by Kip Nelson
Chapter 4
Darren skulked through the park along the path that wound through the green grass. The lights in the tall lampposts were dead. Shadows danced over the ground. Danger was everywhere. Darren lugged the backpack slung over his shoulders while his eyes darted around furtively, wanting to make sure he wasn’t going to run into any more trouble. He’d already had enough for one night.
The park was quiet, and only the distant sounds of commotion greeted his ears. In the daytime this place usually was filled with families on picnics, couples walking down lovers’ lane, and kids running around chucking footballs and Frisbees. There was a wide lake as well, upon which people could take out small paddle boats. When Darren reached this lake, he looked out at the dark water. A few birds were swimming upon the surface, but all the boats were moored at the side.
Darren had brought his kids here many times. If this power outage continued, nothing would be the same again. This park might well become a place of refuge for people who were driven out of their homes.
Alone, Darren breathed slowly so as not to make a noise. There seemed to be nobody else in the park, which suited him, although he only traversed a small portion of it. There may well have been other people just like him wondering what on Earth was going on. He checked his cellphone occasionally, just to see if it would turn back on, but it was dead. The city remained dark as well. Darren’s thoughts went to those at the hospital. He wondered how many people had died because they had been on life support machines that had been rendered inert or had been in surgery when the lights went out.
If this was a nationwide phenomenon, then the loss of life would be astonishing. To think of death on that scale was sobering, and Darren felt his heart sink into a pit of despair. He pulled himself out of it, though, trying to focus on what he had to do to get back to his kids.
Over the course of the last year Darren had learned how resilient he could be. When Stacie had left him, and he had lost his job, Darren nearly had suffered a mental breakdown. He couldn’t cope. He didn’t feel strong enough. Life was overwhelming. He had seemed completely helpless. He knew if it hadn’t been for his kids he would have sunk into depression and would have been no good for anyone. Aside from his kids, he’d lost everything that he defined himself by, and it took a long, hard time for him to reevaluate the way he looked at himself.
But he never fully lost himself because he had to be strong for his kids. If he broke, then there would have been nobody to take care of them, and he would have been just as bad as Stacie. Darren wasn’t going to let that happen.
Somehow, some way, he had found the inner strength to keep fighting, to drag himself up and keep moving, all for the sake of his kids.
That’s what he kept in mind as he strode through the park. No matter what happened, he was going to keep moving until he made it back home. He’d been through hell once already. A second time was going to be a piece of cake.
Darren emerged from the park through sturdy iron gates, the bottom of which scraped against the ground. He winced at the noise. The lights of the city still were dark. The longer it continued the more he considered the possibility that this outage was going to last longer than anyone anticipated. If that was the case, then there would be a whole lot of empty spaces in the city. People would be too busy trying to survive to spend money that didn’t matter anymore.
The heart of the city was basically one big retail area with malls and superstores all over the place. New stores were popping up all the time, and people came from out of state to enjoy the shopping experience. Darren never really had liked spending time in the city, unlike Stacie. She could spend hours going to various stores, browsing outfits and items for the home. More than once she had dragged Darren along, and by the end of the day he felt dead, both mentally and physically.
When he looked at all the stuff that was offered by these stores his heart sank. There were so many things sold to people that they just didn’t need. It was like they were set up just to fill some empty hole that couldn’t be filled, as though people couldn’t be happy unless their wallets were empty. Of course, this acquisition disorder never actually made anyone happy at all. It only led to them wanting more and more, and suddenly the important thing wasn’t what you were buying, it was just the fact that you were buying something.
Darren long ago had lost interest in spending much time in the city. The stores held little appeal for him, even more since Stacie had left him and he’d lost his job. It was even more depressing going around the stores when he had no money to spend, being made to feel worthless because he couldn’t afford something he didn’t need. It gave him pangs of panic when Brent wanted a new video game, for Brent wasn’t at the age when he properly could understand how much things cost.
Sometimes Darren wondered how people ever managed to survive. Everything in the world cost so much it seemed impossible that people were keeping their heads above water. The fact that so much of the city was devoted to retail outlets sickened him.
It seemed as though he wasn’t the only one to feel that way.
As he turned away from the park, he heard a commotion, and saw huge fires crackling in trash cans. This crowd had a far different energy than the one through which he had walked before. While many of them had offered hugs and songs, these people were jumping on cars and throwing things at windows.
It was a riot.
The rain still was beating down, which only seemed to make people crazier. The fires that blazed were under cover, and people were standing in the middle of the road. Darren slowed his pace as he took stock of the scene before him.
“This is our chance to strike a blow! I bet I’m not the only one to have walked down this road, feeling like people were turning their noses up at me. What? Am I not worthy of respect just because I don’t have a six-figure income? Who are these stores really for? None of us can afford their luxury items, and then we’re made to feel bad just because we can’t afford to shop there? Screw that! I’m done playing their game. We have to take advantage of this power outage now. Before too long this city is going to light up again and things are going to go back to the way they were. We have to send a message. We have to show them we’re not going to be treated this way. Let’s light up the city ourselves!” a man cried out. He was standing on top of a car and after speaking threw a bottle at a store. It crashed through the window, and this action was met with a hearty round of applause.
Darren sidled up to the rear of the crowd, listening in on the conversations around him to figure out if these people were dangerous.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for. It’s been too long since there’s been a revolution. We have to make them hear us. Make them know that this isn’t what we want,” another man said.
“I remember when there was more to this city than stores. What are all the children and families supposed to do? My niece has maxed out all her credit cards because she can’t explain to her kids why they can’t have every toy that their friends have. It’s ridiculous!” another woman uttered.
Sentiments such as these were expressed all throughout the crowd, with people voicing their distaste for the financial pressure society had put on them. Each of them lamented the financial burden that weighed them down, and Darren found himself nodding along. However, he doubted a demonstration such as this actually would accomplish anything. It only would seem like a riot, and if cops arrived, people would be arrested.
That was a point, where were the cops? Darren wondered what they were making of all of this. They no doubt had their hands full, perhaps dealing with disturbances elsewhere. With the power out, they would have lost the ability to communicate. That would have severely affected their ability to maintain law and order, leading to situations such as this.
The thought made Darren’s stomach turn. He had read enough about the human condition to know that situations such as these could escalate quickly. It started out with throwing glass bottles at the windows of empty stores, but easily coul
d turn into marching through the city causing harm to innocent people. Darren found himself needing to move through the crowd again, but this one was going to be more difficult to traverse. There were fewer people, and those present were in the mood to cause trouble.
Thankfully, the stores were empty. Nobody came out screaming. Bottles were thrown at the buildings and the sound echoed. Darren bowed his head and moved forward, trying to dip in between the shadows, trying not to be noticed. He remembered a technique he had read about called ‘Gray Man’, which was where you became inconspicuous and blended in with a crowd, subsuming your identity so as not to be discovered.
The people were getting more raucous. Now some of them weren’t just throwing glass bottles at the stores but lighting the bottles on fire before throwing them. Flames billowed in the stores, taking hold quickly, destroying wooden furniture and electrical devices. It was destruction on a massive scale, and Darren was shocked at how much was burning before his eyes.
The flames quickly spread and licked up the buildings. He became worried that the foundations wouldn’t be strong enough to withstand such heat, and that they would fall, spreading rubble throughout the city, crushing anyone who got in its wake. Darren wanted to shout, telling everyone they needed to come to their senses. This wasn’t the way to deal with this situation. None of them seemed to understand how dire things were. He wanted to grab each of them by the scruff of the neck and order them to return home, to spend time with their loved ones and prepare for what was coming. They needed to get food and water, clothing and shelter.
Then, he looked around again, and realized a lot of these people didn’t have anywhere to go. They didn’t look to have any family with them. They looked as though they had been so ground down by life that there was no thought for tomorrow, only for what they could do today. And right now the only thing they wanted to do was listen to their emotions and indulge their visceral reaction to the power outage.
“Are you going to join in, or were you one of those people who could afford all this stuff? Did you just come here to laugh at us? To look down on all us poor people?” someone said to him, yanking his shoulder.
Darren stared at him. He thought about arguing with the man but realized it wouldn’t do him any good. A few other people were beginning to stare at him, and Darren knew that if he didn’t do something to ingratiate himself with the crowd, he would be treated like an enemy.
Without a second thought, Darren snatched a bottle from the man’s hand and hurled it at one of the stores. It made a satisfying smash, and Darren had to admit that he felt a little better, even though he knew the sensation only was fleeting.
“Fuck the rich,” he spat. The others around him seemed pleased with this.
Darren continued moving, looking at the store he had just thrown the bottle at. He allowed himself a grim chuckle when he realized it had been one of Stacie’s favorite stores, dealing in clothes made with delicate and exotic fabrics.
It all was on fire now, and smoke was billowing out.
The air was becoming thick with smoke, and since the stores were sheltered, the powerful rain wasn’t doing anything to put out the fires. They were leaping from store to store, carving their way through the innards. It was a hellish scene, and the people around Darren looked like demons, reveling in the destruction and chaos. If this was a microcosm of how people were reacting all over the country, Darren was afraid.
Even though he had read all about situations such as these, he had harbored hope that people could look beyond their violent impulses and embrace their more rational, peaceful natures. But no, all they wanted was to lash out at those who had oppressed them and made them feel worthless. It made him more afraid for Brent and Michelle. If people were like this in the city, there was no telling what was happening in the suburbs.
Darren quickened his pace through the baying crowd. The air was hot, and the smoke made his throat dry, despite the pouring rain. Steam hissed, and the crowd seemed to get loud and louder. The outburst of violence hadn’t seemed to slake their thirst for it. They threw more bottles, started battering cars, and soon, Darren had no doubt, they would turn on each other.
He made sure to get out of there before that happened. Without looking back, he moved away, digging his hands in his pockets, keeping his head bowed. Everyone else was in such a frenzied state they didn’t notice him walking away. He pitied anyone who came across this crowd, for they surely would be caught up in the whirlwind of violence.
Chapter 5
The sounds and sights of the fires still were present in Darren’s mind as he made his way out of the heart of the city. When he was a safe distance away, he turned and looked back. The rain beat down and slid off his waterproof poncho. His eyes were protected from the rain by the brim of his baseball cap. The air was cooler now that he was away from the fire, although he still could smell the smoke in his nostrils. An amber glow rose up from the direction from which he had traveled, much like the glow of candles he had seen peppered in houses across the city, just on a much larger scale.
From this perspective it looked beautiful. The glow lit up the outlines of the buildings, creating a silhouette. The stars were visible in the sky, and the Moon hung like a silver lantern. It was peaceful, beautiful, and it was easy to forget that this glow was the product of violent, destructive fires.
Darren wondered how much of the city would remain standing after a night without power. It was as though people had lost their minds as soon as the lights had gone out. Perhaps that was why people were afraid of the dark, because they knew it would lead to others giving into their most violent urges. There were no wailing sirens of police cars being sent to stop them, no uniformed officers to come and take them away. They finally were free to release their darkest impulses, the frustrations that had built up inside them over the course of years.
Frankly, Darren couldn’t blame them. After all he’d been through, he felt that rush of adrenaline when he had thrown that bottle at that store. It was intoxicating to stand up and fight back against a society that made you feel small. It felt like a victory, and for many people like Darren, victories were hard to come by. He had struggled with defeat after defeat, and the sweet taste was tempting. If Darren didn’t have his kids to worry about, he may well have joined in with the crowd, striking against the oppressors, trying to make up for a life that had been ruined by circumstance.
But Darren wouldn’t really be striking out at society. He would striking out at Stacie and all the people who had written him off after the company he worked for had folded. He would be striking out at the passengers who had thrown up in his car and treated him like crap. He would be striking out at all the people who had given him withering looks on the construction site. For so long he had been at the breaking point, but it seemed as though the world had broken before him.
Darren turned his back on the city and resumed his journey home. Whatever happened in the city wasn’t his problem to worry about. If it went to hell, then it was the authorities’ responsibility. And if this thing lasted longer than one night, it was doubtful there would be any authorities left to take back control of things.
As he thought about the chaos that must have been unfolding in places of power such as the White House, if this had indeed affected the entire country, Darren was grateful he had few responsibilities. All he cared about was his kids, and that was enough for him. He didn’t think he could handle having to take care of an entire population.
Now that he was away from the glow of the fires, he was plunged into darkness again. He was grateful the Moon was bright since it offered illumination of the world around him. However, the storm clouds had drifted out and thickened, and as he ventured farther into the suburbs, he realized he would need light to feel safe. There were many threats in the world, in the dark, and more during this power outage.
He’d already been held at gunpoint, and once was enough. Although he had the means to defend himself, he knew the best way to stay safe was
to avoid those situations entirely. He didn’t want to stumble upon a group of rabid foxes, or a crazed maniac looking for an easy thrill. If there was danger, he wanted to see it coming, so he stopped briefly to open his backpack and pulled out the lantern.
It was a little difficult to see what he was doing in the dim light, since he didn’t have enough hands to use the lighter and open the lantern. Darren managed to fumble through, though. Eventually, he managed to set the lantern alight. He picked it up and the glow spread out from him, surrounding him in an aura of light. He instantly felt more comfortable and was able to breathe a little more easily.
If anyone tried anything against him now, he would be prepared. He had a gun, a machete, and his fists. Anyone who tried anything was going to be sorry.
He’d already broken a man’s nose, but he wasn’t sure how far he was willing to go. In all the self-defense classes he’d attended, and in all the books he’d read, they emphasized that violence was always a last resort, and it was important to use these abilities only as far as necessary. Darren often had fantasized about being a vigilante and fighting crime, but the reality of the situation was entirely different. He didn’t know if he ever could kill someone else, not unless they were harming his children. In many ways he was just an ordinary man living an ordinary life, but these were extraordinary circumstances.
He hoped he didn’t have to use the weapons he had collected. The ideal scenario would be arriving home, getting the kids to bed, and then waking up the next day with everything having returned to normal.
Except the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he did in fact want everything to return to normal. What was normal? Slugging through each day, breaking his body in construction, then numbing his mind by driving strangers from place to place, the empty, fleeting connections keeping him away from his kids? Is that the life he really wanted?