Tempest

by Kenny Soward

  Jake hefted the crowbar and showed it to Marcy. “We can break in with this,” he shouted.

  “I don’t like it,” Marcy said with a frown, “even if I’m freezing.”

  There was an entry door next to the dock, so Jake went over and tried the handle, finding it expectedly locked. Then he went to work with the crowbar, prying at the wooden frame around the deadbolt until it started to split apart. The wood was a little dry-rotted on the inside and fell to pieces after a few minutes of digging at it.

  Putting his shoulder into it, Jake knocked the door open with a crunch and ushered Marcy inside.

  “They can bill me later,” Jake said, stepping in and closing the door behind him.

  It was pitch black inside, so Jake put down his pack and got out the battery-powered lantern Ashley had given him. He turned it on and bathed the room in a cold, white glow. They stood inside a tall warehouse with rows upon rows of boxes.

  “Wow, it’s so quiet,” Marcy murmured with a shiver before she removed her backpack and set it down.

  Jake walked over to a receiving desk and shuffled around some of the papers. “Tuna. This is a tuna distribution warehouse.”

  “I’m not a huge fan of tuna,” Marcy said, hugging herself. “But I’m not complaining, either.”

  “We don’t really need any food at the moment,” Jake said, “but this will be a great spot to stop in on the way back. I’m sure everyone back at the hotel will appreciate it if we brought them back a few cans of tuna.”

  “Hard to tell how long this place will stay a secret,” Marcy said. “Survivors will probably be sniffing around soon, looking for food.”

  “We’ll rest for a bit, get warm, and then get back out there.” Jake flashed Marcy a wink. “Plus, I love tuna.”

  “Well, this appears to be tuna heaven,” Marcy laughed as her teeth chattered.

  Jake picked up his pack and went over to one of the rows of shelves. A box rested on the floor near his feet, so he popped it open and took out a couple of cans of tuna. Then he pointed toward a short hallway that looked like it might lead somewhere interesting. Marcy took the lantern and led the way. They passed men’s and women’s restrooms and some side offices before they found the employee break room at the end.

  “Bingo,” Jake said as Marcy went to the center of the room and set the lantern down on a table. “I take that back,” he said, looking around disappointedly. There were the typical plastic seats one would find in an employee break room, the vending machines were old, and a musty smell lingered in the air.

  He walked over to a door opposite the one they’d entered through, opened it, and peered down a dark hallway.

  “Where’s that lead?” Marcy asked as she pulled some chairs together.

  “Not sure.” Jake shrugged. “It goes on for a way and then turns left at the end. It probably leads to a side exit.”

  “Great.” Marcy took off her hoodie and placed it over the back of a chair to dry out, then she plopped down in a second chair and put her feet up on a third. She unzipped her backpack and dug out a bottle of water and pack of nuts.

  Jake did the same, sitting opposite Marcy with a can of tuna in his hand. He opened his backpack, took out the can opener, and cut around the edge of the can.

  “Strange first date.” Marcy glanced up and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Never thought a tuna warehouse could be so romantic.”

  “Yeah,” Jake laughed, digging his fingers into the tuna. “Not exactly a candlelight dinner.”

  “I hope I didn’t offend you,” Marcy said after a moment. “I see you’ve got a ring on, so I know you’re married. It was just a little joke.”

  “No offense at all,” Jake waved her off before popping a chunk of tuna into his mouth. “Sara would have laughed.”

  “Sara.” Marcy rolled the name around on her tongue. “It sounds old-fashioned, but I like it.”

  “Her family loves those kinds of names,” Jake said. “Her mother is Rose, and her grandmother is Pearl Anne.”

  “Pearl Anne is hard-core old-fashioned.” Marcy nodded. “Where’s Sara now?”

  “Funny you ask,” Jake said, feeling a slight pang in his heart. “I’m supposed to be in Tennessee right now. We’ve got a cabin up at a place called Pine Bluff. I was supposed to meet them there for vacation. Doesn’t look like I’m going to make it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Marcy said with a frown.

  “What about you? What’s your story?”

  “I’m from Indiana,” Marcy said between chewing nuts. “I studied law at IU and then moved to Indianapolis to marry a wonderful man named Terry. We’ve got two kids who are so precious.”

  “Sara and I have two kids, too,” Jake said with a surprised note in his tone. “Todd’s sixteen, Zoe is eight.”

  “Mine are four and three.”

  “Oh, wow.” Jake raised an eyebrow. “Still so young.”

  “Yeah, I’m still recovering from the terrible twos.”

  “You think two is bad, wait till you hit eight. That’s when my little girl started figuring things out. I swear, sometimes I think she pits Sara and me against each other.”

  “Kids are tough,” Marcy said, squinting up at the ceiling.

  “It’s not easy any way you slice it,” Jake said, nodding in agreement. “But it’s wonderful, too. Terry’s probably worried sick about you.”

  “He didn’t want me to go on this trip.” Marcy took a long drink of water, draining nearly half the bottle before she put it down and smacked her lips. “I was tired of being a nobody at the law firm I was with, so I came here to interview for a position at a law firm here, in the big city.”

  “You said you’ve been to Boston before, right? Why would Terry not want you to come?”

  “Terry says Boston is nice to visit. He doesn’t want to live this far north. I should have listened to him and stayed in Indiana.”

  “Maybe,” Jake shrugged. “But you couldn’t have predicted this.”

  “No,” Marcy said with a sigh. “I can’t wait to get home so he can tell me how right he was. I’d listen to him tease me all night long if I could hold him while he does it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Jake chuckled. “I’d give anything to be at the cabin right now with Zoe pestering me to play board games with her.

  “She sounds cute…” Marcy’s words trailed off as a tear fell from her eye. “Oh, man, I really miss my kids.”

  “Me, too.”

  Marcy’s dark eyes lifted in despair. “I thought we’d find some help out here. Instead, we’ve been walking for hours and barely made it two miles.”

  “Help will be here as soon as the weather clears,” Jake said, hopefully. “I mean, you can’t expect them to fly helicopters in this storm or drive straight through all that wreckage, right?”

  “I guess not.”

  “That’s why we have to stay strong,” Jake said, then he fixed her with a firm expression. “Let’s make a pact, right now.”

  “A pact?”

  “We promise to hang in there for each other until we get through this, okay?” Jake held out his hand. “For our families.”

  Marcy blinked and then reached out to take Jake’s hand. “I feel like I’m ten years old and joining the boy’s treehouse club back in my old subdivision.”

  “They let girls in?”

  “Not really.” Marcy shrugged. “They were mostly rotten little boys who tried to keep me out until I bloodied Joey Blum’s nose.”

  “I’ll try to stay on your good side,” Jake assured her with a chuckle.

  “A pact it is, then.” Marcy smiled.

  Chapter 10

  Sara, Gatlinburg, Tennessee | 4:05 p.m., Saturday

  Sara served up pancakes hot out of the pan to her son and daughter. Todd was somewhat distracted by his phone, while Zoe held her fork and knife in hand as Sara placed a stack of two in front of her.

  “Easy on the blueberries,” Sara warned with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t dump the
whole thing on top.”

  “Okay, Mom,” Zoe said, taking the little basket of blueberries and dumping a respectful handful on top, tongue out in concentration. Then she picked up the bottle of maple syrup and poured the thick liquid over the top. A little too much, maybe, but the girl had been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours. A little extra sugar wouldn’t hurt.

  Sara went back to the stove and poured a couple more pancakes out for Todd on the griddle.

  Zoe had taken quite a long nap, and still she and Todd were running on fumes. They’d try to stay up as long as they could, but Sara’s eyes were drooping shut despite the half-pot of coffee she’d already imbibed.

  While Zoe slept, Todd and Sara had sat in the living room watching the news on the big TV that hung above the fireplace. The reports were focused mainly on the East Coast rescue efforts. The North Carolina Outer Banks, Virginia Beach, and Boston were hit the worst, Sara learned as she skimmed the channels until she found one focused solely on Boston.

  Rescue crews had entered the outskirts of the city and had been turned back by the weather and thousands of evacuees. Camps had been set up on the spot to distribute food and water, and medical treatment was being administered to those who needed it. The number of those fleeing the city had been vastly underestimated, and crews were struggling to provide support to all the survivors.

  No one knew what was happening downtown, and that was what worried Sara the most.

  “All done, Mom,” Zoe said, and Sara looked up from the stove where she’d been drifting in thought.

  “And you’re burning mine,” Todd came up behind her, took the spatula out of her hand, and transferred the pancakes from the griddle to his plate.

  “Sorry,” Sara said with an apologetic look.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Todd smiled and took his plate to the table.

  Sara poured a couple of pancakes for herself, scraping the bottom of the bowl to get every drop, then she stepped over to collect Zoe’s plate.

  The girl grinned up at her with a contented look, hand resting on her round belly. “That was spectacular, Mom. Can I watch a movie now?”

  “Yes, you may.” Sara picked up her daughter’s plate and took it to the sink while Zoe tromped into the living room, picked up the remote, and settled down on the couch with a blanket and pillow. At the age of eight, her daughter could navigate a smart TV like it was second nature, and she had her favorite Disney movie playing within seconds.

  Sara cleared the table, finished plating her pancakes, and brought them to the table along with a fresh cup of coffee. She poured some blueberries and maple syrup on top and then dug in. Sara hadn’t been hungry all day, but her appetite kicked in and she devoured the entire plate in just a few minutes.

  “Go Mom,” Todd said with a glance up from his phone.

  “Thanks,” Sara said, face warm with embarrassment at her barbaric smashing of the pancakes. Then she nodded at his phone. “Did you find out anything new?”

  “Same news as before.” Todd shook his head. “Except they’re making it pretty clear that the state and federal response might not be enough. They really underestimated the number of survivors. I hope they have enough food and shelter for them.”

  “Me too.”

  “They’re calling in the National Guard, and Canada and Mexico are offering to help, too.” Todd put his phone down and rubbed his eyes.

  “You okay?”

  Her son shook his head. “I’m worried about Dad. I mean, it looks like complete chaos out there. And it isn’t just one isolated area. The entire Eastern Seaboard is messed up, and it’s only going to get worse, because there’s another big storm about to hit the area he was supposed to be in. If Dad’s going to survive out there, he’s going to have to do it on his own.”

  A swell of emotion rose in Sara’s chest, and her face flushed hot. She wanted to rail against the unfairness of it, or shout to the roof in despair, but she couldn’t let her son see how worried she really was. They had things to take care of here, and she needed him thinking positively.

  “You know your father,” Sara said. “He’s not just good at fixing computers. He’s got many skills.”

  “I know,” Todd said, looking up at her with bleary eyes. “This is huge, Mom. I mean, what can he do against a storm like that? And who knows what’s going on inside the city? There could be riots and looting—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sara interrupted him with a firm tone.

  “What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t matter’?”

  “It doesn’t matter because it’s totally out of your control. And we’ve got things to worry about here. You’re just going to have to have faith that your dad is capable of taking care of himself. And I guarantee you he wants to get back to us as badly as we want him here.”

  “I know,” Todd hung his head low, but Sara saw the tears welling in his eyes and realized, almost too late, that he was trying to hide them from her.

  She got up from the table and took her plate to the sink, giving it a rinse before laying it down gently. Then she came up behind her son and rested her hand on his back, not wanting to invade his personal space too much. His growth through his teenage years hadn’t been without its bumps and bruises, and she was trying her best to navigate it along with him.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep?” Sara asked. “We’ll be right behind you as soon as that Duracell battery we call your sister wears down. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

  “Sure, Mom.” Todd scooted his chair back and stood. Then, in a completely surprising move, he turned, wrapped his arms around her, and squeezed.

  She’d seen Todd grow from a boy to a young man, yet she was always surprised by his strength. Standing at six feet tall, he was already several inches taller than her and weighed fifty or sixty pounds more. His arms were like steel bands that nearly took her breath away with their strength. Pride swelled in her chest and fell from her eyes in the form of tears.

  Such a strong young man, who was still very much a boy.

  Sara quickly returned his embrace and then patted him on the back. “Off with you, then.”

  “Night, Mom.” Todd took his phone and walked through the living room, tousling Zoe’s hair as he went by. “Night, booger.”

  “Night, goofball,” Zoe said without taking her eyes off the TV.

  Sara smiled at their good-natured razzing, knowing full well how much the two loved each other. Once Todd had gone upstairs, Sara pulled her laptop closer and opened the lid. She’d brought it in from the van earlier and wanted to use this opportunity to dig for more information about what was happening out east. She wanted real information, not what was being talked about on the mainstream news channels.

  After booting up, Sara browsed to her favorite independent news source, the Mike Report. At first glance, the Mike Report was simply a man named Mike from Kentucky who broadcast from his basement and commented on mainstream news stories, tying them together and providing insight people couldn’t get anywhere else.

  Mike was more than that. He led an online forum called the Prepper Network, and he boasted a network of shortwave journalists who spent time out in the field and did the kinds of reporting journalists in the mainstream media didn’t anymore.

  “Fringe news,” was what some people might call Mike, but Mike had been right about a lot of things since Sara and Jake had started watching several years ago. He’d become a guilty pleasure for them, sometimes frightening, always entertaining and informative. The Prepper Network was Sara and Jake’s primary source of information when it came to preparedness.

  Mike wasn’t streaming video at the moment, but he’d just uploaded a pre-recorded one twenty minutes ago titled, “The Storm is Here.”

  Sara glanced up at Zoe, still engrossed in her movie, and put her ear buds in, hitting “Play” on the video.

  The brief introduction started with a flurry of banjos that always made Sara smile before Mike’s voice came on to introduce the show. “Coming at
you from somewhere in Bluegrass Country, it’s the Mike Report.” There was more music and fancy graphics before the screen filled with the face of a thin man wearing a blue hat.

  “Welcome, fellow truth-seekers. I hope everyone is well.” Mike had a twangy, thin, good-natured voice that drew Sara right in. “I’ll jump to the big news happening now, and that’s the situation on our Eastern Seaboard.”

  Sara took a sip of her coffee and peered hard at the screen.

  “First, let me say the thoughts and prayers of everyone here at the Mike Report go out to those caught up in the storms,” Mike said, “and that’s not just lip service. We’ve got folks in the field right now working with some of the families affected. These unfortunate folks are going to need our help in the days to come, especially in Boston.”

  Sara leaned forward, desperate for some good news.

  “I have it on good authority that FEMA only has about a quarter of what they need to feed and shelter the survivors of Boston, and that’s only going to last about a week. We’ve also got reports of riots breaking out on the outskirts of the city, some folks even attacking the rescue workers.”

  “Oh, no,” Sara mumbled, putting her hand to her mouth.

  “There are a thousand confirmed deaths already, and some experts estimate that the death toll will reach in the tens of thousands.”

  Sara squeezed her eyes shut and fought back tears.

  “There’s more sinister things afoot, too, but I’d like to confirm that information before giving you the full details. This is the Mike Report, signing off for now.”

  The video ended, leaving Sara with her thoughts. She immediately clicked the “Contact” link on the Mike Report homepage and typed an email to Mike. Jake and Sara were just acquaintances of the man’s, but Mike had answered several of Jake and Sara’s questions before, so he might remember them.

  Sara gave Mike their rough location at Pine Bluff along with her account of what happened at Maryville. Leaving the emotion out of her words, she also added that her husband was probably trapped somewhere in the middle of Boston, and that his name was Jake Walton. She ended the email by requesting Mike send her any information he could about Boston, and if he knew anyone who could find her husband, she’d be forever in his debt.