The Blackout (4 page)

“Do you think our phones will come back?”

“Well, I don’t know.  I imagine since it’s such a widespread issue at the minimum the phone companies might provide you with replacements.  Might bankrupt them though.  Who knows.  It’s hard to speculate without knowing the cause of it.”

One student in the middle of the classroom piped up.  “I saw on CNN this morning a thing about a catastrophic solar flare.  I bet it happened.  And I’ll bet the power doesn’t come back on in twenty minutes, or twenty days.” 

The words “twenty days” echoed around the room, weighing heavily on the occupants. 

Molly cleared her throat.  “Now, now, they’re always saying sensational things like that on TV.  I’m sure it’s not that serious.”  She made eye contact with one of the more panic-stricken students.  “Everything will be fine.”  

The discussion went on like that for the next hour and a half.  One student proposed that it was a terrorist attack, that someone had sent out a signal that disabled all electronic devices, but that didn’t really explain why the lights went out.  Another student thought the surge was so dramatic that it disabled nearby electronics.  But other students debunked that theory, saying they would’ve heard or felt something if that was the case. 

Just then, Terry poked his head in.  “Dr. Longman.  What’s the good word?”  Molly asked.

“You guys can go now, but I want a slow and orderly departure, OK?  One girl already fell on the stairs and may have hurt her ankle pretty bad.  We’re still trying to figure out how to get help here.  So get yourselves home safely, OK?”

One student brought up something Molly hadn’t thought of.  “Dr. Longman?  What about tomorrow?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do we do if the power’s still out?”

“It won’t be,” he said firmly.

After all the kids cleared out, Molly went to her office to try and call Gary from the landline, but the phone wouldn’t come on.  It was a cordless with an answering machine that she had bought herself.  She couldn’t remember what kind of phone Cindy had in her office; if it was one the school had issued, or one she’d brought in.  Molly decided to take a chance and see if Cindy was there.  Of course, she wasn’t.  Molly walked to Cindy’s room and it was empty as well.  Molly was surprised Cindy had left without saying anything, but shrugged it off.  She’d seemed upset and probably wanted to know how her family was. 

Terry’s office turned out to be a bust as well.  In fact, no one was left in the building.  It was creepy to be in there alone with all the lights off, so she decided to just go home.  Maybe the power was on there.  And if it wasn’t, she wanted to get there before dark so she could get the candles out. 

Molly walked to her scooter, feeling distracted.  There were people everywhere.  The entire school had emptied all at once, which was very unusual.  Different classes scheduled at different times generally made it so no one had to fight to leave.  But as Molly looked around, she noticed no one was leaving.  The parking lot was silent, save for people talking to each other.  Not a single engine was running.

Molly got her helmet out from under the seat and fastened the strap while she observed the crowd.  They seemed to be engrossed in solving their own problems, not realizing that everyone around them was experiencing the same thing.  It never occurred to her that she was about to join their plight.

She tried to turn the scooter on, and nothing happened. 

That’s odd,
Molly thought.   

She tried it again with no luck. 
Of course Gary is still gone, so it’s me to my own rescue once again. 

She looked around and felt bad for some of the others.  Especially Cindy, who was nowhere to be seen.  She could just walk home.  It was only a few miles.  But Cindy lived a long way from here.  Molly wondered what Cindy was going to do.  She looked for Cindy’s car one more time, and didn’t see it. 

Maybe she got lucky and didn’t have any trouble,
she thought.

As she walked her scooter to the edge of the lot, she spotted Cindy.  She was more than frazzled.  Molly pushed her scooter over, still donning her helmet. 

“Hey!”  Molly called.  “You OK?” 

“Not really!  My car won’t start, and my phone doesn’t work so I can’t even call Tom.  I have no idea if the kids are OK or where they are.”

“OK, let’s think about this rationally.  It’s two-thirty in the afternoon.  They’re probably all at school.  Tom is at work.  Just formulate a game plan and you’ll feel better, less out of control.  Do you want to go home and see if anyone is there first, or do you want to go to the kids’ school?”  Once it was out of her mouth she regretted it.  Molly hadn’t really said she would go with Cindy, but it was implied.  She knew it would be after dark by the time she could get home if she ran all over town.  But if they started at the kids’ school, that wasn’t that far, and maybe she could get a ride home from there. 

“Yeah, but how will we get to the school?”  Cindy tightly gripped the steering wheel on her SUV, already buckled in and ready to rush to her family.  However, she was going nowhere fast.

“We’ll have to walk.” 

They kept up a brisk pace, and it took under an hour to cross the two and a half miles.  Luckily, all three kids went to the same school, so at least they didn’t have to walk all over kingdom come to collect them individually. 

The power was out at the school too, and it was controlled chaos.  The sprawling building resembled an anthill, with kids moving sporadically all over the campus. 

They approached the frazzled teachers one at a time, who took note of the children’s mother picking them up. Cindy asked them to let Tom know if he popped by.  There were still a huge number of kids milling around, which surprised Molly.  But, really, if everyone was having the same car trouble that people on campus were having, it’d probably be a while before all the kids were picked up.  Molly couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to the kids whose parents worked outside the city.  But then again, those people probably weren’t affected by the outage.  They probably didn’t even know what was going on.  

Once all three kids were collected, Molly asked, “OK, now what?”  Cindy’s house was another two miles away, but it was in the opposite direction of Molly’s, putting her about six miles from home.  It was a long way to walk as the daylight waned. 

Suddenly, Molly’s situation dawned on Cindy.  “Molly, why don’t you head home?  I can get the kids home from here.  Tom will probably meet us there.”

The offer was tempting.  Molly looked at the three kids, the five-year-old in particular.  Two miles was a long way to ask a kid that age to walk.  “What about Melody?  She’s too little to walk that far.” 

“I’ll carry her when she gets tired.  Don’t worry.  We’ll be fine.  It’ll be too dark for you to walk home if you come with us.”

And then what would I do about poor Dug and Sally?
Molly thought.  She weighed the options, looking guiltily at Cindy.  “Really, Molly.  Go.  We’ll be fine.  It’ll just be good to be home and all together.  Probably by the time we get there, the power will be back on!” 

She was absolutely right.  Molly sighed.  “OK.”  She reached out and grabbed Cindy’s shoulders, looking straight into her eyes.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”  It wasn’t a question.  It was a statement.  Despite her assurance, a small part of Molly felt like it might be a while before they saw each other again.

“Sounds great.  Hopefully, everything’ll be back to normal by then.”

“Everything
will
be back to normal by then,” Molly said, and walked away, leaving her dear friend to care for her family while Molly went to care for hers. 

Molly had to make her way back to the college to get her scooter.  It took over an hour to push the scooter home, but it was a nice day so she wasn’t bothered too much.  She
was
bothered by the fact that she wasn’t passed by any cars at all the entire time.  There were cars parked on the side of the road, as usual for the historic town, but there was no one driving on the street.  In fact, cars were stopped in the street, abandoned.  But no one was irritated.  No one was honking at the obstruction.  No one was trying to get through.  Everything had come to an abrupt halt, and left nothing but stillness and silence in its wake.  It made her anxious and jittery.  Walking with Cindy had provided a bit of a distraction.  Alone it seemed too quiet, too still, too…unnatural. 

Molly couldn’t get her scooter into the garage because the door wouldn’t go up.  It seemed the power was out here, too.  She sighed, parked the scooter in front of the garage, and went to the front door. 

Dug was his regular energetic self, but the house was quiet without the hum of the refrigerator, the air conditioning, or any of the other appliances that collectively made up the soundtrack of her home. 

She busied herself looking for candles and matches and placing them in strategic places all over the house – the kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedroom.  Once she was done, though, she didn’t know what else to do. 

Molly checked her cell phone periodically, but still wasn’t having any luck. 

It was nearly dark, and she’d really thought the power would be back on by now.  She wasn’t really hungry, but felt she should eat something lest it spoil.  She got out the gas burner they used during hurricanes and for camping and warmed up some leftovers.  She dreaded the thought of a cold shower, and silently prayed that there was some warm water left from before the power went out.  The lukewarm shower was the warmest she would get for a long time.

That night she didn’t get to speak to Gary.  Landlines had pretty much gone the way of the dodo a few years back, so he had no other way to get in touch, save for e-mail, and of course that was out too.   It was the first time she’d gone to bed knowing she wouldn’t get to speak to him since they started dating.  They’d talked every day in some way, shape, or fashion since before they were married.  Molly hoped he wasn’t too worried. 

Molly put off going to bed as long as possible.  She didn’t want to sleep with a candle lit because she was afraid it would start a fire, but it was so dark.  There wasn’t even the glow of streetlights for comfort.  There was no hum of appliances, no noise from the air conditioning, no light from anywhere, except the half-moon, which really wasn’t all that bright.

She didn’t even know what time it was for sure.  Her watch had quit right around the time the power went out.  All she knew was that it was sometime after dark. 

Sally and Dug followed her everywhere, and when Molly went up to go to bed they both followed her, which surprised her.  Even Sally settled down next to Molly that night.  It was a small comfort knowing they were both at least within reach if something happened.  She didn’t know what she was expecting, but she just felt unsettled.

The darkness was so…penetrating.  She couldn’t wait for morning, when the world would be returned to the light. 

6.

Gary played Texas hold ‘em on his cell phone while they waited in the airport.  Clint was watching CNN and Gary halfheartedly listened.  Clint had free reign on the remote.  They were the only two schmucks still waiting on passengers.

The Fixed Based Operation was fairly nice, at least.  Some FBO’s were really a hole.  Nothing more than a trailer on the side of the ramp, and they were expected to rendezvous with their high-end clients there?  This one had leather couches in the lounge; a big, high-quality TV for entertainment; free hot coffee; and well-stocked vending machines.

Suddenly Gary’s phone turned off.  He looked up and noticed the lights were out in the lounge and the TV was silent.  The power was out.  He tried to switch his phone back on but it didn’t respond. 

“Hey, Clint, is your phone working?”

He took his phone from his pocket and frowned.  “No.” 

Gary walked to the desk to see if they knew what was going on. The woman behind the desk spoke to someone behind her.  “I can’t get a dial tone.  Can you?  …Huh.  What the heck?”  Then she noticed Gary standing there.  “How can I help you?”

“I don’t really know.  Do you know what’s going on?  Is there anything we can do?”

“I don’t know, on both accounts.  Sit tight.  You’ve got a full tank of gas, so if your passengers get here, I see no reason why you can’t just go, as long as you can talk to the tower.” 

“Well, I wasn’t worried about that.  Our phones aren’t working, and I guess yours aren’t either, so I guess we won’t be hearing from our passengers any time soon.  Do you have a rotary phone, or something that doesn’t plug into an outlet, that might work?”

“Oh, uh…” She thought for a moment.  “No, I don’t think we do.” 

“No problem.  I’m sure everything will be back online before too long.” 

Gary walked back to Clint and shook his head.  Clint had heard the whole conversation, and didn’t like it one bit.  “I’m gonna go check the airplane.” He walked out without waiting for a response.

Gary decided to wait in the lounge in case their passengers showed up.

The sound of an explosion shook the windows and rattled his chest.  Gary immediately ran out to the Hawker.  

Clint popped his head out.  “What the hell was that?” 

“I thought you might know.” 

The fog hanging low in the distance made it difficult to see.  They walked to the edge of the ramp together and scanned the horizon. Gary thought he could make out an unnatural orange light to the west. 

“Looks like something funny at the end of 9 Right.” 

Gary squinted towards the glow.  “Where are the emergency vehicles?  If it was a crash, shouldn’t they be responding?”

“Mmm.”  Clint scrutinized the airport.  They both strained for the sound of rescue that always followed a crash.  The distinctive sound of sirens was noticeably absent.  The silence they left was crushing.

Gary shook his head.  “It must not have been a crash.  That’s the only explanation.”  He paused.  “Do you think we should go check it out?” 

“No.  By the time we got over there, we’d only be in the way.  It’s quite a hike to that side of the airport, even if we took one of the golf carts.  They’ll be fine.  There’re people on site whose job it is to help with that stuff.”  Gary nodded and Clint cleared his throat.  “Anyway, we’ve got a problem of our own to deal with.”