The morning news was not good, and already cell service was spotty, satellites were going out . . . it looked as if they’d better prepare for the worst. Mike didn’t like thinking about that. He’d seen what he’d thought was the worst, in Desert Storm a quarter of a century before, then found out what was going on now was worse than his worst—and when the power grid went down, what happened in the cities would rank right up there. He felt sick to his stomach thinking about it, so instead he focused on what was right around him, on his family and neighbors, on Wears Valley. Think small; he could handle that. But the valley needed help, needed leadership who knew what the hell was what, and he figured the best man for that was Ben Jernigan.
The early-morning mist still clung to patches of ground as he navigated the turns and curves that wound around and up the looming hulk of Cove Mountain. September was a dry month, but all the vegetation produced moisture and an ecosystem that gave the mountains their descriptive name of Smoky. In a few weeks the leaves would begin turning color, but right now the heat still lingered. That was good, he thought; people wouldn’t have to use resources to stay warm. Everyone would have to learn how to be stingy with what they had, to make it last through the winter.
He turned off the almost-two-lane road onto a narrow, paved one-lane, a private road meant only for the residents of the houses built along it. There was no through traffic, no side roads branching off it. If he remembered correctly, though it had been years since he’d been up here, the road grew narrower and narrower, the paving gave out and became gravel, and it was damn steep.
Up ahead on the right he could see a man pushing a lawn mower over a narrow strip of grass beside the road. Out of caution he slowed, and pulled as far to the left as he could and still stay on the pavement. The man looked up, then to Mike’s mild astonishment held up his hand and stepped out into the middle of the road.
Wants to talk, ask if there’s any news, Mike thought, and obligingly slowed. He didn’t recognize the man, but several of the houses up here were vacation homes. Huh. If this was a vacationer, he should have gone home. Maybe he’d moved here permanently. It was impossible, even for the old-timers, to know everyone who lived in the valley.
As he rolled to a stop, he tried to keep his mouth from falling open. This guy looked like Teddy Roosevelt, complete with pith helmet and mustache. And he wore a khaki shirt and khaki shorts, with black shoes and brown socks.
He lowered the passenger-side window and leaned over. “Mornin’,” he said in greeting.
Teddy Roosevelt bent over and looked in the window, a stern, disapproving expression on his face. “This is a private road,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Mike’s hackles rose a little, but he kept his face pleasant. Maybe everyone should start being more cautious. “I know. I’m going to visit someone.”
“Who?”
The hackles rose even more. For one thing, Mike was driving his work pickup with the magnetic sign proclaiming Kilgore Plumbing on both sides, along with his phone number, so it wasn’t as if he would be looking for a place to ransack. Instead of answering the question he countered with one of his own: “Who’re you?”
“I’m Ted Parsons. I own this house here.” The man indicated the house behind him, a spacious-looking D-log cabin like tourists mostly preferred, thinking it looked mountainy.
From his accent, Mike knew the man wasn’t local, at least not born-and-raised local. “Vacation house?”
The man’s face went stiff. “I’ll give your question back to you: Who are you?”
“Look at the sign on my truck,” Mike said. “Mike Kilgore, plumber.”
Teddy—Ted—glanced down at the sign. “Someone call you?”
Hell with this. Mike mentally rolled his eyes and lied. “Yes. Why?”
“Who?”
“Mister, if you can tell me why it’s any of your damn business who has a leak in their bathroom, I’ll give you all the information you want. But since I’m guessing you can’t, I’ll be on my way.” He buzzed up the window and hit the gas, forcing faux-Teddy to step back or get his toes run over. God almighty. He hoped the guy didn’t live here, and would soon be hightailing it for home—something he should have done yesterday. But idiots abounded in all areas, and Lord knew the valley had its share of homegrown ones. The one thing they didn’t need was more.
Ben mentally ran through everything he’d done yesterday, the supplies he’d gathered, what he already had on hand, what he’d done to protect his equipment, and figured he was as ready as he was going to get.
He didn’t consider himself a prepper, a survivalist, or an alarmist. He hadn’t collected freeze-dried food, ammo, alternative power sources, and water storage because he expected the end of the world to be right around the corner. He was simply ready for whatever life decided to throw his way—and to minimize the necessity for contact with the rest of the population. He could easily weather the grid going down, without much change in his lifestyle other than having to preserve his gasoline, and making do when that ran out, but with his training that was no big deal. He could and did regularly hike miles through these mountains, partly to keep in shape, but also because the solitude and the ancient majesty of the mountains appealed to him.
Today was the SHTF day—when the shit hits the fan. Preppers and theorists had warned about it for a long time, and today was the day. The culprit wasn’t a bad actor exploding a thermonuclear bomb in the atmosphere, it was the sun. The sun ruled everything on Earth, and they were about to be reminded of that in a big way.
Europe and most of Asia were already dark. News was scarce, because communications in those continents were down: power grids, satellites, land lines, all fried. The US military had hardened power sources and what little information was out there came from them, but they had their hands full with one crisis after another at bases and embassies around the world, and spreading the news wasn’t their job. Their job was holding the line, protecting the country and its citizens, and every service member right now was focused on that. Still, there were some calls, some news leaking through on his ham radio though the atmosphere was getting screwier by the minute, and some texts.
The news wasn’t good, and it wouldn’t be for a long damn time.
He didn’t have a television, didn’t want one, didn’t need one. He’d seen more than enough online. Many larger cities were already experiencing gridlock as the smart people tried to get out, and the stupid ones were trying to stock up on a couple of days of food thinking that would be enough. Some people were stuck because of their situations, maybe an ill family member they refused to leave behind, and he felt sorry for them because they were likely going to die. A big city wasn’t built with long-term survival in mind. Too many people lived without having more than a couple of days’ worth of food on hand. They couldn’t imagine weeks or months without power, couldn’t imagine not being able to stop for takeout, or at the market to pick up something to cook right then.
In some areas of the country the power was already out, or else spotty, because nuclear plants were already being shut down safely, powering down ahead of the CME. If the solar storm had come without warning, nuclear plants wouldn’t have had time to do a safe, emergency power down, so they were doing it now.