by AJ Newman
Have candles ready when the power goes out.
Stay home during the power outage. All businesses and unnecessary travel will also be shut down by Executive order. Only hospitals, police stations and other essential work places will remain open.
Do not panic and run to the store to buy a month’s worth of food. Most of you already have a week’s worth of food in your pantries.
Stay tuned to your local emergency broadcast channels for further instructions.
Thanks for your understanding and your compliance with these directives. Remember, we shall get through this together.
This has been a public service announcement.”
Numerous reporters began screaming questions at the retreating Secretary,
His last words were, “I’m sorry but due to calendar restraints, there will be no Q&A period just as I stated before the press conference. Have a nice day.”
***
The last 10 days before “The Flare” passed just way too damn quick to suit me.
In some ways it seems truly funny, no, not ha ha funny, that I came here to be alone and found two friends that I truly enjoy being with every day.
Mary has been a perfect addition to our little tribe and very interesting, but I must admit, I found myself falling for Patty and thinking about her every day.
She was beautiful, smart and sexy in an outdoorsy sort of way. I couldn’t tell if she thought of me in the same way because she was so private with her emotions and thoughts.
I urged both to stay at the ranch several days before The Flare to make sure they were safe in case Frank’s friends were off a bit in their calculations. In truth as I really had no idea how life would be after TF, so I really wanted to spend more time with Patty before the insanity, or rather before The Fit Hit the Shan.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mary gave me a hug and went into the kitchen to prepare spaghetti and meatballs for supper. I took her a glass of red wine while Patty poured our glasses of Blue Moon with a dash of orange juice. I know, I know, man up…don’t fruit the beer. Who cares, I might not know much but I do know what I like.
“Patty, I’m very glad you two decided to stay here with me until after the collision.”
“Me too, anyway, I knew you would be scared and needed someone to hold your hand. So don’t worry, it’ll be all right, Patty’s got you.”
She took my hand in hers and held it.
“Oh, my but you are so perceptive, but yeah, I guess that is it. Seriously, this is a terrifying time for all of mankind. We have already seen a large part of our electronics fail after the first two smaller collisions and the largest of the three, Alpha Omega III will be worse. Well yeah, I guess I am worried.
Life will never be the same again. I expect to live like Jim Bridger, except with an old Ford pickup. That is until the gas runs out or spoils.”
“Thanks for having us out here and we do know that without you pushing us to prepare we would probably be in dire straits in a month. Thanks.”
She bent over and kissed me on the forehead.
“Supper’s ready.”
***
We listened to the live broadcast of the President’s static filled address to the country together that night and found it to be a load of crap.
“What just happened? A reporter asked about a series of invasions of several of Equatorial African countries by several European powers. Russia has massively invaded the Mid-East.”
He did not get an answer.
“That broadcast was meant to keep everyone from panicking. You do know it was pure BS, right?”
Both girls looked solemnly at me and in unison said, “Really, ya think?”
***
There hadn’t been a delivery of produce into Pinedale for two days. The last grocery truck arrived a day ago and would be the last one, if our worst fears were proven to be correct.
The transportation network was falling apart as the electronics continued to fail. Many more planes fell out of the sky, cars crashed, people with pacemakers died and the grid had many blackouts.
The government finally started warning that the upcoming solar event would likely be far worse than was, at first anticipated, but most people couldn’t receive the broadcasts so the alert went mostly unheard. That left at least half of the American people in the dark. All but emergency and military flights were grounded.
The solar activity between collisions was already more potent than the famous Carrington Event, and worsening each day.
***
Most of what I’m telling you though occurred away from Pinedale and took years to spread around the world and half of that is suspect regarding accuracy.
The rumor that genuinely pissed the survivors off was that the President, Congress and their friends were hiding in a large EMP proof bunker with enough food for a hundred years.
The truth was that bunker was actually in Brazil directly below their new offices. Yes, Brazil was the first to be annexed by the U.S.
***
Frank’s notes indicated that the third and final collision should take place at 5:27am on a Thursday. We decided to sleep in Wednesday and take more naps during the day so we could stay up all night to try to catch a glimpse of Alpha Omega III as it approached for its dance of death with the sun.
The notes said that it should be the brightest object in the night sky with a comet like tail of 10,000,000 miles.
Frank also predicted that the Borealis Lights over the northern tier states would make it impossible to see until the last couple of nights before impact. We watched for it each night in the western sky just before dawn each day, but did not see it until just a few hours before the collision.
He also noted that the astronomers predicted that the Coronal Mass Ejection would take approximately two days to arrive in Earth’s inhabited space. The plasma and charged particles would have the effects of a small sun passing close to the Earth.
A direct hit, or even a close pass to the Earth would scour the planet’s surface and cleanse it of all life. We thanked God; the prediction was that the plasma cloud would miss the Earth by a million miles and only resulting in devastation of our grid and all unshielded electronics.
A new question began to circulate via ham radio. How the collision might affect the Sun’s output of energy and light to the Solar System.
The governmental prediction was that the Sun’s loss of mass would be negligible statistically; however, Frank warned that the survivors should be prepared for colder overall temperatures, for the next ten thousand, or so years.
Mary told us that she had asked Frank about this, and he replied that since the sun’s output may be diminished during the remaining winter months, and carry over into the following year, the ice sheets of the world would grow, and reflect more of the sun’s heat back into space. This would result in even more ice forming, and we could find ourselves in a new Ice Age.
Mary didn’t tell us that part until the night before the collision.
***
I had my strongest field glasses trained to the sky and could only see the never ending display of color exploding in the sky in sheets and swirls.
Mary handed us a glass of wine and said, “I need to mention one thing that I just found in Frank’s notes. He had a special section that covers his teams forecast on what the Sun and the Earth may be like after the collision. It is not good.”
“How bad is it?”
“They think the ejected material will miss the Earth as you know and the Earth and most people survive without electronics, well initially.
Most people will starve or kill each other later. The problem is they forecasted that the Sun will lose enough mass to cause it to go into a period of lower solar activity and increased sun spots.”
Patty said, “Why do I think that won’t be good?”
I was thinking at 90 miles an hour when I blurted out, “We are screwed. It will cause the temperature on the Earth to drop. We will have longer and more severe winters. Why
didn’t Frank build his shelter at the equator or at least much farther south?”
“He doesn’t say. Please don’t blame him for what’s about to happen. Matt, you came to Wyoming and bought property here without receiving the warning from my husband. I told you after the sale. Patty you were here and didn’t know to try to head south. We are all here and now we have to make the best of the situation.”
“Damn, you’re right. Patty and I would be here anyway. You are the only one who could have been in a warmer climate.”
“I’ll never know, but my guess is that this was where he always wanted to live and took a chance that it wouldn’t happen.”
I took a big drink, raised my glass and saluted Frank, “Here’s to the man who probably saved our sorry asses just to have us freeze those sorry butts off.”
“Salute.”
Mary spotted Alpha Omega just before 4:00 am and pointed it out to us.
“There it is. Can you see that long white streak in the green just above the northeastern horizon?”
“I saw it immediately, but Patty took a minute to find it in the sea of exploding colors.”
“It’s so tiny. How could something that small put a dent in our Sun?”
“It’s actually the size of Jupiter.”
“Matt, you are the science guy, so why does Alpha Omega have a tail like a comet?”
I said, “Well, the atmosphere of Alpha Omega has been frozen for about a gazillion years, and as it nears the sun the atmosphere is thawing out and boiling off. Man, I’ll bet that tail is at least ten million miles long. Wow!
Oh, shit, this is starting to get way, too real here. Up until right now, this has just been something that might happen, may not happen and then probably will happen. Oh shit, it’s going to happen.”
Tears came to Patty’s eyes as I took her in my arms and held her to try to make her feel safe.
“We are going to be okay. We are prepared and can survive anything this world throws at us. Please don’t cry.”
“I believe you. I really do, but I can’t shake this sense of dread for the human race. Millions of people will start dying in a few hours,” Patty said as she pulled away from me.
“Yes, you are right, they will, in fact in just a few weeks that number will jump into the billions. Our job is to hunker down, hide and let the death and destruction pass us by. We won’t come out into the world until most of the looting, death and disease are over. This winter will kill off all but the best prepared.”
I pulled her closer, kissed her and said, “Patty, I have to tell you that I want you to stay with me and become part of my life. I have come to love you Patty.”
She kissed me and said, “Thanks, this will save our lives.”
Huh…wait…what? Did she just say thanks? Oh crap.
We continued watching the sky until there came a faint glow from the sun rising over the mountains. We lost sight of Alpha Omega III about the same time due to the glow from the sun. I looked at my watch and saw it was 5:28 am. The collision had happened and the light from it would arrive in seven minutes.
“Grab your welder’s glass, but be prepared to look away. This could be much brighter than the Sun.”
We were counting down until the eight minutes had just passed before we finally saw a burst of light over the horizon; the whole landscape became a brilliant white and then…darkness.
Mary yelled, “The Sun is gone. The collision destroyed the Sun.”
“Calm down. It’s just your eyes recovering from the blast of light; our vision will come back in a minute.”
It took several minutes for us to be able to see without white spots. The sun was peeking above the mountain, but we could see wild swirls jetting out from it and a bright mass just above.
“Look! That’s the mass ejection forecasted by the astronomers. Now we need to pray it heads away from our Earth. We have two days before that shit gets here.
Expect no radio reception for weeks, all electronics to be fried, most vehicles to die and of course the grid will be dead for years.”
“Matt why will it take years to get the power back on line?”
“The short answer is that the large transformers all over the Earth that reduce the power from the main generators to the transformers that distribute the power to subdivisions and factories will be fried along with the small ones. The small ones can be manufactured quickly. However, the U.S. doesn’t even manufacture the large ones anymore. They are all produced in Korea and China. Just tooling up to make them will take years. Then the military and major cities will get them at first. Wyoming will be last in line with all of the low population mountain states.”
“Shit.”
“Right, shit.”
We all took short naps and I was very disappointed that Patty went to the spare bedroom instead of napping with me. Yes, I had noticed that she didn’t tell me that she loved me when I told her. My feelings were hurt and I began to wonder if I was just being used. I woke up to hear Mary rattling pots and pans in the kitchen.
“Mary, I’m starving. My stomach doesn’t know it’s the end of the world.”
“How does a western omelet with bacon and toast sound?”
“Great. I’m hungry.
I noticed a new sound coming from the back of the house and down stairs. Mary, that’s a new sound. What is it?”
“The power failed an hour ago and the emergency generator kicked in. We will have to ration our power use to save diesel if the wind and solar don’t produce enough. I wonder how things are going in town. ”
“Mary, it scares me to think that I might not have met the two of you. If I hadn’t had that chance meeting with Patty, I wouldn’t have met either of you. I actually came here to be alone, what an idiot I was. Being alone is the last thing I want. Even though I still have a bad taste in my mouth about a lot of people back in Tennessee.”
Mary laughed and said, “Did kissing Patty leave a good taste in your mouth?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t like it as much as I hoped she would. She appears to be distracted and doesn’t have time for me. Until now, I didn’t think I would ever want a relationship again. I mean, I knew someone would eventually come along. I just didn’t think I’d fall for someone who didn’t fall for me.”
“Yes, she’s been a little quiet lately, but I really think she likes you.”
We heard Patty coming down the stairs and changed the subject to a trip into town.
Patty said, “I really want to see how things are going in town. It will be the last time we will ever have to see a large group of people again. I also want to stop by my house to bring more supplies here. We’ll be safe today and tomorrow. I don’t think any of us should venture out after that other than to check out the property. We should also start rotating on guard duty.”
“I was going to bring that up tomorrow. I took down all of my cameras and sensors so they wouldn’t be damaged by The Flare. We won’t have the luxury of the early warning they provide until I get them back up next week.”
Mary replied, “Perhaps we need to block off the roads and place traps until then.”
I added, “I think you are right. Our Bugout location is up in the hills west of here. I need to take you there so you’ll know where to go if something happens to me. We also need to take some spare clothes, bedding and extra food up there.”
“Where is this place? Frank and I walked the entire property several times. Did you build something?”
“No. Mother Nature made a cave over millions of years of water flowing through the rocks. A small stream still flows through the cave.”
“That’s great. I was afraid you were going to try to get us all in the 200 gallon tank.”
We all laughed at that and moved on to their trip to Pinedale.
They strapped on their pistols, retrieved their carbines and walked out to the barn to drive Mary’s Chevy pickup over to town. I watched them drive away until they disappeared and got ready for a trip around my prop
erty.
I placed several cartons of MREs, two sleeping bags and some canned goods in the back of the Kawasaki Mule and headed out to travel my fence line around the property. Of course, I had a 9mm Glock, M&P15 and my carbine snug in my Bugout bag.
It was only about a mile and a half around the front three sides of my property, but I took my time to watch for signs of intrusion and took several hours. There were no signs that anyone had been on the property, so I drove straight to the old cabin. I parked a couple hundred yards away and walked up to the cabin. No one was there and I saw no fresh signs of any partying. My message apparently got around to the local teens.
I drove on over to the ravine, parked a short distance from the cave and took the supplies in and stored them. The entrance hadn’t been disturbed so I headed on back to the house after thoroughly wiping my tracks away. I approached the house carefully to practice this habit for the future.
The house was just as I left it and I busied myself preparing supper for the girls. They had done most of the cooking and I wanted them to take a hot bath, relax and let me serve them when they returned in a couple of hours.
They had promised to return before dark, which gave me plenty of time to prepare the meal. Fried pork chops, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes and green beans along with their favorite wine. I took a shower and then started preparing the vegetables while the chops marinated in my special wine based sauce.
***
The girl’s trip into town didn’t go as expected. They had to turn around and head to Patty’s house when they saw a gun fight in progress at a roadblock at the edge of town.
Mary turned the truck around and said, “I guess we’ll have to cancel until Matt can go with us. I don’t want to get involved in that mess.”
Mary drove along the back road to Patty’s house when they saw a kid on a snowmobile in a driveway. The kid waived and quickly rode towards them and the road. They drove on not thinking much about the kid who was soon out of sight. A few minutes later, they turned down Mary’s driveway and parked in her garage so they could load the truck without prying eyes wondering what they were up to and discovering what was in the truck.
