by Tom Abrahams
He shook her off, kicking his leg. Jackie nearly lost her footing. She recovered and grabbed at it again and held on.
“Brian, keep your eyes closed. I’ll help you down.”
“Don’t touch,” he said. “Don’t touch.”
Betty called from the ground below, “Let her help you, Brian.”
“Let me,” Brian said. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it!”
Jackie lowered herself a rung at a time as Brian did so above her until they reached the ground. Betty threw herself at Brian, trapping his arms with her hug.
“Go to Lana, Marie,” said Jackie. “Go help her.” She coughed against the thickening, acrid smoke.
Marie reluctantly let go of the ladder and joined the others in the Bucks’ yard next door. Jackie gripped the ladder, ignoring the burn of the aluminum rails, to steady it for Reggie.
“Reggie! I’ve got it. C’mon!”
Reggie didn’t respond.
The fire was eating its way across the house, the flames lapping at the roof and walls. Jackie couldn’t hold on much longer. She let go of one rail and pulled her shirt over her nose and mouth, her eyes watering.
She tried looking up, but she couldn’t see anything. She tucked her chin against her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. The heat was searing on the right side of her body. Another couple of seconds was all Jackie could take.
She was about to let go when the ladder shifted and she felt the vibration in her hands of someone moving down the rungs.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
Reggie’s feet appeared two rungs above her hands. Jackie moved out of the way and let her neighbor jump to the ground.
“C’mon,” he coughed, and took Jackie’s arm. “We need to move. The house is about to collapse.”
They stumbled away from the house, collapsing onto the grass, coughing and rubbing the sting from their eyes as the fire engulfed the garage.
“The hoses aren’t working!” Lana shouted, her voice warbling with emotion. “The flames are about to jump. Our house is going to burn too.”
Reggie pushed himself to his feet. “Let’s forget about saving it, then,” he said. “Let’s run inside and grab critical things we’ll need.”
Lana dropped the hose. The glow of the fire reflected the glisten in her eyes. “Just give up on our house?”
Brian started jumping up and down next to the hose as if he were avoiding an ant pile. “Water. Water. It’s wet! Too wet!”
Marie bent down and pulled the hose away from Brian, letting the water run toward the street.
“We’ve got suitcases in the foyer coat closet,” Reggie said to the group. “Let’s get those and fill them up. I’ll handle the kitchen and garage with Betty and Brian.”
Betty nodded. “Okay.”
“Lana, you get clothes from the bedrooms. Whatever you think we might need. Shoes too.”
“What about us?” asked Jackie. “What can Marie and I do?”
Reggie puffed his cheeks and exhaled. “The garage. Batteries, tools, tape, glue, whatever. I’ve got some fishing poles. There’s a box with some odds and ends. A shovel.”
“Got it. We’ll hurry.”
“We’ve got no choice,” said Reggie, motioning toward the fire. It had fully consumed the Browns’ home. In minutes it would be burning his.
Lana put her hand on Jackie’s arm. “Is it too much to ask if we could stay with you for now?” she asked nervously. “I know Clay isn’t home.”
“Of course, Lana.” Jackie smiled. “Clay wouldn’t want it any other way if he were here. In fact, Betty and Brian are welcome too.”
“Thank you. You’re too kind.”
“We’re going to need each other for a while,” said Jackie.
A remarkably loud, inhuman shriek pierced the air. It was coming from beyond the smoke and flames.
“Did you hear that?” Reggie asked.
“I did,” said Jackie. “I was hoping it was my imagination.”
The shriek morphed into a wail, carrying with it the deep sound of irreversible despair. It lingered, drowning out the pop and crackle of the flames licking at Reggie’s house.
“We should go,” said Reggie. “The heck with our stuff. There could be survivors over there.”
“You deal with salvaging what you can from your house,” she said. “Keep an eye on Marie. I’m running over there.”
“I don’t know about –“
“Reggie,” said Jackie. “You take care of everybody here. You’re the strongest.”
Before he could protest again, Jackie was off. She sprinted up her street onto the main loop that encircled the neighborhood and bolted right, cutting across a lawn. She trod through the thin St. Augustine grass, the blades crunching under her feet as she darted from one yard to the next, her wet clothes sticking to her. She cut another corner and bounded onto the street running parallel to hers. Ahead she could see the orange strobe of the flames consuming houses at the end of the cul-de-sac. Another wail cut through the air and made the hairs on Jackie’s neck stand up. She was back on the asphalt, pounding toward the cries. People were hurt. They needed help. She passed a pair of For Sale signs in the yards of empty houses. Then it hit her.
The carnage was worse than on her street. Six of the homes were ablaze. The tail of the aircraft was smoldering in the middle of the circle at the end of the street. She slowed to a fast walk, trying to absorb what lay in front of her.
Another wail drew her attention toward the houses. The smoke was too thick.
To her right, on their sides, were a pair of seats. They were connected to each other, as were the crisp of passengers melted into the fabric. One of them still wore a high heel on one foot. The other’s blackened features were drawn with agony. The mouth was agape and white teeth seemed to glow in contrast.
A torrent of nausea coursed through Jackie’s body. With every step, another horror greeted her, each new vignette more grotesque than the one before. She sidestepped a pink child’s backpack. She saw a doll next to it, its plastic limbs twisted into unnatural positions. Then she saw…
“Dear God,” she whispered, tears flooding her eyes. It wasn’t a doll.
Jackie heaved and bent over at her waist, vomiting into the grass. Her stomach churned, her muscles contracting in spasms until the burn of hot bile was all that remained.
Another wail. This one was weaker, peppered with resignation.
Jackie spat onto the grass and wiped her mouth with the back of her forearm. She resumed her march toward the smoke and flames, her eyes stinging from the particulates in the air.
She pulled her shirt collar over her nose and mouth and moved deeper into the haze. She dodged bodies, parts of bodies, and debris as she hopscotched to a spot where she thought the wail was emanating from.
There was nothing now. Only the sound of the flames consuming the homes and lives of her neighbors remained.
Then from behind her came a soft voice dripping with pain. “Help me.”
Jackie spun and saw a man lying on the ground near the engine. He was on his back, his arms reaching over his head toward her. Jackie coughed through the smoke and knelt next to the man. She didn’t immediately recognize him. His face was black with soot. He was shirtless and wore only boxers. She surveyed his body, looking for the source of his immobility. It was too dark and smoky, even with the ambient orange flicker from the fire, to see much. Then she spotted a Woody Woodpecker tattoo on his bicep. She knew the man, Walter Fleming, who lived alone.
“Jackie?” he said, his voice garbled. “Jackie? Oh, thank you.”
“Walter?” she asked, another lump blooming in her throat. The man in front of her looked nothing like her neighbor Walter Fleming, the realtor. He sounded nothing like Walter Fleming. But it had to be him.
“Yes,” he coughed. “I can’t feel my legs,” he said. “I’m…I can’t…please.”
Jackie leaned in and took his hand. It was cold. Blood trickled from his ears and nose. She felt for a pulse i
n his wrist but couldn’t find one.
“I was in bed,” he said. With each breath, his lungs rattled. “I got up to go to the bathroom and then I’m here. Outside. I can’t feel anything, Jackie.”
“Okay, Walter,” she said. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t…” His voice trailed off and his eyes looked past Jackie, fixing on something far beyond the smoke.
She squeezed his hand. “Walter?”
He stiffened and then relaxed, air escaping with a gurgle from his open mouth. Walter Fleming was dead.
Jackie looked over her shoulder. There had to be survivors. Somebody. Somewhere.
She pushed herself to her feet and, keeping her profile low, wandered the cul-de-sac, looking for signs of life. The dry heat of the fire burned like an open oven, the choking smoke was thickening. She couldn’t stay much longer.
Coughing, Jackie stumbled over another body. She struggled to maintain her balance but did and found herself in front of a woman on her knees, giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to someone.
Jackie knelt down and crawled the remaining few feet. “Can I help?”
The woman jerked away from the victim, a man, and fell back onto her bottom. Her eyes were wide with fear, the whites exaggerated by her soot-dirtied face. She stared at Jackie without saying anything.
“Can I help?”
The woman blinked. “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Can you try? I’ll start chest compressions.”
Jackie nodded and moved to the man’s head. His eyes were closed. She scanned down his body. His shoulder looked dislocated, and one of his legs was broken. He was wearing long-sleeved pajamas.
Jackie inched into position and cradled the back of the man’s neck to open his airway. She pinched his nose with one hand and drew his chin downward with the other to open his lips.
She’d taken a CPR class years earlier when the children were younger, so she vaguely remembered what to do. She bent down, tugged her shirt from her face, and puffed air into the man’s mouth. She counted and then repeated. Counted and repeated.
She felt for a pulse and found none. She laid her head on his chest. He wasn’t breathing. His heart was stopped.
The woman moved to the man’s side and leaned over him. She locked her elbows and flattened her palms. Coughing, the woman pumped up and down. Up and down, crying as she worked.
“I don’t think it’s helping,” she whimpered. “I think he’s gone.” She stopped the compressions.
Jackie didn’t know the couple. She didn’t recognize them at all. Still, she bent over again and lowered her mouth onto his, puffing large volumes of air into his lungs.
For minutes the two women alternated tasks. Neither worked. The woman sank back onto her heels and buried her hands in her face, coughing through her sobs.
“I can keep going,” Jackie offered, pulling the shirt back above her nose. She was drenched in sweat. Her face felt as it did after a day at the beach without sunscreen. Her lungs burned from the waves of smoke.
The woman shook her head. “He’s dead,” she said. “He’s dead.”
“Are there any other survivors here?” Jackie asked. “Have you seen anyone?”
“There was screaming,” the woman said. “It stopped. I don’t think anyone is alive.”
Jackie reached out and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Come with me,” she said. “I’m a street over. My house is okay. I’ve got others staying with me.”
The woman looked at Jackie and cocked her head as if she didn’t understand the offer. She coughed again and gagged against the smoke.
Jackie stood, staying as low as possible, and wrapped her fingers around the woman’s thick upper arm. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go.”
The woman vacantly complied and followed Jackie down the street, away from the flames and heat. They ran like helicopter blades swirled just above their heads until they’d turned left twice and found themselves on Jackie’s street.
Jackie blinked away the sting of the remnant smoke and lowered her shirt. She stood tall and walked. Her back ached. Her head throbbed. Her lips felt swollen and cracked.
“My name is Jackie,” she said. “I live over here.” She motioned toward her house with her chin.
“I’m Candace,” the woman said. “I just moved in last—” She hesitated. “We just moved in last week. My boyfriend Chad.” Her face contorted and she stopped walking. Tears pooled in her eyes and streaked clean wet lines down her face. “That was Chad,” she sobbed.
Jackie stopped and pulled Candace into an embrace. She gathered the young woman in her arms and held her in the street. The snap of flames crackled in the distance.
CHAPTER 3
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 2020, 10:40 PM CST
DINOSAUR VALLEY STATE PARK, TEXAS
Rick Walsh stood overlooking Opossum Creek on the western edge of the park. “We should start heading back to the tent, boys. It’s late.”
His son, Kenny, and Kenny’s friend Chris Shepard were twenty feet below him, perched halfway down the steep limestone ledge that led to the water below. For much of the late afternoon, they’d spent their day looking down at their feet, trying to identify the sauropod and theropod tracks preserved in the creek bed. For the last hour, they’d gazed skyward at the red aurora that undulated and floated in the northern sky to their right.
“Five more minutes?” Kenny called to his dad.
“Please?” Chris chimed in.
“Five minutes,” Rick agreed. He stared at what he was sure was an aurora. He’d seen the northern lights on a business trip to Canada years before and they were unmistakable. He didn’t understand, however, why they’d be so far south or why they were red.
The only explanation was a magnetic storm of some kind. They’d had no warning, however, and he hadn’t received any news alerts on his iPhone, which was odd.
They’d finished dinner at their campsite and walked over to the communal restrooms to clean up for the night when the boys had insisted on a nighttime hike back to Track Site Area One. Even though he’d been exhausted from the five-hour drive and setting up camp, Rick had relented.
It wasn’t often he got time with his son. Every other weekend, alternating holidays, and two weeks during the summer didn’t cut it. So when he had the chance, he tried to make the most of it. His ex complained he spoiled Kenny. He didn’t disagree with her. The whole mess was his fault. There was no point in arguing with her anymore. She deserved that much.
Rick pulled a sports bottle from the pack he’d slung over one shoulder and squeezed a shot of warm Gatorade into his mouth. “Remember to drink, boys,” he called out. “Even if it’s cold out, you can get dehydrated.
The boys were pointing at the sky, their hands waving excitedly as they talked. He smiled. Kenny was a good kid. He surrounded himself with good kids. Rick had worried the divorce would ruin his boy and send him down a bad path. So far, so good. Although it had only been six months, still, it was a small victory.
“Excuse me, sir.”
The voice from behind Rick startled him. He tensed, spun quickly, and backed up a step. “Yes?”
It was a park ranger straddling a mountain bike and holding a flashlight aimed at Rick’s feet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I need to ask you to return to your campsite.”
Rick studied the young ranger. His uniform was neatly pressed, creases along the sleeves and down the front of his pants.
“Okay,” Rick replied hesitantly. “Why is that?”
The ranger pointed his light toward the aurora. “We’re asking all campers to return to their sites.”
Rick followed the bluish white LED beam with his eyes. “Because of that?”
“Yes, sir. Well, not exactly. But yes. We’ve experienced a park-wide power failure. For everyone’s safety, we’re asking you return to your campsite.”
“Power is out park wide?”
“Yes,” he said. “My truck isn’t working either. N
one of them are.”
“Sounds like an electromagnetic pulse,” Rick said. “I read a book about it by that news guy Ted Koppel.”
The ranger shrugged. He took his flashlight with both hands and used one to wind a crank on the top of it. “This still works at least,” he said. “So, you’ll head back to your site, please?”
“Sure thing.” Rick turned his attention to the boys. “Kenny, Chris, c’mon. We need to go.”
The ranger nodded his thanks and hopped back onto his bike. He affixed the flashlight to a clip on the handlebars and sped off into the darkness.
Rick watched him disappear. “He had no idea what I was talking about,” he mumbled, shaking his head. Despite warnings, he knew a lot of people were ignorant to the threat of an electromagnetic pulse, an EMP. That didn’t explain the aurora, necessarily. And he didn’t understand why it was red and not green.
Rick was a pencil pusher in the energy industry. He wasn’t a scientist, so he couldn’t connect the two definitively. But something bad had happened, that much he knew for sure.
The boys finished their climb up the limestone steps and joined Rick in the parking lot. Both of them stopped and downed long swigs of their Gatorade.
“You guys ready? We should head back.”
“Dad,” said Kenny, “this is so cool. Seriously.”
“Mr. Walsh,” Chris said, “you should have come down there. It was awesome.”
Rick smiled and tousled Kenny’s hair, then patted Chris on the shoulder. “I got a good look from here, but I’m glad you enjoyed it. It is pretty cool.”
He led them across the wide parking lot toward their campsite a quarter mile away on the edge of the meandering creek. As the three of them trudged in the relative red-hued darkness, Rick looked to his left.
The air was still. The night was sinking from chilly to cold. Rick adjusted the pack on his back, tightening his grip on the strap. As beautiful as it was, he was sure that aurora was a harbinger of doom.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020, 11:03 PM CST
DINOSAUR VALLEY STATE PARK, TEXAS
Rick leaned against the hood of his 1978 Jeep Cherokee Chief. His boot heel was resting against the bottom well of the large wheel on the driver’s side. He was chewing on his thumbnail, watching the aurora with less enthusiasm every passing minute.