Solar Storm: Season 1 [Aftermath Episodes 1-5]

by Richardson, Marcus

  Jay blinked at the sudden onslaught. He couldn't have been more surprised if the old man had reached up and slapped him in the face. Anger welled up inside him.

  "Don't you think I know that? She's my daughter! I raised her, I suffered along with her when Monica died—I held her hand at the funeral and rocked her to sleep as she cried, begging for her mother! If there's anyone on this planet who loves that girl, it's me! If there's anyone on this planet who can help her, it'll be me!"

  He pushed past the grinning old man and stormed out of the kitchen, grabbing his coat from the hook by the door. Jay was torn between two thoughts: on the one hand, he couldn't stop remembering Kate the last time he'd seen her—before she left for the O'Hare run. On the other hand, he couldn’t stop the day of their wedding running through his mind in a continuous loop. A part of him relived moments from Leah’s life from the day he and Monica brought her home to the day he dropped her off at college, just a few months back.

  He reliving his cherished memories, Jay blinked and found himself outside, staring up at the silent, glowing aurora.

  If this happened everywhere around the world…in another couple days… He closed his eyes and sent a prayer up to whatever deity might be listening to watch over his mother, who lived in India on her family's land just outside Lucknow.

  Jay smiled. Lucknow. That’s exactly what she’d need to survive in the homeland. He couldn’t even come close to understanding what Delhi must look like at that moment.

  Mac appeared behind him, still talking about what gear Jay would need to pack in order to find Leah. Jay heard snippets of Mac's advice about extra food and water, borrowing gas, and something about maps before he put a hand up to block the barrage. When Mac at last fell silent, Jay stomped off through the snow-dusted side yard.

  He fumbled for his car keys in his pocket and didn't relax enough to take a deep, cold breath until he shut the door, silencing Mac's protests.

  This is the moment of truth.

  "Cantrell? What are you doing?" Mac called from the driveway.

  Jay ignored him. If this car starts, I'll go drive around just to see for myself if everything is as bad as that radio said. If not, then…

  "Come on, we've got work to do," Mac pleaded.

  Jay turned the key and the car didn't start. He stared at the dashboard. The lights had illuminated—that had to mean something. Jay gripped the steering wheel and tried again. The little SUV sputtered and coughed, then roared to life.

  Jay ignored Mac's muffled shouts and threw the car in reverse. He tore out of the driveway, taking out Mrs. Peabody's trashcan across the street in a cloud of kicked up snow and ice before racing off toward town.

  He had to know. He had to see for himself. One way or another, Jay had to find out the truth. He needed to talk to someone at the airport.

  "She's not dead," he muttered to himself through blurry vision.

  CHAPTER 2

  KATE WALKED AT A brisk pace with her shoulders squared, trying to exhibit an air of calm confidence—the very opposite of what she felt. She wanted to make it across the rental car parking lot, find her vehicle and get inside before the butterflies in her stomach exploded. The clerk she’d just bribed might change his mind and stop her any second.

  Almost there…just keep moving, not too fast…steady…

  She had been the only one at the rental car counter—if the attendant had seen a crowd of people come up waving cash in his face and demanding cars, he might have said no to everyone. As it was, when Kate walked up and asked for a car as professional courtesy, it only took a twenty to grease the wheels.

  She risked a glance over one shoulder as she approached her little Kia Forte. A wave of relief washed over her as she opened the driver’s door. She took a casual glance around and finding herself alone in the rental lot, threw her flight bag in the back seat.

  Her breathing and heart rate didn't return to normal until she pulled off the airport grounds and entered the maze of deserted surface streets.

  East, find a way east…

  The more she thought about it, the more surprised she was to find the streets so empty. Even this early on a Saturday—right before Christmas—Los Angeles usually had thousands of people out driving around.

  The handful of cars she did see were pulled over, their drivers staring open-mouthed at the auroral display blanketing the entire sky. Most had glowing phones raised up, attempting to take pictures of the miracle in the sky.

  Even Kate couldn't help craning her neck from time to time, peering out the windshield as she drove. The farther away from the airport she went, the more the sky came alive.

  The red, yellow, and green lights in the sky were so bright she didn't need headlights. Kate pulled up the maps app on her phone and tapped Los Angeles, thanking Lane for the idea to save local shopping centers and hotels as favorite places in her hub cities.

  The petulant iPhone was rather put out it couldn't connect to the GPS satellite network and asked if she wanted to use saved maps instead. Lane taught her years ago to download regional maps to the phone as a backup instead of relying on cellular networks. It saved time in areas with spotty reception. Now, Lane’s trick might just save her life.

  She took her eyes off the road and glanced at the phone, tapping for turn-by-turn directions to the closest Target on her way east. A few seconds later she had her route planned—she needed to reach the 105 and head east a few miles—it couldn't tell her where to turn with location services enabled, but the phone functioned like an old-school map just the same.

  Confident she knew where to go now, Kate increased her speed ten miles over the limit. She hoped to get there before most locals realized the magnitude of the blackout and swamped the stores selling food and water.

  Growing up in northern Illinois, Kate understood the seriousness of being prepared. She's lived through blizzards and ice storms and learned a healthy dose of respect for summer storms and tornadoes to boot. She knew the local farmers could outlast mother nature, but figured that level of preparedness just wasn't realistic for the average Angeleno.

  Kate had to admit though, the people out here took earthquakes in stride and most were likely prepared to handle them—or possibly wildfires—but she doubted anyone was ready for a blackout crippling the entire state. She clenched her teeth and forced from her mind the fear that the whole country might be in the dark.

  Kate didn't give herself the luxury of thinking about Jay back home, or even worse, Leah stuck at school. Even though Leah wasn't her own child, in the four years Kate had been married to Jay, she'd quickly grown attached to the studious, opinionated teenager.

  Oh God Jay, go get her—don't leave her out there by herself.

  That spurred her to increase her speed to 20 miles over the limit once she hit the 105. Kate picked up her phone and glanced at the screen again. Still no signal.

  Dammit!

  Holding the phone on the steering wheel, she quickly tapped out a text to Jay and informed him she'd landed safely and started home. Kate begged him to get Leah if things were as bad as she feared. She hit send and waited for the notification that the text could not go through, but the phone would attempt again as soon as it found a viable network.

  "Well, I guess that's all any of us can do right now…" Kate mumbled as she roared through another dark intersection. The farther she drove from the airport, the more cars she discovered. People cruised down surface streets, acting like it was a simple blackout. For the most part, everyone else behaved as if they expected the outage to be a temporary issue. Kate drew angry glares and more than a few honks as she bobbed and weaved around anyone in her way, flagrantly disregarding every traffic law in the book.

  Kate flew through a clear space on the elevated interstate and risked a glance to the side. Darkness spread as far as she could see, with only a few random pinpricks of light here and there to mark the fact that people still remained. The 105, as high as most surrounding buildings, gave her a sense of flight.
The world shrank to what she could see in her headlights and the glowing mess of colors in the sky.

  Is it getting brighter?

  Los Angeles, she decided—like New York, Chicago, and any other major city—was not meant to be dark. It seemed unnatural that there weren't any glaring lights and neon signs flashing from every street corner, blotting out the stars above every hour of the night.

  Creepy. Definitely creepy.

  By the time Kate reached the Target just east of Hawthorne Municipal Airport, the surface streets had become clogged with people out driving slowly. While she honked and cursed to get people moving, they stared at the sky, distracted while keeping an eye on dead cell phones. She pulled into the parking lot on chirping tires and noticed a throng of people milling around the storefront.

  It took Kate a second to realize that the people at the front of the store had ignored her dramatic entrance—not a single head turned in her direction. Kate picked her way back to Wilkie Avenue and parked just out of sight around the side near the loading docks. Something about that crowd seemed off and she wanted to play it safe. Besides—she wanted to change out of her flight uniform.

  She realized she’d have to cut through the throng of people at the front door to get back to her car, but figured skipping around the side of the building might be safer than heading straight into the parking lot. Kate got out and stuffed her flight bag in the trunk. She pulled out $200 in emergency cash from her concealed money belt strapped to her waist under her Bluewing uniform. In her flight bag, she had another hundred which she added to her money belt.

  Kate grabbed her purse—after checking again to make sure no one was watching—then changed out of her flight uniform. Using the car as cover, she stripped off her blouse with its decorative epaulets and tossed the rumpled fabric into the trunk. Opening her rolling suitcase with trembling hands, she pulled out a faded USAF T-shirt and slipped it on, making sure her money belt wasn't visible.

  With the car locked and secured, Kate stalked around the corner of the building trying to loosen up her legs and approached the group out the front. She hoped she looked normal but feared they'd read her nervousness like a book. She wiped her palms on her pants as she walked, trying in vain to relax the tension in her shoulders.

  "What's going on?" Kate asked the first woman she encountered.

  "I don't know," she said in a soft accent, transferring her baby from one hip to the other. "Somebody said they close—three people go ahead in. It's not right."

  "They ain’t closed," interjected a young man standing nearby. He fished in his pockets, pulling out gum wrappers and keys. "They only taking cash, though." He turned back to the store. "May as well be closed!"

  "Who carries cash anymore?" asked another man. "This is bullshit!"

  The crowd murmured. Kate had a sudden vision of someone throwing a rock through the front doors and the mob surging in, but other than hurling insults and complaints, the people held their ground.

  As the surrounding throng debated the merits of a cashless society, Kate worked her way toward the huge decorative red wall at the front of the store. Most people not arguing or shouting at the line of red-shirted employees stood staring at cell phones or trying to make phone calls that would never go through. The general ebb and flow of the crowd carried Kate forward as a steady trickle of people claiming to have cash moved through the single set of open doors.

  "Cash only, ma'am," said a teenaged employee, his voice cracking mid-sentence.

  "I have cash," Kate whispered.

  He nodded and waved her through, sheltered by the next three employees who ushered her deeper inside.

  Once inside, urgency propelled Kate forward. Lit only by the emergency lights scattered along the ceiling, the darkened store had a closeness Kate imagined would feel just right in a tomb. Employees stood about with flashlights, directing people to emergency supplies and food. One sweaty manager looked on, announcing every few seconds that the store would accept cash only.

  “What?” demanded a rather large woman.

  “For the duration of the power outage, ” the manager repeated.

  “What if I don’t got cash?”

  Kate eyed the scene as two other people stopped to watch the confrontation. She edged away from them as the manager looked around with a pained expression on his face.

  “Oh, you mad because I wasn’t supposed to even get in, that it?”

  “Ma’am, I assure you—”

  “Assurances won’t feed my babies. I just got off night shift—I ain’t got no money and I ain’t got no food at home—”

  “She got a right to food, man,” a voice called out to several answering shouts of support.

  Kate moved a little further away as three more people stopped their carts. When the manager looked up at the newcomers with a fresh sheen of sweat on his forehead, Kate knew time was running out. She slipped by and made her way toward the shopping cart corral. She was even more nervous now, seeing how quickly peoples' emotions were getting out of hand. She wanted to get what she could and get the hell out of the store.

  She grabbed a cart and followed the stream of anxious people toward the grocery department. For the most part, the crowd acted civilized—if tense—which gave her hope she might get out before any trouble started. She wanted to believe everything would blow over and people would pick up what they could and pay, but the simmering resentment among those still outside kept her moving. People shouted to friends over the tops of aisles and kids hooted in the darkness, which added a much needed lighthearted balance to the seriousness of the situation.

  Kate shouldered her way through to where a small but expanding group of people descended upon the bottled water aisle. She grabbed the biggest case of water she could lift and dropped it in the cart. A bearded man about ten feet away, loading up jugs of water, smiled at her and nodded as he grabbed two more.

  "This stuff’ll be worth its weight in gold soon," he muttered as he loaded two more jugs.

  "Hey bro, leave some for the rest of us,” a teenager called out. "You don’t need that much water—"

  “I got a family too," the man barked.

  The new commotion drew spectators like flies to rotting meat. Kate grabbed an additional six-pack of water and threw it on top of her case, then backed out and went to another aisle. She would've liked to have grabbed more, but as soon as people heard the shouting, they gravitated to see what was the matter. Kate watched the water disappear in a matter of seconds.

  These people are going to start fighting any minute, like a bunch of tourists trapped in Florida during a hurricane.

  Kate steered clear of the crowded and boisterous alcohol section and raced up to the snack foods, full of very grabby adults and several crying children. Realizing she’d never be able to push her way through that mess, she backpedaled and found the cereal aisle instead. Only a few older folks joined her. She walked down and scooped several boxes of granola bars and cases of Pop tarts in her cart before reaching up for a box of Quaker Oat Squares.

  The clang of colliding shopping carts behind her spurred Kate to abandon the cereal and move on to canned goods. The clock was ticking and time was running out—the store buzzed to the sound of dozens of raised voices.

  As expected, several people jockeyed for position in front of the tuna and canned vegetables. Only one other woman was interested in beans, and no one wanted the sardines or canned chicken. Kate loaded up on anything she could find; mostly soups. As an afterthought, she plucked one of the “bonus buy” can openers from a display rack. All the canned food in the world wouldn’t do her any good without a way to get them open. With her cart almost full, she turned and made a beeline for the camping section.

  Apparently tents, sleeping bags, and knives were the hot commodities here. Kate took a moment to survey the chaos, then ducked down one of the deserted fishing tackle aisles to buy her time to think.

  Food. Water. Shelter. She glanced down at her shopping cart. I've got food a
nd water for the time being. Next up, shelter.

  Instead of trying to fight her way through what was left of the camping department where people argued over the remaining tents and space blankets, she moved on to automotive and found herself a nice 12’ square tarp in forest green. She threw that in the cart and then balanced a trio of red five-gallon gas cans on her overloaded shopping cart. Kate paused in front of a small display of maps. She almost grabbed the California highway map but opted for the folded map of the entire country instead.

  No telling how long my phone will last…

  At the end of the aisles, she watched several people push back and forth as they struggled over the last machete in stock. One parent urged her two small children to slip ahead and grab random items off of the shelves.

  Kate stood transfixed, fascinated as the children snatched random assortments of portable stove fuel, tent stakes, bits of rope, and a pack of matches. All in all, the children brought back stuff that would be utterly useless without the other necessary components. One of them brushed by her and dropped a ferrocerium rod. The clatter as it hit the floor was lost in the sound of the heated argument behind her.

  As two men announced there were more supplies in the back, Kate scooped up the little fire-starting tool and turned to go in the opposite direction, away from the surging crowd. She ignored the nasty look on the pinched face of the little kids’ mom.

  “Don’t you judge me!” the woman cried out.

  Kate didn’t look back, letting the profanity aimed at her back fade into the general background noise. She had no time to waste in a pointless shouting match. As she pushed her cart down the lawn and garden side of the store, Kate racked her brain trying to come up with something she might use as a defensive weapon. She paused across an aisle full of kitchen utensils and realized this side of the store was practically deserted.

  Kate examined an aisle of kitchen utensils and found a nice wooden-handled butcher’s knife. She grabbed a generic paring knife and a packet of plain steel forks and threw everything into the cart.