High Pressure System: Part One by K.D. Kinney

1
Evacuation Day
    I suppressed the panic that continued to grip my chest when everyone in the city was ordered to evacuate a few days ago. Chaos reigned ever since the announcement. I did a good job keeping it together, but if I had been told to leave my Chiweenies behind, I would have totally lost it and not followed orders. Dobbers and Yodel were all I had since I couldn’t go home to my family. I loaded them in their pet carrier, covered it with a blanket just in case I needed to smuggle them on the bus, and only brought whatever else I could carry on my back.
    Even though I lived off campus, I had been stuck in my apartment for days at the university with all the other out-of-state students. Might have been a blast if it wasn’t for the doom that gripped us all, especially during internet and cellphone blackouts. It was as if we were sitting in the dark not knowing what was going on. Now that I could finally leave, I didn’t want to.
    I paused wondering whether it really mattered if I locked my door. Locking it anyway, I left along with all the other freaked out, wide-eyed students I had been crossing paths with in the halls for months. For once, we were all headed in the same direction.
    “Where’s your evacuation location, Rachel?” Corbin asked. He was delicious with his unkempt brown mop of hair and dark brown eyes. He was like World Class Chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins. White chocolate skin swirled with rich chocolate brown hair, something to savor. Apparently I was tired of ramen noodles and power bars for dessert.
    “I’m supposed to go south.” I checked the paper I printed out that I had been rechecking every five minutes as if it had changed from last time I looked. However, Corbin could make me forget what color my hair was whenever he spoke to me with those long, dark eyelashes. He could hypnotize me when he blinked. We were just starting to get to know each other since we couldn’t leave the state to go home. I never had a chance with him before everything changed. I hoped he was assigned to go with me.
    “This sucks. Who figures this stuff out anyway?” He frowned as we walked down the hall together to the elevator. “I’m west.”
    There was such a large crowd waiting for the little moving box that I decided to go to the stairs. I got a little head rush when Corbin followed me.
    “What if I said I was your boyfriend? You think they’d let me on your bus?” he asked, passing me as he jogged down the stairs.
    I stopped for a moment in disbelief. “I don’t know. Would you want to try it?”
    “Anything so I don’t have to go alone.”
    That was a little disheartening. He just wanted to know someone. It didn’t have to be me.
    He babbled on as we exited the building. I kept wondering if he was going to go with me to try to get on my bus. Once we were on the sidewalk, he looked over the bobbing heads of the crowd and stopped once he saw what he was looking for. “Good luck. I guess I’m heading that way.” He pulled me into his chest to give me a brief hug. “Hopefully it doesn’t last long and we will have some cool stories to tell each other once it’s over.”
    I could only smile a little and nod. I really didn’t want to be on my own either and considered following him to try and act like his girlfriend to get on
his
bus. But I stayed put. Always the conformist, never one to rock the boat. He waved and disappeared into the sea of people.
    It was creepy, a mass exodus of people like I had only seen in movies. I couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps the ones that promised us safety were actually shuttling us to impending death. Rumors were flying that no one had a clue if sending everyone to underground bunkers would guarantee survival for long. As soon as I approached the street, I was sucked into the massive school of sardines that migrated to their designated evacuation location for departure in a tin can with wheels. Yep, impending doom.
    Clear blue sky was