Instant Darkness

by Mark J Russell

  “No, we don’t,” Abram said. “We’ve got your Aunt Maggie coming with us, and I think that’s enough.”

  “But Corey could help.”

  “There isn’t enough food to go around, Em. Simple as that.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Corey could be an asset,” she said. “He’s strong, and he knows how to fix things.”

  “I’m sorry, Em,” Abram said. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be in Vermont. If we took the boy, we’d have to take his dad and sister too. There’s no way we can do that.”

  “But he’s my best friend, Dad. He’s part of my family. If we don’t take him, I might not see him again.”

  Emma looked away from her father, not meeting his steely gaze. He hated doing this to her, but he was focused on her safety, and asset allocation was an important part of the equation.

  “Emma, we can’t take them, and that’s that. Now go pack your things.” Abram pursed his lips.

  Abram turned to head back toward the Land Cruiser, and heard his daughter’s pleas behind him.

  “There’s plenty of room,” Emma said, “and we’ve brought up tons and tons of food. Cans and military rations and barrels full of flour and rice. There are the lake and the river near the camp. We could help the Caulfields survive.”

  Standing at the back of the vehicle, Abram glanced over at his daughter. He could see the flush in her cheeks despite being dozens of feet away.

  “I know it seems like a lot of food, but really, it’s not,” Abram said. “If this solar flare takes out a large area, it could be a year before everything is back to normal. We just don’t know how prepared the government is, or the power industry. I can’t take the chance that you won’t have enough to eat because we tried to save too many people.”

  “You are going to let my best friend die!” The pain in her voice was palpable.

  Abram knew he was going to be paying for this for weeks to come. He thought of the pain of living with an emotionally injured daughter versus the pain of watching that same child die of hunger, and he knew which one he was willing to endure.

  “I’m sorry, Emma, but my responsibility is to my own family, no more, no less. Now go gather anything else you might need. I need to talk to your mother.”

  Emma ran back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

  Abram let out a sigh at the thought of taking a sulky, angry, and self-justifying teenager to their compound, but that was just another part of having children. She would see the wisdom of his ways one day…or not. Either way, she’d be alive, and that’s what mattered most to him.

  He closed the back of the vehicle and padded toward the door leading into the house. Once inside, he closed the door gently behind him, hearing Emma’s distant cries. It was going to be a long night.

  2

  Emma Patterson’s phone vibrated, and she opened her eyes into the gray light of the pre-dawn. She hadn’t given her phone to her father when he’d asked for it, telling him she’d give it to him in the morning. Instead, Emma had checked online for instructions on how to make her own Faraday cage out of a small cardboard box, padded on the inside with a headscarf and wrapped in multiple layers of aluminum foil. When they reached the compound, she would put her phone in her own personal Faraday cage after she’d shared her location with Corey. The bug out place was hard to find, and she was proud of herself for thinking of it.

  She eased herself out of her narrow bed and took a few steps to reach a nearby second-hand chest of drawers, getting dressed as quietly as she could in jeans, a t-shirt, and Doc Martins. Goosebumps sprung up on her arms, so she pulled on a gray hoody too. Glancing in the mirror that backed the dresser, she pulled her dirty-blonde hair up into a ponytail and wiped the sweat residue from her tanned forehead. It was going to be a long day, but she was ready for it.

  Grabbing her phone from her nightstand, she tried once again to call Corey.

  No answer.

  She figured he must have gotten into another fight with his dad over grades. His dad sometimes took his phone as well as his game consoles when they weren’t getting along—that must be why he hadn’t responded since dinner time last night.

  She texted him that she needed to talk to him, and was going to leave a letter through his mail slot in case he wouldn’t be able to reach her in time.

  Sitting down at her desk, Emma pulled a piece of blank paper from her sketch pad and started on the note:

  Corey,

  Dad says there is going to be some kind of solar event that’s going to take out the power grid, and we are leaving for the compound in Vermont. This map is how to get there. Dad says there might not be power or communications for a year! The safe house has lots of space and food and is set up off the grid. You have to come. I can’t live without my best friend for a whole year.

  Emma

  Below her note, she drew a map from their neighborhood in Manchester, New Hampshire to the compound in the mountains of central Vermont. She knew the last ten miles could be problematic, as it was little more than a track. There were a lot of dirt roads, and the two-mile drive to the cabins wasn’t marked. Not even a mailbox to show where to turn. She wrote a note at the bottom of the page that she’d turn on location sharing on her cell phone, but that might only work until the event reached Earth. Then her phone would be fried, or the cell phone towers would be out of commission, or…

  She shook her head to dispel the thoughts—thinking about a world without power and modern communications made her sick to her stomach.

  But those feelings were nothing compared to the void she’d feel without Corey by her side during the end of the world.

  Emma slipped the letter and map into an envelope and wrote Corey’s name on the outside. Sealing it, she stepped into the hall and passed the partially open door to her parents’ bedroom. Beneath her feet, the floorboards creaked softly, disturbing the early morning silence that lingered between her father’s light snores.

  She froze when her father’s snoring abruptly stopped, cursing the fact that he was such a light sleeper. Men in his line of work typically were.

  Dammit, she thought. If he catches me with this note…

  She eased off her right foot, expecting the floor to creak again, but there was no sound. She heard her father turn, probably rolling onto his back.

  Was he awake?

  Her question was answered when his light snoring started up again. How her mother dealt with that racket was beyond her, though over two decades of practice likely had something to do with it.

  Emma continued down the hallway and descended the steps.

  Just then, her father’s alarm blared.

  Crap!

  Hearing him lumber out of bed, she hurried across the linoleum kitchen floor and out through the garage door that led to the side of the house.

  From the side of the garage, she could slip out the gate and out onto the street. She took a quick look to make sure that her dad wasn’t looking out her parents’ bedroom window, but there was no one there, thank goodness. The sun was on the verge of rising, and her parents were prepared to leave as soon as Maggie arrived. She had to make this quick—and not get caught.

  She jogged next door to Corey’s house, feeling the crisp morning air against her face. A few sparrows chirped nearby as she reached Corey’s front door. Without a moment’s hesitation, she shoved the letter through the mailbox and ran back home before the sun came up over the horizon.

  Back in the kitchen, she let out a sigh of relief when footsteps creaked upstairs. She grabbed a box of cereal and a bowl, not worrying about making noise as she poured the sugary goodness into the bowl. Sitting down, she could feel her heart still racing in her chest, though she was in the clear—she’d be finishing her breakfast by the time her parents came downstairs, and they’d never know the difference.

  Nick was up and working at his desk in his office before dawn. Neat stacks of paper flanked him as he worked out the kinks in a new pro
duct, the “ISO-mug,” that would keep beverages at a constant temperature for more than twenty-four hours. The initial design paper had asked for a stable temperature container, but he’d awoken in the middle of the night with an idea for a product the consumer could adjust, so the temperature would be perfect for each individual. He figured both mugs would be marketable. The entry-level model that just featured one constant setting and the up-market model that could be adjusted.

  Now, he just needed to figure out how to implement the new feature.

  A sound at the front door broke his concentration. He lifted his head to listen, but it was all quiet. Must have been a breeze or his imagination or something.

  He got up and brewed himself a cup of coffee, tasted it, decided it was too hot, and carried it back into his office where he kept a thermometer. When the coffee was his perfect level of “hot,” he measured it. It was one hundred and fifty degrees, but he liked his coffee hotter than many people. He really should have someone take a poll. Except most people didn’t know what temperature their coffee was; taking a poll would be useless. He’d need to go to a coffee shop with a thermometer and test people’s coffee. For now, he’d say one hundred and forty degrees.

  A short time later, he was beginning the math that would tell him how much of the iso-thermic substance his company had designed would be needed when the sound of an engine starting pulled him from his concentration. It wasn’t just any engine—it was his neighbor’s Land Cruiser.

  Nick stood up to look out the window, in time to see Abram driving away, the vehicle full, with the passenger seat and both jump seats in the back occupied. It looked like there was a lot of stuff packed around the people in the cargo area, as well.

  “What the hell,” he muttered. This was unusual, to say the least. Sunday mornings were an odd time to head off on some trip, with the beginning of the school week quickly approaching. Regardless, he hoped they weren’t going far—those people in the rear were in for an uncomfortable ride if they were.

  Sitting back down, Nick refocused on the task at hand, even more convinced that there was a need to offer more than one temperature. If not a mug with a temperature setting, then perhaps mugs set to different temperatures. Then, the customer would buy the container that corresponded to the hotness that suited their taste, and mugs would be easy enough to produce—each mug would simply have a different amount of the isothermal material in the sleeve of the cup. Still, he would rather create a mug that was adjustable. He was going to continue to work on that as well—beyond “ISO-mugs,” the applications could be endless.

  Corey peeled his eyes open and rolled onto his side. The early morning sun shone through his partially open blinds, glinting off the band posters that consumed most of the wall space in his room. Every band represented had reached its prime well before he was born, but he loved them nonetheless.

  He let out a long breath. For a Sunday morning, he was up early and was confused about why. Had he heard something? His dad had returned his phone in the night—it was on the bedside table. Corey checked it to see that Emma had been calling him, but there were no voice messages, and the texts only said, “Call me.” He hit the call button, but Emma didn’t pick up.

  “I’m calling you back, Em,” he muttered after the beep. “What’s going on? Call me.”

  Taking the phone off its silent setting, he placed it back on the table and lumbered out of bed. He dodged several piles of dirty clothing on the floor and moseyed over to his dresser, which had a few articles of clothing strewn about. He rummaged to find a pair of jeans and a wrinkled black t-shirt that both passed the “smell test.” Bingo.

  Dressing slowly, he thought about Emma and what in the world she could have been calling about so early in the morning. The one thing he thought he could guarantee was that she would be fast asleep at that hour. So, what would get her up? Or maybe she hadn’t gone to sleep? Was something wrong? He worried and wished he’d had his phone overnight, and that the ringer was on when his dad had returned it. He would have been awoken by the ringtone and could have helped her. Would have been there for her.

  Once fully dressed, he picked up his phone and slid it into his pocket, then headed downstairs to get a bite to eat.

  Another day in paradise…

  As Corey passed the living room, he saw that his father was in his office. Working early again. Well, it was understandable—once Rae Ann was up, she wouldn’t give him any peace. She didn’t believe in parents working on the weekend.

  Corey was about to turn into the kitchen when he spotted an envelope on the floor just inside the front door. Mail didn’t come this early in the day, and never on Sunday. He went to retrieve the letter from the entryway and was surprised when he saw his name written on it in Emma’s curvy handwriting.

  “Huh?”

  He carried the envelope into the kitchen and set it on the table while he poured himself cereal and put bread in the toaster. There was already coffee in the pot, so he poured himself some, but when he tasted it, the coffee was tepid, and he had to microwave it to make it drinkable. His dad had said something about a mug that kept coffee at the correct temperature. He should make a coffee carafe that did the same thing.

  Finally, he sat at the table with his cereal, toast, and coffee and took a bite. Then he opened the letter and pulled out a single piece of paper—on it was a note and a map. He took another spoonful and considered what she’d written.

  “A solar event?” he muttered between bites. “What’s she talking about?”

  He pulled out his phone and searched the web. There were hundreds of articles on the upcoming flare, but none of them indicated that the public should be worried. Well, almost none. Some prepper—like Emma’s dad—had written a blog post saying the government was concealing the severity of the storm and that the images he’d seen indicated a coronal mass ejection strong enough to take out the power stations and communications in the path of its field.

  Corey figured her dad must agree with this guy. But why would it matter where you were when the flare hit? If the entire east coast was going to be without power, why not just stay put? Well, he reasoned, maybe you could drive far enough that you’d be out of the range of the pulse wave, or whatever. You could move to a place where life would go on as usual until New England was up and running again. Unless the entire continent was affected. Then, where would you go?

  Emma’s dad obviously had a place in mind—a compound in Vermont, by the looks of the note. Maybe it was a bug out location. Corey had heard of those. Places to retreat to where you could be safe while civilization was falling apart. He studied the map again. It showed how to get to the compound. So maybe the place was a safe place for shelter until the world was back to normal.

  He checked his phone; she hadn’t shared her location yet, so it must take a while to get there. Well, yeah. Vermont was two hours away, and he’d bet that the hideout was up in the mountains, someplace remote. A spot where it would be hard to find them. He’d check again in an hour. It was possible she’d be there by then. Or maybe they hadn’t left yet. That was possible.

  Corey carried his dishes to the sink and let himself out through the patio door. He hurried through the gate that Dad had built for him and Emma when they were younger so they could go to and from each other’s houses without going onto the street. Dad had always feared child abduction, and Corey could never figure out why. No one he’d ever known had been taken.

  Still, the gate was handy, and he climbed the back steps to the Pattersons’ kitchen door. He knocked, but there was no answer. He peered in the windows but didn’t see anything, so he walked around the house and went in through the door to the garage. Mr. Patterson’s Land Cruiser was gone. Would he take the Jeep-like vehicle all the way to Vermont with Emma riding on a jump seat in the back? That seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to him. Maybe they could switch off so that no one had to ride the entire trip in the rear.

  Mrs. Patterson’s car was in the garage, as well
as a car that Corey didn’t recognize. Had they gotten another vehicle? It had Rhode Island plates. Emma’s Aunt Maggie was from Rhode Island—maybe this was her car. That meant two people in the jump seats in the back of the Land Cruiser. Pure torture. Four people headed for Vermont in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. If Aunt Maggie had come, this must really be serious. He was pretty sure Emma once told him she had some kind of high-powered job. No one would leave that kind of responsibility on a whim.

  He leaned against the door and thought. If he was going to convince his father to drop everything and drive to Vermont, he was going to need more facts. A note from Emma wasn’t going to be enough to convince his scientifically minded dad. He was going to need evidence, hard evidence. Right, then he’d have to find it.

  Corey exited the garage, ducked back through the fence, and entered the house the same way he’d gone out. He took a quick minute to rinse his dishes and put them in the dishwasher. No point in attracting his dad’s ire when he needed to be able to influence him. Especially after what happened at last night’s dinner.

  Upstairs in his room, Corey fired up his laptop and printer. He was going to need a stack of papers with hard evidence if his dad was even going to listen. He would start with the images the national weather service had put up, and then contrast them with the pictures the prepper bloggers posted and those from other governments and scientists that weren’t governed by the NWS or NASA or any other part of the United States Government. Then he would pull information about the effects of CMEs, including the shutdown of a power plant in Quebec in the late 1980s.

  His fingers flew across the keyboard as he pulled up the facts that he needed. He was going to need a new print cartridge after printing all these color images. He found the documentation he needed on CMEs and their effects, and then he hit the jackpot: an article by a government insider warning about what would happen if the threat of a CME was broadcast to the general public. Basically, murder and mayhem, as well as people stranded on freeways full of cars that would no longer run, either because their electronics had been knocked out or because they’d run out of gas. He printed that too.