by EE Isherwood
“To be fair, I only wanted to make peace on our block. I don’t think she and I have much in common…”
“Oh, no, you don’t get out of it that easy. You’ve got a gift for seeing a problem and knowing how to fix it.” She pointed to Daisy, who sat on the grass nearby. “You tackled the problem for Penny, then you did it for Luke, and now you’ve made sure Evelyn isn’t totally alone.”
Carmen’s eyes glowed in the golden hour sunlight.
I was tempted to comment about how she looked in the flattering light, but it wasn’t the time, place, or situation for getting even a little personal with the beautiful woman, especially after the conversation we just had.
“What do you know about Toby and his wife,” I asked.
Her expression changed, as if my line of questioning surprised her.
“Not much,” she said. “Toby once mentioned his job, which has something to do with construction, but it’s been a while since that conversation, so I don’t remember the details. I was glad to have someone new to talk to when he first started coming around, but after all his condescending names for me, I got the feeling he was looking for more than conversation.”
“And his wife?”
“She never hit on me…”
It took me a second. “You’re joking.”
My hesitation made her giggle.
“I meant what does she do?”
“I think she’s a real estate agent. He mentioned her and golf a few times, I think. Maybe she sells houses at golf courses, or something like that. Not sure how they fit together. They had one kid, but she moved out a few years ago. I know it’s not much, but that’s all I can say for sure about the wife, since Toby almost never shared anything about her.”
“Do you think his wife saw you guys talking?” I mused, thinking of her problems with Evelyn. “Maybe she has a hidden grudge against you, too. That’s the kind of thing I need to know about.”
“I have no idea,” she laughed, “because I’ve never met her. When she shows up and throws shade on me, I’ll fill you in.”
We shared a moment of levity while standing in the low rays of sunshine, but I excused myself to get back to the driveway. Melanie and Luke had brought out an eight-foot plastic table and were placing folding chairs around it.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Nah, we got this,” Luke answered.
In fifteen minutes, with varying degrees of help from the four kids, the table came together with condiments, napkins, paper plates, and metal utensils. There was enough space for all twelve of us, including the teen twins, though it was tight.
“You sit here,” Melanie insisted, as we all gathered around the feast. She’d pointed me to the head of the table.
I was going to let Luke sit there, since it was his table, his driveway, and we’d used his grill, but he’d already taken the chair next to that spot. His wife and kids sat in the adjacent chairs with Evelyn in the last place. Ben took the seat at the far end of the table, and Alex, Z, Penny, Daisy, and Carmen filled out the other side.
“You want to say grace?” Carmen asked me.
“Yeah, Frank, you have the honors,” Luke added.
“Grace?” Tyler whispered. “She passed away thirty years ago.”
Rainy jammed her elbow in his side.
“Ow!” he complained.
“You’re such an idiot,” Rainy said to her brother.
“It’s okay,” I remarked, since I knew where the Grace quote came from. “I’m a fan of Christmas Vacation, too.”
“Right on!” Tyler cheered.
Luke tapped the table, which made the boy put his head down, though his smile remained.
Slowly, with reverence, I sat in my designated chair.
“Thank you,” I said to my host.
For the first time since the sirens went off, I felt as if I was in charge. I’d been winging it from the beginning, and there were moments when I’d taken on the role of leader because no one else jumped in, like when confronting Trevor, but being at the table with everyone looking to me made the responsibility sink in.
My neighbors are counting on me.
I bowed my head.
“God, bless this bounty in front of us. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to meet our great neighbors and for helping us find the strength to endure this strange day. Thank you for bringing home our children, including Daisy, Tyler, and Rainey. Make it safe for Alex and Z to go home soon, too. Please watch over Levar and his wife, Kaira, wherever they may be. Also, please help the rest of our missing neighbors find their way back to us. Finally, if you don’t mind me asking, please make our EMP a lot less dangerous than it is in all the books.”
“Amen,” the others replied.
Tyler mumbled, “play ball,” which was another quote from the same movie.
The sun went down as we stuffed ourselves with the treasure trove of food. The cooks had also provided numerous frozen vegetables, bread and buns, and anything else they could pull from the freezer that was bound to go bad. One cooler was filled with tubs of ice cream that had to be enjoyed immediately.
“This is like the feast at the start of The Hobbit,” Tyler said while stuffing a piece of steak in his mouth. “Which means Gandalf is about to split.” He pointedly looked at me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I countered.
“You will,” Tyler said in a casual tone of voice. “Trust me.”
The more I thought it over, the more I had to acknowledge there would almost certainly be a time I would have to leave our street. We would eventually need something from the outside, and someone, me, would have to organize an effort to go get it. It was part of the responsibility of being put at the head of the table.
I’d already left the street twice on day one.
“We’ll see,” I allowed.
He scoffed at me in a friendly way, like he didn’t buy what I was selling.
“So,” I said to him, “what is it you do in your free time? Are you on any sports teams at school?” The shelves in Luke’s garage were filled with soccer balls, padded equipment, netting, shoes, and sports drink coolers. Everything you’d expect from a couple of kids who were athletic.
Rainey chuckled to herself.
Tyler glared at her then turned back to me. “I don’t play any sports.”
“Oh, sorry,” I commented. “The garage is full of stuff, and you dress like you do.” His Adidas shirt and track pants suggested he was athletic to the core.
“Yeah, it’s fine to dress like a Fortnite kid in middle school, but not in the big leagues.” The boy looked down at his attire. “These are comfortable, and I guess they look alright, but I do not play any sports in them.”
“What’s a Fortnite kid?” I asked as I tried not to sound like my generation was too far out of touch, and I recalled that Rainey had said the name earlier.
He looked over to his sister as if she might say something, but she had a hamburger stuffed in her face.
“It’s a video game I used to play a lot back in the day, when I was a kid. That’s really all you need to know.”
“Well, you had me fooled.” I said it to be polite. His desire to ride in the trailer along with aversion to running home now made sense.
“It’s no big deal,” he replied, taking it in stride. “And I don’t regret playing it back then because it has given me an appreciation for high-quality games. In fact, now that I’ve grown up, I’m in top clans for several online games I play. I’m basically a professional.”
Rainey made a “Pfft,” sound.
“Ignore her,” Tyler said without glancing sideways. “She’s just jealous because she can’t make any money doing what she loves.”
“You make money playing video games?” I said with surprise.
“Sure. Lots. I’ll be able to buy my own car soon. One way nicer than hers.” He tilted his head toward his sis.
“Dang, I never would have guessed. You must be pretty good.”
“
I told you: Top. Clans.” He smiled hugely.
I still didn’t know what he meant about clans, but few of the others seemed interested in video games, so I let the moment pass. The rest of the dinner was mostly introductory conversation as we went around the table sharing our backgrounds, how we came to live on Clownfish Cove, and what we were doing the instant the EMP struck. The four teens all shared their stories about the power going out at their highschool, each making it seem highly dramatic in how they escaped the noisy gymnasium and the subsequent gunfire. By contrast, Ben’s story was positively boring, since he’d been resting under a tree when it happened, though he and his beers made his return sound much more impressive than it was.
Eventually, as the last light faded from the sky, and we’d put away as much ice cream as we could choke down, we packed up the leftover meats.
“Tonight, this stuff can go back in the thawing freezers. Tomorrow, we’ll start a wood fire and dry out what we can of these pieces of beef,” I said. “We’ll turn it into jerky, so it keeps better.”
“How long will it last?” Melanie asked.
“I’m not sure, precisely.” I’d read about making jerky, but it wasn’t something I’d ever done, so I didn’t have a ready answer. “I have a survival book somewhere in my stuff that might have a page or two on it, but I’m not sure if it’s one of the books in the boxes in my garage, or if it’s on the moving truck.”
“I guess we can write it off if it’s on the truck, right?” she asked.
“Yep. We’ll figure it out, though. I know we have to heat it over a fire, but we might have to experiment a little to get it right. As for how long it’ll last, we’ll have to test that, too. The jerky process removes all the water, which is where bacteria can thrive. If we get it right, the meat should last weeks. Maybe months.”
A few minutes later, Penny and her daughter caught me alone.
“Hey, Frank, I just wanted to thank you again for helping me rescue my little angel. She also has something she wants to say to you.”
We both looked at the little girl, who stood halfway behind her mother’s leg.
“Come on, dear, what do you say to Mr. Frank?” Penny said in a coaxing tone of voice.
“Thank you for coming to get me, Mr. Frank.” The second she’d said it, Daisy went all the way around her mother’s leg.
“You’re very welcome, Ms. Daisy,” I replied. “And anytime you want to go for a bike ride in your trailer, you just let me know, okay?”
The girl giggled.
As the pair walked back to the table, I wondered where we were on the sliding scale of danger. The chance of marauding barbarians swooping through on the first night of a disaster was effectively zero, but the chance would go up each night as the EMP outage continued. Two weeks in, we might all be wearing football padding and driving refurbished police interceptors like in Mad Max. Or, after two weeks, we might be dying in our garages because all the food is gone. Danger might not arrive on the first night, but it was already on the march. My books seemed to penalize the characters who planned the least, so I needed to stay ahead of the curve.
I used the moonlight to scribble notes on my pad of paper while the others quietly chatted, but the full group didn’t last long.
The four teens were the first to leave. Then Evelyn excused herself and went home alone. It left me, Carmen, Penny, Luke, and Melanie sitting around the table on Luke’s driveway. Ben was there downing another of his seemingly endless supply of beer, but he chugged it while standing inside the garage.
“What are you writing?” Melanie asked after a long period of silence. “And what can we do to help?”
I looked up.
“I’m writing down the gear I know I have in my garage. The problem is I don’t remember everything I packed in my advanced boxes versus what’s still on the moving truck, like that survival book. There’s also a lot of junk I still have in storage back in Chicago. I’d like to try to recall what I left behind, so I’ll know not to look for it here.”
“Do you have to do that now?” she asked. “You must be exhausted.”
“I am,” I sighed, “but I’m a professional sleep-avoider. I drove an eighteen-wheeler for many years.” It had been a long time since I regularly drove long-haul rigs over the road, but I liked to think I still retained the simple skill of staying awake.
I tapped the notepad.
“There’s a ton of stuff I need to get done besides taking inventory. I have to plan some options on how to make the jerky. I need to find a good saw to cut the wood, so we can have a bonfire to cook the jerky tomorrow. We need a comms system using old-fashioned wire to alert each other to danger. We need to set up a perimeter. We need a fire plan. We need—”
“Whoa!” Melanie interrupted. “You can’t do this all by yourself.”
“Yeah, I have a lot of cables, Frank,” Luke said. “From when I ran ethernet throughout my house. I bet I could rig something up.”
“Really? Like a line from my garage to yours?” It was a start. If we had enough cable, maybe it was possible to run a line to each house, then a line out to the homes under construction. Communications were crucial to protecting our subdivision. Maybe it was the most critical piece of defense, outside of having enough guns and ammo.
“Whatever you need. I could even rip the cordage out of my walls, so we have more.”
“Honey, are you sure?” Melanie replied.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I’d hate to do it, but if this lasts for a long time, we won’t be using our computers or smart televisions. I just want to give Frank an option to consider.”
“This is all great.” I wrote down a few notes about his suggestion.
“If Luke doesn’t care about his wires, I certainly don’t,” Melanie said with assurance. “You just have to tell us what you need.”
“I’ll do whatever you ask, too, Frank.” Ben spoke slow and with a slur, as if he’d overdone it on the liquor. It had been about an hour since we ate dinner, and he’d been cracking open fresh beers the whole time.
We looked inside the dark garage.
“I know I’m not on top of my game right now,” Ben went on. “But I’ll be ready tomorrow. Besides, I’ll be out of beer.”
“Thanks, Ben,” I said politely. “We can really use you.”
I dropped the pen on the table.
“Right now, Frank,” Melanie said, “I think what we all could use is sleep.”
No matter what kind of trucking skills I retained, there was no denying I was approaching peak exhaustion. Today wasn’t just sitting behind the wheel and pushing distance like a zombie, which was common back in my driving days. I’d ridden a bike more miles than I’d done in the entire rest of my life. I’d also walked and run around a bunch, too, before scarfing a huge meal. I wanted to curl up in bed and sleep as long as necessary, like a normal retired person. However, I was now experiencing the cost of being placed at the head of the table. I had to live up to my neighbors’ expectations of leadership by making sure they were safe before I turned in.
“Yes, go home,” I replied.
Everyone rose from their seats.
“Sleep with your windows open,” I cautioned. “Especially you, Ben. You’re at the end of our street, so you might hear trouble before the rest of us.”
“Mmmhmm,” the older guy grunted.
“We don’t have air conditioning anymore,” Luke laughed, “so we don’t have much choice about open windows.”
“That’s true,” I replied. “It means we’re already set up to be vigilant at night. All of us have to stay alert for what’s happening out on our street. Since we don’t have a better way of sounding a warning, I guess we should…”
If there was trouble in the night, we’d all need a way to re-group and take care of it. Ideally, we’d have a secret alarm inside our homes, so we could converge on trouble without giving ourselves away. However, for night number one, there was only one thing that both conveyed seriousness t
o the neighbors and would possibly deter the source of trouble.
“We should fire a gun,” I finished.
“Ooh, I don’t know,” Melanie said with hesitation.
“If we need it, that’s what we’ll do,” Luke assured his wife.
“I can shoot,” Ben slurred.
“There’s no doubt in my mind about that,” I said to him in a friendly tone, “but right now you should get on home, okay?”
“Roger that,” he said, shuffling out of the garage.
He tried hard to keep himself upright as he walked away, but the older man was unquestionably drunk.
“Maybe don’t worry about sleeping too close to a gun tonight,” I suggested to his back side. “Leave your window open, just in case, but keep your gun an arm’s length away until you sober up.”
“Aye, aye, boss,” he replied.
Ben cut across Luke’s yard, and he knocked over one of the pink flamingos on his way.
“Oops, I’ll get that in the morning!” he called out.
“Don’t worry about it,” Luke answered.
Ben crossed in front of Levar’s place, then went into his own garage.
“Wow,” Melanie whispered. “He’s had a few too many.”
“Who can blame him?” I replied. “We interrupted his quiet retirement away from Evelyn. Still, I hope he really is out of beer, so he’s fully with us. We’re all the neighborhood watch, looking out for each others’ homes. That role has taken on new meaning, you know?”
“I’ll sleep with Rocko on my dresser,” Carmen announced.
“And I’ll have your revolver near me, too, Frank.” Penny whispered, since Daisy was asleep in her arms.
“Everyone, shoo.” Melanie waved us away. “Go home. Get some sleep. Frank, you especially. You’re trying to get everyone else home, but I can see your eyelids drooping, even in the moonlight. You’ve earned your sleep.”
“I’m going, ma’am,” I said in a weary voice.
Penny hefted Daisy in her arms when she stood up. The little girl had been asleep for the past hour as the adults talked. “Goodnight, all. It’s definitely way past a certain someone’s bedtime. Let’s hope tomorrow is a better day.”
