With every passing second her doubt grew stronger, and she began feeling more and more like a gullible fool. Word should be getting out—if there was any word—around the world. Astronomers would know, NOAA would know and might even have it up on their website, in which case Twitter and all the other social media platforms should be exploding with the news . . . if there was any news. If, if, if! Maybe she should go to the NOAA site herself and see if anything was there—
The store was empty of customers and she was just reaching for her phone when it sounded a high-pitched alarm, like that for violent storms. She jumped and automatically turned to look out the window, just as she had when Jernigan had first mentioned an emergency, but the sky was still a beautiful September clear blue. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.
Her mind raced with other possibilities. It could be an Amber Alert, or a monthly test. There were plenty of options, but her heart was suddenly pounding and she knew damn well it wasn’t any of the usual emergencies that caused the alarm. From the office, where Carol was watching TV, she heard Carol’s cell phone start bleating its own alert and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
She grabbed the phone from beneath the counter and there it was on the screen, the alert she had both doubted and expected. She and Carol both got their alerts via Sevier County’s CodeRED system, so she knew Carol was reading the same thing: NOAA ALERT GEOMAGNETIC STORM K-INDEX 9 PREDICTED 3PM TOMORROW. PREPARE FOR EXTENDED POWER AND COMMUNICATION DISRUPTION.
Another alert, another message flashing on the screen: THIS IS NOT A TEST. REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A TEST.
Carol came out of the office, clutching her phone, her eyes wide. “Shit,” she said softly.
Sela’s mouth was abruptly dry and she tried to swallow. She leaned against the counter. “Double shit.”
“I take it back about the Spam.”
Twenty-four hours. They had approximately twenty-four hours in which to prepare, which meant Jernigan had been right not only about the danger but about the timing. Good God. What could they possibly do in just twenty-four hours that would get them through an “extended power disruption”? They needed months to get ready for something like this.
“Looks like you were right to listen to Jernigan,” Carol added. Her eyes looked a little wild, and her face had lost color. “Holy moly. But—they could be wrong, couldn’t they? I mean, it could be like the big thunderstorms or ice storms they predict that never happen. We could dodge a bullet, isn’t that what the weathermen always say when they’re wrong?”
“I don’t think a geomagnetic storm is like Earth weather, where a system can slow down or break apart.” She wished that could happen, but she wasn’t going to bet her life—or Carol’s and Olivia’s lives—on it. Her stomach clenched as she was overwhelmed by a sense of urgency, an adrenaline shock as her primitive survival instincts kicked in. Thank God, despite her doubts, she’d gone to the bank and the grocery store before everyone else knew what was going on. “Think! What else do we need to do to prepare?”
Carol just gave her a blank look. “I thought we were already prepared.”
“We’re a little better off than a lot of people, thanks to Jernigan. We have food. But what about wood for the fireplaces for this winter, what about oil for lamps? I meant to get oil and forgot. I picked up some candles, some batteries. If this goes on for a year or more—”
“A year!” Carol looked horrified. “You don’t think—that isn’t possible, is it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows.” Except maybe Ben Jernigan, who was more likely to have a better idea than anyone else she knew. “He said months, possibly a year or longer.” No need to specify who “he” was.
Carol sucked in a deep breath as the huge ramifications began washing over her. “Then we need ammunition. And whiskey.”
“Ammunition?” Sela gaped at her aunt, but she wasn’t questioning Carol’s choices; she was horrified by the realization that they’d very likely need ammunition . . . and whiskey. Society as they knew it was built on electricity. There wouldn’t be any going to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. They might have to do what their mountain ancestors had done and hunt their food—except she didn’t know how to hunt and felt nothing but anxiety at the possibility of having to learn. She did own a .22 rifle—she and Carol both did because she lived alone and Carol had Olivia to protect—but she’d shot it only a couple of times and was a long way from being capable of hunting.
She felt dizzy and her ears rang a little; there was that adrenaline rush again as another realization hit her. Shit. Carol and Olivia were her responsibility. They’d need her if things really did get bad. Carol was in her late sixties, and while she was in general good health she wasn’t quite as active as she’d been just a few years ago. Olivia was fifteen. Enough said there.
Sela looked around the store, taking mental inventory and looking at the supplies on the shelves, thought about what she had stored in back. She tried to calculate what they’d need, and how much, but she couldn’t make herself grasp what a year without power would mean, or decide what she should do.
Her immediate dilemma was that she could keep the store open and try to help her neighbors, or she could focus on her own family. Her shelf space was limited and she carried only basics, plus snacks; she’d be cleared out in no time, leaving nothing but the supplies she’d already set aside for their own survival.
Maybe she was a complete shit, but she decided with only a few seconds’ thought that her focus had to be her family. Family first, family always.
She needed a plan of action. Almost any action was better than none.
She stuck her phone in the back pocket of her jeans as she walked out from behind the counter. “Olivia will be here soon,” she said to Carol. Normally Olivia hung around the store for a while after the school bus dropped her off. She’d have a soft drink, maybe a candy bar or some chips. Sometimes, if they were lucky, she’d tell them about her day. Most afternoons she sat in the office near the back door and texted her friends before heading home. “I want the two of you to take what you can carry and go home. When you’re there, start loading up the ice chests with ice, so the ice maker can keep working.”
“Ice?”
“We have a day, maybe a little more, to collect ice to keep what perishables we have fresh.” Some of it would melt, but the more they added to the ice chests, the better it would keep.
“You have the generator—”
“We’ll need it more when winter gets here than we do now.” Her generator was a small portable one, but it was strong enough to run the heat when the weather turned cold. What it wouldn’t do was run a whole house; as far as that went, it wouldn’t run at all when they were out of fuel for it. No matter how she looked at it, she was afraid they didn’t have enough of anything.
For a few moments, Carol didn’t move as she stared into the middle distance, doing the same thing Sela had done before, trying to come to terms with the awful possibilities.
Through the store windows they watched a car speeding down the highway, a blur headed out of town. It had been quiet before that, just a handful of vehicles moving at normal speed. Was the speeder leaving because of the alert? Word was definitely out, likely on television as well as through the national weather service, maybe by radio, if anyone listened to radio anymore.