by Ellis, Tara
Ethan was the first to turn his horse around, and Tom didn’t tell him to stop. He stayed on foot and walked with Austin and Annie. “Where are you two going?”
“Home,” Annie said quickly. “Twenty miles west of here.”
Tom frowned and studied the darkening skies for any signs of thickening smoke. “I think there’s a forest fire to the south, heading our way. Had some singed elk run across the road. Maybe you should head north with us.”
Austin glanced at his wife before clearing his throat. “Thanks, but we have to get home. We’ll take our chances at staying ahead of it.”
“You sure?” Tom pressed. “You can trade off riding our extra horse.”
Annie shook her head and her voice cracked as she spoke. “Our thirteen-year-old daughter is home alone. We have to get back to her.”
“There’s the road,” Austin announced, pointing at a street sign Tom hadn’t paid any attention to since he didn’t know the area.
Ethan was stopped near it on Tango, waiting. “Come on, Dad. It’s almost night.”
Tom shook Austin’s hand again and then gave Annie two bottles of water. “Take care of those kids.” He leaped onto his horse without waiting for a reply and nudged the mare into a trot.
Ethan led the way and as they sped north. Tom was stunned to see pillars of iridescent green and purple light emerging above the tops of the trees. As the woods darkened, the light show grew brighter, casting alien shadows in their wake.
They didn’t look back.
Chapter 12
ANTONIO
Adrift in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Bahamas
Antonio sat in a dark corner of the cruise ship suite, holding an empty bottle of champagne between his knees. His wife lay dead on the bed next to him.
He tipped the bottle to his lips and then threw it in disgust when only a drop came out. The soft thump it made as it slid across the plush carpet mocked his pain and caused a fresh flare of anger.
“Coward,” he mumbled.
Green filaments of light reached in through the balcony’s glass doors and touched the silky bedspread. It slid across Sofia’s bare legs, a grotesque caress from Mother Nature. Antonio couldn’t handle the irony and it propelled him to move for the first time in more than an hour.
“No,” he gasped as he leaned forward and used the bed to pull himself to his feet.
Once the skies had darkened, the surreal colors had begun their dance. The presence of the northern lights so far south confirmed that reality had shifted.
“You can’t have her.” Clawing at the edge of the bedspread closest to him, he haphazardly covered Sofia’s body, being sure to leave her face exposed. What if she wasn’t really dead? What if she needed to breathe?
Antonio knew the thoughts were irrational, but he’d lost the ability to be reasonable long before darkness had fallen on the worst day of his life. Wiping at the blood frothing on his lips, he accepted that this was likely his last day.
“We need more champagne,” he said to Sofia. He’d poured most of the first bottle over her blistered lips in a vain attempt to ease her pain as she died. “I’ll be right back.”
Is this what it’s like to go crazy? he thought, his mind hazy.
Stumbling out into the dark, narrow hallway of the Oasis-class cruise ship, Antonio felt his way along the wall. He’d been back and forth enough times now to know his way. Funny how you could shift gears so quickly from massages and margaritas to navigating your way through a night of the living dead.
He’d been getting a massage when that switch had been unknowingly thrown, the day before. Aside from the dim light making an odd popping sound as it went out, he wouldn’t have even known anything had happened if it weren’t for the massive engines suddenly going silent.
The massage parlor was six floors below deck. The candle he and the masseuse tried to navigate by went out after only five minutes and a bad step that splashed some wax. He’d rather not think about the ensuing slog through the pitch-black bowels of the ship.
“Help me…”
Antonio stopped. He’d heard so many pleas for help over the past eighteen hours that he’d almost become immune to them. But it sounded like Sofia.
He’d found her earlier that day on the deck, where she’d been sunbathing. From what he’d been able to piece together, anyone out in the open when the flash hit had been instantly blinded as well as partially cooked. If they survived the initial blast of radiation or heat, or whatever the heck it was, they soon died from the burns.
“You’re already dead,” he whispered into the blackness.
Someone sobbed.
He pressed forward. The main hall was close by and he intended to help himself to whatever alcohol still remained so he could die in a drunken stupor. Because he was dying.
Green and purple light flickered up ahead. He’d reached the main passage that lead to the glassed-in hall. As he pushed at the glass doors, someone else grabbed at his leg.
Instinctively kicking out, Antonio looked down in horror at the man lying there. He wore an officer’s uniform. Gasping, the man reached out again and blindly scraped at the floor. His normally crisp white shirt was now saturated with a viscous red splatter and blood oozed from his eyes. “Please—”
Antonio backed away, only to trip over another body. There were more people congregating there than the last time he’d been through. He’d have to pick his way through a sea of them. He slipped in something wet and vile. The smell the movement stirred wafted up and he retched, trying to move away from it only to step in more vomit.
Five thousand people. That was the occupancy boasted by the cruise line. The ship was adrift without any power or working equipment and all five thousand passengers were either already dead or dying.
“Sofia!” Antonio called out. What was he doing there? Why had he left her? His head swimming, Antonio slipped and fell onto his hands and knees. He grabbed at the leg closest to him. “Help me,” he whispered, but there was no help. His stomach twisted painfully and he retched, but it was unlike any vomiting he’d endured before. It felt like his insides were boiling and overflowing.
Collapsing onto his forearms, Antonio wiped at his mouth and his hand came away covered in dark, warm blood. He closed his eyes against the reality that he was the next victim in a floating tomb.
“Sofia…”
Chapter 13
DANNY
North of Salt Lake City, Utah
Something cold and wet was nudging Danny’s hand. Coming awake with a start, she jerked her hand away and pushed herself into a sitting position. It was still dark out and all she could see were shadows among other shadows.
“Sam!” she whispered, her voice cracking.
Sam didn’t answer, but something whimpered.
“Who’s there?” Her eyes adjusting, Danny could see a shape about two feet high moving in front of her. It whimpered again, a sad, pathetic sound followed by the smacking of lips.
“Hey, buddy.” Danny held her hand out, wincing at the burning pain the motion elicited from the wound on her arm. The dog eased forward and then licked at her fingers before pushing up against her legs and whimpering again.
Danny hadn’t had a dog since she was a teen. It wasn’t possible with the crazy schedule she had as a paramedic, but she missed the companionship. She’d always had a sense about animals and it was immediately obvious that this one wasn’t a threat. It was scared.
“What’s your name, baby?” she cooed, running a hand over the dog’s furry head. It was some sort of long-haired, larger-sized dog. Maybe a golden retriever. Metal tags clanked together under her hand, but there was no way she’d be able to read them until the sun came up. “We’ll just call you ‘Baby’ until then, okay?” Baby answered by licking Danny’s jaw and she noticed how dry her tongue was. Though water was already a precious commodity, she didn’t hesitate to fish out her bottle and share her remaining supply with her new friend, who eagerly lapped it up out of her hand.<
br />
“Danny, who are you talking to?” Sam moved slowly toward her, cautiously picking his way over the uneven ground.
They’d decided to stop the night before as soon as the sun started to go down, since they had no source of light or a way to start a fire. When the freeway finally wound its way up through a low pass with wooded hills, they’d randomly picked a spot a short distance off the road. Although they were seeing fewer people the farther they got from the city, they didn’t want to chance an encounter with someone in the dark.
“I found us a new friend,” Danny said as he sat down next to her.
“I wonder what his story is.” Sam reached out to let the dog take in his scent.
“Her,” Danny corrected. “Just a guess. What are you doing awake so early?” The sky to the east was showing the first signs of morning’s arrival so it couldn’t be later than four a.m..
“Couldn’t sleep. Come on, I have something to show you,” Sam answered.
His voice was a strange mix of doom and awe that Danny didn’t like. She’d had enough shock in the past day to last a lifetime, but she took his offered hand and he pulled her to her feet.
“How’s the arm?” Sam moved his hand to her forearm and led her back the way he had come, up a small grassy hill scattered with pine trees. Baby stayed close to Danny’s legs.
Danny shrugged, then realized Sam couldn’t see her. “I won’t lie, it hurts more than I thought it would, but this headache that won’t go away is bothering me more. At least I managed to get some sleep. The Ibuprofen in the first aid kit helped, but we’ve only got one dose left. Maybe we can—” she looked up as they crested the hill and stopped mid-sentence. They were looking north and, in the distance, low on the horizon, were the northern lights. Although the darkness was starting to recede from the sky, the undulating ribbons of violet and green-yellow were still visible.
“This shouldn’t be possible,” Sam said in a very teacher-ish, matter-of-fact kind of way.
Danny looked over at Sam and was relieved to finally be able to make out some of his features as dawn won out over the night. “You’re saying the northern lights have never been seen this far south?”
“No—I mean yes,” he said, flustered. “It’s been visible down here before, but to see it with the naked eye and this bright at daybreak? No,” he shook his head and released her arm to run his hands through his hair. “No, not like this.”
It was obvious that the presence of the lights was upsetting to Sam, which said a lot considering what they’d already been through, although Danny didn’t understand why. “Sam, I don’t know that much about the atmosphere and solar storm stuff. Can you tell me in layperson terms why this is so bad?”
Sam removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think this is even more proof it was a gamma ray, and it’s not good.”
Danny set a hand on the retriever’s head, already finding her a source of reassurance. “It’s caused some sort of magnetic storm?”
“Not so much caused it as allowed it through.”
Danny watched the dancing lights as she waited for Sam to continue. She’d seen the display before on a couple of rare occasions in Montana, except never like this. Even as the sun peeked over the hills to the east, the purple bands looked like they were reaching for the ground.
“Remember how I told you the beam could have destroyed some of the ozone layer?” Sam pointed out at the northern lights. “This is pretty much proof that it happened on a larger scale than I thought.”
The first beams of sunlight painted the tips of nearby trees and Danny turned toward it. Closing her eyes, she let it wash over her and found some peace in the knowledge that something hadn’t changed. The sun still rose, the dark of the night retreated, and with it the terrifying evidence the northern lights had to offer.
Her moment of meditation was interrupted by the sound of an explosion.
“Over there.” Sam was already gesturing to the northwest of their location.
Sure enough, a plume of orange was rising from beyond the hills, a large ball of fire that quickly dissipated to be replaced by a chimney of black smoke. “What’s over there?” Danny asked, her voice dulled by the experiences of the day before.
“A town called Farmington,” Sam answered without hesitating. When Danny raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. “I stared at the map for hours yesterday. Anyway, there’s a smaller highway that skirts most of the residential and downtown areas and follows these hills for another forty miles.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Danny said. Kneeling down next to Baby, she examined the dog in the growing light. She was definitely a golden retriever and a girl. Turning her tags over, she squinted to read them. “Grace.” Grace’s ears perked up and she tilted her head at Danny. “Welcome to our motley crew, Grace.” She kissed the dog’s nose before standing again. “What do you think that was?” The black smoke was underscored by the continuing plume of fire, still visible from their location several miles away.
“Maybe a gas line.”
“Natural gas?” Danny asked, her brows furrowed.
Sam nodded. “Without any way to regulate the flow or pressure, it makes sense that pipes will start rupturing. It happens in the best of times occasionally, so we’re about to see how weak parts of our infrastructure really are.”
Danny didn’t like the sound of that. Sam’s face was still streaked with black soot from the train fire and his clothes were ripped and soiled after their trek through the dozens of burnt-out vehicles. His lip was scabbed over and his glasses were permanently crooked. She imagined he looked good compared to her. One day. One day and they already looked like they’d been cast for roles in The Walking Dead. How much worse was it going to get? She thought about what other commodities they took for granted on a daily basis, and how they might be affected. A hazard response training seminar she attended as part of her hazmat tech training came to mind and her breath caught. “Isn’t the largest nuclear power plant in America in Arizona?”
Sam began walking back to where their bags were stacked. “I don’t know if it’s the biggest, but I think there’s one somewhere south of us.”
Danny tripped over a root and barely caught herself as she scrambled to catch up. “Won’t they melt down without power to keep the water flowing over the rods?”
Sam shrugged into his backpack before leveling Danny with an expression that was hard to read. “Sounds like you might know more about it than I do.”
“I attended a five-day hazmat training session at Hanford in Washington state a couple years ago. I have a very basic understanding about how they work. Enough to know that if they go without power for very long, really bad stuff happens.” Danny donned her own pack and fell into step beside Sam. They’d need to find some water soon.
Sam glanced at Danny and then at Grace who was happily trailing them, tongue lolling to the side of her mouth. “I think they automatically shut down when there’s a loss of power and they’re protected against any sort of explosion, but eventually, yeah…they’ll melt down. I have no clue how long that would take, or what sort of impact it would have.”
“Okay,” Danny said. “So, we keep focusing on what we do know and what we can control.”
Sam smiled. “Right. And I was serious about the bikes. We’ll be passing some small towns over the next fifty miles so keep an eye out for any potential sources.”
Danny thought about the nearly five hundred miles that lay ahead of them and didn’t laugh this time at the idea. “The northern lights. You think it means the power was knocked out everywhere?”
“Yes,” Sam answered without hesitation. “We’ve only seen a small part of a much bigger picture.”
“I can’t go to Helena,” Danny blurted. When Sam looked at her questioningly, she swallowed down her rising emotions and rubbed at her aching arm. “It’s my dad. He took early retirement a few years ago after he had a heart attack and moved to a tiny town about an hour from Helena. Said he want
ed to ‘live off the grid.’”
“Where’s your mom?”
“Hawaii,” Danny said quietly. “I haven’t seen her in years. She moved back after the divorce. It was where they first met. Grandpa was stationed there and stayed after he retired. Mom went to live with him. Anyway,” Danny continued, “my dad takes a couple of different meds for his heart. I usually bring him his refills when I visit every other weekend. He—”
Sam stopped her with a hand on her shoulder when Danny’s voice broke. “It’s okay. I’m in no rush to get to Helena. If my wife’s alive, the only way she’s going to travel the three thousand miles home is if power’s restored. So. Where are we going?”
Danny knelt down next to Grace and put an arm around the dog’s neck, appreciating both the irony and perfection of her name. “We’re going to Mercy.”
Chapter 14
PATTY
Mercy, Montana
The basement under Mercy City Hall had a dank and moldy smell to it. Even though there were no less than five scented candles burning around them, Patty still had to breathe through her mouth.
The two ancient diesel generators they’d stored down there were the only working sources of electricity in the whole city so far. Caleb figured it was because they didn’t have any computerized components, requiring manual pull-starts instead. As great as it was at first to hear them running, they would only last as long as their supply of diesel, which wasn’t much. One was allocated to the Mercy Corner Market and the other to the medical center. The one doctor in town was busy.
“Why don’t you go get some sleep?” Caleb rested a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve been down here all night with me and I’ve got hours’ worth of channels left to wade through.” The metal file cabinet had acted like a Faraday cage and protected the radio and battery, but so far, the other end had been nothing but static.
