by catt dahman
“I have?”
“Oh, Honey, no one has had nearly this much information, and we have been just wondering and worrying,” Lydia added.
“I can try,” Sammy said.
“Did anyone mention the National Guard?”
“Yes,” Sammy tried to think, “they are trying but have to stay dry, too. No one knows anything that has been said.” She looked terrified.
Pax thought he should change tactics and that the lack of anyone in control and working on the problems was very frightening, not only to Sammy, but also to all of them. “Did they have any advice?”
“Use oil to keep it off of your skin, and don’t get rain on you. Ummm, protect your self, and either hide or fight back. I hid.”
“That was smart.”
“As soon as it stops, we can begin to put things back together. But stay at home, and stay dry. The DCC said….”
“CDC? Scientists and doctors? They talked smart and fancy? Used some big words?”
“Yes. Them. They say stay dry, and this has gotta be a pollutant from a passing star or junk in the sky but could be something leaking out from here or a terror-something.”
“Act of terrorism?”
“Yep, That is it. I knew that. Like the tower thingies got run into with airplanes. They said it could be that without the planes, you know.”
“Okay, so they don’t know much,” Pax smiled, reassuringly. “Big heads never know much; they just pretend to, Sammy.”
Sammy finally gave Pax a half-smile. “They did sound silly talking over each other. They said it will pass, the rain will stop, and things will be okay. People always say that. How is Uncle Chris? Have you seen him?”
Annie and Dana brought in sodas and snacks.
Pax glanced to Lydia but saw her tighten her eyes and sink a little. He cocked his head. “Sammy, you are sharp and solid, and I respect that. I am going to be straightforward with you, okay? Chris must have come here first, and you were very smart to hide. He had the sickness that’s in the rain. It makes people angry and violent, you know that. They aren’t themselves anymore.”
“Uh huh.”
“He left here and came to the diner. We didn’t have the doors locked or know to hide like you did, and he came in and was pretty crazy acting. He had a weapon, and he didn’t mean to, but the rain made him hurt a few people.
Do you know Ronnie, the police officer? Yeah? She’s pretty cool. Well, she had to disarm him, that means to make him drop his weapon, and he was back at Coral’s, and all of the violent people were locked away.” Pax didn’t lie. He just left out parts in his explanation. Lydia gave him a silent thank you with her eyes.
“Oh, okay,” Sammy said.
“We came to get you, Honey,” Lydia told her daughter, “and we can go back where Uncle Coral is, and we’ll all be safe. You love his cookies.”
“I’m tired,” Sammy said.
Pax nodded, “Me, too.” {No, he was exhausted, not sleepy, but bone-tired}.
Lydia had some rum put away to go with her soda, so she was more steadied, but she was also yawning, now.
Despite Dana’s worry about her parents and her demands to go check on them, she began to doze off in a chair from exhaustion, and when Lydia told her to go lie down in the bed, she did so without arguing.
“Go; get some rest, and take care of Sammy. I can stand guard a while,” Pax told Lydia. Annie said she would help him, and Dan finally agreed to nap for a little while before he took over as guard.
Lydia cuddled up to her child in her room, and they fell asleep. After everything that had happened and despite losing Chris and seeing what he had done before being shot and even though it was raining, the world was falling apart, and everything looked hopeless, Lydia had her daughter with her, and that was enough.
“Go sleep. I’ll stay on guard,” Pax said to Dan. “I’m wide awake. He went through the house and checked on the locks on windows and doors, pulling the drapes closed and turning off lights so the downstairs was dark.
It was the first time he and Annie had a chance to talk normally, and she wanted to know about his trip to see her and why he had decided to surprise her.
He only smiled when she stopped asking questions and slipped off to sleep. Covering her with a soft throw he found at the end of the sofa, Pax watched her sleep; at times she mumbled and looked afraid, but then her face would soften, and she would sink deeper into dream land.
Pax knew that beyond a shadow of doubt he was in love with Annie; she was the woman he had waited to meet and be with the rest of his life. Unfortunately, he was concerned that he had waited far too long to meet her.
Chapter 4
Coral didn’t think it was precognition or anything worldly that made him start planning something different than what they had thought of before. A few random events and observances ignited him into action. Immediately after Dan had driven away in one direction and Gus had driven in the other, Coral and the rest heard a thrumming in the front of the diner.
Someone that they didn’t know, maybe who was in town for the spas or sight seeing, was outside one of the windows banging his fists against the glass. A man snarled and glared while he beat at the glass.
Someone behind Coral whispered that this man had already tried the door, and after finding it locked, he had begun to hit the window. The glass was thick, but if the man grabbed a brick or something to break the glass, he would get inside and attack.
With the entire front almost all glass, it might be only a matter of time before someone broke in.
With the lights out and the lightning intermittently flashing, Coral had seen Dan drive to the Catholic Church. As he drove over, a homeless man they all knew as Isaac, had run at the Bronco and tried to get inside but had fallen as they sped away.
As much as it scared Coral to see that, he figured the incident had terrified those inside the Bronco. At the church, it looked as if someone or a few people climbed into the Bronco before it took off again.
Gus was already down 2nd Street and had presumably turned on Pine to get to the clinic to help the patients he carried.
As Coral watched, a trio of figures joined several others in the rain, and they resolutely walked toward the well-lit church.
One man carried what looked like a baseball bat, and a few others carried things that Coral couldn’t make out.
He wanted to warn Father Tom or to help, but he could only watch as the people in the rain walked to the doors and the windows of the lobby area and raised their hands and arms. It was only a few minutes before the people climbed through the broken windows, and Coral didn’t think he could hear screams from where he was, but he could imagine them all the same.
“What are they doing?”
Coral jumped as Ronnie whispered to him in the darkness. “I think those are crazies…messed up with the rain…Rainies, and they are going after the people in the church.”
“I need to do something.”
“If you go out, you’ll get wet and be part of the problem. If they corner you, they’ll rip you apart, Ronnie. The church is big; maybe most can hide.” Coral walked past her and softly called Jake, George, Mark, and Jobie to him. “This is what we need to do….” He outlined his plan, explaining what he had seen at the church.
Mark looked to Ronnie, wondering if they needed to go help. If they did, they would leave these people unprotected.
“And do what with it?” Jake asked Coral.
“We’ll have to bug out. We can’t stay here. I’m wondering if Annie and Dan made it. I don’t know that Gus even made it.” Coral got everyone’s attention.
“Dan is reliable, and that guy, Pax, he seems okay,” Mark said grudgingly. “I think he’s pretty sharp. The gals are dependable too, and no one is gonna keep Lydia from Sammy.”
Coral nodded. “I can’t make you go; you can stay. But I am leaving, and I hope you’ll go with me. We aren’t safe here. I want to load supplies up: food, water, trash baggies and table cloths becau
se that’s what we have here, and then get some vehicles and get across the bridge and out of here. We can drive out and go where the State police and others can help us. We’ll get Lydia and the others and Gus, and next, we’ll get out.”
“Just leave our homes and the town?” a woman asked.
“I think we have to for now until the rain stops and someone can figure out what caused this and if we can make the place safe again,” Coral said.
“We’re gathering stuff; come help us,” Jake ordered.
“What the hell?” someone said. They heard rumblings of a big engine.
Chapter 5
Coral motioned them to continue, and he walked over, suited up in baggies, and went under the over-hang to see what the new arrivals wanted. It was one of the Cold Spring’s school buses, one of the only two the town had. When the door opened, Ben peeked out and said, “Hi, ya, Coral.”
“Hi, Ben. What are you doing?” Coral was a little surprised at how folksy they both were speaking and suppressed a grin.
“Got a few with me; they are all okay, got them down at the firehouse and hotel. I ran for the bus and loaded them up, and here we are. Figured you’d know what to do, and there ain’t no one at the police office, now.”
“That was mighty brave, Ben. I guess you saved their lives. Mark and Ronnie are here.”
“Awe, someone had to do it.” {He was proud someone had noticed}.
“That’s all you found?”
“Oren,” Ben said, “he said we had to bug out.” He pointed to the patrol car parked behind the bus. Oren, the chief, waved at Coral and blew a kiss to Ronnie.
“Why’d you come here and not get out of town?”
Ben clucked, shaking his head of grey curls and slapping the steering wheel once, lightly. “You didn’t hear the commotion? Coral, the bridge went.”
“Went? Went where?”
“Gone. Down. Away,” Ben said. “It’s gone. The river flooded: covered the trees, and flooded the bridge which fell in, and now there’s nothing much left. I can’t tell in the dark and rain, but near as I can tell, there’s really nothing left.”
Coral felt sick. That bridge was the only way out of town.
“We aren’t safe here. We saw some of the ‘Rainies’ go after the people in the church across the street, so we are grabbing stuff to bug out. We were going to leave town after we find Annie and Gus and the rest.”
Still in their slickers, Ronnie and Mark listened. None of the rain came into the overhang, but they were still jumpy about the rain. Ronnie blew a kiss back to her father as he waited in his cruiser.
Ronnie pointed.
Behind the bus was the other police officer on the small force; he was Oren, the chief, and he waved from the cruiser to hurry and get a plan.
“Oren is with us, I haven’t seen Rick, and Oren couldn’t get him on the radio, much as he tried.”
“He’s gone smooth,” Ronnie said.
Ben seemed to understand what she meant. “Let’s load up your people and stuff, and we can get out of here if we figure out where to go.”
Dressed in baggies, everyone handed out boxes and containers of supplies. Coral had plenty of food, and if he could feed the masses, then he would. Give him a fish and a loaf of bread, and he would feed everyone who hungered. This was what he was meant to do, he thought.
He motioned to Oren and hoped the man understood his gestures and pantomiming, but he had a lot to communicate. Ronnie laughed and handed Coral her radio as she said, “I should have just let you keep waving.”
Coral chuckled and spoke to Oren a while. He explained what Gus had said about the fourth officer, Rick, running people down, and Oren took it hard, hating to hear it, hanging his head for a second, and then Coral filled him in on all of the rest. Ben gave up more details.
Ben had explained more to Coral, Ronnie, and Mark. The bridge over the river had been bashed by huge, uprooted trees, and maybe worse, it had crumbled under the assault of rocks and slabs of concrete, breaking and rolling into the river, pieces of the bridge tossed like a child’s blocks.
The river was running hard, way up over its banks as was the small lake that the river traveled through. Lake Road and the picnic areas, all the grounds, and everything around the river were under water.
It was the worst flood ever to hit the town, even worse than the one back in the 1930s that had done so much damage. But that had been before levees were reinforced and the river had been allowed to go freely through the lake.
Back then, the farmlands had drained, the river hadn’t come up even close to the school or courthouse, and the town hadn’t been in danger of washing away.
How they would get supplies and come back from this, Coral didn’t know. Economically, the storm was destroying the town, and the massive violence wasn’t helping.
After making it though this alive, the towns people would have clean-up and sanitation issues, homes and businesses would be ruined, people would be left without homes or jobs, many people would have some to mourn and to bury, and if the crime scenes were viable, criminal cases would have to be cleared.
Children would miss school, and the farms wouldn’t be fit for growing anything. But if all pulled together, they could rebuild. Maybe they would need FEMA, like those people had needed after the hurricane in New Orleans. But they needed help now, if they were to make it through this rainy night.
“The hotel, both spas, the Methodist Church, the bar and gas station, parking lots, and streets are several feet under.
I’d say the houses on lower Hickory and Willow are flooded, too, and the trailer park is flooding as we speak.
I didn’t see anyone driving out of there either, so all may be hunkered down, waiting for this to blow over,” Ben winced as he spoke. At least twenty homes, twenty mobile homes, and a dozen businesses were involved in that.
He didn’t mention what might have happened to any who were camped near the lake; there were usually half-dozen campsites in nice weather such as they had been having.
In his mind’s eye, Coral could imagine people struggling against canvas and nylon tents, getting tangled in aluminum tent poles, and being washed away with their supplies down the river and off to the south, only to bog down in the swampy area of the lake.
“We need to get to one place, somewhere we can defend, but also be comfortable in while we wait this out,” Coral said. “That’s what Oren says.”
“I’d be comfortable in my own bed,” Ben grumbled.
“Yep, and when a few of these nuts knocked your door in and stabbed you, would you be comfortable?” Coral asked. “We’re safer in a group. But where?” {He didn’t add that one of the violent nuts could be one of them if they got wet}.
Ronnie frowned. “I would normally say we should go to the court house and stay there….”
“But that’s about to flood,” Ben told her, “already you’d be wading in at least two feet to get there, and I don’t think you’d want your feet soaked.”
“And the school is always a rally point.”
“Flooded, too.”
Ronnie rolled her eyes at Ben. “The highest point in town is Main Street Hotel.” She had learned that in school when they were taught about the town.
“It’s in the center of town, too. A little kitchen is there, along with plenty of beds. With supplies, we could hole up there for a long time,” Coral agreed, “good thinking, Ronnie.”
“Ben, you take the bus and get under the portico. None of the Rainies can get in the bus really; it’s like a tank. I am heading down to the hotel to look for other survivors and Dana’s folks. Ronnie, take Jake and George in the cruiser, and I’ll take Katie and Jobie with me; then, we can go together.
While I do my rat killin’ at the hotel, you three can start loading up guns and ammo at the station to take with us. Oren says to do that.” Coral felt he should add that part so that they would know he wasn’t the only one making plans. “We’ll come back and help, hopefully with some more peo
ple.”
Ronnie nodded. “It’s a plan. Ben, be careful out there.”
Coral called back into his diner, “Who’s got that fine motor home out yonder?”
“That’s ours. Mitch and Sara O’ Donnell.”
“How about this: You two drive it to the medical clinic, get Gus and Marnie and others who can help you, and get the injured loaded up. The situation may not be so comfy, but you need to get all of them to Main Street Hotel, too, where they’ll be safer, ‘cause there are way too many windows and light at the clinic.”
“That’s a plan. ‘Bout time we got to help,” Mitch O’Donnell said. He and his wife smiled. They looked to be in their forties and eager and ready to work. “We’ll get everyone we can from there and then come on over. I doubt one of those…what are you calling them? Rainies? Those Rainies can’t fight with my big ‘Bago.”
“Do what you have to if they try to attack you. You know…defend yourself,” Coral said. “Ummm…Oren….”
“Gotcha. Oren says defend ourselves.” Mitch nodded with a smile.
“I’m ready as soon as we get it loaded up,” Sara added, “I’m gonna run for it; Mitch, your knee might bum on you.”
“Now Sara….”
“Don’t you get me going on my being able to out run you,” she said as she looked at Coral. “I still run every morning, and I ran track when I was in college, so I am the one going. Get me taped up in my baggies, Mitch.”
Coral turned, “Oren says, Mark, you go with them for security, and take a couple people with ya; bring back a lot of supplies, ok? You’re the tough one, Oren said that, too.”
“ ‘Kay,” Mark said. He knew that he was an adequate officer, but that Ronnie, Oren’s daughter, was the star of the police force. “I’ll keep them safe.”
“I know you will.” Coral gave him a pat on the shoulder.
Mark nodded as he continued to put more supplies on the bus, alongside the rest.
