Dark Grid (7 page)

“I ended up bringing most of my hand tools, including one of my smaller air compressors and the air tools.” Chuck said.  “We’re taking a bunch of vehicles and nobody has mentioned taking anything to repair any of them with.  If we end up packing all of them full and one of them breaks down we’d end up having to leave stuff behind.  I figure this is something I can bring to the table.”

“By the way, do you remember what kind of car Pete drove?” Chuck asked.

“Why?  I thought he’d be on his way to Oklahoma by now.  He sure sounded all fired up to go when he left the dam earlier this morning.” she said.

“I thought so, too.  I know he has that old Chevy pickup but I thought he had a restored Mustang too.  Yellow, wasn’t it?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah, I think so.  He drove it to work a couple of times but didn’t like to bring it in because of the gravel parking lot-- he didn’t want to get the paint messed up,” Sheri agreed.

“That’s what I thought, too.  I could have sworn I saw him over by my house on the way back here, but he lives way over in East View.  What would he be doing over by Lockland Springs?”

“His girlfriend lives in East View too, so I have no idea.  Why do you ask?  Worried?”

Chuck shrugged.  “Not so much worried as aware.  He sounded pretty sure about heading to his dad’s place this morning, and he did make it sound like he wasn’t real concerned with observing common civilized niceties where getting there was concerned.  It might be nothing.  It’s not like there isn’t more than one yellow Mustang in Nashville.”

“Well, there’s nothing for it.  He’s either left already or he hasn’t, I don’t know that it’ll matter either way.  Give me a hand getting a few more things into the truck and then I want to head over to the Taylors before we go to this community meeting.”

Sheri had done a fair amount of packing while Chuck was gone.  She’d completely cleaned out her pantry, including repacking anything that would spill or was in bags that were likely to tear, and Joel had sent Josh over with a box full of dry ice for her two coolers.  She’d packed her clothing into a number of duffel bags and backpacks, and thought to include laundry soap and dryer sheets of all things.

“Hey, you never know,” Sheri said when she saw Chuck raise an eyebrow at the dryer sheets.  “Eric keeps reminding us that the electricity is going to come back on sooner or later, and he’s right after all.  All we have to do is raid a Sears and we’re in business!”

They had just finished packing Sheri’s bags into the Explorer when Josh knocked on the front door.

“Dad was wondering if you wanted to head over to the cabana together now that Mr. Turner is back.”

“Someone is bound and determined to call me that, aren’t they?” Chuck grumbled.

“Oh lighten up, you big grump.”  Sheri said.  “The boy’s only sixteen and he’s just doing what he’s been asked to do.  He can’t rightly call you Chuck now can he?”

“Lead the way, Josh,” Sheri said as she ushered Chuck out of the house and locked the door.

Chapter Eight

The pool cabana was as full as Sheri had ever seen it by 11:30.  “I hope this was a good idea,” she muttered to herself.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.  Joel, Eric, and I are all packing,” Chuck replied from her right side.

That snapped her out of her silent brooding about what she was going to say and how she was going to say it.  “What in the world are you talking about?”  Sheri looked at Chuck and then quickly glanced at Eric and Joel.  For the first time she noticed that Joel had changed his shirt from earlier this morning and what he was wearing was now longer and un-tucked.  “Holy crap, you’re serious!” she whispered.

“Yes ma’am.” Chuck answered.  “This is exactly the kind of situation I was worried about.  Someone in the know breaking the bad news to someone who’s not.  You’re the messenger Sheri.  Yeah, I was your supervisor but they don’t know me from Adam.”

“Any more good news I need to know before this little shindig gets going?”  she asked.

“I don’t think so, no.  If I think of something I’ll be sure to tell you on the way back to your place, though.” Chuck grinned.

“Thanks,” she elbowed Chuck in the side, “you’re gonna be a lot of help I can just tell.”

Just then, Carey stood up on one of the tables and started waving his arms to try to get people’s attention.  That went on for a good ten or fifteen seconds before someone in the crowd whistled through their fingers and cut through the noise.  “Thank you, whoever that was.”  Sheri was pretty sure it had been Joel, but neither of them was going to say anything at this point.

“As I’m sure you are all aware by now,” Carey began, “the power is out.”  A couple of folks started to make rude or smart comments at this point but Carey kept talking and most of the hecklers shut up.  “What some of you may not know is that our very own Sheri Hines works for, but let me stress the point that she is
not
responsible for, the power company.  As a joke this morning I asked her if she knew how soon the power would be back on--assuming that the answer would be ‘sometime between 2:00 and 4:00, assuming someone will be home’,” that got a chuckle.  “Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.  Let me say again that Ms. Hines simply works for the power company and is only sharing what she knows as a favor; but at my request she’s going to let us know as much as she knows regarding what’s going on.”

People were murmuring now.  What did Carey mean by ‘regarding what’s going on’?

Sheri cursed Carey under her breath.  Thanks a lot, you moron.  I don’t even think you realize how bad you just made me look in your attempt to pump yourself up.  Saying that I’m only sharing what I know as a favor?  Like I was going to hide something?  I’m only doing this at your request?  Great, now no matter what I say it’s going to be tainted by that and I’ll look like I’m trying to dig myself out, or cover my own butt.

Sheri stepped up onto the table as Carey stepped down.  She looked around at the expectant crowd--now gone silent.  She had to swallow a couple of times before she could say anything past the lump building in her throat,  and then she looked down at the group she’d spent most of the morning with and began talking.

“Well, a couple of things to get going.  First off, I want to let you know that if you have any questions that I know how to answer, I will.  I don’t mean questions I’m
allowed
to answer--I mean questions I have the technical expertise or know how to answer.  If
I
don’t know, then my supervisor from the power plant, Chuck Turner over here, probably does.  I’m not trying to hide anything.”

“So, here’s the deal.  This morning at the dam it looks like the grid--the power grid--got hit by a spike.  It was a big enough spike, and it was preceded by a large enough dip in power, that it got past the safeties and actually blew two turbines at the dam and shut down the rest.  The power is out for the foreseeable future; not just here but most likely everywhere, because the entire electrical grid was affected.  I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get power back here or anywhere else.  I don’t know if it will be days or weeks or months,” Sheri paused, “or even longer.”

People were murmuring again and a couple of people swore loudly.  Sheri raised her voice like she did in the control room to continue to be heard.  “I’m saying this to let you know what’s going on and so you aren’t surprised when there’s no power tomorrow morning.  I’d love to be proven wrong, but I’ll be more surprised than I can put into words if I am.”

A couple of the more vocal folks in the crowd were started yelling questions at Sheri along with a few choice derogatory remarks.  As things grew rowdier, Carey jumped back up onto the table and yelled for silence.  Sheri looked over at Eric, Joel, and Chuck who had formed a subtle, but very real, wall between the crowd and Karen, Rachael, and the kids.  They had also lined themselves up to let her get down off the table and behind them fairly easily without being too obvious.  Eric had his hand behind his back and Joel had his in his pocket. 
Geez, how could it have gotten this bad in less than five minutes?
Sheri thought to herself.  At least Chuck just had his arms folded.

“Settle down, settle down!  Sheri isn’t here for her own good people, what the heck’s wrong with you?  She didn’t do this, it isn’t her fault.”

Joel stood off to the side of the table with the speakers on it, wondering if Carey had ever taken a course on public speaking in his life.  If so, he had apparently misunderstood every bold and highlighted phrase in the textbook because he was doing the world’s worst job of crowd control Joel had ever seen.  It was like every phrase Carey used was designed to stir the crowd into a mob, and the look on his face showed that he had no idea what he was doing.  To do a worse job would have required a Project Manager, actual planning, and weeks of meetings!

Despite what he’d said to Rachael at the house he was
not
enjoying watching the scene before him because nobody was turning to Carey for leadership; they were milling about like a bunch of bulls in Pamplona before the running.  He was just about to say ‘screw it’ and step up onto the table himself when somebody else did just that, and, thank goodness, it was one of Carey’s buddies.

“Which part of SHUT UP and SETTLE DOWN did you people not understand?”  Rick Gayle bellowed at the top of his lungs as he stepped onto the table.  He had seen the mob forming and didn’t like it one bit so he figured it was time to step up and put an end to it.  Carey looked like he could use a hand too.  “Thank you very much ma’am, if you’ll step down I think we can take it from here,” he said to Sheri, who did just that.

“Now, just be quiet for a minute and
listen
,” Rick was addressing the group again.  “Go home.  Take stock of what you’ve got as far as food and water and other supplies.  We’ll get the board together and see what we can do to work through this together.  Quit pointin’ fingers, it’s a good way to get ‘em broke.”

As the crowd dispersed, Carey, face red with anger, embarrassment, or both, came to talk to Joel and his group.

“I’m sure you enjoyed that thoroughly,” Carey sneered.

“Not at all, Carey, and I really wish you’d just let it go.”

Instead of responding to Joel he turned to Sheri, “Will you and Chuck be available if we have any other questions?”  He asked it like a police officer asks a suspect after questioning.

“I don’t see why not.” Sheri answered noncommittally.

“Thank you.” and Carey turned and walked off with Rick.

“Why is it that every time he opens his mouth
my
blood pressure goes up?” Joel asked.

“Because you’re a very empathetic person and you’re projecting.  It’s very sensitive of you, dear.” Rachael replied.

“Did she just call me pathetic
and
sensitive?” Joel asked no one in particular.

…

The Taylor’s house had become the central meeting point because it was between Eric’s and Sheri’s and was the largest of the three homes.  As such, it was where they all headed as soon as the short neighborhood meeting broke up.

Once everyone was seated around the Taylor’s kitchen table, Maya and Josh included this time, Eric brought the question to the group.  “Ok, so where do we want to go?  We’ve all mentioned that we don’t want to stay in a population center for a number of reasons, and I think the impromptu HOA meeting just sealed the deal.  Driving around aimlessly will just run us out of gas, though.  Anyone have any suggestions?”

“What semi-accessible wooded areas are there around here?  I would think that those would probably be our best bets.  Not too far away, because we don’t want to use too much fuel to get there, but not too close either, and secluded enough that we wouldn’t be too obvious once we got there.”  Rachael was more thinking out loud than asking a direct question but Sheri answered as though it had been asked directly to her.

“Well, off the top of my head, I can think of Port Royal State Park, north of here--probably a little too close.  Bledsoe Creek, northeast of here--also probably still too close.  Cedars of Lebanon, east-southeast--about the same distance as Bledsoe but closer to other towns.  Everything else I can think of is actually closer than that.”

“How about Natchez Trace State Park?” Joel asked.  “We were there about a year ago.  It’s about eighty-five miles west of here on I-40.  Once you get into the middle of it you are really in the middle of it, and it’s not too close to any other population centers.

“If we get lucky we could even use some of the facilities there.  If not, it’s large enough that even if all the cabins were booked, and everyone stayed there, we could still primitive camp and not encounter anyone else.”

“Let me go get the road atlas and we can take a look,” Rachael said.

When she got back she also had the map from the park that they had picked up during their visit and it looked pretty much as Joel had described.  It was ten to fifteen miles from any town in the center of the park, and even the permanent park facilities were several miles from where they could set up if they wanted to.

“Looks good to me,” Sheri said.

“Same here,” Chuck agreed.

“Karen?” Eric asked.  When she nodded, he went on, “Ok, I think it’s unanimous then--but I’m assuming nobody’s going to be ready to leave today.”

“Not realistically,” Joel said.  “We’re going to need the rest of the day to finish packing and a good night’s sleep wouldn’t hurt.”

Sheri felt much the same way.  “I’ve also been running on adrenaline since I saw the auroras this morning.  I’m going to need some sleep before we head out and I assume that Chuck is going to need some too,” she gave him a sidelong look, “unless you were sleeping in the break room when the power went out.”

“No!  I was
not
!”

“So, tomorrow morning at the earliest then, as it’s getting late in the day if we want to make any contact with the Armory.  I suggest we get some lunch and start packing.” Eric continued.

“On that note,” Rachael said, “let’s have some lunch with at least a semblance of normalcy to it.  We have a ton of lunch meat, thanks to a growing 16 year old, and only so much space in the coolers, so we might as well have sandwiches if that’s ok with everyone?”