by Al Macy
1. Infants, kids, elderly—find. Register?
2. Get some muscle—Mike?
3. Announcement—Radio? Phone tree? Emergency broadcast system?
4. Get help from state police
5. Check out hospital—make sure someone is in charge
6. Power okay?
She picked up the phone and called her grandson’s house. Her great grandson, Mike, answered the phone.
“Mike, this is Nana—is everything okay over there?”
“No, Mom’s dead!” He started sobbing. Mike was a high school senior. He was about as sharp as a sack of wet mice but had a good disposition, was popular, and did what he was told. Marie called him because he was into bodybuilding, and it showed. He was also six-foot-five and the star of the football team. What he lacked in intelligence, he made up for in grace under pressure. Two years ago he’d saved the life of a child who had fallen through the ice. He’d acted fast while others hesitated. He dove in, found her under the ice, and pulled her out. Of course, he almost killed himself in the process.
“I’m sorry, dear. Mike, I know this is tough for you, but I need your help with the police department. I’m the sheriff now, and …”
“What are you talking about? What about Sheriff Roberts?”
“Sheriff Roberts is dead. A lot of people are dead. Mike, I don’t have much time. Can you help me?”
“Yes, I can, Nana.”
“I need you to come on patrol with me.”
“You mean like the prize patrol?”
Marie frowned. Had she made a bad choice? “No, ah, more like being a deputy. Get your sturdy boots and wait for me. I’m not sure when I’ll get there, but stay put. Can you do that?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Okay, thank you, Mike. I love you.”
Marie was looking for the phone book when the mayor of Lipton burst in.
Harold Myer was a small, nervous man who looked like Woody Allen on a bad day. “Marie, what the hell are you doing?”
“Good morning, Harold. Right now I’m being the sheriff.”
“What are you talking about, where’s John? You can’t be sheriff, you’re just a senior citizen patroller.”
“Sheriff Roberts is dead. So are both of the deputies.”
“Don’t you know what’s going on? Almost everyone in the country is dead, and the rest may be dead soon.”
“Yes, Harold. Please sit down.”
“This is literally going to be the end of the world. We’ll have lawlessness, the power will go down, food won’t be distributed, and if there are any fires, the fire departments won’t come.” Harold was a house painter and part-time mayor.
His last name, Myer, was probably what got him elected. Folks had looked forward to the fun of calling him “Mayor Myer.” His campaign slogan was “Mayor Harry Myer—Say it Three Times Fast!” As expected, he was a pretty lousy mayor and often turned the council meetings into shouting matches.
Marie held her hand out. “Hold on. It may not be that bad, but in any case, let’s just take things one at a time and act locally. We have good people in this town. And if we—”
Claire burst in to the office. “The phones are down.”
Harold pointed with a hand adorned with flecks of all-weather paint. “See what I mean? We need to get some real police here, right away.”
“I’m working on that, but for now, I seem to be it, and I’m going to do my job.”
“When the power goes out, the food is going to spoil—”
“Harold, shut up!” Both Claire and the mayor dropped their jaws, surprised at the strength of her command voice. Marie would need to think of something to keep Harold busy. Something he couldn’t screw up too much. “Claire—”
They all stopped when they heard the grating emergency alert system tone on the radio. Marie turned it up.
The tone stopped and President Hallstrom came on the air.
“My fellow Americans, we have experienced a terrible, tragic day. But that day has passed, and we must now resolve to move forward. We can, and will, persevere without fear. Without panic. Let us honor the memories of those we have lost by reacting to this crisis with steadfast courage and unselfish unity.”
Hallstrom went on to explain that although many had died, the crisis would be solved by redistributing workers and other resources.
He announced his upcoming news conference and ended by saying “Be assured that if everyone stays calm, we can reduce further disruptions and loss of life. Let history show that we confronted this, the world’s greatest crisis, with integrity and bravery.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
June 11, 2018
When he’d heard the news, late on June 10, that most of the population was dying and that death could be postponed—prevented maybe?—by staying awake, Louis Corby had looked up to the ceiling and said “Thank you, Jesus.” An overburdened police department and a skyrocketing demand for meth was an unimaginable gift from the Lord.
He’d called an emergency meeting of everyone in his company. His drug business was administered from an elementary school building purchased from the county. The auditorium still sported basketball banners and motivational posters made by sixth graders. One had a crayon drawing of Earth, with colorful lettering. “Don’t Let Drugs Ruin Your World!”
Fifty anxious faces studied Louis as he came out on the stage. Like all his meetings, this one was part revival service and part Fortune 500 stockholder meeting.
Louis scanned the room. “My children, the Lord has given to us on this day, a task and a challenge. We have little time. Let us give fifteen seconds of silent prayer to acknowledge this wonderful gift.” Everyone bowed their heads. Louis watched them. A full minute of prayer would have been an intolerable waste of human resources. After the prayer, he continued. “Our first order of business is to eliminate production bottlenecks.”
This was met with a scattering of “Amen” and “Thank you, Louis” responses. His employees went along with the fundamentalist shtick, since his was the most profitable of all the drug gangs and had the best benefits.
“Next, we are shifting all production to tablets. Tablets, tablets, tablets.” Louis did a few manic jumping jacks—one for each instance of the word “tablets,” then he crouched down and walked across the stage like Groucho Marx. “Customers who have never used drugs before are not going to be willing to snort or inject, but anyone can take a tablet.” He stopped and stood tall. “Anyone! Can I have an amen?”
“Amen!” All responded in unison.
Louis nodded, moving his chin high in the air and then all the way down to his chest. “I want a new name for these tablets, something to deflect the drug image and emphasize the ability to keep the user awake. We don’t have time for focus groups today. Call out your suggestions.” He leaned so far out over the edge of the stage that he almost fell and held his hand behind his ear. “Now, now, now. Let’s hear them.”
The crowd offered up “Stay Awake,” “Life Pills,” “Stayin’ Alive,” “No Die,” and “Die-Not.” The marketing VP pointed out that “Stay Awake,” was already trademarked by the Win-Rite drug store chain, as if that mattered.
Louis stumbled off the stage but jumped right back up again. “Okay, ‘Die-Not’ it is. Can we stamp that on the pills, ‘die’ on one side and ‘not’ on the other? No, not enough time? Okay, just make them bright red. No, no, Day-glo orange. Okay, next. No, no, wait, red on one side, orange on the other. Okay. Next is police disruption. Manny, you’re in charge of that. Your name is now Manny Mayhem. I want explosions and I want fires, and can we put LSD in the water supply? Doc, look into that. Hit the power stations first. Got it? I’ll come with you. Tom, go call 911 from pay phones. Make each call sound different. Report fires, murders, snipers, anything else?”
“Looters!” someone yelled from the crowd.
“Yes, good. Looters.” Louis applauded violently, and the crowd joined in. He stopped and held his hands up, and the applause stopped. H
e put his hand next to his mouth and stage-whispered, “But do that only for stores south of route 40, and we’ll loot to the north.”
Louis went back to shouting. “Got it, Larry? You’re in charge of looting. Larry the Looter. Looter Larry. I’ll get to that next. Okay. Wait. Tom? Tom, what are you doing here? Go make those calls. Go, go, go. Next, everyone stays awake. Even if you haven’t used our product before, help yourselves. Meet with The Doc to choose an optimum dosage. Can I have an amen?”
“Amen.” The group showed more smiles and energy. They were certainly beginning to see how this situation would benefit them.
“Where was I? Ah, looting. Larry the Looter, you’re in charge here. I want systematic looting of drug stores for pseudophedrine and all the other drugs we usually use smurfs for. Check with production to find out exactly what they need. Plus, we’re branching out to other stay-awake drugs, so loot the hospitals for narcolepsy drugs like Modafinil and Ritalin and anything else people might want. Check with me or The Doc for a list.”
A mousy woman named Beth raised her hand and shouted. “But all looters will be shot.”
“Right. Beth, Beth. That’s not a problem, Beth.” He shook his head sadly and addressed the whole crowd. “Beth says that looters will be shot. Let me tell you, that’s not a problem. Here’s why.” He held one arm up with his index finger pointing to the ceiling. “One, there aren’t enough police to go around. That’s true now, and soon it will be truer than ever.”
He put his other arm up, two fingers extended. “Two, you’re going to have guns. They won’t expect that. Your guns are the best money can buy. The police have guns that are the cheapest money can buy.”
He waved both arms around above his head, as if warding off insects. “And three, and this is the biggest reason, you don’t care.” He made an exaggerated shrug, held his hands out, and shook his head. “There’s an eighty-five percent chance that you’re going to die anyway”—Louis tilted the odds in his favor—“so you’re just changing the odds a little bit, right? But think of all the money you’ll have if you don’t die. You know I’m not in this for the money. The money goes to you. The Lord will share the bounty with you through our profit-sharing plan. You, you, you. Think about how much money you’re making now then multiply that by ten. If you wake up alive, you’ll never have to work another day in your life. Amen!”
“Amen!”
“The next few hours are critical. We want to come out on top. Praise the Lord!” said Louis.
“Praise the Lord!” replied the crowd.
“Meeting adjourned,” said Louis.
“Amen!” said the crowd.
The company well-organized, and everyone rushed off to complete their tasks. Louis went with Manny Mayhem, loaded some explosives and firebombs into the company Hummer and headed off to Consolidated Electric’s Sioux power plant. Traffic was lighter than ever, and they got there in only thirty minutes.
They set charges at the base of a huge transmission tower. They targeted two of the tower’s four supports, figuring that was the best way to make it topple. What they lacked in demolition smarts, they made up for in excess explosive power.
As they drove away, Manny slapped the dashboard. “Oh, man, that was a waste, it’s not going to work.” His kinky blonde hair looked like some kind of a kitchen scrubbie, and he had the pale complexion of someone raised in a dungeon.
“What do you mean?”
“Even if this plant is destroyed, I think the other plants will just take over. We’re thinking old technology. We need to hack into the power telecom system. We can do a lot more damage that way.” Manny pulled out his phone.
“How do you know about that?” Louis asked.
“I’ve been hanging out with Tom Burkhart.” Manny apparently had Burkhart on speed dial and was already waiting for him to answer.
“Our distributor?” asked Louis.
“He’s also a user and he works for Consolidated Electric. He was telling me how he could bring the company to its knees any time he wanted. If he’s alive we could have him—” Into his cell phone, Manny said, “Tom? … Can you get him. Is he alive? … Okay.”
Manny turned to Louis. “He’s alive, I know he can—Tom? … This is Manny. How’d you like free meth for the rest of your life?”
Manny winked at Louis. Into the phone, he said, “Can you hack into Consolidated Electric’s telecom system and shut down the power? … Right … No, this whole place is about to go to Hell. You’ll be in the clear … Tom, if Kansas City’s power goes out today we’ll supply you with free meth for as long as you live and give you ten thousand dollars right away. Just a sec.”
Manny looked at Louis who nodded. Manny switched the phone to the other ear. “Yeah, ten thousand right away. If the power goes out and stays out, I’ll send someone to your house with ten big ones and twenty grams of product … Yeah, you got my word. Yeah, right now … Okay … No, you da man, Tom.”
Manny flipped his cell phone closed and put it in his pocket. “Now we’re working smarter.”
They heard a dull thud from behind them, where they’d set the charges, and pulled the Hummer over by a gas station. The lights in the station flickered off then right on again.
Manny shook his head. “See? It didn’t work.”
“I guess it’s up to Burkhardt now,” said Louis. “Drop me off at his house. I want to give him a little extra motivation.”
* * *
Louis Corby entered Burkhart’s house and followed him single file over to his desk. It had to be single file, because piles of boxes, clothes, and inexplicably, rolls of toilet paper filled the rooms, with the dirty carpet showing only in paths. Louis looked around. People really live like this? Instead of an organized high-tech man-cave Burkhart lead him to a cheap laptop sitting precariously on a stack of papers.
But what Burkhart lacked in equipment, he made up for in password knowledge. Consolidated Electric had unwisely provided him with its top passwords just a week ago.
“Well?” Louis asked, still gazing around at the scary evidence of a hoarding disorder.
“It’s, ah, it’s going good.” Sitting down at the desk, Burkhart looked first over his shoulder to Louis then back to the screen. “I’m already in the system and ready to eff it up.” Burkhart was as skinny as a Buddhist monk on a low-carb diet. He wore a pair of dirty pajama-jeans and a tie-die wife-beater top.
“Eff it up?”
“You know, screw it up.”
“Okay, do it,” Louis crossed his arms and tapped his right hand on his left elbow.
“Let me explain what I’m going to do.”
“No, just do it.”
“Wait, I’ve got this clever idea that’s going to really screw things up for a long time,” said Burkhart.
“Okay, tell me quickly then do it.”
“Right. We have substations that have a lot of electrical current going through them. They have breakers.”
“You mean like the circuit breakers at a house?”
Burkhart laughed. “Yeah, but much bigger. Like as big as a pickup truck. Now, if you were to just open a big switch it wouldn’t work, because there’s too much current.”
“What do you mean it wouldn’t work?”
“The electricity would arc across the opening, right through the air like lightning.” He looked at Louis. “So instead, you have one of these huge circuit breakers that’s filled with oil. Okay?”
Louis nodded and rolled his hand. Get on with it!
“Okay, but these special breakers are surrounded on each side with regular old switches. If you need to work on a breaker, you open the oil-filled breaker first, so that the current is shut off, then open the switches. Everything’s cool as long as you do it in that order.”
Louis understood. “Got it. You’re going to open the regular old switches first. Do it now.”
“Okay. I’ve got everything set up and now when I hit the enter key, all of the switches in all of the substations will be op
ened. The switches, not the breakers. Okay, here we go. Ten … Nine …”
Louis reached around him and hit the enter key. Within seconds, the lights flickered, and the power went off then on then off again.
Burkhart was up in a flash. “Follow me.” He sprinted to the front door not even bothering to stay in the cleared paths. He fell down once, slipping on a pile of newspapers and sending some toilet paper flying. Louis shook his head and followed.
Outside, Burkhart clambered up a ladder that he’d pre-positioned. Louis followed and found Burkhart on the flat roof, alternately clapping and pointing. Several blocks away, searing white arcs of electricity snaked around between the different metal components at an electrical substation. Buzzing filled the air. Black smoke rose from the arcing. After two minutes, an explosion, one they saw before they heard, rocked the substation with an orange fireball the size of a house.
Louis turned to Burkhart. “Praise the Lord!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When the EAS message ended, Marie Keller switched off the radio and turned to Claire. “Okay, there isn’t much for you to do here with the phones out, but people will probably start coming to the station for answers. Tell them to keep calm. Explain that we can get through this, and have them listen to the radio for further information. Claire—”
The phones started ringing again. Good.
Marie said. “Claire, how do you know that the sheriff is dead?”
“His wife called.”
“Okay. Are you all set here?” She put her hand on Claire’s arm, and Claire nodded. “Harold, you come with me, and we’ll talk in the car.”
Marie pulled the deputy uniforms out of the lockers and she and Harold got into the SCOP cruiser. They drove over to Sheriff Roberts’ house, only five blocks away. His wife, Olive, stood on the porch, seemingly unaware they had arrived. Marie got out of the car, went to her, and gave her a long hug.
