by D. Gideon
“Right here? Now? Ripley, you wound me. I wanted our first time to be special,” he said. I opened my eyes to find him grinning at me, his hair falling over his golden eyes.
“You’re incorrigible,” I said, smiling.
“Oh, absolutely,” he said proudly.
He set a large backpack onto the floor next to my own, and came over to the window. Shoulder against the window frame, he crossed his arms and leveled a look at me.
“Seriously, Ripley. That was some intense shit on the roof. You doing okay?”
I blew out a breath and ran one hand through the top of my hair.
“I feel like I’m going crazy, Marco. I just watched the city explode. Our building turned into a roller coaster. I mean, is it even safe to be in here? Is the building going to collapse? I’m worried sick about Mel. Where is she? Is she okay? What about my parents, and Grams? Are they okay? I feel like we should’ve left to go home already, before people in the city start going nuts; but we don’t have a car and I’m not leaving without Mel.”
Marco’s eyebrows went up. “You’d take her with you?”
“Of course I would,” I said. “She lives in California, for god’s sake. If there’s no power, then the airports can’t pump fuel to fly planes, and the gas stations can’t pump gas for cars. What’s she supposed to do, walk all the way across the country alone?”
I sighed, turned the flashlight off, put my feet on the floor, and tossed the I.C.O.E. booklet onto my bag.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“It’s okay,” Marco said, his voice soothing. “We’re all pretty freaked out.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. Cocking my head, I pointed at his backpack. “What’s the bag for?”
Marco walked over and bumped the bag with his toe, then sat down on my bed.
“Todd says we can’t stay in our room tonight; he wants everyone out of the damaged rooms so Maintenance can check them out and put something up to cover the windows. So…” He wiggled his eyebrows and rubbed his hands over my wool blanket, leaning back to rest on his elbows.
I laughed. “What if my window had been blown out, too?”
“Then I’d be offering you a night in a wonderful hotel, with a jacuzzi tub and room service-”
“With no power?”
He shrugged and grinned again, golden eyes twinkling with mischief. “Bubble bath by candlelight?”
I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What about your two cohorts?”
“Pfft,” Marco said dismissively. “I’ll get them a room, too; but they can draw their own damn bubble baths.”
I barked out a shrill laugh, but caught myself and stopped when I realized I sounded a little crazy. I turned and looked out the window. There were some students milling around in the parking area, checking over their cars. The pole that had been on fire was now covered in white foam; someone must have used an extinguisher on it while I was getting water.
“I’m really scared,” I said softly.
I heard Marco take a breath to say something, but there was a quick tapping at the door. I turned to see Susan, scanning her flashlight around the room and stopping on Marco.
“Oh! Umm, I’m sorry-” she did a quick check of her clipboard. “Jennifer, right?”
“Right,” I said, standing up. “But like I said, everyone calls me Ripley.”
“That’s right, I remember now…sorry.” Her flashlight wobbled over to Marco again, and then back to me. “It’s just been a heck of a night. I’m all scrambled. Umm, I’m going to need you to come down to the lobby in about fifteen minutes, okay? We’ve got an announcement to make.”
I frowned. “You can’t just tell us now?”
“No, sorry.” She waved her hand, making the beam from the flashlight jump around. “I’m just the messenger. I don’t even know what it’s about.”
Marco sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees.
“Is this a girls-only party, or can I come too?” He asked, his voice a little teasing. I couldn’t be sure, but I think Susan blushed.
“Oh! No, no it’s not girls-only,” she said, her voice a little high. “It’s for everyone in the building, actually. Umm—I have to go. I’ve still got a few other girls to notify. Fifteen minutes, okay?” Susan turned and hurried out of the room.
“Do you think I scared her?” Marco asked, his voice puzzled.
“I definitely think you scared her, pretty boy,” I said. “C’mon. Let’s get downstairs and see what this meeting’s about.”
I started to move past him, but he caught my hand.
“Ripley,” he said. “If you need to talk, we can stay. Corey and Josh will tell us what the announcement was.”
I shook my head and tugged on his hand. “It’ll wait. We’ve got to get down eight flights of stairs with nothing but a flashlight. Move it, Romeo.”
Sighing, he stood and followed me out of my room.
CHAPTER 5
F riday, August 31st
College Park, Maryland
The lobby was standing room only. Down here, there was extra emergency lighting over the elevator doors and around the columns. Combined with the weird light from outside coming through the glass entryway into the building, it almost looked normal.
I caught sight of Todd and Susan standing behind the Resident Life desk with a troop of other red-shirted Resident Assistants. A pale, harried-looking woman in her fifties was talking with them in a low voice. Todd was shaking his head firmly; it looked like he was arguing with her.
“There’s Corey,” Marco said in my ear, pointing past me to the other side of the lobby. With his height, Corey was easy to spot. He was standing at the front edge of the crowd near the doors. Marco pushed past me and took my hand again, and then started working his way through the crowd.
“There you two are,” Corey said when we made it to him, his voice relieved. “Todd made us come straight downstairs. Wouldn’t tell us anything. You know what this is about?”
“Not a clue,” I said. I winced, seeing his swollen nose and cheek in the light. “How’s the nose?”
“Doc here says it’s not broken,” Corey said, motioning to Josh, who I hadn’t seen standing next to him. Josh shook his head.
“He just slammed his face pretty hard,” Josh said. “Got off easy compared to some of the other guys.”
“Except now I can’t read anything close up,” Corey said, patting what was left of his glasses in his shirt pocket.
“It was that bad?” I asked.
“We had about ten guys with lacerations that we sent to the infirmary,” Josh said. “Idiots were standing right in front of their windows, taking video of the transformer when it blew up.”
Corey nodded. “They’re probably still picking the glass out.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “My R.A. said none of the windows on my floor were broken.”
“Too high up,” Corey said. “That Henry guy came back and told us it got most of the windows from the third floor up to the sixth on our half of the building.”
There was a stirring in the crowd, and I turned to see the older woman pushing her way through to an office at the front side of the lobby. She opened the door quickly and slipped inside. A moment later, she was out again, followed by a tanned rotund man in a Maintenance outfit. Together, they made their way to the front doors.
“Students, if I could have your attention please,” she called out. The crowd grudgingly quieted down.
“Thank you. Some of you know me, but for those that don’t, I’m Doctor Gladys Pelsner. I teach Group Psychology, and I’m also the Director of the Resident Life program. This is Bob Nelson, and he’s the head of Maintenance.”
Dr. Pelsner was wearing a light linen pants suit that was so rumpled it looked as if she’d slept in it. The emergency lighting made her pale skin look pasty—or maybe that was just shock. Her short, silver-blond hair was mussed, and her hands made quick little tugs on the bottom edge of her jacket a
s she talked.
“I’m sorry it took so long for us to get information to you. The text message alert system isn’t working, so we’re having to do this in person. We’ve got a few quick announcements to make, and then, well,” she glanced nervously at the office and back to Mr. Nelson.
“Bob?” she asked.
Bob Nelson shook his head, seeming disgusted, and stepped forward. It was then that I noticed that his pants were soaked from the knees down.
“I’ve got bad news,” Mr. Nelson said. “We had a serious overload on both of our campus power systems tonight, and that’s caused our electricity to go out.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” a male voice called out from the crowd. The crowd chuckled.
“On top of that,” Mr. Nelson said, raising his voice to get attention again, “the underground substation for this half of the campus exploded. That’s what you felt earlier; the shockwave going through the ground and through the building. Unfortunately, when that happened, it cracked the water lines going to all of the Cambridge community dorms. I’ve got four dorms with flooded basements. We just got done turning your water off.”
“How long is it going to be turned off?” Asked a girl standing to my right. “The laundry room is down there. When will we be able to wash our clothes?”
Mr. Nelson glared at the girl. “The power’s off, young lady. How do you expect to wash your clothes?”
Dr. Pelsner stepped in quickly, raising her voice over the reaction of the crowd.
“We’ve locked the doors to the basement. We can’t allow anyone to go down there, for safety reasons,” she said.
“What about the windows?” Asked an older student, his hand in the air. “My room’s covered in glass. When is that going to be cleaned up?”
“When you get a broom and clean it up,” Mr. Nelson said sharply. “I’ve got fifty guys spread all over this campus getting people out of elevators, checking structural damage, and putting out fires. It’s going to be a while until we can clean your room for you. Maybe you can call your Mommy.”
“Mr. Nelson!” Dr. Pelsner admonished him in a sharp whisper.
“Oh, save it, Gladys,” Mr. Nelson growled at her. “This is the fourth crowd we’ve talked to and it’s been the same thing every time. It’s like they can’t even change their own underwear. I’ve got work to do. I don’t have time for this shit.”
“It’s better that they hear it from you,” Dr. Pelsner hissed. “We discussed this.”
“I’m not cleaning anything up,” said a bronze-skinned kid with spiky blond hair. “I’m paying thousands of dollars for a room, and it’s damaged. I want a new room with working air conditioning.”
A rumble of approval went through the crowd, and I could see a good portion of the kids nodding.
Mr. Nelson threw a hand up and turned back to Dr. Pelsner. “See? See?” he asked. “They’ve got no friggin’ clue! Entitled little brats with their faces stuck in their cellphones-”
“That’s enough,” Dr. Pelsner said sharply. She turned back to the crowd. “Because the water has been shut off, you won’t be able to use the bathrooms. The maintenance crew is working on a solution…?” She prompted Mr. Nelson.
“We’re going to bring the porta-potties from the football field and set them up on La Plata Beach,” Nelson said. “Should have the first few set up in-” he glanced at his watch. “Well, they might have them up by now. Either way, that’ll be done within the hour.”
There was a collective groan. La Plata Beach wasn’t a beach at all, but a small field by our dorms that the University had covered in sand. They’d even put up a volleyball net.
“How long will the emergency lights stay on?” One student asked.
“Until the batteries run out,” Nelson said. “We changed them over the break, so it should be a while.”
“What about our keycards? How long until we’re locked out of our rooms?” Asked a girl with long cornrows.
“The keycard readers on your dorm rooms work on rechargeable batteries. We recharged them as soon as classes let out for the summer. They’ll be good until Thanksgiving break,” Nelson said.
“What about the outside doors?” The same student asked.
Nelson huffed. “Look, don’t worry about your damn keycards. Worry about the power. For god’s sake, didn’t you see what happened? The whole city’s in a blackout. D.C. is, too-”
“Don’t be frightened,” Dr. Pelsner interrupted. “It sounds worse than it probably is. What Mr. Nelson is trying to say is that we don’t know yet how long the power will be out. We’re trying to get in touch with Pepco to get estimates. Until then-”
The kid with the spiky blond hair stepped forward again and cut Dr. Pelsner off.
“What about the diner? Are they going to be serving food? I can’t use my meal card out in the city.”
“We expect that our main cafeterias on both the North and South ends of campus will be serving food as normal,” Dr. Pelsner said. “It might not be our usual selection, but there will be food. I can’t speak for the restaurants in The Stamp.”
The spiky-hair kid opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.
“Dr. Pelsner, this looks a lot more serious than just the power being off for a few hours. We heard a lot of explosions. Are there any plans to put the school into lockdown?” I asked.
Dr. Pelsner frowned and twisted her hands together. “Not at this time, but that option is being discussed,” she said.
The crowd burst into objections, everyone speaking at once. Dr. Pelsner waved her hands, calling for quiet, but no one could hear her. Angry accusations mixed with frightened questions, and the girl to my right stumbled into me as the crowd started to push forward.
“Good job, Rip,” Corey yelled into my ear, making me jump. “Now they’re all riled up.”
“We needed to know!” I yelled back.
“Time to get out of here?” Josh yelled, his eyes wide.
A shrill whistle cut through the din, startling everyone into silence.
Mr. Nelson pulled his fingers from his mouth. “Shut the hell up!” He yelled. He glared around at all of us. “She said they’re discussing it, not that they’re going to do it. If it were up to me you’d all be locked in your rooms already until we get this shit figured out. Consider yourselves lucky!”
“Lucky?” Spiky-Hair shot back. “I can’t use my room, I can’t use the friggin’ bathroom, and I’m having to go up seven flights of stairs in the dark. That’s lucky?”
“I had two men down in the power room when the transformers blew up and they’re dead now, you little asshole, so yeah, I’d say you’re lucky!” Nelson bellowed, stepping forward and pointing a calloused finger at Spiky-Hair.
“Okay everyone, please calm down,” Dr. Pelsner said, putting a hand on Nelson’s shoulder. “I realize this situation is unsettling and everyone’s emotions are high right now-”
“Oh save me the psychobabble, Gladys,” Nelson said, jerking his shoulder out from under her hand. “Like I said, I’ve got shit to do. I’m done here.” He spun and stomped to the doors, slammed his hand into the release bar, and was gone.
“Well,” Dr. Pelsner blinked and looked around, twisting her fingers together again. “I apologize for that, everyone. I… umm…”
Todd stepped forward and addressed the crowd. “I’ve told the people on my floor with damaged windows to bunk up with a friend tonight. Wait until daylight to clean up the glass. It’s not like you guys don’t sleep in each other’s beds all the time anyway.”
Dr. Pelsner’s face flushed red, but there were chuckles, snickers, and some high-fives among the crowd.
“We’ll try to gather up as many brooms and dustpans as we can, and we’ll distribute them between the affected floors,” Todd continued. “Just hit up your R.A. in the morning, and we’ll get you a broom, some work gloves, and a trash can to get this mess cleaned up. Sound good?”
Bill, the other R.A. from Todd’s floor, stepped forward.
He was shaking his head. “We didn’t finish discussing that, Todd. I still don’t think it’s safe. We’ve got to think about the liabilities-”
“Look, Maintenance is going to be here tomorrow,” Todd cut in, ignoring Bill and addressing the crowd. “And they can either spend the day cleaning up the glass in our rooms or they can spend it fixing our water pipes. Do you really want to walk down six flights of stairs just to smell Bill’s crap in the porta-potties for the rest of the week?”
The crowd chuckled in response, but Bill glowered. Jaw set tight, he shook his head. “Real mature, Todd. When the college has two dozen lawsuits for injuries-”
“Anybody going to sue the University if they get a piece of glass in their shoe?” Todd asked. “No? Good. Okay. Where’s my man Henry?”
“Um, here?” Henry said from across the lobby, raising his hand.
“Henry, get up here. You go to the physical plant and get enough heavy-duty plastic and duct tape so we can cover the windows. Take…” He scanned the crowd and pointed to three huge guys standing by a pillar. “Take those three lugs with you.”
“Sure, Jacobs, lay it on the defensive line to cover your ass,” one of the three joked.
“As usual,” said another, and the two fist-bumped.
“Yeah, yeah,” Todd said with a grin. “It’s about time you guys actually did some work anyway. You got this?”
“Yeah, we got this,” said the first, pushing his way through the crowd. “But it’s gonna cost you.”
“Pizza and beer on me when the power’s back up,” Todd said, high-fiving the three as they went by and clapping Henry on the shoulder. “Keep them on track, Henry. If they see a skirt, they forget what they were doing.”
“Only when you’re wearing it, Jacobs!” The first linebacker called as they went out the front doors.
Dr. Pelsner was smiling uncomfortably, and cleared her throat.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Todd said, ducking his head. “Didn’t mean to-”
“No, no, it’s fine, Todd,” she said. “Action is good.” She looked over the crowd. “That’s really all of the information I have for now, everyone. If I find out anything else I’ll let your Resident Assistants know…”