The old woman was at least correct about the abundant bedding on the upper floor. A pathway for shoppers separated the two families in their chosen beds. A single candle was placed between them upon a large plate, collected from the lower floor.
Jess could see that his sons were still tense with worry. The small flame sparkled off their open eyes.
Dustin’s voice fluttered out into the air with a question.
“Do you think Mom will be okay?”
Jess had tried not to think about it. He wanted to hold tightly to his hope as much as his boys did.
He kissed them both on their foreheads the way he had done since they were both babies and whispered for them to go to bed.
“She’ll be okay.”
Jess woke, wondering what time it was. Michael had the smartcard. Dustin’s black digital Ironman wristwatch was attached to his arm. It was tucked up under his slumbering head.
It still appeared to be night but Jess’s body told him otherwise. He rarely slept past sunrise. He had trained himself to wake up at the same time for the last 10 years and it was almost always right on schedule. For the first year or two of their marriage, Toni would watch him walk over to the alarm clock and turn it off, often a minute or two before it filled the room with sound. He never needed the blasted clock but he continued to use it all the same.
He peered out to the large bay windows on the second level, wondering what they should do next. He only knew that he had to keep his children safe. That’s what Jess would have wanted. When his boys were babes, he would jump from sleep when they jostled in their cribs. Several years of sleepless nights caused his temples to go grey.
It was now early enough that Jess’s internal body clock told him it was time to get up. He was used to getting up at the same time every day. He was unaccustomed to the lack of visual clues however. Because though it was still dark when he usually woke, there was always a tell-tale purple hue to the sky that indicated that the sun’s appearance wasn’t far off. Now, it was difficult to tell exactly where the horizon started as the view before them was a large dark canvas. The ashes, at least, had slowed in their descent, or perhaps less was falling. The sky was not filled with the stuff now. It instead fell unimpeded. A layer of frost had formed in the corners of every window.
He looked over at his boys in the bed beside his. Both faced the other, deep in the grips of a dream that was, Jess hoped, better than their current situation.
He sat up in his own bed, pushed off the sheets and walked over to the glass, looking closer at the sky and saw a fissure of sorts. Just a crack in the darkness where the cloud seemed to split and a thin line of grey-blue peeked through. It only lasted a moment but it was like being lost at sea and catching a glimpse of land in the distance. Yes, he had repeated over and over that they would be okay, but this was something he had to do for his sons. Now, he found himself believing it. It wasn’t just positive reinforcement of a bleak possibility. There was still a sky. It was still possibly blue; the sun, presumably, was still up there and the moon still pulled the tides in and out.
Then he heard something that broke his concentration: the sound of movement somewhere below them; a distinct sliding sound, like children shuffling their feet across a frozen pond.
He stood up and looked around quickly. Their new companions had taken up the biggest bed they could find. The old man and woman had their grandchildren between them and were all wrapped up tight, only their heads poking out from the top of a thick white blanket.
He heard the sound again. It might have been the automatic doors, he thought. First, they had opened, now they closed as whatever it was moved in or away from the sensors.
Movement could be heard below. No one else was awake. Jess took two long and quiet steps over to his son’s bed, laid one hand each on their backs and shook them gently, his ear trained toward the movement below.
Michael woke first. He sat up immediately. A second shake was required to rouse Dustin.
“Something is downstairs,” he whispered. “Get ready to move.”
Michael nodded his head and threw back the covers quickly. Both boys were still wearing everything but their shoes, which could be found just off to the edge of the bed.
Jess took stalking-like slow steps over to the unmoving escalator, found a display of heavy brass candle holders nearby and took one in each hand. He stood at the peak of the stairs, waiting. There was no further sound.
What could set the doors off? A blowing leaf? A rolling tin? A hungry rodent?
He told his sons to stay put and took very slow and deliberate steps downwards, one at a time, pausing to listen with each sound.
He was halfway down the escalator steps when a horrendous sound stiffened his body. It was similar to the sound of the explosion yesterday. You couldn’t ignore it; it seemed to come from everywhere all at once, like a wall of sound, or a wall of noise, escalating in pitch until you wanted to cover your ears, and then, it stopped as suddenly as it had appeared.
He stood still - halfway down the escalator steps when a follow-up sound came: something broke in front of him.
A plate or something made of glass.
He knew the sound from the recesses of his own memory banks.
Children running through the kitchen.
The stair beneath his feet jostled. It jerked and heaved and started moving him downwards. The noise of the mechanics below his feet were deafening. The power for the escalator had come back on and was delivering him to whatever waited below. At the bottom, he stepped off, stopped, waited and listened, trying to hear above the steady grind of the moving stairway. He heard more sounds; feet, scampering quickly, towards him.
Something small quickly advanced on him. He readied one of the heavy candles in a hand, to strike, if needed. But it stopped, several feet in front of him; a figure hunched close to the ground, the only movement was a tail and its backside whipping back and forth.
Yellow and thin, its hair waved with the layering of moisture upon its back. The eyes of Jess and the dog met, both uncertain. Jess saw a leash trailing behind the beast, a flash of a metal tag hanging from its collar. He put both candlesticks in one hand and took a chance, bent at the knees and extended a hand outwards. This was the equivalent of a welcoming handshake for dogs. He had remembered his father teaching him this. This way, you took on a gesture that was not threatening and you found out quickly if things were friendly, or not.
The yellow dog wagged its tail quickly back and forth and moved forward, head bowed. Toni would have been proud, Jess thought.
Computers were beeping. Heat was coming out of the vents. Then it stopped again and everything turned off.
Dustin noted that the power had been on for exactly 28 minutes.
“Maybe someone’s trying to fix the power system,” Michael said.
“Maybe,” Jess agreed.
Michael said that he was still able to tap into the wi-fi coming from the music store next door. He projected the screen up on the nearest wall but most websites presented 404 Page Not Found errors.
“I can confirm that,” Orson added. “Google was still running, though their news feeds had content that was several days old. There were few reports on what was happening. Some blog posts and tweets but very little coming from large news sources except one article published by the Dallas News indicating that survivors were attempting to move north to flee the mounting tide of violence and suffering
.”
“That voice sounds so familiar,” the old man said.
Patricia nodded.
“Orson Welles,” Michael said. “I don’t even think you’re old enough to remember him.”
Jess wrapped an arm around Michael’s shoulder as one web address after another failed to load.
Then Michael typed something else and the screen of the smartcard filled up with a web page for the high school’s football team. Michael posed with the football in a photo after a touchdown, holding it like a prized trophy.
“I’m sorry I missed the last game,” Jess said.
“It’s all right,” Michael said. “It was a Friday. You work late on Fridays.”
Jess let these words fall away.
“I guess you guys won. You look pretty happy in the photo.”
“We were playing Riverdale. They’re not one of the strong teams this year.”
“Well, I’m sorry I missed it.”
They sat among a dozen leather chairs lined up against the wall in the dimness of the store.
“I guess they’ll have to reschedule the next football game,” Michael said.
Jess nodded, then said: “Who were you scheduled to play?”
“Jarvis.”
“Any good?”
“People say their quarterback has a PAL moulded into his helmet. They only test for that in the pros. Anyway, their defensive line have some holes but their back end is pretty good. Probably would have meant that they’d dish to me rather than go long.”
“Well, maybe there will be another chance.”
“I don’t know. I hope so. You should have seen that explosion, dad. It’s like when I close my eyes I can still see it. This giant ball of fire on the horizon that hurt your eyeballs just to see it.”
“It happened later in the evening, right? You were getting ready for bed?”
Michael nose made an odd sound.
“Dad, we haven’t gone to bed by 10 in ages.”
“Okay, so tell me what happened.”
It was as Jess had expected. Michael was the eldest and most responsible. He had just turned 16 and already had the makings, physically at least, of a young man ready to grow into his father’s frame. Dustin was 12 and not entirely ready to give up his grip on childhood and Toni didn’t feel the need to push him out of it.
Michael was their young man, big and strong, the star running back of the high school’s junior football team. Dustin was their baby, thin and awkward but so advanced for his age, full of giggled laughter and endless bursts of juvenile energy.
Michael’s popularity at school also attracted the wrong kind of interest. He started hanging out with the older kids on the team. Kids who liked to drive around the city with loud music blasting out of the windows, looking for trouble.
“Tuck that shirt in,” Jess often said to Michael. “It’s practically down to your knees.”
Michael would then tuck his shirt in, which wound up being little better as his pants were just as low on his frame.
“Do you think she’s cold in the van?” Dustin said.
Jess looked out the window. The vehicle was practically camouflaged from all the ash that had covered it overnight.
“I don’t think so,” Jess said. “Were you cold when we were in there?”
“A little,” Dustin said.
“You’re going to check on her today, right?”
Michael looked right into his father’s eyes, remembering the promise made yesterday.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Jess thought. What could he do? She was sick; a monster who thought of nothing but violence when in the company of a healthy person. Even her family.
“I’ll drive the van down the road a little bit,” he added. “If she winds up escaping, I don’t want her coming in here.”
The boys were watching from the store’s window as Jess got in the van. The bang came again from the back as he turned the key to start the engine. He drove by the garden centre at the far end of the parking lot to avoid the children’s view. He had seen these outdoor shops before, selling flowers and soil in a pen surrounded by a 10-foot high fence.
The front gate was open - he backed the van up inside it, got out and locked the gate behind them.
“What am I doing?” he said to himself.
It was likely that Toni was going to attack him again.
He walked around the garden centre for a bit, trying to formulate a plan. There was little of use. Some tools that could be used as a weapon but he obviously didn’t want to hurt Toni, even if the same couldn’t be said of her intentions.
There was some rope near the cash register and a few shopping carts.
He had to do something, even if it was just proving to his boys that she could not be trusted not to hurt them.
He pushed one of the carts to the back of the van and unravelled the rope. Then he took the rope in hand and flung open the van doors. Toni stepped out, looking grey and confused. Jess stepped behind the shopping cart and she came straight out and collided with it, falling to her knees. Jess got in behind her and put a knee in her back, driving her down to the ground. He took the rope and tied her hands together behind her back. She felt cold.
He left enough rope dangling at the end that he could use it as a kind of leash and pulled her around awkwardly. Her head thud against the side of the van, which he felt bad about. He spun her around and pushed her back up and in the van and was able to hold her off with one hand while he tied the end of the rope on one of the bars at the side.
She tried again to advance on him when he hopped off the end of the van’s cargo area and the rope stopped her just as she got to the end of the platform. She looked to her left and right, confused as to why she could not proceed.
Jess upended a medium-sized flower pot and sat on it. There was about 15-feet between them. Toni stood there, her hands tied behind her back with her teeth constantly showing, like a dog giving warning.
It was horrible. It was like she had gone mad – hair all astray, filthy clothes and a stench that repulsed his nostrils.
He sat there in the darkness for some time, watching her, hoping for some glimmer of recognition, or a word. She paced in one spot. Two spots to the right and two to the left, but never once did she take her gaze from his spot on the flowerpot.
“Toni,” he said. “Snap out of it!”
She growled, some kind of gurgling rage rising from her throat.
“Your kids need you,” he said. “And I need you. I always have.”
He pulled a granola bar from his pocket, unwrapped it and took a small bite. He tossed the rest in the back of the van, behind where Toni stood. She seemed to hear it rather than see it and turned around, her head darting back and forth as if in search for it. She eventually got down on her stomach near the bar and put her nose up against it. She sneezed and spit, and struggled to get back up to her feet.
It seemed evident that she didn’t care for the granola bar but something about the way she moved around in the van made Jess think. He got up from the flowerpot and took five quiet steps to his right.
Toni got back to her feet, turned and went back to staring at the flowerpot where he had been sitting. It seemed as if she couldn’t see him.