Bobby Akart - Armageddon

Before he left, he’d consumed two bottles of electrolyte water and half a dozen energy bars. He now had two baskets full of nutritional supplements, energy bars, and protein powders. He transferred his haul into three tote bags offered for sale by the store. This concealed what he’d procured and hopefully wouldn’t encourage anyone to try to steal it from him.

After an hour in the Vitamin Shoppe perusing every item offered, he casually rolled up the grated door and slid underneath. Nobody noticed as he nonchalantly walked through the mall as if he’d been shopping on any other Saturday.

Saturday, October 26

Driftwood Key

The Albrights and the Frees had spent the day before trying to gather information via the DirecTV satellite television network and a crank NOAA weather radio made by Eton. The radio was a staple of every resident in the Florida Keys. Hurricanes were a regular occurrence, as were power outages, which was why Hank had spent an inordinate amount of time and money preparing for a sustained power outage.

The group had remained glued to the television and CNN International, the only cable news network that was broadcasting. All other programming was off the air, a direct result of their network locations in California and New York.

It had been more than twenty-four hours since the U.S. and North Korea had exchanged nuclear volleys. From all reports, North Korea no longer existed. Its government, major cities, and military installations had been reduced to rubble. The nations they’d attacked initially, Japan and South Korea, were trying to pick up the pieces.

The situation, as the CNN news anchors called it, was more dire in the U.S. and confusing. Americans were faced with millions of people who had been killed instantly at the detonation sites, as well as widespread power outages. Just as the network was about to explain the grid failure in detail, power to Driftwood Key was lost.

They were no longer able to receive any signals from local AM or FM stations. The emergency broadcast system was working, but it hadn’t been updated since the initial warnings to shelter in place due to the nuclear attack. For nine hours from Friday night into the early morning hours of Saturday, they’d lost all contact with the outside world.

Hank was physically and emotionally exhausted when he’d tried to go to bed the night before. After an hour of tossing and turning, his mind full of concern for the safety of his kids, Hank got up to walk on the beach. He heard voices and made his way to the water’s edge. The grayish, cloudy skies blocked the moonlight as well as the sun, so it was extraordinarily dark on the gulf side of Driftwood Key. He recognized the voices as being Mike and Jessica. The three of them stayed up for hours, passing a fifth of Jack Daniel’s around until Hank found his way into a hammock to pass out.

That day, he woke up because his biological clock summoned him, not because the beautiful Florida sunshine made its daily appearance. At first the dark, cloudy canopy made him think rain was on the way, but his mind and body told him otherwise.

As a lifelong resident of the Keys, Hank had the innate ability to feel weather. Years spent on the water and in a tropical environment taught him how to sense changes in atmospheric pressure, winds, and moisture in the air.

This was different. It was as if the Florida Keys were on fire and covered in a blanket of soot. The gray skies had turned to a mixture of black smoke and ashy white. The air had become thick with the toxic mix, causing Hank to begin coughing.

Without any sense of modesty, he took his morning pee at the water’s edge. It was a crude thing to do but one that made sense under the circumstances. With the power outage, water would be a precious commodity that shouldn’t be wasted on flushing toilets.

Hank found his way up the stairs toward the porch. He cocked his head to listen for the generator, surprised that it wasn’t running. Then the ceiling fans on the veranda caught his eye. They were turning like always. He shrugged, thrilled that the power was back on.

“Phoebe! Sonny! You guys around?”

“Back here!” Phoebe shouted back. He glanced into the other rooms and noticed they’d closed all the windows. Late October was usually a great time to open the main house to let the ocean breezes flow through.

“Good morning, Mr. Hank,” greeted Sonny, startling Hank somewhat. It was the first time the proprietor of the Driftwood Key Inn realized he was hungover. He rubbed his temples and cursed the Tennessee whiskey as if it were Gentleman Jack’s fault he’d consumed so much the evening before.

“Hi, Sonny. What’re you up to?” He pointed at his caretaker’s hands, which held rags and a bottle of Windex.

“Mama isn’t too happy with all the soot in the house. Look.” He showed Hank the black-streaked towels. “As soon as the power came back on, she had me scramble around to close the windows and wipe everything down. She’s running loads of laundry while the power is up and running.”

“When did it come on?” asked Hank.

“About an hour ago when Mike and Jessica left.”

“Left?” asked Hank as he looked around the house. “To where?”

“Mike said both of their radios began to squawk as soon as the electricity was back. They’ve been called in to work.”

Hank managed a laugh and shrugged. A cop is never off duty.

“Mr. Hank! Come get your breakfast before it gets cold!”

Hank pointed toward the kitchen. “How’s she holding up?”

“Believe it or not, pretty good,” replied Sonny. “It helps her to stay busy. Maybe she’s hiding it, I don’t know. One thing is for certain, she has a million things on her mental to-do list while the power is on. She seems to think we could lose it again.”

Hank grimaced. If Erin Bergman was correct, they could count on it.

The rest of that day was a busy one. Information was still spotty, and mostly what they gathered was a repeat of the reporting the night before. The electricity situation was beginning to be a concern for Hank.

Without a doubt, the regions around the blast zones were experiencing massive blackouts, large-scale power outages that might go on for many months, if not longer. In the Florida Keys, the brownouts were an indication of the utility company’s inability to keep up with demand. To prevent blackouts in more populated areas, they reduce delivery of electricity to rural areas or places like the Keys.

As the brownouts began to occur more frequently as that Saturday wore on, everyone on Driftwood Key began to prioritize their chores to take advantage of a precious commodity they’d all taken for granted in their everyday lives—electricity.

Sonny and Jimmy focused on the greenhouses and hydroponics, the two sustainable food-growing processes that were an integral part of the inn’s operations. Phoebe worked to prepare meals and shuffle stored foods from one refrigerator to another. Those items that required freezing were prepared first because the inn’s portable generators weren’t strong enough to maintain them for the length of time necessary to keep the food frozen. Not to mention the fact that gasoline for the generators was also in short supply.

Hank took this opportunity to check on Driftwood Key’s Sol-Ark solar array. It was first installed seven years ago, and he’d upgraded and expanded the array every year since. Florida ranked third in the country for solar potential, with the Keys being the most viable candidate for solar energy. Between tax credits and other government incentives, he’d managed to power their sustainable gardening buildings, several of the inn’s bungalows located near it, and Phoebe’s supply storage building, including the refrigerators.