Sweetness in the Dark

by W. B. Martin

  “Now, just so we don’t have any accidents in the dark when we come back, we need a password,” Paul said.

  “Good grief,” one of the wives exclaimed. “And I suppose we need to dig foxholes, too.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Paul threw back. “Ok, Matt. Let’s go see how western civilization is holding up.” He and Matt headed off into the dark. They found the gravel road leading towards Riggins. With the Northern Lights continuing to light the night sky, they didn’t have any difficulty finding their way.

  Up ahead they saw light flickering. The slight evening breeze carried the smell of smoke up the river canyon. Paul suddenly stopped. The smoke didn’t have that woodsy smell given off by a wood fire. This smoke was the smell of many things burning. The smell of cars, tires and buildings burning. He tightened his grip on the Glock.

  Chapter 4

  Australian Blight, 200 miles south of Walpole, Western Australia

  The forty-foot Cheoy Lee ketch leaped as another following wave lifted her stern and powered her down another trough. Desmond fought the wheel on the big boat as the speed accelerated and the hum in the rudder shot up through the wheel to his arms. His whole body vibrated as the sailboat crashed into the bottom.

  The climb up the next wave caused the speed to drop as the bow buried itself into the front of the wave. Spray flew up and over Desmond standing in his rain gear in the cockpit of the big boat. He ducked as the water flew at him, hitting him in the hood of his foul weather gear.

  He fought the boat to keep it on course as it crested the next wave and broke free for a run down the back side. Again the whole boat vibrated as the speed increased. Desmond waited for the sudden crash at the bottom and braced himself for the impact. His safety harness tightened as he leaned forward in reaction to the boat hitting the next wave.

  Desmond was bone tired. This was their third day of forty knot winds and large rolling seas. Luckily, they were running with the wind and not trying to fight their way into it. But as skipper, he had to make sure the sailboat didn’t bury its bow too deeply into the trough and pitch pole, or flip over, end-to-end.

  A pitch pole would be disastrous and would certainly cost him and his family their lives. Desmond fought the ache in his muscles to stay in control of the boat.

  As the next wave crashed over the cabin and into the cockpit, his wife, Marina, slid the companionway door open slightly and stuck out a steaming cup. She had been supplying him with hot soup and tea frequently to keep his fortitude going.

  “How much longer do you think this blow will go on?” Marina asked her husband.

  “I don’t think we’re going to get much relief. This is winter and we’re close to the Roaring Forties. Another couple of days and we’ll be by Tasmania and into the Tasman Sea, and you know the reputation it has,” Desmond yelled to be heard over the wind and sea. “Have the kids gotten out of their bunks yet?”

  “Noel is getting his stomach under him, but the rest are still flat,” Marina yelled back. “They’re getting down a couple crackers, but Jamie still hasn’t kept anything down.”

  Desmond was worried about the four kids and their first open ocean crossing. They had all spent many pleasant days sailing their twenty-eight foot sloop out of Mandurah Harbor. Mandurah lay sixty miles south of Perth on Western Australia’s Indian Ocean.

  The wind off Perth was famous for its cooling of the city during the hot summers. Desmond had spent many an enjoyable day with his family out in the ‘Doctor’, as the locals called the wind.

  But all that had ended with a vengeance five days before. That was the morning when life changed on earth. Desmond Leffingwell was a Mining Engineer that commuted by train to Perth each work day. But luckily that morning, he had a doctor’s appointment and had taken the morning off. Just as he was about to leave the house, the television clicked off.

  The tennis match from Indian Wells, California that he had been watching while he made lunch had just disappeared. Desmond had checked the remote and nothing happened. Then he had noticed that other electrical devices had stopped, including the microwave heating his breakfast.

  Desmond had hit a light switch, nothing. He had rifled through the kitchen junk draw for the transistor radio they used for power outages and had turned it on, nothing. He had clicked the flashlight and it had turned on. Changing the batteries from the flashlight to the radio, he had tried again. Still dead.

  As he had walked through the house to check the breakers in the garage, he had noticed out the front window two cars stalled in the street. The drivers were getting out and lifting their bonnets. He had stopped and stared out the window.

  As an engineer, his first-year college studies at Massey University in North Palmerston, New Zealand had required him to take a broad coverage of engineering courses. One of those introductory sessions had been electrical engineering.

  He recalled the week the professor had spent on EMP/CME potentials. He had only casually paid attention at the time. The required background an engineer got in each engineering field had been tolerated by everyone. The upper division courses in their selected major discipline was what everyone waited for.

  Desmond had run to dig out the box of his old college notebooks and flew through the stack to find what he needed. He had sat on the floor and reread the handouts and notes on EMP/CME. This all fit, he thought.

  Desmond had then walked into the garage and had tried his sport ‘ute’. The SUV did nothing, no click even.

  As he avoided another deluge of seawater, Desmond reflected that it had been only five days earlier. He sat down to drink his soup as he kept one hand on the wheel.

  “Dad, I think I can come out and help,” Noel said. Desmond looked at his sixteen-year old son. Tears started to form as he thought of how Noel’s and his siblings’ world had changed.

  “If you feel up to it. Just get your lifeline hooked up before you step out,” Desmond yelled back at his son.

  Desmond noticed the exasperated look of his son as he stepped halfway out of the companionway, hooked the carabiner onto the lifeline that ran along the cabin roof and stepped into the cockpit. He was in his foul weather gear with a wool watch cap pulled low over his forehead.

  “We’re making good time. I bet we’ve covered one hundred miles so far today,” Noel said as he sat down next to his dad. Desmond motioned for Noel to stand up and take the wheel. He needed to get the feel of the boat. Desmond needed sleep soon, and someone had to sail the boat while he slept.

  A self-steering vane wouldn’t work in these heavy seas. Too much risk of the boat turning sideways going down a wave. If that happened, the boat would roll. Not as bad as pitch poling, but they would surely lose their two masts if that happened.

  Only a human could feel the changes quick enough to keep a boat straight in these seas. The automatic pilot was disabled by the CME charge. In fact, none of the boat’s electrics worked, which caused Desmond to worry at night. The little lantern they lit and raised up the mast still worked, but it didn’t seem to throw much light. He just hoped there weren’t any other boats out here to run into at night.

  “Dad, will we get in trouble for taking Mr. Black’s boat? He might need it,” Noel said.

  “Son, Mr. Black has left me in charge of his boat for the last five years. He offered us its use at any time,” Desmond said. “I know he was in Hong Kong when the lights went out. I don’t think he’ll be needing it any time soon.”

  Desmond had watched over the Cheoy Lee for Mr. Black since they had adjoining slips in Ocean Marina in Mandurah Harbor. They had become mates and often sailed together. Desmond knew that Mr. Black would want Desmond to use his sailboat to try and save his family.

  “Mr. Black has no family. You know how close he has been with our family. He’s often told me that you kids are the closest thing he’ll probably ever have to grandchildren,” Desmond added.

  “I know. I hope he’s OK wherever he is,” Noel said.

  “Me too, Son,” Desmond agreed. �
�I’m figuring that we should be entering the Bass Strait between Tasmania and Melbourne today. We can expect to see the seas increase as we make our passage through. I just want to hit it in daylight. The navigational aids are all gone and this part of the Australian Coast is littered with wrecks.”

  As soon as he had said it, Desmond regretted it. The nervous look on Noel’s face said it all. Desmond knew everyone was scared at what they were attempting. But Desmond knew that without electricity for a couple years, Western Australia could not sustain all the people who lived there.

  The desert would quickly reclaim all the irrigated farm land around Perth and starvation would overwhelm the population. Desmond had struck upon the idea of heading home to the South Island of New Zealand. His parents lived on a farm outside Nelson.

  And the way his parents lived, they still probably didn’t know anything had happened. Desmond had left because it always seemed to be 1950 at his parents. Even on his occasional visits back, nothing had changed.

  Desmond’s dad ran the farm and still did everything the old-fashioned way. They weren’t even connected to the National Power Grid. Instead they relied on generating their own power on site with various conveyances. A little wind power and little water power backed up by an old generator kept the place going.

  But Marina had been very nervous about the crossing. Desmond had figured it would take sixteen days of sailing to make New Zealand. Since it was winter in the Southern Hemisphere when the CME hit, Desmond would have to sail through some very treacherous water to reach safety.

  It was a good thing that his dad had rubbed off on him. Desmond had learned the old ways of navigating and didn’t need to rely on electronics. Now that satellite navigation and LORAN were gone, the old handheld sextant and chronometer kept them on their course.

  And it was critical to hit New Zealand in the right spot. While they would have a hard time missing the long country, making landfall at the wrong spot would be catastrophic. The West Coast of the South Island was very inhospitable with few safe harbors. And being a lee shore, it would be dangerous to tack along the coast looking for the Cook Straits.

  “We’re fine Son. I’m sorry I said that about the coast here. We knew it would be an adventure,” Desmond said, trying to settle his son.

  “I know, Dad. I’ll be right. We have to make sure the little kids don’t get scared, don’t we?”

  “Yes, we need to support each other. Everyone is nervous. Luckily I got to the store right after the lights went out with cash and bought enough supplies for the trip,” Desmond said.

  When he realized what had happened, Desmond immediately went to the nearest store and used cash to buy the supplies they would need. He had used a grocery cart to get it all back home.

  When everyone had returned home from school and work, Desmond sat them down and explained what he thought had happened. That night the Southern Lights, similar to the Northern variety, confirmed for Desmond that they had to act fast.

  They had packed the next day and started making trips with the shopping cart to the boat. Located a short distance from the house, Noel had maintained guard over the sailboat as Desmond shuttled gear from the house.

  As they had been packing the boat over the next two days, other sailors started showing up with similar ideas. All knew that Western Australia without electricity was untenable for all the population that lived there.

  Desmond kept an old hunting rifle close by out of sight, as people looked enviously at the gear and food they stowed. No one spoke much as each had made preparations to depart.

  The little talk that did transpire revolved around where people were contemplating heading in this emergency. Desmond noticed that the consensus of most of the sailors was to head off to islands in the Indian Ocean. The proximity to the ocean and fish seemed to drive most of them.

  When Desmond mentioned New Zealand, he received the ‘stare’. No one willingly crossed the Tasman Sea in the winter, so Desmond had stopped discussing where they were headed. They soon departed late one afternoon to take advantage of the remaining day light.

  The first two days had been uneventful as they headed out into the Indian Ocean and then turned south. It was when they set their course east that the seas and wind had picked up. Now three days without sleep, Desmond was desperately tired.

  “Noel, if you can handle the wheel, I can crawl down below and get some sleep. We still have a few hours of daylight, so you’ll see anything that’s out there. Think you’re ready?” Desmond asked.

  “I’m ready. You need some sleep and Mom may be able to get some real food made up,” Noel said.

  Just as Desmond stood up to move to the companionway, a large roller wave hit the stern of the boat. Suddenly Noel fought to keep the boat straight into the wave. The Cheoy Lee quickly leaned over from the hit and began to broach. Desmond swung around immediately and released the main sheet, dumping the wind from the sail.

  The boat staggered for an instance, and then came back around on course. The wave passed them by and Noel brought the boat back on course.

  “My mistake Son. There’s too much sail to handle right now. I could barely keep the boat steady,” Desmond said. He motioned that he needed Noel to uncleat the main sail so Desmond could gather it in and get the sail cover over it. As he struggled to tie off the big sail, he kept his gaze on the waves for another roller.

  Then Desmond yelled down below for the storm sail. Lashing it in place of the main, the sailboat steadied into a comfortable roll. Although moving much slower under the small storm sail and a heavily reefed mizzen, the sail boat would be safe for Noel to handle. Desmond decided to throw a sea anchor out for good measure.

  A sea anchor acted as a brake as it dragged through the water. It would keep the stern of the boat into the waves and help prevent any broaching. Finished, Desmond hugged his son and headed down below. He was asleep as soon as his rain gear was off and his head hit the bunk.

  Chapter 5

  Riggins, Idaho

  Paul and Matt were moving cautiously towards Riggins along the gravel road that paralleled the Salmon River. The Northern Lights were still active this far south and provided enough light for them to make their way toward town.

  When they reached a point where the road swung away from the river, Paul reached out and stopped Matt. From previous trips, Paul knew the town was close. With the fires burning, he could tell that sections of Riggins had been destroyed. As he stood there considering the best option, a whispered voice almost made him wet his pants.

  “Who are you?” the voice in the dark asked. Paul turned his head in the direction that the voice had seemed to originate. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I’m Dr. Paul Kendall from Boise. My son and I are trying to see if Riggins is safe. We’ve been on the river. Who are you?” Paul finally asked.

  “An armed citizen, so don’t try any quick moves. We’re protecting our half of town from the assholes,” the voice offered.

  “Then Riggins isn’t safe?” Matt asked.

  “Our half isn’t too bad, but I wouldn’t be crossing the Little Salmon. The wild bunch is over there and they’ve been living it up for the last five days. The good folk in town all fled over here to get away.” The voice was a little stronger now. “But I think they’ve about run out of booze and food. We think they’ll be heading across the river soon. We’re ready for them.”

  “We were hoping there was some extra food here. We will be walking to Boise and we’re almost out,” Paul said. He already knew the answer.

  “Nope. Food is suddenly a valuable commodity. That’s what those assholes will be coming for soon. And they’ll die for their effort.” The voice was stern now. “But rumor has it New Meadows has food. More farms up there on the flats. Cows, too. You could give them a try.”

  “Thanks. We will. Would you recommend we head out tonight towards Boise? It seems the night would be safer than the daytime,” Paul said.

  “Definitely. Just head alo
ng the east bank of the Little Salmon River until you’re about a mile south of town. Then hit Highway 95. Nobody is mobile and our friends over there haven’t left town in days. Too much ‘end of the world’ partying going on,” the voice said. “And we aim to end it for them. But good luck on Boise. You’ll need it.”

  Paul quietly thanked the hidden watcher and told him that they would be back with their party. He and Matt quickly walked back to the beach. They slowed and approached cautiously.

  “Narashima,” Paul said.

  “Tarzan,” Amanda returned the password. The two men walked onto the beach and approached the six huddled people.

  “Alright, we leave tonight. The town isn’t safe and the person we talked to expects all hell to break lose soon. We’ve already divided up the gear and food so we should be ready to go,” Paul said.

  “We have a problem,” Amanda replied. “It seems some people want to wait here for the authorities. They’ve been discussing things while you were gone.”

  “That’s right. We aren’t going anywhere. The police will have this under control soon,” one professor announced. “We’ll keep the fishing gear. There’s plenty of fish to catch to keep us going ‘til help arrives.”

  “And you can take those guns. That’s a fair trade for the fishing gear,” his wife exclaimed.

  “Those things will only cause you problems, and I want no part of them,” the second wife added. Her husband, who had been noticeably quiet for the past five days, stood by her side.

  “Then there’s no point in keeping this out of sight then.” Paul reached into his large wet bag that had contained his personal gear. He rummaged around and pulled out a hard case about thirty-six inches long. He laid it down and unsnapped the latches. Even in the low light everyone could see the scoped assault rifle. He gathered up the sling and threw it over his shoulder.