The Blackout (14 page)

“I don’t see anything upsetting about that.  It’s true.” 

“No, I know.  But I don’t really want to recede back to such a dark time of superstition and that ‘accuse now and ask questions after the person is dead’ kind of mentality, ya know?”

He chuckled.  “I don’t see what’s funny about that,” Molly said.

“It’s just a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Obviously I don’t.” 

“Well, don’t you think we’re more logical than we were then?  That we have more information?  Yes, our immediate world is smaller, but we know a larger world surrounds us.  We have explanations for things like eclipses, not superstitions and angry gods.  Don’t you think that will improve the social situation some?”

“You’re the one in charge of the town’s defense.  You tell me.” 

He frowned.  “I protect the townspeople from outsiders, not each other.” 

They cleared the dishes in silence, and Molly helped him clean up.  He walked her home that night, since it was after dark by the time they were done, all the time not speaking.  Dug walked happily between the two of them, taking the occasional pat on the head. 

They reached her driveway and he turned to her.  “Well, thanks for dinner tonight, Molly.  It was great.” 

“Sure.  No problem.”  She hugged him, and he embraced her warmly.  She pulled back and looked deep into his emerald eyes.  “I hope you’ll protect me from anything.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could she turned and went into her house. 

20.

Forty-one days after the Blackout, Gary reached what was left of Colonial Williamsburg.  Ashen remains were everywhere.  There appeared to have been a riot, or some type of battle, and this was ground zero.  It made him nervous. 

It was so quiet, he could almost hear the ashes smoldering.  He scoffed at himself.  Obviously this mess was weeks old, probably the result of some irrational folks thinking they were more deserving of the supplies here than their neighbor. 

The road crunched under his feet and the sound was oppressive.  He tried to step lighter, but the ash blanketed everything. 

What happened to the people who lived here?  Were they killed?  Did they run?
  He thought.  He was just glad he wasn’t there when anarchy reigned.

Gary scanned the horizon, debating what to do.  Going further into town would probably yield more of the same.  Any supplies that were there had either been destroyed or taken by now.  He searched for a place to ponder the map, but there was nothing.  No shelter.  No safe place to sit.  Nothing.  He was nearing the end of his rope, hoping Williamsburg would offer some respite, but it appeared his rope just got longer.

He sighed and turned back.  He couldn’t stay there.  He had to find someplace to re-group and just keep walking.  The problems with his shoes and clothes would have to be solved another day.  He might be barefoot and naked by the time he got home, but he had to find the way home sooner or later. 

Gary turned back the way he came and walked to a small wooded area for some shelter before he stopped to study the map.  He sat with his back to a pine tree, put his pack in his lap, and rested his unfolded map on top of it. He resisted the urge to crumple or maim it.  Every time he looked at the damn thing the distance between point A and point B didn’t seem to shrink much, no matter how far he walked.  But it was his only lifeline. 

He took a deep breath and resolved to be constructive.  In the coming weeks, he would have to make a choice – continue following the coast, with a solid food source, or cut the travel time and veer inland a bit.  Gary hated to extend his journey, but abandoning a known food source made him nervous.  He didn’t have anything useful to kill game with, if there was even any to be had.  He also didn’t have any salt or anything to preserve fish with, eliminating the possibility of storing up food before he veered away from the coast. 

He considered the map.  At the furthest point from the water, he’d be sixty miles or so from food. 

That’s too far to walk if I was starving.  I’d have to decide quickly to turn towards the coast if it became necessary.  But it’s always an option.  If I don’t find food in the first day or two, I could always turn east,
he thought.

One nice thing about walking the coast was that there weren’t too many big cities, so he avoided most of the Wanderers.  Venturing inland might put him in unnecessary danger.  Molly would never know he was making good time if he was killed before he got home. 

Gary decided a middle-of-the-road approach was best.  Most of the bays had feeder rivers that went a little ways inland, and he could travel between them without too much extra time.  If he took 64 to 664, he could find food in the wildlife refuge.  He didn’t want to cut across it, for fear of getting lost inside, but if he skirted the west side of it, he could be at one of the many rivers in another day’s walk.  More of the same awaited him further south. 

He had at least sixty-three days before he would be home.  Sixty-three more days of walking.  Sixty-three more days of surviving.  Sixty-three more days without Molly. 

It was a long time. 

The Storm

21.

“Into each life, some rain must fall.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

              A storm was coming.  A storm that would stir the souls of the lives it touched.  A storm with the potential to destroy what was left of the world as they knew it- a world they desperately struggled to hold on to.  

22.

Beth and Molly were sitting on the back porch working on the week’s lesson plans when a man came strolling around the side of the house.  He was very striking and Molly had a hard time not staring.  He had olive-colored skin and dark hair that shined in the sun.  His button-down shirt was open at the top and untucked from his jeans, giving him a sexy, rumpled appearance. 

“Hey.  When are you coming home?  You know Mom doesn’t want you out past dark.” 

Confused, Molly realized he was talking to Beth.  “I just want to finish up here.  I’ll be home before dark.  Don’t worry.”  There was a hint of annoyance in her voice. 

He wandered up next to Beth and jammed his hands in his pockets.  “Hey,” he said and nodded in Molly’s general direction.

“Hi.” 

“Oh.  Molly, this is my brother, Seth.  Seth, Molly.” 

Now that she knew it, she could see the similarities between the two of them.  Beth had the same skin tone, slightly lighter hair, and the same shape to her face and eyes.  “Nice to meet you,” she said.  He nodded again in response. 

Beth sighed as an awkward silence descended.  “I promise I’ll have her home on time,” Molly said through a smile.  She nearly added ‘sir’ to the comment, but stopped herself.  She didn’t know if he could take a joke.

He cracked a bit of a smile.  “You just better, or she’ll be grounded.” 

“Alright.  I’m sitting right here.  And I’ll get this done a lot faster if you leave us alone, Seth.” 

He chuckled and turned Molly’s way again.  Her heart fluttered a bit to have his beautiful brown eyes settled on her.  “See ya round,” he said with a distinct look of mischief in his eye. 

“Sure,” was all she could muster. 
Idiot
, she thought as she watched him walk away. 
You’re acting like a teenager!  You’re married!  Get a hold of yourself.

“Sorry about that little…interruption,” Beth said.

“No worries.”  She paused.  “So, is he older or younger than you?” 

“Younger, but only by two years.  When the Blackout happened, my mom wanted us all in one place, so we moved back in.  Neither one of us had gotten married yet or even been seeing anyone seriously, so it wasn’t like we had to uproot families or anything.  And lucky for her, we’d stayed close by.”

Molly thought of her parents, who’d moved a thousand miles away before they both passed on.  For the first time since they’d died, she was grateful they weren’t around.  She wasn’t sure if she could handle worrying about Gary and the two of them – not knowing if they were OK, if they had enough food, if they’d been attacked by Wanderers.  She returned her thoughts to Beth.  She was in her mid-twenties, so that made her brother early twenties.  He wasn’t that much younger than Molly; only about a decade. 

“Well, that worked out well.” 

“Yeah, it did for my mom.”  Beth chuckled a little.  “She kind of drives us crazy with worrying.  Especially after we were both used to having so much independence.”

Molly couldn’t imagine going back to living with her parents at this point, and being subject to curfews and rules again, so she sympathized.  However, she couldn’t help thinking that it must’ve been nice to have someone so close to worry about you.  Realistically, it was scary out, and her mom’s worries weren’t overly unfounded.   

“I feel for you, but it’s dangerous out.  You can’t blame your mom for worrying.”

She sighed.  “I guess.  I just…”  She thought for a moment.  “I never expected this is what my life would be.  I had such ideas, ya’ know?  Dreams for myself, for my life.”  She chuckled a bit.  “Let me tell you, they did
not
include living at home with my mother and brother at twenty-eight years old.”

Molly frowned and nodded.  She could say the same thing – the dreams she had for her life hadn’t included living alone, not knowing whether her husband was dead or alive, and teaching at a K-through-whatever school.

“Well, we’ve all had to shift our focus, for lack of a better term.  It’s not been easy for anyone.  And I s’pose we’re all hoping this is temporary.  I know I am.  In fact, I’m not really hoping, I’m more…expecting.  This isn’t life as I know it, and the old way will come back eventually.”  Molly nodded to emphasize her point.

Beth looked across the yard, watching the wildflowers bend in the breeze.  “Wouldn’t you say the old way
has
come back?”

Molly couldn’t get Beth’s comment out of her head, so she decided to face it head on.  She’d been debating about reading
Alas, Babylon
with the group for a few weeks.  Worried the kids might panic about the subject matter, she considered skipping it.  But the relevancy of it was too tempting, and her conversation with Beth tipped the scale. 

The book took place in Fort Repose, a town in Central Florida.  Molly was never sure if it was a real town or not.  It wasn’t someplace she’d ever heard of, and she couldn’t really go online and look it up.  But the fact that it was in Florida hit home for all the kids.

The book received mixed reviews.  Some of the kids simply didn’t like it.  Molly thought that was because it was too real, too much like what was happening.  Others thought it was great, citing how innovative it was for the nineteen-fifties. 

That day, they were seated outside in the grass, taking advantage of the beautiful December weather.  “Now, I want to talk about some of the struggles the people in Frank’s book faced, versus the ones we are facing,” Molly suggested.

“Do you think we’ll run out of salt?”  One of the boys at the edge of the group asked. 

“It’s hard to say, Lewis.  I hope not.  And I don’t even know if Frank’s research on the effects of salt deficiency is sound.”  She thought about the people on the other side of the wall.  “Right now, I think we have bigger problems.”

“How come the people in Frank’s book didn’t have to deal with Wanderers?”  Another asked.

“Well, it’s hard to say.  I think a lot of the other people were killed in the blasts, don’t you?  So they didn’t really have an extraneous population wandering around looking for resources like we do.  Ours was a catastrophic event, but not deadly.”  She thought of Gary, hoping that was true. 

Cassandra piped up.  She was a bright student, about sixteen years old.  Her parents had been major supporters of Burt and the wall.  “I don’t think their struggles were all that different than ours, and I think the book is a testament to what we all have to look forward to.”  Silence fell heavily upon the group.

Bingo,
Molly thought.  It was what she was waiting for.  Either she’d have a good discussion, or she’d crash and burn, and she was about to find out which. 

“What makes you say that, Cassandra?” Molly asked.

“Well, look at them, and look at us.  We’ve started farming, we’ve learned to like eating fish regularly, we’ve come together as a community, we’ve dug wells, and I think as supplies get more scarce, they’ll also be more valuable.  I mean, no one uses money anymore, or even speaks of it.  All of our money was digital and disappeared with the power.  Just like in Frank’s book, food and supplies will become the unit of trade.  You just watch.” 

Molly smiled.  It was something she had considered as well.  Jimmy had told her as much.  Even in the early days, he knew. 

“Well, having read this, what do you think you could suggest to Burt or the town leaders to help make our lives easier?  What can we learn from the successes and mistakes of Frank’s characters?” 

No one had anything to offer, so Molly tried to start them off.  “Ok, well, couldn’t you argue that most of their struggles were from external sources?  Food shortages, radiation poisoning, crime, things like that?” 

Heads bobbed in agreement.  “Well, some of our struggles have been internal.  A selfish few planted a seed of doubt that grew into a small rebellion.  Now, our town is a bit smaller.”

“Yeah, well, now we have less people to care for, less to come up with supplies for,” a boy in front snidely added.

“True.  But my question is, why wouldn’t Frank’s characters rebel against each other the way we did?” 

A quiet girl who never usually said much made eye contact with Molly.  “Emma.  Do you have something to add?” 

“I just think that maybe Frank’s book is a little optimistic.  Maybe it was Frank’s way of saying what he thought humanity should be like, not necessarily what it really is like.”  She paused.  “I mean, in a crisis situation, you always want to believe people will help each other, that the best will come out, don’t you think?”