Jimmy Foreman was comfortable. He had a beautiful wife that could stay home with their two adorable little girls. He owned a profitable business that, even though he couldn't get too far ahead financially, allowed them to live just a little beyond their means and not have to hurt for anything. And that satisfied Jim. If anything, he was happy that he could at least do well enough to keep Mellissa at home with Sarah and Nora. He was the type of man, though only twenty-seven, had the old ways set in his mind, and thought that a woman's place was in the home with the children. If worse came to worse, he would allow her to work, but maybe just part time. He liked having dinner on the table when he got home, and every once in a while, the in-laws would watch the girls and he'd take Mel out to a fancy dinner and a movie.
But those nights out could only be fulfilled by traveling sixty some odd miles to the nearest city. They lived in a town that Jim liked to call Nowhere, USA. Nowhere, USA was nestled in the wastelands of Texas, about sixty miles due south of Big Spring. Jimmy hated it here. They say that wherever you grow up, if you don't get the hell out of dodge when you graduate, then you might as well plan on staying there the rest of your life. Jim was a prime example. Mel moved to town with her parents their junior year of high school and hit it off right away. Nora was born a year after their marriage and Jim was never able to leave the small town. He was rooted now, running his gas station and convenience store without the help of his father, who had been partners with him up until two years ago, when he had called it quits and retired. Nowhere, USA looked to be Jim's home for the rest of his life and he would probably never be able to retire.
He kissed Mellissa now, grabbing a bag of groceries from her hand and helping her into the house.
"Did you finish getting everything?" He rummaged through the first bag, making sure she had gotten him plenty of corn nuts. Bar-B-Q of course. He found four bags and pulled them out, ripping the top off of one and filling his mouth with more than it would hold.
Mel looked at him, disgusted. "You know, I don't know which would be worse. Letting you smoke cigarettes or crunching on a four pack-a-day habit of corn nuts."
This was a joke between the two of them. He couldn't stand smokers and she would always tell him that if he ever wanted to save money... "start chain smoking, you'll save a buck a day." She was right too, corn nuts were just a little higher per pack than an off brand cigarette.
He followed her to the car, checking the back yard for the girls. They were on the trampoline, holding each others hands and giggling wildly as they bounced up and down. He couldn't believe the amount of groceries that were stacked up in the front passenger seat and the back seat.
"Did you buy out the entire store?" He grabbed a few bags and backed out of the way so she could get the remainder of the bags off of the front seat.
"I got everything on your list plus a few items for me that you didn't think of." She held up a box of tampons then shoved it back in the bag. "If we're going to go through the hell they say we are, then I'm going to need plenty of these."
Mellissa was referring to the Y2K computer crisis that had been haunting Jim and his family for the past year. The new millennium was only a few hours away, and even though Jim had been stocking up on canned foods for the last several months, there were still lots of things that he hadn't thought to get, until now. He looked at his watch, noticing the time for the first time that day. It was well into the three o'clock hour. Mel had left before lunch that morning.
"Gosh, honey. I didn't think it would take you this long to do some shopping."
"You should have seen the store, everybody in town has decided that they were going to play it safe and get a few extra groceries. The place was a mad house. I saw several of our friend there and they were so desperate to get their groceries they didn't even acknowledge me."
Nowhere, USA was only a small town of about a thousand people. And Jim, managing one of three gas stations in town, knew almost everyone. One thing about being in a small town that made him feel a little easier about the computer crisis was that he did know everybody in town and hopefully no one would panic. He hoped looting and violence here would be held to a minimum.
The four o'clock train blew through town as he and Mel grabbed the last of the groceries and took them indoors.
He watched Mel enter before him, admiring the slim curve of her back and the flowing gleam in her long blond hair. He checked the back yard again. The girls were now playing house in the small clubhouse he had built them, and knowing them, they would be occupied till the sun started to settle into the dusty west. The two of them filled the pantry and storage closet with the groceries and paper goods, and all the while, Jim watched his wife move. There was something about a woman that was always so sensual, so pleasure full. It was thoughts like this that caused them to be expecting their third child, but he couldn't help it. He was a man, she was a beautiful woman, and Jim thought they fit together perfectly. He rubbed his hand over her stomach. She was just beginning to show and he thought it made her look even more sexy.
"What are you doing?" His hand had crept a little lower. She turned and batted those gorgeous blue eyes at him. She wasn't smiling, but trying to hide it. But she couldn't hide the smile in her eyes. She rolled her eyes at him as he led her down the hall. "Oh, no. Not again. What does this make... the fourth time today?"
"Fifth," he said, "but who's counting?"
Baxter Anderson was the town drunk. He lived in the booze, and tried constantly to drink himself to death. He didn't know why he thought his life was so pointless but for the last year all he cared about was party's and booze. He couldn't remember that it all started three years earlier when his wife had been killed. He had consumed so much liquor since then that it had eaten away part of his brain. The fist to go was his long term memory. It you asked Baxter a question like, "where were you born?" or "where are you from originally", his answer would always be... "Timbuktu". People thought he just was rude and didn't want anybody knowing where he was born or anything else, but the honest truth was that he just couldn't remember.
He woke up about five o'clock on the afternoon of December 31st, wondering what was going on later that day. Oh, yes. The party! How could he forget about the party?!
Dr. Higgins III had placed an add in the local newspaper (if you could call it a newspaper... the top story that week was about the gas fire that started behind the fire station... the article didn't mention the fact that it was a fire drill for the volunteer fireman's training) inviting anyone and everyone out to his home for Bar-B-Q, fireworks, and all the liquor you could hold. Baxter couldn't wait to get there. He checked his watch. It started in about two hours. He had slept in the clothes from the previous day, they still smelled OK so he decided to just wear them.
He was hungry. He would be eating later, but needed something to settle his stomach down now. He put on a bowl of water to boil, grabbed the nearest bottle of booze, which happened to be a corona, half full and warm that had somehow found itself on the floor in front of the stove. He sloshed a little into the boiling water then added his chicken flavored Ramen noodles.
This was the life. His insurance settlement check had arrived the day before and he had plenty of booze in the house and a wad of hundred dollar bills in his pocket. The check came as part of the million dollar life insurance policy he had taken out on his wife when they were married. It ensured him that he would never have to work again. If he would have remembered why he was getting the check, he would realize why he got so plastered all the time. Of course, the monthly check was only the beginning of his wealth. Stuck away in a forgotten Swiss bank saving account was the ten million dollar wrongful death suit he had won against the oil company that had killed his wife, but that is a whole different story... and besides, Baxter had forgotten about the other money, the back account, everything. All he cared about anyway was the booze, the check the mailman brought at the end of every month, and slowly drinking himself to death.
By the time he left for the party, he should have very well had a good buzz going, but he was at the point in his drinking career that he had a buzz all the time. He was almost at his limit now.
One good thing about his drunkenness was that he was a happy drunk. He was forever cracking jokes and such, making a complete spectacle of himself for the benefit of others, and the people of Nowhere, USA loved it.
Sometimes though, he could go a little too far. For instance, back on the fourth of July weekend he had mistakenly groped the breast of one of the local thespian society members that had gathered together on the south end of town for the fireworks show. This landed him a black eye from the woman and a free nights stay at the hotel de policia. But he was rarely ever able to take his drunkenness that far... he was usually out cold before then.
All the buildings and street signs of downtown were incredibly blurry he thought. The street light were too bright and the only stop sign on main street seemed to lean forward out into the road, making for damn sure he saw it. He was glad he did for the only rout out of town was in front of him and an eighteen wheeler (who must have blinked when he went through the intersection) ran the stop sign and continued on to the west. Baxter laid on the horn once, knowing that it couldn't, wouldn't do any good. He crossed over the highway, heading south through a small residential district that had a sign that said, "slow... children at play."
"I've never known any children who played slow!" He laughed at his own joke, but the car didn't laugh back at him, he didn't wonder why, and didn't question the car either. He loved this car. It used to talk to him, but for some reason, it wouldn't talk to him tonight. They would crack jokes together and he would laugh and the car would rev up, laughing in its own car way. "You sure are quiet tonight, baby. What's the matter?"
The car just hummed, and he kept on driving. He rolled down the window and threw out his bear bottle as he passed the last house in town. Dr. Higgins lived in a huge mansion about three miles out of town. The gate was left open but the house was locked up tight as a prison. The party was to be held in the back courtyard between the main house and the guest house. The guest house was open to all (Higging's didn't care if anything was messed up in there), he always made sure that there was nothing of considerable value in there, just so he could trust others coming and going as they pleased during his party's.
Baxter was early by a few minutes and was one of the first to arrive. He parked back away from the house and entered a side gate. The gate opened to a stone walkway lined on both sides by flowers. How can anybody grow flowers out here? He tried to walk on the path but spent the better part of the trip to the back of the house in with the flowers. He could hear their muted curses as he stomped through them. Who cares, he thought, I don't like flowers anyway. Why do you think I moved out to the stinking desert in the first place?
He rounded the back of the house and was saved by one of the stewards just before he fell into the swimming pool.
"I see someone has already started celebrating, hasn't he?" Baxter didn't like the tone the boy was using with him, but didn't say anything. "Why don't we get you seated down somewhere?" He looked around a decided on the gazebo. "I'll just set you down right here so you can hear the music and watch everyone dance, how's that?"
"Fine, just bring me a drink."
"What would you like?"
"Anything, no ice though."
The steward left and that's how the end of the world began for the citizens of Nowhere, USA
Nora and Sarah were asleep at 10:46 p.m. They were still too young to completely appreciate the significance of the holidays. They were still at the age where the only holiday they cared about were birthdays and Christmas. But that was all good with Jimmy and Mellissa. They could spend the next hour and fifteen minutes worrying about whether the lights would be on at 12:00 January 1, 2000.
They sat in their living room, holding each other, wrapped tightly in a warm blanket. Jim's hand rested on her stomach. They could feel the tension in each other, the worry the other felt, and the uncertainty of what lay in their path tomorrow. In no other point in life could Jim remember being so uncertain about anything than he was about the Y2K computer bug. They had a bowl of popcorn between them, but neither were eating. The television carried images of the festivities happening in Dallas and updates on other parties across the globe.
The military was on constant alert. Most were able to go home for the holidays but had to be back on base by new years eve. He felt sorry for the people that would be in flight tonight. There wasn't any way of knowing exactly what was going to happen in just a little while and he was more than happy to not be out partying, but to be here. Right here in the arms of the woman he loved. The future is so unclear, he thought.
Baxter had overstayed his welcome. The mixed drinks he had consumed over the past several hours got a little more tossed when he decided that he would do a little dancing. Of course, what he saw as dancing the others saw as jittered staggering and wobbling. He was pushing himself too far, and he was about to erupt. And he did finally. Looking like one of the fireworks that would soon be fired, Baxter sent the contents of his stomach into the air, streamers of hot, steaming liquid went everywhere, the majority of which soaked the front of the hosts wife, Emily Higgins.
She brought up her hand to block the brunt of Baxter's onslaught of vomit but to no avail, her party dress was ruined. The sexy white gloves that her husband had bought for her were stained now, ruined. She screamed for her husband and he was there within seconds. He pushed Baxter onto the ground, yelling for someone to get this piece of crap off his lawn!
The same steward that had helped Baxter to his chair when he arrived, helped him out to the front and into his car.
"I really don't think you should be driving, Mr. Anderson. You don't look too good." The stewards concern was genuine and for a second, Baxter, through his drunken stupor, felt a glimmer of hope for his pitiful existence. Does somebody actually care about me more than I care about myself?
The steward was a young man, still in high school, and was one of the few people left in the world that actually cared for every living person. He got upset to hear death tolls from natural disasters, families killed in car crashes, or instances like this, where he could try and prevent a drunk who doesn't even care about his own life from killing either himself, or himself and someone else along with him. But he was a weak boy, and Baxter just shoved him off and slammed the door.
The engine turned over on the first try and the car began talking to him again. He was glad to be back in his element again, someplace familiar. Familiar! Hell, I don't recognize anything anymore. He threw his head back and laughed as he opened the glove box, pulled out a bottle of scotch and choked back his laughter with it. In fact, he pounded the dash as he spoke to the car, lets get the hell out of dodge.
He took main street north, not stopping at the stop sign where he almost died earlier, and never looked back. The time was 11:35 PM. The new year, the unknown, was minutes away, and Baxter could care less.
Mel had fallen asleep against his shoulder. He slid out of the blanket, and laid her head softly on the couch. He walked to the window in the front door and looked out. There were porch lights on at just about every house. He guessed the entire town had gone to Dr. Higgins for the new years eve party. And that was all well and good with him. He and Mel didn't drink much, and with the girls around they had stopped their partying years ago.
A car drove by on main street, it weaved back and forth. He saw Baxter Anderson behind the wheel and hoped that there wasn't anybody else on the road in front of him. Poor bastard even forgot to turn on his headlights.
He turned from the door and headed back to the couch to wait out the new year...
The strange thing about this small town was its electrical supply. There were four main roads that led to and from town. Each one was basically entering and exiting the city limits on the four main points of the compass. Big Spring was to the north about sixty miles and it was the closest town of any size that could actually be called a town. This was where Nowhere, USA received its power from. It was filtered in through two substations that were separated by roughly the same distance between the two towns. This was the only source of electricity to Nowhere, USA. The phone systems worked along the same route.
It was five minutes till midnight when Baxter Anderson finally realized that he was driving without his headlight. He fumbled for the switch several times before the road was illuminated before him. He was about forty miles or so from town now, and his speedometer was rested just below the eighty mile per hour mark, buried in the dash. There was no traffic out and the moon was shining bright enough that he really didn't need the headlights, but better to be safe than sorry.
There was a light in the distance, and he remembered that he was about to come up on the first electric substation out of town. It always struck him as peculiar how all those weird looking things routed, and boosted the electricity and did everything that it did without anyone to sit watch over it. Virtually maintenance free, it would even send a message to the electric company if it needed tending to for any reason.
Baxter tilted the last of his whiskey down the hatch, burped, and for a split second, he blacked out. When his vision cleared to its usual blurryness he was looking directly into the chain link fencing around the substation. The highway took a gradual ninety degree curve to the right and the driveway into the substation was directly ahead of him. He slammed on the brakes and went in to a slide. His speedometer had been buried so he had no idea he had been pushing his car to its limits. Another five or six miles and his engine would have blown its top.
But as fate would have it, Baxter would never see another five or six minutes. His car hit the entrance to the substation with half the car on the driveway, and the other half in the ditch. And at one hundred and six miles an hour there was no stopping what was about to happen.
First off, the jolt from the impact of the right side of the car in the ditch snapped Baxter's neck. The right side of the car dug into the far side of the ditch as the left side tried to follow the laws of physics and keep going forward. This caused the back of the car to swing around, putting the car in a horizontal spin. The car shot through the chain linked fence like a huge, metal boomerang. One of the fence poles snapped in two as the car past over it, and the sharp, jagged end still in the ground punctured the gas tank as it passed over it, throwing fuel in a giant spray pattern around it. The chain links of the fence pulled and snapped as the weight of the car flew threw it, and the sharp, broken links of the fence scraped against the car, showering it in sparks and igniting the fuel. Burning gasoline flew over everything as the car rolled, skipped, and jumped through the guts of the substation. Transistors fell to the ground and wires wrapped themselves around the car as if to stop the cars progress. The brain of the substation sat in a metal box toward the back of the area. The car was only going about sixty miles per hour when it crashed into the computer. The metal box burst open like a pimple, sending circuitry boards and computer chips into the dirt. Then the car made its final voyage through the back fence. It came to rest, burning fiercely, forty feet beyond the substation. A small tree beside the car burst into flames, burned quickly, then burned out. The substation was nothing now but a mass of twisted fencing, wire, and metal, but every second or so, a wire would spark and jump as if alive. The time was 11:58 p.m.
Nowhere, USA was now completely cut off from the rest of the world, and it couldn't have happened at a scarier time...
Jimmy and Melissa jumped off of the couch like a couple of bats out of hell, knowing that their worst dreams were about to come true. The world, thanks to the "gift of computers", was coming to a halt.
It had started with all the street lights and porch lights suddenly exploding. Jim thought that all the power would just suddenly go off and was never expecting the type of power surge that was now shooting through the town. Every light in the area that had been left on, simultaneously erupted in showers of sparks. Jim made it to the front door and looked out at the other houses in the neighborhood.
Wait a minute, he thought, there are still lights on over there. Two of his neighbors across the street had lights on. One of the bedrooms in the Jefferson's house was lit and the living room in the Millers house was lit as well. Maybe there's hope...
His heart sank. There was no hope, this was the real thing. The computers, despite what the media and the government had tried to tell everyone, were done for. The lights he saw across the street weren't lights from any electrical bulbs, but fires. The one in the Millers house was now consuming the drapes in the front window.
"Mommy, Mommy! Help!" Jim burst back into the house and rushed down the hall, right on the heels of Melissa. He flew into Sarah's room and found the curtain next to her bed were engulfed in flames. The outlet by the floor had surged, causing a fire that was just about to consume the entire wall. Jim grabbed the curtain and began to beat in onto the floor as Mel scooped her daughter into her arms. Nora came bursting in form the other room, baseball size tears streaming down her cheeks.
"What's going on Mommy?"
"The lights went out, honey. And the plug shorted out, causing the fire."
Jim beat the last of the flames out of the curtain. They were all coughing from the smoke.
"Mel, go check the rest of the house and make sure there's no more fires."
She disappeared down the hall while Jim reached out and pulled Nora to his side.
"Daddy, I can't see a thing." Her tears had stopped falling, but she was still sniffling.
"I know, I know. Let's feel our way to the kitchen. I've got a couple of flashlights sitting on the counter." They felt their way down the hall and into the kitchen. The light from the flashlight seemed comforting and calmed Nora down even more. It even settled Jim's nerves a little.
Mel came in then, announcing that the rest of the house was OK. No more fires.
They sat the girls on the couch and asked each other what they should do now? They were very silent for a couple of second and in that silence was when they heard the explosions from outside...
Dr. Higgins had hired a professional to work the fireworks display, but was given the honor of lighting the first fuse. It was actually the only fuse. The entire system had set up with time delayed gun powder fuses that snaked their way from one fireworks to the next. Some branched off from a single fuse lighting two, three, sometimes as many as ten fireworks at a time, while the main fuse continued on to the next set. It was all masterfully worked and all the fuses running up and down the wooden holders looked like a large spider web. The professional did all the set up, the hard part was running all the fuses, and choosing the right length of fuse and such. After all the set up was done it was only a matter of lighting the primary fuse, stepping back and watching the show. Once the fireworks started shooting off, you didn't want to be anywhere near them for fear of misfires or duds that happened to explode ten feet off the ground instead of one hundred feet in the air.
Dr. Higgins felt a great rush as he lit that first fuse. The primary fuse was long and would last about two minutes, so he had time for a short speech to bring in the new year. It was five minutes till midnight...
He said his few sentences and sat down on the lawn next to the other guests. He had a small fishing pond at the back of the property and the fireworks were set up right at the waters edge. His guests were all stretched out on blanket or towels around the pond, each with their head upturned to the sky, anticipating the first fireworks.
The path around the dam of the lake was lined with small lights so everyone could see where they were walking in the dark, and just before he lit the fuse he had turned the dimmer switch down to where the lights had just a slight glow to them and they wouldn't interfere with the view of the fireworks display. He had spent in the upper twenty thousand dollar range to get this party up and going and he was ready for the finale.
He saw the sparking fuse as it approached the first element, then watched in amazement as a comet leapt from the cone and burst a hundred feet in the air with a loud clap, sending blue and red streamers of fire in every direction, like a giant flower. More shot into the air in rapid succession sending massive vibrations through the ground. Dr. Higgins was thoroughly impressed.
"This is where the fun begins, I put some noisemakers here. Let me warn you, their pretty loud." This came from the man who set up the display. Dr. Higgins looked over at him. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Dr. Higgins put his attention back on the sky just as the night erupted in the loudest explosion he had ever heard.
As he watched, something caught his attention out of the bottom of his eye. He looked down at the lake to see, people running back toward the house. The lights that surrounded the lake were exploding. What the hell? He turned to watch some of them trample over each other and noticed the lights in the house were also out, as were the pool lights, the guest house lights, all of them. There was no electricity anywhere. He checked his watch. It was five minutes after twelve...but he always kept his watch set ahead a few minutes...
Jim checked his watch. It showed two minutes past twelve, but (like Dr. Higgins) he always kept it set ahead about five minutes. Something felt wrong about the whole situation they were facing.
He pulled Mellissa close and told her that they were going to take a little drive... if the car would start. He herded them out the garage door and into the garage. He piled the girls into the back seat and got behind the wheel, praying that the car would start.
It started right up. He hit the remote control button for the garage door, but of course it didn't work so he had to get back out and raise it by hand. The few people that had stayed home were all out in their yards, watching their neighbors homes burn. There were two homes on fire on Jim's own block and across the street there were five. He could see more toward town. The fireworks at Dr. Higgins were still exploding to the south. He couldn't hear them now with the sound of the car and the house fires that roared around him, but he knew that right now, those fireworks looked a hell of a lot like bombs exploding in mid air and he (as they said in the old west) had to get the hell out of dodge! But curiosity overtook him. Instead of driving north to Big Spring, he drove south, into down town. He needed to gas up before he left anyway.
He pulled up to the store and unlocked the side gate. Around back was an above ground gas tank that the had purchased just in case the Y2K crisis was for real. He pulled up beside it and got out...
Dr. Higgins had never in all of his forty some odd year career, seen the likes of craziness that he saw in the people that had attended his party that night. When he realized that the electricity was off and that the Y2K crisis was for real, he grabbed all his stewards and hired help and pushed them in turn toward the main house. He unlocked the door and they all rushed in. He slammed the door behind him, threw the lock, and escorted them into the living room. His wife should be upstairs somewhere he hoped. After what had happened with Baxter he doubted she would have come back outside, but preferring to stay in her room and watch the fireworks from the balcony. She didn't take embarrassment well and would probably not show her face again for at least a week.
"OK people..." he looked around the small group. "...there are eight of us, and you are under my employment. I will make sure each of you are well cared for if this crisis is definitely for real, but until we find out for sure I want you to protect my home." The help noticed that all the furniture had been pushed back to the inside wall and a large sheet lay over the carpet. He pulled the sheet off of the floor and showed them a row of guns. There were several different types and each had two boxed of ammunition for backup. "They're already loaded and the safety's are off, so be careful. And I don't want you shooting anybody by mistake. If somebody tries to break in through a door or window, shoot them. This is my home and I will not have a bunch of crazies running through here trying to get my food, and I don't care who they are! Does everybody understand?"
He chose four men to go to each corner room of the house and take up positions there. He and the other four would watch the rest of the bottom floor. He sat on the steps that faced the front door of the house and waited. The thunder of the fireworks was still echoing outside.
Cars started outside. He could hear the squealing of tires as they raced back to town. It never occurred to him that part of the Y2K crisis involved the cars computers shutting down as well. Of course though, at that moment he was more worried about protecting his home.
A gunshot echoed through the house. It had come from his office toward the back of the house. He wondered who had been shot just as one of his men ran into the room. He was obviously panicked and he was stumbling over his words. Dr. Higgins slapped him across the face, hard.
"What is it boy?"
The young man brought his hand down from his face. The blow had brought tears to his eyes. "It wasn't my fault Dr. Higgins... she just broke through the window! I was only doing what you told me to do... I'm sorry... I'm sorry...!"
He rambled on like that even after Dr. Higgins had pushed him aside and ran down the hall to his office. There was a body in the window. At first he didn't recognize it then he realized who it was that lay pinned to the glass of the window, her hair was a bloody mass of bone and brains. His voice echoed through the house and his scream seemed to go on forever...
Jim finished filling the car with gas and as he got in, a distant noise caught his attention. The girls had fallen asleep again in the back of the car and he didn't want to wake them again. There would be plenty of excitement later when he would have to explain to them what was going on. The sound he was hearing was almost like a racetrack. Revving engines echoed through the night, mixing with the sound of the popping fires. He backed up and pulled out into the road. To the right about a hundred yards away was the highway and main street intersection. And beyond it to the south was the sight of a hundred cars barreling down the road and the dirt of the desert. He saw several slam into each other and wreck, flipping over each other like children's toys.
"We've got to get out of here."
Mellissa looked in the direction of his gaze just as two more cars slammed into the side of each other. She inhaled a gasp. Panic overtook her and she started punching Jim in the arm yelling, "drive, Jim, drive!"
He pulled out into the road and turned north, leaving a trail of rubber behind him.
Mellissa watched out of the rear window as every car went right through the stop sign. There was no one coming from the other directions thank goodness. She watched as a car lost control and slammed into the fuel pups of Jim's store. Flames leaped into the sky as the ground around the store blew upward when the gas tanks in the ground ignited. Burning fuel spread across the road and saturated several other vehicles. She had never seen such mayhem before in her life.
Jim passed their house and were in the open desert. The destruction of their town was imminent behind them. If the volunteer firemen didn't get on the ball their town would burn to the ground, and that was if the people didn't tear it apart first.
Something still wasn't right about what was going on. If Y2K had struck, then why were all the cars running, wasn't it supposed to effect them too? He looked in the distant sky and saw an airplane flying up with the start. And why are the planes still in the air? He turned on the radio and sure enough, the only radio station they could get out here was playing Beethoven like there was no tomorrow. Jim knew that they would find out for sure once they reached Big Spring.
Dr. Higgins held the ruined body of his wife as the fireworks continued on outside. There were more gunshots throughout the house, but he no longer cared about the house. Let the looters and thieves have whatever they wanted. He couldn't believe what had happened. He knew for sure Emily would have stayed up stairs after what had happened to her with Baxter. But no, she had returned outside and when all hell broke loose, he had locked her out. He had left her to be trampled by the mass of people that fled. He had abandoned her. He, he, he... it was all his fault.
He looked out at his ruined front yard. There were several cars smashed together. Three bodies lay in the yard, obviously crushed under the feet of fleeing people. He hoped they all killed themselves.
He pulled his wife closer, not caring that her blood and brains was ruining his tuxedo. The steward that had shot his wife stepped in. He was still rambling on and on. Dr. Higgins told him to leave him alone and to just shut the door behind him as he left.
The fireworks had stopped at some point. He didn't care. He just pulled his wife closer and cried.
There was a small pistol behind him, and he reached for it now, knowing that there would be one more fireworks to explode in the night...
Jim pulled up to the substation at about 12:30 in the morning. He could still see the smoke from the car on the far side of the ruined substation.
"Where are you going?" Mel grabbed his arm as he attempted to get out.
"I've got to see who that is." He gestured to the burning car. "I'll be right back. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you out here."
He grabbed a flashlight and walked around the perimeter of the substation, steering clear of a couple live wires that were still jumping around on the ground.
He returned a few minutes later, shaking his head.
"Well, who was it?" She asked as she opened the door for him and scooted back to the passenger side of the car.
"Baxter Anderson. The poor drunk finally bought the farm."
She gestured to the ruined substation. "Do you think that's what happened to the electricity?"
"I'd be willing to bet on it."
He backed the car onto the road and continued on toward Big Spring. The time slipped by rather fast and before he knew it they crested a hill to see the lights of Big Spring.
The national guard reserves were called in the next morning to clean the mess up in Nowhere, USA. There were twenty nine deaths reported over the news and that included one Dr. Clarence Higgins, III, dead from a self inflicted bullet wound to the head and his wife Emily Higgins, victim of a gunshot wound to the head. Hundreds of residents would end up going to psychiatric treatment over the horrors they had seen that night, and the children would remember that night through their nightmares.
And what of Jim and his family? Since his fathers store was gone, there was nothing left there to keep him. He used the sale of his house, and the insurance settlement from the store to get the hell out of dodge and find a new place to live and start a new career...
