by Ryan Casey
“What? The boozers?”
“No different to you.”
Again, Mike knew he should keep his calm as best as he could, but he wanted so much to lambast Holly for what she’d said.
But at that moment, he saw too that there were better options. There were better solutions.
And right now the best solution was to walk away.
“So you’re going to one of your friends’ tonight, then?”
“Benny’s,” Holly said.
“Right. Benny. Good. You okay getting back tomorrow?”
“I’ll be fine,” Holly said.
Mike looked back at his daughter. And he saw how broken down she looked. How… unlike herself she looked.
And he wanted to put a hand on her shoulder.
He wanted to wrap his arms around her.
He wanted to tell her how sorry he was.
He wanted to speak in that way they used to speak when she was younger. The times when they’d had a real connection. When they could speak in riddles and clues and something would mean something to each other, even though it sounded a totally different language to anyone else.
He wanted that so desperately right now.
But he knew it wasn’t to be.
Especially not when she looked down, turned away, and walked back inside the ballet hall.
And the moment had passed.
Mike stood there for a few seconds, totally silent. He looked around and saw a few of the other parents glaring at him.
“What?” he said. “Something funny you’re looking at?”
A few eye rolls, a few sighs.
And a few seconds of total shame from Mike.
He got back into his car. His heart was racing and his head was spinning. He pulled out of the ballet hall car park, onto the main road. And as he drove, he thought about how much of an idiot he’d been. He thought of how much had gone wrong.
At least he could go home.
At least he could have a few bottles.
At least the sun was still out so he could enjoy his beers in the garden, nosy neighbours be damned.
He was about to indicate right when he saw the car behind him.
When he heard a siren, just for a split second.
And when he realised it was the police.
“Shit,” he said.
He pulled over somewhat reluctantly, as much as the urge had been to speed off into the distance. He pulled onto the kerb and waited as the police officer got out of their car, as they walked over towards him. And as he sat there, he immediately checked his dashboard for mints—but to no avail. He looked for an old bottle of water, again with no luck.
And as the police officer approached, all Mike could do was pray that the alcohol had worn off, or that his body had absorbed it all, or that by some miracle, the police officer would show some mercy.
The woman knocked at his window. Asked him to wind his window down. And when he wound it down, he saw from the look in the officer’s eyes right away that it wasn’t going to be good news.
“Driving a little funny, sir,” the woman said. She had long, dark hair, bright green eyes and a slender posture. “You mind if we take a sample of breath from you?”
Mike looked at her. Sighed. “Is that a question or a demand?”
The officer smiled. “I think we both know the answer to that, don’t we?”
Mike exhaled into the breathalyser. And as he did, he wondered if there was any way of tricking this system, of bypassing science.
When he handed the breathalyser back to the officer, he waited for his judgement.
And when she glanced at the breathalyser then back at him, he knew it was bad news.
Her demeanour changed. She lost her friendliness, professionalism taking over. “We’re going to have to take you down to the station, sir.”
She kept on talking, but Mike didn’t hear her, not really, as his head collapsed onto the back of his car seat.
Today couldn’t get any worse.
Or at least he thought…
Holly
“So. How’d the tap dancing go?”
Holly rolled her eyes when Benny spoke. Her new friends always took the piss out of her ballet, said it was for “posh people”. So she tended to play it down with them, to not big the activity or herself up.
But truth was, she loved ballet. It was her biggest passion in life.
But hanging around with Benny and his friends gave her the chance to forget even her biggest passions for a while.
“It’s ballet, okay? Not tap dancing. Ballet.”
Benny shrugged, then took a drag on his cigarette. “Ballet. Tap dancing. All the same thing, really.”
Holly wanted to contest, to tell him just how different the two styles of dance actually were. But in the end, she knew it was pointless with Benny. He was always just pushing her buttons anyway.
So she sat there in his smoke-filled dining room and tried her best not to get a whiff of the smoke.
She looked around the room. This was Benny’s parents’ house, but they were away. They always seemed to be away, so he threw big parties and gatherings. He was a little older than her, seventeen, but they didn’t seem to mind that she was younger and still in her final year at school while the rest of them were at college. They kind of looked out for her like she was a little sister or something.
His best friends were here, too. Gina. Kumal. Harriet. They were all nice people. They’d met when Holly’s dad had been too drunk to pick her up from school one night a few weeks ago. On her way back, she’d found herself walking with this lot. She’d always done her best to avoid them up until that point, but when she actually got talking to them, she realised they were alright.
Dad went mad. He’d heard about them, their reputation for drinking and smoking. He’d also judged them based on the area they lived, which was a little rougher than some.
But Holly wasn’t going to hold that against them. They’d been here for her while things back home had been awful. Sure, they didn’t ask her about what’d happened, about what was going on. And that’s what made them different. They didn’t treat her any differently. And for all their flaws, she couldn’t help liking them more for that reason.
“Don’t bother asking her about her ‘ballet,’” Gina said, arching her fingers. Gina was ginger and fair skinned, and rarely smiled—but she was actually one of the friendliest of the people here. Put across a calm act, but she actually seemed pretty nervous a lot of the time. “You know it’s one of those posh people things she does. Far too posh for us.”
Holly blushed a little as a couple of the others laughed.
“Leave her alone,” Kumal said, his Indian accent thick. Kumal was really friendly too. He was the voice of reason; the one who always shut down arguments with sense and logic. She was grateful he was here. “I hear she’s good.”
“I hear she screwed up.”
The second Holly heard Harriet’s voice, her stomach sank.
Harriet was different to Benny’s other friends. She had a mean streak. Holly didn’t want to point it out because nobody else seemed to see it—they all worshipped her. She was pretty. Blonde hair, fresh-skinned. She was a little plump but in a nice way. All the boys seemed to like her.
Only problem was, Holly was convinced she wasn’t too keen on her.
“Isn’t that true, Holly?” Harriet said, glaring across the room at her, mean expression on her face. “You screwed up your final performance, didn’t you?”
Holly felt her face heating up. She didn’t want to go into this, not again. She was already convinced she was losing her place in the ballet team after that display. It’d wrecked things, as much as Mrs Butcher tried to convince her that everything was okay. She’d seen it from the look in her eyes. She’d messed up. Big time.
She wanted the group to leave it. But then Benny jumped right on the wagon.
“What’s this about screwing up?” he said.
Oh, now you’re interested.
“It’s… it’s okay. Nothing major.”
“I heard it was major,” Harriet said. “I heard everyone was talking about it more than the good stuff. Something about you dramatically falling to your knees? I hear the gasps could be heard for miles.”
Holly felt her throat wobbling. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be here anymore. She didn’t like the way the others were laughing, smirking. But then what did she want? She wanted people to treat her normally. And being treated normally included being willing to have the mickey taken out of her.
She had to ride with whatever came her way.
“Yeah, well,” Holly said, trying her best not to let the situation get to her. “Don’t care so much about ballet anyway. It’s for posh people.”
She heard Kumal and Benny clap, like she was seeing the light.
Harriet didn’t look convinced.
“Quiet, guys. Have you seen this?”
Gina had the remote. She’d turned the volume right up.
“The news?” Benny said. “The fake news, more like. Why’ve you got this crap on?”
He was always like this. Convinced that the news was one big conspiracy. He was the kind of guy who’d stay up ’til 3 a.m. browsing conspiracies on Reddit—only to realise just how absurd they actually were when he was already too far deep into their claims.
“Just look,” Gina said, pointing at the screen, clearly transfixed.
Holly was glad for a respite, in truth. So glad that she didn’t realise what was such a big deal about the news, not at first.
But then she saw the headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
UNEXPLAINED ELECTRICAL PHENOMENON WORLDWIDE: STORMS, POWER OUTAGES, LIGHTS.
“So there’s a power cut,” Benny said. “Big deal.”
“This is more than a power cut,” Kumal said.
Holly looked up. Realised Kumal was standing right at the patio door.
“Has anyone else noticed it’s kind of… light, all of a sudden?” Gina said.
Holly had. It’d struck her right as Gina spoke the words.
She got up. Walked over to Kumal’s side. Looked out across the garden.
“Wow,” she said.
The sky was filled with bright green light, far greener and brighter than she’d ever imagined the northern lights could be.
“I guess that is pretty cool,” Harriet said. “But it’s no big deal. The northern lights are visible all the time.”
“Even in New Zealand?” Benny said.
Holly looked back at the television. Saw all the maps of the light sightings around the world. And at that moment, she started to believe that something different was going on here. Something… significant.
She swallowed a lump in her throat, marvelling at the natural phenomena.
She had no idea how much weirder things were going to get.
Miranda Hollingford never liked flying.
She tensed her fists as the plane threw itself along the runway. She closed her eyes, counted her breaths, tried to tell herself that everything was going to be okay; that she was going to be safe. She always was, after all. She’d flown that many times in her life that it should just be second nature by now.
Especially considering she was a bloody air hostess.
She felt her heart throbbing as the plane elevated. She remembered what a pilot once told her. The first three minutes, they were the most dangerous parts of the flight. Count down to one hundred and eighty and after that, you should be plain sailing.
Miranda made sure she counted to one hundred and eighty-five.
Just to be sure.
She looked down the aisle at row after row of people. You could always tell the different types of people on the plane. Really, setting off on a flight revealed a rare glimpse into people that they didn’t often show: their fears, their insecurities, everything.
And as Miranda looked down the aisle now, she saw all kinds of people. The businessman in his expensive suit who’d tried to look calm and cool as he’d got on board. He didn’t look so chilled anymore, gripping the arms of his chair for dear life.
And there were the children. They were laughing, smiling. They were so happy to be on their way to Spain. But at the same time, they were naive. They trusted the bullshit about the slides and the lifejackets and the bloody whistle that was attached to them. She’d seen a good comedy show by Ricky Gervais last year when she was in the States. He was mocking the idea that a whistle was attached to a life jacket, of all things.
Trapped in the middle of the Atlantic, everyone dead around you, helicopters on their way.
And what do you have to save your life?
A bloody whistle.
She smirked at that. Reminded her of better times. A date she’d been on with Calvin. She hadn’t met anyone like him since. It was a shame they’d had to go their separate ways. Alas, work was work. She didn’t have the time for a relationship. At least that’s what she told herself, anyway.
Maybe she was just hiding from reality.
Hiding from the truth.
The truth that deep down, she was afraid of commitment.
She took a deep breath, shook her head. She wasn’t afraid of commitment at all. It was just time priority, that was all.
She realised then, mind wandering, that she’d been so focused on thinking about other things that she hadn’t even been counting to three minutes.
She glanced at her watch. They’d been in the air about two minutes, if the take-off time was accurate. She didn’t have much more to count, much more to wait. Soon, she’d be in the safety above the clouds, and she could get to work on serving passengers, that kind of thing.
She went to adjust her seat belt when she felt a bump.
Turbulence was a bitch. No matter how many people insisted they didn’t mind flying, there wasn’t a single person who could truly, honestly claim that it didn’t give them a momentary fear for their lives.
Miranda looked across. Saw Danny sitting there. He was slim, with bleach-blond hair. He always looked pretty calm, admittedly. Damn him.
She went to undo her seatbelt again, confident the turbulence was just a phase.
That’s when two things happened.
A huge crackle of static out of the speakers, unlike anything she’d heard before.
A pause. A delay. That sense that something was out of the ordinary.
“What—” she started.
She didn’t finish.
Every light on the plane went out.
Everything went black.
The sound of the engine cut out.
And it was only seconds later, as ascent became descent, that everyone began to scream.
“One-hundred and seventy-nine,” Miranda said, as the plane hurtled towards the earth.
Mike
Mike sat at the desk in the police station and wondered when the hell he was going to be able to go home.
It was evening now and he’d been waiting here for ages. He’d heard a lot of sirens outside, and a few loud noises, but he didn’t know what to make of them. They didn’t seem that big a deal. After all, the police station was right near the centre of town, so a little more noise was only natural.
But this wait. This long wait, all for a few drinks. Surely this wasn’t normal?
And besides. Those sirens. He’d been on this street before. Used to go down here a lot when he was on the buses. There was the occasional accident, the occasional need for police, fire and ambulance. But right now, it sounded like a new bloody hospital had opened right nearby, and that the emergency services were all congregating around this area.
It was weird. But again. He didn’t really think much about it.
Not beyond the memories that sirens brought…
The associations with the past that Mike was trying to hide…
He looked around the holding cell he was inside and wondered whether being locked up would be so bad after all. He’d be free from the distractions of the outside
world. He’d be free from judgement and responsibility. But at the same time, he’d be free from alcohol too, and that wasn’t a predicament he was keen on being in anytime soon.
He sat there, lying back against the chair. He wondered whether something had gone wrong earlier. He’d sped down the wrong side of the road. Maybe he’d knocked someone over without realising. Maybe that’s why they’d kept him in for so long. He’d killed someone. He’d been boozing. That could be the only expl—
The door opened up, made him jump. When he looked up, he saw Officer Alison Crealey walking towards him.
“Sorry for the delay,” she said. “We’ve had a bit of a nightmare out there. Some kind of solar storm or other.”
Mike frowned. He’d read a few things about solar flares and the impact they might have on society. And for all his research on methods of survival, of ways of fighting through the first days of an event like that… a part of him never expected a solar event to actually happen. “Solar storm? Is it serious?”
“Serious enough to cause a few accidents and bring a few roads to a standstill. And the lights in the sky… well, you’ll probably not get to see them anytime soon, so you’ll just have to take my word that they’re amazing. But anyway. This storm. It’s really the least of your worries right now.”
She pulled out a chair. Sat opposite Mike. Looked down at a notepad before her. “Do you know how far over the limit you were, Mr Callaghan?”
Mike shrugged. “I’ll guess from the fact I’ve been here a while that ‘a lot’ is probably the correct answer.”
“Four times over,” Officer Crealey said, clearly in no mood for messing around. “Do you know the danger that kind of driving poses to the public?”
“Phew,” Mike said. “So I didn’t kill anyone.”
“This isn’t some kind of joke, Mr Callaghan. This is serious. You were driving over the limit. And just recently, I learned you were driving recklessly earlier, too. Any reason why you were speeding down the wrong side of the road, causing a danger to life, at five to three this afternoon? I’m assuming that was you attempting to bypass the bypass and almost knocking another car off the road in the process, right? So why the hurry?”