After the girls had pulled out their sleeping bags Pat went into the restaurant and loaded up a cart with lunchmeat and rolls and potato salad and took it into the lobby. The girls dove into the food like they hadn't eaten in days.
Pat walked out of the room and made his way to the phones. Pauline was right behind him. She watched as he dialed the phone.
"Who are you trying to call?" she asked.
"My mother lives in Oregon. I'm trying to see if whatever is happening here is happening there."
After a couple of minutes Pat hung up the phone, "No answer. My brother is in the Air Force in Germany. I'll try to get in touch with him."
After several minutes Pat hung up the phone again. He looked at Pauline and shook his head.
Pat looked at the motel stationary and saw the phone number for the corporate headquarters. He dialed the number. The phone ran for a long time before he hung up.
He handed the phone to Pauline, "Is there anyone you want to try?"
She shook her head, "Are we the only ones on earth?" she asked, "Why just us? Why are the animals still here?"
Pat shook his head, "I don't know. Maybe the fact that we were shielded by the lead in that mine had something to do with it. As for the animals, maybe their DNA has something to do with them not being affected. Let's not jump to conclusions though. The government has plenty of underground, secure sites where people could have survived whatever has happened."
"If there's no one around, how come everything is still working?" she asked.
"Most systems will work for a long time automatically. After awhile things will start going down because of fuel running out or lack of maintenance. Some things will trigger other things to go out."
They went back into the lobby. Several of the girls were still trying to get through on their cell phones. Some of the girls were crying silently.
Pat turned to Pauline, "I'm going to find a room. I'm exhausted. I'd suggest you get some sleep too. These girls are going to be a handful when they start to realize that nothing is ever going to be like it was."
"I need a room too," Pauline replied, "I'm not big on sleeping bags. I'll get a room across from yours. Hopefully the girls will go to sleep without too much fuss."
Pat motioned for Anna to come to where he was standing, "I'm going to get a room. I'll take the first one down the hall. Each room has its own key so I'll just push the door almost closed so that if anything happens during the night you can wake me up."
Anna looked at him like that was the stupidest idea she ever heard, "Aren't you going to try to contact your company to send someone to help us?"
Pat paused and stared at her for a minute before he answered, "Tomorrow."
Pat started toward the rooms and he heard the shrew muttering about how she was going to have his job when they got back from the trip ... Pauline walked beside him.
"Where are you sleeping Pauline?" Anna snapped.
"I'm getting a room too. I don't do sleeping bags."
"I'll stay with the girls. Someone has to watch out for them." Anna said haughtily.
Pat stopped and smiled at Anna, "How about you women getting rooms and I'll stay with the girls?"
Anna glared at Pat, "Definitely not."
Pat went behind the check in desk and grabbed a handful of keys. He and Pauline tried a couple of doors before they found two that the keys would work in. Pat made sure that Pauline's room was ready before he left her in the hallway and went into his room.
The room was very nice and when he tried the shower he found that the water was still running. He wondered when the systems that he had taken for granted all of his life would start shutting off. He took a long shower and then crawled into bed. It was dark and he didn't turn on the light when he came out of the shower.
Although he was exhausted sleep was slow in coming. His mind was racing a mile a minute trying to make sense out of what had happened today. He tried to think of all of the science that he had learned in college that would explain what had happened. According to the known laws of science what had happened today was impossible. The black hole must have scientific laws of its own.
Why would there be animals left on earth but no humans? Could it be something in human DNA that was that different from the rest of the animals on earth? Were any other animals wiped out? What about monkeys and apes. They supposedly had ninety-seven percent of the same DNA that humans did. What would happen to the animals now that man wasn't around as much as before? Pat knew that they faced increasing danger as all of the animals began to revert back to their wild state. Dogs would start to form packs and hunt down any animal that they could get the better of. Cattle would become wild and potentially dangerous. Pigs could be vicious in the wild.
Someone flushed a toilet somewhere in the hotel. When would all of the systems begin to go down? Pat knew that many of the systems ran automatically as long as fuel was available. All systems needed periodic maintenance though. If the systems weren't maintained there could be explosions, fire, and catastrophic chemical discharges and environmental damage. Apparently humans disappeared from the earth in an instant when the black hole passed and there wasn't time to shut systems down in an orderly fashion.
Pat began to try and remember what he had learned in college about nuclear power generation. He had gone on a tour of a nuclear generator station and it seemed that the plant pretty much ran itself. He had been told that if problems arose the plants would automatically shut down. But then again, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island had proved that if something could go wrong it would.
He began to think about why he and the bus passengers had survived. Although he had no scientific evidence that would prove it; the lead in the mine and the high radiation may have somehow combined to give them a bit of protection. Pat was sure that there had to be other people in the world. X-ray labs had lead lined walls and there were government installations many feet under the ground. Those places were supposed to withstand nuclear attacks. There had to be others that survived. It didn't make sense that only these few people survived.
Pat knew that he had to make a concerted effort to locate other humans before the cell phones and other communication systems started going down.