by Tim Washburn
Greg’s face tightens with anger. “Would you rather curl up here and starve to death? Or die from dehydration? We’ve got to do something.” His anger dissipates as quickly as it flared. “I know what happened yesterday is upsetting—I am scared, too, but we’re at the end of our rope here. I’ll go floor to floor to see if anyone wants to join us, if that’s what it takes. And I bet the Scotts are in even worse shape, with four mouths to feed.”
“What about those people that chased us yesterday? I bet there are a whole bunch just like them prowling all over the city.”
“We’re going north this time. Up to the George Washington Bridge. And we’re going to go at night.”
“Why at night? No telling what we’d stumble into in the dark. We won’t be able to see a damn thing.”
“Exactly. We just need to be smarter about what we’re doing.”
“When?” Lara says, now resigned to the fact they are out of options.
“As soon as possible. Tonight.”
Lara swallows the last of her water and stands from the couch. “I’ll start putting some things together while you go find someone to join us on our suicide mission.” She disappears down the hallway to their bedroom.
“Don’t pack much, Lara. Only the bare necessities, like what’s left of our medicine and a change of clothes. Maybe a first aid kit,” Greg says, aiming his voice down the hall. He pushes out of his recliner and shuffles toward the window again while his brain swirls.
Lara, on the way from the bedroom to the kitchen, stops when she sees her husband at the window. “I thought you were going to talk to the neighbors?”
Greg turns from the brightening sky. “The more I think about it, the less sure I am about inviting anyone else along. I think our chances are better with just the two of us. We’ll be able to move faster and quieter. But I’ll make the effort if you want me to.”
“Whatever.” Lara throws her hands up. “I’m fed up with the whole goddamn situation.”
CHAPTER 51
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
Most of the scientists and support staff working at the Space Weather Prediction Center slowly trickled away over the first two days—back home to their families around the Boulder area. The only two left are Dr. Samuel Blake and Dr. Kaylee Connor, both of whom have no family in the area and feel no pressing need to return to their dark homes. But the generator has slurped through most of the stockpiled gasoline, forcing them to think about leaving.
The supplies Sam had purchased before the power died were divvied up equally among the workers, some taking the items home to share with family, but not without a few heated discussions among the staff. The kindness and camaraderie lasted until the shock wore off. Sam used his eroding authority to divide what remained and was relieved when the last of the workers hit the door.
Seated in the conference room, Sam is staring out the windows at the jagged peaks of the nearest mountains. The weather is unseasonably warm, but the ominous clouds on the horizon suggest the Indian summer is about to come to a screeching halt.
Kaylee enters the conference room after sneaking a smoke outside.
“How many you have left?”
“Four. I think I’ll save them for a special occasion.”
Sam smiles. “Is there a fireplace in your apartment?”
“No. What about your house?”
“Yeah, and I have a pretty good supply of firewood.”
“Well, I guess the question of whose place—yours or mine—is answered.”
Sam turns to look at Kaylee. Her hair hasn’t been washed in a week and hangs in a limp mess, obscuring portions of her narrow face. Devoid of makeup, her face displays creases around her mouth that appear deeper and more defined. Dark bags line the bottom of her deep-set eyes. She’s absently twirling a strand of her dark hair while gnawing on her bottom lip.
The dynamic between them is different. From boss and employee to something on a deeper level. At least in Sam’s mind. His only hang-up is the age difference. That, and the fact he doesn’t have a clue about Kaylee’s thoughts on the matter.
“Gather what you can and we’ll head out.”
“What, about five miles to your house?” Kaylee says.
“Yeah, thereabouts. I would offer to drive but I’m afraid the roads will be impassible.”
“The hike will do us good.”
Sam glances once more through the window at the angry clouds and follows Kaylee from the room. “Grab all the water you can find and you better grab a coat.”
She gives a little wave as she retreats down the hall.
It doesn’t take long for them to gather their meager supplies, and both are ready to go only minutes later. They exit the building to a cool breeze blowing off the Front Range. Sam pauses to lock the door, and he and Kaylee stroll down the access road that leads up to the Space Weather Prediction Center. At the bottom of the hill they take a left on Broadway, the main thoroughfare bisecting Boulder.
Sam’s home is located north of the Space Weather Prediction Center, where College Street dead-ends at the foothills.
Seeing all the abandoned cars, Sam says, “I’m glad we decided not to drive.”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t have gotten far. This is unbelievable. It looks like a scene from a disaster movie.”
“I only wish it had been a movie. We better pick up the pace,” he says, glancing up at the encroaching black clouds.
“I think you’re right.” They accelerate the pace, almost jogging, as they pass one closed business after another.
“Keep an eye out, Kaylee.”
“For what? I don’t see anything.”
“For other people. We haven’t been outside and we have no sense of the mood. But I assume it’s not good. Let’s keep the noise to a minimum. If you spot anything, wave your hand. It may be better to hit the back roads before we reach the downtown area.”
Kaylee nods, her breathing labored from the hurried pace. Sam hooks a left on a residential street as the skies open up, drenching them in a cold rain. Within half a block the rain transitions to sleet. It feels as if they are being pelted by buckshot. He slows down enough for Kaylee to catch up.
“Damn . . . Sa . . . m,” she stutters out, “can we . . . slow . . . down?” Kaylee is incapable of drawing a full breath.
Sam slows slightly. “We need to get out of this before we get hypothermia. Pull your jacket up around your neck to keep the ice from drifting down—”
An icy north wind arrives, whipping the remaining words from his mouth. Kaylee shivers, and the biting cold forces her to quicken her stride. Both are wearing the only coats they could find—Windbreakers that provide little resistance to the gale-force winds now pummeling their bodies.
Sam turns his head and shouts, “I told you those cigarettes weren’t good for you.”
Kaylee shoots him the finger. “How . . . much . . . further?”
“Just a little ways.” He, too, is beginning to huff, his heavy breathing creating a continuous fog.
“What’s . . . a . . . little . . . ways?”
“About six or seven blocks.” Sam jogs across an intersection, now heading north. The sleet is falling in sheets, melting upon impact when meeting exposed skin. Despite having his collar turned up, meltwater trickles down his back. He glances back and sees the laces of Kaylee’s Converse sneakers covered under a heavy glaze of ice. The cold wind is relentless in its pursuit, finding every available crevice.
“C’mon,” Sam shouts above the wind. “Almost there.”
Two more blocks and they make a left onto Sam’s street. They veer off the roadway and Sam leads them through a shortcut between yards. He reaches the back door of his home and struggles to retrieve the keys from the frozen pocket of his khakis. Kaylee catches up as the door swings open.
“Get those wet clothes off.”
Kaylee begins peeling the frozen layers from her body. Within seconds she’s completely nude. She wraps her shivering arms around her
midsection and glances over her shoulder to see Sam, his mouth agape.
She laughs at the absurdity of the situation. “Blanket, Sam?”
The question snaps him out of his reverie. “On the sofa,” he replies as he struggles with his own frozen clothing, sneaking a peek at Kaylee’s retreating backside.
Sam enters the house in his birthday suit and grabs one of the throws from the sofa, but not before Kaylee gets a glimpse of the entire package. He searches her face for a wince, a cringe, anything that might express displeasure.
“You have a nice body, for an old man,” Kaylee says.
He blushes as he wraps a blanket around him. “Uh . . . well . . . I . . . think I’ll start a fire.”
Kaylee laughs.
CHAPTER 52
En route to Texas
The traveling is fairly easy, with only an occasional car stranded on the roadway. Until he crosses the Red River into Texas. As Zeke nears the outskirts of Denison, the number of abandoned cars creeps upward with every tick of the odometer. He exits the highway at an uncluttered off-ramp and pulls into the parking lot of an abandoned convenience store
He kills the engine to save fuel and grabs the map from the door pocket. It takes him a couple of revolutions to get the map oriented to his liking. A quick glance at the intersection reveals the road name and he quickly pinpoints his position. If he follows Farm to Market Road 120 west to 131 it’s a straight shot south to Sherman. Zeke studies the map’s scale and uses his index finger and thumb to gauge the distance. Eleven miles—a ten-minute pickup ride or a half a day by horse. Zeke votes pickup and restarts the engine.
As he pulls back on the road he slaps the wheel, knowing he’s behind his self-imposed timeline. To make up some time, he gooses the truck up to sixty while searching for the road leading south. The truck crests a small hill and Zeke slams on the brakes as the turnoff to 131 races past the window. He eases up on the brakes and curses under his breath, hoping like hell he hasn’t injured any of the horses.
At the next intersection he coasts to a stop and inhales a deep breath. After a few moments, he makes a wide U-turn and backtracks toward 131 at a more reasonable pace. He brakes gently and steers right at his turn.
Lesson learned. He eases down the road, never going more than thirty-five. Very few houses dot the landscape, just acres of pastureland interspersed with recently planted fields of winter wheat. On the outskirts of Sherman, he can make out the downtown buildings, jammed together tight as teeth. He pulls over again for another glance at the map, hoping to avoid any area where people may be gathered. He finds a road two blocks to the west that skirts the downtown area.
He hooks a right at the next intersection and begins hunting for someplace to park the pickup and trailer. A place removed from passersby. Farther on, he spots an oilfield road that winds around through the trees, and makes the turn. The truck and trailer bump across the cattle guard and through the already open gate. Zeke steers along the gravel path a good distance, and before stopping glances over his shoulder to make certain the main road is out of sight.
He steps from the cab and does a quick walk around the area. Off to the left is an opening through a dense group of cedar trees hugging the far fence line. “Should fit,” he mutters as he climbs back into the cab. With shrieking from the branches along the fenders, he pulls the trailer far enough into the trees to hide it from view. After one final glance at the gas gauge, the needle hovering just south of half a tank, he kills the engine and exits the cab. He begins unloading supplies, tying to sort out in his mind the best way to arrange things for easy loading onto the horses. Now the tricky part is getting the horses out of the trailer without any of them trying to make a break.
Zeke whispers softly to the horses as he walks the length of the trailer, hoping to calm them from the drive. He slides the trailer’s gate open just wide enough to allow one horse out at a time. He clips the lead rope to the first horse through and does it two more times until all three are secured to the side of the trailer. Before leaving, he and his father had discussed the best way to lead the horses and which one would be best to ride. They settled on Murphy, the gelding, as the best horse for him to ride while leading the two mares, Tilly and Ruby.
His fingers dance across Murphy’s soft muzzle as he uses the other hand to position the saddle blanket onto his back. The task of getting the saddle aboard takes two hands, but once it’s in place he begins cinching down the girth strap, waiting for the horse to exhale before tying it off.
Zeke feeds the bit into Murphy’s mouth and ties the reins to the trailer. Ruby and Tilly get blankets before he mounts the two wooden carriers he had fashioned back home. He ties those off and slips a halter over the necks of both mares.
He glances up at the sun, trying to gauge the time. Still morning, but much later than he had hoped. He loads the remaining gear onto the horses and double-checks that his rifle remained in the scabbard. Not wanting to carry the keys to the pickup with him, he slides them up under the rear wheel well and jams them into a hole in the frame.
He leads the horses away from the truck and sweeps his hand across his hip to make sure the Glock is securely holstered. He grabs the mare’s lead and mounts Murphy. After a slight heel tap to the ribs, Murphy whinnies and begins walking toward the road. He pulls the horses to a stop at the edge of the pasture and looks back to make sure the truck and trailer are out of sight and to mentally mark the location for the return trip. He turns forward to mark the entrance gate in reference to the road and a big elm tree shading the opposite side. Satisfied, he works the horses around the side of the cattle guard, picking their way through a collapsed portion of barbed wire fence. From the lack of animal droppings, it’s obvious there haven’t been any cattle grazing in here for a while.
Zeke loosens the reins to allow Murphy to set his own pace—a nice, steady walk. He glances over his shoulder to make sure the mares are comfortable at this pace. They’re plodding along fine. With nothing left to do but ride he takes a moment to look the area over. The bright sunshine highlights the flat landscape, revealing a good number of recently plowed fields in anticipation of spring planting. A sudden realization begins to gnaw his gut—the months ahead are going to be much more difficult than he first thought. The next field over is sown with winter wheat, the green shoots just breaking the surface, and thoughts of fallow fields follow him for the next mile.
The midmorning sun is relentless, and even though he’s not exerting much effort, a steady stream of sweat works its way down his back. He’s glad he had remembered to bring along an old cowboy hat. With the intense heat, Zeke begins searching for water sources as they walk forward, holding to the centerline of the empty roadway.
With the immense fields taking up most of the land, the few houses are scattered a good distance from one another—maybe a half a mile to a mile between them. The first one they pass is set close to the road and Zeke’s hand drifts to the gun on his hip as they pass. No one is out and about and the only things moving are a few head of cattle grazing up close to the house.
Two hours later the horses have worked up a lather, as the black asphalt pushes the temperatures up twenty degrees. He steers Murphy off into the grassy side area. The heat instantly lessens but the danger of the horses stumbling into a gopher hole, or over discarded items along the roadway, increases. They’ve made good time and he pulls the sweat-saturated map from his back pocket to check their location. As best he can figure, they’ve covered over seven miles. Much better than he thought, although once they’re closer to Dallas the pace will slow dramatically.
The small creeks they’ve passed have been bone-dry. Water is Zeke’s main focus now. In the distance he spots a windmill turning lazily in the stingy breeze. He’s hopeful it’s not an ornamental piece of iron and is actually pumping water into a stock tank. The one negative about the windmill is its proximity to a house. As they draw closer, Zeke discovers that the windmill is confined within a four-stranded barbed wire fence
. He makes the decision that, regardless of the danger, the horses need water.
He dismounts Murphy at the head of the driveway and leads the horses toward the house. His gaze scans the surrounding area, his senses on high alert. When he is about fifty feet from the house, the front door opens and an older man steps onto the porch with a shotgun pointed in Zeke’s direction. Zeke stops and pulls Murphy and the mares to a stop next to him.
“Whatcha want?” the man shouts. The man is dressed in a pair of dirty pants pitted with holes and a pair of black suspenders strung over a no-longer-white T-shirt. A floppy black hat in the semi-shape of a cowboy hat tops out the ensemble. If Zeke didn’t know better, he’d think he was looking at a reincarnation of Wishbone from the old Rawhide series.
“I was wondering if I could water the horses.”
“Step up a little closer so’s I can see you,” the man says, the shotgun never wavering more than two inches on either side of Zeke’s chest.
Zeke emits a couple of clicks out of the side of his mouth and he and the horses ease up closer to the man. The old man lets them get within about ten feet of him before ordering them to stop.
“Who are ya an’ where ya heading?”
“I’m Zeke Marshall, sir. We’re from up around Durant on our way to Dallas to get my sister and her family.”
The old man ponders the statement for a moment as if he were making a life-or-death decision, which he may well be. “Take them through that gate there,” the old man says, pointing his gnarled finger at the gate across the yard.
“Thank you.” Zeke leads the horses to the gate and swings it wide. The horses can smell the water now, and they’re anxious for a drink. He glances over his shoulder to find the old man still on the porch, the shotgun tracking their progress. The horses are tugging and shaking their heads in an effort to get loose. He releases the reins and the three horses charge to the big stock tank and begin gulping the cool water. A hose runs from the pump and into the stock tank, which he removes. The cold water is like the sweetest nectar as he puts the hose to his mouth. He drinks his fill before refilling his nearly depleted canteen. Zeke turns back toward the old man, to find him holding his ground. But, a sign of progress—the shotgun is no longer pointed in their direction.
