“We should at least see if anyone has any information…” Reese suggested.
“I doubt if any of these clodhoppers knows much about the outside world. Look at this place,” Jo groused, kicking at an empty 2-liter bottle of Coke on the ground. “Looks like the day after a CCR concert.”
“A who concert?” Ben asked.
“Hush,” Jo said, waving off Ben’s question.
Someone up by the police barricade shouted indistinctly, and the crowd surged forward, then retreated when the police closed ranks.
“Whatever we do, we should do it soon—I’m thinking this situation is reaching critical mass,” Jo observed. “Like, pretty quick.”
Reese took a step, then another, ignoring the screaming muscles in his legs and back. Watching the crowd would not help him recover from the day’s activities, nor would it get him any closer to home. He had to act, he had to do something…before he fell over and passed out.
The angry shouting and demands for food, water, and answers increased and set Reese’s teeth on edge. The people he gently tried to move through were hungry, thirsty, and scared. It was a dangerous combination that made the back of his neck prickle. By the time he reached the front of the crowd, he was forced to shove people out of his way—it was like being in a well behaved mosh pit. Every step he took, he also took an elbow to the ribs or some other part of a body collided with him. He clenched his jaw and shouldered forward, unable to see whether Jo or Ben had followed.
It didn’t matter. He wanted answers, and he’d report back whatever he discovered. “Excuse me,” he said, trying to keep the young man next to him from throwing an arm to his face.
“It ain’t right!” the man yelled, ignoring Reese and focusing on the cops. “Let us in!”
“Yeah! Let us in!” another voice shouted a split second before the crowd took up the chant. The noise echoed across the parking lot, reverberating against the storefront.
Reese felt the crowd pulse and move in rhythm with the words, taunts, and shouts. Then someone placed their hands on his back, and shoved. He tumbled past the edge of the crowd into no-man’s-land and ended up on his hands and knees near one of the squad cars.
He knew the police officers were about out of patience when he looked up and found the business end of a semi-automatic pistol pointed at his face. The cop holding the weapon yelled in a commanding voice: “Freeze!”
That one word silenced the crowd. There was a three second vacuum between the last chant and group realization that a cop had pulled his sidearm free. The rest of the cops drew their weapons and aimed out into the crowd. A woman screamed, and before Reese could even think to raise his hands, the rear section of the crowd streamed away, running for shelter.
“Uh, hi,” Reese said, slowly raising his hands and maintaining eye contact with the cop currently aiming at his head. “I don’t mean to bother you, officer, but is there any chance we can go shopping?”
The cop just scowled at him.
Shadows danced across the parking lot, revealing the angry mob had dwindled to a concerned crowd. And even that group was shrinking fast, coming closer to a simple, confused knot.
Another officer pounded over, his sidearm conspicuously still in its holster. “Glivens, what the—what’s going on over here? Where’d the crowd go?”
The man holding the gun on Reese—Officer Glivens—shrugged, then pointed at Reese. “This guy shows up and everyone leaves.”
The second officer sighed and hooked his thumbs under his utility belt. “Well, what’s your story, stranger?”
“My friends and I left Mount Desert Island this morning—we’re trying to get home…”
“I’ll say—aren’t we all?” asked the second officer in a nasally New England twang. “Where you from? Willing to bet it’s not anywhere nearabouts.”
“Charleston, officer—South Carolina. We just want to go home.” Reese looked at Glivens. “Can I lower my hands?”
“I suppose that’s the least we can do for you, on account that you just up and dispersed the crowd we’ve been trying to wrangle for the last three hours,” said the second cop. He reached down a strong hand and hauled Reese to his feet. “Name’s Foster. Cal Foster. I think I’m the one in charge of this circus.”
Reese shook hands with Cal and glanced around. “I’m sorry, but my friends and I are exhausted. I’d love to—can you tell me if there’s anywhere we can rest for the night?”
Foster looked around. “It’s a big parking lot.”
Chapter 18
Lavelle Homestead
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cami sighed and leaned back in her Adirondack chair, propping her feet up on the weathered leg rest. She took a sip of lukewarm water and closed her eyes, hoping the rhythmic sound of cicadas and crickets, interspersed with the odd owl, would lull her to sleep.
Behind her, out on the main road, another car raced down the street, headlights briefly illuminating trees as they rounded the corner and disappeared toward the neighborhood exit.
It was the fourth one this hour. She glanced at her watch, hitting the dial to illuminate the little screen. Almost 11 o'clock at night. The number of neighbors who raced out of the neighborhood had dropped since the afternoon, but she was still surprised that so many people left so late at night. She took another drink from her water and adjusted her hips, waiting for sleep to take her.
“Where do they think they’re going?” she whispered to herself.
Soft footsteps inside the house and the creak of the screen door broke the cadence of the insect symphony. Cami rolled her head to the side. "Can't sleep, honey?"
Amber shut the screen door
