by Lopez, Rob
Shaken from her stupor at seeing her beloved boat in danger, Darla dashed aboard, climbing the steps to the Texas deck. As the radar dome sputtered and cooked off, Darla unlocked the pilothouse and yanked open the door. Noxious smoke wafted out. The radio sparked and plastic melted off the exposed wiring. She grabbed at a powder fire extinguisher and recoiled at the static shock she received as she made contact with the metal. Surprised, she took hold of the extinguisher by its plastic handle, yanking it off the bulkhead. Frantically, she doused the radio and the flame-flickering radar unit, GPS and sonar. Coughing profusely, she backed out of the pilothouse and climbed onto the top, attacking the radar dome with the extinguisher.
Down on the wharf, a security guard running behind the warehouse saw her.
“Hey,” he shouted, running up to the fence.
As soon as he gripped the chain-link, his body jerked and shook. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out and his hands seemed glued to the fence. His hair stood on end and sparks flew from his watch. Darla watched in horror as he was electrocuted, slumping down but still holding the fence.
The same fence she had just walked through minutes ago.
Across the river at the Ninemile power station, a fireworks display erupted as banks of transformers exploded.
***
On the wharf, Darla tried to push the security guard’s body free of the fence with a wooden broom, but his fingers curled solidly around the links like pincers. A loud hum and the smell of burning flesh showed that electricity still flowed through the fence and Darla couldn’t understand why. None of the power lines had fallen anywhere near the fence. Retreating back to the boat, she sat atop the pilothouse and watched a fire starting on the bridge of a freighter anchored on the river. Her office trailer had become engulfed, the glass shattering with the heat, and the crackle of the timbers seemed unnaturally loud because the city was suddenly quiet. Groggy and in shock, Darla lay down, thinking that this really couldn’t be happening.
It was all too much for her, and her head spun. Resting it in her arms, her eyelids drooped and she let herself drift away.
When she woke, the sky was darker, though still a strange color. The trailer was a framework of smoldering embers. There was an orange glow to the east, over the city, and Darla thought New Orleans might be ablaze, but it was just the approaching dawn. With the mother of all headaches threatening to split her head, Darla sat up hoping it really had just been a dream, but when she saw the security guard’s body, now free of the fence and lying on the ground, she groaned, then winced at the pain in her skull. The fire on the freighter had gone out, leaving just a blackened superstructure, but tall pillars of smoke rose from the city and across the river. The traffic was still stationary on the bridge, though there were people moving around the vehicles. The helicopter lay on its side in shallow water. One of its doors was open, so it looked like someone might have got out.
Or rescuers tried to get in.
Climbing down from the pilothouse, Darla entered the boat. In the dim saloon she flicked on the light switch. Nothing happened. She tried a couple more times but to no avail. Unscrewing a bulb from the ceiling, she gave it a shake. The loose filament rattled around inside. All the bulbs turned out to be the same. She made her way to the engine room. The wires she saw on the way were all exposed, the plastic sheathing having dripped down the walls and hardened into blobs. Finding the ancient breaker box, she opened it and pulled down the handle to isolate the boat from the steam generator. The handle wouldn’t move. Looking closely she saw it was welded to the contacts. Shaking her head in disbelief, she uncovered the batteries. They were blackened and some of the caps had popped off as the fluid inside had boiled. Finding a crowbar and hammer she pounded the breaker handle until it snapped away from the contacts. Securing it in the off position she checked the rest of the boat. Every single electrical item was the same, either blown or displaying soot streaks where wires had flared up. It was like someone had connected the boat directly to the grid and turned up the voltage. She’d never seen anything like it in her life.
Then there was the issue of the electric fence that wasn’t supposed to be electric. Trapped on the wrong side of it, Darla didn’t want to risk opening the gate. Padding to the front of the boat, she lowered herself into the water and swam farther along the wharf until she was past the fence and barbed wire. Climbing out onto a dock, she made her way back around to where the security guard lay.
His hands were burned and the hairs of his forearm singed. Tentatively, Darla checked for a pulse. His skin was stone cold.
Darla backed away, hyperventilating, her heart hammering rapidly. She looked around, seeing if there was anyone who could assist, but she was alone. She pulled her phone out to dial 911, but it was dead. She reasoned it had died from water immersion and cursed herself for not using it before she started swimming.
She needed to get help. Not wanting to leave the body like it was, she climbed into a dumpster and unearthed someone’s discarded drapes. She lay it over the body, hesitated, then made a rudimentary sign of the cross over it before heading into the city.
Power lines had fallen in some of the streets and Darla stepped gingerly over them. She was dripping wet and wary of becoming an easy conduit to a nasty shock. Apart from the downed power lines, however, the city looked normal, if unusually quiet. Dawn spread through the sky, and there were one or two people about, but no traffic. Darla approached one man pacing back and forth in front of an apartment block.
“Hey,” she said. “Could you call 911? There’s a guy dead by the river.”
The man gave her a strange look and changed his direction to pace away from her. Still hungover, Darla didn’t feel like shouting at him. She proceeded to the bar where she’d left her car. Everything was still closed, so she figured she’d drive to find a cop. After that she wanted to get home and into some dry clothes. Perhaps a shower and a coffee would wake her up and allow her to make sense of what she’d witnessed.
Finding her car she got in and turned the ignition. Nothing happened. With a groan she grabbed the hammer, popped the hood and hit the starter motor. Getting back in she tried the ignition again, but there was no response. Getting out with the hammer again, she noticed the starter motor looked charred, just like the electrics on her boat. Hitting it once more, she attempted to start the car anyway, but it was completely dead, with not even a click from the solenoid.
“Crap,” she cried, hitting the steering wheel.
She got out, slammed the door and kicked it.
An old guy sitting on a stoop looked at her. “No need for that,” he said. “Ain’t done nothing to you.”
Darla eyed him. He was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. “Can I use your phone?” she asked. “I need to call 911.”
“Ain’t working,” said the man, giving her a curious look. “Ain’t nothing working.”
It occurred to Darla that her dank, bedraggled appearance was probably putting people off, and they weren’t going to give her the assistance she thought she deserved. Hitching up her wet jeans, she set off for the long walk back to the apartment, her shoes squelching.
The more she walked, the more uneasy she got. Her head was starting to clear and she got a little more perceptive. A couple of cars were, at first glance, double parked in traffic lanes, even though there was room by the sidewalks. It wasn’t until she saw a van stationary at an intersection that she realized these vehicles weren’t parked, they were abandoned. Farther on she found a body lying across the tram lines.
She wanted to believe it was just a drunk sleeping it off, and in normal circumstances she might have tried to wake him before he got decapitated by a tram. She’d seen enough drunks, however, to know this guy wasn’t sleeping. He had similar burns to the security guard.
Hastening her pace, she moved on. Far ahead, walking down the median strip, she saw a group of people coming toward her. Squinting, she recognized the uniforms of four police officers an
d gave a sigh of relief. She waited.
The officers were walking quickly. As they got closer she saw they were sweating. It was clear they weren’t used to walking.
“Hey,” she called, “There’s a guy just over there. I think he needs help.”
The police officers, two male and two female, stopped, their powder blue shirts sporting sweat patches under the arms. Besides their sidearms, all of them carried shotguns.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” asked one of the officers, her face flush.
“Yeah. That guy over there? I think he might be dead. And there’s a security guard by Eagle Wharf. He’s definitely dead.”
The officer peered over toward the body on the tram line. “Have you touched him at all?”
“No.”
“Okay, leave it to us. Do you have a working cell phone?”
“Uh, no. I tried to call you guys but it’s not working.”
“Our communications are down, so I’m afraid there’ll be a delayed response time. Have you been in the river, ma’am?”
“Uh, yeah. I had to get off my boat, and there’s, uh, an electric fence …”
“I suggest you go home, ma’am. It’ll be hot inside today, but during the blackout I strongly advise you not to go swimming. The port water’s not safe.”
A little affronted, Darla tried to think of a suitable reply, but before she could get herself in trouble, the officers left. They passed the body, pausing a moment to make some notes, then strode on toward the port area. Over the buildings, smoke was rising from the port and it looked thicker and darker than the smoke Darla had seen earlier. It wasn’t anywhere near her boat but she decided it would be better to go back and check on it later.
Darla was a little flushed herself when she made it back to her apartment. Still skeptical about the blackout, she tried the lights, but, as her sister had predicted and the officer confirmed, there was no power. She decided upon a shower anyway. The electric shower wouldn’t heat the water, but a cold rinse would do. Undressing, she stepped into the cubicle, but the shower didn’t work.
Because of the blackout.
Cursing her inability to think straight, she went to the sink instead. When she turned the faucets on, a tiny dribble came out, followed by a few drips. Then nothing.
Darla had a meltdown, hammering the mirror and throwing the towels about. Fuming, she dressed in clean clothes, found another pair of shoes that wasn’t wet and grabbed a soda can from her refrigerator, along with some melting ice cubes from the freezer box. Opening her window, she dragged a chair over and stared outside.
She’d seen a man die today and it didn’t seem real. Perhaps if she’d been sober it might have imprinted itself properly in her consciousness, but there was something vague about the image in her mind that had her questioning whether it had happened. It already seemed so long ago that her brain was drawing a veil over it, telling her there was nothing to see here.
But she’d seen it, and it was the damnedest thing. She’d seen death before, or at least thought she had. As a teenager, she’d gone to a house party at College Point. In the early hours of the morning she and some others went to the river and sat on the levee. Someone she didn’t know jumped into the river. It was determined afterward that someone had dared the guy to swim across the Mississippi, though everyone denied setting the dare. Darla was stoned at the time, and she remembered seeing the guy in the water, and then not seeing him.
They found his body that afternoon, bobbing in the gap between the shore and a moored barge, about six miles downriver. Verdict: drowning.
Darla told detectives that he’d simply disappeared, but for days afterward she slowly unearthed a memory of him waving and struggling in the water. She had dreams where he called out her name.
In the end she wasn’t sure which was the real memory and which was made up.
Death never seemed to be far away after that. Of the group she hung out with, two died from heroin overdoses and one committed suicide. Neither of them were close to her but it created a mood in her life. It was like she didn’t have much time on this Earth and needed to have as much fun as possible before it was too late.
She received news second-hand that her estranged father got himself killed trying to rob a liquor store in Denver or someplace. Her mother passed away a little more peacefully, though she got that news second-hand too. Before that, however, was the loss of Rose, her baby. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Crib death.
The Grim Reaper was stalking her. That’s how it felt sometimes. But instead of taking her, it took everyone else, like she was a curse. The only reason the security guard touched that fence was because he saw Darla. If it hadn’t been for that, he might have lived.
5
She needed to talk to someone. Manny lived in the Lower Ninth Ward and Darla had to walk through the French Quarter. As the city’s tourist hub, it tended to wake up slow, with temporary inhabitants sleeping off the night before, street cleaners sweeping up empty bottles and cigarette butts, and flea market traders unloading their wares from vans.
Today was a little different. There were no trucks to block the narrow streets as they brought fresh bread and pastries to the numerous cafes. Nothing to bring fresh casks to the bars which had been drained dry by patrons. The flea market owners weren’t there to wipe the dew off their tables. Hooves clopped on the pavement as horse-drawn tourist carriages made their way to the carriage rank by the park, but the proprietors leading the horses looked around in dismay, unsure whether today was really a good day for trade. A few tourists wandered the streets, easily distinguished by their garb and their aimlessness, stunned by the city’s unusual silence and not really knowing what to do with themselves, far from home as they were. Even the park joggers decided to take a day off while they figured out what was happening.
Darla passed people trying to get some of the parked cars started. There were hoods up everywhere. Taxis and police cruisers were abandoned on the road and at intersections. They were the most likely to have been running when the solar storm hit and had just ground to a halt in awkward places. A solitary streetcar was a burned out wreck. Caught between the rails and the overhead power lines, it had been spit roasted. People in their underwear nursing hangovers or, just curious, stood on the wrought iron balconies, gazing quietly at the spectacle. One guy was setting up an easel and paints, clearly intending to capture the scene on canvas. Cafe owners stood outside their premises, shrugging to each other and sharing cigarettes, trying to get tips on who might have a generator to get the coffee machines working. The first cafe to be able to serve coffee that morning would likely make a killing. A few others, however, seemed more aware that this wasn’t the time to be thinking of business opportunities, and that in fact it was a lot more serious than that. From inside a darkened cafe, a trumpet played, melancholy notes drifting out onto the street.
Overhead, the rays of the morning sun pierced the thin veil of smoke that hovered like a mist over the city. Darla crossed the canal bridge into the Lower Ninth Ward. The district had been the hardest hit during Hurricane Katrina. It was below sea level and had flooded completely back then. Many of the homes had been destroyed and even now there were many concrete lots standing bare where the houses had yet to be rebuilt. A lot of the people who used to live here never came back. Manny lived in a mobile home on one of the concrete lots, but misfortune had found him again because his home was just a pile of smoking embers. He was outside, looking as soot-streaked as when he tended the Mississippi Rose’s boilers, sorting through the belongings he’d managed to save from the night’s blaze. It didn’t amount to much. His neighbors brought bottled water to him and helped sweep broken glass and debris into a pile.
“Yo, Manny,” called Darla.
Manny turned and simply nodded.
“You okay?” said Darla.
“Do I look okay?” said Manny grumpily.
“You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Sure, that’s great. Gone and lost
my second home and now I’m a bum again. Damn North Koreans.”
Darla was confused. “North Koreans?”
“Yeah, North Koreans. It was a missile strike. Look at the city.”
From where they stood they could see pillars of black smoke at all points of the compass.
“Did you hit your head or something?” said Darla.
“Don’t you go making out I’m some kind of fool. I’m old, not stupid. Take a good damn look. We at war.”
“It was a solar storm,” said Darla. “It was on the news last night before the blackout.”
Manny grunted in the negative. “You believe every damn thing they tell you, don’t you? How in hell does a solar storm cause all this?”
Darla shrugged. “It’s just what I heard and what I saw. There was some kind of electrical overload. Took out the radar and sonar on the boat and melted all the wires. Did something to the starter on my car too, and a lot of others by the look of it.”
“Overload?” said Manny thoughtfully. “Hot damn, it was an EMP.”
“An EM what?”
“EMP. Electro Magnetic Pulse. They went and dropped EMP bombs all over America and destroyed the grid.”
“It was a solar storm, Manny.”
Manny called across the street to a woman leaning into her car. “Hey, Freya,” he called. “Any luck with your car?”
The woman straightened up with a look of disgust. “Nah. Won’t start or nothing.”
Manny turned to Darla. “See? Solar storm can’t do that. Only a nuclear EMP. I bet your phone don’t work either, do it?”
Darla rolled her eyes. “No,” she said.
“That’s what it is. North Korean first strike.” He thought about it for a minute, then narrowed his eyes. “Black Swan event.” He lowered his voice. “New World Order.”
“North Korea ain’t got no nukes,” said a man nearby, sweeping the last of the debris. “It was the Russians.”
