Countdown to Armageddon (16 page)

     From here he was home free. His was the second locker from the end and was easy to locate. He took the locker key hanging from a chain around his neck and used the fingers of both hands to insert the key into his padlock.

     Once the lock was open he let it fall away to the floor. He knew he wouldn’t be needing it again.

     As he changed in the darkness, his mind raced a mile a minute. He knew he had to get out of here, and he knew how. What worried him was what his sudden departure would do to Sara. They hadn’t been going together for long, but they’d hit it off great from the start. He really liked her, and she’d already confessed in a tender moment a few days before that she was falling in love with him.

     There were two things that worried him. The first was that he still hadn’t told her about the blackout, or his family’s plan to disappear into the hill country when it happened.

     The second thing that worried him was that Sara was a very sensitive girl. Not unlike a very delicate flower. She seemed somehow quite vulnerable, although she still hadn’t explained to him exactly why.

     It was because of that vulnerability that he worried what effect his sudden disappearance would have on her. Would she feel betrayed? Heartbroken? Abandoned?

     He was suddenly very sad that he wasn’t going to have a chance to tell her goodbye.

     It took him a full twenty minutes to get dressed. When he was finally done, he turned slowly in the darkness and made his way back into the gymnasium.

     This time traversing the gym was a piece of cake. With the double doors still propped open on the far side of the gym, he had a beacon of light to guide him, and nothing to block his way. He merely aimed himself at the light and jogged toward it.

     A couple of his friends, sitting on the steps outside and still in their P.E. gear, were surprised to see Jordan coming quickly out the door in jeans and a t-shirt. As he jumped off the stoop, they shouted after him, “Hey, man! Where are you going?”

     He ignored them and went on his way.

     The student parking lot was on the opposite end of the main building. It was a relatively short walk though one of the main hallways, but when the hallways were black as the night, it would take too long to get through them. He figured it would be quicker to walk around the school.

     And it was while walking around the school, past the orchestra hall, that he encountered Sara.

-28-

     Linda was in her car that Monday morning, going out to do a home visit on one of the clients for her home health company. She’d been in the Cruz home several times in the past, and had always walked away with a smile on her face.

     They were a sweet old couple who’d been married for forty something years, and were still very much in love.

     During her last home visit, Rosa Cruz asked Linda out of the blue if she liked to waltz.

     Linda said she didn’t know how.

     Rosa said, “Oh, you should learn ballroom dancing. We were watching a television program last night, called ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ They were doing the waltz, and it brought back so many memories.”

     Her loving husband Charlie, as if on cue, got up from his easy chair and walked over to her. He held out his hand and said, “May I have this dance?”

     Rosa blushed, as she probably did for their first dance fifty years before. And then she stood up and let him whirl her across the floor. Linda just stood back and watched. And smiled.

     Somehow these two always managed to restore her faith in love and humanity.

     She was looking forward to this morning’s visit with Rosa and Charlie and had even stopped to buy Rosa a bouquet of flowers.

     As Linda sat at a traffic light on
Bitters Road, She saw what she would later describe to Joyce as a mirage-type wave in the distance.

     “You know, like when you’re driving through the desert, and way ahead on the road in front of you, the highway seems to get all wavy and blurred. It was kinda like that. All the buildings in the distance suddenly got blurry.

     “Then the traffic lights went out, and my car died at the same time. It freaked me out, but just a bit. Then I looked around and realized that everybody else’s cars had also died. The marquee at the movie theater there at the intersection, that had been advertising movies and show times just a few seconds before, was now black. That’s when I
really
started to freak out.”

     Linda froze in her car seat, unsure of what to do. She stared straight ahead for a full two minutes, wondering if Scott’s prediction was really coming true.

     She had only half believed him about the blackout. She’d always known that he was a smart man, and not prone to wild conspiracy theories or outlandish tales. But at the same time, she didn’t want the blackout to happen. And that part of her always hoped that he was just crazy, and that his prediction would never come true.

     Finally, she knew she had to act. After trying her ignition key a couple of times, just to make sure, she stepped out of the car. She took her keys and her purse and carefully locked her car. Then she laughed at her own stupidity. It wasn’t like anyone was going to get in it and drive away.

     She went to her trunk and opened it with her key. Reaching into the back of the trunk, she dragged the backpack forward and opened it up. She took her pocketbook and a few essential items from her purse and threw them into the backpack. No sense carrying both for the long journey that was to come.

     Scott had showed her how to assemble the bicycle in her trunk. He was patient with her, because he knew that she had no aptitude for anything mechanical.

     “There are just three steps,” he’d explained.

     “Take the frame out first and put it upside down. I bought you one of the lightest frames on the market. It may look heavy, but you’ll be amazed at how light it is.

     “Put the back wheel on first. You can tell the back wheel because it’s the one with the sprockets on it.

     “Be sure you remember to wrap the chain around the smallest sprocket and then to slide the wheel all the way back in the channel. Then tighten the wing nuts as tight as you can get them.

     “After the back wheel is on, put the front wheel on. Again, tighten the wing nuts as tightly as you can. Once the front wheel is on, you’re ready to ride.”

     Scott had even had her assemble the bike three or four times in front of him, just to make sure she could do it. And when she assembled it without problems, he had her ride it around and helped her adjust the handlebars and seat.

     With the memory of Scott’s training as her guide, Linda was able to assemble the bike and ride away from her car within five minutes or so. A couple of people tried to flag her down to ask her for help. As Scott had instructed, she ignored them and rode right past.

     “You don’t know who may be a good person, and who may just push you aside and take your bike,” he’d said. “And besides, there will be absolutely nothing you can do to help them. You cannot give them a ride. You cannot go to a telephone and call for help. You are no use to them at all. So just pass them by and get yourself to my house as quickly as you can.”

     Even with a bicycle to aid her in her journey, Linda was still almost twenty miles from Scott’s house in north San Antonio. She would indeed get there as quickly as possible.

     But it would still take awhile.

-29
-

     Scott rolled over in bed and through groggy eyes wondered why it was so bright in the room. Then he noticed a note from Joyce on the pillow beside him.

     He’d had a rough night’s sleep, tossing and turning most of the night and trying to get comfortable. He’d strained his back the day before. Nothing serious, and he didn’t even realize how he did it. All he knew was that even after six Tylenol, he was still looking at the ceiling at three in the morning wondering if he’d ever sleep again.

     He’d obviously dozed off sometime after that, and had managed to sleep through his usual Monday morning routine of getting up, having breakfast with Joyce, Linda and the boys, and bidding them all goodbye as they left for the day.

     He rubbed his eyes and read the note Joyce had left.

Hi honey.

     Decided you needed your rest more than breakfast so I turned off your alarm. Jordan is taking Zach to school. I expect a late day so I’ll pick them up at your house and bring them home tonight. Expect us around seven. Let me know if you want me to stop and pick up dinner. Love you.

     Scott smiled and thought how lucky he was to have a woman in his life as thoughtful and sweet as Joyce. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep.

     He never even noticed that his bedside clock, and everything else in the house, was no longer working.

-30
-

     At John Jay Middle School, the halls were dark. Luckily, the doors at the end of each hallway were propped open during most of the school day unless the weather was bad. And today was a beautiful day.

     Zachary stepped out of his algebra class after doing something he should have done years before but didn’t have the guts. Now he felt accomplished and emboldened. He turned to his right and strode down the hallway with a purpose.

     Luckily, his locker was close enough to the exit doors to be dimly lit. He only screwed up the combination once. He second time he slowed down a bit and nailed it.

     He took the black backpack down from the hook where he dutifully hung it each day when he got to school. He never used it during the school day. He was smart enough to not need most of his textbooks, so unless he had a specific reading assignment in American Lit, he seldom took his books to class. This “doomsday bag,” as he had come to call it, therefore sat on its hook from morning to afternoon, when he’d retrieve it just before getting on school bus 245 for the long ride home.

     But not today. Today the doomsday bag was being liberated a little earlier than usual.

     “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

     Zachary turned to see Coach Zarzamora.

     There wasn’t any love lost between the two. Coach Zarzamora was the man who terrorized Zachary on the track on a daily basis, belittling him for his lack of athletic skills and forcing him to run an endless number of laps.

     “Nope. Not anymore.”

     Coach Zarzamora was not used to being sassed.

     “Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

     Zachary put the black backpack on his back, slammed the locker shut, and turned to face the hated coach. And for the second time on this day, he found the inner strength and courage to do something he never would have thought of doing before.

     He looked Coach Zarzamora in the eyes and said, “Figure it out yourself, dumbass.”

     Then he walked out the door and never looked back.

     He walked across the school parking lot and was stopped by a desperate motorist.

     “Excuse me,” the man said. “I have to make a phone call. Which way is the office?”

     “It’s through that door over there. But none of the phones are working.”

     He saw the look of disappointment on the man’s face and felt bad for him. But there was nothing he could do to help, and he had his own problems to deal with.

     He tried his best to remember everything his father had told him.

     “If the blackout happens while you’re at school, you’ll have to walk home. I know it’s a long way. But trust me, son, you can do this. I have faith in you. You are strong in body and mind, and you can do it.

     “The pack has bottles of water and granola bars. Do not take them out in public. People will be desperate to have them and might take them from you. If anybody asks what’s in the backpack, tell them school books and keep walking.