Portal Zero

by Patin, Eddie

  “Yeah. My car’s not starting either. Yours?”

  “Nope,” the man said, looking back at his grey car, parked in the driveway. “Can’t start it. Any idea what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Arthur said, shaking his head. “I’m going to check on my wife and kids. They’re a good ways up Academy, so I’ll get to see how far this outage goes.”

  “Another weird thing,” the man said. “After the power went out, I didn’t see any other cars pass by, none since that one. You’d think that if the rest of the city was okay, more people would be coming in and passing through from somewhere else. But this street’s been totally dead.”

  “Hmm, that is weird,” Arthur said. “Maybe the whole city’s power grid went down or something!”

  “Let’s hope not,” the man said. “Be careful!”

  “Yeah. And thanks. You, too.”

  With that, Arthur pushed his weight onto the forward pedal, and took off again, riding down the middle of the street. Soon after, he had to weave around a couple of dead cars in the road, then kept going.

  Before reaching the post office and the shopping malls at Montebello and Academy, Arthur would have to pass by a large cluster of low-income apartment buildings on his right. He heard multiple people shouting and fighting up ahead. Normally, he didn’t anything of driving by that community, but today, with the city quiet and Arthur one step above being on foot, he was suddenly more than a bit nervous...

  Drifting over to the opposite side of the street, he kept his eyes peeled and was ready to kick it into high gear, or even take the side street to Austin Bluffs to go around entirely if necessary. Looking into the complex, he heard more screaming, and saw a handful of people literally brawling deeper inside the cluster of buildings, lawns, and parking lots.

  How long would a city without electricity last before people started going nuts? he thought.

  He wondered about how much food they had in the house. How many cans of tuna? Beans? Chili? Rice? Maybe a couple dozen cans of food, tops? Arthur thought about the shotgun propped up in the corner of the bedroom. How much ammo did he have? How much 9mm for his Glock? He knew that he only had just one more box of carry ammo—the hollow points. How much target ammo did he have? And how much of his shotgun ammo was buckshot versus birdshot?

  Within an easy bike ride’s distance of his house were several grocery stores—a Wal-Mart neighborhood market, a King Soopers, some other ‘food warehouse’ thing he’d never been to—how long would it be before these gang bangers would start raiding stuff?

  With the apartments behind him, Arthur glided past the post office, then cut the corner through the gas station parking lot to continue north on Academy...

  How long before normal people started raiding stuff??

  Arthur shook his head.

  Better to focus on the now. And right now, he had to find Sheryl and the boys.

  But once he turned onto Academy, one of the city’s main streets, with at least two lanes going in each direction, Arthur saw that things might get a little crazy…

  The wide street was brimming with abandoned cars—and more than just a handful of people.

  It was as if everyone’s cars, trucks, vans—all of them died at the same time yesterday evening when the power outage hit. From there, all of these dead cars showed signed of various human panicked reactions. Some vehicles looked like they just slowed down to a stop, still neatly sitting inside their lanes. Others looked like people tried to pull off to the side of the road. Others crashed into the cars around them—mostly slow-speed crashes and minor bumps.

  People were also walking around on Academy Blvd, in between all of the dead vehicles, and on the decaying sidewalks. Some were talking to each other—all various forms of the same “what happened?” conversations. Others were staying with their cars, occasionally trying to start it again. Arthur could hear one of the many vehicles’ starters turning over and over, trying to revive an engine that refused to move. One man was cursing repeatedly at his SUV, slamming his hand against its door again and again. A small group of three or four people was also moving from car to car, checking to see which ones were left unlocked, and obviously rummaging around for valuables—in plain sight!

  Arthur stuck to the sidewalk, which was relatively clear, aside from the occasional wanderer.

  “Hey!” a lady yelled at him as he passed, trying to flag him down. “What’s happening??”

  He kept riding.

  Whenever Arthur had to leave the sidewalk, or hop down one curb and hop up another, he did. But he did his best to stay away from the people milling about. He could feel something in the air—an energy of desperation. People eyed him and his bike. And he was going to make it to Sheryl’s parents’ house, everyone else be damned...

  Sure enough, a fight broke out between a couple of guys at one point, and Arthur tried his best to get around them and keep going.

  He didn’t know how long it would be before everyone went all Mad Max on the city, but he knew that the smart thing to do was to avoid getting involved.

  By the time he figured he was about halfway to Dublin, Arthur’s belly was grumbling even more aggressively, and his mouth and tongue were getting sticky—he was very thirsty!

  Should have brought a backpack, Arthur thought, pulling up to a gas station in between a couple of restaurants. Hell, should have brought water, and eaten before I left! Didn’t think this through much, did ya?

  There were people in the streets, cars left behind in the gas station and restaurant parking lots—even a handful of vehicles abandoned at the pumps!

  How far away from home was he now? A mile? Two?

  Maybe it really was the whole city…

  As Arthur glided up to the gas station, his gears gently click-click-clicking as he coasted, he slowed down, but didn’t stop. A couple of rough dudes looked up from their cigarettes and watched him approach, and Arthur noticed that the glass front doors of the store were shattered.

  Closer, thinking about stopping, Arthur saw movement inside the store, and decided it might be a good idea to just keep on going…

  Damn, he thought. It looked like he was going to be thirsty.

  In that moment, it also occurred to him that if some people were already unconcerned with misbehaving, Arthur and his mountain bike might become some nice targets—especially for thugs on foot.

  Arthur felt back to his four o’clock, and put his hand on his Glock for just a second, before powering his bike up to full speed again.

  As he navigated his way back onto the curving sidewalk, he looked at another man, standing next to the drive-through window of the Sonic nearby. For a just an instant, he thought he saw that the man, standing and watching him ride past, had glowing blue eyes surrounded by holes of darkness in his face…

  “What the fuck…?”

  Arthur almost crashed into a street post, then, directed his focus back to the sidewalk. He didn’t look for the man again—just pushed himself up into high gear and sped away…

  Eventually, Arthur made it to the house he was looking for.

  Once he turned onto Dublin and made his way into the winding neighborhoods off of Academy Boulevard, the stress of the groups of unpredictable people eased back down, and his in-laws’ neighborhood ended up being pretty quiet—a lot like his.

  A few vehicles were stranded in the street, and a handful of neighbors were clustered together, trying to figure out what was going on, but Arthur no longer felt like he was in danger.

  Pulling up to the house of Seth and Maggie Moss, his wife’s parents, Arthur became immediately worried—there were no cars in the driveway! Not Sheryl’s minivan, not her parents’ car. There were no lights on, of course—the power was dead. But Arthur felt his stomach turn over, and a chill wormed its way up his spine as he imagined his wife and his little boys, Justin and Nicholas, out in this crazy city somewhere…

  Arthur quickly hopped off of the bike, leaning it haphazardly up against the garage
door, and ran up to the front door.

  He knocked.

  Nothing.

  “Come on!” he shouted, knocking more loudly.

  They’re not here, he thought with dismay.

  “Sheryl!” he yelled, pounding on the door. “Maggie!! Hellooooo?!”

  Shit.

  Where the hell were they?

  Where could they possibly be with both cars gone? Arthur ran around to the side of the house and unlatched the gate, letting himself into the back yard. He ran around the side of the house, cupping his hands up against the windows and looking inside.

  Nada.

  Dark inside.

  Why were both cars gone? Maybe Sheryl’s dad was out for some reason, and Sheryl took her mother and the kids out to dinner with the van?

  Arthur pounded on the back door.

  “Sheryl!!” he shouted. “Maggie! Seth!”

  Were they all somewhere else, separated or together, when the power went out and both of their cars died?

  Arthur gasped.

  Was Sheryl on the way home, and she and the kids were stranded on Academy? Was their van sitting back there, somewhere, among all of the wandering, angry, fighting people? Did they try to walk home, and run into trouble along the way??

  Arthur suddenly had a scene flash through his head of some men attacking Sheryl, and the boys hiding under a dead car. He thought of Justin and Nicholas all alone in the cold, dark night, surrounded by crazy people, holding each other to from freezing to death…

  “Stop it!” he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

  Running around to the front of the house, Arthur moved his bicycle out of sight, and sat on the concrete porch.

  He suddenly heard the popping of gunshots, echoing through the neighborhood. A bunch of crows bolted into the air from a tall tree.

  The shots were close, but he didn’t see it.

  All of the neighbors standing together and talking down the street jolted in surprise, one of them dropping a coffee cup, which shattered on the asphalt. The group of middle-aged people waved goodbye to each other, and dispersed back into their houses.

  Arthur felt for his Glock again...

  10 - Tommy and Jody Shelton

  Flagstaff, AZ

  “Now I have a mega king!” Jody said, jumping her red triple-checker-piece over several of Tommy’s pieces.

  “Nuh uh…” Tommy cried, slamming his hands down on the board to protect his little, black-disc soldiers. “There’s no mega kings!”

  “Yuh huh…” Jody replied, jumping her piece all around the board, even over Tommy’s hands. Rules be damned...

  “That’s a made-up rule! Just ‘cause you got to the other side again doesn’t mean it’s a super king.”

  “Mega king!” she cried. “It can keep killing your guys as long as they’re on the board!”

  “Mom!” Tommy shouted. “Jody’s making up rules and messing up our game!”

  Looking over, he saw Mom and Dad talking quietly by the front door. Dad was dressed for work, but was hanging up his coat again. His silver security badge glimmered in the candlelight.

  “I don’t know, Joanne,” he was saying. “I just don’t know. It won’t start. Totally dead...”

  “Did you try your phone again?” she asked.

  “Yep,” Dad said, stealing a glance in our direction, then quieting his voice even more. “It’s still dead. I can’t even get it to turn back on.”

  They both looked off into the darkness through the front door window.

  “I found and tried three different flashlights, but none of them work,” she said.

  “Batteries?” Dad asked.

  “I checked. I replaced them. Still nothing.”

  Mom reached out to Dad, and ran one of her hands along his back. They stared out at the night for a while.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “It’s got to be more than just a power outage. A lightning bolt or whatever hitting outside wouldn’t have killed our phones. It wouldn’t have killed the car. It has rubber tires!”

  “Tommy!” Jody shouted. “Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!”

  “What?!” he cried, turning back to her.

  She sat, the light of the oil lamp making her face glow. In her little hands, cupped together, were all of his black pieces.

  “I’m sorry, Tommy,” she said. “We can do it again without Mega Kings if you want, okay?”

  “What are you going to do about work?” Mom asked Dad quietly.

  “Well,” he said, sighing. “I can’t call them, and I’m not just going to walk there. I don’t want to just no show, but you know what? When I was in the driveway, I couldn’t see the lights of the city anywhere.”

  “You think it’s the whole town?”

  “Looks like it to me.”

  Jody was patiently waiting for Tommy to answer, offering all of his pieces with an unsure smile on her face.

  “Okay,” he said to his little sister. “Hang on—I want to look outside first.”

  Tommy stood in the dark, shaking his right leg which felt like it was about to go to sleep. Walking over to the living room’s big window, he pulled the curtain aside, and stepped in close to the glass, letting the thick fabric shade fall behind him.

  Dad wasn’t kidding.

  It was dark outside!

  There were no streetlights on, and all of the houses on their block were quiet and dead, like the whole city was asleep. It was just like the rare winter mornings whenever they had a big storm, and the whole world was silent, coated in heavy snow.

  Except there was no snow.

  Weird, he thought.

  Looking up into the sky, Tommy was surprised to see the stars quite clearly, as if he was up on Humphrey’s Peak, up in the mountains. The almost-full moon was as bright as a spotlight shining down at his face.

  As he looked back down at the street, he caught a glimpse of movement on the sidewalk a few houses over, lit up in the moonlight…

  It was a long, lean figure, the size of a man and smooth, bent over and running along on all fours. In that moment, Tommy saw the pale light of the moon shine on its smooth skin, and he thought he saw a long head—like the skull of a big animal, and a whip-like tail gliding along behind it. In the silver light, the thing looked like it was made of stone...

  What?!

  Tommy blinked, and looked again, peering into the darkness. A large dog trotted across the street, putting its head low near the opposite sidewalk to smell something in the gutter.

  What was that? Just a dog?

  It was a big dog, long and lean like a greyhound. Just a big dog?

  Yeah, Tommy thought. Must have just been a dog…

  “Well I guess you get your wish,” Dad said to Mom. “No work tonight.”

  Pulling the curtain away again, Tommy saw his dad give his mom a small hug, and she shook her head and looked up.

  “Tommy, what are you doing over there?” she asked. “And Jody, stop fighting over checkers!”

  Tommy and Jody both slept in Tommy’s bed that night. It was cold, and Mom wanted them to snuggle since the electricity was out and there wasn’t any heat. She had piled almost all of the blankets in the house on top of them, And Tommy slept pretty well, even though Jody woke him up from time to time with her tossing and turning.

  In the morning, the power was still out, and Mom made breakfast from the leftovers in the fridge.

  Tommy ate more stroganoff. The cold bits of beef were pretty good, but the noodles were only good where there was sauce left. He and his sister also ate slices of cheese, and drank the rest of the milk.

  “We have to finish this milk now,” Mom said. “If it stays in there without power for the rest of the day, it’ll go bad.”

  Dad had changed into the normal clothes he wears on the weekends, but was still wearing his big revolver on his belt.

  “Are we going to school, Mom?” Tommy asked.

  Mom looked over at Dad, who was looking o
ut of the living room window at the waking world outside.

  “I don’t think school’s open today, hon,” she replied.

  “Why isn’t your phone working? You didn’t call them?”

  She looked down at him, barely hiding the worry in her face.

  “No, baby, the phones are dead too.”

  “I’m gonna try the car again,” Dad said suddenly from the living room.

  Tommy watched as he walked to the door and stepped outside, jingling his keys in his hand. Dad stepped outside and closed the door behind him. His boots crunched in the gravel out front.

  Taking another bite of cold meat from his plate, Tommy thought about the weekend. He hoped the power would come back on soon—how would he have a gaming sleepover without computers? For a while, he stared at his plate lit up in the in rays of sunlight coming in from the kitchen window, separating cold noodles from cold meat with his fork. He found a dried-out piece of noodle with no sauce on it—that’d be gross—and pulled it out of the jellified lump of food, pushing the offending piece to the edge of his plate.

  Suddenly, Tommy heard the low sound of his dad’s voice outside, muffled by the house walls. He looked up.

  Mom put down the mug and towel she was holding, and briskly walked to the window. When she drew the curtain, Tommy could see that his dad was talking to the neighbor. The stainless steel of the gun on his hip gleamed in the grey light of the morning.

  “Mom, what’s Dad saying with Mr. Morton?” he asked.

  His mother waved at them with a dismissive gesture. “Quiet!” she snapped. “Eat your food!”

  Tommy sighed and looked back at his plate in the dark. He looked over at Jody, who was staring at him, smiling.

  “What?” he said, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork.

  Jody slowly stuck her tiny, pink tongue out of her mouth at him...