As the two made their way into the house, their way lit by Sam’s flashlight, Matt grabbed some things out of the car and started after them with his own flashlight. On the way he passed his dad coming out with two brightly glowing electric lanterns. “How bad is it?” he quietly asked.
His dad shook his head. “We had a meeting tonight about it. I’ll tell you tomorrow after you’ve had a chance to rest. But basically we’ve already got hungry people in town and refugees are on the way. I supported your friends the cousins when they suggested we turn the refugees away and Officer Turner is going to be putting up roadblocks tomorrow. He’s looking for volunteers to man them.”
Well that was a bombshell to drop after saying they’d discuss things in the morning. But Matt just nodded tiredly. “I’ll talk to him about volunteering tomorrow.”
“I think that would be good. But for now let’s worry about getting this thing unloaded so you can get some sleep. Looks like you managed to bring back some things that might be useful.” His dad paused, then continued awkwardly. “So about Sam. This is, um, the first time you’ve mentioned her.”
He felt his face flushing in embarrassment. “I barely even knew her before tonight. I was a bit surprised when she asked to come with me.” He looked up thoughtfully at the light coming from the guest room. “But from what I’ve seen I’m really impressed with her. She’s a good person.”
His dad chuckled. “Didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Come on, let’s get to work.”
Chapter Seven
Helping Out
Matt woke up early the next morning, troubled by worries about the future. Since he could hear noises in the kitchen he went downstairs and found his mom and Sam working together to cook food with no electricity, using the little propane camping stove his dad must have pulled from the shed. He stopped in to say hello and let them know he wanted to do some errands before breakfast, and his mom let him know that his dad had gone to Tillman’s to pick up water jugs they could fill up while they still had pressure in the tap.
“I think I’ll go down and meet him there then. There’s some things I need to get too.”
“Oh then you should take Sam with you, show her around the town,” his mom immediately suggested.
The dark-haired girl looked torn by the offer, but after a moment shook her head firmly. “There’ll be plenty of time to see the town. I can’t just run off after I said I’d help you.”
Matt was surprised to find he was a little disappointed. He’d wouldn’t have minded a chance to spend more time with her. But he supposed there’d be plenty of time for that, too, so he put on his shoes and walked the block or so to Tillman’s Sporting Goods along Main.
His dad wasn’t there when he came in. Tamara Raymond, Scott and Catherine Tillman’s married daughter, was the only one in sight as she greeted him from behind the counter. “Hey Matt, good to see you made it into town safely. Your mom was really worried about you after the phones died. If you’re looking for your dad he just left with my dad to check a few things. Or did you come to donate?”
“Hey Tam,” he replied, coming over to the counter. He was awfully fond of the petite auburn-haired woman, since she had enough school spirit for the entire town and even though she’d graduated five years before him had always come to his team’s basketball games to cheer them on. He wasn’t sure what she meant about donations, though. Maybe something for the cheerleading squad, which she still helped out with. “Just here to buy a few things.”
She smiled. “You came just in time then. We’re about to turn this place into the storehouse and most of the stock will probably be the first donations.”
Matt blinked in surprise. “Storehouse?”
Tam’s return look was equally surprised. “The town storehouse. Mom and Dad donated the store for a location. Anything extra people have comes here to help the town through the winter. I guess you must’ve missed the meeting, but didn’t your parents tell you about it? Ed had a lot to say.”
“First I’m hearing about a storehouse. Anyway at the moment I need some stuff for this.” He pulled out the Glock Trev had given him, which he’d emptied at his house and checked several times to be sure, and set it on the counter. At the moment he only had one full magazine and the gun itself, and if he was going to help Officer Turner at the roadblocks he’d want everything else he needed for it.
She picked it up and did a quick chamber check. “Just bought it? Always liked these, and this one is almost new.” She frowned. “Dirty, though, and looks like it’s been that way for months.”
Matt felt embarrassed, even though he had no reason to be since he wasn’t the one who’d owned the firearm. “Yeah, I just got it. Will it still shoot?”
Tam racked the slide and dry fired the gun a few times into a compartment against the back wall behind her that was specifically designed to mitigate accidental discharges. “Probably, although you may run into malfunctions. I’d clean it thoroughly before use anyway, or at least not wait too long doing it. Keeping it dirty like this long term can damage sensitive mechanisms.” Her tone became stern. “And also I like to see firearms properly cared for as a matter of principle. They’re not just expensive tools… properly cared for they can literally be the difference between life and death.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, fighting a smile. Tam had been a cheerleader in high school and was now married with a young daughter, but for all that she was her father’s girclass="underline" a tomboy through and through. “I’ll need cleaning tools for it then. I also need a holster and some ammo and several spare magazines. Whatever you recommend.”
With her help he was able to gather up all the things he needed plus a good bit of extra ammo, and once he had his stack of goods he took them over to the counter to be rung up. He’d been keeping the money for next semester’s tuition in an envelope in his room, which was more than enough, and he figured since tuition was out of the picture now so he might as well make use of it. He might even buy some extras after doing some careful shopping at a later date.
But when he pulled out the stack of 20s, 50s, and 100s to pay up Tam frowned. “Oh. Um…”
“What?”
She gave him an uncomfortable look. “We’re not taking money for items anymore.”
Matt tried to work his mind around that. “But you’re a store. Also the internet’s down so credit and debit cards won’t work. If you’re not taking cash and customers can’t charge purchases then how do I pay? I don’t have a checkbook.”
“We’re not taking dollars in any form,” she said, then hurried to continue at his further confusion. “Since we’re effectively cut off from the rest of the world we just decided that going to a barter system made sense. Before we went dark yesterday there was word that the dollar’s dropping like a stone, and none of us want to make deals today only to have a neighbor come around tomorrow complaining that we cheated them paying with worthless money.”
“And when did you decide this?” Matt demanded, looking at the couple thousand dollars in his hand. What now, he had a bunch of money and nobody in town would take it? Even with all that was happening they had to have more faith in the dollar than that. He’d worked really hard in sales at a used car dealership to save up that much!
“The meeting last night. You didn’t hear anything about it from your parents?”
“No,” he said miserably. “Look, Tam, all I’ve got is cash.”
The auburn-haired woman frowned. “I’ll have to ask my dad, but I don’t think he’s going to go for it. It’s not you it’s the money itself, and that’s a liability we can’t take even for old friends.”