“OK, son. We need to move now. We need to get out of here and fast. I need you to push the second cart and stay right behind me. OK?” Cooper pulled Jake to his feet.
Jake wiped away the tears with the sleeve of his blue flannel shirt and tried, in vain, to plant his feet firmly on the ground. His knees wobbled a bit as he said and voice was balky, “Yes… OK… Dad.”
Cooper planted his son’s hands firmly on the handlebar of the cart and then grabbed the other cart. He raced to the front of the store, moving at the breakneck speed that an eleven year old could keep up with. He looked back several times to make sure Jake was keeping up. His son’s visage was a vision of child-turning-man determination. His face was screwed up tight, every muscle taut, as he navigated the cart through the store. Cooper knew where his son had picked up such focus.
They spirited past the other customers, having to move around some that still lay scattered in heaps on the floors, frozen in fear. Others were more difficult, the ones that had come back into action and either paused to stare at them in confused amazement, or those already intent on scouring the shelves for the items they were looking for. No one said a word to them, nor did anyone try to stop them.
Cooper would not risk waiting in line to check out, as the rows of those in line pivoted in near perfect tandem to look at him as he raced the cart up. He pulled up next to one of the checkers from an empty lane. Taking all the cash he had in his wallet out and leaned in to hand it to her, “Your co-worker is safe at the back of the store. But, someone should go help her. This should cover my groceries and then some.” She stared back in dull shock and absently took his money.
As he and Jake left the store, Cooper could not believe what had just happened in a store he had shopped at for years. A store where the most tension he’d ever witnessed was the occasional embarrassed customers’ reaction when their credit card was declined. Dranko was right; the threads are fraying very quickly. And, so much for the famous friendliness of the Northwest offering us much protection from that.
Chapter 5
Gray, dimpled sunlight reflected off the windshield of the truck as Jake and Cooper drove home in muted silence. Cooper kept looking at his son, but he only stared ahead, blankly, unblinking. Cooper thanked small miracles that his son had not seen the shooting, but he knew enough from his time in Iraq that mere proximity to an event like that was traumatic; especially to a child.
When they pulled up to their house, Cooper brought the truck to an abrupt stop, followed by a jerk on the emergency brake. Instinctively, he pulled his son close to him and hugged him. Jake welcomed his father’s embrace. He could feel his father’s muscular arms through his black fleece pullover. This reassured him. The potent mix of shock, relief, fear, and adrenaline overwhelmed him and he let loose with uncontrolled sobbing. Cooper rubbed his son’s shoulders and whispered the best words of comfort he could offer.
The ring of his cell phone shattered their relative peace. He dug it out of his pocket, “Yeah?”
It was Dranko, “You here? I thought I heard the truck pull up?”
“Yeah, just outside. What’s up?”
“You better come up, right now.”
“On my way”, he said, jamming the cell phone back into his pocket.
He turned back towards Jake, “I’m needed upstairs. We’ll talk later. Let’s go.”
He pulled Jake along with him out the driver’s side door. Cooper swept his hand over the truck bed full of food and other supplies as he moved to his front door. “Jake, I want you to stay at our front door and keep an eye on the truck. If anyone approaches it, I want you to shout to me upstairs and then come inside the house quickly. OK?” Jake muttered his agreement and took up his post, a child sentry with tear-stained cheeks but a set of serious eyes and firmly set mouth.
Once inside, Cooper bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When he reached the top, he turned into the bedroom on his left to find both Lisa and Dranko gathered in conference, talking rapidly. He looked quickly at Elena, who still breathed fitfully, prostrate on the bed.
“What’s going on?”
“We thought you should know the latest,” Lisa answered for them, turning toward Cooper. “My God, what happened to you,” she asked excitedly after seeing the blood spattered on his clothes.
Cooper looked surprised, having forgotten his appearance in his rush to get inside. “There was a situation at the store. I had to put a man down who was threatening to kill a clerk over the groceries.”
“People are snapping,” Dranko exhaled. Lisa shook her head in disbelief.
“I will tell you more later, but what’s going on here?”
Lisa recovered, “OK. First, Elena’s condition is roughly the same as when you left. Her fever is up a few tenths of a degree, which is worrisome because it’s only been an hour plus.”
Dranko continued, “Second, we have several more illnesses in the neighborhood and another death.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Ellingsworth, the widower on 58th. But, there’s more. Just twenty minutes ago, a pickup full of rowdy teenagers roared through shouting about the end of the world and to get what you could, while you could. They threw an empty bottle against a street sign, but nothing more.”
“On Hawthorne, there was a burned out Subaru. It looked like some stick-up robbery, but no one was around anymore. No bodies either.”
“Damn,” Dranko responded. “Everything’s happening faster than even I would have guessed. We better…”
“Help!” a high-pitched yell came from Jake down below. Cooper was charging downstairs before the sound had faded. He cursed himself for failing to reload his pistol since the store. Dranko followed close on his heels. When he saw Cooper drawing his pistol on the way down the stairs, Dranko reached to the holster at the small of his back and drew his .45. “I’m on your six and I’m armed,” he yelled as much as reported to Cooper as they hurried down.
Cooper reached the landing and saw his son crouched off to the side of the door. “What do we have?” he asked.
Jake’s voice was firm as he pointed out the door, “Pickup, full of guys. Swarmed around ours.”
Cooper leaned so that he could see outside the open door. Sure enough, they were clustered around the old, rusty GMC, he counted about six, ranging from a young blonde boy with moppy hair that couldn’t have been fourteen to the presumed leader, a tall, muscular, twenty-something with long, dark hair, hanging onto his shoulder. He would have passed for a Samoan if he had more bulk to him. They were hooting and hollering and starting to pass the supplies from the truck back and forth. One of the boys shouted, “Go long!” as he threw a can of peaches to his sprinting friend. The boy missed the catch, and the can splintered as it hit the ground, pouring syrup and peach halves onto the asphalt.
Cooper grimaced. He tilted his head backward towards Dranko, “Let’s take it slow. I think they will leave OK. But, be ready, just in case.”
With that, Cooper straightened himself up. He knew a little of dealing with a group of rowdy young men. He conjured up every inch of height and lowered his voice another octave, reflexively slipping into what his Drill Instructor had called ‘your command voice.’ He kept his right hand on his holstered pistol, just behind his right hip. He strode out the front door, with long, firm steps.
“Good morning, gentlemen!”
As one, a half dozen heads swiveled in his direction. Cooper noted that two of them, the ersatz Samoan and another on the older side, a blonde that stood barely five and a half feet with a red flannel shirt draped over faded blue jeans, reached their hands instinctively to the small of their back. Armed, most likely. Movement in the cab caught Cooper’s eye as well. For the first time, he noticed someone moving on the driver’s side. There was no mistaking the long, thin silhouette of a rifle barrel being raised just over the door’s window. Damn. He knew Dranko had taken this in too as he heard him flank out to his left as Cooper continued walking forward. Dranko’s moving out to give our opponents the widest possible gap between them and to split their angles of fire.