Stan stumbled to his car in a daze, trying to keep a grip on his emotions. Think, Stan! Think! He silently screamed to himself again and again. What should I do? What can I do?
For several minutes, Stan sat in the car in the dark. He didn’t even bother to start the engine. Shock crept into the car with him. Gone! Los Angeles is gone! It can’t be! It must be a cruel H.G.Wells type of joke. I can’t take much more of this! He thought. What in the world is going on? For the previous six months nearly every time Stan turned on the news, he had heard of another catastrophe. Hurricanes of enormous proportions, tornadoes, tidal waves, earthquakes in Turkey, massive mudslides burying people in Mexico. “It’s a disaster of Biblical proportions!” Stan and his buddies used to joke, as they laughed at the television commentators trying to outdo the other networks in their coverage of each new crisis.
Few people were laughing now.
And the calamities were, in fact, getting worse. It seemed almost as if there were a domino effect after the Japanese stock market crashed a year ago. Then came the horrendously devastating earthquake that rocked Japan, wreaking destruction not seen in that country since World War II, when two “small” atomic bombs had obliterated much of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing the war in the Pacific to an abrupt halt.
When the U.S. stock market came crashing down, the toll was not simply in dollars and cents. Many leading business people in New York had leaped from skyscrapers; the less imaginative had simply thrown themselves in front of the few subway trains that were still running. In the heartland, even farmers and “salt of the earth” types found the loss of their investments more than they could take. Sales of hunting rifles, shotguns, and pistols had been temporarily banned, not because of an attempt to control the game population, but to preserve the human population. Too many people, even some Bible-toting Christians, had used their weapons to take their own lives.
And in a time like this, we need our weapons, thought Stan. Just recalling the riots that took place after nearly every recent calamity sent shivers down Stan’s spine. How can you protect yourself against a mob of thugs who have no respect for lives and aren’t afraid to die themselves? He asked himself. The riots used to take place in the ghetto areas, now the mobs surged through the upscale, suburban communities.
More frightening still was the increase in terrorist activity in the U.S., Russia, and around the world. Several times within the past few months, security officers at Los Angeles International Airport had intercepted nuclear devices that had been planted by terrorists. One brazen bomber had come right into concourse A carrying a nuclear bomb the size of a football in a gym bag. Had he not bumped into a security guard—literally—the bomber might have made it out of the airport and into the community.
Terrorists had already brought down several airlines, and one cruise ship had already been sunk by a terrorist bomb, killing more than a thousand people and leaving more than five hundred scarred for life. Deadly anthrax had shown up in several city water systems, and the word was out that terrorists had targeted more than eleven hundred other cities to be hit with anthrax in a short period of time. So far, the authorities had been able to circumvent the terrorist plots, but Stan knew, as did the rest of the country, that sooner or later, somebody would slip up. The terrorists would succeed, and millions of people would die.
Betrayals were rampant, both on the national level and in personal relationships. Trust was a long forgotten virtue. Nobody trusted anyone anymore.
Finally, Stan mustered enough of his faculties to pull his face out of his hands and start the car. He pushed the button indicating “heat” on the climate control, and soon warm air raised the temperature to the point he no longer noticed the chill. Food! He remembered the original reason for his venturing into the night. I must get something to eat for Christine and Natalie … and I’d better hurry before all the groceries disappear from the shelves!
He slammed the car into gear and roared out of the parking lot toward the grocery store. Arriving at the darkened store, Stan was surprised to see that there were no parking places available in the huge store lot. “Everyone in the country must have the same idea,” Stan said to himself as he pulled the Chevy over the curb and parked on a well-manicured lawn.
I’d better let Christine know what’s going on, he thought, reaching for his cellular telephone in the glove compartment. Stan switched on the phone, but there was no dial tone. “Now what?” he growled angrily. He checked the battery. It was fully charged. There was no reason why the phone should not be working … unless the entire cellular network was down. Stan threw the phone into the seat and darted toward the grocery store door.
