One Second After

by William R. Forstchen

  “With some luck the ice should last you up to a week.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you enough,” John said.

  “Well, helping me find some food might be a good starter,” she said with a smile.

  “I know where there’s great barbecue.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  He pulled out of the plaza and headed back towards town.

  “Hope you don’t mind a personal question?” she asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Who’s Mary?”

  “My wife.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Breast cancer, four years back.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s ok,” he lied. “She left me two beautiful girls.”

  “I could see that last night. I kind of suspected your younger was diabetic. In my business you can spot it. That’s why it didn’t bother me too much when you took off like you did. Stress is bad for her situation.”

  “I know. Again, I’m sorry about running out on you like that.”

  She smiled.

  “Oh, there was a truck driver there, a regular white knight. He finally beat the crap out of the drunk, then walked us ladies down to the motel.”

  She hesitated.

  “You kind of surprised me, the way you took that man out in the drugstore.”

  “You figured I was running out at first, didn’t you?”

  “Well, to be honest, yeah, I did.”

  “I didn’t, though.”

  She chuckled softly. “You sure as hell didn’t. Bit underhanded maybe, but you settled it.”

  “If you must fight, fight to win,” John said quietly.

  “You know you got a cut hand, don’t you.”

  He looked at his right hand, and for the first time the pain registered. Part of the broken bottle had laid a deep slice into his right forefinger clear down to the crease with his thumb.

  Damn, it suddenly hurt like hell.

  “Pull over; let me look at it.”

  He drifted to the side of the road and came to a stop. She took his hand and gently spread the wound open; now it really hurt. “You’ll need stitches. Ten to twelve from the looks of it.” As she examined it, blood dripped onto her suit. “Be careful, your suit,” he said. She ignored him.

  “I don’t have anything sterile on me. You should stop at a doctor’s.”

  “Later. I want to get the medicine home first. Besides, the doc is most likely swamped right now.”

  As he spoke he nodded towards the road.

  Maury Hurt’s World War II Jeep was coming down off the exit ramp of the interstate, four people piled in, one a child with shoulders hunched over, pale faced, gasping. Lying across the back of the Jeep was an elderly woman who John could see was already dead.

  “We don’t realize just how dependent we are,” Makala sighed, watching as the Jeep weaved around some stalled cars to head into town.

  “I’d hate to be in my hospital right now. If the generators didn’t kick on, everyone in ICU or under surgery is most likely dead. I watched one poor fool killing himself last night. Had a Beemer like mine. The drunks kind of scared him and he insisted on pushing the car as if somebody was actually going to steal it. Damn fool. Someone told me later that he collapsed. People are crazy and this is bringing it out big-time.” She let go of his hand.

  “If you can find something I’ll bandage it up, but you should get that medicine home.”

  He wondered if she was inviting herself over. And at that moment he honestly didn’t know how to react.

  He started the car back up and drove into town, turning onto State Street. More and more people were crowding in around the town hall complex. Poor Tom had a cordon of his officers out. A large hand-lettered sign was posted at the main intersection: “Emergency Medical,” pointing towards the firehouse next to the town hall.

  “Maybe I should go over there and help,” she said.

  “First get some food,” John replied.

  He had already turned onto State Street, and seconds later the elementary school was in view.

  “Why not go back there and get some stitches?”

  “My mother-in-law can handle it,” he finally said.

  “Sure,” and there wasn’t any reaction in her voice one way or the other. “Just make sure you dose it well with an antibiotic. If things are as bad as I heard you say to Liz, you can’t risk any kind of infection.” Yes, ma’am.

  “Come on; it’s ‘Makala.’”

  He smiled.

  “Right.”

  He pulled up onto the lawn of the elementary school. Pete was still at his grill. The line was just about gone. John got out of the car and walked up; Makala followed.

  “Hey, Pete, busy today?”

  “You got that straight, Professor. Figure the stuff is gonna rot. Health inspector won’t let me use the meat anyhow, going this long with no refrigeration, so what the hell, might as well put on a damn good barbecue.”

  John smiled. He genuinely liked this guy. Pork barbecue was something John had never really cared for, especially with the spices Pete threw in, but still he’d eat there occasionally just to hang out and chat.

  “Professor?” Makala asked.

  “Regular brain there,” Pete said. “Professor at the college here, army colonel, too. They were even going to give him a star and make him a general, but he quit….”

  Pete’s voice trailed off. Naturally, everyone in town of course knew why John retired early, but Pete was leading into private matters, and a bit embarrassed he stopped.

  “All right, Pete,” John said with a smile, breaking the nervous pause. “This lady’s a good friend. So give her double of anything she wants. Ok?”

  John started to extend his hand to shake hers and she smiled. “Get it bandaged, John; then we’ll shake.” Sure.

  He started to walk back to the car, hesitated, and looked back. She was looking at him and he motioned her to come over. “Look. I guess you’re staying at the Holiday Inn?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You know how to get back there?”

  “Easy enough, turn left at the light and cross the tracks.”

  “Well, look, ahh. I don’t want you to take this wrong. You need anything, you walk up this road just about a mile. Turn right on Ridgecrest Drive. I’m number eighteen.”

  “Ok, John, maybe I will sometime.”

  “Thanks for your advice with the medicine. I better get it home.”

  “John?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were checking me out when I was leaning over the seat, weren’t you.

  He found himself blushing.

  “It’s ok. After a high-stress situation, men usually think that way. I wasn’t insulted. I just want you to know it’s normal. It might bother you later, you know, given you should be worried about your girl, memories of your wife, and such.”

  Now she blushed slightly.

  “That came out awkward. Get home now. I’ll be ok.”

  “Thanks, Makala.”

  He got into the car and drove off, carefully balancing the bag of ice with one hand, the vials of medication on top.

  As he turned the engine off he was delighted to see Jennifer and Pat up in the field, tossing the Frisbee back and forth. Ginger gave him a quick look but then went back to chasing the Frisbee, but old Zach came down, tail wagging in greeting.

  Elizabeth was out by the pool, dressed in shorts and T-shirt, sunning herself, Ben sitting beside her, acting as if he was reading a book. The shotgun was leaning against the wall by Ben’s side.

  He stood up at the sight of John and came up to the car.

  “Could you help me get the ice in, Ben? There’s some cartons of smokes in there as well.”

  “Sure, sir.”

  Still balancing the one bag with the vials on top, John headed into the house. Jen was in the living room, just standing quietly looking out the window, turning and smiling as he came in.

&nbs
p; She didn’t need to be told what he was doing when she saw the CVS bag.

  “Get the basement door for me, will you, Jen?”

  She opened it. He was suddenly paranoid that somehow he might drop the precious load, and he clutched the bag of ice with one hand to his chest, the other on top of the vials, holding them in place.

  Going down to the basement, he looked around for a moment and spotted an old Styrofoam cooler. He laid the bag of ice in and placed it inside the shower stall and then carefully laid the vials on top. He put the lid on but left it cracked open and then with a pocketknife popped a small hole in the bottom of the foam cooler to let the melted water drain off.

  It was getting to be a bit messy, blood dripping from his hand.

  “How much medication did you get for her?” Ben asked.

  John looked back and saw the young man looking at him intently.

  “Five vials.”

  “Five months, not counting what’s in the fridge?” It caught John by surprise. “Yes, something like that.”

  “I see,” Ben said quietly. John stood up.

  “Look, Ben. I’m not going to lie to you. The situation might be bad. I suspect we’ve been hit by a weapon that has shut down the electrical grid nationwide. That means it might be months before we get power back again.”

  He took it in, nodding his head, saying nothing.

  “But not a word of this to Elizabeth or Jennifer. Understood? Let me tell them in my own way.”

  Jennifer and again his throat tightened. She was one smart kid, very smart, and when she learned that the power would be off for a very long time she just might figure out that the clock was ticking for her.

  He looked back into Ben’s eyes, saying nothing.

  “Yes, sir,” Ben whispered.

  “Fine then.”

  “You’re bleeding, sir.”

  “An accident, nothing serious.”

  He went back up the stairs and sat down at the dining room table. Jen was already waiting with the first-aid kit. “What happened?”

  He looked up. Ben was standing by the door out to the deck.

  “Everything’s ok, Ben. But remember, I don’t want those girls worrying about things. Given the way things are, I’m expecting you to be a man and keep a sharp watch on them.”

  “Anything you say, sir,” and he left the room.

  “You know, John, he really is a nice boy. By the way, while you were gone, we ran out of water.”

  “Already?”

  “Poor Jennifer. She used the toilet, and well… it didn’t flush and she was really embarrassed. Ben got a bucket, hauled the water in from the pool, flushed it, then filled the tank up again. He’s a good kid.”

  John laid his hand on the table and she peered at it.

  “You should of stopped to get stitches.”

  “No time. I wanted to get the medication home.”

  “I’ll butterfly bandage it for now,” and she set to work. “You can have Kellor look at it later.

  “Now what happened to you? And fill me in on all the news.”

  He told her just about everything… except for Makala and, of course, the Mustang.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DAY 4

  The sound of the helicopter, a Black Hawk, after silence for so long was startling. It came in hot, about five hundred feet up, skimming over the interstate pass, leveling out.

  He felt an emotional surge at the sight of it, the black star on its side. It roared past his house, which was high enough off the valley floor that he could almost see into the pilot’s side window. Elizabeth was jumping up and down, shrieking, waving.

  “We’re saved!” Elizabeth shouted gleefully. “We’re saved!” She sounded like a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island.

  John found himself waving as well… and the helicopter thundered on, heading due west, growing smaller, the sound receding, then disappearing, the silence all-engulfing again.

  The elation disappeared into a sense of overwhelming depression. Somehow, the sight of that lone bird was now symbolic of so much, and maybe it was a portent that within a few more minutes the electricity would come back on.

  He stood for several minutes, shading his eyes, gazing westward. And everything was as it had been.

  Dejected, Elizabeth walked over to the side of the swimming pool and sat down, dipping her feet in, Ben came over and splashed her. The water was still cold. Without the pump, there was no circulation into the solar heating panels. The water was still clear, though. John was dosing it heavily with chlorine, since it was, for now, their drinking and bathing water. The kids swimming in it would at least keep the water stirred up. Jen was already waiting in the car.

  Ben waved, John casually pointed to where the shotgun was, and Ben nodded in reply. Jennifer was down today with her friend Pat, joining a couple of other girls who were going to play Monopoly for the afternoon.

  Starting the Edsel, John rolled down the driveway, out onto Route 70, turned east, and drove the short distance up to Miller’s Nursing Home, where Tyler was. Jen had gone up to check on him the day after the outage and said that though it was chaotic, Tyler was doing OK. She was silent now, tense, as they drove.

  None of them had left home yesterday, except for one brief foray by John.

  He had laid out a long series of tasks. All the meat still in the freezer downstairs was pulled out and cooked thoroughly, with everyone eating as much as they could before wrapping the rest in plastic and storing it. He wasn’t sure if it would help or not, but what salt they had was liberally sprinkled on the meat.

  Next came a privy pit dug at the edge of Connie’s orchard, with a privacy screen made out of a tent. The girls had argued that the toilets inside were just fine, and there had been a rather delicate discussion about what the privy could be used for and what the toilets inside would be used for.

  “Oh, for that, just do it like Zach does,” Jennifer replied with a grin, “against a tree.”

  It took a bit of explaining as to the health hazard of that suggestion. Then a bit of retrofitting around the house. The water bed was already getting chilly without a heater, so extra blankets were dragged up from the basement to lay down as a covering, some old decorative candles pulled out, old clothes that might be cut into strips for toilet paper, and to his surprise an old chain saw, not used in years, actually started up after Ben fiddled around with it for a while.

  He then made one quick run down to the market on the east side of town, the old Food Lion, hoping to stock up on some goods, canned food, toilet paper, but it had already been picked over clean. In fact, it looked more as if it had been looted. He could have kicked himself for not having seen to this shopping before the panicked rush.

  One of the managers was still inside the darkened store, just sitting, reading a magazine when John came in.

  “Helluva show here last night, Professor,” he announced. “Never thought I’d see friends and neighbors act like they did. People running around, loading up baskets to overflowing. I kept trying to say, ‘No cash, no sale,’ and well, they just started pushing by me and that set it off. Place was pretty well cleaned out before the cops finally showed up.”

  He shrugged.

  “Mind if I look around?” John asked. “Sure, be my guest, sir.”

  There was not a basket to be found, so he just simply wandered up and down the aisles. A half dozen or so were in the store, doing as he did, one elderly couple was prowling through the frozen-food freezers, pulling out smashed and soggy boxes of vegetables and waffles, stuffing them into a plastic trash bag.

  All the canned goods were picked clean of course. Underfoot were smashed bottles, busted cans, bits of meat, chicken, and seafood. The floor was slippery and began to smell in the heat, hundreds of flies were already buzzing about. Over in the bakery goods he found a busted twenty-pound bag of flour kicked to one side on the floor and immediately grabbed it. In the pet foods was a twenty-five-pound bag of dry dog food, torn open, maybe fifteen t
o twenty pounds still inside, which he grabbed as well. Near the door he saw a ten-pound bag of rock salt, left over from winter, and instantly snatched it. There was not much else and he headed for the door.

  He looked at the manager.

  “Just take it, Doc; it’s ok.”

  John paused, curious.

  “Why are you here, Ernie?” He motioned to the darkened store. The elderly couple slowly dragged the trash bag full of defrosted food: the air around him was thick with the rising scent of decay.

  Ernie looked at him, slowly shaking his head.

  “Don’t know, Doc. Habit, I guess. No family. Dolores and the kids left me last year. Just habit, I guess.”

  John nodded his thanks and tossed the loot into the backseat of the car. Backing up to the Dollar Store, he went in and found much the same chaos, this store torn apart, with no one inside.

  “Who’s in there?”

  Turning, he saw Vern Cooper, one of the town police, looking through the broken front window.

  “It’s me, Vern, John Matherson.”

  “Out of there now, sir.”

  He came out and felt a change, a profound change in his world. Vern had always been so easygoing, almost a bit of the town’s “Barney Fife.” Now he was carrying a shotgun and it was half-raised, not quite pointing at John but almost.

  “Just looking around, Vern.”

  “John, I could arrest you for looting.”

  “What?”

  “Just that, John. It got real bad here last night.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  “Just get out of here and go home, John,” Vern sighed.

  John didn’t hang around to ask for details and did as Vern “suggested.”

  At the U-Rent store they had already sold out of extra propane tanks, and John didn’t even bother to go into the hardware store; it was utter chaos, with a line out the door and halfway down the block. The mere fact that he had a car that moved caused nearly everyone to turn and look at him, a reaction that made him nervous. So he just turned around and went home.