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IN THE SUN

Part 1By Joshua Patrick

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Joshua Patrick
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-5998-0

Chapter One

"Damn, man. You see that shit? They aren't going to let us get out of the parking lot until four today!" Troy complained as he and Josh loitered in the parking lot.

The teachers were blocking both entrances and exits to the parking lot, afraid of losing their jobs and letting students leave the school prematurely. No one was standing with the students however due to Elnor being a small school with fewer than three hundred students and as a result, fewer teachers. Some teachers even did three classes to make a steady paycheck and Josh was amazed at how a football coach could teach both science and biology, despite probably having flunked both classes when they were in school themselves.

Josh's old pick up truck was so close and he impatiently played with his keys in his pocket, weighing detention against leaving school early. He wished that he'd chosen to not even come that day, but his father persisted that he didn't want to get in trouble for him skipping school anymore, so he went resentfully—he always hated being forced into things he didn't want to do.

"Man, screw this. I'm going home." Josh said finally, yanking his keys out of his pocket. He stealthily motioned for Troy to get in the back and then Troy whistled slightly to their other mutual friend Daniel, and they all piled into Josh's truck.

"They're not going to let you go, you know. They going to make you get out and then everyone's going to be laughing at us for doing something so stupid." Daniel muttered as Josh slammed his truck door and started the engine.

"Yeah? Well, who says I'm going out through the parking lot?" Josh gave him a smirk and then put his truck in reverse, backing into the field adjacent to the school and then putting it back into drive and driving off through the corn field before any of the teachers could reach them.

"Fuck, man! That corn shit hurts!" Troy howled and rolled up the passenger window as cornstalks and pieces of corn flew at them as Josh floored his truck and whipped through the cornfield.

When he finally reached the road across from the school, he stopped and looked back at his handiwork and smiled; teachers were shouting now, but no one was following the road he'd made through the cornfield for them. The sound of engine's turning over made him wonder why no one was following, but as he got out onto highway, he saw why.

Cars seemed as if they were suspended in time, none of the vehicles moved but Josh's.

"Damn, traffic jam." Josh muttered and quickly yanked the wheel of his truck around a stopped eighteen wheeler that was blocking the road. Some people were out walking and looking under the hoods of their vehicles, but none of the vehicles would start and Josh soon realized that the vehicles that had stopped working were ones made from 1980 and after, but Josh's truck had been made in the fifties and although it needed repairs every few months, his truck ran like it always had without any problems.

"Glad I didn't stay at the damn school. I'd probably be walking home and my fat ass can't go fifteen feet without sweating like a pig. Shit, I'd probably die!" Troy said as Josh stopped at the driveway of Troy's house. Troy and Daniel slid out and Josh told them not to go back to the school since he knew that whatever had made the cars stop running that school would probably be canceled for at least a day and as Josh drove away, he hooted in excitement, knowing that he'd get an unplanned vacation.

Josh continued driving around, and after a while, decided to go into Austin and see what was going on since he could see several black trails of smoke already curling up from various places.

He managed to make his way around all the parked cars blocking the highway and as he came up to a department store at the edge of Austin, he noticed plenty of people running with items, more so than usual. He pulled over and asked a man who was carrying a television what the hell was going on. The man looked at him and continued pushing his basket, Josh shouted at him, but was ignored again, so he got out and walked up to the store entrance.

"Jesus, this place is worse than Black Friday in 1997!" He mused to himself as someone hurried past him with a basketful of items. "I just hope they haven't run out of Tickle Me Elmo's again!"

He ventured further into the store cautiously since the power was out and people weren't shy about fighting over trivial things, it seemed.

"Just take the money and give it to us!" Josh heard someone shout suddenly. He turned and saw people swarming around the jewelry case that was in the middle of the store. A few people were trying to buy some jewelry and Josh thought it odd, since most people were grabbing whatever they could and running out. But that was only because no one tried to stop them ... there was still a cashier struggling to defend the jewelry case by himself.

"Let's just take it! Don't fuck around with this bullshit!" Josh winced as someone swung and metal baseball bat and hit the cashier in the side of the head. The bat bounced off the side of his head with a dull thud and then the cashier fell backwards and never got up again. Josh winced, but as the one with the metal baseball bat smashed the jewelry display cases one after another, Josh saw it as his opportunity to do some looting of his own.

Before the guy with the baseball bat had noticed, Josh had snatched nine gold rings with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies on them, a gold watch, and a few gold necklaces. He stuffed them in his pockets and took off deeper into the store in case the guy had ideas of following him and stopped behind a pile of dog food and waited in the darkness. No one came however and after a while, Josh emerged and went across the aisle for what he assumed were cookies.

He hadn't eaten since noon and his teenage stomach grumbled in hunger and since people were looting he thought it wouldn't matter. As he reached for the last box of the cookies another hand grabbed them at the same time.

"What the?" Josh looked at the girl who'd grabbed the same box. Though it was dark, he could make out the features of the girl. She had long black hair and he thought perhaps she was Asian at first or maybe even from a Pacific island, because she looked slightly tanned, but even in winter, everyone in Texas looked slightly tanned. She was slender and wore a t-shirt that had a picture of the Texas capital and the words, "Keep Austin weird". They both stood for a moment looking at each other and then someone bumped Josh in the back and snapped him out of his trance. By the time he looked back up, the girl had run off with the box of cookies along with some more food items.

"Jeez," He mumbled and took a box next to the one he'd grabbed before. He wrenched open the package, ate a few and then dropped them on the floor. They tasted like soft chalk.

Josh started to move towards the canned food section, when he kicked something solid by accident and by the light of a dropped flashlight, he found out it was a gun. He didn't know what kind it was, but he managed to put the safety on and put it in his pocket. He had learned to be safe around guns ever since he was twelve years old and his friend had shot him in the leg with his mother's air gun and sent him to the hospital. The wound wasn't serious but he was restricted to minimal activity for a few weeks afterward. He considered it a favor however and waved...