Wandering Highway

By Ike Warren

Copyright © 2012 by Ike Warren

All Rights Reserved.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Initial Reports

Chapter 2: The Blast

Chapter 3: Catastrophe Abounds

Chapter 4: Heading Out

Chapter 5: The First Night

Chapter 6: Eastbound

Chapter 7: Into The Darkness

Chapter 8: Are Those Dead People?

Chapter 9: Gunshots

Chapter 10: Separation

Chapter 11: Exhaustion

Chapter 12: The Warehouse

Chapter 13: Fires

Chapter 14: Midnight Delight

Chapter 15: Disaster At The Lake

Chapter 16: My Place Is Here With Them

Chapter 17: Confrontation

Chapter 18: The Pond

Chapter 19: The Barricade

Chapter 20: Tractor Trailer

Chapter 21: Lumbering Strides

Chapter 22: Frantic Cries

Chapter 23: Code Words

Chapter 24: Recuperation

Chapter 25: Invasion

Introduction

I began writing Wandering Highway in the summer of 2010 when my wife was 8 months pregnant with our youngest daughter. On a hot summer day we had gone out shopping and we had placed ourselves in a similar situation that the young married couple find themselves in this book. As we were out that day I began to ask myself, "What if a disaster happened right now that rendered all modes of transportation inoperable? What if every electronic communication device was somehow rendered useless? How would people react to such a situation? How would we get home?" With that question running through my mind I set out to write Wandering Highway and as I did I tried to include realistic situations in an effort to answer my own questions. One thing that I did not want this book to become was another survival “how-to” book about a couple who already had all the right answers and all the necessary gear to get through any apocalyptic situation. Though I knew that survival skills would play an important part in the story, more importantly I wanted to focus on the couple’s hardships and even on some of their mistakes. I wanted to write about a couple who were, at times, woefully unprepared for the situations that they faced and who often put their desire to reunite with their family ahead of their own personal well-being because I honestly feel that many Americans would react in just that very that way to such a disaster. My goal was to keep this story grounded on ordinary people who face real challenges and who must overcome real struggles and fears and who rejoice in their triumphs. I hope that you as a reader will find that I achieved my goals for this book as you read how I imagine one particular couple would react under such terrible circumstances.

- Ike Warren

Chapter 1: Initial Reports

“Daddy I’m scared.” Samantha said as she looked up at her father.

Allan Anderson stared at the television with wide eyes. A reporter on CNN was talking on the phone to a news anchor and on the screen there was a line of bold text.

Massive Power Outages Across Northern Europe.

“Daddy?” Asked the five year old in a tiny voice.

Allan held his gaze on the television. He could hear his daughter asking for him but in his focus on the television her voice seemed muffled and distant. I have to hear this. This news is important. He told himself.

“Daddy?” Her words tugged at him.

The reporter on the television continued. Allan thought he heard a hint of panic in the reporter’s voice “… you could feel the electrostatic in the air and then came the crackle and the smell of burning electronics all around us…” The reporter said.

“Daddy?” Her insistence pulled him back to inside his living room.

“What is it honey?” Allan looked down at her, dazed from the information that he had just absorbed. He noticed that his daughter’s dark brown hair had white ribbons and bouncy little curls in it. She was wearing a blue dress with a white flower print along with matching pantyhose and little blue buttons on her shoelaces to match the color of her dress. Jennifer must be playing dress-up with Samantha this morning. He thought to himself.

“Daddy, I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared sweetheart.” He said.

The reporter was still speaking on the phone, almost in a manic tone of voice now, “… and none of our cameras or equipment are functional at this time. I’m speaking to you now via satellite phone that was somehow spared during the event. One of my camera guys thinks it’s because of the metal container that we keep it in. I don’t know. All that I do know is this satellite phone is working now and it’s the only electronic device that is actually working since the event last night.”

Jennifer was putting an ear ring on her ear as she walked into the living room where Allan and Samantha were sitting watching the television. She was wearing black pants and a shirt that brought out the giant curve around her waist that indicated a pregnancy that was almost full term. She was 29 years old and she would have normally looked every bit like a teenager except that the later stages of her pregnancy had been hard on her. Recently she had gone through so many sleepless nights as she dealt with late night nausea, early morning nausea, the inability to get comfortable in any sleeping position, emergency dashes to the bathroom, and a whole list of other issues that she didn’t mention to Allan so that he wouldn’t worry about her too much. In addition to the difficulties of her pregnancy she had been attending the local community college, studying to become a nursing assistant. She had gotten her basic college courses out of the way and had just started getting into her core curriculum when she found that the material was too difficult, not the least of which, expensive. She had spent countless hours either pouring over her school books trying to learn the lessons or pouring over their family’s budget trying to figure out how to make ends meet with the added expenses of her tuition. Her tired eyes expressed just how much sleep she had lost lately but she pressed on, excited to go out of town today.

“Samantha, are you ready to go to grandmas?” She asked her daughter who still had her head buried under her father’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to go. I’m scared.” Samantha replied.

“Why are you scared?” Jennifer asked.

“Because of what daddy is watching on the TV.” Samantha looked up at her father seeking reassurance. Jennifer glared at Allan.

“I’m not watching anything.” Allan declared.

“Sure you aren’t.” Jennifer said sarcastically. “What you need to do is quit scaring your daughter, turn off the TV, and go get ready. Did you even notice your daughter’s outfit? She matches from head to toe.” Jennifer smiled with pride at her knack for fashion.

Allan was still focused intently on the television. “Go get ready for what?” He asked without looking up and oblivious to half of what she had just said to him.

Jennifer’s glare turned into a cold stare, “What do you mean ‘Get ready for what?’ What do you think I’ve been getting ready all morning for?”

Allan paused while he considered his response carefully. A moment passed and then as the answer came to him he snapped his fingers with excitement.

“We’re going to the mall in Grapevine today.” He remembered. Allan grabbed the remote control for the television off of his knee and hopped up. “I’ll go get ready now.” He smiled as he walked over to her as she stood with her arms crossed in the doorway blocking his path. Years of practice had taught him that a few playful gestures would get him back on her good side. He slid his hand over to her sides and gave her a gentle tickle but she did not respond. He continued, hoping to break through her barrier, but she just remained there in the doorway glaring up at him. Time to change tactics. He thought to himself and he frowned and puckered his bottom lip out at her, expressing his defeat. A slight grin crossed her face and he instantly lit up.

“See, I knew you weren’t mad at me.” He said and she grinned wider and raised her chin to him inviting a kiss. He bent down and gave her a peck on the lips.

“I love you.” She said adoringly.

“I love you too.” He replied, grateful to have won back her affection. Though, both of them knew that he had never really lost her affection. This was a game that had been played out hundreds of times throughout their eight year marriage and it always left him feeling that he couldn’t love her more than in that very moment. Their playfulness with one another was a foundation to their marriage that all started long ago when he met her at his workplace at a local accounting company and the lighthearted nature of their relationship had never faded despite all their years together.

“I better go get ready now.” He said as he stepped past her. Jennifer turned and gave him a playful slap on his butt as she followed behind him.

"I laid out some pants for you and ironed two shirts for you.” She said.

“Why two shirts?”

“One is your dress shirt and the other is your white undershirt.”

“You ironed my undershirt?”

“Yes. I want you to look nice today. And wear your new shoes too." Jennifer insisted. "I don't want you walking through the mall in those old worn out sneakers of yours. You've got those brand new Sketchers still in the box."

"Those old worn out sneakers happen to be the most comfortable shoes I’ve got." Allan retorted.

Jennifer gave Allan a look that asked, “Please?”

"Fine." He said and he retreated into the closet and lifted the box of black Sketchers dress boots off the top closet shelf. What took Jennifer hours of primping and curling only took Allan ten minutes to get ready.

The three of them climbed into the cab of Allan’s pickup and as he struggled to buckle Samantha into her seat he glanced over at the infant car seat that was already setup and staged on the other side of the rear bench seat for the baby that was on the way.

“I wonder how much of a production it’s going to be getting in and out of this truck once there are two of you to buckle in.” He grinned at Samantha.

“What’s production?” Samantha asked in her tiny voice.

Allan thought it over and chose his words carefully. “It means work, but work that you enjoy doing.” He smiled and closed the door beside her and hopped into the driver’s seat.

“Ouch baby.” Jennifer complained as she sat down in the passenger seat beside Allan. She put her hand on her bulging stomach, “You’re on a kicking spree today.”

Allan looked on from the driver’s seat with pride. The two caught each other’s eyes and Allan smiled and extended his hand onto Jennifer’s stomach.

Samantha looked on from her car seat in the back of the quad cab Dodge Ram pickup. “I’m going to grandma’s house.” She interrupted jealously. Jennifer smiled at Allan and they both turned their focus to Samantha.

“Yes you are. Do you have your DS?” Jennifer asked. Samantha was in love with her Nintendo DS and played it almost daily since receiving it last Christmas.

“Sure do. I have it in my backpack.” Samantha replied while patting her hand on a pink backpack adorned with Disney princess characters.

“Looks kinda rainy out.” Allan said looking up through the top of the windshield.

“Awesome!” Jennifer said with excitement. She always loved inclement weather even when she was a little kid. When she was young her parents would get frightened at thunderstorms with high winds and heavy rain but Jennifer was always glued to the window until her mother would force her to back away out of fear of her getting struck by lightning.

They arrived at grandmother Ellie’s house in Greenville Texas and Samantha unbuckled her seatbelt and jumped out the door with excitement even before Allan could put the truck in park. He wanted to tell her to wait until the truck came to a complete stop, but Samantha was already running towards the front porch before he could even get a word out. As soon as Allan parked the truck and stepped out onto the sidewalk he smelled the odor of something frying in cooking oil and the mixture of the summer heat and humidity and stinky grease hit him like a dog’s hot breath in his face and he curled his nose in disgust. The smell had wafted from inside Ellie’s kitchen out into the entire neighborhood and the smell of it made Allan want to vomit. Ellie always seemed to have hot food in the oven and lately she had been selling some of her food to local businesses for extra income and she always gave the leftovers to some of the people in her neighborhood. When Allan first started dating Jennifer he loved going over to her house to smell the aromas of the homemade cooking as it filled Ellie’s house but over the years the fragrances of the her cooking had worn on him and now the smell of it was purely repulsive to him. They knocked on the door and as Ellie opened it the smell of fried chicken billowed out of the house and Allan felt his stomach roll.

Ellie had long greyish-brown hair that fell midways down her back. She had a plump figure and didn’t stand an inch over 5 feet tall. Allan had noted how over the years she had put on weight equally relative to the increased amount of food that she cooked in her kitchen, from years of tasting her recipes again and again to make sure the flavors were just right.

She greeted them with a smile and then looked down at Samantha, “Hello my Princess.”

“Hi grandma.” Samantha said in a playful growl.

“What a beautiful little green dress you have on.”

Samantha looked down at her dress and then back up at her grandmother confused. “Grandma, my dress is blue, not green.”

“Oh you have to forgive me sweetheart. I’m a little color blind sometimes. I see that it’s blue now.” Ellie lied. She had always had trouble distinguishing between certain colors. As a child her teachers ridiculed her constantly, always thinking Ellie just wasn’t paying attention in class.

“Hi mom.” Jennifer said as she leaned in to exchange hugs with Ellie.

“Hi Mrs. Walker, your food smells wonderful.” Allan lied. “Let me guess, fried chicken?” As the words came out he felt his guilty conscience stabbing at him for thinking negatively about Ellie’s cooking and he wondered if she knew what he really thought.

Ellie waved a hand to dismiss Allan’s comment, “Oh it’s just a quick batch of chicken legs that I cooked up.” She said as she waved at someone down the street who was walking out of a house with an overgrown yard and a front porch that was piled high with junk. “The neighbor called and asked for it this morning.”

“Does he pay you to cook for him, mom?” Jennifer asked.

“No he doesn’t, but I don’t mind. Mr. Rodriguez keeps an eye on the neighborhood.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, “And I don’t think he has much money anyways.”

Allan smiled, feeling especially guilty for his negative thoughts about Ellie’s cooking now. Only a complete jerk would criticize her generosity. He thought to himself.

Ellie had never thought too much of Allan. It wasn’t that he was a bad guy or anything. Ellie actually thought he was a really good match for her daughter. But what she didn’t like was that he had taken her daughter away from her. When Jennifer was a little girl her father had died in a car accident and ever since then Ellie held Jennifer very close to her, almost to the point of sheltering her. When Jennifer came of age and started dating, Ellie knew that she would have to let go of the reins eventually, but when Allan came along and swept Jennifer off her feet Ellie just wasn’t ready for it and now every time that she saw Allan her first thought was of what he had taken away from her.

Allan noticed that Ellie was almost glaring at him and he looked down at Samantha in an attempt to find something to relieve the tension in the air. “Well Samantha, mommy and I are going out of town for a few hours. You be a good girl, ok?”

“Ok daddy.” Samantha replied and then she stepped up into her grandmother’s house. Allan leaned down and gave the little girl a kiss on the top of her head and the thought crossed his mind of how Samantha would need a good bath later that night to get the fried chicken odors out of her hair. Only a complete jerk. He reminded himself.

“Bye sweetie.” Jennifer leaned down next to give Samantha a kiss. “We’re going to get some maternity clothes for mommy and some baby clothes for your little brother.”

Samantha’s eyes lit up at the thought of finally having a little brother.

“What time should I expect you guys to be back here?” Ellie asked.

“Well, it takes about an hour to get to Grapevine from here. That’s two hours driving there and back, plus probably four hours of shopping. It’s twelve o’clock now so we’ll be back probably around six o’clock tonight.” Jennifer replied. Allan looked on, never ceased to be amazed at how calculated his wife was with time.

“Sounds good to me. You two have fun.” Ellie smiled and then she looked past them and waved. “Hello Mr. Rodriguez.”

Jennifer and Allan turned around to see an elderly gentleman walking up to them who had come from the junky house down the street. Allan considered how unusual the man looked. He was wearing a cowboy hat and bright green shorts, a long sleeve button-up dress shirt, and the most worn out pair of sandals Allan had ever seen.

“How are you folks doing?” Mr. Rodriguez asked in a rugged voice with a deep Hispanic accent.

“Oh, we’re doing just fine.” Allan replied.

“I’ve got some good food in the kitchen.” Ellie bragged. “Let me go get it for you.” She said and she stepped into her house.

There was an awkward silence among those left standing outside and Allan anxiously tried to think of something to say. “It looks like it is going to rain today.” He said looking up at the sky. The rest of the group looked upwards along with him.

“Yeah, the sun’s heat this time of year kicks off a lot of scattered showers.” The old man said. After a few moments the front door behind them swung open and Ellie appeared carrying several plastic containers and Allan stepped forward to help her hand the food over to the old man.

“I thank you kindly for the food Miss Ellie.” Mr. Rodriguez said.

“You’re just welcome. Anytime.” Ellie replied and she looked up as the sound of rain could be heard hitting the trees above them. “You all better hurry before you get wet.”

The old man hunched over to cover his food from the rain and he darted off across the road. Allan noted how quick the old man was on his feet, even in his worn out looking sandals. Jennifer and Allan turned and rushed towards the truck but the sky opened up on them and the rain began to come down hard. They reached the truck and opened the doors, and then Jennifer stopped.

“Samantha forgot her backpack.” She said. The rain was coming down harder and she grabbed the backpack and ran towards Ellie’s front porch to give it to her daughter. By the time she made it back to the truck she was soaking wet and beads of water were gathered at the tips of the hair on her forehead and were making the long journey down her face.

“You’re soaked.” Allan said but he instantly realized the absurdity of his comment. Jennifer said nothing as she wiped the water from her forehead with the palm of her hand.

Allan reached down and inserted the GPS plug into the power outlet on the dash. The little black screen on the GPS lit up and the words Loading Map Data flashed across the screen. For such an advanced piece of technology the GPS unit always took especially long to power up, and this time was no different. Allan looked back and saw Ellie and Samantha still standing under the cover of the front porch, waiting to wave them off.

“Let’s go honey.” Jennifer said.

“I want to plug the address into the GPS first.” Allan replied. Finally the GPS unit reached the main menu and Allan yanked it from the windshield holster and began pushing icons on the touch screen.

“You don’t remember how to get to the Grapevine Mills Mall?” Asked Jennifer.

“I do, but you know how I like to see where we’re at and how far we’ve got to go to get there.”

“Why didn’t you have that entered in before we left?”

“And have that annoying electronic voice nagging at me all the way to your mother’s house saying, ‘Recalculating Route’ each time I passed the street that it wanted me to turn down? No thanks.”

Jennifer impatiently turned and looked back at her mother and Samantha and waved to them to indicate that everything was alright. Allan got the address of the mall plugged in and the unit replied, “Calculating Route”.

He reached forward and snapped the GPS unit back to the windshield holster and read the information on the screen. “Exactly 70 miles to the mall. We should arrive at 1:00.”

“Exactly what I told my mom ten minutes ago and I didn’t need a GPS to do it.” Jennifer huffed.

“Don’t get irritated with me or I won’t take you shopping.” Allan warned with a half grin.

“Okay, I’ll be nice.” Jennifer smiled and Allan put the truck in gear and drove off.

Chapter 2: The Blast

They drove down Interstate 30 headed west towards Dallas. The traffic was thick as they drove across Lake Ray Hubbard just west of the city of Rockwall. Allan was focused intently on the traffic on the interstate as driving to Dallas always made him nervous, especially when driving in the rain.

“So what were you watching on the TV this morning?” Jennifer asked.

“I was just watching the news. I don’t remember what it was about.” Allan replied.

“Well whatever it was you were sure fixated on it and it had Samantha pretty worked up.”

Allan remembered the manic news reporter talking about his fried electronics. “Oh, it was some news about some power disruptions over in Europe somewhere.” He said.

“What caused it?”

“What caused what?” Allan asked with his focus still clearly on the traffic on the road and not on the conversation with his wife.

“What caused the power outages?” She asked, sensing that her husband was only half listening to her just like he was doing earlier in the day while sitting in front of the TV.

“They didn't really know. Some kind of electrostatic discharge. They said it might have been a solar storm or something. Whatever it was it really knocked out a lot of systems, which is probably why the news was just guessing as to what happened.”

“Were they able to restore the power?”

“This rain is really picking up.” Allan changed the subject, ignoring Jennifer’s question. He reached for the windshield wiper control and turned it to its maximum setting. Jennifer took the queue to stop talking and to help him keep an eye on the road. The truck’s wipers flicked across the windshield frantically but the rain was coming down faster than they could wipe it away. To Allan’s relief the traffic in front of them slowed to a crawl.

“There goes your estimated 1 hour drive time to get to Grapevine.” Allan spoke up over the roar of the rain that slammed against the truck. “Sorry for cutting you off back there. The rain and traffic make me nervous.” He apologized.

“Looks like you’re still nervous.” Jennifer teased and Allan looked down and found that his hands had a death grip on the steering wheel. He relaxed his grip and Jennifer reached over and patted his knee, “It’s alright honey. Better to be nervous than to plow through the rain like an idiot and have a wreck.” She said and Allan smiled back at her.

“Can a solar storm really cause power disruptions like that?” Jennifer asked.

“I don’t know.” Allan said as he pushed the power button on the radio to turn it on and it immediately tuned to an AM news talk station where two men appeared to be having a debate.

“... that our modern society has been using microchips since around the 1970’s and only really becoming predominant in the 1990’s. Since then, there has not been a major solar event to really test the theories on how a major solar storm would actually impact our electronic devices. We became aware of the effects of solar geomagnetic storms on terrestrial communications when a solar flare on August 4, 1972 knocked out long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. There was also solar flare that caused a geomagnetic storm on March 13, 1989 that was so powerful that it melted parts of a transformer in New Jersey.” Said one of the radio voices.

“Well from my understanding solar flares can really only impact the Earth satellites and the electrical grid, and that anything not tied directly into the grid will be safe. But we are hearing that not only was the power knocked out in Europe, but even handheld electronics have been affected. Does that rule out a solar flare Harvey?" Another voice asked.

"That's the part that troubles me. I'm waiting for an official government response, but when you start hearing about handheld electronics, those that are not connected to the electrical grid, it makes me wonder if this event is something else."

"What type of event are you referring to?"

"Possibly some kind of attack? Perhaps some sort of electromagnetic bomb. We are quite aware that western society is hated by much of the underdeveloped world. We've worried ourselves over dirty nuclear bombs for years, but what we have not focused on, a type of attack that can be just as destructive to our way of life, is an EMP attack."

“Remember Harvey, we don’t want to get our audience all worked up.” A voice said with nervous laughter. “We are just speculating. There have been no reports whatsoever of an attack of any kind. Just to be clear on that. Anyways, could you explain to our listeners, and to myself for that matter, what an EMP is, and what it does?"

“An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse, which is a form of electromagnetic radiation. The rapidly changing electric fields created by an EMP are known to disrupt electrical and electronic systems by producing damaging currents and voltage surges.” Harvey Replied.

The sound of shuffling papers could be heard in the background and a third voice spoke into the microphone, "If I could just interject for a moment, I have a report here published by NASA in June of 2010 that says, ‘Scientists believe that a major solar flare could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, and to everyday items such as home computers, iPods and sat-navs. Due to our heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, a major solar storm could leave a multi-billion dollar damage bill.’ What this report is saying is that NASA has known about this sort of thing for a long time. In fact they estimated that if a solar flare was big enough it could cause of $1 to $2 trillion dollars in damage to critical infrastructure and it could take four to ten years to fully recover. To put that into context, Hurricane Katrina caused $80 to $125 billion worth of damage. That’s billions, with a ‘B’. Here we’re talking about trillions, with a ‘T’ worth of damage that could be caused by a major solar flare."

Jennifer reached over and pushed the power button on the radio to turn it off. “Ugh, it’s all so mind numbing. How can anyone listen to that?” She said.

“Some people like that kind of stuff.” Allan replied.

Jennifer looked over at Allan, “Some people like you? I saw how when you turned the radio on it went straight to your pre-programmed AM news station.” She teased.

“So I like to listen to the news to understand the world around me sometimes.” Allan explained. He cleared his throat, preparing to counter her argument by changing the subject, “I still don’t understand why we have to drive all the way to Grapevine, in the rain, to get maternity and baby clothes. Don’t they have that stuff back in Greenville?”

Jennifer looked over at Allan and grinned, “Oh come on babe, they have some great deals in Grapevine, and besides, you should be happy that we get to spend the day together.”

“You’re right. I couldn’t think of anything else to do with my Saturday.” He replied sarcastically. He looked over to catch his wife’s response to his joke and found that Jennifer was no longer grinning.

“Babe, you don’t want to spend time with me?” She asked with a frown.

“Of course I do. I was just kidding. Just like you were kidding me about my AM news station.”

“Good, because I’m really excited. Today is going to be great. It’s Saturday, it’s storming outside, and we’re going on a shopping spree…”

“Uh, we’re going to get some maternity and baby clothes and that’s it. It’s not a shopping spree.” Allan interrupted.

Jennifer grinned wide, reached her hand out, and began patting Allan’s knee again, “Sure babe, you go ahead and tell yourself that.” Allan grinned too, knowing that a shopping trip with Jennifer always turned into spending and buying more than initially planned and he had fully anticipated that even before they had left the house that morning.

The heavy rain eased up as they drove down highway 635 but traffic was still going slow due to rain accumulation on the road surface. As they approached the towering bridges of the High Five Interchange where highway 635 crossed under interstate 75, traffic slowed to a crawl and finally the cars in front of them came to a complete stop. The stoppage in traffic parked their truck alongside one of the tall bridge support pillars that had been painted in a light emerald green with the Star of Texas appearing in bright yellow at the very top.

“A $260 million dollar bridge interchange and traffic is still a problem here.” Allan griped.

They inched forward and Jennifer gazed out the window at another bridge pillar. This one was painted a burnt auburn color with the same yellow star engraved at the top. “Well, at least it’s pretty.” Jennifer commented. Allan glared at her.

Bridges are just pieces of infrastructure used to move traffic from point A to point B and when a bridge can’t perform that basic function there’s a problem, but here’s my wife and the only thing she has to say is that it’s pretty. Allan thought as he looked out the window and peered up at the giant support column. With its yellow accent stripes along with all the other bridge pillars in the vicinity painted in what he would describe as a warm desert pallet he had to admit that it was truly an impressive site to behold, despite its ongoing traffic congestion issues.

“Yes, it is pretty.” He agreed with Jennifer and at that moment the cars in front of them pulled ahead and resumed to normal speed as if the bridge itself had approved of their favorable comments.

When they reached the city limits of Coppell, the last city before reaching Grapevine, they began to see large jumbo jets flying low in the sky as they approached DFW airport. Jennifer looked up as one passed over the highway and in the distance she could see two more jumbo jets flying behind it, one just a few miles away making its final approach and another just a faint dot in the distance behind that one.

“I wish Samantha was with us, she’d love to see the airplanes.” She said.

Allan’s forehead wrinkled as he looked up at the airplane that was passing directly over them. “Yes, she would. She always gets excited whenever she sees airplanes.” He commented.

They arrived at the Grapevine Mills Mall and Allan parked the truck in a parking spot close to one of the main entrances that was marked Reserved For Expectant Mothers. Getting to park close to the stores that had those signs was one of the perks of Jennifer’s pregnancy that he especially enjoyed. They stepped out of the truck and Allan pushed the remote on his keychain to lock the truck doors and he listened as the truck horn beeped two times to indicate that the truck was locked. He looked up and was glad to see that the cloud covered sky that had been so dark earlier now looked to be clearing up a little. He looked over at Jennifer who was checking her clothes for damp spots from her run in the rain back at Ellie’s house.

“Is my butt wet?” She asked turning around to give Allan a look.

“Nope, all dry in the back.”

“Good, only my shoulders are a little damp, but they should dry up pretty quick once we get to moving around inside.” Jennifer smiled.

They entered the mall and the first store that Jennifer headed towards was a Kirkland’s home décor shop. They went inside and Jennifer began pointing out various picture frames and paintings that she thought would look nice in their house. Allan looked on, following from behind and he teased, “This stuff doesn’t look like maternity clothes.”

Jennifer stopped at a large picture frame with the letters FAMILY engraved into the face of it and she took it off the wall and turned it over to check the price tag.

“Nope. I’d have to say that is definitely not maternity clothes.” Allan commented.

“Oh stop it. Don’t you think that this would look nice in our entryway?” Jennifer asked.

A bright white flash could be seen outside in the mall through the front doors of the Kirkland’s store.

Jennifer and Allan turned to look. “I guess they are taking pictures outside.” Allan said. “I hope they aren’t doing one of those singing audition things again.”

Allan remembered that the last time they had come to Grapevine Mills Mall they were having a big American Idol type event for one of the local country music radio stations. Hundreds of people had filled the mall hallways and one by one, wanna-be country music singers filled the mall with the acoustics of out-of-tune songs. After every singer, each of the three judges sitting at a table would speak into their microphones offering constructive criticism. Then, as the contestant stepped off stage there would be camera flashes where the photographer of the event would try to sell them an 8x10 keepsake of their big moment for $39.99. Allan found the whole event to be annoying as hell, not only because of the awful singing by a majority of the contestants, but because it made it nearly impossible to pass through the large crowd of people to get from one side of the mall to the other. He dreaded having to go through it all again if that’s what was indeed going on outside.

“I didn’t see a crowd when we came in.” Jennifer said.

Suddenly there was another bright flash outside and the lights throughout the store began to flicker on and off. Allan and Jennifer looked up at each other just as the store went completely dark. There was a loud buzzing noise in the air and Allan was reminded of his childhood at his grandparent’s cattle farm where there was a high voltage utility line that ran across his grandfather’s property. Whenever he stood directly underneath the power lines he could hear the crackling static electricity emit off of them, just like he was hearing now. Allan looked out into the main corridor of the mall but he saw that the only light entering the building was the dim light from the cloud covered sky outside. The sound of frightened children could be heard inside the store.

“That’s odd.” He said, “The emergency lights should have kicked on already.”

A Kirkland’s employee could be heard in the darkness. “There has been a power failure. Everyone please remain calm and carefully exit the store.”

As soon as the words were spoken the sound of glass breaking against the floor could be heard in another part of the store.

“So sorry!” said a young woman’s voice within the darkness.

“Ah, dammit!” Came gruff masculine voice near them as the sound of something heavy and metallic crashed to the ground. Allan and Jennifer put their arms out in front of them and felt around in the blackness of the store, slowly inching their way towards the exit. Someone lit a lighter in front of them and everyone followed the dim light that it emitted. Outside in the mall corridor hundreds of people were making their way toward the main exits. Allan was now really regretting coming to the mall that day, on a Saturday no less, the busiest day of the week for area malls. The sea of people converging at the main exits caused everyone around them to be at a near standstill as they waited for the line of bodies in front of them to inch forward.

Suddenly a loud booming sound erupted outside.

Jennifer looked up, “It must be really storming bad out there.” She said excited. “I love this type of weather.”

Allan tried to look past the crowd to see what was going on outside but he couldn’t make anything out.

“I don’t know. It looked like the sky was clearing up when we got out of the truck.” He replied.

“Didn’t you just hear that thunder outside?” Jennifer asked.

“I heard something, but it didn’t sound like thunder to me. It sounded like an explo…” Realizing that he was speaking in the middle a large crowed Allan lowered his voice to a whisper and he leaned down to Jennifer so that only she could hear him, “… it sounded like an explosion to me.”

Jennifer nudged him in the arm, “Stop trying to scare me.” She said but Allan did not reply.

When they finally made it to the glass doors of the mall exit they looked up at the sky and found that it was just as it had appeared ten minutes earlier when they had first went into the mall. There were dark clouds overhead but it wasn’t raining and there was certainly nothing severe enough to explain the loud boom that everyone heard from inside the mall.

“Maybe that sound was one of the generators trying to come back on?” Allan said, trying to explain the situation in his mind.

A large jumbo jet was seen floating above them in the sky as it made its descent towards the DFW airport, but something was different about this airplane. It was closer to the ground than all the other planes from earlier, only a few hundred feet in the air.

“That’s weird.” A short man with large glasses on his face was talking to a woman beside him, “That airplane isn’t making any sound.” The man said.

Allan looked back up to the sky. Surely the man is mistaken. There has to be noise coming from an airplane that’s so close. Allan thought but to his horror there was no sound at all coming from the airplane’s jet engines. Suddenly the large jet’s wings tilted hard to the left and the front of the airplane veered straight down. As the nose of the plane dipped further downward the crowd that was pouring out of the mall let out a collective gasp. Jennifer buried her face against Allan’s side as the airplane exploded into the ground beside highway 635. A huge fireball erupted into the sky and screams around them of “Oh my God!” filled the air. Thick black smoke billowed from the fireball upwards into the sky. Hundreds of cars had stopped on the highway, first hand witnesses to the explosion. For a brief moment Allan thought he saw just before the explosion, that the cars had already stopped on the highway before the airplane crashed. He even thought he saw people standing outside of their cars in the middle of the road. Why would people be out of their cars before the airplane even crashed? He wondered to himself.

Another explosion erupted out of sight behind the mall. They didn’t have to see the fireball this time to know what it was.

“The planes are dropping out of the sky!” A woman next to Allan screamed.

“Someone call 911, my phone isn’t working!” Yelled another voice in the crowd.

Nearly all the people in the crowd reached down into their pockets and purses in unison to retrieve their cell phones. Allan pulled his cell phone that he kept tucked in the front pocket of his dress shirt. Jennifer had always teased him about keeping his phone inside his shirt pocket. “One day I’m going to buy you a pocket protector you big nerd.” She would always tease. He pulled the phone out of its leather case, a Blackberry which always made Jennifer’s nerd jokes that much worse. He pushed the red power button to turn it on his phone did not respond.

That’s weird. It should have come right on when I pulled it out of the case but pushing the power button doesn’t even turn it on. He thought as he turned his phone around and pried his fingernail under the battery release latch on the back of the phone.

“My phone’s dead!” Someone else yelled.

“Mine’s dead too.” Another confirmed.

The pandemonium in the crowd began to intensify as the panicked voices began to turn into cries and screams of terror.

Allan detached the battery from his phone, quickly reassembled it, and turned it over and pushed the power button again.

Nothing.

Allan pushed the red power button on his phone harder.

Nothing.

Maybe from the shock of the airplane crash I forgot how to turn on my phone and I’m just pushing the wrong button. He questioned himself and pushed the green talk button instead.

Nothing.

He began to feel panic well up inside him and he slid his thumb across all of the keys on the Blackberry keyboard, but it still did not respond. “My phone is dead too.” He admitted to Jennifer as he slid the useless device back into its leather holster and dropped it back into his shirt pocket.

Beside him Allan saw a man lift his phone to his face to apparently smell it. The man turned to a lady standing beside him. “Smell your phone honey. Does yours smell funny?”

Curious, Allan pulled his phone back out of his pocket and lifted it up to his nose and he breathed in the odor of burnt electronics. The smell brought him back to when he was a kid when his dad would burn trash on their property out in the country in order to save money from having to pay for a trash pickup service. One time his dad threw an old VCR tape player on the fire and he remembered his dad telling him, “It’s cheaper to buy a new one now days than it is to fix it.” Allan remembered standing there watching the plastic components of the VCR melt into the fire and as it popped and sizzled in the heat it gave off colorful green and blue flames. He remembered the wind created by the fire blowing the thick black smoke into his face. He wasn’t aware of how toxic the fumes of the burning electronics were at the time and he breathed in the distinct smell of the hot plastic. It was the same smell that was coming from inside his cell phone now.

Jennifer looked up at him, “My phone isn’t working either.” She reported. Allan took her phone from her and held it up to his nose. It had the same burnt electronics smell as well.

Chapter 3: Catastrophe Abounds

“What’s happening?” A woman shrieked nearby and she began to frantically push her way through the crowd. The woman’s panic set off a chain reaction amongst the people standing around them and everyone began to push and shove one another. Word had spread to the remaining people inside the mall and the doors were now bursting with hysterical people desperately trying to get out. A teenager in front of them pushed a large man that was in his way, toppling him over to the ground. No one tried to help the man get up and instead just kept running around him and as more people ran out of the mall they began to trample him. Allan grabbed Jennifer and held her close, trying to shield her and their unborn baby from the commotion happening all around them.

They made their way toward the safety of their truck and Allan was thankful that they were able to park as close to the mall as they did. As they got closer to the truck Allan fumbled around in his pocket for his keys. People were running past them, screaming hysterically, and Allan found himself shaking so much from the terror going on around that he had a hard time just getting his keys out of his pocket. Upon seeing her shaken husband Jennifer reached over and helped him get the keys untangled from of his pocket. She pushed the door unlock button with her thumb and they both watched the truck expecting all the lights to flash to indicate that the doors had unlocked, but the lights never came on. She pushed the door unlock button again, harder this time, and pointed the keyless remote directly towards the truck but the doors would not unlock.

“Let me see it.” Allan said, taking the keys from her. He pushed the unlock button several times but received the same results.

“Where’s your manual door key?” Jennifer asked.

Allan held the keychain up, looking for a door key to the truck when he suddenly realized that he had never used a manual door key since he bought the truck new the year before. The only thing that he had was the black keyless remote that had a weird looking end that went into the ignition and a button with an icon for unlocking the doors and another button to unlock them. “It doesn’t have one.” He replied.

Jennifer looked at Allan dumbfounded. “That’s impossible.” She said as she looked over Allan’s keys with him. She looked back at the door handle on the truck and saw that there was indeed a keyhole in the door. She tried to insert the plastic end of the keyless remote control into the door but it was clearly too big to fit into the keyhole. “There has to be a key. It goes right here.” She pointed at the keyhole in the door.

“Well then where’s the key for it?” Allan demanded in frustration.

“When you bought the truck at the dealership, they didn’t give you a manual door key?” She asked.

“This is the only thing that they gave me.” He replied pointing at the keyless remote.

Jennifer examined the remote control again. At the bottom of the remote, near where it connected to the key ring there was a little plastic slide lever. Jennifer placed her thumb against the slider and as she slid it the rest of the keys on the keychain detached from the remote and fell to the ground.

“There it is!” Jennifer exclaimed pointing at a long metal key that had slid out of the keyless remote. Allan reached down and picked it up, slid the metal key into the keyhole, and unlocked the truck door.

“Why didn’t the dealership tell me about that little feature?” He asked as he opened the door. He looked around inside the truck. Usually when the doors were open the light in the headliner would come on, but this time the light remained dark. Please tell me the electronics in the truck aren’t fried too. He thought to himself. Jennifer stood behind him in the doorway of the truck and watched Allan slide up into the driver’s seat. He inserted the plastic key into the ignition and turned the switch but the truck did not respond. The engine did not turn over, there were no annoying sounds alerting him that the key was in the ignition with the driver’s door open, the gauges and lights on the console did not light up, and the radio did not come on. In a brief fit of denial Allan thought that maybe they were in the wrong truck, and he looked up at the parking sign in the front of the truck and read the words, Reserved For Expectant Mothers. This was his truck and it was dead just like everyone’s cell phones.

He looked around the mall parking lot. The scene around them was chaotic. People were running up the aisles of parked cars, pushing one another and screaming. A couple of people had their hoods up and were looking down at their engine compartments. The ruins of the crashed plane still burned on the highway in the background and people nearby on the road were out of their cars, staring at the inferno in disbelief, many with their hands against their faces shielding themselves from the intense heat of the blaze.

Allan reached down and pressed the automatic door lock button to unlock the passenger side door. There was no response and he immediately felt foolish for even trying. He reached over and pulled the door knob on the passenger door to unlock it. “Go to the other side and get in until we can figure out what to do.” He instructed. Jennifer walked around the front of the truck and Allan looked on, noticing how the way she walked lately had become more and more of a waddle like she had when she was in the late stages of her pregnancy with Samantha years ago.

Jennifer stepped up into the truck, sat down and closed the door. “What do you think happened?” She asked.

He was quiet for a moment as he watched the scene unfolding outside. "I don't know." He told her. In his mind he had a pretty good idea what was going on, but by telling his wife that he didn't know, somehow it made him feel better.

"Do you think this is the same thing that they were talking about on the radio earlier? Do you think it’s happening here?" She asked. Allan looked at her and the look on his face confirmed that she had the correct answer.

"From the way they described the situation in Europe," Allan paused as he considered the reality of what he was about to say, "we are experiencing the exact same thing here."

There was another enormous blast outside and everyone in the parking lot instinctively ducked their heads down. Even Allan and Jennifer flinched inside the cab of the truck. Moments later they could see in the distance that another jumbo jet had fallen out of the sky and exploded into a big orange fireball. Everyone in the parking lot stopped where they were and watched the explosion until the fireball became just another stack of billowing black smoke and then, as if everyone had been given a signal, the panicked people in the parking went back to running around in a mass state of hysteria.

In the reflection of his driver side mirror Allan saw a heavy set man walking up to the car parked beside them. He watched the man approach, lumbering heavily from side to side with each step and when he reached the car he put his hand on top of the roof to rest for a moment. The man opened his car door, sat down and put his key in the ignition but he received the same results as everyone else around him. He reached down and pulled the latch to pop the hood and then he rose up and began moving his massive body towards the front of the car. As he struggled with the hood latch Allan noticed that large beads of sweat had gathered on his forehead and the liquid had begun to drip down the man’s face. Allan thought how a man so out of shape probably couldn't walk a mile before giving out. It was in that moment that the seriousness of Allan’s own reality set in. If all of the vehicles around them were dead, that meant that everyone would soon be walking, everyone including Jennifer. Suddenly a sensation of fear entered Allan's mind as he realized that the reason why he was so fixated on the fat man was because the way that he walked was the same kind of waddle that Jennifer had.

Walking.

Its 70 miles from here to home. He thought. In the heat and humidity from all the rain showers Allan was unsure if even he, in what he considered pretty good shape, was even capable of walking such a distance, let alone his wife in the middle of an eight month pregnancy. His fear began to turn into panic. Allan knew that he needed to remain calm and in an effort to get his mind on other things he opened his truck door, leaned out and called to the fat man still struggling to open his hood, "Hey buddy, need a hand?"

"I can't open this stupid thing!" The fat man exclaimed as he slammed a clenched fist onto the middle of the hood leaving behind a small fist sized dent in it.

"Let me see if I can help." Allan offered. He stepped to the front of the car and the big man heaved himself out of the way so that Allan could work with the hood. Allan reached under and found the hood latch, pulled on it and raised the hood.

"Oh I'm so stupid." The fat man announced.

"It's alright. They can be tricky to open sometimes.”

"Name's Walter." The man said as he stuck an overstuffed paw out at Allan.

"I'm Allan and over there sitting in the truck is Jennifer." Allan replied and he shook Walter's hand and then Walter and Jennifer exchanged waves.

"What do you think happened?" Walter asked.

"I have no idea." Allan lied. He felt somewhat strange about behind dishonest. It was as if lying was the right thing to do, as if revealing too much information in the middle of such a crisis might be a bad thing. The last thing he wanted was to say the wrong thing and set off a bigger panic with big Walter leading the stampede. Allan chucked to himself at the absurdity of the thought.

"What's so funny?" Walter asked.

"Oh I'm just thinking how all of us have our hoods up but no one really knows what they're doing." Allan fibbed again and then he looked around the parking lot and saw perhaps 50 cars with their hoods up with men and women standing in front of them just talking to one another. No one was leaning down into the engine compartments actually working on anything.

"We got the hood up, now what?" Allan asked.

"Well, I suspect it’s the battery. The lights on the console aren't working, the engine won't turn over. Definitely the battery." Walter responded.

"You think all of our batteries just went dead at the same time?" Allan asked, knowing it was impossible but he was somewhat hopeful that maybe Walter was right. Maybe it is just the batteries.

"Well, I uh, I don't know." Walter said with uncertainty. "It was just a guess. What do you think is wrong?"

Allan imagined himself telling Walter the news about the power outages and all the fried electronics across Europe, and how the reporters on the news channel were talking about the sun or some kind of weird bomb that could have caused all of this, and how everything that was happening in Europe seemed to be happening here. Allan imagined Walter, upon hearing all of this, charging through the parking lot leading the screaming panicked horde of hysterical mall shoppers around in terror. It was a silly thought but Allan decided it would be better to continue sheltering the big guy from all that horror.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe it's just the battery." Allan walked over to his truck and grabbed a long screwdriver from the toolbox that he kept in the back.

"Whatcha going to do with that?" Walter asked.

"Well, when I touch both battery terminals with this screwdriver, if the battery is good then it will throw a spark. If the battery is dead then there won't be any spark." Allan replied as he leaned down over the battery compartment in the car.

Walter leaned in, his voice lowered with seriousness, "So what we ought to be hoping for is no spark." Allan looked up at Walter and saw the intensity in his face and he realized that Walter knew what was going on all along. Walter knew that it was most likely not a sudden mass die off of all the car batteries around him and he understood that if the battery sparked to indicate that the battery was good then it meant that something far more serious was wrong with his car and everyone else’s around them. Allan nodded to Walter to confirm his suspicion and he touched the screwdriver to the battery terminals. Bright blue sparks flashed from the battery, blinding both of the men for a moment. The battery was just fine and the gravity of the situation was confirmed. Walter lowered his head and he walked back and sat down inside his car, demoralized.

Jennifer slid out of the truck and joined her husband at front of the car.

"Any luck?" She asked as she rubbed her stomach in the way that all expectant mothers do. Allan replied with only a look of hopelessness.

“Maybe it’s not so bad after all. You know, the power goes out at my home all the time.” Walter said as he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You don’t see me getting all upset when that happens. I don’t see why this is such a big deal. Give everything a few minutes for all the computers to reset and everything will be working again.”

“I think that’s being a little overly optimistic.” Allan said.

“What other option do we have? Just wait here a little bit. Everything will start working again soon. You’ll see.”

Allan shrugged his shoulders and leaned against his truck and began to wait to see if Walter might be right about the electronics, but mostly because he needed to think about what they were going to do next. What a mess this is. We’re 70 miles from home and it’s humid as hell out here and we have to find a way to get home to Samantha. How are we going to get out of this one? Allan wondered. They waited for nearly an hour hoping that everything would begin working again. Jennifer pushed the buttons on the remote to the truck door every few minutes hoping that with each button press that they’d hear the familiar sound of the locks inside the door reengage.

Suddenly they heard a series of loud pops coming from the other side of the mall parking lot.

“Oh God. That sounds like gunfire.” Jennifer exclaimed.

“Is that what that is?” Allan asked stretching his neck to get a better view but he couldn’t see beyond the mountain of car hoods propped up in the air.

“What else could it be?” Jennifer asked.

“It could be anything. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Walter said dismissing their concerns and he reclined back in the seat of his car and let out a depressed sigh.

“What should we do now?” Jennifer asked.

Allan looked back at the mall entrance and saw that the river of people that had been flooding out of doors earlier had slowed to a trickle. On the sides of each of the big doors stood official looking men wearing white shirts and black pants and Allan figured that the mall had already dispatched their security guards to all the entrance points. Allan watched as a woman ran up to them from the parking lot and one of the guards put his hand up to stop her. He could see the man shake his head as if he was telling the woman that the mall was closed. The woman flailed her hands in the air and Allan imagined that the woman had probably left her purse in one of the stores or something. Eventually the woman turned around and walked back to one of the cars in the parking lot with her head held down in defeat.

"It looks like we can’t go back into the mall and it appears that none of the cars around here are working. It seems to me that we've really only got two choices. We can stay here and wait to find out if that sound was really gunfire or we can start walking and get out of here."

Walter chuckled and sat up in his seat. "Walk? You want to walk in this heat? Where are you going to walk to?"

"Home or walk until we find help I guess." Allan replied.

"You're planning on walking home!" Walter exclaimed. "I don't know where you live buddy but I live in Fort Worth. That's 30 miles from here."

"We live in Greenville. That’s about 70 miles."

“You’re crazy. I could cut my walk down to 20 miles if I walked in a straight line as the birds fly but even I wouldn’t do that.” Walter shook his head.

“Our trip would be faster if we walked in a straight line too, but I think it would be safer to stick to the highways.”

Walter’s tone changed. He began to speak with a sense of dread. "There's no way. I'm exhausted just from walking around in the mall and trying to open the damn hood on my car. You don't know what's out there. There could be all kinds of bad people out there on the road. There's just no way."

"I'm with Walter honey." Jennifer added. "There's no way that I'm going to be able to walk 70 miles in this heat at eight months pregnant."

"Well I’m hoping we'll find help along the way. There's got to be someone with a car that still runs. Older cars don't have all the electronics like our cars have today. Surely there's someone out there who has an old car that works who can give us a ride. But at least by walking we'll be headed in the direction of home, and towards Samantha."

Samantha.

In all the chaos going on around them Jennifer had forgotten to consider what Samantha must be going through. She knew that her daughter was in good hands with Ellie and maybe that's why she had neglected to think of what her daughter might be experiencing. She remembered earlier in the morning when she entered the living room where Allan and Samantha were watching television and the first thing that Samantha said to her was, “I don’t want to go. I’m scared.” The words kept repeating over and over in Jennifer's mind. If she was scared then, how terrified she must be now if Ellie’s power was out, with nothing working, and mommy and daddy so far away. She thought and she found herself staring at the ground as a sense of worry poured over her.

"We have to walk." Jennifer said with complete conviction now as she looked back up at Allan.

"Won't you guys stay and wait here for a while longer? Help is surely on the way." Walter pleaded with them.

Allan looked up and surveyed the landscape once more. There were so many hoods up of the cars and trucks around them as if the first person to lift their hood up had set off a chain reaction for everyone else around them to do the same. There were many people looking down into the engine compartments of their cars and there were many more still running through the parking lot with frightened looks on their faces. The smoke from the burning airplanes nearby still billowed in the sky and it was all such a terrifying scene but in the midst of everything going on around him Allan noticed something else. There were no emergency services. There were no firefighters battling the inferno on the highway, no police officers except for the few mall security guards to calm and organize the mass of frantic people that had erupted from the mall. There were no helicopters circling overhead to cover the news happening on the ground. If the situation was localized then the place would have already been crawling with emergency personnel and news reporters but the fact that there were none told Allan that this situation, this disaster, was far more widespread.

Help is not on the way. But a guy like Walter relies on help in a situation such as this. Walter is right. With his enormous size there is no way that he is going to make the 30 mile hike to his home in Fort Worth. Allan thought and he knew that Walter would sit there in his car and wait, and wait, and wait for help to arrive and the longer that he waited the hungrier and more dehydrated and exhausted Walter would become until just walking out of the mall parking lot, nevermind a 30 mile hike, would become impossible for him. Despite the fact that Allan and Jennifer’s walk would be more than double that of Walters, Allan knew that it was their only way out of the situation.

"I'm afraid that help is going to be a lot longer wait than you think." Allan said.

"I am prepared to wait it out." Walter replied.

“And if that was gunfire just now, then I don’t think this is a safe place to be.” Allan warned.

“I’ll be fine right here.” Walter said and he stuck out his big sweaty paw. "Thanks for helping me with my hood. It was nice to meet both of you."

The three exchanged handshakes and then Jennifer returned to the cab of the truck and grabbed her purse off the floor and then unzipped it and inspected its contents. Whenever Samantha would complain of a sore throat or when Allan would ask for a piece of gum Jennifer would always dig around in her purse and find something for them. She reached deep into the handbag that she had cleaned out the day before to make it lighter for their trip to the mall. All that remained was a small makeup bag, her wallet, a hairbrush, and her asthma inhaler. She zipped the purse back up and took a long gaze over the inside of the truck, looking for anything that she might have forgotten. She turned and pushed the automatic door lock button but there was no response from the truck and her face blushed red in her error. She pushed the manual door lock down and walked around to do the same for the driver’s side door but before locking it she stopped and turned to Allan.

“Is there anything that you need to grab from the truck to bring along with us?” She asked.

Allan stopped and considered all the items in the truck that might be useful to them on their journey like the spare tire equipment that sat under the passenger seat or the wrench and socket set or the long tow strap that he kept in the toolbox. All of those items might have uses to them but as he looked down he saw Jennifer’s bulging stomach again and he realized that they were already carrying more weight than they could possibly carry for 70 miles and anything else would just slow them down even more. Still, he felt it would be necessary to carry a weapon of some kind.

Allan reached around to the back of the truck and retrieved the long screwdriver that he had used on Walter’s battery earlier. “Stick this in your purse, it’s lightweight and might come in handy as a weapon if needed.”

Jennifer looked at the screwdriver. “That’s all you want to take?”

“I can’t think of anything else that would be worth its carrying weight. Some of the other tools in my toolbox might come in handy or they might not, and if not then we’ll just be wasting a bunch of energy hauling them around.”

Jennifer unzipped her purse and stuck the screwdriver inside and then she locked the driver’s side door of the truck.

“You ready for this?” Allan asked.

Jennifer nodded her head. “Surely we won’t have to walk all the way home. The National Guard or FEMA or someone should be here soon don’t you think?”

“I sure hope so.” Allan replied.

Chapter 4: Heading Out

They walked down the long corridor of cars as they exited the mall parking lot. It seemed as if many of the other stranded people around them had already taken their cue and began walking out of the parking lot as well. They walked past a Golden Corral restaurant where the patrons were still hovering around the building apparently unsure of what to do next.

Allan pointed at another restaurant called Salt Water Willy's, "If we enter the parking lot of this restaurant and double back, there's an exit onto the service road that we can take." He told Jennifer.

"Why don't we just cross over in the median?" Jennifer asked.

"I'm afraid of one of us spraining an ankle or something and then our troubles will be much worse. I think it would be safer to follow the pavement."

"You can double back and go the safe way. I'm walking across the grass right here." Jennifer said as she stepped off the road and onto the grass. Allan stood alone for a moment contemplating whether he should argue with his wife or join her across the grassy median. He decided it wasn't worth arguing over and besides, Jennifer had already made up her mind. There was no changing her mind on anything once she set forward on an idea. "Wait up honey." He said as he darted off the road and offered his hand out as support for her to hold onto.

They reached the service road where several cars had stalled and they saw that one of the cars had lost control and had hit a tree. Allan and Jennifer walked closer to inspect it but neither the driver nor any occupants were anywhere around. They had apparently taken off walking just like everyone else seemed to be doing now. Allan looked back at the vast expanse of the mall parking lot and saw hundreds of people walking along the service road that ran in front of the mall.

Everyone around them seemed to be moving about in different directions like they were in the middle of a disorganized elementary school fire drill. One couple who was wearing light jogging attire zipped past them as if the disaster going on around them had yet to interrupt their morning jog. Allan hoped that the couple wasn’t quite that oblivious and that they just lived close by and were only trying to get home as fast as possible.

He looked down the length of the service road and saw a chaotic arrangement of cars that had stalled and wrecked during the blast. Ahead of them they heard the sound of a woman moaning in pain and they could see that a crowd had formed around a black sedan that appeared to be wedged underneath the trailer of an eighteen wheeler. As Allan and Jennifer got closer they could see a woman thrashing around inside the car. She had blood running down the side of her face and her nose looked swollen and crooked as if it had been broken.

“We need to get help for this woman!” Someone in the crowd yelled.

“We need to get the fire department out here and get her out. They need to bring a Jaws of Life to cut her out.” Someone replied but everyone just stood there looking around hoping that someone would magically produce a working cell phone to call for help.

Allan looked at Jennifer and saw that she had tears in her eyes as she stared at the woman who was trapped inside the car. Allan looked into the car and he saw that a piece of square iron tubing, ripped off of the back of the semi-truck’s trailer during the crash, was imbedded into the woman’s abdomen and impaling her all the way through the back side of the driver’s seat. Allan grabbed Jennifer’s hand and pulled her away from the scene of the accident and whispered to her, “Come on. There’s nothing anyone can do to help her.”

They continued walking and crossed three more grassy medians until they reached the foot of an overpass on the main road. "This is highway 121. We've got to head south for about a mile until we reach the mixmaster ahead." Allan said and Jennifer looked up and saw the large bridge network that connected highway 121 with highway 635 in the distance.

"What do we do when we get there?" Jennifer asked.

"We'll take 635 east. That's the highway that we came in on." Allan replied.

"Is that the most direct route home? I mean, it's how we got here in the car, but wouldn't it be faster to cut across neighborhoods and side streets now that we're on foot?"

"It might be faster, but I'm not very familiar with this area. Obviously we don't have anything with a GPS to tell us where we are. We might wind up getting lost. Plus, like I was telling Walter, I think the highway will be safer than walking in the neighborhoods." He said and Jennifer nodded in agreement.

As they walked onward the roadway appeared as if it has been laid out in front of them in high definition. They could make out all the fine details of the asphalt surface of the highway that Allan had never noticed before like tiny pebbles and little pieces of glass embedded into the roadbed, potholes and long cracks that seemed to go on forever, black tire marks and fluids from leaky engine compartments that stained the road. The most remarkable was the sheer amount of litter that was present. It had all been an unseen blur when they were speeding down the highway in their truck at 70 miles per hour but now at a walking pace everything seemed so clearly visible.

So disgusting.

Allan was shocked at the sheer quantity of beer bottles that he saw lying on the side of the road. For every beer bottle that he saw on the ground there had been someone, at one time, who was drinking and driving down that stretch of road. It made Allan wonder how many drunken motorists had he shared the road with on a daily basis without even realizing it. Allan also thought of all the times that he himself had thrown liter out of his own window. A candy bar wrapper with smears of chocolate on the inside that he didn't want dirtying up the interior of his truck. An empty soda bottle that rolled around the floorboard with each curve of the highway, annoying him as it rattled against the side his door. Throw it all out the window where, unless someone with a road crew picks it up, it might lie and rot for the next thousand years. He saw the litter as if it was all his own trash and he felt disgusted with himself.

They walked for twenty minutes when they passed under an exit sign that said 635 South. Allan had traveled this road before but it had always been at highway speeds. Walking made everything seem so foreign now and he began to question himself. Is this the right exit? Aren't we supposed to be walking east? Why does the sign say south? Are we even walking in the right direction?

"This is where we cross over isn't it?" Jennifer asked. Her question answered his own inner questions and he immediately felt certain that they were headed the right way.

"Yes, this is our exit." He replied as he grabbed her hand and they merged over into the exit lane. As they crossed over the painted dividing line in the road Allan looked back over his shoulder as if he expected a car to be there in his blind spot.

"Checking for traffic? Really babe?" Jennifer smirked.

"Old habits I guess. It took every part of me to not reach for the blinker when we crossed over into this lane." He chuckled.

Allan tugged at his pants every few minutes in an attempt to keep them on his waist but after a few steps they began to sag once again. At first he tried tightening his belt but he had lost some weight recently and he was now at the last belt hole and soon the humidity in the air soaked into the fabric, weighing it down, and the sagging pants made it difficult for him to walk. He made a mental note to use the screwdriver in Jennifer’s purse to punch a new hole in his belt as soon as he got the chance.

They crossed under a double bridge overpass with a highway sign that said Bass Pro Dr. He thought how the store might have some gear that would come in helpful in a situation like theirs. As he tossed around the idea of making a detour off the highway he realized that the store was a half mile out of the way and besides, if it seemed like a good idea to him then it probably seemed like a good idea to a thousand others. He figured that the place was either a mad house or already looted and cleaned out by now. He was reminded of the Black Friday videos that he had seen on YouTube of all the highly excited Christmas shoppers pushing and shoving, running over one another as they stampeded their way through the doors and how entire aisles of marked down items were cleaned out in a matter of seconds. A place like that is no place for a pregnant woman and he dismissed the idea all together hoping to instead find a more obscure store closer to the highway that would be less of an attraction to everyone around.

As they crossed under the bridge they came upon a man who called out to them from inside a car that appeared to have wrecked against one of the bridge support pillars.

“Can you help me with my seatbelt? It appears to be stuck.” The man said in a sleepy voice.

Allan and Jennifer walked over and saw a deflated airbag sticking out of the car’s steering wheel. They looked down at the man and saw that he had a large swollen knot on the top of his head, apparently from when his face bounced off the airbag and his momentum flung his head against the roof support column of the car. Allan looked at the seatbelt to see what might be causing it to be stuck and he did not see anything obvious that was wrong with it. He reached across the man’s lap and pressed the release button on the latch. The fastener clicked open and the seatbelt quickly retracted back into its holster.

“Thank you so much. I don’t know why I couldn’t get it to work for me.” The man said as he worked at the handle on his door. Allan noticed the man fumbling to open the door and so he reached down and opened the door from the outside for the man. The man swung his feet around and stood up but he immediately sat back down.

“Whoa.” He said. “I stood up a little too fast. World’s spinning on me.”

“Sir I think you have a concussion.” Jennifer said.

“Naw, I’m fine. Thanks for helping me with my seatbelt.” The man said smiling at the two of them.

Jennifer looked at him with concern. She knew the man needed to seek medical attention but what was she to do? There was no way to call for help and even if she could she doubted that there were any ambulances available, or even working for that matter, that could take him to the hospital. She knew in her heart that there was nothing else that she could do but to leave him there and press on.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” She asked the man hoping that his answer would be “Yes” to reassure herself that she was making the right decision to leave him there. Instead the man looked down at the ground for a moment and then he looked back up at her with a confused look on his face.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“Stay in your car mister. Try not to fall asleep.” Allan interrupted. He felt cold hearted but he also knew that there was nothing that they could do to help the man. Allan took Jennifer’s hand and tried to lead her away.

“We can’t just leave him.” Jennifer refused.

“There is no other choice.”

Jennifer looked around helpless. There was no one to call for help and no place to take the man to get help. Despite her nursing school training she knew that she could not help the man. Allan tugged at her hand, urging her to disengage from the situation, and this time she allowed herself to be pulled away.

They continued walking up the slow incline to the bridge that crossed over highway 121 that connected them with highway 635. At the top of the bridge they stopped and surveyed the landscape. More fires could be seen to the south towards the Dallas International Airport and it caused the highway to appear to end in the horizon in a blanket of black smoke. Below them was the beginning of a long line of people who were walking northward, apparently trying to get out of the DFW airport. Hours ago they were all businessmen and businesswomen, travelers from other states and from abroad, but now they looked like refugees of war spread out across the highway. A large portion of the mass of people streaming from the airport had taken the exit to get on highway 635 south and Allan and Jennifer walked ahead and merged with the migrating horde where the two highway on-ramps met.

A tall man carrying a briefcase approached them. "You guys came from the north. What's it like up there?" He spoke in an almost manic tone.

"We just came from the Grapevine Mills Mall. It’s the same there as it is…"

"I didn't ask you where you came from. I asked you what it was like up there." The man interrupted and Allan realized that the man, dressed in business attire, was probably some corporate boss, maybe even a CEO, who was used to getting the exact information that he asked for precisely when he wanted it.

Allan wanted to engage the man in a verbal fight. You moron. Allan thought. Don't you see that we're walking too? Do you expect me to say that everything is just fine where we came from? I've got my 8 month pregnant wife out in the middle of this highway because we felt like an afternoon stroll?

"It's the same everywhere." Allan replied and the man gave him an angry look as if the whole thing was Allan’s fault.

They walked past a little girl walking beside a woman who had her arm around her. The little girl had shiny streams of tears running down her face and she looked frightened. The woman was talking to the little girl, “It’s alright sweetie. Daddy wasn’t in any of those airplanes.” But the woman had a terrible look of worry on her face.

Another man who was dragging a set of golf clubs behind him had overheard Allan’s response to the corporate boss and approached him. "You guys said you came from the mall?"

The man stopped and sat the golf bag upright and unclipped a bag towel to wipe the sweat off his face. "They got a great golf course right behind the mall. Hit my first hole-in-one over there back in ‘08." He looked north of the bridge interchange toward the direction of the golf course with an excited gaze.

"Did you come from the airport?" Allan asked.

"No, I live just a little north of the airport. There's a lot of pandemonium over that way. I caught up with this group as they were just heading out of the north airport toll booths. They said a plane crashed right into Terminal B. Huge inferno. I was headed to check on my employees at my office in Farmers Branch but now I’m thinking about walking over behind the mall and playing a few rounds of golf. What better to watch the world fall apart around you while playing golf, huh?" With that he grabbed his golf clubs and walked away in the opposite direction toward the golf course.

They began to see people pushing and pulling various types of wheeled carts. At first it was people with baby strollers that they had pulled out of the trunks of their cars to help them push their children or belongings down the road. Allan saw that many of the strollers had women’s handbags tucked underneath them just like they had always done when they went shopping with Samantha in her stroller so that Jennifer wouldn’t have to hold her purse the entire time. There were people in wheelchairs and kids being pulled along by their parents in little red wagons. Later people began to pass them on bikes of all shapes and sizes. He even saw a teenage boy riding a children’s bike with training wheels still attached to it and the boy’s legs stuck out from the sides of the small bike like the long legs of a praying mantis. One man was even pushing a two wheeled hand dolly used for moving heavy furniture around, except instead of a piece of furniture he had a little boy strapped on it, pushing the child down the highway.

Allan couldn’t imagine anyone leaving their house with all that stuff in the middle of the disaster unfolding around them and he began to wonder where all the wheeled items were coming from. As they traveled along Highway 635 they began to see people pushing shopping carts with various store logos affixed to them. Blue carts from Wal-Mart, red carts from Target, orange carts from Home Depot. Inside the carts were bizarre combinations of items. Allan saw entire cases of green beans stacked on top of one another with huge piles of multi-vitamins stacked on top. Another cart had a mountain of children’s clothes piled so high that the driver of the cart could barely see in front of it. Everywhere now there was someone pushing a shopping cart down the road and he saw all of them filled disproportionality with items as if the person had thrown everything inside the basket in extreme haste. He realized that people were already looting the stores and he began to feel a sudden sense of urgency to find a store to get some supplies of their own.

They walked for about an hour when they saw the iconic blue and white logo of a Wal-Mart sign about a half mile ahead. "We need to find some food and supplies." Said Allan.

They walked across the highway median and then they crossed another grassy section to get to the service road on the other side of the highway. When they reached the Wal-Mart parking lot they were greeted with a similar scene to that of the mall that they had witnessed earlier. Cars and trucks lined the parking lot, many with their hoods popped up. A few people were still hanging around their cars, unsure of whether to leave them and start walking or stay put as Walter had done back at the mall. Allan’s thoughts turned to the big sweaty man and he wondered what Walter was doing now. He imagined Walter still sitting in his car, sweating and probably fidgeting with the buttons on the radio that no longer worked, wishfully expecting one of the buttons to turn the radio on and magically fix everything.

A few people could be seen coming in and out of the Wal-Mart store in front of them. As they walked closer to the front entrance they could see that the inside of the store was pitch black. They walked through the double doors of the store entrance and they both took deep breaths in anticipation of what they might find within the darkness.

Chapter 5: The First Night

The lighter lit up the aisles of the empty sporting goods center and a haze of smoke hung in the air from fires that had burned in the store earlier. Jennifer raised the shoulder of her shirt to her mouth and coughed into it and then kept the fabric pressed against her face to help filter the air. They walked quietly as Allan held up the lighter that he had found when they first entered the store and they walked and listened to the racket of the people around them as they tried to fill their shopping carts with any last remnants of loot that they could find. When the power went out a few hours earlier the store turned pitch black and anxious Wal-Mart shoppers stood frozen in the aisles waiting for the emergency lights to kick on, yet there was to be no emergency lighting to light the store for them. Those with little flashlights connected to their key chains reached into their pockets and pulled them out but those did not work either. All the little LEDs and incandescent filaments inside had not been spared by whatever had caused the power failure.

In a corporate bid to reduce expenses on lighting the buildings, Wal-Mart had begun outfitting all their stores with modern skylights to allow natural daylight in to help light the stores and, as some researchers suggested, because it also made for a better shopping experience. Unfortunately the Wal-Mart that Allan and Jennifer were in hadn't received its skylight upgrades and the inside of the store was as black as night. The most resourceful shoppers were the ones who smoked. They reached into their pockets and flicked the little flint striker of their lighters and lit up their direct vicinity. Other shoppers quickly caught on and began ripping into the packages of lighters found alongside the front checkout lanes and passed them out to other terrified shoppers. Soon the terrified mass of people were ripping into the packages of candles in the isle next to where the picture frames were displayed and it wasn't long before the scent of a thousand candle fragrances and the odor of burning butane choked the air. Someone in the sporting goods section tore into a propane lantern and connected a one pound bottle of gas to it. When they turned the gas knob too far open to light it, flames erupted from the lantern and they immediately dropped it on the ground which created a small inferno around all of the camping gear. Some of the other shoppers tried putting out the flames with whatever was available to them, the shirts off their backs, pieces of cloth from the nearby fabric department, one lady even beat at the flames with her purse. Someone called out for a fire extinguisher but in the darkness none could be found. Despite their struggle the flames became too much for them and the shoppers resorted to removing as much camping fuel and other combustible materials from the camping isle and simply allowed the fire burn itself out. It was surprising how much smoke such a small fire could create and how quickly it wafted throughout the entire store. Allan walked past the charred ruins of the blaze and found that by bending down as he walked he was able to escape most of the smoke and he was able breathe a little easier. Jennifer noticed this too and she leaned down with him as they walked in the dim light produced by the lighter.

The first items to go, besides the packages of lighters and candles, were the aisles of beer and wine. It wasn't everyone's first choice to fill their carts with liquor but for one store patron it was, and in seeing the man frantically fill his cart with booze, others joined in on the liquor theft mob. Next to go were the stacks of water in the grocery section. Once the water had been plundered the five gallon jugs of water that were located at the water dispenser by the front registers were stolen and then the soft drinks, and pretty soon people were running through the entire grocery section throwing piles of canned goods off the shelves with giant sweeping motions of their arms. Whole kernel corn and green beans, $1.69 a can before the disaster, free by the cart load post-disaster. Allan was right as he remembered the Black Friday shopper videos on YouTube. The majority of the store was cleaned out in a matter of moments.

The mass theft was a chain reaction, and it was not contained within the walls of the Wal-Mart store. As soon as people saw the planes fall out of the sky a little bit of panic swelled. When they looked around and saw that the lights were out their panic intensified. When they took out their phones to call for help or to update their Facebook statuses, only to find that their phones were no longer working, their panic overflowed into a sea of theft and looting that swept across the entire city. Once one person was seen fleeing a store with a cartload of goods everyone else felt entitled to do the same.

Allan and Jennifer walked on past the ransacked electronics department with its entire display of television sets having been completely torn off the shelves. Allan wondered what was going through the people's minds as they were stealing the TVs. Did they realize that most likely the televisions, or any electronics for that matter, no longer worked? He wondered. Jennifer coughed into her shirt again and this time she swung her purse in front of her and dug out her asthma inhaler. She put her lips around the mouthpiece and squeezed and the little device made a squirting sound and Jennifer stretched her throat as the medicine poured into her lungs. They walked into the jewelry section and for a moment Allan hoped that the department had survived unscathed, but as they drew closer he saw the shattered remains of the glass countertops where the raging mob had torn into them as one of their first priorities to loot. Lying on the floor below the shattered counters was a body of a man. They walked closer and Allan bent down and carefully lifted the man’s shoulder off the ground to help turn him over. The body had stiffness to it as rigor mortis had already begun to set in and Allan jerked back in horror.

"Is he dead?" Jennifer asked as she leaned around Allan's shoulder to get a better look. Allan shined the lighter closer to the body and saw that it was the body of a young man, perhaps in his mid-20's, who had died right there in the jewelry department when he fell down and became trapped under the stampeding feet of the raging horde of shoppers in their mad quest for stolen goods. A middle aged man with a shopping cart full of shoes sped by Allan and Jennifer. He slowed his pace briefly to get a glancing inspection of the carcass and then sped off into the darkness.

"Let's go." Allan said.

"We're just going to leave the body here?" Jennifer questioned.

"I don't think we have a choice." Allan replied. How much has changed in so little time. A few hours ago a dead body inside a Wal-Mart store would have attracted hundreds of bystanders, an army of police and paramedics, and probably a few news reporters too. Now it was seemingly inconsequential to everyone around. He thought.

Beside them, next to the wreckage that was once the jewelry department was the remnants of an aisle of ladies handbags and backpacks. Like the rest of the store, the section had been picked over as well, but lying on the floor, partially concealed by one of the legs of the wrought iron display rack, lay a small pile of dusty black backpacks. They looked as if they had been lying there for ages, likely knocked off the shelves months or even years ago, hidden under the display rack where they sat to gather dust until this tragic day. Allan reached down and struggled to untangle the nylon straps from behind the metal display rack, partially tearing one of them as he pulled two bags free. "They are good backpacks." He said as he dusted them off.

Jennifer coughed through the shirt fabric still held firm against her face. "Good find." She said and she watched Allan slip one on his back and adjust the straps. Allan helped Jennifer into hers and then she had him put her purse inside it so that she wouldn’t have to carry it on her shoulder anymore. Her large handbag filled all the empty space inside the backpack. As he was zipping it up he stopped and reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet and keys and placed them inside her purse.

“So I don’t have to carry them in my pockets.” Allan explained.

“Oh, so now I have to carry them for you?”

“They’re not heavy at all.”

“Then why don’t you carry them?”

“Because they pull my pants down and I’m sick of always having to pull them up.”

“Fine.”

“Let's check out the grocery section and see what we can find over there to put in my pack." Allan said. They walked across the store and Allan led the way by the flicker of the lighter which was becoming hot in his hand.

They found two lone cans of chili tucked away in the corner of the canned goods section and put them in Allan’s backpack. On the juice isle they found a gallon bottle of orange Hawaiian Punch partially hidden by an emergency telephone that was attached to a building support column. As they struggled to fit the large juice bottle into the backpack Allan's finger slipped off the plastic nozzle of the lighter. The flame went out and the darkness of the building enveloped them again. He tried flicking the striker but it was far too hot to reignite and the only results of his attempt to lite it again was a burnt finger. He placed the overheated lighter on an empty shelf and they made their way by the light emitting from the glass doors of the front entrance near the grocery section. When they reached the area where the shopping carts were stored Jennifer instinctively parked their cart and they exited the building. When they stepped out of the Wal-Mart they found that the sky had darkened and it was raining hard again.

"It's later that I thought. We need to find some shelter out of this weather." Allan said.

"Well there's a lot of buildings around here. Take your pick." Jennifer waved her hand in front of her suggesting any one of the many stores and food establishments that lined the highway.

"I don't know if any of those places are going to be safe. They've got two things that are in high demand right now. Food and money. I don't want to be there when someone decides to take either of those." He looked around and saw an underpass about a half mile from the Wal-Mart. "There's a bridge crossing over the highway up there." He pointed. "Let’s head that way."

They walked along the north service road that looked over the once busy highway that was now congested with only foot traffic and stalled cars. The rain was falling heavily and they put their hands above their heads to shield their faces from the pounding rain. When they reached the bridge Allan read the green highway sign that said MacArthur Blvd in big white letters. They crossed down the grassy median and carefully worked their way up the concrete retaining wall. The abutment between the bridge and the retaining wall was narrow and the surface had an oily reside that felt slimy but at least it was dry. They tucked their bodies into the top corner of the bridge and each struggled to find positions that were comfortable. The confined space was a stark change from the wide open views of the parking lots and highways from earlier in the day and being there in the enclosed area gave both of them an odd sense of security. They had no weapon other than a long screwdriver but at least the shelter provided them some semblance of protection, even if it was only imaginary.

Allan struggled to hold his backpack close to him. The gallon jug of punch inside made the bag round like a ball and it constantly seemed like it wanted to roll away from him down the sloped retaining wall. Finally he grew tired of fighting with the bag and he unzipped it and pulled out the bottle contained inside. He unscrewed the lid to the bottle of orange punch and took a big gulp and then he handed it to Jennifer who did the same. They sat there for a few minutes enjoying the sweet nectar until their bellies were filled and then he placed the bottle back into his backpack. He placed the bag in his lap and hooked his right arm around one of the straps and held it snug against his body. With his other hand he reached out to Jennifer who was using her backpack as a pillow and he found her arm and held it tight. As the sky grew dark when the sun cast its final rays of sunlight on that awful day they saw another group of people walk up the embankment on the other side of the bridge. There were three of them, a man and woman and a young child. When they reached the top they huddled close to one another just as Allan and Jennifer were doing and Allan wondered where their new neighbors had come from and where they might be headed. Total darkness crept over them in a way that they had never experienced. The rain clouds above hid the moon and stars and there were no street lights or car lights or anything that might have the possibility of creating illumination. The complete absence of light was terrifying to everyone in the city that night.

----

There was a whimper in the darkness and Allan's eyes sprung open. Still in a sleepy daze, the events of the day before were momentarily forgotten.

Where am I?

Suddenly it all came rushing back to him in a flurry of horror.

What was that sound?

He felt around in the darkness and found Jennifer's arm.

It was trembling.

"What's wrong?" He leaned in close in an effort to get a glimpse of her face but it was invisible in the darkness.

"I'm sorry." She wept.

"Sorry for what?"

"Sorry for getting us into this."

"This is not your fault."

"It is too. Who was the one who wanted to go on this trip? I should have told you that we could stay home and not made you drive in the rain."

"Well we're here now and the only thing we can do about it is lay here and try and get some rest."

"I miss Samantha. I wish we were with her now."

"I miss her too." The words cast a veil of frozen silence between them. Their thoughts drifted between memories of Samantha. Little things that they had ordinarily taken for granted like her smile, her playful laugh, or the way she mispronounced words sometimes. Allan remembered the way that she would sometimes enter the living room where they sat watching TV. She would stand there in the hall doorway with a goofy smile on her face, waiting for one of her parents to acknowledge her and then she would take off in a sprint and jump into the lap of the first one who would look her way. It had become a long established game and Allan and Jennifer found themselves in competition with one another as to who could acknowledge Samantha first. Many times it would just be Allan sitting in the living room deeply focused on whatever was on the television at the moment. Samantha would stand in the hallway waiting to be seen, and even though he saw her out of the corner of his eye it was as if the television pleaded with him not to look to her. Moments would pass and Samantha would make silly grunting noises as if she were trying to clear her throat but the television, oh how the television pulled at him to not look away. He could see her looking at him hopefully waiting in anticipation for the moment that he would turn to her and she could spring into action but there were times that he would not look to her, and in the corner of his eye he could see her frown and turn and walk away. The image tore at him in the dark place under the bridge for although he could not remember what was on the television that was so important he could still see her so clearly walking away into the shadows of the hallway. If only he could call out to his daughter now he would say "I see you!" and she would turn and come darting across the room and joyfully leap into his lap and he could hold her safe in the horrible dark night and apologize for having ever ignored her.

----

There was a loud crack in the night. Allan jolted awake and banged his head against a bridge beam above him and he spread his arms and legs wide against the oily concrete surface to stabilize himself.

"Was that thunder?" Jennifer's voice asked beside him in the darkness.

They listened quietly. Suddenly three small flashes flickered in the distance. A couple of seconds later they heard three loud bangs to accompany the flashes. It was gunfire coming from the direction of one of the restaurants in front of the Wal-Mart store. The faint sound of a woman screaming echoed in the distance. "Why are they shooting?" Jennifer pleaded.

"They are after the food and money and," Allan stopped mid-sentence. He was going to say, "and there is nothing to stop them." but he was afraid for what that might mean, for them and especially for Jennifer if it should come to be that he ever wasn't around to protect her.

Chapter 6: Eastbound

It was early morning and the rising sun cast its orange beams of light across their faces. The dark clouds from the day before had cleared and turned into little white puffs of cotton. Allan stretched his legs and his body slid a little ways down the concrete embankment causing both of the shirts that he was wearing to roll up on his back. He lay there basking in the sun for a moment, pondering if he should wake Jennifer or let her rest for a bit longer before they set off on the long day ahead of them.

"Well are you just going to lay there?" Jennifer was already sitting upright in the corner of the bridge above him.

Allan turned to her. "How long have you been awake?"

"Most of the night. I didn't sleep much." She would often say that back at home when Samantha cried a lot at night when she was a little baby. It always made Allan feel guilty for having slept. He balanced himself on the slope of the oily concrete surface. Sharp pain shot up from his feet and he fell back down.

"What's wrong?" Jennifer asked.

Allan winced as he clutched at his feet.

"What is it babe?" She repeated.

He untied his shoes and slipped them off. Despite carefully placing them beside him, one of the shoes slipped and slid all the way down the embankment and landed in the grassy area down beside the roadway. He peeled back his socks to reveal open blisters on the heels of each foot. The commotion of the day before had kept him from noticing the constant rubbing of his shoes against his feet.

He looked up at Jennifer. "So much for these fancy new Sketchers."

She looked at him confused.

"They are brand new. I never got a chance to break them in." He said as he carefully slid his socks back around his heels and grabbed the lone shoe that was still beside him. Jennifer stood up and offered him a hand and he hobbled to his feet and winced again as they made their way down the concrete slope. They reached the bottom where he sat in the grass and tied his shoes.

"Where's your backpack?" Jennifer asked.

Allan looked up to the corner of the bridge where they had slept but he did not see it either. He stood up and looked around the grassy area on the ground. It was nowhere to be found.

"It must have slid down the embankment last night." Allan buried his face in his hands. "Someone must have picked it up down here and walked off with it." He didn't want to contemplate the alternative, which was that someone could have walked up the side of the bridge and taken it out of his arms as he slept.

"What are we going to do for food?" Jennifer's frustration swelled when she remembered the cans of chili that were inside the backpack. She wasn't mad at him for losing the pack. She was mad at the whole situation. She was mad about the long walk ahead of them in North Dallas, if that was good or bad she didn't know, blisters on her husband’s feet, no food or water, and being 8 months pregnant in the middle of it all.

"You should be more worried about that orange punch.”

“Why?”

“Rule of three's." He said.

"What in the hell are you talking about?" Now she was mad at him.

The agitation in her voice caught him by surprise. "Ah, well, it's some kind of survival lingo. I'm trying to remember how it goes. Three minutes without water, three days without shelter.... wait, that's not right. It's three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food, and three months without the companionship of my beautiful wife." He grinned at the last part in an attempt to lighten the mood. She glared at him.

"Basically what that rule is supposed to do is help you prioritize, and in our case that orange punch is more important than food." He finished.

"I am hungry. I am not thirsty." Jennifer stated. Allan shook his head. There’s no getting through her barrier this morning. He thought.

He surrendered. "I'll find food for us somewhere."

People were starting to fill the highway again. The bodies crawled out of roadside ditches and drainage culverts and gathered on the highway, all of them walking in seemingly random directions.

"Which way do we go?" Jennifer asked.

"We head east." He grabbed her hand and his feet took painful steps forward. Surprisingly, after a few hundred yards the pain began to diminish as his tired and torn feet became numb again to the pain. They had walked for an hour when they came upon a commotion on the highway. A mass of people had formed a circular human shield around two men who were fighting with one another. Allan drew near to see what was happening despite Jennifer tugging him to not get involved.

"Don't stop. Just keep going." She said but Allan was already infatuated with the fight. The fighter's bodies were rolling and scooting around on pavement and the scene reminded Allan of a mixed martial arts fight that he would sometimes catch on TV. One of the men had a deep cut above his eye and blood had run down and covered his face in streaks of red goo. He was struggling to gain a grip on his opponent and for a split second Allan thought the blood soaked fighters eyes met with his and it was if the man was trying to plead with Allan, "Make this stop." The other fighter was wearing dress pants but the top half of what was probably once a business suit had been discarded and now only a white blood stained undershirt remained. In that moment the fighter with the dress pants gained a dominant position atop the bloody faced man, threw him down on the pavement and straddled him. Fists rained down in a fury and the other man reached up to block the blows but he could not stop the ferocious attack.

Jennifer leaned close to one of the bystanders, "Why are they fighting?"

"Something about a bottle of water." The bystander replied still fixated on the fight. "I think one of them tried to take water from the other."

More vicious blows.

With each pound of fists came the sound of knuckles striking facial bones. After a few seconds the man trapped underneath fell limp and just as Allan had seen so many times when a fighter was knocked out in a mixed martial arts fight, someone from the crowd jumped in and tackled the attacker to get him off the defeated fighter. The man who stopped the fight was tall and was wearing a wife beater shirt and his dark skin cast deep shadows into his muscular frame and Allan thought how he actually looked like he could be a referee in a professional fight. As the victorious fighter stood up the referee positioned himself between him and the other fighter who lay helpless on the ground in order to prevent further attacks. The winning fighter looked at the referee confused as he contemplated what had just happened and he wondered if the person who had jumped out of the crowd and tackled him was now a new opponent.

"He's had enough!" The dark skinned referee shouted and the fighter that he had tackled relaxed his stance after realizing that the new man from the crowd was not a threat. Allan half expected to see him raise both of his arms up and run around the circle of bystanders in a victory dance as he had seen so many times on TV. Instead the winning fighter simply looked around at the crowed that had formed around him with a blank stare of stock on his face. During the fight he was a ferrous animal but now, standing before the crowd the shame of what had just happened cast over him. Yesterday he was a businessman or a salesman or any number of professions where one might wear a business suit, but today he was a vicious fighter, enraged over a bottle of water.

In a move that surprised everyone he knelt down close to the dark skinned referee and asked, "Is he ok?"

The referee reached down and checked for a pulse at the neck of the defeated man's neck and then looked up, "He's not ok man. He's dead."

The victorious fighter leapt to his feed in disbelief. Stunned silence filled the crowd. Terror poured over the winning fighter as the reality of everything sunk in. Moments ago he was a vicious fighter, now he was a murderer. It felt to him that the crowd was no longer looking at him. They were all looking down on him with judgment in their eyes.

"I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't mean to kill him. He stole my water. Oh God! Please forgive me!" The man waited, praying for something to take the horrible moment away, someone to step in and console him and tell him, "It's ok. You are forgiven."

The crowd did not respond. No one was there to console him. He realized that the only thing that could take the moment away was to flee. In a panic the man bolted, stumbling and pushing his way out of the crowd. He ran down the highway embankment and crossed the access road and ran out of sight.

Jennifer turned to Allan with tears in her eyes, "He just killed that man." She said in disbelief. "Isn't someone going to do something?"

There would be no justice for the killer that day. No police to summon. Everyone knew that but no one could accept it. Why didn't I listen to Jennifer when she told me not to stop and watch the fight? Allan asked himself. We would have been further down the road and would have never known of this horrible thing.

Allan put his arm around his wife and guided her away from the crowd and as they took their first steps away something on the ground made a popping noise under Allan's foot. It was a plastic bottle half full of water. Realizing the importance of the item Allan reached down and thought how before yesterday he would not dare touch the bottle. Crime scene evidence. He thought, yet now the water inside it seemed more important than anything else and so he reached down and placed the souvenir of the death fight into Jennifer’s backpack. He placed his arm back around Jennifer and they walked eastward into the growing heat of the day.

They walked for two more hours and the moisture on the road surface from the rains of the day before was beginning to vaporize and the air was becoming thick and humid. Allan heard the faint sound of wheezing coming from Jennifer earlier in the day but he ignored it and pressed on. She had always had a mild case of asthma but it never affected her daily life except on one eventful occasion.

Eight years ago Allan and Jennifer were driving down to Galveston Texas the day after their wedding and as they drove she felt her airways become more and more constricted as the elevation dropped closer to the moist air at sea level. By the time they arrived at their hotel by the beachside she had an obvious wheeze when she breathed that caused her to feel faint from just walking up the stairs to reach the front lobby of the hotel. She was miserable. Their attempt to enjoy a romantic walk down the beach at sunset was a struggle that had to be cut short. She ended up staying inside the hotel the entire time and although Allan said he wasn’t upset she knew that her asthma attack had disappointed him. They went to a pharmacy and despite finding some asthma relief pills that were supposed to help with mild cases of asthma the wheezing stayed with her during their entire trip and they ended up cutting their honeymoon short. The only thing that finally relieved her asthma was her prescription medicated mist and getting into the dryer air back home. The wheezing on their honeymoon was the same wheezing that Allan could hear coming from her lungs now. He was contemplating whether he should address it somehow and ask her how she was feeling or whether to just try to ignore it and press on when Jennifer stopped, breathless and red faced, "I need to rest."

They walked to a small grove of trees in the grassy median on the side of the road and Jennifer knelt down in the shade. She reached into her purse and took out the medicated mist and squeezed off a squirt into her mouth. As they rested under the shade the medicine slowly worked its way down into her lungs and her breathing became easier. They rested under the trees for longer than they wanted, both of them feeling like they were delaying too much, but it was just too hot outside to force their bodies to get up and walk again. They drank the water from the bottle that Allan had placed in Jennifer’s backpack from back at the fight-crime scene but it was not enough water to quench their thirst. Finally when Allan felt that they could linger no longer he stood up and helped Jennifer to her feet and they pressed on.

Everywhere there were mangled cars blocking their path. Every few steps they had to side step around them, slowing them down, and making what would be a twenty minute mile walk into forty minutes or more. Allan remembered Walter’s words back at the mall, “I could cut my walk down to 20 miles if I walked in a straight line as the birds fly” and he wondered if it would have been better to follow Walter’s advice and try to walk in a straight line through residential neighborhoods and open pastures instead of following the highways but Allan feared what dangers lied in walking along the side streets where a would-be attacker could easily hide in the shadows. The biggest obstacles were the 18 wheelers, not only because of their enormous size but because every one that they encountered on the highway in Dallas had been looted with their trailer cargos spread out along the roadway for hundreds of feet as the multitudes of people picked over the items that they wanted and discarded all the rest.

A man approached them from behind and yelled, “Hey man can you help me?”

Deep down Allan did not want to turn around and acknowledge the call for help. He remembered going on a business trip with his boss to downtown Saint Louis a couple of years back and as he walked along the cobblestone streets there were dozens of homeless people who would occasionally approach them and ask for handouts.

“Don’t acknowledge them. Don’t even make eye contact. Just keep walking like you don’t even hear them. Do that and they’ll leave you alone.” Allan’s boss had advised him but for some reason the beggars always approached Allan and asked him for money despite his best effort to not look their way.

The man who had called out to Allan just now on the highway ran up to him. Another beggar. How can I avoid this one? Doesn’t he see that I have nothing to give him. Why do they always approach me? Allan thought.

“Sir, there’s a man trapped under a car nearby. Been there two days. I’m trying to get some men together to try and lift the car off of him. Can you help? We only need a couple more strong arms.” The man pleaded.

Allan remembered the people that he had already refused to help. The woman who was impaled in her car, the man with the concussion who he refused to seek help for, and the man in the fight who looked right at him with eyes that asked him to make it stop just before he was killed. Those people were not my concern. My concern is getting my wife and unborn child home and reuniting with Samantha and I won’t let anyone stand in my way.

The man looked at Allan with pleading eyes. “We just need a couple more men. That’s all we need to save a guy’s life.”

Suddenly Allan felt a wave of guilt run over him. How will I live with myself if I reunite my family yet sacrifice everyone in need of help that I encounter along the way?

“Where’s the car at?” Allan asked.

The man’s face lit up and he began to run back in the direction that he had come from. “It’s just over here.”

Allan jogged behind the man and Jennifer did her best to keep up. They stepped off the highway near an overpass and stopped in a place where a few people had gathered around a red Ford Fusion car that was parked in the middle of a red light interchange. The man who had stopped to ask Allan for help knelt down to one knee beside the car and Allan did the same and he looked down beneath the car and saw the body of a young man lying on the pavement.

“He’s been under here since the lights went out. He said he was walking across the crosswalk when this car slammed right into him. He said the lady who was driving the car didn’t even try to help him despite his screaming.” The man who had stopped Allan explained. Allan looked on at the young man who blinked at him as he lay helpless under the car. “I actually think we got enough dudes here now that we can do this.” The man continued. “Everyone get ahold of the rear of the car. We’re gonna lift it up and I want you two to slide the man out from under the car.” He said pointing to two female bystanders.

There were five men in the crowd and each grabbed a spot at the back of the car and waited for the signal to begin lifting. Jennifer stood alongside, afraid of straining herself and she watched the scene unfold. Someone counted to three and then everyone who was gripping the car heaved upwards with every muscle in their bodies. The car lifted a few inches off the ground and a terrible scream erupted from beneath the car. The two women who had been instructed to pull the man out from underneath, dove down and grabbed the man and pulled him to safety. When the man was clear of the car the group lowered the rear end back down to the ground and they let out a collective gasp in exhaustion. Everyone huddled around the young man who had been pulled to safety while the two women examined his body.

The young man was still screaming in agony and clutching one of his legs and one of the women looked up. “Looks like only a broken leg. He’ll live.”

The group let out a sigh of relief and the man who had ran up to Allan to seek his help began to walk around the crowd shaking everyone’s hands. “Thank you so much for stopping and helping. You saved this man’s life. You’re a hero today.”

When the man got to Allan and thanked him Allan asked. “Is the man who was trapped someone you know?”

“Nah man. I just saw him trapped under the car and I knew I had to do something to get him out.”

Allan was amazed at the man’s will to help a total stranger. “You’re the hero.” He said and everyone around them agreed and thanked the man for his kindness.

It was mid-day and hot when they reached the double bridges of the Dallas North Tollway. On each side of the interchange there were circular on and off ramps. Allan had seen many of these types of ramps as they appeared as little clover leaf shapes on a map, but there at ground level it was hard to imagine the clovers with the long arching ramps and grassy medians so littered with stalled cars and so many people aimlessly walking around. When they passed under the second bridge of the tollway they saw a large white structure in the middle of the Valley View Mall. Before the disaster they would often take Samantha to that mall to ride the carousel but most of the time that was just an excuse for Jennifer to get out of the house and go shopping. The part about the carousal was just a means to get little Samantha excited enough to convince Allan to take them all there. As they walked closer they could see that a crowd had gathered around the big structure spread across the parking lot which now looked like a large white tent. Allan’s initial thought was that the scene reminded him of the circus that would come to town every year when he was a little kid. A part of him actually hoped that it was a circus, as absurd as the idea seemed, if only to have a semblance of normalcy in everything terrible that was happening around them.

“Do you think we should go over there?” Jennifer asked as she stopped walking in the middle of the road. “I bet that’s a makeshift hospital that they have setup. Maybe they have some food and water and they can look at your feet?”

Allan nodded in agreement and as they stepped off the paved highway he could see that Jennifer was right, it was a make shift hospital. There were hundreds of people milling around the white canvas tent and inside Allan could see that it was bustling with more activity. Rows of hospital beds, most with patients lying on them, filled the interior of the tent and here and there were dozens of what Allan guessed were doctors and nurses who were recruited after the disaster who paced back and forth between the bed rows. Allan wondered how such an operation could have been setup and organized so quickly after the disaster with all the supplies and beds and even the big white tent. It was quite an impressive sight but the realization that it was in fact not a circus made Allan feel disappointed in a ridiculous sort of way.

As they approached the tent they could see a woman standing on a podium near the middle of the big structure and she was speaking into a plastic bull horn, yet they could not make out what she was saying. It wasn’t until they were within 50 yards of her that Allan and Jennifer could hear the speaker’s muffled instructions to the crowd. “If you have a medical emergency and you need immediate medical assistance please go to the trauma center at the rear of the tent. For all other medical needs please form two lines here.” The woman repeated her instructions over and over and Allan noted a strain in her voice that seemed to increase with each repetition of the phrase. Allan thought that if only she had an electronic megaphone she could be so much more efficient with her message, yet he knew that if one was around it surely wouldn't be functional.

“Do you want to get in line to see if they can help you with your feet?” Jennifer asked. Allan nodded, hoping for treatment of his feet and he also hoped that they could do something to help Jennifer’s asthma and if they were lucky they might score some food and water. They quickened their pace to get in line before more people could get in front of them but the line swelled around them as they approached and before they could secure their place in the line it grew by nearly forty feet. It reminded Allan of a few years back when he was at Six Flags waiting excitedly in the line to ride the Texas Giant roller coaster and as he stepped in what he thought was the back of the line he heard people shouting, “Hey, no cutting in line!” at which point he looked back and saw that the line for the roller coaster extended for several hundred more feet behind him. Disappointed he stepped out of the line for the ride and went to ride other, less popular rides that day and he never once got a chance to ride the Texas Giant.

As Allan and Jennifer started to make their way to the newly formed back of the line a man who was wearing a dark grey business suit caught Allan’s eye. He had a matching suit jacket slung over his shoulder and he was wearing a tan colored felt fedora hat and he looked like he could have come right out of a 1940’s Dick Tracy cartoon.

The man stepped back to give the two of them some room and said, “You folks can stand in front of me.”

Perhaps the man saw the way that Allan was limping because of the blisters on his feet, or maybe he saw Jenifer’s bulging stomach and the way that she waddled when she walked, or perhaps it was his way of adding some semblance of kindness to a day in which he had seen his own fair share of horrible events. As Allan and Jennifer stepped into the line, bemoans called out from some people standing behind them just like Allan had experienced years ago in the line to ride the Texas Giant. “No cutting in line.” Yelled a booming voice in the back. The man with the fedora had did not acknowledge the heckler. “Hey asshole with the goofy hat, I said no cutting in line.”

Allan expected the man who let them cut in line to turn and confront the protestor but instead he just smiled at Allan and Jennifer and said, “I guess what they say is true. No good deed goes unpunished.”

Allan was surprised at the man’s kindness and he turned and said, “I actually like your hat.”

“Found it behind the back seat of a stalled out Lincoln Town Car this morning. Helps keep the sun out of my face.” He smiled.

For some reason the revelation surprised Allan. Somehow he had imagined the man having always worn the fedora hat as if it was his way of defining his eccentric personality or something. Allan almost wanted the man to be like a character in a Dick Tracy cartoon, someone different and unique from everything else going on around them, but as it were he was just another product of the disaster, a businessman who had become a scavenger and now he was just standing in line waiting for a hand out like everyone else. It was those first impressions, the first moments of an encounter that Allan was always so good at reading people and understanding who they were and what they were all about but now all that seemed to have been lost in the disaster like all the stalled cars that had lost their ability to run. The truth was he couldn’t get a good take on anyone now. The man in the business slacks who became a fighter earlier in the day may not have been a businessman at all. He may have very well stolen those dress slacks out of a department store after the disaster. Even the man who let them cut in line just now might not be the gentleman that he so seemed to be. He might very well have had ulterior motives for letting them cut in line in front of him. It’s so easy for people to put on any kind of facade that they want in this kind of situation. Allan’s thoughts made him feel uneasy. They stood in the line for over an hour but the mass of people in front of them barley moved and all the while Allan nervously checked over his shoulder at the man behind him who always returned his glances with a smile and each time it made Allan feel even more uneasy.

“Have you heard any news? Is this event isolated to just Dallas or is it all over?” Allan inquired to the man behind them.

“I’m hearing that it’s just a localized event. The emergency personnel are just getting held up because of all the stalled cars on the road. I’m sure the authorities will be organizing things soon, just as they have starting doing here at this location.” The man smiled.

Allan looked at the man curiously and wondered if the stalled cars were all that was keeping the authorities held up then what was keeping the airplanes and helicopters from flying in the sky. There hasn’t been anything other than birds in the skies since the blast. Why doesn’t this man realize this and why does he keep smiling like that?

Allan thought back to a few weeks earlier when he was waiting in his truck in front of the Brookshire’s grocery store back in Greenville while Jennifer ran inside to grab a few items. As he sat in the truck waiting for her he saw a heavy set young man come walking from behind the store and Allan figured that the man had walked over from the apartments behind the Brookshire’s building. The man looked kind of ragged, his hair was long and oily, and he was smoking a cigarette and he walked in a sluggish kind of way. Allan watched the young man as he entered the grocery store, and he sat there thinking about him. Allan don't know the man, but he could guess probably fairly accurately that he was quite poor, living in the run down apartments behind the grocery store, and it reminded Allan of his younger self when he didn't have very much money or many things to call his own. He wondered what kept people like himself when he was younger or the man that he saw pass by, from just giving up hope. With the world outside racing by and people driving their expensive cars and buying nice things and all the while there were so many people out there struggling just to make ends meet. Allan remembered that what drove him on back when he was younger was his quest to attain a better standard of living for himself and for those around him. But he wondered about those who found themselves trapped under a mountain of credit card debt, jobless and out of options for attaining that better life. He figured that the police and court systems were doing a decent job at keeping most people honest, but he wondered what would happen if that system were to fall apart completely. What would happen if people suddenly found themselves with no hope left? Allan sat there in front of the Brookshire’s grocery store that day thinking that under such circumstances, people like the ragged man that he saw walk by might be ready and willing to take from others without a second thought. Little did Allan know that so soon a disaster would happen that would put his thoughts to the test.

As Allan stood in the line beside big white tent he hoped that there was more goodness in people beyond what a police force and society could instill into people, but he feared that if he was wrong and if that was all that made people good, then they were all doomed since the police were nowhere around anymore and the remains of a civilized society were now wandering around on the highways.

Allan turned to check behind his shoulder and the man grinned at him again.

Creepy grins.

The woman with the bull horn from earlier stood up again on the podium. Her voice was even more tired this time as she put the orange plastic bull horn to her face and said, “We have just ran out of our food and water provisions. We are getting low on medical supplies too. Those of you in the far back of the line should probably move on and seek assistance elsewhere.”

“Well I guess that’s that.” Said the man with the fedora hat behind them.

“I never thought I’d see the day where a hospital, even a makeshift one at that, would have to turn so many people away.” Jennifer said.

“I hope you folks make it safe to wherever you are going.” The man said and he tipped the brim of his hat to them and then he slung his suit coat over his shoulder and walked back towards the highway in a casual kind of stroll. “The authorities should be along soon, and if not, do your best to keep yourself and those around you calm.” He said and gave them one last smile.

“What a gentleman.” Jennifer said.

“That he was.” Allan agreed and he felt awful for having ever questioned the man’s motives for Allan realized that the man was simply following his own advice by smiling the entire time in an effort to keep those around him as calm as possible.

It was terribly hot by mid-afternoon and the sun was relentless and Allan cherished the few puffy white clouds in the sky that provided them the occasional shelter from the burning heat. Allan noticed that Jennifer was walking with much more of a waddle than before and he asked her what was wrong.

“My legs are chaffing between my thighs and it hurts.”

“You need some petroleum jelly to prevent the friction.” Allan said.

“Some petroleum jelly and a change out of these sweaty black pants and an air conditioner. In fact, I’d take an air conditioner above anything else.” Jennifer replied with a sigh.

The late July heat in Texas was nearly unbearable and if Allan could have picked the worse time for a disaster to take place it would be then.

Chapter 7: Into The Darkness

The illusion of water shimmered on the road surface in the distance. Allan’s tired mind drifted back to when he was a kid, sitting beside his father who drove the old family pickup on a hot summer afternoon. He remembered seeing the same shimmering pools of water on the road surface that he saw in front of them now and he remembered asking his father “Is that water on the road in front of us?”

His father grinned, “Yes it is son. Keep your eye on it and pretty soon we’ll splash right through it.”

As they drove forward in his daddy’s pickup the image of the water disappeared.

“What happened to the water daddy?” Allan asked.

“I was just teasing you about the water son. That was really just a mirage. It happens because the air temperature at the road surface is hotter than the air around it and something about it forms kind of a mirror effect.”

Of course Allan didn’t believe his father, and he was angry at that he lied to him about getting to watch the truck splash through the water on the road and so he gazed into the horizon for the duration of their trip, searching for more mirages and hoping that just one of them would turn out to actually be water so that the truck would drive through it and make a big splash and his father could be proven wrong. Allan looked at the mirage ahead of them now with the same wishful thoughts.

If only that was real water on the road ahead and we could get our feet wet and splash around in it for a minute or two amongst all the other people wandering around on the highway. He thought. Skipping around in the water with no care in the world. We might even bend down and take a drink as if we were a couple of gazelles frolicking beside an oasis in the middle of the African desert. It sure feels as hot as a desert in Africa out here. After filling our bellies full with the cold crisp water we might lie down and bath our bodies in the little roadway pool.

“What are you thinking about?” Jennifer asked.

“Huh?” Allan asked stunned as his train of thought came back to reality.

“You’re just staring off into space with a weird grin on your face.” Jennifer replied.

“Oh, nothing I guess.” But it wasn’t nothing. His mental lapse, although momentary, was a sign of dehydration and heat exposure. As quickly as he came to that realization, his thoughts drifted away again.

Two gazelles in Africa just bathing in the little pool on a hot summer day. Until a crocodile leaps up out of the water and eats us for supper. Mmm, supper. Oh to have a nice juicy steak right now. I can almost taste the meat on my lips. So juicy and tender. Maybe we could setup a makeshift grill on the side of the road and grill the meat for a few minutes. The steaks will be cooked medium rare, centers red and juicy, the outside crispy with a slight oily residue shimmering on the surface from all the juices inside the meat boiling to the top. Oh how I could go for some gazelle steaks right now. Allan licked his lips and smiled while Jennifer looked on at him with a worried look on her face. He felt her staring at him and he shook the fantasy away and forced his mind to focus on reality.

There is a lesson to be had in the mirages of water on the highway. He thought. Dad was right. Since the asphalt roadway is black it absorbs more of the sun’s heat and the air just above it becomes hotter than the rest of the air around it.

“We need to get off this black asphalt.” He told Jennifer.

“Why?” Jennifer looked down confused.

“The black asphalt absorbs heat which means we’re walking on top of the hottest surface around. If we walk along the side of the road on the lighter colored concrete it shouldn’t be quite as hot on us.”

“Yeah, but how far does this concrete go? What will we do when that ends and there’s nothing but more black pavement? Besides, when most of the cars stalled out yesterday what did they do? They pulled over to the side of the road and blocked the shoulder.” She moaned.

“Well then we can deal with that when we get to it. We can walk around the stalled cars.” His frustration was matching hers and he looked down at her and saw that her face was flushed red and her forehead was covered in sweat and amongst the heat and exhaustion and dehydration she was angry. “Don’t worry.” He tried to comfort her. She looked up at him and sighed and with that some of the tension in the air was lifted.

They walked past a man struggling to push a Kawasaki motorcycle beside him. The man was sweating profusely and breathing heavily but onward he pushed the bike. Allan’s thoughts wandered to the efficiency of gasoline. If only we could find a motorcycle with an engine that worked and a single gallon of gas. He looked at the man, struggling to push the motorcycle down the highway at 2 or 3 miles per hour, becoming completely exhausted yet Allan thought how a single gallon of gas could send the motorcycle racing down the highway for 75 miles at 70 miles per hour. If it were my motorcycle and if it worked we would be home in less than an hour with plenty of gas to spare. But no doubt there is probably gasoline in the tank of the broken bike. Such an amazingly efficient liquid now just dead weight. Allan wondered why the man would expend so much energy pushing a machine that was now useless. He figured the only reasons why the man would do that was if he didn’t have far to go in which case why would he still be pushing the bike into the second day of the disaster? Perhaps the man just found the bike lying on the side of the road and decided to take it as his own little souvenir, like all the other scavengers of the disaster, without concern for the fact that the motorcycle didn’t even run. There was one other reason that Allan considered, and that was what if the man knew something that Allan didn’t? What if he was taking the motorcycle to a nearby shop where he would find the tools to make a simple repair to get the bike running again? But wouldn’t the parts be susceptible to the same energy pulses that took out all the cars, regardless if they were in unopened boxes or not? He wondered. Allan didn’t know much about mechanics, and that raised another thought that had been nagging at him since they left the mall parking lot the day before. What if we left our truck too soon? What if Walter was right? What if all the cars on the road just needed a few more minutes to auto-reboot their computers and everything would be fine. What if everyone had just assumed that all the cars were broken and nobody had since actually tried to crank one back up? If I could just find one car with the keys still in it then I could try cranking it then I would know.

The problem was, there were no keys in any of the cars because when all the cars stopped working everyone got out and put their keys in their pockets and purses out of pure habit. Allan wondered how many hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, were at that very moment walking around still carrying the dead weight of useless car keys in their pockets. He remembered the keys that Jennifer was still carrying for him in her backpack. The rational thing for him and everyone else to do would be to take all the car keys off their key chains and toss them on the side of the road like all the other trash that littered the median. The idea of that seemed silly though and Allan wondered how such a rational thought could seem so irrational. It was then that he realized that the man who was pushing the bike was probably not pushing it because he had stolen it or because he knew of a secret way to fix it. More than likely the man pushed the motorcycle for the same reason that everyone else was still walking around clinging to their car keys out of habit. Allan was not just an onlooker of a man struggling to push a useless motorcycle, they were one and the same, for if Allan had the strength to push his own truck down the road he would do it. Everyone had been clinging to the hope that the disaster was only temporary and that pretty soon everything would be back to normal and everyone’s car keys would work and the motorcycle would fire back up and everyone would carry on about their lives at the usual 70 miles per hour. Allan feared that soon all that hope would run out and he was afraid of what the consequences would be once that happened.

In the late afternoon Allan and Jennifer decided to continue walking on into the night. They had not made much progress due to the extreme heat of the day but now that it was getting dark and the temperatures were falling they both felt more energized to press on. What they had not anticipated though was the complete and all-encompassing darkness of the night once again. The night before had been completely dark, but it was raining and cloudy so they expected with the clearer skies from earlier in the day that it wouldn’t be quite so dark at night, yet as the afternoon temperatures dipped a cloudy overcast spread across the sky and by nightfall only a few stars poked through sporadic breaks in the clouds. In the darkness they clung to the concrete shoulder of the highway and used it to direct them in a straight line. Allan felt like a cave explorer walking so cautiously in the darkness, except a cave explorer would have thought ahead and carried a torch to light the way. He imagined himself holding a long stick with a piece of kerosene soaked cloth wrapped around the end of it, lit on fire and lighting their path as he had seen in so many movies. It was too dark now to gather such supplies and apparently no one else had thought of it either since there were no such flaming torches visible amongst the mass of people moving about the highway in the darkness.

A sweaty arm brushed up against Allan in the darkness and a voice from an unseen face said, “Pardon me.”

A few steps later and he bumped into a large torso and out from it came a scruffy and angry sounding voice, “Excuse me!”

All around them now they could hear the sound of people walking and breathing. Some of the breathing was hard and passed them by quickly and others sounded like the relaxed breaths of people just roaming around. Wherever they were they seemed to be amongst a massive convergence of people, but where they were and why there were so many people in that place Allan did not know. The air was thick and rank from the breath and sweat of all the people passing by who had been walking in the heat but who hadn’t bathed or brushed their teeth in over 36 hours. It reminded Allan of the odorous men’s locker room back when he was in high school. That indescribable salty-musty odor that all locker rooms seem to have. Even the air outside, still humid from all the rain the night before, mimicked the thick moist air of a locker room. For some reason he thought of the victims of the holocaust, escorted down amongst the hundreds of other people into dark and filthy gas chambers to the horrible fate that awaited them. What horrible fate awaits us here in this dark and crowded place? Allan felt panic rush over him and he began to walk faster. Jennifer grabbed the back of his shirt and she held it tight to keep from becoming separated. They bumped in to more people and Allan must have said “Pardon me” at least a dozen times before he gave up and began bulldozing his way through the crowd. It all felt surreal. It was like a dream.

A nightmare.

The darkness, the unseen people, the tugging on his shirt by Jennifer, holding him back, preventing him from moving forward. Why are there so many god-damn people here? He pleaded with himself to find an answer. Someone’s bony elbow jabbed him in the side. Allan side-stepped in reaction and immediately a heavy foot landed on his and Allan winced in pain.

He thought back to when he was a young boy helping his grandfather vaccinate cows at his farm. All of the cows would be rounded up into a small pen and then his grandfather and uncle and the other men who had volunteered to help would separate the herd by flailing their arms and yelling “Yah!” and the cows would go one by one down the cattle shoot to receive their vaccination sots. As a boy Allan had never been allowed into the corral because his grandfather told him that it was dangerous and in the darkness of this night he could almost hear his grandfather’s voice. “It’s dangerous enough as it is, but if the cows get spooked they will stampede and there’s nothing stopping them.” The dark place on the highway was a cattle corral and on that night the humans were the cows.

He felt the tug on the back of his shirt let loose and Jennifer called out, “Allen!” as a dark figure passed between them. Allan stopped and turned towards Jennifer’s voice and something above him caught his eye. It was something massive in the darkness and only visible as a blackened contrast to the ever so faint glow in the sky offered by the few stars that poked through the clouds. Jennifer caught up to him with her hands held out in front of her to protect her stomach.

She touched him as he gazed upward to the sky. “What is it babe?” She whispered.

“We’re at the High Five Interchange. We’re at the bridges that we commented on yesterday when we were stuck in traffic.” They stood and stared up at the long black arching bridgeway and imagined the pale pastel colors that they had seen the morning before. The bridge made Allan feel both at peace and anxious. He felt at peace because he finally had a bearing in their sea of darkness but he felt anxiety because he realized that they had only walked about 20 miles in the past 36 hours. All the detours around the stalled cars and stopping to rest and searching for supplies was slowing them down. A car could do that in less than 20 minutes if traffic cooperated. One gallon of gas. He thought.

“We’re going to have to walk all night.” He told Jennifer. She grabbed the back of his shirt again and he led them out into the night.

They walked past the High Five Interchange and away from the roaming mass of people. The clouds began to grow denser and the little bits of starlight that had poked through earlier faded behind the abyss of clouds. There was someone with a torch of some kind inside a building near the service road. If they were the owner of the building or if they were an intruder Allan could not know, but he guessed that it was probably the latter. Suddenly his knee slammed into something hard that seemed to spring back and forth, causing him to lose his balance and he fell down. When he landed he paused for a moment to determine what had happened until he realized that he was actually sitting inside of a car. He was in the driver’s seat because he felt a steering wheel in front of him and apparently the driver’s side door had been left open which is what he had just stumbled into. The inside of the car had a similar musty smell to that of the bridge area that they had just walked out of and Allan prayed that it wasn’t the smell of a dead body inside the car. This seat does not feel right. He thought and he froze. What if I’m sitting on top of a dead body?

Suddenly a man’s voice spoke from underneath him, “Well, are you going to get up?” Allan, who was convinced that he was sitting on a dead body moments before leapt up fearing that the corpse had come back to life and was now talking to him. It took a moment for him to calm down and realize that it was not a dead body.

“What are you doing in the car?” Allan demanded and he knew the absurdity of his question but it was the only thing that he could come up with as his anger at his own clumsiness swelled.

“Just resting sir.”

“Why do you have the fucking door open?”

Jennifer leaned close and whispered, “Allan, calm down.” He immediately felt embarrassed for having lost his composure and for cursing like he did.

“It’s hot in here and I stink. It’s pretty bad when you can smell yourself. I opened the door to let air circulate.” Said the voice inside the car.

Allan rubbed his knee. “Look, I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“Oh, that’s alright. You hit the door pretty hard there. The bang kinda echoed inside the cab of the car a little.”

Allan continued rubbing his knee and he grabbed Jennifer’s hand and they walked on, careful of every step now. Here and there they began to pass people carrying candles that helped light their way. Allan was amazed at how much a single flickering candle flame lit up the area around it. In addition to the candles there were those who smoked cigarettes. The little red embers lit up small areas in front of the smoker’s face and it looked like little red torches floating around in the night. Whenever one of the smokers would raise their cigarette to take a drag it would reveal the lips and noses of their faces. Allan snickered because it kind of looked like there were no bodies attached to them, only lips and noses behind the ember of a cigarette hovering above the ground in the darkness.

Allan remembered when he was a rebellious teenager experimenting with cigarettes and a ridiculous conversation that he had once had with his best friend about the benefits of smoking. “The smoke prevents bacteria from growing in your mouth.” His friend had told him.

“They help warm you up if it is cold outside.” Allan suggested.

With that, Allan and his friend nodded their heads and exclaimed, “Hell yeah!” as they each fired up another cigarette. But Allan, even in his youth, knew that neither of those reasons were really legitimate but if he could talk to his friend now he would offer up one more reason why cigarettes were beneficial. When society collapses, the embers of a cigarette will help light up the darkness around you, at the very least so that others can identify you by your lips and nose. He chuckled at the absurd thought and for some reason he found himself craving a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked in years but the reminiscing thoughts of his teenage years brought back memories of playing video games and cruising around town in his pickup truck all without a care or responsibility in the world. A big juicy steak with a cigarette for dessert sounds pretty damn good right about now. He thought and he smiled and he could almost feel Jennifer staring at him again even though it was impossible to know for sure if she was looking at him in the darkness.

Suddenly they heard gun shots close behind them.

Too close.

Both of their ears began ringing and they turned and looked into the direction of the gunfire but there was only the void of darkness out there in the night. They could hear the sound of people screaming and panicked footsteps were suddenly all around. Allan imagined a herd of cattle stampeding right towards them. He grabbed Jennifer’s hand and in the panic he found himself running too, tugging at Jennifer’s arm, forcing her to keep up. His instincts told him to run but he knew that it wasn’t safe to run in the night. With every step he anticipated running into someone or falling over another opened car door. He tried to slow down but his feet would not allow it. He tugged harder at Jennifer’s hand, desperate to get away from that awful place. She screamed out between exhausted breaths, “Allan! Slow down!” but his own stampede could not be stopped. Time seemed to slow down and as he ran he thought how they were finally making good progress towards home. If only we could run like this the rest of the way home. We’d be …

Something sharp ripped into his thigh and Allan flopped to the ground in agony. The pain seared through his leg. Jennifer stumbled against him and nearly landed on top of him but she was able to catch herself at the last moment and in doing so her hands scraped hard against the jagged rocks on the surface of the road.

Chapter 8: Are Those Dead People?

Allan’s pain was excruciating. He reached below the wound in his thigh and felt his knee and calf muscles just to see if the rest of his leg was still attached. Feeling that his leg had not been severed he looked down to inspect the wound but in the darkness he could not even see his own leg. Feeling around he could only feel the moisture of blood on his skin and he moaned in agony. Jennifer’s torn hands burnt in pain but she could tell from the sounds of her husband that something was far worse with him than her skint up hands.

“What’s wrong?” she asked frantically.

“Something cut my leg! It’s bad!” He yelled, and he felt sorry for screaming at her but screaming was the only thing that he could manage.

“Let me help you.”

“No, just see what that was!”

She felt around where they hand landed, unsure of the danger around them. She feared reaching out and touching a hand of someone wielding a knife. She moved her hands in a circular pattern, searching for the unknown object like a blind person might feel around for a handle to open a door. Her hands came upon something sharp and metallic just above her head and she jerked back, fearing that there was an attacker at the other end of the sharp object. She listened for breathing or footsteps or anything to signal that someone was standing over her but there was nothing. Reluctantly she reached back out into the darkness and touched the object again. Whatever it was it felt jagged and bent and despite her husband’s injuries she breathed a sigh of relief as she realized that it was not the blade of a knife. The edge of the object felt wet to the touch and she knew that the wetness was her husband’s blood. She traced her fingers down the side of the object and felt a wrinkled metallic surface. She felt further down and could feel it become smooth like the glossy surface of a car fender and as she felt further she realized that it was indeed a car that she was touching. The car had been one of the casualties of the disaster of the day before. The driver had lost control when everything stopped working and crashed into a guardrail and it ripped a portion of the right rear fender nearly off and the car had sat right there, remnants of the torn fender sticking out into the air, waiting for Allan to come running into it.

Jennifer leaned in close and told him, “It’s safe.” She felt where he was holding his leg and she could smell the odor of blood in the air. She strained her eyes to see in the darkness and as she forced her eyes to focus she began to see something shimmer on his leg. It was blood oozing out and it provided just enough reflection in the dark night to be visible. She knew that that if she could see the sight of the wound in the daylight that she would probably pass out or vomit but in the darkness she held her composure and whispered softly, “Oh Allan.”

“It’s going to be ok.” He whispered back. Even though he was aware at how serious his injury was he was surprised at both their levels of calmness. He thought back to just a few minutes earlier when his knee slammed into the opened car door. He was so angry in that moment but now the thought of cursing or being angry did not even occur to him. It felt to him like it was fate that had caused him to fall over that car door earlier and fall into the stranger’s lap if only to help him remain calm through this moment.

“Will you help me take off my shirt?” He asked Jennifer.

Suddenly there was a loud thump nearby and there was the brief sound of moaning noises. They both stopped, frozen.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know.”

They both remained still and listed to the sounds of someone or something moaning until it finally faded to silence.

Jennifer continued and quickly removed her backpack and helped Allan unbutton his dress shirt and he slid out of it. For once Allan was grateful that Jennifer had insisted that he wear and undershirt because Jennifer had always said that it looked nice. Now the white undershirt would serve a new purpose to prevent his back from being exposed to the jagged road surface. He lay down and Jennifer wrapped his dress shirt around his leg wound. When she was done he fell limp against the pavement, exhausted. Jennifer elevated his leg with her backpack and she lay beside him and propped up his head under her shoulder and they slept.

----

“Javier!” Allan was startled awake to the sound of a woman frantically screaming nearby. “Javier! Donde estas? Javier!” The woman cried out in a deep Spanish accent over and over.

It was still dark out and for a moment Allan struggled to remember where he was and the events that had taken place during the night. He felt that his neck was stiff from the awkward position that Jennifer had placed him in. His back ached as he lay on the hard pavement and only the dull throbbing of his leg brought him to the realization of where he was and what had happened in the darkness. He felt the rise and fall of Jennifer breathing beneath him and a soft snore that she always had when she was exhausted.

“Javier!” The woman screamed nearby, startling Allan again.

He waited for Jennifer to stir out of her sleep, hoping that the screaming woman would wake her up so that he could move out of the awkward position. He waited but Jennifer continued to snore and he did not dare move out of fear of disturbing her sleep and so he lay there, motionless and uncomfortable as he listened to the sounds of the frantic woman and he waited for the dreadful night to end.

Thoughts began to race through his mind. How long have we been asleep? How much longer until daylight? What is Samantha doing? Hopefully she is safe and asleep. Maybe Ellie has shielded her from this disaster and turned it into a little game for her.

“I turned the lights off so that we can pretend to camp out like we’re out in the woods.” He imagined Ellie telling Samantha. “We’ll get some blankets and sleep right here in the living room. We’ll light some candles and pretend that they are a camp fire.” He could see Samantha smiling at the joy of getting to do something fun like that with her grandmother, and although their conversation was only imaginary he felt comforted in thinking that his little girl was safe and enjoying her time at her grandmother’s house just as an innocent child should do.

He listened to the sounds of the highway. Without any running cars, the constant roar of a thousand rubber tires churning on the pavement was gone. The rumble of several hundred engines speeding down that particular stretch of roadway was no more. The only sounds on the road were a few crickets and the occasional footsteps of those passing by as they walked along the highway. The quiet of the road reminded Allan of the times that he went camping with his family as a child. His parents would always plan their camping trips weeks in advance and Allan would always feel so excited leading up to the day that they could load the truck up and head out. They would arrive to the campsite, often beside a lake or a stream and he would marvel at the beauty of everything around him and how awesome the camping trip was going to be. But after a few hours at the campsite he would begin to miss the television and radio back home. By the time night came when it was finally time to climb inside the tent and go to sleep he missed his toys so bad that it felt like he was being tortured. The hard ground was uncomfortable to sleep on and he was either too hot or too cold inside his sleeping bag. In his misery time seemed to pass so slowly and the night at the campground always seemed like it would last forever. He only wanted the night to be over so that they could go home and be back inside his comfortable house and get back to all of the regular everyday things. When morning finally came he was always the first one up, packed and ready to go and as he packed his things up he always made an effort to make extra noise in order to wake up the rest of the camp.

As Allan lay on his back against the hard surface of the highway it felt like another one of those miserable camping trips from when he was a kid and again yearned for the night to be over so that he could go home and try to get back to regular everyday things. As he drifted off to sleep again he wondered what regular everyday things would be like after everything that had happened.

----

“Mommy are those dead people?” A child asked as he walked by. The words tugged at Allan and pulled him out of his sleep.

“I don’t know Matthew. Don’t look at them.” The child’s mother responded. Allan stirred on the ground and tried to regain conciseness.

The little boy gasped. “Look mommy! That one’s moving!” The boy shrieked with fear in his voice.

Jennifer stirred from her sleep beside Allan and the couple slowly rose to seating positions like two corpses returning back to life. Allan propped himself up with his arms extended behind his back but when Jennifer tried to do the same she jerked back because of the pain from the sores on her hands from where she had scraped them against the pavement during the night. They looked at one another, each with a frightful look across their faces. Jennifer’s hands and shirt and pants were stained with blood. At first Allan thought that his wife had been severely injured, until he looked down at himself. The dress shirt that they had wrapped around his leg wound during the night was completely soaked in red and streams of the dried blood ran up and down each side his leg from the site of the injury as if there had been an explosion in his thigh and all the goo inside his body had spewed out in all directions. Even the pavement was not spared from the bloodshed as it too was stained with dried puddles of blood.

“Oh my God Allan. You bled so much.” Jennifer said. “How do you feel? Are you ok? Can you get up?” Her rapid fire questions declared her grave concern for him.

“I’m ok. I think.” He replied and he pushed his body up from the seated position and stood against the body of the car. His injured leg screamed at him to sit back down and instantly he saw stars in his eyes and he began to feel dizzy. In the medical field they call that vertigo. Allan thought, but he figured that a better description of his sensation would be, passing out after walking through hell. His knees buckled under him and he fell back to the ground.

“Baby are you ok?” Jennifer reached over and cradled him.

“I’m ok. I just got up too fast.” He replied and looked at Jennifer’s face as the dizzy stars still clouding his field of vision. Suddenly something caught his eye. There was something sticking out in the air behind Jennifer’s head. It was the jagged car fender that ripped into his leg during the night. There was blood on it too, along with pieces of torn fabric and flesh. Upon seeing that Allan added nausea to his ongoing list of discomforts that morning.

Jennifer caught his gaze on the fender. “Eww, that doesn’t look good.” She winced her face at him.

“Well, at least it it’s not rusty. So I don’t have to worry about getting a tetanus shot.” Allan said gratefully.

“Tetanus has nothing to do with rust.” Jennifer corrected him.

“Yes it does. You step on a rusty nail. You have to go get a tetanus shot. Standard procedure.”

“No, the rust on the nail is irrelevant. It’s the tetanus bacteria on the nail that is the problem, and it doesn’t come from rust.”

“I can’t see bacteria. I can see rust and there’s none on that fender. To me that means I don’t have to get a tetanus shot. Let’s try to think positive and leave it at that. Besides, even if I did need a tetanus shot, I doubt I’d be able to find one under these circumstances.”

“Why don’t you relax and let me re-dress the wound. That way I can see if it needs to be cleaned or sewn up or what.”

Allan agreed and Jennifer knelt down and began to unwrap the bloody shirt-bandage. When she had it unwrapped she paused, “Well I see why you bled all over the place.” Allan grimaced his face, waiting for the awful news to pour out of her mouth.

“I didn’t even get the bandage wrapped over the wound properly. It was so dark last night. I missed it by that much.” She raised her hand and spread her fingers about an inch apart. “The cut isn’t really all that bad.”

Allan rose up and looked at his leg. There was a two inch gash in his right thigh and he was immediately surprised at how tiny the cut was compared to all the blood. He put his thumb and index finger on either side of the cut and gently spread it open. The wound was pretty deep but he couldn’t see bone and from what he could tell it was clean inside. He felt silly for having freaked out over such a small cut.

“I need stiches.” He said, trying to make the injury seem as dramatic as it had been a few moments ago.

“I’ll look around for a new bandage or something to put around it.” Jennifer said ignoring his request for stiches and Allan wondered if she thought that he didn’t need them or if she knew that finding a clean needle and thread was going to be near impossible. She got up and walked over to the car with the ripped fender and rummaged through it for a moment. When she returned she was carrying a dusty white towel in her hands.

“Wow a towel. Good find.” Allan cheered.

“It was covering the dash of the car. It’s dusty but it’ll do.” She said as she began to beat out the dust by slamming it against the roof of the car. She started beating the car ferociously with the towel, over and over and over, and when the dust had long escaped the towel she kept hitting it. Allan realized that she was punishing the car for what it had done to him during the night. She grunted as she put everything she had into each blow.

Finally she stopped and turned to him. “That feels better.” She said and they both smiled at one another. She wrapped the remarkably dust free towel around his leg and then used the jagged car fender to cut a piece of fabric from his blood stained dress shirt and used the torn piece of fabric as a rope to secure the towel around his leg. Jennifer tossed the rest of the ruined dress shirt aside and Allan rose to his feet, this time not feeling quite so woozy but he braced himself against the car just to be safe. His legs were on fire and he realized that although his leg injury hurt him, the real pain was emanating from the muscles within his legs.

He had let his gym membership expire five years ago after hearing about a new gym that was opening up in Greenville. He told Jennifer that he was going to hold out on renewing his existing gym membership because he was tired of the musty smell in the men’s locker room and he wanted to check out the new gym. The real reason that he wanted to wait on renewing his existing membership was that he just didn’t enjoy working out anymore. When he first started exercising in the afternoons after work it was enjoyable to him. Trying out all the different machines and learning how each one worked and then pushing himself to his limits. But over time it all just became another chore. He began to dread going to the gym, because of the musty smell in the locker room, because nobody ever wiped off their sweat off the exercise equipment when they were done, and because it was just too much work that he was having to pay for instead of the other way around. After letting his membership expire he never stepped foot in the new gym once it opened up in town. That was a decision that he sorely regretted now. His legs revolted at all the new exercise that they had received over the past two days and if they could speak they would scream at him, “Why didn’t you use us more often? You’ve been lounging around for the last five years in your sedentary lifestyle and now all of a sudden the shit hits the fan and you expect us to walk your ass 70 miles home? We don’t think so buddy.” He closed his eyes and winced, absorbed in the pain. Jennifer saw him in his agony and looked down at the towel wrapped around his leg.

"Does it hurt bad?” She asked.

“It’s not so much the injury. It’s more my leg muscles.” He replied.

“My legs are sore too.” She said. Allan opened his eyes and saw Jennifer smiling back at him. She was not in any apparent agony as he was, yet she had walked the same distance that he had, step for step, with an 8 month baby inside of her. He admired her strength, her calm nature, and her will to be strong and to push on. He closed his eyes and tried to dismiss the pain in his legs just as she had done.

He reached down and picked up Jennifer’s backpack with her big purse still inside of it and flung it over his back. Jennifer reached up and put her hand on his shoulder and gently massaged it as they stepped away from what had been their home for the night beside the wrecked car and as they stepped away they saw that they had slept on the top of an overpass. Down below them there was a woman on the road wearing a light blue dress that looked like a hotel maid’s uniform and her black hair was pulled up into a bun. She was kneeling down in the middle of the road clutching the body of a young boy. They could see that a small pool of blood had gathered near the boy’s head and they could hear the woman’s cries, “Javier! Oh Javier!”

It was the same cries that had awoken Allan during the night. In the darkness of the night the mother and son had become separated and the boy had lost his way and had fallen over the bridge and tumbled to his death.

Allan looked at Jennifer and whispered, “Do you remember that thud in the night when you were helping me take off my shirt?”

Jennifer cupped her hand over her mouth and muttered, “Oh my God” in horror.

They looked back down at the woman and the dead boy and Jennifer took Allan’s hand in hers and together they said a prayer for the deceased and they thanked God that Samantha was not there to witness all of the horrors that were happening around them.

Chapter 9: Gunshots

Something moved within a cluster of trees beside the highway. In an instant they saw a blur of brown fur as an animal leapt out of the woods and stood in the middle of the road. It was a deer and it bent its neck down and sniffed the hot asphalt and then rose its head back up and looked around. It was lean and muscular and it had a line of scars that ran down the side of its back from an encounter with large cat or perhaps a car. The deer turned its neck from side to side as it stared at the various objects and people along the roadway. Allan found himself gazing at the animal, full of awe, when he began to feel the presence of someone else behind him. He turned and saw a wide eyed man with long hair walking behind him and staring at them.

“See that deer, man, that walked onto the highway, unafraid, as if mindful of all that has transpired?” The man spoke in an erratic tone and Allan figured that he was probably high on drugs. “The deer looks completely at home here. The stalled cars on the highway no longer pose a danger to him and he is free just as he would be in a forest or in a field.” The man walked closer and pointed angrily at Allan and continued, “And then there is man who spends his days working in confined offices, far away from his family. Toiling for hours in places that he doesn’t like because he must provide the luxuries that society demands of him. Man is a slave to his comforts and entertainment and on any other day we might have looked upon this deer as a lesser species. We were wrong, man. It is man, with his active mind and unquenchable thirst for money and power and entertainment that is the lesser species. Foolish man and his foolish ways! Toiling for things that he thinks will bring him happiness but it is only sadness that he receives. And here our paths meet, man and beast, and man been stripped of his chains of society and now we are one with the beast out here on this road.”

“If you don’t get away from us I’m going to punch you in the face.” Allan warned with a clinched fist.

“Take a chill pill man. All I’m saying is most schools of thought believe that the way to attain real awakening is to cease all thought. Stop thinking and then you become one with God! Does that mean, therefore, that humans are inferior to all the other animals that have clearly already achieved this level of thinking?” The man put his hands up as if praying to the sky. “The human curse of intelligence! Perhaps we are on the trailing edge of evolution with our large, cumbersome brains and all its thought capacity, mere hindrances to the path of enlightenment.” He gave Allan a look to suggest that he consider his drug induced epiphany.

Allan clenched his fist tighter and pulled it back behind his shoulder and gave the man a final warning. The man pulled his hands out of the sky and held them in front of him. “Be cool man. Be cool.” He said as he backed away.

Allan tugged at Jennifer to get away from the lunatic but there was something about the man in his frantic delusion that Jennifer found interesting. She watched the man as he walked away confronting other strangers along the road.

“I do believe that man is insane.” Allan commented.

Jennifer turned to him and smiled, “Either that, or he is a poet.”

Allan gave her a strange look and they pushed on. As they walked the soreness in his legs began to dissipate. At least that's what Allan tried to convince himself of. In reality the soreness just became less noticeable compared to the increasing pain inside his shoes. The loose skin around the blisters on his feet had broken and the liquid inside the blisters had begun to ooze. On the back of his right heel the skin had rubbed completely off and so the soreness in his legs became just an afterthought. As he walked he tried stepping in varying positions in an effort to find a comfortable stride. He tried bowing he legs out and walking on the sides of his feet but that only made the sides of his feet hurt. He tried keeping his heels in the air by walking on his toes but his toes quickly began to cramp up. He tried walking on the blistered heels themselves but that just increased his level of pain.

Jennifer busted out laughing as she observed the odd way in which he was walking, "What in God's name are you doing?"

"My feet hurt."

"Just walk normal. People are staring at you."

Allan looked around. People were staring at him. He supposed that he had been walking rather goofy for quite a long time. "You don't understand how bad my feet hurt." He complained. "What I wouldn't give for some moleskin right now."

Jennifer stopped. "Some what?" She looked at him like he had said the silliest thing ever.

"You've never heard of moleskin?"

"As in the skin off of moles? Uh no."

Allan cleared his throat, raised his chin in the air and playfully spoke scholarly, "Moleskin, my dear, is a cotton fabric that can be affixed to a blister to prevent friction."

"Why didn't you just say cotton fabric?"

"Because it is called moleskin."

"Well we don't have any moleskin. Why don't we just stop talking about it and walk normal?"

Allan waved his hand in front of her as if to escort her forward. He felt victorious in the conversation but maybe she was right. If all it is was cotton fabric, then any cotton fabric should do right?

Jennifer stopped again. "Aren't you wearing cotton socks?" It was as if she were reading his mind.

"Yes I am." He lowered his chin to prepare for the rebuttal that was about to spew from her mouth.

"Then why do you think moleskin, a cotton fabric, would do you any better than your cotton socks?" She asked.

He didn't know. He thought it might have something to do with an adhesive backing that attached to the skin prevent rubbing but he wasn't sure as he had never actually purchased and tried the product out. "Why don't we just stop talking about it and walk?" He suggested. Jennifer swiped her arm in front of her as if escorting him forward and together they walked, both unsure as to who had actually won the verbal exchange.

Suddenly they heard a loud explosion echo from the highway behind them. They turned to see what it was and they heard another explosion followed by the clatter of what sounded like a car engine that was very out of tune. They heard another bang and in the distance they could see movement among the stalled cars on the road.

“What is that?” Jennifer asked.

“It sounds like a car.” Allan replied.

“You think they figured out how to get one running?” Jennifer asked with excitement.

A car came into view as it rounded a stalled eighteen wheeler that had jackknifed in the middle of the road. The car was a restored 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air with a teal blue and white paintjob. Both front fenders were buckled in and the front bumper and hood were bent up so high that Allan wondered how the driver was even able to see above the hood. Then engine was rattling loudly and there was white smoke emitting from the location of the radiator that appeared to be caved in. The old car approached a group of stalled cars along the road that were lined up like a police barricade but the driver of the Bel Air punched the gas and blew right through it with an enormous crash. The car bucked like a rodeo bronco as it heaved forward through the wreckage.

“Jesus Christ!” Allan yelled as he grabbed Jennifer and they ran to get off the road and out of the way.

Amazingly the car kept going and it approached another stalled car which it subsequently slammed into the back of and pushed it out of the way.

“That car is a freaking tank!” Jennifer exclaimed.

Suddenly there was a commotion on the other side of the concrete highway embankment. A group of by people had taken notice of the car and one of them yelled, “Stop right there!” but the car only continued lurching forward. One of the men on the other side of the highway ran over to the concrete barrier wall and jumped over it. As he was leaping over to the other side Allan could see a black pistol in the man’s right hand. The car was practically next to the gunman who yelled, “I said stop the car!” But the car just sped ahead.

The man raised the gun and aimed at the car. Allan screamed, “Get down!” and he and Jennifer buried their heads in the grass just as the bullets started flying. There was another loud crash that sounded like it was directly on top of them and then all was still. Without the sounds of the car crashing into other stalled cars on the highway and without the loud eruptions of gunshots the world became incredibly silent all except the muffled hum of an out of tune motor. Allan slowly looked up and saw the teal blue car with its pearl white rear fender idling roughly against another car right in front of them. Behind the car was the gunman still posed in a shooting stance.

“Stay back!” The gunman ordered to everyone around. Allan watched as the gunman slowly approached the car and he could see the driver inside the car was slumped over behind the steering wheel.

As the gunman got closer he lowered his weapon and began to shout at the driver. “Man I told you to stop the car but you wouldn’t listen!” He looked over towards Allan and Jennifer and continued, “Yall heard me tell him to stop didn’t yall?” He opened the driver’s side door and the man inside slumped out onto the pavement. The gunman took the driver’s seat and closed the car door. He revved the engine a couple of times and smoke billowed from the radiator like an old steam train. He put the car in reverse and backed away from the car that it had wrecked into and then drove off down the highway just as the previous driver had done, crashing into and pushing stalled cars out of its way.

Jennifer jumped up and ran over to the wounded man who was lying motionless on the pavement. He had streaks of blood coming out both sides of his mouth and he was panting for air.

“Wasn’t even my car.” The man whispered as Jennifer looked over his wounded body.

“Where did you get it from?” Allan asked, both trying to take the man’s mind off his injuries and deeply intrigued as to how he found a running vehicle.

“Found it in some dude’s garage.” His breathing was suddenly becoming very raspy. “I had to kill him to get it. I guess what goes around…” With that he looked up to the sky and his eyes glossed over and he was dead.

Allan wrapped Jennifer into his arms and led her away from the scene of the murder.

When they had walked about a mile Jennifer spoke up, “I don’t understand it. He said he found the car in some man’s garage. What’s special about some garage that allowed the car to run when nothing else does?”

“I don’t think it was so much the garage, but more the car. That was a 1950’s era car. A ’55 Bel Air to be exact. My grandfather use to have one kinda like it. And you’re right, those things are built like tanks. They don’t have any of the bells and whistles that modern cars have and that’s probably what saved it.”

“What saved it?”

“No computers, no sensitive electronics, no sensors. Just leather and rubber and metal.”

“I wish we could find one like that.” Jennifer said and then she realized what she was saying and corrected herself. “Though I guess it’s better that we didn’t. We’d probably end up like the man who got shot for it.”

Chapter 10: Separation

Jennifer’s cramps began as on and off again waves of sharp discomfort in her lower abdomen. With each cramp Jennifer would wince and clutch her bulging stomach but she kept walking and praying that the pain would dissipate and go away. She had tried to hide her reaction to the pain from Allan but by the fifth wave of cramps he became aware of it and looked down and saw her wincing.

“What’s wrong?” He asked her.

“I don’t know.” Jennifer replied.

“Is it the baby?” He asked, terrified of how she might respond. Please don’t let her say yes. He thought.

“I don’t know.”

“Does it feel like contractions?”

“I think it’s just cramps from walking too much in this heat.”

Allan stopped and looked at her seriously, “If that’s what is wrong then wouldn’t it be your legs that are cramping instead of your stomach?”

Jennifer remained quiet with her head down as she rubbed her hands around her aching stomach. “I don’t know.” She replied.

“We should stop and rest a while.”

“No.” Jennifer said as she reached out and touched Allan’s arm in a way that demanded that he cease any further thought of delaying their journey home. She looked up at him and he saw that her eyes were moist from where she had strained them shut while wincing in pain. “I’ll be alright. Maybe I just need some water.”

Water. Allan thought. We haven’t had anything to eat or drink in far too long. That’s all it is. Jennifer just needs something to drink. It’s not labor contractions. It can’t be. Not here. Not now.

“What if you rest here while I go look for water?” Allan suggested.

“I don’t want to stop and I don’t want to split up.”

“I know, but you’ve got to rest for a little bit and we’ve got to get some water into you. We can accomplish both if you rest here while I go get water. We’ll save time.”

Jennifer continued to look down, hiding the grimace on her face from another cramp and she nodded her head and said, “Ok.”

Allan grabbed her hand and led her to the side of the road and helped her sit down under a tree at the top of the slope of the grassy highway median. He removed the backpack that contained Jennifer’s purse with the screwdriver and his keys and wallet inside and set it down beside her. Jennifer watched him leave and she refused to take her eyes off of him as his image grew smaller and smaller as he walked away, feeling that as long as she could see him then she would not be alone. As he walked further she squinted and held his silhouette in her gaze until another cramp enveloped her and she was forced to look away. When the pain had subsided she looked back to where she had last seen him but as she expected he was gone.

What is this pain? Is my baby dying? Will we ever make it home to Samantha? The fear and questions raced through her mind so fast. She found that the only way that she could process it all was to let it all out and cry and so she sat on the grassy slope of the highway with her body rocking back and forth as it wept.

A man and a woman were walking by when they saw her crying. The woman knelt down beside Jennifer. “What’s wrong my dear?” She asked.

Jennifer was startled at the presence of the woman that she had not noticed kneeling beside her. “I’m sorry.” Jennifer apologized and she wiped the tears off her cheeks with the palms of her hands. The sweaty tears embedded into her torn hands which felt like needles in her skin but she ignored the pain. “I’m just upset.” She explained.

The woman leaned closer to Jennifer and put her arm around her back. “What are you upset about my dear?”

Jennifer felt uncomfortable with the woman beside her and she wished that Allan was there. If Allan was there they would have never approached her. That’s how it always was. If she was at a store by herself, other men, strangers and acquaintances alike, would always come up to her and strike up conversations with her but if Allan were with her no one ever approach her. Allan was a nice approachable guy, but there was something powerful about his presence that made strangers keep their distance. “My husband’s gone to get water. He’ll be right back.” Jennifer said, hoping that just mentioning Allan would have the same effect. The woman looked up and her male companion and they nodded to one another.

“We have some water. Actually we have better than water. We have some Gatorade.” The woman smiled.

Jennifer perked up and looked at the woman’s face for the first time. She had a scar that ran down the side of her left cheek and greasy, knotted brown hair. There were odd looking sores scattered around her skin and on any regular day Jennifer might have thought that the woman was a meth head or some other drug addict but this was not a regular day and under the circumstances who was she to judge? For all Jennifer knew she looked just as bad or worse.

“We have some Gatorade in our truck right over there.” The woman twitched as she pointed towards a rusty mid 90’s Chevrolet truck with its front end smashed in. The hood of the truck was a different color from the passenger side door which was a different color from the body and the appearance of it made Jennifer think that if they hadn’t driven past that very spot on the highway two days earlier she would have thought that the old truck had been parked there on the side of the road decomposing for over a decade.

“Come on, I’ll help you up.” Said the woman.

Jennifer felt another wave of pain approaching and all she could think of was the refreshing liquid.

The woman extended a sweaty hand out and Jennifer took it and rose to her feet. She reached down and grabbed her backpack and followed the strangers. Questions began to race through her mind as they began walking towards the truck. Why did I get up? Why would they have left Gatorade back at their truck? Is that even their truck? Do they even have Gatorade? The cramp intensified and a wave of pain rolled over her and Jennifer clutched her stomach as all the remaining thoughts were drowned out except for one. I have to save my baby.

----

A quarter of a mile from where he left Jennifer beside the road, Allan saw that a group of people had formed a line out the front doors of a church building that sat next to the highway. As Allan approached the church he heard a man at the front door greeting people and instructing “One glass of water per person. Move along please.”

Allan quickly took his place in the line and he was surprised to see that the line was moving rather swiftly. When he got to the church doors and greeted the man out front he looked inside and understood why. Members of the church congregation had setup an assembly line of sorts for handing out water in the most orderly fashion imaginable. They had setup five water coolers side by side next to a long dining table in the foyer of the church where two members of the congregation sat. The person sitting at the table closest to the front doors was a plump grandmotherly looking woman who stamped Allan’s hand with a rubber stamper which upon inspection Allan saw that it was a stamp in brown ink with the image of Jesus kneeling and praying to the heavens.

Allan looked at his hand with an odd expression and the plump lady smiled and said, “Just a mark so we know who’s already been through our water line.”

Beside her, a pale and rather skinny man with big glasses that seemed too large for his face handed Allan a small Dixie cup. “Help yourself to one cup full only.” He instructed.

“But I’m here to get water for my wife too. She’s pregnant and waiting outside.” Allan said.

“One cup per person sir. That’s all we can allow.” The skinny man said as he looked nervously over Allan’s shoulder where three very large men stood, apparently on guard duty.

Allan took the tiny Dixie cup from the man and his mind began to race. This cup won’t hold enough water for both Jennifer and me. I won’t drink any. I’ll give it all to her. No, that’s still not enough. It will take a dozen of these tiny cups to get Jennifer hydrated again…

Someone in the line behind Allan nudged him to move forward.

Maybe I could take a cup of water to Jennifer, rub the ink stamp off my hand and go through the line again…

Another nudge and Allan stepped directly in front of the first water cooler.

No, they’ll recognize me. I shouldn’t have spoken out to the skinny man with the big glasses. I’m acting too suspicious already. They’ll recognize me for sure…

“Move along sir.” One of the giant men guarding the water line roared.

I just need a moment to think. Maybe I could steal the cup from the person who’s pushing me, fill up both cups with water and run away…

Two of the big guards walked up to Allan and grunted.

No more time to think. It’s too late.

Allan bent down and began filling his Dixie cup. When it was full to the rim he placed it gently on top of the water cooler. In a flash he flung off his white undershirt and held it under the water spigot and began soaking it with water. The big guys at his side were momentarily stunned at Allan’s display of desperation and they looked on for a few precious moments while Allan’s undershirt became saturated with water.

“Alright, that’s enough for you.” One of the men said as two large hands gripped Allan on either side and escorted him out of the church. Before it was out of reach Allan grabbed the Dixie cup from the top of the water cooler and cradled the cup and his water soaked undershirt in his arms. The hulking men tossed Allan out the front doors and as he fell to the ground a few spatters of the precious liquid escaped from both the cup. Allan did not mind the loss of the few drops of water for he was ecstatic that he had successfully carried more water out of that place than anyone else thanks to his quick thinking. All the bystanders in the water line behind him stared at the commotion in disbelief but Allan did not feel remorseful for stealing from the church. What he did was necessary to save his wife and his unborn child. As he walked away the saturated undershirt dripped more precious drops of water on the pavement beneath Allan’s feet and he realized that he needed to hurry up and he began to run back towards Jennifer as fast as his injured and tired legs would allow.

----

As they approached the rusty truck Jennifer noticed the woman start to become more fidgety. She saw that the woman’s hands were trembling as she reached one of her fingers up to her mouth and bit down on a fingernail. Jennifer had watched videos of people experiencing withdrawals from drugs during nursing school and the woman walking beside her had all the classic symptoms of an addict in need of a fix. The clammy hands, the tremors, the sunken face and the sores on her skin. Methamphetamine or maybe even bath salts. She thought. As she considered what types of drugs could cause such effects on a person another thought crossed her mind.

She looks nervous.

Suddenly the woman’s male companion pulled out a wooden club that he had been concealing behind his waist and he struck Jennifer hard across the head. The blow was fierce and in an instant Jennifer’s world became black. She awoke to find her body tumbling to the ground and although she had only lost conscientious for a fraction of a second it felt like she had been out for an eternity. She braced herself to protect her womb just as her body slammed against the hard pavement. It took everything Jennifer had not to cry out in pain for she knew that if she did her attackers would surely beat her again. She lay as still as possible and prayed that they would let her live.

“God-dammit!” Roared the man with the wooden club.

“What is it Frank?” Asked the woman.

“I didn’t want to do this to this woman. She’s pregnant for God’s sake Anne.” Frank yelled.

“Hey I looked up at you and you nodded back at me to do this.”

“Yeah, because you were making it so painfully obvious that we were up to no good. Biting your god-damn nails like you’re hatching a plot. Besides, what am I supposed to say ‘Naw, let’s not rob her, she’s pregnant’ as I’m standing right over her? Don’t be so stupid Anne.”

“Just get the shit and let’s go.” Anne huffed and the man reached down and began tugging hard to rip Jennifer’s backpack off of her. Jennifer thought that her arms were going to be ripped off right along with the bag but finally the two straps on the pack gave loose with a loud pop.

“Let’s go!” Frank yelled.

Jennifer lay silent and listened to the footsteps as the thieves ran down the shoulder of the highway. When she figured that she had given them enough time to escape she slowly opened her eyes. There were still stars in her vision and there was a terrible throbbing emanating from the back of her head where she had been struck with the club. Her knees and elbows were scrapped and bruised from where she landed on the hard pavement. If the cramps in her stomach were to return at that moment she wouldn’t know, as all the pain and burning elsewhere in her body were drowning out all other sensations. Her thoughts turned back to her attackers.

Why would they steal the backpack? It has nothing in it. Except for my purse…

Her heart sank as she remembered that her wallet and Allan’s wallet and keys were in her purse. She ran through the list of stolen items in her mind. All of our credit cards, our identifications, the money in both our wallets, my asthma inhaler.

My inhaler!

She suddenly became aware of her own breathing and realized that she was wheezing. During the attack and the resulting pain she had failed to notice that she was having difficulty breathing but now with the realization that she no longer had her inhaler to help open her airways her breathing condition became exasperated. She pulled her body off the pavement and hunched over her knees as she began to desperately suck in tiny amounts of air. Each heaving breath was a struggle and the minutes felt like hours.

----

Allan returned to the spot where he had left Jennifer sitting by the roadside under the tree but she was gone. For a moment he thought that he was in the wrong place until he looked down and saw the depression in the grass where she had once sat. He placed the cup of water and his shirt down on the pavement and began to look around.

“Jennifer!” he called out. “Jennifer!” but there was no response. He felt panic start to rise inside him and he began dashing around, looking between, inside, and under the stalled cars within the immediate vicinity. He ran down the roadside embankment praying to God that she hadn’t slipped and rolled down the hillside and fallen into the ditch below. When he got to the ditch at the bottom of the hill he looked down and thanked God that she wasn’t in it and then he ran back up the embankment and stopped at the depression in the grass.

“Where could you be?” He asked aloud. He began running down the highway back towards the church building, thinking that maybe she had gotten up and went looking for him. As illogical as it seemed he thought maybe he had simply walked right past her on his way back. He called out her name again and again and he kept looking in and around all the stalled cars along the way but she was nowhere to be found. He had gone a good ways past the church when he decided that she couldn’t possibly have made it that far and so he took off sprinting, leg pain be damned, in the opposite direction back to where he had last seen her sitting in the grass. When he got to the depressed spot in the grass again he kept on running and yelling for her.

“Jennifer!” He panted heavily from a combination of fear and over exertion.

Up ahead Jennifer was hunched over herself, wheezing heavily, when she first heard Allan calling her name. She tried to respond by saying, “I’m over here” but the words only came out in a muffled groan. She sucked in as much air as her narrow airways would allow and she tried to speak again but the results were the same. She saw him running fast and he had a frantic look on his face and she feared that if she could not get his attention then he might run right past her. She dug her fingers into the pavement where the rocks were loose near the edge of the roadway and grabbed a handful of small pebbles. She flung them at the rusty truck beside her and the sound of the rocks hitting the truck’s fender sounded like tiny hailstones against a metal roof.

Allan stopped in his tracks. “Jennifer?” He walked around the side of the truck and found her kneeling on the ground with one arm supporting her weight and the other clutching her chest.

He fell to his knees beside her. “What is it baby?”

Jennifer sucked in enough air to whisper, “Can’t breathe.”

Allan looked around the area for her backpack but it was gone. “Where’s the backpack with your purse? Where’s your inhaler?”

“Stolen.”

“Stolen?” He asked and his mind began racing. How could it be stolen? What is she doing over here? He had many more questions but right then he knew that he needed to focus on helping to calm her down so that she could breathe.

He sat down on the pavement and pulled her body into his open lap and held her as he whispered softly, “It’s ok. I’m here with you now.” He repeated the phrase over and over and each time he could feel her breaths come in and out a little more smoothly. He wiped the hair out of her face and felt that the strands of hair were moist. At first he thought it was only sweat but as he looked he saw that it was blood and he became terrified. He inspected the wound on her head and found that she had a small swollen gash near the back of her head. The gash looked like it had already stopped bleeding but Allan was confused. What happened to you? He thought but he knew all the answers would come in due time. Now she just needed to breathe.

When her airways finally opened up enough she said, “I think I can breathe now.” He allowed a few more minutes to pass before asking her all of the questions that were still racing through his mind.

“What happened?” His asked in a demanding tone.

“A couple of people came up and lured me over here.” She replied with shame.

“Lured you over here?”

“They said they had some water, some Gatorade, but when we got over here they hit me on the head and stole my backpack.”

The anger swelled within him. How could she be so stupid to go along with complete strangers? How could I be so stupid to leave her alone in a situation like this?

“What did they look like? What were they wearing? Where did they go?” He had to force himself to calm down and stop interrogating her.

“They ran away. I’m so sorry.” She buried her face in his shoulder and began to sob.

“You don’t have to apologize.” He said and his words came out like he was the one apologizing for being so angry. “I’ll never let you leave my side again.”

Allan thought of the items that were lost along with the backpack. Jennifer’s purse. There goes my wallet and everything in it. Jennifer’s inhaler. The screwdriver. Allan remembered his loose belt and how he had made a mental note to make a new hole when he had time. Dammit I forgot to make that hole in my belt. At least we’re still alive and together. Everything else is just material things that can be replaced. He reminded himself.

He helped her off the pavement and then carefully led her over to where he had left the cup of water and his saturated undershirt. He strained to ring every droplet of water into Jennifer’s mouth that he could. They took sips from the small Dixie cup until every last bit of liquid was gone and then they set out walking again, mindful of just how careful they needed to be from now on.

Chapter 11: Exhaustion

They walked southeast as the big 10 lane interstate made its long stretching arch around the city of Dallas. The 635 highway had opened in 1959 as a means to ease congestion in and around Dallas but as the city grew outwards the loop itself became a constant traffic nightmare, especially during rush hour. Accidents and construction were ever frequent which always worsened the traffic problems. Even just a stalled car on the shoulder of the road would shut the highway down for miles as rubber neckers would slow down all the traffic behind them just to get a quick glimpse to see what was going on. Allan and Jennifer approached one such traffic snarl, except this was the mother of all traffic jams.

Two days ago traffic had become backed up for two miles in both directions because an eighteen wheeler had side swiped an SUV and sent it careening end over end. The SUV flipped over the concrete barrier wall and crashed head on with a Jeep Wrangler that was going the opposite direction on the other side of the road. Traffic immediately backed up in each direction and just before the emergency personnel arrived, the blast occurred, which created an instant parking lot of the entire traffic jam. That would have been bad enough, but there were multitudes of cars and trucks that were still speeding down the highway at the moment of the blast. All of the drivers that were still speeding down the road were unaware of the parking lot that was immediately in front of them as there were no brake lights on any of the cars in the traffic jam and that, combined with the bright flash outside, caused all of the drivers to become confused. Most of the drivers failed to apply their brakes at all but others either applied too much or not enough brake pressure to adequately stop their vehicles. All of the drivers were only familiar with modern power assisted anti-lock brakes but without power supplied from the engine those smooth anti-lock brakes were suddenly old style manual brakes that, like in the old days, needed to be pumped in order to properly engage. When the old style manual brakes are depressed too hard they were also prone to locking up but unfortunately none of the drivers were expecting this nor had many ever driven a car with manual brakes before in their lives. A lucky few were able to control their vehicles despite their failed brakes and the additional lack of power steering but the majority of the drivers crashed at top speed into the vehicles at the rear of the traffic jam. This created a tangled mass of crashing metal that traveled at 70 miles per hour in a domino effect of cars slamming into one another for several hundred feet until the force of friction finally decided to intervene and stop the chain reaction. What remained of the massive wreckage that lied in a tangled heap of destruction reminded Allan of the aftermath of buildings that had been demolished with explosives and wrecking balls.

They walked on the service road which was easier to walk along because it had been spared from much of the wreckage that had occurred on the main highway. Neither Allan nor Jennifer could take their eyes off the scene. So many times in the past Allan had driven past car accidents on the road but never had he seen one in such fine detail. He had always been cautious near car wrecks, always slowing down to be careful of the emergency personnel, but mostly to get a better view of the wreck itself, yet every time, regardless of how much he slowed down he could never really get the look that he wanted. Often when riding in the car with Jennifer she would be the only one to spot the interesting details of an accident and she would ask him, “Did you see that?” and always to Allan’s disappointment his reply would be, “No, I did not.” Deep down he always wanted to turn the car around in a fit of childish jealousy and drive back through the wreckage once more to take a closer look so that he wouldn’t feel left out. Now, looking upon the horrible wreckage while walking at what seemed like a snail’s pace because of leg cramps and Jennifer’s constant wheezing, he wished that he could blow by the scene at high speed and not have to look at any of it. Every car torn to pieces, every charred ruin of unextinguished car fires, the silhouettes of the dead slumped over their steering wheels, it was all too much for their eyes to absorb. The sight was horrific, but the smell was even more horrendous. The relentless summer heat had accelerated the decay of the bodies and the wretched smell of death entered his nose and Allan was taken aback that the dead could already smell so terrible. It took all that he had not to vomit.

There was no one to bury the dead on the highway. There were no more emergency personnel on the scene. There was no coroner to take the deceased away. Everything in that place would sit there just as it was, rusting and rotting forever. As Allan looked ahead at the wreckage something caught his eye. He squinted to make out what it was until finally he saw that it was something nearly bleach white lying motionless inside a car, brighter than everything else around it. It was the body of a little girl who had been wearing a white dress with blue polka dots and her dress seemed to be highlighted in the midst of all the charred wreckage around her. The girl looked like she was older than his own daughter but Allan felt drawn to her as if the lifeless girl in the car was his own child. He felt a deep emotion rise up inside of him and in that moment he would have given everything just to hold Samantha and to know if she was safe. He felt tears swell up in his eyes and beside him he saw Jennifer raise a hand to her face to wipe her own eyes. They walked closer and Allan looked at the little girl’s white dress and he noticed how it wasn’t quite as pure white as he had first seen it. It was then that he realized that it wasn’t the brightness of the little girl’s dress that caught their eyes, but the fact that the girl reminded them of Samantha that caused their minds to pick her out from all the rest of the wreckage.

“This is too much.” Jennifer said.

“I agree.” Allan replied and he took her hand in his and they walked across the grassy area between the road and onto a side street that would take them out of sight and away from the horrible scene.

They walked east down McCree Road in Garland which was lined with parked cars on either side of the road, all of them mere shells of the efficient machines that they had been before the blast. To their left was a two thousand foot span of nothing but pale concrete and brand new cars of a Nissan dealership. All scrap metal now. On their right was a large apartment complex with more cars parked out in front. On the street in front of them there were more cars packing the tiny road as if they had been arranged into a grid for an obstacle course. Allan had never taken notice at just how many cars there were in the world. They were literally everywhere and now it seemed like for every person out there walking on the roads there had to be at least a dozen or more cars parked in their way. Before the blast all of the automobiles blended in as integral parts of modern society, but now that they were all useless piles of metal they stood out like sore thumbs, all of them cumbersome and unmovable, littering every parking lot, side street, and highway like all the trash and beer bottles that littered the roadsides.

“Car apocalypse.” Allan said aloud. It was such a random thing to say, but Jennifer nodded her head in agreement as if she was thinking the same thing.

Their eyes caught movement in one of the apartment windows and they stopped and turned to see a ghostly shadow standing in one of the windows on the first floor. The shadow reacted to being noticed by Allan and Jennifer by darting down below the window still. They walked on and in another window stood the silhouette of a person who this time did not flinch when it was apparent that they had been seen. In the apartment window above them was yet two more dark figures that appeared from behind a set of vertical blinds.

Jennifer whispered to Allan while trying not to move her lips, “Why are they staring at us?”

“They look afraid.” Allan replied.

“They’re the scary ones. They could easily come out here and attack us.”

“These people have already made it to their homes. Now they are afraid of people coming and taking what they have.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because if that was me in my home here in this place so close to so many desperate people walking along the highway, I’d be looking out my windows just like them.”

“They’re scared of us and we’re scared of them kinda thing?”

“Exactly. And the sooner we get out of here the happier we’ll all be.”

They picked up their pace through the maze of broken down cars and soon found their way back to the highway. When they stepped back onto highway 635 it was mostly clear of cars going in their direction but the traffic and resulting wreckage of the huge traffic jam was still thick going the opposite way. Allan forced himself not to look and he tried not to acknowledge the odors of the dead, but the smells could not be ignored. A breeze wafted across the wreckage and the pungent smell of decaying flesh once again entered his nose and he felt another strong urge to vomit.

He knew that it would be a disaster if he were to throw up. His body was relying on the tiny amount of precious liquid in his stomach to stay hydrated and he couldn’t afford to lose any of it. He forced his mind to focus on something else. Anything would do as long as he could think of something other than the horrible scene on the opposite roadway. He tried to turn his mind to Samantha but as he breathed in the awful odors his stomach turned and all that he could think about was all the stinking bloated bodies that sat rotting beside him. He thought of Jennifer and the many struggles that she had already endured. He wondered how many more struggles they would face before their journey’s end. He saw her waddling beside him and he thought of their unborn baby inside her womb and he wondered what troubles might he have experienced of his own. A bird flying above them squawked and Allan looked up to see a pair of large black buzzards circling overhead. In the wreckage to their left, another bird squawked as if in reply to the first bird and Allan instinctively turned to look toward its call. His eyes met an entire flock of buzzards gathered around a half burnt car that appeared to have been ripped in half by a yellow minivan. The birds were feeding on the remains of what looked like a female corpse. One of the birds was perched on her chest and was pecking at her face and it turned and squawked at Allan with a long string of flesh hanging from its mouth.

Allan’s stomach rolled and he collapsed beside the grassy shoulder of the highway. His stomach muscles contracted uncontrollably in an effort to expel its contents but nothing came out except for spit. He began coughing and Jennifer put her hand on his shoulder, “Get it out babe.” She said.

“There’s nothing to get out. I haven’t eaten anything in days.” He replied. It was as if his stomach had forgotten that it was empty and it continued attempting to regurgitate despite the fact that there was nothing to actually throw up.

Finally the breeze shifted and the wind blew in from a different direction and fresh air filled his airways. When his stomach had finished heaving he stood up and wiped the saliva off the sides of his mouth. As he gathered his balance his entire body screamed at him. From his feet to his legs to his stomach to now a pounding headache. Everything burned and ached within his body and though he had complained of being exhausted many times before in his life, he found a new meaning for the word as he suffered out there on the highway.

Chapter 12: The Warehouse

She would always run up and throw herself on him and say, “I love you so much daddy.” He would hug her, sometimes forgetting that she was just a little girl, squeezing so tight as if she were an adult and for a moment he would fear that he had hurt her until she would release her hug with a big grin on her face. He had always been so amazed at how fast she was growing up and he was blown away by some of the things that she would say. Her latest thing was to pat him on the leg and say, “I love you big fella.” Where Samantha had picked that up from or if she had made it up herself Allan didn’t know, but he thought it was awesome and he would imitate her by patting on her leg and replying, “I love you too little girly.”

Their bond was remarkable from the moment that she was born. The extent of his love for her surprised even himself. When the subject of having children came up when he was younger and long before he met Jennifer, he was always the first to strike the idea down.

“I’m not good with kids.” He would tell his friends and he was convinced of that. When Jennifer became pregnant he was filed with a great amount of anxiety. He had assured himself time and again that children were not his thing, and now he was to be a father? The worry would sometimes wake him up in the middle of the night and he would ask himself daunting questions. How can a man who doesn’t like kids be a good father? It was a question that he would ask himself over and over, even in the delivery room, but when that little baby girl came out crying and afraid of the world, something changed in him. From that moment on his love for Samantha was unquestionable and his need to provide and protect her was eternal.

As he walked along the highway the reality hit him that he was not there to provide for her now. Is Samantha in need of anything? Is she hungry? He felt his pace quicken as the anxiety rushed over him. He was not there to protect her from any of the terrible things that she might have experienced in his absence over the past few days. Is she ok? Is she safe? Is she alive? His pace quickened in further desperation to reunite his family.

“What the hell?” He heard Jennifer call out from behind him. He looked back and realized that he had been running. He stopped and waited for Jennifer to catch up and she kept the same what-the-hell expression on her face as she approached him.

When she caught up he apologized, “I’m sorry, but we have got to hurry up and get back to Samantha.” His tone was frantic and Jennifer reached up and wrapped her arms around him. He was a good father. The fact that he was so concerned about raising a child before Samantha was born proved it. He had been filled with so much worry and doubt, asking himself how would he live with a child, and now that he had Samantha in his life, his greatest fear was losing her. With his wife’s arms hugging him he let out a sigh to which he added softly in her ear, “We really do need to hurry though.”

They walked in silence, both feeling the gravity of their situation. It would be days before they could reach Samantha unless they could think of a way to get home faster.

An idea came to Jennifer and she spoke first, “When I was a little girl my grandfather use to have some horses that he would take me riding on.” She said, “It’s been a long time but I bet I could remember how to ride one. What if we find a pasture with horses on it somewhere and use them to get us home?”

Allan thought about it for a moment and replied with a list of objections. “First, I don’t see any horses anywhere around here and if there were you’d better believe their rightful owners are going to be prepared to protect them. Second, I’ve never ridden a horse before and I have no idea how to manage or care for one.” His third objection was that even if they were to find some horses and if they somehow managed to figure out how to ride them, people on the road would see them as mounted targets and they were sure to be stopped and have the horses stolen from them. He withheld this last objection because he had an idea of his own that might make them targets too, but it was the only idea that he thought might get them home faster.

“I have another plan. It will take us a little bit out of the way but I think it will be worth it.” He grabbed Jennifer’s hand and they walked down the embankment of the highway and slipped onto another side street. Jennifer was hopeful that he had the solution to their problems and she did not ask where they were going out of fear of ruining her optimism.

He led them down Ferguson Road in Garland, walking southwest for over a mile. Their detour in the opposite direction from home took longer that he had expected and just when he noticed Jennifer getting agitated and ready to ask “How much further?” they reached the intersection of Maylee Boulevard where another huge pileup of cars were waiting to distract her from the thought. There was a motorcycle with its front tire implanted into windshield of a truck but much to Allan and Jennifer’s relief, neither the remains of rider of the motorcycle nor the driver of the truck were present.

As they turned left on Maylee Boulevard Allan reassured her. “Not much further.”

They walked south down the residential street until they came upon an obscure building with a desert sand colored exterior and a sign on the top portion of it that said Garland Bicycle Supply in black blocky letters.

Jennifer stopped. “A bicycle store?”

“Well it’s more of a bicycle warehouse.”

“How did you know about this place?”

“About a year before we met my neighbor who lived in the apartment beside me worked here and he needed a ride to work. He gave me 20 bucks to drive him here. I’m just glad the warehouse is still here and we didn’t walk a mile and a half in the wrong direction for nothing.”

“You don’t think it’s already been looted?”

“I really hope not.”

“We walked this far out of the way on a hope that it hasn’t been looted? We’ve passed hundreds of people on bikes. This was probably the first place everyone stole from.”

“I think people hit the easy targets first. The big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target that line the interstates. This place is obscure and out of the way so I’m hoping no one has gotten to it yet.”

They approached the warehouse cautiously. When they reached the front entrance Allan was relieved to see that the double glass doors were still intact and he saw no signs that the building had been vandalized. He cupped his hands around his face and pressed against the glass and looked inside. In the lobby there was a desk with a telephone and a desk lamp sitting on a countertop. Below that, on the surface of the desk, was a computer monitor with a keyboard and mouse and various papers scattered about.

“I think we’re in luck.” He said and he turned and looked at Jennifer, “It looks like it was still and active business and it doesn’t look to have been looted.”

Jennifer peeked inside and then she tugged at the glass doors but they only rattled in their hinges. “Locked.” She said disappointed.

Allan thought for a moment and then walked over to the ditch between the road and the parking lot and found a pile of rocks near the culvert that had been placed there by city workers to help prevent ditch erosion. He picked a rock up and lifted it over his shoulder and walked back toward the double glass doors.

“What around you going to do with that?” Jennifer asked nervously but without answering Allan flung the rock into the door, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces. The broken glass crackled under their feet as they stepped inside the doorway. Behind the front lobby was a swinging door with a window in the middle of it that opened into a large warehouse with long rows of steel shelving. Large hanging lights hung from the ceiling, all of them dark but above the lights in the ceiling were fiberglass skylight panels spaced evenly amongst the corrugated metal roof that let in just enough light for Allan and Jennifer to see inside the dimly lit warehouse. Along the rows of steel shelving were hundreds of brown cardboard boxes with black and white barcode strips printed in on them that sat upon wooden pallets.

The sheer number of boxes was overwhelming and Allan walked aimlessly down the aisle. “Where do we start? There’s no labels on any of the boxes.”

“Looks like they had an electronic inventory system.”

“Little good that does us now.”

They began pulling out boxes randomly, one after another after another. Most of the time they found boxes filled with dozens of more boxes with tiny bike parts inside. Other times they would open boxes only to find bicycle handlebars or wheels but never a whole bike that was ready for assembly.

“It’s going to take forever if we have to piece meal a bicycle together from all these parts.” Jennifer said.

They spent an hour sorting through more boxes until finally on the next aisle over they came upon a section of boxes with the letters R2R handwritten in black permanent marker on the front of them.

“Wonder what R2R stands for?” Allan asked.

Jennifer paused for a moment and then it appeared as if a light bulb had gone off inside her head. “Ready to ride!” She exclaimed.

They quickly pulled out one of the boxes and the first one that they opened was a big box that had a label inside it that said Kent-Tandem with a picture of a two seated bicycle on it. It was a silly looking contraption with two of everything. There were two seats and two sets of pedals and two handlebars. Allan looked at the picture on the box and wondered how in the world they would be able to navigate such a big bike around all the stalled cars on the road.

“This is perfect.” Jennifer said with excitement. Allan looked to her with a frown and saw her standing there with a big grin on her face while rubbing her belly. Her stomach was bulging. It looked larger than it had previously and Allan prayed that it was just the dim light of the warehouse that was casting odd shadows and not some kind of abdominal swelling as a result of all the recent stress and trauma.

“Is it even safe for you to even be riding a bike?” Allan asked.

“Sure it’s safe. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I’m just thinking about the baby. Will riding a bike hurt it?”

“I’ve had friends that rode bikes late in their third trimester and they never had any complications. Besides, you led us all the way over here to get bikes and you didn’t think of this before?”

“Sorry, it never crossed my mind until now.”

Allan lifted the tandem bicycle frame out of the box and placed it on the floor. “This thing is massive.” He said.

“Do you think it will be difficult to maneuver around all the wreckage?” Jennifer asked as if reading his thoughts.

“That is my concern exactly.” Allan replied. “Let’s keep looking.”

The rest of the boxes in the direct vicinity were all similar two person bikes. In the next section of boxes they found some two wheeled bike trailers. Allan pulled one out of a box and unfolded it on the ground.

“This might do if we can find a regular bike to hook it on to.” Allan said.

“Aren’t those trailers for little kids?” Jennifer asked.

“Allan put his hands around the trailer seat to size it up. “I’m sure you could squeeze into it. It’s more maneuverable than those big two seater bikes and it will be safer too. I think this is perfect.” He said with a grin. Jennifer looked at him with a frown on her face, unsure about the idea of riding inside the tiny trailer.

They continued looking for a regular bicycle for another half hour when they finally found some boxes that appeared to contain regular bike assemblies. The first one that they opened was a classic style bike with just a single pedal gear but Allan opted to keep looking for a bike that had more gears on it with the thought that a single gear would be difficult to cycle up hills, especially with a trailer attached and a pregnant woman inside. The next box contained a Mongoose 26 inch men’s mountain bike. Allan pulled the bicycle information packet out of the box and read that it had a total of 21 gears.

“I think this one will do.” He said.

Together they pulled all the pieces out of the box and set them down on the floor in a configuration that resembled a fully assembled bike. He dug into plastic wrapping of the information packet and pulled out the single-use wrench and socket that was included inside. He opened the instruction booklet on the concrete floor and began putting the pieces together. As he tightened the bolts with the little wrench he thought about all the times that he had opened a box that had come with similar tools and he had always immediately discarded them, opting to use the wrenches and sockets from his professional tool set in his garage instead. This time the cheap little wrench that came in the bicycle box was a godsend to him.

He spent a good part of the afternoon putting the bike together. The instructions were becoming difficult to read and he realized that the light from the skylights was becoming dim as the sun was no longer shining directly overhead. He was just finishing tightening the front wheel assembly when he heard a loud crash come from the front of the building. The sound was similar to that of the glass front doors when he had shattered them earlier and Allan looked over to where Jennifer had been sitting to give her a what-the-hell-was-that kind of look but she wasn’t there. He quickly checked his surroundings looking for her but she was gone. In his focus on assembling the bike he had blocked out everything around him and he couldn’t even recall her ever leaving the area. He was about to call out her name but he became afraid to do so out of fear of drawing attention of his presence to whatever had just made the sound out front. He cursed himself for having allowed her to leave his sight again, a promise that he had made to her just hours earlier. He rose to his feet and with the little bicycle wrench in his hand he walked slowly toward the entrance of the front lobby. He poked his head through the doorway and looked at the broken glass of the front doors that laid spread out across the front entrance area. It all looked the same as they had left it and he kept searching the room, looking for an intruder while wielding the bicycle wrench for protection. Beside him he heard the sound of a woman shriek and his heart leapt inside his chest. He pointed his wrench-dagger toward the sound and turned his body quickly to face the intruder. There he saw Jennifer standing in front of a vending machine, the front glass of it shattered and the rock that he had used earlier to break the front door was lying on the ground next to the machine. In her right hand was a Snickers candy bar and her other hand was resting on her knees as she was bent over herself in laughter.

“What do you plan to do with that wrench?” Jennifer snorted.

Allan looked down at the tool in his hand and realized how ridiculous he looked. “I guess I was going to get the bad guys with it.” He replied.

“I saw this vending machine when we came in and I was hungry so I took the liberty to open it for us.”

He walked toward the machine and looked inside. It had a few bags of chips and some candy bars but most of the spirals were empty as if the machine had been neglected by whoever was responsible for keeping it supplied. Still Allan was pleased to finally have something to eat.

“Good thinking.” He said and he bent down and gave her a kiss on her cheek. He reached inside the machine and grabbed a bag of chips off one of the top spirals and ripped it open and he placed a single potato chip in his mouth and bit down. The chip crunched into tiny pieces and began to dissolve in his mouth and as he swallowed his body rejoiced for the newfound nourishment. He grabbed a candy bar out of the vending machine and he could barely contain his excitement as he worked to pull the wrapper away from the wonderful chocolate goodness that was contained inside. As he bit down on the chocolaty nougat he closed his eyes and inhaled as euphoria rushed over his body.

“I don’t think a candy bar has ever tasted so good.” He said with smears of chocolate covering his teeth.

When he was finished gorging himself on the junk food he looked over the remains of the vending machine and licked his fingers and noticed that his body was craving water.

“Is there a soda machine too?” He inquired.

“Nope. No soda machine. Sucks I know.” Jennifer replied disappointed.

Allan looked around the lobby and saw a side door near the back of the room that opened up into a dark bathroom. He snapped his fingers with excitement and darted off toward the door. Inside the bathroom was a single toilet and a white porcelain sink beside it. He turned the handles of the sink faucet but nothing came out. He worked the faucet off and back on again but the procedure did not produce water. He looked around the back of the sink to check the cut-off valve and verified that it was open.

“No water pressure.” He said aloud and then he turned and repeated the words loud enough for Jennifer to hear.

“How could the blast affect the water pressure?” Jennifer asked.

“All the pumps that deliver water to the water towers work off electricity. I guess there were enough runny toilets and dripping faucets in the city to drain the water towers over the last few days.”

“That, or people hoarded the water for themselves by filling up their sinks and bathtubs. That’s what I would have done.” Jennifer said.

“I guess we better take it easy on the candy and salted chips until we find some water for ourselves or else the snacks will just make us even more dehydrated.”

Jennifer leaned in and looked down at the toilet and she saw that it had dark brown rings around the inside as if the toilet had not been cleaned in ages.

“Well there’s some water in the toilet bowl.” She suggested.

Allan wrinkled his face in disgust. “I’m thirsty, but I’m not quite that desperate yet.”

Allan went back to work on the bike while Jennifer packed the remaining contents of the vending machine into the sides of the bike trailer. When Allan finished assembling the bike he hooked the trailer onto the rear wheel and they opened one of the big roll up doors at the back of the warehouse and pushed the bike assembly outside. Jennifer squeezed herself into the tiny compartment of the bike trailer and tried to adjust herself into a good seating position.

"It's not very comfortable in here." She complained.

"It's just going to have to do." He replied.

“Don’t you need a bicycle helmet?” She asked.

“I rode bikes during my entire childhood without ever wearing a helmet. I think I can manage without one.” Allan replied and Jennifer shrugged her shoulders and gave him a suit-yourself look.

He gripped the handlebars and slung his leg over the seat except he had positioned the seat too high when he put the bike together and the big towel that was still wrapped around the wound in his leg caught against the seat causing him to lose his balance and he fell. Jennifer’s trailer heaved into the air as the bike toppled over with Allan coming down with it and then the whole assembly came down with a crash. The bike pedal dug into Allan's shin and he fumbled atop of the bike, embarrassed and in pain while trying to get up. His leg injury from the night before screamed at him. He shook it off, trying to conceal the pain. He looked back and saw the bike trailer leaning on its side with just one wheel touching the ground with Jennifer still sitting inside with another what-the-hell look on her face.

"Sorry. I tripped over the seat." He explained as if she didn't see what had just happened from her front row point of view.

"So how about that bicycle helmet?" Jennifer suggested once more.

“I’m fine.” Allan huffed as he adjusted the bike seat down to a lower position. Jennifer shrugged her shoulders again and then zipped up the plastic cover on the trailer.

With the seat adjusted properly Allan once again gripped the handle bars and flung his leg around the bicycle seat. This time he was successful in clearing the hurdle. He placed his foot on the bike pedal and pushed down to begin pedaling but the bike barley moved. They were on an incline coming out of the warehouse parking lot. It shouldn't be so difficult to move with so many gears on the bike. Allan thought. He looked down and saw that the bike was still in low gear where he had set it during assembly. As he knew from riding bikes as a kid, in order to change the gears on the bike it either had to be moving forward or the rider had to lift the rear wheel off the ground and spin the bike pedals by hand, neither of which were happening with Jennifer acting as an anchor inside the bike trailer. He hopped off the bike and Jennifer immediately huffed from behind him, "What is it now?"

"The bike's in low gear. I'll have to push it to get us going in order to change the gears." He could feel her staring at him like he was a buffoon but he didn't turn back to verify his suspicions and instead he gripped the handlebars and began walking beside the bike. He turned the gear knob on the handle over to high gear but as he pushed the bike forward he saw that the pedals weren't moving so the gears weren't going to change automatically for him.

Of course.

He reached down and clumsily began manually pumping the bike pedals with his right hand while trying to walk and seer the bike down the road with his left hand.

Jennifer laughed from inside the trailer, "You're an idjit."

Idjit was a playful little word that she had made up a long time ago when she wanted to call him an idiot without actually hurting his feelings. Anytime he would do something silly, out would come the little zinger and by saying he was an idjit she was able to insult him and not feel bad about it. The one time that he did get mad about her use of her little idjit buzz word she replied, "What are you getting mad about? Gosh, I was just playing, you idjit."

After several uncomfortable moments of manually pumping the bike pedal with his hand and thinking that the gears were never going to change, they finally engaged and switched into high gear. He jumped back on the bike, this time with enthusiasm over his little accomplishment on the gear problem and he began to work the pedals with his feet.

God this is heavy.

Even in high gear it took all that he had just to get the bike to lurch forward. The added weight of the bike trailer was really dragging the bike down. He stood on the pedals and pumped as much as his weary injured legs would allow but the big towel that was wrapped around his injury prevented him from using his leg effectively.

"I think I’m going to take this towel off."

“You don’t need the towel to cover the wound on your leg?”

“I’m not bleeding anymore. The towel is just getting in the way.”

Allan stopped and removed the towel and inspected the wound. It was very tender but at least it wasn’t bleeding. He stood back on the pedals and pumped his legs as hard as he could.

"Go baby go!" Jennifer encouraged from behind him. Finally they made it up to the street level where the road grade was more flat. Just as they made the turn onto Maylee Boulevard his right foot slipped off the pedal and his shoe began to slide along the pavement. The bike's momentum caused the foot pedal to spin around full circle and it slammed against his calf muscle.

"Dammit!" He yelled out in frustration. It took everything he had not to jump off the bike and heave it into the ditch.

"Calm down. Get back on and try again." Her loving encouragement brought him back from the brink.

He looked back at her. "Do you think you could cut a hole in the floor of your trailer and help push like in the Flintstones?" He grinned.

She gave him a cheesy smile and he turned and focused intently on the road ahead.

Chapter 13: Fires

Cycling through the maze of broken down and busted up cars was not as easy as Allan had anticipated. Often he had to dismount off the bike and carefully navigate through tangled heaps of wreckage and debris strewn across the roadway. The going was slow and precarious, especially once they entered what had been heavy traffic on I-30 near Garland. Their speedy arrival home on the bike was quickly becoming a fantasy.

The wreckage was too thick to navigate through so he drove the bike along the left hand median where he found that there were fewer cars in the way. As he picked up some speed along the little three foot wide lane a strong vibration began to rattle throughout the bike and he looked down and realized that he was driving on top of the rumble strip. The grooves had been cut into the highway by road crews to alert sleepy drivers that they were out of their lane and now the grooves felt like they were tearing the bicycle apart.

“The bike is vibrating too much!” Jennifer yelled from behind. It sounded like someone was slapping a hand against her back as she spoke causing her words to come out choppy.

Allan stopped the bike and walked alongside while pushing it through the big parking lot of stalled cars that lay in the middle of the highway.

Everywhere he looked there were new cars. In fact, other than the old Bel Air car from earlier in the day, he couldn’t remember seeing any cars that were any older than five or ten years old as he thought back on their journey out of Dallas. All the new cars surprised him, considering that the economy was supposed to have still been in the middle of a recession, yet there were new sports cars and new SUVs as far as the eye could see. There were new delivery vans and utility trucks all with fancy logos painted on the sides, even the big semi-trucks looked brand spanking new. He recognized Dodge Ram pickups like his own nearly everywhere with newer body styles that had come out just the year before. Allan hadn’t noticed the multitude of new cars on the highway before. He wondered how everyone could afford all the new vehicles and then he thought maybe the cars that he was noticing were just everyone’s good cars that they drove to maneuver around the busy highways of Dallas. Maybe they kept their less expensive and less reliable cars back home. He knew for certain that there always seemed to be more older model cars on the roads back home in Greenville compared to what he was seeing there on highway 635. The thought filled Allan with hope. Maybe there are more old cars out there like that Bel Air that survived the blast. Maybe just a little further ahead there are old cars like that being used as busses and we could hitch a ride all the way back to Greenville on one and we could be home before midnight.

They reached the long arching Interstate 30 exit that crossed over highway 635 just as the sun was setting. The bridge that would take them east toward Greenville was the highest bridge on the mixmaster, reaching heights of a 10 story building with a half-mile expanse up and across the freeway. Allan knew that in order to have any chance of getting up and over it he would have to pick up a considerable amount of speed. He began pumping the bike pedals as fast as he could but the stalled cars were blocking a direct route to the bridge which prevented him from gaining as much speed as he would have liked.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer called out from the bike trailer behind him.

“I’m trying to pick up some speed but there are too many damn cars in the way.”

“Speed for what?”

“To get across the bridge up ahead. Don’t you see it?”

“Yeah, I see it. But why are you wanting to go over it?”

“Because that’s the bridge that will take us home.” Allan was shouting now in frustration.

“Look. The on-ramp on the other side of the road is at ground level.”

“What’s your point?”

“There’s no reason to pedal us up and over that huge bridge when we can just lift the bike over the concrete barrier wall and take the on-ramp on the other side of the highway which is flat on the ground.”

Allan stopped the bike and looked to his left. The on-ramp on the opposite side of the highway for the traffic that entered 635 north from I-30 was indeed at ground level. He turned to Jennifer. “You’re a genius.”

“I like to call it common sense.” Jennifer grinned.

“I keep thinking we’re in our truck and I have to follow all the normal traffic rules.”

Allan dismounted from the bike and helped Jennifer out of the trailer and together they hoisted their bike rig over the four foot tall barrier wall. Allan hopped over to the other side and waited for Jennifer to join him when he realized that she was struggling to get over the concrete wall. He reached out and put his hands under her arms to help lift her and she immediately began giggling.

“You’re tickling me.” She laughed.

“I’m trying to help you.” Allan insisted. She tried to lift herself but the tickling caused her body to shut down. “Good grief, just get over here.” He said frustrated.

“You have to stop tickling me.” Jennifer continued giggling. He removed his hands from her arms and placed them on his hips, fully irritated at her. “I’ll do it myself.” She said and she hopped up and plopped her rear end on the top of the wall and pivoted her legs up and over to the other side. “See, I didn’t even need your help.” She said while slapping her hands to remove the concrete dust from them. To Allan it looked like she was clapping her hands in celebration of her wall scaling achievement and he glared at her.

She got seated back in the bike trailer and Allan mounted the bike and began pedaling through the cars that had stalled out on the northbound on-ramp to 635. Driving the bike in the opposite direction of traffic felt weird. Once they made it onto Interstate 30 Allan decided to continue pedaling in the wrong direction in order to not have to dismount the bike and deal with the whole fiasco of getting Jennifer back over the barrier wall again.

They saw the first of the fires when they reached the crest of the hill of the bridge over Northwest Highway and I-30. From the hilltop vantage point they could see for several miles ahead and everywhere they looked, fires lit up the landscape like a sea of candles spread out across the land. The air was thick with a heavy haze of smoke and the dimming afternoon sky looked apocalyptic. People had set aflame to many of the structures along the side of the road, not in anger or as part of a riot, but for the sole reason to light up the roadway during the terribly dark night. On the first two nights the highway walkers had clung to their sense of normalcy and had held on to the hope that soon society would be restored and so they suffered through the first two nights but too many refused to endure the terrible darkness again. Even though the fires meant tragedy for the people who owned the businesses and apartment buildings and houses that had been set ablaze, and despite the smoke which Allan and Jennifer tried to filter out by breathing through their shirts, they were grateful for the light from the fires that lit up the roadway. There would be no more invisible jagged fenders protruding out in the darkness to cut his leg and there would be no little kids to fall off invisible bridges with their mothers calling out for them during the night.

Allan thought of the people who had set all the fires. What motivated them to take such drastic actions? What terrors had they experienced during the past two nights to bring about such devastation to the city? Then he wondered how many of the fires had actually been set and how many had simply spread on their own. Due to the extreme heat and lack of rain and the lack of firemen to put out the flames, the fires would have had no trouble spreading on their own. Maybe this place is not as chaotic as it seems. He thought with hope.

It seemed to get dark extremely fast and Allan realized that it was the smoke in the air that had blocked the final rays of sunlight in the sky. He continued pedaling in the dim light produced by the fires that raged along the side of the road and as the light flickered off the reflectors between the spokes in the bike wheels Allan felt a strange sensation that they were being watched. Suddenly the firelight around them felt more like a spotlight and he was on a stage with a thousand eyes watching his every move. He found his body tensing up every time he passed by anyone walking on the highway and he could sense them looking at his bicycle with jealous envy. He began to pedal faster around people and cars and he anticipated the moment when he would hear the words, “Stop the bike” like the man who had shot the driver of the old Bel Air car.

“You feel it too?” Jennifer asked from her trailer behind him as she noticed the bike begin to pick up speed.

“Feel what?” Allan replied trying to conceal his fears.

“Feel like we’re being watched.” Jennifer said. Her words validated his own feeling of being watched. He pedaled faster around the stalled cars in the road. The bike trailer listed heavily to its sides like a boat tossed around in rough seas. Jennifer held on to the metal frame of the trailer for support and she was both afraid that Allan would crash into something and afraid to tell him to slow down out of fear of what danger was out there staring at them in the shadows.

As they sped toward the interchange of the George Bush Turnpike Allan began to see orange barrels along the side of the road and orange and black highway signs that marked the site of a construction area. The westbound lane that they were on had been diverted around a new bridge that the highway construction crews were building to connect the turnpike to Interstate 20 further to the south and as they followed the long diversion curve in the road Allan noticed that the area was filled with a multitude of abandoned construction equipment. Backhoes and road graders, skid loaders and front loaders, dump trucks and bulldozers, all disabled by the blast. There were the familiar white 4x4 trucks that the construction supervisors drove around with the yellow flashing lights mounted on top, except the lights weren’t flashing anymore and none of the supervisors were around either. Allan realized that it would probably be a very long time before any of the construction was ever finished, not just in that place but all over. Allan thought of the millions, perhaps billions of dollars wasted on projects that would not only never be finished but would never cleaned up. All the orange construction barrels and portions of half completed roadways and all the machinery that indicated a progressive forward moving society would lay in ruins forever if the blast was really as bad as it appeared to be.

He was out of breath and was panting heavily as steered the bike around a cluster of stalled cars stuck under the Bass Pro Drive underpass. On the hill above them to their right were the smoldering remains of the Garland Bass Pro Shop. He was stunned to see that the entire building and the surrounding structures had been completely decimated by fire. He thought back and remembered the Bass Pro Shop that they had walked past in Grapevine immediately after leaving the mall parking lot just after the blast. Did the Grapevine Bass Pro Shop suffer the same fate as the Garland Bass Pro Shop? If we had detoured off the highway back there after leaving the mall would we have been caught in a similar inferno?

He thought back to their previous visits to the Garland store just a few months earlier. For the past couple of Christmas Holidays Jennifer and Allan had taken Samantha to the Santa’s workshop at the Bass Pro Shop to let her see Santa and to play with all the toys that the store had out on display. The place was always a mad-house with hordes of excited children and their parents all packed into the lower level of the building like a can of sardines. The one thing that irritated Allan the most was that none of the toys that were out on display actually worked. There was a model railroad train setup but one year the controls were broken and the next year the train had come off the tracks inside the little tunnel and on both occasions none of the employees of the store seemed to notice or even care. The remote control cars were always out of batteries or the controls were missing completely. The game where the kids shoot darts at little ducks that moved around in a circle was always out of ducks or darts. Allan had watched as dozens and dozens of kids would approach each toy that was on display with excitement until they realized that it was broken and then they always walked away with their shoulders slumped with disappointment on their faces. The last year they went Allan he vowed to never take Samantha there for another picture with Santa ever again but he knew, without a doubt, that Jennifer would find a way to drag him back again next Christmas and there all the broken toys would be waiting to disappoint the throngs of little children once again. Except now there was no store to drag him back to anymore.

“I guess we won’t be going there again this Christmas.” Allan said grinning a little inside.

“Awe, that’s so sad. Samantha loved that place.” Jennifer said with a frown.

“Yeah, it is sad.” He said with faked disappointment.

Whatever had put Allan into such a panic earlier was now a few miles behind them and the feeling of being watched was gone. In the flickering light from the fires of the smoldering store beside them Allan could see the boats that were out on display outside the building had survived the looting.

“Now that’s really sad.” Allan said as looked at the boats that sat on their trailers with their newly painted bows and pristine white covers wrapped over them to protect their interiors from the weather. “All those new boats, useless.” Allan figured that everyone had realized that the motors on the boats were all toast and so the boats themselves were ruined.

“What’s the difference between a stupid boat and all those useless brand new cars at those dealerships that we passed?”

Allan wanted to reply that since they were near to the water, boats were more resourceful than cars. Boats could take them around the lake to find a good fishing spot where, with a little luck, they might be able to catch something for dinner. It had been years since Allan had gone fishing, mostly because he never remembered to buy a fishing license and so when the opportunity to go fishing arrived he would never go because he didn't want to have to stop somewhere and buy a license. He didn’t figure anyone cared too much about fishing licenses now though. He wondered if there were any game wardens at all now. He closed his eyes and could still picture the motions that he use to use when he was younger to fillet a fish. Slice behind the gills and work down the spine leaving nothing but bones and guts on the fish. The fresh meat was good grilled or stir fried in a little bit of olive oil or we could batter them up in corn meal and pepper for a really special treat. He sighed as he realized that it was only a fantasy, all of the boats motors were inoperable and he had no bait and all the fishing gear that he might have used had all been destroyed in the Bass Pro inferno.

“You’re right.” Allan finally replied. “They’re all just broken things now.” He remembered all the broken toys at the Christmas displays once again. Serves them right. He thought, and then he immediately regretted thinking that way. There were real people with real jobs who depended on that store. He reminded himself.

Chapter 14: Midnight Delight

They could see the dark waters of Lake Ray Hubbard ahead of them. They reached the edge of the peninsula where the three sides of land came to a point and the long bridge over Lake Ray Hubbard stuck out over the water and disappeared into the darkness. The moon was out now and there were fires on the eastern shores across from the lake in the city of Rockwall. For a moment the flickering firelight and the orange reflections off the water reminded Allan of how the buildings and streetlights of Rockwall use to look when they drove over the lake at night before the blast. The newly constructed Harbor area had always been a popular lakeside attraction with its nightlights reflecting off the lake waters, reminding Allan of something out of a movie scene. He looked on with hope, wishing that maybe there was electricity on the other side of the lake and everything was fine and normal over there. He knew better. He knew the blast, powerful enough to knock planes out of the sky and take out every car that they had walked past throughout Dallas would not be contained by the boundaries of the lake. Still he looked on at its picturesque beauty of the scenery for he knew that it was fleeting. Sooner or later the fires would ravage everything in their path and all the fires would run out of fuel to burn and then there would be no more light on the other side of the lake for a very long time.

“Are you tired?” He asked turning towards the trailer behind him.

“I’m exhausted.” Jennifer replied. “Do you think we’ll make it to Rockwall tonight?”

“I could try to get us there.” Allan said and he paused to let the thought soak in of crossing the long dark expanse of the bridge. “Or we could stop here on the edge of the water and bathe and have ourselves a little campout. Plus, if these fires get really out of control it would be good to be close to the water.”

“That sounds fabulous.” Jennifer said. “Stop and let me out and I’ll help you get the bike off the road.”

They stopped and Jennifer helped Allan lift the bike and trailer up and over the guardrail and down the steep overgrown slope to the water’s edge below. They hid the bike beside one of the bridge piers that was buried in the last bit of dry ground before the bridge crossed out over the water.

“Stay here and I’ll take a look around.” Allan said. He walked carefully across the rocky beach for a couple hundred feet and he was thankful to see that nobody else had taken their camping spot for the night.

“Come on over.” He called out and Jennifer carefully crossed over the rocky beach to join him. When she reached him he extended his arm and they held hands as they walked down an eroded part of the beach to where the soil became partly sandy.

“This area looks as good as any. There are not too many rocks down here either.” Allan said.

Jennifer walked down to the water’s edge and put her hand in the water. It was cold and she cupped her hand to pull a small handful of water from the lake. “I’m so thirsty. Do you think it’s safe to drink?”

Allan looked at her hand but he did not respond. He considered that the water could be contaminated or it could have pathogens in it that could make them both ill in the coming days. On the other hand if they didn’t drink enough water they weren’t going anywhere due to dehydration. It had been two and a half days since the blast and despite the gulps of orange punch that they had drank under the bridge on the first night and the half bottle of water that Allan found after the death-fight and the little bit of water obtained from the church on the side of the highway they were both very thirsty and they desperately needed more fluids. Jennifer stared at him, waiting for an answer. He had no way to try to sanitize the water. There were no containers to boil the water in and even if there were he had nothing to try to start a fire with. If we get sick, we will just have to deal with that when the time comes. He decided, figuring that the risks of dehydration were greater than the risks of contracting a waterborne illness. He cupped his hand into the water and together they began lapping the precious liquid into their mouths. The water was cool and it felt amazing as it ran down their throats and filled their stomachs. Allan felt that he was splashing his hand in the water more than he was actually drinking and he finally settled on dipping his chin under the surface of the water and he drank from the lake like a wild animal.

When they were finished gorging themselves on water Jennifer sat up and wiped her mouth. “Ok, you pitch the tent and I’ll get the sleeping bags ready.” She joked.

“And I’ll make the fire and then you get the marshmallows roasting.” Allan smiled. “Ok seriously now, I don’t know about you but I’m taking a bath.” He said as he bent down and began untying his shoes. The first shoe that he removed felt like it peeled off half of the skin on his blistered heel along with it. He buried his foot in the cool sand which gave it instant relief.

“Are you going in with your clothes on or off?” Jennifer asked.

“Off, of course.”

“But what if somebody comes here while we’re in the water and steals our clothes? That would be awful. Plus, wouldn’t it be good to wash our clothes in the water with us?”

“As far as washing our clothes, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Then you’d have to spend the night in wet clothes. They probably wouldn’t dry out by morning and then you’d have to walk around for half the day sopping wet.” Allan paused and thought for a moment. “But you make a good point about someone coming over here while we’re in the water. How about you go in first and I’ll keep watch? When I bathe then you can keep watch for me.”

“You go first. There may be alligators in there.”

“There’s no alligators silly.” He replied but then he remembered all the local news stories about people who had illegally bought baby alligators as pets but when they became too big to take care of they dumped them off the side of a road where they ended up in area waterways. “But I’ll go first just to make sure.”

As he took off his clothes he noticed that Jennifer was watching him but he didn’t tell her to look away. The water was chilly and he shivered as he knelt down and submerged his body. He stayed in the shallow water close to the shoreline, afraid to stray too far from Jennifer and fearful of cutting his foot on a broken bottle on the lake bottom or even worse, encountering a dreaded alligator. He dipped his head under the water and scrubbed his face with the palms of his hands and then he splashed to clean under his armpits. Without soap or anything to scrub with his skin still felt grimy as if the dirt refused to release its grip upon his flesh. After a few minutes he stood up in the water and the parts of his body that were exposed to the air instantly became covered in goose bumps. He raised his arm above his head and sniffed. The lake bath had done him no good. In fact he seemed to smell worse than he did before going into the lake thanks to the algae and fish smelling water. He stepped out onto the beach where Jennifer was sitting and she looked up at him.

“Well, how was it?” she asked.

“Cold, and the water stinks.”

“I’m sure it stinks worse now after you swam in it.” She teased. Allan placed his pants flat on the ground to keep his rear end from getting dirty and he sat down beside her. Jennifer got up and lifted her shoes to within reach of her arms and untied each one as a pregnant woman who couldn’t bend down to touch her feet would do. She reached to her waist and pulled up her shirt to remove it but she stopped before pulling it over hear head when she noticed that Allan was staring at her.

“Don’t look.” She said shyly.

“Hey, you were staring at me when I took my clothes off.”

“Was not.”

“Were too.”

Jennifer sighed because she knew that she had been caught and she continued taking off her clothes with Allan looking on. She finished removing her shirt and unbuttoned her pants and let them slide to the sand at her feet along with her underwear. She used her toes to grab her garments and then dusted them off before carefully folding them into a neat pile and then she sat them atop her shoes to keep them out of the dirt. She stood over him looking out toward the water while gathering the courage to go in. Allan could just barely make out the outlines of her body in the dim night light, her face and shoulders, the curves of her swollen breasts and stomach, the arch of her lower back that swept down and around the contour of her butt. The fires on the distant horizon looked like candle lights behind her and her silhouette in front of the glowing fires looked magnificent. As he looked on at her he realized that he had never seen her appear as lovely as she did standing before him there on the beach. What has changed about her that I see her so beautiful right now? He wondered and then he realized that the change was partly due to a change within himself. The blast had taken away all his distractions. The television and the Internet that had so occupied him before were gone. There were no concerns of what to eat for dinner as they only had a couple of candy bars and bags of chips left that were stolen from the bike warehouse. He realized that without all of those distractions that he was finally able to appreciate her true beauty and he smiled with pride as he watched her tip-toe down into the water.

“It’s so cold.” She turned to him and giggled and he smiled back in awe of her.

She went out into the water about as far as he had gone and then dove under the surface. After a moment when she hadn’t returned for air Allan sat up to see where she was. A few seconds later she returned to the top with a handful of mud in her hand which she began smearing on her face and around her neck.

“You didn’t think of this did you?” She said back to him.

“Think of what?”

“Using the mud to scrub your skin.”

“I hope you know that the mud stinks.”

“It’ll wash it off.” She said still proud of her idea. “You’re just mad 'cause you didn’t think of it yourself. I saw you scrubbing your nasty armpits with your bare hands. You should have used the mud. It’s great for exfoliating the skin.” She added teasingly.

She bathed in the water longer than he did which had always been normal for her back when life was normal. She gently scrubbed her arms and legs with the mud and made little splashes in the water to wash it off which reminded Allan of how Samantha use to splash her toys in the bath tub when she was a little baby. After a while Jennifer slowly rose from the water and walked towards Allan. The moon was higher in the sky now and it was emitting more light against her body. She folded her arms across her chest because she was cold and because she knew that Allan was still watching her. When she got close enough Allan could see tiny goose bumps on her skin just like his own and he saw that she was shivering as she reached to pick up her shirt from the neat little pile of clothes that she had made on the beach.

“Better to air dry like me than to put on your shirt and get it all wet.”

“But I’m freezing.”

“Come sit in my lap. I’ll warm you up.” He said as he grabbed her hand and pulled her down to him. They were facing each other and cold drops of water dripped off her hair onto his chest. Even though she was still shivering the warmth of her body felt nice against his skin. He wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back to help warm her up.

“What now?” She said looking into his eyes. Allan leaned in and kissed her neck and she closed her eyes to embrace the moment. She smelled like lake water and mud and sweat but there was another, more pleasant scent, penetrating through the odors that caught Allan’s nose. As he kissed along the back of her neck he found that it was her scent, a fragrance unique only to Jennifer that sweat and blood and a muddy lake water bath could not wash away, and as he kissed along her shoulder he felt himself become incredibly aroused.

He reached to touch her breast but Jennifer grabbed his hand and pulled it away and she whispered. “We can’t.”

“Why not?” He asked.

“I don’t want to hurt the baby. After everything that’s happened I think he’s been through enough already.”

“He’ll be fine.” Allan whispered and he reached for her breast again, yearning for her body, but he was denied for a second time.

“You know about my brother and his wife. With each of their kids they always had sex on the last couple of days of her pregnancy to help induce labor.” She said. “We are in no place to be trying to induce labor here.”

“That’s just an old wives tale.” This was not the conversation that he wanted to be having in his heat of passion. He reached up and ran his fingers through her hair and tried kissing behind her ear but she just felt stiff and uninterested. He wanted her so badly and he knew that there was one thing that he could do to get her to focus on their intimacy again. He placed his hand between her legs and he watched her face for a response and she closed her eyes again. This time she allowed him to continue.

Their lovemaking that night was the most erotic moment that either of them had ever experienced. Their stiff joints and tired muscles and body odors all convalesced together into primal urges for each other’s bodies. When they were done they collapsed beside one another, naked on the beach, each gasping for air and ignoring all the sand that now clung to their flesh. When he caught his breath he looked towards the moon which was now high in the night sky and he noticed that it appeared hazy from all the smoke that was in the air.

“Wow.” Jennifer said as her body dismounted from its tower of ecstasy. He turned and looked at her. It was clear that she had lost weight from their long march over the past couple of days. She looked tired and even in the moonlight he could see that her face was sunburnt and there were blisters on both her cheeks and forehead. Even her eyes seemed not to open as wide as they did before, as if her eyelids themselves wanted to tell the story of her journey through hell. Despite all of that he felt mesmerized just by looking at her. Amidst everything, she had managed to remain beautiful. Even at eight months pregnant and walking with a waddle she still had a grace about her in the way that she moved about.

As they lay on the water’s edge looking into each other’s eyes it reminded him of the way they had looked at each other on their wedding day. The vows that he had said to her ran thought his mind. In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, I will love and honor you all the days of my life. He felt like he had a deeper connection to the words that he had promised her so long ago, now in such a distant place it seemed, but the words still held true though it all.

“I love you.” He whispered.

“I love you too.” She softly whispered back.

They lay on the beach looking into each other’s faces until a breeze blew off the lake that created more goose bumps on their skin.

“It’s kinda cold.” She smiled at him as she shivered.

“I think it’s time we put on our clothes. We’re a little exposed out here, naked like this.” He smiled.

They got up and dusted the sand off each other as best they could, opting not to wash it off in the water and having to air dry their bodies all over again. They put on their clothes and as he lifted his shirt over his head and let if fall in front of his face he smelled his own terrible odors that had embedded into the fabric over the past few days. He regretted having to put on his clothes, especially his underwear, and he cringed when the filthy elastic band snapped against his waist. He lay against the eroded part of the beach that they had walked down earlier and Jennifer knelt down beside him and rested her head on his arm. He wondered if she smelled his stench but then he figured she must have been too tired to care.

Chapter 15: Disaster At The Lake

Allan awoke as the sun rose above the eastern horizon over the city of Rockwall. His arm was numb from where Jennifer’s head had rested during the night and in a sleepy daze he pushed her head off of him and it landed on the sandy beach with a thud.

She sprang up. “Huh?” She asked in startled confusion.

“My arm was asleep.” Allan replied.

“Huh?” She asked again with her mind still desperately clinging to sleep.

“Good morning.” He said.

“Good morning.” She said, her voice sounded groggy but her thoughts were finally becoming coherent.

She stretched her arms and legs out and felt a strange discomfort in her abdomen and she reached down and rubbed her stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Allan asked noticing the troubled look on her face.

“Oh, nothing.” She replied not wanting to alarm him. “I guess you were just a little rough on me last night.”

Allan grinned proudly.

They retrieved their bicycle rig from behind the bridge pillar and pushed it up to the road deck. As Allan mounted the bike he saw thick black smoke billowing into the sky seeming to be coming from the roadway a couple of miles ahead. In the early morning dawn he noticed that the beautiful blue hues in the sky and the piercing sun of the days before had been replaced by unnatural colors of oranges and greys from the smoke and fires that raged out of control across the DFW Metroplex. The white puffy clouds that had previously danced around with the wind had now been exchanged with menacing clouds of smoke, the result of the dying world around them and its last toxic gasps for breath. Just as the people had set the fires the night before out of desperation, it was as if the Earth itself had given up hope and all that remained were fiery ruins.

Allan breathed in the polluted air but he noticed that he could no longer smell the smoke that was visibly wafting through the air. He breathed in again, this time forcing his nose to focus on the odors but it could only detect a faint smell of smoke.

“That’s weird.” He said.

“What’s weird?” Jennifer asked as she sat down inside the bike trailer.

“All that smoke in the air, and I can’t smell it.”

“Maybe your nose is stopped up.”

Allan breathed in heavily through his nostrils to indicate that his airway was clear, “I’m breathing fine.” He said.

Jennifer inhaled to test the air for herself. “I can’t really smell the smoke either.” She admitted.

Allan thought for a moment and said, “When I was younger I use to think about this. How we become conditioned to our environment.”

“You use to think about smelling smoke? I always knew you were weird.” She giggled. Allan pumped hard on the bike pedals causing Jennifer to rock back in her seat in the trailer. “Ok, tell me about your little theory.” She smirked.

“Well, my thought was that we, humans and all other animals, have been living and dying here on Earth for eons and eons, constantly expelling waste and gas and in our deaths we fill the air with the odors of our decaying bodies.”

“Good grief, you were a weird little kid.” Jennifer interrupted.

“But, when we breathe we don’t smell any of that.” Allan continued. “Why do you think that is?”

Although Allan didn’t turn to see Jennifer shrug her shoulders her silence revealed her response.

“Do the plants and trees work as a filter to clean the air of all the odors, does the rain wash it all away, or does the Earth really stink and we just can’t smell it because we’re just conditioned to it?”

“Doesn’t seem like it really matters. Fresh air smells pretty fresh to me.” Jennifer commented.

“Yeah, but if an alien from another world came to visit us on Earth, having never smelled our atmosphere before, would he think your fresh air really stinks?”

“How about when an alien actually comes you can pull him aside and you can ask him.” Her lack of interest in the topic was apparent and Allan pedaled on pondering his thoughts in silence.

He took one last look at the smoldering ruins of the Bass Pro Shop and remembered how years earlier he had waited for months in anticipation for the construction on the new store to be completed, yet the complete destruction of the building had only taken a matter of hours. He thought of it as an analogy of modern society in how it had taken hundreds of years to build but it was all gone in a flash.

He stopped the biked and looked out across the apocalyptic landscape with shock in his eyes. Nothing seemed untouched by the effects of the disaster. Everywhere he looked there was wreckage and destruction. Even the water had an unnatural murky brown tint to it and Allan could see debris floating in little clusters across the entire surface of the water. He was thankful that they had made it to the lake in the darkness or else the scene would have ruined any hope for a bath let alone any chance for intimacy.

He drove the bike forward across the first of the two bridges where Interstate 30 crossed over Lake Ray Hubbard. When they reached the end of the first bridge they noticed that there was a small park to their right. Allan must have passed by this particular spot near the lake at least a hundred times in the past and it never really caught his eye until now. There was a large cluster of tents and tarp shelters that had been setup amongst the trees and the scene reminded him of the shanty towns that he had heard about during the Great Depression. People in the camp were busily moving about in the early morning dawn stoking fires to cook their breakfast and hanging laundry out on lines stretched between trees.

Directly in front of them Allan could see that the thick black smoke was indeed coming from the roadway ahead of them. On the day of the blast the pilot of a Boeing 737 jumbo jet, equipped with manual servo tab backup controls, had tried to make an emergency water landing on the lake after his engines abruptly stopped but the plane was going too fast and his landing site on the lake was too small. As the pilot steered the plane over the water he realized that he would not be able to clear the bridge. The pilot desperately pulled up on the manual controls but they did not respond fast enough and the plane ripped into the eastbound I-30 bridge in a fiery eruption that engulfed 20 cars and trucks in the resulting blaze. By now the flames had burnt out but the smoldering ruins continued to emit thick black soot high into the sky. The eastbound bridge had collapsed into the water on the first day and Allan could see pedestrians walking in both directions on what remained of the westbound bridge. As they walked past the wreckage they all seemed to lean their bodies away from the blackened remains of the crash, as if the smoldering ruins were still extremely hot. He watched as man lifted a young boy into his arms and he held him out over the water to get the child as far away from the heat as possible. One slip of the hand or trip of the man’s foot would have meant instant death for the boy as he would surely tumble down into the rocky waters below. The little boy was wearing a bright orange hat and he was flailing his arms and legs with complete terror on his face and his mouth was open screaming cries that Allan could not hear. He watched the man successfully cross over the bridge and he pulled the little boy back to safety and Allan let out a sigh of relief.

Allan turned to Jennifer, “It looks like it’s still really hot up there but I think we can get through it if I pedal fast.” Jennifer clinched her abdomen with a terrible grimace on her face.

Suddenly an enormous explosion rocked the entire overpass, the concussion from the blast nearly knocked Allan off the bike. He looked back to where he had seen the dark black smoke billowing into the sky but now there was nothing but a cloud of dust. Huge waves emitted from the water underneath the dust cloud as if a huge ship, far too large for the waterway, had just passed by and the waves began crashing against the rocky embankment on the land bridge beside them. Seconds passed and a breeze began to scatter the dust cloud out over the water and all that Allan could see where the westbound bridge had once stood was an enormous hole. The smoldering fire and the wrecked cars and trucks that were on the bridge before were now gone. The people who had just been walking across the bridge had vanished. Allan looked down and saw heaps of concrete and rebar and the remains of the jet aircraft and cars lying in a tangled heap down in the water.

Allan stood straddling the bike watching the scene unfold in shock. It felt like he was watching a movie. Down in the water, in amongst the waves and debris, Allan could make out human bodies. Some were thrashing about, fighting to swim against the angry waters, but most were lifeless and twisted among the ruins of the fallen bridge. Beside one of the bodies he saw a bright orange hat floating in the water and Allan knew that the little boy and the man that he had just watched cross over the bridge were gone.

“Oh my God!” Jennifer called out from inside the bicycle trailer. Her response to the disaster seemed delayed and Allan thought maybe she was in shock to what they had just witnessed.

“The bridge collapsed.” He explained. “I guess when the plane that crashed into it weakened the support columns…”

“My water just broke!” Jennifer interrupted with a scream. What a horrible time for jokes. Allan thought and he spun around to scold her but as he turned to her the look on her face was clear. She was in obvious pain and it was apparent that she wasn’t joking. The disaster unfolding on the bridge in front of them seemed like a distant concern and everything grinded to a halt before him. Moments ago it had felt like he was watching a movie of bridge collapse but now it felt as if entire world had stopped spinning. He stood there with his body twisted around the bike frame, in a mental and physical whiplash, with his feet still pointing at the calamity happening on the bridge and his face and shoulders focused on the larger calamity happening inside the tiny bicycle trailer.

“Don’t just stand there. Do something!” Jennifer yelled.

“What do you want me to do?” His mind raced to find an answer to his own question.

“Take me back to the park that we just passed and see if there is a doctor there.”

“No.” He said. What am I saying? That’s a good idea. He thought.

“What do you mean no?”

“I don’t trust those people over there. I don’t trust anyone. They could take advantage of us and steal our baby for all we know.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

To their left was a set of rusty railroad tracks and a single flat rail car sitting amongst a grove of overgrown trees.

“Let’s go over there.” Allan pointed at the trees.

“But there’s no one over there.” Jennifer proclaimed.

“Exactly.”

“We can’t just hide in the trees and hope this problem goes away. I’m having this baby whether you like it or not.” She said frantically.

“We are going to hide in the trees and we are going to deliver this baby together.” He replied forcefully and he began pedaling the bike into the direction of the trees. Jennifer held onto the sides of the bike trailer as they crossed over the rough terrain between the road and the rusty railroad tracks. When he reached the group of trees Allan dismounted off the bike and pushed it to a spot between two old vine covered oak trees where they could not be seen from the road. He unzipped the cover of the bike trailer and carefully helped Jennifer to her feet.

He removed his undershirt and went to place it on the ground for Jennifer to lie on when she interrupted. “Won’t you need that to swaddle the baby in?”

Allan’s knees went weak with the realization that they were actually delivering their baby beside a set of old railroad tracks and that the baby’s first clothes would be his filthy undershirt.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” The forcefulness had already fallen completely out of his voice.

“You can.” Jennifer replied softly.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

“It is.”

He looked up at her and she reassured him with her eyes.

“Help me out of my pants.” She instructed. Any other time those words would have been exciting to Allan but this time the words terrified him. His hands shook nervously as he helped Jennifer remove her shoes and pants and then her underwear and then he assisted her down to the ground. It was if her labor took lying down as a signal to intensify for as soon as her bare bottom touched the ground the rate of her contractions and the level of her pain increased dramatically. Amidst her screams Allan wanted so badly to tell her to be quiet but he knew that she would never forgive him for such a demand, so he kept looking back over his shoulder, watchful for curious onlookers or intruders who might be approaching from the highway. Thankfully the disaster still unfolding at the collapsed bridge seemed to grip everyone’s attention and no one bothered them.

Jennifer’s pain was unbearable but there was no other option but for her to bear it. Between the heat and the filthy ground and her exhaustion she was in no place or condition to give birth, but the labor was upon her and there was no stopping it. She was not one of those new-age women who wanted to be tough and refuse medication. Jennifer understood that women had given birth for centuries without drugs, but she also understood that modern medicine had been developed to make childbirth less stressful on both the mother and the baby. She had gladly received an epidural when she gave birth to Samantha and afterwards her sister-in-law, who happened to be of the new-age mindset, seemed to look down upon her as if Jennifer had committed a crime against her body and her baby.

“Did you know that epidurals are toxic?” Her sister-in-law had told her which had filled Jennifer with fear until she went online and found a website that debunked the myth.

Her sister-in-law would inform everyone of the dangers of modern medicine and that receiving medication to dull the pain was selfish of any mother. Her sister in law would then go on to brag about how wonderful natural child birth was for her and her baby.

Jennifer always wanted to respond to her by saying, “Did you know that you can have a natural child birth and not brag to the world about it?” But she always held her tongue and asked questions as was expected of her, disinterested as she was.

An intense wave of pain rushed through her body. “That bitch!” Jennifer screamed.

“What are you talking about?” Allan asked.

“My sister-in-law who thinks she’s better than everyone because she had a natural childbirth. Well I’d like to see her give birth outside in the heat and dirt like this!” She yelled in anger.

Her pain intensified and it felt like her insides were ripping apart and Jennifer screamed louder than ever. Suddenly it felt like she had been hit in the chest with a baseball bat. The baby’s legs were pushing hard against her lungs and she began to gasp for air. In a panic stricken moment she reached out and grabbed the collar of Allan’s shirt and pulled him down closer to her and in a faint whisper she demanded, “Get this baby out of me!” She released his shirt and she felt as if she was going to pass out from the lack of oxygen but immediately the baby repositioned his legs and her airways opened back up and she was able to suck in a giant breath of air.

It seemed like the labor went on forever but in fact the birth of their son had only taken a couple of hours. By the time the baby arrived Allan was no longer nervous or shaking but he was instead focused on what he needed to do. The baby’s airway was partially blocked and Allan used his pinky finger to reach into his son’s tiny mouth and he removed the obstruction and then the baby breathed his first breath. Allan thought back to their conversation earlier about the Alien smelling the Earth’s atmosphere and he wondered what his son’s first sensation of air smelled like to him. The baby immediately let out a whimper and then a terrific cry and Allan looked up and smiled to Jennifer, “He said the air stinks.” They both giggled.

He placed the baby on Jennifer’s chest and she smiled with tears in her eyes. “He looks like you.” She beamed. Allan had heard that comment so many times in the early days with Samantha and he always wondered what people saw in her to say that she looked like him. He didn’t see the similarities between him and Samantha at first but sure enough, after a few weeks once Samantha got her natural color and opened her eyes she became a spitting image of him.

Allan looked down at the newborn’s face and noticed how it was swollen as most newborns are after birth. His skin was an unusual reddish purple color and his eyes were clinched shut. “His face is puffy and he’s got purple skin and he looks like me?” He asked.

“You have to look past that Allan. His color will return to normal soon. You remember how swollen Samantha’s face was after her delivery? It eventually returned to normal. Don’t worry about it.” She reassured.

“Oh I’m not worried at all. He’s wonderful and perfect and because of that, of course he looks just like me.” He smiled and this time Jennifer laughed.

“Well in that case, maybe he looks more like me.” She said as she touched the baby’s face and made little kissy faces to him. The baby unclenched his fist and revealed five tiny fingers as he reached into the air, perhaps to stretch or perhaps to acknowledge his mother’s touch.

Chapter 16: My Place Is Here With Them

A new wave of pain crossed over Jennifer’s body and she handed the baby back to Allan. He grabbed his white undershirt and began to wrap the baby in it when he realized that the umbilical cord was still attached and he had no way to cut it. Moments later Jennifer passed the placenta and Allan lifted it off the ground and placed the bizarre looking organ that was still connected to his son next to him in the swaddling shirt.

“How is he doing?” Jennifer asked exhausted.

“He’s great, but we need to find a way to cut the cord.” Allan replied.

“We need to tie it off as soon as possible. Find some rope or string or something that we can use.” Jennifer instructed. Allan’s eyes darted around frantically searching for something to use. In his mind he imagined a discarded piece of trash that had been tossed aside by a railroad engineer long ago that would be the perfect solution. He just needed to find it. He began scratching the rocks that lined the railroad with his shoes hoping to uncover the hidden item.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer asked.

“Looking for something to use.” Allan answered.

“Just use the shoelace off a shoe.”

Allan snapped his fingers. “Good idea.”

Allan removed the shoelace from one of his shoes and held it over the baby. “Where do I tie it?” He asked.

“Pull the chord up just a little and tie it off near the base of his tummy.”

She was so knowledgeable and Allan wanted to just hand the baby over to her and say, “Here, you do it” but he knew that she was too exhausted. He tied the cord as best as he could, guessing that he was doing it correctly, all the while the baby cried objections at Allan. When he was finished tying off the umbilical cord he held the baby in front of Jennifer for inspection.

“Looks good.” Jennifer said. “Now you can cut the cord.”

“With what?”

“You don’t have a knife or anything?”

“I don’t have anything.” His eyes started searching amongst the railroad rocks again.

“You’re not going to find a knife in the rocks.”

“I know that.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m nervous. Alright?”

“It’s going to be ok. The hardest part is over.”

Allan breathed a sigh of relief. She was right. The worst part was over. He had successfully helped his wife deliver a baby and they did it all by themselves. “I’m going to see if I can find someone on the road who has something to cut the cord with. Will you be ok to hold the baby?”

Jennifer nodded and he handed the baby over to her and then he ran to the highway where he came upon a woman who was carrying a small dog in her arms. As he approached the woman she shrieked and jumped back and Allan put his hands up to indicate that he was not a threat to her. “It’s ok. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Why are you all covered in blood?” The woman asked.

Allan looked at himself for the first time. His hands and arms and bare stomach had dark red stains obtained during the birthing process and he realized that he looked quite frightening. “My wife just had a baby and we need something to cut the umbilical cord with.” He said.

The woman just glared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.

“Did you understand what I said?” Allan asked.

The woman appeared to snap out of her panicked state. “I don’t have anything to help you.” She said as she continued stepping backwards. Allan approached a couple of more strangers but they all had similar reactions. Finally he saw an elderly man who seemed to walk hunched over himself and walking with a noticeable limp. From a distance it looked like the man was wearing a toupee as the sides of his head were covered in thin white hair yet the top of his head had a thick brown covering.

“Sir, my wife just had a baby and we need something to cut the cord with. Do you have anything on you? A knife or anything?” Allan pleaded.

The old man turned his head to reveal that the brown covering was actually a brown glob of dried mud that had been placed over a big bald spot on top of his head. The man dug into his pocket and produced a small folding knife. “What do you intend to do with it again?” The old man requested.

“My wife just had a baby and we need to cut the umbilical cord.” It felt like Allan had repeated the statement a hundred times. The old man looked down at his knife curiously as he contemplated sacrificing his knife for such a cause.

“It isn’t very clean and it’s pretty dull.”

“It will have to do.”

The old man held out his hand to give Allan the knife but he held his grip for a moment as he realized just how valuable a knife was under the circumstances.

“I'll bring the knife right back to you sir.” Allan assured.

“I was just thinking, I don't think I'll want it afterwards. Why don't you just keep it?” He said and he placed the knife in Allan's hand.

Allan smiled and as he darted off to head back into the cover of the trees he stopped and turned back to the old man. “Sir, what’s with the mud on the top of your head?”

“It’s to keep the sun from burning the top of my big bald head.” The old man grinned. “I figured if it works for the pigs who wallow around in the mud all day to keep cool, it ought to work for me.”

Allan nodded and ran back towards the woods and the old man scratched the mud on the top of his head and he continued limping down the highway.

Allan unwrapped the baby’s swaddling shirt and pulled out the rest of the umbilical cord and the placenta. He put the knife against the umbilical cord and began to cut at it, two inches from where he had tied it off with the shoelace. The umbilical cord was thicker than he had expected. It reminded Allan of a piece of steak and he had to saw back and forth with the knife just to cut into it. The baby cried fiercely and Allan stopped and looked at Jennifer, “I’m not hurting him am I?”

“Just keep going, but be careful.” Jennifer replied as she looked on intently.

When he had cut through the cord he tossed the placenta into the overgrown trees. “That thing is so nasty.”

“What are you doing? We need that!” Jennifer exclaimed. Allan looked at her terrified as if he had done something wrong and then he jumped up to retrieve it. “I’m just teasing. But did you know that some cultures eat the placenta as part of their tradition?”

“That’s freaking nasty.” Allan retorted. As repulsed as he was he was glad that Jennifer seemed to be doing well enough to joke around with him.

“Help me up please?” Jennifer asked.

Allan looked down at her with a stunned look on his face. “Are you sure you’re ready to get up?” He asked.

“Yeah, I gotta get off this dirty hard ground.”

Allan held onto both of her arms as she slowly stood up. Her back was hunched over like the old man who had given him the knife and it took her a couple of minutes to fully straighten her posture. Allan saw that her shirt was just long enough to cover half of her bottom. “Here’s your underwear.” He said as he reached down and held them out for her to step into.

“I’d like to clean up first. I feel icky.” She replied. “Hand me the baby and then go down to the water and get your shirt wet for me?”

“Sure.” Allan replied and he unwrapped their son out of the swaddling shirt and he handed the newborn back to Jennifer. The baby immediately began to dig his face into her chest in an attempt to suckle.

“He’s hungry.” Jennifer smiled and she pulled down the neck of her shirt and offered her breast to the baby.

Allan took his undershirt down to the water’s edge and wrung it out to clean it as best as he could. He washed his arms clean of the blood and splashed the muddy water on his face. When his skin was as clean as it was going to get he sloshed the shirt around in the water again and then lifted it out and headed back to join his wife and son. The saturated fabric let loose fat rain drops as he walked and Allan held his hand underneath it to capture as much water as he could just as he had done the day before when he was carrying the water soaked shirt out of the church by the highway.

Jennifer washed the baby’s skin and then she washed her tender body as best as she could and when it became apparent that she was having difficulty reaching certain spots Allan assisted. When she was clean he helped her into her clothes and then he walked back down to the water to rinse the shirt out once more. This time he rung the shirt out to remove all the excess water and when he returned he draped the shirt over the bike to allow it to dry out. He looked at Jennifer and saw that she had one hand holding the baby as he fed and her other hand was pressed against the small of her back. Jennifer looked up and saw him looking at her.

“What I wouldn’t give for a bed right about now. A chair, a stool, anything.” She said. “My back really hurts.”

Allan looked around and saw that the base of one of the big oak trees only had a few small shrubs under it. He pointed to the spot, “If I can clean out those bushes I could lean against the tree and you could sit in my lap and lean against me.” He suggested.

“We could try it.” She replied.

Allan went to work cutting the undergrowth around the base of the tree with the pocket knife. As he cleared the small bushes he began to see the bridge in the distance through the leaves and he wondered what the scene down at the water was like now. He wondered how many people had made it out alive and he prayed for those who had perished. He could still see people moving about down near the water and when the wind blew just right it would carry their sounds towards them and he could hear muffled shouting. He thought how if the circumstances had been any different he would have gladly taken part in a rescue effort, and though he knew that he was not going to leave his wife and child, his mind still questioned if he should be doing more to help.

Should I be down there helping those people at the bridge? There might be people down there who need my help, who need me to save them like I helped save the young man who was trapped under the car the other day. Jennifer is fine. She can manage the baby. He thought. No. I can’t leave them alone. I promised her I wouldn’t leave her and especially not now with the baby here. My place is here with them.

He dismissed the thoughts of helping at the bridge and continued working to clear the base of the tree and soon he had created a clearing that was big enough for them to sit in and he sat down and leaned against the tree. The bark of the old tree was jagged and it dug into the bare skin on his back but he ignored the discomfort and extended his hands out and carefully lowered Jennifer and their infant son down into his lap. She wiggled into a comfortable spot and he gently wrapped his arms around her to help her support the weight of the baby. Jennifer buried her head into his shoulder and the baby resumed nursing.

“I’m sorry.” Allan said.

“What are you sorry for?”

“Sorry that this all happened here. I feel like I caused it.”

Jennifer lifted her head with confusion and then she remembered her words that he had been a little rough on her the night before. “What was meant to happen, happened. Now we have beautiful baby boy to introduce to Samantha when we get home.” She said.

“That reminds me.” Allan said. “When we introduce him to Samantha what are we going to tell her his name is?”

“Oh my God. I forgot all about his name. I had so many names picked out in my head before.” She paused as she forced her mind to remember and finally she let a chuckle in disbelief at her lack of memory. “Now I can’t seem to remember any of them. What are we going to name him?”

“Well, we could wait and discuss that with Samantha and see what she thinks.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea, just as long as we get the final say. I don’t want her picking a name like Booger and that become his name.” She chuckled. The baby let out a tiny whimper in objection to the movement of her laughter and Jennifer began to gently rock him in her arms while making shushing sounds. Soon the tiny infant was fast asleep.

“What are we going to do about diapers while we’re on the road?” She whispered.

The thought had never crossed Allan’s mind. “I guess we’ll have to use my catch-all undershirt.” He replied and he regretted taking off the towel that had been wrapped around his leg back at the bike warehouse. “The towel would have been great if we still had it.”

“Why did you take it off again?”

“Because it got in the way when I was trying to pedal the bike.”

“You should have handed it to me. It would have really come in handy now.”

“Hindsight is 20/20.”

“Yes it is, but we have to start thinking more resourcefully. We can’t afford to just discard things like that anymore.”

Allan nodded his head in agreement. He imagined all the things that he had tossed away in the trash back home just within the last week. He figured that the majority of the items in their trashcan could be repurposed somehow and he marveled at how wasteful they and everyone else was in modern society.

“At least we’re making good use of my undershirt.” He smiled.

“That shirt has been through hell.” She said and then she paused to think and after a moment she spoke again. “What are we going to do after the baby soils the shirt and we’re away from the lake and we can’t wash it out?”

“Well, we’re getting close to the rural farmlands. We can rinse it out in a pond I guess.”

Terrifying images of getting shot at by an angry farmer for trespassing passed through his mind but he neglected to mention that danger to his wife. His response seemed to settle her immediate concern but her mind continued racing. After a few moments she whispered again, “You’re going to get so sunburnt without a shirt on.”

“I have a plan for that. Just wait until tomorrow when we leave and you’ll see.”

Jennifer sat up surprised. “We’re staying here until tomorrow?” The baby let out another tiny whimper.

“That’s what I figured.” Allan replied.

“But I want to get going. I’m ready to get home.” She objected.

“I think it would be smart for you and the baby to rest at least one night before we start off on the long trip home.”

She remained sitting upright, her body ridged as she thought for a way to protest, yet the only verbal objection that came out was from the baby who began to cry in disapproval of the sudden change of position. Allan reached his arms out and pulled the two of them back against his chest and he began making shushing sounds like Jennifer had done. Soon they were all asleep under the shade of the tall oak tree.

Allan dreamed that he was pedaling the bike over the bridge on the lake. He steered around a burnt up car and began to pass through the thick column of smoke where the airplane had crashed into the bridge. The heat was unbearable and he leaned his body as far from the fire as possible but he could not escape the inferno. He turned his back against the heat and the flames licked his flesh and his skin began to boil. Suddenly the fire turned into an army of ants that had crawled onto his body and had assembled upon his back waiting for their signal to bite into his burnt flesh all at once. When the ants bit down Allan ratcheted in pain and he began to swat at the ants that were tearing into his flesh but he could not get the creatures off his back and it felt that the more he swatted the harder they bit down. Somewhere out there in his dream he heard a distant voice calling his name but the insects would not stop biting him and he could not fend them off.

“Stop Allan.” The voice said but he could not obey the command. He felt a force grab his hands and he could no longer swat at the ants because now something was holding him down. He tried with all his might but the ants took over and they were crawling everywhere on his body.

“Allan!” The voice pulled him out of his dream and he opened his eyes. It was late afternoon and Jennifer was kneeling next to him with the baby in her arms and Allan leapt to his feet and began swatting at his back.

“There’s ants! There’s ants!” He screamed.

Jennifer looked at his back and saw nothing. “There’s no ants.” She looked closer and noticed that there were big red indentions covering the entire surface of his back. “Come closer and let me see.” She said.

He knelt down, still swatting at the invisible ants on his back as she inspected a line of puncture marks in his skin. She looked back where he had been sleeping and noticed that the jagged bark on the tree matched up perfectly with the indentions in his flesh. “It’s the tree bark. It was hurting your skin.” She said. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

Allan felt embarrassed about his dream and the way he had acted. “I figured you had gone through so much pain, I could handle a little discomfort.” He said. “I guess I couldn’t handle it after all.”

“You’ll be ok.” She said as she rubbed the marks on his back. “You have been absolutely wonderful. I couldn’t have done any of this without you. You helped us make it this far. You found the bike. You helped me deliver our son. You’ve gotten us through so much these past few days and I am absolutely grateful that you are my husband.”

He smiled at her and leaned in to give her a kiss while trying not to disturb the baby in her arms. She was right. Allan had done things over past few days that he never imagined that he was capable of doing, yet despite the good feeling that it gave him to listen to his wife’s praises, he felt a sudden sense of dread as he wondered what obstacles and challenges might lie ahead.

He felt his stomach growl and he stood and reached into the bike trailer and retrieved the last of the snack food that they had scavenged from the vending machine back at the bicycle warehouse. He knelt down beside Jennifer and they shared the tiny meal and he made sure that she got the most to eat as she was still eating for two people. When the food was gone they were both still very hungry and Allan wadded up the wrappers and buried them under some of the railroad rocks so that they wouldn’t remind them of food again. He picked up one of the rocks and threw it out into the water and he watched it skip several times before it finally sunk down below the surface. Despite the chaos that was still happening a few hundred feet away Allan thought how peaceful it was where he stood.

“It would be nice if Samantha were here right now.” He said.

“And I wish my mom was here to see her new grandson.” Jennifer replied.

“I use to hate going to your mom’s house.” Allan admitted.

“I know you did.” Jennifer said. Allan turned to her as if he had just been read like a book.

“How did you know?”

“I saw the way you turned your nose every time you walked into her house.”

“Do you think Ellie ever noticed?”

“I’m sure she did. You made it pretty obvious.”

“What I wouldn’t give to be there right now sitting in front of her wonderful food. I’d tell her a thousand times how grateful I am for her cooking and I’d lap the food up as if it was the greatest meal ever.”

“When we get home, you can do just that.”

They lay on the dirt under the tree with their stomachs half full from the last ration of snack food. It was evening now and the sun had already set in the west. They both wanted to press on but they each knew that Jennifer and the baby needed to rest, at least until morning. The last thought that ran though Allan’s mind was that if he could just fall asleep the night would be over sooner. Their bodies were so exhausted that the three of them slept until the sun rose again on the eastern horizon over the city of Rockwall.

Chapter 17: Confrontation

The next morning Allan and Jennifer went down to the water and drank until their stomachs were full. As he knelt by the water’s edge Allan scooped handfuls of mud and smeared it across the pale skin of his bare shoulders and chest. Then he placed a dab of mud upon his cheeks and nose. He looked like a lake monster as he rose from the waterside and walked back to their makeshift campsite.

“What the heck are you doing?” Jennifer asked with bewilderment at his appearance.

“You said I was going to get sun burnt without my shirt on. This is my solution to that.”

“Smearing mud all over yourself is your solution?”

“I saw a man with mud on his head yesterday. He was using the mud to protect his bald spot from the sun. If it can work for him then it should work for me.” Allan said.

He urinated on the tree whose bark had given him the nightmares the previous afternoon and then they stepped out from the cover of the trees beside the railroad track and looked out over the highway towards the collapsed bridge. Jennifer put her hand over her mouth and gasped, “Oh my God.” It was as if she had just realized what had happened at the bridge. “I was so focused on the baby, I didn’t know the whole bridge was gone. Were people hurt?”

“Yes.” Allan replied without elaboration.

“How are we going to get across?”

“We’ll have to detour around through the city of Rowlett or south through the city of Heath, but I think Rowlett will be the fastest route.”

“We’ll follow you whichever way you decide.” Jennifer said.

Allan pushed the bicycle rig as they walked back and followed the railroad tracks until they intersected with Dalrock Road. There Allan assisted Jennifer and the baby into the bicycle trailer and he took off pedaling north for the two and a half mile detour. The majority of the buildings and houses beside the roadway had been burned to the ground and entire neighborhoods lay in ruins. When they reached Lakeview Parkway they turned east on the old highway 66. Stalled traffic was thick at the intersection at the turn into the Lake Pointe Medical center and Allan had to dismount off the bike in order to navigate around all the cars on the road. He noticed that the medical facility nearby appeared to have been spared from the raging fires and they could see a large swarm of people moving about in the hospital parking lot.

Allan stopped, “Do you want to go over to the hospital and see about getting you and the baby checked out?”

Jennifer stared into the direction of the hospital as she contemplated her decision. She looked down at her baby who was asleep on her chest and she rubbed her index finger across his cheek. “Let’s keep going.” She said as she looked up at Allan hoping that he would agree.

Her response reassured Allan that his passengers were doing well and so he set off pedaling onwards down the highway. A little further ahead was the old highway 66 bridge that crossed over Lake Ray Hubbard. There was heavy foot traffic on the bridge as it appeared that everyone in the area had gotten word that the I-30 bridges were now impassable and everyone was detouring on the highway 66 bridges instead. Allan looked out and saw what looked like a sea of people crossing over the dual bridges and it reminded him of the New York blackout of 2003 and all the people who had taken to walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. He remembered that during that blackout some 10 million people were without power and how huge a news story it was for days and weeks afterwards. The news showed pictures of masses of people walking out of New York City and there was even a satellite photo of the Earth that showed the effects of the blackout. Allan wondered what a picture of the Earth would look like now. Would it be black due to the lack of electricity or would the fires that raged on seemingly everywhere light up the world, if only temporary until eventually the fires burned out. He wondered if the news stations could report on the event, what would their pictures and videos look like with over 300 million people pouring out of all the cities across the country if indeed the disaster was as widespread as it appeared? There was also another thought which filled Allan with a bit of hope. What if this event is just like that 2003 New York blackout, where as terrible as things are in and around Dallas, perhaps it is just a local event. Perhaps things are just fine in other parts of the country. The fact was he could not know, not yet at least, but he realized that if it was only a localized disaster that help should have already arrived and he realized that the longer that it took to find out just how big the disaster was, the larger the disaster would be.

He looked out across the bridges and he was thankful that both bridges were intact across their entire spans but unfortunately he would be unable to pedal the bike across the two mile stretch due to the heavy foot traffic amongst all the stalled cars on the road deck. As he began to walk while pushing the bike beside him he accidentally ran into a couple of people with the extended wheels of the bike trailer. Those that he bumped into gave him dirty looks until they looked down and saw the precious cargo inside and they all gave smiles of forgiveness to Allan. As he reached the end of the bridge the foot traffic spread out and he was able to climb back on the bike and he began pedaling up the big hill that let into downtown Rockwall. The bike crept upwards in the highest gear available but the only thing that seemed to be moving were Allan’s legs as he pumped the pedals as fast as he could.

Finally they reached the crest of the big hill and Allan stopped and panted for breath and he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked around at the downtown Rockwall area and it looked almost unrecognizable to him. Before the blast when he use to pass through Rockwall, the buildings, although never very tall and towering, always seemed to blanket the area with a classy upscale atmosphere. Now, the majority of the buildings in the area were in blackened piles of ruin. Even the police station nearby had not escaped the fires and there was something about the charred mounds of debris that made Allan feel uncomfortable. All of the buildings in the downtown area had been built close to the roadway and Allan considered how easy it would be for someone to hide behind the smoldering piles and attack them as they pedaled by. He felt that the sooner that they could get out of the area, the better.

Allan turned to Jennifer, “Do you want to keep following highway 66 or do you want to make our way back to I-30? Both roads will take us home.”

“What do you prefer?” Her response effectively made it his decision.

“Well, highway 66 goes through a lot of downtown areas; Rockwall, Fate, Royce City, Caddo Mills. I’d prefer to avoid the downtowns if at all possible. Plus we’ve had pretty good luck on the interstate so far.” The last part of his statement reflected his discomfort with being so close to all the burnt up buildings beside them. At least on the interstate all the buildings were always on the far side of the service roads.

He didn’t wait for her response and instead began pedaling down South Goliad Street to get back to the interstate. The street was on a steep downgrade and Allan was able to pick up a considerable amount of speed. He was enjoying the cool wind that was blowing across his face when he suddenly drove over a rough spot in the road which caused the bike trailer to bounce and the baby inside let out a cry to show his disapproval of their high rate of speed. Allan gripped the hand brakes for their first real test since they had set out from the bike warehouse but he had not set the brakes properly when he assembled the bike because neither the front nor the rear brakes took hold. The bike rounded a corner near the bottom of the hill and Allan saw that immediately in front of them there was a cluster of stalled cars that had stopped on the road in an unusual manner that seemed the block the entire roadway.

“Slow down!” Jennifer screamed at him from behind.

“I’m trying! He yelled back as he put out both feet and slid them along the pavement in a last ditch effort to slow their high rate of speed. He looked at the cars ahead and saw that on each side of the roadway there were rocky embankments and he realized that to try to steer around the line of cars would spell doom for them. His thoughts raced in unison with their high rate of speed. Why are the cars lined up like that? Why hasn’t anyone moved them out of the way already?

His only hope was to stop the bike before they crashed into the cars. He dug his feet hard into the pavement and he could feel the linings of his shoes become hot due to the friction against the road surface. Suddenly the outer sole on his right foot ripped apart and folded under itself and the heat against his foot became tremendous without its rubber heat shield. Finally the bike began to grind to a halt but not quite enough to prevent the front tire of the bike from slamming into the side door of one of the parked cars. When the tire made its impact the bike stopped with a thud and the bike trailer behind it heaved up into the air and it jackknifed causing the hitch of the trailer to swing around and dig hard into the side of Allan’s already injured leg. Jennifer screamed profanities and the baby screamed an enormous wail from his tiny lungs. Allan freed his leg and limped off the bike and quickly unzipped the cover of the trailer. By then Jennifer had stopped spewing profanities and was checking the baby for injuries. She handed the baby to Allan and he looked the infant over but he did not see anything visually wrong with him. He began rocking the baby over his shoulder and the boy’s mammoth cries receded into tiny whimpers.

“You think he’s ok?” Jennifer asked.

“Yeah, I think he just got a little scared.” Allan replied.

Jennifer stepped out of the trailer and examined her own body for injuries but found none. Her concern quickly turned back into anger. “Why the hell were you going so fast?”

“I didn’t mean to. The brakes failed and there was no way around all these damn cars lined up on the road.”

He handed the baby to Jennifer and knelt down to look over the bike and inspected the front wheel where it had slammed into the car. As he stood up to tell Jennifer that the front wheel did not look too terribly bent he saw a tall dark man standing behind her with a pistol pointed at them. Jennifer saw the frightened expression on Allan’s face and she turned and saw the man and shrieked.

“Step back from the bike.” The tall gunman demanded. He was wearing a red bandana and his shirt sleeves had been torn off to reveal prison style tattoos that created sleeves of ink that ran from his shoulders down to his wrists. Allan noticed that the man’s hands were blackened like the charred remains of the burnt up buildings around town as if the man had been rummaging around in the ruins or perhaps he was the one responsible for setting some of the fires himself. Allan realized that both he and Jennifer had just been standing there in shock instead of following the man’s command and images of the gunman shooting down the driver of the old Bel Air car just days before flashed through his mind.

“Do what he says Jennifer.” Allan said and he immediately regretted using her real name.

“Yeah Jennifer, do what I say.” The tall gunman tormented.

They backed up and Allan bumped into another tall man who was standing right behind them holding a shotgun. The second gunman had similar dark stains on his hands and he was also wearing a red bandanna on his head. Suddenly three more men appeared behind the first gunman, each wielding what appeared to be assault rifles. The last three men were shorter than the first two and all of them had filthy, tattered clothes.

Allan glanced at the cars in the road and he suddenly realized that they had not stalled out in a line on the roadway like that on their own. The cars had been deliberately setup like that in order to form a barricade.

“Why you going so fast fo?” The first gunman who was the apparent leader of the group said as he leaned down to inspect the car that Allan had slammed into. “God-damn. You scratched my damn car.”

“I’m sorry, the brakes on my bike failed.” Allan apologized knowing that his words meant nothing to the gunman.

“I knows that. I saw you slidin’ yo damn feet. That shit was funny as hell.” The leader said and the rest of the gang members behind him chuckled in unison. “You see, most people come through here, they gotta pay a toll. These cars are my tollbooth. We accept all forms of payment. Sometimes we might accept a watch, sometimes a piece of jewelry, whatever I deem appropriate. Call it a fee fo’ using my roadway. See, I don’t know if you noticed, but the police station, well, they ain’t got a police station no mo’.” The leader paused and stretched out his arms wide as if showing the full expanse of his domain, “This here is now my roadway. And yous’ was just speedin on my roadway.” He put his hand on his chin as if contemplating an important decision. “Now I’m gonna have to issue yous’ a ticket for speedin’ on my roadway.” He walked closer to Jennifer with a strut. “Yo’ fee for speedin’ is going to be this fine, beautiful, sexy…” The gunman paused and leaned in close and sniffed Jennifer’s hair. Allan’s blood boiled and the other gunmen watched on in anticipation of what their leader’s next words might be. The lead gunman leaned in even closer to the back of Jennifer’s neck and as he stood towering over her he glanced down at her chest. For a brief moment Allan saw the expression on the leader’s face change. When the gunman looked to peer down at Jennifer’s breasts he instead saw the infant baby in her arms and the look on the man’s face turned from lust into an expression that Allan could only describe as compassion. It was as if seeing the tiny baby resting in his mother’s arms reminded the gunman of something or someone in his past, a time before the blast had changed everything. The lead gunman apparently shrugged his memories aside and backed away from Jennifer and continued strutting around with his hand placed back on his chin as if still in deep thought. “Yo’ fee is going to be that bike. You give me the bike, we let you go free.” The rest of his men let out grunts of disapproval for their leader’s decision.

Neither Allan nor Jennifer objected to the gang’s demands and instead turned and crossed through the barricade of cars and walked as fast as they could to get away from the area. As they walked on they passed a few people walking in the opposite direction toward the barricade and they warned them of the danger ahead and pleaded with the people to turn around. Most thanked them for the warning and stopped and headed in a different way. Still others proceeded on down the road towards the barricade without giving their words of caution any consideration. All of those that proceeded toward the direction of the barricade seemed to have long blank stares and the consequences of being robbed by the gang did not seem to concern them.

Chapter 18: The Pond

After a short time they walked under the overpass of I-30 and South Goliad Street and they walked up the eastbound on-ramp to enter the interstate again. With each step the broken sole of Allan’s right shoe made loud flapping noises and occasionally the shoe would bind up against the rough pavement causing Allan to trip.

“That’s not annoying at all.” He said sarcastically as he caught himself once more before falling over his broken shoe.

“It sounds like you’re wearing flip flops.” Jennifer teased.

“Flip flops would be better than this.” He sighed and then he changed the topic. “I’m sorry for losing the bike.”

“There’s nothing you could have done. Those men were setup in a perfect spot to ambush us. Stealing the bike wasn’t the worst thing they could have done.”

“Maybe it’s for the better. I always felt like we had a big target on our backs while we were riding the bike.” Allan admitted. “I think we were bound to cross paths with a situation like that sooner or later.”

“What do you think of the people that didn’t heed our warning about the barricade?”

“I think those people are desperate. They are apparently willing to do anything and face any danger at this point.”

“I can only imagine what they have been through or what they have seen to cause them to just walk straight on into harm’s way like that without giving it a second thought.”

“I fear that the longer we’re out here on the road, the worse it’s going to get.”

After walking along the interstate for a while Allan began to feel his bowels rumble for the first time in days. He remembered a friend from back in high school who had joined the Marines right after graduation. His friend had told him a story about the first couple of weeks of basic training about how no one in the entire boot camp had any bowel movements. His friend said that the rumor among the Marines was that the instructors put something in the food to keep new recruits from crapping on themselves under the intense pressures of boot camp. At the time, Allan believed the story, but now that his body was constipated after the events of the past few days he realized that it was the physical and emotional stresses themselves that messed with those new recruits bowel schedules.

“I’ve got to poop.” Allan announced.

“Well, go.” Jennifer replied.

“I need you to come with me.”

“What, you need me to hold your hand to help you crap? I don’t think so.”

Allan chuckled. “I don’t need you to hold my hand, but I do need you to be nearby. I don’t want us leaving each other’s sides anymore.”

Jennifer sighed and reluctantly agreed to go with him. They stepped off the pavement and headed towards a cluster of trees on the other side of the service road. Allan unzipped his pants but before he squatted down he noticed that Jennifer was staring at him with her arms crossed.

“Don’t look.” He said.

“You were the one who wanted me to come with you.”

“Yeah, but don’t watch me. Watch the highway instead.” He replied and he leaned out over her shoulder and asked for reassurance, “Is anyone coming?”

“I don’t think anyone’s interested in you taking a crap if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Allan sighed and squatted down next to one of the trees and began to relieve himself.

“Someone’s coming!” Jennifer yelled. Allan just about fell over himself trying to get to his feet as Jennifer burst out laughing. “False alarm.” She laughed.

“Not funny.” He replied and he picked up a nearby stick and threw it at her. Jennifer checked her leg where the stick had struck her.

“There better not have been poop on that stick.” She warned.

“I hope there was.” Allan replied matter-of-factly.

Jennifer looked back down at him and began to giggle again. “You really thought someone was coming to get you.”

“No I didn’t.” Yes he did. Being attacked while he was in the middle of taking a crap was always one of his worst fears. He always felt that it was when he was the most vulnerable. As he squatted there on the side of the interstate he began to notice the foul odor emitting from the ground beneath him. A breeze picked up and Jennifer raised her hand to cover her nose.

"That's awful. You should have let me stay on the highway." She said with a nasal tone with her hand covering her nose.

"And leave you there so more thugs can come and attack you? I'd rather you smell my crap. It’s just a small price to pay." He grinned up at her.

"Gee, thanks for the consideration." She said.

"You’re welcome." He replied as he tore at some grass near his feet and began to wipe his rear end. As he reached into the grass to grab another clump he discovered a small tin bowl that was half buried in the dirt. After he cleaned himself as best as he could with the grass he knelt down to inspect the bowl. “Hey, I found something that we might be able to put water in.”

Jennifer was too disgusted from the odors still wafting through the air to appreciate his discovery. The bowl was about the size of a large coffee cup and Allan figured the container would hold at least a couple cups of water. He began to dig his fingers around the perimeter of the bowl in order to free it from the hard soil.

As his fingers dug into the ground Jennifer sighed, “Just leave it and let’s go.”

The bowl was wedged too hard in the dirt and Allan’s fingers were starting to hurt when he became frustrated and gave up trying to retrieve it and he stood up and they turned back towards the road. As they were walking back to the interstate Jennifer noticed something odd about the power lines that hung above them. They were not as taught as normal power lines would appear and they seemed to sag as if most of the tension had been let out of them.

“Why are the power lines droopy?” She asked. Allan looked up wondering what in the world she was talking about. When he looked up and saw the power lines he realized that there was, in fact, something wrong with them. They were all sagging much lower than they normally would and they had a bit of a melted appearance about them. Even the transformers that sat atop the power poles that were normally white were now dark brown and black in places as if they had gotten extremely hot and burnt up. “What do you think happened?” Jennifer asked.

Allan looked ahead and saw that all of the power lines looked the same. He stopped and looked back from where they had just walked and although he hadn’t noticed it before, the power lines behind them looked burnt up and saggy too. “Some kind of effect from the blast I guess.” Allan replied. “It’s almost like there was an enormous surge of power and the lines couldn’t handle it and they burnt up just like the wires in all the cars.”

“If whatever caused this blast can melt power lines like that then the blast…” She paused as she tried to find the right words. “…is much worse than everyone thinks.”

She was right. Allan could imagine the delicate electronics in the cars getting burnt up, but these were high voltage power lines that were designed to handle high electrical current. Whatever caused the blast was on a much larger scale than even he could imagine.

They continued walking and they took turns carrying the baby and once they crossed out of the Rockwall area Jennifer handed him over to Allan once again. When he took the baby into his arms Allan immediately smelled the odor of a dirty diaper-shirt.

“I think he pooped.” Allan announced.

Jennifer pulled the shirt aside to inspect its contents and confirmed Allan’s suspicions. “What now?” She asked.

Allan looked at the fields on either side of the interstate but he did not see any bodies of water nearby. “We’ll have to keep walking until we find a pond or something to wash the shirt out in.”

They walked on and soon they came upon a pasture on the side of the road that had a cluster of trees in the middle of the field. Allan could not see water from his vantage point but he knew from fishing rural stock ponds as a teenager that where there was a cluster of trees in the middle of a field like that it usually meant that there was water nearby. They stepped off the roadway and Allan ducked between two strands of the rusty barbed wire fence that ran parallel to the highway. Jennifer handed Allan the baby and he used his free hand and a foot to pry the fence open for Jennifer to cross through and once she was on the other side she took the baby from him.

As they walked across the field they both felt terrified that the owner of the land might see them and order them off his land or worse, shoot them for trespassing.

As they approached the thick cluster of trees Allan peered in between the mesh of branches and leaves and he was pleased to find that there was indeed a pond hidden between the trees. He moved some of the low lying tree branches out of the way just enough to step closer to the edge of the water as a frightened frog let out a croak and splashed into the water. That reminded Allan to look around and check the area for snakes or other critters that might like to hang out in the cool shade beside the pond. He surveyed the area and saw nothing besides a few dragonflies hovering near the surface of the water. He reached his hand to help Jennifer join him and she took a careful step up to the pond bank. When she got beside him she stopped with a frightened look on her face. Allan spun around expecting to see a snake slithering amongst one of the tree branches but there was nothing there and he turned back to look at Jennifer with a what-the-hell expression on his face.

“You’re standing right in the middle of poison ivy.” She said stepping back into the clearing of the pasture.

Allan turned around and looked at the bushes that he was leaning against. The plants looked like vines with three sets of leaves protruding off the stem. Although Jennifer was clearly alarmed he really didn’t see the harm. When he was younger he had gotten into a patch of poison ivy at his grandfather’s farm but his skin had not broken out and so he never put much thought into trying to identify the plant or staying out of it.

“I’m not allergic to it.” He said as he shrugged his shoulders to dismiss her concerns.

“Most people who aren’t allergic to it end up becoming allergic later in life.” Jennifer cautioned.

“I’ll be fine.”

Jennifer gave him a suit-yourself look and unwrapped the infant out of his swaddling shirt and carefully handed the shirt to Allan while trying not to come in contact with his skin. Allan leaned down and held the soiled fabric near the water.

“Wait.” Jennifer said just as he was about to dip it in the water. “Do you think we could take a drink of the water before you wash your shirt out? I’m so thirsty.”

Allan was pleased with Jennifer’s forethought to get a drink before washing the soiled shirt out, but the pond water looked stagnant. At most of the stock ponds that he remembered fishing at when he was younger there were always muddy open areas lining the pond banks with deep hoof prints littering the spot where livestock would go to drink. This particular pond had no such open areas but was instead completely overgrown with trees all the way around it. He looked up the slope that fed rainwater runoff into the pond and he noticed grey mounds of cow manure spread out across the field. There was obviously livestock in the pasture at one point but there were no signs that they actually drank from the pond.

Allan pointed to the manure mounds uphill, “See all that cow crap in the field? All that runs right down into this pond but it doesn’t look like the cows even drink from this water. I don’t think it would be safe for us to drink from this water either.”

“What if we filtered the water with my shirt?” Jennifer asked.

“I don’t think that would work. I think your shirt is too porous and would still let bacteria or viruses or whatever through. “

“We could try boiling it. What about that container that you found in the ditch when you were pooping?”

“You really want to backtrack to get that bowl to boil this nasty water in? What if when we get it out of the hard ground we find that it is rusted with holes on the other side? Never mind how we’re actually going to build a fire in the first place?”

Jennifer put her hand on her chin as she always did when she was thinking something over, “I guess you could work on building the fire first. If it works then we can go back and get the bowl.”

“What do you mean, I can build the fire? How? By rubbing two sticks together? I don’t know anything about making primitive fires.”

Jennifer smiled, "Cavemen were able to do it. Why can’t you?" She leaned in close to give him a playful nudge but she remembered that he was contaminated with poison ivy and she stopped herself before coming in contact with him.

"Well I guess I could give it a try." Allan said and he began to look around to find some sticks to use. When he had found what he was looking for amongst the trees and he arranged the sticks into a pile on the pond bank and when he was finished he stopped and stared at the arrangement.

"You don't know what you're doing, do you?" Jennifer asked.

"Not really. I've never made a fire from just sticks before. I can't decide if I'm supposed to twist the sticks between my hands or rub them together or what?"

"You should do what Tom Hanks did in the movie Cast Away."

"The air got to it!" Allan shouted, startling Jennifer and she looked at him like he was crazy. "That's what he said when he made the fire."

“Oh I got the movie reference just fine.” Jennifer giggled.

Allan looked around the trees some more and found a piece of wood that had a similar crack in it to let the air in like what was in the movie to use as a base. He found another stick that was straight enough to use to rub the two pieces of wood together to hopefully generate enough friction to create an ember. He began rubbing the pieces of wood vigorously at first but his arms quickly grew tired and his pace slowed. No smoke was produced after 10 minutes of the vigorous rubbing and he lifted the piece of wood in his hand to see if it was hot. Although the tip of the stick was warm it was nowhere near hot enough to create an ember. He tried again for a few more minutes but the results were the same and when he checked for an ember a second time and discovered that there was none he tossed the pieces of wood into the water in frustration.

"Maybe the wood was too damp?" Jennifer suggested, seeing that her husband was aggravated.

Allan looked back at the pieces of wood that were floating in the water. "Well if they weren’t too wet before they sure as hell are now." He sighed.

Jennifer smiled to show her appreciation that Allan had at least tried, though seeing the sticks floating in the water made her realize the gravity of their situation. She was terribly thirsty and she desperately needed to hydrate herself for the sake of both her and her baby. She took her shirt off and gave it to Allan with instructions to dip it into the water. Allan looked at the shirt and noticed how the pristine the new clothes that she had put on to go to the mall just a few days ago now looked haggard and dirty. He looked at her and saw that her bra had faded from pure white to a dingy gray and her pants were smeared with all the stains absorbed from their journey. Her body looked much thinner than before and he wondered if it was because her abdomen was beginning to return back to normal after having the baby or if it was her lack of nutrition and all the exercise over the past few days. He realized that it was a combination of both and he yearned to get her home quickly so that she could care for and nurture her body in the way a nursing mother should do.

He leaned down and dipped her shirt into the water and gave it back to her without asking why. He expected that she was going to use the wet rag to dab against the baby's skin to give him a sponge bath but instead she raised the wet shirt high above her head and she squeezed it and let the water trickle down into her mouth.

"What are you doing!" Allan exclaimed. Jennifer did not acknowledge his question but instead kept drinking. “What about bacteria or viruses in the water?” He asked flabbergasted.

Jennifer finished wringing out the last drops of water from the shirt and she looked back at him. “Well, hopefully the shirt helped to filter some of that out. If not, well, I have to drink and like you said back at the lake, if I get sick then we’ll just have to deal with that later.”

Allan wanted to yell at her and remind her that the pond was full of stagnant water with runoff collected from a field that was littered with cow manure but then what did he know? Who was to say that the water back at the lake was any cleaner than the pond water? With all the residential houses and businesses that surrounded Lake Ray Hubbard there was no telling what contaminants and pesticides had leaked into the lake water that they had drank from earlier. The fact that there was no indication that any livestock drank from the pond still concerned him, however the pond water was already in her system and there was nothing that he could do about that now. She reached out and handed him her shirt.

“You want more?” He asked.

“I don’t, but I thought you might want to use the shirt to get a drink too.”

Allan looked at the water and saw another dragonfly circling above and then he looked back at the shirt. “I’ll pass. I think we took a big enough risk drinking from the lake. I don’t want to risk both of us getting sick any more than we have to.”

“Ok, that’s fine, but will you do me a favor and wash your arms off where you touched the poison ivy?”

“I told you I’m not allergic to it.”

“The poison ivy oils will stay on your skin for a long time unless you wash it off. You may not be allergic to it but the baby might be. I don’t want to expose him to that the next time you go to hold him.”

Allan hadn’t thought about transferring the poisons on his skin to his son. He had to start thinking that there were three of them now rather than just Jennifer and himself. He turned and dipped his hands into the water and, taking a page out of Jennifer’s playbook, came up with a handful of muddy goo and he scrubbed his arms and then rinsed them off in the water. When he was satisfied that the contaminants were gone from his skin he picked up the soiled swaddling shirt and rinsed it out. When the shirt was as clean as it was going to get he rung it out to remove all the excess water.

Allan stood up and looked at the two wet shirts in his hands. “Great, now we don’t have anything to wrap the baby in.” He sighed.

“I’ll hold him against my chest. He’ll be fine. It’s too hot out now to wrap him up anyways.”

“So you’re just going to walk around in just your bra?”

“I’m going to walk home carrying our son.” She said with strong resolve in her voice. The firmness of her words let him know that the clothes on her back were the least of her concerns.

“Well if we’re both going shirtless then we both ought to cover our skin with mud.” Allan suggested and Jennifer nodded in agreement.

He smeared the mud over their exposed skin and he even dabbed a dot of the brown goo on his son’s nose so that he wouldn’t feel left out. He tied his damp undershirt around his head and then tied Jennifer’s wet shirt around her head to help keep them cool and to help expose the shirts to as much sunlight as possible to help dry them out. Jennifer held the naked baby against her bosom that was covered only by her dingy bra and they walked back across the pasture and crossed through the rusty barbed wire fence and returned to the interstate.

Chapter 19: The Barricade

When they reached Royse City they began to notice a large number of people walking westward. Allan felt the shirts that were wrapped on their heads and he noticed that they were pretty much dry and he asked Jennifer to put hers on since there were more people on the roadway and as she did so he removed the shirt that was on his head and wrapped the baby back up inside. There were even people walking westward on the eastbound lanes, which was unusual given that most people up to that point had used the correct car lane for their given direction of travel. As they crossed through the small rural town and reached the top of the Farm Market Road 35 overpass they saw that a crowd of people had gathered up ahead at the top of a hill near the Hunt County line. As they approached the crowd of people they could see that a line of cars and trucks had been setup in the form of a barricade similar to what they had encountered by the armed gang back in downtown Rockwall, but this particular barrier of cars was much larger and it stretched almost 300 feet across the double lanes of the eastbound and westbound roadways as well as over both grassy medians and across the service roads on either side. Between the barricade line there appeared to be chain link fencing setup that stretched across the medians which connected to the old barbed wire farm fences that ran parallel to the interstate. They could see men holding rifles in front of the cars. Some of the men were dressed in military style camouflage and others were wearing regular street clothes. The gunmen were directing people into lines and maintaining what looked like an assemblance of order. Behind the barricade they could see the silhouettes of more men nestled between the cars with what looked like gun turrets mounted in front of them.

"Do you think they are good guys or bad guys?" Jennifer asked as she looked nervously at the massive barrier in front of them. As they got closer they could see that there was razor wire installed along the top of the chain link fences that ran between the two service roads.

"These guys look much more professional than the criminal gang that we encountered back in Rockwall. This looks a police or military barricade of some kind." Allan replied.

"I don't see any police cars."

"I imagine the police cars were just as affected by the blast as everything else."

They reached the mass of people that had gathered at the line of cars and they looked around curiously.

A man who was holding a rifle noticed the confused looks on their faces and said loudly, "If you live in Hunt County form a line here in front of Officer Smith. If you live east of Hunt County and will only be traveling through, form a line here in front of Officer Jones. If you live elsewhere or have special circumstances form a line in front of me."

Allan and Jennifer looked at one another curiously and then they stepped into the line for residents that lived in Hunt County which was the county that their home in Greenville lied within. There was a man at the front of the line who was looking carefully at various papers that people were handing him and then the man would look intently at the person's face and then back at the papers in his hand as if questioning the document’s authenticity. When the man was apparently satisfied with what had been presented to him he motioned for another man who was not carrying a firearm to escort the people around the barricade so that they could carry on about their way.

"They're checking IDs" Allan said.

"Ours got stolen by those assholes who took my backpack with my purse inside." Jennifer replied.

"I hope he'll accept that as an excuse and let us through."

They waited in the line with anticipation for their turn for over an hour. Finally when they were next in line to be identified they stepped up to the officer and began to explain their situation.

"We live in Greenville and my wife had her purse stolen the other day." Allan began.

The officer held out his hand, "Photo ID or other proof of residence."

"I just told you we don't have that. My wife's purse was stolen."

"You don't have your wallet either?"

"My wallet was inside my wife's purse. It was easier to carry everything together that way."

The officer gave him a suspicious look and Allan took it as an indication that he needed to explain himself further. "Look, we live at 1405 Glencrest Road. We've lived there for the past 5 years..."

"Special circumstances line." The officer interrupted pointing in the direction of the third line among the cluster of people gathered in front of the barricade. Allan looked at the line of people and saw that it was nearly twice as long as the line that they had been in and he knew that it would take hours just to be seen by another officer.

"But sir, we..."

"Next person in line please." The officer interrupted again, this time lifting his rifle off of his hip and raising it to his chest to indicate to Allan to fall in line or else. Allan and Jennifer stepped aside and Allan scanned the barricade line hoping to find a familiar face, someone who would recognize him and say, “Allan? Is that you? Come on across buddy.” but all he saw were the stone faces of strangers staring back at the crowd of people on the road.

"What do you want to do? There's no way they’re going to believe that we live in Greenville without some proof of ID" Allan said.

"We have to try to explain our situation to them." Jennifer said.

Allan leaned down and whispered in her ear, "There's no way they are going to be able to guard the entire county line. There are way too many side roads going in and out. We could sneak…"

"I wouldn't recommend trying that sir." A voice in front of them interrupted. The officer that they had just been speaking to had somehow overheard their conversation. "We've got roadblocks setup at every crossing into Hunt County and where there's no road we have patrols out in the fields."

Allan was stunned.

"We're not going to let a horde of assholes from Dallas invade our county." The officer spoke loud in a manner so as to speak to everyone around. "So you go ahead and discuss with your pretty little wife about what you plan to do but I'll tell you what. There are only two options for you here. You can either convince us that you live in Hunt County or are just passing through or you can turn right around and head back to the west where you came from." Everyone in the crowd turned and stared at Allan to await his reaction but Allan just lowered his head and took Jennifer’s hand in his and they walked over to join the Special Circumstances line.

Allan looked on with envy at the people in the line in front of him who were able to produce identification and documents for the officers. Those that did not have any paperwork could be seen trying to explain their situation but every single one of the people without papers were turned away. All the additional explaining that was going on in their line caused everything to slow down. They had been standing in line, shifting their weight from one leg to the other, for over two hours. Allan watched when it was the man's turn in front of them to speak. The man approached the officer and presented a USB computer thumb drive out of a backpack that he had strapped onto his back.

"I've got everything on this thumb drive sir. Photo copies of my driver’s license, birth certificate, social security card, everything you need to prove that I am who I say I am and that I live in Hopkins County just to the east of the Hunt County line." The man explained.

The officer took the thumb drive, looked it over for a moment and handed it back to the man with the backpack. "Unless you've got a working computer on you this does me no good. I can't let you pass."

"Where the hell do you expect me to go then?"

"You'll have to head back towards Dallas and wait for this mess to clear itself up."

"I won't do it. I've been walking for days. You can't make me go back there!" The man yelled as he flopped down to the pavement and sat down looking up at the officer in protest. The officer swung around and motioned for two of the dark silhouettes positioned behind the barrier of cars. The barricade guards jumped up and hurdled the cars and zip tied the protestor’s hands behind his back and hauled him into the back of a nearby U-Haul truck. Loud shouts and bangs could be heard coming from inside the truck as the man kicked and screamed.

One of the guards warned, "If you don't stop throwing a fit I'll come in there and make you stop." The flapping inside the truck continued and the guard pounced on the man and struck him with the butt of his rifle and instantly the man fell quiet. The crowd in front of the barricade had watched the whole scene play out with looks of terror on everyone’s faces and when they saw the man drop lifeless to the floor of the U-Haul truck they let out a collective gasp.

"He'll be fine folks. He's just taking a little nap." One of the officers said and the rest of the gunmen behind the barricade chuckled.

"What are you going to do with him?" A woman from the line next to them asked bravely.

"We'll drop him off outside Royse City and suggest that he don't come back." The officer grinned and Allan knew that they would use more than just a suggestion to keep him from coming back.

Allan and Jennifer's conversation with the officer at the front of the Special Circumstances line produced similar results as before. Allan tried to explain what had happened to them but the officer just cut him off and looked at Allan suspiciously when he couldn't produce any identification. When the officer told him that he couldn't let them through Allan felt like punching him in the face but he knew such an action would result in far worse than the bump on the head that the man in the U-Haul had just received. What difference does it make? They have no right to refuse to let us in the county that I live in. So what if they shoot me? If they make us turn back they might as well put a bullet in our heads anyways rather than make us face the deteriorating conditions in Dallas.

Jennifer tugged at his arm as she knew that Allan was contemplating some kind of revenge. The look in her eyes told Allan that he needed to let it go and with anger in his eyes he gave the officer one last glare. They turned and walked westward back towards Royse City with their heads hung low in defeat.

"Now what do you want to do?" Jennifer asked when they were clearly out of ear shot from the officers at the barricade.

"There's only one option." Allan replied with firmness in his voice. "We have to sneak across."

"You heard the officer. They have every farm and county road blocked off and patrols out in the fields. If they see us trying to sneak across they'll probably shoot us."

"Better to shoot us than to force us go back into Dallas. I say we find somewhere to cross over into Hunt County under the cover of darkness and take our chances."

Jennifer thought for a moment about the repercussions of what Allan was proposing and then she nodded her head in agreement.

They walked back toward Royse City and exited the Interstate when they reached the overpass of FM 548. There they headed south for a little over a mile, passing some nice residential neighborhoods along the way, until the highway finally opened up to wide open pastures on either side of the roadway. At the far end of the field to their left was a thicket of trees that surrounded a shallow creek bed. Allan figured the location would be the best place to hide until nightfall when they would attempt to cross over into Hunt County undetected. He looked down the highway in either direction as far as he could see and saw nothing but more glimmering mirages on the road deck. They stepped off the road to cross between the barbed wire fence and they found that it was pulled much more tightly than the rusty fence that they had crossed through earlier. Despite pulling on the fence as hard as he could he found that there was no way that they could cross between it without getting cut by the sharp barbs on the wires. He looked down the length of the fence line and saw a wooden H brace about 100 yards away. They followed the fence and when they reached the H brace he looked cautiously in both directions one last time to check for anyone who might be watching them. When he saw no one in sight he climbed up the side of the wooden post and used the horizontal part of the H brace for support as he crossed his legs over the top of the fence. Once he was safely on the other side Jennifer handed him the baby and then she carefully repeated the procedure to get across. When they were all three on the other side of the fence they ducked down into the weeds and surveyed the area once more. There were no signs of any patrols in the field and so they proceeded to make their way toward the thicket of trees on the other side of the pasture. In the places where the weeds were high enough, they stopped and surveyed their surroundings again before carefully proceeding forward. Allan felt frightened walking across the open field. If they were caught the guards would know what they were up to and they would surely be punished or worse, but he also felt a sense of excitement as they carried out their covert operation in rebellion to the authorities at the barricade who were preventing them from going home. They stopped when they reached the low hanging branches at the edge of the thicket of trees. Allan searched for snakes and Jennifer scanned the area for more poison ivy and when neither were detected they ducked into the woods.

Nightfall seemed like it would never come. Every part of Allan wished to be pushing onward toward home and the wait for the cover of darkness was excruciating. By mid-afternoon his stomach was growling fiercely for nourishment. It had been days since he had eaten a real meal and he looked down into the dry creek bed below and he daydreamed of flowing waters filled with fish so plentiful that he could simply dip his hand into the water and pull one out. The longer he stared at the creek the more he began to think the fantasy was real.

"What are you looking at?" Jennifer interrupted.

"Are there fish in that water?" Allan asked.

"There's no water babe. Are you delirious?"

Allan shook his head to bring himself back to reality. "I was just kidding." He lied. "I'm going to scout around in the woods to see how far it goes and what we need to do next."

"And leave me and the baby here alone?"

"I won't leave your sight." He said as he stepped down into the dry creek bed and then high stepped over broken branches and thorny vines as he made his way up to the other side. The thicket of trees was only about 500 feet wide and when he reached open pasture on the eastern border of the woods he looked back and realized that he had long walked out of Jennifer's sight. He turned around and rushed back through the trees and thorny vines, praying that she wouldn't panic in his absence. When he got back within visual range of her he waved to Jennifer and motioned for her to join him and she acknowledged the gesture with a wave of her own.

"Thought you said you weren't going to leave my sight?" She said as she stepped over a thorn bush next to him.

"The woods aren't very wide.” He replied ignoring her question. “We should try to get across them before it gets too dark."

He led them to the edge of the open field on the eastern side of the woods. They stopped and looked around for any signs of patrols but there were none. In the middle of the field in front of them they saw a metal barn with a small cattle corral around one side of it and further ahead there were residential houses spaced out across two acre lots that ran along an oil top county road.

"Do you want to go ahead and try to make it across?" Jennifer asked.

The sun was setting and the trees behind them were starting to cast long shadows across the open meadow.

"Let's wait a little while longer for it to get darker." Allan replied.

As they waited Allan began to feel an intense itching sensation on the back of his neck. He began to scratch but it seemed that the more he scratched the more it itched. After a few minutes Jennifer noticed.

“Stop scratching.” She fussed at him.

“My neck itches. Look and tell me what it is.”

“I don’t have to look. I know what it is. It’s the poison ivy.” She said as she leaned in close to confirm her suspicions. Sure enough his neck appeared to be broken out into little red boils. “You leaned up against the poison ivy back at the pond and forgot to wash the back of your neck off.”

“But I use to not be allergic to it.” He said confused, still scratching the back of his neck.

“You idjit, I told you people can grow allergic to it as they get older. The more times your body is exposed to it, the more it can react to the toxins.” She scolded him. Suddenly an expression of regret crossed her face.

Allan looked up and noticed her frown. “What is it?” He asked.

“I have to tell you something.”

Allan glared at here with an expression that said, “Just tell me already.”

“I have diarrhea.”

“How do you know?”

“Cause when you left me to go boy-scouting around in the woods, I went.”

“I told you not to drink that pond water.” He was scolding her now.

“You don’t know. It could have been the lake water that we drank.” She retorted.

“If it was the lake water then I would have been sick too.” He said. The sad expression returned to her face and he put his hand on her shoulder to console her. “Well, I guess we both screwed up. How do you feel other than the diarrhea?”

“My stomach is a little upset but that could also be because I’m hungry.”

“I’m hungry too sweetheart.” He continued to rub her shoulders. “We’ll find something to eat soon.”

When the darkness of night finally arrived they crept out from the cover of the woods and snuck out across the open field and ducked down in the tall grass beside the cattle corral. In front of the barn they discovered an old gravel driveway that led to a set of iron gates at the front of the pasture and they followed the driveway as they found that walking on it was easier than walking in the uneven pasture. When they reached the gates they looked down the length of the fence line in each direction and saw no signs of anyone around. The gate had a chain around it that was padlocked and Allan quickly climbed over it, received the baby, and helped Jennifer find her footing in the darkness. When she reached the solid ground on the other side she released her grip on the gate causing it to bounce and swing against its rusty hinges with an awful screeching sound.

Immediately they heard the sound of footsteps running down the oil top road towards them. Allan grabbed Jennifer's hand and they slipped down into the ditch beside the gate. The ditch was only a couple of feet deep and although there were some overgrown trees that lined the fence line, it offered very little in the way of cover and Allan knew that they were completely exposed.

Chapter 20: Tractor Trailer

The footsteps were coming from the direction of the residential houses and immediately three patrolmen appeared out of the darkness and stopped on the blacktop road right above them. In the moonlight Allan could see that each of the men were carrying bolt action style rifles.

"What was it Billy?" One of the men asked.

"I heard something coming from right over here." One of the voices replied.

"I didn't hear anything." Another man admitted.

Allan couldn't believe that the trio had not yet detected them. If climbing across the fence and then running into the ditch hadn't given them away then surely his racing heartbeat and his rushing adrenaline would reveal their location. Suddenly the sound of automatic gunfire could be heard in the distance.

The three men turned toward the direction of the sound which came from the north. The gunfire was coming from the interstate and the sound echoed through the darkness and the screams of men crying out in pain and in fear could be heard even though the battle was over two miles away. "That sounds like it's coming from the up at the barricade." One of the patrolmen said. The three men looked at each other with wide eyes and then ran off to the north to join the fight.

Allan and Jennifer watched as the faint shadows of the three patrolmen were swallowed by the darkness and then they scurried out from the limited cover of the ditch.

“Which way?” Jennifer whispered. The road that they were on ran north and south but just a few hundred feet away it appeared to curve around towards the east.

“Let’s follow that curve in the road and see where it goes.” Allan replied pointing towards the opposite direction from which the three patrolmen had just ran, wishing that he had a map to go by. They hurried around the long bend in the road and as it straightened out the oil top surface turned into gravel. As Allan walked along the gravel road the uneven rocks began to grab ahold of his broken shoe, sometimes wedging against his foot making his walk uncomfortable at best. The surface of the white rock road seemed to glow in the darkness and they followed it in an eastward direction for over a mile until they came upon an intersection between two county roads. In the black of night the best that they could tell was that one road ran in a northeast direction and the other curved off toward the south. They opted to continue traveling in the most eastwardly direction since east was the direction of home.

The road was heavily lined with trees on either side with long leafy branches arching over the roadway and joining one another in the middle to create a spooky cave-like passage. As they walked through the wooded cavern Jennifer leaned in close to Allan to shield herself and the baby against her fears of the darkness. When they were in the middle of the darkest part of the road the sound of growling erupted from the ditch beside them and then came the sound of something running out of the bushes towards them. Allan and Jennifer nearly jumped out of their skin as they leapt to the side of the road in a futile attempt to get away but the dark shadow of the animal was upon them in an instant. Allan could see against the glow of the white rock road that the animal was in fact a large dog. The dog let out a series of angry barks and Allan wished that they still had the screwdriver that was in Jennifer’s purse to jab at the dog with. Without any means of defense he puckered his lips and began making kissing noises and chanting, “Good doggy. Good doggy”. The dog leapt up on its hind legs and placed its front paws on Jennifer’s side and she twisted her body away to shield the baby from the snarling beast.

“Get it off me. Get it off me!” Jennifer shrieked. Allan could hear the dog sniffing the air feverously in an attempt to identify them by their scent.

“Just be calm.” Allan instructed but Jennifer’s state of panic seemed to become more elevated at his lack of response.

“Get it off me!” She screamed louder. Allan feared that if he did anything aggressive to forcefully remove the dog off his wife that the curious animal might attack.

“Who’s a good boy?” Allan asked in the friendliest voice possible. He wondered if the dog was a male or female and then he figured that the dog probably didn’t care one way or the other what he called it. Allan saw the dog’s tail wave in the darkness in response to his voice, “Yeah, yous’ a good boy aren’t you?” He continued as he reached over and grabbed the dog’s paws and gently lifted them off of Jennifer. Allan put his hand on the dog’s head to pet him and his tail wagged lovingly in response. He placed the dog’s front legs on the ground and the dog circled around them with both his tongue and his tail wagging in excitement for having just made new friends. Allan placed his hand on Jennifer’s shoulder and felt that she was trembling. “It’s ok honey.” He reassured her.

“You two better just keep on moving!” A raspy voice yelled from behind the tress and Allan and Jennifer nearly jumped out of their skin for the second time on the dark gravel road.

“We’re just passing through mister.” Allan called out.

“You be glad you didn’t lay a finger on my dog or I’da blowed your heads off.” The voice said as the unmistakable metallic click of a shotgun chambering a new round rang out to inform them that that he wasn’t joking. “Get over here Buster you damn useless dog. And you two get the hell out of here!”

The dog sprinted off back into the woods and Allan’s broken right shoe flapped angrily against the rocky road as they ran away as fast as they could.

They finally stopped running when they reached a T intersection between the gravel road and a paved highway.

“Was that man one of the patrols?” Jennifer asked as she gasped for breath.

“I don’t think so or he would have stopped and questioned us more. I think that he was just an old man guarding his property and scaring would-be trespassers away.” Allan said between deep huffs for breath.

They looked up at the green highway sign beside the intersection and read the white reflective letters that said FM 36. Allan stepped out on the road and began to head towards the north when Jennifer stopped him.

“We need to go the other way.”

“The other way is south. To get back on the interstate we have to go north.”

“I know this road. When I was younger there used to be a dirt race track up ahead where my uncle use to race cars. They bulldozed it down a few years ago and built a school there in its place. This road dumps out right behind the barricade on the interstate that we’re trying to avoid.”

“I thought this road winds away from there.” Allan said confused.

“You’re thinking of the next road over, FM 1565, which is what we’ll follow if he head south on this road.” She said and Allan wanted to ask her if she was sure but she confidently took his hand and led them back in the opposite direction before he could say anything.

They walked southward for a mile down the quiet highway when Jennifer stopped. “I have an idea.” She said. “If we cross over this field it should save us at least a couple of miles walking.”

“How do you figure?” Allan asked.

“This road makes a V in the town of Union Valley where it joins FM 1565. We could bypass all that if we cross over this field.”

“You sure know this area well.”

“I told you that my uncle use to race cars here. He didn’t have a trailer to load his car on so he would drive his car on all the back roads to get to the race track and these were the roads that he used.”

Allan wanted to protest. He was afraid of running into another armed property owner who might not let them off as easily as the man with the dog had just done if they were actually trespassing instead of walking along a public road, but the idea of saving time and steps sounded really good to him so he went along with his wife’s plan.

The first fence that they crossed to enter the pasture had square slots in it that made finding a foot hold easy. They were up and over the fence in under a minute and they wasted no time crossing the wide open pasture. There was a grove of old oak trees in the middle of the field that reminded Allan of the place near the lake where the baby was born and they stopped and looked out and they could see the next highway directly in front of them. They scanned the area and saw no signs of any patrols and then they quietly crossed to the far end of the field. When they reached the property boundary they encountered another barbed wire fence that was stretched as tight as banjo wires and Allan looked in both directions hoping to find an H brace somewhere along the fence line to use to get across but in the darkness he could not see one.

“You folks can cross up here.” A man’s voice called out from the darkness and Allan and Jennifer’s hearts leapt in their chests. They both stared into the darkness in the direction from where the voice came from but they could not see anyone. “Please don’t cut my fence. There’s a walk through gate that you can use right up here.” The voice called out again and Allan and Jennifer waited for the other to decide what to do. Just when Jennifer expected Allan to turn and run the other way he took a step into the darkness towards the sound of the voice. When they reached the man they saw that he was standing next to an open gate that was just big enough for a person to walk through. The man looked to be in his early 20’s and he was heavy set and Allan could see that his hair was oily and his cloths looked tattered. He reminded Allan of the man that he had seen at the Brookshire’s grocery store weeks ago who looked so down on his luck and, in Allan’s imagination, just waiting for a disaster like this to go on a criminal rampage.

Is this the same man that I saw at Brookshire’s? Allan wondered. He looks just like him. But that’s impossible. Everyone has oily hair and tattered clothes now.

The man had a rifle hooked to a sling that went around his shoulder and he shifted it around to his back and stuck his hand out and smiled. His white teeth glowed in the darkness like the white rock road that they had walked along earlier.

“Name’s Ennis.” The man said as he shook each of their hands and then he reached into his shirt pocket and fumbled around for a cigarette. “I watched you cross my field. I thought, oh damn, here comes some folks gonna cut my fence and let all my cows out. But then I saw you was carrying a baby with you and I figured you folks weren’t gonna cause any trouble. I’m right aren’t I?” He asked as he lit the cigarette.

Allan marveled at the man’s uncanny ability to see in the darkness and he stuttered, “No, no sir, we’re not any trouble. Just trying to get home to Greenville.”

“They wouldn’t let you through at the barricade would they? I don’t know why those asshole cops have to be so territorial. They got to control everything and everyone around here. You guys hungry? I got some dehydrated banana slices and some beef jerky.” He offered them with a glowing smile as he reached into his pocket and pulled out two zip lock bags of the food. He placed his hand out to offer the bags to Allan but then quickly snapped his hand back. “What you got for trade?” He demanded.

Allan looked around nervously and put his hands up to indicate that he had nothing to trade.

“Oh I’m just joshing ya. Here take a bite of that jerky. It’s the best damn jerky you’ll ever sink your teeth into.” Allan and Jennifer stood at the gate tearing through the beef jerky and banana slices like it was manna fallen from heaven.

Allan stopped eating when he saw that the two bags were just about empty. “I don’t want to eat all your food.”

“Oh it’s alright. I got more back at the house.”

“I have a question for you mister. How did you see us crossing your field, and identify a baby in my wife’s arms no less, when I can barely see my hands in front of my face?”

“I was watching you through my rifle scope. With the safety on of course.” Ennis said as he swung the rifle off his back. He touched a button on the scope and a bright green light began to emit from it. “It’s a night vision scope. Wanna take a look?”

He raised the rifle and aimed it down the long fence line and Allan leaned over and looked through the lens. Everything became illuminated in a green glow and he could see down the entire length of the fence line and into a row of trees at the far end of the field.

“The night vision works better when there’s more background light than this but the sky is pretty clear tonight and the stars are shining bright so it does ok.” Ennis said.

“How did the electronics in the night vision survive the blast?” Jennifer asked.

“I don’t know. But it was the only electronic device that I own that’s still working. I kept my rifle in a metal gun safe. I can only guess that maybe that had something to do with it.”

Allan remembered the reporter on the news in Europe on the day that they left to go to the mall who was talking about how he kept his satellite phone in a metal box and that it must have shielded it from the blast.

Ennis handed Allan the two bags of remaining food. “You two go ahead and take the rest of this with you. Be safe on your journey and take care of that little one.”

Allan and Jennifer thanked Ennis and then stepped onto FM 1565 and the man closed the gate behind them. After they had walked a ways they opened the bags of food and finished them off.

“That man was nice.” Jennifer commented.

“Yes he was.” Allan replied and his thoughts turned back to the man that he had so coldly judged back at the Brookshire’s grocery store a few weeks before. “I think I’m going to see people in a much different light from now on.” He said.

“How’s that?” Jennifer asked.

“The whole judging books by their covers that society seemed so quick to do before. Everything has changed now. All of our previous assumptions and prejudices and biases are out the window.”

“We can only hope.” Jennifer said and Allan nodded his head in agreement.

They reached the interstate and they were exhausted. Allan's right foot had long stopped flapping and was now it just dragging along the pavement like a zombie who had lost control of his leg muscles. When they reached the north end of FM 1565 where it met with the interstate they looked back and saw no signs of the armed barricade. There was no one walking on the road and the sounds of the gun battle had long gone quiet.

"I'd like to walk along the service road so that if we run into trouble we can dart off a side road or into a field if we have to." Allan said with a tired voice.

"Do you think people will give us trouble now that we're on the other side of the barricade?" Jennifer asked.

"It's possible. Especially after whatever happened as a result of that gunfight earlier."

"Should we rest before we move on?" Jennifer asked in a tired voice similar to Allan's.

"I'd like to walk a couple miles to the east to get as far away from this place as possible."

"I know, but I'm so tired." Jennifer sighed and the baby let out a whimper in agreement.

Ahead on the eastbound interstate lanes Allan saw in the dim night light a lone 18 wheeler that appeared to have stopped right in the middle of the highway.

"Wanna see if we can rest inside that 18 wheeler?" Allan asked and Jennifer nodded in agreement. They approached the truck cautiously and Allan was surprised to see that the contents of the truck’s trailer had not been looted and strewn out across the roadway. Allan hopped up on the corrugated aluminum step beside the driver's side door and he tried the handle but the door would not open.

"It's locked." Allan whispered. "Look around for something to break the glass with."

"That's going to create too much noise." Jennifer whispered.

Allan stepped off the step beside the truck cab and motioned to Jennifer, "Follow me."

They walked to the rear of the truck and Allan looked at the lock mechanism on the back of the trailer. He was pleased to see that there was not an actual lock on the trailer door.

"Wanna try to get inside?" He asked.

"If you think we can get up in there." Jennifer said looking at how high the floor of the trailer was off the ground. Allan fumbled with the door mechanism for a few moments until the lock finally unlatched. He pulled on the door and it opened partially with a loud creaking noise and Allan stopped and looked to see if anyone was around to hear the racket. Seeing no one he tugged on the door and it made popping noises as it spun against its rusty hinges. Allan peered inside but the trailer was completely dark. He used the rear bumper of the trailer as a step rung to lift himself up and once inside he put his hands out in front of him to feel around in the darkness. About three feet away from the door opening he felt a large object that felt like cardboard boxes with plastic wrapped around the outside of them. He touched the top and felt that the boxes had been lined up in an arrangement that made the top of them flat.

"There appears to be some pallets of boxes of some sort in here." He said turning back to Jennifer. “The top of the boxes seem pretty flat and might make a good place to sleep.”

Jennifer lifted the baby into the air and Allan leaned down and folded him into his arms and then he held out a hand to help hoist Jennifer up to the trailer. The baby started crying, already developing an attachment for his mother's touch and Allan handed the baby back to her in an effort to keep him quiet. Jennifer tested the surface of the boxes with her hand, pushing down on them to ensure that it would hold their weight.

"Wonder what's in the boxes?" Jennifer asked.

"It's too dark to see now. I guess we'll find out in the morning."

Jennifer gently placed the baby on the top of the boxes and Allan placed his hands under Jennifer’s arms and helped to lift her up. This time Jennifer managed to not go into a giggle fit from Allan touching under her arms. He turned back and closed the door of the trailer but left an opening wide enough to let some air circulate inside the trailer and then he hopped on top of the boxes and as he lay down he began to feel guilty for resting so close to home.

Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped. He thought. We should have kept pushing on. We should have... It was all that he could do to maintain his train of thought against his fatigue and finally his exhaustion won over and he was asleep before he could finish the thought.

Chapter 21: Lumbering Strides

They slept until the early morning sun rose and began to shine through the cracked opening in the door, stirring them awake. They rose from their cardboard bed and Allan hopped down and swung open the trailer door. They all squinted as the bright sunlight entered their eyes and the baby squirmed and then let out a burst of cries that were only calmed by his mother’s milk. Allan turned and looked back at the cardboard boxes curiously. The boxes were unmarked and so he dug into the plastic wrapping that lined them with his fingers, tearing the plastic away and then he ripped open the top of one of the boxes.

“Oh sweet Jesus!” Allan exclaimed as he looked down into the box with a wide grin on his face.

“What is it?” Jennifer asked with excitement.

Allan read the writing on the label inside the box. “92 Brightness, 8.5 x 11 Inches, 2500 Sheets”

“Reams of paper?” Jennifer asked disappointed. “Why couldn’t it be food?”

Allan looked down at his broken shoe. “Or shoes.”

Jennifer looked down at their tattered clothes. “Or clothes.”

“Or diapers.” They both looked at the baby and then nodded their heads in unison. “Yeah, diapers would be awesome.”

He combed through a few more boxes but it seemed that the entire trailer load contained nothing but boxed reams of paper. Allan climbed out of the trailer first and then assisted Jennifer down. The baby was still nursing as they set off eastward in the crisp morning air.

A man walked by who was wearing a black backpack that appeared to have tactical looking webbing gear on it and attached to the outside was a green military style canteen.

"I wish I had a bug out bag like that." Allan said.

"A what?" Jennifer asked.

"It's a bag with supplies for getting out of difficult situations. I thought about putting one together to keep in my truck but obviously that never happened."

"But why did you call it a bug out bag? You make it sound like the guy keeps bugs inside it."

"It's just a phrase. To bug out. I can't believe you've never heard of it before you idjit." He said stealing the insulting word that she called him.

"I'm an idjit? Sleeping on the boxes last night reminded me of something. Do you remember the time that you dropped the boxes at work?" She asked with a big grin on her face. Allan shook his head from side to side, not because he didn't remember but because he didn't want to revisit the memory. "You came up to my cubicle at work and asked me how my weekend went and as I responded you oh so coolly leaned against a stack of boxes that were beside my desk. Little did you know that the boxes were all empty and all of a sudden the huge stack of boxes went tumbling to the floor. You turned beat red in the face and put your head down and then you turned and ran away. It was so funny and so cute." She said as she dug her fingers lovingly into his side. He had heard the story from her perspective at least a hundred times and it was one of her favorite memories of their early courtship.

"You made me nervous back then." He said and she gave him a playful wink back. "You still make me nervous." He admitted.

"So about this bug out bag or whatever you call it. Why don't we have one of those?"

"Because I didn't think we'd ever need it. I always figured we could just call triple A or call someone on our cell phones if we had car trouble or whatever. I never imagined something like this happening, so in my mind, keeping a bug out bag in the truck or in the car was just a waste of space. I wish we had one now. I bet that guy has a weapon in his. It would make me feel better if we had something to protect ourselves with since that the screwdriver got stolen."

“A weapon of some sort would be nice.” Jennifer sighed. “There are a million stalled cars on the road, why not take a tire iron out of one?" Jennifer waved her hands in front of her as if to present the sea of cars in front of them to Allan.

"Well we don’t have anything to conceal something like that in. A tire iron might have come in handy when we were being held up by the gang in Rockwall but it also might have gotten us killed. The people around here seem really tense. If any of them were to see us walking around with a tire iron in our hand, things might go from bad to worse in a hurry."

“You’re right.” Jennifer said. “We need to find a bag or something to hide a weapon in. Better yet, let’s just get home and get off the roads.”

They walked for another mile when they saw a large object approaching on the westbound lane off in the distance, followed the sound of slow lumbering footsteps. As the object drew near they could make out a white canopy of some kind that appeared to be driven by a pair of large animals that seemed to lower their heads up and down like large pistons as they powered through each step.

“It’s a covered wagon!” Jennifer exclaimed.

The pair of horses were solid brown just like the pecan colored frame of the wagon and the wooden wheels creaked in their axels as the wagon drove forward against the hard pavement. The driver of the wagon was an older gentleman dressed in garb that looked like it was torn right out of the 1800’s and across his lap rested a long black rifle. Sitting shotgun beside him was a woman who was also dressed for the part and wearing a red dress with a matching bonnet that shielded her face from the sun. She was holding a double barrel shotgun and she was looking around nervously, ever watchful for anyone who might cause them any trouble. It all looked completely out of place on the highway amongst all the modern cars as if time itself had gotten confused and forgotten how to separate the centuries.

Without hesitation Allan crossed over the concrete barrier wall and waved the wagon down. The driver let out a “Woo” sound as he pulled back on the reins and the lumbering beasts stopped and let out a snort in disapproval of losing their momentum. The driver looked at Allan suspiciously and moved the rifle in his lap to a better position to utilize it if necessary.

“You giving rides on your wagon mister?” Allan asked hopefully.

“Need to see your ID.” The driver of the wagon said.

Allan looked at the driver dumfounded. “What’s with everyone and ID’s around here?”

“Guards at the barricade told us to be on the lookout for border jumpers. Said anyone on the road around here without an ID are to be taken into custody.”

“We don’t have anything on us. We tried to explain…”

“Put your hands in the air!” The driver of the wagon demanded as he raised and pointed the end of his rifle at Allan.

“Mister put the gun down!” Allan pleaded.

“Hands in the air and get down on the ground or I will shoot!”

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Jennifer screamed as she hurdled the concrete barrier with the baby in her arms. The wagon driver looked at Jennifer startled, having not noticed her presence before, and he began to direct the rifle between Jennifer and Allan as if he was unsure who to shoot first.

“Stop right there!” The wagon driver demanded to Jennifer.

All the commotion had disturbed the baby and he let out a wail of a cry. The woman sitting shotgun in the wagon reached out and put her hand on the driver’s arm, “Oh Henry, they have a little baby with them. Put the gun down.”

“That don’t mean nothing to me.” Henry protested but he lowered the rifle according to the woman’s request anyways.

The air was tense for a moment and Allan took it as an opportunity to speak. “Mister we’re not any trouble. We’re just trying to get back home to Greenville. Any chance you could give us a ride in your wagon?”

“Gold, silver, guns, or bullets.” Henry replied.

“Excuse me?” Allan questioned.

“That’s what I take in trade. The currency now is precious metals or things that go boom.”

“People really have that stuff on them to trade with you?”

“You’d be surprised at what people are able to produce in order to get off their feet for a while.”

“We don’t have any of that stuff.” Allan put his head down regretfully.

“Now Henry, I think we need to give these good folks a ride to wherever they need to go.” The woman sitting shotgun said.

“Dammit Luanne, this ain’t no charity train. We’re out here to make money.” Henry replied angrily and then he placed the rifle to his side and held out his hand and lifted Jennifer and Allan into the wagon.

The wagon was empty inside except for two wooden benches that ran along either side. Henry watched over his shoulder as Allan and Jennifer took seats across from one another and when he saw that they were settled in he snapped the reins in his hands and let out a whistle. The big horses out front lowered their heads in unison and began to push against the pavement to drive the wagon forward.

"So you folks need a ride all the way to Greenville?" Henry fumed.

"Yes sir, if that's not a problem." Allan replied and Luanne shot Henry a glare that it would not be a problem at all.

Luanne turned and looked at Jennifer and the baby with a big smile on her face. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a boy.” Jennifer smiled.

“Oh isn’t he precious.” Luanne said with delight. “I just love being in the company of babies. Unfortunately for me and Henry we couldn’t have any children.” She shot Henry another angry look and then she looked back again and smiled loving at the baby. “What’s his name?”

“We haven’t decided yet. We’re going to wait and let our other daughter help us pick a name.”

“Henry did you hear that?” Luanne said slapping him on the shoulder.

“Yeah I heard.” Henry huffed.

“They’re going to let their other daughter name him. Isn’t that just precious?” Luanne said grinning ear to ear.

Henry grunted in response.

Allan looked around at the empty wagon and was tempted to ask if they had any water or food but he felt that they were already overstepping their bounds as it was. A breeze picked up that blew through the canopy of the covered wagon and Allan leaned back against the wooden bench and enjoyed the first bit of movement in days that wasn’t the product of his own muscles. Unfortunately since his body was no longer focused on walking along the road the itching sensation on the back of his neck from the poison ivy returned with a vengeance. Even though he knew that it was bad he began to scratch the itchy boils on his neck and he only wished that his fingernails were longer so that he could dig into his skin and scratch deeper.

“Allan, stop scratching.” Jennifer said. Allan stopped and placed his hands on the wooden bench and sat down on top of them in an effort to trap his hands to prevent them from scratching his neck further.

On the opposite bench across from him Jennifer was rocking their son in one hand and sliding her shoes off with the other. She looked up at Allan and noticed that he was watching her and she gave him a "I hope it's ok to take my shoes off" look and then she pulled off each sock and rubbed her fingers between her tired toes. Allan curled his nose playfully in disgust at her and then he removed his own shoes. The blisters on his feet were surprisingly not as bad as they had been a couple of days ago but they still needed to be treated as soon as possible.

"So Henry, how'd you come across this old covered wagon?" Allan asked to try and break the ice with him.

Henry instantly perked up at the question. "It's been in the family for generations. My grandfather bought it from an old blacksmith back during the great depression. When he died my father restored it and started taking it to the local Christmas parades. He passed away a couple of years ago and I tried to keep the tradition alive and took it to a few parades, but it was never the same so I just parked the wagon in my barn where I expected it would stay. That was until the lights went out and then I started seeing everyone walking along the interstate and the idea came to me to see if we could make a little profit." Henry paused as he thought of a way to best explain his last sentence. "The way I see it, this thing is pretty bad. I ain't seen no running cars or trucks, or airplanes, or helicopters in the sky since the lights went out. If this was just a local thing the military would have already parachuted in and started getting things organized. But the military ain't nowhere to be found except for a few stranded soldiers walking on the roads like everybody else. If it weren't for all the damn wannabe's out there I'd gladly give the real soldiers a ride for free, but as it stands now I can't tell who's the real deal and who's the posers. Seems just about everyone is wearing camo and carrying tacti-cool gear now." Henry shook his head. "The way I see it, this situation won't last long. I figure I got another couple days of running this wagon train and then we'll have to hunker down ourselves. Things are already starting to deteriorate pretty quick. I heard that there was a gun fight on the interstate last night. You know anything about it?"

"No, hadn't heard about any gunfights." Allan fibbed because he didn’t want to bring up the fact that they were sneaking through the woods to bypass the barricade when they heard all the gunfire.

"It's starting to get bad out there. People are getting desperate. That's why I don't like giving free rides." Luanne shot him an angry look and Henry stopped talking and focused on the reins in his hands for a moment until he continued. "Besides, eventually people will get to where they are going and with the threat of violence increasing as it is, I think people will stay put and that will be the end of my little entrepreneurship."

As Henry finished his last sentence a man ran up to the wagon and tried to flag it down. "Can I get a ride?" He asked.

The man appeared to be alone and it looked like he had nothing on him.

"What you got to trade?" Henry asked pointing the end of his rifle in the stranger’s face.

"I ain't got nothing. Just want a ride."

"Gold, silver, guns, or bullets. That's all I take." Henry repeated the same phrase that he had said earlier and Allan wondered how many times Henry had rehearsed the line.

"Is that what they paid you?" The newcomer pointed to Allan and Jennifer.

"Nevermind them. In fact, just step back away from my wagon and get the hell out of here."

Allan watched that same scene play out at least a dozen times that morning when Allan realized that Henry wasn’t asking anyone else for their IDs.

"Henry, why did you ask for my ID but you haven’t asked for anyone else's?"

"Well I ain’t seen anyone that looked like they had anything to trade and besides, if I take the time to ask everyone for their ID that will just drag out the free ride I'm giving you that much longer."

Luanne shot Henry another angry look and then she turned to face Allan and Jennifer. "What he means is that he wants to get you folks to your home just as soon as possible." She smiled.

As the wagon drove forward Allan began to notice that the stalled cars that they passed weren’t in tangled ruins blocking the roadway like most of the cars that they had walked past in Dallas. He figured that was due to the fact that the traffic wasn’t as thick in the rural countryside and so the drivers were more easily able to pull off to the side of the road. The open roads made driving the wagon train easier for Henry and he called out to the horses to pick up their speed. Allan remembered thinking back in Dallas how he hoped that there were old cars being used as busses out there, but there were no signs of anything of the sort except for Henry’s covered wagon.

“These assholes give me trouble every time I come through here.” Henry said as they approached the overpass that ran across Farm Market Road 1903.

“Who gives you trouble?” Allan asked.

“All the stranded truck drivers at the big Pilot truck stop up here on the right hand side of the road.”

Allan rose and stood inside the wagon and saw the big red and yellow Pilot sign towering over the Interstate. Below the sign were the charred remains of what was once a convenience store with a McDonald’s restaurant attached to one side. The burnt ruins looked like they had been leveled by a bulldozer and then painted over with black paint. Out front, under the big awning that covered the gas pumps sat abandoned cars still waiting to be filled with fuel that they could no longer use. Some of the cars had the gas nozzles still sticking out of their sides from where the owners of the cars abandoned them immediately after the blast. One car had its windshield wipers pried back where the owner had started to clean the windshield and then apparently given up once the world went crazy around him.

“You see, all these truckers who had stopped here at the Pilot to take their mandatory rest hours ended up stranded hundreds, some of them thousands of miles from home.” Henry said. “One asshole wanted me to drive him, by wagon, all the way to god-damn California. Can you believe that?”

“They must be pretty desperate.”

“That’s one adjective that would describe them. I’d also add vile, despicable, dirty, worthless pieces of shit.” Henry glanced at Jennifer. “Pardon my language mam.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a pretty strong opinion of truck drivers.” Allan said.

“Not all truck drivers. Just those there at the Pilot right there. Ever heard of lot lizards?”

“No, what’s that?”

“A lot lizard is a whore who does her business at truck stops. They’ll go from one truck to the next, offering the driver’s a good time and in one night she can make five hundred dollars or more easy. Five hundred damn dollars a night! Can you believe that?” Henry shook his head. “Well the second day I was passing through here and a couple of old gals come running up to my wagon screaming. These women were naked and so dirty I could barely tell if they were white, Mexican, or black. Their hair was cut like someone had taken a pair of scissors and chopped off their hair angry-like and they had dried stains of blood running down their legs.”

“Henry, maybe these good folks don’t want to hear this.” Luanne interrupted with a smile.

“They need to hear this. They need to know what it’s like out there.” Henry replied. “Anyways, as I was saying, these gals come running up to me screaming, asking for a ride. I was just about to tell them to get in the wagon when all of a sudden a group of guys come running up behind them, grab them both by their waists, and drug them back towards the truck stop.”

“You didn’t try to stop them?” Allan asked.

“There were about ten men in the group. By the time I realized what was going on they already had the girls on the other side of the highway. That’s when I started making Luanne ride shotgun next to me so she can help me keep an eye on the road.”

Allan turned to Jennifer and sighed. “That’s awful.”

He turned back to watch the road and Allan saw something move along the grassy area at the top of the overpass. “Henry there is someone…”

As Allan was in the process of warning Henry the figure of a man stood up and jumped over the guard rail and stood in front of the wagon, blocking its path. The man was wearing a pair of dirty brown overalls and a dingy t-shirt underneath. On his head sat a cowboy hat that cast a shadow that blacked out his entire face except for a thick black goatee that protruded out from his chin. Slung across his chest was a shotgun with five extra shells tucked into a sleeve that was situated around the buttstock.

“Hello the wagon.” The man said. “I need a ride to Louisiana. I see that you’re heading eastwardly in that direction and you’ve got just the equipment to get me there.”

“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m taking you all the way to god-damn Louisiana. Step aside or I’ll run you down.” Henry warned.

The man raised the shotgun to his shoulder and pointed it at Henry. “You even think about it and I’ll blow your face into the laps of your passengers back there.”

Something about the man’s tone must have frightened Henry because he let go of the reins and placed his hands in the air.

“Now don’t shoot mister. There’s no reason to get hostile.”

“Oh this ain’t hostile. This is me being nice. This is me telling you that you have two options. Option one is to give me a ride to Louisiana and option two is to get off the fucking wagon and I’ll take myself to Louisiana. The point is, this wagon is going with me to Louisiana.” The man gave them an evil grin.

Suddenly the man’s left shoulder exploded into a mist of blood and bone fragments as a thunderous explosion erupted from Luanne’s shotgun. A brief expression of disbelief crossed the man’s face before it turned pale white and his body dropped lifeless onto the pavement.

“Oh dear, did I get him?” Luanne asked with concern in her voice. “I think I had my eyes closed.”

“You got him darling!” Henry yelled and he gave the rains a loud crack followed by a deafening whistle. It felt like the wagon leapt two feet in the air as the horses took off into a full gallop. Allan and Jennifer slid down almost the entire length of the wooden benches inside the wagon before they were able to catch themselves at the last moment before they careened out the back.

“Hold on, we gotta get out of here.” Henry said as the sound of gunshots could be heard erupting from behind them as more truckers from the truck stop joined the fight. The unmistakable whizzing sound of bullets zipping by pierced the air and everyone in the wagon ducked down just as a couple of well-aimed rounds struck the wooden struts of the canvas tarp and rained splintered shrapnel down into the wagon.

The baby was crying and Jennifer tried to calm him down by rocking him in her arms but the wagon was shaking too violently with every bump and pothole in the road.

Luanne turned and asked a series of rapid questions. "Are you folks ok? Is the baby ok? Are any of you hurt?"

She was practically yelling as she spoke over the roar of the wagon as the wooden wheels churned against the road. Allan and Jennifer, still in a state of shock at what they had just witnessed, looked over themselves and then at each other before nodding their heads to Luanne to reassure her that they were all ok.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that." Luanne apologized. "Henry and I decided on a key word to use if things went badly. If Henry ever says the word Hostile that means we’re in bad trouble."

"We can't do this anymore. It's getting too dangerous out here. Those truckers will be looking for revenge if any of them ever see this wagon again." Henry said and then he shot an angry look back over his shoulder. "Too bad our last trip was with a couple of free loaders."

"You pipe down Henry." Luanne barked and then she turned to face Allan and Jennifer. "We're very happy to have you with us. I just hope this experience hasn't been too traumatic for either of your or for the baby."

After a couple of miles the wagon’s speed slowed and the roar of the wheels lessened and the wagon’s occupants were able to talk without yelling at one another.

"Where do you folks live?" Allan asked.

"I don't think that's any of your damn business." Henry replied.

"Now don't be crass." Luanne corrected Henry with a slap on his shoulder. "We live in Campbell just off the Interstate. We'll drop you off in Greenville or if you'd like you can come stay with us."

"God-dammit Luanne. You can't just offer up our house to a couple of strangers without talking to me about it first." Henry interjected.

"You sit quiet you stubborn old goat. It's my house and I have every right to invite anyone that I please to come live with us. Lord knows they'd be better company than you."

"Pardon my interruption but you can just drop us off when we get to Greenville. We have to get back to our daughter." Jennifer said

Luanne turned to them and smiled. "Well when you two reunite with your daughter, please come over for a visit will yall?" Luanne said.

Chapter 22: Frantic Cries

Henry drove the horses hard for a couple of hours but by the time they reached Greenville they had become exhausted and their gallop had turned once again into slow lumbering strides. Allan and Jennifer peeked around the side of the wagon cover and saw that the Wal-Mart and the Home Depot on the right side of the interstate in Greenville had been burned and only the hollow facades of their stone exteriors remained. On the other side of the interstate the Walgreens and Crossroad Mall had suffered similar fates.

"Well we're in Greenville. I don't want to get off the highway. Too hard to navigate around in the city and too dangerous. Where do you want me to drop you off?"

Allan looked at Jennifer. "Well your mom lives near downtown. He could drop us off here and we could walk through town or…"

"Keep going and drop us off after you pass the Sabine River." Jennifer interrupted and then she turned to Allan. "There aren't many houses on the east side of Greenville coming into town through Lee Street. Fewer houses mean less people which will hopefully mean fewer obstacles."

"Good thinking." Allan said.

They peered around the side of the wagon cover again and observed the remains of what was left of their hometown. They were shocked to see the same scenario that they saw back in Rockwall had also played out in Greenville. On both sides of the interstate homes and businesses had been burnt to the ground and they prayed that the whole town had not succumbed to the same violence and horrors that they had seen around Dallas.

After they passed the long interstate bridges of the Sabine River they made it to the exit ramp of the Lee street overpass and Henry pulled on the reins to bring the wagon to a stop. Henry slid a lever beside him to set the parking brake on the driver’s side wagon wheel and then he hopped off the platform and waited to assist his passengers to the ground.

As Allan was stepping off the wagon he felt a hand touch his arm. It was Luanne and he saw that she was crying. "Will you give me a hug goodbye?"

"Of course." He replied and he leaned down to hug the woman and as he did he gave Jennifer a this-is-weird sort of look. As Jennifer made her way to the front of the wagon Luanne requested the same from her and when Jennifer leaned in to give her a hug Luanne gave her a kiss on the cheek and whispered, "You be good to that baby. And you all come see me, you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am." Jennifer replied with a smile.

As soon as they stepped off the wagon Henry hopped back onto his driver’s seat, released the parking brake, and cracked the reins and they continued eastward down the interstate.

"I hope they make it home ok. Luanne is so sweet." Jennifer commented.

"She was nice but she doesn't seem to be dealing with all of this very well. I'd say she's in shock."

“I think she is too.”

They crossed under the Lee Street overpass and headed towards the downtown Greenville area. On their left was a small lake where years ago the land owners had dammed up a tributary of the Sabine River and created their own private recreational water park where sometimes people could be seen flying in the air atop water skies as they performed aerial acrobatics off ramps that had been placed in the water. Allan looked across and saw the water shimmering in the mid-morning sunlight and it looked so refreshing against his incredible thirst.

"Wanna get a drink." He said as he nodded towards the lake.

"We're so close. We've only got a couple more miles to go. I'm so excited to see Samantha." Jennifer replied.

Allan felt excited too, but he also felt a looming sense of dread. What if Samantha isn’t there? What if, heaven forbid, something terrible happened and they got swept up in the violence gripping everything now? The questions had been hanging over Allan since they first set out on their journey home. He wanted to desperately reunite with Samantha but he feared that he might lose his mind if he couldn’t find her. He looked back at the water and longed to stop to drink and quench his thirst but also, he realized, to delay finding the answers to those terrifying questions.

They huffed out the last three miles into downtown Greenville as fast as their aching bodies would take them. Before they reached the courthouse square they turned off on a side road called Stuart Street and they walked two blocks until they reached Church Street. When they reached the narrow residential street they turned and looked down the neighborhood and they both let out a sigh of relief when they saw that none of the houses on the road had been burned. Their sense of relief turned to sudden dread as they walked past the small wooden frame houses and saw what looked like bullet holes riddled across the fronts of all the doors and windows. Almost every window that faced the street was shattered and the windows on the second story of some of the houses were broken as well.

"Oh my God!" Jennifer said cupping her mouth in fear of what the bullet holes might mean and tears began to flow from her eyes. She handed the baby to Allan and took off sprinting towards her mother's house screaming for her daughter. "Samantha! Samantha! Samantha!" She screamed with every step. She ran to the front door and banged on it over and over but no one answered.

Frantically she ducked her head down and peered into the broken front porch window, "Samantha! Ellie!" She cried.

Allan caught up to her and helped her to call out their daughter's name. With every passing moment Jennifer grew more and more hysterical. "Where are they?" She cried out to Allan or God or anyone who might know the answer. Allan darted off behind the house and looked into the widows but he saw no signs of them. When he got back around to the other side of the house he discovered that Jennifer's hysteria had turned into hyperventilation. She was sitting on the front steps, bent over herself like she was after she had been attacked and robbed in Dallas and she was grabbing at her chest and gasping for air.

"Calm down baby." Allan said.

"Where are they? Where's my baby girl?" Jennifer pleaded. Every fear and emotion that she had buried inside herself over the past few days in order to press on revealed themselves there on her terrified face. Her breathing became more erratic as the anxiety of the separation from Samantha manifested within her. In her state of panic she felt everything begin to spin as the world collapsed around her. Her breathing became shallow and her skin went pale and she looked to Allan and lipped the word "Inhaler" just before her body slumped off the front step. Her head smacked hard against the concrete porch and Allan dove down beside her and frantically examined her limp body. He searched her wrist to find a pulse and upon finding none her touched the side of her neck where he finally felt a very faint pulse.

I need to get her inside. He thought. He held the baby in his arms and looked at the broken glass on the front porch window where it had been shot up like the rest of the houses on the street and then he looked back at the baby. I can't risk him getting cut if I try to pass through the window with him in my arms. The only place suitable to place the baby while he worked on the broken glass to get the three of them inside the house was with Jennifer. He bent Jennifer's limp arm at her elbow and formed a cradle in which he placed the baby down beside her arm.

"I'll only be a minute." He whispered hoping that his reassuring words would be understood by both the baby and Jennifer.

He lifted his right foot in front of the broken window and stiffened his body to prepare for the hard kick that would bust through the rest of the glass but he hesitated when he saw the broken sole of his right shoe flapping in the air. He realized that it would only take one sharp edge of the glass to slice through what was left of his broken shoe so he changed positions and pounded against the glass with his left foot. The remaining glass cracked and fell into the house and, upon seeing that the window was clear, he ducked inside and then ran around and unlocked the front door.

He reached down and lifted the baby off the ground and carried him into the bedroom and placed him in the middle of Ellie's queen sized bed and then he went back out and carefully lifted Jennifer off the front steps and brought her inside and lay her down on the bed beside the baby.

Allan’s world began spinning and he knelt down on the floor beside them crying. What do I do? What do I do? He pleaded with himself to find an answer. He thought of her state of panic just before she collapsed. I should have done more to calm her down. The image of her slumping off the step and smacking against the concrete repeated over and over in his mind. I should have caught her from falling. Stop it. What's done is done and you can't change any of it. He told himself but the image of her body lying on the ground continued to play through his mind. What did she say to me just before she passed out?

Inhaler.

He jumped up and ran to the medicine cabinet in Ellie's master bathroom. He flung the cabinet door open and threw his hands into the shelves spilling their contents into the sink as he searched for an inhaler that Jennifer might have used when she was younger that had been tucked away in the cabinet and long forgotten. Finding no inhaler in the medicine cabinet he began to search the drawers below the sink and when that produced nothing he emptied out the contents of all the dresser drawers in the entire house. To his dismay he found nothing that would help his ailing wife. He fell back to her side, desperate and torn. He knew she needed medicine to help her breathe but that would mean leaving her to go find the medicine somewhere.

I promised her I wouldn’t leave her side again. But she needs medicine. What do I do? What do I do? He thought.

His decision was to take the baby with him to go find medicine and leave Jennifer behind. He blocked the broken window by sliding one of the big wooden dressers in front of it and wrote out a note that said "Took baby to find medicine. Be back soon." He placed the note on the bed table beside Jennifer and he knelt down and kissed her lips. He wrapped the baby in a fresh towel from the bathroom and walked out of the house and locked the front door behind him.

It took Allan an hour to walk from Ellie’s house to the CVS drugstore. It would have taken less time had it not been for his broken shoe that slapped against the pavement with every step and he cursed himself for not looking for some duct tape or something to bind his shoe back together at Ellie’s house before leaving. As he approached the CVS drugstore he was happy to see that it did not appear to have been looted or burned down and when he walked closer he understood why. Pacing in front of the building was a police officer, probably more likely a rent-a-cop, but he was dressed in all the right garb to play the part of a real policeman.

The quick thinking of the store manager to lock up the CVS drugstore and place guards on rotation to watch over it had saved the building and all the valuable drugs inside. Allan approached the front doors hoping that just maybe the store might still be open to the public. As he approached the building the police officer out front noticed Allan approaching and he sprinted towards him.

“Hold it right there.” The police officer said. Allan looked down at the nameplate on the guard’s badge and silently read the name Bill.

“I need to get in the store.” Allan said.

“Store is closed. It won’t open back up until the lights come back on.”

“Bill, is that you?” Allan asked. He had never seen the man before in his life but he had to try something.

Bill looked puzzled. “Yeah I’m Bill. Who are you?”

“I’m Allan. We had Math class together back in high school didn’t we?”

“Probably so. I don’t remember much from those days. Too much chasing girls and drinking.” Bill chuckled. “How you been man?”

“Good until everything went to shit.” Allan replied, happy that his plan was working so far but nervous that his lies could fall apart at any moment.

“You’re telling me. It’s been chaos around here. Almost had a riot in front of the store yesterday. Is this your little one?” Bill looked down at the sleeping baby resting across Allan’s chest.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m here for. I need some medicine for him.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

Allan thought quick. He didn’t want to go into the whole story about their long walk home from Dallas and Jennifer’s condition. Bill probably wouldn’t believe his story anyways. He wanted this to just be a quick in and out grab to get back to Jennifer as fast as possible. “My baby has an infection where we had to cut his umbilical cord with a dirty knife.” He was only half lying now. They did have to cut the cord with a dirty knife but there were no signs of infection.

“Have a look?” Bill requested and Allan nervously unwrapped the baby out of the towel and revealed the perfectly normal looking naval area.

“Eww, that looks bad.” Bill grimaced. “Well, I guess you could try Walgreens or maybe Wal-Mart but I can’t promise you’ll have any luck.”

Allan knew that the Wal-Mart and Walgreens were nothing but charred ruins from passing by them earlier in the wagon. “Could you just let me in here to get some antibiotics real quick?” Allan pleaded.

“No can do. If I let you in then I got to let the next guy in and the next guy and so on and so forth. I can’t be setting a precedent like that.”

Allan was out of options. The CVS drugstore was his only hope for finding an asthma inhaler anywhere in Greenville. This asshole is practically killing my wife. Allan felt rage begin to boil within him and tears of anger swelled up in his eyes. Every part of him wanted to punch Bill as hard as he could and knock him out, steal his keys to the building, and run in and grab the medicine that Jennifer so desperately needed.

But he couldn’t.

He didn’t know if there were other police officers patrolling the area and there was no way that he could mount a decent offensive with an infant tucked in between his arms. His tears of anger turned to tears of frustration and Allan immediately regretted what he did next. With his free hand he reached inside the baby’s towel and pinched the infant’s skin hard. The baby let out a terrific wail that sounded like an air raid siren. I’m so sorry baby. Allan silently apologized.

Bill looked down with a sad frown on his face. “Oh that poor little guy. Is he in a lot of pain?”

“A lot of pain. He just bursts out crying like that all throughout the day. His infection is really bad. If we don’t do something now he might not make it.”

Bill paused for a moment and looked at Allan as if to size up the situation.

“If I let you in the store you won’t cause me any problems? You won’t tell anyone that I let you in?”

“No problems at all sir. My mouth is sealed.”

Bill fumbled with his keys and walked over and unlocked the front door of the CVS. He looked cautiously over his shoulder and then slid the door open.

“Run in there, get what you need, and knock on the door when you’re coming out. I’ll motion for you if it’s ok to come out or not. I don’t want anyone seeing that I let someone in. I don’t want another riot on my hands, you hear me?”

Allan nodded and went inside. He darted to the back of the store and hopped over the counter of the pharmacy and searched high and low amongst the shelves of the prescription drug counter. It felt like time was racing by and any moment Bill would burst in and say “Time’s up”. Everything looked like it was written in a foreign language and Allan understood why Jennifer had found the material in medical school so difficult. Finally he opened a cabinet drawer and found a section full of brown boxes labeled Primatene Mist.

“Bingo!” Allan shouted. Primatene Mist was the medicine that Jennifer had always kept by her side but the FDA had banned it as an over the counter medicine a few years earlier and now it was only available by prescription. He grabbed two boxes of the medicine and on his way toward the front door he grabbed a roll of duct tape.

Allan knocked on the glass door at the front of the building and Bill looked around like a drug dealer checking for cops. How ironic. Allan thought. Bill waved at him and Allan stepped outside.

“Get what you needed?” Bill asked.

“Yes sir.” Allan replied.

“Let me see.” Bill demanded.

“What?”

“I need to see what you got.”

Allan nervously revealed his loot and Bill looked it over suspiciously. The label on the Primatene Mist had a clear picture of an inhaler mouthpiece on it, anyone could recognize it, and Allan gritted his teeth in anticipation of getting caught in his lie.

“What’s the duct tape for?”

“Broken shoe.” Allan lifted his right foot up and smiled hoping to distract Bill’s eyes from the asthma inhalers.

“Have a safe trip.” Bill said.

He’s so oblivious. Allan thought as he began to walk away.

“Oh, and Allan.” Bill stopped him. “You and I both know that we didn’t go to high school together and that baby’s naval area looks just fine.”

Allan was stunned. “Then why did you let me in the store.”

“Cause when you pinched the shit out of that baby I knew that you were desperate.”

Allan’s face glowed red in embarrassment.

“I thought you were a druggy looking for your next fix and I was going to give it to ya. But unless asthmas medicine and duct tape is your drug of choice, I guess I judged you all wrong.”

“The medicine is for my wife. She’s very ill after walking home from Dallas and the tape really is for my broken shoe.”

“Well it was nice meeting you. Oh, and Allan, just tell the truth next time and don’t pinch that baby anymore.”

Allan nodded and then took off down Wesley Street back towards Ellie’s house. He was so flustered from the confrontation with Bill that he walked two blocks before he remembered his flapping shoe. He stopped and ripped off the plastic wrapping that covered the duct tape and wrapped the tape around his shoe several times until he was satisfied that it would never flap again. He sighed with relief that he could finally walk without his shoe slapping and scrapping against the pavement but he quickly found the silence of his steps deafening and his thoughts began to race about Jennifer and he prayed that the medicine would help her.

He prayed that she was still alive.

Chapter 23: Code Words

Allan reached Ellie's front steps and he was preparing to kick the door down but out of habit he reached out and tried the door knob. To his surprise the door was unlocked and he swung the door open. Did I forget to lock it? He asked himself. He walked to the master bedroom and looked at the spot where he had left Jennifer but only the imprint remained from where she had been laying on the top comforter. Allan dropped the medication in his hands and began to run throughout the house screaming.

"Jennifer! Jennifer!" He checked every room in the house but she was nowhere to be found. Flashbacks of the other day when she was attacked on the highway ran through his mind.

Oh God not again. He prayed. Then the thought struck him. Maybe she is playing a game. There had been times in the past when she would be in a room and Allan would walk in without noticing her presence and she would playfully sit there in silence staring at him, waiting for him to notice her for however long it took. When he would finally notice her she would always bust out laughing and, of course, call him an idjit. Is she playing like that now? His logic told him no, this was not the time for such games but he spun around and searched through the house again hoping that he would find her sitting somewhere giggling at his ignorance. He made it back to the master bedroom where he had started and noticed something different about it. He leapt to the side of the bed and picked up the note that he had left her and discovered that his handwriting had been scratched out and the words "Gone underground. Green house down the road."

The note flew out of Allan's hand and he grabbed the bag of medicine as he ran out of the house. He stopped in the middle of the street and looked up and down the neighborhood in both directions but he didn't see any green houses and he didn't remember passing any on his way to or from CVS. If there is a green house down this road then it's going to be in the other direction. He thought as he started walking the opposite way down Church Street. Finally when he reached the end of the street he saw a white house to his right and a blue house on his left with a terribly overgrown yard and a bunch of junk piled high on the front porch. He looked down the street again but there were no green houses on the entire road. What if this is a trap? He thought. He was just about to turn around and go back to Ellie's house when Samantha’s conversation with Ellie over the color of her dress came back to him in a flash.

“Grandma, my dress is blue, not green.” Samantha had said.

Was this a code word from Ellie? He didn't wait to answer his question and he ran up to the front steps of the blue house and knocked on the door. The inside of the house was quiet and he peered into a nearby window and saw no indication that anyone was inside.

"Hello. Hello. Anyone home?" Allan yelled and then he knocked on the door again.

Suddenly the sound of footsteps could be heard inside the house and a moment later a voice called out from behind the front door, "Who is it?"

"It's Allan."

The door crept open and a dark figure appeared behind the crack of the door and then it flew open to reveal Ellie standing in the doorway with a shotgun held parallel to the ground.

"Oh Allan. Thank God you made it.” She swung open her arms to embrace him but she quickly stopped herself. “Who is this?" Ellie asked excitedly with a huge smile on her face as she peered down at the tiny infant's face peeking out of the bath towel in Allan’s arms.

"This is your grandson.” Allan smiled. “Where are Samantha and Jennifer?" He was anxious for answers.

"I'll meet this little guy later. They are downstairs. Jennifer is awake but she is having a hard time breathing."

"Take me to her. I have medicine."

"Oh thank God. Thank God you are here Allan." Ellie put her hand on Allan's arm, gripped it tight and escorted him down the hallway. She turned to a door that opened outward to reveal a set of stairs that led down into a basement that appeared to be lit up with flickering lights down below. He walked down the steps and the stairwell opened up to a large room where candles had been placed around it to provide lighting. Lying on a bed in a corner of the room was Jennifer and hunched over her with her back to him was Samantha. The little girl turned her head when she heard their footsteps coming down the stairwell and her face lit up brighter than the candles when she saw that it was her father.

"Daddy!" She exclaimed and she leapt from the bed and buried herself into him. Allan fell to his knees and smothered her with kisses.

"I missed you so much sweetheart." Allan said with tears in his eyes. "Daddy is home now."

"I missed you too." Samantha said with tears in her eyes also. "Daddy what is that?" She asked pointing at the towel in his arms.

"This is your baby brother." Allan said as he unwrapped the towel to give Samantha a better look. Ellie was leaning over his shoulder peering down with excitement.

"What's his name?" Samantha asked.

"We haven't decided yet. We'll talk about all that later. Right now I need to check on mommy."

"Mommy is having trouble breathing." Samantha said.

Allan handed the baby to Ellie and he walked over to his wife who was lying motionless on the bed. When he rounded the corner of the bed’s footrest he saw that Jennifer’s eyes were open and she looked at him.

"Hey baby. I have medicine for you."

Jennifer wheezed and nodded her head. Allan opened the inhaler box and screwed the bottle onto the mouthpiece and squeezed two squirts of the mist into Jennifer's mouth. Jennifer slowly stretched her neck out to allow the medicine to enter her lungs and a few seconds later her wheezing lessened and she nodded her head to confirm that it was working. Allan ran his fingers through her hair and she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

"What happened to her?" Ellie asked.

"She panicked when we got to your house and we couldn't find Samantha."

"Oh dear. I'm so sorry I didn't want to leave you two a note. I was afraid if I did that those hoodlums might come back and find it and it would lead them right to us. I was afraid to even write on the note that you had left for Jennifer but I knew I had to leave you something."

"I'm glad you did. And good thinking on writing in code."

"What do you mean?"

"Saying that this house is green."

"It is green."

"This house is blue Ellie."

"Oh good heavens." Ellie sighed with embarrassment at her color blindness and they all chuckled.

"How did you get her over here?" Allan asked.

"Mr. Rodriguez has a hospital gurney." Ellie said pointing towards the other side of the room. Allan's eyes landed on a man who was wearing a cowboy hat with dark leathery looking skin that matched the leather chair that he was sitting in. It was the same man who had come to Ellie’s house on the day of the blast to pick up the food that Ellie had cooked.

"Oh excuse me. I didn't see you sitting there." Allan apologized.

"Oh that's ok. I suspect you two have been on quite a journey these past few days." The old man said.

"You can say that again."

“How far did you end up walking to get here?”

“I guess we walked over 80 miles if you count all the detours that we had to take.”

“Wow daddy, that’s a lot of miles that you walked.” Samantha marveled.

"Well feel free to rest here all you like." Mr. Rodriguez said. “Ellie has been taking care of me and feeding me her good cooking for so long, it’s the least that I can do in return.”

Allan looked around the basement and saw varieties of canned foods stacked on shelving from the floor to the ceiling. In one corner of the room sat four 55 gallon blue water barrels and beside those sat an assortment of various sized containers such as soda bottles and milk jugs, all of them full of water. There were oil lanterns and with dozens of bottles of spare lantern oil along with boxes full of spare wicks and other various parts. Beside the old man was a giant gun safe and stacked against it were several fold up cots, a number of folding lawn chairs, the hospital gurney that they had used to get Jennifer over to the house, and a big stack of folded blankets.

"You've got a lot of stuff down here." Allan said as Samantha sat on the bed beside him and he pulled her closer to him.

"Doesn't he though?" Ellie commented as she rocked her grandson in her arms.

“Dad you stink.” Samantha said.

“I know it sweetheart. Daddy has had some rough days lately.”

"This is my own little underground shelter.” Mr. Rodriguez steered the conversation back his way. “I've been preparing for this sort of thing for a long time."

"You knew the blast was going to happen?" Allan asked.

"Not specifically the blast, but I suspected something would eventually happen to disrupt our way of life."

"What do you think caused the blast?"

"I have some ideas. You know the news was talking a lot about CMEs from the sun right before the blast, but that doesn't make sense to me.”

Allan gave the old man a puzzled look.

Mr. Rodriguez continued. “I was watching the news a few days before the blast and there was talk about increased solar activity. But we have instrumentation in space to detect massive CMEs days before they affect Earth. We should have had much more forewarning than we got."

"Then what do you think it was?"

"Either a covert operation by the government and a cover up or an EMP attack."

"What's an EMP?" Ellie asked.

"Electromagnetic pulse. It's a high frequency pulse of energy that has the capability of knocking out electrical grids."

"So how is that different from a CME from the sun?" Allan asked.

"That's just it. A CME is generated by the sun. An EMP can also be generated by the sun, or can be generated by nuclear weapons or some other special device."

Allan thought of the movie Ocean's Eleven where Don Cheadle's character setup the EMP device to knock out the electrical grid to the casino that they were robbing. "An EMP is one possibility, but I’m not so sure about a nuclear weapon. If it were a nuclear detonation shouldn't we have expected to see a mushroom cloud and much more devastation? I mean, there is devastation now, but that was all caused by desperate people after the blast."

"Not necessarily. An EMP generated by a high altitude nuclear weapon really wouldn’t create anything more than a bright flash in the sky." Mr. Rodriguez said.

Allan remembered the bright flashes outside the Kirkland’s store in the mall and how he thought that they were camera flashes. Could that have been the flashes of a nuclear explosion? He wondered and then he remembered the news from the morning of their trip. "But this all started the night before, over in Europe. Wouldn't our government have told us that there had been an attack of such magnitude?" Allan asked.

"See that's what makes me think this might have been some type of government cover up. Truth is we don't know. We may never know."

Allan realized that he had been asking a lot of questions and there were so many more still running through his mind. "How long have you all been down here?" Allan focused on a question that might actually have a straight answer.

"The day after the lights went out some gangs started shooting at everything.” Ellie spoke up. “They must have robbed a gun store somewhere ‘cause I've never heard so much gunfire in all my life. Samantha and I were getting really scared when the gunfire started getting closer and we didn’t know what we were going to do. That was until Mr. Rodriguez knocked on my door and brought us down here to safety. We watched those hoodlums come into the neighborhood and completely terrorize the place. One of them must have family or friends in the area because we keep hearing them when they come back at night after their daily shooting sprees.”

Jennifer stirred in her sleep and let out a comforting snore that let everyone know that she was breathing better now. "How did you know we were at your house?" Allan asked.

"Little Samantha heard you. She said 'I hear mommy and daddy' and Mr. Rodriguez and I just looked at each other. We didn't hear anything and we couldn't believe you'd be back here so soon but she swore up and down that she heard your voices. So I sent Mr. Rodriguez out to take a look and he came back and said that someone was living in my house and that they had already rearranged the furniture in front of the front porch window.”

“That was me.” Allan explained. “I moved the dresser in front of the window to cover the big hole that I made when I broke the front glass to get inside.”

“Ah, well that explains it. I stood outside wondering why in the world had those hoodlums picked my house to live in and why were they moving my furniture around, and the more I thought about it the angrier I got. I decided to just barge on in there and give them a piece of my mind or a piece of my shotgun, whichever it took to get them out of my house. But when I opened the front door and looked across the hall and saw Jennifer lying in my bed I thought she I was seeing an angel. My heavens I surely did.” She shook her head from side to side as she looked on at Jennifer as if she still couldn’t believe that she was actually there. “Well anyway, we saw your note and I realized that Jennifer wasn’t just sleeping, she was sick. We decided that the house wasn’t safe. The hoodlums could come back at any moment. So Mr. Rodriguez went and got his hospital gurney and we carried her back to his house.”

"How did you get Jennifer down the basement steps?"

"Once we got her in the house we had a little trouble but Mr. Rodriguez is strong and he carried her on his back down the stairs." Ellie answered. “Now I have a question for you. How did you get home so fast? Was it only Greenville that was affected because the way things were looking outside the whole world had gone to, pardon me, S. H. I. T.” She said spelling out the last word so that Samantha wouldn’t know what she said.

Allan filled her in on their journey starting with the initial blast when they were at the mall. He told her about the airplanes that fell from the sky and all the mayhem that followed as people began to panic. He told her about all the fires and the burnt up buildings and the millions of wrecked cars on the road. Ellie sighed and shook her head with every detail as he told the story. He told her about getting held up and their bike getting stolen and then delivering the baby beside the lake and the barricade on the road at the Hunt County line and Luanne who shot the truck driver who had demanded a ride to Louisiana. There were many more details that he couldn’t possibly explain, especially with Samantha listening on to every word.

“Sounds like you guys really had a heck of a journey. And to be honest I agree with Samantha 'cause it smells like it too.” Mr. Rodriguez teased. “There’s a bath tub full of water upstairs. Filled it up before the water pressure dropped. I’ve only used it a couple of times. Why don’t you go ahead and clean yourself up and then look through my closet and find some clothes to wear. You should be able to find something in there that fits you.” Mr. Rodriguez offered.

Allan nodded and walked up the basement steps. As he reached the top of the stairs and opened the stairwell door Ellie’s voice stopped him.

“Sure is good to have you all back here. Thank you for brining my baby back home to me.” She said.

“You’re welcome. We’re all glad to be back home together.” Allan replied.

Chapter 24: Recuperation

Allan went to the bathroom and looked at the bathtub. It was full of dingy brown water that had made a dark ring around the sides of the tub. Before the blast Allan would have revolted in disgust at the idea of stepping down into the murky water but now he didn’t care. His body was tired and aching and it yearned for a chance to be clean. He slipped off his pants and underwear and wound them up into a ball and then he looked down at the wound on his leg from where he had ran into the jagged car fender on the highway in the middle of the night. The cut was starting to heal but there was a slight red tinged color all the way around it and he decided that after his bath he would get Ellie to help him clean and dress it properly.

He stepped into the water and slid down. The water was cold at first but it was completely refreshing once his body adjusted to the temperature. He grabbed the bar of soap that was sitting on the soap rack above him and as he scrubbed his body he watched the water become stained a darker brown color as the dirt that was embedded on his body released off his skin.

As he lay in the bathtub he began to think back over their long journey. How far we have come to get here. The many obstacles that we overcame. He thought. He wondered about big Walter back at the mall parking lot. Did he stay true to his word and remain in his car where he likely would have had a heatstroke or did he decide that walking home was his only choice? If he walked out of there, did he make it despite his assurances that he’d never make it? What about all those people that we encountered on the road? The man with the concussion that we helped out of his seatbelt on the first day, or the guy who was trapped under the car that we helped lift off of him? What about the man with the fedora hat who stood behind us in line at the tent hospital, or the man with the mud caked on top of his head who gave me the knife to cut the umbilical cord with, or Henry and Luanne, or any of the thousands of faces that we passed along the highway? Did they make it to their destinations ok? He feared that most had not. As the days after the blast carried on he figured that many on the highway would succumb to the extreme summer heat and exhaustion, and if not that then their undoing would come in the form of injury or violence. Allan felt lucky to be alive. He was thankful that his family was reunited and that they were all safe, at least for now. He let his body slide down further into the water until the water tickled the edges of chin and he said a prayer for those who were still out there trying to return to their own families and he thanked God that he had reunited with his. He was grateful that he was not out there facing another night out on the road.

He let his body soak until his skin began to feel waterlogged and then he got out of the water and found a clean towel to dry off with. On the counter behind the sink he saw a couple of toothbrushes and Allan dabbed some toothpaste on the bristles of one of the brushes and he began scrubbing his teeth without a hint of hesitation at the thought of using someone else’s toothbrush.

He wrapped the bath towel around his body and walked to the nearest closet where he shuffled through the clothes on the rack until he found a pair of pants and a shirt that looked like they might fit. There was a long mirror attached to the closet door and Allan stopped and looked at his body for the first time in almost a week. His skin was nearly as dark as Mr. Rodriguez’s but when he looked again he noticed that his skin looked blotchy in some areas. He looked closer, concerned that the poison ivy rash was spreading, until he realized that the light blotches were from the areas that had been covered in the lake mud and the darker and more sunburnt areas were where he had applied the mud too thin.

Every part of his body looked shrunken. His eyes and cheeks seemed to sink into his face and he noticed that his ribs protruded from his sides like never before. He placed his hand on his stomach and turned to the side to size himself up. I must have lost 20 pounds in the past six days. He thought. Before the blast he would have never imagined such extreme weight loss would be possible, but after their long hard journey it really didn't surprise him. He dropped the shirt over his body and although it was the same size that he normally wore it felt like it was two sizes too big. He slipped the pants on and they were also too large so he found a belt and cinched it tight around his waist to hold them up. Then he found some shaving cream and a razor and shaved his overgrown beard and finally he found a comb and brushed his hair.

As he headed back downstairs he stopped in the middle of the basement stairwell. "Ellie, can I see you for a minute?" He called out.

Ellie handed the baby to Mr. Rodriguez and she walked up the stairs with a curious look on her face and Allan silently motioned for her to follow him back upstairs. When they got to the top landing of the stairs he turned and whispered to her.

"I have a pretty deep cut on my leg. I'd like for you to take a look at it and see what it needs."

Ellie's eyes grew wide with concern. Allan began to loosen his belt to drop his pants when he realized that he wasn't wearing any underwear. He began to stall and blush when Ellie spoke up.

"It's nothing I haven't seen before. Now let me see this wound."

Ellie's words put him at ease but as he lowered his pants to reveal his injury he also pulled on his shirt to cover up his private parts.

Ellie made a grimace on her face at the site of the deep cut and instinctively reached up to touch it as all mothers tend to do.

"Please don't touch it." Allan said as he winced at the coming pain of her touch. "Just tell me what it needs."

"It looks infected, but I think you made it here just in time. Mr. Rodriguez has a first aid kit downstairs. I'll go grab it." Ellie said as she got up and trotted down the steps. As she rummaged through items on one of the shelves down in the basement Samantha walked over to her.

"What are you looking for grandma?"

"I'm looking for a Band-Aid. Your daddy has a cut on his leg."

"Oh I like Band-Aids."

"Let me get your daddy patched up and I'll see if there is one left for you."

Ellie walked back upstairs holding a red box with a white cross printed on it. She opened it up to reveal an assortment of various sized Band-Aids, a bottle of rubbing alcohol and peroxide, antiseptic ointment, some large and small gauze pads, ace bandages, and a lot of other items that Allan wished that they had on them during their long walk home.

“Is there any Calamine lotion in that box?”

“I don’t think so. What do you need Calamine lotion for?”

Allan leaned his head forward and pointed to the back of his neck to reveal the thick red itchy rash.

“Oh good heavens Allan. What did you get into?”

“Poison ivy back at a farm pond where we stopped for water.”

“It’s going to be quite a job getting you all patched up. But we’ll get the job done.” Ellie said patting his shoulder and then she unscrewed the lid to the bottle of alcohol and held it above his leg wound.

"I'm just going to drop a little bit in to make sure it's disinfected."

Allan grit his teeth to prepare for the burning pain to come. As he expected, when the alcohol entered his wound it felt like his leg had been set on fire. Every muscle in his leg tensed up and he groaned in pain but he was able to hold his composure until finally the burning sensation subsided. Next Ellie squirted out a gob of antiseptic ointment onto her finger and rubbed it around the wound. Again Allan winced but the pain was not as severe as the rubbing alcohol. She opened a package to one of the big gauze pads and pressed it against his skin.

"You probably need to get this looked at by a professional. I can't tell if it needs stiches of not. For now we'll just wrap it up and keep it as clean as possible." She said as she wrapped the ace bandage around his leg to secure the gauze pad in place. "Any other boo-boos besides the poison ivy rash that I need to look at?" Ellie asked and Allan felt like he was four years old again.

"I've got some massive blisters on my feet." He said and Ellie knelt down and spread the antiseptic ointment on the broken skin around his heels.

"Let's leave the blisters open to the air. I think they will heal better that way." Ellie said as she pulled a Band-Aid out of the box.

"Then what's that for?" Allan asked.

"This one is for Samantha. She said she likes Band-Aids." They both smiled and Allan secured his pants around his waist and followed Ellie back down to the basement.

"Ellie, someone’s awake for you down here." Mr. Rodriguez announced as they exited the stairs.

Jennifer was partially sitting up in the bed with a confused look on her face.

"Where am I?" She asked.

Ellie and Allan ran to her side.

"You're in Mr. Rodriguez's basement." Ellie responded.

"Mom?"

"Yes darling. You're in a safe place now."

"How did I get here?" As she asked the question all the memories of their long journey home came flooding back to her. "Where's the baby? Where's Samantha?"

"Hi mommy." Samantha said as she popped her head out from behind Allan.

"Oh sweetheart, come here and give me a hug!" Jennifer exclaimed with joy.

Allan pointed towards the corner of the room, "Mr. Rodriguez is over there holding the baby."

The old man took his queue and got up and held the baby close to the reunited family. Jennifer pulled the towel down to reveal the little boy's face and then she turned to Allan and smiled.

"We made it home." She said and Allan embraced her with a hug. There wasn't a dry eye in the basement.

Mr. Rodriguez hid the fact that he was wiping a tear from his cheek and said, “I’m going to check upstairs.”

The family embraced one another for a long time when finally Samantha broke the silence. “Mommy you smell bad like Daddy did.”

Jennifer laughed. “I’m sorry sweetheart. Mommy hasn’t had a real bath in six days.” She wrinkled her face at Samantha to show how gross she felt.

“Mister Allan, you sure made a mess of my bathtub.” Mr. Rodriguez said as he came back down the stairs.

Allan was embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’ll go up there and clean it up.”

“No worries. I drained the water. No sense in scrubbing the tub though. Don’t want to waste any water just to clean it when it’s only going to get dirty again. I could use some help taking some more water upstairs to refill it though.”

Allan began to get up when Ellie put her hand on his shoulder and stopped him. “You need to rest that leg. Mr. Rodriguez and I will carry up some fresh water for Jennifer to have a bath.”

It took them several trips of carrying buckets filled with water from the blue 55 gallon water barrels up and down the stairs to fill the bath tub and each time Ellie had to demand that Allan rest his leg instead of getting up to help. Jennifer went upstairs and lay in the water and she let out a sigh of relief as the dirt flowed away from her body. She put her head back and relaxed every muscle in her body for the first time in days. Even though the water was cold she still felt like she was in the finest day spa in the world. It felt magnificent to touch the soap against her body and to be able to rinse her hair out with shampoo. She wasn’t really able to get all the soap off of her since there was no running water, but soap was better than dirt to her and she didn’t mind if some of it stayed on her skin and in her hair. When she was done with her bath she grabbed the toothbrush that Allan had used earlier and she brushed her teeth and then found a bottle of lotion in one of the bathroom cabinets and dumped out nearly half its contents and spread it across the surface of her skin. When she reached down to spread the lotion on her feet she flinched in pain as her own set of blisters on her feet burned as she ran her fingers across them.

When she was done she walked downstairs and smelled the sweet aroma of food being cooked. Ellie was in a corner of the basement busying herself amongst several pots that were set atop camp stoves and she looked back at Jennifer who had brought a hairbrush with her from upstairs to brush her hair.

“Feel better after your bath?” Ellie asked.

“It was amazing.”

“Any boo-boos that I need to look at?”

“Any what?” Jennifer curled her eyebrows at the question, not because she didn’t understand, but because it was weird to hear her mother say that as if she was still a little girl.

“You know what I mean. I’ve only been saying it your whole life. Any cuts, scraps, or bleeds that need looking after?”

“I do have some pretty bad blisters on my feet.”

“Get some of that anti-septic ointment out of that medical box and rub it on like I did for Allan but don’t cover it with anything.”

“Oh, you did it for Allan but I have to do it myself?” Jennifer sighed with a grin.

“That’s because Allan took off his pants for me.” Ellie teased. Jennifer shot Allan a what-the-hell look.

Allan cleared his through and began to fidget. “It was just to dress the cut on my leg.”

“Sure it was.” Jennifer nodded her head in a suspicious yet teasing manner. She grabbed the antiseptic ointment and did as her mother instructed and then she spread some of the ointment on her hands where they were still sore from the scrapes received from falling in the darkness when Allan cut his leg. Then she put a dab on the bump on her head from where she had been attacked by the couple who stole her purse.

Ellie turned back to the pots that were boiling and began to stir them. The aroma that filled the room reminded Allan and Jennifer that they hadn’t eaten a real meal in days and both of their appetites immediately felt ravenous. Mr. Rodriguez slid the bed over to the far edge of the basement and he brought out a long table with folding legs and set it up in the middle of the room. He went back and grabbed an assortment of the folding lawn chairs that had been leaning against the gun safe.

“I haven’t had this many guests down here for dinner before. I have some better chairs in the dining room upstairs if you all would prefer those instead.”

“The fold-outs will work just fine Mr. Rodriguez.” Ellie said as she began to sit five steaming bowls down on the table. “Now, everyone, the food is hot so be careful and blow on your spoons so you don’t burn your mouths.” She said as she took the baby and held him so that the others could eat first.

“Thank you for dinner Ellie and thank you so much for sharing your home with us Mr. Rodriguez.” Jennifer said. “By the way, I’ve only ever known you as Mr. Rodriguez. What is your real name?” She asked.

“Sebastiano Guadalupe Rodriguez.” He said with his hand bouncing in the air with each syllable as if he was the conductor of an orchestra. “And it is my pleasure to have you in my home. As I said before, it is the least that I can do in return for all the favors that Ellie has provided me through her cooking over the years.”

They said a prayer and thanked God for the food and Allan dug into his bowl and lifted out a heaping spoon full of vegetables and beef stew. He blew on his spoon for a brief moment and then shoveled its contents into his mouth. He nearly fainted as the food tasted so wonderful to him. He began nodding his head towards Ellie.

“Well is it good Allan?” Ellie asked.

“It’s wonderful. So good.” Allan replied.

“I’m glad you like it. Not a terrible as my fried chicken I hope?”

“What do you mean?” Allan was stunned.

“Oh Allan, I think we can be honest with each other now. I’ve seen the way you turned up your nose when you entered my house. I know you weren’t very fond of my cooking.” Allan wanted to interrupt her and explain or do something to stop her from calling him out like that in front of everyone. “Truth is I didn’t think very much of you either.”

“Mom, stop it.” Jennifer interrupted.

“Let me finish sweetheart. You see, when Jennifer left the house when she married you I got lonely. I couldn’t get any pets like a lot of people do after their kids leave home because I’m allergic to pet dander. I resented you for taking my daughter away from me. All I had was my cooking so I decided to open up my kitchen to people like Mr. Rodriguez who would come to visit me and help keep me company.”

Allan put down his spoon, “I was wrong Ellie. I was so inconsiderate for ever thinking of you in a negative way like that.”

“And I am sorry for thinking unfavorably of you. You brought my daughter home to me and for that I will be forever grateful to you.” She leaned in and kissed Allan’s blotchy sunburned forehead. “Now dig in.”

Before Allan took another bite he stopped and looked at his daughter. “Samantha, mommy and I have an important question to ask you.”

“Oh really? What is it?” Samantha’s face lit up.

“Mommy and I aren’t sure what to name to baby and we were wondering if you had any names in mind?”

Samantha looked down at her bowl and thought for a long moment. Just when everyone at the table expected her to admit that she couldn’t think of a name she perked up with a wide grin.

“You said you walked a lot of miles to get here right?” Samantha asked.

Allan and Jennifer looked at one another curiously. “Yes.” Allan replied.

“Well then how about naming him Miles?” Samantha suggested.

Everyone cocked their heads as they considered the name. Nobody at the table was sure what kind of name to expect to come out of Samantha, and Miles wasn’t a name that anyone had considered, but the name was appropriate given the whole situation surrounding his birth.

“I happen to like the name Miles.” Jennifer agreed.

“I think Miles is a perfect name.” Allan confirmed.

Ellie stood and held the baby up so that everyone at the table could see him. “Everybody, please meet Miles Anderson.”

The table erupted in cheers and then everyone began to eat. All of the bowels were empty in just a matter of minutes and soon Ellie was serving seconds.

That night they could hear the sound of gunfire in the air and people whooping and hollering as the hoodlums, as Ellie called them, made their way to one of the houses down the street. Everyone in the basement decided that it was time for bed. They folded out the cots and arranged them around the room so that everyone would have something to sleep on. The bed went to Allan and Jennifer where they placed the baby to sleep between them and they all slept snug, relieved to finally have shelter over their heads.

Chapter 25: Invasion

The next morning they awoke to the unmistakable sound of helicopter blades slapping against the air. Jennifer, Allan and Mr. Rodriguez ran to the backyard while Ellie stayed downstairs with the children. They waited for a moment and when the sound drew nearer they saw two military style helicopters circling over the downtown Greenville area.

"It's the military!" Jennifer exclaimed as she jumped up and down in excitement. The three of them cheered and Mr. Rodriguez pulled the cowboy hat off his head and waved it around in the air in elation. As they watched the helicopters hovering above the city they saw the side doors open on the helicopters followed by the appearance of something being dropped out of the doors. The items seemed to float in the sky and they took their time to fall to the ground.

"Wonder what their dropping out?" Allan asked.

"Leaflets." Mr. Rodriguez answered.

Allan gave him a curious look. "Makes sense. I guess. Maybe they have a message for us." He replied. "I guess I should head over there and see what they say."

They went back inside and Allan put on his shoes. Mr. Rodriguez gave him a 9mm handgun and a holster to clip on to the side of his pants and he slapped him on the side of the arm and told him, "Be safe" as he stepped outside.

As Allan walked closer to the downtown area he saw the side doors on the two helicopters shut closed. The helicopters flew together in one last arching circle around the downtown area and as the tail rotors came around a final time Allan noticed that both of them had a red emblems with a yellow star in the middle where he would have normally expected a United States flag to appear. That's weird. Allan thought to himself. Maybe we're getting help from other countries?

He reached the downtown area where hundreds of leaflets littered the streets. Standing around them were people reading them. A woman walked past Allan sobbing and on the other side of the street he saw a woman collapse into the arms of man who was standing behind her. Everyone looked to be in a state of confusion and shock and it appeared as if they had just received the worst news imaginable. Allan bent down and picked up one of the leaflets. On one side of the leaflet were words written in a foreign language. The characters looked like hieroglyphs to Allan and if he had to guess he would say the language was of Asian origin. On the reverse side there was more writing in badly written English.

"This notice is hereby ordered by the army of the People's Republic of China. All citizen in North Texas region are to register at military operations center in Dallas Texas. All man, woman, and child are to proceed to military operations center in Dallas Texas by August 15 deadline. Take only possession needed to complete journey."

Allan dropped the leaflet in disbelief and he watched it spin to the ground as his mind spun along with it. This can't be happening. He thought and he picked up a handful of leaflets at his feet and he saw that they were all the same.

He walked back slowly to Mr. Rodriguez's house, demoralized, as if all the life had been sucked out of him. When he approached the house everyone was standing on the front porch smiling with excitement.

"Well, what's it say?" Jennifer asked with a big grin.

"It's not good." Allan replied and he handed her the messy stack of papers.

Jennifer inspected the leaflet and began to read the side written in English out loud. As she read the words everyone's faces turned from excitement to shock and then to anger.

"So the Chinese did this?" Ellie asked.

"Looks like it. I guess we've been invaded." Allan replied.

"This is more than an invasion. We've already been conquered." Mr. Rodriguez said and then he paused. "It's brilliant you know."

"What's brilliant?" Allan asked.

"The Chinese attacking us with an EMP like this."

"I don’t understand. What was all the talk about the sun and solar flares before the blast?"

"That's what I'm saying is so brilliant. The solar flare really happened. The Chinese were waiting for it and caught us with our pants down while we were staring at the sun. On top of that, they can easily deny it. If any other nation accuses them of attacking the United States, they can say it was the sun that did this and they are just here with their military on a peacekeeping mission."

“But what about the earlier reports of blackouts across Europe? Why did they attack Europe if their target was the United States?”

“Because a Chinese target on the United States is a target on Europe. We’re one and the same. Our economies are too interlinked, our militaries too intertwined. This was an invasion across a global front.”

Everyone just stood looking around with blank stares on their faces. It was all too much to absorb. Jennifer looked down and read the leaflet once more, this time in silence, and then she looked up at the group.

"What are we going to do about their demand that we report in Dallas?" She asked.

Allan remembered his words from back at the barricade line outside of Royse City when they had tried to enter Hunt County. Better to shoot us than to force us go back into Dallas. But now that he had reunited with his family he couldn’t contemplate doing something that would jeopardize their safety.

“We have do what they say.” Allan admitted.

A look of dread crossed everyone's faces.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Initial Reports

Chapter 2: The Blast

Chapter 3: Catastrophe Abounds

Chapter 4: Heading Out

Chapter 5: The First Night

Chapter 6: Eastbound

Chapter 7: Into The Darkness

Chapter 8: Are Those Dead People?

Chapter 9: Gunshots

Chapter 10: Separation

Chapter 11: Exhaustion

Chapter 12: The Warehouse

Chapter 13: Fires

Chapter 14: Midnight Delight

Chapter 15: Disaster At The Lake

Chapter 16: My Place Is Here With Them

Chapter 17: Confrontation

Chapter 18: The Pond

Chapter 19: The Barricade

Chapter 20: Tractor Trailer

Chapter 21: Lumbering Strides

Chapter 22: Frantic Cries

Chapter 23: Code Words

Chapter 24: Recuperation

Chapter 25: Invasion