Deep Shadows

by Vannetta Chapman

  They first met back when Shelby was newly married and sure that her husband could master the transition from military to civilian life. Danny had helped them through some difficult situations back then, though she saw little of him now. Perhaps that was her fault. He’d seemed interested in her after Alex died and she’d been left alone to raise Carter, but she’d told him in rather blunt terms that she would not be dating. That had been so long ago, and Danny had dropped off the radar other than the occasional hello at church. She supposed managing a town, even a small one like theirs, was no easy task.

  Perkins didn’t waste any time. “All of you know Max, and this is Shelby Sparks. She has clarified our situation, and I—”

  “How can she possibly know what we’re dealing with?” Bob Bryant asked. “Stone’s right. This is a crisis situation. I don’t think we should be looking to people outside of appointed and elected officials—”

  Perkins silenced him with a raised hand. “Shelby was conducting research on an unrelated manner.”

  “If it’s unrelated, why are we wasting our time on it?”

  “When she realized it applied to our current situation, she thought to bring it to me. I believe it’s valid, and I think you will too.”

  “It’s not valid if it doesn’t tell me how to police our streets with no power, no streetlights, and no way for officers to communicate.” Bryant was ticking the items off on his fingers.

  He’d worked himself into quite a state of agitation. His face was the color of a plum, and he breathed rapidly as if he’d been out jogging. Shelby realized in that moment how quickly things would fall apart if they gave in to panic.

  But Mayor Perkins was not panicking. “I want to share Shelby’s information with each person in this room before I make an official statement.”

  Bryant shook his head in disgust, but he stopped talking. There were murmurs of agreement among Castillo, Vail, and Green. Perkins laid out the situation in quick, succinct points, and when she was finished, Bob Bryant was again the first to speak.

  “You’re ready to accept a massive solar flare is what we’re dealing with based on printouts from a romance writer?”

  Shelby wanted to ask how he knew what type of books she wrote, but she decided it wasn’t the time or place to pick a fight. They had bigger issues to deal with.

  “Her research is good.”

  “Her research is for a fictional book.”

  “It matches what we’re seeing.” Perkins nodded toward the window. “I recognized the aurora—had seen it before when I was in Alaska. I didn’t realize how it was possible or what it would mean to us. These printouts confirm that we are dealing with a cataclysmic event.”

  Bob pressed his hands over his eyes, lowered his voice, and said, “This is insane. Eugene Stone is right. You’re not qualified to handle this situation.”

  “Chief Bryant, I will remind you that I’m your mayor and you will follow my orders—”

  “Until you’re relieved of office.”

  “That might happen to you faster than me, Bob.”

  Perhaps it was the use of his personal name. Whatever the reason, Bob Bryant snapped his mouth shut and motioned for them to continue.

  Castillo seemed willing to accept Perkins’s evaluation. “If what you’re saying is true, and I have no reason to believe it isn’t, we need to get word out to people to watch the power lines. If they break, there are likely to be explosions.”

  “What will we do about them?” Max asked.

  All eyes turned to him.

  “You need to make this decision now,” he continued. “Will we use the limited amount of water we have on hand to put out fires?”

  NINE

  No one in the room spoke for at least a minute, and then everyone started talking at once. Shelby noticed that, as usual, Bob Bryant was the loudest and most argumentative.

  Mayor Perkins grabbed a book and slammed it down on her desk. “I will not have this type of behavior in my office!”

  Once she had everyone’s attention, she turned to the fire chief. “You wanted to ask Max a question?”

  “It’s preposterous.” Castillo turned to Max. “Surely you’re not suggesting—”

  “That you should let buildings burn?” Max leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “I don’t see what choice we have. If I remember correctly, our water tower holds enough supply for a single twenty-four-hour period. At night, when people are sleeping, it refills. But it’s not refilling tonight, and if Shelby is right about this knocking out the electrical grid, it won’t refill for quite some time.”

  Castillo didn’t argue with his logic. “My concern is that people will panic. If people see the city can’t provide fire suppression service, we’ll have lost this battle before it’s begun.”

  Perkins cleared her throat. “Castillo, I want a report from you within the hour. Explain how you’re going to provide emergency services with limited or no water supply.”

  She stretched her neck to the left and then right, trying to relieve the tension in her shoulders. Shelby was suddenly glad that this woman was in charge. She wouldn’t panic, and she wouldn’t allow anyone to run over her with their opinions.

  “Power, communication, and transportation,” Perkins said. “Those three things are our priorities.”

  “If what you’re saying is true, the only power we have will be provided by the city’s emergency generator.” Danny shook his head. “When you first hired me as city manager I did a complete inventory and analysis. The three generators we have won’t be able to do much good.”

  “I want you to find out how many of the major businesses have generators. Get me that information.”

  Vail grabbed a pen from her desk and began taking notes.

  “Bryant, how will people communicate their needs to the police department?”

  “If the phones don’t work…” He was still agitated, but now on a familiar playing field. “We might be able to position officers at key positions throughout Abney.”

  “In addition, I need a way to convey information to the citizens.”

  “We could tack flyers to prominent places throughout the town,” Shelby suggested. “Word will get around once someone reads them.”

  “And how are we supposed to copy them?” Bryant asked.

  “I’ll release a concise statement, and we’ll handwrite a couple dozen copies.” Perkins looked to Vail.

  “A few of the secretaries showed up when the power went out. I’ll see who else I can wrangle into helping.”

  “All right. That leaves transportation. For now, some of the cars are working, and I assume they’ll continue to do so—right, Shelby?”

  “The older models should be fine. No one actually knows what a prolonged solar event can do…”

  Bob Bryant shook his head in disgust.

  “But if they’re working now, they’ll probably continue to.”

  “The problem,” Max reminded the mayor, “is they’ll need gasoline, and the pumps won’t work without electricity.”

  “That’s not an issue we have to tackle tonight, but I want someone working on a solution. Maybe we can hook up a generator to one of the gas pumps. Danny, put someone on it.”

  Calvin Green hadn’t spoken, but now he cleared his throat and said, “You are within your purview to declare a state of emergency and martial law. That would allow you to commandeer what supplies are available.”

  “Martial law will be a last resort, but it might be necessary to declare the state of emergency. Calvin, I want you to draw up the necessary paperwork for both, just in case. Have it on my desk by morning.”

  “Without a computer?”

  “Yes. There are electrical typewriters in the basement if I remember correctly. Find one and get someone who remembers how to use it while our generator is still working. As far as I know, there are no manual ones left, though everyone might be on the lookout for one of those as well. We need to conserve every ounce of energy from our g
enerator.”

  “I’ll make sure everything is in power-save mode,” Danny said.

  “All right. Now what exactly does our emergency plan suggest?”

  Danny held a folder under his arm. He dropped it on her desk. “It’s not going to be helpful in this situation.”

  Perkins opened the folder and studied the top sheet. “This is the county plan?”

  “It is.”

  “Most of this assumes we have communication and can provide basic services, which at this point we can’t.”

  Bob Bryant had been nervously tapping his officer’s belt, which held a myriad of equipment. “We need to be sure about this. Maybe we’ve been attacked, and we don’t know it. Maybe this is a national security issue or even a case of domestic terrorism.”

  Max turned to him and said, “You think a domestic terrorist has caused the aurora borealis to appear in Texas?”

  “I don’t know.” Bryant’s face again turned a dark red. “At least I admit I don’t know instead of pretending—”

  “That’s enough,” Perkins said.

  “I’m asking that you check this out and confirm that what we think has happened, has in fact happened.”

  Perkins sat back in her chair. “The science teacher should be here any minute. What else would you suggest?”

  “Some of the officers have CBs at home. Maybe someone else, someone not in Abney, knows something.”

  “Good idea. Set up a rotation schedule. Have someone manning them constantly for at least the next forty-eight hours.”

  “We provide services to the county, not merely the town of Abney.” Bryant motioned toward the outer room. “You have to do something for the people out there on the county roads. You have to at least check on them.”

  Max nodded, surprising Shelby. He actually agreed with Bob Bryant on something?

  “We could send scouts out to check on the surrounding towns.”

  Perkins stood, walked around her desk, and stopped in front of a map of the county. “All of the surrounding communities are within an hour’s drive.”

  “Although I realize we may be dealing with limited fuel…” She nodded toward Max. “I believe it’s worth it at this point to assess our situation. I don’t want anyone going alone. Teams of two—send them here, here, and here.” She pointed to communities on the map to their north, east, and south. “West is too far, other than Bend.”

  “Don’t bother,” Max said. “We drove back from the Bend earlier tonight. The situation is the same as here.”

  “All right. We will all convene again at six a.m. Except for Max and Shelby, who are both free to go.”

  Shelby should have been relieved, but after seeing the pulse of their town she didn’t actually feel comforted. It was an erratic heartbeat at best, prone to flights of panic.

  As they walked out of the office, Perkins headed toward the council chambers. Danny pulled Shelby to the side while Max spoke with the fire chief.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Is there anything you need? You or Carter?”

  Shelby looked left, right, and finally into the eyes of her friend. “We’re good right now. But if this thing unravels the way I think it will, who knows?”

  He nodded once, tightly, and said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Touching her arm lightly, he turned and hurried off to his office.

  Max caught up with her, his eyebrows raised as he nodded his head in Danny’s direction.

  “It was nothing,” she assured him.

  As they turned to leave, Bob Bryant stepped in front of them. “You two need to stay out of this,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” Max tensed, and for a crazy moment Shelby thought he was going to punch their police chief in the jaw.

  “No offense, Shelby. My wife loves your books. It’s just that… well, you write novels.”

  Which was exactly their problem.

  Fictional stories about society’s collapse were all well and good. They provided an entertaining read, challenged one’s survival instincts, and even taught a few coping techniques. But this? This was real, and it looked to Shelby like they were woefully unprepared to deal with it.

  TEN

  Instead of taking Shelby home, Max headed out of town on the county road.

  “You must be more tired than I am.”

  “I’m exhausted,” he admitted.

  “You drove past our street.”

  “There’s one more thing I want to check out.”

  She groaned, so Max flashed her his warmest smile—what Shelby had once called his endearing cowboy smile. Best he could tell, she hadn’t meant it as a compliment.

  “Forget it, Berkman. I’m impervious to your charm.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

  It felt good to joke about something inconsequential. The aurora continued to twirl and spin, brightening one moment and fading the next. Max was oddly awake and grateful to be out of city hall. He’d never been one to trust local authorities to solve his every need. The truth was, he felt better dealing with things himself, which was exactly what they were about to do.

  When he pulled off the pavement and parked in front of the city water tower, Shelby made no move to leave the truck. They both craned their necks to look up at the tall structure, which looked oddly like a large golf ball on top of a tall tee. The words Abney Argonauts were written in blue letters on the side of the white tank, alongside a mural of the high school’s mascot.

  “Want to tell me what we’re doing?”

  “We’re going to climb the tower.”

  “Climb?”

  “Unless you see an elevator, which wouldn’t work anyway because there’s no electricity.”

  “Maybe I’ll wait here.” Shelby pulled her gaze from the tower to study him.

  “You’re not going to let me go up there alone, are you?”

  “And why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because I heard Perkins say everyone should work in pairs.”

  “So you want me to go with you?”

  “We need a comprehensive view of the area. No one in the mayor’s meeting thought about it.”

  “And what do you expect we’ll see?”

  “I have no idea, but I do know one thing.” He turned off the engine, opened his door, and tugged her hand, pulling her across the seat and out his side of the truck. “We’ll see more up there than we can down here.”

  She shook her head, but she wasn’t saying no. Max considered that a victory.

  He let her climb first, thinking that if she slipped he could catch her. A more likely scenario was that she’d knock him over on her way down, and they would both suffer broken legs or worse.

  He shouldn’t have worried. She climbed the ladder like a monkey in a tree.

  By the time he reached the top, Shelby was seated with her feet dangling and her arms hooked over the shorter of two rails.

  “Great idea, Max.”

  “I have them occasionally.”

  He dropped down to sit beside her, trying to process what he was seeing. If the aurora had been startling when viewed from the ground, it was overwhelming from where they sat. Flopping onto his back, he stared up at it. It was now after two in the morning. With all that had happened in the last six hours, he hadn’t slowed down enough to consider the thing that was changing their lives. From one hundred and twenty feet up, the sight of the aurora was mesmerizing. The sky resembled a kaleidoscope, and Max felt as if he were caught in a tube somewhere between the array of mirrors on one end and the objects chamber on the other.

  “You’re looking a little green there, Max. Afraid of heights?” Shelby leaned over him, studying his face. Her impossibly curly black hair fell forward and onto his chest, and her warm brown eyes laughed at him.

  He wanted to reach up and touch her face. He longed to pull her to him and forget about this cataclysmic event for a moment. But before he could make a move, Shelby was
tugging on his hand, hauling him into a sitting position.

  “I know that look,” she said. “Carter had the same expression before he upchucked last week.”

  “He’d bet Jason he could eat three chili cheese dogs.”

  “It’s a good thing he did barf, or his insulin levels would have shot through the roof.”

  “Boys will be—”

  “Yes, I know, but the point is that you have the same look. Deep breaths, please.”

  He actually did feel better sitting up. “For a moment there, it felt like I was floating.”

  “A little vertigo is normal if you stare at the aurora too long.”

  For the first time, Max’s gaze sought the horizon toward the west. As far as he could see, in every direction, there was near total darkness punctuated by very few lights. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “It would be beautiful if it didn’t spell doom and destruction.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I’m not sure what I believe.” Her tone had grown serious.

  This was the Shelby he knew—contemplative, private, never giving much away. He preferred the one that had leaned over him with the look of amused concern.

  “There’s only enough water for twenty-four hours?” she asked.

  “It might last longer, if people conserve.”

  “Why don’t we have a generator for this water tower?”

  “Money. We’re a small town and a generator of that size isn’t cheap.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “There’s always the water from the springs if it comes to that.”

  “It’s not only a matter of having enough to drink. Think of the sanitary issues if you can’t flush a toilet or bathe or wash your dishes.” She again slung her arms around the lowest rail and stared down at the ground. “This comes from a lack of imagination. People can’t conceive that the world they live in, the society they are used to, can change in a flash.”