Through the Storm by Kyle Pratt

Author:Kyle Pratt [Pratt, Kyle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Camden Cascade Publishing
Published: 2017-09-25T06:00:00+00:00

Day Six

Portland, Oregon, late Thursday into Friday, September 9th

Neal had visited Portland on more occasions than he could recall, but he knew this trip across the city would remain fixed in his mind forever.

The sun fell below most of the building before the before the convoy departed. The streets of Portland became dark manmade canyons.

Neal tensed as the vehicles raced into the darkness.

Occasionally, they would pass a group huddled around a fire. Other times people stood in the road, waving for the trucks to stop, but the convoy never did. The vehicles wove around abandoned cars and surprised pedestrians, often with Ginger barking or growling from the back seat. If something blocked the way, the lead truck, equipped with a plow, pushed it aside.

“Why don’t you clear the roads and make this trip faster?” Neal asked.

“We are.” Lieutenant Pool steered down a side street following the convoy. “But we change routes frequently.”

Stars dotted the sky as the convoy rolled onto the freeway. Pool glanced up. “I’ve lived in Portland for five years and never seen so many stars.”

Neal gazed into the darkness and pointed. “That’s Orion, the Big Dipper is there, and if you follow those two stars out you find the North Star.”

Pool raised an eyebrow. “Is astronomy a hobby or a profession?”

“A hobby. I’ve lived in the country most of my life and been a backyard astronomer since I was a boy.” However, as Neal continued to stare into the night, his only thought was thankfulness that no aurora weaved across the sky. Tonight no sun storms would inflict additional damage upon mankind.

In the early hours of Friday morning, the convoy left the freeway and proceeded along side streets to an area of hotels beside the Columbia River. The trucks continued down the road, but Lieutenant Pool steered the jeep into a parking lot and stopped. Before either man stepped out, soldiers poured from the nearest hotel and flowed around the jeep, like water around a boulder in a stream. “What’s going on?” Pool called to another lieutenant.

“Gunfire across the river in Washington state. We’re securing the bridge.”

Lieutenant Pool exited the jeep and waved for Neal to follow. Together they climbed to an observation post beside the bridge. There, Pool borrowed binoculars from one of the sentries.

The lieutenant leaned against a chest-high wall of sandbags and stared across the dark water.

Neal followed and stood beside him. “What do you see?”

“Muzzle flashes and small fires.” He set the binoculars on the sandbags and looked at Neal with worried eyes. “No one will be crossing this bridge for a while.”

Neal leaned onto his elbows. His home state was within sight, but he couldn’t get there. He thought of Conner and Drake, alone and afraid.

His wife, Beth, had been the hub around which the family revolved. When she died, they had bumped along, but only just. He had been there for his sons physically but not emotionally.

He had failed them when they needed him the most.

He had failed to protect Beth from the mugger and he had failed the boys.

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