Blackout: Book 0

by Alexandria Clarke

  “It’s a solar flare!”

  “It’s a bomb!”

  “It’s a what?” Jacob asked, his voice trapped in an interminable whisper. The coaster had swept his golden hair away from his forehead. It stood straight up like a cartoon character’s. I would’ve giggled if the moment weren’t weighed down by the mysterious light in the sky.

  “It’s not a bomb,” I said automatically, but the words felt heavy and wrong on my tongue, and a pang of guilt ricocheted across my conscience, the same way it always did when I told a lie. “It can’t be. We would have heard it.”

  And because this wasn’t a world where bombs detonated while people were enjoying a pleasant evening at a theme park. This was Denver, where the Rocky Mountains met the sky, and the crisp air staved off the smell of exhaust in the city. This was First World America, where we lived in excess of material goods and relied on the country-wide grid to function from day to day.

  I didn’t know how long it took for the light to subside. It could’ve been minutes or hours. The harness rubbed against my sweater, chafing the skin of my shoulders. A prickling began in both of my legs as the deep bucket seat restricted blood flow to my lower half. I wiggled my toes and straightened my legs, trying to get everything moving again. How long had we been sitting here? Someone should have done something by now. At the very least, the employees that ran the attraction should have updated us on the situation. Restlessness set in. The other guests grew uneasy, complaining and commiserating about our terrible luck. Next to me, Jacob was hauntingly quiet.

  “Still with me?” I asked him, giving his hand another squeeze.

  “Mm-hmm.” The whites of his eyes reflected the moon overhead. “How long do you think we’re going to be here for?” His tone was steadier than before. He was calmer now that there was no immediate danger other than being confined to the coaster, and his claustrophobia hadn’t kicked in full blast yet.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Probably a while if the power’s out everywhere.”

  But another voice shouted at us from out of sight. “Hello! Is everyone okay?”

  The entire train clamoured at once, shouting pleas for help. From the darkness, two park employees, dressed in silly patterned sweaters and khaki pants, approached the coaster. They were young—college students who probably worked at the park to make rent or pay tuition—and they definitely didn’t look like they had the ability to free all of us from the coaster’s locked harness system.

  The first employee, a nimble young man with a scruffy ginger beard, set a ladder against the track, carefully climbed up, and stepped on the front car of the coaster so that we could all see him. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hi, everyone. I’m Dave. This is Hayley.” He gestured to the other employee, whose platinum blond hair served as a beacon in the moonlight as she waved. In her free hand, she held a sturdy metal bar shaped kind of like a tire iron. “We’re going to try and get you out of here.”

  “What’s going on?” someone shouted.

  “Where’s the fire department?” asked a deeper voice.

  Dave waved his hands to settle the crowd. “We don’t know what happened either. From what we can tell, the whole city is out of power. A lot of the cars in the parking lot won’t start, so we’re guessing that the fire department can’t get here either. We don’t want to leave you in the coaster while we wait for them since we don’t know how long it will be, so we’re going to do this like a routine evacuation.”

  “And we’re supposed to trust you?” Jacob asked, raising his voice for the first time since the coaster had failed.

  Dave squinted toward the back row where we sat. “Sir, I can assure you that we’ve been trained to handle this sort of situation, and we routinely evacuate this ride without issue.”

  “From one of the safety platforms,” I called. “What about from a random part of the track?”

  “I have to admit this is a new one,” Dave acknowledged. “But it’s the same procedure. We have a tool that unlocks each row of harnesses manually, and we’re going to evacuate one row at a time. Hayley and I will help each of you down the ladder to the ground. Once we finish a row, we’ll escort those four people back to the loading area and come back for the others. It’s important that you follow our path exactly. There are a lot of dangerous components on the ground out here, and we don’t want anyone getting electrocuted if the power comes back on. There’s another train stuck at the beginning of the tracks that the other attendants are helping, so it’s just the two of us. It’s going to be slow going, folks, and I apologize in advance. Please just bear with us.”

  “We’ve had word that the park’s medical team is making their rounds as quickly as possible,” Hayley added, shouting up at us from below the track. “Before we begin, does anyone on the train need emergency assistance?”

  A general murmur reverberated through the crowd. I glanced over at Jacob, who now looked more aggravated at how long we had been sitting in the train than scared about the situation.

  “You’re good, right?” I asked him. “You’re okay to wait?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let the medics tend to the people who really need it. I can stick it out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He tucked his chin to look at me over the bulky harness. “Georgie, I’m fine. Stop freaking out.”

  “I’m freaking out because you were freaking out,” I reminded him.

  “Well, stop.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course we were arguing again. Even in the midst of a city-wide blackout, we managed to find the ability to bitch at each other.

  “All right,” Dave called. “We’re going to get started with row one. Everyone sit tight.”

  “Like we have a choice,” Jacob muttered.

  There was nothing to do but wait as Hayley handed the hefty tool bar mechanism up to Dave. He balanced along the edge of the track, his sneakers between the metal piping and the bottom of the coaster, and inched toward the first row, stepping carefully between the coaster’s wheels. Hayley supervised from below, moving the ladder to match his pace. The lowest part of the track was about ten feet from the ground, not high enough to cause a life-threatening injury, but if someone misstepped, it might mean a broken arm or leg. Dave seemed well aware of this. His gaze kept flickering toward the ground as if to check that Hayley was keeping up with the ladder. He leaned into the coaster as he reached the first row and bent out of sight with the tool bar.

  “One, two, three,” he grunted, and with a pneumatic hiss, the first row of harnesses sprang free. The four guests, two teenagers and two adults, tried to stand up at the same time, but Dave waved them back in their seats. “One at time, please. We need to do this as safely as possible. Ma’am?”

  He rested the toolbar against the coaster, leaned against the train to secure his footing, and offered his hand to the first woman seated in the row. She staggered to her feet, grasping Dave’s shoulder for balance. He helped her step over the lip of the coaster car and onto the waiting ladder then continued to hold her from above as Hayley coaxed her down from below. The woman’s hands shook as they left Dave’s shoulders.

  “This is going to take forever,” I mumbled, watching as Dave encouraged the next guest out of his seat.

  “They already told us that,” Jacob said.

  “Yeah, but we could’ve sat in the front seat,” I countered. “I wanted to. If we had, we would’ve been the first ones off the coaster.”

  “I don’t like the front,” he replied. “You have to wait longer, and it’s nerve wracking to ride up there. The back’s better.”

  I tugged the seatbelt free of the harness. It dangled uselessly between my legs, which were now completely asleep. “The back’s rougher and faster.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is, because the front of the coaster pulls the back, which means there’s less resistance when you whip around the turns.” I sucked in my stomach and wiggled around, testing the space around the ha
rness to see if I could free myself without Dave’s assistance. “Or has the ache in your neck not set in yet from the whiplash?”

  “That’s from the lack of brakes. And I didn’t know you were suddenly an expert on physics,” Jacob fired back. “Is that what you do after you finish the morning show at the station? Because you sure as hell aren’t working on the radio.”

  “It’s common sense,” I snapped. “And what’s that supposed to mean? Where else would I be other than the station?”

  “Can the two of you shut up?”

  I looked over at the seat at the end of our row, where a teenaged girl with heavy black eyeliner and fading green hair rewarded me with a dramatic sigh. She had been quiet for the duration of the unfortunate event. If I remembered correctly, she hadn’t let out so much as a whoop of excitement during that first drop.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Shut up,” she repeated, enunciating the P sound with an emphatic pop of her lips. “God, you two bitch more than my separated parents when the mortgage bill hits. It was bad enough that I had to stand behind you in line, but this is just straight-up torture.”

  Thankfully, the seat between me and the girl was empty. No one else played witness to me and Jacob being chided by a teenager.

  She pointed to the ring on my finger, which I had finally remembered to put on before we left for the park. “Please tell me that’s not from him.”

  Jacob strained to get a look at what the girl was referring to. I stuttered and lowered my hand, but there was nowhere to hide the incriminating diamond.

  “Honey,” the girl said, her tone dripping with condescension. “He’s clearly compensating for something.”

  “How old are you?” I managed, acutely aware of Jacob’s stare.

  “Old enough to know when two people shouldn’t get married.”

  “You don’t know us.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Thank Wonder Woman for that.”

  I huffed and turned away from her, only to realize that Jacob was studying me with a glare as honed as a laser pointer. I faced front, pretending to monitor Dave’s progress. He had just freed the third row. The quartet waited on the ground with Hayley as he climbed down, and the group disappeared again to return to the attraction’s loading zone. There were eight rows to the coaster. The rescue process wasn’t quite halfway through. With a groan of frustration, I jiggled the harness. It moved a fraction of an inch up and down, making more of a racket rather than helping my case.

  “Are you trying to break the ride?” Jacob asked with a wry turn of his lips. “It won’t get us out any faster.”

  I pushed the harness up as far as it would go and attempted to worm out. “At least I’m trying.”

  “What would you even do if you managed to get out?” he went on. “Jump to the ground? It’s a good ten feet.”

  “Ten feet never hurt anyone.”

  “Actually—”

  “I’ve jumped from higher than that before.”

  “Off a diving board and into a pool—”

  “Ahem!”

  We both looked over at the teenage girl, who pointedly picked at her polished black nails.

  “What happened to shutting up?” she asked.

  Jacob and I fell silent. I tipped my head back against the headrest, looking up at the sky. The strange mushroom of white light had dissipated, and now that the whole city had been extinguished, the stars blinked overhead in a myriad of patterns. As Dave and Hayley returned to continue the evacuation procedure, I lost myself in the constellations. There were stories written in the sky, legends and myths that most people read about in high school. I had learned about them earlier, studying them each night through a massive telescope as they became visible in our hemisphere. I remembered my first date with Jacob years ago. We had driven out to a park to have a picnic under the stars. After, we laid out on the blanket, cuddling together to stay warm, and watched the sky together.

  “Which one’s your favorite?” Jacob had asked.

  I considered my options before pointing to a cluster of stars. “There. Lyra. The harp.”

  Jacob squinted up at it. “How come?”

  “In Greek mythology, the harp belonged to Orpheus,” I’d explained. “He used it to play love songs for Eurydice, his bride. When she died, Orpheus couldn’t stand the loneliness, so he went to the underworld to bargain with Hades to get her back. Hades was so impressed with Orpheus’s music that he agreed to let Eurydice return to Earth.”

  “So it was a happy story?”

  “Not quite,” I said, nuzzling beneath Jacob’s strong chin. “Hades had one condition. Orpheus had to return to the upper world without ever looking back to check if Eurydice was following. Otherwise, Hades would take her back to the underworld. At first, Orpheus could hear her footsteps behind him, but then they faded as Hades led them through a pine grove. You can imagine what happened next.”

  “Hades tricked him?”

  “It wasn’t a trick,” I’d replied, musing over the story. “It was more of a test of faith. Anyway, Zeus placed the harp in the sky to honor Orpheus’s music and his love for Eurydice.”

  Jacob pulled me closer. “Were there any Greek myths that ended happily?”

  “Not many.”

  Dave’s face popped up over the edge of our row, ending my jaunt through a simpler time in my relationship. The rest of the coaster had finally been unloaded. Dave fit the toolbar into a notch underneath the seats and asked, “Everyone ready?”

  “Beyond ready,” Jacob answered.

  “Here we go then. Hands up, heads back.”

  The three of us obliged, and Dave heaved the toolbar into position with a grunt. The harnesses released at long last, floating upward to free us. I groaned and stretched then lifted my butt from the seat to get the blood flowing again. My legs felt as though they had a thousand pins stuck in them.

  Dave helped Jacob out first. Jacob’s hatred of roller coasters fueled his efficiency. He had no trouble swinging one leg, then the other, over the edge of the car and stepping out onto the ladder. When I heard the soft swish of his boots in the grass, I breathed out a sigh of relief. Dave reappeared at my level.

  “Ready to go, ma’am?”

  At long last, I stood up, letting out an involuntary hiss as my wobbly legs crept and itched as the blood rushed back to my limbs. I made to step over the edge of the car but misjudged the distance, and my foot caught the underside of the coaster’s decorative accents, sending me sprawling forward into the open air.

  “No!” Jacob yelled. “Georgie!”

  Dave made a wild grab as I tumbled past him, but the silky fabric of my sweater slipped from between his fingers. A panicked yell escaped from my lips as I hurtled headfirst toward the dark ground. Self-preservation instinct took over, and I tucked my chin into my chest, flipping myself as quickly as possible so that I wouldn’t land on my head. Less than a second later, I crashed into Jacob’s firm chest, his knees bent to absorb the impact, and we both fell to the grass, bruised but ultimately unharmed.

  “Holy shit,” a voice said from above, and we both looked up to see the teenaged girl peering over the side of the coaster. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Maybe you two really are meant for each other.”

  Hayley knelt beside us, forgetting to hold the ladder steady. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

  Jacob helped me shakily stand to my feet, running his hands along the lengths of my body to check for injuries. “Baby, is anything broken?”

  Experimentally, I wiggled my fingers and toes. A sharp pang radiated through my left hand. My pinky finger jutted out at an unnatural angle. “Just a finger.”

  Jacob brought my hand closer to his face for a better look. “Shit. Come on, let’s get you to First Aid.”

  The teenager jumped from the last few rungs of the ladder, followed shortly by Dave, which signaled the end of the lengthy rescue mission. Dave immediately approached me. “I’m so sorry about that. It was all my fault. I should’ve
had a better hand on you.”

  “No, I misstepped,” I countered. “I don’t blame you at all.”

  Dave patted me on the shoulder. “Even so, we should get someone to look at your finger.”

  “No need.” I took a firm hold of my pinky finger with my uninjured hand, and with no more than a grimace, yanked the bone straight. I held it up for everyone to see. “All better. Just needs a splint.”

  Jacob’s jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve broken a finger. Let’s get back.”

  Hayley led us through the yard beneath the roller coaster, which loomed like a great mythical monster overhead. The teenager walked behind me, chattering away about Jacob’s heroic catch, and Dave brought up the rear. We were the last ones to climb up the rusty metal stairs to the loading platform. Everyone else had already left, and the queue house was empty. The track looked oddly vacant without a train to occupy it.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” I asked.

  “Go home,” Dave suggested. “There’s no point in staying. The whole park is down.” He pointed down the exit ramp of the loading platform. “Make a left out of the ride then a right at the ice cream stand. It’s a shortcut to get to the exit. We have to go help get people off of the other rides.”

  We parted ways, thanking Dave and Hayley for their assistance. Then we followed the teenager out of the coaster’s queue building and into the rest of the park. Immediately, we were shunted in with the rest of the crowd heading for the exit. All around, people tapped their phones against their palms, urging them to turn on. What kind of power outage took out cells as well as landlines? I grabbed the back of Jacob’s jacket so that we wouldn’t get separated then instinctively reached for the girl.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, tugging her hand free of mine.

  “You shouldn’t be alone,” I said as the crowd jostled us along. “Is your mom here?”

  She scoffed. “My mom? I’m not twelve. I have to go find my friends. Good luck, lady. Hope your shit works out.”

  And then she disappeared into the swarm. I lost sight of her at once. In the darkness, everyone looked the same. I tightened my grip on Jacob’s jacket, pulled myself level with him, and linked my arm through his in a more secure grip. Someone bumped against me, jostling my broken finger, so I tucked it against my side as we made our way out to the parking lot.