The Incident | Book 1 | They Called It The Incident

by Johnson, J. M.

  He was still shaking his head as he rode away. His back slumped when he thought they were no longer watching. Obviously, he was as shaken as they were, but he had a job to do and he was doing it to the best of his ability.

  The old couple linked hands as they watched the horse disappear up the driveway.

  “Let’s take another look around and make sure we got all we could.” Irma led the way up and down the empty rows. She shivered in the late afternoon sunshine.

  “The winds up,” Tony observed and bent to pull one lonely carrot that had been left behind. He wiped the dirt on his denim overalls and absently began to chew. “And the leaves are changing. It’s going to be getting cold pretty soon.”

  Irma glanced at the nearby forest. “Thank goodness for propane stoves.” She observed. “We were able to can most of the vegetables. All our meat from the freezer has been cooked and packed in brine. We won’t run out of food for a while.”

  Tony shook his head ruefully, “Too bad we didn’t keep a root cellar like on the farm. If we have no way to heat the garage, all of it will freeze anyway.”

  Irma turned frightened eyes to him. “Oh surely it will be fixed before winter” she exclaimed. “It’s not so bad in the summer when it's light until ten o’clock, but what will happen if the power is still out in December?”

  She began to cry, tears dripping down her wrinkled cheeks and blurring the dim blue eyes even more.

  “And where are Jason and Monica?” sobs shook her small body. “We haven’t heard a word from them and there is no way they could stay in an apartment with no heat and no electricity.”

  All her fears had been released by one small tear.

  “They have the baby. What are they feeding him? Why hasn’t he sent some kind of message?”

  “Now now, Mother,” Tony comforted her. He held her close against him and patted her back. Truth be told, he was as frightened as she, but men of his generation were not allowed to show tears or weakness. His job was to keep her safe and worry free.

  He hugged her harder so she couldn’t see the misery on his face. “I’m sure he is okay,” he said. “You know it’s over a hundred miles and there’s no quick way to send a message.”

  “Jim’s son came from the city on a bike”, she countered. “He told us how bad it is…all the stores are empty and closed. No elevators, so people are trapped on the higher floors. Fire hydrants don’t work, and even if they did, the trucks don’t start, so fires are starting everywhere and burning out of control.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “We’re lucky, we can start the barbecue or light a fire in the fireplace, but what do you do if you are on the tenth floor and have no heat? What if this power outage lasts? People will die.”

  “I know,” he patted her back comfortingly. “We can only wait and hope he finds a way to get home.”

  “Maybe we could go find him.” Excitement lit up her features as she pulled out of his embrace. “We have bicycles and could go to the city.”

  Tony laughed softly. “Oh Mother, do you know how long it would take to get there? We’re way too old to spend a week or more on a bike. And anyway, I’m sure he will make his way to us, and if we weren’t here to meet him, think how he would worry. More than we are now, I’ll bet. They’re young and will come when they can”.

  “I’m sorry.” She straightened her back resolutely. “It’s not like me to start blubbering like that, is it? I know you are just as worried.”

  “Let’s start thinking about where we can store the canned food so it doesn’t freeze. Come on, Mother. It’s tea time.”

  As they walked towards the house, both pretending to smile, Irma wondered just how much longer their tea would last.

  Monica gazed down to where cars still littered the street. Some of them had tires missing and glass glittered on the hoods. Doors hung open like gaping mouths. A few people moved slowly between them, looking for anything of value that might be exchanged for food.

  She sighed and turned away from the window. Mrs. Scully looked up from her needlework and smiled. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m sure that someone is working on getting things fixed.”

  “I sure hope so.” Monica joined her on the couch. “All the food that we managed to get that first week is nearly gone. And I’d kill for a shower.”

  The older woman patted her hand. “Maybe Jason will bring us some news today.”

  “I should have gone with him.” Monica stood up and began to pace around the small living room. “I’m going crazy in here.” She stopped pacing and smiled at her guest. “Thank goodness you are here, Mrs. Scully, or I really would go crazy. And without your money, we would be in even worse straits.”

  “Now, now, dear. I’ve told you a million times to call me Myrna. And thank you for the kind words, but sometimes I wonder if I’m not just an unnecessary burden. You might have left and gone somewhere safer if not for me.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Monica looked horrified. “Without you to watch Jack and keep me company, we would be worse off.”

  “Oh, here’s Jason.” She broke off as the key turned in the lock.

  “Damn that chain.” He muttered as the door came to a halt after opening only a few inches.

  Monica pulled the chain out of its slot. “You know we have to keep it on,” she admonished him. “It might not keep anybody out if they were determined, but at least it would slow them down.”

  “I know. I know. It’s just not our usual way of living.” He hoisted a case of water into the apartment, and then went back for the bag he had left outside the door. “This is the last of our supplies.” He told her. “The car is empty now.”

  “Is there any news out there?” Myrna Scully asked.

  “Nothing.” Jason raised his eyes to meet his wife’s. There was no hope in them. For a moment she noted how long his beard was, and how it matched his auburn hair. She stepped into his arms and for a moment they felt like they were alone.

  When they broke apart, Mrs. Scully was giving all her attention to the embroidery hoop she held.

  “You should leave.” She told them, her voice strong. “Pretty soon it will be winter and with no food, or heat, this apartment is a trap.”

  “We can go to my parents,” Jason answered slowly. “If we take the food we have left, we can get water from the river. It’s only a hundred miles. We can do it in a week or so.”

  “You should go.” The older woman stood up and grasped their hands. “You have to think of Jack.”

  “We wouldn’t go without you.” Monica squeezed the old hand.

  “Me!” She released their hands. “I’m eighty-five years old! I can’t even walk down the stairs to the street, let alone a hundred miles or more.”

  “No, no. You leave me that case of water and we’ll tell Nestor down the hall that I’m here. He’ll bring any food he finds to share with me. I’ll be okay.”

  “We are not leaving you here alone.” Jason touched her shoulder. “Nestor is gone. He told me he was going to try to get further south before winter. Don’t worry, we’ll think of something.”

  Lying in the dark a few hours later, Jason and Monica discussed their plan.

  “We can carry her down the stairs,” Jason said. “We have the baby’s stroller”

  “I don’t think she’d fit in a stroller.” Monica countered. “She’s tiny, but not that tiny. And what about Jack?”

  “We’ll carry Jack on our backs. If we have the stroller we can also carry some supplies and whatever you can’t bear to leave behind, like our wedding picture.”

  “Or,” his voice became thoughtful. “What if I take the wheels off the stroller and build some kind of wagon? It’d be a rough ride, but we can line it with blankets. Then we can carry more diapers and baby supplies too.”

  The next morning, Monica could hardly wait to tell Myrna their plan. They were up early and Jason went into the car park to find materials for the wagon. She moved around the apartment, choosing what they would need for t
heir long walk.

  “It’s funny,” she told the baby. “We needed so much stuff and now I find we can live with some water and food and a few diapers.” The baby chortled in reply and she smiled at him.

  “I wonder where Myrna is.” She kept up the one-sided conversation. “Usually she comes over by now. It must be hard to be all alone and so worried. I hope we have alleviated some of that for her.”

  At noon, Jason came upstairs for some lunch. He glanced around the apartment. “Where’s Mrs. Scully?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Monica set a bowl of soup in front of him. “Eat up, that’s the last can. I’ll run over and tell her that lunch is ready.”

  She was back in a few minutes, tears rolling down her cheeks. She handed him a folded piece of paper then sat down heavily beside him.

  Slowly he straightened the paper and read the note that had been left for them.

  “Dear Monica and Jason” it started. “I’m eighty five years old and have lived a good life. While I appreciate that you want to help me, it is my turn to help you, by removing myself from the equation. I have some old sleeping pills left over, enough to put me to sleep forever. Please don’t mourn me, but take Jack and go somewhere safe. Thank you for all you have done to make an old lady happy. All my love, Myrna.”

  He put his arm around his sobbing wife and pulled her chair closer. “She didn’t want to burden us.”

  “She was no burden.” Monica buried her head in his shoulder. “Ever since my parents died I’ve thought of her as an extra grandparent.”

  “I know.” He pulled her closer. “But now she would want us to get on with it. The wagon is ready, so I think we should get out of here as soon as possible while the weather is still okay. In another few days, it could be snowing.”

  She sat up and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Should we just leave her there?”

  “Where would we take her?” he asked reasonably. “She chose to die in her home and I’m sure that there are lots of elderly people who have taken the same way out. She knows we will miss her, and that has to be what we remember.”

  Monica nodded and wiped her eyes. “You go down and finish the wagon. I’m just about ready to go. Before we leave, maybe we could go in and say goodbye to our good old friend.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  September was well on its way, and still, there was no power, no telephone and worst of all, no car. Irma tried not to think of the winter to come, but in spite of herself, worry kept rearing its ugly head.

  With no motorized equipment, they were turning over the garden soil with spades. It was hard work and Tony straightened up, putting a hand on his lower back and grimacing.

  “I sure miss the rotor tiller.” He told his wife. “I’d forgotten how....” his voice trailed away. Irma glanced up. He was staring intently down the driveway.

  “What is it?” She straightened up also and glanced towards the gate.

  The sun was shining brightly, causing a glare on her glasses so she had to squint to see the two figures making their way towards them. A man and a woman, both carrying backpacks. The man had a red beard and his hair stood up in wild disarray. His companion seemed to have trouble keeping up.

  But wait! Irma started towards the couple. Something about them was familiar. The way they walked, the shape of their bodies. She took a few steps toward them.

  And realized the man was carrying on his back, not a pack, but a baby.

  Irma and Tony began to run, laughing and crying at the same time.

  The two couples, young and old, met near the front porch.

  “Oh, Jason!” the mother cried. “You made it! You came!”

  For a moment the four of them stood in a tight circle, arms around each other’s shoulders. Their bodies shook and tears came. Even Tony let emotion rule the moment. His son was home.

  After a moment, they pulled apart.

  “How…”

  “We’re so…”

  “It’s so good…”

  “Wait, Wait!” Irma held up her hand to stop them all talking at once. “We want to know everything, but first the most important thing.”

  She walked behind her son and tenderly loosened the straps that were holding the baby in place. He peered at her curiously with his bright blue eyes. The soother in his mouth moved in and out as he sucked frantically.

  “Come on, little Jack. Come to your grandma.” He came easily into her arms, still gazing intently at the unfamiliar face. “Oh Monica,” she murmured. “He’s so beautiful.”

  “And hungry,” said his mother. “We haven’t had any food for him since yesterday.”

  “Yesterday! You haven’t eaten since yesterday? Why didn’t you say so? We have cereal and some powdered milk. Come in the house and rest.” Irma took her daughter-in-law’s arm. “We’ve been so worried about you,” she confided. “I am so glad you are here and safe.”

  The two women were almost at the door when they realized their husbands weren’t with them.

  “Come on, Jason. You need something to eat too.”

  “We’ll be along in a minute, Mom,” Tony said in a quiet voice. “You go into the house and look after little Jack.”

  Something in his tone made Irma turn back. The men were standing very still and watching something in the driveway.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Jason’s teeth shone through the tangled red beard as he grinned at her. “Nothing, Mom. There were a couple of boys behind us on the road, and I want to make sure they kept going.”

  “They might be hungry too.” She answered. “If they come in, we’ll feed them.”

  The door closed a little too loudly behind her. Tony grinned at his son. “She’s a little testy at the moment, Son. It’s been a long few weeks.” He gave him a quick squeeze and was surprised at how much taller the boy was all of a sudden. Or maybe he had always been this tall, but hugs had been so few and far between, he hadn’t noticed.

  His voice lowered as he asked, “So what’s with these boys? Should we be worried?”

  “They were following us for the past couple of days,” Jason answered. “They never got too close, but maybe they were waiting for the right moment. Monica and I were pretty careful where we stopped and one of us stayed awake all the time to watch the baby.” He paused. “Do you still have those hunting rifles around?”

  “Yeah, they’re in the upstairs closet. I started to notice a few shady characters eying up the garden, so to be on the safe side, I moved them out of the safe, along with some ammunition a few days ago.”

  He sighed heavily. “I never thought I’d see the day I had to have a loaded gun in my house.”

  “Let’s just hope we don’t have to use it,” his son replied. “I don’t see the boys now, and I’m starving, so let’s go in. We can keep an eye out for them.”

  Sitting at the familiar table, eating a quickly assembled meal of soup and sandwiches, Jason let himself relax. He gazed around. Nothing had changed really. There was a new propane stove and the refrigerator had been replaced, but the old chrome table with its matching chairs was pushed up against the same flowered wallpaper. The cast iron sink and the old-fashioned faucets set into the speckled counter were the same. In the corner where the stairs began, the linoleum was worn down to the wood. He knew the only bathroom and the three bedrooms up there had never been updated. The wind probably whistled through the same cracks in the window frames. Above that, there was the attic where he had played as a boy. It was always warm up there, he remembered, partly because of the brick chimney that formed its centre.

  The old dog watched him from his rumpled bed under the window. He knew that under that bed was a trap door that led to a damp crawl space.

  Tony grinned. “Not much changed, hey, son?”

  “Nope.” Jason leaned back in his chair. “It’s just like I always remember.” He nodded towards the corner. “Are you still using that old root cellar?”

  “It’s pretty much fallen in.” His fa
ther replied thoughtfully. “I should have had it dug down years ago but it was never at the top of my list.” He shrugged. “And then with only the two of us and not knowing how long we’d be here…” His voice trailed off.

  Jason concentrated on his soup for a moment, then lifted his eyes to meet those of his Dad’s. “I know I didn’t come home often enough.” He lowered his eyes. “But I never thought the day would come when you wouldn’t be here waiting. Kind of like a really long school bus ride.”

  “You’re here now.” Irma placed a cup of weak coffee at his elbow. “And now I can sleep at night.”

  “You’re right, Mom.” He nodded and reached over to touch her hand. “We have to be prepared in case this ‘incident’ goes on.” He laughed. “That’s what the Red Cross and the police were calling it. An ‘incident’, like people weren’t dying all around us.”

  Tony stood up. “Let’s take our coffee outside, Jason. I want to see where those boys went. We can discuss the situation later.”

  Grabbing their cups, the two men returned to the front porch. There was no sign of anybody in the drive, so they sat down to wait.

  Inside the house, Irma sent her daughter-in-law upstairs with the baby in her arms. Quickly and efficiently she cleaned the remains of the meal from the counters. It was crucial to keep everything in its place so when darkness fell, there was nothing to trip them up.

  Her forehead furrowed as she counted the remaining cans and dry goods in the pantry. “We’ll have to cut back on using soup for quick meals,” she mused to herself. They won’t go bad as long as we can keep them from freezing. And we really should use up the fresh food first.” Luckily, they had a bumper harvest of potatoes and carrots from the garden. “And there are two boxes of cereal the baby can have,” she continued to muse. “A little flour and there’s still two big bags of sugar and a box of powdered milk.”

  “Who are you talking to, Mom?” Monica’s voice startled her so much, she jumped, then laughed.

  “Sorry,” she chuckled. “I’m so used to being alone you startled me. I was talking to myself”