The Blackout by Stephanie Erickson Page B

Molly in the middle of the street.  He ran to her.  “Molly, what’s happened?” He held his gun up defensively and scanned the horizon.
    “Sal-ly,” she hiccupped.  “They-killed-her.” 
    “Oh.”  He didn’t have any pets of his own and didn’t know how to relate to this outpouring of emotion over a cat, so he cut to what he thought was more important.  “What about your food?  Did they get any of it?”
    She thought, hiccupping every few moments.  I didn’t check my food.  I was so worried about Sally I didn’t look to see if they’d gotten any of my food.   A new level of panic rose, and she sprang to her feet and ran to the house.  Dug was still howling upstairs and Jimmy frowned at the sound.  Molly went to the garage, where she was keeping her food.  She figured it was an unconventional place and hoped it would discourage thieves, because they would have to search for it. 
    She’d put locks on the cabinets, hoping that would deter thieves even further.  Locks take time to break.  Lucky for Molly, the locks were undisturbed.  She sighed heavily and Jimmy put his hand on her shoulder.  “Well, there’s a blessing.” 
    “Yes, well.  I had to sacrifice my cat to get it.”  She turned to look at him.  His eyes were big, green and full of uncertainty.  He was single, and not used to dealing with emotionally unstable women.  “They killed her in my bedroom!  That’s were Dug is.”
    He put his arm around her and led her out of the garage.  “I’ll stay here tonight if it’ll make you feel better.  I can sleep on the couch, OK?  In the morning, I’ll help ya clean up.” 
    “I can’t sleep in there tonight, Jimmy!” 
    “Don’t ya have a guest room you can use?”
    “I s’pose,” she pouted.
    “Look, it’ll be OK.  You’ve still got all of your food, and hey, you’ve got Dug.”  Dug howled upstairs.  “It could’ve been worse. What if you’d been here?  What do you think they would’ve done to you?” 
    “I sure would’ve made it harder for them to hurt Sally.” 
    He shook his head, seeing this was a losing battle.  “Why don’t you go get in bed?  Hashing it out isn’t going to change anything.”
    That night, she sobbed into her pillow as Dug lay by her side.  Though her sobs, she asked Dug, “Where is your father?  Why isn’t he here?  He would never have let this happen.” 
    Dug only whimpered a reply as she soaked the pillow with tears.
     
     

14.
    It was a long four days to D.C.  The trek took him far from the coast, and Gary had run out of food by the time he reached the city.  It was a wet few days though, so at least he wasn’t wanting for water. 
    The situation in D.C. seemed similar to Baltimore at first.  But soon Gary saw it was different.  Horribly different.  As in Baltimore, the power was clearly off, and the place had been looted right down to the building studs, but there was no one.  It was an absolute ghost town. 
    Garbage and debris littered the streets and sidewalks that wove their way through the capital city.  Gary’s lone footsteps echoed off buildings and disappeared into nothingness.  No aid for the country’s citizens.  No information for those left.  Nothing.
    He kicked a small rock a few feet and listened to it bounce along the street.  When he caught up with it, he picked it up and examined it. 
    What is going on? Why is this happening?  What did I do to deserve such abandonment?   He flung the rock at the nearest window.  It was already broken and went sailing through, landing in what remained of the storefront.  It wasn’t very satisfying, to tell the truth.
    Deflated, he decided to fish the river near the Washington Mall for a bit.  He tripped and fell spectacularly on the way to the riverbank.  He clenched his teeth and stood up, brushing the front of his pants off, not having much luck with the mud and grass stains that found a new home on his clothes. 
    While Gary was