by Harley Tate
Madison turned to look out the window. A series of telephone poles with wires strung between them stood just beyond the edge of the causeway. She squinted to get a closer look.
Are those sparks?
“Uh… guys…”
Brianna wasn’t paying attention. She was too busy spouting off reasons Madison was the resident Pollyanna to listen.
The sparks grew, showers of orange and yellow falling into the basin below. “You really should look…”
Tucker talked over her, offering his own reasons for humanity to fall into the gutter when Madison shouted. “Guys! Over there!”
She pointed out the window where the power lines were now hissing and sputtering with current.
“Shit.” Tucker’s one curse said it all.
Brianna turned to her boyfriend. “What is it?”
He pointed at the sparks. All four of them watched as the sparks ran along the lines and hit a small transformer attached to one of the telephone poles. It exploded, sending a burst of smoke into the air and a shower of sparks down all around it.
Another transformer about ten poles away followed. Then another. And another.
All the way down the causeway, the electrical lines popped and hissed, transformers overloading and catching fire one after the next.
“That,” Tucker said, pointing at the devastation, “is what happens with an E3 EMP. It’s here.”
“Oh my God.” Madison brought her hand up to her lips as she looked out into the night. The lights that had begun to glow in front of them, signaling the end of the causeway and the start of city, blinked out in a wave. Whole sections of West Sacramento went dark before her eyes.
She turned around to look out the back window, but she couldn’t see anything but the headlights of the cars behind them. The buildings she knew were only a mile away stood dark.
The lights were out. The grid was gone.
“Do you really think…” She trailed off, unsure of what to even ask.
Peyton pulled out his cell phone. “No service. The cell towers must be down.”
Madison swiped her phone on. Zero bars. She dialed 911, the one number that was supposed to work no matter what. Not even a dial tone. Nothing.
She swallowed down the rising wave of panic in her throat. The magnitude of it began to hit her. No power meant no emergency services, and 911 wouldn’t know where to send anyone without GPS. Without the phones, they wouldn’t receive any calls.
Cars would work, but for how long? What about hospitals? Prisons? If they were dark, what would happen to all the people clinging to life and the criminals that society had deemed too dangerous to be on the streets?
Tucker and Brianna were right. Peyton, too. She’d completely underestimated this thing. They weren’t prepared at all.
How would she ever make it to her mom? She didn’t even know where her dad was right then. Had he flown to Hong Kong? Did his flight get canceled? He could be flying over the North Pole right now, sitting on the tarmac at the airport, or be oblivious to all of this halfway around the world.
How would he make it home?
She glanced up at the front seat where Brianna and Tucker stared out the windows, eyes wide. How would Brianna find her parents? Were they up at the cabin or stuck on the road just like them?
No one was ready. No one could handle something like this. Madison looked around her at all the cars on the causeway. A man next to them had gotten out of his Prius and stood next to it, staring at the closest burning telephone pole.
What would any of these people do now?
She reached for Peyton’s hand and squeezed. At least they had each other. Together they would survive. They would make it to her house and regroup, no matter how long it took. They had to.
CHAPTER TEN
MADISON
Yolo Causeway
7:30 p.m.
“You’re sure?”
Brianna nodded. “I don’t see any other way. No one is moving. People are out of their cars, milling around. It’s going to get ugly soon. We need to leave.”
She rubbed her hand across the leopard-print cover to her steering wheel. “It’s a damn shame. I love this car.”
“We can come back for it.” Madison knew it wasn’t true, but she offered it anyway. “When everything calms down, we can come get it.”
“No. We can’t.” Brianna glanced up, her eyes glassy with tears. “Don’t you get it? Nothing’s ever going to calm down. Nothing’s ever going to be the same again.”
Madison couldn’t believe her friend who’d planned for something like this her whole life was the one freaking out. Brianna’s family had prepped for everything from a natural disaster to an all-out nuclear war. If anyone could handle a geomagnetic storm, it was Brianna.
With a smile Madison hoped looked convincing, she reached out and patted her roommate’s hand. “Don’t say that. We’ll be okay. We’re together. That has to count for something.”
“Hey, guys?” Tucker’s voice edged with alarm. “I hate to interrupt this Hallmark moment and all, but I think we’ve got a problem.” He leaned forward in his seat, peering into the dusk.
“What is it?”
The semi one lane over rumbled to life, vibrating the backseat.
“I think the trucker is sick of waiting.”
“But he’s trapped.” Madison squinted, pressing her hands to the glass of the door window. As far as she could see, cars stacked up like dominos, every lane worse than the next. The tractor trailer sat sandwiched between the guardrail on one side and cars in front, back, and on the other side. “He can’t go anywhere.”
The blare of the truck’s horn made Madison jump. She banged her knee on Tucker’s seat back and winced. “What is he doing?”
“Making room.”
What? It didn’t make sense. He might have a bigger vehicle, but they were stuck on a bridge over the Yolo Bypass floodplain. Cars couldn’t move off to the shoulder to make room; they would fall off straight off the side.
The horn blared again. Madison swallowed, the back of her throat tightening as she stared out the window.
A figure rushed past Madison’s window, running between the cars. More blur than man, Madison only caught a glimpse of his beard and red baseball cap before he disappeared in front of the truck. She hissed out a question. “What’s he doing?”
“Causing a scene, I think.”
Brianna cracked her window and tense shouts filtered into the back seat.
“—can’t just—”
“—don’t care if—”
Madison strained to listen, concentrating on the fleeting bits of argument she could make out over the steady roar of the massive engine.
“—out of the way, then—”
“—nna kill somebo—”
The truck lurched, bouncing forward as the driver shifted gears and eased off the brake. The whole causeway trembled.
Madison’s chest constricted, lungs tight with held breath. “He can’t be serious.”
“Oh, he’s serious all right.” Brianna grabbed her keys and shoved them in the ignition. “Everybody buckle up. This might be our chance.”
“What? No!” Madison reached out, clawing into the back of Tucker’s seat. The fabric dented beneath her fingernails as she dug for purchase. The trucker was just showing off. He had to be.
Madison ground her teeth back and forth, forcing the rising panic in her chest down.
A man shouted, arms waving as he ran toward the cars in front of them. He was warning them. Madison reached for the door handle and yanked. The door wouldn’t open.
“Let me out!”
“So you can get yourself killed? No way.”
Madison jiggled the handle. Nothing. “Unlock the door, Brianna. Someone needs to warn those people.”
“It isn’t going to be you.” Her roommate turned around in the front seat, brown eyes narrowed straight on Madison. “Sit down.”
“No!” Madison scrabbled at the door lock, diggi
ng her nails into the crevice it disappeared into, trying to unlock the car.
Brianna turned back to the front and started the engine. “If you get out of this car, I’m leaving you behind.”
“What are you talking about? We’re stuck on the bridge!” Madison yanked the door handle again before banging into the molded plastic with her shoulder. It had to give. She had to warn those people.
The truck driver laid on the horn. Madison jerked up, staring out the window in disbelief. He was going to do it. He was actually going to mow those cars in front of him down. “We have to help them.”
Peyton’s hand wrapped around her wrist and he pulled her away from the door. “We can’t, Madison.”
“Yes, we can. We can yell, shout… anything.”
“And then what? Get run over by all the cars behind us?”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
Peyton’s lips thinned into a line. “If you really think that, then you haven’t been around desperate people.” He let go of her wrist. “You need to think about yourself first. Or your family, Madison. Not these strangers.”
The truck driver hit the horn again, but this time he didn’t let up. It kept on sounding, a tortured wail of last warning as he hit the gas. At first, the cab moved like a giant, slow and ungainly, with stops and starts.
But the harder the driver punched the gas, the more the lumbering beast accelerated. A handful of people Madison hadn’t even seen jumped back from the cab of the truck, shouting and shaking their fists.
She watched, eyes wide in horror, as the truck hit the first car in front of it. A little white hatchback of a thing, it never stood a chance.
Metal crunched and groaned and tore, the sickening sounds of anger and impatience cutting through the silence of the near-dark.
Madison’s hand flew to her mouth as Brianna shifted the Jeep into drive.
“Everybody hold on. This is gonna get nasty.” Brianna gripped the steering wheel, primed and ready.
All Madison could do was watch. The hammering of her heart eclipsed the sounds of destruction and the shouts of other motorists. It even drowned out the rush of her breath sawing in and out of her lungs like she’d run a marathon.
The truck moved again, lurching forward as it shoved the little white economy car out the way. Brianna seized the opportunity, leaping into the gap left between the back end of the trailer and the car behind it.
Taking advantage of a madman’s decision wasn’t how this should go. She should be out there, helping the people displaced by the truck, warning others to get to safety. Instead, Madison sat in the backseat like a fugitive on the run, hunched down for protection as Brianna tore through the gap left in the trailer’s wake.
Every car length, the truck picked up speed, smashing into the next vehicle with more force, hitting the next with more acceleration. They flew behind it, safe in the space right up against the trailer’s bumper, avoiding the smashed cars shoved into the concrete railing on one side and into each other on the other.
They followed the wake of destruction, riding it out like a water skier behind a jet boat. Only instead of the ocean and sunshine, wrecked cars and screaming people greeted them with every wave.
Madison closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch. She couldn’t bear witness to the heartless actions of the truck driver another second.
After what seemed like an eternity, Brianna whooped from the front seat. “We did it!”
A hand landed on Madison’s back, rubbing up and down until she sat up and opened her eyes. They were off the causeway. Off the highway entirely, cruising down a quiet side street in the dark, their headlights the only illumination as far as Madison could see.
Madison blinked and looked around, the tightness in her chest finally receding. “We made it?”
Brianna glanced up at her in the rear view. “Still think we should have stayed behind?”
She exhaled. Yes. No. Madison didn’t know anymore. If they had stayed on the causeway helping other motorists, would they have made it off the bridge without incident? What if someone found out what they had in the back of the Jeep? She glanced down at the stuffed backpack on the floor in front of her.
Brianna had a point, but surely humanity still meant something. People didn’t turn into animals the second disaster struck.
At least not everyone.
She glanced out at the darkness, unease creeping into the gaping wound the events of the bridge had opened in her mind. “I don’t think we should be driving in the dark.”
“Why not? We want to get to your mom’s, don’t we?”
“Yeah, but haven’t you noticed? We’re the only lights out here. What if someone sees us or tries to stop us? I don’t even know where we are.”
“It’s not totally dark.” Brianna glanced up out the windshield at the arcing colors in the sky. “People won’t notice us.”
Peyton spoke up. “Madison has a point. We should conserve our fuel. Park somewhere, get some sleep. Drive when it’s light out.”
Tucker pointed out the window. “Looks like a park up ahead. We could pull off, maybe drive into those trees. No one would see us out there if we kill the lights.”
Brianna shut them off and the road descended into darkness.
She idled for a moment on the asphalt, waiting until her eyes adjusted to the night. “All right. We’ll park. Get some sleep. But we’re taking shifts. Someone has to keep watch.”
She drove slowly, peering into the darkness as she maneuvered around a stand of bushes and over the curb. With a few careful turns, Brianna hid the Jeep from the road behind a thicket of bushes and trees. No one could see them, even with the added light from the sky.
Peyton snorted as Brianna turned off the engine.
“What’s so funny?”
“It reminds me of a B-horror movie setup. Teenagers going into the dark woods to escape the monster of the week.”
Tucker lowered his seat. “Guess there won’t be any more of those for a while, will there?”
Brianna shook her head. “Nope. Hell, they might never come back.”
Madison frowned. None of this seemed real. She glanced around at her friends as they made themselves comfortable in their seats. No way could she sleep. Not after the incident on the bridge. She exhaled. “You all get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TRACY
Sacramento, CA
6:30 p.m.
“You sure you don’t mind me staying the night? The bus depot isn’t that far from here. You could drop me there, instead. I’m sure there’s just a problem with the bus for my route. Another has to be coming.”
Wanda tucked her hands in her lap, smiling at Tracy. Apart from superficial talk about Tracy’s daughter in college and Wanda’s recommendations for summer reading, they didn’t know a lot about each other.
Tracy smiled back. “It’s not a bother, really. Walt’s not home, Madison’s at school. It’ll be nice to have someone to share the house with for a night.” That wasn’t the whole truth, but Wanda didn’t seem to have a grip on the impending solar storm. Truth was, Tracy didn’t think Wanda should be alone, and two heads had to be better than one, right?
“Thank you.” Wanda went back to looking out the passenger window and fidgeting.
“Do you…” Tracy didn’t want to pry, but if Wanda had someone waiting at home for her…
“It’s just me right now. My cat passed away a few months ago and I haven’t had the heart to get another one just yet.”
Tracy exhaled, relieved to not have to drive across town tonight. They could stay on the smaller roads, head straight to Tracy’s house, and make it home before anything bad happened.
The traffic light in front of them turned yellow and Tracy slowed, pulling up to a stop behind a small four-door sedan as the light changed to red.
Wanda pointed out the front window, pushing her glasses up her nose as she squinted. “Is the light flickering or is it just me?”
>
Tracy glanced up at the traffic light. The red light didn’t flicker… It pulsed, growing brighter then fading again and again.
Like it was charged with too much current.
Oh no. Nononono. Tracy looked out the window at the lines of telephone poles stretching down the street. The neighborhood they were driving through was built in the fifties. Tiny little ranches and bungalows all in a line with power lines stretched across telephone poles and into the houses. Just like Tracy’s own neighborhood built a decade before.
There were more wires hanging from the telephone poles than leaves on the walnut tree in the yard next door. Tracy watched, breath caught in her lungs. Was this it? Was it really happening?
The light in front of them turned green and the sedan one car ahead began to move when the entire traffic light exploded. Bits of metal and plastic flew in all directions and the wires connecting the light to the poles arced in the air.
A hissing, sputtering sound grew louder and louder and the transformer perched on the telephone pole closest to Tracy’s SUV burst into flames. Electrical wires snapped in half, their live ends flailing about as the whole power grid flooded with current.
It was just like Joe described, but way, way too early. The CME had arrived.
Tracy scanned the neighborhood, watching in shock as house after house snapped to black. The street lights rolled out in a wave, the traffic lights blinked out, and in a matter of seconds, power to the entire area shut off.
Oh my God. Tracy’s hand flew to her mouth. It’s real. Everything Joe warned her about had actually happened. Tracy’s thoughts flew to her daughter and her husband. Where were they? What were they doing? Madison’s last text put a whole new sense of urgency into Tracy. Her daughter was out there somewhere, trying to make it home.
She didn’t know if she was safe or in danger or possibly worse. I have to protect her.
Wanda shrieked beside her and Tracy almost jumped out of her seat. In her own panic, she’d forgotten the woman was even there.
“The telephone pole is on fire! And that one is too!” Wanda pointed farther down the street, her painted red nail directed at another fire about twenty yards away. “What is going on?”
