Tales of Downfall and Rebirth

by S. M. Stirling

  That night he shaved off his scruff and even tried to work out a little. Jake, passing through, gave him an indulgent smirk.

  * * *

  Two days later, as he took his time to get to class, he noted the mountains towering over the campus and the pioneer-built city of Salt Lake spread across the Wasatch Front below. How had he never noticed how beautiful it was? He could even make out the temple, jutting up from its spot on Temple Square.

  Someone bumped shoulders with him, knocking his books out of his hand, and when he turned to see who it was, Rick Gardner, a guy on the football team, was glaring back over a well-muscled shoulder. He wasn’t from Bend, but rather a little town outside of Bend. He’d gone to the next high school over, but now apparently he was inserting himself into the Bend High School pecking order to help remind Marc of the fact that he was at the bottom.

  Marc brushed it off. If a bunch of Idaho hicks had it in for him, he didn’t care. They would matter less and less as his life went on.

  BellaFeliz: Do you miss Chilean food?

  Marc: Oh yeah. There’s a guy from Chile in my class, and we complain about how much we miss it all the time.

  BellaFeliz: I’ll have to cook for you, then.

  Marc: And I’ll have to take you to some American restaurants.

  BellaFeliz: To eat hamburgers?

  Marc: Yeah, if you want. Or I need to take you someplace to get a good milkshake. Utah has some of the best milkshakes in the world.

  BellaFeliz: Sounds like fun. So I arrive in ten days at 3 p.m.

  Marc: Do you want me to pick you up?

  BellaFeliz: No, I don’t want to bother you.

  Marc: No, let me pick you up. That way your cousin’s husband doesn’t need to take time off work. And it’d save your cousin from having to drive.

  BellaFeliz: You’re sure?

  Marc: Positive.

  BellaFeliz: Okay, I will e-mail my cousin.

  BellaFeliz: I made a mistake today, I think.

  Marc: What’s that?

  BellaFeliz: I showed your picture to my friend, Gertrudes, and when she asked who you were, I said you were a guy I’m seeing.

  Marc sat back from his desk, a smile stretching from ear to ear.

  Marc: Is it a mistake?

  BellaFeliz: Do you think it is?

  Marc: I don’t mind if it’s not.

  BellaFeliz: Really?

  Marc: Unless you don’t want to go on a date when you’re out here.

  BellaFeliz: No, I do.

  Marc pumped his fist in the air. “Yesss!”

  He didn’t get to bed that night until two a.m. Even after Angela signed off, he was aglow, unable to settle down, let alone go to sleep.

  Computers and the Internet were the best inventions ever.

  * * *

  More than a week later, someone rang his doorbell at eleven at night, which didn’t cause him to look up from his computer and his chat with Angela, until Jake knocked on his door. “It’s your girl,” he said.

  Marc: Be right back.

  BellaFeliz: Okay.

  He found Chrissie seated on the couch, her eyes red and her cheeks raw from tears. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Um . . . okay, so, I was praying and . . . something happened. Someone came.”

  “Who came?”

  “An angel. With a sword.”

  “Who said what? You and I are meant to be together forever?”

  She burst into fresh tears. “No, and I’m not joking. It’s what I saw.”

  “Why are you telling me?”

  “Because up until recently, you were my best friend. Now it’s like you don’t care about me at all.”

  “Chrissie, we aren’t together anymore.”

  “Does this look like a romantic visit to you? Have I said one thing about us getting back together? You and I used to talk.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. It’s just that you and I have drifted apart.”

  “You’ve drifted. I’m still the same person I always was. And I can take a hint.” She got to her feet, crossed over to the front door, and let herself out.

  * * *

  The next morning, Chrissie was back to walk with him to class. He scowled at her but she had her jaw set in such a way that he knew there was no point arguing. Best to let her do her pathetic, clingy thing.

  Only, she didn’t grasp his arm and beg him for a date. She walked beside him with her bag slung over her shoulder and said, “The world as we know it is about to change.”

  “That your revelation?” Marc sneered.

  “Yeah.” She gave him a sidelong look. “I don’t normally go around telling people the answers to my prayers, but—”

  “Excuse me?” snapped Marc. “You’ve been telling me for months that we’re meant to be together.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating there.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “I’m over you and I’m over us. Now will you listen to me? Did you even pray about what I told you last night?”

  He shook his head and walked faster. She made no effort to catch up.

  BellaFeliz: When I arrive in the USA, are you going to take me for a milkshake right away?

  Marc: Yeah, if your cousin can spare you for a little while.

  BellaFeliz: I’ll have to dress nice on the plane, then.

  Marc: Nah, it’s casual.

  A sudden kick to the head, pain like he’d never felt before—and then gone . . . The screen and all the lights went dark. Dangit. Marc fumbled along the wall for his emergency flashlight, pulled it from the plug, and switched it on.

  It didn’t work.

  “Marc?” Jake yelled from the other room. “My CD player isn’t working.”

  “It’s a power outage,” he yelled back.

  “My CD player runs on batteries. It wasn’t plugged in.”

  Marc’s grip on the handle of his flashlight tightened. “Okay, that is completely weird.”

  Outside came the sound like boulders rolling downhill. “An airplane just crashed into campus!” a hysterical voice yelled.

  “People’s cars aren’t working!” yelled another.

  Then so many voices began to shout that it became impossible to tell one from another. Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway, as the voices faded into the distance.

  Marc fumbled in his desk for a box of matches and one of his safety candles. That worked. He hoisted the candle above his head, but the light was too weak to reveal much. He shouldered open his door and the light fell on Jake’s face, shining with sweat.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s a really bad power outage?” guessed Marc.

  “That stops cars? And their headlights. Look out the window. It’s pitch-black.”

  Marc obeyed, going to open the blinds of the window in their living room. He thought he’d seen darkness before, but this was something else. It was as if the very air had gone opaque. A quick gaze upward reassured him that at least the stars still shone, but even they seemed more distant and tiny than usual.

  “Come on,” said Jake. “Let’s try my car.”

  When he and Jake emerged in the hall, the scene was relatively sane. People stood with their doors open, chatting, candles held aloft as if at a rock concert during a slow song.

  Marc nodded a greeting to anyone who called out to him as he and Jake made their way down the candlelit gauntlet to the stairs—though Marc did hit the button for the elevator on the way past, just to be sure.

  The carpark had more groups of people standing in small clusters. Someone had built a campfire on the asphalt, which lit up the rows of cars in its bronze light.

  “Hey, it’s no good,” someone called out when Jake and Marc stopped at the car. “They’re all not working.”

  “I’m ju
st gonna try,” Jake hollered back.

  He tried to unlock his car with his key fob, but it didn’t even chirp, so he inserted the key in the lock and popped it open that way.

  Marc climbed into shotgun, still holding the candle in one hand. It was fat enough that the wax didn’t drip, but rather formed a pool in the center.

  When Jake turned the key in the ignition, there was nothing, not even the sound of the starter.

  He and Marc exchanged a look. A second attempt had the same result. They might as well have jabbed the key into the ground and turned it. The result would have been the same.

  “We’ll, I’m gonna start walking,” said Jake. “Head down into the city. You coming?”

  “Nah, I’m gonna wait it out here.”

  Jake shook his head. “Suit yourself.”

  Marc got a second candle out of his pocket and lit it for his roommate. The two said good-bye as Jake started off toward the exit and Marc headed back upstairs. One backward glance at Jake’s retreating figure made Marc wonder if that would be the last time they ever saw each other, then he pushed that morbid thought to the side.

  Whatever this was would get fixed soon.

  Marc returned to his apartment, sat down in his chair, and positioned himself in front of his computer. As soon as electricity was restored, he was getting back online to make sure Angela was okay.

  * * *

  He woke with a start, a sharp cramp in his back from sleeping in a chair. At least he’d had the foresight to put out his candle.

  The computer didn’t work, the flashlight didn’t work, the lights didn’t work, and the building was deathly quiet. He ate a hasty breakfast of a granola bar and checked his roommate’s room, only to find it empty.

  It occurred to him that he should go find his home teachees. The Church assigned every worthy priesthood holder a list of families to check on once a month, and in emergencies such as this. In Marc’s case, he had three single girls he was responsible for, people from his church congregation who lived on their own, away from their families.

  * * *

  The charred fuselage of a commercial jet lay jammed up against the side of one of his home teachees’ apartment building. Everything had gone up in flames and even still a fire burned far back in the plane’s cabin.

  The walls of the building had buckled and the scorching went clear through to the far side.The fire burned too hot for Marc to get any closer.

  “I don’t think anyone survived that,” said a voice at his elbow.

  He turned to see Dr. Holmes, the music professor, who stood with his backpack on one shoulder and his violin slung over the other.

  “Has your ward been in touch with you? Have you got somewhere safe to go?” the professor asked. “Stay out of the city. It didn’t fare well overnight.”

  “Excuse me?” said Marc.

  “People are talking about seeing things. Shadows of figures that aren’t there. Flames that dance in midair without burning anything. It might just be mass hysteria, or it might be something more.”

  “Over a blackout?”

  “This is worse than a blackout,” said the professor. “Better go see what your ward’s emergency plan is. We don’t know how long this’ll last.”

  Marc looked over the man’s heavy luggage. “Where are you going?”

  “Out. I just feel like I need to get away from whatever’s going on in the city. I figure I’ll walk south and see if this phenomenon extends to the suburbs. I’d hope people would drive up here if they could, but who knows? You take care.”

  For the second time, as he watched the professor walk on and disappear around the corner, Marc had the uneasy feeling that he’d seen someone for the last time in his life.

  Stop it, he told himself.

  It was Chrissie’s dire predictions that had him on edge, and he needed to not let that happen.

  * * *

  His other home teachees’ dorm was blocked off by a barricade of broken furniture. He didn’t have much time to take this in because as soon as he was spotted, shouts broke out and something whizzed past his head. He hit the ground and took a moment to process this. They were throwing stuff at him? Had they gone insane? Had whatever force that took out the electricity addled their brains as well? When he turned to see what it was they’d thrown, he found an aluminum shaft arrow lying in the gutter. That convinced him to get out of there.

  By now he was closer to the city and was getting a sense of what Dr. Holmes had said. There were multiple fires eating their way through buildings and a steady stream of people, carrying heavy backpacks, hiking up from the wreckage.

  “Don’t go down there,” a woman herding two small children warned. “Whatever happened, there’s something sinister behind it.”

  Marc angled his steps toward her, threading his way past other refugees who looked disturbingly dead eyed. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m going to try to get to my sister’s farm. The cities won’t hold together without electricity or transportation. Food will start to spoil and the grocery stores won’t be restocking.”

  “But it’s only been like this for a day,” said Marc.

  “Yeah, but that’s too many people all in one place. There are already reports of looting.” Her two children looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Best to get to the country,” she admonished.

  Marc watched as she took her children’s hands and pushed on.

  It was definitely time to see what his ward was doing about all this.

  * * *

  Once back at his apartment, he found a note on the door telling him to meet at the next apartment building over with any food and supplies he had and could carry. He went in and retrieved his seventy-two-hour kit—enough nonperishable food to last three days. Chrissie had made it for him as a coming home present.

  She was the first person he saw when he arrived at the next apartment building over. Everyone was in the lobby, sitting in little groups talking. She glanced at him, but looked away.

  Bishop Atwood, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, walked among them with a notepad in hand.

  “Marc,” he said, checking something off on his paper. “Good to see you. Your home teachees?”

  “I think one of them might have been killed by a plane,” said Marc. “And the other two might be hostages to some nutsos with bows and arrows. I’m not kidding.”

  The bishop nodded. “There’s been a lot of strangeness. People are all reacting to this in different ways.”

  “It won’t last forever.”

  “We certainly hope not. We’re not marching to retake Missouri just yet.” He winked. “Still, we’re moving the ward into this building and your building. So let me know if you’ve got space for someone to crash with you?”

  Marc nodded. “We have our couch.” He wasn’t going to give up Jake’s room yet. Odds were high his roommate would return. Eventually a truck or a cavalcade of tanks or a helicopter would arrive with a message from whatever parts of the world were unaffected, and this would be sorted out.

  * * *

  Ten days later, he sat in front of his still dead computer and looked out the window to see yet another cluster of people leaving. While everyone had started out in high spirits, now people were starting to despair. More rumors of riots and looting came from the city, and there was even a report of cannibalism, which Marc didn’t believe. The university had posted handwritten flyers stating that classes were suspended indefinitely.

  A knock on his door made him look up.

  Chrissie stood in his doorway. “Hi,” she said. “Your front door was unlocked.”

  “Hey.”

  “So . . . you need to see something.” She bit her lip, a habit she had when she was nervous.

  “I do?”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t want to be bossed around, but
he was curious. She led him downstairs to the car park where Rick was holding a rifle, squinting down the length of the barrel at someone’s car.

  “What?” said Marc. “Is he nuts?”

  Chrissie shook her head. “Wait. Watch.”

  Marc’s pulse thundered in his ears as he watched Rick pull the trigger.

  Nothing happened. There was no bang, no puff of smoke, nothing.

  “I’m telling you,” Rick said, “the powder’s not wet. It’s like the laws of combustion have been rewritten. Electricity doesn’t work, and neither does gunpowder.”

  Marc exchanged a worried look with Chrissie. “What,” she asked, “could shut off power and gunpowder?”

  Marc shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well whatever it is, we’re screwed. Cars can’t drive. Radios don’t work. Even if it’s possible to make new radios that would work, I bet the factories don’t work right now. Neither does the kind of equipment we need to make factories, or the equipment to mine the metal we’d need to use in the first place. This is major.”

  That much was obvious. In the ten days since the blackout began, Marc had bathed only campground style, with a wet washcloth dipped into a basin of soapy water. His scruff was growing out again because he didn’t want to take the time to shave it.

  “So . . .” Chrissie squared her shoulders and turned toward him. “We’re going to start to walk north. Toward home. See if we can get somewhere that has working electricity.”

  Marc nodded. “Okay.”

  “Are you coming with?”

  “Nah. I’ll wait it out here.”

  “Okay, well, if you change your mind, we leave tomorrow morning.”

  “Who’s we?” Marc asked.

  “Me, Rick, and a couple other guys from Idaho, and a girl who’s brother is at Ricks.” That was the Church-owned junior college in Idaho.

  “Good luck,” said Marc.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon, the bikers arrived in a swarm. Not guys on motorcycles, but rather bicycles, wielding baseball bats and machetes. Everyone retreated inside the buildings at the sight of them, so they cycled on past without incident. Marc watched this spectacle from his window, and while the bikers pedaled on past, the rust-colored blotches of liquid on their weapons caused Marc to decide then and there, he was leaving with the Idaho crowd.