by A. R. Wise
‘No,’ said the man. ‘We probably won’t see any immediate effects like that. More than likely all that’s going to happen is that a few of our devices will start acting weird. The internet might go down. Phones will stop working. Anything that relies on satellites will be affected.’
‘That’s pretty much everything these days,’ said the woman with rising concern.
‘There’s no reason to panic.’
Porter turned the radio down and said, “They’ve started lying.”
“What do you mean?” asked June.
“They’re lying to us now.”
“About what?” she asked.
“About how bad it’s going to get,” said Porter. “They’re going to start forcing people to go to designated safe zones. They know this is a lot worse than they’re letting on. Once the grid goes down, it’s going to be a shit show.”
“And what about the terrorists?” asked Red. “Or was it China? Or Russia? Did they say? Holy shit, what if they’re launching nukes?”
“Settle down,” said Porter. “Let’s worry about one thing at a time. I doubt Russia or China would do something as stupid as start a nuclear war. Islamic extremists might, but they don’t have anything bigger than dirty bombs.”
“Damn, this is insane,” said Red. “I’m legitimately scared now. My heart’s racing.”
“Pull over at the gas station,” said Porter as they neared the station they’d passed on the way to June’s apartment.
As they got closer, it was clear something was wrong. There was more traffic than before, but only a couple of people were near the pumps. Everyone else was standing by the side of the building in a semi-circle.
“Is that guy bleeding?” asked June.
“What guy?” asked Porter before he saw who she was talking about. There was a tall, thick man in a pair of suspenders and a white undershirt holding his side. The man was being cared for by other patrons. There was a slash on his side that seeped blood.
Red pulled into the gas station and parked in line. Porter quickly hopped out and said, “You two wait here.”
“Fuck that,” said Red as he got out of the Jeep as well.
Porter opened the back of the Jeep to retrieve a first aid kit. Red went straight over to the crowd to investigate.
“What happened?” asked Red.
“Some guy started stabbing people,” said a pale, frightened woman. The color had left her face. Her long, black hair clung to the sweat on her forehead. She was trembling. “He just… I’ve never seen anything like it. I was over there, getting gas, and I heard him start screaming for help. He was…” She looked at the cuts on her hands.
An older man from the crowd interrupted the woman, “Fucker went nuts. I saw the whole thing. He just went nuts.”
“He was asking for help,” said the raven-haired woman. “Did you hear him?”
“I did,” said someone else. It was another man, short and thin, with thick glasses and a mustache. “A bunch of us ran over when we heard him. He was laying against the side of the building, and he had a knife stuck in his…”
The older man interrupted again, “Stuck right in his gut.”
The more timid, shorter man nodded in agreement. “And then, when we got over there, he took the knife out of himself and came at us. Came right at us. I’ve never seen anything like it. He came at us, and all we were trying to do was help him. Why’d he come at us?” He ran his hand through his hair, smearing blood on his forehead. “What the hell’s going on? We were trying to help him. We were…”
The older man said, “He went nuts, just like I said. He went nuts.”
“Here, let me help,” said Porter as he approached the gruff, wounded man in suspenders. The man was in his fifties, with thin grey hair and thick stubble on his rotund cheeks. His bulging stomach stretched his suspenders. There was a gash on his side that pulsed blood.
Porter put on a pair of surgical gloves, and then took out a thick portion of gauze that he put against the wound.
“I don’t think it’s too deep,” said the wounded man. He was crying profusely, and seemed bothered by it. He kept wiping his eyes, and tried to stop the tears by blinking. “I don’t know why I’m crying like this. It doesn’t even hurt that bad. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I’ve got some alcohol to wash off the wound,” said Porter. “Was anyone else hurt?”
“He caught me in the hand,” said the raven-haired woman. “But it’s not bad.”
“Then there’s the guy who went nuts,” said the old man. “He got hurt too, but fuck him.”
“Where is he?” asked Porter.
“There’s no helping him,” said the timid man in glasses. “He’s dead.”
“He took a cinder block to the head,” said the old man. “That put an end to it.”
It was clear by his expression that the man in glasses had been the one who landed the killing blow. Porter saw the sorrow and sickness in the man’s face at what he’d been forced to do. Porter hoped he never had to deal with the agony of taking another person’s life.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” said the wounded man again. “I just can’t stop.” He let go of the gauze at his side, and reached up to his face to wipe his eyes. He smeared his own blood across his face, and looked up at Porter with bloodshot eyes.
Porter backed away warily. “You should go inside the gas station and get cleaned up.”
The wounded man had a bloody knife in his lap. Porter assumed it was the same weapon his attacker had used. The man set his left hand over it, as if to hide the weapon. “I can’t stop crying.” His hand tightened around the knife’s blade.
“Everyone, let’s give him room,” said Porter.
“I can’t stop…” the wounded man clenched his eyes shut.
“You need to go inside and get cleaned off,” said Porter as he backed further away from the wounded man.
There were police sirens in the distance, growing closer. The wounded man tightened his grip on the knife, and his hand started to bleed.
“Put the knife down,” said Porter. “You’re cutting yourself.”
“Right, yeah,” said the man as he put the knife on the ground between his legs, near the curb he was sitting on. He wiped his newly bloody hand on his chest. “Why can’t I stop crying?”
“I’m crying too,” said the raven-haired woman.
Red was making his way through the crowd, towards the dead body near the side of the building. He was oblivious to the wounded man’s odd behavior.
“Red, let’s go,” said Porter, his unease mounting.
“Hold on, I want to see…”
“Now, Red.” Porter grabbed his brother by the arm and pulled him away. He caught a glimpse of the corpse. Its head had been partially crushed, and the cinderblock lay nearby. Bright red blood seeped from the body in a rivulet to the curb, where it flowed until it rounded the feet of the wounded man with the knife. The blood wet the bottom of Porter’s first aid kit, and pooled there.
“Don’t we need gas?” asked Red.
“Hurry up, go.” Porter pushed his brother towards the Jeep, and then jogged to the passenger side.
“What’s going on?” asked Red as they got in.
“What happened?” asked June.
Porter ignored them both. “Go. Drive. Now.”
“Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on?” asked Red as he put the Jeep into reverse and then drove out of the gas station’s lot.
“Get away from here first,” said Porter as he looked through the side mirror at the scene they were leaving behind.
“God damn it,” yelled June. “What the fuck is going on? What happened?”
“It’s probably just…” Porter paused as he continued to watch the crowd behind them. “It’s probably just some guy who went crazy. But, there was something about it that seemed off to me.”
“Why did you guys come running back?” asked June. “Did something bad happen? Or did you just get frea
ked out?”
“June,” said Red, “there’s something you need to learn about Porter. If he’s freaked out about something, that means you should be freaked out too.”
“It’s probably nothing,” said Porter.
“Would one of you please tell me what was going on back there?” asked June.
“Some guy got stabbed behind the gas station and started asking for help,” said Porter. “But when people came over to help him, he pulled the knife out of himself and started stabbing at them. Then some other guy beat his head in with a cinder block.”
“Oh my God,” said June. “Did he kill him?”
“Yeah,” said Porter.
“Holy shit,” said June. “I don’t know if I could do that. Even if someone was attacking me, I’m not sure I could kill them.”
“Well, that guy back there sure the hell could,” said Porter. “He bashed the other guy’s head in.”
“And then what happened?” asked Red. “What scared you? Because I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever seen you scared, and right now you’re fucking scared.”
Porter hesitated, uncertain if he wanted to add to their paranoia. “The guy I was helping, the fat one who got stabbed, he was crying. And then he started wiping blood on his face. It was… I don’t know. It was weird. Something was wrong with him. He might’ve been in shock, but he was holding onto a knife. He was cutting his hand and complaining about how he couldn’t stop crying.”
“He was cutting himself?” asked June.
“He was holding onto the knife’s blade and…” Porter shook his head. “I don’t know. It was strange. After hearing that the first guy pulled a knife out of himself and started attacking people, I wasn’t about to stick around there and wait for the other guy to do the same thing.”
“Why?” asked Red. “Do you think it was contagious?” His posture stiffened as he began to contemplate the same things that worried Porter. “Maybe it’s not nukes we need to worry about, but some sort of bioterrorism.”
Porter nodded. “Maybe.”
They reached a stop sign. If they turned left, they could go back to Porter’s house and the safety of the bunker. If they went straight, they’d be headed into uncertainty. “Last chance to go back to the bunker,” said Porter.
“And stay here in Colorado where there might’ve been some sort of biological attack?” asked June. “Are you crazy?”
“You’d be safe in the bunker,” said Porter.
“No way,” said June. “Drive, Red. Let’s get out of here.”
Red drove straight.
Day One – 8:33pm
The radio’s static got worse. Porter flipped through the stations until he found one with better reception.
“Is the static because of the flare?” asked June.
“Could be,” said Porter.
‘…reports of violence are coming in from all over.’
“Turn it up,” said June, and Porter did.
‘Police are asking that you stay calm. Everyone needs to report to their nearest shelter. This is not the time to try and stick it out at home. You need to report to a protected shelter immediately. You won’t be forced to stay, but you need to check in. The National Guard has been mobilized to provide support to those who…’ the static grew louder. After about thirty seconds it subsided. ‘…attack. Martial law has not been put in place, but we expect it will be soon. You need to report in to your nearest shelter as soon as possible. If you don’t there’ll be no way for them to know where you are to deliver supplies to you later.’
“Holy crap,” said Red. “This is really happening.”
Porter was uncharacteristically silent. His eyes were wide, and he had his hand over his mouth as he contemplated the revelations of the past few minutes. He thought of his father’s warnings.
Porter and Red’s father, Smitty, had preached for years that the government was ignoring problems that could cripple the nation. For most of his life, Smitty railed on how ignorant our leaders were. He focused his energy on proving that the government was ignoring potentially devastating, impending catastrophes. There was a vast list of cataclysms that Smitty was preparing for, not just a coronal mass ejection. He warned about super bacteria causing a pandemic, fungal infections being delivered airborne, imminent nuclear war and EMP attacks, engineered plagues becoming the new version of biological warfare, overpopulation leading to vast water and food shortages, and a variety of other dire calamities. It wasn’t until Porter’s mother was diagnosed with cancer that Smitty’s conspiratorial lean shifted to something more ominous. He became fatalistic, depressed, and angrier than before. He stopped trying to warn people about a coming apocalypse, and accepted that it was inevitable.
In one of the last conversations Porter had with his father, Smitty warned that the clock was ticking. He said that people in his community of preppers had warned that other countries would launch coordinated attacks. Russia was preparing its people for nuclear war, and China was actively ramping up weapon production. At the time, Porter assumed it was paranoia. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Porter turned down the radio and said, “It makes sense.”
“What does?” asked Red.
“That they’d attack now.”
“Who, the terrorists?” asked Red.
“Anyone,” said Porter. “Everyone. We’ve been the big dog on campus for a long time. You can’t stay on top without making enemies. Is it that hard to believe our enemies would look at a CME as an opportunity to attack?”
“I’m officially freaked out now,” said June.
“You think they’re sending troops here?” asked Red.
“No, not yet,” said Porter. “They’ll wait until we’re weakened. But if they have cells working in the country already, then now would be the time to activate them.”
“Are you talking about mall shootings, and that sort of thing?” asked June.
“No, that’s useless now,” said Porter. “The only reason to do that sort of terrorism is to create a panic, but you need the media to spread news of it, otherwise it’s pointless. There might be some idiot terrorists who decide to do that sort of thing, but that’s not what we should be worried about.”
“Then what should we be worried about?” asked Red.
“Smallpox; the bubonic plague; something like that. We already know that people have been working on a version of H1N1 that’s resistant to our immune system. That happened at a university up in Wisconsin just a few years ago. We know that sort of thing’s going on. And a weapon like that is totally undetectable. There’s no need to hide it like you would a nuke. A single person could pack enough in their luggage to wipe out half the country, and there’s not a single TSA agent who’d ever know the difference.”
Porter continued, his speech getting faster, sounding more and more like his father every minute. “Do you know what our biggest danger is in an event like this? In any catastrophe. It’s not the event. It’s not the earthquake, or the tsunami, or the CME. It’s the bodies.”
“The bodies? Like, dead people?” asked June.
“Yes, exactly. Dead bodies. They’re the biggest threat. If people start dying faster than you can deal with them, then disease spreads. Once that happens…”
He paused to let the gravity of the threat sink in, and then continued, “If there were countries plotting against us, then the best way to take us down would be from the inside out. Send in people with a super virus and have them wait until the right time to release it. Get the bodies piling up, and then disease will do all the work for you. If I was Russia, or China, or any country interested in seeing the US fall, then today would be the day I launched my attack. After things here go to shit, they can waltz in pretending like it’s a humanitarian cause as they take over.”
Red and June stayed silent. Porter turned the radio back up, but the signal had vanished behind the static. He started to scan for a different station.
The road curled along the edge of a hill,
headed down to the vast plains that dominated half the state. They could see the lights of Denver and its southern suburbs. I-25 glowed with the light of thousands of stopped cars, stuck in traffic.
Porter couldn’t find anything but static on the radio.
“Did you see that?” asked June, excitedly pointing out her window.
“See what?” asked Red.
“All the lights in that whole area down there just went out.”
Red slowed as they neared a car at a stoplight. Porter peered down the hill at the city below. It was obvious where June was pointing. There was an almost perfectly square piece of area that was devoid of light.
“Another one,” said Porter as he saw a southern neighborhood go black. “Pull over. Let’s go check it out.”
Red pulled the Jeep closer to the rocks on the right side of the road, but there wasn’t much space. He parked beside a telephone pole. Porter got out of the Jeep to go to the cliff’s edge to watch. Red and June joined him after turning off the Jeep.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” said June as she ran across the street.
The person in the car ahead of the Jeep rolled down his window and asked, “What happened?”
“The lights are going out,” said Red.
“It’s hitting us,” added Porter.
They neared the edge of the cliff, and stood beside a guard rail. June kept cursing quietly, transfixed instead of panicked. Red leaned over the railing. Porter gripped the back of his brother’s sweatshirt to keep him from falling.
One by one, neighborhoods across the Denver area began to blink out. The twilight sky should’ve darkened, but it seemed brighter than usual. The sun had already set behind the mountains, and the orange flare had long since given way to a deep, dusky blue, yet the stars still hid.
Porter looked north, and discovered why.
“Look at the sky,” he said while pointing at a burgeoning glow.
June gasped, “What the fuck is that?” She stepped back from the railing as if preparing to run to the Jeep.
“The northern lights,” said Porter.
A ribbon of shimmering, green light emanated from the north, rising like trails of smoke from the horizon. As the lights of Denver went out, a glorious display brightened the land. The color grew more intense, as if the night itself was cracking and the beauty of another world poured in. Hints of blue and red traced along the edges of the dominant green hue, twinkling and fading gently. The light refused to stay still, and the ribbons fluttered like clothes on a line in the breeze.
