by Dave Conifer
“There were at least two more while you were out, dude,” Dewey reminded him.
"I saw this in a movie once," Nick said. "Everything just stopped. Cars, buses, everything. Right in the middle of the road. It might have been ‘War of the Worlds.’ An alien--"
"I think I know it," Dewey interrupted. "An old black and white, right?"
"Yeah," Nick answered. “Some alien stopped all our machines cold. They all just stopped. Just like this."
"’The Day the Earth Stood Still,’" Dewey said. "Not ‘War of the Worlds.’"
"Well, anyway," Nick said, "That's kind of what this looks like. But this stuff only happens in movies, right?"
"Maybe," Dewey allowed. “Until now, at least.”
“Want to take a walk in the other direction?” Nick asked, gesturing toward New Jersey. “How about we go talk to some of those people?" Nick suggested. "I don’t think it’ll do much good, but it’s better than just standing here, right?"
"Okay," Dewey said. "But hang on just a second. Now you got me thinking. Like, you know, you might be on to something. What you said about everything stopping, I mean."
"Tell me while we’re walking, then, if you’re coming,” Nick said. “I have to get to the bottom of this. That's about three hundred bucks worth of food spoiling in the back of my truck. I want to be able to say I tried everything I could to get back."
Dewey quickly caught up. "Hey, can I have my stuff back?"
"What?" Nick asked, before remembering what had been in his hands for the past hour. "Oh, yeah, sure," he said as he handed Dewey's documentation over to him.
"So, like, have you ever heard of an electromagnetic pulse?" Dewey asked as he stuffed the paperwork into his pockets.
"A what?"
"Better known as EMP," Dewey explained. "Electromagnetic pulse. Basically, it's a power surge up in the sky. Like a bolt of lightning on steroids. It shoots a surge of power into all our electronics and fries them. They first noticed them when they set off test nuclear explosions. It was completely unexpected. Like everything else in those days, pretty much."
Nick's face wrinkled in a mixture of amusement and derision as they continued along the roadway, which was completely and eerily devoid of any moving vehicles. "Yeah? Well, take a look around. It doesn't look like any atomic bombs got dropped anywhere nearby."
"I’m not completely sure about this, but it doesn't have to be an atomic bomb," Dewey countered. "It could just be a regular bomb if they do it right.”
“Who's this 'they' you're talking about? And I didn’t see one of those going off either,” Nick replied as he walked, with Dewey still a few steps behind trying to keep the pace.
“You wouldn’t,” Dewey said. “It would be so high up that nobody even sees it. That's how it's done. Not at ground level."
"It sounds like a lot of hooey to me," Nick said. He looked ahead and saw a woman and two kids standing in front of their car, watching nervously as he and Dewey approached. As they came closer Nick could see that the kids were girls, probably her daughters. "But let's say you’re right," he said. "Why do you know so much about it?"
"Take a look at me," Dewey said, grinning sheepishly. "I'm all geek. And I'm a news hound. The papers are full of stories about China and Iran and Russia learning how to do it. And us. I eat this kind of stuff up."
“You and me are reading different newspapers,” Nick said.
Dewey looked up at the sky, but only for a moment. “I always thought the people talking about it were a bunch of kooks. But how else do you explain all this?"
“I don’t,” Nick said. “But I’m leaning toward something simpler than what you dreamed up. But I don't care. I just want to get my truck started and go home.”
“Same for all these people on the bridge,” said Dewey. “But, like, you at least have to admit there’s got to be a single reason all this is happening, right? Why can't it be a crazy one?”
"Are you okay?" Nick yelled to the mom and girls, hoping to put them at ease. She waved the girls back inside her SUV before stepping forward, carefully glancing up the road first. Old habits were hard to break.
"I'm having car trouble," the woman said. In her shiny blue sweat gear and her long red hair tied back, she looked to Nick like a typical South Jersey soccer mom. About thirty five, Nick thought. Forty, tops. He met plenty of them when he sat down at kitchen tables going over roofing estimates, so he should know. "Why did everybody else stop?"
"We're not sure," Nick said. "My truck died. His car died. Not soon enough to keep him from crashing into me first."
"I can see that," she said. "Are you hurt bad?"
Nick wiped his forehead with his arm, and then inspected the sleeve of his gray Temple University sweatshirt, a gift from the Temple alumnus that he’d married. Not as much blood as he expected. "Just a headache so far. My neck’s not feeling too good, either."
"You might have a concussion," Dewey said.
"Thanks, Dewey," Nick said. "Thanks for staying positive."
Dewey shrugged. "I'm just saying."
“Did you notice the plane crash back on the other side?” Nick asked. “Horrible. We saw it happen.”
“No,” the woman said, alarmed. “Is that why everybody’s stopping?”
“We have no idea," Dewey said. “A lot of people must have died on that plane.” He stopped talking when Nick elbowed him.
"Don't mind him," Nick told her. "He usually just says whatever pops into his head. Not that I know him. We just met."
“By accident,” Dewey said.
"I'm Nick, and he's Dewey. We’ve known each other for about fifteen minutes."
"Glad to meet you, Nick and Dewey," she replied. "I'm Sarah. Sarah McElligott-Cohen." She looked at her girls, who were watching closely through the window, but didn't mention their names.
Nick looked toward the Jersey side of the bridge to see two men approaching. Sarah shrank back towards her vehicle. One of the men was carrying a set of jumper cables. He wore grubby coveralls, and looked like he hadn’t bathed in a week. His friend didn’t look much better, with his greasy hair spilling out from beneath a battered baseball cap. The cables said it all. These were a couple of guys who didn’t get it, not yet, if they thought they were going to get a jump start off somebody else’s car. Not that Nick knew what was happening, either. But at least he knew he didn't know.
“Car trouble?” Nick yelled to the men. “Join the club.”
“We’re looking for somebody to give us a jump,” the empty-handed man asked. “But it looks like you got the same problems we got.”
Nick looked the two men over. Both wore tan work boots, laces untied, the boot tops flared with their pant legs tucked in. It was a look he was familiar with. In fact, a lot of his employees dressed like that, at least until it was time to get on the roof, when style took a back seat. “It’s not just us. Everybody’s dead in the water, just like you are.”
“What’s going on?” Jumper Cables asked. “I don’t like this at all. Must be something wrong with the road or something that wrecked everybody’s car.”
“So far everybody’s telling the same story,” Nick answered. “Their cars were running just fine, and then they weren’t.”
“Why?” asked Empty Hands. “How could that happen to everybody at the same time? It don’t make no sense.”
“Let’s get back to the car,” Jumper Cables said. “These guys ain’t any use to us. We’ll put the hood up so somebody’ll stop.” He grinned at Empty Hands as he hoisted his near-empty beer bottle. “Trunk’s already up. Let’s go for another round.”
“I don’t think anybody’s coming down this road anytime soon,” Dewey said.
“Yeah? How do you know that? What makes you so smart, Poindexter?” Empty Hands challenged.
“You see any traffic heading our way?” Dewey said. “I don’t.”
“That don’t mean nothing,” Empty Hands argued.
“I’d say it means something,” Nick said.
Jumpe
r Cables stepped toward Nick. “Wasn’t askin’ you,” he growled. “I’d stay out of it if I were you.”
“Just trying to help,” Nick said.
Empty Hands grinned at Jumper Cables. “If we wanted any help, we’d get it from your lady friend here.”
“You got that right,” Jumper Cables said. “Hey, honey,” he said to Sarah. “We could use some help right about now. You up for it?”
Nick frowned at Empty Hands. “She can’t help you, either. Just leave her out of it.”
“You tellin’ me what to do?” Empty Hands snarled at Nick. “You hear this guy, Al?”
Jumper Cables coughed up something from the back of his throat and spat it out onto the roadway. “Yeah, I heard him. He’s lucky we’re in a hurry.”
“We got time,” Empty Hands said as he advanced on Nick. When they were toe to toe, he grabbed Nick’s sweatshirt and shoved him hard enough that Nick lost his balance and toppled to the pavement. “You got any more advice for us?”
Nick pulled himself to his feet, but stayed where he was, saying nothing.
Jumper Cables glared at Nick. “Come on," he said to Empty Hands. "We’re wasting our time. Let’s get back to the car.” Before Empty Hands could answer, Jumper Cables grabbed his arm and pulled him away.
“Those guys are going to be waiting a long time,” Dewey remarked after the two men were out of earshot.
“I’d say so, by the looks of things,” Sarah agreed. “Even though they don’t seem to know it yet.”
“He didn’t like me too much,” Dewey said, following Sarah to her SUV with Nick trailing behind.
“Guys like that don’t like anybody. Don’t let it get to you,” Sarah said. She smiled. “Poindexter.”
“That always happens,” Dewey continued. “People always start off hating me. It gets old.”
"Your friend Nick didn't," Sarah pointed out. "Even though you nearly killed him."
"That's different," Dewey grumbled.
"That's the second time they stopped by," she said. "They must have walked up the road and then turned around and come back. The first time they were a lot cruder. Probably because I was alone. They were walking around like it was a picnic."
"They weren’t, like, the upper crust of society," said Dewey.
“I’m just glad you guys were here this time,” Sarah said. "Thanks for slowing them down some."
“I’m going back to my truck for a minute,” Nick announced, before turning and walking off.
Dewey squinted through his glasses at Nick’s back. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” he called over his shoulder without looking back. If Dewey had anything more to say, Nick didn’t hear it. With his head down, he walked silently past dozens of other stranded motorists and up the incline of the bridge, back to where he and Dewey had parked. When he reached the truck he went directly to the back. A neighbor had asked him to pick up a case of rum at the ABC store near the convention center, and he remembered just where he’d stored it. He dug under a layer of ribs wrapped in cellophane until he found a bottle. He wasn’t usually a rum man, but it would do just fine in a pinch. And at the moment, he found himself in one.
~~~
“That was weird,” Sarah said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Dewey answered. “It was like he snapped or something.”
“I hope it wasn’t something I said,” Sarah told him. “Did you see that look on his face?”
~~~
Nick wasn’t sure how much time had passed when, as he was slouched in the passenger seat with one hand around the neck of the bottle, he saw Dewey laboring up the bridge in his direction. As soon as he could see Nick, he spread his arms in confusion. Nick jammed the bottle under the seat before Dewey reached the truck. He could already smell the rum pouring onto the floor as he pushed the door open and scrambled out. This was something he wasn’t ready to share, not with strangers.
“What’s up?” Dewey asked. “What happened? We were worried.”
“I forgot something,” Nick said. “Don’t worry about it. Is Sarah still here?”
“She’s back with her daughters. I made them lock themselves into the car while I was coming back to check on you,” Dewey said. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nick said again, hoping Dewey would understand that it was all he was going to say. “We better get back, if she’s waiting on us.”
~~~
Just as Dewey had said, Sarah and her daughters were sealed inside her SUV, a Danali. When she saw Nick and Dewey approaching, she stepped out and waited for them.
“You okay?” she asked Nick.
“Yeah,” Nick answered. “I left something in my truck, that’s all.”
She looked like she wasn’t convinced, but didn’t push it. “So what do you two think of all this?” she asked. “It's a little spooky. My daughters are starting to crack. You know how it is. If their parents can’t explain what’s happening, it’s scary.”
“I think something bad just happened on this bridge,” Nick said. “Dewey here says it’s some kind of electrical firestorm. What did you call it?”
“EMP,” Dewey said. “Electromagnetic pulse. But, like, it’s just a guess.” He looked at Sarah. “I probably watch too many movies, that’s all.”
“I was thinking. I don’t see any point in staying on the bridge right now,” Nick said, his voice sounding more firm. “There's nothing here for us, and we can’t call anybody. We’ll just be sitting here.”
“If it’s what I think it is,” Dewey said, “It’s not going to be any different once we get off the bridge.” He looked at Sarah. “It explains the plane crashes, too. My EMP idea, I mean. It would do the same thing to planes that it did to our cars.”
“There was more than one plane crash? My God,” Sarah said, clapping her hand over her mouth.
“We don’t know any of this for sure,” Nick told her. “Just the same, though, I don’t want to be here. It’s giving me the creeps.”
“What about all that cargo in the back of your truck?" Dewey asked. “If you walk, you can, like, kiss it goodbye.”
“I’ve kissed it goodbye already,” Nick told him. “And that food’s the least of our problems now, isn’t it?”
“I guess it is,” Dewey said. “We have plenty more to worry about. I’m not arguing that.”
“So where are you from, Sarah?” Nick asked.
“Medford,” Sarah said. “We're on our way back from the Girl Scout Bike Hike in Fairmount Park.” Until then he hadn’t noticed the heavily-loaded bike rack on the back door of the Danali. “I was looking forward to getting home and just hanging out.”
"You went to a Girl Scout meeting and it's over already?" Dewey asked. "I'm barely out of bed."
“You’re a long way from home,” Nick remarked. “Medford. That where the rich people live.”
“We do all right, I guess,” Sarah answered.
“I just did some jobs out there last spring,” Nick said. “I was out there so much that I got to know the names of the roads. Those were some big houses.”
“How about you guys?” Sarah asked. “Where do you live?”
“He’s from the shore,” Nick said. “I’m not sure what he's doing coming out of Philly this early on a Saturday morning.”
“Sick Sick Birds played their last show over in University City," Dewey said.
"Who did what?" Nick asked, his face wrinkled in confusion.
"They’re a band from Baltimore," Dewey explained. "I ended up crashing all night with some dudes I met."
“What about you, Nick?” Sarah asked. "Where's home?"
“I live in Cherry Hill,” Nick said. “Pretty close to the mall.”
“I’ve heard of that!” Dewey said.
“It’s not that far from here,” Nick said. He eyed the bikes strapped onto the back of the Danali. “That’s kind of what I’m getting at. Anybody up for trying to get there?” Nick asked.
&nb
sp; "How close is it, exactly?" Sarah asked. “Don’t forget I have the girls.”
“It’s just a few miles from here,” Nick said. “Look, Sarah, it’s none of my business, but this bridge isn’t a good place to be, especially for three ladies. We already met some rough characters. Who knows who else is around.” He looked over her shoulder at the back of her vehicle. “Those look like grown-up sized bikes you have there.”
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Dewey asked.
Sarah looked uncomfortable. “What are you guys saying?” She cocked her head. “Taking the bikes?”
“We’re not going to steal your bikes, if that’s what you mean,” Nick answered. “We’re just spit balling here. “Maybe things are okay once we get off the bridge.”
“They’re not,” Dewey said bluntly. “You know it just as well as I do.”
“I’d like to find out for sure,” Nick said. “And like I said, I’m not that far from home. We could bike our way there.”
“It sounds like a lot of riding,” Dewey said. “Especially for the kids. It might be smarter to, like, sit tight and wait it out.”
“Wait what out?” Nick asked. “You’re the one saying the world’s coming to an end.”
“You know, for somebody to show up and help,” Dewey said.
“Like who?” Sarah asked. “Somebody like the guys who just left? No thanks. Two visits from them is enough. I’ll take my chances,” she countered. “Count us in, because I don’t want to stay here.” She looked down. “I wish my husband was here.” Both of her daughters were watching her intently from the SUV.
“Sounds like it’s a go, then,” Nick said. “You up for it, Dewey?”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Dewey said. “I guess.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. “We'll be ready whenever you are. Do you think our cars will be okay here while we're gone?”
“I have no idea,” Nick told her. “The way things stand now, at least we know that nobody can drive off in them. All we can do is take everything valuable, and hope for the best.”
Three
“I guess I better go tell the girls,” Sarah said.
“Mind if I get the bikes down?” Dewey asked. “We might as well get started.”