Outage (Powerless Nation #1) (10 page)

“Maddie.” Grandpa rested a worn hand on her arm. Dee looked up from her empty plate and saw his eyebrows knit together with worry. “I shouldn't let you go. We can get by without the truck and the food.”

“It'll be okay, Grandpa. I won't go far into town, just enough to see if the truck's at the clinic. If it's not I'll turn around and come straight back.”

Grandpa shook his head. “I wish I could go with you.”

“I'll go with her, sir.” At the sound of the voice both Grandpa and Dee started in surprise. Jeremiah and Hyrum stood in the doorway. Hyrum continued, “I brought a couple of bikes so we can get there and back before dark.”

“God bless you son,” said Grandpa. “Keep her safe. She's all I have left.”

It was a nice afternoon for a bike ride, and Dee was slightly surprised when she realized she was enjoying herself. She hadn't thought she'd ever look at a bike again, let alone ride one. But the road to town was beautiful and Hyrum was good company.

“So how'd you get your nickname?”

Dee was relaxed in the warm summer sunshine as they cruised the empty road, and she heard herself answer truthfully. “When my brother Jacob was really little, just learning how to talk, he couldn't say 'Maddie,' so he said 'Dee.' It kind of stuck.”

“I didn't even know you had a brother. Is he with your folks?”

“I wish. He died about a year ago.” Dee was surprised she'd been able to say it out loud. She never talked about it. Tried to never think about it.

“That's awful,” said Hyrum, and the sympathy in his voice made tears spring to her eyes. She blinked quickly and the wind caught and blew them away.
 

“I bet you miss him,” Hyrum said.

“Like crazy, every day.” Her voice came out gritty and rough.

“What happened?”

She'd never told anyone the story. She'd refused to go to the group therapy her parents had tried to talk her into, and her friends had all known better than to bring it up around her.
 

Dee's hands tightened on the handlebars and she forced herself to speak. “He was riding his bike to meet me at my school. We used to ride home together every day after school. It's a big road, like three lanes, but there's a bike lane too. Lots of kids ride on that road, there's a school speed limit and everything. But on that day, some guy was in a hurry to get to the high school and he used the bike lane as a turning lane.
 

“Someone who saw it said the guy didn't even check to see if it was clear, he just flew over into the lane and hit my brother's bike from behind.” Dee paused for a minute. The next part was the hardest for her. It was the part that kept her awake at nights and made her throat clench tight every time she thought of it. She made herself go on. “I know he was alive for a few minutes, afterwards. No one in my family got there in time. No one told him goodbye. I wasn't even that far away, just down the road at the school messing around with my friends. I was so stupid.”

Hyrum was quiet. Even the birds seemed to have stopped chirping. The only sound was the whoosh of their tires on the road and the wind in her ears.

“I never got to say goodbye,” said Dee in a small voice.

“I've wondered which is worse,” said Hyrum. “My dad fought cancer for two years before he died. Sometimes towards the end it felt like I was saying goodbye to him every day. I feel selfish now, especially after hearing about your brother, but at the time I thought it would be better if he went quick, without suffering. I didn't think I could watch my mom or my dad go through another day.”

Dee could hear her own sorrow reflected in Hyrum's voice, but angry words still bubbled out of her. “How can you say that? Don't you know how lucky you are? I missed my last chance to ever talk to my brother. He's gone now, and he spent his final moments surrounded by strangers. He was alone, and now he's gone. How can that be better?”

Hyrum was quiet for a long time, and Dee almost regretted her harsh tone. Finally he motioned her to stop, and they pulled their bikes to the side of the road. Hyrum laid down his bike and wrapped his arms around Dee.

Dee wanted to push him away, to say she was fine. But she felt safe with him – as though his strong arms could block out her imagination and her loneliness.
 

Finally he let her go and looked searchingly at her face. “Can I tell you something? It's what I think about when I'm missing my dad the most – I know that someday I'll see him again after I die.”

Dee shook her head, “Seriously? I mean, good for you, but I gave up on God and religion a long time ago.”

Hyrum's eyes were sad. “You must feel so alone,” he said. “Would it be worth trying to believe, if it gave you hope you'd see your brother again? Not even believing, but just hoping?”

She shrugged. “It's a nice thought, but there's no way to be sure, so what's the point?”

“Getting a chance to tell your brother you love him. To hug him and tell him it'll all be okay. That's the point.”

Dee felt her throat tighten and her chest tingle. For a moment she wondered how it would be to believe her brother was in a better place somewhere waiting for her, and the only parts left of him weren't decomposing in a coffin six feet underground.
 

Even as part of her dared to hope she felt doubts creeping in. If there was a God, why had he let the world get so screwed up? Believing in a God like that was worse than not believing at all.

She pushed Hyrum away. “We need to get going,” she said tightly.

“All right, but I'm here, any time you want to talk.”

Dee was done talking. She kicked off hard from the pavement and coasted down the road alone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
S
THEY
ROUNDED
THE
curve that would take them into town, Dee and Hyrum slowed their bikes to a halt. A fire truck and a few other vehicles were parked across the roadway to form a barrier. The ladder of the fire truck was fully extended and a woman with a rifle was up in the bucket about sixty feet over their heads.

“Dang,” muttered Hyrum, tilting his head back.

A man came around from behind the barrier and looked them over, then he pointed back the way they'd come. “You kids need to get back on your bikes and go on home. There ain't no reason for you to go into town.”

Dee said, “We're not going to stay. My grandpa's truck was stolen and we came to get it back.”

The man crossed his arms over his chest. “I don't think so. No one goes into town. No exceptions.”

Hyrum spoke up, “Aw, come on Matt, you know me. It's Hyrum Searle and this is Milton Kerns' granddaughter. We're not here to cause trouble, we just need to get Doc. Kerns his truck back.”

The man shook his head and said, “Rules is rules.”

Dee remembered him now. He was one of the fire fighters she'd seen at the power plant. She tried desperately to think of a way to change his mind. Then it hit her. “You know me! Do you remember when I helped clear the road for the fire-trucks? The day the power went out?”

Matt nodded. “I thought I recognized you. That was some quick thinking all right. Not sure why that would change anything now though.”

Dee knew exactly what she was going to say. “I'll tell you why – because if I hadn't helped you clear the road with my truck and then taken people home after the fire, I wouldn't have run out of gas on my own way home. And if I hadn't run out of gas, that man wouldn't have been able to steal the truck and bring it back here. The way I see it, you owe me to let us in to look for it.”

The big man uncrossed his arms and scratched his head. “Well, you've got a point there. I guess I might be able to let a couple of kids in for a few minutes.”

“We won't be long,” assured Hyrum. “Just long enough to get the truck and get out of here.”

Matt squinted at the sun. “Town's got a curfew now. You have to be gone before dark or you'll spend the night locked up. We've had some trouble with break-ins and such. And you'll have to take the truck out over Old Lookout Road. This road stays blocked.”

“You got it,” said Hyrum at the same time Dee said, “Thanks.”
 

Matt straightened and his voice was stern. “I'm trusting you both. And if I hear one word of you trying to take anything out of here besides the truck, I'll track you down myself and take it out of your hides.”

The streets were empty and quiet as Dee and Hyrum coasted through the business section of town. Windows of stores were broken out and boarded over, and trash and litter were everywhere. “Where is everyone?” Dee felt like she should whisper.

“No idea,” said Hyrum in a low voice. “I've never seen it so empty.”

“It's creepy,” said Dee. “Like we're being watched.”

When they got to the clinic the parking lot was full of vehicles parked randomly throughout the lot, but they saw the clinic itself was as damaged and deserted as the other businesses. Dee scanned the lot quickly, and her heart sank. Grandpa's truck was nowhere in sight.

She felt like shouting curses. “Why can't I catch a single break?”

“Let's go look inside,” said Hyrum.

“How's that going to help?” asked Dee.

“Maybe there's an address or something,” he replied. “Come on, it can't hurt.”

Inside, the clinic was a shambles compared to when Dee had last seen it. Chairs were knocked over, papers and trash strewn around. Behind the front desk, file drawers had been pulled out, contents dumped on the floor.
 

“This is crazy,” said Dee. “We're not going to find anything here.”

“Just hold on,” said Hyrum. “You haven’t even tried to look.”

Dee snorted. “Whatever. I'm going to wait outside.” But as she made her way back around the front desk, her eye fell on something half concealed by a pile of papers. She pulled a clipboard out and peered at it.

“Hyrum, come look at this,” she said excitedly. “I think I found something.”

It was the registration clipboard people had to fill out when they walked in. From the dates Dee could see they'd stopped taking patients over a week ago, but... she turned a couple of pages back and found the day she wanted: June 24. Now she looked at 'Reason for Visit.'
 

They'd never put up with that in the city with everyone paranoid about privacy, thought Dee.
Come on, come on...
“Here it is!” she told Hyrum excitedly. “Sally Markham Fife, reason for visit: C-section.” Dee read further over and gasped. “Oh no. Oh no.”

“What's wrong?” said Hyrum.

“Look,” she pointed. Next to Sally's line on the chart were three letters in someone else's handwriting. “DOA,” Dee said out loud. “Dead on arrival.”

She leaned on the counter tiredly. “It was all for nothing,” she said finally. “The truck's gone, Sally and the baby are dead. What's even the point?”

Hyrum sat on the floor next to her. “Let's just talk it through,” he said. “Where would you go if you were that husband?”

Dee shrugged. “I dunno.”

“You told me the husband said God sent them the truck. So he's religious, right? Maybe he went somewhere to pray. There's a Catholic church not far from here.”

They walked back out into the afternoon sunshine and blinked to clear their eyes after the dim interior of the clinic. Dee looked around. “You've got to be kidding me,” she said flatly.
 

The bikes were gone.

Hyrum ran to the street and scanned both directions, but it was no use and they both knew it.

“Come on,” she said, starting to walk back the way they'd come. “Forget the church. It's going to take us hours to get home as it is. Let's go.”

Hyrum grabbed her arm, “Can you humor me on this? I've just got a feeling about the church. I think we're supposed to go there.”

Dee looked up into Hyrum's eyes. He was serious.

“Fine,” she said, shaking off his arm. “We'll go for a minute, but that's it.”

It took a lot longer to cross the town on foot, and Dee felt the silence of the empty streets was even more oppressive. Now she was sure they were being watched.

As they approached the church, they saw three tall, decorative crosses on the front grounds. A crowd was gathered near the foot of the crosses, blocking their view of what was happening. Hyrum saw someone he knew and he filled him in.

“The Sheriff caught a thief this afternoon,” the teenager said. He looked about Hyrum's age and Dee guessed they knew each other from school. “This guy has a lot of nerve,” the young man continued. “He walked right into a house and came out carrying a grocery bag of food. In broad daylight.” he added in disgust.

Dee hopped up and down trying to get a glimpse of the thief. There was finally a break in the crowd and Dee got a good look at him. He stood at the base of the central cross with his hands cuffed behind the back of the cross. As Dee watched, one of the women in the crowd spat on him. Unable to wipe his face, the spittle dripped slowly down his cheek. Dee locked eyes with him and stared in horror. Though he was thinner than he'd been a few weeks ago when she'd last seen him, there was still no mistaking him. It was Mason.

“So how long does he have to stay here?” Hyrum was asking.

“Just for the night. Sheriff wants everyone to get a good look at the thief.”

“Then what?” asked Hyrum. “Are they going to run him out of town in the morning?”

“No,” she heard the young man next to her say. “In the morning they're going to shoot him.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Y
OU
CAN
’
T
BE
SERIOUS
,” Dee snapped. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t shoot someone for stealing food.”

Another voice near Dee piped up, “That’s what I’ve been saying. He’s just a kid and he hasn’t even had a trial.” It was an older man in a jacket and he looked vaguely familiar.

“You’re wrong, Max. We’ve gotta set an example. Show folks what happens to thieves.”

“But public executions for minor infractions? That’s taking it too far.” The murmur of the crowd increased as people voiced their opinions.

Dee pushed her way to the front and stood in front of Mason. “What is going on?” she demanded.