After the EMP- The Darkness Trilogy

by Harley Tate

  Chapter Eleven

  TRACY

  Sacramento, CA

  6:30 p.m.

  “You sure you don’t mind me staying the night? The bus depot isn’t that far from here. You could drop me there, instead. I’m sure there’s just a problem with the bus for my route. Another has to be coming.”

  Wanda tucked her hands in her lap, smiling at Tracy. Apart from superficial talk about Tracy’s daughter in college and Wanda’s recommendations for summer reading, they didn’t know a lot about each other.

  Tracy smiled back. “It’s not a bother, really. Walt’s not home, Madison’s at school. It’ll be nice to have someone to share the house with for a night.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but Wanda didn’t seem to have a grip on the impending solar storm. Truth was, Tracy didn’t think Wanda should be alone, and two heads had to be better than one, right?

  “Thank you.” Wanda went back to looking out the passenger window and fidgeting.

  “Do you…” Tracy didn’t want to pry, but if Wanda had someone waiting at home for her…

  “It’s just me right now. My cat passed away a few months ago and I haven’t had the heart to get another one just yet.”

  Tracy exhaled, relieved to not have to drive across town tonight. They could stay on the smaller roads, head straight to Tracy’s house, and make it home before anything bad happened.

  The traffic light in front of them turned yellow and Tracy slowed, pulling up to a stop behind a small four-door sedan as the light changed to red.

  Wanda pointed out the front window, pushing her glasses up her nose as she squinted. “Is the light flickering or is it just me?”

  Tracy glanced up at the traffic light. The red light didn’t flicker… It pulsed, growing brighter then fading again and again.

  Like it was charged with too much current.

  Oh no. Nononono. Tracy looked out the window at the lines of telephone poles stretching down the street. The neighborhood they were driving through was built in the fifties. Tiny little ranches and bungalows all in a line with power lines stretched across telephone poles and into the houses. Just like Tracy’s own neighborhood built a decade before.

  There were more wires hanging from the telephone poles than leaves on the walnut tree in the yard next door. Tracy watched, breath caught in her lungs. Was this it? Was it really happening?

  The light in front of them turned green and the sedan one car ahead began to move when the entire traffic light exploded. Bits of metal and plastic flew in all directions and the wires connecting the light to the poles arced in the air.

  A hissing, sputtering sound grew louder and louder and the transformer perched on the telephone pole closest to Tracy’s SUV burst into flames. Electrical wires snapped in half, their live ends flailing about as the whole power grid flooded with current.

  It was just like Joe described, but way, way too early. The CME had arrived.

  Tracy scanned the neighborhood, watching in shock as house after house snapped to black. The street lights rolled out in a wave, the traffic lights blinked out, and in a matter of seconds, power to the entire area shut off.

  Oh my God. Tracy’s hand flew to her mouth. It’s real. Everything Joe warned her about had actually happened. Tracy’s thoughts flew to her daughter and her husband. Where were they? What were they doing? Madison’s last text put a whole new sense of urgency into Tracy. Her daughter was out there somewhere, trying to make it home.

  She didn’t know if she was safe or in danger or possibly worse. I have to protect her.

  Wanda shrieked beside her and Tracy almost jumped out of her seat. In her own panic, she’d forgotten the woman was even there.

  “The telephone pole is on fire! And that one is too!” Wanda pointed farther down the street, her painted red nail directed at another fire about twenty yards away. “What is going on?”

  Tracy swallowed. “Didn’t you see the Presidential Alert?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “On your phone. Didn’t you get an alert?”

  Wanda reached down between her feet and pulled up a zebra-print handbag. She fished out a little brick of a phone and powered it on. “I don’t turn my phone on during work hours.” She cast a sideways glance at Tracy. “It is the library.”

  Tracy couldn’t have stared any harder. She doesn’t know? All the time they were driving, all the time Wanda had been standing at the bus stop, holding her purse and hoping for the bus…

  Wanda didn’t know the whole world was about to change?

  A shout from outside made them both look up. The sedan in front of them sat in the middle of the intersection, a wire draped across its roof. The couple inside were twisting about, looking out the windows and waving.

  “What’s going on?” Wanda’s voice edged higher than its normal bubbly soprano.

  A man on the street corner shouted again. “I can’t get through to 911!” He waved his arms at the couple in the car, but they weren’t paying attention.

  Tracy looked at the wire, tracing it back to the telephone pole still on fire at the street corner. All at once it made sense. She laid on the horn until the woman in the car glanced up.

  “Don’t get out.” Tracy made a motion with her hands to curl up in a ball, shrugging her shoulders and holding them tight. “The wire! It could be hot!” She pointed at the wire draped across their car.

  The woman shook her head and grabbed her husband by the shoulder. He turned to face Tracy.

  She tried again. “The wire!” She gesticulated, jabbing her index finger in the air toward the pole. “It could still have a charge. Stay inside the car!”

  Wanda shook her head. “They should get out. Won’t they get electrocuted in there?”

  “No. As long as they stay in the car and don’t touch any of the metal, they’ll be fine. It’s when they try to get out that they’ll get hurt.”

  Tracy rolled down her window and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Don’t touch anything metal!”

  The man on the corner stepped off the sidewalk and headed toward the car. Tracy tried to wave him off. “Don’t! You’ll get hurt!”

  He stopped in the middle of the road. “They need help.”

  “You’ll get electrocuted.”

  “Are you sure?” Wanda peered out through the windshield, never once moving from her seat. “What if the car catches on fire?”

  Tracy glanced over at her. “Then they’ll have to jump free. But until then, they should stay put. If the metal parts of the car have been charged, just touching it will be enough.”

  Wanda scoffed. “You can’t expect them to just sit in there forever. They want to get home just like everyone else stuck here.” She waved around at the man in the street and the other cars facing them across the road.

  “The car in front of us won’t go anywhere if that couple is dead.” Tracy turned back to the sedan just as the bystander reached the car. Tracy shoved her door open, standing up to yell. “No! Stay back!”

  He paused, hand outstretched for the car. But it was too late. The woman inside reached for the door handle on her own. One touch of the metal handle and she jerked like a marionette on a string, flying backward and into her husband’s arms. He grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her as he turned to open his own door.

  “No!” Tracy shouted again, but it all happened too fast. The bystander rushed in, waving his arms and yelling, but the passenger didn’t stand a chance.

  Just as his wife had been electrocuted, so too, was he. His body jumped and twitched in the seat as the current passed through him. In moments it was over.

  He slumped over in the front seat, torso draped over the body of his wife. Nothing but the tops of their heads and wisps of smoke were visible.

  Tracy lowered herself back into her car and shut the door.

  “A-are… t-they…?” Wanda couldn’t finish the question.

  Tracy nodded. “I think so.”

  “Wow. I guess you were right.”

/>   Tracy cut Wanda a glance as she put the Suburban in reverse. She backed up until she was a safe distance away and turned around.

  The man from the sidewalk still stood in the road, useless cell phone in his hand, staring in shock.

  “Shouldn’t you go help them?”

  Tracy put the SUV in drive and headed back the way they had come. “I tried. They didn’t listen. There’s nothing anyone can do for them now.”

  “What about the police? Shouldn’t someone call?”

  A million responses came to mind, but Tracy shoved them all down. She turned the corner onto another street without power and shrugged. “Knock yourself out. My guess is you won’t have much luck.”

  Wanda turned on her phone and tinkered with it while Tracy tried to make sense of all that just happened. Every street she turned down looked the same. No lights. No sound.

  Nothing but the rumble of the Suburban’s engine and its headlights as she navigated by memory home. The CME must have caused the EMP Joe warned about, frying the circuits and the transformers from here to the East Coast, if not more.

  Maybe it was just a local outage, but Tracy didn’t think so. In the morning she could attempt to find out. Drive around, see what might not be impacted. But for now, they needed to get somewhere safe. Secure.

  Wanda jabbed at her phone’s screen, red nail clicking with every poke. “Silly thing. It’s not connecting to anything. Says I have no service.” She frowned and glanced out the window. “I always have service here.”

  Tracy didn’t have it in her to break the news to Wanda that night. Let the woman have one more good night’s sleep before she learned the world she knew and took for granted was gone.

  If it really was true.

  She turned down her own street and exhaled, hoping beyond hope that the rest of the country was blissfully unaware of the power outage here in Sacramento. Please let it be local. Small and manageable.

  If the whole country were hit… Tracy didn’t know how long anyone would survive.

  She pulled into her driveway and put the SUV in park before hopping out. “I’ll be right back.” Jogging up to her dark front step, she unlocked the door, rushed though the house and entered the garage. From there, she disengaged the power garage opener and pulled up the garage door by hand.

  As she hopped back into the driver’s seat Wanda glanced over at her. “Do you have a microwave? I sure could do with a warm glass of milk.”

  Tracy pulled into the garage and put the car in park before resting her head on the steering wheel. Explaining the future to Wanda wasn’t going to be easy.

  DAY TWO

  Chapter Twelve

  TRACY

  Sacramento, CA

  7:30 a.m.

  Coffee. Hot, steaming coffee made from fresh ground beans that cost more per pound than organic, free-range, patted and petted and called-by-name chickens from the fancy market one neighborhood over.

  It was the one thing above everything else Tracy would miss. She loved coffee. Sure, she would get used to the freeze-dried stuff mixed in a tepid cup of water, if she even had any water to spare, but darn.

  Good coffee could turn a whole day around.

  She tucked a leg up under her and looked over the list again. After she’d gotten Wanda tucked away in the guest bedroom with a portable lantern and shown her the shelf of books above the dresser, Tracy had unloaded the Suburban.

  Cases of water and Gatorade. Giant packs of toilet paper and paper towels. Boxes of granola bars and big plastic tubs of protein powder. It all went into stacks along the wall of her bedroom. She’d done well, but no matter how much she stocked up, it would all run out.

  And that was if no one found out she had it. She glanced down at the list. Everything she had in the kitchen. The food in the fridge. The extra supplies sequestered in her bedroom. All spelled out.

  She could make it last.

  The door to the guest bedroom squeezed open and a sleepy Wanda padded into the kitchen, wearing the same dress as the day before. Instead of her usual bun, Wanda’s hair trailed down her back in a loose braid, a few gray strands hanging free around her face.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did. It’s amazing how well you can sleep when there’s no noise. At my apartment, there’s always cars buzzing by, or the bus picking up, or people out late and talking on the street. You live in such a quiet neighborhood.”

  Tracy leaned back in her chair. “It’s not the neighborhood. It’s the lack of electricity.”

  Wanda perked up. “It still hasn’t come back on?”

  “No. And I don’t think it will. Not for a long time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tracy motioned toward the chair. “You should sit down. I can’t make coffee, but I can get you a glass of water if you’d like. I have some apple juice we should drink in the fridge too, since it’s been opened.”

  “Water would be great.”

  Tracy stood up before pulling a glass from the cabinet above the sink. She filled it with a pitcher standing on the counter.

  “What’s with all the water?” Wanda pointed at all the containers lining the counter. Every possible pitcher, vase, or decently sized Tupperware Tracy owned sat on the counter, full of water.

  “If it’s bad as I think it is, the water will run out very soon. We need to save as much as we can.”

  Wanda frowned and took the glass from Tracy. “I don’t understand. Isn’t it just a power outage?”

  Tracy exhaled and lowered herself back into her chair. Now or never. “The Presidential Alert that went out yesterday warned of severe space weather. Told everyone to shelter in place.”

  “Space weather?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I was an English major in college, Tracy. Not a scientist.”

  Tracy exhaled. “Then I’ll start at the beginning. Stop me with questions.”

  Half an hour later, Tracy and Wanda polished off a breakfast of yogurt and chopped fruit that wouldn’t last the day without power. But food only satisfied physical hunger, not concussion and curiosity.

  Wanda ran her fingers up and down the near-empty water glass, brows knit in thought. “So you’re saying a giant electromagnetic pulse knocked out the power to possibly the entire country?”

  Tracy held up her hands. “I don’t really know. It could be everywhere.”

  Wanda shook her head, her lips opening and closing as she tried to process everything Tracy had said. “But surely the government has prepared for something like this. The military will come. Or the National Guard. Or FEMA. Someone will be here to help us, won’t they?”

  “Maybe. After a while.” Tracy sipped her own water and glanced out the window to the street. The first rays of morning sun hit her front porch and a little wren landed on the railing. Did the animals notice the difference? The lack of electricity? Or was it just another beautiful day to them?

  She turned back to Wanda. “Without power, how can they communicate?”

  “Your car didn’t stop working. My cell phone still turns on. We’re not totally without power.”

  “But the grid is down. When the battery runs out in your phone, how will you charge it?”

  Wanda glanced down at her lap. “I don’t know.”

  “What about the gas pumps? Without electricity, who will keep the gas flowing?”

  “Some gas stations have backup power. Generators, that sort of thing.”

  “Those will work for a while. But when they run out of fuel, then what? Think about it. There won’t be any electricity for grocery stores or hospitals. Police stations or prisons.”

  Wanda’s eyes went wide.

  “How long do you think the government can keep the peace if the very people who we rely on to protect us have their own families to think about?”

  “You mean the police?”

  Tracy nodded. “And the military and firefighters and EMTs. Everyone we rely on to keep us safe. They have families. Some of whom might not
have any food in their house or water sitting on their counter.”

  Wanda chewed on her lower lip, the tell of insecurity softening the wrinkles around her mouth. “I don’t think you’re giving the government enough credit. People won’t just abandon their posts. They’ll do their jobs. It might take a little while, but we’ll be fine.”

  “Are you going to the library this morning?”

  Wanda blinked. “The… the power’s out! How could I even open?”

  Tracy shrugged. “Don’t you think other people are going to think the same thing?”

  Wanda might not want to admit it, but police officers and firefighters and members of the military were just like them. Scared and confused and unsure what to do next.

  If they were faced with making sure their family had food, shelter, and water to survive versus going to work and helping strangers, Tracy didn’t think it would be a hard choice. She knew Walt was doing everything he could to get home this very minute. Assuming he was all right.

  She pushed the worry aside. Her husband was a strong, dependable man. If he could get back to her, he would. Now Madison on the other hand…

  Tracy twisted her cup of water around on the table. At nineteen years old Madison didn’t have the life experience of her father. She didn’t know how to handle a disaster like this. Was she really on her way home? Had she changed her mind and stayed on campus?

  How long before life at the university fell apart?

  Thinking about her daughter was why she’d been up to watch the sunrise and why she’d been out on the roads to run into Wanda at all. She glanced up at the woman she barely knew.

  Wanda had to be in her mid-fifties, about ten years older than Tracy, if she had to guess. But instead of staying in shape and active like Tracy made a point of being, Wanda had let herself go. Tracy wouldn’t get much help in the manual labor or self-defense department from Wanda, but maybe she had some other skills.