by G. B. Hope
‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you,’ said a female voice.
Michael started a little, then looked at a girl member of the motel staff. ‘Why’s that?’
The girl was on a cigarette break and swigging from a can of Red Bull.
‘Look about you,’ she said, indicating with a sweep of her arm.
Michael saw perhaps two dozen stationary vehicles on the car park and up on the highway, with their drivers milling around. Some cars had their hoods up. Michael smiled at the girl, but of course he would try the ignition anyway. It failed three times. In fact, it didn’t even seem to turn over. Now he definitely needed coffee. He swivelled in the seat and looked at the girl again. Her eyes said, “told you so”.
‘Any idea what’s wrong?’ he asked.
She shook her head, drawing heavily on the cigarette. ‘Power’s off inside, as well.’
‘That’s weird.’
Suddenly there came the pop, pop, pop of automatic handgun fire, causing the girl to run away around the corner of the building and for Michael to throw himself to the ground. More shots, screams, glass shattering. Michael swore silently and made a scrambling move to follow the girl. She had vanished, but he felt safer round there. The gunfire continued, and this was clearly an exchange of fire.
‘Fuck!’
Michael was in a panic. He was not a total stranger when it came to guns, having been a member of the Territorials in England, which was basically the army reservists. But he had not seen active service. He remembered where the office was and ran for it. Surely someone would be calling 911 by now. All he had to do was hunker down there until help arrived. He found two things at the office: a locked door and a mountain bike propped against the wall. That was it, he was “on his bike” out of there, weaving between the broken-down cars and their owners who were hiding from the fire fight. After a lung-busting five minutes of crazy pedalling, he was out in the middle of nowhere. He squealed to a stop, breathing heavily. He looked back. What had just happened there? He found his cell phone in his bag, wanting to speak to his girlfriend, but it wouldn’t work. Exasperated, he put the phone away, and continued cycling, trying to remember what the next town was.
***
David and Lulu Springsteen had arranged for the English girl to meet them at their office building in Lower Manhattan. She came highly recommended from a British friend, but Lulu insisted on going through with the interview process. The Springsteens were fairly successful architects, with two boys under ten. Their Nicaraguan au pair was going home to get married. David had joked to his wife that they were due to have a Swedish girl next. Lulu soon put a stop to that idea. No, the English girl would be wonderful, although she was as pretty as any Scandinavian woman, judging by her resume photo, with short blonde hair and pure, nineteen-year-old, skin. Lulu knew her husband would not dare play around with the hired help - he knew what she would do to him. There was one slight problem that would have to be overcome, however; David’s middle name was Charles, and when his wife was particularly enamoured with him he would be honoured by being addressed as Charlie, but the English girl went by the name Charlie, too. They would just have to call her by her correct name of Charlotte, Lulu had said, but he had told his wife not to be so rude to the new girl, far from home, etc, etc. She would just have to keep his pet name private.
Lulu looked at her watch, thinking about an appointment with a client, as well as meeting with Charlotte. Actually, the girl was late. She said as much to her husband, who was sitting at his desk, looking over some plans. He simply smiled.
‘Execute the bitch,’ he said, grinning to himself. ‘We should have gone for the Swede.’
Lulu pulled a face, then waved through the glass partition towards her PA. The shy young man came across and looked in, reading his boss’s mind.
‘She’s not arrived yet,’ he apologised.
David made the sound of a gunshot, then laughed. Suddenly the office lights went out. The computer screens too. It was an overcast morning so they were thrown into gloom. Lulu exclaimed her annoyance. The PA, called Jonathan, tried a phone, then shook his head and put the handset back down. Then the sounds of squeals and thuds and bangs came up from the street. A couple of screams, too. They only had four storeys to their office building (the top floor had been an accountants' firm but was currently unoccupied), so it all sounded quite clear to them. Now Lulu looked at her husband, who had stood up at his desk. They didn’t peer out of the window because they knew a covered builder’s scaffold was out there, so instead the three of them headed for the lobby. Lulu made a move for the lift until David took her hand and turned them to the stairs.
It was brighter down there with all the polished marble. The concierge was standing at the glass doors with his hands on his uniformed hips. He turned at their approach.
‘Frank,’ called Lulu, ‘what the hell’s going on?’
‘I can’t say, Mrs Springsteen. It’s all gone crazy out there, fender benders all up the street. And the electricity’s out in the building.’
The four of them stood there assessing what chaos they could see. Cars were on the sidewalk. People seemed to be helping other injured people. A yellow cab had rear-ended a truck. Jonathan was the first to bring out his mobile. He showed its lifeless carcass to the others.
‘Shit,’ said David. ‘Is this terrorist?’
Lulu wanted him to hold her. ‘David, look.’ She was pointing to a woman who had stepped from the crashed taxi cab. She had a splash of blood on her forehead. ‘Is that the au pair girl?’
‘I’ll go see,’ he replied, heading out the door.
‘Be careful, darling!’
David ran to the girl. The cab driver was out of his vehicle, uninjured but disorientated. David touched the girl’s arm.
‘Charlotte? Are you Charlotte?’
At least she wasn’t obviously concussed, he thought, as she answered immediately that she was.
‘I’m David Springsteen. You were coming to see us.’
‘Sorry, sorry I’m late.’
‘You’re hurt. Come along inside.’
The two of them hurried off the sidewalk and into the foyer, where Lulu took charge of the girl and sat her down on a leather couch.
‘I’ll get the First Aid kit,’ said Frank, going behind his concierge desk.
‘Charlotte, I’m Lulu Springsteen. You’re safe here. Let me see your head, you’ve banged it.’
‘Please, call me Charlie.’
Lulu looked at her husband, who smiled.
‘Well, I am David,’ he said.
Blood was dribbling down Charlie’s nose from a gash right in the middle of her forehead. Lulu grabbed the First Aid as soon as it arrived and went to work.
THREE
Steven Ziegler loved his Kindle Fire HD, with its leather case. He could play with it for hours, and often did, being as he was employed as a static security guard at a new gated development on Long Island. Occasionally, he would have to deal with visitors, and very rarely there was some kind of trouble, or a trespasser, but the residents mostly came and went without interacting with him. So, he was in his little glass sentry box, near to the Tudor-style walled gateway and the first two luxury properties beyond, before the road curved away into the trees. He had spent time as a mobile security officer, responding to alarms, but was quite happy where he was for now; he could listen to music, send emails and, of course, read books. Currently he was reading David Forsyth’s Voyage of the Dead. He liked a good zombie tale.
Ziegler was a big man who liked to work-out. He was single, thirty-two years of age. He was not the most popular guy in the world, but he had a few friends at the local bar and his gym. He was single for going on six months, something which was starting to bug him. He was a new convert to all this technology stuff. Before his iPhone and Kindle he had only had a cell for work to contact him. He was still not into Twitter or Facebook, and he felt his fingers were too thick for texting. He had once been sitting in his patrol veh
icle, and watched a teenage girl walk by, absolutely engrossed in texting. It had been a fascinating and fairly depressing sight even before she disappeared head first into deep road works.
He watched a Jaguar XF come out of the development, slow for the gate to rise, then speed off. Ziegler drove a battered VW Passat. Once the Jag had gone, he lifted his Kindle, as he was trying to find his next book… ‘Shit!’ The Kindle suddenly went blank on him. He knew the battery was fully charged. ‘Shit!’ His head jerked to look up the street - the Jag had just ploughed into the back of a stationary bus. That took his attention completely from his tablet. He was astonished. Maybe the rich guy had suffered a coronary at the wheel, he thought. But then a Jeep Cherokee rolled by, its driver merely a distressed passenger at the wheel, until it came to a stop on a grass hillock. There were two other shunts up the road, to Ziegler’s left. Then quiet.
Very concerned, Ziegler unclipped the holster strap on his Glock 9mm as he exited his booth. The only person nearby was the driver of the Jeep, who stepped across the road towards him.
‘Just lost all power,’ said the middle-aged man. ‘The steering and everything.’
‘My power’s out in the booth. Ain’t that just crazy?’
Then they both looked into the distance and watched the driver of the bus helping the man out of the Jag, with steam rising into the air. Some of the bus passengers also got down.
‘Where do you live, sir?’ asked Ziegler.
The man was checking his phone, finding it useless. ‘Not far. I guess I have to leave my car there and walk. Damndest thing.’
‘You take care now, sir.’
The man nodded his thanks and set off walking. Ziegler returned to his booth, but stayed outside in the sun, loosening his uniform collar. He was extremely puzzled.
***
‘Why can’t we get a drink at one of these houses?’ complained Allison Davies, trailing behind Liam, Julius, Gus and Sabrina, as they headed towards the town of Salem.
‘We figure the centre will be better,’ Liam called back.
Allison pointed at Sabrina, ‘Can’t what’s-her-face here run on ahead and get help? Isn’t she still working for us?’
‘I speak English, you know,’ said Sabrina, her right hand upturned and her face screwed up with annoyance. ‘And my name’s Sabrina.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Let’s keep moving,’ suggested Liam.
‘Still no life in any house, as far as I can tell,’ Julius said to Liam.
‘It’s a working day, Julius. Look, it’s getting busier up there in the distance.’
They paused briefly while Gus passed around water bottles. He made sure Allison got her own bottle, and didn’t have to share, imagining how that would have played out. Then they continued to walk.
‘Let me get this right, Julius,’ said Liam. ‘We’re on the coast of Massachusetts. So, near to Boston. How far to New York?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe a hundred and fifty miles, something like that.’
Liam was thinking of hiring a car, as New York was important to himself, Julius and the two cruise ship employees. He kept the thought to himself, as he sensed Allison move up near to him.
It seemed hazy up ahead, as if there was some localised fog, and the road looked to be jammed with cars. As they slowly ascended a rise, they walked by abandoned vehicles - one car seemed to have decided to park on top of several trash cans. Liam and Julius exchanged a glance over that one.
It was Gus who stopped first. From his angle on the road he had been able to see the orange glow of flames, and that the fog was, in fact, steam, and then white smoke. What they thought to be cars in a tailback, were not cars - it was metal, scattered all around, across the road and to the wasteland on both sides of the road. Although on closer inspection the wasteland had clearly once been rows of houses.
‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed Allison.
They continued to approach the scene. The scattered fires became more obvious, and there was a smell of aviation fuel in the air. The road curved left and started to rise even more. Now they began to make out the charred and disfigured bodies spread all around. Gus put an arm around Sabrina’s shoulders when he saw that she was horrified by the sight. Liam glanced up into a tree and saw the corpse of a young woman. He didn’t comment on the image, in case the others had missed it.
‘This is horrible,’ said Sabrina.
‘Really bad,’ agreed Julius. ‘Where are the emergency responders? How could this have happened and there not be anyone here to deal with it?’
‘Let’s get beyond it,’ said Liam. ‘Find someone to give us an answer.’
They wound their way through the debris. One of the plane’s engines had squashed several cars and fused with them in fire, then there was part of a wing. It was all difficult to negotiate, so Liam helped the women. Only Sabrina offered any thanks once they were back on a relatively clear roadway and moving on. They were by then in a leafy residential area, but still without local people.
‘Aargh!’ squealed Allison. ‘I’m going to throw this fucking phone away.’
‘Why don’t you go with it?’ asked Sabrina, fairly quietly.
Allison heard the comment. She pulled Sabrina back by the hair with one hand and punched her with the other. Liam was quick to put a stop to the sudden, unexpected violence, leaping between the two women.
‘Ladies!’ implored Julius, gesticulating back to what they had just come through.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Liam said to Allison. ‘Let’s get to some people and then you can go your own way, all right?’
Suddenly, Allison became all conciliatory, although she failed to offer Sabrina an apology. She clearly wanted to stay with Liam until the matter was resolved. There was no doubt she was a high-maintenance, slightly unhinged woman, but that didn’t preclude her from being frightened.
A five minute walk later, deeper into the suburbs, finally brought local residents into view, and also explained why the plane crash lay unattended - there was an even larger plane wreck on the ground, with several big fires which were being fought. There was a great swathe through woodland to show the way the plane came in. Dozens of make-shift body bags lay to the side of the road.
‘Holy Mother of God,’ said Gus, crossing himself.
‘Two planes?’ puzzled Julius. ‘A mid-air collision?’
‘It must be,’ said Liam. ‘Julius, where are the fire engines? There’s nothing here. Just civilians.’
They were plotting their way through the new disaster scene when two local people spotted them and made a bee-line for them. They were a man and a woman, both sweaty and filthy from their exertions.
‘You people weren’t on a plane, were you?’ asked the man.
Liam shook his head. ‘We’ve come ashore from a stricken ship. This is dreadful. We’re pretty shattered from walking, but can we help?’
‘Not much more we can do, I’m afraid. Two people survived this, we’ve got them at the medical centre. Now we’re just putting out fires and collecting bodies.’
‘Only two survivors?’ asked Sabrina, appalled.
‘Yes, miss. We don’t think this flight was very full, though.’
‘Did they collide in mid-air?’ asked Liam.
The man and the woman looked at each other. They didn’t give the impression of being married. Perhaps they were neighbours. Liam waited for an answer but he didn’t get one.
‘You people come this way,’ said the man. ‘We’ll get you into town.’
They all followed the man and woman on a winding route through devastated woodland, before coming out again on the road.
‘Keep on going,’ said the woman, ‘everyone’s out and about, get yourself a drink. You’re sure to find a police officer.’
Julius thanked them for the group as a whole, and they pressed on. Immediately they began to walk by residential properties, with home owners staring at them. People were walking in groups towards the plane crash, carrying tools and suppli
es. Allison began swearing again and sat herself down on a kerb. They decided to take a break. In the end, a police officer found them. The man looked exhausted, his quite elderly face smoke-blackened and sweat-streaked.
‘Who are you people?’ asked the officer.
Julius explained their situation. The officer listened, then nodded.
‘Come with me,’ said the officer. ‘We’ll get you something to eat.’
Obediently they all got to their feet and followed. Liam asked his question again about the mid-air collision.
The police officer looked at him. ‘Son, there was no collision. Look around you, not a motorised vehicle moving anywhere. There are two planes down on the other side of town, as well. All the power’s out, on the ground and in the air. Nothing’s working.’
FOUR
In Connecticut, Michael Clavell cycled by dozens and dozens of stranded vehicles - so many that it stopped being strange any more. He was pretty sure he was heading south, although the map he had used to get himself up there from New York had been left in the hire car. Many times he stopped to rest. He had thought he was fit; clearly not. In his bag there had been mineral water and biscuits, but those provisions were long gone and he was getting a bit desperate. He talked to a couple of people, who stood with their dead cars, but they clearly knew even less than him about the situation. At one point, he picked on a family with the hope of getting something to eat. What he found, once he got up close, however, disturbed him greatly. The two adults and the one teenage girl, ignoring their broken-down vehicle and the chaos around them, just stood about bewailing the failure of their cell phones. They were waving them around, crying, gesticulating at other people on the highway, aiming the devices at the sun as if in some prehistoric ritual.
Michael cycled on, immediately relieved to hit a town - although American towns differed to English towns; instead of coming to the centre straightaway he found that it was spread out for miles, with detached properties, and all the streets seemed to be overly wide. It was like being on the moon. Finally, he found something that resembled a shopping area, with a small mall, containing a pizzeria on one side of the road and a free-standing convenience store and gas station on the other. People milled about sporadically. It was weird to be in a town that was so quiet. He headed to the store, where he dismounted, with his thighs feeling blown up to twice their normal size. People were in discussion outside the store. Michael gave them a wide berth and went inside. The owners were an Asian couple, trying to explain to several people that they could not sell anything at that exact moment in time as their tills were down. Without hesitation, Michael shoplifted two packets of cakes and stepped back outside. He wolfed down two of the cakes while listening to the nearby talk, which told him nothing new. Electro-magnetic pulse was one man’s suggestion, while another was certain that solar flares were responsible. Michael thought they were both the same phenomenon, but he wasn’t sure. Someone asked how long the blackout would last.