Dark Days Rough Roads (10 page)

Bev asked
where her husband was and Sarah said he had not made it home, so this morning
she packed up and they walked here. They had been walking all day, but mostly
Sarah pulled Elizabeth in a little wagon. It had only taken them about four
hours to make the 10 mile trip from their trailer park.

Sarah
said she was worried about her husband Erik, but Bev told her Erik knew where
the house was and should know to come here. That didn’t seem to satisfy Sarah
though, because Erik had only been about 15 miles from home when everything
went down, and he should have been there when she left.

Little
did she know he was stuck in an elevator and didn’t know how to get out. He had
been the only one in it when it stopped and he didn’t have any idea how to get
the doors opened and he couldn’t reach the access hatch on the top of it.

*****

Erik was
moving some cleaning equipment from one floor to another in a very small three
story office building that was under construction, when the elevator he was in
suddenly stopped. As far as he knew, it was just a power failure. His phone was
out in his car charging and when he had yelled for help, all he heard was
another guy tell him the power was out, but he would try and get help. There
had been only around 20 people in the building working on it and most of them
had left. He sat there waiting and would shout for help every once in a while.

*****

Sarah got
settled and asked if she could rest for a bit. She and Elizabeth went into the
guest bedroom and lay down on the bed to take a nap. Rich and Bev let her sleep
because it was obvious she was up most of the night worrying, and the walk had
taken all of the energy she had left. As she laid there trying to think about
where her husband could be, she drifted off to sleep and wouldn’t wake up for
another four hours.

Elizabeth
slept for only two. When she got up, she chased
the cats around the house and played with them. Then she asked if she could
watch TV. Bev said it was broken. Elizabeth said it was broken at her house
too. Bev gave her some paper and crayons and she drew pictures. Bev had made
sure there were things around to occupy their time instead of just sitting
around.

Rich came
in from the garage, where he had been looking for something. “I found it Bev,”
he said. “I’ll try it and see if it works.” He climbed down the stairs to the
basement and went over to the sump pump. He dropped the end of a hose in the
sump and pumped the handle of the water filter until water came out. He placed
some in a plastic cup which he set aside.

Next he
put a small float in the sump and then measured how far down it was and made a
note of the time and depth. They were not too sure how much water would seep
into the sump, but they knew it would have to be monitored so the basement did
not flood.

He took
the cup upstairs and placed it on the kitchen table. “Here you go Bev.” Bev
walked over and looked at it and held it as though it was a lab sample of some
sort. She handed it to Rich and said, “Try it.” Rich said, “I’m not trying it. I’m
not going to be your guinea pig.” He was very insistent that he would not be
trying it.

“Oh come
on now,” she argued, “Roger said that filter would clean pee so it was good
enough to drink.”

“Well let
Roger drink it when he gets back,” he quipped. “I’ll use it for flushing the
toilet, but I’m not drinking that stuff.” He paused; he wondered how long the
toilets would be able to be flushed. The water was gone for sure, but he didn’t
know how long it would be before the sewer system was shot.

Sitting
around the kitchen table, Bev made a quick lunch. It was late in the afternoon,
but they had been busy and had not eaten yet. She simply warmed up a big can of
ravioli and pulled out some bread and butter. Bev, Rich and Elizabeth sat and
ate lunch. They saved some for Sarah. When she got up, surely she would be
hungry.

Elizabeth
asked for dessert and Bev handed her a pudding.
Rich acted like he was going to steal it from her and she squealed in protest.
“How about you just give me a little bite?”

“Great-grandpa,
you can lick the top,” she said. He laughed and said, “Ok, that’s a deal.” She
handed him the foil lid and ran off with her treat.

Bev
walked over to the radio and turned it on. The call was received and she was
starting to feel better about the trip Roger was making. She figured that he
would be the one who could get the job done as fast as possible and as safe as
possible. Her only concern was how Linda, her ex daughter in-law, and her new
husband would react to him taking Kayla out of there. Although she knew if it
became an issue, he would be able to get something worked out.

Sarah had
gotten up and walked into the kitchen and kissed Elizabeth. She sat down and
Rich warmed up her ravioli and put the plate down in front of her. He buttered
up a piece of bread and set it on a napkin, along with placing a glass of tea
down next to her plate.

She
slowly ate and they could see she was deep in thought still. She finally just
said it aloud. “I hope Erik is ok, I’m praying nothing bad happened. I thought
he would have been home or been here by now.”

Elizabeth
said, “Mommy, where is Daddy?”

“On his
way here,” she said. On his way here, she hoped.

*****

Erik was
still in the elevator and was literally going crazy right now. He had no idea
how long he had been in there, had taken several short naps and was thirsty and
hungry. His voice was weak from yelling for help. He urinated and defecated in
a corner of the elevator.

What in
the hell is going on out there, he thought. Why the hell hasn’t anyone rescued
me? He had flipped the service cart on it’s side and tried to find a hatch in
the ceiling and found it but it would not open. As time passed, he was thinking
nuclear war, tornado, power outage or some other natural disaster, but wasn’t
sure what it was that happened.

He paid
attention to sports and had watched a lot of horror movies, but he too was
really just a sheeple who didn’t mock the preparedness society, but saw it as a
waste. He never got into doomsday movies. He didn’t really know what an EMP was
and he sure as hell didn’t know the effect it was going to have on him.

The
darkness of the car alone was really bearing heavy on his mind. He kept
thinking he felt something touch him and he would jerk away. The slightest
sounds were amplified and he would scream for help believing the noises were
from rescuers. The air was stale and the odor was overwhelming from the urine
and feces.

*****

The
evening was approaching and soon it would be time to light some candles. Sarah
had stayed at the table and played a few games of dice with Rich and Bev. Elizabeth either ran around chasing the cats or played with a few toys kept around the
house for the great-grandkids. They were waiting for six o’clock, which should
be the next time that Roger checked in. In a normal world, he would have been
there already, but that was taking highways and cutting through major cities,
all of which would have been very dangerous.

Bev asked
Rich to start the generator and run it for a couple hours. He went into the
attached garage and opened the garage door a crack and started the generator.
He wasn’t going to screw around with back fed circuits so he had a transfer
switch installed and he switched it over. The door from the garage to the house
was well sealed, but he still had a fan by the muffler to act as an exhaust to
vent as much as he could to the outside. He stood there for a bit and smoked a
cigarette. He went back inside and heard the ham radio crackling.

*****

Erik had
finally managed to get the handle off the floor buffer and was using it to pry
open the doors of the elevator, but they wouldn’t budge. Next he started
jabbing at the ceiling where he had found the hatch. He actually managed to get
it to pop open. He got up on the service cart and tried to lift himself up.

It took
him quite a few attempts, but he managed to get up on top of the car. He rested
there; the task was too much for him and he needed a break. The one thing he
noticed was the air seemed quite a bit better now with enough flow to help
overcome the rankness he left on the elevator floor. Covering it with rags
didn’t help keep the odor down much.

After
resting, he lifted himself up and felt around on the door mechanism. He was on
the third floor when he got on the elevator and was only halfway down to the
second when it stopped. He tried to pry the doors open that led to the hallway
and these too did not give very much. He would catch a glimpse of daylight when
he did this. He wasn’t sure how long he had been in here. He thought it might
have been only hours, but couldn’t tell for certain. All he knew was he was
hungry, very thirsty and starting to get cold. He was going crazy in all
literal senses.

*****

Haliday
had checked in and everything was going ok. He told them quickly of his
encounter and said he might be delayed in checking in every couple of hours, so
they should wait until 15 minutes past the hour before turning the ham off. He
didn’t want anybody’s radio overheating. They were too valuable and the handhelds
they had didn’t have the range for clear enough communication at that distance.
This was going to have to work for now and he assured them he would be ok.

Rich
liked playing dice games. He had put his time in for the “Big Three” in skilled
trades and usually on breaks or during down time, they would either play dice,
dominoes or some cards. This would amount to hours sometimes as he would
program his machine and let it run its cycle. He occupied himself with this and
crossword puzzles to keep busy. After a few more games, he excused himself to
go turn off the generator and use the bathroom.

Sarah and
Bev sat at the table alone. Bev told Sarah not to worry just yet, that there
was a lot going on out there and things were not that easy to do these days. She
reminded her that she was still waiting for her own children to make it in. She
had six total, five boys and one girl and what a handful they were. One son and
the daughter lived out of state. Another son had forsaken the family and the
family had forsaken him for reasons they never really talked about. That left
Roger, David and Alan in the state.

Bev had
worked in a variety of jobs as waitress, packing boxes in a warehouse and
ultimately put herself through school and became a substance abuse counselor.
She had the ability to help people think through problems clearly and this
experience came in handy right now with Sarah. She was able to keep her calm
for now.

*****

He got up
one more time to see about prying the doors open. He was shouldering one of the
doors when it started to slide open. He moved his feet to brace himself for
leverage and stepped into the open hatch, causing him to tumble down into the
car. He landed and snapped his leg just above the ankle.

There was
no way possible he was going to get out of this by himself now. He sat there in
pain and straightened his leg out a bit. His pant leg was damp and he knew he
was bleeding. He grabbed the service cart and latched onto some rags which he
tied around his leg.

All the
while he was thinking about Sarah and Elizabeth and hoping they made it to her
grandma’s house. He thought about how cute Elizabeth was during her ballet
recitals and how good of a cook Sarah had become. He reminisced about all of
the good times they had had over the years. He was tired now and drifted off to
sleep with these thoughts on his mind. Erik would never wake up.

Haliday
had just checked in again with everyone and had pretty much figured out that
everyone would be doing ok. With just about a day and a half after the country
went dark, things would still be fairly civil. In another couple of days, the
people would start to panic.

The
realization that their food would be running out would hit. This is when things
would start to go Wild West as he used to say. Rule of law would become rule of
gun. He wanted to be as close to home as he could be at that point. He would
prefer to be back in Michigan period.

He was
well clear of Bryan and now into Indiana heading west just about 15 miles above
Fort Wayne. He would start to head south and run through another small town
called Warsaw. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any problems. He had noticed a lot
of old tractors and ATV’s on the road, but very few cars.

What cars
he did see you would expect to see in a museum or better yet, the Woodward
Dream Cruise. Detroit’s only saving grace these days. One day dedicated to
cruising Woodward Avenue with vintage autos. One thing he did not see yet was
the sign of any military vehicles. Of course he was trying to avoid any installation
of any kind. There would be far too much explaining to do if he got caught.

With dusk
here, he flipped on the headlights and continued his trek. He was making pretty
good time. A lot of the vehicles had been pushed out of the way, making travel
easier. It was much different than up in the Detroit area. People up there had
no respect for anything and just left cars where they were. Hell, they did that
when one broke down in normal times. Civilization turned for the worse years
ago and just kept turning as far as he was concerned.