Geoff: The ground was trembling.
Rene: People were going nuts. Some screamed, some were cheering. We could see the buildings crumble at the impact spots. We couldn’t see them anymore, but we could hear the rumble of them moving. Every few minutes there would be a flash of light that was so strong you had to shut your eyes. This went on for a while. And then, boom, there was a flattened out beam of energy that sliced upward into the sky. It started narrow and spread out the further up it went.
Geoff: It was green.
Rene: Right, then there was a blue blast and a bunch of explosions—fiery, gas-fed mushroom-cloud deals. Buildings swayed and a few like broke. Beam after crazy beam, just destroying the city. Then one of them came our way. It was pretty wide when it hit the stadium. It like melted the stands.
Geoff: Before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed you and we were all running.
Rene: Remember that moaning sound?
Geoff: Yep.
Rene: It really felt like a monster movie, like it was roaring.
Geoff: Didn’t take us long to realize that the noise was the stadium losing its integrity and swaying.
Rene: This high pitched, screamy kind of sound of metal twisting and stretching.
Geoff: You were sobbing, all wide-eyed, your mouth was like a perfect ‘O’.
Rene: Everybody was running blind. Luckily, the person in front knew where they were going. Right when we all saw the exit—right on cue—came this huge crashing sound. I just knew we were going to die. I held my breath and started crying and squeezed Geoff’s hand.
Geoff: I turned to see what it was but couldn’t tell.
Rene: When we got outside we all ran south.
Geoff: The giants were still wrestling. The city was on fire. Buildings were toppled, broken in half.
Rene: People were screaming, just losing it. I was, too. The stadium was screeching. The giants were doing their wrecking ball impersonation. We were walking south but walking backwards, watching. Well, I was. For like thirty minutes Geoff guided me while I watched.
Geoff: We all heard this sound that we hadn’t heard during all this commotion. It was the cleanest, flattest ‘pap!’ you’ve ever heard, like a .22 going off indoors. We all turned in time to see the green, bigger giant jump straight up, above the city. The blue one was underneath it. The green one, in the air, stationary, was infused with all this lightning.
Rene: Tons of strikes. It was so bright you could read a fucking book.
Geoff: It released all this energy straight down at the blue one and shredded it.
Rene: Emptying itself in the process.
Geoff: The end.
Rene: We were all quiet for like a minute, then it was like the most epic slow-clap ever. We went nuts, cheering like it was the millennial New Year and VE Day combined. Next thing you know we’re all partying—grilling spam and drinking the awful liquor that was still around. After a while, it started pouring again, like God or the ghost of the giants were putting out the fires. Everyone scattered.
Geoff: We decided to head back through the city and picked up some supplies. Then head east to Savannah.
Rene: Yeah, and then some dorks in a Hyundai pulled up.
CHAPTER 3
During the ride to Savannah there was an animated and passionate discussion. The main question was never answered to anyone’s satisfaction but was dissected and restated often that stormy afternoon. I must have said it ten times myself.
“What in the world is going on?”
There were three groups to meet up with in Savannah: the usual church-affiliated collective; an academic group; and the kids’ friends. I was interested in the second group as a good friend of mine was a graphic design instructor at SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design.
The church we were looking for, a small Southern Baptist church that John had had contact with pre-Lights Out, was located in an area whose residents used a high school as an ad hoc community center. They slept in their homes but pretty much did everything else at the school. They planted a number of fruit trees and vegetables, and had a number of chicken coops. What they didn’t have, we soon learned, were basic meds, particularly antibiotics. The expressions of relief and gratitude we saw when John informed them that we had a good supply that we’d share with them made this whole adventure worthwhile. Some of the people wept openly they were in such desperate need. Hell, I was tearing up.
As we ate a lunch of red beans and rice we filled them in on Atlanta. I imagined that our faces had the same distressed, disbelieving, astonished looks as this crowd had when we first heard the story.
Nothing strange had happened in Savannah. Out of the ordinary, Atlanta strange, that is: we were informed that most of the historic district had been rendered lunar due to a series of gas explosions six months ago. My stomach tightened at the news: SCAD was scattered in a number of buildings in the historical district. My buddy Alan lived downtown and so did the kids’ friends.
Not long after lunch, the kids I got directions and some bikes and headed downtown to see what we could see. Maybe we’d get lucky and come across some information about the whereabouts of our friends.
Rene: You, John and Russ’ve been friends long?
Me: Not really, just since we met up at the camp.
Rene: Y’all seem to get along.
Me: Because we do.
Rene: What did you do back in the old days?
Me: Taught literature at USM.
Rene: Ah, I get it, now: Russ is the military guy, John’s the religious guy and you’re the
bookworm.
Me: Sure, if you’re into oversimplication.
Rene: It could be a sitcom (modulates her voice) “In a world without power, three
philosophically opposed men set out on a journey of discovery…”
Geoff: A general, a priest and a poet walk into a bar…
[Laughs]
Geoff: Are you a writer?
Me: Pardon?
Geoff: There was a guy who wrote a couple of short stories in the early nineties named Evan Lehman. Not the most common name. Thought I’d take a shot.
Me: Nice shot.
Rene: Holy shit, really?
Geoff: “Kinescope” was yours, right?
Me: Yeah, it sure was.
Geoff [Turns to Rene]: That one was written in the early nineties and predicted Goggles. [Turns to me] You called them Shades, right?
Me: That’s right.
Rene: What was the story about?
Geoff: It was about these two law enforcement agents who con this cocky tech-gang security guy to work for them. In the story, there was a fashion trend where people wore colored contacts that covered the whole eye. The gag was that the pair that the security guy wore recorded a bunch of intel that they leveraged to convince the guy to join their group.
Rene: Where do the Goggles come in?
Me: They’re peppered throughout the narration and used in different ways. The agent uses them to identify and classify people in crowds on the street. They are defined as ‘realtime graphical overlays’ in a part where some kids are waiting to go to a concert.
Geoff: “Kinescope” was mentioned on a few blogs over the past couple years because of the Goggles connection. There was another one you did that had to do with Goggles, right?
Me: It was called “The Mannequin”. It was a redneck, neo-noir, cyberpunk story about a guy who gets mixed up in a murder and needs to get out of town. He kidnaps a total immersion gamer’s sexbot in order to sell and raise his escape money.
Rene: How did it end?
Me: Most everyone dies.
Rene: The sexbot, too?
Me: No. She was the only moral person in the story. You know, the whole ‘robot prostitute with a heart of gold’ angle.
Geoff: Why did you stop writing?
Me: You’ve read my stuff.
Geoff: It wasn’t bad.
Me: The rave of the century.
Geoff: You know what
I mean.
Me: I’m joking. I don’t know…it was a lot of things…life, bills, bad habits. So I know you are at least into obscure cyberpunk wannabes. Do you write?
Geoff: Yep. I write science fiction.
Me: Been published?
Rene: Dude, he’s been anthologized.
Me: Wow. Give me an example.
Geoff: The one that has gotten the best reception is called “Number Five.” It’s about two groups of people who have opposite opinions about a mysterious robot—one that may or may not even exist—that was rumored to have been created by a long-dead mad scientist. It explores how beliefs change and harden over the course of a couple of generations, especially when the initial believers fade away and a second wave comes aboard. It’s like pulp possibilianism. There are the robot-watchers who want to kill this robot, and the worshippers who want to assist it.
Me: How old are you, Geoff?
Geoff: Twenty-two.
Me: Jesus. What about you, Rene?
Rene: Twenty-five.
Me: Where’d y’all meet?
Rene: We met in southern Illinois, of all places. I was moving my way to Atlanta from Chicago, and he was on his way to Chicago from Atlanta. We met at the check-out line at a Shell station. He was getting the same brand of gum as me—
Geoff: —Layers.
Rene: And we starting talking while this guy was taking forever deciding on scratch-offs.
Geoff: I got her number and told her I’d show her around when I got back.
Rene: I got his number and I was like calling him from Atlanta the next day, going like, “Where’s a good sushi joint?” and “Where do you get your comic books?”
Geoff: When I got back we were with each other twenty-four seven.
Me: How long have you been together?
Rene: Close to three years.
Me: What did you do in the old days, Rene? Run a crime syndicate?
Rene: I blogged. Did hair. Hung out with Geoff and the gang.
Me: What was your blog about?
Rene: My life, pop life, geek culture. I freelanced a bunch, too.
Geoff: She’s also my editor and my sounding board and got me to get serious about my writing. She’s the reason I am—was—successful.
Rene: Nine published stories in eighteen months, a Nebula nomination, a couple of contest wins…
Geoff: I tried to talk her into letting us form a pseudonym and share writing credits.
Rene: It would have been like a makeup artist taking credit for a model’s success.
Geoff: We were pretty popular in certain circles on the web.
Rene: Without a doubt.
Me: So where were you two when the lights went out?
Rene: I was sick in bed sleeping when it happened. Geoff says he tried to wake me up, but I had downed like half a bottle of Nyquil. I woke up the next day and saw that the power went out and figured—like everyone—that it would be up and running soon, just like they had the week before. When it settled in that it wasn’t coming back on, ever—and it took a lot of us a long time before we gave in—we dealt with it. Still are, really. It took Geoff a while. He was going batshit for like three months hunting down all the books he had on his Kindle. It was like an obsession. He didn’t cope too well.
Geoff: The Drowned World and Ribofunk aren’t exactly in your corner Barnes and Noble.
Rene: Dry your eyes, Francis, I’m only kidding.
Geoff: No, Evan, the biggest adjustment that I had to make was dealing with all the extra time that I now had to spend with my girlfriend.
Rene: And you love every minute of it.
There was an issue of Swamp Thing back in the Alan Moore run when Swamp Thing’s girlfriend was arrested and taken to Gotham City. Swamp Thing, angered, overran Batman’s home turf with vegetation. That image has come to life here in Savannah. We rode through an old residential area that looked like it had plenty of green pre-Lights Out, but it was now bursting through the sidewalks and streets. I was lost in dumb observations like that when Rene’s gasp focused my attention.
The three snarling pitbulls had mottled gray and brown fur and were dripping saliva. As though a silent starting gun had gone off, they took off after us, barking madly. I’ll never forget the teenagers standing in knee-high grass laughing at us as the dogs sprinted our way.
We u-turned and peddled hard. Soon the barking subsided. Once we could no longer hear the dogs, we stopped and caught our breath.
“Holy shit,” Rene said. Tears were streaming down her face.
I turned around. The dogs were trotting figure eights around one another, barking periodically to let us know they were still watching.
We stood watching them for a moment. I looked around and said, “Let’s go south one more block then take the next road east.”
They agreed. We peddled south, and a few moments later we were heading east again. “Did you see those assholes?” Rene said.
I was about to answer when to our right we heard barking ahead of us.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rene said, her voice a panicked sob.
The dogs ran out from between two houses and into the road. They turned and sprinted after us, snarling and barking wildly.
We turned around and peddled.
Rene was yelling and sobbing.
“Turn right and go south!” Geoff yelled.
“Yeah!” I yelled back. The idea was to keep going south a number of blocks and get completely out of the dogs’ neighborhood(s). There were a number of people in their yards looking on helplessly at us, but no owners coming forward to call them off.
We turned right on the road. And saw another pack of dogs.
“No!” Rene wailed. “No, no, NO!”
I turned to face the first pack, which was at the end of the road we had turned off of, silently regarding us.
“What do we do?” Rene said, shaking with fright.
The new pack began to bark at us but did not chase us. For a moment I felt that we were in the middle of two rival packs or something. The scene was disorienting and bizarre.
“Let’s go back,” Geoff said.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” I agreed.
We peddled back north slowly. The dogs behind us stopped barking. The dogs to our left stared at us as we passed, their tongue bobbing up and down, strings of saliva stretching and dripping from their jowls.
We picked up speed.
Rene said, “What the hell was their problem?” I assumed it was rhetorical so I remained silent.
“That was messed up.” Geoff said.
“I fucking hate dogs. Always have.”
We rode back to the school in silence, exhausted, and crashing hard from our adrenaline rush.
That night I slept on top of my sleeping bag in a science lab in the high school. I was aggravated, and it took me a while to figure out that it wasn’t because of the weirdness with the dogs or that I was unable to find my friend.
I was jealous of Geoff. I had wasted so much time at that age, made so many bad decisions. But that was only half of it. I could tell by being around him that he was a natural talent. He simply had it.
The one aspect of growing older that stings the most is encountering your own limitations, especially in the form of other people.
CHAPTER 4
Jacksonville was Russ’s baby. He knew some people in pre-Lights Out Jacksonville—military buddies mostly—and wanted to check in on them. After walking a couple of blocks from the SUV I was already looking forward to spending a few days here. It was hopping in a way that underscored just how somnambulistic everywhere else had become. There were people everywhere walking, biking, visiting, skateboarding, and playing amid the shadows of the tall office buildings and hotels near the St Johns River. Thick threads of people were heading to and from an area to the south. We followed them and soon were at an orange-roofed, semi-circular complex on the river called the Landing.
Two barges were docked next to the seawa
ll where Navy seamen hustled food and ice chests to other seamen manning large grills and handing out food and drinks to the crowd.
Russ said, “You guys go ahead and eat. I’m going to see if there’s anyone I may know.”
I nodded absently, barely hearing him, too preoccupied staring at the large white chests that had actual ice cubes in them. John and I grabbed two bottles of beer and the kids found some Mountain Dew knock-offs. We were grinning like four children on Christmas morning. I scooped a handful of ice cubes and showed them to John as though they were diamonds.
Rene called after us a few moments later, “You guys gonna come eat or just stand there like a couple of idiots?”
While we were elbow deep in grilled fish and boiled potatoes Russ came over with a black couple his age.
Russ said, “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Kenny Jameson and his better half, Alice. Kenny and I were both instructors up in Chicago, jeez, twenty-five years ago?”
“At least,” Kenny said, laughing.
While we all shook hands, Russ said, “Kenny retired down the road a bit in St. Augustine, but came back up here shortly into Lights Out to work with his old Navy buddies who run Jacksonville now. He’s heading up converting office buildings to permanent housing.”
“’Convert’? What’s to convert?” Rene asked.
“Ventilation,” Geoff said.
“Mainly,” Kenny said, smiling. The three of them sat down at our table. As we ate, Kenny started laying out the history of the end of the world for us, all of it with a straight face.
On August 30, seven people walked to the middle of a quad on the campus of the University of Florida in nearby Gainesville covered in thick goo and wearing strange headgear daisy-chained together by electrical cables that were in turn connected to an apparatus that was hooked to a machine in a nearby physics building. They flipped a switch and drained as much energy as they could into their machinery and themselves. An immediate byproduct of this was a blast of microwave energy that killed thirty-thousand plus people right on the spot. A secondary byproduct was that most of the southeast lost power for a number of hours or days depending where you lived.
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