Tim Washburn - Powerless

Noah and Emma are climbing and swinging on the new fort Carl had assembled a month or so ago. Her heart breaks over how thin they look after only a week. The two kids from next door have joined in on the fun. To watch them, you wouldn’t know the world is swirling in turmoil. They lob a daily barrage of questions she has no answers for. Their biggest concern is when they might have to return to school.

The children adapted quickly to not having electricity or running water, much quicker than Ruth and Carl. If it weren’t for the lack of normal comforts and the dwindling supply of food, not having the kids plopped in front of a television or computer would be refreshing. Until reality sets in.

Carl sneaks into the kitchen and wraps his arms around her, tenderly kissing the nape of her neck. At five feet seven inches tall, Ruth had gained ten pounds after Emma’s birth despite almost daily trips to the gym. She’s lost half that in a week.

“That looks yummy,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “Smells even better.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” They’re working hard to maintain some normalcy.

She turns to face him, still wrapped in his arms. She reaches a hand down and rubs his stomach. “Your little paunch is disappearing. Hell of a diet plan, huh?”

Carl smacks her on the butt. “That’s not a paunch.” At six feet tall he’s a shade over the two-hundred-pound mark. He has little time for the gym, working long hours as an architect on several buildings along the ever-expanding Dallas skyline.

Ruth slides a stray sliver of her dark hair over her ear and pushes out of his embrace, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Seriously, Carl, what are we going to do? Do you see any way we can make it to my parents’ house?”

“I don’t see how.” He takes a step back. “There’s maybe a quarter tank of gas in both cars, and after walking around a bit, the roads are jammed with stalled cars. I just don’t see any way.”

“We need to do something, Carl. We’ll be out of food in a day or two.” She pauses, then says, “Damn, I wish we had some way to get in touch with them. I know Zeke would come get us.”

“Honey, they know where we are and if there’s any way Zeke can make his way down here he will. We need to hold on until the power comes back on or he comes.”

“What are we going to eat in the meantime?”

“Mrs. Chlouber down the street’s a big gardener and she cans a bunch of her stuff. Maybe we can find something around here to barter with.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask her if she needs anything. Or she might be willing to sell me some, since most of her family lives out of state.” Carl slips out of the kitchen on his way to the front door.

“What’s she going to buy?” Ruth says to her retreating husband.

Carl shrugs and steps out the front door.

The Marshall home

Zeke stirs awake with the sun, the first rays painting an orange tinge to the slate-colored sky. His hand drifts down and he works his fingers through Lexi’s curly fur as his brain processes his upcoming trip. How can you make a detailed plan when you don’t have all the details?

The birds start their morning chatter, their singsong melodies drifting through the open window on the wings of a refreshing morning breeze. He turns to stare out the window, hoping for some spark of creativity, or if not a burst of creativity—a well-laid plan delivered to the windowsill through some type of divine intervention.

The sill remains empty, so he shrugs off the covers and pads into the kitchen on autopilot. His parents are still asleep, unusual because his mother is almost always the first one up. He shakes the coffee can and the last of their meager coffee supply rattles around near the bottom. He rations a small portion of the grounds into the coffee filter and uses a plastic bucket of water to fill the reservoir. He pushes the start button and nothing happens. He slaps his forehead and mutters, “Stupid.”

He shuffles to the back door and Lexi escapes to do her morning business. He returns to the coffeemaker and dumps the coffee grounds back into the can. To make coffee he would need to relight a fire. More trouble than it’s worth. Instead, he grabs a couple of maps from the junk drawer in the utility room. The ink on the cover page is faded but the paper remains crisp from lack of use. Zeke pushes the table closer to the window and spreads the maps out. It takes him a moment to get oriented, not having used a real map in years.

He joins the two maps along the Oklahoma–Texas border and searches for the roads leading from Durant to Dallas. His finger traces along the red and blue lines, and he decides Route 75 south to Sherman is the best way. Trailer the horses to Sherman and saddle up the horses there for the trip into Dallas. He does a quick mental calculation of the distance and how much fuel remains in the pickup. Sherman is going to be as far as he can safely go and expect to return home, especially pulling a loaded horse trailer.

Which leaves him about sixty-five miles to trek on horseback. He could drive it in a little more than an hour, but by horse it’ll take the better part of two days to get to his sister’s house. The two-day timeline would mean pushing the horses fairly hard, but not nearly as hard as the return trip will be with four extra people. Two days down, probably three days to make it back to Sherman—and that’s only if nothing goes wrong. Nearly a week. That much time sitting astraddle a horse has his ass already protesting.

The estimated length of time only works if everything goes perfectly. A week without electricity will have created some desperate people. Desperate for anything they can get their hands on, and three horses on the hoof will have some of them thinking.

Now that he’s settled on a route, he grabs a pencil and begins making a list of the items he’ll need for the trip. At the top of the list is weapons, which he has in abundance. You don’t go to war, see and do the things he did, and not immediately arm yourself when you get back to the real world. What human beings can do to one another during war is reason enough to load up on firepower. Most returning soldiers, used to being gunned up most of a twenty-four-hour day, arm themselves when they return home. Call it a crutch or a pacifier or whatever you want to call it, but the soldiers call it survival.

Number two on the list is food, for both him and the horses. He recalls seeing a couple of fifty-pound bags of oats in the barn, enough for the horses, but his options for food are much more limited. Not willing to take any of the meager stores away from his parents means he will be foraging for food along the way. Something he’s done before and can do again.

The third and last thing on the list is water. He studies the maps and tries to pinpoint water sources about every five to ten miles between Sherman and Dallas. The area is lousy with small creeks and lakes, meaning water for the horses won’t be much of an issue. But he hates like hell having to tempt dysentery fate by drinking the runoff from fertilized fields and lawns. He either needs to pack a bunch of water or find some way to purify what he finds.

Zeke glances from the map to see his mother shuffling into the kitchen, the robe he bought her last Christmas cinched tightly at her waist. Her hair appears grayer from the strain of his father’s recent heart attack and the upending of normal life.

“Morning,” he says. “Want me to start a fire for coffee?”

“Sounds good, son,” she says, coming to a stop at the table. “What’s all this?”

“I’m trying to plan the trip to Ruth’s house,” he says, standing from the chair and making his way toward the fireplace. The nights haven’t been cold enough to keep the fire going all night so they only light it to cook on during the day. He grabs a few pieces of week-old newspaper, the last of the stack, and shreds it into long strips. He stacks a few pieces of kindling on top of the paper and rakes a match across the rough surface of the brick.