The First Hours Page 4

  With no more room in the second backpack, Teagan laid it beside the first. She still needed the bread and hotdog buns she’d seen back on the food shelf and maybe some of the cookies.

  The man ogled her purchases, “You sure you have enough money to cover all this stuff?” He had a piece of register tape he’d been using to calculate her total on.

  Teagan could see the list was long, but she thought if he knew how valuable the things would be very soon, the total would be much higher.

  “I have enough,” She said and grabbed the two bags of buns and the single loaf of bread. When she looked up, she saw the dairy cooler and wondered what she could use from inside it. There were eggs and milk, butter, and yogurt. On the lower shelf she saw a couple dried out looking oranges, and packages of cheese and to her satisfaction, string cheese. She pulled three bags out plus the oranges. With her arms overflowing, she headed to the counter.

  “I sure don’t know where you’re going to put all this stuff. It won’t all fit into the bags.”

  Teagan frowned, “Don’t you have plastic? Double bag it please.”

  His eyes popped open, “Say, there are some cloth shopping bags over there beside the door if you want one of them. They’d carry all the extra stuff. Course they’re not free either.” He continued to add the prices of her new things to his list.

  Teagan found the bags hanging right where he’d said and pulled two off the hook. They, of course, had the word Oregon stenciled on them, but she didn’t care. One for each hand. Now, she had some extra space she could fill up and headed back to the dairy cooler, which also held lunch meat and hot-dogs. Taking the two packs of all beef, bun length hot-dogs and the only package of turkey lunch meat, Teagan was done. She walked back to the front and added the items to the enormous pile on the counter.

  “This is it. I’m going to start packing it while you finish,” she told him and began repacking her bags. When she had the two backpacks full, Teagan shrugged the heaviest, of them onto her back. The straps were made for a child, but lengthening them to the ends, allowed Teagan to do the buckles up. She packed the fish hooks, and sewing kit into the plastic glass and screwed the top on minus the plastic straw. On second thought, she slid the straw down beside everything else. She didn’t know what she could use it for besides drinking from the glass but, it might come in handy for something.

  “That will be two hundred-two-dollars and twelve cents,” he said. He said it as if he expected Teagan to not have the money, and his eyes popped when she pulled a wad of cash from her pocket. She counted the money out and laid it on the counter. He didn’t bother to recount it, but slid it under the shelf.

  With both packs on and a shopping bag in each hand, Teagan was ready to go. A roar of voices drew both their attention to the front window. A crowd of people was heading for the gas station pushing and shoving as they ran.

  “Not again,” the man said and picked up the bat from where he’d leaned it against the counter behind him. He rested it back across his shoulder. “You better go before they get here.”

  Teagan knew he was right. They had probably figured out what was going on and realized they needed exactly what she had. Teagan wasn’t about to give any of it up if she hoped to make it home.

  “Do you have a back door?”

  “Back there,” he pointed somewhere behind him as he moved to stand in front of the door. “Past the restrooms.”

  She swung her gaze around the interior. She saw the restroom sign and headed that way. Every gas station she’d ever been in had a backdoor near the restrooms, and she was right. There were an exit sign and another that said emergency exit only. She ignored the sign that told of an alarm that would sound if the door was opened and burst through it. The alarm didn’t sound further confirming her earlier thoughts. Looking around, Teagan saw she was not far from where she’d spent part of the night and hurried behind the fence. If she was lucky, no one had seen her escape. Hidden by the boards, she deliberated whether to remain hidden behind the fence or run for the trees and brush.

  The trees won out when she realized the size of the crowd. They couldn’t all possibly fit inside the small store, and maybe someone would spot her hiding place. With a burst of speed despite her bulky and heavy bags, Teagan ran. She didn’t stop when she’d passed the brush she’d used for her bathroom but kept running until a stitch in her side forced her to stop. Panting, Teagan dropped her two shopping bags, braced her hands on her knees, gulping in huge draughts of air until her heart rate returned to something close to normal. As Teagan looked down at herself, she realized she was a beacon because of what she wore. The red hoody that had helped keep her warm broadcast a signal to her location, if anyone was looking.

  She began shedding the backpacks, and then the hoodie. She’d rather be cold than advertise her location. She dropped the offending sweatshirt and realized how stupid that was. Her white tee shirt was just as big of advertisement as the hoody, but the way it landed on the ground became an inviting place to sit. She thought she was far enough away to remain undetected and sank to the ground. Blindly, Teagan had run the opposite direction she needed to go but didn’t think she’d gone too far. She jumped when she heard, gunshots followed by screaming and raised voices. She couldn’t make out individual words, but the roar of combined anger was unmistakable.

  When the voices became more screaming than words, Teagan shuddered and hunkered down, wondering what was happening. This was only the second day, and already the people were rioting or at least fighting from the sound of it. There was no mistaking that Teagan leaving was her only option. She had briefly thought about trying to find Deena, but with the mood emanating from the crowd as they’d headed toward the store, she decided to forget the other girl and worry about herself. She wondered how prepared the man was to defend the store and its contents with only a baseball bat when they didn’t belong to him, and she wished she’d told him her suspicions and advised him to leave too. Even if he had been able to lock the doors, she didn’t think it would have stopped the crowd.

  Chapter Four

  Tom sat at his desk, scrolling through the day’s news. What he read didn’t make him feel any better. There were protests in Portland that brought out the National Guard to keep the peace. A group of prisoners in a minimum-security facility in Baker had walked away, and Seattle had also called out the National Guard to quell a riot in downtown. He sighed and slumped back in his chair. The springs squeaked, and the tilt threatened to dump him over backward. He had to grab hold of the edge of the desk to balance himself.

  When the lights went out, and the computer screen blacked out at the same time, he hollered, “Hey, I was doing something in here.” He waited a few seconds, “Stop fooling around you guys. Turn the power back on.”

  “Tom? Something is very wrong.”

  The tone of Carrie’s voice forced Tom around. She sounded scared, and that was not something he had ever heard in her voice before, and they had been through some horrendous times together. She and her husband Brent had helped him through Mandy’s death and followed him to Oregon when they’d come home from overseas. Carrie had been the strength when he needed it. She was one bad-ass woman when she’d needed to be.

  When Teagan was born, Carrie had been the one to step up and help him. She had carried his household on her shoulders until he’d been able to handle a new baby girl on his own. Carrie and her husband Brent had remained close friends until Brent had passed the year before. Other than being tired all the time, they hadn’t known he was sick until it was too late.

  Tom had tried to be a lifeline for Carrie but had backed away after the gossip began. Nosey people couldn’t leave well enough alone, and so they barely spoke at the office, and lately, they’d barely said a word to each other out of the office. For her voice to sound so uncertain grabbed Tom’s attention.

  “What’s up? Is Simon playing with the breakers again?”

  Carrie shook her head, and Tom could see the shine in her eyes
. He rose from his chair and went to her. He captured her elbows to look into her face, “Hey…you’re really upset. What’s wrong?”

  Carrie just shook her head, and Tom could see she was trying to compose herself. Right then, Simon lumbered up behind her, and Tom saw the grin covering his face. Something had him excited, and he hoped it wasn’t the same thing that had upset Carrie.

  “Did you see it? I bet it crashed. Are we going to go and look?”

  It had to be the same thing, but he didn’t understand why Simon was so excited. He’s always taken great pleasure in other people’s misfortune and wanted to be the first on the scene when there was a tragedy. Tom had tried to relieve him of duty more than once but hadn’t been able to get the job done. Simon had filed a discrimination lawsuit with the town, so his firing was on hold. Tom had no idea how Simon had been discriminated against, but the first hearing was next week. Simon should have been on leave but wasn’t.

  “Get out of here, Simon. I’m sure you have something better to do.”

  “Are you kidding me? This could be the biggest thing in history. This could be history,” he crowed. “Nothing is ever going to be the same again.”

  Tom had shuffled Carrie behind him while he dealt with Simon until she poked him, “He’s right. I saw the plane coming down. It had to have hit somewhere up by Portland, and Tom, there was no sound.”

  Tom felt his breath leave in a rush. His heart rate accelerated, and he feared it was going to burst through his chest. This had to be wrong. Planes just didn’t fall from the sky unless…it couldn’t be.

  He needed to call Teagan. She was going to Nancy’s for the weekend, and she usually checked in with him every evening, but she was angry with him at the moment. When he’d asked for Carrie’s advice, she had told him to leave Teagan alone and let her figure out her own life. She reminded him that he’d instilled in Teagan every good quality necessary to become a competent adult and was capable of making some of her own decisions.

  Tom popped the snap on his leather cellphone wallet and pulled it out. His eyes watched Simon as he waited for his familiar screen icon to light up. It didn’t. The small screen remained dark and lifeless. He pushed the power button, thinking he had accidentally turned it off. Nothing.

  “Yes! There goes another one,” Simon said, his voice barely able to contain his excitement. He danced from foot to foot, “Aren’t we going to go investigate? Simon grabbed his hat off his desk and slammed it on his head. He felt around his Sam Brown belt to make sure he was fully equipped. Satisfied, he reached for his jacket, hanging on the back of his chair.

  “It’s happened, hasn’t it?” Tom asked softly. He hadn’t been talking to anyone, but Carrie, the only person to hear him, answered.

  “Somethings happened, and I think you need to go get Teagan right now.”

  The urgency in her voice stirred something in Tom, bringing him out of his stupor. “Simon, hold down the fort…until I get back. Carrie, you better stay here too.”

  “Oh, come on. Why do you get to be the one to go? Just once let me do something important.”

  “People will be calling wanting to know what’s going on. We need to have some answers readily available.”

  “Come on…this might be the biggest thing to ever hit this one-horse town. You got to let me go with you. I deserve to go after the crap you’ve put me through lately.”

  “The crap I’ve put you through! What the heck are you talking about? Simon, your job is to do what I set in front of you. I have something I need to do, and now so do you. The citizens who live here deserve your attention. Wherever that plane landed is out of our jurisdiction.”

  “You’re the big man around here maybe they deserve your attention? You hold down the fort,” he said before he bolted out the door.

  Open-mouthed, Tom watched him go. This was a blatant disregard of a direct order from a superior officer. It didn’t matter that they both carried the same rank of deputy; Tom had far more time in uniform and seniority meant something.

  “What was that all about?”

  Tom had to clench his jaw to keep from snapping at Carrie. She wasn’t the problem, but she was the only one available to express what he was thinking, and she didn’t deserve his wrath. He had his fill of Simon’s disrespect for office and disregard for his position in the office. He treated Carrie and the other woman who worked there as if they were and should be his personal servants; always demanding that one of them make coffee or clean the restrooms and he had a habit of using innuendos that were easily misconstrued. The women were tired of dodging his hands, and Tom was tired of having to reprimand Simon. Simon’s complaints to the Chief Deputy were groundless and personally insulting to everyone in the office.

  “Just Simon being Simon. I’ll sure be glad when he’s gone.”

  Carrie laughed, but it contained little humor, “Like that’s going to happen. You forget who his father is.”

  “No, I haven’t. The chances of his getting re-elected are minimal the way I see it. When the books don’t balance, and they haven’t for several years, it means someone’s hands have been in the cookie jar. By the time the audit is completed, I’m betting we’ll see Carson on the other side of the bars. Not that it would hurt my feelings at all. The man was a crook before he took office and it’s about time his true self is exposed.”

  “That still doesn’t help us right now with no one in the office. I wonder why Jess and Selene aren’t here?”

  “You can bet it has something to do with the power outage. I’ll lock the door, and maybe you better come with me.” Tom wasn’t going to leave Carrie alone just in case Simon did return, but Tom would have given his weeks salary that Simon was gone for good. With every news channel focused on the threats against the U.S., Tom wasn’t surprised by the outage at all. He figured it was just a matter of time before some country made good on their promises. In spite of the last night's news broadcast, he sure hadn’t thought it would happen in his lifetime.

  Without thinking, Tom climbed into his patrol car and buckled up. He waited for Carrie to do the same and turned the key. Nothing, no familiar noise of the starter, and none of his dash lights came on. He slapped the steering wheel, “Damn…I didn’t want to believe it.”

  “Tom, what’s going on? I feel like there’s something you’re not saying. You keep dropping hints, so why don’t you just spit it out? What aren’t you saying?”

  Tom sighed, “EMP or a high range nuclear device would be the only things to take out the power grid and turn our vehicles into scrap metal. Right now, I’m betting on the latter.” He twisted the key into the off position and unbuckled his seat belt. “We’ll have to take my car.”

  Carrie’s eyebrows rose, “Your car? What makes you think it’ll start?”

  “Come on. It’s not a circuit board of electronics like this is. A long time ago, I installed a do it yourself battery disconnect switch. When I shut the key off, the circuit is broken, and nothing gets fried.”

  As he talked, he steered Carried toward his 1965 Chevy Nova. When he’d bought it twenty years ago it had been a young kid’s dream car; canary yellow, four on the floor, but had a stock 283. It looked tough but had very little horsepower. Tom had replaced the engine with a 350 he’d pulled from a 1960 corvette. This was Tom’s dream car. He was able to work on it without the fancy computerized gear needed to repair one of today’s cars, and there weren’t a lot of electrical parts that could go wrong. He also had a rebuilt starter, plugs and points, and alternator stored in a safe place. When he was ready, the paint shop had tried in vain to talk him out of the paint he’d selected. It was a color no one would have voluntarily picked to paint a car. He’d chosen the dark tan from the Chevrolet color chart and had it darkened two shades. It hadn’t done anything to make the car stand out, but it had completed the look that Tom was after. The car would blend in anywhere.

  “I always wondered about your fascination with older cars, now I know. I bet Teagan will appreciate hers.
I know she used to complain about having to drive an older vehicle, but this may make her rethink your choices. Do you think she’ll drive home? Once she realizes that something is wrong?”

  “I hope so, but we’ll run by Nancy’s first, just to be sure.”

  Tom had to pick his way through the stalled cars on the roadway, but luckily, with their small town, there weren’t many. As he drove, his thoughts wandered. Could he be wrong about a nuclear device? Had it been a natural occurrence? Had the sun sent out massive solar flares or, was it something more clandestine? Had another country taken it upon themselves to send the United States back to the stone age or something even more subverted than that?

  There had been some talk at the last political rally, captured by a popular news channel, where the young candidate was calling for the old and the infirm to be euthanized. “An unproductive person is a drain on society,” he’d quipped. “When something breaks or is no longer productive, you throw it in the damn trash.”

  To Tom, it seemed that the young candidate believed, the disabled, mentally challenged and the nursing home folks were beyond having anything to contribute, and the cost of institutionalizing them would be a substantial drain on the hard-working taxpayer. The man had a complete lack of respect for the handicapped veterans and elderly when without either group, none of them would be here.

  They were driving past Teagan’s school when Carrie grabbed his arm, “Tom, isn’t that Teagan’s car?”

  Tom looked and applied the brakes a little harder than he meant to. He slammed his arm across in front of Carrie to hold her away from the dash. The tires chirped in protest, and he swung the wheel hard to make the turn into the parking lot. Teagan had parked it on the outside back edge, and Tom probably wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been for Carrie.

  The car, like Tom’s, was a classic that hadn’t been restored. It wasn’t a wreck, but it didn’t have even a decent paint job. In fact, the whole front end was primer gray, and the rest of the car was a putrid light green. Tom had planned on having it painted for Teagan’s birthday, but that probably wouldn’t happen now, unless he used a rattle can and that wasn’t out of the realm. Camouflage would make it stand out even less.