Joey's Reunion Standoff

I watched the coastline fade in the reflection of the windowpane. I didn't know if I'd ever see it again. All those years, all those memories and all that family, now gone.

I turned and looked at my wife, Ashley. Her eyes were wide with tears as they stared blankly out the window. She was holding our son, Andy, tightly against her chest. He had just learned to walk a few weeks ago and was already growing into a strong young man.

"We'll get through this," I said softly to them both.

Ashley nodded quietly but said nothing; she was frozen in a moment of disbelief. She hadn't believed me when I told her last night that we had to leave right away. The car started at 4am and we've been driving ever since. We passed LA yesterday afternoon after stopping only briefly for gas and food at a roadside stand 30 miles outside of town. We had picked up a map before we left and planned to head north up the 101 until we hit San Francisco where I thought we would be safe from the asteroid impact. Ashley had only brought one change of clothes for Andy, which was fine because my plan was that we would stop early today and buy some more stuff for him in San Pedro before heading out of town.

The traffic on the 101 slowed as people flooded out of LA toward the coast in order to get away from the devastation sure to follow when the asteroid hit. There weren't many cars on the road around us though; most people were probably trying to just escape LA by taking surface streets out of town or maybe following back roads further inland like we had done yesterday through Santa Clarita Valley. Either way, there wasn't much traffic on this stretch of highway so I kept driving fast despite the slower pace of everyone else around us.

After an hour or so, we arrived in Port San Pedro where I remembered there being a Target shopping center on one end of town that held everything we might need for Andy's new life on an island in Alaska where my parents lived after retiring years ago. As our old blue Ford Taurus pulled into Target's parking lot, I could see how much things had changed in twenty five years since I had been here last. The same Target store was still there but it seemed newer than I remembered it being and it was definitely bigger than what I remember from my youth as well.

As we got out of the car and started walking towards the entrance doors, people began running frantically past us out of the parking lot toward the beach area beyond Target's north side entrance door. I ushered them inside quickly before anyone could run into us or slow us down too much as we walked through the entrance doors toward where I remembered seeing baby stuff on display when I shopped here with my parents twenty five years earlier on Christmas Eve morning after going to mass with them at St Mary Star Of The Sea Church back across downtown San Pedro Harbor from here along 5th Street just off Pacific Coast Highway not far from where we currently stood now facing south along Pacific Coast Highway itself...

"What are you doing?" Ashley asked me as we walked into Target's baby section near its front register checkout lanes just inside its main entrance doors, "Let's go buy some water and maybe a couple other things while they're still open."

I nodded my head yes a little bit but then looked over her shoulder as two men ran into Target's main entrance area with rifles slung over their shoulders yelling loudly at everyone present to get down on their knees and keep their hands behind their heads, "Don't move!"

Everyone stopped moving immediately as fear filled every heart in attendance and tears began filling every eye fixed upon these two men standing near the front registers pointing their guns directly at everyone within view around us including us three standing near baby clothes about forty feet away near an aisle display at Target's main front entrance towards its west side wall that overlooked Pacific Coast Highway only fifty feet or so away from where these two men stood...

"I'm Joey Corrington," I said calmly while slowly raising my arms above my head while slowly lowering myself slowly down onto one knee beside Ashley who was already kneeling beside me with tears streaming down her face as she held Andy close to her chest tightly against her body with both arms wrapped firmly around him...