The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 (9 page)

Elliot obediently took the paper and pencil. Ash strode with purpose to the middle of the store, where canned goods lined entire aisles. Most people were going for the sale items, and it honestly wasn’t such a bad idea, Elliot mused. If they cooked it right away and covered it with foil or plastic wrap, it could survive at least a few hours at room temps.

Ash didn’t appear to be taking chances, choosing cans of Vienna sausages, spam, chicken and tuna, and vegetables. He didn’t grab as much as Elliot expected him to, only about five cans of each, but as Elliot wrote down prices in the little light he could find, he understood why. There wasn’t a lot on the shelves to begin with. It seemed people weren’t leaving as much to chance as Russ had predicted. As they moved from canned goods into the snacks aisle, Elliot wondered if chips were all that great an idea since they took up a lot of space and held no nutritional value, but Ash bypassed all of that and tossed into the cart mixed nuts and a couple small jars of macadamias, as well as a big bag of pistachios. Pretzels followed, as did a bulk-weight bag of trail mix. And Ash cleaned them out of beef jerky in all flavors.

“That stuff is expensive,” Elliot said absently.

“It’s also vacuum packed, doesn’t require refrigeration, is loaded with protein, lightweight, and can be evenly distributed among clothes and other supplies,” Ash muttered, talking low so no one nearby would hear.

Duh,
Elliot thought. He should have figured that out.

A few aisles over, a glass jar hit the floor, and two women started shouting at each other. Ash and Elliot exchanged glances, and by mutual silent agreement, picked up the pace. The next row contained drinks, and Ash chose a box of lemonade powdered flavoring packs measured for standard water bottles. Raising a curious brow, he said nothing, but Ash answered the unspoken question.

“Riley. Might have something to look forward to now and then.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ash shook his head. “Not here.”

Elliot followed him to the bread section, where to his surprise, Ash put a couple packages of pre-made cinnamon rolls, a box of Ho Hos, and some oatmeal cream cookies in the cart.

“Not the best breakfast, but they’re fast. Let’s get some granola bars and get the fuck out of here.”

The screeching of the women in the shouting match had been mitigated by store employees, but Ash didn’t seem to care. His eyes darted to everyone they passed as he hurried to the checkouts. Elliot looked over the list of prices, hoping he’d gotten them all correct as Ash spoke to the woman in front of them.

“I’ll give you fifty bucks if you let us go ahead of you.”

With the line four customers deep, all of whom pushed full carts, Elliot was surprised when she agreed. He wasn’t sure he’d have had the patience to wait any longer than necessary. He understood why the door manager was sweating so profusely. Even on a pleasant, sixty-degree day, the temperature inside the store had climbed without generators and the dead freezer section to help regulate it.

Ash got the guy next in line to agree to the fifty bucks as well, but the one next up refused. So they waited, and Elliot wondered how Ash could be so free with his money here when it had been clear at Charlotte’s there wasn’t a lot to be throwing around. He’d wished he had a stash of cash to help them out. He’d never had to worry about money; it was always a card swipe away and in abundance, so wondering if they would run short was a new, uneasy sensation in his gut. Ash, however, didn’t seem overly concerned.

The checker was a woman in her mid- to late-thirties, also a manager, who tallied the lists of prices customers brought as the customers bagged the items. She had the sales tax down pat and efficiently totaled each customer out as quickly as she could while thanking them for their patience. Given that her line was the only one open, and the cash drawer was ajar and nearly overflowing with bills, Elliot could easily imagine the potential for deterioration of the situation. When it was their turn, he made sure to thank her for allowing people in to stock up.

“I don’t want my neighbors coming to my house for dinner, so I’m just making sure they can make their own.” She winked, fingers clacking away on the oversize buttons of her calculator. There was a battery-powered outdoor light clipped to the post bearing the checkout lane number, illuminating her work area. The heat from the bulb added to the discomfort of the still air in the store. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and the longer they were there, the more uncomfortable Elliot got. No wonder Ash was flipping cans into paper bags at a speed that seemed impossible.

The manager, whose nametag read Sheila, chuckled. “You want a job? We put all our baggers on flashlight duty.”

Ash smiled at her, though he continued to scan the store, keeping tabs on their surroundings. “Used to have a job as a checker, when I was in high school.”

“Even better,” Sheila said. “I could use a break.”

“I bet,” Ash said sympathetically, though his eyes still darted, always assessing. Elliot could tell he was tense despite his fluid movements. Elliot caught himself staring and looked away, thankful the heat in his cheeks would be less visible in the darkened store and blamed on the stuffy room.

Pushing the cart around the end of the counter, he stepped to Ash’s side and helped him bag food. Despite the establishment’s sprawling square footage, the walls were beginning to close in on him, and he really didn’t want to have another freak out like he’d experienced on the Interstate, especially not in front of so many strangers. Nor could he afford another fadeout like he’d had at the park that morning.

“Can you tell me where the nearest payphone is, Sheila?” Ash asked.

She laughed. “Phones are down, right? No one in town has any service, so I don’t know who you’d call.”

“I’ve got family out of state,” Elliot said. “I’d like to let them know I’m okay, and sometimes payphones have enough juice to make a call or two if their switch station has a generator.” He parroted Ash’s facts from the night before.

She frowned thoughtfully, finishing up their tally and tapping the calculator to bring up their total. “One forty-three sixteen is your total. I think maybe there’s one at the mall.”

“That’s still open?” Ash asked, seemingly surprised. “I figured they’d be out of business by now.”

Sheila shook her head. “Bass Pro keeps it going, though a lot of stores have shut down. It might be open, depending on if their generators haven’t failed them like ours did.”

Ash nodded, smiling as he loaded the paper bags of merchandise into the cart. “We need to go to Bass Pro anyway. Thanks for the tip.”

“You’re welcome.”

They concluded the transaction, Ash shifting from foot to foot while he waited for Sheila to count out his exact change from the three fifties he used to pay. She apologized for the quarters due to running low on singles.

“Keys, and I’ll start loading the trunk,” Elliot interrupted before Ash could say forget the change, and Ash tossed them to Elliot. As soon as he emerged into the bright sun, Elliot took a deep breath and hurried to the Audi to load their haul. He was nearly done when Ash walked up.

“God, those people have no clue.”

The screech of rubber on asphalt pulled their attention to the nearest intersection as a truck raised blue smoke from locked wheels, the driver trying in vain to brake and avoid the car that had careened into his path. With dark stoplights, people were generally being careful, but it appeared not everyone was behaving.

The truck’s front bumper connected solidly with the rear quarter panel of the car, spinning it halfway around as the people inside could be heard screaming until they came to a jarring halt.

“We have to go,” Ash said forcefully, and Elliot made no argument, tossing the last bag in the trunk and shoving the cart in the corral next to where they’d parked. Ash wasted no time, driving around the store to the back and exiting via the delivery entrance. It took him to a frontage road, which he followed to the darkened stoplight in front of the Five Fingers Mall, proudly declared from a sign at the turn into the parking lot.

Ash drove almost recklessly through the nearly empty parking lot, coming to a stop in front of the entrance to the Bass Pro Shop, the mall’s main attraction. Unlike the grocery store, no one was visible inside, and there was no sign of life anywhere. The quiet was eerie, and Elliot shivered.

“You know what’s kind of odd?” he mused. “Haven’t seen a single cop. Don’t they usually come out more in times like this, not less?”

Ash shrugged. “A lot of them are on backup duty for the prison. I bet if we were to go over to the electronics store or Walmart, there’d be at least a couple directing traffic and keeping an eye on possible looters.”

Elliot shook his head ruefully. “That’s so stupid. Here, lemme steal this TV, but I have nowhere to plug it in that might work.”

“Maybe they think they can sell it later or something. Who knows?” Ash shut off the engine and got out.

They approached the glass doors, beyond which were visible several variations of fishing boats in the outdoor shop’s main showroom. But the doors didn’t glide open, and Ash tried to wedge his fingers in the miniscule crack and force them apart to no avail. Cursing under his breath, he pointed, and Elliot could see the deadbolt lock in the crack between the doors. It was fully engaged. Cupping his hands around his face, he peered into the store, hoping to see movement inside. Without a clue as to where a payphone might be, Elliot had hoped at least the mall would be open, but it didn’t seem everything would work out on this day.

A sign he hadn’t noticed before was posted beside the doors:
Closed until further notice. No loitering. Premises watched by closed circuit camera.

Elliot chuckled derisively, and Ash walked up behind him, reading over his shoulder.

“Cameras running on what fucking power?” Ash groused, shaking his head. Elliot saw his entertained expression reflected in the glass.

“Maybe there’s a hamster on a wheel running for his life and powering the lone camera that works in this entire parking lot.”

“That would have to be a big-ass hamster,” Ash grinned, playing along. He trailed a finger across the back of Elliot’s hand and tilted his head at the car. Elliot followed, the glare from the sun making him squint once they passed from the shade of the entrance’s massive overhang.

“Haven’t you seen the size of the fish they keep in the tanks in these stores? The hamster is the size of a beaver.”

“Who is feeding the hamster?”

Elliot shrugged. “Should we call animal control? Maybe they’d intervene.”

Ash chuckled and started the car, not bothering with his seatbelt while they circled the building slowly, scouring the exterior for something or someone useful. Maybe one of the other stores was open. Elliot was so intent on scrutinizing for signs of life, he missed it.

“There!” Ash practically shouted, slamming on the brakes. Elliot kept himself from kissing the dash with a stiff arm, trying to see the reason Ash was excited. The engine gave a high-pitched whir as Ash reversed quickly and parked in the movie theater’s fire lane. The marquee proclaimed a movie that had been out for several months, and Elliot shivered, overcome with a sudden, overwhelming feeling of abandonment. When Ash pointed, his misgivings vanished.

“I could kiss you!” he exclaimed, throwing the passenger door open and striding purposefully to the payphone, yanking the receiver off the cradle. The buzz of the dial tone made him laugh with a touch of hysteria. He shoved a hand in his jeans pocket, looking for quarters to feed the machine and realized he had nothing.

Ash thrust his hand out, palm open to the sky, several quarters gleaming flatly. “Exact change from Sheila.” He grinned.

“God bless Sheila,” Elliot said, grinning back. He deposited fifty cents and dialed his father’s satellite phone number from memory. A recording came on and said if he wanted to complete his call, he’d need to deposit another dollar fifty in quarters. Groaning, Elliot scooped the rest of Ash’s change from him. “Check the console of my car and see if there’s more. Otherwise I’ll only have a couple minutes.”

“Why can’t you just give him the payphone number and have him call you back?” Ash asked. “Or call collect?”

Elliot was too busy paying attention to the clang of coins causing the line to click to do more than point at the “no incoming calls” sticker affixed above the number pad. He vaguely remembered Brian trying to freak him out by telling him about payphones when he was younger and how antiquated technology had been before Elliot was born. He’d explained some of them were one-sided to prevent drug dealers from using the numbers anonymously in conjunction with pagers, which only doctors used now. A few seconds later, the strange ringing of a satellite phone began, interrupted by shuffling, a crash, and Elliot forgot all about the workings of payphones beyond that this one brought him in contact with his parents.

“Elliot? Is that you?” The anxious voice of Beth Davenport washed over Elliot.

“Yeah, Mom. I’m okay.” His knees went a little weak. He’d known they were likely fine, being on a cruise ship far away from New York, but there was no worry quite like an irrational worry. Speaking to her went a long way toward soothing his shredded nerves.

“Oh thank god!” she exclaimed. “Steven! It’s Elliot!”

There was more rustling, and Elliot’s father came on the line. “Son, are you okay?” It was rare when his father showed much emotion aside from what helped him on a global scale as the CEO and president of Davenport Oil, but here, in this empty parking lot, Elliot heard Steven Davenport’s relief all the way to his marrow. He nearly sagged against the payphone.

“Yeah, Dad. I’m fine. I helped a friend drive up to Auburn, New York, to get to his sister and her ten-year-old son when the city lost power.” Elliot swallowed, waiting for his dad to decide if that was idiocy or genius.

“You should have gone straight home and waited for Brian to come get you, but I suppose it’s better you’re out of the city sooner rather than later.” Was that it? His dad wasn’t going to pick apart his decision consequence by consequence like he usually did? Elliot’s shoulders dipped as he lost a truckload of tension. “Listen, son—”