The Big Dark

by Rodman Philbrick

  “You’re getting all this ’cause a Boy Scout compass don’t work?”

  “Just a theory. I’m probably wrong.”

  “That’s nuts is what that is.”

  Mr. Mangano was about to reply when the first gunshot echoed like a crack of thunder in the mountains.

  Have you ever seen a postcard of a small New England town? That’s pretty much how Harmony looked the day after the lights went out. The postcard version usually has a church with a white steeple and a small park with a monument to dead soldiers and a block or two of simple wooden buildings for the general store and a bank and a police station. Except we didn’t have a bank, exactly, just a glorified ATM, and no police station because there was only one cop, and he was a part-time volunteer, and instead of a general store we had the Superette.

  The gunshot came from the vicinity of the ATM. In the confusion, me and Gronk slipped away from the school steps, crossed the block, and sneaked near enough to see what was happening.

  A bunch of folks had been waiting in line to take money out, and some of them had their hands in the air, like they were ready to surrender. The ATM had a glass cubicle to protect it from the weather. One of the glass walls had been shattered, but it looked like nobody got hurt. Turned out the ATM wasn’t working—big surprise with the power out, duh—but they were waiting in line anyway, in case it came back on.

  The guy with the gun wasn’t pointing it at them, exactly, but he was waving it around, which explained the hands in the air.

  “Stand back!” he yelled. “I’ll get ’er open!”

  Me and Gronk hid behind a stalled pickup truck. Better safe than sorry. “Looks like an AR-15,” Gronk said, peeking over the side of the truck.

  The man with the assault rifle was dressed in winter hunting camo and knee-high black boots, and had a lumpy backpack slung over one shoulder. His back was turned to me, but he looked familiar. Even the gun looked familiar.

  “That’s Mr. Bragg,” Gronk hissed. “My dad always said he was a nut bar.”

  “The dude with the weird eyes?”

  “Yup.”

  Mom had told us to stay away from Webster Bragg. He and his family, including five adult sons and their wives and children, had moved to Harmony a few years ago. They converted an old farmhouse into a compound and surrounded the whole place with barbed wire to “keep the feds out.” According to the billboards they erected on the property, the Braggs were opposed to any form of government and any kind of tax, and any race other than the white race. The one thing they did favor was guns. The women never left the compound, but Bragg and his sons made a point of walking around the village with rifles slung over their shoulders, because New Hampshire is an open-carry state. Once in a while they passed out pamphlets about conspiracies and stuff, but mostly they kept to themselves. Like I said, the female members of the family stayed in the compound, out of sight, and when Bragg went out he did all the talking. His boys kept their mouths shut and followed his orders.

  It was kind of scary at first, dudes with assault rifles, but they never threatened anyone, and after a while you hardly noticed.

  Until the rifles started firing.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked Gronk.

  “Get down!”

  We covered our heads and dropped to the snowy road as Mr. Bragg opened fire on the ATM. Must have gone through the whole clip, but it didn’t do any good, that ATM refused to cough up any cash. Which really made him mad.

  “See?” he shouted. “This is what I’m talking about! Think this is an accident, everything failing at the same time? It’s no accident! They’ve been planning this for years!”

  Bragg was a tall, rugged dude with a bristly beard and eyes so pale they looked almost white. He had a bare-shaven upper lip that was usually curled in disdain, so that he looked like a mean version of Abraham Lincoln.

  “Web, would you please put down the gun?” one of the men in line asked. “You’re scaring people.”

  “They should be scared! Not of me or this firearm! No, sir! They should be scared of those who did this to us!”

  “You know something we don’t?”

  Hearing the question, Bragg seemed to puff up, and his strange pale eyes flashed. “Maybe I do! Look around! Don’t be fooled! That big show in the sky last night? Ha! That was a distraction! Cutting off the power and the phones and the TV and the money, that’s only the beginning! The first salvo! This is a war, just like me and my boys have been predicting! Good against evil! Dark against light!”

  He went on like that for a while, and eventually most of the folks who had been in line backed away and left him to it. Some headed across the street to the Superette, where another long line had formed, but a few people hung back, wanting to hear what Mr. Webster Bragg had to say about the mysterious failure of electricity, and how it was caused by a worldwide Jewish conspiracy in league with dark-skinned mongrel people, and maybe the United Nations, too.

  Mom had always said Webster Bragg was a hatemonger. I was never quite sure what that meant, until he started spewing that ugly stuff at the ATM.

  Now I knew.

  I dusted the snow off my pants. “I better get home.”

  “Yeah. Me, too,” said Gronk.

  We didn’t get more than a block before the shouting resumed, this time outside the Superette. And this time Mr. Bragg was backed up by three of his big, burly sons, who were wearing identical camo. None of them had eyes quite like their dad’s, and as usual they let him do all the talking. But they looked dangerous for sure, with holstered handguns and assault rifles slung over their shoulders, ready to react if their father gave the command.

  “You think this is a coincidence?” Mr. Bragg roared, his big voice booming. “ATMs quit? Debit cards don’t work? Cash sales only? They knew! They were ready! All part of the plan!”

  “Who knew?”

  “Her! The Jew manager! She’s in on it! Wake up, people! Wake up, or they’ll take your freedom from you while you sleep!”

  Mr. Bragg had his AR-15 slung over his shoulder, not aiming at anyone, but the way he was ranting on about conspiracies and secret government spies was almost as scary as when the bullets were flying. Like he was trying to get people on his side before he did something bad to the Superette manager, Mrs. Adler.

  “You think you know her, but you don’t! That’s how they infiltrate. They live among us, gaining our trust. They lull us into complacency. And then they strike when we least expect it!”

  “Who’s ‘they’? What are you saying? Did you hear something?”

  Bragg studied the crowd and shook his head in disbelief, like he wasn’t sure we were ready to hear the truth. “All I’m saying, the witch who runs this place won’t take my sovereign gold, and that’s a sure sign of where her true loyalties lie.”

  “Gold?”

  “Paper money is just paper, okay? I mean think about it. Trade a piece of dirty paper for a can of beans? Give workers pieces of paper in exchange for their labor? It makes no sense, but we’ve been brainwashed into thinking paper is worth something. Diluting our economy with paper money is how it all started.”

  When grown-ups talk about money my ears kind of go on vacation, so I won’t pretend I understood what Mr. Bragg was saying about a New World Order trying to enslave us with paper dollars, and secret United Nations troops preparing to invade, and black helicopters, and so on. But some of those in line at the Superette started nodding along like he was making sense, and when Bragg raised his AR-15 and announced that he intended to liberate the supermarket, nobody tried to stop him.

  “This is how it starts!” he shouted, firing a shot in the air. “This is how we take back our freedom!”

  He and his sons were about to invade the Superette when suddenly a whistle blew. Everybody seemed to freeze.

  “Hold it right there!”

  Standing on the snowy street, hands cocked on his hips, was a man with a referee’s whistle looped around his neck.

  Reggie Ki
ngman, the school custodian.

  To be honest, I never paid much attention to Mr. Kingman until that whistle blew. As I said, he was the custodian at Harmony Center School, but that was his day job. Had been since he came back home after his young wife died, many years ago. On the side he was the volunteer police officer, which mostly meant he put on a uniform and saluted the flag when we had school assemblies or parades.

  He wasn’t like a real policeman because there’s not much crime in Harmony. If something serious happened, like the time Boonie Givens got drunk and pretended to take his wife and children hostage, the state police came over from Twin Mountain and took care of it. At school some of the kids called him Barf Man behind his back, because he was the poor dude who mopped up the mess when somebody hurled. As the volunteer police officer, Mr. Kingman got taken more serious, but not by everybody. I heard one of the teachers remark that Reggie was our own Barney Fife. In case you don’t know, that’s a character from an old TV show, and it wasn’t meant as a compliment. Maybe because he took the cop job so seriously, with his buttons and belt and boots all polished, and the way he snapped to attention when the flag passed.

  Barf Man. Barney Fife. It all changed that day at the Superette.

  “What seems to be the problem?” he said, standing ramrod straight, chin out and hat high.

  “None of your beeswax!” barked Mr. Bragg. “We’ll handle this our way!”

  Kingman shook his head. “Stand down, Mr. Bragg. Lower your weapon. That’s an order.”

  A couple of the people in the crowd actually laughed, but in an uneasy kind of way, as if they weren’t sure what was going on, or if they should really be part of it.

  Bragg brandished the AR-15. “I’m the one with the weapon! I’ll be giving the orders around here!”

  Officer Kingman had a pistol on his black leather belt, part of his uniform, but he didn’t unclip the holster. His hands stayed right where they were, with his thumbs hooked into his belt. Without raising his voice or sounding excited, he said, “This is New Hampshire. Everybody has a gun. Lower the weapon, Mr. Bragg, and ask your boys to do the same.”

  Bragg hesitated, looked around at the crowd, and finally lowered the AR-15. His sons stood at ease, hands off their guns, but Bragg remained at the head of his little family army, not backing down.

  “What you gonna do, Mr. Janitor?” he sneered. “What’s your plan?”

  Officer Kingman ignored that. He spotted one of the Superette employees and asked for the store manager. Took a minute, but Mrs. Adler emerged with a frightened look on her face. Stood there kind of stiff and defensive with Shop Smart at the Superette! on her store apron.

  “I understand there’s been a dispute about the price of groceries.”

  She shook her head vigorously. “We haven’t jacked up the prices, if that’s what you’re implying. But with the registers and card readers down, it has to be cash. What else can I do?”

  “How are supplies?”

  Mrs. Adler looked a little more confident—this was her area of expertise. She’d been running the Superette for as long as I could remember. “We stocked up before the holiday, so inventory is strong. The pharmacy is well stocked. Freezers are packed and will stay cold for the time being. But another day like this will wipe us out. People are hoarding, that’s what it is.”

  “Hoarding?”

  “This guy?” She jerked her thumb at Mr. Bragg. “Tried to swap a couple of itsy little coins for every can of tuna on the shelf, plus all the peanut butter.”

  “Gold sovereigns, lady, worth hundreds of dollars! It was a good deal!”

  “Maybe so. But if I give it all to you, what about those who haven’t been able to get to the store yet, or don’t have provisions laid by for an emergency?” She turned to Kingman. “We had to start rationing, officer. Ten cans to the customer, that’s the new rule.”

  “And those who don’t have cash?” Kingman asked.

  She hesitated, avoiding eye contact with Mr. Bragg. “We’ve been writing down names and the amount. Customers will settle up once the power comes back on.”

  “Sounds like you got it under control, Mrs. Adler. And you’re right to be worried about those without provisions. We have some elderly who don’t have much in the cupboard.”

  Webster Bragg, hearing that, started to edge away, the AR-15 slung over his back. His sons followed.

  “We could use your help, Mr. Bragg,” Kingman called out. “Rumor has it you and your family have lots of food stockpiled at your compound. Freeze-dried, canned, all kinds. Enough to survive for years. Any truth to those rumors?”

  “None of your beeswax! What’s mine is mine!”

  “No argument here.” Kingman turned back to the crowd. “How about those of you in line? Anybody know anyone who might need assistance? Folks who can’t get to the store or haven’t got a woodstove for backup? The temperature is a concern, as cold as it’s been. And drinking water could be a problem.”

  Later I decided it wasn’t the whistle that did it, put Reggie Kingman in charge. It was him asking who needed help.

  The thing about my mom, when she got mad she got real quiet, which was way scarier than yelling.

  “I’m sorry, okay? We didn’t know what was going on,” I tried to explain as the three of us walked home, snow squeaking under our boots.

  “Exactly my point.”

  “He was only shooting the ATM, not people.”

  “ ‘Only’ the ATM? That’s lame, Charlie. You’re better than that.”

  “It was stupid, I know.”

  We kept trudging along while Mom thought it over. Becca didn’t say a word. I wouldn’t, either, if it was her about to get punished. With Mom, excuses only made it worse.

  Mom took a deep breath, exhaling steam. “Under normal circumstances you’d be grounded. Phone privilege suspended. No devices, no TV. Obviously that’s pointless, given the situation. So all I can do is ask you to think before you put yourself in danger, and remember that family comes first.”

  “Of course, Mom. Absolutely.”

  She placed her mittens on my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Nobody knows what’s going on, or what really happened, and that makes things dangerous. I mean, come on, the power has been out for less than twenty-four hours, and already there are men waving guns and spouting nonsense? You keep away from all that, and especially from Webster Bragg. Stick close to home, clear?”

  “Clear.”

  We were coming up the walkway to the house. The wind had picked up, and snow was sifting into the shoveled path.

  “Becca, honey, you’re good with arithmetic, so I need your help taking an inventory of food, medicine, and supplies on hand. Charlie, you’re in charge of heat. See if you can get a sense of how many days before we run out of wood.”

  “We’ve got three cords, Mom. That’s enough for the whole winter.”

  She looked at me, eyes smiling. “You’re absolutely sure? Please think it through, sweet pea. Study, think, solve. That’s all I ask.”

  Sometimes it stinks to have a mom who’s a schoolteacher because everything is like a lesson. Study the problem, think about the problem, solve the problem. Blah blah blah. But as usual, she was right because once I really thought about it and made a few calculations, it was pretty obvious that if our stack of firewood was the only source of heat, it couldn’t possibly last through the whole winter.

  That’s what Mom was saying without saying it. Our woodstove wasn’t just a stove, it was a hungry mouth that needed to be fed, and its food—our woodpile—wouldn’t last forever. Kept going like this, twenty-four hours a day, the pile might last four or five weeks. Maybe. Longer if we got a thaw. Less if it got even colder.

  But hey, what was I worried about? It wasn’t like electricity was gone forever. This would be over long before the firewood ran out. Bound to be. Had to be. Right?

  Right?

  * * *

  The next few days seemed to be mostly about waiting. Waiting for the p
ower to come back on, and the lights and the phones and the TV, and everything else electric. Only it wasn’t like waiting for Christmas or your birthday, which can be fun. More like waiting for your parachute to open before you hit the ground.

  Mom got everything organized, of course, and Becca was into it, too, following Mom around with her notepad and her pencil with the big eraser that looked like a pink clown nose. Taking inventory and figuring out weekly menus, because Mom needed to keep her blood sugar balanced, and we all needed certain nutrients, and boring stuff like that.

  Officer Kingman came by on the second day, conducting what he called a “welfare check.”

  “Hello, Emma. We’re knocking on doors in the village,” he explained, holding his hat in his hands. “Evaluating the well-being of every resident, how they’re fixed for wood and food and water and so on.”

  “Big job.”

  “Yeah it is, but I’m not alone. First thing I did was deputize volunteers to check on the more remote homes. Some of those places are accessible only by snowmobile or snowshoe this time of year, and snowmobiles are out.”

  Mom invited him into the foyer. “The Carters keep horses,” she suggested. “That might help.”

  “We did consider that. But it turns out the snow is too deep for horses. You’d have to dig a path for them first. Faster on snowshoes.”

  Mom nodded. “Everything okay out there?”

  “Not even close, but we’re making do.”

  “My sister, Beth, is in the New Hampshire Air National Guard, on active duty. I keep expecting her to show up on our doorstep, let us know what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

  “Oh yeah? Where’s she stationed?”

  “Portsmouth.”

  He looked disappointed. “Way downstate, then. Must be a hundred miles from here.” He added, “I haven’t seen a plane in the sky. Have you?”

  Mom shook her head. Suddenly she seemed worried sick.

  His face fell. “I’m sure Beth is fine, Emma, but I’ll bet they’re keeping her pretty busy, planes or no planes. Emergency like this they’d mobilize everyone in uniform.”