The First Hours

by Christine Conaway

  Teagan grabbed Rayan’s hand and pulled him forward, “Nope. We can’t wait, and we can’t help those poor kids. What we can and should do is get on down the road. My Dad will have ideas about how we can help others, but we have to get home first.”

  Ryan nodded and began to walk, following Teagan’s lead.

  To Teagan, Ryan seemed content to let her take charge, and while it bothered her just a little that he would put her in a leadership position, it felt good too. She didn’t see him as weak, but she couldn’t decide what he was. One minute he seemed strong and the next too indecisive to be a leader. “No different than you,” she told herself.

  Teagan groaned. She knew her thought was right. She was just as guilty as him, because she couldn’t decide a course of action and stick to it either. The truth of the matter is she felt sick inside. She’d tried to shut her mind off to the dead kids, the power going off, the fact that Deena had abandoned her, the fact she’d lied through her silence to her father and that she had stolen from him. She’d had good intentions and still did, but her mind was ablaze with confusion. What was right and what was wrong…to help everyone else or help themselves.

  “Tell me about this thing with your Father. Why are you so worried about what he thinks?”

  When she didn’t answer, Teagan felt Ryan pull away and looked at him. “It’s complicated. He didn’t know I was going to the beach, and I wasn’t really going for the party aspect. I made plans to go to a riding place for lessons during the day while everyone else was at the beach.”

  “Oh, I can see where that justifies not telling him. That doesn’t even make any sense. Why not ride at home? Heck, I could have given you some lessons for free.”

  Teagan feigned exasperation, “Now he tells me.” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “The problem is; I’m sure he’s going to try and find me, but he’ll have no idea where to start looking. I’m pretty sure Nancy won’t say anything unless he puts some pressure on her, but I’m not at the coast. If I know my dad, he’ll go ballistic and drive to somewhere I’m not at. I don’t think he would look for me along the way.”

  “I’ve only seen your Dad when he was dealing with Trevor, but he seemed like a smart man. Maybe you don’t give him enough credit?”

  Teagan groaned, “Why did you have to bring up the credit thing?”

  Ryan looked at her with a frown. He raised his eyebrows in question. “What does credit have to do with anything?”

  “I took his credit card to put a deposit on my room. I planned on paying cash when I got there, but that’s not going to happen now. I can see the disappointment on his face already…and trust me, he won’t say anything or get physical. It’s just the damn expression he’ll use to make me feel like I’ve failed him…again.”

  “Maybe you should stop prejudging him until we get there. For one thing, he’ll never know about the charge to his card if you don’t tell him because…” he grinned, “there won’t be a credit card statement until the powers back on and that could be never.”

  “There is that,” Teagan mumbled, but she knew she had to come clean. Her conscience would poke and prod at her until she confessed to her sin. Her intentions had been good…sort of.

  At the top of the ramp, the two paused, staring down the road. Neither one had taken into consideration that there would be cars all over the road on both sides of the freeway, and people. Some car hoods were up, and small groups of people stood around talking. It appeared like no one had a clue what had caused all of the cars to stop at the same time.

  “What do we do?” Teagan asked from the side of her mouth. She glanced behind them and saw they had attracted some unwanted attention. “Ryan, there’s a guy behind us waving for us to come to him.”

  “Ignore him. Just keep walking and don’t meet anyone’s eyes. Chances are someone will want to know what we have in the packs, and you already said we don’t have enough to share.”

  “I know, I know…but there’s little kids over there.” She pointed at the car in front of them.

  Ryan groaned, “Why did I know you would say that?”

  As they neared the car, Teagan saw the mother sitting in the passenger seat with a small baby at her breast, covered by a baby blanket. While she didn’t want to intrude, the other two children sat on the pavement watching their mother. She thought they were looking on with envy on their faces. Unless the mother had brought snacks for them, they likely hadn’t eaten since the day before. There was no way she could pass them up without sharing some of what they had. She and Ryan could go for days without food, but these kids looked hungry.

  Teagan cleared her throat as they got closer to catch the woman’s attention. The woman sucked back as if she was afraid. When Teagan got close enough, she could see the woman’s face had a newly formed bruise across her cheek.

  Wide-eyed she watched Teagan and Ryan, “Please just leave us alone. I already gave everything we had. There’s no more.”

  Teagan frowned, “We don’t want anything. I was going to offer a few snacks for the kids if it’s okay with you.”

  Relief flooded the woman’s face, she turned away and discreetly put the baby in the baby carrier and straightened her clothes. She pulled the blanket up to shield the sleeping baby from the sun beating in through the windshield. She started to say something, but she lost her voice. Clearing her throat first, she told them, “Please. They haven’t eaten since yesterday noon. I had lunch with us, but someone took it.”

  “Someone took it from them?” Teagan asked. Her voice was a little louder than she meant it to be, and the woman cringed. “Why would they do that?” she asked quietly.

  The woman eyed Teagan with just a hint of distrust on her face, “He said his kids were hungrier than mine, and they didn’t have anything.” Her voice cracked as she looked down at what appeared to be a set of twins sitting side by side at her feet. “Now, neither do mine.”

  Both boys were identical as near as Teagan could tell. Short brown curls and dark brown eyes. Neither cried nor acted out. They sat in silence, listening to their mother. Teagan didn’t think they were older than two and wondered if they even understood everything she said. Tears had cleaned tracks down their dirty faces, and Teagan’s heart went out to them. She knelt down in front of them, “Hello. My name is Teagan. What’s yours?” She looked at their mother who nodded at her as if giving Teagan the okay to talk to them.

  Teagan unbuckled the backpack, “I bet I have something in here for you.” One of the little boys smiled his little baby smile at her and nodded while the other boy shoved his thumb in his mouth and sucked. Teagan had no idea what the kids could eat, or not eat and turned back to the woman, “Peanut butter and jam? Is that okay?”

  “Oh my gosh yes,” she looked over Teagan’s shoulder, “but you might want to get it out in the back seat, or that guy will think you have something and come and take it away.”

  Teagan looked the direction she pointed and realized the man she was talking about was the same one who had tried to get her and Ryan to come to him. He stood with his hands resting on his overweight hips, glaring at them. His wife sat with her legs hanging out the passenger seat, feet resting on the running boards, and she looked as overweight as he did. Two chubby kids climbed around in the back of the lifted pickup truck. Teagan wasn’t all that knowledgeable about children, but she thought they had to be 9 or 10 as big as they were and like their parents had not missed too many meals. The boy was bordering on obese as both parents were. Teagan could hear the two of them whining from where they were.

  The man looked away from Teagan to yell at his kids, “You better shut up before I give you something to cry for,” he threatened.

  “Is that the man who took your food?” Teagan asked nodding in the man’s direction.

  The woman tried not to look but did so as if she couldn’t help herself. “That’s him. The way he treats those kids is deplorable, and that woman isn’t much better.” She looked down at her lap, “That sad
part is, I would have shared what we had if he had simply asked. He didn’t offer to take just a part of it, he wanted it all, and I couldn’t help but notice he ate some of the sandwiches himself.”

  “What a pig!” Teagan climbed into the backseat of the woman’s car and began pulling the sandwich makings from her pack. “Ryan, you’ve got the bread in one of those bags,” she called. Ryan passed her in the loaf of bread.

  “While you’re doing that I’m going to see if I can talk to a couple of these people. Maybe someone saw Deena and Trevor.”

  Teagan wanted to tell him to stay, but she knew he needed to find out if the two had come this way. She nodded, “Be careful, and I’d stay away from that guy in the pickup truck.”

  “Don’t worry, I will. I’m going to check with that group of people in the other direction. Just holler when you’re ready to go.”

  Teagan glanced nervously toward the fat man. He was still in the same position, just watching them. The skin covering her spine rippled. She remembered her grandmother saying it was someone walking over her grave. She’d laughed and said she didn’t have one yet, but grandma had said, “not in this lifetime.” Teagan hadn’t been sure what she was talking about then, but as she grew older, she thought she got it. There were unexplainable circumstances she’d experienced more than once, places she recognized, faces she’d seen and a mysterious house in the woods that found its way into some of her dreams. This man was one of those manifestations. He looked familiar.

  Teagan realized she didn’t want Ryan to leave.

  “Ryan, please can you just stay with me. I’m almost done here, and then we can leave.” She folded the peanut butter and jam slices in half. She’d made enough for the kids to have another later and a whole sandwich she intended for the mother. She felt a twinge of guilt for not leaving the sandwich fixings behind but knew she and Ryan would need food too. Teagan dug out a couple of the energy bars and added them to the cache. The food wouldn’t last long, but it was the best she could do.

  Teagan sighed, climbed out of the back seat and half sandwich in each hand, and gave them to the boys. They looked at their mother before either one would take it. She must have given a silent okay because both took the bread and began to gobble it down.

  “Thank you for the kindness,” the woman said, and Teagan heard the gratitude in her voice.

  “I made one for you too and an extra for them later.” She stood watching the woman, saw the sadness on her face, and wondered what she was going to do. Having three little kids to be responsible for couldn’t be easy at the best of times, and now…she shook her head. Teagan knew something she was going to regret was going to leap out of her mouth, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Where do you live?” Teagan tried to suck the words back in and instantly saw hope on the woman’s face.

  “Jefferson, it’s not that far, just outside of town limits, but I didn’t want to abandon the car.”

  Teagan screwed her face up and wanted to yell at the woman and ask her if she was really that stupid but refrained. She tried to keep the disbelief out of her next words, “Why are you still here? It’s less than ten miles away.”

  The woman looked like Teagan had slapped her. “How would I get there? Walk? I couldn’t just leave it,” she pointed at the car, “and my phone doesn’t work right now to call a tow truck. I was hoping my husband would come looking for us.” The light seemed to click on, “You do, don’t you? You think I could walk there with three little kids? Do you know how hard walking anywhere with three small children is?”

  Teagan wanted to tell her it would be easier than being dead sitting inside the car, waiting for help that was never coming. Why is she the only one who had an idea what was happening? It was beginning to look like everyone else was clueless. Teagan chewed her lip, trying to think how she could tell her without scaring the pants off her.

  “How would your husband know to come looking for you if you couldn’t call him?”

  Clearly, the woman wasn’t thinking straight, or she would have known. Teagan wanted to tell the woman what she thought was going on and how long they could expect it to last, but the woman looked frazzled enough already. With an obviously new baby and two toddlers to care for Teagan couldn’t imagine that hearing their world had been set back to the stone age would help the situation at all.

  Teagan knew she was going to do it again. She only hoped that Ryan would see it her way. Teagan knew she couldn’t help everyone that needed it, but like with Deena, she couldn’t just walk away. Maybe if she and Ryan could help this woman and her children, it would absolve some of the guilt she felt for not helping Deena and Trevor.

  “Look, I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but this isn’t going to get better, and none of our phones work. Let me ask Ryan and see if we can help you get home. It’s only a couple miles out of our way.”

  She saw the hope spread across the woman’s face and hoped it was even possible. So many things could go wrong along the way. They would be three adults against who knew what, with the added responsibility of three small children.

  When she turned to find Ryan, he was just leaving the group of people a couple hundred yards north of her. His posture didn’t indicate he was happy. In fact, he walked with the air of defeat, his shoulders hanging, his steps uncertain and they’d barely gotten started. She wondered what he’d learned from the group of people that had made him so hopeless.

  Teagan didn’t walk to meet him but waited by the back of the woman’s car. She hoped he worked it out before he reached her because, with his disheartened behavior, she was sure he wouldn’t be receptive to her plan.

  Ryan lifted his head when he realized that staring at his feet wasn’t going to provide the answers he needed. Some of the people in the group had given him some upsetting news. If the men were right, the west coast was in deep trouble, and it wouldn’t matter if he and Teagan reached their homes at all. The only solace they would have would be rejoining their families before the end, and he could picture his parents when he told them he had been with Trevor but failed to bring him home.

  “Well? Any good news to report?” The look on his face spoke louder than the words he was trying to drum up. The smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes, and Teagan felt the foreboding begin. She shook it off. One of them had to remain positive, and it looked like it would fall on her shoulders.

  While she waited for his answer, Teagan rolled her shoulders to loosen her tight and tired muscles, “My shoulders are big enough,” she said softly.

  Ryan shook his head, “It doesn’t sound good, and we need to get home. A couple of those guys came down from Portland, and if they’re right, we can be thankful we don’t have to go anywhere close to there. The one guy was out on Marine Drive by the airport and apparently, planes were dropping like flies. No fire crews came or medical services. Nothing. The planes crashed and burned where they landed.”

  “That’s awful,” Teagan heard herself and cringed. Somehow, the word awful didn’t portray how his words made her feel inside, but there was nothing they could do to help. The chances of any survivors were slim, and Portland was too far away for a couple of kids walking. Without transportation for the firemen or paramedics, no one could help them. She tried to gauge how Ryan would feel about her plan, but the hopeless despair she felt oozing from him, didn’t bode well for him being receptive.

  “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but I think we should help that lady get her kids home. There’s no way she can walk and carry all of them at the same time, and they’re too small to walk on their own.”

  Ryan stopped in front of her, “Why would you do something like that? Why would getting them home safely be any more important than us getting home?”

  “Because we can, and they don’t live far off I-5. We have to go right past their place. Well, it’s only a couple miles out of our way, but it’s something I feel we need to do. If we go off and leave her here, those kids are g
oing to die. Is that what you want?”

  “No…how can you even say that. Teagan, they think the reactor up at Richland Washington could have a meltdown. It will devastate the whole west coast if it does.”

  Teagan wanted to laugh. “Oh geez! Didn’t you go on the field trip with us last year?” She shook her head, realizing he was nowhere around at the time.

  “Nope, sorry I guess you didn’t. I wish people who had no idea what they’re talking about would just keep their so-called information to themselves. We went to Richland to the Columbia Generating Station to learn about the reactors. The main piece of information I gleaned from the trip is that it would be impossible for a nuclear reactor in the United States to have an unintentional meltdown. As soon as a problem is detected, it shuts itself down just like it did in 2017. I don’t remember the exact process, but they called it SCRAM. Safety Control Rod Activation Mechanism or something like that. When the plant loses electrical power the backup generators kick in and should the emergency go on long enough for them to run out of fuel, and there is no one to do it manually, the SCRAM thing kicks in and drops the neutron-absorbing control rods into the core, rapidly halting the nuclear reaction by absorbing liberated neutrons. It’s a long drawn out explanation, and it was really kind of boring, but I came away knowing that a complete meltdown is almost impossible. If neutrons do escape, they could contaminate the surrounding areas around the reactor, but they don’t explode like some people think.

  “Wow aren’t you a wealth of knowledge, but are you sure?” He noticed that Teagan had begun to glare at him, and laughed self-consciously, “Never mind. I can see you are. I wonder if I should tell those guys? They all think the whole state is going to blow up.”

  “I think we need to go. I don’t like the way that guy is watching every move we make.”