Grumbling to himself about pink sunrises, he stopped halfway across the room when he realized the light came from the north window where no direct sunlight ever shone. Kate never closed the curtains on the north facing window because the only thing on the other side of that window was a cornfield. He turned to the eastern window and stared at the heavy curtains used to block the morning sun.
Pressing his face against the cold glass, Jay gasped. The entire northern sky was alive with living color. Reds, yellows, pinks—even greens—way down toward the horizon. The lights danced and shimmered across the dome of the sky like a psychedelic hallucination. Over the tops of the trees to the southwest, Jupiter and Mars shined like headlights in the sky, cutting through the undulating curtain of auroral beauty.
“What the hell…?”
Jay made it back to the bed and sat. He glanced at the clock and reached for his phone intending to take a picture. His hand froze just above the phone as his mind registered that the clock was blank. Confused, he reached for the lamp and turned the switch. Nothing happened. His room remained bathed in the pink hues of the Aurora.
Not good.
He picked up his cell phone and woke it up, cursing himself for not plugging it in to charge last night—the battery was at 25% strength. The iPhone brightened the room and cheerily displayed the time: 4:17 AM.
He sat there in his boxers, scratching his chest and staring at the phone. His eyes went from the brightly lit screen to the dead clock and the dark lamp.
How is this possible?
He stood and walked over to the window beside his side of the bed and peeled back the curtain enough to see a bright light bouncing around in Mac’s garage.
How the hell do you have power?
Jay grumbled to himself as he threw on a pair of sweatpants, slid his feet into his slippers, and grabbed his frayed, gray robe from the hook on the closet door. He dropped his phone into his robe's deep left pocket and automatically went to turn on the overhead light.
Like the clock, the overhead light was useless. Jay sighed and headed for the kitchen. He staggered into the dinette table and tripped over a chair on the way, distracted by the unearthly colors spilling into the house from outside. By the time he reached the garage door, his heart pounded in his chest and the barely contained fear in the back of his mind was ready to explode into full-on panic.
Jay tightened the robe around his chest as he walked into a wall of frigid air in the garage. He hit the button to raise the garage door and nothing happened. Cursing to himself, he shuffled over to the side door and opened it, staggering out into the even colder air outside.
He grimaced at how loud his footsteps sounded in the predawn stillness as he hurried across the frost-crusted grass. Outside, the light show was even more impressive. Everything around him glowed in that unnatural pink-green light.
He stopped in his driveway, staring up at the heavens and turned in a slow circle, trying to take in the impossible colors that swirled overhead, stretching from horizon to horizon in all directions.
"Ain't seen nothing like that before, that's for sure," announced Mac over the wail of several car alarms in the distance.
"You can say that again," replied Jay. He stepped over the brittle grass onto Mac's driveway. Coughing in a thick cloud of acrid smoke that drifted between their houses, he said, "I thought nothing would happen until tomorrow morning?"
"That's what they said, ain't it?" Mac grinned, shining his flashlight on a blackened, ruptured electrical box across the street. The green metal transformer that sat unnoticed between houses looked like someone had lit a bomb off under it. Smoking oil leaked out into the street, sending up steam as it cooled.
"They also said they didn't know how strong it would be," Mac added. "You hear the substation blow? They sure didn't predict that."
Jay pulled the robe tighter around himself, watching blue arcs ripple and crackle through the openings on the ruined transformer across the street. Heat from the electric fire had charred the grass black and melted all the snow in a ten foot circle around the shell.
"What the hell happened?" asked Jose from his front porch, his voice echoing across the street.
"Stay back!" shouted Mac. "That thing's liable to be hot."
They heard Jose's door slam shut. Down the street, another junction box threw sparks into the air.
"I never thought I'd see that," Jay said.
"I never thought I'd be able to see this," Mac replied, raising his coffee mug toward the sky, "this far South. I wonder who else can see it?"
Jay felt lightheaded. His chest clenched as if a hand squeezed his heart. "Kate!" He pulled out his phone. His breath came in short spurts, making little puffs of vapor in front of him as he struggled with trembling fingers to activate the phone.
"When did it hit?"
Mac grunted. "Don't know—I woke up about 20 minutes ago when the substation across 55 went up. Sounded like a damn artillery barrage. Haven't heard shit like that since the Gulf…"
"She sent me a text…" Jay's voice cracked. Mac leaned in and Jay showed him the glowing phone.
"She sent that at 0147…looks like it didn't get through till almost 0300." Mac shook his head. "Jesus, she was out over the ocean when this hit?"
"Oh my God…oh my God…" Jay took a step back, his knees weak.
"Now hold on there, don't go jumping to conclusions," Mac said, grabbing Jay's shoulder with one strong hand. "Nobody knows what this shit will do to an airliner up there in the sky, right?"
Jay shook his head. "I…I don't know—this has never happened before…"
"Exactly," said Mac, leaning in close. "We don't know."
"But…" Jay looked up and stared at the swirling colored plasma halos in the skies above. The wetness on his cheeks froze as he took a deep, shuddering breath and let the cold air sear his lungs.
The thought that Kate might have gone down in the ocean because of the solar storm made him moan. He took another deep breath, grimacing at the pain and embraced it, to prove to himself he was still alive and not dreaming.
Oh God, oh God, I've lost her, I lost her too. First Monica, now Kate! WHY?
" Jay."
He ignored the crotchety old man and closed his eyes, trying to block out the glow in the sky, the glow that surely killed his wife.
"Dammit man, look at me!" snapped Mac. "You've got to stop thinking about it—"
The crack of his voice forced Jay to open his eyes and blink away the frost. "What? What can you possibly tell me…what's going to make me not think about the fact that my wife is probably dead somewhere…out in the middle of the Pacific?"
"Leah is still out there."
Jay put a hand to his mouth and coughed. It felt like someone had hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat. What must she be going through? Alone, in another state with other college students, all of them away from their homes.
"If this thing," Mac said pointing at the sky, "was bad enough to bring down airliners like you're thinking…"
"Oh my God…" Jay muttered. His hands shook, and he felt the phone slip from his grasp and drop into the crunchy, snow-crusted grass at his feet. He looked down at the glowing device. So many questions swirled through his mind.
Was Kate alive? Why was the power out? Why was his cell phone working? Did that mean he could get a signal? Did that mean he could get a message through to Leah?
He bent to scoop up the phone then stood, trying his best to pay attention to Mac.
"…if it's this bad all over the world, then when the sun comes up we'll be living in the 1800s."
Jay shook his head and looked away from the phone. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the end of the world as we know it. You're the astronomer—shouldn't you be telling me about what this corona thing can do?"
"It…not corona, coronal. Coronal mass ejection," Jay said, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair."
"Go on," said Mac, arms crossed ove
r his chest.
"I…uh…well, it produces geomagnetic storms." He swallowed and looked up. "CME's can produce vivid auroral displays. But normally they occur only over high polar altitudes. Sometimes you get them down to Canada." He looked at Mac. "But this is Illinois, for Christ's sake. And…look at them," he said, gesturing at the sky. "They're usually only found along the northern horizon, not covering the entire sky. Jesus…"
The old man smiled, his face looked like death itself, wreathed in pinks and greens and yellows. "So tell me professor, what happens to the power grid when one of these suckers smacks the planet?"
Jay swallowed again and tried to calm himself. He knew what Mac was doing: trying to get him to focus on something, to calm his mind and distance himself from the fears that threatened to pull him into a pit of despair.
"It…" He cleared his throat. Feeling the cold air bite his lungs once more, he tightened the robe over his bare chest and hugged his arms.
"If it's big enough, the energy from a solar storm can seep down to ground level and overload power grids."
Mac grunted. "Figures. Don't we have…I don't know, surge protectors for this shit?"
Jay shook his head, trying to think. It was so cold! "No, the energy hits too fast—surge protectors are useless against this kind of power. In 1989—"
Mac nodded. "You're talking about when Canada went dark." He tossed the remains of his coffee across the yard, leaving dark spots in the snow.
"Yes…yes, that's right," Jay replied, watching the coffee melt what little snow remained on his front yard. "Most of Québec went dark for 12 hours."
Mac watched Jay. "And what happens to anything connected to the power grid during one of these things?"
"Events. They call them events." Jay frowned. "Anything connected to the grid receives what amounts to an EMP detonation. Electronics will be fried, capacitors overloaded, circuit boards destroyed. Pretty much anything plugged into an outlet is dead." He thought back to the lamp in his room.
"Like those junction boxes? And the substation? And maybe the power plants?" asked Mac.
Jay nodded. "Yep. Boom. Though I hope they had enough warning to pull at least a few of the high voltage transformers off line before it hit."
"Why's that? Doesn't seem like it matters whether they can still make power or not—everything we have that uses electricity just went up in a puff of smoke."
"Well, the high voltage transformers—the big regional ones—those things are custom made. It'll take years to replace them…it'll be…I mean if everyone on the planet got whacked like this…we won't be the only country needing hundreds of those things, and they're all custom made for each location. God, how will they be transported? Without electricity, how are we going to get power to run fuel pumps to refill tankers and trucks…Jesus…"
"Okay, bring it back to earth, Cantrell. What about our lights?"
"They're dead—anything that was plugged in, I told you—just like all our clocks, refrigerators, everything hooked into the grid…"
"Did you say refrigerators?" asked Mac in a voice that said he already knew the answer.
Jay nodded. "Right, we always leave them plugged in, just like freezers. When the sun’s energy created the light show," he said pointing at the sky, "and hit the ground, it traveled through the grid and into our homes. Our refrigerators and freezers are dead. All of them. Everywhere."
Mac nodded. "I see." He glanced up and stared at the swirling sky in silence for a long moment. "So what happens to all the food?"
"Well after a couple days, it'll all go bad…" muttered Jay. Realization hit him in the face like a slap. "Oh my God." He turned and stared at Mac. "Oh my God!"
Mac nodded. "Now all of my preppin' and craziness looks like it's paying off, huh?" the old man asked without a hint of humor.
"But…but," Jay said shaking his head. He raised his hands. "But wait just a second. If this is just a localized event, then there's nothing to worry about. The power grid will still be unaffected in other parts of the country, maybe the world. Somebody out there still has power, which means they'll still be able to deliver food and medical supplies." He turned and looked toward his garage.
"Unless you had an electric car charging on the power grid, cars should still work. I think…maybe if they don't have too many computerized parts."
"Go on," prompted Mac.
Jay ran a hand through his hair again. His mind raced faster than he could talk. "But if it's bad enough to hit the whole world at once, then no one will go very far without gas stations. And gas stations need electricity to pump gas. Which means whatever gas we've got is about all we'll have for the near future. And…"
"Son, it's a lot to take in all at once. Why don't you come inside and have a cup of coffee with me? We have things to discuss."
"Coffee? Things to discuss? Like what—the fact my wife might be dead?"
Mac's face hardened. "We need to discuss what to do about your daughter. You said it yourself, in a couple days everything in cold storage will be rotten." He gestured down the empty street, lit by the aurora and sparking junction boxes. "How much food you think the average house in this neighborhood has, let alone the inner cities? I'll bet it's a hell of a lot less than they'll need in the next week."
Jay stared at the flannel slippers on his feet. His toes suddenly felt like blocks of ice. What the hell am I doing standing out here in sweatpants and a robe? It must be 10° outside…
"There you go, work it through," Mac encouraged. "You have a couple days before shit really gets bad. Most people, left to their own devices without power for a few hours—or even a day or so—are gonna be just fine. Everybody—well almost everybody—has enough food and water to get them through 24 to 48 hours."
"What?"
Mac shrugged. "It might not be the best times they'll ever have, but they'll probably survive. Once you get beyond a few days?" Mac shook his head. "Things are gonna get feral, most ricky-tick."
Jay tightened the collar around his neck to fight the cold air and looked over his shoulder at the darkened houses across the street. How many of those houses were full of families and children? How many of those families would be on the brink of starvation in a few days? How many children would die for lack of food in the coming weeks?
"I know what you're thinking," muttered Mac. He turned to look at the houses across the street as well. "I guarantee you, when parents see their children starving, they'll be willing to do anything to provide food." He turned and looked into Jay's eyes. "I can see it in your eyes—you would too."
"I…"
Mac cut him off with a wave of one hand. "You've been given an opportunity. You're up early—you know what's going to happen. We've got to take action, but we've got to do it smart."
"We? I thought you said you're heading to your secret bunker?"
Mac grimaced. "I am, but I can't just leave you and Leah out here high and dry can I? Wouldn't be very neighborly of me."
Jay smiled. "I always knew you liked her."
Mac grunted. "Leah was always nice to me and I know my Sophia would've loved her. She's like the daughter we never had. I was trained…" He took a deep breath and stood ramrod straight. "I was trained never to leave a man behind and now that everything has gone tits up, you and Leah and Kate are all that I have left in the world."
He's got no one…
"We're all going to have to watch out for each other now."
Jay shivered. "Thank you," he said. "But I don't know what to do, where to begin…"
Mac nodded. "I had a feeling you'd say that." He rubbed his hands together, the first sign he even felt the cold at all. "First things first. You need to get your stupid ass back inside and get dressed for the weather. Remember, you don't have any power in your house, so that heater ain't kickin' on anytime soon. Before long, your house is gonna be about as cold as a well-digger's ass in January." He glanced at the sky again.
"Speaking of that, we're lucky it's the middle of winter. What
ever we got in the fridge will probably last a little longer than it would if it were June."
Jay stomped his feet in the crunchy grass. A light flickering at the end of the street caught his attention. "Somebody's out and about," he observed, pointing.
Mac turned and looked. "Yep, won't be long before a lot of people are out walking around, checking on everybody to see who has power and who doesn't. I give it 48 hours before everything gets nasty. That means the clock's started and we got work to do."
"So once I get dressed," Jay sniffed, "then what?"
"We gotta come up with a plan. Luckily, I been working on one for a while. I didn't ever expect to have you and Leah thrown into the mix, so I have to do some thinking." Mac stared vacantly off in the distance for a moment, his breath forming little clouds of vapor. At last he snapped out of it and looked at Jay.
"Go back inside, get dressed, see if you can find something to eat. Then come on over to my place. I should have something put together soon."
Jay scurried back across the yard into his garage. It was only marginally warmer inside the garage, but he relished the blast of residual heat that enveloped him as he stepped inside the house. He quickly closed the garage door and stood there for a moment, rubbing his arms, wondering how long it would take for the house to cool off.
As his eyes adjusted to the kitchen, lit by the eerie pinkish red glow coming in from every window the house, a sense of urgency came over him like he'd never felt before. He rushed to his bedroom and dressed in some warm clothes and thick socks.
Retrieving the flashlight under his bed and breathing a sigh of relief when it clicked on, he worked his way back into the kitchen and stared at the silent appliances and blank digital clocks. They'd always welcomed him with glowing clocks, lights, and the hum of compressors. The entire house was now silent as a tomb. He exhaled and rummaged for his breakfast.
CHAPTER 8
LEAH WOKE AFTER A vivid dream of spaceships and explosions to an excruciating need to pee. She groaned, not wanting to leave the warmth of her bed. With a sigh of resignation, she told herself that was the last party she was going to with Erin for a long time. She spent the whole previous evening as a wallflower, sipping Coke and trying to laugh at the lame jokes of the handful of boys who came up to talk to her. Most of them were drunk and smelled like cheap beer. The long evening of boredom and self-imposed exile only led her further to the conclusion she was just not that into parties.
Solar Storm (Season 1): Aftermath [Episodes 1-5] Page 7