Outage (Powerless Nation #1) (3 page)

“An accident.” he snorted. “Yes, I've had a few accidents.”

Dee didn't say anything else, and before long, Mason had her head bandaged and she was sitting up looking around.

“I don't even have my license yet,” she moaned. “My grandpa is going to kill me.”

“Driving without a license? How old are you anyway?”

Dee was fifteen. She didn’t answer.

“Do you at least have a permit? Maybe he’ll just maim you.”

“Very funny.” She looked out the window of the truck and blinked rapidly.

“Aw, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.” Mason’s voice was warm honey. “Listen, maybe it's not so bad. We haven't even tried to start it up again.” He circled behind the truck to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel.

Dee wasn't surprised when he turned the key and the engine failed to turn over. She sighed heavily. “Look, I'm just going to call a tow-truck. Hopefully my phone gets reception here, I think we're pretty close to town.” She got out her phone to see if it had any bars. Strange, it was completely off. She hit the power button but nothing happened.

“Well, that's just great,” she said. “The crash wrecked my phone. Looks like we're both going to be walking now.”

“Mind if I look at the engine first? Sometimes it seems worse than it is. Like your forehead. Lots of blood, but just a tiny cut.”

Mason popped the hood and started fiddling around inside. Dee climbed down out of the cab and made her way slowly around to the front of the truck. She inspected where she'd hit the tree and decided with some surprise that the truck had come out on top in that match-up. The grill was dented, but there wasn't any serious body damage.

Mason used a wrench and a pair of pliers he'd found in the truck's toolbox. The deft movements of his long fingers fascinated Dee as he checked over the engine.

She blushed when she realized she was staring at him and hadn’t heard his question. “What was that?” she asked.

He looked at her with concern. “Does your head hurt? I was asking whether you remember anything about the crash. It seemed like the engine just stalled out, but I don't remember you in the middle of a gear shift or anything.”

“Gee, thanks for the strong vote of confidence in my driving,” she snapped, more sharply than she’d intended.

“That's not what I mean. I just think it's pretty weird for a car to turn off for no reason, and I don’t see anything in here that would have made it do that. I'm not saying it was your driving,” he said quickly, catching the narrow-eyed look she angled at him. “It's just strange.”

“Come on,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Let's see if that worked.”

Dee breathed an audible sigh of relief when the engine turned over and roared to life.

“That's what I thought,” said Mason. “The impact just knocked a couple of things loose, but there wasn't any real damage.” Then he looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “Are you going to be mad if I suggest you let me drive the rest of the way into town? There’s a clinic in Lookout Falls where someone can take a look at that cut.”

“Just so long as we're clear that you're driving because I'm injured, and not because I can't drive a stick.”

“It's a deal,” said Mason and held out his hand to shake.

His warm hand closed fully over hers, and she felt a shiver run through her. A feeling like that could be dangerous. Maybe her mom had been right about hitchhikers after all.

CHAPTER THREE

W
HEN
D
EE
'
S
PARENTS
HAD
driven her through Lookout Falls the day before, she'd gotten the impression of an older town where the residents didn't make enough money to pay for upgrades. She'd seen a couple of stores and a busy skate-park near the community playground and pool, but for the most part, it was just dingy houses and a few traffic lights.
 

The sight that met her eyes when they got to Lookout Falls was completely different than what she'd seen yesterday. It was chaos. Cars were parked in the middle of the street and up on sidewalks with their doors left open and people wandering around. Mason carefully steered his way through the obstacle course while Dee looked around anxiously.

“What in the world is wrong with everyone? Is it some kind of town festival?”

“If it is, they aren't looking very festive,” said Mason drily.

They both watched as a mother unloaded five kids in wet swimsuits from a brand new mini van parked in the middle of the road and told them to sit on the curb while she snapped a baby into a stroller.

“All right troops,” the mom ordered. “Form up, we are marching home. I'm going to have to call the tow-truck from home.” It struck Dee as ironic when she heard her remind the kids to look both ways before they crossed the street. The roads were full of cars but most of them weren't moving.

As they wound through town they noticed none of the stoplights were working and there were more accidents, including a couple that Mason had to backtrack to avoid. They saw a few other cars driving slowly through the maze, but most of the vehicles they saw were stalled and left where they were.

“Maybe someone at the clinic will know what's going on,” said Dee.

The scene at the clinic was worse. Every seat in the lobby was taken, and there were people sitting on the floor and leaning against the walls. Children cried and parents tried to comfort them, while other people held bloody cloths to cuts or cradled injured limbs. A flashing yellow light on the wall indicated that the clinic was running on back-up power.

Dee and Mason paused in the automatic doorway that was propped open with a wedge underneath the door on each side.

“Um, I think I'll be fine,” said Dee, taking in the scene. Suddenly her injury seemed extremely minor.
 

She saw a mother with a broken arm trying to calm a fussy baby. A man clutching his mid-section angrily asked her to keep the baby quiet.
 

“Can't you see there ain't nothing she can do?” said another woman. “That baby's just sayin' what we're all feelin'. I never saw nothing like that craziness out there. Every car dying at the same exact time, crashin' into each other.”
 

The young mother wiped away tears and gave a grateful look to the woman who had come to her defense.

“It couldn't have been all at once,” argued the man gruffly. “That wouldn't be possible.”

“I know what I saw,” retorted the woman. Dee saw several other heads nodding in agreement.
 

Mason said quietly into her ear, “This might not have been the best idea. Let's get out of here.”

Back in the truck, Mason switched on the radio and turned the old fashioned knob all the way from one side of the tuner to the other. Nothing. They both sat and listened to the static until Mason reached over and turned off the radio.

At the motion, Dee’s attention was caught again by the bracelet on his wrist. It was woven like a friendship bracelet but thicker, like a watchband. Mason noticed her curious gaze and said, “It’s made out of paracord.
 
You can unravel it in an emergency and use it as a rope.”

Dee had never heard of paracord. She wondered if a girl had made it for him.

Mason interrupted her thoughts. “You should probably get back up to your grandfather's. I hear the train station is closed anyway.” He gave her hand a squeeze. At his touch, Dee felt her heart give a lurch.

“What about you?” she asked. “Maybe you could come with me.”

He didn't seem to have heard her – he was distracted by something over her shoulder.
 

“What the...” he trailed off. She turned and saw huge puffs of black smoke billowing into the sky over the west side of town.
 

“Do you think it was a bomb?” he wondered aloud.

Both heads turned back towards the clinic when they heard the sound of a fire truck pulling out of the station next door. They watched as the truck tried to make its way down the street but was blocked almost immediately by cars that had been abandoned in the middle of the road.

“Come on,” said Dee. “We've got to clear the street for them!”

The firefighters nodded to the kids gratefully as they started moving cars off to the side of the road. They quickly worked out a simple procedure: Mason drove the truck while she got into the cars and tried the engines. About a third of the cars started, though their dashboard lights flickered or didn't turn on at all. She drove these to the side of the road. The rest, she shifted into neutral and steered, while Mason pushed them aside with the truck. It was tedious, but the firefighters were working with them, and as people on the streets saw what they were doing, more of them started to help too. The fire truck slowly made its way across town.

They finally reached the source of the smoke and Dee saw that it was a power plant, one side already completely engulfed in flames.

“No wonder the clinic didn't have power,” she murmured.

Mason and Dee watched as the firefighters leaped off the truck and uncoiled hoses. They got in position and shouted they were ready, but nothing happened.

“Come on, Tommy, get that pump on,” one of the men yelled.

A voice from the top of the truck hollered down, “Can't get the valve open, it's not responding!”

The fire chief quickly scaled the truck to lend a hand, but the hoses remained limp and dry.

Dee looked the crew over. Most of them had patches on their shirts labeling them as volunteers. A few looked mature and experienced but a couple of them were probably only a few years older than she was. The crew gathered around the fire chief and Dee heard him say, “We're going to have to do this the hard way, folks. First priority is search and rescue. Matt, take your guys in over there and see who's left inside.”

About half of the group wearing suits and masks ran into one of the side buildings. Smoke belched from a broken glass door, and now and then a human figure stumbled out.

“Everyone else be ready to support Matt.” He gazed around the parking lot and quickly took in the scene. “We've got wounded. Get those people out of there and start triaging in the lot. No one goes near the main blaze.” The rest of the crew started helping people off the grounds. Dee shuddered when a man with terrible burns and a mangled hand was carried past.

An out-of-shape middle-aged man ran up to the chief. He was wearing khakis, a polo shirt, a hard hat and a thin layer of smoky grime. The fire chief apparently recognized him because he said, “You in charge of the shift today, Gene? What in the world happened?”

Gene shrugged helplessly, “I wish I knew. We lost power right around noon but the back-ups kicked in like they're supposed to. Next thing I know, one of my guys comes running in so freaked out he could barely talk. A bunch of them were taking lunch break out back. Say they saw the main transformer shooting sparks like the Fourth of July, right before an underground line exploded where it connected with the main plant.

“Someone pulled the fire alarm and we tried to call you, Max, but no one could get through. Landlines were all down, from the explosion I reckon. Weird thing was all the cell phones were dead too. Some kind of interference maybe, I don't know. I was sure glad to hear the sirens though, I can tell you that.”

“Wish we could've got here sooner, Gene. We didn't know about the fire until we saw the smoke.” He paused and kicked the tire on one of the trucks, “This thing's useless though. I always knew these the trucks were getting too high tech.”

The fire chief continued, “I need you to go count your people, Gene. Tell me how many we're missing.”

“We already did a preliminary count, Chief – that's what I was coming to tell you. I probably lost ten in the first blast, but we evacuated the main plant pretty fast. There's still a few coming out of the business office, but I'd say we're about clear.”

A firefighter from the first group jogged over, his suit black and sooty. “Small building is clear, Chief.”

“That's it then, Matt. Clear everyone back to the parking lot. We're going to have to let this thing burn itself out.”

Another firefighter approached and reported, “We've got a few bad ones, Sir. Think we should take them to the hospital in Louisville?” He paused. “I don't think the clinic is sending an ambulance.”

The fire chief thought for a minute, “I doubt we can get the truck through to Louisville. Load 'em up and we'll take them to the clinic.” He looked around the parking lot at people trying to start their cars. He pushed his hat back to scratch his head. “Heaven help us.”

Dee and Mason offered to haul as many people into Lookout Falls as they could fit in the back of the truck with the tool chest. Pretty soon the truck was full and they were underway. Dee let Mason drive again. Her head was pounding and she felt strangely heavy, like her bones had been filled with lead. Mason drove slowly up and down the streets and stopped whenever someone knocked on the back window. When they dropped off the last guy, he came around to the cab and invited them in.

“Why don't you two come on in. You look beat.”

Mason looked at Dee, “You wanna go in for a minute? I bet they've got some painkillers.”

The man who'd introduced himself as Pete was momentarily distracted as three children launched themselves out of the house tasmanian-devil-style onto their father. A woman in her mid-thirties was right behind them, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

“Thank heavens, Pete. I could see the smoke from here. Are you okay?”

Mason and Dee looked away awkwardly while Pete convinced his wife he was fine. After a minute he introduced them as Mason and Dee – the kids who cleared the road for the fire trucks. Dee hadn't realized anyone but the firefighters knew about that. Next thing she knew, Pete's wife had an arm around her and was leading her up the steps into the house.

It was warm inside but not uncomfortable, and they both sat in the west-facing living room, taking advantage of the slanting afternoon rays. Jennifer brought out bottles of water and ibuprofen for everyone, and then sent the kids out to play in the backyard. Pete was in the middle of re-telling what he'd seen when the transformer blew when Jennifer interrupted him.