Last Light

  His daughter was pretty and she knew it, and if her feet ever hurt in those ridiculous shoes, she would die before admitting it. He wondered exactly what image she hoped to convey. Professional? Career woman? Very Important Person?

  Glamour Girl?

  Didn’t she realize how silly that persona was when her hair was wet with sweat and her mascara streaked on her face? And she still had fifteen miles to go before they were home.

  A mile into the walk, Deni kicked off her shoes and walked barefoot on the hot pavement. Her face blotched, and he didn’t know if it was sunburn or heat that colored it.

  They were both drenched with sweat by the time they reached the Wal-Mart parking lot. He prayed there hadn’t been a run on bicycles.

  The parking lot was full of stalled cars. Their owners stood around them, some with their heads under the hoods, trying to make sense of things. As they reached the front door, Doug saw that it was only partially opened. When the power had gone out, the door had apparently frozen.

  Deni turned sideways to slip through the opening, and Doug followed.

  The power was out inside, too, but hundreds of people milled about. The ceiling had skylights every few feet, which allowed some natural light into the otherwise dark building. Lines of thirty or more people waited at each cash register, and the clerks looked frazzled and stressed as they tried to take money with no registers working.

  “Cash or checks only!” a worker yelled over the people. “Our credit card machines don’t work! Cash or checks, please!”

  Doug pulled his wallet out and checked his cash. Twenty bucks—not nearly enough to pay for a bicycle. He looked toward the ATM machine. A crowd gathered around it, and a man was kicking it and cursing. Clearly, it was dead, too.

  “Deni, we’ve got a problem. I don’t have enough money.”

  She grunted. “Don’t you have checks?”

  “No, your mother has the checkbook. All I carry is my debit card.”

  Deni dug through her purse. “I have checks for the account I just opened in Washington, if they’ll take an out-of-state check. There’s not much in my account, but we can transfer some money into it before the check clears.”

  “Great. Somehow we’ll convince them to take it. Come on.”

  Deni ran behind her father, her bare feet slapping on the tile floor. “I’m going to the shoe section.”

  “Okay, I’m in the bikes.”

  He got to the bike section, and saw that most of them had already been taken.

  He grabbed the first one he came to, a red ten-speed woman’s bike, and lifted it free. Rolling it beside him, he went for a bigger one for himself. He grabbed a cheap model ten-speed.

  A man who looked like Hulk Hogan’s big brother grabbed it out of his hands. “I had this one first, pal. Hands off. You already got one.”

  “You didn’t have it first! You were ten feet away.”

  “I was reaching for it, okay?”

  Anger flared up inside him, but it wasn’t worth a fight. He let the bike go, almost pushing it over. The man hurried away with it.

  He turned to find another, but they were already gone, except for a retro banana seat children’s bike. At least it rolls, he thought, so he reached for it, but a woman lunged for it at the same time. “Please, I have to get home! My child is there alone!”

  He had no choice but to let it go.

  Deni came running up with a box of tennis shoes in one hand, and her high heels in the other.

  “I can only get one,” Doug said. “We’ll both have to ride this one.”

  “But, Dad, there isn’t a second seat. Where am I gonna sit?”

  He scanned the aisles and found a flat backseat attachment. “Here. We’ll use this.”

  She huffed out a sigh, but apparently realized there was nothing else they could do. “I can’t believe this hick town can’t do better than this in an emergency.”

  There she went again, putting her hometown down. “I doubt they ever imagined this happening. Bicycles aren’t typically what people go for in emergencies. And Birmingham’s not a hick town. You’re a product of it and you’re no hick.”

  “I had it educated out of me.”

  Her typical response. He never should have agreed to send her to Georgetown University to study Broadcast Journalism. She’d developed such arrogance there that she was sometimes a pain in the neck.

  He blamed it on the boyfriend.

  As they made their way to the checkout lines, Deni grabbed two bottled waters.

  “Good thinking,” Doug said.

  They went to stand in line, and Deni put the new tennis shoes on. He liked the way they looked on her. So much better than those cloppity-clops she bent her feet into. The shoes made her look more like the girl he remembered—the one who used to play tennis with him. The one who screamed like a wild kid at the UA football games.

  He often wondered how different she would have been if he’d insisted she go to college closer to home, instead of shipping her off halfway across the country. Would she still be as arrogant, or as proud?

  “It smells like a gym in here,” she muttered. “Some of these people need to be introduced to the concept of deodorant.”

  “Deni, don’t look now, but I think we’re reeking with the best of them.”

  She gave him a half-amused smile. “Speak for yourself.”

  He grinned and shook his head. Man, when she started that television job next week, her head would swell even bigger. So what if she’d just be an intern at NBC’s D.C. affiliate? She was already strutting around like she thought she was Katie Couric.

  And if he knew Deni, she’d have Katie’s job before the decade was over.

  Part of him was so proud of her that he wanted to burst. The other part half hoped she’d be knocked down to size. Gently, of course . . .

  He’d gone with her to Washington to find her new apartment and get her set up. Though she’d only live there for four months—until her wedding, when she’d move into Craig’s townhouse—he made sure she was choosing a safe apartment complex in a good part of town. As she milked him for every penny he was worth for her furniture and “necessities,” he realized he’d spoiled her. Doing without—or doing with less—was going to shock her system. But once she had paychecks coming, he had no intention of keeping her on the family dole.

  “Come on. How hard can this be?” Deni said under her breath. “All they have to do is add it up. Surely they have calculators.”

  “Looks like they’re doing it on paper.”

  “That clerk must have missed the day they taught addition.”

  Again, the arrogance.

  They waited in the line, quiet among the hot, irritated customers. The line was moving slowly, and the nervous clerk added up items as best she could. Tempers flared as customers demanded answers these hourly employees didn’t have.

  By the time Doug and Deni worked their way to the front of the line, the clerk looked as if she wanted to break and run.

  Deni pulled out her checkbook and started to write the check.

  “That an out-of-state check?” the woman asked.

  Deni turned her prideful face up. “Yes. It’s a new account in Washington, D.C.”

  The woman wasn’t impressed. “We can’t take out-of-state checks. Local checks or cash only.”

  Deni grunted. “Come on! We’ve stood here for forty-five minutes!”

  “I’m sorry. We’re doing the best we can.”

  Deni turned back to Doug. “Now what?”

  Doug felt helpless. “All I have is twenty bucks.”

  “Then get out of the way, mister.” The man behind him reached for the bike. “I’ll take that.”

  As the man grabbed the back wheel, Doug threw his leg over the seat and sat on it. He felt like a child on the verge of a tantrum, but there wasn’t time for shame. Addressing the sweating clerk, he said, “Please, she’s my daughter. The check will be good. I’m local, and we can put my address and phone number on it
.”

  “Sorry, sir, but I can’t do it.” She turned to the man behind him.

  “Wait!” Doug looked down at himself, trying to think of anything he had that he could use to pay. “My watch!” He worked it off of his arm. “It’s a Rolex, worth ten thousand dollars.”

  The girl looked up at the ceiling as if praying for patience. “I can’t take your watch, sir.”

  “Please. Just this once, make an exception with her check and you can keep the watch.”

  The girl hesitated, then took the watch. “It doesn’t even work.”

  “It’s a Rolex,” he said again, as if she hadn’t heard. “When all this is over—whatever it is—it’ll work again. You can sell it on Ebay and make a fortune. Please, I have to get home.”

  The clerk glanced over her shoulder, as if looking for the manager. He was too busy, running from cashier to cashier solving problems.

  “Hurry up, lady!” someone down the line yelled.

  She sighed. “All right, but put your local address on the back of the check. I’ll probably get fired.”

  Doug gushed gratitude, then rolled the bike out into sunlight. Quickly, he assembled the backseat and put it on, using a dime as a screwdriver. Tightening the screws the best he could, he got the seat on and shook it to make sure it would support Deni.

  Something rammed him from behind, knocking him over with the bike. As the bike clattered to the ground, his knee skidded on the pavement, shredding his skin. The attacker scrambled to get the bike out from under Doug, but he held on and grabbed the man by the collar. Slinging his assailant back, he became eight years old again, reeling with the sense of righteous indignation over the school bully’s unwarranted attack, vicious with the need to right a wrong.

  He got his footing as the man came at him, trying to mount the bike. Doug swung and hit the man in the chin with the heel of his hand, knocking the bike out from under him.

  The man fought to keep it, but suddenly Deni was there, swinging the bag with her bottled water, knocking him in the head.

  It stunned him enough that he lost his grip.

  “Get on, Deni!”

  She jumped on back, clutching the bag.

  “Hold on!” Doug took off, rolling slowly at first, then, not looking back, he managed to pull away from the would-be thief and across the parking lot.

  “Way to go, Dad!” Deni slapped him on the back. “Wooo-hooo!”

  “Hush, Deni.” He was not in the mood for gloating or theatrics. This was serious. He had fought like a barroom brawler over a stupid bicycle he wouldn’t have paid a quarter for two hours ago. And he wasn’t proud of it.

  He pulled out into the street, dodging pedestrians and stalled cars, and headed for the interstate.

  He tried to remember the last time he’d been in a fight. Must have been the tenth grade, when he’d given his brother a black eye for tripping him in the school assembly. They’d both gotten a three-day suspension after that. His dad grounded them both for a month. What would he think of him now?

  Doug made it a mile down the road and saw the interstate overpass crossing up ahead of them.

  “Oh, my gosh!” Deni’s fingers gripped his shoulders. “It’s like when the power went out in New York City, and all those people were walking home.”

  He looked toward the overpass, but instead of the people, the steep on-ramp caught his attention. How would he pedal the bike uphill, with his weight and Deni’s? They might have to get off and walk it. He should have been using the stationary bike he had in the exercise room at home. There was no excuse for him being this out of shape. He headed for the ramp, and stood on the pedals, pumping with all his might.

  “You okay, Dad? Want me to get off ’til you’re on the road?”

  “Might be a good idea.”

  He felt her slide off, and was relieved at the lighter weight. She walked beside him as he pulled uphill.

  “I should have used my gym membership,” he panted. “Every-one’s thinking I’m in the shape of an eighty-year-old man.”

  “No, they’re not, Dad. They’re too busy envying your bike.”

  He reached the top and merged onto the interstate, then stopped behind a stalled car and let Deni get back on.

  He hugged the road’s shoulder, every push of the pedals sending fire through his thighs. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he breathed like an asthmatic.

  Cars were stalled almost bumper to bumper, and hundreds of people walked in both the east- and westbound lanes. He stayed on the shoulder, hoping to bypass the hiking crowds and avoid the stalled vehicles.

  Deni’s hands on his waist made him sweat more. “Maybe in a mile or so we’ll see that the power is back on. It can’t be the whole city. Maybe then we can get a ride the rest of the way.”

  Doug didn’t answer. He panted like a thirsty dog, and his soaked clothes clung to his body. His legs strained to keep moving the bike forward, but his scraped knees were beginning to sting with every push.

  He wondered if his attacker had been a thief before today, or had the man’s actions been out of the ordinary, as Doug’s had? Maybe the man was a deacon in his church, just like Doug. Maybe he had kids at home he was trying to get to. Maybe he was worried about his wife.

  They couldn’t be blamed for reacting to this bizarre situation the way they had, could they?

  He wanted to think that there was some very interesting explanation for what was going on here, and that it wasn’t far-reaching. But he feared that was wrong. Nothing he knew of that could cause such an event would be short-lived.

  Along the road, hundreds of people still sat on their cars, unwilling to abandon them just yet. A stalled beer truck had its back doors open, and the driver was apparently selling beer to anyone who had cash.

  Another hill. Doug made his way over it, gritting his teeth with the effort. At forty-seven, he’d never felt old until today. Now when he needed his muscles they rebelled like lazy teenagers.

  He got over the hill, then saw with almost ecstatic relief that the next few miles were downhill or level, so he could move more quickly.

  “Dad, do you see that smoke up ahead?”

  He scanned the horizon, saw the plume of smoke. “Yeah, I see it.”

  “What do you think that is?”

  “No idea.”

  “Maybe it’s a plant of some kind that knocked out the power grid.”

  “Wouldn’t knock out cars and watches.” His tone was almost sarcastic, though he knew it didn’t help. But the stupidity of this whole situation was beginning to get to him. What in the world was going on?

  He kept looking toward that plume as he rode, trying to avoid the pedestrians in the street and spilling off onto the shoulder.

  Then, from out of nowhere, something whacked him from the side. His tires slid out from under him, and they went over.

  Deni screamed as they fell, and his flesh scraped across asphalt again.

  He was getting tired of this.

  A man with a shaved head and a goatee grabbed the bike and pulled it out from under them.

  Doug yelled and shot to his feet. He swung at the man, but the thief kicked him in the chest, knocking the breath out of him, and got his leg over the bike.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Deni got up, her arm bleeding, and tried to wrestle the bike away. But she wasn’t strong enough. The man slipped out of her grasp and pulled out of reach.

  Doug launched out after him, racing beside him, grabbing the bike, trying to stop him. The man kicked him again, this time doubling him over.

  “Thanks for the ride, bud!” he shouted back.

  “Dad, he’s getting away! Go after him!”

  Pain shot through his stomach, but he forced himself to rise up. Breathless, he shook his head. “He’s too far. There’s nothing I can do.”

  He dropped to the grass on the side of the highway, draped his arms over his knees. “Are you all right?” he asked Deni.

  “No, I’m not all right. I’m bleeding!” She
kept staring after that bike. “Why did you let him take it?”

  Had she missed that Chuck Norris kick that almost took him out? “I tried to stop him.”

  “But you didn’t fight hard enough!”

  He ground his teeth. “Deni, I really don’t need your attitude right now. A bicycle is not worth killing someone over.”

  “I didn’t say kill him. But you practically handed it over.”