“Holy shit,” Eva said.
“I’ll be damned,” Mark said.
Some headlights crawled along the invisible grid of unlit streets in the foothills. She could hear the siren of an ambulance passing nearby, but from Mark’s roof, she couldn’t see the roads just beyond the perimeter wall.
“This could be happening in L.A. too. Maybe even as far as San Francisco,” Ralph said. “EM radiation is unpredictable.” He gestured at the specks of fires at the base of the faraway mountains.
“It could still just be a normal power outage.” Eva sat down on the rough wood and leaned her head against a post.
She wondered how this would affect the completion of her doctoral degree. What if the university shut down, delaying her graduation by a semester, or more? Her entire timeline would be messed up. She was supposed to graduate before Ben got back so that they could both move to wherever he landed a job, something related to journalism, and she would try to find a job there too. At least, that had been the plan. Would Ben know what was happening?
“Do you have a landline?” she asked.
Mark shook his head. “Just got rid of it last year. My ex convinced me I didn’t need it any longer.” He laughed, quick and bitter.
“I need to find a landline.”
Ralph turned to Mark. “What about Joe?”
“Nah, he doesn’t even have cable.”
Ralph nodded. “Best bet is probably going to Thai Town or somewhere in that strip mall.”
“They won’t be open,” Eva said.
“They’ll be open soon enough.” Mark shrugged and stepped toward the ladder. “Power might be on by then.”
“I doubt it. If it’s anything like the Carrington Event — ”
Mark looked at Eva. “He’s been talking about this for months.”
“You don’t know that’s what’s going on,” Eva said.
“I follow reports on solar activity. There was a large solar blast this morning. The timing makes sense.”
This was not that surprising coming from Ralph. In the evenings, when he would invite himself over to her patio, he would often talk about his work as an EOD tech in Afghanistan and Iraq. He would describe a preternatural feeling, like ringing in the ears but more like a tensing in his mind, that he would experience just before finding an explosive. He believed this was true, that humans could have a sense about these things. But Ralph had dedicated himself to an obsessive study of explosives and prior incidents in the region, and Eva suspected this feeling of his was nothing more than the processing of his vast knowledge and awareness in the back of his mind. She began to worry that it was the same with this, that maybe he was right.
Mark shook his head and let himself down the ladder, disappearing below the roof.
“Why didn’t you warn anyone?” Eva asked.
“Because I still had no idea that the radiation would travel here.”
She felt herself crying in that way one does when it’s entirely involuntary. Her breathing didn’t change. She wasn’t gasping or sobbing or making any sound at all. Tears just flowed.
Ralph looked confused. He crouched beside her and gripped her shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Power will come back on eventually. And we’ll figure it out in the meantime.”
Eva turned her head, trying not to smile. Laughter rose in her until she couldn’t stop shaking. Ralph wrapped his arms around her in a supportive hug. When he started making soft hush sounds and stroking her hair, she pulled away and stood up.
“I’m not crying, I’m laughing.”
“Okay,” Ralph said, slow and elongated. “You looked upset.”
“You seem a little too happy to share all this news. And so what if the power comes back on in a month? That’s still pretty fucking terrible.”
“I’m not happy,” Ralph said. “It’s just that I can be calm for this type of thing. I can handle this type of problem.”
Ralph pulled out a cigarette and lit up. He inhaled deeply and leaned back, looking up at the sky. “Maybe we’ll see an aurora.”
Eva started to feel annoyed again but then Ralph winked at her.
“Can I have one?”
“You smoke?”
“I used to, in college, but I quit.”
She usually complained to Ben on their video dates about Ralph’s smoking. On cool nights, she liked to use her window screen, but she couldn’t after Ralph got home from the airport. In the evenings when he was home, he would chainsmoke on his patio for hours, sipping Dr Pepper. Dozens of Dr Pepper cans overflowed his recycling bin each week. When the weather was nice, she would try to read outside, but then she would smell his cheap Pall Malls and Ralph would see her and come over, or just talk over the divider, sometimes for hours. He usually talked about his ex-wife. He missed his stepdaugh ter and the dog they shared. This kept him tethered to his ex, and he still visited them from time to time, helping around the house. He’d unload everything in these conversations, and although she felt bad for him, she viewed it as weakness, to share so much with someone about whom you knew so little. The more he told her, the less she felt compelled to share her own anxieties, especially regarding her relationship. Ben was just some long-distance boyfriend that Ralph had never met. And for Ben, Ralph was the annoying TSA neighbor who interrupted her reading and made her house stink.
Ralph handed her a cigarette and lit it for her. He cupped one hand around the flame as she inhaled, shielding out the breeze. The gesture struck her as intimate and protective.
They both leaned back, shoulder to shoulder.
“You had a fight,” Ralph said.
“Excuse me?”
“Was it your boyfriend? It’s not like I’m trying to hear you. But our walls are thin and you sounded upset. I could hear you right before the power went out.”
She felt the blood rushing to her face. “What did you hear?”
“He’s pissing you off.”
“It’s hard.”
She could feel him staring at her, waiting for more, but she just kept smoking.
“At least I can head over to Katie’s to make sure everyone is okay,” Ralph said. “If this thing is real, what will you do?”
“Katie isn’t your wife anymore.”
Ralph looked away. “I know.”
“It’s not the same thing at all.”
“Sure.” He took another slow puff on his cigarette. “It’s still hard.”
Mark emerged on the deck, shoving a small cooler across the floorboards. He wiped the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his frayed bathrobe.
“Help yourselves.” He pulled a frosty bottle of beer out and uncapped it.
“Now?” Ralph said.
“Why not now? They’ll get warm.” Mark nudged the cooler toward Ralph and Eva.
Then Ralph sifted through the contents, digging in the ice and reading the labels.
“No soda?”
“There’s Newcastle in there.”
“Mark.”
“Jesus, Ralph. You think you’re an alcoholic but you’re not. You’re just a goddamn killjoy.”
Eva thought about Ralph’s soda habit. She couldn’t remember when that started.
Ralph stood up and made for the ladder.
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
“Oh come on, Ralph. I’m just messing around,” Mark said. “I’ll get you a water.”
“I’m going to find a way to call out and see how far this thing goes.”
“I’m coming with you,” Eva said.
Mark followed them out of the house and insisted on joining them. “I want to pick up some supplies,” he said.
“I thought you wanted to sleep,” Ralph said.
“I haven’t seen a citywide blackout since the summer of ’69 in New York. And you know what really helped pass the time? You know what kept most people on an even keel? A few beers on the stoop.”
“Do what you want, Mark.”
They w
alked across the street and climbed into Ralph’s truck. Eva slid into the narrow backseat. They only made it as far as the neighborhood exit, where the large gate failed to open. They all piled out of the truck and tried to push it, but the rusted, heavy metal wouldn’t budge.
“Shouldn’t there be a manual override?”
“Yes,” Ralph said. “There should be.”
“Can’t you just ram it?” Mark asked.
“My truck is government property. If you want to destroy your own car, be my guest.”
Mark did not. They had to walk. Eva unlocked the pedestrian exit, and they left the truck parked on the curb, less than a quarter mile from Ralph’s driveway.
As they walked along the pocked, seldom-used sidewalk, Eva noticed Mark had a hitch in his gait, like he had a bad hip. He was several inches shorter than Ralph. He was short and kept looking up at Ralph as he interrogated his solar flare theory.
“So let’s say this is the real deal. What’s your next move?”
“Depends how widespread it is,” Ralph said.
“But what if it’s the whole coast?” Mark asked, like it was a game, like everything was a distant hypothetical.
“I’ll probably get supplies and pack up my truck, check on Katie and Jill, and head out. Get back to wherever there’s still power.”
“And just leave your place to looters?”
“There’s nothing here worth the risk of staying,” Ralph said.
Without any lights, the streets looked foreign. The high walls of lackluster gated communities, neighborhoods at the cusp of lower middle class, corralled them into avenues of nothing but road, lampposts, and the occasional bus shed. A car drove by at ten miles per hour, hesitated at the intersection, then crawled away on a dark residential road.
They walked three blocks. When they reached the strip mall parking lot, the first business they saw was a Jeanie’s Jackpot, a video poker and “spirits” lounge for aging women who wanted a down-home aesthetic. It scared away the men and made women feel safer about getting their buzz on and gambling alone in the wee hours.
A sixty-year-old woman was sitting on the curb in a purple jumpsuit and gold flats, staring at her cell phone. The glow of the screen cast her face blue and made her makeup look purplish and gothic.
Eva called out to her, “Is Jeanie’s open?”
The woman looked up. “Mark?”
“Oh hey, Michelle.”
“You two know each other?” Eva said.
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s a real piece of work, aren’t you, Mark?”
“That was months ago.”
“You never showed.”
“I slept through my alarm. I’ve told you a dozen times.”
“Who needs an alarm at five in the afternoon?” She took a sip from a can of beer and set it back down on the asphalt.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Mark carefully lowered himself beside her. “You have another one of those?”
Michelle swatted his arm. “You stand me up and then you want my beer?” She added, “Power’s out.”
“Power’s out everywhere,” Ralph said. He lit a cigarette and offered Michelle one.
Michelle took a puff, then hit a button on her phone. She shook her head. “Damn phone isn’t working.”
“My cell isn’t working either,” Eva said. “Do you have a landline we could use?”
Michelle scoped Eva out as she smoked. “You guys all know each other?”
Eva felt embarrassed. “We’re neighbors. Mark and I just met.”
Michelle nodded. “Door’s unlocked. About an hour ago, the machines started going nuts. Couldn’t make sense of it. Power was out but then the John Wayne slots started flashing and spinning numbers. On and off, a few times. My nerves couldn’t take it, so I’ve been out here waiting for the power to come back on.”
Eva thanked her and followed Ralph inside. Dozens of video poker and slot machines filled the space in clusters, interspersed among tables covered in checkered cloths. Even in the darkness, with her lantern, Eva could make out the tendrils of fake ivy dangling from ceramic pots on top of the slot machines.
Ralph held the phone to his ear for a moment, but instead of dialing, he handed the receiver to Eva.
“You call first,” she said. “I want to know what this is before I call anyway.”
Ralph shook his head. “Listen.”
Then she heard the silence, the lack of dial tone.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was wrong. The flare must have fried the copper.”
They stared at each other for a moment, as if waiting to see who would have the strongest reaction. The news still didn’t feel real. She could gather supplies. Wait for the solar storm to ebb away, using her camping lantern and candles at night, staying in the shade all day, hoping record heat wouldn’t smother the valley. If it lasted weeks, she would probably leave the city too. She only had a quarter tank of gas. She couldn’t buy more. Credit cards and banks were down. And she would have to drive through hours of desert to get to the next city. She hated to admit it, but she wouldn’t feel safe in the house without Ralph on the other side of the wall. Sometimes, when she was trying to fall asleep and thinking too much about Ben — who was probably not doing the same, at least not to the same degree of unwanted distraction — she would feel the tremor of Ralph’s door, and then, if she focused, the sounds of late-night foraging in his kitchen and the muted voices of the television. In these moments, she returned to the present and welcome weight of impending sleep and she thought, I’m not alone in this house, not really. Maybe loneliness was just the illusion we create when we believe we need one particular person above all possible others.
A light flashed from a nearby machine, and John Wayne’s voice drawled, distorted and slow, “What is it now, pilgrim …?” Eva dropped the phone and leaned into Ralph. They looked over in time to see a blur of icons scrolling through the display. Then the machine went dark and silent.
“Can they catch fire?” she asked.
“I doubt it,” he said, placing the phone on its cradle. “But what do I know?”
“Is there no other way for me to reach him?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It probably doesn’t matter. What could I say anyway? That everything’s fine? I’ll be okay? Talk in six months, maybe?”
“It will be okay. Eventually.”
She put her hand over Ralph’s and gave it a quick squeeze of acknowledgment. “Where to now?”
“Back home. At least until we figure out the next step.”
“I’m not staying here alone,” she said. “In the city, I mean.”
The lantern barely lit their faces. She wondered if her eyes looked glassy. She could cry, but she wanted to skip that part.
“Of course not,” he said. “ We just need to go where the lights are still on.”
They were startled by Mark knocking on the storefront window. He motioned for them to come outside. Michelle was aiming a disposable camera at the sky.
When Ralph and Eva joined them on the sidewalk, they looked up and saw the aurora. Pink strands and impossible green striations sifted through the atmosphere, traces of solar wind reaching and bending across the sky. The quiet arcs of color hid the stars.
THE WAY THEY SAW HER
In the beginning, the messages seemed harmless to Cleo. Although there was a rash of random first-name Twitter accounts, each followed by a string of numbers — Bob349803592, Cindy39840392, Jake3899 — she suspected they belonged to the same person. At first each would simply say hello. When she asked who they were, they would ask how she was doing or what the weather was like or if she’d had a good day. She would ask again, “Who are you?” and then they would delete their account.
After a couple weeks of these anonymous greetings, she figured she was being harassed by bots, although she couldn’t say why she would be a target. The eleventh time it happened, she asked Brian1991 who he was, and he wrote, “You should know,” then wiped his account.
That was the first time she worried in any serious way. She was forced to wonder, why should she know this anonymous person? What had she done to merit the cryptic attention?
While stuck in traffic on the 10 — a time she usually reserved for listening to motivational podcasts to calm her new-job anxiety — she made a list of anyone she’d met or interacted with recently. After two months in L.A., the only people who could connect her name with a face were her boss and coworkers at the studio. Actually, only one coworker could probably connect her full name with her face, but Jill seemed like the type who made a big display of knowing everyone. A performative people person. It was possible, Cleo supposed, that her property manager might recognize her on the street, but he lived in Silver Lake and struck a seriously disinterested vibe when she proudly mentioned where she worked.
Cleo was an only child, a latchkey kid, and as such, she had always desperately courted the approval of her peers, even as she felt like a specimen emerging from experimental isolation. On the rare occasions when a potential friend invited her to hang out at their home, she observed each mundane interaction with fascination. She loved watching it all — the way the parents fought, the battle for the brother’s gaming device, the cacophonous sibling debate over dinner. Even when friendships evaded her, she was not one to accumulate nemeses. Once, a neighbor girl had told her it was unfair that she had the limited edition Secretariat from that year’s Breyer horse catalog, since that had always been her favorite Triple Crown winner, so Cleo had wrapped the statuette in the tissue paper left over from the shoes her mother had bought her for the first day of school and then deposited the gift on her neighbor’s front steps with a card that began, “Dear Friend.” The more she remembered, the less she could draw a connection worthy of a vendetta. She even began to wonder if the messenger’s insistence that she should know them was benign, maybe even well-intentioned. Perhaps this use of should was congenial.
When Dan030506 messaged Cleo about her favorite dress, the summery one with eyelets, she had just finished assembling her wrought iron bed frame in her new apartment — a studio in an unfinished loft building. There were still tarps on the north-facing windows of the complex. She usually parked her beat-up silver compact car a few blocks away — anything closer was overridden by dumpsters, construction permits, or cars that belonged to people with kinder schedules. At night, when she neared her building, a converted perfume warehouse, the plastic sheeting would flap against the breeze, stiff and milky. They were behind schedule, her property manager said, but don’t worry. Utilities would be covered until the common areas were completed. Someday there would be a lounge with billiards, vending machines, and a coworking station. It was hard to picture. Now that space was a cavernous swath of mottled concrete and support beams. A perfect setting for a zombie film.
What Makes You Think You're Awake? Page 16