‘It’s creepy out here,’ Jamie said, half whispering.
‘Yeah, so quiet,’ Rebecca added.
Deedee, who had brought the group to a standstill as she tied a shoelace, looked up. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘I don’t know,’ Georgia said, keeping her voice down low, as they began once again, walking along the sidewalk, stepping round a car that was half parked on the pavement, its bonnet up.
‘They can’t all be dead!’ Rebecca said suddenly.
‘No, not all dead,’ Georgia thought, for as they walked, she had the feeling that eyes were upon them, and once as she glanced quickly over at the house they were passing, she could have sworn she saw a curtain drop back into place. ‘I think they are hiding.’ Everyone is afraid, hiding in their homes, waiting. Were they being assessed as to their threat potential, or, as to their vulnerability? The shopping caddy wheel started to squeak, the sound seeming unnervingly loud.
‘How much further to the library Rebecca?’ Georgia asked.
‘About one block.’
Over a hedge, they heard an axe striking wood, more signs of life, but still did not actually see anyone. The streets were deserted. They passed a tall wooden fence and over the top peeked a tangle of pink and yellow blossoms. Honeybees hovered in and out amongst the petals, and all around them the air was heavy with the fragrance of honeysuckle and roses. For a moment, Georgia felt overwhelmed by a wave of homesickness, remembering her own garden back in Kansas City, her own roses. Then they heard gunshots. The first they had heard all day. Just three shots, Bam, Bam, Bam, the sound muffled by distance and then there was silence.
Unconsciously, they picked up their pace and Georgia’s nerves were totally on edge by the time they reached the library, a large plain white stone building with steps and a wheelchair ramp leading up to the main entrance. They hurried up the ramp into the shade. They found the door was locked. Georgia could have screamed with frustration.
‘They are closed,’ Jamie said, pointing to the sign, hanging behind the glass of the door.
‘Guess we can’t get any books then,’ Deedee sounded mournful. She had been talking about getting some adventure stories so Georgia could read to them at bedtime.
‘Oh yes we can,’ Georgia said, ‘and we will.’
‘How?’ Deedee asked
‘We could wait till they are open,’ Jamie said, then shrugged his shoulders when the others looked at him in surprise.
‘I don’t think the library is going to be open for a while,’ Georgia said softly.
‘Then how?’ Deedee asked again.
‘With a brick or something,’ Georgia said. Even as she said this, she was slightly shocked at herself. She would never have thought herself capable of even considering breaking in somewhere, but that was before; before, when it was unacceptable behavior. Now it was a matter of survival.
She thought of the man she had shot, she had crossed the line then, even though it had been unplanned, and in self-defense, and now…, well the line, defining acceptable behavior had just been moved again.
She determinedly went back down the ramp and looked through the flowerbed bordering the Belton Public Library sign. She held up a medium size rock. ‘This should do.’
She carefully wrapped a t-shirt around her hand and then once she was certain the children and the dogs were out of harm’s way she drew back her arm and then wacked the brick into the glass.
Cracks radiated out from the point of impact but the window was still intact. The second blow was much harder, and glass flew inwards cascading down to the floor with some force. The noise was far greater than she had imagined it would be. Nervously she looked around but there was no one in sight. Carefully, she put her arm in through the gaping hole and unlocked the door.
Once they were all inside, she dumped her pack, letting Ant out of her bag, but kept the shotgun slung over her shoulder. She quickly found the section she was looking for and started pulling books off the shelf, checking through the contents. The children were at the other end of the library, playing some sort of hide and seek tag.
Georgia had narrowed her selection down to two books, and was seated at a table, leafing through the pages, determining which one was going to be the most use, when suddenly Jamie cried out, ‘Look over there!’
She glanced up, startled. The three children had gathered by a window.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Come, come quickly,’ Rebecca said, urgently waving her over with her hand. ‘It’s that woman from Grandpa’s house, she is in the street.’
Leaving the books, she hurried over to the window.
‘See, over there,’ Deedee pointed.
Peering down the road in the direction Deedee had indicated, she could just make out the form of a figure, standing in the half shadows of a shop doorway. There was a glimpse of long blonde hair, startlingly white in the sunshine, as the woman suddenly peeked out, looked back down the road, and then flitted out of sight again. ‘You sure it was her?’ Georgia asked.
‘Yes, Jamie said, just a little impatiently, ‘she has that butterfly tattoo on her wrist.’
‘She does?’ Georgia hadn’t noticed that earlier. Mind you, there were other things attracting all the attention. As they continued to watch, she suddenly darted out and ran into the entranceway of the building practically across the road. ‘What on earth is she doing?’ Georgia wondered aloud.
Jamie shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe she is looking for something.’
‘Or someone,’ Rebecca added.
‘Maybe she is looking for us,’ Deedee said.
Georgia could not even imagine why she would be doing that. ‘Hang on kids, I will go and find out, keep an eye out in case someone comes.’
Stepping back over the broken glass, the shotgun in her hands, she made her way outside. She carefully looked up and down the road, nothing, then hurried across towards the woman.
‘Lola? Lola are you okay?’
Lola, for indeed it was her, gave a tiny scream, ‘oh, thank goodness, it’s you. I had to leave.’ and as she spoke she brushed back her hair.
‘Ouch, that is some bruise, did he hit you?’
‘Yeah and some, he was as mad as a mule chewing on bumblebees when he found out that I had given you some food and…,’ suddenly the tears came and Georgia pulled her into her arms, expecting resistance but there was none, and then Lola was sobbing plaintively. ‘I don’t know what to do. I …,’
‘Do you have family?’ Georgia asked.
‘No, that is, well yes, a brother in Canada, but we haven’t spoken in years.’
Georgia looked up. She thought she had heard something, a sound like a can being kicked, but the street still appeared empty. Even so, she nervously stepped back against the building.
‘Will he be looking for you?’ Georgia asked?
‘My brother? No, like I said…’
‘No, not your brother, Mr Johnson!’
‘Oh, him, he was unconscious when I left; he had nearly finished a bottle of whisky. I took some food and a bicycle. I hid it all near some sweet-pepper bushes, a few blocks back. I was hoping to find you, but I never really thought I would, I was sure you were long gone by now. Now I wished I hadn’t left it behind, he could be awake by now and…,’
The thought of Mr Johnson being awake and possibly out looking for Lola was enough for Georgia. ‘Quick, this way,’ and as she spoke, she grabbed Lola’s hand and together they ran across the road, up the steps and inside the library.
The Bostons greeted Lola most enthusiastically, licking her face as she crouched down to pet them. ‘Oh they are simply darling,’ she exclaimed as Georgia made her way over to the kids. A little out of breath from dashing up the steps, she asked if they had seen anyone else.
The kids all shook their heads, staring at Lola.
‘Hi, Y’all,’ she said, unfazed by their scrutiny and giving them a very big smile.
‘Hi,’ Jamie said, his voice was suddenly
shy.
Rebecca stood with her arms folded across her chest. She did not return Lola’s smile, instead she wanted to know why Lola was at her Grandma’s house.
Lola looked at Georgia, a little taken aback. Georgia hurriedly filled the awkward silence by introducing the children to her. She then explained to Rebecca that Lola was in fact a distant cousin, to which Deedee interspersed, ‘yeah, obviously, she is all the way from the south, and that’s a long way, away.’
They all burst out laughing and suddenly the tension was gone, and thankfully, Rebecca appeared to be satisfied with her explanation.
‘Why are you in the library?’ Lola asked.
Georgia explained what she was looking for.
‘That’s a great idea,’ Lola said, ‘you know, while I am here, I might just go see if I can find a book on that EMP thing that Douglas was going on about. Maybe, there is some sort of a guide as to how we should be handling this.’
For a moment, Georgia wondered who Douglas was, then realized that Lola was talking about Mr Johnson.
‘Douglas talked about that? What did he say?’ Georgia was hungry for information. ‘Did he find out what had happened?’
‘No, he hadn’t heard anything official like, but he thought it was a natural one, but aside from the fact that it stops everything from working, I am not too sure what he meant by that.’
Georgia didn’t understand that either, but she asked, ‘did he say why he thought it was natural?’
‘Oh yeah, over and over, he kept on about the fact that there were no planes or helicopters. He said if it had been just local, the satellites would still be working and we would have had helicopters from out of state. At the very least, they would have been dropping leaflets, etc., explaining what was going on.’
Georgia reflected on this. That was true, the outside world would have been flying in, to see what was happening over here, and there had not been a single aircraft of any description, not since the power went out.
‘Mind you,’ Lola continued, ‘I don’t really agree with Douglas, after all, how long did it take the Bush administration to react to Katrina?’
‘Way too long,’ Georgia agreed. But that had been several presidents ago, and a lot had been learned, and things had changed for the better since then. So maybe that bastard Douglas was on to something.
Georgia settled back down at the table and Lola wandered off down the row, humming to herself, running her fingers along the books, reading titles. Georgia flipped through the books again, not really seeing what she was looking at. She closed her eyes, what if Douglas was right? Then she sighed deeply, even if he was, it made no difference to her plans, they still had to get to Bethel.
Forcing herself to concentrate on the books before her, she pulled her mind back to the present. She looked at the two books she had chosen, the weight of them concerned her, one was exactly what she had been looking for, but the other one was a reprint of a very old book, a how to do everything it seemed, from making butter to repairing a roof. She was loathe to leave either of them behind, even though the second book weighed several pounds.
‘Here, read this,’ Lola exclaimed. She was back by Georgia’s side, a large binder, held open, her finger pointing half way down the page. ‘Looks like someone’s research; this kind of stuff was spread all over the table back there.’
Georgia skimmed across the page. ‘What is this?’
Lola flipped the binder closed, keeping the place with her finger, showing her the cover.
The plain cover read; Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, President, EMPact America, Statement before the Congressional Caucus on EMP. The Capitol, Room HVC 200, February 15, 2011
‘It’s a report, all about what would happen if the power failed in the United States.’ Lola said breathlessly, ‘here, read this section,’ and as she spoke she went back to the section she had marked.
Georgia began reading again, more slowly this time, horror building within her as she took in the words.
‘The EMP Commission warned that, given our current state of unpreparedness, within 12 months of an EMP event, about two-thirds of the U.S. total population, about 200 million Americans, would perish from starvation, disease and societal collapse. Other credible estimates foresee the loss of American lives in the aftermath of an EMP to be on the order of 80-90 percent of the total U.S. population, some 280 million lives’.
She continued reading through the report and then she remembered seeing this before, maybe not this exact one, but an article, or something with similar information. It had not had any impact on her back then. It had all been so much blah, blah, blah, unbelievable science fiction rubbish.
Now it was terrifying in the extreme. She felt sick. Would all their efforts end with their little group being part of that statistic? Would they starve to death, along with another two hundred million people?
Suddenly she felt as though she couldn’t breathe, the room was closing in around her. She wanted to be out of the building, out of Belton. They had to leave.
She looked up at Lola. ‘Is there any other useful information in there do you think?’
‘Aside from the report, there is stuff on purifying water. Did you know that the roots of a live sunflower plant extracts radiation from water? Not only that…,’ Georgia was not really listening.
‘Okay keep all of it then, we might need it. Grab your bags, kids,’ she called out, ‘we are leaving.’ She paused at the front desk and picking up a memo pad, tore off the top sheet and began writing.
‘What was the name of the report, you have Lola?’ she asked.
Lola read out the title. ‘Uh huh,’ Georgia said, as she began writing again. ‘And what books did you get Deedee?’
‘What you doing?’ Rebecca asked.
‘Leaving an I.O.U.’
‘What’s that?’ Deedee asked, standing on tiptoes trying to read Georgia’s note.
‘Well, I don’t want to just take these books, it would be stealing, so I am leaving a note, saying which books we have, and when everything gets back to normal one day, well then, I guess, I will either return them or replace them.’ Okay, so she smashed a window to get in, but that did not mean she had to become a thief as well. And really all she was doing was borrowing them, and it was a library after all; a place where you borrowed books!
She left the list on the counter, a book holding it in place and then turned back to Lola. ‘We are heading towards the railway station, is your bike on the way there?’
‘Yeah, where are you going? The trains won’t be running. Oh,’ Lola giggled, ‘I can’t believe I said that.’
Georgia smiled briefly. Maybe Lola was not just blonde on the outside.
‘We are leaving town, heading to the family farmlet down south, if you like, you can come with us, but I am warning you, we have a lot of walking ahead of us.’
Lola said nothing for a moment.
‘We really need to get moving,’ Georgia said, ‘so do you want to come with us or not?’
‘Yeah, please, that’s if you don’t mind and…’
Georgia interrupted her. ‘You do have something under that t-shirt right?’ She had suddenly become aware of Lola’s bare legs, she was still wearing the oversized t-shirt she had been wearing earlier that morning.
‘Yes, shorts,’ she lifted the edge of the t-shirt as she spoke to show Georgia. Those are barely even shorts. ‘Do you have any other clothes? Any jeans? You will get eaten alive by insects, and scratched and not to mention the cold at night.’
‘No, sorry, this is all I have, and this is Douglas’s t-shirt, I washed my blouse, it is still hanging on the line at Douglas’s.’
‘Well, it can’t be helped, we will have to find you clothes somewhere but not now, we need to get on our way.’
She went over to their bags, Lola so close behind her, that she bumped into her when she stopped to straighten one of the straps on her pack,
Georgia turned round. ‘Here.’ She thrust the two books she had been
holding into Lola’s hands. ‘You can carry these.’ Then she leaned the shotgun against the wall and began to pull on the pack.
‘Do you want me to carry the gun?’ Lola asked, reaching out a hand to pick it up.
‘Don’t touch that,’ Georgia exclaimed.
Lola froze. ‘Sorry.’
‘No problem, but I would prefer to carry it myself. I am sure you understand.’
‘Yeah sure, no problem, I have no idea how to use one of those anyhow, just figured I could help.’
An even better reason not to touch it then. ‘It’s okay,’ she said quietly. ‘Okay guys, let’s go, oh wait, where’s Ant?’
‘She is here with me,’ Rebecca carried her over and Georgia held Ant’s bag open while she placed her inside. Ant seemed to know the drill, and immediately lay down.
‘Okay, so we have everything.’
‘Can I carry anything else?’ Lola asked.
‘Well umm, sure, how about you take the shopping caddy?’
As they stepped out into the sunshine, Georgia checked her watch. It was exactly eighteen minutes past three. It gave her a little start. Was that an omen? She wondered. And if so, was it a good omen, or a bad one?
They turned left and headed in the direction Lola thought she had left her bike. Lola began to hum again, this time it was the tune, ‘On the road again’, by Willie Nelson.
Georgia smiled and started to sing softly along with her, soon Rebecca joined in as well. By the time they turned the next corner, they were all singing, and just for a little while, life did not seem so scary.
Chapter Twenty
It did not take them very long to reach the sweet pepper bushes, and it quickly became obvious that the bike and the bags of food were no longer there. Lola stood staring at the shrubs in disbelief. ‘No way, I must be remembering it wrong, maybe it’s further up the street,’ and before Georgia could stop her, Lola was scurrying up the road, a worried look on her face, looking for all the world like a squirrel in midwinter, looking for its cache of nuts. I just know I buried them around here somewhere.
The children obligingly offered to help search the area, but Georgia put a stop to that. To be running through people’s yards, looking under bushes, was a really bad idea. Someone was bound to get upset by that. She told them to stay put, and went after Lola, catching up with her half way up the road.
Survivors of the Sun Page 17
