“Need help loading things? I’m pretty full, but there’s room in the backseat.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much, you can’t even …” Will shuts up and opens the door on the side of the RV, disappearing inside.
She gets out of the SUV and looks around for a long moment, unable to help herself even though she knows they’re alone. It’s too ingrained now. She can’t imagine not looking around. When she’s satisfied again that there aren’t any of them nearby, she goes inside the RV to see the young man shoving food into an army-green duffel. “That backpack and those jugs of water,” Will says, concentrating on his work.
She grabs the items Will indicates, though she has to leave one jug for the next trip. When those things are loaded, Will trudges to the SUV under the weight of the duffel, waving off the help she offers.
She studies a picture of an older couple hanging on the wall. It shows two well-tanned sunbirds with the wide, too perfect grins of people with false teeth and money to burn.
“The RV isn’t mine,” Will says in a quiet voice when he comes back for the last load. “They were trapped in a school with me and a bunch of others in Colorado.” His eyes are hollow and haunted. “When things went south, they said I could come with them. Me and Jake, a friend of mine. Two more couples, a few kids. We were packed in here like sardines and so miserable …” He shoulders another bag as his breath hitches. “We should go.”
They go.
Will is quiet, carried away by whatever terrible memories fill the space between the school he was trapped in with so many people and the empty RV they leave behind.
20
Then
We had a sit-down dinner that night, having cooked our food over a fire Dan built in the fireplace. It was a pain having to use tongs to pull the pots out of the flames, but luckily the farmhouse had a few cast iron pots and pans for us to use. We had boiling hot soup, biscuits from a mix, green beans, canned peaches, and some toast with homemade jam spread on top.
Perhaps we were ridiculous for eating so much, but the peril of food shortage wasn’t really on our minds. We were tired, terrified, and traumatized and the food helped us all go to bed without screaming or crying.
I thought about what was in the basement.
I tried not thinking about it at all.
We took showers and washed our clothes, wearing what we found in drawers in the bedrooms. Owen wore dinosaur footie pajamas and played with the toys his father found in a room with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Dan wore sweatpants and a very baggy sweatshirt. Ivy had pants with the word Juicy written across the ass and she strutted around like a runway model until Lana and I were breathless with laughter.
Dan went to bed without comment.
We three ladies dragged the king size mattress out of the bedroom and plopped it on the living room floor. We added another mattress from one of the smaller bedrooms and piled them with every pillow and blanket we found. None of us wanted to sleep in the bedrooms separated from the others except Dan, apparently. He had already pushed a heavy dresser in front of the window in the bedroom he and Owen took. The ladies and I locked the rest of the bedroom doors to make sure we wouldn’t have any unpleasant surprises from that front.
“Do you think one of us should stand guard?” Ivy asked.
We’d blocked off the doors, covered the windows and made sure they were all locked. I didn’t think any of them could pick a lock and if they tried to get in, they’d have to break a window, which we’d hear. “I think we’ll be okay for one night.”
We settled in, our backs propped against the couch as Ivy thumbed through TV stations, trying to find news. Most of the channels had been given over to an emergency broadcast that repeated itself in endless, frustrating loops until Ivy found a rerun of the Office for us to watch.
“How are the boys?” I asked as Lana texted.
“Safe. Scared but safe. Your mom and dad are keeping them busy with card and board games. They lost Wi-Fi which means the end of the world is, indeed, upon us.” Her voice was light enough, but I heard the underlying terror in her words. Our boys were still halfway across the country from us and we were holed up in a farmhouse with strangers. “I told them we’d be there in a couple days. A week at the most. Right?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. Nothing will keep us from getting there.” I prayed there hadn’t been any snow in the mountains. This time of year, it was a possibility, though I couldn’t remember seeing any upcoming storms when I’d checked before our flight. If it snowed, we’d just find ourselves a snowplow or we’d head south until we found a road that was clear enough for us drive. “Tell them to hang on.”
“I did. They said they loved you and Mom Mom and Pop Pop love you too.”
“Send them a million heart emojis.”
Lana snorted.
From her mattress, Ivy said, “Don’t suppose I could borrow your phone? I lost mine in the accident and I haven’t talked to my daughter since Thursday.”
“Sure.” I passed it over and she poked out the phone number with shaking fingers. Her eyes went soft when someone answered and she said, “Honey? It’s your ma. Yep. Yeah, how are the kids?”
As her conversation went on, Lana leaned into me, her eyes droopy.
