One of the men sitting across from the trio stands up and takes off his jacket and sweater before passing the sweater to the father. He nods in thanks and helps his wife put on the sweater before sitting back and holding her in his arms once again. Outside the truck come the sounds of more shouting as the men in black clear more shops and flats. They move quickly down the street, pausing every once in a while to move the truck along behind them.
When the back of the truck is filled to the breaking point it is escorted through the city to the north. There, well outside the city, a stronghold has been erected. Families are assigned to tents and given food, water and—if necessary—medical attention. The conditions in the camps are borderline to say the least but all that matters to the father is the fact that his family is, for the time being, safe.
Chapter 10
The Water’s Homestead
Outside Ellisville, VA
It took the better part of an hour for Dianne to regale Jason and Sarah with the story of the last couple of weeks. They had insisted on hearing about what had happened to her before telling their own story and they hung on her every word and description from start to finish.
“D, I am so incredibly sorry. I’m sure he’s fine, though. Just you wait; he’ll be walking through that front door one day soon with a story to tell that you can’t even imagine.” Sarah reached out and put her hand on Dianne’s leg.
Jason, standing at the back door looking out at the half-finished fortifications on the outbuildings, shook his head and snorted. “Damn straight he’s fine. If we can make it back from Maryland and you can turn this place into a cross between a castle and a prison camp I’m sure Rick can handle a little walk.”
“Jason…” Sarah’s tone carried a note of warning in it.
“It’s okay, Sarah.” Dianne nodded and sighed. “Jason’s right. I’m sure Rick’s fine. It’s just so far away and there’s nothing I can do to help him or even try to find him, you know?” Dianne took a deep breath and glanced at her watch before raising her voice to call to Mark in the kitchen.
“Hey Mark? Can you get some water boiling for dinner?”
“Sure thing, mom.”
“Now listen here,” Jason turned from the door. “We don’t need you to use any of your supplies on us. We’ve got our own food and we aren’t about to take anything from your mouths.”
“He’s right.” Sarah looked over at Dianne. “We don’t want you to—”
“Jason. Sarah.” Dianne looked at the both of them as she stood up. “I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. You’re staying for dinner and for the night and that’s final.” Jason opened his mouth to argue and Dianne pointed a finger in his direction. “And if you try to argue with me I’ll put holes into all four of your tires.”
“Fine.” Jason tried to feign annoyance though Dianne could tell he wasn’t the least bit unhappy about it.
“Good. Now that you’ve listened to me babble on for an hour I want to hear every detail about what you two went through. We went over to check on you and saw your note but you two aren’t the types to take spontaneous trips anywhere. What happened?”
Sarah stood up and patted Jason on the back as she walked into the kitchen to help Dianne with the dinner preparations. “This old man is what happened.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault!” Jason protested as he followed the pair into the kitchen.
“So what happened?” Dianne asked. “You two don’t usually go away on trips.”
“Jason’s had some health issues lately and we got an appointment with a doctor at the Mayo Clinic.” Sarah patted her husband’s hand as she sat down next to him. “We expected it to take several months to get one but this one opened up and we had to take it.”
“Why didn’t you let us know you were going?” Dianne looked at Sarah.
“We figured it was just overnight. Head up there, stay at a hotel for the night, see the doctor the next morning and then pop back down.” Sarah sighed. “Then everything went south.”
“The morning of your appointment?”
“Yep.” Jason put his fork down and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “We were in the middle of talking to the doctor when the lights went out. Everybody at the office figured it was just a temporary blackout so we finished up talking to him and headed out to the truck.” Jason shook his head. “Thank goodness their parking lot was empty that morning or we probably never would have made it back.”
Dianne took a drink of water and helped Josie cut up some of her larger pieces of broccoli. “You’re talking about the exploding cars, right?”
“Yeah, but it was worse than that.” Sarah nodded. “Well, you said you went into Ellisville. You saw what it was like there.”
“And on the ramp out to the highway, too. I can’t imagine what it would have been like up there.”
“It was hell on earth.” Jason stared into space as he recalled the morning of the event. “There were fires everywhere. Smoke was filling the air. We thought about just driving off but that would have been suicide so we went back into the doctor’s office and stayed there for a while. A few hours later, when the fires from the cars had died down, everyone in the office went outside and saw that the buildings were starting to burn. We had the only working vehicle in the area so we loaded the doctor and his nurses and staff and a couple other patients up and took them to their homes.”
“I really hope they made it out of there.” Sarah had a sad look on her face. “That nurse, especially. She was particularly nice.”