by Ann Mayburn
Paige didn’t have very many people to call; her only living family was her abusive, drunk father, but she’d called him anyway, for all the good it would do, then called their friends and the people she babysat for.
Casey glanced into her rearview mirror then looked over at Kimber. “Turn on the radio, see if they know anything.”
While Kimber flipped through the stations with a shaking hand, finding only music, morning talk shows, or commercials, Casey took the turn into her small town and a little bit of her tension drained away. Surrounded by miles of farmland and fields, Chelsea was a very pretty place, the kind of small town that hadn’t changed much in the last hundred years. Outside of town the homes were spread out, and there was a good-sized state park with a lake where she swam when she was growing up. The main street was filled with quaint shops and well-maintained buildings that the Chelsea Historical Society kept watch over, making sure the current owners didn’t do anything to take away from the ‘character’ of the town.
As she drove down the street, she once again searched for signs of trouble among the cute shops and bright pots of blooming crocuses, but everything looked normal. If anything, Casey and her friends driving down the street in their pajamas staring at everyone was the most abnormal part of this idyllic scene. Casey’s back itched, like someone was watching her, and she had to resist the urge to keep checking her rearview mirror, as though one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was trotting behind her rear bumper. That long-buried fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in, and she swore her vision had somehow sharpened.
She quickly pulled into the gas station and ran inside with her friends hot on her heels.
“Hey, Casey,” Merl, the old man behind the counter she’d known since birth, said with a smile. “What’s the rush?”
For a moment, she debated telling him anything, but as she paid for the gas cans she leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Merl, something bad has happened. I don’t know what but Roxy told me that she’s been called off of leave because the government is about to declare martial law.”
He gaped at her for a moment, then began to laugh, his wrinkles bunching together as he smiled. “Good one, you almost had me going for a minute there.”
Grabbing the cans she gave him one last look as she ran out the door. “Merl, I’m serious. Get your son here with your gun. If shit really has hit the fan, you’re going to be mobbed with people soon.”
With his admonishments about a young lady not using that kind of language ringing in her ears, Casey hurried to her car and began to fill up the gas cans, leaving the other girls behind in the store while they bought up all the bottled water and non-perishable foods that the small store had. Casey was a little over halfway done when a high-pitched, deafening squall of static came from the station’s overhead speakers. The sound startled Casey so badly she almost sprayed herself with gasoline before she released the trigger on the nozzle. The fumes from the spilled fuel burned her eyes as she put the nozzle into the gas can with a shaking hand and nausea gripped her in a stomach-clenching cramp.
Dogs in the surrounding neighborhood began to bark and howl, and Casey watched in stunned horror as birds began to fall from the sky. A sparrow landed nearby, fluttering its wings weakly, tiny black eyes still focused on the sky that had just rejected it.
Three loud bursts, like gigantic flamethrowers going off all around the world at once, rent the air, and Casey screamed.
A moment later, an extremely deep, terrible noise vibrated through her forcing the breath from her body and almost knocking her to the ground. She had no idea that sound could have weight, but this did, and she would later swear the atoms in her body shook around like dry beans in a can. The sound was brief, no more than half a heartbeat, but it felt like a century. Her body rang with an echo of the tone and she dragged in first one harsh breath, then another.
The digital readout on the gas pump went wonky, the numbers racing before it blanked out completely.
Off in the distance tires screeched and the unmistakable crunch of metal hitting metal echoed in the air followed by blaring horns. She took the now useless nozzle out of the can and hung it up, then fastened the cap onto the can while trying to keep her fear from turning into blind panic. She was overcome with the need to see her parents and feel the safety of their embrace. Her heart sank as she realized she’d only managed to get twenty gallons of gas, but the urge to get home immediately filled her. As she was putting the cans into her trunk her friends ran out, their arms loaded down with plastic bags.
“What happened?” Dawn asked as she shoved the bags into the car. She was crying; her freckles stood out from her pale skin like blood on a snow bank.
“I don’t know,” Casey said in a thick voice, fighting the urge to just break down into hysterics. “If that was a terrorist attack I have no idea what the fuck just happened.”
Paige went to jump in the car, then paused and looked around. “Looks like the power is out everywhere.”
“Holy fuck,” Kimber whispered and they all looked over to her, only to find her staring slack-jawed at the sky.
Following Kimber’s line of sight, Casey looked out into the clear, sunny sky and gasped. Instead of the usual faultless blue, the sky was now filled with undulating waves of color. Ribbons of apple green, lemon yellow, crimson, and various shades of purple danced in the sky. It was the most eerily beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“It’s like the northern lights, during the daytime,” Paige whispered. “But that’s impossible.”
Merl came out the front door of his store, the jingling bells drawing Casey’s attention away from the sky. It wasn’t like the northern lights she’d seen on TV. Those were wispy, almost ethereal-looking. These streaks of light were more like bright, sustained fireworks.
“Solar flare,” Merl said in a choked voice while wiping his face with a faded blue handkerchief. “Must be a huge solar flare that knocked the power out.”
From nearby came the sound of car alarms going off and she shook her head, trying to block out the background noises.
“Get in the car,” Casey said in a low, choked voice. When none of her friends moved she screamed, “Get in the car!”
The four-block drive back to her house, normally less than five minutes, took ten as she drove around people who had abandoned their cars in the middle of the street to stare at the sky, forcing her to drive up on lawns and sidewalks in places. Police sirens sounded from all around town and the noise was driving her crazy. An image of what must be happening in Ann Arbor filled her mind and she wondered how bad the streets were leading in and out of the city as desperate students and commuters tried to leave. Then her imagination took a dark turn, and her stomach clenched as she wondered what was happening in the major cities. She’d learned in her sociology class that humans were, at the best of times, one step away from reverting to their primitive self, that in times of crisis a herd mentality tended to kick in; if the herd freaked out, the world would go down the shitter real quick in a stampede of fear and stupidity.
When they pulled onto her street she let Kimber off first, then Dawn, not stopping to talk to the frantic parents who cried tears of relief at the sight of their daughters.
Paige climbed into the front seat next to Casey and gripped her hand while still staring at the sky. “Do you think it’s a solar flare like Merl said?”
“I don’t know, honey.” Some of her anxiety eased as she pulled into her driveway, the familiar flower beds and white painted porch with its terra-cotta pots filled with tulips soothing her heart. “Thank fuck we’re home.”
As soon as Casey got out of her car her mother burst out of the front door of their two story Craftsman home, her dark brown eyes wide as she ran down the steps. Dressed in a pair of tan capris and a cute pale yellow sweater, she looked like she was on her way to a garden club meeting rather than experiencing some kind of crazy terrorist attack.
The relief on her mother’s face made Casey’
s nose burn. “Thank the Goddess you made it!”
Letting her mother sweep her up into her arms, Casey hugged her back. “Mom, what’s happening?”
Her father came out of the house a moment later carrying his rifle, wearing his grey business suit and no-nonsense brown tie. While her mother was short and round with dark hair and eyes, her father was tall and blond, kind of like a Viking, if Vikings had been rather nerdy accountants. “Satellites are down,” he said in a gruff voice. “Cable hasn’t been affected but all the news stations are chasing the holes in their asses. No one knows what’s going on.”
“I thought the power was out?” Casey glanced up and down the still empty street.
“It’s going in and out,” her mother replied. “But we’ve got the generator. The phone lines are down, or overwhelmed, and we can’t get a signal on our cell phones.”
“I’ve got gas in my trunk,” she said quickly, and Paige added, “I have food and medicine.”
Casey’s dad gave Paige a pleased smile that made the other girl light up. He looked at Casey. “Smart to stop for gas.”
“Roxy told me to,” she said in a low voice, wincing when her mother made a pained sound while her father audibly swallowed.
Gathering himself, he stood taller and lifted his chin in a defiant gesture that Casey could remember Roxy doing. “Well, we’re not doing any good standing out here, and I don’t know about you, but I’d feel better if we got off the street.”
Neighbors were coming out of their homes here and there, yelling information to each other. More than one person yelled thanks to Casey’s parents for their warning, and her father gave them a quick pep talk about keeping their family safe and coming over if they needed a place to stay.
He gave Paige a hug. “You are staying with us, understood? You will always have a room at our home, whenever you need it.”
Paige nodded, and for once, didn’t give any protests about not wanting to be a burden. “Okay.”