Later
The next hours were surreal. They had all felt earthquakes before and never really paid attention to them. These demanded their attention. The power pulsed off and on at weird intervals. Sirens sounded all over; car alarms, fire trucks, cop cars, ambulances? They weren’t sure. Ine thing they did know; this was different than anything before.
Samantha and Gabriel tried to find out what all was happening from their cell phones but the signal was weak and unreliable. Stephen didn’t bother with his. Instead, he went to his stuff and pulled out a small battery-powered shortwave receiver. While he was digging in his bag, he saw his handheld GPS. He decided to top off the battery in it and his battery pack as well.
The information Samantha and Gabriel did get was horrific, and terrible, and unbelievable even as it was fragmented, chaotic and incomplete. Stephen was trying to get something better. The little roll-up antenna was usually good enough in the middle of the wilderness, so he hoped it would be enough down here. He wished mom hadn’t gotten rid of dad’s big antenna from the roof or the old vacuum-tube shortwave radio hooked to it. His little handheld would have to do.
He went into the backyard, searching for a good tree limb to toss the line for the antenna over. The little shortwave would usually pull in news and weather in the mountains. He slowly worked his way through the frequencies until he found one that held more than frantic gibberish. He wished he hadn’t.
He wasn’t sure how long he stood there listening to the descriptions of the devastation and the news from up and down the coast. What he did know? It was daylight when he walked out there and it was almost dark when Samantha and Gabriel came out to find him.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on. The cell signal won’t stay connected long enough, but all the news guys I can find makes it sound like this must have been the huge ass Hollywood movie quake, so it’ll be at least a day or two until things settle down.” Gabriel said when he finally caught Stephen’s attention.
“It’s going to be a lot longer than that.” Stephen said as he wiped a tear he just now realized was running down his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” Samantha asked him, clearly disturbed by his words and tone.
“Hollywood disaster movies aren’t big enough for what happened today. The quakes are still going on and …they aren’t sure how many waves there were. Three? Five? Seven? But each one was at least a hundred-fifty feet or taller.”
The three of them stood there silently trying to absorb. It was Gabriel who broke the silence.
“Did they hit LA or San Diego?”
“Yes.” Stephen said.
“Both of them?” Samantha asked?
“More. It sounds like it hit the whole coast. I’m hearing reports that the earthquakes and tidal waves hit the whole coast. San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle. All of them. Flattened, flooded and burning.”
“****! What do we do?” Gabriel blurted out.
“We pray.” Samantha said.
“Great idea.” Stephen said. He reached out for Samantha’s hand as she reached for Gabriel’s. Stephen’s sister was always the spiritually focused one of the family, especially after junior high school. It was what she was studying for her degree in. It wasn’t that Stephen wasn’t religious. His faith was strong and deep, but for Samantha it was ever-present and all-encompassing most of the time.
As Samantha’s hand clasped his own, he felt a sense of calm come over him. Gone was the near panic he felt as the words poured into his head from the earpiece on the radio. He also noticed Samantha was calm now, gone was the whiney little brat from this morning. Gabriel also seemed to steady up now as they stood there in the backyard, hands clasped, heads bowed.
He wasn’t sure what words Samantha was saying, but he knew it was a prayer for safety, guidance and clarity, or at least that’s what poured out of his own heart heavenward.
“Amen”
“Alright, Stephen. What do we do next?”
“Same basic plan. Let’s get what we need packed up into your truck. With the way everything is going to come apart down here, we can’t waste time. I don’t know what will be available as we go north, so we need to make some additional preparations. It’s too late tonight, but first thing tomorrow, we need to get some stuff for the truck, like oil, oil filter and crap so we can make sure it’s good to go. Gas cans would be good. Full gas cans would be better. Sam, can you take Mom’s car and hit the grocery store? We want stuff to cover us if it takes longer to drive north. We can’t just drive up the coast like I was planning, so it will be farther between stops and we don’t know what we can get.”
“I wish we could take Mom’s car. It’s a lot more reliable than Gabriel’s old ass truck.”
“Mom’s car was leased, so it’s not ours to take. Besides, I have no idea if there will be charging stations anywhere around where we will end up going through, and we can fit more in his truck.” Stephen answered.
“I know, but…”
“Yeah, I’d love to be able to take them both, but it doesn’t work. I’ll try to put together a list of food priorities for the shopping. Tonight, we better work on getting your stuff in order as much as you can. Let me know how I can help.”
“Well, you can do dinner while we pack some stuff.” Gabriel said.
“That I can do. We may as well use up as much of the stuff in the fridge since the power is acting up. Baked potatoes, with plenty of sour cream, butter, green onions and plenty of Machaca.”
“I assume you want another milkcrate of Machaca packets when I go to the store.”
“All they have.” Stephen smiled. He already had a huge box of the little packets of Machaca, a Northern Mexican type of dried and shredded meat, supposedly beef. He learned to make a ton of things with it as a Boy Scout, and it was a staple on his long hikes since it was light weight and packed well. He mixed it into mac and cheese, put it on potatoes, mixed it into rice, he put it into everything. The biggest issue he had was finding it. With as far north as he was, they considered Taco Bell fine Mexican cuisine.
“I’ll be in and start food in about ten minutes.”
Steven watched them walk inside. He had one more thing to do. He pulled out the GPS. He had to get in touch with Barbara and let her know what was going on.