Hopeful Discovery

As Bruce had observed, the store was completely trashed.  Nearly every one of the shelves were twisted and contorted, as if exposed to a gigantic torch or an auto crusher.  Our metal cave appeared to be one of the few places in the building that was left untouched. With no obstacles higher than our waists, it was clear as we scanned the premises, that there was no one in the building but ourselves.  

I began to ponder our stroke of luck.  “Why us?”  It seemed like an important question, particularly when I thought how I had apparently been spotted.  Something had saved our lives and the fact that we were here and able to think or talk about it was a miracle.  Was it because we'd stayed in the shelf?  Had others been caught there, too?  We'd have to have a good look around for survivors, but by the look of things, if there were any, they would be few.

Without warning, that urge came back.  “Bruce, do you know where the facilities are located in this building?  If not, follow me, but keep quiet.”  I had considered having the girls hide in a corner behind a counter that was still intact and I wanted to return to this particular spot, but they were as anxious as we fellows were to find immediate relief. 

Returning from our visit to the great indoors, we searched all the possible areas where people could be trapped under still intact shelving.  We saw no one, human or otherwise, in the building, and began to relax somewhat, but I continued to encourage caution.  It was then that I had them sit down wherever they could find a place and explained to them what I had seen.  Their fear was evident.  Tears fell freely.  We all wondered aloud about our families.   

“Well, that explains all the clothes lying around everywhere,” added Bruce.  “So we’re really in deep shit here, right?” he continued.

“I guess you could put it that way,” I agreed, surprised by his choice of words.  “But we’re not going down without a fight.  Follow me.”  I led our party back to an area with which I was quite familiar. This corner of the store held some interesting, useful items that hadn't been on our original shopping list.  I searched for and located some night vision goggles and three pair of small, but high power, military type binoculars.   I doubted that there was anyone alive who would object to my borrowing them.  I searched for and found four scopes.  Next, I found a crowbar and pried the lock from a cabinet. No need for a firearms acquisition permit now.   I handed each girl a rifle, took a shotgun for myself, tossed another to Bruce and grabbed and passed out several boxes of ammunition.  “Stay here,” I said, and headed to what was left of the hardware department.  I returned with two hacksaws and some files.  Bruce and I shortened the barrels and altered the stocks, so they'd be more invisible and easier to carry.  Rather than be burdened down with all the ammo, we packed as much as possible into our pockets, stowed the rest away, and then proceeded with caution to the exit. 

The sliding doors weren't working, but we were able to force them apart sufficiently to squeeze through into the foyer between the inner and outer doors.  We took a quick look outside.  Cars, vans and trucks lay in twisted heaps as if hit by a tornado.  Yet, there were two vehicles untouched.  Another stroke of luck!  Ours was one. 

“Do you think Dr. Manning's all right?” asked Shari, hopefully, seeing we still had wheels. 

“Let’s go out and see,” answered Bruce, impetuously.

“Not so fast.  Don’t forget, we don’t know who or what's out there.  It’s getting dark, too.  We can wait.             Besides, if the van is all right, then she probably is, too.  Unless...”  I left my thoughts unspoken, but worried that she had tried to make an unsuccessful run for her life.  Something had been eating at me ever since we’d crawled out from under the shelf.  Finally it dawned on my slow brain.  “We need to go back.”

“Sir, we need to get out of here and get to our families.  We need to get them to safety.”  I had to admire Bruce’s sense of family loyalty.  The others were nodding their heads in agreement.

“No kids.  This is not the time to check with family.”  I wasn’t sure how to break it to them, other than being direct.  This was going to hurt.  “If what I suspect is true, and what we are seeing outside leads me to believe it is, then we have no families to return to.”

“Come on sir, we can’t just leave them.  We have to go and help them.”  I could see that my students were in complete agreement on this.

“Aren’t you listening?  If any of you manage to find your way back to your homes tonight, I can assure you that you won’t have to worry about your family any more.  You won’t be alive to worry about anything.   Our survival depends on sticking together and being extremely careful about our movements.  Also, something’s been gnawing at me since we crawled out from under that shelf.  There are answers here, and we need those answers before we step outside these doors.  And we need to do it before it gets so dark that we can’t see anything in here.”  This was not a welcome directive, but my student friends begrudgingly followed me back to what had been our hiding place.  With Herculean effort, we were able to upright the shelf.  “Pile everything back on the shelf.  Look carefully.  Something here may have kept us alive.  We need to know what it was.”

Sleeping bags had lined almost the entire length of the two shelves immediately above us.  That was just cloth.  Could that have been what we were looking for?  Look as we might, nothing else jumped out at us so to speak that could possibly have led to our safety.  We were looking at the wrong shelf and the wrong side.  It was Shari who noticed it first.

 “What’s in these boxes?” she asked, drawing our attention to the bottom shelf in the adjacent aisle.  Bruce arrived first, and began to rip the first box apart.  He pulled out a little bag containing a very light weight, cloth.  It was an emergency blanket.

“Teach, this would have been right on top of you when the shelves were lying down.  And there are three of ‘em in a row.   What do you think?” he added.

Bruce opened the blanket full length, holding it up for all to see.  “Interesting,” I said.  "My God, could it be that simple?" I thought as I realized a connection between the vans and these blankets.  Then addressing the kids I asked, “What did you notice in the parking lot?” 

“Huh,” was the only reply.

Always the teacher, I asked again, “What do you remember from the parking lot?  What did you see out there as you looked around?”  There were a variety of answers mostly that had to do with the new junk yard that had developed in the former parking area.  Otherwise, the students just looked at me, for the longest time, when suddenly I saw that spark of light in Lise’s eyes that told me she had figured it out. 

“The only two vehicles in the lot that were still in one piece were ours and someone else’s.  And,” she said with a smile, “they were both silver gray.  Just like the silver color of that blanket,” she finished.  “Do you really think that’s what saved us?”  

“Sir, but there are only three boxes.  What about the rest of us at the far end of the shelving?  How would we have been protected?” queried Bruce. 

“Good question,” I responded.   I moved Bruce into the position where I remembered the alien to be standing.  “But just think about the angle that the alien was looking from and how close the boxes were.  Assuming the emergency blanket had something to do with our good luck, I think they couldn’t see any of us.”

“What about the one that looked at you?” asked Tammy.

“Glad to hear that you are still with us, Tammy,” I said.  “I have no clue about that alien.  Maybe it was just my imagination.”  And then the realization that living lay before us in the form of these thin, pieces of silver cloth, I assigned each student to create a large cape big enough to cover the entire body, from our shoes to our heads. These were emergency blankets and this indeed qualified as an emergency.  We had to work fast as it was getting difficult to see inside the building.

“Sir.  I understand the connection between the blankets and the van’s paint job.  But are we saying that normally, these things can see through metal?  We were buried under metal shelving,” Bruce waited for an explanation.

“All I can say, Bruce, is that I don’t know.  Usually, this would require some rather sophisticated equipment.  Look around you.  The other shelves have been twisted and ours is still intact.  I really don’t understand that part, but nevertheless, they didn’t see us and the most likely reason is these blankets, so let’s get at it and hope that the blankets will work.   “Girls, grab some sleeping bags out from under the shelf.  I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”