Tim Washburn - The Day After Oblivion

Before either Melissa or Lauren can answer, Hannah shouts, “They’re kidnapping us!”

Melissa steps across the seated students and feels for Hannah’s mouth, clamping down hard and whispering into Hannah’s ear, “Don’t say another word. Is that clear?”

Hannah nods, but Melissa’s hand remains clamped over the girl’s mouth.

“We’re playing a game,” Lauren says.

“What’s she talking about kidnapping?” the man asks, peering through the metal grille.

“It’s all part of the game,” Lauren says. She removes her palm from the light and points the beam at the man’s face. “Now kindly move along.”

The man peers through his splayed hand, trying to see beyond the light. “Funny game, sounds like to me.”

“It is fun, isn’t it, guys?” Lauren asks.

A few of the children answer in the affirmative.

Lauren waves the beam down the corridor. “Please move along, sir. We’re just trying to break the monotony.”

“That I can understand,” the man says before shuffling down the corridor.

Melissa removes her hand from Hannah’s mouth and leans in, whispering, “Try that again and I’ll leave your ass here. Do you understand?”

Hannah nods and Melissa pushes to her feet and walks over to raise the screen. The students pile out in twos and threes and Lauren hands the flashlight to one of the students. Melissa pulls the door down and locks it, leaving the key in the lock.

“She’s going to be trouble,” Melissa whispers to Lauren.

“I’ll talk to her. Let’s just get through tonight and tomorrow morning.”

Once they return to Gate 15, their small piece of territory, Lauren masks the flashlight with one of her sheer blouses and lays it on the floor. There’s just enough light to see without it leaking much beyond the group. Pleased with the lighting results, Lauren is horrified when a dozen opening zippers pierce the silence. She and Melissa quietly work through the group telling the students to be slow and methodical with the zippers. A one-time occurrence is explainable, but if it happens again, it might raise a few eyebrows. Once the kids have finished and settled down for the night, Lauren kills the light, and she and Melissa lie down and stretch out on the floor. After several moments of silence Melissa searches the dark for her friend’s hand. “Are we doing the right thing?” she whispers.

Lauren gives her hand a squeeze and whispers her reply: “It’s the only option we have.”

Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport

Lauren startles awake when a hand grips her shoulder. Momentarily disoriented, a red light clicks on and she looks up to see Stan McDowell kneeling beside her. “It’s time,” he whispers. Still discombobulated, Lauren whispers, “Why’s the light red?”

“It’s a flashlight we keep in the cockpit—never mind, I’ll explain later. We’re out of here in five.”

Lauren rolls over and wakes Melissa. Lauren clicks on her muted flashlight and together they fill the two suitcases with the kids’ clothing and shoes. The food and water were packed last night, and they lift those suitcases up onto their wheels. Melissa and Lauren work through the sleeping teenagers, waking them up, a finger to their lips to enforce the silence.

McDowell returns with his own suitcase and a shotgun slung over his shoulder. He pulls Melissa and Lauren close. “I don’t know if they’re watching the main entrances and exits, but we’re going out the back way.” He leads the way over to the jetway of Gate 15 and unlocks the door, holding it open while the rest of the group passes. He steps through, eases the door closed, and relocks it.

It’s chilly and many of the kids are shivering. McDowell squeezes through the pack and leads them to the door where cabin baggage is checked. He pushes the door open and holds up his red flashlight, lighting the stairway. Once everyone has descended, he herds the group away from the terminal. McDowell stops and turns, trying to get his bearings. He had spent most of the week imprinting a map of the airport and surrounding area in his mind. He knows that at the far end of the facility, near runway one-seven, a construction project had been under way and a portion of the perimeter fencing is missing. But trying to locate the exact area in the dark is difficult. He clicks the red-lensed flashlight on every few minutes to keep the group together. The children are quiet—the only noise is the scrape of shoes and suitcase wheels on the tarmac.

After several minutes of walking across the taxiways, McDowell leads them to a national shipper’s warehouse situated on the other side of runway one-two. They traverse the length of the building and McDowell calls the group to a halt. “Let’s take a short break. Grab a couple sips of water if you need it.” McDowell clicks the red flashlight on and places it on the ground in the center of the group to allow them some light. Some of the kids stretch out on the pavement, trying to absorb the residual heat left in the asphalt.

“How far is it to Texas?” one of the girls, Amanda Brooks, asks. Fifteen, with long blond hair, Amanda hit puberty early and she’s much farther down the path in the breast department compared to the other girls— a fact that elicits some unkind comments on occasion making Amanda very self-conscious.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lauren says. “We’re taking this one day at a time. We get there when we get there. Worrying about the distance is wasted energy.”

Amanda cocks her head, thinking about the answer. “Okay. But it’s a long way, right?”

Melissa sighs. “Yes.” She can’t tell the kids how far it is because she doesn’t know. Stan had estimated the distance at a thousand miles plus, meaning if they average twenty miles a day the trip could take about two months. Tell that to a teenager who thinks a week is a long time and you risk mutiny before even beginning.

Stan leans down to retrieve the flashlight. “Everyone ready?”

There are a few groans but the teens scramble to their feet. McDowell leads them around the corner of the building and they cross the final runway. Dawn is breaking on the horizon as the group clears the perimeter fence. Across the street is a series of looted stores, including Home Depot and Target. Now on the main road, McDowell leads them south. He’s been to Minneapolis more times than he can count. If they can jog west to Interstate 35, one of the few highways to bisect the country from north to south, it’s a straight shot to Dallas and beyond.

At East 77th Street, McDowell leads the group west. Two miles farther on they hit I-35. An hour and a half later they’re in Bloomington. There are other people traversing the highway, mostly families who look at the large group and shake their heads. McDowell calls another halt and, while the kids rest under the watchful eye of Melissa and Lauren, McDowell searches through a looted grocery store for any items left behind. He returns ten minutes later, empty-handed. “There’s nothing edible left,” he whispers to Melissa.

She nods and prods the students to their feet. If they stretch it, the food they have might last a couple of days, but that’s not a very encouraging thought when facing a journey that could last for months. Melissa falls in behind the kids as they trudge down the highway. They shuffle past dead cars, some empty, some not. The first few incidents when they encounter the dead are fraught with hysteria, but that, too, fades as the miles pile up. Eventually, the children learn to quit looking.

An hour later they pass over the Minnesota River and enter Burnsville. They pass another Home Depot, a ransacked strip mall that was once brimming with people as they shopped for electronics, shoes, or office supplies, and another looted Target. McDowell tells the group to continue on as he ducks into the Target. This time he bypasses the food section entirely and walks straight to the sporting goods area and finds what he’s searching for. He grabs a plastic bag and loads it with fishing gear before grabbing a handful of fishing poles. He hurries from the store and catches up with the group farther down the highway. He distributes the fishing poles to some of the kids and crams the gear into his suitcase. Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes. No reason not to supplement their diet with a few fish along the way.