“Any time now…” Madison said rather loudly, ignoring nearby customers and assuming the tone of her voice was justified by the current situation.
“The generator should kick on in a minute,” Lauren said. “I didn’t have a chance to see the western sky when I was outside—maybe there’s a storm coming in,” Lauren suggested.
“Um…I didn’t hear any thunder, Lolo,” Madison added.
“Good point.”
“Well, what else could’ve cause this?” Maddie asked.
“Really, Maddie? It could be anything. Maybe a drunk driver hit a damn electric pole or something,” Lauren retorted.
Madison began digging in her pockets. She pulled out her keys and her cellphone. “Got a flashlight?” she asked.
“Yeah. In my backpack that’s in my locker,” Lauren said.
“Well, that’s a good place for it,” Maddie snidely commented.
“Shut up. What is this, ‘give Lauren shit’ day? How the fuck was I supposed to know we’d have a power outage today?” Lauren inquired, slightly toning down as she could almost hear her dad’s voice in her head. He would be irritated with her as well right now, for not being prepared. He’d be reminding her of the importance of always keeping her EDC, or every day carry, on her person at all times.
Madison clicked the screen of her cellphone a few times and turned on the flashlight application, which enabled the camera flash LED as a flashlight. She had an older flip phone that predated the smartphone that Lauren had in her pocket by a few years. “Got it,” she said, feeling proud of herself that she had an answer to the darkness around them.
“My hero,” Lauren said sarcastically, even though she was happy that they at least had an option in the current situation.
As the two began shining the flashlight around, they heard a familiar voice walking through the store. It was Sally, the store director, and she was walking through the store with a bright flashlight and speaking loudly to all of the customers in the store, assuring them that it was a temporary situation and that the lights would be back on shortly, in spite of the fact that people were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the darkness. Sally walked the isles and after giving orders to a few other employees, eventually ended up walking directly up to the two girls. Her expression turned to one of slight irritation.
“Ladies, the two of you are needed up front. We have a line of customers trying to check out and they need paperwork done on their purchases so they can leave,” Sally said, shining the flashlight into Lauren and Madison’s eyes. “The POS system is down, so everything has to be done on paper.”
Lauren smirked and readied herself for a conflict. She absolutely hated running a register, and any other job associated with the front-end of the store. She had chosen a stockroom position because of her disdain for dealing directly with people. With many clashes with Sally under her belt, she was not a fan of her boss and had next to zero respect for her. “Sally, we were just on our way to my locker to get flashlights,” she said.
“We have flashlights up front, miss. Plus, the sun is shining through the front windows up there, so come on. Let’s go,” Sally demanded. “Now.”
“Have it your way,” Lauren said reluctantly. She made a face and Madison looked at her and shrugged in acceptance.
They both half-heartedly followed their manager to the front of the store where in fact, there was a long line of customers waiting to pay for their purchases, and the current situation was making them nervous, as well as unhappy. Maddie turned off her phone’s flashlight and put it back into her pocket, the sun shining through the front window providing adequate light for her to see. Lauren immediately noticed that all of the register screens were off. She peered over to the customer service desk and saw that the computer monitors were off as well. She began to notice, in the silence, that the battery backup UPSs that usually kept the registers and other computers in the building running during an outage were not beeping annoyingly, as they would have been doing ordinarily. Thinking this was especially strange, thoughts started coming together in her mind and she could feel her heart beginning to beat faster. She pulled her smartphone from her pocket and went to turn on the screen, noticing that it would not respond when she pressed the power button. She thumbed it several times with the same result.
“Dude, what the hell?” Lauren said. Sally, who was still standing close enough to hear Lauren’s expression, turned to her.
“Lauren, as I’ve asked you time and time again, please watch your mouth.”
“Sally, the UPSs aren’t beeping,” Lauren proposed. “My phone isn’t working either.”
“AND?” Sally retorted.
Lauren’s attitude, responding to Sally’s comeback, switched gears quickly and jumped beyond exasperation. She became indignant with her boss. This was not the first time it had happened. “Sally, the UPSs aren’t beeping. Meaning that this isn’t a typical power outage. It’s more than that,” Lauren interjected.
“Lauren, honestly, I don’t need your lip right now. We have a ton of work to do with the POS system down, so please assist the cashiers,” Sally said as she stomped off to her office.
Madison, who was beyond belief once again, that her best friend had been involved in another confrontation with her boss, looked at Lauren with cross eyes. “Lo, what the hell? Are you nuts? Do you want to get fired?”
Lauren took one final look at her smartphone before pushing it back into her pocket. She stepped toward her friend and pulled Madison’s cellphone from her front jeans pocket, flipping it open and thumbing the buttons. Madison lifted both of her arms with her hands outward, in an unknowing gesture.
“Why in the hell is your phone working?” Lauren asked rhetorically.
“Huh?” Madison enquired. “What do you mean?”
“I mean your phone works, dipshit.” Lauren held it up to Madison’s face. “It doesn’t have any service, but it works. What the hell?” Lauren exclaimed, again, not caring that customers were near her. Some of them turned to her only to look away seconds later. Most were beginning to check their own phones, most of which had screens that were as blank as Lauren’s.
“Maybe my phone is smarter than your smartphone,” Madison joked with a grin.
Lauren didn’t respond. She just kept looking around her, watching the actions of every single person who was gathered tightly in the front of the store. After a minute of silence from her friend, Madison was becoming increasingly paranoid. Her expression went from confusion to utter fear. She reached out and grabbed her phone from Lauren’s grasp. Looking at it, she noticed the screen worked and the phone reacted when she pressed buttons.
“Lo, level with me. Just what in the hell is going on?” Madison asked insistently.
Lauren shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. But we need to get out of here and go home,” Lauren replied.
“What? Are you serious? I…”
“Now, Maddie,” Lauren said with an extremely stern tone of voice.
“What about work? What about Sally?”
Lauren grabbed her best friend’s hand and started walking to the back of the store, literally dragging her behind. Madison allowed it, even though she was second guessing the entire situation and was unsure as to what to do. They neared the dark hallway that led to the break room and Madison pulled out her flip phone and turned on the LED light. With the way illuminated, Lauren pushed the door to the break room open and walked up to her locker as Madison’s light led the way. She began rolling the combination lock back and forth. Madison typed a phone number into her phone and hit the send button, putting the phone to her ear. The phone refused to connect and only remained silent. She tried again with the same result.
“Lo, what the hell is going on? I can’t call home,” Madison said.
Lauren opened her locker and pulled her backpack out. She grabbed a few individual personal items that were laying loose in her locker and stuffed them into her pack, then zipped the top pocket shut.
; “Try sending a text message. Dad says sometimes they’ll go through, even when you can’t make a call,” Lauren offered.
Madison began typing into her phone’s keypad tediously. After a moment, she sent the message that she had typed to her mother. Seconds later, an error message was displayed on her phone, saying the service was unavailable.
“No dice,” Madison said. “I literally have no connection. This is getting weirder by the minute.”
“I wish I knew the answer, but I honestly don’t know what to tell you. All I know is that when something like this happens, there is only one place to be.”
“What? Where’s that?” Maddie asked.
“Home,” Lauren said. “We just need to go home—and we need to get there as fast as we can.”
“Ok. Let’s go home then,” Maddie said, now sounding very satisfied with that answer.
Lauren slung her backpack and they left the break room. They walked to the front of the store, past their jeering co-workers, and out the front door, which they had to force open, since the automatic motors than ran on electricity were not working. Walking toward the lower front parking lot, Lauren pulled her keys from her pocket and pushed the unlock button on her car keyfob. She pushed it again and again, but the doors never unlocked. Lauren and Madison approached the car.
“Is your remote broken?” Madison asked.
“No. It worked fine this morning,” Lauren replied.
“Ok. First, the lights go out. Then, the generator doesn’t start. Then, the computers are dead and no one’s cellphone work except mine. Now, your keyfob isn’t working? What does all this mean?”
“It means we’re in deep shit, girl. You’re right—it’s like nothing electronic works anymore,” Lauren replied. “Except your cellphone, which is a little confusing.”
“Yeah. But it’s old. I don’t have service. But at least the light works,” Madison said.
Lauren pushed the unlock button on her keyfob several times before tossing her car keys onto the ground in disgust. “Dammit!” Lauren exclaimed. She then reached into her backpack and pulled out a Kershaw EMT folding knife. The knife had a tungsten glass breaking bezel point on the bottom. Lauren palmed the knife, and slammed the bottom against the driver’s side window. The window quickly spider webbed, and the safety glass reacted and quickly crumpled and soon fell into the driver’s seat and floorboard. Lauren reached inside and unlocked the car’s doors. She then opened the driver’s door and got inside, sitting on the now glass-covered seat. Madison reached down and grabbed the keys that were laying on the ground and handed them to her friend. Lauren placed them into the ignition and turned the key. Nothing happened. The car was dead.
Lauren began shouting a barrage of obscenities. She angrily punched the steering wheel repeatedly and Madison began to panic. She placed her hands on her head and had almost started to cry. The abnormality was beginning to really get to her and it showed.
“Lo, how are we going to get home? I’m getting scared.”
Lauren stepped out of the now lifeless car which was, up until recently, her favorite thing in the entire world. It marked the beginning of her independence. It was a level-up in her coming of age, a stepping stone to her eventually becoming an adult. “I guess we’re walking,” Lauren said. She stepped out of the car slowly. “It’s not that far. We can do it.”
Madison’s crying stopped almost as soon as it started when an idea hit her. “Can’t we just take some of the bicycles from the store?” she said.
Lauren looked at her friend and smiled. She walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk with her keys. Inside, she grabbed a few small bags of belongings and another medium-sized backpack. She pulled the backpack out and opened it, unshouldering the smaller pack she’d had on her back and began shoving items from the smaller pack into the bigger pack. She then rolled the smaller backpack tightly and stuffed it in the larger pack as well.
“How many backpacks do you have?” Madison asked.
“The one I keep in my locker is just for my every day carry items. I keep my GHB in my car,” Lauren answered as she adjusted the straps on her pack.
“Why do you call it that?”
“It’s a get-home backpack. It has everything in it that I need to get me home,” Lauren affirmed. “My dad made me start carrying one around when I got this car.”
“That makes me feel fucking stupid,” Madison offered somberly. “I have a purse. That’s about it. I think there’s a knife in there.”
“But you have it on you, right?”
“Yeah,” Madison replied.
“Then you’re ahead of most people in our situation,” Lauren said.
Madison looked around and noticed an exodus of people leaving the store. “And exactly what is our situation?” she asked.
Lauren slammed the trunk shut and shouldered her now full get-home backpack, which was little more than a typical nylon military 3-day pack with MOLLE webbing. “Fucked,” Lauren said. “I’d say at this point, completely fucked.”
Lauren pointed to the streets where cars had seemingly stopped in their tracks in the middle of the road, and passengers were outside of their vehicles, looking about in confusion. Many of them had their hoods up, toying around their vehicle’s engine compartment. Others were talking in groups, all were holding a cellphone of some sort, and it was more than obvious that everyone was confused. “Do you see that shit?” she asked her best friend.
“Yeah. I do. What in the hell is going on?” Maddie asked, trying to get a grip on what was happening, partially in an effort to convince her best friend that she wasn’t completely ignorant, and partly in an effort to convince herself. “It’s like the beginning of some bad movie.”
“Maddie, babe—haven’t you ever read any books about shit like this?” Lauren asked.
“Um, no. I read novels, mostly novels. Nothing like this ever happened in books I’ve read,” Madison said.
Lauren unshouldered her pack and placed it on the ground beside her now non-functioning car. She approached her best friend, who was looking low to the ground in front of her. She was shaking and seemed lost, rifling through the items in her purse. Lauren was scared too, but had learned skills that had helped her develop confidence over the years. She pulled the rolled up smaller backpack out of her GHB, and placed her hands on Madison’s shoulders.
“Maddie, we have to get home. It’s important. We can’t call our family and we can’t text them. We can’t communicate to them what’s going on or where we’re at. They don’t know if we are safe. Let’s just concentrate on getting home,” Lauren said confidently.
“Yeah. You’re right. Let’s go home,” Maddie agreed.
Lauren reached down and grabbed her backpack, slinging it over her shoulders. She then handed her smaller backpack, which was now empty, to her friend. Madison smiled and placed her purse and cellphone into the bag, zipped it up and shouldered it.
“Now. Let’s go inside and grab a couple of these bikes,” she said.
About the Author
C.A.Rudolph is a God-fearing Conservative who lives, works, eats, and occasionally sleeps in Northern Virginia. In his spare time he has been known to visit the gym, hike mountains, engage in the occasional QSO on the amateur bands, shoot guns, write books and short stories, enjoy an adult beverage or two, shoot pool, and spend time with his loving, very supportive, and very German wife, and amazing children. He can be found online on Facebook, Instagram, and via his website at www.carudolph.com
tons">share
What's Left of My World: A Story of a Family's Survival Page 33
