If Darkness Takes Us Read online

  “If I don’t come back for a while—”

  “Nana! Don’t say that!” Tasha cried. I sat down next to her and took her hand.”

  “Sugar, listen to me. We don’t know yet how bad this thing is. I have to see if I can find out, so we can decide the safest course of action. But if it’s bad up there, something could go wrong when I go up, and you guys will be on your own. I’m so sorry this has happened, but you have to get tough right now to deal with it.”

  “What if the owners of this house come home?” Keno asked. “What do we tell them?”

  I shut my eyes for a moment. Did I really need to destroy my shroud of secrecy? I might be overreacting. But I’d never seen a power outage that included flashing green light, a radiant sky, and dead cars. No, this was bad. We could be in for serious trouble, and the kids needed the comfort of knowing I had a plan.

  Mazie came running around the corner toward the rest of us. “The songs stopped. Can I play it again?”

  “No, honey. We need to save the batteries. That was a special treat.”

  Tasha patted the spot beside her on the bench, and Mazie climbed up.

  I leaned back and told the kids the story of the house. I told about the inheritance, about the bees I’d installed in the wall, and the books and gear to use when harvesting honey. I told them about all the food and tools. I described the gun closet upstairs and how to get into it, then I made them promise to never, ever go there except in an emergency. Someday, I thought, I’ll have to teach these kids how to shoot.

  My grandchildren seemed a little flabbergasted and a lot overwhelmed. I expected a barrage of questions, but instead they studied me as though I was someone they’d never seen before.

  The only question came from Milo. “Are you a millionaire?”

  “I guess I am.” I stood to go. I wanted to hug my grandchildren, but I thought it would make my leaving seem too final. “Kids, take care of each other.”

  When I was halfway up the cellar stairs, Mazie lunged up after me, squealing, “No-o-o! Don’t leave me here, Nana. Don’t leave!” She latched on to my pant leg with a ferocity pretty unbelievable for one so small.

  I scooped Mazie into my arms, letting her cry. I cried as well but kept my face against her little chest so that no one would see my tears. How were we going to cope with this? I willed my tears to stop. I motioned to Tasha, and she came and picked up Mazie and took her away, both of them sniffling.

  “If I don’t come back, stay here as long as you can,” I said from the cellar door. “Go two at a time to get what you need from the rest of the house, but stay indoors and hurry straight back to the shelter.” I dangled a ring full of identical keys in the air. “Don’t any of you leave the cellar without one of these keys.”

  “Okay,” Tasha said. The others slowly nodded. Harry scampered up the steps, ready to leave with me, but I told him to stay. He sat down on the landing and coughed.

  “Nana,” Keno said, “usually a CME only affects a small area—like one city or one state. But if it was strong enough to fry the cars, it could’ve affected a whole lot more.”

  “Like how much more?” I asked, and Tasha covered Mazie’s ears.

  “North and South America, maybe. The whole daylight side of the planet.”

  My heart jolted and momentarily took my breath away.

  “Let’s hope it was smaller then. I love you,” I said, and I closed my beautiful grandchildren into the cellar.

  SIX

  I CREPT from the pantry and into the kitchen. Its floor was covered with stacked drums of dried beans, flours, and grains, and the counters were loaded three layers high, two-deep, with five-gallon tins of vegetable oil and peanut butter. I went through the dining room, which was crammed with shelves of canned foods and supplies, like kitchen matches and soaps. I skirted past the living room with its cartons of canned goods and toilet paper, bags and barrels of beans and grains, heaped floor to ceiling. With an anxious sense that none of this was enough, I climbed the stairs.

  On the second floor I passed two bedrooms, a den, and a bathroom holding more barrels, bags, and cases of food, plus another bedroom full of five-gallon water jugs. I went to a room packed with seeds, fertilizer, and gardening and canning supplies. I searched the closets, one of which was locked and filled with four bolt-action rifles, two semi-automatics, six pistols, all the requisite gear, and several shelves full of ammo.

  I didn’t find what I was looking for, so I descended the stairs and went to the three-car garage. There I encountered ropes, wagons, wheelbarrows, chainsaws, rototillers, and scads of tools. Behind a wood stove, kerosene stove, stacks of firewood, and jugs of various fuels, I opened another cabinet and pulled out a Geiger counter.

  I wanted to check the neighborhood for radiation.

  The humid, smoky air outside set my lungs to wheezing—again. This was different than the floating ash from the train wreck. This smoke was new. Scattered plumes of it rose in the near distance—beyond our neighborhood but close enough that we’d need to keep an eye out. The haze kept me from checking the condition of the sky itself.

  It was late in the day, and the sun was low in the west. The glaring lack of modern-day background noise sent prickles up my spine.

  I didn’t want to draw attention to this house. I hunched down as low as I could manage and slinked across the garden path to the split in the hedge.

  After my ears adjusted to the deafening quiet, I heard voices—first a few, then a lot. Once in the safety of my own yard, I looked over the side fence and up and down the street to see people milling about on sidewalks, sitting in yards and on porches, fanning themselves. Three guys were pushing a car from the street up into a driveway. Jack Jeffers stood with a cluster of people, hovering around the black Honda CR-V now roosting on his flattened front fence.

  Ducking into the privacy of my covered patio, I switched on the Geiger counter, my heart racing as the instrument ticked and its meter steadily rose. The needle settled in the normal radiation range, thank God, though I didn’t feel much better. It was chemicals of unspecified composition and consequence that worried me most. And whatever was going on with the sky.

  The air out here was simply unbreathable. I was wheezing my head off. But the westerly wind was still blowing, so maybe we’d be done with this ashy air soon—unless the wind fanned the nearby flames.

  I went out the gate to join the cluster of people, who were talking about where they’d been when “it” happened. Gary Matheson’s car had died about a mile away, and he’d been forced to walk home. One woman had been in the shower, and since the sun was coming through her blinds, she hadn’t been using the lights. She’d been out of the shower for a while before she noticed how hot her house was getting, and that none of her clocks were lit.

  “It must have happened while I was toweling off my hair,” she said.

  People were scarily hyper-animated, their emotions glowing beneath their skin—almost like a Van Gogh painting, with faces and bodies outlined in black, making their colors more vibrant, their expressions more extreme.

  “Does anyone know what happened?” I asked.

  Most folks shook their heads, but our neighborhood guitarist, Silas Barnes, said, “Seems like an EMP to me.” Others nodded.

  “Silas,” I said, “do you think it was caused by a nuke or the sun?”

  “Don’t know enough about it to say. Just heard about EMPs in movies is all.”

  “I saw an EMP on that TV show 24,” Gary Matheson said. I was surprised he watched 24. He’d always seemed so brainy and uptight.

  “I saw that,” I said. “It was a non-nuclear weapon that only affected a small area.”

  “I saw it in War of the Worlds,” Silas said. “Some cars still worked though.”

  “Yeah, but Tom Cruise had to replace parts in his car, remember?” I said. “Anyway, that was sci-fi. In real life, there’s a few ways these things can happen. Nuclear bombs, non-nuclear EMP weapons, the sun. There aren’t any mush
room clouds, and the radiation level is normal, so it’s probably not a nearby nuke.”

  Everyone gave me funny looks. Jack Jeffers narrowed his eyes. Of all our neighbors, I knew him best. He and I had run our neighborhood association until we disbanded because our neighbors weren’t that interested in being organized. Plus, things between us got tricky.

  “How do you know the radiation’s normal?” Gary asked.

  “Well. . . .” I hesitated, then said, “I checked it with my Geiger counter.”

  “What’re you doin’ with a Geiger counter?” Mr. Jeffers lowered his face to my level, making me feel creepy for having such an instrument and idiotic for saying so.

  “What else you got squirreled away, Bea?” Silas asked, a snarky grin on his face. They all laughed. I winced. People around here had always treated me like a quirky enviro-nut, the way most of my family did. No one but Keno took me seriously.

  “I’ve got a dozen Greenpeace beer koozies, Silas. If you ever need one, I’m your gal. Other than that, a Geiger counter is all.” I wanted to get out of here, but first I needed more information. “So, how far does this thing go? Is it just here, or the whole state, or what?”

  “No one knows,” Mr. Jeffers said. “There’s no way to find out, far as I know, until the power comes back or someone travels through.”

  “Goddamn gov’ment is screwin’ with us,” Mel Lewis blurted out. His face was red, his eyes hard. His two stout sons stood behind him, looking equally fierce. “They’re takin’ our power and cars away so we’re easier to control. They’ll let us suffer till we’re weak, then they’ll herd us all into FEMA camps.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Gary Matheson. “That’s crazy talk.”

  “Yeah? Well, prove me wrong.” Mel Lewis strapped his arms over his chest, thrusting his chin toward Gary, who gulped.

  “It might be the Rapture,” Doris Barnes half-whispered, cowering beside her husband, Silas.

  “Doris, did you see anyone disappear?” Silas said. “Ain’t no Rapture.”

  “Well, it could be the start.”

  Silas rolled his eyes.

  “That glow in the sky means somethin’,” she said under her breath.

  Any minute, some of these neighbors would be donning tin-foil hats.

  “There’s no use standing around spouting theories,” Jack Jeffers said. “Bea, where’s Hank?”

  “That’s just it. He and my grown kids were on the highway, heading home from the football game in Dallas. They were almost to Waco when he called me, fifteen minutes before it happened.”

  “Way-co!” He shuddered and looked askance, making his voice gentler. “There’s always so much traffic in Waco. Have you been out to Manchaca Road to see all the car wrecks?”

  “Good God, no.” Car wrecks—I couldn’t bear to think about them. “What about the water—is it safe?”

  “What water?” he said. “Try your faucets, but water from the main lines is gone already. You should have some in your water heater. Wait for it to cool down though.”

  If I had been in my house instead of the secret cellar, I would’ve filled water containers straight away. People were already noticing oddities in my behavior. I needed to be more careful.

  “Is all this smoke coming from car wrecks?” I asked.

  “Mostly, but that plane went down,” Mr. Jeffers said. “Just tumbled through the sky and fell out south, toward San Marcos. Probably were other planes, too, if this EMP is as strong as people say. Some houses are burning, too.”

  “Good grief, and no fire trucks, I guess?”

  “You got it.”

  “Do you think the fires will come this way?”

  “Anything can happen. Anything at all. Some of us men are talkin’ about beefing up the neighborhood watch into a patrol to walk the perimeter in teams.”

  “Good idea. Do you think anyone will come rescue us? Like maybe this is only a local problem?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. . . . No, I sure wouldn’t count on it.”

  “No, they’ll come,” Silas said. “I’m not worried. They always come.”

  “That’s right,” Gary said, nodding adamantly.

  Mel Lewis huffed and stomped away with his sons.

  Mr. Jeffers dropped his head and shook it. “Listen everyone. Keep your fridges and freezers shut tight. They’ll stay cold overnight, but if power’s not back by morning, cook up all your fresh food within a day. Put your ice in insulated containers so you can keep things cold until the ice runs out.”

  I sighed. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  As I walked away, he said, “Bea?” and I turned to him. “Waco’s only a hundred miles away. Hank and your kids could walk home if they had to. It would take a few days, but they could do it.”

  I bit my lip. “That’s true. Thanks for reminding me of that. Gives me hope.”

  Everything seemed surreal. None of my neighbors—except possibly Jack Jeffers or conspiracy-minded Mel Lewis—wanted to believe we’d be without power and water for more than a few hours. I feared they were sadly mistaken.

  Heading home, I passed a man and a sobbing woman holding each other in the intersection. I passed teenage boys hanging on a stop sign, digging their sneaker toes into the dirt. Some dads and kids were playing football in the street. It was still an hour or more until dark. How could I get my grandkids home from the secret house without being seen? How could I protect us from a neighborhood full of hungry, thirsty people if this situation continued for long?

  I hadn’t thought of this in my pondering of potential catastrophes. I mean, I knew I would have to protect the stuff, but in my mind, I was protecting it from faceless evil people who would wander in from some unnamed elsewhere.

  With my Geiger counter back in hand, I let myself into my main house. It was on the corner of Pico Street. My other house was on the opposite corner of Mint Lane. Pico and Mint.

  The first thing I did inside the Pico house was reach for light switches. Doh! I wondered how often I would do that before the power came back. I went to the dark garage and fumbled around for ice chests, which I quickly filled with food and ice from the silent refrigerator.

  I couldn’t leave my grandkids waiting any longer. They’d be worried sick. I slid quietly out my back door. The street football game had stopped, so at least the neighbors were a little further away. I slipped through the opening in the hedge and hunched down while I made my way to the Mint house.

  Hank, I thought, are you walking home to me now? Get some rest, sweetheart. Take your time, but keep coming. Jeri, Erin, Wayne, take care of your dad and each other. I’ve got the grandkids, and we’re alright, but get on home to us, please.

  I brought the kids and dog home to the Pico house after making them promise to walk in absolute silence. They did a pretty good job. Keno even held back on his sniffling.

  As soon as we entered the Pico house and each kid had flipped a few light switches, they went after me with questions about their parents, wanting to know what I’d found out. I told them as much as I knew. I emphasized Mr. Jeffers’ comment that their parents and grandpa could walk home from Waco within days. They seemed to be cheered up, until Milo opened his mouth.

  “But they could’ve been in a wreck.”

  “Shut up, Milo,” Tasha said. I glowered at him. Mazie started crying again.

  “Milo,” I said, “we’re going to assume they’re coming home to us unless we find out otherwise. Understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered. I picked Mazie up and sat in Hank’s rocker with her. Hank never allowed anyone else to sit in his rocker, but too bad for him.

  “Kids, there may still be water in the pipes, but don’t turn on a faucet or flush a toilet. All of you hear me? We’ll make a better plan tomorrow.”

  Out at the patio barbecue, I grilled hamburger patties, and we put them on buns with pickles, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes. Much better than fast food. I figured it might be a while before we’d have more burgers of any kind.


  We ate by the light of a couple of decorative candles. I instructed the kids on candle safety. I’d heard of too many houses burning down due to candles and lanterns in my life. And with no fire department, a house fire could ignite the whole neighborhood.

  The food was good, but the kids didn’t eat as much as usual. Probably too worried about their parents and this strange new world we found ourselves in.

  “I wish my cell phone worked,” Milo said.

  “I know, sugar. I wish it did, too.”

  Tasha poked at her iPhone obsessively, stopping now and then to sigh, and going back at it.

  “Tasha, you should give up on that phone for now.”

  “But I need to talk to my friends,” she whined.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you can’t. Not until we get power again.”

  “But they’ll fix it, right?” Milo said, a little frantically.

  “I imagine so. But it could take quite a while to get new parts.”

  “Shit!” Milo said. I didn’t bother to correct him because his comment was so apt.

  “This is crazy,” Keno said.

  “Yeah. Nutso,” said Milo.

  Mazie crawled back into my lap.

  “I don’t believe Keno’s stupid theory!” Tasha cried, hopping to her feet. “It’s not the sun or a nuke. And they’ll fix it, because I need my cell phone. It’s not fair!”

  Self-centered teenager logic was giving me a headache.

  “Tasha, fair doesn’t have a thing to do with it.”

  PART TWO

  SEVEN

  AFTER THE YOUNGER KIDS FELL ASLEEP, I took Tasha and Keno back to the Mint house to fill a wagon with water jugs, chamber pots, guns, ammo, and fire extinguishers. We crept home without flashlights in the eerie night that was filled with the smell of burned tires and who knew what.

  Through the upstairs window, we watched a fire burning yellow along the western horizon. It didn’t look like a huge conflagration, but this drought-ridden place was a tinderbox.