Sitting around the kitchen table, Bev made a quick lunch. It was late in the afternoon, but they had been busy and had not eaten yet. She simply warmed up a big can of ravioli and pulled out some bread and butter. Bev, Rich and Elizabeth sat and ate lunch. They saved some for Sarah. When she got up, surely she would be hungry.
Elizabeth asked for dessert and Bev handed her a pudding. Rich acted like he was going to steal it from her and she squealed in protest. “How about you just give me a little bite?”
“Great-grandpa, you can lick the top,” she said. He laughed and said, “Ok, that’s a deal.” She handed him the foil lid and ran off with her treat.
Bev walked over to the radio and turned it on. The call was received and she was starting to feel better about the trip Roger was making. She figured that he would be the one who could get the job done as fast as possible and as safe as possible. Her only concern was how Linda, her ex daughter in-law, and her new husband would react to him taking Kayla out of there. Although she knew if it became an issue, he would be able to get something worked out.
Sarah had gotten up and walked into the kitchen and kissed Elizabeth. She sat down and Rich warmed up her ravioli and put the plate down in front of her. He buttered up a piece of bread and set it on a napkin, along with placing a glass of tea down next to her plate.
She slowly ate and they could see she was deep in thought still. She finally just said it aloud. “I hope Erik is ok, I’m praying nothing bad happened. I thought he would have been home or been here by now.”
Elizabeth said, “Mommy, where is Daddy?”
“On his way here,” she said. On his way here, she hoped.
Erik was still in the elevator and was literally going crazy right now. He had no idea how long he had been in there, had taken several short naps and was thirsty and hungry. His voice was weak from yelling for help. He urinated and defecated in a corner of the elevator.
What in the hell is going on out there, he thought. Why the hell hasn’t anyone rescued me? He had flipped the service cart on it’s side and tried to find a hatch in the ceiling and found it but it would not open. As time passed, he was thinking nuclear war, tornado, power outage or some other natural disaster, but wasn’t sure what it was that happened.
He paid attention to sports and had watched a lot of horror movies, but he too was really just a sheeple who didn’t mock the preparedness society, but saw it as a waste. He never got into doomsday movies. He didn’t really know what an EMP was and he sure as hell didn’t know the effect it was going to have on him.
The darkness of the car alone was really bearing heavy on his mind. He kept thinking he felt something touch him and he would jerk away. The slightest sounds were amplified and he would scream for help believing the noises were from rescuers. The air was stale and the odor was overwhelming from the urine and feces.
The evening was approaching and soon it would be time to light some candles. Sarah had stayed at the table and played a few games of dice with Rich and Bev. Elizabeth either ran around chasing the cats or played with a few toys kept around the house for the great-grandkids. They were waiting for six o’clock, which should be the next time that Roger checked in. In a normal world, he would have been there already, but that was taking highways and cutting through major cities, all of which would have been very dangerous.
Bev asked Rich to start the generator and run it for a couple hours. He went into the attached garage and opened the garage door a crack and started the generator. He wasn’t going to screw around with back fed circuits so he had a transfer switch installed and he switched it over. The door from the garage to the house was well sealed, but he still had a fan by the muffler to act as an exhaust to vent as much as he could to the outside. He stood there for a bit and smoked a cigarette. He went back inside and heard the ham radio crackling.
Erik had finally managed to get the handle off the floor buffer and was using it to pry open the doors of the elevator, but they wouldn’t budge. Next he started jabbing at the ceiling where he had found the hatch. He actually managed to get it to pop open. He got up on the service cart and tried to lift himself up.
It took him quite a few attempts, but he managed to get up on top of the car. He rested there; the task was too much for him and he needed a break. The one thing he noticed was the air seemed quite a bit better now with enough flow to help overcome the rankness he left on the elevator floor. Covering it with rags didn’t help keep the odor down much.
After resting, he lifted himself up and felt around on the door mechanism. He was on the third floor when he got on the elevator and was only halfway down to the second when it stopped. He tried to pry the doors open that led to the hallway and these too did not give very much. He would catch a glimpse of daylight when he did this. He wasn’t sure how long he had been in here. He thought it might have been only hours, but couldn’t tell for certain. All he knew was he was hungry, very thirsty and starting to get cold. He was going crazy in all literal senses.
Haliday had checked in and everything was going ok. He told them quickly of his encounter and said he might be delayed in checking in every couple of hours, so they should wait until 15 minutes past the hour before turning the ham off. He didn’t want anybody’s radio overheating. They were too valuable and the handhelds they had didn’t have the range for clear enough communication at that distance. This was going to have to work for now and he assured them he would be ok.
Rich liked playing dice games. He had put his time in for the “Big Three” in skilled trades and usually on breaks or during down time, they would either play dice, dominoes or some cards. This would amount to hours sometimes as he would program his machine and let it run its cycle. He occupied himself with this and crossword puzzles to keep busy. After a few more games, he excused himself to go turn off the generator and use the bathroom.
Sarah and Bev sat at the table alone. Bev told Sarah not to worry just yet, that there was a lot going on out there and things were not that easy to do these days. She reminded her that she was still waiting for her own children to make it in. She had six total, five boys and one girl and what a handful they were. One son and the daughter lived out of state. Another son had forsaken the family and the family had forsaken him for reasons they never really talked about. That left Roger, David and Alan in the state.
Bev had worked in a variety of jobs as waitress, packing boxes in a warehouse and ultimately put herself through school and became a substance abuse counselor. She had the ability to help people think through problems clearly and this experience came in handy right now with Sarah. She was able to keep her calm for now.
He got up one more time to see about prying the doors open. He was shouldering one of the doors when it started to slide open. He moved his feet to brace himself for leverage and stepped into the open hatch, causing him to tumble down into the car. He landed and snapped his leg just above the ankle.
There was no way possible he was going to get out of this by himself now. He sat there in pain and straightened his leg out a bit. His pant leg was damp and he knew he was bleeding. He grabbed the service cart and latched onto some rags which he tied around his leg.
All the while he was thinking about Sarah and Elizabeth and hoping they made it to her grandma’s house. He thought about how cute Elizabeth was during her ballet recitals and how good of a cook Sarah had become. He reminisced about all of the good times they had had over the years. He was tired now and drifted off to sleep with these thoughts on his mind. Erik would never wake up.