by Tom Abrahams
Floating in the middle of the node, holding a sack full of food, Clayton realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.
Breakfast? Dinner the night before? No. It was breakfast.
He wasn’t hungry though. There was too much to do. Nonetheless, he knew he’d need the energy to think straight. He let go of the sack and took an energy bar from the station’s stash on the wall. Quickly, he gobbled the dry nutrition, grabbed the food sack, retucked his personal box of energy bars and photographs, and pushed himself back to Node 1 and the Zvezda.
He floated into the module and strapped the box and the sack to the wall. Then he checked his new toy, the radio. If there was any chance of communication with NASA, Roscosmos, or ESA, this would be it. He had no Internet, and the comms used to connect with any of the mission control centers had failed. This handheld radio was possible gold.
Clayton was a ham. He had a technician’s amateur license, which allowed him to communicate with people on Earth through the high-powered frequencies reserved for those allowed to use them. Despite all of his other accomplishments, he was especially proud of his FCC-issued HAM call sign KD5XMX. His wife teased him he should have spent less time on the radio and more time learning Russian. Or better yet, she’d joked, he should have spoken Russian on the radio.
NASA had suggested, though not required, he get his license while he was in training for the mission. He’d taken on the task more seriously than he took to learning Russian, and at this moment was thanking himself.
The radio was seventy-five percent charged. He’d keep it plugged in while he tried connecting with any of the ISS’s earthbound handlers.
It was a last-ditch effort to get help before he attempted to manually bring the Soyuz back to Earth, and it was his best hope at finding out how dire the situation was before he landed and found himself in the middle of the Dark Ages.
He unplugged the radio and took a deep breath before pushing himself through the maze and to the Columbus module. Once there, he rechecked the three HAM radios permanently installed in the ISS. None of them worked.
Clayton disconnected the antenna connection to one of the installed HAM radios and attached it to the antenna connection for the Yaseu. Even though the installed radios were dead, the CME wouldn’t have had any effect on the external antennas.
Fidgeting with the buttons on the portable transceiver’s face, he pushed the variable frequency operation and memory input and programmed an analog frequency of 146.52 into the A bank. He switched to the B bank and programmed 145.80.
He’d chosen the two frequencies because the first was a common calling frequency, especially in the United States and Canada. The second frequency was a common one they’d used during their seventy-two days in orbit. He hadn’t checked a window to know where over Earth he was flying. It didn’t really matter. Wherever he was, he’d have only a short window to connect and communicate. It was a literal shot in the dark.
Clayton said a prayer and keyed the transmit button. “Calling any station, anywhere. Calling any station, anywhere. This is Kilo Delta Five X-ray Mike X-ray on the International Space Station. I’m calling on one forty-six dot five two. Calling any station, anywhere. Please reply. Over.”
He waited a moment and then switched to the other frequency and tried again. He was looking for anyone, anywhere in the world. One. Single. Person.
Clayton fiddled with the volume, hoping that would somehow help. He received no response. He tried again.
He alternated between the two channels, repeating his call. Each time he repeated the words, the desperation became more audible to anyone who might hear him.
“Calling any station, anywhere. Calling any station, anywhere. This is KD5XMX on the International Space Station.”
Nothing.
Then…something.
At first it was a crackle-laced whisper, only a fragment of a word or phrase. Clayton couldn’t make out what the person was saying. He couldn’t even be sure it was a person.
He pressed the radio closer to his mouth and more quickly repeated his call. “Calling any station, anywhere. Calling any station, anywhere. This is KD5XMX on the International Space Station.”
After a long moment, a single crystal-clear word came that almost made Clayton wish he’d heard nothing at all. It was a weak voice, maybe a child’s, perhaps a young woman.
“Help.”
CHAPTER 8
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020, 8:37 AM CST
CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS
The sunlight cascading into the bedroom woke Jackie. She squinted, blinked until her eyes adjusted, and sat up in bed. She hadn’t slept much, and what little sleep she did get was pronged with a nagging worry. It was a dread that clouded her dreams.
Like so many moms, Jackie had lost her ability to sleep soundly once she’d had children. She was always on the edge of consciousness, listening for coughs or cries.
This was different. This was the uneasy sleep of a woman who knew sleep was a luxury and that whenever she awoke, she’d find herself living more of a nightmare than her subconscious could ever conjure. Her son was somewhere in North Texas. She had no idea whether or not he was okay. A nagging uneasiness dogged her every time she drifted toward sleep. She kept reaching for her phone on the bedside table, checking it to see if it worked. It didn’t. Even the landlines were dead.
Jackie lay awake picturing Chris in the park. She imagined he’d slept buried in his sleeping bag. He called it his cocoon. He often asked to sleep in it at home, on his bed.
She trusted Rick. He wasn’t the best husband, nobody would argue that. He was a good dad though, and Chris liked him. When Kenny had asked if Chris could go camping with him and his dad for the long weekend, she’d agreed. It would get her son’s mind off his father’s absence.
Clayton’s adventure had been rough on all of them, but especially Chris. He missed his father. He needed his father. The video chats and emails weren’t enough.
She hoped Chris wouldn’t connect the problems on Earth with potential problems in orbit. There was too much to worry about. Just. Too. Much.
Her room reeked of stale smoke. Her stomach churned. The taste of vomit coated her tongue. She needed to shower, put on some fresh clothes, and brush her teeth. She’d feel a world better if she did those things before tackling whatever came next.
Marie was still asleep, a deep line of worry running vertically between her eyebrows. Her mouth was curved in a frown.
Jackie reached out toward Marie’s shoulder but stopped and pulled her hand back, deciding to let her sleep. She planted her feet on the floor and walked to the bathroom.
She cranked on the shower but kept the water at a temperature not quite as hot as she’d like. Hot water was a commodity now.
She undressed, tossed her clothes into the hamper, and grabbed a towel from the linen closet. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above her sink and stopped.
Jackie hardly recognized herself. She leaned in to the reflection, her attention drawn to the deep purplish circles that ran around her sunken eyes. There was a trio of deep creases running across the length of her brow. Her face was gray with smudges of soot accenting her cheeks.
It hadn’t even been twelve hours and she looked as though she’d been struggling for weeks. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs, and exhaled. Her breath fogged the glass.
Her shower was quick, only long enough to wash away the grime of the previous night and give her a shot of much-needed energy.
She slipped into clean undergarments, which felt like heaven, and then found a well-worn long-sleeved Gators T-shirt and some yoga pants. She was going for comfort.
Jackie brushed her teeth and then the excess water from her hair. She looked again at the mirror. While she still looked exhausted, at least the grime was gone.
She crept out of the bedroom without waking Marie. Reggie and Candace were in the kitchen, eating breakfast. They’d made themselves at home.
“Mor
ning,” Jackie said. “How are you?”
Candace shrugged. Her eyes were puffy and red, her chin and forehead smudged with soot. Her mousy brown hair hung limply onto her shoulders.
Reggie scratched the gray stubble on his chin. “Okay, I guess,” he answered between bites of an energy bar, “considering the circumstances.”
Jackie pulled open the refrigerator. A soft blast of slightly cooler-than-room-temperature air blew onto her face. She grabbed a half-full gallon of milk and set it onto the countertop.
She found a glass and poured it full of milk. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Sleeping, I think,” Reggie answered. “Lana tossed and turned most of the night.”
“You seen Betty or Brian?”
“Not yet.”
Jackie turned to her new neighbor. “Candace?” she asked, drawing the woman’s attention. “How are you?”
Candace’s eyes glistened. Her lower lip and chin quivered. She buried her face in her hands and whimpered softly.
Jackie put down her glass and hurried to Candace. She wrapped her arms around the woman. Candace couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. It was hard to tell. She was overweight. Not fat, but not thin either. That, combined with the stress etched into her tired face, made her appear older than Jackie thought her to be.
“I know,” Jackie said, rubbing her hands on Candace’s back. “You miss Chad. You did everything you could, Candace. You really did.”
Candace gently pulled away and nodded. “I know.” She sniffled. “I know. I can’t get the image out of my mind. The sight of him there on the ground. Dead. We were going to get married, you know.” Candace’s voice warbled. “We’d picked out a ring and everything. He was going to propose on Valentine’s Day in Cancun.”
Jackie looked over at Reggie. His eyes were welling too.
“I’m not sure where I go from here,” said Candace. “What do I do?” She looked Jackie in the eyes, searching for the answer.
Jackie tried to smile. “That’s what we’re going to figure out today. We’re going to take stock and formulate a plan. Right, Reggie?”
Reggie cleared his throat and wiped his eyes with his knuckled fist. “Right,” he said. “We’ll figure out a plan. Together.”
Candace smiled. The shift in her features pressed the tears from her eyes and down her cheeks. “Thank you.”
Marie’s voice broke the silence. “Morning.” She trudged into the kitchen, her eyes still half shut with sleep.
“Morning,” Jackie said. “I didn’t expect you up so soon.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I want to go see the neighborhood.” Her eyes widened as they adjusted to the light streaking in through the large kitchen windows.
“I don’t know, I’m not sure we—”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Betty interrupted, walking down the stairs. Her right hand glided along the wrought-iron bannister, guiding her down the steps. “We shouldn’t wallow inside. We should survey the neighborhood. Look for other survivors. Check the damage to our homes.”
Jackie pressed her lips into a straight line. She resisted the urge to tell Betty to parent her own child and instead smiled. “Maybe you’re right,” she conceded. “It would be good. But first I think—”
“I think it should be the first thing we do,” said Betty. “We need to see what’s out there.” Betty sidled up to the kitchen island and pressed her palms flat against it. Her gray hair was pulled back into a messy bun. She was wearing the same smoke-stained clothing from the night before.
Jackie’s expression flattened, as did her tone. “We need an inventory,” she stated purposefully. “We can’t eat, drink, bathe, or do much of anything until we know how far our rations will go. We’ve got seven people in this house. Seven, Betty.”
Betty rapped her fingers on the island, her false nails clicking rhythmically on the granite. “Well,” she huffed, “I—”
“You’re both right,” Reggie interrupted. “We need an inventory, which I’ve started. And we should survey the neighborhood. We can do both at the same time.”
Jackie eyed Betty from messy bun to bare feet. She’d never much cared for the woman but had always been neighborly. She knew Betty had her hands full. A single mother of a child with special needs was bound to have sharpened elbows.
While Jackie could bite her tongue at block parties or in passing on the jogging path, having the acerbic woman in her home was another matter. She took a deep breath and nodded in agreement with Reggie. When the others awoke, they’d split up into two teams. That would appease everyone.
Reggie shot Jackie another knowing glance. His lips were pursed, his brow knitted. Jackie figured he was thinking the same thing she was: It wouldn’t be long before people were a bigger challenge than the lack of power.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020 9:00 AM CST
CLEAR LAKE, TEXAS
The odor hit Jackie first. She couldn’t place it, but it was awful. It was pungent and sour and made the hair stand on her neck.
She was standing at the end of her driveway, surveying what was left of the homes and the aircraft that crashed into them.
She tried breathing through her mouth in small sips. It didn’t help. The overwhelming odor that choked the air only intensified as she stepped closer to the charred pile of wood and metal and fabric and bodies.
Bodies.
That was it. She smelled death. Amidst the sting of remnant smoke was the stench of burned flesh and hair.
“Nothing’s left,” Marie said. She was standing behind her mother. Somehow the two of them had convinced Betty it was best if she stayed home with Brian. She’d reluctantly acquiesced.
Jackie was doing her best not to gag. “Nothing,” she whispered. Tears rolled from her eyes as she thought about the horror of the previous night. “Those poor people.”
Marie tugged on her arm. “C’mon, Mom,” she said, pulling her away from the carnage. “Let’s go look around. We should find out what other people are doing.”
Jackie followed her daughter up the street toward the circle that encompassed their neighborhood. When they reached the end of their street, Jackie’s mind flashed to the night before. She’d cut the corner and run right to the other cul-de-sac, sprinting across the grass into what had resembled a war zone.
Marie stepped ahead of her mother and started walking backward. “You okay?”
Jackie offered her daughter as close to a smile as she could muster. “That’s relative, isn’t it?”
Marie shrugged and lowered her eyes, slowing to walk alongside Jackie. They turned right.
Jackie silently chastised herself. That wasn’t the right answer to give her daughter, even if it was the truth. Marie needed a confident, strong mother. She draped her arm around Marie’s shoulder. “I’m fine,” she said. “We will all be okay. I was just thinking about the poor people who didn’t survive last night.”
A look of relief washed over Marie’s features. Her eyes brightened; the corners of her mouth turned upward.
Jackie turned her attention to what lay before them. There were a dozen houses on the straightaway before the circle curved to the right. The driveways were littered with camping chairs, folding tables, and coolers. It looked like a block party. However, the faces of her neighbors weren’t festive. They bore the wrinkles of concern and the frowns of worry. If they were standing, their shoulders were hunched. If seated, they were slouched, their chins against their chests.
It was a neighborhood defeated.
Jackie approached the first house on the left. Sitting side by side was an elderly couple, the Vickerses. They’d lived in the neighborhood longer than anyone. Pop Vickers, as everyone called him, was a retired NASA engineer. He’d worked on the Mercury and Apollo programs. Clayton loved talking to him about the space program’s “glory days.”
Pop waved. His wife, Nancy, smiled, almost. She was the shier of the two. Always polite, Nancy tended to keep her distance and let Pop flutte
r about as the social butterfly.
Jackie stopped at the end of their driveway and planted her hands on her hips. “How are you both doing? Can I do anything for you? Do you need anything?”
Groaning, Pop pushed himself from his chair and shuffled down the drive to Jackie and Marie. He was wearing a blue Adidas jogging suit and bright orange Crocs.
“I think we’re okay,” he said, his voice raspy with age. “We’ve got food and water. Thank goodness we didn’t put in one of those tankless water heaters. You know they don’t work if the power’s out?”
Jackie smiled. “I didn’t. I’m glad we didn’t do it either, then.”
Pop’s wiry eyebrows arched high above his pale blue eyes. “You see the fireball last night?”
Jackie nodded. “I did. Very sad.”
“I heard there were other crashes,” said Pop. “Other planes, I mean. This wasn’t the only one.”
Jackie’s heart quickened. “What do you mean?”
“You know I’m a HAM operator,” he said, sticking out his white stubbled chin. “HAM radio. I keep it in my gun safe in the master bedroom. Whenever the power goes out or we get a hurricane coming this way, I play around with it.”
“I think I knew that,” Jackie said.
“So I was on it last night and again this morning,” he said. “There was talk about other planes going down. People think this is one of those electromagnetic pulses you hear so much about nowadays. I don’t think that’s it, though.”