by EE Isherwood
“You’re most welcome,” I replied.
I clapped my hands to get us back on track. “Are you boys ready?”
“Which bike can I use?” Levar asked, once he saw the three bicycles.
Luke pointed to his wife’s teal-blue hybrid bike, which was lying in the grass near one of the pink flamingos. “Since you’re pretty tall, I’ve got the seat all the way up, so you’ll find that one the easiest to use. Frank is taking my hybrid. I’m taking my road bike with the trailer attached, since I’m the strongest rider. I put flat pedals on, so I don’t need to clip in, and we can all switch if necessary.”
“Frank said he wants a pair of those tight biker shorts,” Penny giggled. “Do you have any extras, Luke?”
Luke looked at her, then at me. Whatever he saw on my face, he started to laugh. “Frank, I wasn’t going to dress in my kit for this ride, but I’ll run in and get you a pair if you need them.” He took a few fake steps toward his garage.
“Very funny, guys.” I laughed to show I was a good sport. “But I need to be in street clothes. I’ve got a backpack with some bottled waters and spare ammo, so it holds down my shirt and keeps my pistol hidden while we’re riding. That’s as athletic as I dress.”
Penny continued to titter with laughter, like she’d really pulled one over on me. I had to admit it was nice to see her in a good mood, so I didn’t mind being the cause of it. However, once I threw my leg over the top tube, I had to return to serious Frank.
“Alright, everyone, you know what you need to do. The three ladies will stay back and hunker down. I’d recommend you all stick together. Safety in numbers, you know?” I’d already used the same advice on the kids I’d sent home. It was also the reason the three of us were going out on the bikes at the same time. It was definitely a universal truth.
Carmen and Penny stood next to each other in a show of solidarity, but Evelyn went the other way.
“I’ll wait for Ben at my house,” she said over her shoulder.
The two women shared a glance before Carmen spoke up. “Penny’s daughter is in her bed. We should all wait there.”
“No thanks,” the older woman insisted, already on her way home.
Penny looked over to me, and I shrugged.
“When Daisy wakes up, me and Carmen will head over to her place.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Roll out!” I called to my riding partners.
A few minutes later, and for the third time of the day, I paused my journey at the clownfish welcome sign approaching Bayside Road.
I looked left and right on the main road. The same abandoned cars littered the roadway in both directions, and a few pedestrians walked for their destinations, but there was no vehicle traffic, which made it look otherworldly.
“Things seem the same as before,” I suggested.
“That’s good news,” Levar said. “I don’t want it to get any worse until I find Kaira.”
“Or ever,” Luke chuckled. “That would be ideal.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I added.
“This way.” The youngster sprang into action and was on his way before Luke or I could get mounted again.
“After you,” I motioned to Luke.
He rolled out with the trailer behind him. I had water, weapons, and allies, so it felt like I was finally prepared for once. The third time was going to be the charm, exactly like the saying.
I pedaled to give chase.
We’d gone about a quarter of a mile before Levar jammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, but I couldn’t see the cause. My feelings of preparedness immediately went away when it seemed like we were in our first emergency, and I couldn’t even identify the threat.
“What is it?” I inquired as I stopped next to him.
He pointed to a canal going under Bayside Road. “Would you believe it if I told you that’s my neighbor, Ben?”
Adrenaline stopped pouring into my system.
Not an emergency…
“The Ben we’re looking for?” I asked with shock.
“Yep,” Levar said with certainty.
Looking closer, he wasn’t pointing at the water, but to a grove of trees hanging over the canal. Underneath, a lone man reclined inside a small flat-bottomed metal boat. His ball cap hung over his face, as if he were asleep.
“We should wake him up,” I said.
“Yo! Ben!” Levar shouted.
The man stirred immediately, as if he’d been relaxing, not dozing.
“Yeah,” he replied as he sat up. “Who’s that?”
We waved when he looked up to us on the bridge.
Levar continued talking to him. “Hey, do you know your wife is looking for you?”
“Oh, what else is new?” Ben removed his hat and swatted it on his knee. “Is she sending out groups of neighbors to track me down now? That’s a real low point, even for her.”
It seemed as if he and Evelyn weren’t on the best of terms.
“Hey, do you know what happened earlier?” I inquired. “With the EMP strike or the plane crashes?”
“The what and the what?” Ben called back. “An EMP? Are you sure about that?”
“Pretty sure,” I replied.
“I come out here to fish in peace and quiet,” Ben replied, “and I did hear a noise earlier, but I figured it was a sonic boom from a fighter jet. They’ve been flying crazy all morning.”
“They aren’t in the air now,” I said in a calm tone.
“And you think it was because of an EMP?” he replied and sounded unconvinced.
I wiped my brow from the heat of the afternoon.
“Ben, this isn’t your wife talking. You really do need to get back to our street. All the power is out for the whole city of Fort Myers, maybe all of Florida. We have no idea why it happened, but we’re ninety-nine percent sure it was an electromagnetic pulse. Luke, Levar, and I are going to get Luke’s kids down at the highschool, and hopefully to find Levar’s wife, but then we’re going right back home to load up on guns and food.”
“Say all that again.” Ben sat up straight. “Where are you going?”
I spoke slower as I repeated my words.
“This does sound like an EMP,” he replied when I was done the second time. “And you’re right. I need to get back to Evelyn.”
“If you have any firearms, I suggest you have them ready. There’s nothing earth-shattering happening at the moment, but if the power stays out, people are going to be scared out there. Evelyn wouldn’t take one of my guns…” I left it hanging out there to see what he said, rather than tell him what I thought of her refusal.
“Damn, she should have taken you up on your offer. I’ve told her for years she needed to know how to defend herself, but she was always satisfied I would be there.” Ben glanced around, as if noticing his boat. “As you can see, I’m not there around the clock.”
“Well, you should get back however you can,” I advised. “We’ll talk more when we return.”
Ben cranked over the little motor, which started up right away.
“It works?” I said with surprise. It was the first engine I’d heard since the EMP.
“This old beast doesn’t have a single piece of modern electronics in it.” He gave me a thumbs-up sign. “My dad gave me this 20-horsepower antique before he passed. It will be running long after I’m gone.”
The engine sang quietly as Ben shoved off the shore with a wooden paddle.
It crossed my mind that some of those desperate people we’d escaped earlier might hear the engine and come looking for it, but that seemed fairly remote now that things had settled down. We were miles from North Pointe, and it had been well over an hour since the chaos of the plane wreck.
“Get home as fast as you can!” I called out.
“Will do,” he replied.
The three of us watched Ben’s little boat cut through the water as he sped down the canal. There wasn’t a direct path back to Clownfish Cove from where he was, so he had
to drive to the west, to presumably weave through the neighborhood over there, before he could finally get to the canal which connected to our street.
Our path was elsewhere.
“Let’s keep moving,” I suggested as I kicked off. I figured it was lucky we found Ben so early in our journey, but both Luke and Levar had missions to accomplish, and I knew they wouldn’t want to waste a second.
For the next mile or two, the trees on the left side of the road continued as part of the preserve. However, when they ended, we entered a dense region with subdivisions sprawled on both sides of Bayside Road.
“It’s a left up here,” Luke advised when we approached a four-way intersection at about mile four of our trip.
The homes were almost as large as those on my street, but they were a bit older, as if they’d been built a decade earlier. The palm and fruit trees surrounding those houses were a lot more mature, as well. Like everywhere else, people stood under those trees or on the streets, talking to their neighbors.
Everything looked the same for the next two miles.
“There!” Luke shouted when he saw the modern-looking highschool on the right-hand side of the block ahead.
“Oh, shit,” Levar exclaimed when we could see things better. “There’s a lot more people at the doors.”
The two-story highschool was surrounded by a ring of student parking lots. The main building was designed a bit like a Spanish mission, with arched walkways, a sloped roof made of orange tiles, and white paint on the outside walls. Pruned trees and shrubs tastefully decorated the peaceful areas where students would walk and sit outside. However, at the moment, it looked as if a rambunctious crowd had congregated in front of the main doors. They yelled, held up their arms, and the sound of fists pounding on glass made it all the way out to us on the roadway.
“What are we heading into?” I asked.
Luke showed no signs of slowing.
Like Penny earlier, he was determined to get his kids.
It was up to me to help him.
CHAPTER 8
It was mid-June, so I was surprised the kids were still in school, but they have hurricane days here the way we had snow days back up north, and the full parking lot confirmed it wasn’t a mistake. With one glance of the area, I knew the students were still inside the building, too. If they’d been let out, young people would be all over the place, and those parents wouldn’t be banging on the doors.
Once we came up to the gathering of parents, I realized there were a lot more than I’d initially thought. Perhaps a hundred of them were packed in tight against the front doors and windows of the entrance lobby. A good number of them yelled obscenities at a guy they called James.
“Let me guess,” I said to Luke. “James is the principal.”
“Yeah,” he replied while he studied the crowd and the rest of the building, as if seeking a way around the blockage.
I tapped the shoulder of a young woman at the rear of the line, and she turned to look at me.
“Excuse me, is this the door to get our kids?” I asked in a friendly voice.
“I hope so,” she huffed, “but no one really knows. No kids have been let out since I got here, so we’re all kind of waiting for them to open up.”
The banging on the doors became overwhelming for a few seconds.
“So,” I continued over the noise, “did you just come up here on your own, or was a message somehow sent out?”
“No message,” she replied. “Usually, I’d get a text if anything was happening at school, but not this time.” She held up a phone, which was dead, as a testament.
“Mine’s dead, too,” I remarked.
“I walked here when the power went out,” she continued. “I had a sneaking suspicion it was off in a wide area, since my phone and everything else in the house was dead. I don’t live far away, so it wasn’t a big deal to come up here and check on my daughter. Now I’m glad I did.”
The brunette woman was probably a few years younger than me. Her thick-rimmed glasses made her look smart, like she was a lawyer or scientist. The image lent credibility to her words.
“Yeah,” I chuckled a bit. “It’s great that you took the initiative, since I don’t think any of us will be getting any texts for quite a while.”
“Really? Won’t they work again when the power comes on? That’s why I keep checking it.” She held up her phone again to show me the dark screen.
Several others from the crowd had their phones out, too.
“The power might not come on for days or weeks,” I whispered. “And your phone may never work again, since the insides have been fried. I think it was an EMP.”
“Like in the movies?” she asked.
“Yeah, exactly like that.” I noted even though she knew it was from the movies, she’d missed making the connection when it happened in real life until I’d pointed it out. “But let’s not make too much of that, okay? I’m sure Principal James is prepping the kids for dismissal as we speak.”
“It doesn’t look like those doors are going to open anytime soon.” She motioned toward the front. “They haven’t even had the courtesy of making any announcements to us. It’s the not knowing that sucks, you know?”
“Exactly,” Luke interjected. “I have two kids in there, and one glass door isn’t going to stop me.” The determined look in his eyes might have been enough to push open the doors.
“Whoa, bud. I have an idea about this, but we should walk our bikes over there, away from all the noise, so we can talk.” It was an excuse to get us away from the woman and those who might listen to our conversation.
My friend stood there for a few seconds, apparently unsure if he wanted to be talked off the ledge. Eventually, however, Levar motioned for him to step away, too.
Luke relented, and came with us, but he still looked like he was going to storm the barricades himself. I wouldn’t blame him if he did, but there was a right and wrong way to go about it.
Once we were clear of all the people, I motioned them to huddle close.
“Guys, this is about to become a tinder box. Each new parent is going to get everyone else angry that nothing is being done, so I’m thinking we need to sneak around back and get inside before the place goes nuts.”
“You’re right, Frank.” Luke nodded with enthusiasm, then wiped sweat from the back of his neck. “Sorry for not seeing it sooner. There are a dozen other doors around the campus, but this is where my kids normally come out, so I was waiting for Principal Jack Ass to release them at the same spot. I wasn’t thinking about the big picture.”
“Just find us that door and all will be good,” I replied.
We jumped on our bikes and followed Luke in a wide loop around the parking lot of the school. He guided us to an obscure rear entrance between two wings of the large building. As we rolled up, there was no one waiting outside the glass door, nor was there anyone visible on the inside.
“This is perfect, Luke,” I said as I hopped from my bicycle. Despite knowing how those parents in front of the school felt, I didn’t want a big entourage following us inside, since it would complicate our own mission. All I wanted was to get in there, grab Luke’s kids, and get out before shit hit the fan.
Luke approached the door and gave it a half-hearted tug. “Yep, it’s locked.”
I tore open the lid of the trailer and pulled out one of the hammers.
“Not for long,” I said.
As I lined up my swing, Luke stopped me.
“Frank, let me do this.”
“It’s just glass,” I chuckled.
“I know, but if anyone sees you, they might identify you later.” He reached for the hammer. “I’m willing to take the fall for breaking into my kids’ school. You don’t have to endanger yourself.”
I almost swung it anyway as I didn’t care about the fallout, but he seemed adamant to do his own work, and I respected his reasoning, so I handed it over.
The door was glass from top to bottom, with a metal frame
and handle, plus a crossbar latch on the inside. After briefly looking around, Luke smashed the hammer against the entryway, which caused the full-height pane of glass to shatter and fall into a million pieces.
For a few seconds, we all stood there looking at our handiwork. However, I knew the clock was ticking. “Okay, let’s get all our valuable gear so some kid doesn’t come along and see a bunch of guns.”
Levar cleared his throat. “Um, I’m not going in.”
“You’re cool, Levar,” Luke replied immediately. “If anyone gives you shit for breaking and entering, I’ll say I put a gun to your head to get you in there.”
“It’s not that,” Levar laughed, “though I appreciate the offer. I want to stay out here and keep an eye on the road, in case Kaira passes by.”
“That’s smart to keep searching,” I replied. “Will you stick near this door, so you can keep an eye on our bikes while we’re inside?”
“Sure.” Levar’s face lit up with a toothy grin. “I’d do the same for a friend.”
I was really warming up to the guy.
“Thanks, man. You’re doing us a huge solid so we don’t need to take our shotguns inside the school. That would freak people out, I’m sure.” I yanked out the baseball bat. “But we’ll take a little insurance, just in case.”
“Plus, you already have the pistol,” Luke looked to my hip.
On any other day of the year, I’d be hesitant to take the concealed pistol into a school, but almost every book I’d read about the end of the world stated in no uncertain terms once the shit smacked the fan, you needed to carry a weapon everywhere. Endless characters were attacked when and where they least expected it. I was not going to fall into the same trap. I’d even figure out a way to take it into the shower if I had to.
“You want this back?” I held out Luke’s bat.
“Nah, you can have the bat if you want it.” He put the hammer inside his belt as if sheathing a sword. “I’m digging this thing.”
I took a practice swing. “I can make this work.”
He waved for me to follow him.
We crouched under the crossbar of the door, careful not to touch the shards of glass with our fingers. The hallway was empty to our left and right, and there wasn’t much noise, though I did hear a muffled male voice coming from one direction, along with murmurs of a large group of people.
