by N. C. Reed
“What a damn mess,” Clay sighed. “I-” He stopped as the radio next to him crackled to life.
“Clay, can you receive?” He picked up the handheld.
“Go ahead,” he replied.
“How far are you from the rendezvous?” Robert's voice was recognizable now.
“No telling,” he replied honestly. “Traffic is crawling. Is everyone else there?”
“Affirmative,” Robert replied. “Standing by.”
“Suggest you go on ahead,” Clay recommended.
“Negative,” Robert replied after nearly a minute. “Standing by. Duo reports that radio reception over long distances may degrade soon. Some effects already being seen. Recommend staying together if possible. We're in a good location and not under stress. If that changes, will try to notify you if possible, depending on situation and reception. Copy?”
“Copy all,” Clay sighed. “We 'll try and speed things up, but I don't see much of a way to do it at the moment.”
“Standing by,” Robert said, signing off.
“They won't leave without us,” Gordy shook his head.
“Well, we wouldn't leave without them,” Clay shrugged. “Fair is fair.”
“That's true,” Gordy nodded. “I wonder-hey, I see blue lights,” he cut himself off to report. “Under the overpass, see?” he pointed.
“I do now,” Clay nodded. “There's a bag down in the floorboard. Look inside and you should find a small pair of binoculars.” Gordy retrieved the glasses and handed them to Clay.
“What are you looking for?” Gordy asked. “Hey, traffic's moving,” he added.
“Here,” Clay handed the glasses back. “Are they checking vehicles or working a wreck, or what?” he asked his nephew. Gordy raised the glasses and took a look.
“I can see a wrecker now,” he said at last. “A roll back. And-oh, wow,” he exclaimed softly. “I can't tell what that was, but it's totaled now. There's two troopers, looks like two city units, and an ambulance still on the scene. Okay, they're shunting traffic to the far right lanes,” he reported. “We should be moving a little better soon.”
Five minutes later they were by the wreck and Clay had to agree that whatever kind of car it had been, the wreck now sitting atop the rollback would never be one again.
“No way anyone lived through that,” Gordy shook his head as trooper waved them on by.
“Never know,” Clay replied. “Never know.” He sped up slightly, ensuring that Lainie was still right behind him. She was there, stuck like glue.
Once clear of the wreck, their pace picked up considerably.
“I wish we could eat,” Gordy sighed.
“Me too, kiddo,” Clay nodded. “My belt buckle is rubbing my backbone. But we have got to get the hell out of here.”
“I know. If it wasn't for that crooked ass cop we could be eating right now,” he said glumly.
Clay didn't respond, but basically Gordy was right. Had that crooked cop not came at them, they could at least have grabbed a burger. Might be the last chance for Wendy's or Arby's or any of the other favorites.
“Be watching the signs,” he said suddenly. “If you see a sign for something good, sing out. If it looks like it won't be trouble, we 'll stop. I know Lainie is hungry and I bet that girl is to.”
“Is it just me or is she a little bit. . .clueless?” Gordy asked. “I don't mean that bad, but I guess it sounded that way. What I mean is, she doesn't seem like she has a good grasp of what's happening around her.”
“She may not, not the same way you do,” Clay shrugged. “Everyone is different.”
“Yeah,” Gordy nodded. “I wish I hadn't said it like that,” he said after a minute. “It sounded mean and I swear I didn't mean it like that.”
“I know.”
-
“What in the world are we doing now?” Lainie wondered aloud as Clay signaled he was leaving the Interstate. She followed him up the exit, and then into a parking lot that boasted an Arby's, a Wendy's, and a McDonald's, all within a hundred yards of each other.
“Oh, can we eat?” Janice asked.
“I sure hope so,” Lainie told her as she parked next to Clay.
“We're hungry,” Clay said without fanfare as he and Gordy got out. “Lets grab something and eat on the way, but we need to eat. There's a store where we can get bottled drinks,” he pointed. “Probably easier than cups.”
“Bless you,” Lainie kissed him as she got around the truck. “I am starving.”
“We need to hurry,” Gordy mentioned. “Things are just going to get worse,” he pointed out.
“He's right. You two go and get the food, and we 'll get the drinks and maybe some snacks or something, I don't know,” Clay suggested. He and Gordy gave their requests to the girls, and took theirs for drinks, then the four split up.
It took longer than Clay wanted, but fifteen minutes later they were pulling back on the Interstate, with Clay digging a double cheeseburger out of the bag next to him.
“This is more like it,” Gordy mumbled around a mouthful of delicious, terrible for you fast food.
“You bet,” Clay agreed. He wiped his hands on his pants leg and picked up the radio.
“Roy, you read?” he asked, not asking for Robert by name.
“Got you,” came the short reply.
“We're moving,” Clay told him. “Thirty minutes, ETA.”
“Standing by,” Robert replied, going silent again.
“Thirty minutes,” Clay said again to himself, checking his mirror.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
-
While most of her family was in Nashville, Patricia Carson Sanders was at work. Work she found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on due to constantly thinking about the coming disaster. She wanted desperately to just laugh it off and forget it, but she couldn't. She didn't know Clay that well, not having spent much time around him, but he just wasn't the type to pull a fast one like this. And her niece and nephew were flat out scary smart. Like, take over the world by computer smart. Her own children, intelligent as they were (and Abigail tested genius on her IQ test as well) couldn't hold a candle to the twins.
The odds that they were actually wrong were staggering. And if they were right, then they had less than four days before the wheels essentially came off of everything.
“So, do you think it's Shingles?”
“What?” Patricia looked up, startled by the older woman's question.
“Is it Shingles?” the woman pointed to the rash on her face.
“No, hon, it isn't,” Patricia smiled. “It's eczema. That's a skin condition that makes your skin irritated as yours is now. I want you to change the soap you use to this,” she wrote on a prescription pad, “and use hydro-cortisone cream on the red areas for the next three days or so until the itching stops. Use the soap with lukewarm water and wash your face three to five times daily, then apply the cream afterward. You should see an improvement in just a couple of days.”
“Thank you doctor,” the woman looked relieved. “I was so afraid it was Shingles. They can be deadly you know,” she confided.
“They aren't so long as they're treated properly,” Patricia smiled. “But you don't have Shingles. I do recommend you get the Shingles vaccine if you've had Chicken Pox.”
“I don't believe I ever had Chicken Pox,” the woman mused as she accepted the paper. “Not that I can recall.”
“Then you won't have Shingles,” Patricia told her. “Shingles is a condition associated with Chicken Pox. Now don't forget to get this soap and use it as directed. Try and keep your skin moist with a good lotion once you don't need the cream anymore. That should help.”
“Thank you again,” the woman smiled and left the treatment room heading out. Patricia sighed as she gathered her things and walked out, moving the panel over the door that signaled for the LPN to clean and clear the room.
“That was the last patient on the books today,” Renee Jackson, the RN, told her as they me
t at the small computer desk. “Slow news day I guess,” she smiled.
“Sounds like it,” Patricia smiled back but didn't really feel it. Her mind was already turning over what she had to do. What she needed, what she could get, and where she could get it.
“Doctor Cary called,” Jackson was saying. “He won't be in this afternoon so we had to cancel his appointments as well.”
“He say why?” Patricia asked. Mack Cary was the dentist who usually made the trip over from Columbia on Monday afternoons to see local patients.
“No, just that something had suddenly come up and he was tied up outside the office for the next few days,” Renee shook her head. “I guess, technically, we can go home,” she shrugged. “We don't have a single patient on the books for the rest of the day.”
“We can't just close up,” Patricia mused. “Let everyone else go and I'll cover the afternoon,” she said suddenly. “I don't have anything else going on and my bunch is all at school or working.” Not technically a lie since she was sure her kids were working their tails off helping their father.
“I hate to leave you here alone,” Jackson replied, her tone suggesting she didn't really hate it that much.
“It's no big deal,” Patricia sounded casual. “How often do we get a day like this? Go ahead and tell everyone else. Put the phone where it will ring back here for me and lock the door on the way out. Walk-ups can buzz me and I can let them in.”
“You're a dear,” Renee smiled brightly. Five minutes later she, the LPN and the receptionist were on their way out, and Patricia was alone. Her Expedition was parked at the rear door of the clinic and fifteen minutes after she was alone, she began loading things into her vehicle.
She was careful not to take all of anything, but made sure she got some of everything. There was no telling what kind of injuries or illnesses she would be called upon to treat in the coming days so she tried to be prepared for all of it. Medicines would be at a premium if things were as bad as the twins expected-
She stopped short at that thought.
She would need to be able to create herbal and home made remedies. She grabbed her cell phone and dialed her niece.
“Yes?” Leanne answered.
“Leanne, I need you to find me any books you can on herbal remedies and home cures,” Patricia said without preamble. “Things that we can make from what we can grow ourselves in the event things are as bad as you two fear. I need to be able to make whatever medicines I can.”
“We ordered several on line, along with all the seeds we could find or think of, but we're going to a bookstore later on, so we 'll check there as well. Anything else?”
“Just if you see one of those old timey medical dictionary type books. You know the ones I mean?”
“Yes ma'am.”
“Get one. Or even two if you have the money. We need to be able to share if we have to.”
“Will do.”
“Thank you, sweetie,” she said to nothing as Leanne had already cut the call. Putting her phone away Patricia got back to work.
Stealing from her own office.
-
Angela watched as the fuel truck topped off the farm tanks. She had watched everyone leaving this morning and then sat down to think of other items that needed covering. One of the very first things was propane.
All of the houses on the farm had at least a flu for a wood stove if not a fireplace, but they all had propane heaters as well. While full tanks wouldn't last forever, it would be something, so as soon as she had called the oil company, she had called the propane delivery people as well.
Her next idea had been for her chickens. She usually maintained seventy to one hundred chickens at any given time, and depended on them for the eggs it took to feed so many people. She would need to increase that number in the event things really did become as bad as the twins feared. Eggs would be a valuable commodity for trading. A call to the Co-op saw a delivery scheduled that afternoon for several hundred pounds of laying mash, all they had on hand. She explained that she was getting ready for winter and didn't want to have to fool with getting mash all the time.
As the fuel truck finished, the pickup that had accompanied the fuel truck backed to the shed and the two men unloaded three barrels of kerosene K-1. Angela had smiled and told them they were going to use it to heat her chicken house and perhaps the livestock barn. The men had laughed at how she pampered her chickens and went about their work.
She smiled mentally. So easy to fool. If only Gordon were that gullible and easy to trick, she snorted to herself. Her husband was many things, but simple minded was not among them.
“What are they doing?” Leon's question brought her out of her ruminations.
“Unloading kerosene barrels,” she smiled. “Would you like some coffee, Pa?”
“Don't make is special for me, but if it's already made I wouldn't turn it down,” he admitted.
“Come inside?”
“Nah, I think I'll sit out here, if you're gonna keep watching.”
“I'm waiting on the propane delivery man and the Co-op. They're bringing me all the chicken mash they had on hand.”
“Think that will attract any attention?” Leon asked.
“Oh, I'm just a flighty female who dotes on her chickens too much,” she put a hand alongside her face and adopted a clueless expression, which made Leon erupt in laughter.
“You're a caution, girl, that you are,” he told her. She smiled as she fetched both of them a mug of coffee, careful to add a drop of sugar to Leon's.
“What do you think of all this, Pa?” she asked once they were seated.
“I don't know, Angie,” he admitted. “I've been thinking on it today while they're all out, wondering what things will be like. Not living with no electricity,” he waved that away. “I've done that, when I was younger. I mean how people will react. People in this generation ain't used to doing without.”
“I know,” she nodded thoughtfully. “That's something I've been thinking about too. I'd like to think that my own children will be okay, and their children won't be too bad, but. . .overall, I just don't know. I doubt that our society can hold together without its technology.”
“I figure you're right,” Leon sighed. “We tried to plan for everything, but there's no way to get it all. I guarantee you that bunch has seen two dozen things today and said 'we didn't think of that', or 'we missed that'. And like you said, there's just no way to plan for how people will react. Clayton was right about one thing though; better we didn't run to Peabody and buy up everything. People notice that. Once things got bad, you can bet they'd remember where it came from, too.”
“People today are so selfish,” Angela nodded sadly. “They believe the world owes them something. Or everything, even. And when they don't get it, they turn mean.”
“No, they're already mean, sweetie,” Leon told her. “They just allow it to show when they don't get their way. We've seen a lot of that lately as it is with that breed of people. As long as things are going their way, the rest of us ought to be tickled, but let it turn, and, well, we're all just heathens, ain't we?”
“This country has changed so much in my lifetime,” Angela lamented. “I-” She stopped as the fuel truck headed out, the pickup that had brought the kerosene stopping. The driver got out and walked to the porch with a bill.
“Hey you are, Mrs. Sanders,” the man smiled. “Hope your chickens do well!” he waved as he turned to go.
“Thank you, Harold,!” Angela smiled, waving back. Once he was gone she returned to her discussion.
“I never thought I'd see a United States where a Christian business owner could be sued for standing up for their beliefs,” she said softly. “This isn't the same nation I grew up in.”
“No, it ain't,” Leon agreed. “Just like yours wasn't the same as mine,” he added. “Things change every generation, and part of that is the fault of the generation before. We always want better for our children than what we had. But then we look ba
ck and lament that things ain't like that no more. Are we really doing them any favors, giving them things we had to scrape and scratch to get?”
“We were always careful about that I thought,” she nodded thoughtfully. “We did provide some things, but others the kids had to work for, even if we had the money to provide it. I remember Robert wanting a car when he got his license. We had the money to get him a pretty good old car, but Gordon insisted he drive the old farm truck and get a job to by his own. I always thought he appreciated it more because he earned it.”
“Too bad Alicia didn't learn that way,” Leon's tone was acidic.
“There I admit we might have done a better job,” Angela admitted. “It's different with girls. We didn't like the idea of her being out so late alone, and working in a convenience store that sells beer and porno magazines isn't a place for a young teen girl. She still had to work, but she paid us back rather than earn it first.”
“She didn't pay it all back because she was too busy keeping the road hot with her friends, going to this party and that meet and those. . .whatever,” Leon waved a hand in dismissal. “I ain't trying to make you feel bad or even criticizing, really, just. . .laying it out there.”
“You're right,” she agreed. “And we've paid for it all these years. Her mouth would cut through steel sometimes. She is selfish and self-centered far too much of the time, even when it comes to her children. Take how she treated the twins last night and them working so hard to figure out what was happening.”
“She's in for a rude shock if this all happens the way we think,” Leon said simply. “Life is going to be hard. Much harder than any of them have seen it. And what ease we do have she can thank her kids for in large part. If not for them, I have no honest idea what shape we'd be in. As it is, things will be hard, but not nearly as hard for us as for so many others.”
“I know,” Angela nodded. “I've thought about that since Gordon mentioned all this, maybe a week ago. I had realized you all were up to something and cornered him about it,” she smiled when Leon looked sharply at her comment. “He made me swear not to tell. But that's why I have the lists I do,” she confided. “I did my panicking early and then got down to work,” she laughed.