going to be a problem for the next several days at least.
When they were done, Mike went out into the store and got a brand new combination padlock and locked the dry ice cooler. “I have a feeling that you may have just gotten a really good deal, Joel, not that I’m changing my mind. I just don’t want the rest sprouting legs and walking away. This and those idling trucks back there,” Mike motioned to the refrigerator trucks in the parking lot behind the store, “might be the only refrigeration for a while, now that I think about it. Honestly, thanks for bringing it up, Joel; I think it’ll come in handy.”
“Welcome, Mike. Hang in there-- but do yourself a favor and don’t hang around too long, man.”
“You too, and now I need to get back to discouraging would-be shoplifters. Take care.”
When Joel and Josh arrived back home, Rachel and Maya had completely emptied out the pantry and were organizing everything into meals by days and weeks on the living room floor. They were also keeping a tally of how much water they thought they were going to need just for the cooking. Cleaning could be taken care of by boiling but drinking was another matter, if you could manage it.
Joel and Josh manhandled the coolers they had filled into the house and Joel sent his son over to let Eric know how much dry ice they’d been able to get. He then sent his daughter upstairs to sort out some clothing so he could be alone with Rachael for a few minutes.
“Rach, hon…”
“Don’t, it’s ok. I’m really not mad. It’s kind of funny if you think about it. If the gun had been yours, I’ll admit I’d be furious. If you’d said you had bought one too, again, you’d be sleeping on the couch. I’m not even mad that you didn’t tell me. It’s his. It was in the safe. He doesn’t even know the combination…right?”
“Correct.”
“Then I really don’t have a whole lot of room to be upset. Mind you I didn’t say any, just not a whole lot.” Rachael faced her husband and put her arms around his neck. He put his arms around her waist. “He and I will have a talk, because I’m sure he knows that you and I were still ‘discussing it’, but I love you and there are certainly worse things he could have spent his money on. It’s not like he isn’t responsible.”
“True. Ok. Can I have one?”
“No.”
“I meant a kiss…”
Maya came down just then, “Dad, how long are we, ewww gross!”
Joel put his head on his wife’s shoulder, “Do you think she even made it up the stairs?”
“Maybe, but probably not. It is a whole sixteen s
tairs, honey.”
A quick hug and he turned to his daughter, “How long are we what, Punkin'?”
“How long are we going to be gone? I only have summer clothes in my closet. Do I need to get out any of my fall stuff?”
“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure you had some long pants and shirts. I think we should be back before winter but you never know, and if we go up into the mountains it can still get cold. Make sure you pack plenty of under…things.”
“Daaaddy!” Maya turned and flounced away.
“What? I’m just saying!” I am never going to get used to having a growing daughter! And when the hell did she learn to flounce anyway?
“Dad,” Maya stopped and turned around, a concerned look on her face. “Are we really going to be gone a long time?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Joel said. “Why?”
“Well,” Maya paused, “I’m supposed to start Junior High this year. Mom and I went shopping for my new school clothes since I don’t have to wear a uniform anymore.” Her shoulders slumped. “I can’t even post on Facebook where we’re going to be.”
Joel glanced at his wife and then looked back at his daughter. “I won’t even get into the fact that you’re supposed to be thirteen before you have a Facebook account, young lady,” he said with his arms folded and then held them out for her to come to him.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen, sweetheart,” he said, “but we’ll figure it out. It would be better to be prepared and not need it than to need it and not have it though, ok?”
Maya gave him a hug and nodded and then went upstairs to get packed.
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you before you left, we’re having a neighborhood meeting at 11:30 at the cabana. Carey ambushed us as we were all coming out the front door.”
“Now is probably the best time in the world to have told me that. I’ve got nothing left, so I can’t overreact.” Joel said.
“Too bad you weren’t there. He looked like he’d been hit with a crowbar. He was trying to pump Sheri for information and actually used the fact that he was the HOA president as justification for her telling him before everyone else.” Rachael giggled, “And when she did, I thought he was going to pee his pants. He just stood there for a good five seconds before he was able to say anything. I’m really sorry you missed it but it’s probably a good thing you weren’t there.”
“I’m enjoying it vicariously through you, and the imagination is a wonderful thing. I can add the crowbar,” Joel winked.
“You are awful!”
“Yes, yes I am. I’m also going to enjoy every minute of this meeting when people look to him for leadership in this time of crisis.” Joel got serious then, “But I’m going to feel very bad in the long run if someone else doesn’t step up if or when he fails miserably. For their sake, I hope that doesn’t happen.”
About forty-five minutes later, Chuck pulled up in front of Sheri’s house. The bed of his truck appeared to be completely full, and then some, and covered with a tarp held down with bungee cords.
He knocked on Sheri’s door and had to wait a minute for her to come and answer it. “You know, you could have just come in, Chuck. I was expecting you.”
“No ma’am, I couldn’t have.” Chuck said. “You might have been expecting me, but I didn’t know for sure, and neither of us knew when I was going to get back. I didn’t want to presume, and I certainly didn’t want to startle you. The alarms don’t chirp when the doors open anymore after all.”
“Well, I appreciate that and I guess you’re right. Thank you for that. Looks like you had a little more than you realized squirreled away in that man cave of yours. What did you decide you just couldn’t live without?” Sheri asked.
“I ended up bringing most of my hand tools, including one of my smaller air compressors and the air tools.” Chuck said. “We’re taking a bunch of vehicles and nobody has mentioned taking anything to repair any of them with. If we end up packing all of them full and one of them breaks down we’d end up having to leave stuff behind. I figure this is something I can bring to the table.”
“By the way, do you remember what kind of car Pete drove?” Chuck asked.
“Why? I thought he’d be on his way to Oklahoma by now. He sure sounded all fired up to go when he left the dam earlier this morning.” she said.
“I thought so, too. I know he has that old Chevy pickup but I thought he had a restored Mustang too. Yellow, wasn’t it?” Chuck asked.
“Yeah, I think so. He drove it to work a couple of times but didn’t like to bring it in because of the gravel parking lot-- he didn’t want to get the paint messed up,” Sheri agreed.
“That’s what I thought, too. I could have sworn I saw him over by my house on the way back here, but he lives way over in East View. What would he be doing over by Lockland Springs?”
“His girlfriend lives in East View too, so I have no idea. Why do you ask? Worried?”
Chuck shrugged. “Not so much worried as aware. He sounded pretty sure about heading to his dad’s place this morning, and he did make it sound like he wasn’t real concerned with observing common civilized niceties where getting there was concerned. It might be nothing. It’s not like there isn’t more than one yellow Mustang in Nashville.”
“Well, there’s nothing for it. He’s either left already or he hasn’t, I don’t know that it’ll matter either way. Give me a hand getting a few more things into the truck and then I want to head over to the Taylors before we go to this community meeting.”
Sheri had done a fair amount of packing while Chuck was gone. She’d completely cleaned out her pantry, including repacking anything that would spill or was in bags that were likely to tear, and Joel had sent Josh over with a box full of dry ice for her two coolers. She’d packed her clothing into a number of duffel bags and backpacks, and thought to include laundry soap and dryer sheets of all things.
“Hey, you never know,” Sheri said when she saw Chuck raise an eyebrow at the dryer sheets. “Eric keeps reminding us that the electricity is going to come back on sooner or later, and he’s right after all. All we have to do is raid a Sears and we’re in business!”
They had just finished packing Sheri’s bags into the Explorer when Josh knocked on the front door.
“Dad was wondering if you wanted to head over to the cabana together now that Mr. Turner is back.”
“Someone is bound and determined to call me that, aren’t they?” Chuck grumbled.
“Oh lighten up, you big grump.” Sheri said. “The boy’s only sixteen and he’s just doing what he’s been asked to do. He can’t rightly call you Chuck now can he?”
“Lead the way, Josh,” Sheri said as she ushered Chuck out of the house and locked the door.
Chapter Eight
The pool cabana was as full as Sheri had ever seen it by 11:30. “I hope this was a good idea,” she muttered to herself.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Joel, Eric, and I are all packing,” Chuck replied from her right side.
That snapped her out of her silent brooding about what she was going to say and how she was going to say it. “What in the world are you talking about?” Sheri looked at Chuck and then quickly glanced at Eric and Joel. For the first time she noticed that Joel had changed his shirt from earlier this morning and what he was wearing was now longer and un-tucked. “Holy crap, you’re serious!” she whispered.
“Yes ma’am.” Chuck answered. “This is exactly the kind of situation I was worried about. Someone in the know breaking the bad news to someone who’s not. You’re the messenger Sheri. Yeah, I was your supervisor but they don’t know me from Adam.”
“Any more good news I need to know before this little shindig gets going?” she asked.
“I don’t think so, no. If I think of something I’ll be sure to tell you on the way back to your place, though.” Chuck grinned.
“Thanks,” she elbowed Chuck in the side, “you’re gonna be a lot of help I can just tell.
”
Just then, Carey stood up on one of the tables and started waving his arms to try to get people’s attention. That went on for a good ten or fifteen seconds before someone in the crowd whistled through their fingers and cut through the noise. “Thank you, whoever that was.” Sheri was pretty sure it had been Joel, but neither of them was going to say anything at this point.
“As I’m sure you are all aware by now,” Carey began, “the power is out.” A couple of folks started to make rude or smart comments at this point but Carey kept talking and most of the hecklers shut up. “What some of you may not know is that our very own Sheri Hines works for, but let me stress the point that she is not responsible for, the power company. As a joke this morning I asked her if she knew how soon the power would be back on--assuming that the answer would be ‘sometime between 2:00 and 4:00, assuming someone will be home’,” that got a chuckle. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Let me say again that Ms. Hines simply works for the power company and is only sharing what she knows as a favor; but at my request she’s going to let us know as much as she knows regarding what’s going on.”
People were murmuring now. What did Carey mean by ‘regarding what’s going on’?
Sheri cursed Carey under her breath. Thanks a lot, you moron. I don’t even think you realize how bad you just made me look in your attempt to pump yourself up. Saying that I’m only sharing what I know as a favor? Like I was going to hide something? I’m only doing this at your request? Great, now no matter what I say it’s going to be tainted by that and I’ll look like I’m trying to dig myself out, or cover my own butt.
Sheri stepped up onto the table as Carey stepped down. She looked around at the expectant crowd--now gone silent. She had to swallow a couple of times before she could say anything past the lump building in her throat, and then she looked down at the group she’d spent most of the morning with and began talking.
Dark Grid (Book 1) Page 5