sitting on the floor against the walls, and trying to get close to the televisions. The line at the bathroom is getting long and the mood is already pretty bad in there. The guard folks keep saying that supplies are coming, but nothing about how long this will go on. I’d say we need to be pretty low-key about the fact that we have food though.”
“Ok, so what do we do?” Mom was getting wound up. “And by the way, how are we going to pay for all the stuff we charged at Wal-Mart?”
Dad just looked at her and quietly said, “If we need it, it won’t matter.”
Dad spent the rest of the morning going through the giant pile of stuff they had bought, and packing it into six backpacks. We could almost tell which pack was ours just by the size. By the time he was done, the tent was down, the sleeping bags were packed, and the packs themselves were leaning up against the back side of the station wagon. The car itself was basically empty. Then, Dad put the full packs back into the car, keeping them low so that from a short distance, the car still looked empty.
He rolled up all the windows except for the driver’s, and told us to settle on the grass. He switched the both radios on and sat with us on the ground. “Nothing to do but wait,” he said. That being the case, I fell asleep until Dad told us to move out of the sun. The morning mist had cleared away, and we were baking in the clear May sunshine.
The radio was talking about mop-up operations in China by US Marines, and my Dad was scribbling something on the same pad my mom had used. She was standing in the shade fifty feet away, leaning against the fence and talking on her phone with an attitude that looked very agitated from our own shady spot.
“Who is Mom talking to, Dad?” Lucy asked.
“Probably everyone we know. I told her to let people know where we are, and to tell anyone in cities to get away if they can. They probably think she’s gone crazy. That’s why she’s waving her arm around like that.”
Mom kept calling for a few more minutes, until we heard her say, “Hello? Hello? Louise? Hello?” She pulled the phone from her ear, and looked at the display. She got to her feet, and walked back over. “Signal is gone.” She said.
“Let me see that, Honey.”
Mom handed Dad the phone. He messed around with it for minute, and gave it back to her.
“Not even the hint of a bar,” Dad said. “I wonder what that means.”
The tone of the announcer on the radio changed. Dad jumped up and leaned in the window to turn up the volume. We could hear it clearly as the announcer was saying “…just received reports of a large explosion in Washington D.C. They’re telling us it was a nuclear explosion, and… Wait, our network has lost contact with D.C.” The announcer was silent. Then he started again, “Folks, I don’t know what is happening, but we now have reports of nuclear explosions in D.C., New York, Chicago, and… Where? And Los Angeles!” He was breathless now. “We assume it was a coordinated terrorist attack. We are trying to get more information… The news wire reports claims from multiple groups, and another claim via the internet that this was China’s insurance policy. Now we’re hearing warnings of multiple missile launches from East Asia… North Korea… Northern China… Heading this way.”
The radio continued a string of frantic warnings, but we were no longer listening. A wave of distress rolled across the schoolyard as people ran from the building. Guardsmen got on loudspeakers and tried in vain to keep the crowd calm. People were jumping into their cars, and trying to leave. The gate was closed, but one guy drove his El Camino through it and plowed right into one of the two Humvees parked just outside. Guardsmen scattered and reformed around the other Humvee. It quickly became clear that other cars were planning the same maneuver and the Guard ran across the road to