Page 4 of Wait For Me

2

Tessa

She backed out of the driveway and onto the dead-end road at the top of the hill. There was only one other house up on the ridge. The larger property to the right was owned by Alan or Carter, something like that, and his wife. She couldn’t remember their names. But he was a nice enough old man. He’d spoken with her husband a few times when they first moved in, but then Landon deployed and she hadn’t done more than wave when they both happened to be bringing out the trash cans at the same time.

Open fields of dirt and sagebrush dotted with rugged pine trees lined the hill in either direction. It was easy to pretend they lived somewhere rural like their old house in North Carolina until the road made a sharp curve at the base of the hill, spitting them out into a cookie cutter subdivision of newly built houses with shared plastic fences.

Turner Street was blocked by a stalled white Suburban in the middle of the road. A woman with huge Botoxed lips and dyed blond hair stood next to the open driver side door holding her cellphone in the air and calling out to the man in his suit and tie who had the hood of his Hyundai propped open in his driveway. Both of them turned to wave her down when Old Blue’s loud engine roared onto the street.

“Are their cars sick too?” Emily asked.

What is happening? Tessa gripped the wheel hard, torn between the desire to help and the overwhelming need to make sure her son would be safe. She maneuvered the truck on to the side walk and cranked the window down as she passed. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

The woman stuck her middle finger in the air.

“I said I’d be back.” She rolled the window up and mumbled what she would have liked to say under her breath so her daughter wouldn’t hear.

Emily was already laughing as she bounced along in her car seat. “Can we turn the music on? I want rock-n-roll.” Tessa reached for the dial, knowing Landon’s station was already tuned in. Nothing, not even static, played back no matter what she did. She pulled her hand to her lap. If the radio signal was gone and the cellphones weren’t working, what did that mean for all communications?

She focused on what she could control. Once she got Mason and they were safely back home, everything would be okay. The military would have something in place for a disaster like this. Landon will know what to do. Three more days. She repeated the words like a mantra.

The onramp for the interstate was a congested mess of stalled cars and vehicles that were on the shoulder trying to get around them. She glanced at the overpass before the hill sloped down. Even if she could get up there, she wouldn’t be moving fast. Old Blue bounced over the median, crushing the bushes under the oversized tires, as she turned to the side road to bypass the traffic. People poked their heads out of businesses, holding their cellphones pointed at the sky and gawking at the commotion on the streets.

“Why is everyone’s car sick?” Emily asked as they passed another hood popped open with a frustrated woman trying to jumpstart her battery using a handheld charger. Tessa bit her lip as a motorcycle flew by them in a hurry, weaving around the traffic and stalled vehicles up ahead as if they were practice cones.

“Not all of them are.” A Chevy Silverado backed out of the traffic jam and its tires squealed as it flew down the alley with a hard right turn. It felt strange to watch them drive this way, but she made the turn down the alley after the vehicle without a second thought. “Daddy’s truck is fine.”

“But his music is broken,” Emily pointed out in all her infinite wisdom. “Just like the T.V.”

“Hey now. It’s going to be okay.” Tessa glanced at her and smiled. “Remember when we had the hurricane warning last year in the old house and the power went out for a little while. That’s all this is.”

“Mommy!” Emily screamed.

“Close your eyes.” Tessa’s hand clamped around her daughter’s head, pulling her close to her chest, and she accelerated out of the alley past the open intersection. Power cables danced along the street sending sparks flying that caught with the flames rising from the twisted metal heaps of the collision at the broken light. “Sing me a song, alright?”

Tears burned Tessa’s eyes as she drove past the blood-soaked woman who stood sobbing over the charred remains of a body lying on the asphalt. There were no sirens, no flashing blue and red lights, but people were running out from the 7-11 gas station and trying to help pull another man from the metal carnage of what was left of the vehicles.

“A, b, c, d…” Emily’s voice shook as she tried to keep singing.

“It’s okay now. You can open your eyes.” Her knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel and she blinked hard to clear her vision.

“Why was that woman bleeding?”

“She was in a car accident.” She choked back a sob, praying her daughter hadn’t seen the burnt flesh of the body on the ground.

Emily turned her face to the floor and watched her shoes as she bounced them back and forth. The sequins caught glimmers of the sun and reflected them across the dashboard. “I’m really glad that Daddy’s truck can’t get sick.”

Tessa cut through the parking lot of a grocery store to avoid the main street and drove the side road that led to the baseball fields behind the school. Parents were already running along the back fences as they rushed to the front of the building. Their frightened faces tore at a primal fear deep inside of her. Just get Mason and take the kids home.

She pulled Old Blue up to where the pickup line normally started, but an empty security car and a line of orange cones had blocked off the entrance. At least there was parking on the street. Tessa backed up and settled the truck in next to the sidewalk. The mob of panicked parents was coming closer. She unbuckled Emily and carried her on her hip as she raced ahead of them.

There was already a crowd in front of the school and they waited, checking their phones for service and standing on tiptoes to see what the holdup was.

“Give me my daughters!” a woman screamed from somewhere near the double glass doors.

“If you wait your turn in line, ma’am, we’ll get them out in a minute,” the principal tried to placate her.

“Maggie, Katie,” the woman continued, ignoring him. “Mama’s here. Come on outside.” The crowd shifted anxiously. The anger in the woman’s voice ignited their own fear and lips pressed together in thin lines, each parent struggling with whether to lash out in panic like the crazed mother up front was doing or to wait for word on what was going on.

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