Chapter 2

When I topped a fairly high hill I pulled off the road to get out and look around. I thought I could see what had caused the last loud explosion like sound since way off in the distance toward Shreveport Louisiana I could see a giant towering plume of black smoke. There was a refinery in Shreveport and from the look of things I guessed it was a flaming diasaster now.

My trip toward town ended about two miles later. Even on this barely used farm to market county road there was a hellacious wreck. It looked like about twenty cars had been blown into a pile with a gasoline tanker truck and they were all still burning. I couldn't get any closer than about a quarter mile before the heat made me turn around. It was obvious most of the gasoline was already consumed because all the cars were burnt out wrecks by now, but there was still too much heat coming off the mess to approach it.

I turned around and headed south down Texas Highway 43, but it was mostly the same song different verse with every house I passed. They were completely demolished. Most of them had tall pines blown onto them and several were burning. I didn't bother going up to them now to look for survivors. I was driving slow and I looked closely at each one, but didn't see a living soul.

Suddenly I noticed the sky was getting dark and it was coming up from the south. Shit, I'd known dust and debris had been blown up into the atmosphere, but I hadn't dreamed it would make it this far so soon. I headed back for my hole in the ground, parked my truck, and got my ass inside just about the time the bottom fell out. At first it was only a pounding rain and suddenly rocks and dirt started falling too. Jesus God, that shit had become airborn at least two hundred miles away.

No doubt about it, I needed to stay inside now. I thanked my own dumb ass for paying attention to building a heavy door when I replaced the only one I had. The one I'd fallen through when I found the place. I did open it a little and peek out every hour or so. It had been completely dark outside before I got back inside and that had been around two PM. It was six now and of course it was still dark outside.

About ten PM I made myself go to bed. I was too excited to get to sleep right away, but finally I drifted off. I woke about six the next morning and ate a can of ranch style beans, cold. I wasn't going to try getting a fire started in my sheet metal stove since I hadn't remembered to look and see if its stovepipe was still in place yesterday when I came inside.

After I'd finished the beans I picked up my flashlight and poked my head out. One look toward my stove pipe showed me it wasn't where it should be and I doubted I could find where it had gone. If the wind had been strong enough to blow the giant pines down it wouldn't have had any trouble sending my stove pipe on a trip of several hundred miles.

The new one I'd put in for ventilation was gone too, but I had the cure for it. I put another joint down in the hole I'd made and slid it in place in what was left. I'd have to try it for the actual stove pipe too, and damned if the trick didn't work again.

I put on some rubber boots and a slicker suit over my clothes and went to my truck. It was still raining, but it wasn't a real turd floater coming down, just a good rain. Of course it had been coming down all night without slacking off, but this wasn't what I'd call a real storm.

After half an hour of trying the whole radio dial, both AM and FM I didn't hear one damned thing. I started the truck and headed out again. I didn't get a hundred yards before I had to get out and lock in the hubs so four wheel drive would work.

When I reached the county road I could take it out of four wheel, but I didn't bother unlocking the hubs. I was sure I'd need it again if I had any chance of getting to town.

When I came to the site of the big wreck this time the fire was out of course and the heat was gone too. I didn't bother getting out to poke around in the wreckage since everything was burnt to a crisp. I managed to get around it on the shoulder by going back into four wheel drive, but I was able to shift out of it again on the other side.

I was still amazed at the havoc the wind from the explosion had caused. Every house I saw was at least partially blown down and I didn't see one live person nor any lights from any of the houses. Of course the electric lines were mostly down, but I'd have thought at least someone was left alive and should have at least some candles going inside their houses.

There were several wrecks blocking the streets in places, but I could get around them and usually without getting off the road surface. In a couple of places I nudged vehicles out of the way, but there was nothing difficult about it.

This small town was mostly a traffic loop around an intersection of US 59 and Texas Highway 77. I started around the loop and where the highways actually intersected I found the biggest mess yet. About half a mile from the intersection there were three car dealerships side by side, or there had been. Now it was mostly one big tangled pile of automobiles.

Up the road another half mile there had been a Wal-Mart Supercenter and though there probably hadn't been a lot of shoppers when the wind hit the parking lot had been swept clear and there were dozens of cars jumbled together on one edge of the lot and it seemed there were thousands of shopping buggies piled in with them.

The building was mostly blown down too. I could see part of the main back wall still standing, but very damned little of it. The rest of the building had seemed to just fall in place. I hoped no one was lying injured in the wreckage and I tried to tell myself they'd have been rescued already if they had been, but finally drove over near it and got out after I made sure my Phython was in its holser and my flashlight was in my hand.

After yelling and calling out and walking around as close as I could I didn't hear anything. I was about to leave when I remembered I'd bought my sheet metal stove here, and it had been near the corner I was parked by. The building's corner was still standing.

It wasn't easy, but I managed to climb over, under, around, and through the mess and get inside the building, kinda. Mostly the roof was just gone. There were broken up sections of the outer wall lying around in lots of places, but manuvering around once inside wasn't so bad.