The students huddled together more closely, all now paying attention to this random parent who’d shown up dressed and equipped for an emergency. In these ways, and in his obvious competence in a pinch, Mr. Russell had already distinguished himself from pretty much every other adult.
“Earlier today, I believe there was a nuclear explosion in space above the United States.” He paused for the shock to circulate and die down. “We can’t know who was responsible. It could have been an accident, but I don’t think so. The explosion unleashed an electromagnetic pulse, an EMP… Yes, just like in the movies, only this one’s for real. The results you’d expect are exactly the results you see now—nothing that depends on an electrical circuit will work without major repair. There won’t be any TV or radio. And, well, the internet won’t be functional for a long time.”
Seeing the bedlam this last item of news caused, Cody wished he’d phrased it better. But, why sugarcoat the harsh reality? Sorry, kids, you’ll have to live without Facebook for a few months. Remember back before Facebook was a thing? It’ll be like that. As I recall, everything was fine. Nobody’s heart skipped a beat because they couldn’t instantly share or illustrate their every waking thought. Calm down and adapt. He bit back all of this, and instead, did his best to empathize. It didn’t come naturally.
“Your lives are gonna be very different, but lots of things will get back to normal. Some of the basics might be working again in a few days, like the water and power supplies. I’m not sure. But until then,” he said, his train of thought broken by another vicious thud from outside as the school buildings continued their fiery collapse, “we’re gonna stick together, be sensible, and try not to do anything that makes the situation worse. So, I don’t want to see any fighting or arguing. Instead, look after each other, all right?”
“Yes, sir,” the terrified group managed to say together.
“Great,” Cody said. And then, turning away, said to himself. “And now, let’s see if we can leave this inferno-to-be without getting everyone killed.”
9
Flannigan Unified High School H-Hour + 5 (5:50pm EDT)
Three groups left, one after another, with Emma and some classmates in the lead. Following her father’s instructions, she led her pathfinder team to the periphery of the campus, as far as possible from the raging firestorm. There, along the edge of the field, she laid down volleyballs inscribed with a number in magic marker, the better to guide each group to their places. This way, they could maintain an accurate headcount and get away from the fires, all while keeping groups of friends together.
In the seventh group were Jacob and his friends. As they trotted out to their allotted volleyball, he explained his contribution to his mother, who refused to be anywhere except with her children. “We got a total of two thousand, eight hundred and fifty-eight students,” he told her. “I heard Miss Peake telling someone, before all the teachers went away, that there are usually eighty or a hundred absentees each day. So, figure on twenty-seven hundred and sixty.” Mary let him calculate out loud, unwilling to tell him the truth about the brave teaching staff. “My buddy here,” he said, introducing “Link,” another card-carrying nerd who didn’t say much, “takes the bus in from Grant’s Hole, and he says the driver guessed there are about four hundred ‘bussers’. So, that means twenty-three hundred and sixty students have homes within fifteen miles or so of the school.” Mary was following until he mentioned “concentric circles” and “radius multiplied by pi,” but his final tally was this: “We need beds for twenty-eight fifty but, allowing for siblings and such, we’ve got a maximum of four hundred fifty homes within a three-mile walk.”
Impressed that he could even bring this much focus to a problem while his school was burning down, Mary said, “Sounds like you’ve got it worked out, love. So, what should I tell your dad?”
Jacob mapped it out on paper, Mary interpreted from geek to English, and Cody enlisted Emma and her friends to spread the message: “If you live more than three miles away, find someone who lives closer and form a group with them of up to six students. When we’re done, walk to their home together. Hosts are responsible for making everyone as comfortable as possible. This is temporary, but we don’t have an end date.”
As the word spread, preferences were expressed, and groups began to form, largely along existing lines. As they did so, very few people noticed a new element to the conflagration which had now completely overwhelmed the three buildings of the school proper and was now threatening the gym. Near where the facilities building had collapsed, a sharp, lancing flame was pointing into the sky like a searchlight, as though an oil deposit existed under the school and would now vent itself ad libitum.
“The hell’s that?” someone asked, but then the flame suddenly died, and the ground shook violently once more.
“Duck and cover!” yelled Cody. “If you get hit, roll around until the flames are out.”
“Flames?” said a dozen people within earshot, but moments later, Cody’s concern came to life.
The second and last of the school’s propane tanks gave way and spilled its flammable contents into the fire, causing a sudden flash and then an explosion that carved apart the building’s basement. A hundred tons of masonry, glass, and metal got tossed into the air with a sound like an intense and extended thunderclap.
All Cody could do was crouch low over his kneeling children and pray. “Don’t look,” he told them. “Just wait it out. I got you.” Small pieces formed a rain of shards and fragments, punctuated by bigger chunks—concrete skewered by rebar, a whole wooden door, and lengths of piping blasted out of the school’s water system. All came to rest within two hundred yards of the explosion, peppering the gym roof, denting dozens of vehicles in the parking lot, and delivering a stinging downpour of debris onto the soccer field.
The screams turned from panic to pain. A girl was already running wild, trying to put out the fire which was consuming her hair.
“Drop and roll!” a senior yelled, and when she proved too panicked to comply, he dashed to her, wrestling her to the ground.
Other students were knocked senseless by falling pieces, and there were dozens of near-misses. Like the rain of volcanic pumice upon Pompeii after Vesuvius, the soccer field became covered with haphazard evidence of a fiery maelstrom. Except this one was entirely manmade.
“Somebody help!”
Cody judged it was safe enough to look around, but instantly wished he hadn’t. There were a lot of casualties. Teenagers with bloodied foreheads and broken arms tried to help those who’d caught the worst of it. Some were dead, there was no doubt, and others would need aid they couldn’t provide. Beneath him, almost suffocated by his care, Emma and Jacob emerged and were dispatched to help; there was no sparing them this disaster, any more so than their wounded friends.
But as he looked back at the gym, Cody could see their decision had been correct, and almost supernaturally timely. Aflame now, the building’s flat roof was smoking, and there was no telling how quickly the flames would spread to vital structures and support beams. Enduring this hard rain of fragments at least gave the kids a better chance of survival than standing under a burning, collapsing roof.
“Do what you can,” he said to Mary. “Then let’s get everyone moving, in case there are more of those tanks under there.”
“I can’t believe there’s anything left under there.” But she moved to organize the students who could walk and get help for those who would struggle. The worst cases would have to be carried indoors to some of the neighboring houses; their residents would be called on spontaneously to help those in need, as would so many during this crisis.
Cody had their bags together, ready to muster his family for their own departure, despite the injuries and screams of others. “Jacob, we can’t stay here. I got a plan, and you’re a big part of it.” He usually responded with enthusiasm to this kind of thing. “Let’s go, buddy,” he said, but the young man didn’t turn around.
; He was standing over someone, absolutely still with disbelief. Cody approached and saw that Jacob was staring hopelessly at his friend, Link—they hadn’t even learned the kid’s real name—who was now deathly pale, the grass under him soaked with blood from a terrible wound to his head.
“Oh, man,” Cody grieved and took his son’s shoulders from behind. “Jacob, I’m sorry…”
“It’s… so… unfair,” Jacob rasped through gritted teeth, his fists in tight balls by his side. “I was there, you were there, but it missed us. And it hit him. Why, Dad? He never did anything to anyone.”
“I know, buddy, there’s nothing to make this better. He was terribly, terribly unlucky.”
“Maybe he’s…” but the optimism died in a moment. “No, he’s not coming back.” Only a gifted trauma surgeon and a high-tech operating suite could have intervened. “He never did anything, Dad. Never hurt anyone. Just a harmless geek.”
“It hurts like crazy, and it’s gonna hurt for a while. But right now, I need you to…”
“I know, Dad,” he said with surprising anger, turning to face his father. “I have to be the big boy, the grown-up, to carry my weight and not get all emotional at the wrong moment. I can do all of that; I promise I can. But in return, I need you to make me a promise.”
Cody had to watch his young boy transition within seconds from dark grief to red fury to a plaintive request, and it left him emotionally shell-shocked. “What do you want me to promise, buddy?”
“That you won’t let that happen to me. Take my hands and swear it.”
Cody seemed to hesitate for a half moment; he had to process his remarkable son’s latest tidal wave of maturity and poise, and it left him speechless.
“It could be any damn thing, a fire or an explosion or a car crash or anything, but I’m not gonna die in some crappy school field because a fuckin’ rock fell on my head. Promise me that.” There were tears in his eyes now, and Cody could do little except make the promise, and marvel that while the stages of grief had assaulted Jacob all at once, the boy was still standing, his fists balled, simply demanding a less awful finale than poor Link.
“What’s his name, son?”
“Archie Klein-Erikson,” he said. “His mom worked for the government in Sweden. Met his dad on a skiing vacation here.”
“Well, I’ll promise something else,” Cody offered, close to tears himself on a day spent too often in proximity with needless death. “Once we get where we’re going, I’m gonna help you properly memorialize Archie Klein-Erikson. I won’t forget him, and I know you won’t.”
Finally, Jacob was able to turn away from his friend. “Okay. We got a deal.”
“You got it, son.” He pulled Jacob tenderly into a hug and brushed ash out of his hair.
“And I’ll make another promise, too.”
“Sure, if you’d like.”
“I promise I’ll stop swearing after this,” Jacob said.
“After what?”
He looked his father straight in the eye and made the only salient request: “Dad, get us the fuck out of here.”
10
Flannigan, NH H-Hour + 6 (6:35 pm EDT)
The only way to survive, they all instinctively knew, was to band together and help each other. Cody offered the children their choice of loads, making sure he still carried the heaviest and that Jacob slender frame wasn’t overburdened. They donned the baseball caps usually reserved for hiking, and Cody proposed a route to the workshop, which would skirt the edge of the town center. From the carnage they’d seen earlier, Cody and Mary knew the business district would be no place for children—no place for anyone without a firearm, in fact.
“It’s kinda like everything reverted to the Wild West or something,” said Mary.
“Yeah, it’s like,” Emma added, “no power? Well, no rules, either! I mean, how does that make sense?”
“Panic,” said Cody. “People do strange things when they’ve sensed the future is becoming unpredictable.”
“Like hamsters,” said Jacob, rather enigmatically.
“Huh?” the other three said together.
“You know, they don’t eat everything at once. They stuff food in those little pouches on either side of their mouths. Means they won’t starve when things get tough.”
“Sure,” Emma scoffed. “Or… camels. Storing up water before they cross the desert. Maybe a better example.”
“I like hamsters,” said Jacob and left it at that.
“Look, kids…” Cody began.
“Nope,” Emma said, shutting him down. “I’ve captained a varsity team, and I’m old enough to drive a car, and I’ve… kissed a boy, so…”
“Who?” demanded Mary, instantly channeling the Spanish Inquisition.
“… so, I’m not being called a ‘kid’ today.”
“I second the motion,” said Jacob.
“What, you’ve kissed a boy, too?” Emma chuckled. “How was it?” She would have extracted more comedy from the moment, but for a chastening look from her parents. “Sorry, Jacob.”
“I haven’t kissed anyone. But I watched my friend die just a minute ago. That’s not a very kid-like thing to do, is it?”
“You shouldn’t have had to see that, darling,” said Mary, taking his hand affectionately as they walked along together. “Everything about that was unfair.”
“I second that motion, too.”
“Motion is passed without objection. Anyway… if you’re not ‘kids,’ what do I call you?” asked Cody, making sure he too was close enough to Jacob to reach for the pained boy at any time.
“After today,” Emma suggested, “how about ‘honored colleagues’?”
“Friends?” Mary tried.
“Fellow Americans,” said Jacob.
“You know,” replied Cody, “under the circumstances, I kinda like that. Reminds us all of something important.”
“Comrades,” was Emma’s next try. “Literally anything but ‘kids,’ all right?”
“You got it.” Today was a day to find from within whatever compassion and poise had sustained people through the greatest crises of history, of which this incident was plainly the most recent example. “Girls call each other ‘guys’ all the time, right?” asked Cody.
“Sure.”
“Then, I could just say, ‘Look, guys…’”
“No objection from me,” said Emma.
Jacob agreed, too. “I’m a guy. Seems to work.”
“That’s settled, then,” said Cody with his first half-smile in many hours, but it didn’t last. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire could still be heard in Flannigan, no more than a couple of streets away.
“I don’t like the sound of that. We’ll take an extra detour, down Harrison instead of Franklin. It’ll mean an extra half-mile of walking, but right now, that’s…”
“Stay off the street!” They couldn’t identify the direction of the call for a moment but then looked up to see a police officer in full tactical gear on the roof of the Flannigan Playhouse. “It’s dangerous! Go home, now!” he said, waving them back the way they’d come.
“Okay!” Cody waved to the officer. “But… home’s the other way.”
“Well, get there quickly and stay there.” He still had a radio mic attached to his lapel, finding that he’d reflexively try to check in every few minutes. The unit was little more than junk, now, not even capable of producing static, which was all he would have heard.
“What’s going on?” Cody tried to ask. “Did they send anyone to help out at the high school? There’s a lot of wounded there from the explosions.”
But the cop had heard nothing. “I got my patch, right here, that’s all I know. There are looters and shooters,” he said, eyeing the streets warily, “and when I left the station, they just told me to stay up here. Now, get yourselves home and stay indoors!”
Breaking glass and shouting broke out in the street behind the playhouse, sending the cop sprinting across the roof to see whatever new bedlam he’d be
facing next.
“Okay, if the rioting’s over there,” Cody said, “we’re headed this way.” Their route grew increasingly long, avoiding the broad east-west streets where most of the shops were located. Instead, they headed down alleyways and found themselves two blocks north of the playhouse, where the town’s only Starbucks sat on a deserted corner, its windows smashed.
“Woohoo!” Emma said, beginning her impression of a demented looter again. “No power, so let’s smash up some poor franchise owner’s investment!”
“Idiots,” said Mary despairingly. “Emergencies ought to bring out the best in us.”
It was Jacob who saw the threat, immediately trying to shove his family out of the street. “People!” he hissed. “People with guns! Go!”
Cody tried a door and found it unlocked, and then they were huddled together in the storeroom of the Sherwin Williams store, surrounded by tall stacks of paint cans.
“We’re really getting to see parts of Flannigan we never saw before,” Emma noted, but her father shushed her.
Outside, a group discussion was becoming heated. They could hear only fragments, but one side was certain of its right to be there, or of its ownership of something, while the other side objected. Accusations were leveled. Insults were thrown.
“This is going to get bad,” said Cody.
“It’s already bad,” Jacob said, peering through the bottom pane of the store room’s back window. “One guy has his gun out and is pointing it at… Okay, hang on, now three guys are pointing guns at each other…”
“Reservoir Dogs comes to Flannigan,” sighed Mary. “Insanity.”
There was more shouting from farther away, and then the stand-off seemed to break as the men ran in different directions. Shooting began, different from before; it was louder, more intense, with the rounds coming in groups of three. They heard a scream from just outside the storeroom door, where they’d been standing a minute earlier. Then more shots, one by one, were followed by another sequence of three-round bursts. Midway through, two rounds zipped straight through the storeroom door and smacked into the stack of paint cans, only a foot from Emma’s head.
Protecting Our Home Page 5
