by Mark Lukens
An hour later the internet connection went out.
She drank a few glasses of wine to calm herself down. She got some flashlights and candles ready in case the electricity went out, and she filled the tub up in the guest bathroom like Tarik had told her to. She felt that sense of déjà vu again, like she was preparing for a hurricane.
She turned on the TV, but cable channels weren’t working properly, fading in and out. But she kept flipping through the channels anyway. She saw a lot of pre-recorded shows, audiences laughing at sit coms, detectives chasing criminals on cop shows, reality shows, dance and singing contests. She checked all of the news channels. CNN was covering riots in several cities including: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D. C. But there were riots in almost every major city. FOX News was focusing more on the military and National Guard being deployed to some of these cities. There were some breaking news reports on the major networks, but it was more about the riots than a plague. There were some interviews with security experts who said that martial law would be declared soon in several cities.
Kate curled up on the couch and watched the TV. She was sure these kinds of riots were going on in cities near her, in Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte. Even in smaller towns.
One of the twenty-four hour news stations (she couldn’t remember which one it was) reported that Congress had left Washington to be closer to their families and their constituents.
Yeah, right, Kate thought. They’re running for the hills. Maybe the government knew all about this plague, like Alex had said in her classroom earlier. Maybe they had already run for the hills a while ago, all of them protected while the peons breathed in the infected air.
A sudden anger washed over her and for just a second she felt like throwing her wine glass at the TV.
But she didn’t.
She shivered in her home. She’d always been alone, and she had always liked being alone. This was the first time she had ever been scared while being alone. The world seemed to be falling apart outside, and here she was huddled around some candles and a glass of wine, scared the electricity was going to go out, worrying about crazed lunatics breaking their way into her house. All she had was the kitchen knives and the baseball bat the bear of a man had given her in the supermarket parking lot.
The news channel she’d been watching was interrupted by a speech from the President of the United States. There hadn’t been the words Breaking News flashing across the screen; there hadn’t been a news anchor letting the viewers know that the president would be addressing the nation in mere moments. The news show had just become a still shot of the president’s podium with the White House logo on a blue curtain in the background with two American flags drooping on poles. The podium had the presidential seal on it. A few seconds later the president walked to the podium with a sheet of paper in his hand. He laid the paper on the podium, glancing down at it for a moment before speaking.
Kate noticed that there didn’t seem to be any reporters there, no flashbulbs from cameras, no shouted questions, no one else even in the shot besides the president.
“My fellow Americans,” the president began.
Kate listened to the president’s speech, glued to the couch for the few minutes that it took. Terrorists? Was he saying that we’d been attacked by terrorists? He hadn’t said anything about the plague, so maybe the plague was just some kind of rumor.
But something had happened. We’d been attacked in some way. Cyber-attacks? Bombs somewhere?
After the president was finished, the video started over. It was a recording, and it was playing again.
The president had advised staying in your home, waiting until the authorities reached out. Kate felt a sense of dread, but also a sense of relief. Maybe the government was doing something about this, working on solutions. It might just take a few days.
She switched the channels. The president was on every channel, the same message on every channel. She listened to his speech a few more times. There was nothing else on TV. It was like all of the channels had been shut down.
Tiring of listening to the same speech again, Kate muted the sound with the remote control and tried to call her mother’s number again. Nothing. She tried her sister and her brother’s numbers again. Nothing.
Maybe it was her phone.
She called Tarik, but that phone call didn’t go through, either. She called Rita next. And Rita answered on the second ring.
“Kate.”
“Rita. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. What about you?”
“I’m okay. I got home.” She thought about telling Rita about her harrowing trip to the supermarket, but decided against it.
“Did you see the president’s speech?” Rita asked.
“Yes, I saw it.”
“Martial law. Terrorist attacks.”
“But he didn’t say anything about an airborne disease,” Kate said.
“Marty’s friend said it’s true.”
“It could just be rumors,” Kate said, and she hoped it was true. She hoped with every fiber of her being that there really wasn’t a disease out there turning people into raging lunatics, into murderous rippers. She rationalized that the rumors had been fueled by stories on the dark web, and that the people she’d seen in the supermarket parking lot and on the side road with the knife had just been crazy people, men who had snapped or were drugged out of their minds. It wasn’t impossible to believe that.
“It’s not,” Rita said with a matter-of-factness that scared Kate. “We’re leaving the city.”
“Where are you going?”
“West. Into the mountains. Away from here. Marty thinks there are more terrorist attacks coming and he wants to be away from any populated areas.”
“What about martial law? A curfew?”
“Fuck their martial law,” Rita said.
Rita’s strong language shocked Kate—Rita didn’t normally talk like this.
“Sorry,” Rita muttered, breathing heavily into the phone. “Doesn’t your family live in the mountains?”
“Yes.”
“You . . . go . . . there.”
“Rita, you’re breaking up.”
“. . . try to . . .” And then there was just a hiss of static on the phone.
“Rita? Rita, are you still there?”
The phone went silent.
Kate looked at her phone. It was still working, but there was no service. She tried Rita’s number again. It didn’t go through. Nothing. She tried some other numbers, but nothing on the phone was working now.
She plugged her phone into the charger on the kitchen counter, not even sure why she was bothering. It seemed like the cell phone service had gone out just like the internet, just like the cable.
Rita and Marty were leaving. Kate wondered if she should do the same.
She stood in the kitchen, listening to the silence, the only sound was the heat blowing out softly through the vents in the ceiling. Now that she concentrated on the silence, she heard faint noises from outside: a distant booming noise, like an explosion, the faintest sound of sirens. But nothing close, nothing near her house.
She needed to do something. She put on some water for a cup of tea and then went to her bedroom. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had her suitcase open on her bed. She went into her bathroom and collected a few things on the counter: travel-size shampoo bottles, toothpaste, her extra toothbrush still unopened in its packaging.
Then she stopped.
“What am I doing?” she whispered to herself.
She left her bedroom, the empty suitcase still on the bed. She went back to the kitchen and made the cup of tea. Maybe tea would help. She thought the wine would calm her down, but it hadn’t done the trick. Maybe tea would work, or maybe another glass of wine.
Tea first. She sipped the cup of tea as she walked back into the living room. The nervous energy was buzzing inside of her again and she felt like she needed to burn it off somehow. Usually s
he’d go for a run, either around the neighborhood or on the treadmill in the garage.
As soon as she set the cup of tea down on the coffee table, the electricity went out.
CHAPTER 7
Kate stifled a scream when the house went dark. She hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten outside and how many lights she’d had on. She made herself calm down, made herself exhale a slow breath, then inhale another deep breath.
She needed to think rationally. She needed to stay calm.
She’d known this was going to happen. The other utilities and services had gone out already: the internet, the cell phone, the cable. It only made sense that the electricity and water would be next. She was glad she had followed Tarik’s advice and filled up the tub in her guest bathroom.
Feeling her way in the dark back to her kitchen, she found the candles and the lighter she’d left on the countertop. Her eyes were already beginning to adjust a little to the darkness, enough to make out darker shapes in her house, but she still wanted to light a candle.
The light from the candle pushed back the darkness a little, but kept the rest of the living room beyond the kitchen hidden in shadows.
How long was the power going to be out? All night? For a few days? Until the authorities reached out to people, like the president had promised?
She couldn’t let herself panic. She needed to stay calm. She was a scientist and scientists thought about things rationally.
Another candle. That’s what she needed. She lit another candle and brought it into the living room, setting it down next to her cup of tea and the useless remote control for the TV. The two candles put out a surprising amount of light, but the corners of the large rooms were still hidden in flickering shadows, and the entrance to the hallway that led to the bedrooms was a black hole of darkness.
She wanted to see if the other houses in her neighborhood had lost power. She was sure they had, but the urge to check was overwhelming, something to be crossed off the list. But the door to the garage was taped up, lengths of duct tape all around the edges of it.
The conversation with Rita came back to her. Rita and Marty were leaving, heading for the hills.
Should she leave, too?
She thought about the empty suitcase waiting on her bed and her collection of bathroom stuff on the counter next to the sink.
Should she pack up tonight and go to her mom and dad’s house?
She could imagine her family gathered in her mom’s living room with dozens of candles burning. Her dad and brother and sister would be there. A few of her cousins, her Uncle Don and her Aunt Jane. They would be in good spirits even with all the bad news, their faith comforting them. They would probably try to even make light of things, telling jokes, making each other laugh. But eventually things would turn serious; jokes would give way to portents of doom, the End of Days that they’d been warning about finally at hand. Perhaps they would read from scripture and sing hymns.
Those were the kinds of things she had run away from, and now she was considering returning to them.
An alarming thought (yet also a somewhat comforting thought if she was being honest with herself) came to her. What if her father was coming to get her? She could see that happening. She could see her father getting into his old pickup truck parked in front of their home, the engine already running, the parking lights on, a few bags of supplies Mom had packed for him, food and water for the road. Dad’s shotgun would be there too, on the gun rack in the back window, right above his hunting rifle.
Mom would grab her father’s arm just before he got into his truck, her hand clenching the sleeve of his jean jacket. His face would be stern, still lean after all these years but beginning to get slightly jowly. But his eyes are still sharp, like dark gem stones reflecting from under water.
“Be careful, Jay,” Mom would say. “But you go get our daughter. You bring her back to us.”
Her dad would nod, his mouth a determined line, his brow furrowed as his thoughts were already on his mission to drive across the state.
Kate snapped awake, realizing that she had dozed off for just a minute on the couch, seeing her father preparing to leave in the dream. It had seemed so real, like some kind of prophetic vision.
She sat up straighter on the couch, staring down at the flickering candle. Her throat was dry. She took a sip of her tea, surprised to find that it was cold.
Yes, she was sure her father would come for her. He was probably already on his way. Even though she and her parents had had their differences over the years, they still loved each other in a fundamental way, and her dad would drive through the darkness to get his Katie.
She felt a little better, and she finished off the rest of her tea. She got up and grabbed the flashlight from the counter. She used the flashlight to guide her way back to her bedroom. She didn’t want to sleep in her bedroom for some reason. She took the empty suitcase off of her bed and set it down on the floor. She took her blanket and brought it back to the couch in the living room. She got a bottle of water and blew out the candle in the kitchen. She brought the water and the flashlight back to the couch. And the last thing she brought to the couch was the aluminum baseball bat and a kitchen knife—some form of protection. Even if rippers weren’t real, there were still some crazy people out there right now, looters and criminals who would take advantage of the blackout.
It was so quiet now. She wished the TV still worked so she could have some background noise. She probably had a battery-powered radio somewhere, but she didn’t feel like searching for it.
She stretched out on the couch under the blanket. It was still somewhat warm in her house, but she figured it would be cold by morning. She lay there, imagining the police and military rounding up the looters and restoring order to the land. She imagined scientists and doctors working around the clock on medications and treatments, if there really was a disease. She believed in science. She believed in law and order. Humans weren’t animals, they were above that, and science and technology would find a way. All she needed to do was follow the instructions the president had given, stay inside and wait for the local authorities to contact her. They would tell her what to do.
Yes, that’s what she would do. She wouldn’t panic; she would be a good citizen and wait until order was eventually restored.
And if her dad came to get her . . . well, then she would figure out what to do about it when he got there. She snuggled under the blanket a little more, suddenly tired, her eyes closing.
CHAPTER 8
Kate woke up in pitch-black darkness. She sat bolt-upright on the couch, the blanket slipping off of her. The house was cold and dark, the candle on the coffee table out. She wore only a T-shirt, a pair of pajama bottoms, and thick socks. She rubbed her bare arms for a moment, still a little groggy.
She’d been dreaming. Only bits and pieces of the dream were coming back. A man stood in the shadows of the dream, watching her. He was an evil man. A scary man.
She didn’t want to remember the dream and focused instead on the darkness and silence all around her. She was cold. She needed to get a sweatshirt or long-sleeved shirt from her bedroom, something to cover the goose pimples on her arms. She shivered as she sat there, suddenly creeped out. She’d never been afraid of the dark; she had always been able to sleep alone in her dark bedroom, rationalizing any fears away.
But right now she was scared.
It’s just the nightmare, that’s all.
But she couldn’t help feeling like someone was inside her house, watching her.
No. You’re just scaring yourself. If someone was in the house, you would have heard them.
But something had woken her up. She was a pretty light sleeper, and she was sure that something had roused her from sleep. Maybe a noise.
She thought back to earlier in the day, and the things she had seen. She thought of the man she’d seen in the car parked in the middle of the intersection. She’d had to drive around him, watching him as he leaned out of his open
window, yelling out a string of gibberish, words that didn’t go together. His eyes had been both vacant and murderous at the same time, a savage insanity lighting them up. It was the same look the man in the supermarket had, the one who had attacked her, grabbing her arms. And the same look the man wielding the knife had had—the one who had tried to stab at her window before she drove away.
Had all three of those men really been infected? She’d been able to trick herself into believing they weren’t rippers earlier, that they were just drugged up or insane, but here in the darkness, her worst fears didn’t just seem possible, they seemed certain. There didn’t seem to be any denying their existence right now here in the dark. Thinking rationally meant exploring possibilities and probabilities; it was a scientist’s job. This wasn’t the bogeyman she was talking about or some other mythical creature; these rippers were real, and there was always a possibility that one or more of them could be right outside her home. She had no security system now that the electricity was out. If one of them had torn the screen and broken a window in one of the bedrooms, tore the plastic and tape away, would she have heard them while she was sleeping? It was a big house.
What if one of those rippers had gotten inside? Or more than one? She could see them hiding in the darkness of her home, like jungle cats eyeing their prey, ready to pounce, creeping closer.
Stop it, she told herself. There’s no one inside the house!
It was getting to her too much. She needed some light right now. She thought about relighting the candle on the coffee table, but she was pretty sure she’d left the lighter on the kitchen counter next to the other candle. But she had the flashlight somewhere on the coffee table—she would use it to go get the lighter.
Feeling along the coffee table, her hand bumped into the candle, then her empty tea cup. The flashlight couldn’t be too far away. But she hadn’t found it yet. She felt along the edges of the long coffee table, her fingers moving slowly along the grooves in the decorative wood, the edges of the glass panels in the top of the table. She’d felt all along the top of the table now and the flashlight wasn’t there.
