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The day of the quakes…
For love of June
“June, get up. We have to go. Pack the essentials. We’re leaving in five whether you’re ready or not.”
The rushed words and the panic in his voice penetrated my sleep-fogged brain.
“What?”
“Dad says we need to get home. Now.” The rustling noise of Adam grabbing clothes from his dresser drawers brought me fully awake.
I flew out of bed and started grabbing things.
“What happened?” I asked as I quickly dressed and pulled out a bag of my own. “Is it your mom?”
“No. I’ll explain on the way. Move.”
His abruptness scared me, reminding me of the time we’d been hiking and a bear crossed our path. I scrambled to put what I’d need into the bag for a trip to his parents without knowing why.
“You won’t need that,” Adam said when he saw me grab my black dress. “Think warm. Jeans. Layers.”
I pulled out the dress shoes I’d already shoved into the bag and put my hiking boots inside. We were out the door in five minutes. He wasn’t kidding when he said that we needed to hurry. He ran all the way to the truck and tossed our stuff inside.
Then, he started up the truck and tore out of the parking lot.
“I need you to get the handgun out, June. Remember what I showed you?”
I nodded and started to shake as I reached under the seat. Warm clothes, and now he was talking about guns.
“What’s going on, Adam?”
“I’m not exactly sure. Dad said there were weird reports from Europe before it went dark. It was just after a quake they had. A big quake was reported farther south in Texas. Dad found out from one of his old friends who still serves. The government was trying to keep it quiet, but Texas started going dark. Dad says something’s coming our way. He doesn’t know what, but we need to get to Uncle Gary’s farm. They’re going to meet us there.”
As he spoke, he drove like crazy, missing stop signs and taking corners fast enough that I shook even harder.
“Adam, you’re going to kill us trying to get there,” I said.
“Right. Right.” He slowed down a little more for the next corner.
I trusted Adam, and he trusted his dad. Whatever had them spooked, there had to be a good reason. Yet, I doubted it warranted Adam’s current level of panic.
“I know you said the government is keeping things quiet,” which I secretly found hard to believe, “but let’s turn on the radio anyway.”
He nodded, not relaxing his white-knuckled grip on the wheel. The local station I picked was playing music like I’d hoped, and we made it out of town in one piece just before ten p.m. Thankfully, the longer we went without anything happening, the more Adam began to show signs of calming down.
Until we passed a car driving at high speeds. Then another. Then another.
Adam began tapping the wheel.
“Turn the radio off, June,” he said softly. “We need to listen.”
I did as he asked, and we both remained quiet when we came across two cars, one in the ditch and another pulled over, likely to help. There was no one around, though, when he slowed to flash a light at both vehicles.
“Is the gun loaded?” he asked softly.
“Yeah.”
I thought he was going to ask for it. Instead, he pulled away from the cars and kept going.
