Wait a minute. John looked around and listened intently. He couldn’t hear anything. Not even the sound of the raindrops that were pelting the tin covering of the canopy or splashing into the puddles of water on the concrete. No cars on the roads. No birds. Nothing.
“Great,” he said aloud. He didn’t hear his own voice. It was then that he realized he was deaf. The intense explosions must have burst his eardrums or something. Hopefully it wouldn’t last forever.
John walked around the old tire shop for a few minutes trying to get his bearings. He finally realized where he was and decided which way he needed to go to get home. He knew that home is where he needed to be. He had no idea what was going on, but he did know that there was more than met the eyes.
He didn’t see any running vehicles on the roads, but there were plenty broken down. The electricity was obviously out in this part of town. It was strange to see everything at a standstill.
There were several people milling about, but each time he tried to approach anyone they would turn away from him. He figured that he must be a sight. He realized that there was nobody who would help him, so he had to take matters in his own hands and help himself. He started walking.
For most of that morning John walked. He found his way to Highway 69 and on toward Beaumont. As he walked he was both amazed and disheartened by the way people were reacting to … to whatever had happened. Cars littered the roadways everywhere. People were literally crazy. Crazy.
It was late afternoon before John reached Beaumont. Rain had come and gone throughout the morning, keeping him soaked to the bone. He was glad that the rain cooled his burned skin but disappointed that it added a little more weight for him to carry (keeping his coveralls soaked). He decided that he would risk the hazards of crazy people by taking MLK instead of the highway to get through Beaumont. That route would probably cut five or six miles from his journey.
Only a few minutes after taking the MLK exit, John saw a group of people gathered near the Lamar College football field. Someone had set up several tents and quite a few people were gathered around them. He decided he would stop and see if he might be able to get a bite to eat, something to drink or any assistance that may be available there.
He suddenly felt someone grab him by his arm. He jerked away and turned to see a tiny young Asian lady at his side. She was saying something, but he couldn’t hear a word. She seemed genuinely concerned as she once again reached for his arm. He didn’t jerk away and instead allowed her to guide him toward one of the tents.
The two went inside the tent and he realized this was a medical tent, for bandages, salves, hypodermic needles and other medical supplies were lined up on a table. He sat on a stool and allowed the young lady to look him over. She was obviously a nurse, for she went about examining his head, neck, face and hands. They all hurt. He was sure the burns were deep.
The girl rubbed medicated gel all over his exposed skin with a gentle hand. John finally felt comfort from his injuries as the gel worked its magic. The girl finally held up a mirror and allowed the man to see the extent of his injuries.
John almost didn’t recognize himself. All the hair on his head had been burned away. Even his eyebrows were gone. His skin was a pale red and swollen. He could see streaks of dried blood beneath each of his ears. Tears flowed from each of his eyes.
The girl placed her small hands gently on his chin and turned his face toward hers. She slowly mouthed the words, “You’re going to be ok.” For some reason he found great comfort in that.
“What’s your name,” John asked.
“Kim,” she answered. “You?”
“I’m John,” he replied in a soft voice, not knowing if he was shouting or what. “You are an angel, Kim. God bless you and your friends for what you’re doing.”
Kim nodded. She reached into a basket and grabbed a banana and an apple and handed it to the burned man. She then turned and opened a cooler and took out a couple bottles of bottled water and offered it to him. He accepted them gratefully. He opened a bottle of water and downed half of it before lowering it from his lips. The wetness was so welcome to his throat. He began peeling the banana.
Kim touched his chin and he looked at her. “Rest here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” He didn’t hear her, but he understood. He nodded as she turned and walked out the tent.
He slowly ate the banana. It was the best banana he had ever eaten. Ever.
A couple of moments later Kim returned with a tall, lean man. He was apparently a doctor, because he looked at John’s burns closely and then turned to Kim and said something. He looked back at the man with the injuries and winked. It was followed by a slight smile, which actually made the man feel better.
Kim opened a syringe and filled it with some kind of medicine. She then filled another. She looked at John and swirled her finger. He knew that she wanted him to turn around and drop his coveralls. He was about to get a couple of shots. She held one up and mouthed the word “antibiotic.” Then she held up the other and mouthed, “for the pain.” He nodded.
The shots didn’t hurt.
John sat in the tent and rested for a few more minutes. He finished his bottle of water and ate another banana. He then shoved the other bottle of water in one pocket and the apple in the other before making his way out of the tent. He looked around for the petite nurse. With all the people and the flurry of activity around the make-shift first-aid station he did not find her. He knew that he had been blessed to find this place when he did. The medication had soothed the burning and the shot had made the pain bearable.
He would like to have stayed and offered his assistance to this fine group of people, but he knew that he had to get home. He knew that his wife and girls needed him. He knew that he needed them. Come hell or high water, he was going to be there for them as soon as he possibly could. He started walking.
That was yesterday. With each step he got closer to his destination. The miles he had traveled had been hard. The only thing that was harder was seeing how society was obviously breaking down because of whatever caused the tragedy around him. His faith in humanity in general had diminished so much. How could people be so evil?
Remembering Kim and the people who had helped him; who had helped so many, was the one redeeming factor that stood out to him. There really were good people left in the world.
Through the darkness, the most amazing sight fell before John’s tired eyes. He was home. Thank God. He suddenly found a burst of energy as he treaded up the steps and onto his front porch. He opened the front door and stepped inside. It was dark, but he knew the layout of his mobile home like the back of his hand.
First, he went through the living room, to the right and into the girl’s room. He could barely see their beds, but it was apparent that they were empty. He turned and walked to the master bedroom, which lay on the other side of the living room and to the right of the kitchen. The door was open. The bed was empty, except for a rather large pile of Christmas decorations.
“It’s too early to decorate a Christmas tree,” he thought.
He walked over to the nightstand beside the bed, opened the drawer and pulled out a flashlight. He turned it on. The beam of light blinded him for a few seconds. John scanned it around the room and saw that his wife had apparently packed some things and left the house. He looked in the closet and noticed that not only were totes missing, but his bow and arrows were missing.
Where are they? He walked back into the living room and over to the wooden desk near the front door. That is where they always left notes for each other. Sure enough, on top of the desk was a note pad with words scribbled on it.
The note read: “Plan B. You know where we are. We love you.” He knew where she was now and his anxiety level dwindled. He walked over to the couch, sat down and almost immediately drifted off to sleep. It was a restful sleep.
Chapter 2
Road trip
It was stifling beneath the tarp that was bound to the canoe. Jerry wa
sn’t sure if his eyes were open and staring into darkness or if they were closed and he was actually still asleep. As much as his muscles hurt, he must be awake. This was all-too-familiar; every time he ran out of go-juice his body would pay.
Feeling around the space around him, Jerry’s foggy mind began to clear a bit. He remembered that he and his friend were in their canoe, not too far from Hwy. 327.
“Hey, Dalton,” he said. There was no answer. Wait a minute. Dalton wasn’t in the canoe. That’s right, he was gone the last time Jerry had checked on him. How long ago was that?
It really didn’t matter. As long as he didn’t take all the stash with him … which was gone before Dalton left. Dangit. Jerry remembered that they had ran out of meth before he crashed. No wonder Dalton left. He must have gone in search of more.
It suddenly hit Jerry that the canoe wasn’t tossing about, or the rain wasn’t beating down on the tarp above him. Had it finally stopped raining? He again started feeling around in the darkness. His hand found the wire that held the tarp in place and twisted it. In a short moment the tarp was freed, and a rush of cool air entered the confined space around him.
Jerry ran his hand along the ridge of the canoe and found the next twist tie, freeing another section of the tarp and allowing more refreshing air in. It was dark outside, but not so much that he couldn’t see a star-filled sky and that the level of the muddy water had risen. Not a great deal, though. Just enough to be noticeable.
He adjusted himself in the canoe where he was in a sitting position, with his butt on the bottom of the canoe. This gave Jerry a little more room to maneuver around in the small space. He soon found the camp light and clicked it on. Geez. That was bright.
It took a minute for his eyes to adjust. He could see that the make-shift covering that was thrown together before the rain began had held up very well. Everything inside the canoe seemed to be dry. Jerry found it interesting that Dalton had left their floating oasis and was able to reattach the tarp without leaving any openings.
Rummaging around, Jerry was able to find the small stainless-steel pot they used to heat water with, as well as his metal cup and a baggie that held packets of instant coffee. There were several bottles of water rolling around on the floor of the canoe at Dalton’s end. Now the only thing to do was to get on a sand bar and find some dry wood to build a fire with.
A few minutes later Jerry was sitting on a sand bar contemplating his next move. Pulling the canoe upstream hadn’t been much of a problem but finding driftwood that was dry had been an impossible feat. There was one can of Sterno left and it would be selfish to use it without Dalton. Would it be worth using it so one person could have hot coffee?
Jerry drank two cups of coffee before the sun started rising. When there was enough light out, he gathered all his belongings and secured them in the flat bottom canoe. He decided that he would take a little stroll over to Kountze to see if he could find some work to make some cash where he could replenish his supplies. He knew a couple of folks over there who were usually good about finding something for him to do without giving him too hard of a time.
He pulled the canoe across the sand bar and up into the trees that lined the creek. There was a wall of shrubbery that worked well to conceal the green metal of the canoe from anyone who may float by this section of the creek. It wasn’t like there were a whole lot of people who came to this area anyway.
Comfortable that his things were hidden well enough, Jerry started walking through the patch of woods on the west side of the creek. He knew that if he kept the rising sun at his back he would soon run into Clear Lake Road. It wouldn’t be but a short walk to the airport from there. If he played his cards right, he figured, he could probably make a few bucks sweeping out a hanger or something.
- - -
“Ryder,” Allie said. “You’re not going to be able to take all those toys with you. Pick one and leave the rest here.”
Ryder was not a happy camper. He couldn’t understand why he had to choose just one toy to take with him. He didn’t understand why his Mama and Daddy were packing up all the food in his wagon and why they were going to walk all the way to Mawmaw’s house instead of taking the car. It was more than his five-year-old mind could comprehend.
“C’mon, son,” Jake said. “We need to be going soon. Choose which toy you’re taking and put it in the wagon. Marie. Are you taking a toy with you?”
Marie was the older sister, but she was just as confused as her little brother. They missed school two days in a row and now they were gonna’ walk all the way to Mawmaw’s house. They never did that before.
“Yes, Sir,” Marie answered. She placed her small wooden handbag in the wagon and walked over to sit on the porch swing. She wasn’t a happy camper, either.
Jake and Allie had made the decision to take their family over to Uncle Harold’s place in the wee hours of the morning. Since the power went out things had steadily gone downhill in their neighborhood. There were people shouting and occasional gunfire all around them during the night and it had only slowed as the sun began to rise.
It simply wasn’t safe here. They knew they had to get out while they still had a chance. Jake had feared that something like this was going to happen someday. He and Uncle Harold had talked about it many times and he was glad that he had a bug-out bag ready. Actually, he had a couple. Now he had to figure out how to get both bags, as much food as possible and his wife and kids to the other side of town.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
Allie stood in the driveway with her shotgun fully loaded and ready to be used. She had listened to her crazy neighbors all night long and couldn’t wait to get on the road. For now, she was going to watch Jake’s back while he got everything together. Nobody was going to cause harm to her kids or her man.
For the next several minutes Jake maneuvered items onto the little red wagon, trying to figure out how to maximize the small bit of space it provided to carry what essentials they could. Most likely, there wouldn’t be another chance to grab things from their home. At the rate things were going downhill, whatever they left would probably be stolen or trashed by one of the degenerates in the hood or another.
Finally, they had everything on the wagon that was humanly possible. Jake slung one of the bug-out bags onto his back, with Allie taking the other. He had his 9mm strapped on his side and Allie carried the shotgun. Both kids had their backpacks full of clothes. Jake opened the gate and pulled the wagon onto the road, with his wife and kids following. They stood there and looked at their home one last time.
“I’ll miss you,” Ryder said in a sad tone of voice. He reached up and grabbed his dad’s hand and looked up at him. “We can go now.”
A tear trickled down Allie’s cheek as she turned and started walking toward town. She knew that this was probably going to be the last time she would see the house she had lived in during the best years of her life. She had met Jake while living here. They had married, and both kids had been born while they made this house their home. And now she had to just walk away from it because it was no longer safe to be there.
The wheels of the wagon rattled as the family slowly made their way through the quiet streets of their neighborhood. The two children cast their eyes downward as they walked. The eyes of the adults darted from one shadow to another with each step they took. Nobody said a word.
It was only a couple of minutes into their walk when the small family reached the schools the children attended. “Can we play?” Ryder asked excitedly. “Please.”
Marie joined in and there was a chorus of “please” from the children. They wanted so badly to swing and play on the slide at the school’s playground. It broke Allie’s heart to have to tell them no, but there was too much ground to cover and she knew that the sooner they got out of this part of town the better. When people started waking up and coming out of the woodwork things were probably going to get crazy.
The closer they got to the highway, the more they could hear
going on. Motorbikes and generators and other unidentified mechanical sounds replaced the sounds of dogs and shouting in the distance. As strange as it was to be comforted by the sound of a motor running, it was an indication for Jake that not everything had been fried.
Jake and Allie breathed a sigh of relief as they finally reached the highway and left their neighborhood behind them. The battle with the kids about stopping at the playground eased up but was soon replaced with requests for a happy meal as soon as those golden arches came into view.
Ryder’s heart was crushed when he was finally able to see with his own eyes that Mickey D’s was closed. “Awwwwwww,” he whined.
“It’s ok, Bubba,” Marie consoled him. “Mawmaw will make us some nuggets and fries when we get there. She has lots of catsup and Ranch dressing.”
As strange as it seemed to the adults, the compromise seemed to appease the whining boy. Jake pointed out a couple of people who were exiting through the broken glass of the pharmacy across the road. Allie nodded in acknowledgment as she gripped the shotgun a little more tightly. Apparently, all the crazy people weren’t in their neighborhood.
This was going to be a rough day.
It took about 30 minutes for the four travelers to make their way through the stalled vehicles and assortment of people who were taking advantage of the early morning hours to loot. They had gotten a few looks from some of the people they had passed. Thankfully, though, nobody seemed interested in causing them any harm.
“Daddy,” Ryder said. “There’s a train on the road.” Sure enough, a train had been crossing the road and was obviously another victim of the pulse. The closer they got the more it became clear that the train was long and was blocking all three roads that ran through town. Typical.
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