Down the Hole

by Sally Six

Tom turned as he continued to pack things. “How long Penny, how long before you run out of food. If we have no power, then what? How will you heat your home? Not to mention the scum bags that will go through every house looking for what they want. The so called good people will start to do the same looking for food to feed their families.”

  Penny didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t thought of any of those things at the moment.

  “Okay, I see your point. I will be right back.” She took off at a bit of a trot for her home.

  Tom was hauling the kitchen boxes to the garage and putting them in the back of the pickup. He yelled for the kids to grab their sleeping bags and pillows and bring them and their backpacks to the truck. He went to the hall closest and grabbed out his and their BOB bags that he had kept there at home just in case. He then ran to his room and grabbed his sleeping bag, some ammo that he still had here just in case. He picked some of the other clothes and boots that he had left there. He also strapped on his 45. It now seemed like a good time. As Tom was having the kids help him throw the rest of the camping gear and a couple of tarps in the truck, Penny came back with a large duffle bag in hand and a backpack on her back. He also had the throw their dreaded homework in the truck as well.

  Tom was sure glad that almost all of the winter clothes and other things were already up at the cabin. All he had left for himself and the kids was one article each of their winter clothes and boots. So he made sure that they all grabbed those as it would be colder anyway up in the mountains by 20 degrees. It always was. So 50 degrees down here meant around 30 degrees up there in the mountains.

  Penny still seemed to be a pit panicked but was better. “I have to get some things out from the garage. I never could bring myself to get rid of Bert’s camping gear. Always thought I would end up giving it to you and your family. Can I borrow Fred for a few minutes to help me get it?”

  “No problem Penny.” Tom yelled. “Fred.” Fred came out of the house with another box. “Penny needs your help. Go over to her house with her alright.”

  “Okay dad, come on Mrs. McElroy. I’ll help.”

  Off they went to her house.

  Tom had about finished and thought they best be going when he saw Penny and Fred coming back. Both were swamped with stuff. Tom couldn’t help but laugh even at a time like this. He went over to help and then they took off again after the stuff was loaded on the truck. Bitty was standing by him. He lifted her into the pickup and started it up, backed it out of the garage and continued backing into Penny’s driveway.

  He went into it and helped with the remaining things. He saw six cases of MRE’s and four cases of water.

  “Penny, I know this wasn’t your husbands.” She looked at him shyly and said.

  “After all those talks you gave me some of it sunk in. Especially after all those people in the hurricane and earthquake areas went hungry for days after.”

  That put a smile on Tom’s face. “Good, I’m really glad you listened.”

  “All that talk about what would happen if we had no shipments of food and so on. Sorry I wasn’t thinking earlier when you first asked me to go with you. I just never thought of having to leave my home and it shocked me a bit.”

  Tom walked over and gave her a hug. They walked over and threw her things into the truck. Then he helped her into the cab of the truck with Fred and Bitty in the middle.

  “Ok.” Tom said. “We best be going. We don’t know how long we have before the crap hits the fan.”

  It was somewhat crowded in the cab of the truck. It was now 4:54 PM. “Man alive,” he thought to himself. “We should have been out of here already. He and the kids should have had some kind of drill on this sort of thing, but with planning on moving up to the mountains the last year it had never entered his mind.” One thing he was glad of was that 95 percent of their things were already up at the new cabin and Dad and Mom’s place. So they would have everything that they needed which was one thing most people wouldn’t have, like Penny. They were down to the bare on what was here. All he was going to do was borrow Dad’s trailer and fill it and the back of the pickup. That would have been it.

  Maybe at some other time, he would be able to come back and get the fridge, washer and dryer. They would miss those the most he guessed.

  Tom all of a sudden thought. “Oh Crap. Fred here’s my cell phone.” as he handed it over. “Call up your three uncles and tell them, getting time is here. The crap is hitting the fan.”

  Fred before this had some idea things weren’t quite right, but hadn’t said anything. Their dad had talked to both of them about that code and what it would mean. At hearing that, Bitty got very quiet and knew now this just wasn’t a fun thing they were doing.

  They were already on the bypass going around downtown Lewiston. Fred was calling his uncles at work. Tom thought, “Please either answer your phones or check the messages right away if you haven’t heard the news.”

  Fred got a hold of his Uncle Titus right away. “Hello Tom.” Fred heard on the phone. “It’s me Fred, Uncle Titus.” He then told him what his dad Tom told him to say, hung up and dialed the next uncle, Andrew, who was at work at Potlatch Lumber.

  “Andrew here, what’s up Tom?” “It’s me Fred, Uncle Andrew. Dad says to say. Getting time is here and the crap is hitting the fan. Now I have to call Uncle Aaron. Goodbye.”

  Aaron didn’t answer his phone so Fred just told him the code and why and hung up.

  Uncle Aaron worked two full time jobs and had a girlfriend so who knows where he was right now.

  “I couldn’t get a hold of Uncle Aaron, Dad, but I left the message.”

  “Thanks Fred. You did a great job.”

  “Dad what’s going on?” Fred asked. “I think I would like to know.”

  “Yes Fred, I should tell you and Bitty even if Bitty doesn’t quite understand. Russia, China and North Korea you have head of them right?’ Tom said.

  “Yes Dad, we have had them in social studies.”

  “The news announced a while ago that those countries have sent nuclear missiles toward us. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes Dad, I do. Why are they doing that dad? Did we do something to them?” Asked Fred.

  “I don’t think so son. A lot of us think they have been planning this for a long time. They were pretending to be working with us and becoming our friends and us helping them.”

  “When all along, they have been trying to take our country down and make us not a world power anymore. The only problem son is about now our country is now sending missiles back at them. It is called retaliation causing a full-blown war. That’s about the size of things until we find out more information about it all.”

  “Thanks Dad.” Fred said. I do understand that this is going to change things, isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so son. Things may get real bad real quick if it really does happen. I think it’s going to from what the news was saying.”

  Everyone was quiet as they took in what Tom had just told them.

  As they neared the bridge going over the Snake River, Fred noticed his dad’s knuckles were white. He was driving much faster than he usually did. He just sat quiet and didn’t even attempt to pick a fight with his sister. His dad barely even stopped at the stop signs taking the corners much faster than normal and throwing everyone to one side of the truck.

  Tom still felt like they were crawling along. He was afraid they wouldn’t get out of Clarkston, Washington before the ball went up. He was on the highway headed towards Asotin going 65 in a 55 hoping against hope that there weren’t any patrol cars right now that would pull him over. There weren’t as many cars on the road headed out of town as he thought there would be. Many must think they will be able to stay in town until this all blew over. But he knew it wasn’t going to blow over. Things would get very bad before they got better. He could only imagine what it must be like right now at the stores, not to mention the gas stations. He looked at his gas gauge. They had ¾ of a tank plus the
three – 5 gallon gas cans that he had thrown into the back of the pickup.

  There were a couple of cars that zoomed past him. So there was a few headed either home or out of town. The people headed into town didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

  Once when he caught up to a slower car with traffic behind him, the truck behind them laid on his horn and wouldn’t let off. Finally the traffic cleared and the man in the car that passed them shook his fist at Tom. By now they were pulling into the little town of Asotin. It was five miles from Clarkston. They had changed the speed limits about a year back down to 35 then 25 closer to town. He didn’t heed it. He didn’t think they had the time. Tom took the short cut up to the Anatone Grade Road to State Route 129 to Anatone, Washington that went through to Enterprise, Oregon.

  Great, so far so good. No police in site. The roads here were 20 MPH. There was no way he was going to do 20. Tom was just pulling up to the stop sign which was by the Asotin County Fair Grounds on the right. He wasn’t going to stop. He was just looking to see if anyone was coming from the left and up the hill toward them. When his heart about leaped out of his chest as a siren went off behind them. He looked up at his rear view mirror and saw the lights from the police car. He stopped his truck and got out. He didn’t have time for the officer to radio in then get out and come over to the truck. He knew it was a bad move but didn’t feel he had a choice.

  The officer looked up as he was about to radio in. The guy had gotten out of his truck. All Les could think of was, “Oh, oh.”

  He turned on his built in loud speaker. “Sir, you need to get back into your truck. Now that is an order.”

  The guy continued to walk back to the cruiser and was now standing beside the car knocking on the cruiser window. Les just sat there trying to decide what to do next. This had never happened before.

  “I have to go.” said the guy. “You need to know why. We are about to be nuked.”

  “WHAT?” thought Les and rolled down his window.

  “Look sheriff, if you haven’t heard the news, we’re about to be nuked. I don’t have the time to stand around and talk to you. You’re my brother, Titus’s neighbor. You moved here to be Asotin County Sheriff last year. Turn on the news and good luck.”

  With that the guy turned and ran back to his pickup, got in and took off up the over 2000-foot grade. Les Carter sat in his car in shock then reached over and called into dispatch. He needed to find out if that guy was just a nut and then take out after him if he was.

  “Marta come in will you?” This was his third time trying to get her. She came on. “Sorry Les I went off to get a cup of coffee. What’s the problem?”

  “I need to know if there is any bad news right now on the news channels.”

  “Oh yes Les, that’s if you believe them. Something about nukes or some such thing. I think it’s all a hoax if you ask me. I turned it off. I got tired of hearing it.”

  Les though what a do do brain, but said. “I think that I would take it serious if I were you Marta. Thanks over and out.”

  He didn’t want to hear her lame opinions again. “Crap,” thought Les and speed dialed his wife on his cell phone. Meanwhile, he turned his patrol car around and was headed the 5 ½ miles now for home as fast as he could with lights and siren blaring. Lou Ann answered the phone and started to talk loudly over his siren. “Lou Ann quiet please. You have to listen. This is too important.” That quieted her down as she started to get mad at being told to be quiet.

  “Lou Ann, start to pack our winter stuff and other clothes, plus canned goods my extra rifle, pistol and ammunition. Get the kids to help. We are about to be nuked if you haven’t heard the news.”

  “I haven’t. You have to be kidding Les. This is not a nice joke.”

  “Go turn on the news now Lou Ann. Start packing right away. I will be home in a few minutes. This is not a joke.”

  Lou Ann went to the living room and turned on Fox news. What was being reported scared her half to death. It was the Emergency Broadcast System. It was telling them where to tune in as this was an emergency. The kids looked up from their homework and just stopped what they were doing. Lou Ann looked up at the kids and starting yelling. “Get packing NOW. Your dad will be here any moment. Pack warm clothes and your long johns or anything you can use for that matter.” Their daughter wrinkled her nose at that and jumped when her mom yelled again. “Get going you two, right now.”

  In a minute as she was throwing clothes into a duffle bag, she heard a siren getting closer and closer. “That has to be Les.” she thought. “I can’t believe this is really happening.” Les came to a stop in front of his house. He jumped out and as he did he noticed his neighbor, Titus Graham, jumping into his truck that was loaded with things. He started it and tore out of his driveway headed for Asotin. Les knew that Titus’s parents lived up in the mountains somewhere. Les ran over to his garage and opened it. He got into his SUV and started it up. He backed up to his small travel trailer which thank goodness had all kinds of camping supplies and food in it already in readiness for his and his son’s two-week deer hunting trip this weekend.

  Les had already even put in his winter hunting gear. He made Brian do the same with some balking. When they headed out in the morning, he didn’t want to have to worry about Brian still packing what he needed to take. All they would have had to do was grab the guns and ammo and they would have been ready. Now can he get Lou Ann and Tess ready to go in about ten minutes? He doubted it, but he had to try. He drove the SUV and trailer right in front of the door. He hopped out and ran in the door. He ran to the pantry and grabbed a box from the bottom shelf and started to throw in canned goods as fast as he could. He also saw the soaps had been replenished and threw those into a plastic garbage bag. He hauled all that out to the truck. He then ran for his gun cabinet and grabbed the rest of the guns and ammo. He yelled for Lou Ann, Brian and Tess. Yelling, “It is time to go, NOW,” as he hauled the guns to the SUV.

  Tess yelled back from her bedroom that she wasn’t ready. She couldn’t decide what to take. Les ran back in and started to grab warm clothes and boots. He told her to shove her underclothes in a plastic trash bag he handed to her. She started to whine about her makeup and he smacked her on her rump and said. “Clothes, women’s products, food, camping gear and no junk. Now get to the SUV.”

  She stuck out her bottom lip and went grumbling the whole way.

  Lou Ann was coming out of the bedroom with a duffle bag and a backpack. “Do we have to go now?” she asked. “Yes.” Les said. I don’t think we have much time. We have to go right now.”

  They piled into the SUV and Les took off like a bat out of Hades. He headed the same way that Titus Graham had gone for the mountains above Anatone. The time was 5:20 PM.

  Meanwhile, Tom and his group were nearing the top of the grade. “Please.” Tom continued to pray in his mind. “Twenty five more minutes and we will be home. That’s all we need.” He looked at the clock in the pickup. It was now 5:22 PM.

  As he was rounding the top of the grade on the last corner, he ended up behind a slow moving car and traffic coming down the other side. “We sure didn’t need this.” he said out loud.

  Everyone just looked at him. He could see the scared expressions on their faces.

  Tom said. “I will get around them just as soon as possible.”

  He wasn’t able to get around them for another five minutes. It seemed more like 30 minutes to all of them. He sped around the car as soon as he could and really put the pedal to the metal. He was flying down the road as fast as his old 1985 Chevy pickup would take them at 75 MPH. The clock read 5:34 PM as he flew down the road. Then all of a sudden the truck stopped running and they slowly drifted to a stop.

  The clock read 5:35 PM. They were only ten miles down the road from the top of Anatone Grade. Tom tried a couple of times to restart the pickup, but nothing. He looked up into his rear view mirror and saw a car about a half mile back. It was also stopped.

  Both kids were now
asking, “What’s wrong dad?”

  Tom looked over at the kids and Penny. “The only thing I can think of is that we have been hit with an EMP.”

  “What’s an EMP Daddy?” Bitty asked.

  “It’s short for Electro Magnetic Pulse. That’s what happens when a nuclear bomb is set off high in the sky. It makes it so anything electric doesn’t work unless is protected inside a metal cage or deep underground. With nothing nuked around here, it had to have been detonated up in the upper atmosphere. Well I guess it’s not getting any earlier. It feels like it’s getting colder. We best get the bikes out of the truck.”

  They started to climb out of the truck and Tom told them. “I hate to leave the truck and the rest of our things, but I don’t see any other way. We will have to try and ride.” He heard groans from every one. He had them pull some of their warmer clothes and gloves out and put them on.

  Tom said. “It can’t be helped. This truck isn’t going to start until we do some work on it.”

  “We need to get to your grandparents. Then somehow get back here tomorrow to get either what’s on the truck or the stuff and the truck. We have to do that as soon as possible or we will get back to find it empty. I think it may even be okay for a couple of days, but after that all bets are off. It wouldn’t be long before people start to take what they need without asking, no, if ands or buts.”

  “Now, get your BOB bags and strap them on. We may need the food and water in them before the nights over. We have about 28 miles from here.”

  They all started to put on their backpacks and looked around. They were beside a dirt road that went off to the right, Haltsteadler Road.

  Fred looked up at his dad. “Dad, isn’t that the road that the Wilson’s live on?”

  “Yeah, it is Fred. Okay kids and Penny, we have a change to our plans. Is there any way you think you could help push the truck down the 1 mile to the Wilson farm? Do you think you’re up to it Penny?”

  Penny stood there a few minutes thinking. “Sure, I think I can help do that.”

  He looked at Bitty. “Bitty do you think you could steer the truck while we push it?”