After the Storm (Book 1): Blackout Page 3

  But right now, no matter how much I patted, Bouncer just sat there and watched me.

  He didn’t even wag his tail.

  I wondered if he knew. I’d had another drink, and I knew dogs were apparently very tuned into the people around them. They could observe body language, and even make associations.

  I wondered if Bouncer was disappointed with the booze I’d knocked back, because he knew how much it’d disappoint Kerry and Olivia.

  Kerry and Olivia…

  Just thinking of their names made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  I lifted my phone and hovered my thumb over the screen. I wanted to call Kerry so bad, but the signal was woeful here, and the WiFi which allowed me to call people over these days wasn’t much better.

  I just wanted to hear Olivia’s voice. I could feel my throat shaking, the guilt of my breakup with Kerry building within. I knew Kerry and I were finished. I wasn’t fighting because I knew fighting wouldn’t get us anywhere, and it wasn’t fair on Olivia either.

  But I didn’t want to drift from my daughter.

  I didn’t want to be one of those dads who only saw their kid at the weekend.

  I didn’t want to be a part-time Dad.

  I pulled the phone to my ear, still hovering my thumb over the call icon.

  Then I hit it.

  I waited. Waited, as the nerves and adrenaline built up. It was eight p.m., so hopefully Olivia wouldn’t be in bed yet. Even if she was, I could just pretend I’d had some kind of accident, I could play up the lightning incident and make out it was even more deadly than it actually was.

  I just wanted an excuse to speak to my daughter.

  I just wanted to stay close to her.

  I just wanted to—

  The call went dead.

  No signal.

  “Damn it!”

  I threw my phone across the room. Unlike the movies, I didn’t leave it there to smash. I got up, a little worried, and made sure it was okay. It was, fortunately. Phew. I didn’t want to have to spend money on a new iPhone right now, not with the new one just around the corner.

  I looked at my phone again. Was it so wrong for me to want to speak to my daughter? Was it so wrong for me to want to reach out to my family? Kerry told me I was welcome to ring. So what was so wrong about it?

  “Stuff it.” I dialled again.

  This time, I heard it ringing.

  I closed my eyes. The more I heard the call progressing, I got cold feet.

  This wasn’t right.

  It wasn’t fair on Kerry.

  It wasn’t fair on Olivia.

  I’d be home soon anyway.

  “Hel—”

  I cancelled the call before Kerry could continue.

  Then I put my phone into Do Not Disturb mode, just in case Kerry tried to call back.

  I didn’t want to speak to her right now.

  I couldn’t speak to her right now.

  As much of a short term release as it might give me, it would do nothing for me in the long run. Nothing but badness.

  I slumped over to my bed and lay back on it, plugging my phone into the charger on the way.

  Then I leaned back and closed my eyes, patterns floating around, the slight numbness of another quarter-bottle of Jack Daniels running through my bloodstream and paralysing me.

  I thought about me, Kerry, Olivia and Bouncer during better times.

  I saw us walking along the walls of the Old Town in Dubrovnik.

  I saw us playing hide and seek around the old castle up Rivington.

  I heard Olivia’s laughter as she thumped me on FIFA, again and again and again.

  I smiled.

  I might’ve separated with Kerry, but I wasn’t going to let that relationship with my daughter die.

  I was going to keep on being a good dad. The best dad.

  I was going to be as much a part of my daughter’s life as Kerry was, and I was going to be a total role model.

  I didn’t need to speak to them right now.

  I needed to give them their space.

  Then I’d be back home soon, with Bouncer, and I’d made a fresh start. I’d make amends.

  I’d make up for my past mistakes.

  I rolled over, the softness of sleep rapidly approaching.

  I had no idea I’d just passed on the opportunity to speak to the people I loved the most one last time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Day One

  I KNEW something was wrong the moment I woke up.

  It was the silence, I think. Not in a general, or philosophical sense. But in a sense that I never woke up to silence. I could sleep through an earthquake, Kerry used to say, which was probably one of the reasons I’d been born in England, where the most severe weather is an inch of snow once every five years that brings public transport to a standstill.

  Of course, public transport insists they’ll get it right next time. The government invests more in their infrastructure, gets the services more prepared.

  And then five years pass and another inch of snow falls and before you know it, Britain’s on its knees again.

  Yes, the thing that was wrong was that I couldn’t hear my alarm. Which was strange, because it was set automatically to chime at seven a.m. every day, hangover or no hangover.

  Today I had a hangover, sure.

  But that still didn’t explain the silence.

  I opened my eyes and squinted when the light seeped into them from the cabin around me. Beside me, on the cabin floor, I could hear Bouncer panting. He was sat upright, ears pricked on end, tongue dangling out, like he was waiting for something.

  “Shit, boy,” I said, rolling over. I wondered if maybe I hadn’t plugged my phone in. I doubted it, though. That was just another habit of mine, something that always stuck no matter what. “I’ll… I’ll get you your food in a sec.”

  But I saw my phone was plugged in, right beside my bed.

  It hit me then that the silence I experienced wasn’t just down to the lack of an alarm. There was something else, too. Even though I was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, where it was always pretty silent, I hadn’t realised until now that the world could get this much quieter. I wasn’t sure why it was. Maybe I really was just in the middle of nowhere.

  But there was nothing at all, but the sounds of the leaves of the trees brushing against each other, of the birds singing.

  Natural sounds.

  I reached for my phone and hit the on button.

  It didn’t come on.

  I frowned, and clicked it another couple of times.

  Still, it didn’t work.

  “What the hell?”

  I got out of bed and unplugged the phone a couple of times, then plugged it back in again. I wasn’t sure why it wasn’t working, but I could wager a bet. My charging cable must’ve knackered. Dammit. I’d only just bought a new one too, but I’d opted for the cheaper third-party option instead of the official one to save a bit of cash.

  But the phone didn’t even seem to be showing that “Recharge Now” icon like it usually did when it was out of juice, a logo saved for the last reserves of energy.

  It was completely out.

  I shook my head and examined the phone. I couldn’t wrap my head around why it wasn’t working. I swear it hadn’t run out fully last night. It never did. It was usually at about 20% when I finished my day. And that 20% would hold if I didn’t use it through the night.

  Shit. Something must’ve gone wrong with it.

  I tutted, then climbed out of bed, a little agitated. I didn’t mind spending good money on technology, as long as I had some kind of secure guarantee that the damned thing would last long enough to get me through to an upgrade. I’d barely even had the phone a year, and other than the cable breaking, I couldn’t think of a single time I’d had any issues with it.

  And I would go and have an issue now I was in the middle of frigging nowhere, wouldn’t I?

  Bouncer whined, and I realised I was com
pletely out of touch with what time it was. I had a watch packed in my rucksack, but hey, who needed watches nowadays anyway? I figured from the position of the sun that it was mid-morning. Much later than I usually woke.

  “Come on, lad,” I said, reaching for Bouncer’s bowl. I poured in his food, and soon realised there wasn’t enough left to make up one meal. Damn. I said I’d head into town after a few days and grab some more food for him. I guess I could take a look for a cheap phone repair place while I was out. Might not be as good service as AppleCare, but it’d have to suffice now I was out in the sticks.

  “You eat that up. We’ll get you some more in a bit.”

  I walked away from Bouncer, leaving him to devour his dried food. As I walked across the wooden floor of the cabin, the weirdness of this entire situation built even more. I couldn’t explain it, really. You know that feeling when you’re having a nightmare and there’s just this sense of dread that everything you fear is just around the corner? It was kind of like that.

  Except I wasn’t dreaming.

  And I couldn’t put my finger on what it was I was so afraid of.

  I sighed, and I realised I stank. Better take a shower. Wash away some of those whisky shivers.

  I stepped into the bathroom and into the shower.

  I braced myself for an initial cold punch of water that I’d have to brave for ten seconds or so.

  I held my breath.

  Pushed the button.

  Nothing happened.

  I frowned. Opened my eyes and pushed the button again.

  Still nothing.

  A sinking feeling hit me then. The shower was an electric one. “Power cut,” I muttered. “Bloody power cut.”

  I headed out of the shower and threw some clothes on. Bloody typical. The people I was renting this place from insisted they had very few problems with electricity, but then they would insist that, wouldn’t they?

  I had to get into town. I had to call them. I had to get this sorted out.

  I stepped out of the cabin and jogged over to the car. I couldn’t waste any time. I was fuming. I had to get this sorted.

  I clicked the button to unlock my car door.

  I went to open the door.

  The door didn’t open.

  I frowned, the agitation building inside me. “What the hell?”

  I clicked the key fob a few more times, but still the car door didn’t open. I was at the point of disbelief that I was pretty much laughing. What the hell was going on? What was wrong with my car door? What was wrong with everything?

  I put the key into the door and unlocked it manually.

  Bouncer hopped in beside me, sat on the passenger seat.

  I put a hand on the steering wheel, and went to put the key in.

  As I went to turn it, to start the car up, I got a shiver up my spine.

  The phone. Even if there had been a power cut, it wouldn’t have run out of battery like that.

  That shiver soon turned into the full blown shakes when my car didn’t start up at all.

  I turned the key some more. Persevered with it.

  But there was something very clear to me.

  Something very wrong.

  I ran back inside the cabin, pale and cold. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus. I feared I knew what was happening, but this kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in reality. This kind of event was something of fiction. Of science fiction.

  I rooted around my case. I had to find it. I had to see. I had to know.

  When I pulled it out, held it in my hand, my stomach dropped completely.

  I had my analog watch in my hand.

  The watch had stopped just before eight a.m.

  The second hand was stuck.

  And like every other battery or electrical powered device in my possession, it was dead.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the end, it turned out I couldn’t just sit around in the cabin staring at my watch in shock. And there were only so many times I could try the kettle, and my beard trimmer, and my Bluetooth headphones, battery powered.

  Nothing worked.

  Everything was down.

  And I had a feeling I knew what was going on.

  The morning was bright, at least. Well, I guessed it was morning. I didn’t know the time exactly, but I could predict from the position of the sun that it was around eleven a.m. So okay. More than a guess. I’d grown up a son of a military man, who’d taught me little tricks like how to tell exactly what time of day it was at any point of the year. There were a few methods, besides estimations based on the position of the sun. One way required a stick, another rigid object, and some string. You put the stick in the ground and put a string from the top of the stick to the top of the stick’s shadow. You make a mark on that spot and trace a circle in the dirt, staying equal in radius to the original shadow. As the day goes by, the top of the shadow moves inside the circle, shortening until it’s noon, until it touches the circle at the other side.

  As soon as it returns to the circle, you mark that location, too, and connect the two intersection points, and the middle of that connection marks solar noon.

  There were other ways I knew, too. I won’t bore anyone with the details.

  I never thought I’d have to use that skill, of course. I just assumed, like everyone else, that the world would always be here for me, in some form or other. That electronics and electricity were a permanent thing, even if there were momentary outages.

  And perhaps that was all this was. Maybe it was just another momentary outage.

  But something inside me, I don’t know what, told me otherwise. It told me something else was going on.

  “Come on, Bouncer,” I called, as the pair of us walked through the trees. We were descending the hill towards a shop I’d seen on our drive over here. It wasn’t the shop I intended to go for Bouncer’s food, or to call Apple—which I realised was a futile pursuit now anyway. But the fact of the matter was, I needed to find some other bastion of civilisation. Sure, I was a bit of a loner. I liked my own space. But this was different. This was total solitude.

  It seemed to me like it was an EMP incident.

  The thought of an EMP attack or incident made my stomach turn and made me taste sick at the back of my mouth as I continued my journey towards the shop. I’d long been fascinated by the idea of an EMP—or Electromagnetic Pulse. There was a variety of ways they could be caused. A solar event was one, and something space agencies around the world were keeping their eyes on all the time. Not that they could do anything about it if they detected one, as much as they insisted otherwise.

  And another potential cause was an attack. Many governments around the world were believed to have some kind of electromagnetic weapon in their possession. The number was growing by the day, as a new nuclear arms race began, only a much more dangerous weapon with much more potential for death and destruction than any single nuke.

  EMPs wiped out all electrical devices. Even battery powered ones.

  They ended communication.

  In a matter of seconds, a small electromagnetic explosion many, many miles above the surface of a country would be enough to wipe out a country’s electrical infrastructure.

  I took a deep breath of the humid air, smelling pine as I progressed even further down the hill. I didn’t like being so far away from the cabin if what I suspected was true. Sure, it was out of the way, but it felt like my secure place right now. My shelter.

  But then, what good was a shelter all those miles away without many supplies?

  What good was a car when I couldn’t drive it?

  I sipped at a tiny bit of water, the back of my throat dry. I started to worry about my family. I had a basic knowledge of survivalism, partly through my post-apocalyptic novels, and partly through my military dad. I was confident I was more capable than most of surviving the end of the world.

  Well. I used to be confident. That was before the end of the world actually bloody happened. If it had happened, the
n I felt lost. I felt alone.

  And I felt terrified.

  Most people underestimate just how dangerous an electromagnetic event would be. It’d be way worse than nuclear war. Way, way worse than zombies. It could kill ninety percent of the population within three weeks. Why?

  Think of it this way. The end of electricity means the end of life as we know it. It means the end of the news to tell people what to do. It means the end of electric locks on the gates of fancy houses, ending the class wars. It means the opening of prison cell doors. It means the loss of materialism. The end of money. The death of capitalism. The collapse of western values.

  It means the end of communication and the beginning of paranoia. The police go into meltdown because of a lack of communication their end, and a lack of order from those who stand against them. It leads to power grabs. To new mini-governments and mini-states, and mini-governments and mini-states within those. It means food and weapons become the world’s main currency, and those without power starve to death.

  The cities would be worse off because that’s where most people would be. The countryside would be more ideal, but people there require survival skills, which the vast majority quite frankly don’t have because they aren’t prepared.

  It means an age of lawlessness.

  It means chaos.

  It means death.

  I just had to bloody hope the world hadn’t really ended then, didn’t I?

  I was dancing in the horror of my thoughts when I saw a shop up ahead.

  I put my hands on my knees and whistled out some air. I was both relieved and unnerved to find this shop, which was definitely the one I’d passed on my way up into Tay Forest Park.

  I started to walk towards it. Maybe I was wrong about everything. Maybe there hadn’t been any EMP. Maybe I was just paranoid.

  I was getting closer when I realised Bouncer was totally still.

  “Bouncer,” I said. “What’s up with you?”

  He was looking above the shop.

  Looking into the sky.

  I turned around. I couldn’t see anything. “Creepy dog. What’s…”

  Then I heard the noise.

  I wasn’t sure what it was. Not right away.

  But then I saw them.