Four
Lisa Henley rarely got the opportunity to spend a school night at Stacy’s house, but she loved that she could sleep in a half hour later there than she could at home. Instead of a 20-minute early morning ride into town with her brother, school was just a short walk down the street from where Stacy lived. What was even better was that Stacy’s mom worked nights at the hospital in Hattiesburg, so the two girls could get away with staying up as late as they wanted. Jason was supposed to make sure they went to bed at a decent hour, but he didn’t really care. He had spent the evening shut in his room with his electric guitar, the amp blasting as loud as Stacy would tolerate without beating on his door and screaming. Mitch could be obnoxious too, but Lisa was glad he preferred to go off hunting in the woods instead of making racket at home like Stacy’s older brother.
Even though they had to put up with Jason, it was great fun for Lisa to get a break from her routine and spend the night hanging out with Stacy. They stayed up until nearly 2 a.m., talking and watching TV shows her mom and dad would never allow her to see at home. Both of them were up in time to get ready for school though, and even Jason finally emerged after Stacy’s relentless efforts to wake him.
“I wish I could just stay here the rest of the week,” Lisa told Stacy, as they sat at the table with their bowls of cereal.
“I don’t see why you can’t. Your mom and dad won’t be back until Friday. Why do they want you to go back home with Mitch after school today anyway?”
“So I can do my stupid chores. They said it wasn’t fair to Mitch to have to do them all every day they’re gone, especially since he had to drive them to New Orleans.”
“Yeah, like that was a chore! He gets to spend half the day driving your dad’s brand new truck and skipping school at the same time.”
“I know. I just wish I had my license. If I did, I could have driven them there, and I would have spent the rest of the day hanging out in New Orleans. Mitch hates the city though. He’ll drive straight back as fast as he can just so he can go hunting the rest of the day.”
“I don’t get it. He can hunt any time. Doesn’t he want to do something different once in a while?”
“No, not Mitch. He’s just boring like that.”
“If he can get back here in time to hunt, he could make it to most of his classes too.”
“Yeah, like he cares about that. Mitch would have already quit school if Mom and Dad would let him. You know that.”
“Has Mom called this morning?” Jason asked as he came in the kitchen to get his breakfast, his hair still wet from the shower.
“No, but she ought to be here any minute now. It’s almost a quarter ’til eight.”
“I hope so. I need to borrow ten bucks from her. Mr. Calloway is going to Hattiesburg after music class today and he said he would pick up a set of strings for me if I gave him the money.”
“Mom’s gonna say you don’t need them. Why do you need them? The ones you’ve got sounded like they were working last night.”
“They’re dead, that’s why. Bending the notes playing lead wears them out.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Stacy wasn’t impressed with her brother’s playing, and after hearing his latest efforts last night, Lisa could see why. It was the same old Led Zeppelin song over and over for what must have been hours, never quite right, but loud enough that there was no escaping it in the small wood-frame house.
Five more minutes passed by the time they were done with breakfast and Stacy’s mom still wasn’t home. There wasn’t enough time to wait any longer since it appeared they were going to have to walk to school, so Jason locked the house, grumbling about not having the extra ten bucks he needed.
“I can loan it to you,” Lisa said. “But you’re going to have to pay me back tomorrow. I’ve got just enough lunch money to last me through Friday.” She handed him the money and Jason stuck it in his pocket before trying to call their mom again as they walked.
“Hey, this is weird! My phone just shut down right when I tried to make a call.”
“Probably because you forgot to charge it,” his little sister said.
“I didn’t forget. It had a full battery just before we left the house.”
“Did you try turning it back on?” Lisa asked.
“Of course I did. I’m not stupid! I’m still trying now. Nothing’s happening though.”
“I guess you’re out of luck then. Maybe it’ll come back on by itself later.”
“Yeah, it could be doing an automatic update or something,” Lisa said. She didn’t have her own phone, because her mom and dad didn’t think she needed one until she was old enough to drive. Stacy’s mom felt the same. Both of them had older brothers who did carry phones and if they were anywhere they might need to call home from, they were likely with their brothers or another adult.
As they made their way closer to the school, walking along the main road where the parents who drove their children dropped them off, Lisa noticed several vehicles stopped in random places in the middle of the road. People were getting out of them and there were also more students than usual standing around outside the building when it was time to get to class. As they got closer, they could see even more students coming out and none going inside. Something out of the ordinary was going on.
“Hey what’s up, Michael?” Jason asked, when they were close enough to call out to one of his friends.
“The lights just went out; right after I got here. Looks like there won’t be any first period class today, man!”
“Dang it! I could’ve slept in! I wish I’d known sooner!”
Lisa and Stacy left Jason there talking to Michael and some more of his friends and walked the rest of the way to the sidewalk where some of their own classmates were gathered. It only took a few minutes to learn that the problem was bigger than just an ordinary power outage. Everyone they talked to who had a cell phone said that theirs had suddenly shut down, just like Jason’s did. And the stalled cars and pickups on the road out front went dead at the same time. The teachers and other adults outside didn’t have an explanation for it, and seemed just as confused and surprised as the students. The power went out fairly often at her house and even here at the school when there were bad thunderstorms, but it was a clear, sunny morning today, and Lisa didn’t see how it could be weather related. No one else seemed to know either. Lisa saw her science teacher talking to the principle outside of his office, and urged Stacy to go with her to ask him if he had any ideas.
“Maybe Mr. Smith will know what happened,” she said.
“I hope so. I just heard Cara Anderson saying something crazy about how aliens might have caused it. She said there were weird lights in the sky last night, and that her brother thinks they were UFOs. He said if aliens were attacking the Earth, they would probably do something just like this; use some kind of force to zap all our electronic devices and vehicles so we’ll be helpless.”
“That sounds like something from a stupid B movie. Her brother watches too much cable TV.”
“Maybe. But this is really weird, don’t you think?”
“Of course it is. But there’s got to be an explanation. I’ll bet Mr. Smith has an idea. He knows so much about everything.”
They stood patiently waiting until their teacher finished his conversation with the principle, then Lisa asked him what he thought had happened.
“I don’t have enough information yet to know for sure, but I’m afraid this could be the result of a strong electromagnetic pulse. There’s really nothing else that would explain it.”
“Electromagnetic pulse?” Stacy asked. “What exactly is that?”
“A strong surge caused by solar activity, most likely. I’ve read quite a few articles in the science journals recently speculating that we’ve been overdue for a powerful solar event that could have an impact on our technology. It’s happened before, but not since civilization was so dependent upon the power grid.”
“Cara Anderson
said there were weird lights in the sky late last night. We didn’t see any because we were inside.”
“No, I didn’t see them either, but Mr. Denton said a few people told him they did. That’s why I think it was a solar flare. It can cause visible effects like that. It looks a lot like the Aurora Borealis, which we almost never get to see at this latitude.”
“But if it happened last night, then why did the power go off just now, right before school started?” Lisa wanted to know.
“The lights people saw last night were probably from a much smaller solar flare that occurred first. They usually occur in series. The one that caused the damage today was far stronger. We wouldn’t have seen the lights because the sun was already up and the sky too bright, but I’ll bet they were visible farther west, especially on the West Coast, since they’re two hours behind us.”
“Would it really affect places that far away the same as it did here?”
“Oh yes, definitely. Let’s just hope the results were not as devastating elsewhere as they apparently were here. This could be an unprecedented disaster if it’s as bad as some scientists have predicated such a pulse could be.”
“Well I didn’t feel anything,” Stacy said. “It doesn’t look like anybody got hurt, and it didn’t start any fires or anything like that, at least not that we can see. It must not be so bad. They’ll just have to fix the power lines and people may have to get new cell phones. How is that really a disaster?”
“What about cars?” Lisa interrupted. “They went dead too. What’s up with that?”
“They stopped running because just about all the vehicles on the road today depend on multiple electronic components to operate,” Mr. Smith said. “But to answer Stacy’s question; this is really bad because all the things that probably were damaged can’t be fixed without replacement parts and a means to get them where they’re needed. That includes things like transformers that are essential to the power grid, but that’s not even the real problem. The real problem is that communications could be down all over the country. People everywhere will be isolated and cut off, and stores will run out of food and other essentials if the trucks are not running to bring in more. You know how it is when a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast. Now imagine one big enough to affect the entire United States, and you will begin to get the idea.”
“So I guess we’re not going to be having class today,” Stacy said. “Can we go home then? My mom wasn’t back this morning when she was supposed to be, and now I’m worried about her. What if her car stopped on the highway somewhere along the way?”
“I think we’re going to dismiss everyone shortly,” Mr. Smith said. “I know you live close enough to walk home, Stacy, but if you do, you need to go straight there and stay put. Do you know where your father is working today, Lisa? I’m sure all the law enforcement agencies are going to do whatever they can to get some information and assist anyone they can.”
“He had to go to Colorado with my mom for a funeral. Their plane was leaving this morning, and Mitch drove them to the airport. I spent the night with Stacy because of that.”
Lisa saw by the look on Mr. Smith’s face that he thought that was bad news. Did it mean her mom and dad wouldn’t be able to come back on Friday because of all this? She looked around her at all the confusion and wondered what was going to happen next. Then it occurred to her that Mitch might be stranded too. If he was still in New Orleans, he was going to be furious, because he hated cities with a passion. She didn’t know what she was going to do if he didn’t return when he was supposed to. All she could do for now was stick with Stacy and Jason until they all found out more.
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More by Scott B. Williams
THE FOLLOWING LINKS WILL take you to the Amazon Kindle versions of my most popular books that are available now. New books are coming all the time so stay up to date by signing up for my book alerts via my New Release Updates
Feral Nation Series (New for 2017)
Feral Nation - Infiltration (Book 1)
Feral Nation - Insurrection (Book 2)
The Pulse Series:
The Pulse: A Novel of Surviving the Collapse of the Grid (Book 1)
Refuge After the Collapse (Book 2)
Voyage After the Collapse (Book 3)
Landfall: Islands in the Aftermath (Book 4)
Horizons Beyond the Darkness (Book 5)
The Darkness After Series:
Enter the Darkness (Series Prequel)
The Darkness After (Book 1)
Into the River Lands (Book 2)
The Forge of Darkness (Book 3)
The Savage Darkness (Book 4)
Apocalypse Series:
Sailing the Apocalypse: A Misadventure at Sea
Nonfiction:
On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean
Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a Catastrophic Disaster Before It’s Too Late
About the Author
SCOTT B. WILLIAMS HAS been writing about his adventures for more than twenty-five years. His published work includes dozens of magazine articles and twelve books, with more projects currently underway. His interest in backpacking, sea kayaking and sailing small boats to remote places led him to pursue the wilderness survival skills that he has written about in his popular survival nonfiction books such as Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a Catastrophic Disaster Before It’s Too Late. He has also authored travel narratives such as On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean, an account of his two-year solo kayaking journey through the islands. With the release of The Pulse in 2012, Scott moved into writing fiction and has written several more novels with many more in the works. To learn more about his upcoming books or to contact Scott, visit his website: www.scottbwilliams.com
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