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At this point, Quinn was doing CPR on Mr. Carter and looked over at Emily to see if she was calling 911. As he was about to yell at her, his gaze went up to see what the girls were looking at in terror. When the plane registered in his mind he fell back on his butt and cried out, “NO!”

It seemed that everyone around them was now watching the falling plane. It took what felt like forever for it to finally pass below the horizon but seconds later the explosion was easy to see and hear. Emily turned away and buried her tear streaked face against Alex’s shoulder. Alex was numb with disbelief. “We’re at Disneyland. This doesn’t happen at Disneyland!” she thought. She gently pushed Emily back and took her phone out of her hand. It was off so she tried to turn it on but nothing was working. She looked around to see if anyone else had a phone and could see lots of other students staring at cell phones that didn’t seem to be working.

Someone close by was screaming and it felt like a drill in Alex’s ears so she tried to find the source and wasn’t that surprised to see the youngest teacher, Ms. Scott belting it out while pulling her hair on both sides of her head. Just as Alex thought she should go get her calmed down, Mrs. Moore, who was the oldest of the teachers and quite the battle axe, grabbed the younger teacher by the shoulders and gave her a quick shake with a stern “Settle down!” When that didn’t work she just gave the young teacher a slap across the face. Instant silence from the screaming was the result and Mrs. Moore shoved the shocked teacher at one of the parent chaperones and told her to get her settled down.

With her hands raised in the air she loudly ordered, “All Prairie Springs students form up on the grass and sit down...NOW!” the last word said with a louder snap. As Mrs. Moore saw students moving onto the grassy area by the street she turned and looked to Alex’s group. Quinn was still sitting on the ground beside Mr. Carter and Emily had knelt down on the other side of him and was holding his limp hand. Alex and Josh were standing staring down at him not sure what to do.

Mrs. Moore moved over to them and took a deep breath. “Quinn?”

He looked up at her with a stunned expression on his face and tears shining in his eyes and said, “I think he’s dead.”

Mrs. Moore leaned over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder and said in a calm voice “Yes. There was nothing you could have done for him Quinn. He had a pacemaker and it would have stopped as well. But thank you for trying. You are a good boy.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean it would have stopped?” Quinn asked confusion on his face.

“Yes, well. Please join your classmates on the grass and I will try to explain what I think is happening.” Mrs. Moore offered.

As Quinn got up off the ground and Alex helped Emily up, Josh was shrugging out of his sweat shirt and went to cover Mr. Carter with it. “Josh, don’t do that!” Mrs. Moore barked. At Josh’s expression Mrs. Moore softened and said in a kinder tone “That is very respectful of you but we must be practical. You will need your sweater later.” With a confused face Josh stepped back and put his sweater back on. Mrs. Moore leaned down and pulled Mr. Carter’s jacket up over his face. She then took his money belt off and retrieved his wallet from his pant pocket. She dropped both items into her purse and ushered the group over to the subdued students sitting on the grass. Once they were seated, she took in the whole group and lowered herself to one knee.

“A terrible event has happened and there is no way for me to know the exact details but from what we have seen I can guess what has happened. It appears all electronics are not working and as we saw with the plane falling and crashing many mechanics have also failed. That could only be caused by an EMP. That means an electro-magnetic pulse. This happens when a nuclear device is detonated.”

The uproar that followed was full of confused shouts, yelled denials, loud sobbing and wailing. Mrs. Moore raised her hands and waited for the crowd to calm down and was about to speak when Emily stood and turned to the group and loudly stated “I was watching the news on my phone before it went out!” as everyone was now focused on Emily she lowered her voice and told what she had seen on CNN then quickly turned around and sat back down.

“Well that certainly makes things somewhat clearer. Thank you Emily, for that information. So we have some important decisions to make and we must make them fairly quickly.” Mrs. Moore scanned the group to see if they were following her words and then continued.

“Everything will be different now. We cannot count on the government to take care of us. We will have to take care of ourselves and that means working together. We won’t be able to fly home now so we have to decide if or how we will get back to Canada.”

Suddenly Mrs. Davis, a parent chaperone, jumped to her feet and said “What are you talking about? Of course we will go home! The authorities will get this straightened out and get us home. We must be patient and wait for help. All this talk of not counting on the government is irresponsible of you. It will only panic the children. I suggest we return to the hotel and wait for the management to sort this out!” she finished while looking around the group for support. Everyone stared at her and then swung their eyes back to Mrs. Moore to see what she would say.

Calmly Mrs. Moore tried to explain the situation. “Mrs. Davis, I understand your reasoning but this is not a normal situation. We can walk back to the hotel but please understand. There will be no power to the elevators so that means climbing 10 flights of stairs as that is the floor we are on. Also, the room doors all have electronic locks that won’t be working so we will have to break the doors open. It will also be very dark in the hallways with the lights out. Next, the management and staff are just people like us that will most likely all leave to check on their own families. With almost all transportation not working, the government will not be able to move around to help most people. Therefore as I said, we must take care of ourselves. This will be a huge challenge. Food and water and safety must be our first priority. With no electricity the water will not flow. With no transportation, food will not be delivered. And finally with over ten million people in this area and no real law enforcement, within days this city will explode with violence. We know of one plane crash but there were probably more which means fires. With the roads blocked by broken down cars and fire trucks not working anyways, the fires will burn out of control. Does everyone understand what I’m saying? The best thing we could do is try to leave this city as soon as possible.” and with that final statement Mrs. Moore sat down.

Chapter 2

Alex looked at her watch and was surprised to see that only 20 minutes had passed since all this started. It was only 8:30 am and it felt like late afternoon to her.

“Does your watch work?” came from over her shoulder. She turned and saw it was Quinn asking.

“Yes it’s only 8:30.” she told him.

“Why do you think your watch works? Mine is dead. It was a digital I got last year.” he asked.

“Don’t know but maybe because it’s really old. I have to wind it every morning. It was my Grandmother’s.”

“Good to know. Some really old stuff might still work.” he replied with a smile.

“Listen, if this is what Mrs. Moore is talking about and after what Em saw on CNN it sounds like it is, we really need to come up with a plan and I don’t think we should take too long.” Quinn advised.

Staring into Quinn’s eyes, Alex couldn’t help but wonder how he seemed so calm. Living on a farm meant you learned to keep your head in the game and make quick decisions. Working with animals is always tricky and can be unpredictable. But this was so far from anything they could relate to that Alex felt like she was barely holding on. The one thing she did know was that she trusted Quinn a hundred percent. They had been friends forever and he’d always had a good head on his shoulders. Even when Josh was doing crazy stunts or pranks, Quinn could always steer the situation the right way so everything worked out. Alex always thought that sometime in the future she and Quinn would end up together as a couple. It just never seemed to be the right time and they were always so comfortable together that there was never any pressure to be more than the good friends they were.

A sudden thought jumped center stage into Alex’s mind. “Oh my God! What about radiation. Don’t we have to think about radiation if a nuclear bomb went off!” she gasped.

“Whoa, Ok, hold on. Other than that plane crashing no one saw an explosion or heard anything. No mushroom cloud on the horizon like you always see in the movies, so what ever happened, it wasn’t that close but yeah definitely something to keep in mind.” he consoled.

“Right now we are in the middle of millions of people and that is really far from my comfort zone. So the sooner we get out of here and into the country side, the better I’ll feel. Let’s grab the rest of the gang and talk to Mrs. Moore. No one else seems to be getting it together so let’s talk to her and see if she has a plan.”

Alex went over to get Emily who was talking to Mason and his friends. When she told Emily what she and Quinn had discussed, Mason jumped in and said they would come talk to Mrs. Moore as well. With a shrug Alex turned away and headed back to Quinn who had rounded up Josh and found David as well. As her group of students approached Mrs. Moore, Alex noticed others heading the same way. Cooper and Dara, a girl from town with black hair with bright blue streaks running through it joined up with Quinn’s group. Alex arrived in time to hear Quinn ask Mrs. Moore how she knew so much about nuclear bombs.

“Well Dear, I’m a Prepper and have been for years. If you don’t know what that is I will explain. There are a lot of people who believe that the world as we know it will someday change drastically. Whether it is a pandemic of some sort, an economical crash or nuclear war, civilization as we know it will end and chaos will ensue. So we prep for it. Knowledge is a Prepper’s biggest asset so we research different scenarios and plan for as much as we can so that we will hopefully survive. I must say that for all the prepping I have done over the years, being at Disneyland was not one of the options I was prepared for.” Mrs. Moore seemed to be reflecting on that statement and was clearly not pleased. She seemed to center herself and focused back on the group of students surrounding her.

“Alright students, time to make a plan. The best chance of survival is to get away from large populations and that means cities. So as I’m sure no cars are working that means walking. Now it might seem impossible to walk all the way back to Canada but it isn’t and people have walked even further. That of course is the worst case scenario. Next would be bikes. Students such as you should easily be able to bike a hundred kilometres a day but probably quite a bit more than that. The best case would be if you could find an older vehicle. Anything in the 70’s and older should work just fine. The problem with newer vehicles is that they rely on electronics so they would have shorted out. Older cars don’t have many electronics in them so that is good. The bad news is we have to find them.”

As she paused to catch her breath Mason jumped in with a question. “So you really don’t think there would be any government coming to help?”

Surprisingly it was Dara who offered an opinion. “I like to read apocalyptic books and in every one it’s always the people who got out of the cities fast or are already in rural areas that survive. The people who stay in cities, almost always die.” she finished.

With a sneer on his face, Mason’s friend Mark who was best known as a bully said, “Shut up Freak. No one cares about your dumb Goth punk books.”

Dara shook her head with disgust and took a step back. Emily was looking at Mason to say something to his friend but he had a small smirk of his own. Lisa gave a quick giggle but sucked it back when Mrs. Moore glared at her. Quinn took a step toward Mark with an angry face just as Alex loudly called out, “You ass!”

Mrs. Moore took a quick step, blocking Quinn and declared, “Yes. Yes, he is an ass.” This made everybody stop and stare at her in shock. No one could believe that a teacher had said such a thing.

“My goodness that felt wonderful! I’ve wanted to say that ever since I met you young man.” she exclaimed to Mark. “Do you really think now, in this situation, that type of petty bullying is helpful? No don’t answer. Just stand there with your trap shut and let me tell you something. What Dara said is the exact truth of the situation. You would not know that nor understand as you mainly read comic books. So....Hush!”

It was very difficult for Alex not to burst out with laughter at the expression on Mark’s face. With his red hair and fair skin he looked like a tomato that was about to burst. Mason finally stepped in and gave his buddy a jab in the ribs with his elbow and a quick shake of his head. Mark took a step back and kept his eyes on the ground as he tried to cool down.

“Now as I was saying, we should leave here as soon as possible. I would not bother going back to the hotel as it is in the wrong direction and we have the important things such as money and passports with us. Clothing can be replaced. Time cannot. We should walk northeast until we find a sporting goods store and then buy backpacks, camping supplies and bikes if we can. Money should be working for a few more hours before people start to understand the situation. Some form of weapon should also be procured. Things will get very dangerous and it’s best to be prepared to defend oneself.” Mrs. Moore stated in a no nonsense way.

Alex couldn’t help but be a bit shocked by Mrs. Moore. She had always been a very matronly lady and somewhat strict but this was a not at all what Alex would have expected to lie at the core of her personality. She had always enjoyed Mrs. Moore’s classes as they tended to be a challenge with some good debates, but this was an altogether different lady.

“Mrs. Moore,” Mason stepped forward. “Why would we try to cross two countries overland when we are so close to the ocean? We could find a boat and easily sail all the way back up to Canada. It would be much quicker and not so physically demanding.”