“You guys ready to go?” A chorus of affirmatives followed and Dianne put the truck into gear. “Let’s go see what’s happening in town before we go back home, okay?”
It took Dianne around ten minutes of careful driving to reach the edge of town. As they drove through she saw no signs of anyone like she had a week ago. There were no people walking around, many of the homes appeared deserted and there were no other working vehicles on the road.
After passing through the residential neighborhood on the outskirts of town, Dianne headed for the grocery store and town square. A chill ran down her spine as she pulled into view of the grocery store and saw what it looked like. All of the glass on the front windows had been broken out, shopping carts were overturned and scattered across the parking lot and—from what she could see—there wasn’t a single scrap of food left on the shelves inside.
“Wow.” Mark whistled softly as he looked at the store. “What happened, mom?”
Dianne was busy scanning the area around him as she replied quietly. “I’m not sure, son. But look at all the other buildings.” Every other business that Dianne could see in the small square looked virtually identical in condition to that of the grocery store. Windows were shattered, doors were hanging on half-broken hinges and there were clear signs of looting and intentional damage that had been perpetrated.
Burned out vehicles still littered the area, and though Dianne couldn’t remember the exact details of which vehicles had been in which places, the general layout of everything still looked the same. In the distance, even though it was no longer smoking, Dianne could still see the remains of the airplane that had crashed just outside town. Two firetrucks were still parked next to the aircraft, though one of them had rolled over on its side while the other was partially inside the wreckage of the aircraft itself, having clearly been crashed there by someone who attempted to drive it away. Overall the condition of Ellisville was even worse than it had been a week prior, and there were no signs that anyone was around or trying to clean things up.
“I don’t understand.” Dianne whispered to herself as she drove the truck slowly through town. “Did everyone leave?”
“Shouldn’t we get home, mom?” Jacob and Josie were turned around in their seats watching the chickens in the back.
“Soon, kiddos. I want to see if we can find anyone around here who might be able to tell us what’s going on.” Dianne wound her way through the wreckage of the buildings and vehicles of the town until she got onto the small two-lane highway that led to the main highway that would lead to Blacksburg. As she approached the main highway, though, she eventually had to slow to a stop.
“Well now what?” Dianne opened the door of the truck and stood on the sideboard, peering out at the road ahead. She could see the next few hundred feet of road, the onramp to the highway and a good portion of the highway itself, but there was no possible way for them to drive any farther in the truck.
The wreckage of burned out vehicles sat bumper to bumper, blocking the road and onramp and making it impossible to go anywhere. Dianne had initially considered going off-road in the truck, but looking at the highway from an elevated position made it obvious that the driving conditions there were even worse than on the road leading to it.
As Dianne stood and contemplated her next move, the sound of an engine behind her made her turn and shield her eyes from the sun to figure out the source of the noise. “Mark, rifle!” Dianne ducked down into the truck and grabbed her own rifle before standing back up and holding it to her shoulder. In the distance, back towards town, came the sound of a small engine roaring towards them. As it got closer Dianne could see a man wearing an enormous backpack and sitting on the seat of a motorcycle that was loaded down with all sorts of bags that had been strapped to every square inch of free space on its frame.
The driver of the motorcycle wove the vehicle in between the wrecked vehicles with expert precision, and Dianne realized that he would be able to make it out to the highway without issue. As the motorcycle drew close enough for the details of the driver’s clothes to become visible, Josie began shouting from the back of the truck. “Mom! Mom! It’s Mr. Sandberg!”
“Who?” Dianne glanced through the back window at her daughter.
“Mr. Sandberg, mom!” Mark opened his door and jumped out of the truck before Dianne could tell him to stop. “He’s the biology teacher at the after-s
chool program!”
Dianne hesitated for a split second before jumping down from the truck. “Josie and Jacob, stay there! Mark, stay with me!”
Dianne ran out into the road and held her hands high above her head, waving for the motorcycle driver to slow down. The driver complied, but as he did so the motorcycle started to wobble and Dianne ran forward to catch it before it could fall over.
“Hey there!” Dianne shouted over the sound of the engine as she grabbed the front of the vehicle. The driver held up both thumbs before switching off the engine, laboriously pulling off one of his thick gloves and lifting the visor to his helmet. The man underneath had a soft, kind face with a meticulously groomed mustache and goatee that was salt and pepper in color, and underneath his puffy outer jacket Dianne could see the collar of a checkered dress shirt peeking through.
“Hello!” The rider struggled with his helmet before pulling it off, revealing a short-cropped hairdo and a pair of spectacles atop his nose. “I’m Jim Sandberg! Who are—wait a second, you’re Dianne Waters, right?” The rider looked at Mark and grinned broadly. “Mark!”
“Mr. Sandberg!” Mark ran up and gave Jim a high five as Dianne heard the back door to the truck open. Jacob and Josie ran up to the motorcycle and exchanged greetings with their after-school teacher as well before he turned back to address Dianne.
“Mrs. Waters! It’s a surprise and a pleasure to see you out here on the road? What are you doing out here, though?”
Dianne hadn’t seen Jim Sandberg in the last few weeks due to her schedule, but she had heard all about him from her children who spoke of his kind nature, expert teaching and novel experiments at length every time they came home. “Jim, it’s great to see you again.” Dianne turned and looked at the highway beyond. “We were going to try to get to Blacksburg to see if we could find out more about what’s going on, but it looks like the road’s blocked.”
Jim’s bright smile vanished and the happiness from his voice evaporated. “Do you not know what’s going on? I thought I saw your truck in town last week, right after all this… mess happened.”
“We’ve been staying at home for the most part. I heard some things on the television, but I think the power must be out everywhere.”
Jim pulled one leg off of his bike before rolling it up next to the wreckage of a vehicle. He leaned the motorcycle against the wreckage and pulled off his other glove. “Dianne, things are very bad. I have a shortwave transmitter in my house and was listening to some emergency broadcasts that were going out before my generator ran out of gas.”
Dianne slung her rifle over her shoulder as she glanced around. “How bad is it? Things were getting pretty wild in town last week, but I would have thought that by now…”
Jim shook his head. “No, nothing’s gotten better. Maybe you heard on the TV, but this is world-wide. Everyone’s affected. I heard that it was some kind of computer super virus, but I don’t know enough about that sort of thing to decipher a lot of what I heard.” He looked over at Dianne’s truck and nodded at it. “Are you and your husband and kids doing okay? Do you need anything?”
Dianne shook her head. “We’re okay.” She thought about telling him about Rick being in California but decided it was best to keep that information to herself for the time being. “Trying to lay low, mostly, until things get better.”
Jim shook his head. “That’s a good idea, but I don’t know when—or if—things are going to get any better.”