The Journal: Fault Line (The Journal Book 5) (9 page)

***

Christine slid her hand into Trevor’s as they
walked back to the van. “You’re amazing, you know that? You’re
getting exactly what you want.”

I hope so
, Trevor thought looking down
at the petite girl next to him.
I sure hope so
.

They were loading unopened cases into the van
when the squad car pulled in beside it.

“Hey, Chief, glad you could make it. Come on
inside.” Trevor led the way into the front of the store. The blinds
were still down and secured, and only one bank of lights was on.
Trevor pulled one of the baskets out and rolled it toward the
police officer. “Help yourself, Marty. The perishables like bread
and milk are out here, and I’ll set aside some cases for you by the
door.”

Once the chief had filled his basket with
milk, bread, eggs, and few packages of pasta, he met Trevor at the
back door by the van.

“You’re sure about all this?” he asked.

“Absolutely, Marty. There’s a couple cases of
mixed vegetables, soups, and boxed dinners. If I recall, you’re a
Beam guy, right? Here,” Trevor handed over a box with six big
bottles of alcohol and a six pack of beer.

When everything was secured and the trunk
closed, the police chief came back into the storeroom to find
Trevor still loading boxes into the van.

“Thank you, Trevor. My wife is going to be
relieved. Here is my personal cell number. When you’re ready, call
and remind me and I’ll get another officer to assist me with crowd
control.”

***

When Trevor and Christine finished unloading
the van into neat piles at the Spring Hill store, they reloaded it
with perishables destined for Main Street.

“We need to keep some of this out for you,”
Trevor told her.

“I’ll get some tomorrow. Right now I’m having
fun, so don’t worry about it,” she answered, wheeling a full basket
of bread and donuts right into the large van. She pushed her blonde
bangs out of her eyes and left a streak of dirt across her
forehead.

“We’ve done a great deal today,” Trevor said.
“It’s almost six. I say after we unload this stuff we go to dinner.
How does sushi sound?”

***

“That was wonderful, Trevor. I had no idea
that place was here. I love sushi, I just wish I knew how to make
it,” Christine said, unlocking her front door. “Would you like a
glass of wine?”

“Sure, then I need to get going. I think.” He
muttered. She handed him a glass with the red blend he’d brought
the other night. “I didn’t see your car in the drive.”

“It’s at the shop getting that back window
replaced,” she told him.

“Well if you need a ride anywhere, let me
know,” he offered.

“Thanks, I’ve got my dad’s car if I need it.
It’s got a big storage area, what if we use both vehicles tomorrow?
We could get more done.”

“That’s a great idea, Christine,” he said
hesitantly. “I really enjoyed having you with me all day. We work
well together. It feels like I’ve known you a lot longer than a few
days. I’ll see you in the morning at Main Street.” He reached out
for her and she came to him willingly. He kissed her deeply then
reluctantly left.

Christine leaned her back against the closed
door smiling and sighed.

Christine was up early,
dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt. The temperatures
took a sudden drop overnight and she was cold. She bumped up the
heat and turned on the coffee maker, wondering when Trevor would be
by, then remembered she was supposed to meet him at the Main Street
store. After pouring the freshly brewed coffee into a thermos, she
grabbed her purse and her dad’s keys.

***

“I sure hope that’s coffee!” Trevor said,
eying the thermos in Christine’s hand. He stretched his back and
put his jacket back on.

“Trevor… I j-just saw a g-gun on your belt…”
Christine stammered.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve had a permit to carry for
years, ever since I got robbed one night at closing. I carry a lot
of cash around at times. Chief Marty thought it prudent if I could
defend myself. Does it bother you?”

“No, it just surprised me. Having a gun makes
sense.”

“Have you ever shot a gun before? I could
teach you,” Trevor volunteered.

Christine giggled. “My daddy likes guns, all
kinds of guns. He taught me to shoot by the time I was ten, which
my mom hated. By the time I was fifteen I was doing competition
shooting. Years ago he took some classes about repairing guns,
thinking it would be a good backup profession someday.”

“Competition shooting? You must be really
good.” Trevor felt embarrassed that he had offered to teach her,
thinking she was probably better than him.

“It’s been awhile. I usually shoot with my
dad when he comes home on rotation, though we didn’t get around to
it last time. And Trevor, I actually feel safer knowing you’re
armed. When we were holed up in that hotel, I heard gunfire. To me
it was stupid to be shooting each other when some of us were
fighting Mother Nature for our lives.” She shuddered, remembering
how frightened she was. Quickly changing the subject, she said, “So
what are we doing today?”

“I’ve been restocking this store with the
perishables we loaded up last night. I started early because that
stuff couldn’t sit out for long. I’m just about done. There are
some boxes by the back door, if you can load those in the van, I’ll
finish here and we can head over to Exit 31.”

***

“It feels like weeks since I’ve been in here,
not days,” Christine remarked as they made their way to the front
counter of the next store.

“I know what you mean.” Trevor took her hand
and turned her toward him. “I feel like we’ve been together for
months. I’m really comfortable with you, Christine, I want you to
know that.” He let go of her and coughed to cover his nervousness.
“Okay, first things first. We need to stock you up. Do you have a
freezer at home?”

“I just use the small one with the
refrigerator. My dad put a deep freeze in the garage, but it isn’t
plugged in.”

“Good! Bread freezes fairly well, and so does
milk and cheese. Eggs stay fresh a long time in the fridge. I want
a good portion of this stock at your place. Let’s load you up
first.”

“Why are you doing this, Trevor?”

“Christine, I like you. I mean I
really
like you, and I’d like to believe we will be spending
a lot of time together. This food will make things much easier for
both of us.”

They loaded the SUV with garbage bags filled
with bread and baked goods, crates of milk, and boxes of eggs,
leaving more than half still on the shelves and in the cooler.

“What next?” she asked, overwhelmed with the
amount of food in her car.

“Now we load up the step-van with boxes of
canned goods. When we’re done, I’ll follow you back to your house
and help you unload,” he said. “Then it’s back here and get ready
for the first giveaway.”

***

“What are we going to do with all that juice,
Trevor? We can’t possibly drink all of that before it starts to
ferment.” Christine was now beyond overwhelmed, looking at the box
filled with fresh orange juice.

“It will freeze, just like the milk, and just
like the milk, we need to take some out first so it doesn’t rupture
the container when it expands,” Trevor said. The refrigerator was
near full with bread, lunchmeats, milk, juice, butter and eggs,
dozens and dozens of eggs. The big freezer in the garage was
humming away, more than half full, with pizzas, frozen dinners,
snacks, more lunch meats and bread, with room reserved for the milk
and juice.

Trevor opened the back of the step-van and
started unloading boxes onto the handtruck. He maneuvered his way
to the back of the garage and settled the boxed food against a
wall.

“
More
food?” Christine exclaimed.

Trevor just smiled and kept unloading. He
knew deep in his heart and soul that even if things didn’t work out
between them, Christine would let him have back anything he wanted.
He also knew it was safer here than at his store.

“Look at it this way: you won’t have to go
grocery shopping for a long time.”

She didn’t see the crates of dried pasta,
pancake mix, salt and flour. And all the boxes of wine she had
filled the day before.

***

At the Exit 31 store, they stacked a dozen
boxes of canned goods by the front counter. On top of the counter,
Trevor lined up the cartons of cigarettes, while Christine made
room on one of the shelves for the liquor bottles. Then Trevor
started phoning his employees.

“They’ll be here in an hour, Christine,” he
said after he’d called the last one. “We need to push some of the
remaining warehouse stock out of sight and we’ll be ready.”

“Isn’t the rest of this for them?”

“No. I want the perishables and the frozen
items taken. That’s the idea here, to not waste what could go bad.
This stock,” he waved his arm toward the rest of the unopened
boxes, “is mine. I’m not giving it away. When I reopen, I can still
use it. Tomorrow we take this over to Spring Hill.”

“That makes sense,” Christine agreed.

“I’ve got one more thing I need to do. Pull
your car around to the gas pumps and fill the tank. I’ll do the
same.” After he filled the van, he slipped a heavy yellow plastic
sleeve over the pump handle that read “Out of Order”, and attached
a padlock. He did the same for all six pumps.

“The pumps aren’t really empty, are they?”
she asked.

“No. People are used to following and
believing signs, though, so I’m hoping this will be diversion
enough to save the rest of the fuel for us.”

“You’re really smart, Trevor. I would never
have thought of that.”

***

At exactly 4:00pm, Trevor’s employees began
showing up, parking in the rear as they were instructed. As they
gathered in the main section of the store, Trevor wandered through
the group and passed out pay envelopes to those he hadn’t paid
yet.

“I’m sure those of you who worked the last
couple of shifts know we had really good sales. As much as I like
that happening,
why
it happened isn’t good. The earthquake
that hit the New Madrid has shut down all shipping coming in from
the west. People realized this was a crisis, and started crash
stocking just like they would if we had an ice storm coming. Beer,
wine, chips, and smokes were the first things to go. If I stay
open, we would be completely sold out in a day, so I’m shutting
down the stores until shipments start up again.” The crowd of
employees stood in stunned silence. “For the last two days we’ve
been condensing the stock, especially the perishables. All of you
have been good employees, and rather than have some of this go bad,
I want to share it with you.

“I know you are all over 21, so as an early
holiday bonus, I’ve saved out a bottle of booze for each of you,
and there are a dozen cartons of cigarettes, one for each of you.
If you don’t smoke or drink, take it anyway and trade it for
something you do want. Take everything, guys, I need the freezers
and coolers empty!”

Riley spoke up first. “Take? You mean
just
take it, Trevor? We don’t have to pay for it?”

“That’s right, Riley. I want everyone to take
what they want out of the coolers first. Be reasonable and share.
It might not be a lot, but it’s more than you had ten minutes
ago.”

***

“That was interesting,” Christine said when
the last of the employees had left. “I was thinking there would be
more... I don’t know, conflict? Fighting over the food? They were
all very polite and reasonable.”

“Yeah, they were, weren’t they?” Trevor
smiled. “I spent time and effort forming a good team, and today it
really showed. I’m proud of them. I hope tomorrow goes as
smoothly.”

They walked to the back door, and Trevor
turned out the lights, then pulled the main switches for the pumps,
the coolers, and the main store to ‘off’ on the power box, leaving
the back room with power to keep the keypad active. He locked the
door, changed the code, and they drove back to Christine’s for
dinner.

***

Christine sat on the couch, her back against
Trevor and his arms draped casually around her as they watched the
late news flicker across the big screen. More statistics scrolled
across the bottom, the death and injury toll increasing every
minute.

“This whole thing still has me reeling,” she
commented. “I feel like I’ve gotten a lifetime of common sense
education in less than a week.” She turned within the circle of his
arms. “I wouldn’t admit this to anyone else, but back at the hotel,
I didn’t even know my keycard wouldn’t work without electricity! I
think that’s because my—
our—
generation has never known
anything else. Most of us can’t even comprehend what would happen
if the power was gone. When you turned the breakers off at the
store, it was only then I realized the pumps need power to work,
and how lucky I was to find a gas station on my drive home that had
a generator. I thought it was so they could have lights. What would
happen if the power was really gone? And then I got to thinking
about those people, hundreds of thousands of people that still
don’t have electricity and might never again.”

“The main thing is that you
are
thinking now. This disaster has opened your eyes to how fragile our
comfortable world really is.”

“You’re good for me,” she said with a
sigh.

Trevor kissed her temple. “I guess I should
get going. We have another big day tomorrow.”