by Bowman, Dave
Instead, he was on the other side of the country.
On the phone, he seemed bothered by something. When she mentioned that she had not been able to contact her family, it seemed to set him off even more.
She heard the panic in his voice from 1,400 miles away.
“Annie –” he began.
Then silence.
“Jack? Are you there?”
Nothing.
She had lost him.
She moved the phone away from her ear, her finger poised to dial his number. But the screen was blank. The phone was dead.
For a split second, she assumed the battery had simply died. But it had been fully charged when she left work less than an hour ago.
First her family’s phone lines had all been dead, and now her own.
Fear instantly began to wrap around her chest, making it difficult to breathe.
Something very wrong was happening. She could feel it.
She heard the sound of brakes squealing in the road adjacent to the restaurant. Before she could turn to look, something else caught her eye.
In the sky, to the southeast a good distance, a plane flew unusually low to the ground.
Annie blinked and shielded her eyes from the sun to see.
The plane was too far from the airport to be so low.
Something was terribly wrong.
She sucked in her breath through her teeth.
The aircraft blazed wildly through the sky. It careened down to the earth at a diagonal.
It’s going to crash.
She felt her body tense as she watched. The nose of the plane angled down.
A moment later, the aircraft was out of her view.
It disappeared behind the towering buildings of downtown Austin, crashing down somewhere out of sight.
Annie stood looking up at the blue sky with her mouth open. She was stunned.
How could the plane have lost control like that?
She shuddered, realizing all the lives that must have been lost in the crash.
What is happening here?
It had been headed toward the airport. Annie figured it was low to begin with to prepare for landing.
But then it seemed like the engines had just died – all at once.
And at the same time her phone had died.
Her heart began to pound. She had to leave.
Whatever was going on, it wasn’t safe to be on the streets. She needed to get home. And it needed to be as soon as possible.
She glanced at the parking lot where she had left her SUV.
In her panic, for a moment, she considered leaving without saying goodbye to the others inside Diego’s. But she couldn’t do that and live with herself. She had to warn them that something terrible was happening.
She didn’t know what it was, but planes didn’t just fall out of the sky like that. Especially not at the same time when everyone’s phones died.
Besides, she was Charlotte’s ride.
Annie approached the door to the restaurant. It opened quickly as several people left the restaurant in a hurry. She stepped out of the way impatiently to let them pass.
It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright outdoor light. Then, suddenly, she realized the electricity had gone out inside the restaurant. Outdoor light still streamed in through the windows, but the lights were out and the music had stopped.
All at once, it hit her. This was what Jack had been talking about ever since he started reading that conspiracy theory website.
An EMP.
An electromagnetic pulse. A disastrous event that would render most electronic devices useless.
She had always taken that website with a grain of salt. She’d always thought it was kind of silly, a distraction for Jack. Harmless, but nothing to be taken seriously.
And now what those people had warned about was really happening.
Or . . . at least it seemed like it was happening. How else could she explain the dead phone lines, the plane crash, and the power failure happening all at once?
Her mind raced. She didn’t have time to figure this out. She just had to warn her friends, and then get out of there.
She rushed by tables of customers who continued to eat their meals in the darkened building. A few complained to the waiters. The manager stood in the middle of the dining room, assuring the customers in a loud voice that the lights would be back on soon.
“Don’t worry, folks,” he said calmly. “We’ll have the power back on for you in no time. And until then, we’re happy to offer you mixed drinks at half price!”
Cheers erupted around the dining area as waiters scrambled to take the customers’ orders.
Annie made her way back to her table. Her team members were ordering another round of margaritas.
“Annie!” Nathan, the freshman literature teacher called. “Where did you run off to?”
Her words tumbled out.
“I saw a plane fall out of the sky,” she began breathlessly.
Everyone looked at her.
“What? A plane?” Nathan frowned.
“It lost control,” Annie said. “It was falling so fast. It must have crashed.”
Everyone turned to look out the windows.
“I don’t see anything,” Monica said, squinting.
“You can’t see it from here,” Annie said. “It went down at least a couple of miles away, to the southeast. I couldn’t see it crash. The downtown buildings blocked my view.”
“That’s awful,” Charlotte said, shaking her head. “Those poor people.”
“Yeah, it’s terrible,” Susan murmured, sipping her margarita. “I wonder what happened.”
Several of the teachers began to discuss what could have gone wrong with the plane.
“Listen, you guys,” Annie interrupted. “We have to get out of here. Right now!”
“Why? You said the plane crashed miles away,” Monica said.
Annie shook her head. “It’s not just the plane.”
“What’s going on, Annie?” Charlotte asked.
“It’s an EMP –” Annie began.
“A what?” Nathan asked doubtfully.
“It’s what made the power go out and the plane crash. And look! Look at your phones!” Annie exclaimed.
Monica and a couple of the others continued to talk among themselves, ignoring Annie.
Charlotte picked up her cell phone and frowned. She pressed the power button, to no avail.
“Okay, that is weird,” Charlotte admitted. She tucked a strand of her honey blonde hair behind her ear.
Nathan’s phone was dead as well.
“I’ve heard Jack talk about these EMPs,” Annie said, quickly gathering up her sweater and purse. “I – I think we may be under attack.”
Susan laughed. “Sweetie, I think you’ve been grading too many papers. You need to relax. It’s just a power outage.”
Annie watched as the rest of the English department ignored her and turned back to their drinks.
If this really is an EMP, I can’t just leave Charlotte here.
“Charlotte, come on, we’re leaving,” Annie said, grabbing her best friend’s arm.
If she couldn’t get the others to listen, fine. But she wasn’t leaving her closest friend behind.
“Annie, chill out. Have a drink. Just this once.”
Charlotte looked up at Annie to see the worry in her eyes.
Charlotte’s voice softened. “It’s just a fluke. The power grid probably just went out and took the cell towers with it. The plane crash was just a coincidence.”
Annie furrowed her brow. She grasped Charlotte’s wrist.
“Look at your watch, Charlotte,” Annie said. “It’s stopped. Did the power outage do that, too?”
Charlotte looked at the frozen second hand on her wrist watch. The watch had stopped at 3:43, just a few minutes after their arrival at the restaurant.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is . . . strange,” Charlot
te said. She took one last gulp of her margarita and quickly rose to her feet. “Fine. You win, Annie. Lead the way.”
Annie tore through the restaurant one last time. Charlotte called out behind her, asking her friend to slow down.
But Annie didn’t have any more time to waste. Charlotte would just have to keep up.
Annie burst through the front door.
As she ran through the parking lot, she was only dimly aware of the commotion in the streets. It sounded like there had been a car accident nearby. Maybe multiple ones.
A nagging thought pestered her as she approached her Toyota. If there had really been an EMP, it would mean that most vehicles wouldn’t work either.
She shook her head as she manually unlocked the door.
The car has to start. It has to.
With a shaking hand, she turned the key in the ignition. The engine wouldn’t turn over.
No!
Charlotte caught up to her as Annie pounded the steering wheel in frustration.
“What’s the hurry?” Charlotte asked, out of breath. “You’re acting like a lunatic!”
Annie quickly transferred a few items from her purse to the leather backpack she used for work. She left behind her books and lesson plans on the car seat. Shouldering her backpack, she slammed the door shut.
“My car won’t run,” Annie said. “Maybe no one’s car will.”
She nervously eyed a man trying to start his BMW a few cars down. His vehicle wouldn’t start either.
Now what will we do?
Annie felt her heart pounding in her chest. They had to get out of there.
Charlotte gaped at the commotion in the street. A few people were getting out of cars that had apparently stopped in the middle of the road. They looked furious.
“Come on,” Annie told her friend. “We’ll have to leave on foot.”
“Look at those people over there,” Charlotte said. “This doesn’t seem like a good time to go for a stroll.”
“We don’t have much of a choice,” Annie said. “Something tells me things are only going to get worse.”
Annie swallowed, fighting back the panic rising in her chest.
All around them, things were already getting heated. Several vehicles had crashed into each other. People were starting to scream at each other.
They were miles from either of their houses. Annie feared that things could get violent if they walked home through a city on the brink of collapse.
But she was even more afraid to stay downtown.
The city was under attack. Where they now stood was the most dangerous place they could be.
They were targets.
3
Every second mattered.
Jack tore through the city blocks of LA, past the restaurant where he had eaten lunch, past his hotel. He rounded the corner into the parking lot where his rental car was parked.
He just missed running straight into Brent, his coworker from back home at the Austin branch of Sun Stream Data.
“Whoa there, Jack,” Brent said. “Are you trying to escape? Can’t say I blame you. This morning was brutal, wasn’t it?”
Jack made it to his rental car and looked back at Brent as he unlocked the door. Jack didn’t have time to explain everything to him, but he felt a stab of guilt leaving him behind.
Brent jogged over to Jack’s car with a puzzled look on his face.
“Seriously though, Jack? Our team needs you for the presentation starting in ten minutes,” Brent said. He stood with his hand on the car’s open door.
Jack caught his breath as he glanced at him.
Brent wasn’t much older than college age. He had been working in Jack’s department as an entry-level employee for the past six months. He was green, but he was all right.
Anyway, he deserved to have a fighting chance to make it out of the city alive.
“Get in,” Jack said. He motioned his head toward the passenger door.
Brent looked confused, but he quickly got in the car. Brent had always looked up to Jack. He figured his manager knew what he was doing.
Jack was backing out of the parking space before Brent could close the door.
“What’s going on, Jack? Something tells me you’re not going to that presentation,” Brent said. “You know Old Man Harris will have our necks.”
“Listen closely,” Jack said. “We have bigger things to worry about than Harris. I have reason to believe that Los Angeles is about to be attacked. I’m leaving. Now. Being in the city isn’t safe. And if you want to make it back home alive, you’ll come with me.”
Brent stared at Jack through his glasses for a moment. Then he laughed nervously.
“That’s a good one, Jack. Right. We’re under attack,” Brent said, looking out the window and fidgeting.
Jack pulled out of the parking lot in a fury, narrowly avoiding being side-swiped by a Hyundai.
Brent shifted in his seat. He cleared his throat before continuing.
“Yeah, you had me going for a minute there. I have to say, it’s kind of a weird thing to be joking about when we’re supposed to make a presentation in –” Brent checked his watch and swallowed. “Seven minutes.”
Jack sped through the city street. He accelerated to make it under a traffic light just as it turned red.
“Brent, I’m dead serious,” Jack said.
“An attack?” Brent asked, bracing himself as Jack took a turn without slowing down. “Just on LA? That’s ridiculous!”
“Not just on LA. I assume it’s the whole country.”
“But – but, that’s crazy, Jack!” Brent said, glancing at Jack nervously. “How could you possibly know that?”
“I have my sources.”
Brent flinched as Jack switched lanes rapidly to pass a bus, coming within inches of the vehicle.
“Jack, please tell me this isn’t something you read online,” Brent said.
Jack made another turn.
“It started out as a warning I read online, yeah,” Jack said.
Brent scoffed. “Come on, man –”
“But then I called my wife,” Jack continued. “She’s got four family members near the East Coast whose phone lines are all dead. And then, while I was talking to her, her phone died too.”
“That’s it?” Brent asked. “You’re going to risk your job because of what some nut wrote on the internet and some cell tower outages?”
He shook his head.
Jack was fully aware of how it sounded. Leaving LA at that moment was crazy.
But it was more than just the warning online. More than the dead phone lines.
It was something in his bones that told him to flee.
Maybe it was gut instinct, or a hunch.
But he knew that if he ignored it, he would regret it the rest of his life.
“Sun Stream Headquarters is a block away,” Jack said. “You can get out there if you want.”
Brent sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine, drop me off there. What am I supposed to tell them about you?”
“You’ll think of something,” Jack said.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this. You know what this presentation means.”
“I know it makes no sense,” Jack said as he drove the vehicle under another traffic light. “I may turn out to be wrong, but I’d never forgive myself if anything ever happened to Annie while I’m out here schmoozing in California.”
Brent sighed.
“And I don’t think I’m wrong,” Jack said.
He slowed to a stop in front of the tall office building near the valet parking. “I think very soon, this place is going to be turned inside out. When it happens, try to get out of the city as fast as you can.”
Brent rolled his eyes and reached for the door handle.
He paused, looking up at the glass and steel building stretching up toward the sky. With his mouth open, he craned his neck to see the top of the towering structure. He glanced back at Jack, expecting him to appe
ar crazed or unhinged.
Instead, Jack seemed more focused and clear than Brent had ever seen him.
Finally, Brent groaned.
He let go of the door handle. Pounded his fist against the dashboard.
“So much for my promotion,” Brent said. “Drive!”
Jack peeled out onto the street with tires squealing.
He caught a glimpse of Harris leaving his Mercedes with the valet parking attendant. The noise startled the old man. He looked, confused, in their direction as Jack sped off.
Brent buried his face in his hands in anguish. “What have I done?” he moaned.
“Probably just saved your own life,” Jack said.
“You’re insane, Jack,” Brent said. “And I guess now I am too for going with you.”
Jack ignored him. He knew they didn’t have much time. He needed to focus on getting them out of the city.
“I want details,” Brent demanded. “What did that online warning say, exactly?”
“Later,” Jack said. “Right now we’ve got to find the fastest way out of downtown.”
“Wait, we’ve got to stop at the hotel,” Brent said, his voice rising in tone. “I still have all my stuff there.”
Jack shook his head. “No time. We’re leaving it.”
Brent sat up in his seat. “What? That wasn’t part of the deal. I can’t leave my things here in LA.”
“Your plaid shirts and aftershave can stay behind,” Jack said. “They won’t be much use to you anymore.”
Brent grumbled under his breath.
“And no planes,” Jack said. “Flying isn’t a good idea right now. We’re driving.”
Brent slumped down. “I take it we’re heading east?”
Jack nodded.
“Let’s just take I-10,” Brent said sullenly. That’ll take us all the way to Austin, won’t it?”
“The interstate will be a nightmare this time of day,” Jack said. “Look out there.”
Brent looked at an interstate overpass to the south. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper.
“We’ll try this state highway,” Jack said, seeing signs for a freeway heading east.
He steered the vehicle toward the on-ramp. Traffic was thick, but it was at least moving.
“This should take us out of the city,” Jack said. “Then we can take the interstate to Texas.”