by Eric Walters
“Well…the semi-bright side, really.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Not bad.” He always did seem to be able to look on the positive side of things.
I pulled up my phone. The screen was dark. I fiddled with it…
“My phone is dead!”
“No surprise there,” my mother said.
“She means because you use it so much,” my brother added helpfully.
I shot him a look. “Yeah, I get it. I can’t even charge it because there’s no power.”
“It sort of sucks being you, doesn’t it?”
“You can use the charger in the car,” my mother suggested.
“Then what are we waiting for?” I asked. “Let’s go camping.”
2
We went slowly down the stairwell. Dusty cement stairs meeting dusty landings dimly lit by the yellowy glow of the emergency lights. This was almost as unnerving as the parking garage—wait, would the emergency lights be working down there?
“Are all the flashlights in the car already?” I asked my mother.
“All of them except this one,” she said. A beam appeared, leading from my mother’s hand and down the next flight of stairs. Sometimes having an annoying organized mother had its benefits.
“I’m just glad we weren’t in the elevator when the power went off,” my brother said.
“I think we’re all glad about that,” I said.
“Mom, what would have happened if we’d been in there?” he asked.
“There’d be nothing to worry about. There’d be emergency lights in the elevator and—”
“If they were working,” I said, cutting her off.
“They would have been working,” she said. “As would the emergency call box. It would have been a short time until either the power came back on or they got us out.”
“The lights have been out almost fifteen minutes,” I said.
“And will probably be back soon,” she said.
We heard voices coming up the stairwell and then caught glimpses of light coming ahead of the voices. It was two or maybe three male voices, and I was happy that our mother was with us.
“Hello,” she called out cheerfully, and they answered back.
There were two of them wearing hard hats and vests. I recognized them as construction workers who were putting the finishing touches on the building.
“Do you know how long the outage is going to be?” my mother asked.
“No idea,” one of them answered.
“This one isn’t our doing,” the second added. “It’s more than just this building.”
“Do you know how far it’s spread?”
“The surrounding buildings for sure, and the traffic lights are out at the top of the street.”
“That must have snarled traffic,” she said.
“It’s basically gridlock out there.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go,” I suggested hopefully.
“It probably won’t be long,” one of them offered.
Great, now strangers were conspiring against me.
“It can’t be soon enough for the people stuck in that elevator,” the first guy said.
My brother gasped. “People are stuck in the elevator?”
“Two of them are in Elevator 3,” he answered.
Even in the dim light I could see my brother go pale, and I suddenly felt sorry for him.
“Look, that hardly ever happens,” I said, trying to make him less worried for his future elevator trips.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” the first worker said. “Between the power outages and getting the elevators running right, we’ve had a lot of people stuck.”
I pictured Ethan taking the stairs forever. That was funny and pathetic and sad.
“We’re just walking down. No elevators needed right now,” my mother said.
They started up, and we’d continued down a few steps when my mother stopped and called out, “Is the garage door to the underground parking open?”
“We manually opened it,” one of them said. “You’re good to go.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
Probably just as much as I didn’t appreciate it. I hadn’t even thought that no electricity might stop us from using the automatic doors and leaving. If we could have delayed a day we probably wouldn’t have had to go at all.
“Mom, do you think this is a good idea?” I asked as I trailed her and Ethan.
“I think it’s a great idea.”
“But with the power out and everything, and the traffic thing, wouldn’t it be better to just stay here until the problem is fixed?”
“I’m sure when we drive four blocks away it will all be fine.”
We reached P3, and I was relieved there were emergency lights working down there.
“That’s strange,” my mother said as we approached the car. “My clicker isn’t working.” She held up the remote. “The batteries shouldn’t be dead this soon.”
“All part of the power failure,” my brother said.
“Batteries,” I said, shaking my head.
“Joking,” he answered.
My mother used the key to manually open the driver’s door and then hit the door release button to open all the rest. My brother climbed into the passenger seat—as always. He got a bit motion sick so he needed to be up front. I really didn’t mind. In the back I didn’t have to talk. It would just be me and my phone and my distant friends. And that reminded me, I had to power it up. I reached over the seat and plugged my phone into the cord so it would start charging as soon as the car started. We were going to drive up, park, and then come back down for the canoe.
“Oh, that’s just great,” my mother said. She sounded angry.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked.
“It won’t start.”
She tried again, and there wasn’t even the sound of the car engine trying to turn over.
“The battery is completely drained. There’s no power at all.” She turned to my brother. “You didn’t leave the lights on when you started to load things this morning, did you?”
“I didn’t touch the lights.”
“But if you left the door open then the interior light would have been left on and—”
“The door was locked when we got here—you opened it yourself! And it was locked when we brought down the last load,” I said. “It’s not his fault.”
I think me defending him caused my brother to be more confused than pleased.
“I guess the only thing we can do is call the Auto Association and have it boosted.”
She started to rifle around in her purse for her phone.
“There’s no point. You can’t get phone reception down here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look who you’re arguing with,” my brother said. “Emma is the queen of cellphones.”
We all got out of the car and started to walk up the ramp leading to the next level. Up on P2 it was darker. Some of the emergency lights weren’t working, or they were so dim already that they were giving out more of a glow than actual light. Were they already running out of battery power?
“Excuse me!” a man called out, and I practically jumped out of my shoes.
He was standing by a car, with the hood up, holding booster cables.
“Do you think you could jump my car?” he asked.
“Sorry, but we have the same problem,” my mother answered.
“That’s a real coincidence,” he said. “You don’t think kids are doing something with the cars, do you?”
“Like stealing batteries?” she asked.
“I still have a battery,” he said, pointing under his hood. “I guess I’m just being a little paranoid.”
“We’re just going up to call for a tow truck. Maybe he can do two cars when he comes,” my mother suggested.
On the next level there was light coming from the open garage door. There was a nice breeze blowing, and the fresh, normal, above-ground, free-of-car-fu
mes-and-construction-dust air flowed down the ramp and into my lungs. It didn’t just smell wonderful, it almost tasted wonderful. I let out a big sigh of relief as we exited the garage and entered the world.
“Wow, look at the traffic jam!” Ethan exclaimed.
The cars on the street had come to a stop. Nothing was moving. It was bumper to bumper. I thought how there was no way a tow truck could get through this to help us. We circled around along the street toward the front door of our building.
“This must be bigger than I thought,” our mother said. “The power must be out and the lights down for a long way out from here.”
“Does this mean we’re not going camping?” I asked.
“This might mean that we’re not going camping.”
I tried not to smile too much. Being here wasn’t great but camping would be far worse.
“Why isn’t there any sound?” my brother asked.
“What do you mean?” my mother questioned.
“The cars aren’t running. I don’t hear the engines going.”
He was right.
“They might have turned their cars off to save gas,” my mother suggested.
“All of them?” I asked.
Many of the drivers were out of their vehicles and standing beside them. Some of the cars had been abandoned completely. Looking up and along the street I saw that there were half a dozen vehicles with their hoods up. Traffic lights being out wouldn’t cause people to look at their engines, and neither would a traffic jam. Something else was going on.
“My phone still isn’t working,” my mother said.
“No phones are working,” chipped in a man who was standing at the side of the road.
“None, or just cellphones?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried a landline. They might work.” He rushed off.
“What’s happening, Mom?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Let’s just get back up to our place.”
I wanted to get up there and off the streets. Whatever was happening here was getting stranger and stranger. And bigger and bigger.
3
We all stood at the window staring down at the cars below. My mother had got her binoculars out and we’d been able to see pretty far in three directions: east and west along Lakeshore Boulevard, and south toward the lake and the island airport. And as far as we could see it was the same everywhere—nothing was moving except for the people who had abandoned their vehicles. Actually, that wasn’t quite right. There were a couple of cars and trucks that were slowly weaving between the immobile vehicles that filled the streets. The ones that were moving seemed to be older—much older. Did that mean something? I’d have thought the newer cars would be the ones still running. And there were more and more people out there as well. The office towers and condos were emptying out in response to what was happening. Or I guess, actually, what wasn’t happening.
Out on the lake, white and red sails were still being pushed around by the strong winds, and there were also a few little motorboats making their way across the waters of the harbor. The big boat—the passenger ferry—that brought people back and forth from the city to the island was docked at the mainland terminal. Was it able to move?
I didn’t like much about this city but I did like the view from our condo. We were on the north side of Lakeshore Boulevard, looking practically right down onto the lake. We could see the whole inner harbor, out over the island, and across the lake until it disappeared at the horizon.
The island itself wasn’t that big—really it was three larger islands joined by little bridges, and then a bunch of little ones scattered in the lagoons. I could see the bigger ones quite clearly—green patches surrounded by blue. The view was beautiful, even today.
On Main Island—the biggest island, in the middle—was an amusement park. I’d heard there were rides for little kids, a petting zoo, places to picnic, flower gardens, a marina for pleasure boats, and open spaces to play. On the weekends we could see the lineups at the ferry docks of people waiting to be taken over. There were always lots of people, pushing strollers and pulling wagons full of the stuff they’d need, holding onto their bikes as they boarded. From what I’d been told, over on the island bikes were the only way to get around.
The island on the left was mainly woods, but on its far east side was a group of little houses or cottages, maybe a hundred or so. That’s where I found myself looking. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live out there, so close to the city but so far away. They’d clearly be able to see the city, and I guess even hear it, but they were living in their own little world, separated by a strip of blue.
The final island held a little airport. The planes were small—mostly private, I guessed—except for some bigger four-engine planes with some airline called Frontier. I could see the logo on their tails as they landed. Some of them came in so close and so low that I had to look down to see them as they passed our building. When my mother was on the night shift and trying to sleep during the day, the sound of the planes buzzing by woke her up. Wait…what about the planes?
“Have either of you noticed any airplanes?” I asked.
My mother gave a quizzical look. “I hadn’t thought to look…but I don’t think so. If there’s no electricity the control tower might be out of operation.”
“Don’t places like airports and hospitals have emergency generators in case of emergencies like this?” I asked.
“They do. At least, every hospital I’ve ever worked at did. I wonder how they’re doing with all of this.”
I had a terrible thought. “You’re not thinking of going there to check, are you?”
“They have lots of capable people. I think my place is here with you two.”
I almost let out an involuntary sigh of relief.
“Do you have any idea what’s happening?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve heard about the possibility of a…no…that’s just science fiction.”
“What’s science fiction?”
“Well, not science fiction, but not really science, either. It’s just that some people think that a massive solar flare could fry electronics.”
“So, no phones or electricity, but how would that affect cars?” I asked.
“A car is nothing but a rolling pile of electronics,” she said. “The military went to great expense to make sure their electronics are hard-shielded to avoid that.”
“But why would the military do that if they didn’t think it was a possibility?” I asked.
“I think they’re more worried about a concentrated electromagnetic pulse being used as a weapon against us.”
“Has that happened?” my brother asked. He sounded scared.
“Of course not. That really is science fiction. The government and the military spend money on all sorts of crazy possibilities. But I don’t believe that could really happen.”
“Then what did?”
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it will be taken care of. What we have to worry about is the fact that we have just a few hours until dark and we’d better get going,” she said.
“Going where?” I asked.
“Camping.”
“We can’t even get out of the parking garage.”
“We’re not going by car. We’re going by canoe. We’re going there,” she said, pointing across the lake to the island.
“We’re going to camp out there?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is that even allowed?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to object.”
“That’s crazy. We can’t go camping while all this is happening!”
“It might be the only thing we can do. Here in the condo we have no light except flashlights. We can’t cook, and we can’t get any water because the pumps aren’t working. Over there we can break out the propane stove and cook. We can use our lanterns to see, and we can take all the water we need from the lake a
nd use our water-purification system to make sure it’s safe. Doesn’t it make more sense to be there instead of here?”
It made too much sense for me to argue with her, no matter how much I wanted to.
“Look,” she said, “it’s only going to be for a day or two—”
“Do you really think it could take two days?” I questioned.
“Oh, less than that, I’m sure. It might be fixed before we even get the canoe to the lake. If that happens, we just strap it onto the car and go back to Plan A. Okay?”
I looked at my brother, and he looked at me.
“Okay, I guess it makes sense.”
—
My mother balanced the canoe on her shoulders. My brother had a pack and the paddles and two fishing rods. I was carrying a pack, and a bag holding the propane stove and the two lanterns. All three of us were wearing life jackets. I could feel sweat running down my back already.
We struggled across the road through the stalled cars. This was just eerie. People were standing by their vehicles, not able to drive them but still not wanting to leave them, and they all seemed to be staring at us. We did look pretty strange. A couple of people made comments about the canoe.
We passed over the paving-stone walking path and my mother put the canoe down on the pavement with a clunk. “Either it’s getting heavier or I’m getting older.”
“Nice canoe,” a man said. He looked normal enough, middle-aged, and he was wearing a suit and tie. I imagined that a few minutes before he’d been either up in one of those offices working or driving in his car.
“We like it,” I said.
“I imagine there isn’t room for a fourth person?” he asked.
“Sorry,” my mother said coldly.
“Thought I’d ask. I’ve got a long way to walk tonight so I’d better keep moving.”
He started walking away, and my mother gave us both a look. “Let’s get the canoe into the water quickly,” she said.
There was something about her voice, about this situation going on around us, that made me think getting on the lake would be a good idea. I helped her get the canoe into the water, then held it in place as my brother climbed in the middle and my mother put the packs on either side of him. I climbed into the bow next, and finally my mother got into the stern and pushed us away from the shore.
