Enduring the Crisis (9 page)

When Tammy woke, her face hurt when she opened her eyes. Scrunching her nose in response was a terrible mistake. Rolling to her side was wickedly painful as well. Pain shot from her tailbone and around her hip. She stopped moving and slowly opened her eyes again. One thing about the safe room that bugged Tammy was how easy it was to just keep sleeping. With no light or noise to indicate what time it was, she could only guess if it was two am or almost lunchtime. Someone was awake in the other room. Probably Mae. The rest of the girls never woke on their own when they didn’t have to go to school.

She worked her way out of bed and paused as she rubbed her hip. Apparently, she wasn’t cut out for stick fighting or wrestling anymore. The pain was deep in her bones. Slowly she dressed and made her way to the small kitchen. At least they had brought down all the food from the kitchen upstairs. Rummaging through the cupboards, she didn’t notice that Mae was frozen as she stared at her mother.

“What happened to you?” She lightly touched Tammy’s arm.

She realized what Mae was staring at. “Oh, I got hit in the face with a stick last night while I was checking locks. Something scared me and it was rather silly.”

“I heard Amanda crying last night and Charlie was telling her it wasn’t her fault you were hurt. Did Amanda do it?”

Tammy had to find a chair. Once she sat down, she held Mae’s hands. “It wasn’t Amanda’s fault. I didn’t exactly hurt myself. There was a man that got in the house and we made sure he left.” She had a flashback of all the blood that was probably still all over the kitchen. “Everything is fine now. He’s gone. I want you stay down in the safe room this morning though until I tell you that you can come upstairs. So find a puzzle or something to do.”

Mae was about to argue when Tammy rested her finger on her daughter’s mouth to shush her.

“Do you want to help me with all the chores while your sisters are sleeping?” she asked.

Mae shook her head and happily went to find a puzzle in the storage room.

Tammy dreaded turning on the battery lights once she was up in the kitchen. When she did, it looked like a murder scene with blood all over the floor, on the cupboards, and around the kitchen sink. She felt a little woozy for a moment as she tugged Buddy away from the dark red splatters on the floor.

After she had cleaned everything, she couldn’t get rid of the smell on her hands and it seemed imprinted in her nose. Sort of metallic-like. She didn’t realize blood had such a distinct smell. Tammy needed some fresh air. She went for the front door and wondered if she really wanted to see what was out there, as if the man that invaded their home would be dead on the street outside her door. At least that’s what it sounded like the night before.

Slowly she opened the door, scared there would be someone sprawled across her lawn or someone with a gun to retaliate. Once she could see the street in front of her house, there was no one. Not even a fresh dark spot on the road. She stood on the front porch and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her capris. The birds were singing as if all was right in their world. Surely they should be heading south not reminding her how the mass power outage had no effect on their lives.

“Hey, neighbor.” Marissa Ferrin seemed to come out of nowhere. She was good at that and always seemed to know a bit more than she should about Tammy’s family. “There was some excitement last… Oh. What happened to you?” Marissa took a step back when she got a good look at Tammy’s face.

“Let’s just say there was some excitement in my house before there was excitement on the street last night.”

“Are you okay? Is everyone else okay?” At least she was genuinely concerned. Usually she would come say hello and then would give a rundown on her own family before enlightening Tammy on how much she had been observing through her front window.

“I’m sore but that’s all. The girls are totally fine, thank goodness.” She really wished she had her sunglasses on to hide some of the bruising. Her face was swelling so much that she could see the bridge of her nose and the upper part of her cheeks.

“I heard the gunshots and saw a group of people out here last night. Then everyone was gone. So someone broke in? Even though you’re all shuttered up? That’s rather shocking.”

“It would work much better if everyone in the house would remember to lock everything up.” She sighed.

“Do you know how long the power is going to be out? Someone told me they heard it would be back on by morning.”

“It could be some time. Like days.” Or weeks, or months but why work her up? Marissa panicked when her water was shut off for an hour and she ran to the store coming home with gallons of water only to have it turned back on about fifteen minutes after she returned.

“I had no idea.” Marissa scratched her head, lost in thought as she looked back at her house. “I… I… I should have gone to the store.” She looked back at Tammy with wide-eyes. “I know I don’t have enough food to last that long.”

“Let’s go see what you have and figure out what you need.” Tammy followed Marissa over to her house to figure out what she was in need of and gave her some tips on how to cope. Now if Marissa would actually do those things was another story. Tammy knew that offering her always-needy-neighbor help was going to become an issue in the coming days. She was the neediest person she had ever met. However, the last thing she wanted to see was anyone she knew suffer.

The rest of her day was not her own. She was able to take care of more of her frozen foods in between visits by her church friends collecting the food storage she had offered to donate to them. She had given a small portion of it to Marissa before they arrived. It was very small because of her family’s gluten sensitivity. Tammy was sure that would be less of an issue once they went through all the food that they had. She also kept half of her giveaway food because she knew there would be more people coming to her door that would be in need. If Ben was there though, he probably would have given most of it away already.

When she was emotionally spent and so sore that she couldn’t do anything else, she went out to the front porch to sit. The girls were inside harassing each other relentlessly and she couldn’t handle listening to it anymore. The dog had also been underfoot all day. He seemed to know something wasn’t right. She just needed a break and wanted to get a feel of what was happening in her neighborhood.

The events from the night before had her leery that gangs were forming. Reflecting on what they witnessed when idiot boy was surrounded, at first she thought it was her neighbors coming from their houses with the flashlights, perhaps some of them were. But maybe it wasn’t.

At least the people that roamed the street during the day now were mostly from the neighborhood. People helping their neighbors. Children rode their bikes far more carefree than any of the concerned adults that walked with them. The kids were probably ecstatic over not having to go to school.

Then she saw what she was waiting for but had been hoping it wouldn’t manifest at all. A group of men meandered up the street. They looked as if they were scouting out the neighborhood and not in a helpful way either.

At least she had her sunglasses on as she watched them closely and they carried on, acting like a bunch of fools as they walked up the street. Loud and obnoxious, shouting at kids on bikes to intentionally scare them. Tammy checked the floor beside her chair for her stun gun. As she bent over to pick it up, one of the men looked right at her. He had been part of the gang that wanted to take her suburban that first day. He was little bigger and older than the idiot boy. As she kept an eye on him, she noticed he resembled the idiot kid and she shifted in her chair uncomfortably.

He gave her a nod. Whether it was an, “I know who you are” nod, or being polite, she couldn’t tell. She jumped when Charlie poked her head out the door.

“Holly is being a total butt. She won’t stop messing up…” She paused when she saw the stern look on Tammy’s face.

She spoke softly but firmly to her daughter, “Go inside. Now.” She gripped the stun gun tighter.

Unfortunately, Charlie had already attracted the attention of the gang that had almost passed by without incident. They started cat-calling and whistling at her, doing stupid things to draw attention to themselves by jumping up and down and acting like animals, which they were proving they were.

Tammy got up and pushed her daughter in the house. She picked up the shotgun she placed by the door that morning. As she held it in front of her pretending to check and see if it was loaded, the gang jogged off as they called her all sorts of colorful and obscene names.

Charlie had her back pressed against the wall and her face was as white as the shirt she was wearing. “Mom, what is going on? Why does it feel like we’re in danger all the time?”

“Because we are.” What worried her the most was that she had no idea how long she was going to get away with pretending to know how to use a gun. And with every day that passed, she wished even more that Ben was there.

Ben and Nate wandered around for some time before they found the Coast Guard office in Dutch Harbor.

There was a young man sitting at a desk on the phone when they entered. He was rather consumed in the conversation he was having as he looked at a laptop screen and shuffled through the maps and paperwork on the other side of his desk. The conversation was rather tense and it became more heated as the usage of four letter words escalated.

Nate raised his eyebrows at Ben while they stood for some time and waited. The young man finally glanced up and noticed he had company. His face flushed as he shifted the conversation to something more civil before ending the call.

“What can I do for you?” He piled up the papers into a neat stack on his desk.

“We just arrived in Dutch Harbor last night and we’re stranded now. The boat that was taking us to Anchorage has some issues and needs fixed. So unfortunately it isn’t leaving anytime soon.” Ben rested his hands on his hips and tried to act casual as he looked the man in the eye. What he really wanted to do was bounce up and down on his toes hoping he was the answer to his prayers.

“You had the resources to get you here from where?” The name on his blue jumpsuit said Jones. “We aren’t the make-do ferry, you know. We already have a long list of people that are waiting to get off the island right now.”

“We heard there is something in the works to get the stranded people off the island so we wanted to see if that was true and let you know we are now stuck too.” Nate was about to pull up a chair and thought better of it when the irritated look on the young man’s face was not going away.

“Here’s the thing. Resources here aren’t going to last long as it is. If fishing vessels are dropping off more people at the harbor and expecting us to just add those people to our lists, this isn’t going to work. I don’t know if you realize that North America is under attack. Do you realize that?”

“Actually we do. We were close to being blown up by a cruise missile ship on our way here. That’s why our boat to Anchorage is getting repairs now. They started taking on water and we limped the rest of the way in.” Ben decided he
would
have a seat. “Seaman Jones, we were able to fix the diesel engines on that boat. We could make ourselves useful. I’m not trying to take advantage. We just really want to get to Anchorage so we can hopefully return home to our families in the lower forty-eight. We can mechanic. We run heavy equipment. We can earn our passage if needed.”

He shook his head. “You’re civilians and even though this hasn’t been publically declared as of yet, we
are
at war. All our troops overseas are coming home. Even though all the nations that are our allies are pledging support, aide is not on its way as of yet. Getting people off the island right now is risky. We’ve had numerous altercations with foreign ships in our waters for the past two weeks and they’re closing in now that our nation is at its weakest. So you see, your agenda to get out of here ASAP is small compared to what the big picture actually is right now. I will add you to the list. There is nothing more I can do.” The phone rang and he was done talking to them.

Nate headed for the door. Ben stayed put and listened as Seaman Jones was discussing when a ship was coming in for the stranded civilians.

“Ben,” Nate whispered.

He held up his hand for him to wait. Seaman Jones had to be overwhelmed with all the excitement. He had wanted to ask if they had a radio they could use. They would have one but the kid in the office was not the person to approach. However, what he did find out by listening in on the conversation on the phone was that the boat coming for civilians was two days out. That wasn’t good enough for Ben. He was sure he could find a boat for him and Nate sooner. He scooted his chair back and it scraped loudly on the linoleum. He hightailed it out of the office as Seaman Jones glared at him, following Nate out to the docks.

Where the Coast Guard office happened to be was right in front of the docks for their cutters and ships. There were only two smaller boats at the dock and a cutter was heading out to sea. If they returned a little later, perhaps someone else would be in the office and be more welcoming than Jones had been.

Ben unfolded the napkin had the information from Trav that morning. He was sending them on quite a walk. Actually, Dutch Harbor blended right into Unalaska and it was a much bigger town than Ben had imagined. There were quite a few vehicles and a lot of four wheelers on the dirt roads all over town but Ben and Nate didn’t feel all that comfortable trying to hitch a ride.

What they did find on their walk through town was one of Nate and Ben’s churches. Ben stopped. “I didn’t know there was a church here. You know, they usually have a HAM radio expert. I wonder if we could track them down instead of going to this person.”

“This is such a small island. What if that person is the church’s expert?” Nate asked.

“True, hmm.” Ben searched for the church’s online directory but it was down. “I guess we go find this person we have information for and go from there.”

They meandered through the streets, dealt with a chilly drizzle that soaked through their coats, until they found the house they were looking for. Ben wanted to smack his forehead for being so dense. The huge antenna on the house should have been their beacon to finding it sooner than they did. He was focused on street names and house descriptions.

He shivered as he hugged his body while he let Nate knock on the door.

A round man with the whitest head of hair opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“We’re looking for Chuck West?” Nate could barely read what Ben had written on the damp napkin.

“That’s me.” He wasn’t warming up to their presence at all. They needed warm. It was getting colder outside.

“We’re looking for someone that could help us send a message to Idaho and Montana,” Ben said.

He narrowed his eyes, skeptical for a minute.

“A fisherman in town said you were the HAM radio expert,” Nate said.

He still didn’t say a word.

“Well, we can see if we can find out who the members are around here that belong to the church we go to and see who their HAM expert is.” Ben turned to step off his front porch.

He changed his expression completely and smiled, opening the door to let them in. “That would be me.”

He stuck out his hand and Ben introduced himself. Nate did the same as they stepped through the doorway.

“You know there is not much good happening down south. There’s a lot of silence but from those that are able to relay info, it sounds rather desperate. We may not be able to reach anyone useful.” Chuck offered them a place to sit.

“It’s kind of our only option. I have names of a couple of friends that could get messages to my family.” When Ben sat down in the chair, he suddenly felt very weary. “I really want them to know I’m coming and that I’m alive and well. I doubt we will have much luck, but I really would like to hear if my family is okay. Or at least find out that Boise is still a place on the map.” He rubbed his forehead. Not one for getting emotional, he really felt it hit him when he opened up about his anxiety about their well-being.

“Well, there are some things we can try. Unfortunately, we can’t do much until this evening.”

“We are just hitting all the dead ends today.” Ben rubbed his head in frustration.

“What do you mean? We can try tonight and we might be successful. There’s no guarantees with the method we have to use but it’s better than nothing. Especially right now with things the way they are.”

“That’s true. Also, we are trying to find a boat that would take us out of here right away and so far no luck there either. We’re already sleeping on the floor in the nicer hotel in town. I feel like every day that we aren’t moving to get closer to home just adds another day that my family has to fend for themselves.”

Chuck shook his head slowly. “I won’t say what I want to.”

“I know it has to be desperate down there. My family, we’ve been preparing for this. I feel they’ll pull through. But what was the point of all that, all that prepping, if I’m not there to help?”

“It sounds like you need to have a little more faith in those you love and trust that they’ll be taken care of while you aren’t there.” Chuck patted Ben on his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen.

He sighed and buried his face in his hands. Chuck was right. But he hadn’t told the old man that they were all females and he was imagining the worst.

“What about you, Nate? You don’t seem as desperate as your friend.”

“My wife is tending the fort at home. However, my sons live close by and we live in farm country. I sure want to get home but I know my boys will take care of her and our farm. They aren’t as young as all of Ben’s daughters. If Ben’s family is still in the city, that would be enough reason for me to want to hurry home too.”

Chuck turned his attention to his phone. When he started talking, he closed the door so Ben and Nate couldn’t overhear.

“Who do you think he’s talking to?” Ben was suddenly quite nervous and he had no idea why.

Nate shook his head.

They didn’t have to wonder for long when he returned. “Good news. I want to take you to meet someone.”