“Who’s Ed?” Barb asked.

“The manager of the store,” Amy said, “a creepy guy who held me and the Howard family at gunpoint for a while.”

“You were held at gunpoint?” Robinson asked her and turned to his partner. “Why didn’t you report that?”

“I didn’t know,” Alex said, glaring at Amy.

She blushed. “Okay, I left out that part.”

“We need to report it now,” Robinson said. He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Oh, damn.”

“What?” the others asked at once.

“No signal.”

Amy noted that Alex was genuinely surprised as they checked their own phones and found the same thing.

Alex was on the land line before the dozen others in the coffee shop discovered their cell phones had no service. Amy could tell from his body language that it was dead too.

“No luck,” he said to Robinson when he returned to their table.

Barb stared at her, wide-eyed with fear, and mouthed, “Is this it?” By it, Amy assumed she meant part of the attack, and nodded.

SCENE 33

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© 2018 Bradley Jarvis