Tim Curran - Blackout

And that’s when the wind came.

There was a blinding flash like an enormous flashbulb had gone off and we were all blinded by it. It came from above, I think, but I can’t be sure. Milliseconds later, there was a wave of heat that swept through the neighborhood. It wasn’t enough to burn anyone, but its warmth rolling over us made everyone gasp. It was like tropical heat blown from a jungle, but desert-dry, lacking moisture. It sucked the air out of our lungs and dried the spit in our mouths. The only time I’d ever felt anything like it was at a Kiss concert when I was thirteen. Among the usual pyrotechnics, four giant flash pots erupted with fireballs and the heat of them rolled through the crowd. This was much like that.

Bare seconds after that, the wind came.

It funneled down Piccamore Way in a great tumultuous rolling storm of dust and debris that slammed into everyone and knocked them off their feet and threw more than a few into the cables, which had been the point, I suppose. The dust settled quickly and we could see people trapped on the cables like bugs on threads of spider silk.

I saw it as I climbed to my feet, helping Bonnie up.

Before the wind came, I was already reeling from the flash. I was dizzy and my eyes overflowed with tears. My feet got tangled up and down I went, right on top of Bonnie. We all went down. And most of us, save Iris, got back up quickly enough…then the wind hit us.

The image burned into my mind is a woman crawling across the pavement out in the street. Her ankle was attached to one of the cables and I could see the entire thing was trembling, vibrating. She crawled forward, sobbing and squealing, dragging the cable with her but certainly not breaking free of it. The cable jerked and she jerked; then it seemed to whip and she came up off the ground and slammed back down with a fleshy impact, the cable making her dance and kick and twitch. Then it started taking her up. A guy grabbed hold of her, shouting, “Eileen! Eileen! Eileen…for God’s sake…” as he tried to pull her free. Somewhere in the process his hand got caught in the goo and he started to go up, too. But he was a strong guy and he wasn’t about to let that happen, so he yanked back with everything he had, tearing the skin from his palm in the process and hitting the ground. The cable went up with Eileen.

I can’t be sure what happened after that. Not exactly. The rest of us made for the houses and some of us didn’t make it. I led the way to my house with Ray Wetmore, Iris Phelan just behind us being guided by Bonnie and Billy Kurtz. We made it up the steps and inside, but judging from the screaming outside, many people didn’t.

We formed up in the living room like frightened mice in a hole, trying to block the sounds of cries and shrieks coming in at us from the streets. I know I could have guided others in, but I think I lost my nerve after the Eblers went up. I think we all did. We were satisfied to hide there in the darkness, to cower and tremble. Our entire world had changed in a matter of hours and we were trying to make sense of it, trying to get our feet under us, trying to orient ourselves to what was going on.

I would have let anyone in that sought shelter.

But no one came and no one called out.

After a while, there was only silence outside—a nearly leaden wall of quiet that was even worse than listening to the screaming. We all waited, not knowing what to do and not even speaking.

It was Iris who finally broke the stillness. She had moved her walker over to the window and she was studying the street beyond, or what she could see of it. “We should have expected something like this,” she said. “All those years they were abducting us one by one. That was our warning. That was our siren call to action, but we ignored it. We ignored it because we were too scared to do a damn thing about it. It was too easy to call those abductees crackpots and crazies…and now here we are. Here we damn well are, fish in a pond. And just like we harvest the sea, they’re harvesting the planet…”

We sat around like that in the dark for some time until I got sick of it. I went down in the basement and looted around in the camping supplies until I found a couple lanterns and a few more flashlights. I was using Bonnie’s lighter to find my way around as I’d lost my flashlight outside somewhere. Maybe it was still in the truck. I didn’t know.

“You got any beer?” I heard her call from the top of the steps.

“It’s in the fridge out in the back hall, not the one in the kitchen,” I called up to her and I heard her relay the message to Billy, no doubt. Then she was coming down the steps, guiding herself along by feel.

“You need help with anything?”

“I’m just throwing some stuff together.”

Bonnie took the lighter and lit a cigarette. I couldn’t take it anymore. I bummed one off her and the nicotine lit fireworks in my brain. The addiction was back, full throttle.

“What are we going to do, Jon?”

“I don’t know. For now we’ll get some lights going and then we’d better take stock of the food. Power’s out, but Kathy…she always has lots of canned stuff and boxed dinners. I have a couple cases of bottled water upstairs. If we have food, light, and water, it should make us feel human anyway.”

“We better start with the fresh stuff.”

I pulled off the cigarette. “Lots of fruit and veggies on stock. Still have steaks and corn left from the party.”

We finished our cigarettes and then butted them out. I handed her one of the lanterns and then she took my hand. I thought she was giving me something, but she pressed my fingers against the globe of her breast. It was very warm, very firm. The nipple was hard under my fingertips. I didn’t pull my hand away as quick as I should have, I guess, but I did pull it away.

“You don’t like me?” Bonnie said, pulling her shirt back down.

“It’s not that. I’m married…I don’t know what’s going on.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m not really good for anything else.”

“Yes, you are.”

She laughed sarcastically. “No, I’m not. I never have been.” She sighed again and I thought I heard her sobbing. “I’m afraid to die. I know I’m going to. I know that thing up there is going to get me and I’m afraid. Sometimes when I’m afraid, I don’t do the right thing.”

“None of us do.”

We went upstairs and I got fresh batteries for everything. Thank God Kathy was one of those people who stockpile things. We lit one lantern to conserve battery power. Iris was still watching out the window. Billy was sitting in my recliner, drinking my beer. Ray Wetmore was in the corner sitting on Kathy’s rocking chair. He was not saying a thing. I half expected him to bounce back and become our local politician and leader once again, but it wasn’t happening. Bonnie sat on the couch and I sat by her, but not too close. I was thinking about Erin over in Italy and praying this was localized and not global. Every other thought was of Kathy. I knew she was gone. I knew I’d never see her again. The depth of that pain was immense, but I could no longer pretend she was hiding somewhere or just hurt and had crawled into the bushes. The truth was, she would have done neither of those things. Her first thought would have been of me and even if she was half-dead, she would have crawled through hell to get to me.

I sipped a beer and smoked another cigarette. The only thing that was pulling me through was the idea of sunrise. When the world was bright, there might be hope and I was clinging to that.

“Anything out there?” I said to Iris.

“It’s quiet, real quiet.”

I went over to her and looked out into the night. Most of the fires had died down to coals, but a couple were still burning. The light they threw showed me a world of abandonment. Lots of tree limbs down from the wind, beer and pop cans blown out into the street, garbage in yards. Other than that, it looked like some kind of primordial jungle out there with all the cables hanging down like vines. I could see dozens upon dozens of them just waiting to trap the unwary.