Sunfall (Book 1): Journey

by D. Gideon

  “No thank you,” Mel said. “We just came from there. It’s crazy.”

  He handed Mel Leandra’s old ID and pointed. “Park it, head straight to your dorms, don’t get near any power lines, and sit tight. We might secure that lot later. If we do, once we’re finished here, you can pick the truck up and return it.”

  “How long will that be? Before I can pick it up, I mean. I’m supposed to return it Sunday.”

  The soldier shrugged. “Not my problem, miss. It could be a day or two, could be more than a week. It’ll be done when it gets done. I repeat: you’re welcome to turn it around and find a place to park it in the city. Just get it out of my line.”

  He thumped the hood twice and stepped away. Mel huffed and angled the truck to the right. Visitor parking or turning it around really were her only two choices. A nasty-looking armored truck with a huge gun on the top sat behind a line of cones in front of her, blocking access to the rest of Campus Drive. A soldier stood behind the gun, alert and tense as he watched the crowd and cars.

  “Did your guy tell you anything about what’s going on?” Mel asked, weaving through the cones.

  “Only that they’re only letting people with current IDs onto campus; they’re turning away anyone who hasn’t checked in yet,” Amy said. “What’s up with that?”

  “Our guy said ‘governor’s orders’,” Mel said. “You think maybe they’ve declared a State of Emergency?”

  “Oh my god,” Amy said, turning in her seat and patting the console. “What if there’s been a shooting?”

  “No,” Chloe answered from behind. “I think it’s just like I said. There’s a bunch of rich white kids here that need protecting.”

  Stephanie groaned. “Don’t start with that shit again, Chloe. It’s been a long night. Let’s just get our stuff and get back to Cumberland. Somebody there’s gotta know what’s going on.”

  Mel parked the truck and popped the lock for the back door. One of the soldiers on the curb had stepped down and was watching them carefully. There were other students already walking across the grass away from the lot, carrying all sorts of belongings.

  “Whatever it is, I don’t think we’re gonna like it,” Mel said.

  CHAPTER 7

  Saturday, September 1st

  College Park, Maryland

  “Why the hell is Romeo sleeping in my bed?”

  I jolted awake, sitting straight up and nearly pushing Corey off of my bed. Mel stood just inside the doorway, shopping bags in both hands.

  “Mel!” I cried, and scrambled over Corey to launch myself at her and crush her in a hug. “You made it back! We were so worried-”

  “So worried you’ve got three guys sleeping in our room?” Mel dropped her bags and returned the hug, and when she pulled away, she was smiling.

  “I was keeping it warm for you,” Marco said, his voice thick with sleep. He rolled over onto his side, causing the covers to fall down and reveal he was shirtless.

  “Holy crap,” said another girl’s voice, and it was only then that I noticed there was a group of girls standing in the doorway.

  “You’d best not be naked under there,” Mel said, pointing at Marco. “You’ll disappoint all these women.”

  “I promise not to be disappointed,” a pale girl with brilliant red hair said, pushing past me. She gave me the briefest of winks before plopping down on Mel’s bed, where Marco gave her a surprised, but pleased, smile.

  Josh had slept on top of his sleeping bag fully clothed, and he sat up now, rubbing a hand through his hair. He flashed a sheepish grin at Mel and scooted to the side, waving a hand to offer her a seat on his bag.

  Mel sighed and pushed her bags over with her foot.

  “Fine y’all, come on in,” she said, gesturing into the room. “We may as well all hear it at once. Sit up, Romeo. You too, Corey. Make room.”

  Three more girls filed into the room while Corey scooted to the foot of my bed and Marco, gathering the bedspread around his waist, sat up and blinked. Josh’s eyes widened and he gave me a look just short of panic. I tried not to grin as I quickly pushed past everyone and plopped down next to him on the sleeping bag.

  “Thanks, Rip,” he whispered, and I bumped his shoulder with mine. Mel plopped down on my other side, and the remaining three girls took seats on the beds.

  “Ladies,” Marco said with a devilish grin, pushing a hand back through his hair. “My apologies that I’m not more… presentable.”

  “Stephanie, Chloe, Leandra, and Amy,” Mel said, pointing at each in turn. “Meet Ripley, my roommate, Tall over there-” she pointed to Corey, who just grinned. “Dark over there, who still hasn’t told me if he’s got clothes on…”

  “I know who you are,” Amy said, scooting closer to Marco. “You’re Romeo. Mel, you never told me you knew Romeo!”

  “I try to block it from my mind,” Mel said. “And over here we’ve got Ginger.”

  “Josh,” Josh squeaked. “Not Ginger. My name’s not-”

  “Now someone tell us what the hell is going on?” Mel finished.

  “You guys first,” I said. “We’ve been stuck in here ever since it happened. What’s it like out there?”

  “Girl, it’s nuts out there, that’s what it’s like,” Leandra said, fluffing up Mel’s pillow and leaning against the headboard. “Whole damn world done gone mad. Let me tell you…”

  The retelling of each side’s story took nearly an hour. When we were done, we all just sat there quietly. I felt shell-shocked. Mel was leaning against me, her head on my shoulder and her long, wavy hair with its bright purple streaks and random braids falling down into my lap. Marco had scooted back against the wall and Amy was curled into a fetal position on the foot of the bed, with her head on his lap. Somewhere along the way, she had fallen into a deep sleep. Leandra was still on Marco’s other side, leaning against the headboard with Mel’s pillow clutched to her chest and her knees pulled up.

  Corey sat on the edge of my bed with his feet on the floor and his elbows on his knees, staring down at his hands. Stephanie and Chloe sat near the head of my bed, leaning against each other. Josh sat beside me, leaned back against my desk, holding his pillow like a teddy bear.

  Looking around, I realized we looked like a bunch of lost little kids.

  “Are you guys really leaving?” Stephanie asked. “Don’t you think it would be safer here? I mean, the Guard is out there on Campus Drive keeping people out-”

  “And how long are they gonna stay?” Corey asked. “They’ve got families, too.”

  “They’ll stay until their mission is done, and not one minute longer,” Leandra said. “We just need to find out what their mission is. Maybe I can talk to them later today, see what’s up.” She leaned her head forward and raised an eyebrow at Mel.

  “See if they’ve got plans for you,” she said.

  “You really think they’ll snatch you up?” I asked.

  Mel shrugged and sat up. “I’m not taking any chances. Until we get off of this campus, I’m Leandra Jones. When my Mom gets back from Europe, she can come find me.”

  “They could have her on a military transport right now,” Leandra said. “Bringing her back to D.C.”

  Mel snorted. “If something’s happened and they make her President, I might just stay Leandra Jones for the rest of my life. I won’t live surrounded by Secret Service everywhere I go.”

  I rubbed Mel’s leg. “You know you don’t mean that, Mel. You couldn’t put your parents through that.”

  Mel raised her eyebrows and pulled her head back. “Are you kidding me? The only thing my mother loves is her power and Dad’s money. I’m a constant embarrassment to her. Not dressing the way she wants, not going to college where she wants, purple streaks in my hair… screw her. I’d be perfectly happy divorcing my parents and adopting Grams.”

  “That would make you my Aunt,” Corey said with a tired smile. “God help me.”

  “I don’t know,” Stephanie said. “I think it would just be sa
fer to stay here, guys. Wait for them to fix the power-”

  “They’re not fixing the power,” Josh said. “I’m telling you, this is not fixable. It’ll be a good five years before they get power back up for even the most important population hubs, and ten years before electricity is even a common thing again.”

  Corey nodded. “If Josh is right and this was a big CME, it’s gonna take a long time. Those big transformers, if that’s what we saw blow up…power companies don’t have spares they can just drop into place. They’re all custom-made, and no two are exactly alike. It takes over a year to make just one, and there’s only a handful of companies that even do that anymore.”

  He looked around the room, a look of despair on his face.

  “Now imagine the entire world needing replacements all at the same time. London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Dubai… a million orders for custom pieces of equipment that weigh 400 tons each, all going to less than a dozen companies. They’ll be so overloaded, who knows when they’ll get to us?” Corey said.

  Marco cocked his head. “It’s not just that. How are we going to pay for them? Our entire banking system just went blue-screen. We can’t get the banks’ computers back up and running without power, and we can’t buy the machines that make the power without the banks’ computers being up and running.”

  “You know what?” Chloe said, sitting up. She’d been quiet the whole time we were talking, so we all looked at her in surprise.

  “I think you’re all a bunch of crazies, overreacting just like those people out there,” she said, pointing past Corey towards the window. “I mean, look at you. The damn power has gone out, and you’re sitting in here with all this water on your desk like a…like a hoarder. You’re talkin’ like the electricity is never going to come back on, like the damn cars are gonna stop running and it’s the freaking end of the world…well I’ve got news for you!”

  She stood up, incensed. “The cars are running. We drove here. The water will come back—you said yourself that Maintenance is going to fix it tomorrow. They said the campus diner’s going to open in the morning serving breakfast, and the fucking military itself is guarding the campus until everything is fixed. It’s not the end of the freaking world. It’s nothing but a goddamn blackout!”

  “Then explain that,” Josh said, pointing at the ceiling.

  “Explain what?” She snapped.

  “Explain why it’s almost three in the morning, but it looks like dawn outside. Explain why the sky is red, and green, and yellow. Explain why we’re seeing the Northern Lights this far south,” he said, crossing his arms.

  “The sky turns colors all the time! It’s blue during the day, it’s orange at sunset-”

  “It’s not sunset. It’s three in the morning,” Josh interjected.

  Chloe rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “Haven’t you ever heard of a harvest moon? Or are you too young to remember that, little boy?” She sneered, wiggling her head so that her curls bounced wildly.

  “Get the fuck out of my room,” Mel said, her voice suddenly calm. “You can bitch all you want, but you do not insult my friends. Get out before I throw you out.”

  “I’ll help,” I said.

  “Gladly,” Chloe said, turning for the door.

  “Oh, and Chloe?” Mel said, leaning forward.

  Chloe stopped with her hand on the doorknob and glared back at Melanie. “What?”

  “If you tell anyone I’m here, or what we’ve talked about, I will come find you—and you’ll find out why they kicked me out of five different high schools.”

  “What the fuck ever,” Chloe said, yanking the door open. “Have fun with your little disaster orgy.”

  She slammed the door shut behind her. We all just sat there, stunned.

  “You think maybe she’s pissed?” Amy said from Marco’s lap, breaking the silence. “I kinda get the feeling she’s pissed.”

  The tension dissipated in a rush of sighs, chuckles, and snickers. Stephanie stood up, smiling weakly.

  “I’m gonna go too,” she said. “I’m dog tired, and honestly I agree with Chloe. This is all gonna blow over. We’ll be in class on Tuesday and everything will be normal.”

  “Listen, Stephanie, right?” Josh said, putting his pillow to the side and sitting forward. Stephanie nodded. “You don’t know me, and I know you think I’m just a kid, but…”

  He took a deep breath, shook his head, then sighed and pointed to his backpack. “Please go through your stuff and put it in your backpack. Stuff you’ll need to get home. Just in case. If everything blows over, great. It’ll take you 30 seconds to dump it out so you can put your books in it. But if you need to leave in a hurry, you’ll have it.”

  Stephanie opened her mouth as if she were going to dismiss the idea out of hand, then let her breath out in a huff.

  “I don’t even know what I’d take,” she admitted with a shrug.

  “I can help,” Josh said. “Really. It’ll take less than fifteen minutes. Promise.”

  “Ginger, you ain’t seen the amount of clothes that girl has,” Mel said. “We could all go shopping in her room and she’d still have clothes left.”

  Stephanie wrinkled up her nose and stuck out her tongue at Mel.

  “Okay, 20 minutes,” Josh said hurriedly. “And that goes for all of you guys. If you want to make up a bag, I’ll help.”

  “Pretty smooth, Johnson,” Marco said with a grin. ”I’ll have to remember that line.”

  Josh’s face went pale. “I’m not trying to get into their rooms or anything-”

  Marco held up a hand and laughed. “I was joking. I’m sorry. Ladies, he means what he says. He’s an Eagle Scout. Kid knows his stuff.”

  “Okay,” Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. “Fine. But not tonight. I want to get some sleep. How about tomorrow, after breakfast?”

  “Sure,” Josh said, nodding. “Um… but make sure you grab some extra food at breakfast. Whatever you can sneak out with. Stuff that won’t go bad.”

  “Granola bars, cereal, apples, bread rolls—that kind of thing,” I said.

  “Bottles of water,” Corey added. “As many as you can carry.”

  “Yeah, definitely. If you gotta choose, take the water over the food,” I said, nodding. Beside me, Josh was nodding too.

  “All right, all right,” Stephanie said, holding up her hands and backing towards the door. “I’ll take my purse so I can grab some food. I’m going to bed now. Good night!” She was out the door before we could bombard her with more instructions.

  “What about you guys?” Leandra said, waving her hand at the rest of us. “Y’all still gonna be here in the morning, or are you skipping out tonight?”

  “Well, now that Mel’s here,” I started, but Corey held up his hand.

  “I was thinking we should stay and take Josh home once his 24 hours is up,” he said. “Mel, we could use your rental. It wouldn’t take long, and then we head home.”

  “Sure,” Mel said. “But somebody else is driving. I had enough of that shit tonight.”

  “That’s really nice of you guys, but that’s not going to work for me,” Josh said, shaking his head. “If my Dad has started walking, we’ll drive right past him and we won’t be leaving any markers to let him know to turn around. I’ve got to walk.”

  Corey cocked his head. “Are you following the roads or taking a bunch of super-secret boy scout trails?”

  “Following the roads, mostly,” Josh said. “Just not walking on the road unless I have to.”

  “So we’ll stop every couple of miles and you mark your trees,” Marco said.

  “Good idea,” I said, pointing at Marco.

  “And if we see your Dad, we’ll pick him up,” Mel said. “That damn truck is huge. I swear I could fit half the dorm in that thing.”

  Josh let out a relieved sigh and grinned. “That would be great. I was really dreading that walk home. I mean, it’s one thing to plan it out and all, but after hearing what you guys said about what
it’s like out there tonight…” He shook his head, eyes wide.

  “Yeah, that was crazy,” Amy said. “I’m glad I’ve got my car. If classes don’t start on Tuesday, I’m heading home.” She leaned around Marco to see Leandra. “You coming with me?”

  “You’re my ride to and from school,” Leandra said. “What’d you think I was gonna do, take the bus? Damn straight I’m comin’ with.”

  I stood up, making shooing motions with my hands. “Okay guys, unless you’re sleeping here, it’s time to clear out. We’ve got a lot to do in the morning. Go over our bags, go over our route-“

  “Clean all the glass out of our room,” Corey interjected.

  “Tie Mel down so she can’t take her entire room with her,” Marco said. Mel flipped him the bird.

  “I hear ya,” Leandra said, stretching her legs out and standing up. She extended a hand to Amy, who grinned at Marco and allowed herself to be pulled up. “We’ll see y’all at breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Hopefully this will all be over by then. Ooh, hold on,” Amy said, reaching into her shirt. Marco’s eyebrows shot up and she grinned, then pulled out a stack of small plastic cards.

  “Take these before I forget,” she said, handing them to Mel. “I might be tempted to go on a shopping spree.”

  “Thanks,” Mel said. “Leandra, you want your ID back?“

  “Keep it,” Leandra said. “You might need it again, and I don’t think we’re going to be hitting up any clubs in the next few days.”

  “Cool, cool,” Mel said. “I owe ya.”

  “All the times you covered my tab? You don’t owe me shit, girl. I’m out,” Leandra said.

  A quiet settled over the room as they left and shut the door. I sat down on my bed, and Corey crawled around me to stretch himself out next to the wall.

  “Mel, you want me to sleep with you?” I asked, motioning to her bed.