by J. B. Craig
As he did so, Maria, a girl from one of his classes came out. She was trim, with long brown hair and lightly olive skin. She lived in the apartment complex across from the station, and they’d had a couple of classes together at Penn in the last few years. Every now and again he’d thought about asking her for coffee, but he didn’t really think she’d go for somebody as shy around girls as he was. The remarks she made in class made it pretty clear that she was a top student, and Pete was equally confident that she had never given him so much as a thought, despite the fact that they’d essentially lived across from each other for two semesters while he worked and slept at the firehouse to save for school.
As Pete watched, Maria stuck her head in the car and tried to start it, and then threw up her arms in frustration and glanced over at the station. He was thinking about going over and offering to help, but the Captain was shouting orders to try another truck, so instead he gave her a wave, and got one back. He smiled ruefully as he headed back into the station. The only way he’d be able to untie his tongue long enough to talk to her would be if she caught him out on a ride, where he was accustomed to the stress of triage and could fall back on his paramedic training to ask the right questions - and that wasn’t really a coffee occasion.
He and his fellow firefighters spent another hour or so determining that yes, their entire fleet was down for the count. Several of them had left after pointing out that without vehicles, they couldn’t respond to emergencies, so they walked or rode bikes home to be with their families since they couldn’t contact them via cell phone. After a bit, he found himself alone at the station, with orders to keep watch.
Pete’s own bike was still locked up in the bike rack - his family was in Oklahoma, so he didn’t have anywhere to go. The backpack rack on the rear wasn’t all that sexy, but it was the easiest and cheapest way to strap down his books for the day or a few bags of groceries during his trips to campus. He was debating grabbing it and seeing if the main campus had power when he saw Maria come back out of her apartment and start going through her vehicle. She looked flustered, digging around in the back, and Pete decided that maybe this was the chance he finally needed to talk to her.
She didn’t seem to notice him as he wandered over, frantically digging through the back as she opened and re-folded maps, seemingly sorting them as she kept some and threw others back in her car.
Pete cleared his throat. “You headed out of town?” he asked, aiming for a casual tone. He hoped she couldn’t tell how nervous he was, surprised he even managed to get that much out - but she appeared to need help, and Pete liked to think of himself as a pretty helpful guy.
Maria yelped, clearly startled. As fast as Pete opened his mouth to apologize, she had whipped out a gun, aiming it at his chest. “Holy shit,” Pete squeaked, throwing his hands up. “Sorry?”
Maria’s eyes narrowed as she studied Pete’s face, and then she clearly recognized him. “Oh my god,” she said, and sheepishly holstered the revolver. “I’m so sorry. You’re - from some of my classes?” At Pete’s careful nod, she continued. “I’m really sorry, I probably scared the shit out of you, huh? My dad is like - one of those doomsday prepper people, and he’s got me all paranoid about the power.”
“I can see that,” Pete agreed cautiously, his hands still up. “If you’re cool, I’m going to put my hands down and take a few steps back.”
“Of course,” Maria said quickly, and stuck out a hand. “Maria, by the way. Sorry, I just - a girl can’t be too careful these days in to Philly, you know?”
“Guess not,” Pete said. He took her hand and shook it. “Uh, Pete. Pete Summerville.”
She smiled back. “Okay, yeah, you’ve definitely been in a couple of my classes. Sorry again for scaring you. I’m really hoping that everything my dad said about EMPs and CMEs is absolute garbage and we’re back up in a couple hours.”
So, she just a little higher on the ‘crazy’ side of the ‘crazy vs. hot’ spectrum than Pete had anticipated. Alright. Pete could work with that. “No worries,” Pete said. “I do too.”
3. Strangers-in-Arms
Maria took a moment to take in Pete Summerville. He was tall, nearly six feet, with broad shoulders that tapered into a surprisingly trim waist. He looked pretty strong - she guessed he had to be, to be able to lift some weight to qualify to work at the fire department. He had a friendly, engaging smile (despite her scaring the absolute crap out of him - whoops, Maria thought) and intense green eyes. “So,” she said, shifting awkwardly. She gave him a smile she hoped was as non-threatening as possible. “What’s up with the sneaking?”
“We couldn’t get the fire trucks started, and I saw you were also having car trouble, so I was gonna come over and let you know something’s probably up.” With a wry grin, he added, “No sneaking here, though. I wouldn’t want to be called Sneaky Pete.”
Maria burst out laughing, clapping a hand over her face. “You’ve been waiting to use that one, huh?”
“To tell you the truth, it’s not even the first time I’ve made that joke,” Pete said, grinning. He gestured to her car. “So, back to my first question – what’s with the maps? You heading out of town?”
“South,” Maria agreed. “My GPS and everything else is fried, and I need to get out of here. We’re surrounded by nuclear power plants, and my dad told me that in the event of everything electric stopping, I needed to head south before they melted down or blew up in case the back-up generators go out.”
“Intense,” Pete said. He sounded unsure - Maria couldn’t blame him. “You really think something that serious is gonna happen?”
“Well...not really,” Maria admitted, shrugging. “But I grew up hearing him warn me about this kind of stuff, and the bottom line is, my phone, my car, and my plug-in flashlight all went dead at the same time. If everybody’s got power while I’m headed out of town, I’ll head back and call him to yell about putting all of this crazy stuff in my head, but I can’t afford to be wrong if something more serious is going on.”
Pete nodded. “Even if it isn’t, I guess it makes sense to get out of town for a while,” he said. “Whatever’s going on, all of our trucks are down. Anything electronic. It’s gonna be a pain to fix, and chaos while we wait around to be able to respond to people who need it.”
Maria nodded in grim agreement. “They probably have manual shut-downs for the big stuff,” she agreed, “But I have family fairly close, and they’d want me to come home if it’s serious. I figure I’ll either make it there on my bike in a few days, or I’ll find out I’m wrong, turn around and camp out here until things get fixed.”
“I’ve got nothing like that,” Pete said. “I live at the fire station, and grew up in Oklahoma, but there’s nothing there for me. But...if you’re okay with it, I’ll help you get wherever you need to go. No strings attached.”
Maria raised an eyebrow. “You’d help the crazy girl who just waved a gun at you?”
Pete shrugged. “You seemed more scared than crazy,” he said. “Consider it returning a favor.”
“A favor?” Maria asked. She definitely recognized him, but she could barely remember what classes he’d shared with her, let alone done him a favor. “No offense - seriously - but I don’t remember doing anything for you that would warrant a favor like that.”
Pete shrugged, embarrassed. “We had English together,” he said quietly. “Freshman year. I got sick and was pulling double shifts at the station, and you did pretty much the entire Shakespearean sonnet presentation. I was complete dead weight; I felt awful about it.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. When I say I’m biking there,” Maria warned, “I’m headed out to Maryland, just north of Annapolis. It’ll be a long trip, several days by bike. It’s a little more than a returned favor, Pete.”
“Well, the firefighter in me is telling me you’re right to prepare,” Pete said. “And if you’re wrong, then it’s a long bike ride on a pleasant Spring day that we both over-packed for.”
Maria looked at Pete and decided she could trust him. “We’ll need to figure out a way out of Philly, and around the city of Baltimore, which might not be pleasant in two or three days once people start to really panic.”
“Again,” Pete said, grinning as he pointed to himself. “Firefighter. I do panic every day.”
“Okay, then,” Maria said. She was a little wary about bringing him with her, but it sounded like he had nowhere else to go, and if he turned out to not be as nice as he seemed she could order him to back off. That’s why her dad had packed her pistols. “If you’re up for it, go pack a bag,” she instructed, ”And make sure to bring water. Anything light for food. I have a backpack, but it’s full, and I still have this bunch of ramen that you can pack. Let’s meet back here in a few minutes. You also have a bike, right?”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” Pete grabbed the ramen from her, and then she gave him a quick wave as he ran back to the fire station to get ready for their road trip.
4. Road Trip
When Maria left her apartment, prepper backpack in tow, Pete was waiting for her. He was carrying a large pack, a medical kit and a water cooler jug strapped to the cargo bars on the back of his bike. He smiled at her. “That water is from the fire chief’s office cooler,” Pete explained. “He won’t be needing it. Where to, Chief?”
“First question,” she asked. “Do you know how to shoot?” At his nod, she handed him a nylon holster with a green pistol in it. “That’s only a .22 LR, and the optics are fried, so I took off the red dot. It does have good iron sights, and here are two spare magazines, both filled.”
He pointed the gun at the ground, chambered a round, pulled out the magazine, racked it again and re-inserted the ejected round he chambered back into it. Then he aimed the once-again cleared pistol at a brick wall and pulled the trigger to get a feel for it. “Not bad. About a four pound trigger-pull, well-balanced. Fingertip safety. Yeah, I got it.”
“Fingertip safety?” Maria asked.
“Yeah, this here (and he pointed to his fingertip) is the only safety. I see you don’t like chambering a round in this thing. I’m the same way. I mean, your revolver has a long trigger pull, and a half-cock safety, but these light triggers aren’t ideal to have one in the chamber, unless you like shooting yourself. I’ve responded to too many calls where an ‘unloaded gun’ shot someone.”
Impressed, Maria nodded and said “I’m thinking we just ride down I-95 until we get closer to Baltimore. It’s too early for most people to be panicking yet, and it is the straightest shot, according to my map.” Pete agreed, and with that, they started pedaling.
The surface roads approaching 95 were relatively free of vehicles, but the power had gone out on the tail end of rush hour, so 95 was full of commuters and there were plenty of accidents from the sudden power shut-down. It seemed like most people had been able to guide their cars to a safe stop, but at highway speeds one accident usually meant a multiple-car pile-up.
They passed most of them by, as most people seemed more frustrated and scared than hurt, but shortly they came upon one with bad injuries. Pete motioned to Maria to pull over, and as they slowed to a stop he grabbed his med kit and started treating an accident victim. The woman was in shock with a bad cut on her head, and the other driver was dead. As Maria watched, Pete was wrapping gauze around the wound and speaking calmly to her to get more details about what happened. With his attention on his patient, Maria was the first to notice when a bystander got on Pete’s bike and started pedaling away.
She yelled for them to stop, which made Pete look up and notice the theft. He jumped up, but the bike thief had distance and was getting up to speed. He looked over his shoulder, shouting “I have to get to work! I have a big presentation.”
Maria, who knew she wouldn’t catch him if she lost him, sighted down her .22 magnum and shot out the back window of an empty vehicle. “The next one won’t miss,” she shouted.
The guy dropped the bike, yelled “You’re crazy!” and started jogging down the road. Pete looked at Maria in a way that a man had never looked at her before. Scared, but impressed. He nodded at her, then turned his attention back to his patient.
After some brief instructions to his patient - namely, to stay calm and make her way to safety - Pete walked up the road and grabbed his bike. As Maria pedaled up to him, Pete said “Sorry, Maria. I don’t know if I have it in me to not help an accident victim.”
“Not your fault,” Maria agreed, “But people who start to panic don’t think before they take. We have to weigh helping people against having our stuff stolen, and running out of food if we take longer because we keep stopping.”
Pete sighed. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s just…” He looked out over the highway. “People are in a lot worse shape than I thought. Maybe I should stay and help.”
“Nothing you can do,” Maria said, with a sad shrug. “I’m not saying we can’t stop. But we have to be smart about it too. We’ll have to look at the situation and decide case-by-case.”
Pete nodded reluctantly, and they pedaled on.
5. The Bare Bones Motel
After their first incident, they ended up stopping twice in about ten miles; once to bandage a driver with another head wound, another to splint a broken arm. Maria, more prepared the second and third time around, had her hands on her gun out and was ready to cover the bicycles at both stops.
While Pete was splinting the broken arm, a large man walked up to Maria, also on the southbound side. He also had a gun and a backpack, but he had his holstered on a hip, and he approached with his hands up. He was sweating despite the relatively cool Springtime temperature.
“That little pistol isn’t much of a guard duty weapon, young lady,” the man said. “Someone who’s desperate enough to take that bike might have a bigger gun.”
“Hope you aren’t referring to yourself,” Maria said, nodding at his holster. “Can I help you?”
“Just a traveler on a walk,” he said. “I’m headed to the University of Delaware. My son’s about your age, goes to school there. He’s probably sitting in his frat house, partying because classes have been cancelled.”
Maria relaxed slightly, though she kept a tight grip on her pistol just in case. “Sounds about right,” she said. “A couple of the kids I know bus out there for parties.”
“I take it you aren’t much of a party girl,” he said. “Looks like you’re more the kind of girl that listened to your parents’ warnings. Are they preppers, too?”
Maria nodded. “Just Dad. He tried to get me and my mom and brother into it, but we mostly rolled our eyes at him. He made us all emergency bags and insisted I keep mine in my closet at school.”
“Well, he risked a firearms violation, but turns out that he was probably right, eh?”
Maria sighed. “Yeah, and he’s going to give me never-ending crap about it when I get to him. That said, I guess now I’m pretty glad that he left the bag, and talked enough about it that I at least absorbed some of it.”
“Most kids ignore at least some of what their parents have to say,” the man laughed. “You two riding together?”
Maria nodded. “Yeah. We’re leaving the area because of the power plants.”
“Yeah, there are always mixed messages on the internet about that, but better to be safe than sorry,” the man agreed. “I’m probably going to have to drag my son from his frat house to get him west. We have a place in Lancaster and we’ve got some Amish neighbors. I’ve got a good relationship with them, so I think they should be willing to help us out if I can get us there. My name is James Gordon, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Maria shook his hand; he had a kind face and she trusted that he wouldn’t try anything. Pete, a little more wary, had his hand on the pistol at his hip. Mr. Gordon saw Pete’s expression, took his hand back, and said, “No worries, young man. You need any help? I was a combat medic.”
“No, sir,” Pete said. “Her arm will be fine. It’s probably a gr
eenstick fracture and should heal okay.” He looked back to the woman with the broken arm. “You’re good to go, ma’am. Take those ibuprofen I gave you; one every four hours until you get home. It’s a good thing you live close.”
Gordon wished them good luck, and walked ahead of them down the highway. If he was headed to UD, he probably had at least another twenty-five miles to go. Maria called after him, “Good luck, Mr. Gordon! Thanks for the conversation. I hope you get your son to safety.”
“Well, young lady, there’s no doubt about that,” he called with a smile. “Got heavier artillery than most people around here, and I know a thing or two about survival. I think you two should get off the interstate, though, it’s going to get worse quickly.” Afterwards, he turned his head and trotted down the grassy median.
