“Good question.” Ethan mentally checked off several suspicious events. Communications went out, his jet lost power, cell phones weren’t working, and the stadium had lost power. The non-working cell phones were cause for the most concern. The other issues could be explained away due to mechanical failure, and since power outages were common on the Gulf Coast it wasn’t a cause for concern. The real issue of coordinated cell phone outage lent great concern to Ethan.
He guessed the reason, a scenario so frightening and horrible to comprehend that he didn’t want to accept it. If he was right, most of the people in the stadium were already dead. They just didn’t know it.
Chapter 6
“Where’s the nearest women’s restroom?” Ethan asked. “The one your mom might have used.”
Kinsey looked left and right, searching for the familiar sign of a block figure in a dress. “There,” she said, pointing. “It’s the one my mom said she was going to.”
“Go check if she’s in there. It’s possible she might have been knocked unconscious by falling debris. While you do that, I’ll get ice.”
“You’re not going to leave me, are you?” Kinsey asked. The thought crossed her mind it would be an opportune time for Ethan to slip away among the chaos. “You don’t even know me or owe me anything.”
“Kinsey,” Ethan said, “I don’t have a family, but you do. And if there’s one thing I regret in life it’s not taking the time to have one. There was always a mission for me to go on, or training, or any number of things. I never found the right time. After a while, I sorta forgot about it. What I’m trying to say is that you have a family, and I will help you anyway I can.”
Ethan purposely left out how he had a fiancé who was expecting his child. Tragedy struck when she contracted a virus, ending up in the ICU. While she lay intubated in ICU, the doctors told Ethan they had two choices: save the baby, or save her. In the end, both were lost, and Ethan never recovered, throwing himself into his work and becoming one of the most competent pilots in recent history.
“If I’m not here, I’ll be at the hotdog stand. Now get going. Check every stall, and if it’s locked break it open.”
Ethan didn’t expect Kinsey to find her mother in the restroom. If she had been in there, one of the most fortified parts of a stadium, and if she survived, the first thing she would have done was go find her kids. Her being a casualty was at the top of his concerns.
“Kinsey, one more thing,” Ethan said. “I’ll look around for your mom too. What was she wearing?”
“She had on a tangerine—”
“You mean orange?”
“Close enough,” Kinsey replied. “An orange top and jeans. She was also wearing a scarf.”
“What color hair does she have?”
“Like mine, a little darker. More like dark blonde. It’s shorter, above her shoulders. She’s forty-six, and has a few more pounds on her than me. I don’t mean that in a bad way. She looks great.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for anyone fitting the description. Go check the bathroom now. I’ll get ice also.”
Ethan dodged the panicked fans, screaming and running wild in all directions. When an opening appeared among the throng, he quickly side-stepped through the crowd. As suspected, the concession stand was deserted. He stuffed as many packets of peanuts as he could into his pockets and searched for bottled water. He opened the cabinets under the counter, searching for a backpack. As expected, he found one. He emptied the contents on the floor then jammed in as many bottled waters as he could. If they were here a day from now, this concession stand would have been looted, because when hunger took over people would revert to their basic needs of survival – food, water, and shelter.
He took a plastic tub out of the sink, rinsed it, then filled it with ice.
“She wasn’t in the restroom,” Kinsey said running up to Ethan.
“She must be somewhere close. Let’s get back to your brother, stabilize him, then I’ll search for your mom.”
“I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she is,” Ethan said without much conviction.
He needed to stay calm for Kinsey, because Lord knew, he was as worried as she was. Ethan needed to get out of the stadium as quickly as possible before the place became a living hellhole.
In three days it would be worse than what happened to the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Stranded people, surrounded by muddy flood waters, teeming with bacteria. They had no food, very little water, no sanitation, and the government was no help for days. The people had been left to fend for themselves, just like these people at NRG would be, except there was one glaring difference between the Superdome and this stadium.
The people at the Superdome were eventually rescued and provided basic necessities by the government and charitable organizations. They had been transported home or sheltered at FEMA housing.
The 330 million population of the United States wouldn’t be so lucky, except for the ones who died quickly. The ones remaining would slowly starve to death or succumb to disease and a myriad of other issues. Clean water would be scarce. Hospitals would shutter their doors. The infrastructure of the United States would collapse, and transportation would cease to exist. Money would be useless, and only the healthy ones would survive, but survive for what? Unimaginable hardship without an end in sight?
Ethan worried the most regarding the country-state responsible for unleashing an EMP on the United States. If those powers had no regard for human life and suffering, what empathy would they have for the survivors?
Millions would die and others could be imprisoned, and Ethan Crossfield had no plans
