Meteor Read Online Free Page B

could feel the panic in the air. People were lined up at the checkout area with baskets piled high. Many of them had all sorts of groceries, much of which wouldn’t last very long.
    “Fools,” said Troy under his breath as he realized that most of these people had no idea what they could be facing. If they had to hole up for months at a time they needed canned goods and tons of water.
    Troy was relieved to find that there was still some bottled water, but only a few more twelve packs. Troy filled his shopping cart full of the blue liquid and was about to get the last two when a woman suddenly came up and grabbed a twelve pack just as Troy was putting his hands on it.
    “Unhand it, mister,” the woman said, panicked and angry.
    “It’s all yours.” Troy gave up the water to the woman and tried to put some distance between she and him. He went over to the canned goods aisle. Troy wasn’t into food that was full of artificial ingredients, so he still found plenty of the types of foods he was looking for, including organic black beans, corn, and other vegetables. He went to grab another loaf of bread but a man grabbed it right out from under him.
    “You know I was going to get that bread,” Troy said to the man who was already walking away.
    “Too bad,” the man sneered and was off to another aisle. Troy shook his head and checked his shopping list. Luckily, he had gotten there early enough to get just about everything. As he stood in the grocery line, he could sense the feeling of panic starting to rise as people’s impatience grew.
    “What’s going on up there, can’t you people checkout any faster?” asked an overweight man in a baseball cap.
    Troy did his best not to get caught up in the panic that was beginning to ensue. Troy saw more and more people coming into the grocery store and expressing their frustration at the lack of items remaining on the aisles.
    As soon as he had checked out and got into the parking lot, he noticed a couple of young men trying to rob an old lady of her supplies that she was about to load into her car. Troy remembered the small handgun that he kept under the seat of his pick up. He went and grabbed it, pointing it at the two young men who had just stolen the elderly lady’s grocery cart.
    “You’ll want to be unhanding that,” Troy said as a young man in a blue hoodie turned around.
    “Hey, we don’t want no trouble, mister,” the man said as he put his hands up.
    “Then I want to see you give those groceries back, IMMEDITATELY!” Troy said as he waved the gun at them. They reluctantly rolled the cart back over to the lady and walked back to their truck. Troy did not put the gun down until the young men had driven away.
    “Thank you so much,” the elderly woman said to Troy. He walked over to her and helped her load the groceries in her car.
    “It was nothing. You need to go straight home and lock all of your doors once you’re inside,” Troy said with urgency.
    “Is it really going to be that bad?” the lady asked him, betraying the worry in her voice.
    “I’m afraid so,” Troy said as he headed back over to his own truck.
    There was now a line headed out the door and wrapped around the corner of the grocery store. Troy shook his head, thinking of all of the people that waited too late to prepare for this disaster.
    “I guess they won’t think I’m so crazy after all,” he said out loud as he headed for Dickson High School. He wanted to pick his children up and make sure that his entire family was secure, well before the meteor was due to make its impact.
    When he got to the school office, he found the room crammed full of parents who were trying to check their children from school. Troy took his place in the line and waited patiently. He looked at the clock - it was now eleven thirty. The meteor was expected to make its impact around four or five that afternoon. He called Mary to make sure that she was at home.
    After a few minutes of scuffling noises, he