What would it be like to face this crisis with a strong, dependable partner by your side? The errant thought blindsided her, and hard on its heels came another: she had always been the timid one, the one who dodged risk. Who would want to face this crisis by her side?
The realization was mortifying. She had to be tougher, smarter; she had to pull her weight, and more. She’d worried about Carol and Olivia stepping up, and they likely were thinking the same thing about her. Carol might have, anyway; Olivia was too young to be that analytical.
The coming crisis would test them all. She didn’t want to be one of those who failed.
“I’m glad she’s with Nathan and his folks,” Carol said. “Being alone right now would be awful.”
The three others nodded, all of them imagining how bad it would be to have no one to rely on.
“I’d feel better if I knew what to expect,” Barb said, her soft face worried. “I don’t mind hard work; that’s how I grew up. I just need to know. What will work, what won’t? What should we be doing, what should we forget about?”
For some reason, the others looked at Sela, as if she had the answers. She had spent some time reading up on CMEs, but that didn’t make her an expert. How could anyone be an expert on something that hadn’t happened in the modern world?
“All I can do is guess,” she said slowly. “Texts should work—might work—even after the grid goes down, unless the CME fries the towers. They work on radio waves, right? The radio stations all say the waves will be wonky for a few days. After that . . . maybe. But cell phones have to be charged, and even then coverage is bound to be spotty. We have to decide if it would be worth using precious power to charge a cell.”
“Yes!” Olivia said instantly.
“I don’t see having a powered-up cell phone as being more important than having light,” Carol said. “Especially since the odds are against anyone you’d want to talk to also having a charged cell phone, and that the networks would be operational. Not right away, anyway. Later on, maybe, because you know everyone will be working their butts off trying to get everything up and running.”
“I charged my cell phone this morning,” Sela said. “What about y’all?”
“I did,” Olivia said. Of course.
Carol made a face. “I think it’s about seventy percent.”
Barb sighed. “I haven’t even turned mine on today. I forgot.”
“Then we’re good for a while, between the four of us, if any cell service works.” Another thought occurred; they’d been so busy doing all the food prep and canning that she’d forgotten about water. She had a good bit of bottled water from her store, but that wouldn’t be near enough. “We should get busy, right now, filling everything we can with water. When the power goes out, it’ll be a lot harder to come by.”
They all got busy, filling every glass, every cup, every bowl, every pitcher and jug they could find, all while keeping an eye on the small television. Sela sent Olivia to Carol’s small bathroom, which was attached to her downstairs master bedroom, to fill the tub there with water, as well.
The anchors were seriously explaining that anything that relied on satellites was already down, and there was no telling how long it would take to repair or replace them. Getting the power grid up and running would have to come first. Then they began listing places where emergency rations would be distributed, and where medical centers would be set up. Hospitals would be too difficult to manage, with dark stairs and inoperable elevators. The practice of medicine would become smaller, and more basic.
As she automatically filled containers with water, Sela wondered how long those emergency rations would last. Here in the valley, at least, starvation wasn’t on the radar. Getting food would be more difficult, but there were deer and other game in the area, as well as hunters who’d be happy to provide. She’d never had squirrel stew, but there were plenty of them around and she wasn’t entirely opposed to trying it if their supplies and deer ran out. Okay, she was opposed, but that would pass. She imagined a lot of food dislikes would be ignored before this was over.
The water coming from the faucet suddenly thinned to a trickle, then stopped altogether. “What on earth?” Carol said, looking at the television, which was still on.
“The water board must have turned everything off and disconnected, so the pumps won’t be fried,” Sela said, looking at the clock and thinking that, truly, the water board had taken a chance leaving the water on this long. She turned the faucet off and looked at their supply of water, at the kitchen counters and table covered with every kind of container they’d been able to grab. Olivia returned to the kitchen, looking to Sela and shrugging her shoulders. Still, she’d had time to fill Carol’s bathtub. They’d be okay, for a while, and when they had to they’d use creek water to flush the toilets.
Everything at her own house was already unplugged, and her perishables and generator were already here at Carol’s. They were as ready as they were going to get.
They all took a seat at the table, watching the little television, saying nothing. The minutes ticked by, moving closer and closer to three p.m. Then the hour hand on the battery-operated clock moved past three, and Olivia stirred restlessly. “Maybe—” she began.
The television went black.
That was it. No drama, no burst of static, just . . . gone.
Carol’s house was eerily quiet, all of the normal sounds missing. There was no refrigerator hum, no central air blowing, no television. All of them sat there, scarcely breathing, because surely something so momentous should have been more . . . well—momentous. The quiet ticking of the clock, something Sela had never before noticed, was the only background noise.
And so it began, not with thunderous noise, or drama, or a cataclysmic collapse, but with . . . silence.
“It looks like The Walking Dead,” Sela said under her breath as they joined people from all over Wears Valley in walking to the elementary school.
On the other side of her, Olivia giggled. Carol barely suppressed a snort of laughter. “Hush!” she whispered. Then she said, “Though a few people are kind of lurching around.”
They looked like either zombies or lemmings, and in the end it made no difference which, because they were all going to the same place like metal shavings pulled by a powerful magnet.
The day’s heat had begun to cool and the late-afternoon shadows were lengthening. Sela had brought a flashlight, in case the meeting ran until after dark. She hoped it wouldn’t, but realistically she expected people to have a lot to say, whether any of it was constructive or not. Everyone was worried, including herself. Maybe someone would have some good ideas on how they could weather this.
They worked their way inside to the cafeteria; she’d never seen it so crowded. She hadn’t been here in a few years, but the school hadn’t changed much. The smell was the same, the tables and chairs the same. Maybe the walls had been repainted, but that was it.
Instinctively she scanned the crowd, looking for Ben Jernigan even though instinct told her he wasn’t there. If he were anywhere around, there would be one of two possible reactions: he’d either be standing alone because most people would be wary of approaching him, or he’d be in the center of a bunch of men who were looking to him to be the natural leader. There was no in-between, he wouldn’t be chatting with a small group of people.