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“Joel, what happened, why’d you stop?”

“Eric, the GPS is working.”

“Huh?”

“Eric. The. G. P. S. Is. Working.”

“Ha ha ha.  Ok, hold on a minute.  Karen has a satellite radio in her car; can’t remember which one.  Let me see if that’s up.”  Eric jogged back to Karen’s car and had her turn on her radio.  After a full minute of ‘…Searching…’ on the LCD they gave up.

Eric’s jog back to Joel’s Suburban wasn’t quite as quick as his first one.  “I was hoping some satellites had made it through.  It’s possible that the GPS satellites we are using were simply on the night side when the CME wave hit but there are a couple of other more likely reasons GPS is up.  Do us all a favor Joel and don’t slam on the brakes like that when we’re on the freeway?”

“Sorry, it just caught me by surprise.  Won’t happen again.”  Joel looked a bit sheepish.  It had only been a little over a day but the lack of any communication and sense of connection to an outside world was playing havoc with his sense of normal.  As Eric walked back to his car, Joel heard Rachael curse--which she never did--and looked out the windshield.  Carey stood in the road in front of the Suburban.

Joel laid on the horn and, although Carey flinched, he didn’t move out of the way.

Joel rolled the window back down and yelled, “Get out of the way, Carey!”

“You can’t leave Taylor!” Carey shouted back.

“Says who?” Joel was still in the car but he unbuckled his seatbelt.  “Says me and the board.”

“The board doesn’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do Carey,” Joel said, as he opened the door and climbed out.  “I can leave at any time.  Get out of the way.  Now.”  Joel was already on the ragged edge and this threatened to put him over.

“We have to stick together, Taylor. We can’t have people just running off and doing whatever they want.  You all elected me to be in charge, so I’m going to be in charge.”

“We elected you to be the president of the Home Owners’ Association, Carey; to make sure we didn’t spend more money than we took in with dues, and ensure that the lifeguards got paid every summer, and keep people from letting their grass grow up to their armpits.  We didn’t elect you to be President,” Joel made air quotes to emphasize the last word.

“Carey, I’m serious…get out of the way.”  Joel just wanted to leave and escalating the situation wasn’t going to help.  Although it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do he needed to
convince
Carey move.

“You aren’t in charge like you think you are.” Joel said.  “Maybe at some point you will be and that will be great and I’m sure you’ll do a fine job.  Three housefuls of people leaving aren’t going to make a difference in the long run either way, but we’re going.”

“No you aren’t; you can’t go.  I forbid you to leave!”

 “Listen to yourself.  You can’t forbid me from doing anything.  Move or you’re going to get run over.  Truck versus human--the truck wins every time.”

Rachael had opened her door by now and stepped out.  “Carey, please just move.  Please.”

“Hon, get back in the truck.” Joel said, without taking his eyes off of Carey.

“Better yet, why don’t you go back in the house,” Carey said, with a distinct lack of respect.

“Don’t ever talk to my wife again, period.”  Now Joel was mad.  That was a line you didn’t cross.  “You have nothing to say to her or any other member of my family, but especially her, ever.”

“Right, and I suppose you’re going to stand up for the rest of your little brood too aren’t you, starting with your daughter?  Like mother like daughter?  The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree?  Learned it all from her mom, the little…”

Joel didn’t even remember making the fist but he certainly remembered the satisfying meaty feeling when it hit Carey in the middle of his face.  He was also very gratified to see Carey land squarely on his butt almost three feet away with his hands over his nose and mouth.  When he pulled them away, already covered with blood, the look on his face was one of purest shock.  And then he spoke.

“I’m going to SUE YOU!”

It took almost three full seconds for the words to register with Joel, but when they did he laughed out loud.  Exactly the kind of deep, stress-relieving belly laugh he’d needed ever since the power went out yesterday.  “Are you kidding me?  You still don’t get it!  You’re the one who told me ‘it’s the end of the world’ and you
still don’t get it
!  Well you were right.  There, are you happy?  I said it, you were right!  You’re going to sue me?  With what?  For what?  Where?  HOW?  It’s
over
Carey!  I don’t trust you or the bulk of the people in this neighborhood in a crisis so I’m leaving with the people I do trust.  Now get out of the way or I’m going to run you over and not even look in the rear-view mirror when I’m done.”

Joel turned around and got back in the Suburban and put it in gear.  To his credit, he did in fact drive around a scurrying Carey to avoid hitting him.  He also looked in his rear-view mirror to make sure nobody else hit him either.

…

Traffic wasn’t as bad as they had feared it would be on the turnpikes and parkways by now.  Most people had realized there wasn’t going to be anything to do at work the previous day and the majority of traffic seemed aimless and sporadic.  There were a larger than normal number of police on the road, but that was probably more a matter of ratio than actual numbers.  They passed a couple of convoys like their own headed in the opposite direction, each consisting of five or six cars and trucks.  One even had a surplus school bus, although Eric wouldn’t have wanted to be in that for much longer than absolutely necessary.

The couple of times they saw RVs Joel was openly jealous.  “We’re going to be sleeping in tents, most likely, and they’ve got a hotel on wheels…so unfair.”

Rachael was a bit more pragmatic in her approach to the situation.  “Yes dear, and they get a whole 1.2 gallons to the mile and we have no idea how soon, or even
if
, we’re going to be able to get more gas.”

Fifteen minutes down the road they passed a fairly large group of vehicles headed their same direction.  This group, however, was pulled to the side of the road as one of the cars had a flat tire.  Once all five SUVs and trucks had passed, Eric flashed his lights and turned on his turn signal and everyone pulled over onto the shoulder.

At first glance, driving by at over fifty miles per hour, no one had recognized anyone from the group they’d passed.  Eric felt it spoke well of the caravan that they hadn’t abandoned either the people or the vehicle just because of a flat tire.  He suggested it might be worth a few minutes to find out where they were headed …and how others were reacting to the crisis.

Everyone got out of their cars and walked back towards the group with the flat.  The area was clear enough that Eric wasn’t really worried about an ambush; but given what they’d just left in the neighborhood, and Joel’s adrenaline level, he wasn’t ruling anything out.  In fact, give it a couple more days and he would be looking at every piece of ground with a combat eye:  you can take the man out of the Army, but you can’t take the Army out of the man.   You couldn’t, however, pass on twelve years of training and paranoia in six hours--and he couldn’t convince everyone else to stay back with the vehicles.

Eric, Joel, and Mille were in the lead in front of Rachael, Karen, and Sheri.  Josh and Maya were behind the women and Chuck was bringing up the rear.  Just because Eric didn’t think there would be an ambush didn’t mean he wasn’t going to at least try to have some order in the group, and keep the women and children in the middle.

A couple of men from the group with the flat came out to meet them about half way.

Eric stopped himself just shy of asking, ‘So, got a flat?’ and instead opened with, “Anything we can do to help?”  Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Joel pulling back on Millie’s leash.

One of the two ambassadors from the flat-tire group, as Joel was thinking of them now--the thinner of the two, --replied, “Not ‘nless y’all got an extra 165/75R14 under onea them tarps.  Spare’s gonna slow us down.”

“Sorry, friend, wish I did.  I’d be more than happy to give it, too.  Everybody doing ok, car ok after the tire went flat? Wasn’t a blow out?”

“Nah, juss a slow leak that fin’ly got too low an’ it came apart.  Ah think we’ll be fine.”

“Big group, y’all headed out of town?”

“What’s with all the questions, huh?” asked the larger of the two from the flat group a bit belligerently.  He had a large, footprint-shaped birthmark on the right side of his face that got darker as he grew more agitated.   “We’re just changing a tire, we’re not blocking traffic.  You a cop?  I don’t see a badge.  Cops don’t bring kids with ‘em usually, so why so curious?  You headed out of town?”  He was looking past Eric and Joel at the women and the kids.

“Calm down Earl, they’s juss bein’ neighborly; sides, it’s a fair question.  Yeah, headed down south for a while.  Don’ reckon’ it’s too good the ‘lectricity’s out, plus the radio, an’ the phone, an’ the cell phone an’ everythin’ else.  Don’ wanna be around if it gets real bad.”

“Well, we’re thinking about the same thing.  Headed east most likely, just until things get back to normal.  Just wanted to make sure everything was ok with you folks.  Like you said, we were just trying to be neighborly.  Hate to see somebody get stranded, especially like you said--with the phones out, not like you can call triple A.  We’ll be on our way and wish you luck.”  Eric nodded to the two from the flat-tire group and turned and started ushering the group back to the vehicles.

Eric’s take on the situation had changed rapidly, especially with the low rumble coming from Millie, but he was glad they had stopped nonetheless.  Chuck was the last to turn and let Joel, the women, and the kids get through the group.  When Josh saw Chuck hanging back and Eric waiting for him, he sped up to take the lead with his dad.

Good instincts on that one
, Eric thought to himself as they headed back to their little convoy.

“I assume you told them we were headed east because you don’t want them anywhere near us.”

“That would be as near an absolute as possible,” Eric replied.  “As bad as ‘Earl’ was, I didn’t trust the fake dumb hick drawl on the other guy one bit.  Earl got defensive awful quick but his buddy was real nice.  No question as to who was in charge there at all.  I was hoping it was a good sign that they didn’t abandon the car for a flat tire.  Now I’m not so sure; but I have no idea what it means, if anything.  I didn’t like the way Earl was looking at the women and kids either.  Apparently, neither did Millie.  I think it’s a good thing Joel had her on a leash.”

“On the plus side, they did give us at least one good idea--aside from staying away from them, that is.  Don’t turn around, but did you see the CB antennas on all their cars and trucks?  I don’t know why none of us thought of it before but I’m sure that those would still work, and they would let us communicate from truck to truck.”

This time Eric actually did hang his head.  He’d been acting, and if not admitting it to anyone else at least thinking to himself, as if he was going to be the leader of this little expedition.  Every time he turned around, though, someone brought up something he’d missed or hadn’t thought of.

“No, I didn’t notice that, and that was a mighty fine catch, Chuck, a mighty fine catch.  Based on the cat-that-ate-the-canary look on your face I’m assuming you have an idea of where we can get some as well?”

Chuck shrugged.  “I’m willing to bet we’ll pass at least one truck stop between here and the Armory, and they’ve all got CBs and antennas.  They may even have some handheld models.”  Chuck was grinning now.

Eric smiled at this point too. 
It would be nice to be able to talk back and forth between cars, trucks, whatever.  And if CBs were working, then the truckers must be using them.
  Eric thought.  “We may even be able to get news from further away.”  He had kicked back into big-picture mode again and wasn’t sulking anymore, at least.

Chapter Eleven

Chuck was right, and less than two miles up the road was a sign for “Frank’s Food & Fuel”.  It had been one of the big chain truck stops until the recession hit a couple of years ago--but apparently ‘Frank’ was still doing ok.  Joel decided not to park right next to the front door, so that they could get five spots next to each other a small distance from both the building and the semis idling in the parking lot.

Once everyone was out of their cars, Chuck suggested they discuss barter before they went inside.  Joel mentioned some of the canned goods and Chuck offered up some of his tools.  Sheri mentioned that they actually had more dry ice than they were actively using, but Rachael suggested that they just offer to buy it with a check--or if necessary, multiple checks.

With that decided, they tied Millie’s leash to the bike rack in the shade, and in defiance of every decent practice of deal making, went straight to where the CB whip antennas stuck up over the aisle tops.  As any good truck stop will, Frank’s had almost a dozen different types of CB radios--and twice as many types of antennas--on display.  There were also a good number of boxes in stock.

The store buzzed with activity, but most customers looked to be truck drivers.  The feeling inside was actually quite upbeat; in stark contrast to the tension back in the neighborhood, and their recent run in with the flat-tire group.  A petite, brunette attendant with a nametag that read “Laurie” came over to ask if she could be of any assistance.

“Well, I’ll cut to the chase,” Karen jumped in before one of the men could pipe up.  She didn’t figure that a woman working at a truck stop would be at all intimidated by a man, that was just stupid…but talking to another woman couldn’t hurt.  “You folks take a check--or five--or is everything cash with the power out?”

“As long as y’all didn’t steal the five trucks you just drove up in, we shouldn’t have any problems taking checks.  The manager did say it was up to us, but the limit is $250 per person.  You looking to get some radios?”