Isolation (Book 1): Shut In

by Jones, Nathan

  Especially parents with kids that weren't theirs, which Nick supposed wasn't too surprising if the calls they'd received to pick up their children had been as alarming as his had been.

  He skirted the parking lot, joining the stream of people on foot walking across the grass. They flowed around a smaller stream of parents protectively clutching children who were headed the other way. Nick couldn't help but notice that those people were given space like they had the plague in spite of the crowded conditions, and that they were equally paranoid about even the arriving parents.

  To the point where if keeping at arm's length wasn't possible, sparks flew to a shocking extreme.

  The first incident he saw looked fairly innocuous, a woman simply passing a bit too close to a father clutching his daughter to his chest, frantically ducking and dodging through the crowd to get away from the school. The close brush was actually mostly the man's fault, but the frantic father reacted as if the woman had lunged at him brandishing a knife.

  “Stay away from my girl!” he screamed, with the sort of hysterical desperation you'd use for a large, vicious predator you had no hope of scaring away with anything but noise and bluff.

  The woman skittered away as if zapped by a cattle prod, staring at the man with wide, frightened eyes. She kept eyeing him warily as she edged past and hurried on, while the father hugged his crying daughter close and kept ducking through the crowd, barking at others to stay away.

  Shouting wasn't the worst of it, unfortunately. Closer to the entrance Nick saw one mom, who was clutching a boy around Tallie's age in her arms, viciously shove a girl who looked to be in fifth or sixth grade away with her foot. As the poor child was knocked sprawling the woman called out an apology that sounded somewhere between sincere and panicked, while at the same time frantically kicking off her shoe as if it was covered with acid.

  Then, limping in one sock, she went bolting away along the wall with her son, while a teacher crouched to help the downed child up and shouted angrily after her.

  “Slow down and keep calm!” a policeman near the closest door shouted. “Don't enter the school unless you're a parent of a child living within three blocks of here! All children intended to be picked up by their parents in a car have already been led outside to the back parking lot, but don't go back there! Get in touch with a teacher or administrator and tell them your name and the names of your kids, and they'll go get them for you.”

  Nick prepared his ID as he approached, then realized that the officer wasn't checking anyone else's. In fact, he didn't even seem to be making sure the people streaming through the doors were actually parents who lived nearby.

  Normally that would've really worried him, but at the moment he was just relieved at the lack of delay as he followed everyone else into the school, making his way down a side hallway to Tallie's classroom.

  To his further relief, not only was his daughter still there waiting for him, but Ricky was there with her, holding her hand and reassuring her in the midst of the chaos.

  His children both rushed over to him the moment they saw him, expressions full of relief. Nick pulled Tallie up to hold her with one arm, holding Ricky's hand with his free one, and started towards the back of the school.

  “Daddy, are we going to the car?” his daughter asked, squirming insistently and pointing behind them. “The car's that way!”

  “No, sweetie, I didn't bring the car today,” Nick replied as he gently but firmly held her tight to keep her from sliding down to the ground and running off. “We're going to walk home.”

  “That's good, because the parking lot and front of the school are all full of buses and cars and stuff,” Ricky declared. “It's even worse than when school gets out!”

  “I saw. That's why we're going to cut across the playground and climb over the fence.” As he spoke Nick sped up a bit, tugging his son along behind him.

  Ricky gave him a doubtful look as he jogged to keep up. “We're not supposed to do that.”

  Nick glanced at the chaos in the hallway around them, the hysterical parents and crying children and teachers and school administrators and a few policemen trying to keep order. “They don't care today because it's so busy. I'm sure lots of people are already doing it.”

  If they're smart, he added silently to himself.

  It turned out plenty were; the playground and neatly trimmed lawn beyond it were crowded with parents leading their kids away from the school. It was an odd sight, since at most social gatherings and even for routine things like picking up or dropping kids off from school, parents who knew each other tended to clump together to chat, while their kids ran circles around them playing their own games.

  Not today. Today, every parent was a suspicious island accompanied only by his or her kids, with at least ten feet of empty space surrounding them. Kids' hands were held tight and the smaller children were almost universally being carried, with any attempts to wriggle free to go say hi to friends earning as sharp a rebuke as if they'd been caught standing over a broken computer.

  A few kids had managed to run free, and the air was full of the shrill screams of moms and dads acting as if their children were on the verge of running out in front of a speeding car.

  Nick stepped to the side of the door, along the wall where dozens of other parents with their children were all standing or sitting a safe distance apart. Some looked to be resting, others seemed to be recovering from weaving their way through the chaos inside, or steeling themselves for the trip across the playground. Some even seemed to just be waiting for things to calm down before moving.

  He had no intention of doing any of that, he just wanted to spend a few seconds planning out the best route through the crowd of parents fleeing the school.

  With how people kept randomly changing directions to avoid other people, there was no real good route to plan. Nick eventually just gave up and made for a clear area halfway across that might or might not still be there when he reached it.

  The next couple minutes were a confusing blur of dodging and looking around frantically, while terrified people screamed all around him, sometimes at him. Tallie spent most of the time with her head buried in his neck, while Ricky huddled against his side close enough to nearly trip him a few times.

  Nick reached the clear area, which wasn't so clear anymore, forcing him to change directions and make for a different section of fence than he'd been heading for. Tallie was starting to get unmanageably heavy in his arms, a reminder that his desperate efforts to avoid financial ruin lately hadn't involved much in the way of exercise.

  He'd have to get her up on his shoulders once they were over the fence. It was more precarious if he had to suddenly run or anything like that, but hopefully after they put the chaos of the school behind them that wouldn't be a problem.

  “Back off!” a couple clutching the hands of a girl a bit younger than Ricky shouted at him. They backed away, nearly bumping into a mother herding two children, who shouted at them in turn. Nick ducked his head and kept going.

  After a nightmarish few more minutes they reached the fence. Nick lifted Ricky over, then passed him Tallie and climbed himself. The chain link barrier was swaying drunkenly under the weight of holding several people at once, almost on the verge of falling over. It was nearly bent down to the ground in one place, where a heavyset man wasn't so much climbing over it as crawling.

  Then they were over. Nick hoisted his daughter up onto his shoulders, took his son's hand again, then crossed the street and set off briskly.

  “Dad, where are we going?” Ricky abruptly asked.

  “Home,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the cluster of people coming down the street behind them hadn't gotten any closer.

  His son frowned. “This is like the opposite direction of home.”

  “It is. We need to go around a bit, take smaller streets and alleys to avoid people.”

  “Why?” Ricky demanded. “Why was everyone all mad and scared at school? I heard somethi
ng about a cor-corun teen, but what does that mean?”

  “Quarantine,” he corrected gently. “It means sick people being separated from everyone so no one else gets sick.”

  “Are we sick?” Tallie asked anxiously. She'd had a stomach bug a few months ago that had been pure misery for the poor girl.

  Nick patted her knee. “No, they're just being careful. Once we get home we'll find out what's going on.”

  A few blocks away the crowd thinned to the point where you might think it was just a normal day in Kansas City, if a bit busy for this time of the afternoon. He finally set Tallie down and held her hand, having Ricky hold her other, so he could give his aching shoulders a rest.

  The first thing he did once he had a hand free was pull out his phone and try to call Ellie again. Again it went straight to voicemail. Had one of her flights been delayed to the point she was still in the air? “Ellie, I got the kids out and I'm headed home,” he said after the beep. “It was pretty crazy at the school. Call me.”

  After Nick hung up he stared at his phone, brow furrowed in concern. He hoped his ex-wife's phone wasn't off because something had happened to her. Normally he would've waved off that worry as just his usual sense of impending doom that never materialized, but he'd just pulled his children out of a school turned into some sort of nightmarish free for all.

  He quickened his pace to the fastest Tallie could manage, determined to get home and figure out just what the heck was going on.

  ◆◆◆

  Ellie glanced over as the teenager in the seat beside her finally stirred awake.

  She'd slept fitfully all night, fretting for her children, worried that circumstances might be more serious than they were telling her, and wondering if she'd be able to make it back to Missouri. So she couldn't help but feel a bit jealous of the young man, since as far as she knew he'd slept like a rock all night in spite of the situation they were in.

  It brought back fond memories of being that age herself, around eighteen or nineteen if she was any judge. Those blissful days in her past when she could've slept right through an earthquake, and only woken up long enough to complain about the roof collapsing on top of her before rolling over and drifting off again.

  Her seatmate was the sort who would've definitely drawn her attention when she was in her teens, and even more so right now if he'd been her age and still looked like that. He looked to be a good half a head taller than her, at least as far as she could tell with him slouched in an airplane seat. Muscled but not bulky, skin with the sort of deep tan that she had a feeling came from working out in the sun rather than lounging by a pool. He had short, slightly tussled blond hair with just a hint of red in it, and high cheekbones complimenting a strong jaw covered with a few days' growth of fine stubble.

  The young man's eyes slowly drifted open, light green and full of confusion and fear. The confusion faded as he seemed to remember where he was, but the fear remained, making him seem younger than his late teens.

  Ellie's heart went out to him. “Morning,” she said quietly.

  He blinked and rubbed at his eyes. “Morning,” he mumbled. Squinting, he cracked the shutter on his window enough to glance outside, grimacing. “Still stuck on the tarmac?”

  “Yeah.”

  The teenager cursed, then flushed and glanced at her. “Sorry.”

  Ellie chuckled grimly. “You didn't say anything I'm not thinking.”

  He smiled back tentatively. “Any more news while I was asleep?”

  “No. They were probably hoping we'd sleep for as long as possible so we didn't raise a fuss.” She glanced ahead at the curtains, where no flight attendants were in sight. “Maybe now that just about everyone's awake we'll get something.”

  “Guess I woke up just in time, then.” He offered her his hand. “I'm Hal.”

  She took it, noting how in spite of his athletic build he held back his grip almost carefully enough to be insulting; maybe it was the business suit she was wearing. “Ellie.”

  “Good to finally meet you,” he said wryly. “Being seatmates on an intercontinental flight is one thing, but I figure if we're going to be trapped on a plane together we might as well get to know each other.”

  His tone had become far more casual, and Ellie felt a tinge of annoyance. This was the worst possible time for some kid to be hitting on her.

  Then she felt bad for that; the young man was as stressed about this situation as she was, trying to make conversation to take his mind off his own fears. And even if he was working his way up to flirting, there was no reason to bite his head off for it.

  If nothing else, like Hal had said she was going to be trapped next to him for the foreseeable future, so it was in her own best interest to keep things friendly. Rather than getting angry just because a young man acted like most teenagers with a pulse would.

  Assuming she wasn't being massively egotistical to think he was interested in her; she remembered when she was his age and people in their thirties had seemed ancient. Although to be fair, her teenage years did feel like an eternity ago.

  “Might as well,” she agreed. “Were you headed back to the US from Japan?”

  Hal nodded. “On my way to Kearney.” He paused, then added, “That's in Missouri, near-”

  “Kansas City,” Ellie cut in with a smile. “Only fifteen minutes or so from where I live, actually. Howdy, neighbor.”

  He grinned back. “Hey how about that? Small world.” He glanced at her professional attire, although thankfully didn't seem to be checking her out. “So you were there for business?”

  “That's right. I'm a workplace cohesion consultant.” At his blank look she shook her head wryly. “I help businesses improve morale, raise employee sensitivity, and manage conflict resolution. I also give my professional evaluation on any issues they might be dealing with and advise them on a solution.”

  The teenager gave her an uncertain look, obviously completely unfamiliar with the field. “That sort of work keep you busy?”

  “Busy enough to travel at least once a month, including to other countries,” Ellie replied dryly. “For example, in Japan I was helping a branch of an American business train their new employees on working within the Japanese business culture.”

  “So you must do a lot of work in Japan, right?”

  She nodded. “Enough to feel comfortable advising others. Although I'm still not confident enough in my grasp of the language to use it in a business setting.”

  “Yeah, me either. But not, you know, for business.” Hal fumbled a bit before rallying. “I don't suppose you've ever met my dad? Ned Westmont, works at SDI.”

  Ellie shook her head, not recognizing the name or the business. “Sorry.”

  He shrugged. “Would've been cool, is all.”

  A slightly uncomfortable silence settled. “Is that what brought you to Japan?” she finally asked. “To visit him?”

  The teenager's expression became . . . hard to read. She saw pain there, and sadness, and more than a little bitterness. “Yeah. I don't get many chances to, so . . .” he trailed off and didn't continue.

  Another uncomfortable silence settled. Ellie let it hang; she had no idea what the young man's situation was, although she could guess, but she thought it best to give him a chance to work through whatever he was feeling and talk to her about it if he wanted to.

  After over a minute he cleared his throat, tone once again carefully casual. “So I heard you mention wanting to talk to your kids. Are they back with your husband?”

  Oh boy. What guy ever tossed out something like that who wasn't testing the waters?

  It was tempting to nip things in the bud, but even if Ellie wasn't interested in a kid who looked to be about a decade younger than her, she wasn't about to pretend to still be married to avoid being flirted with. “Ex,” she replied, leaving it at that.

  Hal raised an eyebrow and said nothing, and she bit back a sigh. Why did people always want the juicy details? After an uncomfortable silence he cleared
his throat. “Explains why you're so desperate to get back to them. Want to make sure they're with someone you trust, with you, in a crisis.”

  There was another thing people always did: the moment they heard about the divorce, they began playing the angle like it had been an ugly, vicious ordeal for her and Nick was the bad guy, and they sidled in to offer sympathy and commiseration.

  Although to be fair, it seemed like she was the only one who didn't have horror stories about going through the courts. It always made her even more glad that she and Nick had done everything they could to avoid letting it be like that for them and the kids.

  “They are with someone I trust, and I'm sure they're fine,” Ellie said firmly. “That doesn't make me feel any better about being away from them in a crisis.”

  The young man winced slightly. “Sorry, that's what I get for assuming. Or sticking my nose in your business.” He gave her a wry smile, some of that earlier bitterness returning. “I guess you were lucky enough to have that rare and magical thing, an amiable divorce?”

  She wondered what experience Hal had to make him so jaded about it, when he couldn't be much out of his teens. Then she realized, with a bit of chagrin, that his experience was probably from the other end of it: watching his parents go through an ugly divorce. The same thing Nick had gone through with his own parents when he was young.

  Listening to her ex-husband talk about it, the genuine pain he'd endured as his family was torn apart from within, had kept Ellie in the marriage long after she wanted it to end. And it had made her want to go through the divorce process very carefully and find a good solution for all of them, for all their sakes but especially for Ricky and Tallie.

  Even so, she often worried that as hard as she and Nick had tried, their children were still suffering from their separation. She saw it when Ricky and Tallie mentioned missing their dad, or tried to convince her to invite him to events where his presence would be awkward. Or when they came home from staying with him and had so obviously missed her. Or had to go from home to home even when the timing wasn't convenient for them.