NightFall (4 page)

“
Sure, sure,” Bernie said.
“No hard feelings. I really do have to get to the
courthouse.”

“
Good luck,” Rob said.
Bernie waved back and left the store. Everything went quiet again
except for the light rock playing softly and the hum of the air
conditioner. His edit screen was open, and he had only typed the
title of his economy post. He deleted it and instead added: A
Coming War with Russia?

The land-line office phone suddenly
rang near the cash register. Another interruption. Ron got off his
stool and picked up the phone by its fourth ring.

“
Pro-Survival. Your
one-stop shop for when disaster strikes.”

There was a slight static on the line,
then a man’s voice talking loudly. He had a Long Island accent and
sounded like he was driving. He wanted a tent.

“
Yes sir, we have plenty
of tents. What size are you looking for?”

“
A big one. Me and the
family are looking to do some camping on the Hudson this
weekend.”

Rob looked around the
store, holding the phone to his ear.
“Um.
Yes. We have two-to-four-person tents.”

The conversation went on
and Rob made his first sale of the day.
The man didn
’t seem concerned with
price, he just wanted it set aside for him for the weekend. He
thanked Rob and quickly got off the phone.

Just as Rob went back to
his computer, Mr. Clayton, his landlord, walked in unexpectedly.
Seeing him first thing in the morning wasn’t
a good sign.

“
Mr. Clayton. Nice to see
you this morning.”

Clayton turned to him and
tipped his ball cap. He was an older man, mid-fifties with tan
bronze skin and a slight paunch under his blue polo shirt, which he
wore tucked into his brown slacks. Rob hadn
’t seen him in over a month.

“
Good morning, Rob. Sorry
for the intrusion,” Clayton said, approaching him.

“
No problem. What brings
you here?” Rob said.

Clayton walked closer and rested his
elbows on top of the glass display counter of hunting knives,
multi-tools, and Para cord bracelets.

“
It’s such a nice day
outside, how about we take a quick walk?”

Rob gave his landlord a
funny look.
“You mind telling me what this
is about?”

Clayton seemed
defensive.
“Nothing in particular. I just
wanted to talk to you and get some fresh air at the same time. Is
that so wrong?”

Rob narrowed his
eyes.
“I’m trying to run a business here.
Can you just tell me what this is about?”

“
Just a brief walk
outside. Please?” Clayton said. He then turned and glanced around.
“By the looks of it, I’d say you could spare about five
minutes.”

Frustrated, Rob bit his
tongue. He wanted to tell Clayton to get the hell out of his store,
but he wasn’t up for a fight
.

“
Fine. Five minutes. And
that’s it.”

He grabbed his keys and followed
Clayton outside a puffy could-filled blue sky awaited. He closed
the entrance door and locked it.

They walked along the sidewalk, past
the bookstore and a mechanic shop, where sounds of drilling echoed
down the street. Clayton, it seemed, finally felt it appropriate to
reveal the nature of his visit after Rob asked him
again.

“
I insisted on this walk
because I wanted to show you something, Rob. Look around you.”
Clayton paused. “This area is changing.”

Rob scanned the streets. It was the
same thing he saw every day. Cars passing by. People walking by
store windows. Bicyclists. Dog walkers. A family out for a
stroll.

“
You wouldn’t know it by
looking around, but it’s a shaky market out there now,” Clayton
said. He leaned in closer, almost in confidence. “Now you don’t
have to answer this, but I was just curious how business was
going.”

Rob took a step
back
. “Business is doing fine, thank
you.”

Clayton continued.
“I understand that, but you might want ask
yourself if this location serves your purposes anymore.”

Rob crossed his
arms.
“Why are you giving me business
advice? All you should be concerned about is if I make my rent on
time.” Rob stepped closer, nearing Clayton’s face. “In fact, if I
want to train pigeons in there all day, it’s none of your business
as long as I have your rent.”

Clayton nodded.
“I understand, Rob. Just hear me out for a second
here. What I’m saying is that property taxes are increasing. Damn
city council can’t seem to get enough revenue. You may want to
think about that.”

Rob huffed and waited for Clayton to
get to the point.

“
I’ve got an offer on the
rental space,” he revealed. “Twice what you’re paying. And I’m
afraid that when your lease is up in a few months, I’m gonna have
to go with it the offer, or ask you to match them.”

Rob
couldn
’t believe what he was hearing. “I
knew it,” he said. “You could have told me this in the shop and
avoided all this nonsense.”

“
I’m only trying to give
you a fair assessment of the situation here. You have to understand
where I’m coming from.”

Rob tilted his head back
and then stared Clayton down.
“Who is
making this offer? That’s what I want to know.”

“
That’s not
important.”

“
Just tell me.”

Clayton
’s eyes glanced downward, then back up. “A
Bistro.”

Rob was taken aback. He
slapped his forehead and laughed.
“A
Bistro
?
”

“
Beth’s Downtown Bistro.
They run a variety of chains in the northeast.”

“
This is just rich,
Clayton. I guess I’m not surprised.”

“
I’d be happy to let you
renew the lease.”

“
For twice what I’m paying
now.” Rob said.

“
Yes. I’m sorry, but I’m
trying to pay off a mortgage here. Can you tell me that you have
the money to buy?”

Rob stared back,
unresponsive.

“
You can’t, can you?”
Clayton sad.

Rob stopped shifting and balled his
fist. Clayton could sense the building tension.

Suddenly a giant, white flash burst
into the sky, knocking them down on the ground as if they’d been
hit by lightning. The transformer on a power line post exploded
into sparks. The sky went gray. Then, so it seemed, there was a
deafening silence throughout the street. Other people had fallen to
the ground as well, still shielding their faces from the stunning
bright flash.

Clayton was on his knees holding his
head after hitting it on the sidewalk, his hat tossed aside,
revealing a brown comb-over in disarray.

Rob slowly rose from the
ground, dazed.
“What the hell was
that?”

EMP on a Monday
Morning

Vehicles swerved haphazardly in both
directions on the four-lane street near where Rob and Clayton
stood. A white station wagon slammed into the back of a silver
Mercedes, causing a loud, chain-reaction crash. Glass and plastic
burst onto the pavement. A tire blowout sounded in the distance.
Cars swerved, skidding across the road. Their tires screeched as
some pulled toward the sidewalk, hitting the curb and slowing to a
halt.

More crashes echoed from blocks away.
Cars rolled by, engines silent, with perplexed drivers jerking
their steering wheels and stomping on unresponsive gas pedals.
Intersections had non-functioning traffic lights.

For a moment, the chaos on the road
went completely unnoticed by Rob and his landlord.

“
You hear that?” Clayton
asked as Rob helped him up.

“
Hear what?” Rob asked.
All he heard were groups of people on the street shouting, calling
for help, and staring at their cell phones mystified.

“
A ringing. Like a
high-pitched tone,” Clayton answered, looking around.

Rob
didn
’t hear any kind of tone, but he did
see tiny floaters in front of his eyes, as if someone had just
flashed a spotlight in his face.

Clayton held the back of
his balding head as he picked up his hat from the ground.
“Got a hell of a bump,” he said. For a moment,
they just stood there, trying to get themselves together while
becoming painfully unaware of what had just happened around
them.

“
What was that,
lightning?” Clayton asked.

Rob looked up. The sky had
gone from blue to gray in an instant, but something
wasn
’t right. This had been no ordinary
storm or lightning strike.

“
Do you see any rain
clouds? Do you hear any thunder?” he asked.

Clayton looked around.
There was a faint rumbling in the distance, no clear signs of a
storm, but something was definitely out of the ordinary.
“Look, uh. Maybe we can talk about this later,
Rob. I don’t think it’s safe to be out here.”

Rob grabbed his
arm.
“Wait.”

An unsettling and eerie
silence permeated the air.
“That was no
ordinary flash of lightning,” Rob continued. “That was an
explosion.”

Clayton looked around, disoriented. A
couple up ahead of them were holding their heads and stumbling
around in a daze.

“
What do you mean, like a
plane or something?”

“
I don’t know just yet,
but I think we do need to find cover.”

Clayton pulled out his
cell phone and tried to make a call. He held it out and looked at
its blank screen. “Huh? Phone’s dead.” He turned to Rob.
“You don’t mind if I make a phone call in your
store for a minute do you?”

The power was out on the entire block.
Shops and cafes were dark inside; their lights of their signs were
off. Customers and employees alike walked outside, uncertain of
what had happened.

Vehicles were at a standstill. Not a
single engine was running. Drivers repeatedly turned their ignition
switches to no avail.

Having seen enough, Rob
headed back to his store with Clayton following. They passed
a rear collision that had just occurred. Smoke
rose from the car that had plowed into the back of
another.

“
This is too much,”
Clayton said. “I can’t think straight. I gotta get out of here.” He
ran off in an instant.

“
Hey!” Rob
said.

“
I’ll check in with you
later!” He called out while turning down an alleyway and out of
sight.

“
Damn you, Clayton,” Rob
said to himself. He approached the accident.

The driver of the Mercedes, a
middle-aged man in a suit, got out and hurried to the rear of his
car, where the crushed front-end of the station wagon smoked from
its engine. The man slapped his forehead and crouched down to get a
better look at the damage.

“
Son of a bitch. This is a
rental!” He shouted, kicking a newspaper stand.

An older, dazed man sat at the wheel
of the Buick, pushing away the deployed airbag. The man tapped
against the window with a thick ring on his index
finger.

“
I hope you have
insurance, man. I really do.”

Up the street, drivers exited their
cars in defeat and opened their hoods, peering inside. Others took
out their cell phones and seemed stunned to find them no longer
working.

Rob felt his pockets for his cell
phone and yanked it out. One touch of the screen gave him all the
answers he needed. The screen was powerless and blank. He pressed
the thin power button on its side and held it, but the phone did
nothing.

The gray mist in the sky
had faded, revealing a vibrant blue now returning. Rob looked
around. The dead engines. The power outage. The blown
transformer.
There had to be a logical
explanation for everything that had just occurred. And all the
signs pointed to one explanation: an electromagnetic pulse. They’d
been hit with an EMP.

Rob began walking back to his store
with extra caution, his realization of the situation pushing him to
action. A tense, uneasy feeling gathered in the air.

Dumbfounded by their inoperable cell
phones, people pried the backs open and fiddled with their
batteries. When that didn’t work, their frustration only increased
and turned to anger.

Rob passed them as they stood
locked-in on their phones.

“
What the hell is wrong
with this thing?” a man mumbled to himself. He stared into at his
iPhone desperate.

“
Is your phone working?” a
woman asked her friend as they stepped out of a white Honda stopped
in the middle of the street. “Mine is completely dead.”

Rob could see denial on
many of their faces.
The Mercedes man
didn
’t take the sudden loss of his own
cell phone too well. He threw it onto the pavement as hard as he
could, splitting it in half.