Eventually, Reese worked his way around every worry and concern floating in his mind and scratched them each off the list. Until he got to Ellsworth’s Chief of Police, Cal Foster. He’d granted Reese, Jo, and Ben rights to sleep in the Walmart, restock, and eat their fill—provided they kept watch over the store during the night and leave town in the morning. Reese had every intention of leaving town in the morning—especially after almost dying in a full-on riot.
It was the keep watch over the store part that nagged his mind into remaining conscious. He’d given his word to watch the store, after Foster had informed him of a growing concern the rioters might return. Reese was nothing if not a man of his word. And so, he stayed awake.
He sighed. “Looks like I’m not getting any sleep tonight.”
“Neither will we, if you keep talking to yourself,” muttered Jo from the darkness nearby.
Reese heard her roll over, the fabric of her clothes scratching against whatever it was that she’d selected for bedding material. “Never thought I’d find sleeping on bags of cotton balls uncomfortable.” Jo huffed and fidgeted again.
Ben groaned. “What is it with you guys? Why can’t you just go to sleep?”
“We’re supposed to be watching the store,” Reese muttered.
“With what, Reese? Night vision?” asked Ben. “Look around, man, we could be under attack right now and never know someone was even in the building.”
“Now, boys, don’t fight,” chided Jo, though Reese could detect the humor in her voice.
Reese rolled onto his back again and winced at the twinge of pain from his shoulder. He’d try one more time to get some rest, then get up and patrol the store as best he could in the dark. With a knife. He smirked at the insanity of it all.
Sometime in the next few minutes, Ben and Jo both fell back asleep, and the regular, deep sounds of breathing became all that Reese could hear. Again.
Until it wasn’t.
A soft clang echoed from the rear of the store, toward the stock room. Reese opened his eyes and held his breath, straining to hear in the tomb-like silence. There it was again, a soft, barely audible noise that made him think of metal—maybe wrapped in cloth—striking metal.
He sat up, sacks of rice rustling under him until he got his feet on the floor and stood. Ben coughed, but didn’t wake, and Jo continued to breathe deeply.
Clang. Clang-clang.
Reese’s heart rate picked up. That wasn’t a normal sound. Someone was trying to break in the back door. Chief Foster had warned him of that, lamenting the fact that he only had five functional officers after the riot. Seven had been injured and three of those were critical. There was no way he could maintain control over the whole building and keep the crowd out front at bay with nine men, half of whom were injured. There was a real concern the three critically injured officers might even succumb to their wounds before dawn.
Clang.
Reese tried to bend down and wake Ben quietly but hit his head on a metal shelf in the darkness. Cursing, he rubbed the sore spot and tripped over Ben, tumbling to the floor in a heap.
“Alright, alright,” Ben groused. “You could have just said, ‘Hey, wake up,’ you know…”
“Will you two keep it down, a girl can’t get her beauty rest if—”
“Sssh!” Reese hissed, his face contorted by the pain in his forehead. He rubbed it angrily and knelt to whisper. “Someone’s outside the stock room hitting something…listen.”
A moment later: clang.
“Are you kidding me right now?” asked Ben in a hoarse whisper.
“What do we do?”
Reese looked where Jo’s voice had come from. “We have to warn Chief Foster—he was afraid someone would try to break in the back while his men were occupied out front.” Reese grimaced. “Someone’s got to check it out.”
Ben tried to get up, but Jo stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t—that leg has swollen up like a balloon,” she said in a trembling voice. “You try hobbling off to be the hero and you’ll only make it worse. I’ll go.”
“No, you won’t,” Reese said, trying to sound like a leader. “I got us into this mess, I’ll go. You get out front and warn Chief Foster.”
“But, your shoulder—”
“Doesn’t even hurt that bad, and I have the knife.” Reese gritted his teeth. “Go on, git.”
“Don’t gotta be rude about it,” Jo grumbled, but she got to her feet and worked her way toward the front of the store, illuminated by the arc lights out in the parking lot.
“Sorry, man,” Ben mumbled from his pallet on the floor. His hand reached out and gripped Reese’s forearm. “You know I’d come with you…”
“I know. Relax—I’ll go take a look, maybe yell a little, and they’ll probably run, especially when Jo brings the chief back.” He pulled Ben’s hand away. “Chill, man, I got this. Stay down and keep out of sight.”
Ben chuckled. “Done.”
Reese gripped his knife in a suddenly sweaty left hand and adjusted the sling Jo had made for his right arm. The sling—a field expedient t-shirt ripped off the sale rack at the front of the store—wasn’t holding together very well. “Here we go,” he muttered to himself.
Yet another obstacle had popped up to keep him from reaching Cami and Amber. He compressed his mouth into a tight line and felt his way toward the end of the aisle. Nothing was going to stop him from getting home, not tsunamis, not riots, not someone trying to break into a Walmart.
As he rounded the corner, he saw flashlights lancing
