Enduring the Crisis (6 page)

There were a few things Tammy seriously did not enjoy. The one that was on top of her list was processing meat. It was brought to a whole new level of disgusting with limited running water. She didn’t know how many pounds of meat she had in the freezer but it was a lot and she couldn’t let it go to waste. There were only so many empty canning jars. She also wasn’t a huge fan of canned meat but there was no time for pickiness if it meant they would eventually starve. As she dealt with thawing meat and prepping jars, she dwelled on how much she hated it so her mind would stop bringing up Amanda every two seconds. It was as if she was already starting to mourn her daughter because she hadn’t come home. It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.

“Mom, how long do we have to do this?” Zoe groaned.

“Until all this meat in the freezer and those frozen veggies are put into something we can eat later.” She pushed her sticky wet hair out of her face with her wrist. One more thing she was already missing, just as she knew she would, was air conditioning. She liked being in the safe room. Always a pleasant temperature inside. She was using the oversized canning pan outside on the burner of the barbeque.

Tammy felt as if she hadn’t accomplished much when it was nearly one and she had to clean up to go to the meeting at the church. She took her change of clothes down to the safe room so she could cool off a little before she put them on. As she was in the middle of pulling on her capris, there was a loud frantic banging knock at the door. She struggled to put her other leg in her pants and she jumped a few times to pull them up over her butt before she ran for the stairs.

She knew the knock and clearly she was right when the girls filled the house with happy squeals once they opened the door.

There was her oldest daughter, a little rough, very sweaty with her long brown hair sticking to her forehead and flushed cheeks as her sisters embraced her in a big group hug.

“Where have you been?” Tammy couldn’t stop the flood. She wiped her face dry and  reached for her Amanda.

“They wouldn’t let us leave, Mom. I wanted to once they finally told us they had no idea when the power would come back on. I tried to leave at first even though they said not too. I didn’t realize all the cars weren’t working either. It was crazy downtown. So many people on the streets at once and then there were fights and fires. A plane crashed on the mountain rather close to the capital building. I was too scared to go home with all that going on. I stayed in the dorm with my friends.” She broke down. “Then it was awful once they told us the power was out everywhere. The staff seemed to know more than that as they took down all the kids’ names and where they were from. What is happening mom? Is this it? I figured it had to be so all I did was sit there all night thinking about how all those out of state kids are stuck here.”

Even though Amanda’s build and height matched Tammy, she consoled her daughter. She was so relieved to have her in her arms. She could only imagine what those parents of all the kids stranded at the university must be feeling. She wiped her eyes and pulled away to look Amanda over. “You’re just wrinkled from sleeping in your clothes, right?’ She made sure her daughter looked her in the eye.

“Yes.” She pushed her hair away from her face.

“Which way did you walk home? Was it safe?”

She shrugged. “I left really early, that’s what they said to do. I started on the greenbelt, which seemed fine at first. Then I realized how many stranded people wound up down there. Not sure why with all the mosquitoes. Soon I didn’t feel safe. That’s when a couple of guys around my age got up and followed me, asked where I was going, if I had food or water I could give them. I had water in my backpack but I only had enough for me to get home. The three turned into five. The greenbelt path was about to go under one of the bridges and I didn’t want to be there so I went up to the road. They followed and I started to walk faster. Some man got out of his stalled car and stepped in to help me. Then it got scary. They told him to go away, they just wanted some of my water. He hooked his arm in mine and we jogged a short distance and then he scared me as he reached under his shirt. He pulled out a small handgun, mom. He pointed it at the men that were following me. They backed off, completely disinterested. I thought for sure the man was going to shoot them and then do something awful to me when they left.

“Once I was alone with the guy with the gun, I was nervous all over again. He started asking me questions, if I lived nearby. I said I had a ways to go. He said he lived in Mountain Home so he was about to start walking home. He told me about his kids and that he had a daughter my age. Then I could tell he was desperate to get home. I  felt bad for him and gave him my water and food for two reasons. One because he helped me, and two, so he’d let me go on my own. I told him I’d be better off without it and he’d need it more than me. Can I have some water please?” Amanda made her way to a chair and pulled off her shoes as Mae happily ran to the kitchen to get her sister a drink. “And these were not good shoes for walking long distances in. Or running.”

“If you left early this morning, it took you a long time to get here.” Tammy rubbed her neck, still not sure her daughter was telling her everything.

“I got a little lost when I had to take a detour around a mob on the freeway. Then there were a few fires that were burning down a whole street. All those houses were on fire. It was so sad. The people were just standing there watching helplessly. The later it got, more people started were on the streets. Some were walking home like me on the road. Others were just there begging for handouts. Another group of guys were harassing a girl about my age, so I decided to walk through the neighborhoods instead, at least the ones that weren’t on fire, and it was better there with only a few weirdos.”

“It’s that bad already?” Tammy chewed on her nail.

“Maybe it was just me being weird because you’ve done so much to prepare us for this and have told us how fast it will get bad. That could have been what was going on after the idiots left me alone. They just proved how right you were at the very beginning so that wasn’t cool.” Amanda slowly exhaled. “I’m so glad I made it, that all of you are here.”

“Daddy isn’t.” Mae pointed out the obvious.

“I already knew that. I just didn’t know if mom was out running errands across town or something. All of you could have been stuck wherever. Zoe or Holly could have been out in Nampa at a volleyball game. Charlie could have been on her way with the band to play at a football game in Eagle. I thought of all those things. I hated not knowing anything.”

Tammy checked her watch. “Speaking of not knowing things, there is a meeting I need to be at right now. Maybe we’ll learn something there.”

“Can I go?” Charlie asked.

Tammy was skeptical. Charlie never wanted to go to the church for anything. “Why?”

“I want to know what you want to know.” She looked at Tammy innocently.

She knew it probably had more to do with some boy she liked. She wanted the company though and she was the best one to bring. Leaving Amanda at the house with the younger girls was the best situation. “All right. Let’s go.”

“What? I can’t change like you did?”

“We’re out of time. Pioneer it, kid.” Tammy shook her head as she slipped on her shoes and grabbed the door handle. Charlie ran for the bathroom and in no time she returned and braided her hair as she walked.

“Wish I could clean up as fast as you.” They were out the door.

The neighborhood was strangely active with a large number of walkers but Tammy didn’t recognize most of the people on the streets. Perhaps they felt safer in the neighborhoods doing what Amanda did.

It wasn’t until they were a few blocks away from home when Tammy started to feel edgy again.

Something that had always bothered her when she took Charlie with her anywhere was young men would always stare at her. It was as if Tammy was invisible. However, Charlie never seemed to notice. Her red hair had always attracted a lot of attention since she was an infant. So perhaps she was use to it or learned how to ignore it because she had never liked that kind of attention, unless she was also interested in the person paying attention to her.

While they walked down the street, it unnerved Tammy to see the young men they passed divert their eyes directly to her daughter just like she knew they would. Perhaps it was the threat from the day before telling her to be careful. Now all males were suddenly potential predators. She hooked her arm in Charlie’s.

Charlie was about to pull away when she saw someone and rested her hand on Tammy’s arm instead.

She clenched her jaw when she realized who Charlie was looking at. A thought  about that creepy guy had just entered her brain and there he was, leaning against a stop sign across the street. At least he was by himself. He stared right at Charlie and smiled. It was an unattractive smile, more like leering or like disgusting thoughts were running through his head. They couldn’t walk off in some other direction because the church was on the same side of the street as he was and only a couple houses away.

Tammy kept her distance, staying on their side of the street until they walked past him. She picked up the pace once she checked the time again and Charlie had no problem keeping up with the undesirable jerk eyeing them. Once they were on the sidewalk that led to the front doors of the church, Charlie whispered, “I shouldn’t have looked back. He winked at me.”

“Maybe we can walk home with someone.”

“I hope so. He’s a creeper.”

The meeting was well underway in the gym with what looked like ambiance lighting. It was actually floor lamps powered by a generator that lit the room and it was stifling hot.

A police officer stood in the front of the gym giving a run down on what was happening. Tammy immediately regretted not being there on time.

“From this list, it looks as if there is a large number of loved ones trying to get home. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ve seen the influx of strangers in your neighborhoods. Of course you need to be cautious but many of the people walking the quieter streets are trying to avoid the larger mobs that are gathering on the busy ones for some unknown reason.

“I know many of you are prepared for this kind of emergency. Please don’t hesitate to help your neighbors. The stores are inaccessible. Looters have hit them pretty hard already.”

“How long is this going to last?” someone interrupted.

“It’s impossible to say. This is a worst-case scenario situation. We do know the power grid failure was intentional and it sounds like the entire country has been hit along with the southern part of Canada.”

It sounded as if the room gasped at once and then the murmuring started.

“What about Alaska?” Charlie stood and shouted over the escalating conversations.

“I don’t know. All I can tell you is what we have gleaned from rather primitive means. We’re close to Canada, so we
have
heard there are issues there. It’s pretty crazy here already. In some of the larger cities on the west coast, it is much worse. Be very aware if you are using flame sources for light and cooking, we can’t do much about fires. I mean, right now everyone needs to do what they can to survive, be very careful, and hopefully at least some of you can help your neighbors that weren’t as prepared.”

Tammy wrung her hands. She had prepared well for this. She wanted to help, she had shelves full of food storage and water that was specifically to be given away when this sort of thing happened, but should she donate it all at once or provision it in case she needed to barter with some of it later?

A huge portion of her emergency supplies and long-term food storage were kept at the cabin in the mountains. Without knowing when or if there would be a safe time to go there, how long would her in-town supplies need to last
her
? Too much math with too many unknown variables. She pressed on her temples.

“Tammy, do you have any words of advice?” One of Ben’s friends asked when there was some awkward silence.

“Umm, sorry, I’ve been a little rattled by all this myself. My main suggestion is to find ways to preserve what you have in your freezers or fridges. Like fruit or meats. You need to find a way to preserve them without them spoiling. I’m working on canning most of my meat. Creating jerky out of some of it is pretty easy. I am also dehydrating fruit. You really want to ration batteries in your flashlights or lanterns, unless you have hundreds stockpiled. Some of the really cheap solar lights didn’t fry during the event so if you were lucky to have some that still work, after they charge during the day, they’ll offer some light indoors for hours. Make sure you have your 72 hour kits packed in a backpack and keep them handy. If you haven’t made one yet, get it together now just in case you have to leave in a hurry. Like the officer said, they can’t put out the fires and Amanda witnessed an entire block burning on her way home.”

People started to murmur again. Tammy didn’t know what else to share because if she told them anything else, it would stress them all out even more. The police officer gave them such a filtered down, basic version of what was happening. That must be a tactic to keep everyone from panicking. Obviously she was still very preoccupied as she let the murmuring end her turn addressing the crowd. Usually she needed note cards when speaking in front of large groups to keep track of all her thoughts. What she shared were only the basics, things many of them already knew. From her experience with teaching over the years, people had a tendency to forget some of the most common sense things when everything around them falls apart. She also knew it was too late and totally pointless to teach them about preparedness after the fact.

The only new bits of information given at the meeting had come from the police officer and Tammy had no idea how much she missed. Other than that, after she spoke they took notes on who wasn’t home yet and who was in need of assistance. Several of the empty nester couples volunteered to assist the elderly widows. By the time the meeting was over, there was a bit of a safety net in place for everyone. Tammy stayed silent after her lousy information sharing moment.

The bishop asked to talk to her once it was over and people were heading out.

“How prepared are you? I know you guys had a rough patch over the winter.” He folded his arms and rubbed his chin as if he was running a hundred lists through his head at once.

“We’re good actually. We’ve recovered quite well.”

“How about safety though, with Ben gone and you home alone with all the girls? I heard it was a little scary around your house.”

“It has been eventful. I’ve had to fend off a few crazies but we’re all safe. The dog got a boot to his rib but he’ll recover.”

“I didn’t want to draw attention to you at the meeting. So, I hate to ask this but I know you are the most prepared out of all of us here. Are you able to assist with any food donations? We expect the distribution center to help us but with transportation lacking, the massive scale of trying to get it distributed to everyone in town, I doubt we’ll get it early enough.”

Tammy started to wring her hands again and forced herself to stop. “I do actually. That was something Ben made sure we had was something to donate to others during a crisis. How soon do you need it? There are still some creepy characters hanging around. It’s making me nervous. I don’t want them to catch on I have anything they might want.” They already wanted Old Betsy and Charlie. She didn’t want to give them more reasons to crash her house yet again.

“Several men will come over to collect it. We’ll be discreet so you don’t have to worry about looting. Probably early tomorrow morning. You’re right about all the strange ones hanging around. Maybe it’s just all the people we don’t see when we’re busy or it’s because no one has a job to go to while right now.”

“Perhaps. I think I’ve done too much research.” She rubbed her arm. Their discussion was making her anxious and she wanted to head home.

“If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.” He made sure he looked her directly in the eye to show he meant what he said.

“Thank you.” Tammy hated feeling skeptical. She knew he meant what he said, but how was she going to get word to him in a crisis? Most of their church members lived in her neighborhood but nobody lived right next door. The few that did were much older and had lived in the neighborhood since it was built back in the sixties.

When he moved on to talk to someone else, she was ready to head home.

Charlie was off visiting with some of her friends. There was one boy Tammy suspected that her daughter was crushing on. More than likely he was the whole purpose in her wanting to come to the meeting in the first place.

When Tammy approached the group, she could see it in Charlie’s eyes, all sparkly and flitting eyelashes in the direction of Landon Smith. At first he seemed interested in everyone’s conversation. It took about five more seconds for Tammy to notice he was glancing at Charlie more than the rest.

“Hey, I think we’re done here, Charlie. Let’s head for home,” Tammy interrupted.

“Can’t I hang out with my friends and walk home later?” she pleaded.

Tammy pressed her lips together and glared at Charlie. Of course her daughter wasn’t going to make it easy. All her other children would have known not to give her grief with that look. Charlie took it as a challenge instead.

“I’ll be safe.” She tried again.

Tammy shook her head. She was not going to argue when Charlie knew what work there was waiting for them at home and she knew the answer before she ever asked. “This is not a debate.” She was firm and started to count in her mind. She’d give it to ten.

Charlie turned back to her friends as if she was going to disregard her mother.

Tammy was at nine before Charlie looked at Landon and he indicated she should listen to her mother. Now Landon had earned some brownie points if he was to become a love interest for Charlie in the future.

Before Tammy could say ten in her mind, Charlie was saying goodbye to her friends.

She clenched her jaw as they walked out of the church together so she didn’t start ranting right away. It wasn’t until they had crossed the street and the creeper dude was gone that Tammy let in to Charlie.

“It’s a good thing you decided to come with me when you did. Now is not the time to challenge me. We have so much to do. We just got back Amanda back. The last thing I need is to worry every minute you are out of my sight right now. I can’t take that stress today.”

“What? Are you going to shut us all in away from the world until this is over? I can’t even hang out with anyone?”

“We are going to stay shut in so we don’t have to watch how crazy everything is going to get. You can’t just wander the streets right now.”

“So no friends.” Charlie crossed her arms and wouldn’t look at Tammy.

“I didn’t say that. Right now we need to prepare though before we run out of resources. I can’t run the fridge and freezer forever. I don’t want to chance losing it all if the generator dies on us. You will appreciate it later. I desperately need help to get this done right away.”

“There are four other people besides me. You’ve been leaning on me the most especially when Amanda was gone. Now that she’s back, you can give me a break, can’t you?” Charlie stopped walking.

Tammy grabbed her daughter’s hand and pulled her to keep walking. “Yes, Amanda can help more but you know how Amanda is. I’m not saying you have to do more than everyone, but you do have the best follow through. I can always count on you to be with me to the very end. It’s not a bad thing. In fact if I didn’t have at least one person like you to lean on, I don’t think I could get through this.”

Charlie pulled her hand from Tammy and folded her arms again. She was grumbling under her breath but kept pace with Tammy. “That really sucks for me. Those sisters of mine had better step it up.”

At least Charlie wasn’t going to quit on her. Not yet.