Enduring the Crisis (2 page)

Tammy navigated her way around all the stranded cars and distressed motorists on the streets. Many begged for rides when she slowed down as she worked her way through the mess and people were starting to become frantic. They had locked the doors and fortunately Mae and Charlie were silent as they inched closer to home.

Once they turned into their neighborhood, it was a little better. Neighbors were visiting with one another on their lawns. There weren’t as many disabled cars in the way. They didn’t have far to go. She should have tried the side streets sooner. Finally, Tammy exhaled in relief as they pulled into their driveway. She rested her head on the steering wheel after she turned off the car.

“I can’t believe it happened, Mom. I never thought it would,” Charlie whispered. “This is just the beginning, isn’t it?”

All Tammy could do was nod.

“How’s Dad getting home?”

“I don’t know.” She had to blink back tears before she could speak again. “I will need you and your sisters’ help in ways I’ve never needed help before. We need to pray hard that we’ll be okay and that your dad will be all right too. Maybe he will find a way home. Right now, we need to prepare. I’m sure things are about to get much worse.”

Charlie nodded and wiped her eyes.

“I miss daddy.” Mae leaned on the back of the front bench seat.

“We all do. So you pray too. That he makes it home to us safely.” Tammy squeezed her youngest daughter’s hand and swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m sure he will do everything he can to come home to us. It just might take a whole lot longer, kind of like the pioneers.”

“He’s so far away.” Her youngest sniffed.

“Yes. But maybe if we all have faith in him, he’ll get here.” Tammy collected her purse and the useless phone. “Let’s bring all this stuff in. I guess it’s a good thing I got all this today. We need it sooner than I expected.”

As she went through the motions of putting everything away, she was feeling a profound sense of loss. Telling her daughters to have faith was easy. She was far too aware of the hardships they were in for if it really was an E.M.P. attack. The easiest thing to do was hope that it was just a huge power outage like what happened in New York and all along the East Coast years ago. All the cars didn’t stop working that time, though.

Her junior high daughters weren’t home. She debated on sending Charlie on her bike to go get them. However, the stressed out people on the street were too dangerous. They might even try to steal the bike. Tammy had to go. She rummaged through the drawers in the credenza near the front door for her stun stick.

“Charlie, I have to go get your sisters. Lock the door when I leave and don’t open it for anyone you don’t know.” Tammy waited for her to answer. “Charlie!”

“Hmm? What are we supposed to do in the dark?” She was standing in front of the window watching everyone passing by in front of the house.

“You go find all the battery lights and disperse them around the house. This is like blackout weekends except this is the real thing. We’ll get the fifty-hour candles down from the shelf in the garage when I get back.” She gripped the handle to the door and sighed. Just pretend as if this is expected. No grim comments about how long it will last. Take care of one thing at a time. She needed all her babies at home with her before thinking about the next step. She opened the door. “Come lock this please.” Charlie gave her the angsty-reluctantly-obeying teenager attitude as she walked to the door.

“Hopefully this won’t take long.”

The walk through Tammy’s quiet neighborhood wasn’t bad. Her neighbors were taking it in stride. Still a lot of visiting going on. A few people were leisurely sitting on their front porches in the shade. It really was a rather pleasant day. Out in the sun it was a little on the warm side for her, though. Fall was taking its time to show up. She was going to miss air conditioning. At least she didn’t need to worry about heating the house yet. For some reason she was the biggest failure at starting fires. It was rather embarrassing whenever she had to ask one of her daughters to do it for her. She might know how to prep, but it didn’t mean she was good at everything. She never really had to do everything alone before because she always had Ben. A nagging feeling was growing inside her that she was going to figure out real quick how inadequate she truly was.

As she waved at the people that waved to her, she wondered how long the calm neighborly attitude would last. However, they all did appear concerned. They weren’t outside having a block party. How many days before everyone becomes desperate? Maybe she had read too many doomsday articles. Perhaps what was happening would be short-lived. Perhaps the grid would recover faster than anyone anticipated. Maybe this was just a freak temporary thing. Why was her gut telling her to prepare for the worst?

She wandered down the quieter streets until she had no choice but to walk along the main road to get to the junior high.

She realized how weirdly silent it was. She was used to the constant rush or him coming from the high traffic on the street and alarms from police cars or fire trucks that would speed by quite often. She hardly ever paid attention to the sirens anymore. The new silence was disconcerting when it looked as if a swat team was needed. Chaos ruled the streets.

Many of the stranded people hadn’t left their cars yet. It was as if some of the ones that had wrecked were waiting for the emergency department. “They aren’t coming,” Tammy whispered to them. She didn’t have the courage to tell them they should stop waiting and start walking. She crossed the street and picked up her pace to the junior high.

When she approached the front of the school, all the kids that hadn’t gone home when school was out were hanging out in the front with the teachers.

She wandered through the group and barely avoided getting hit by the football that the boys were throwing in the middle of the crowd. A teacher finally stepped in and took the ball, instructing them to take it to the field.

Zoe and Holly weren’t as easy to spot in a crowd as Charlie was. They were dark blonde and shorter than their two older sisters, and shorter than most of the crowd standing outside the building.

“Have you seen my girls?” she asked Mr. Hayes. He’d known all of her girls for a long time and had at least two of them in his English class at some point over the years. His youngest daughter went to elementary school with Holly and they’d had sleepovers during the summer.

“I think Coach has them around back near the gym.”

“Are you going to send these kids home?” Tammy asked.

“We were waiting to see if the power was going to come back on before we did. Now that we know that everyone’s phones aren’t working and we’ve seen all those cars are stalled all over the road, the administrators are afraid to send the kids out there if they live far from the school.”

“It’s not like their parents are going to get here anytime soon to pick them up.”

“True.”

“You need to start heading home. You have a long walk.” Tammy had been to his house before and it was at the far end of town. She thought about offering to drive him but it was already dangerous trying to drive home the short distance from the high school.

It occurred to her, how was she going to take care of her girls on her own when she was so scared of everyone already? She clenched her jaw.

“It sounds like they are trying to organize some groups. The teachers will head for their homes with kids that live in that direction.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me. I think this is going to last much longer than anyone wants it to.” She gave him a dire look. “I saw the sky when the power went out and the transformers blew. You be careful and be sure to gather your whole family together and take good care of them.”

He nodded and his expression changed. No longer the happy-go-lucky teacher that everyone loved, he was suddenly a man just as fearful as she was, afraid of what the future was about to become for him and his family.

“I need to find my girls.” She held out her hand to shake his. He grabbed it and pulled her into a hug.

“You take care of all those fantastic young ladies. Be safe.” He let her go and held onto her shoulders. “I hope your husband makes it home.”

Tammy’s eyes welled up with tears. “I’ll do my best. I hope he makes it home too. One thing in my favor, we are better prepared than most.”

“I know you are.” He rubbed his eyes before he turned away. “Mr. Gordon! We need to get moving on our plan and get these kids home,” he shouted.

Tammy rounded the corner until she found the volleyball girls practicing bumping volleyballs to each other on the blacktop basketball court outside the gym.

Zoe saw her right away and jogged over. Holly was preoccupied as she focused on volleying with her partner.

“Hi, mom. The game was canceled. We were just practicing.”

Tammy was edgy. Yelling and shouting came from the street as a crowd gathered. It looked as if there might be a fight. She was too far away to tell. Turning her attention back to her fourteen-year-old, she whispered making sure she didn’t lose eye contact. “This is very important. I want you to hurry, grab Holly. Go get your things. In fact, clear out all of your stuff out of your lockers and meet me out here as soon as you two possibly can. Keep Holly on task. I don’t have time for either of you to poke around.”

“Why do we have to hurry? Is the power on at home?”

“No. There’s lots to do before the sun goes down. Hustle.” She gave Zoe a playful light swat on the butt.

At least one of her daughters did as she was told the first time she asked. Of course, Holly wasn’t cooperative at first. Not until Zoe pointed over to where their mother was waiting. Tammy pointed emphatically at the door and the two girls ran into the school.

“Hi, Mrs.Powell. I hope you don’t mind we took advantage of the extra practice time.” Coach Gabba looked as if she was one of the girls as she emerged from the volleyball circle.

“You might want to go talk to Mr. Gordon. I think they are making a plan on how you all are heading home right now.” Tammy heard more shouting. The crowd was expanding and the fight seemed to be growing. She hugged her chest and tapped her foot.

Coach Gabba was engrossed in the crazy activity on the street.

“How far away do you live from the school?” Tammy asked.

“I live over by the outlet mall.”

Tammy’s heart sank. She shook her head. “You might want to stay with someone nearby tonight. I don’t know that you’ll make it that far before sundown. We do have an extra bike if you’d like to use it.”

Coach Gabba’s brown skin seemed to lose some of its color. She was speechless and seemed to slip away, lost in her own thoughts.

“You really need to talk to the principal. If you don’t have anyone you can stay with, you can come to our house.” Tammy could tell the coach was terrified.

“I do know a few people close by.” She failed to mention where she was going as she jogged around the building to the front where the administrators were.

Tammy turned her back to the growing mob on the street and watched the girls. They were all oblivious to everything. A bunch of teens all into bumping volleyballs around. She suddenly wished she could be as oblivious as they were. She could feel the stomach acid churning. She really wanted food. That was one thing she wasn’t too worried about. She had plenty of that at home.

The list of things she needed to do before the sun went down was growing rapidly. If only the girls could move a little faster. Holly was the worst. It was as if the word ‘hurry’ turned her into a turtle.

Finally, they walked out the door with their backpacks slung over their shoulders just like any other school day.

“Do you have all your stuff? Like everything, as if you aren’t coming back to school for a long time?”

“Everything?” Holly asked.

Tammy drew in a long slow breath. “Everything means everything. Isn’t that what your sister told you?”

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t know we wouldn’t be coming back.”

Tammy was ready to shoot lasers out her eyes if she had any and Holly seemed to understand really fast what kind of aggravation she was causing her mother.

“I’ll hurry.” She disappeared inside the school again.

Just as the door shut, gunshots went off. Several back and forth exchanges. Tammy spun around and grabbed Zoe’s arm.

It was hard to tell where it came from the way it echoed off the walls. However, once she looked over at the mob, it was obvious. A few more shots went off.

“Everyone, move closer to the gym,” Tammy shouted at the girls.

Suddenly they were aware there was some craziness going on in the world around them and they all did as they were told.

It sounded like the fight on the street turned into a gun battle. More shots. Lots of screaming. The girls all huddled together close to the ground even though none of them could see what was going on as they hid behind the gym. Tammy closed her eyes, thankful she couldn’t see what was happening. At least all the kids she was with were safe for the moment.

Coach Gabba burst out the door from the gym and Holly was right behind her. The coach looked as if she was fleeing from something chasing her and she looked at each of the girls still in their team uniforms before she started to count and mumble their names. She nodded, somewhat delirious perhaps. “Lets go inside. Mr. Gordon has a going home plan.”

Tammy attempted to put all thoughts and all worries aside. At least she did her best. Putting her worries aside was rather an impossible task for her. All the “what ifs” for the teachers and the kids at the school concerned her. She had to focus on
her
“what ifs” for her own family. Amanda. She was going to have to come home in the chaos. People were already shooting each other. Boise had always been so peaceful. Seldom a shooting. Especially not often, actually never, where her family had lived for well over a decade.

“Let’s go home. We need to take the long way around.” Tammy walked down the little dirt road to the street that had less traffic and where there was no mob trying to kill each other. In fact, taking up jogging was rather appealing right at that moment even though she hated running.

She had tucked the stun stick in the waistband of her jeans and covered it with her T-shirt while at the school. Gripping it tight as she jogged at a steady pace, she made sure the girls kept pace with her.

They were far away from the mob, or so she thought. For some reason the tension was spreading farther up the street, getting closer to the intersection they needed to cross.

“Don’t look over there.” She instructed the girls and pulled Holly closer as she lagged behind.

“What’s going on?” Zoe couldn’t help herself.

Tammy turned her daughter’s face straight ahead.

“It doesn’t matter. We need to get far away from it.” She grabbed Zoe’s elbow as more men ran down the road to the growing mass of people.

There was more than one mob and it looked as if a few people were standing around someone lying in the road. The crowd parted as a man claiming to be a nurse shouted at them to let him help. On the ground next to the immobile person, a young man gripped his side as blood covered his shirt.

That motivated Tammy to pick up her pace to get home. “Girls, come on. I know you can move much faster than me.”

Zoe must have seen more than she wanted because she was outrunning them both.