Solar Storm: Season 1 [Aftermath Episodes 1-5] Read online

  As she emerged onto the main racetrack, Kate turned and heard a commotion of angry shouts coming from the line of registers as people stacked up and waited for checkout. She glanced at her watch. Her shopping trip had taken almost an hour. The skylights overhead had shifted from the hideous reds and pinks of the aurora to the bright light of a warm California dawn.

  I'm wasting time. I need to get the hell out of here and find more gas.

  She turned her cart and spotted the bearded man from the water aisle as he turned into the outdoor lawn and garden area. She followed the savvy shopper all the way to the lone checkout station on this side of the building.

  Surrounded by the smell of fertilizer and birdseed, she studied the racks of shrink-wrapped lawn equipment waiting for spring sales. It only took a few minutes for the man to cash out and nod at Kate in parting as he hurried away.

  She wheeled her cart up to the checkout lane and smiled. There were two employees on this end of the building: one, a nervous-looking teenager who tallied up Kate’s purchases, and the other an older man wielding a baton-like flashlight and walkie-talkie near the door.

  "How bad is it getting?" Kate asked the man.

  He grimaced. "Radios don't work all that well, but from what I can gather, the manager’s getting ready to close the store altogether. He wants me to lock up but I'll leave the door open long enough for you to get out."

  Relief washed over her. Kate smiled. "Thank you so much.” She watched the girl adding up her purchase, then turned back to the old man. “Will you be heading home?"

  He shrugged. "Not much of a home to go to—it's just me and the cats. They'll be fine if I stay here for a few more hours.” He nodded at Kate’s groaning cart. “Got everything you need?”

  It was Kate’s turn to shrug as she watched the cashier note her purchases and drop them into a fresh cart. “My home’s in Illinois. I'm going to load up and make a run for it."

  "You really think it's that bad?" asked the cashier, the tremble in her voice matching that of her hands.

  Kate hesitated. "I do.” She glanced back at the store. The noise increased sharply, then a woman screamed. Kate grabbed a generic iPhone car charger from the rack by the register and added it to her pile.

  "My advice: get whatever you can before the store closes and get out of here.” Kate bent over and busied herself with pretending to tie her shoelaces. She surreptitiously pulled the cash out of her money belt before she standing up again.

  “You need to make sure you have enough water and food to survive on your own for a while…"

  By the time the cashier finished ringing her up, two more people stuck their heads through the main doors into the store and shouted over their shoulders another register was available.

  Kate handed over the money and told the cashier to keep the change. She didn't like walking away from $15, but she had a sinking suspicion that getting her stuff out of the store and heading to a gas station would be worth more than whatever money she had left in another 24 hours.

  “Thank you,” she said to the old man as he held the door open for her. “Remember, get as much as you can and get out of here.”

  “I surely will. You have a good day now,” he replied, as if on autopilot. The last thing she saw before the door closed was the terrified look on the cashier’s face as several people descended on her register, all shouting for attention.

  Kate pushed her cart just outside the lawn/garden exit door, took a calming breath, and scanned her surroundings. The crowd at the main front doors to her right had swelled to almost a hundred. A few cars parked nearby blared rap music and the general noise of the unruly crowd only reinforced her thinking that things were about to get ugly. Without waiting to see what might happen, she turned her cart and rushed around the corner as quick as he could.

  Two other cars had parked near her. The people looked up as they loaded their purchases. The man from the water aisle loaded a truck a few cars down. He pulled a tarp back and shoved his hard-won water jugs inside the bed, securing everything with rope.

  She nodded at him and scurried to load up the trunk of her car with her purchases, throwing the water and some of the cereal and Pop Tarts in the back seat.

  As Kate shut the trunk of her car, she noticed the man with the water approach her with a smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. "Hey, how's it going?" His eyes shifted to take in the parking lot behind her.

  "I'm fine," Kate said in a firm voice. When he kept coming toward her, she shifted tactics.

  "You need to stop right there," she snapped with her officer’s voice. It had the desired effect—the man hesitated a second. His genial smile turned into a sneer as he glanced at the items in her back seat.

  "You sure got a lot of stuff. I only managed to grab some water and jerky before those ghetto rats chased me out of there…how much you take for some of that cereal?" he asked, reaching into his back pocket.

  "Not for sale," she replied. Kate opened the driver’s door with her left hand and kept her right firmly on the now empty shopping cart.

  The man stood there staring at her with his wallet in his hand. "You know what's going on out there, don't you? I saw the way you moved through the aisles. You went right for the water and I saw you again over in the outdoor stuff. You know what you're doing."

  "I suppose I do."

  Kate cursed herself for not taking the butcher’s knife out of its plastic blister pack and slipping it into her belt as soon as she'd purchased it. She knew the knife was right there on the passenger seat, but wasn't sure she'd have enough time to grab and unwrap it now.

  The smile on the man’s face confirmed he knew what she was thinking. If you make a move, it’ll be too late. The only thing she had at hand was a shopping cart.

  The man's eyes narrowed for a split second and she chose to use her only weapon. She shoved the shopping cart with all her strength. As he cursed and stumbled back from the impact, she dove in her car, slammed the door, and locked it. The engine started, and the man shoved past the cart and pounded on the window. Kate flinched with the sudden explosion of unwarranted aggression.

  "Open up, you fucking bitch!"

  He screamed something else about the food in her backseat but she didn't care. Hoping it would take more than his bare hands to break the window, she threw her little car in reverse and floored it. The car jumped as it ran over his foot, but she ignored his scream and shifted into drive. Kate peeled out of the parking lot and headed for Wilkie Ave.

  Traffic was heavier now than when she’d arrived, but flowed at a steady pace, so she found a break and slipped into the eastbound stream in the shadow of 105. Kate checked the rear view mirror, thankful her silver Forte was about as generic as possible.

  A truck careened into the line of cars a hundred yards behind her, causing a rash of honks and squealing tires. The man from Target was hunting her down. Her first instinct was to floor it and run, but she was surrounded by several cars and she spotted another Kia a couple cars back. She had cover.

  She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths. As long as he stayed with the flow of traffic and didn't change lanes, she should be okay.

  Kate found a tractor-trailer a few blocks ahead and worked her way just in front of it, being careful to make sure she didn't drive erratically and give away her position. The truck tailing her continued to weave in and out of traffic, trying to force its way ahead.

  Despite the drumming of her heart against her ribs, she drove like she was just another sightseer, out to see what the day would bring to a Los Angeles without power.

  Fifteen minutes later, Kate felt confident she’d escaped the man in the truck. She'd been checking her mirrors and seen no sign of the jacked up 4 x 4 for a while. He’d either given up the chase or gotten stuck behind her. Either way, for the moment she was safe.

  Kate considered reaching for the knife and trying to free it from its plastic case before she found a gas station, but realized that would just increase the c
hance of cutting herself or causing an accident. Also, she couldn’t risk getting injured now, not without a serious first aid kit. In all the excitement at Target, she’d forgotten to look for one of those. She had a rudimentary kit with band-aids and Advil in her flight bag, but she wanted something more substantial.

  “Okay," Kate mumbled to herself as she glanced at the fuel gauge, “focus on what I do have—almost a full tank." The little screen on the dash estimated she could go another 400 miles before refueling.

  Kate took one more glance in the mirror to confirm the man in the truck was nowhere to be seen. She decided to wait until she got away from L.A.’s dense urban sprawl before she looked for a place to collect herself and get settled for the long drive. Ahead of her, the long line of red lights indicated she might have a ways to go before she escaped.

  “I hate cities.”

  CHAPTER 3

  JAY GRIPPED THE STEERING wheel tight as he sped into town. This road never had a lot of traffic on a mid-winter Saturday, but the unusual stillness of the surrounding houses and farms only added to his anxiety. He tried to ignore the darkened houses as he roared by—their very presence taunting him.

  "She's not dead," he muttered, tightening his hands on the wheel until his knuckles were as white as the snow on the ground. Every twitch made the car jerk.

  "She's not!"

  He clenched his teeth as Bloomington appeared on the horizon beyond the barren, frozen fields. The city was completely dark. He cut through the outlying neighborhoods and worked his way to Bloomington’s regional airport on the east side of town like he'd done a thousand times to meet Kate on an incoming flight.

  By the time he pulled up at the airport and stopped at the national guard truck with flashing blue lights blocking the parking lot entrance, Jay’s back was so tight he could scream. A pair of soldiers held up their hands and motioned for him to stop. Sighing, Jay waited as one walked to his car, his rifle resting in the crook of his arm.

  "Can I help you, sir?" asked the young soldier.

  "Yes, my wife is a pilot with Bluewing Airlines, this is her home airport and I—" Jay began, squinting through the blue strobe light behind the soldier.

  "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't let you in here. The airport is closed until further notice."

  Jay blinked. "But you don’t understand, I don't want in the airport. My wife is—"

  "Sir, I don't understand anything right now other than my orders. No one gets in this parking lot."

  “But what's going on?” asked Jay, afraid to hear the answer.

  The soldier glanced up at the aurora, fading in dawn’s deepening glow. "Something serious, sir—beyond that, I don't know. But like I said, until further notice, this facility is closed for business."

  "I'm not here for business!" Jay shouted. He slammed his hands on the steering wheel and ignored the other soldier as he brought his rifle into a more ready position.

  "Sir, I need you to calm down—"

  "I will not calm down! My wife was on a flight to Hawaii when this shit hit us and the people who know what happened are in there!"

  The soldier's face softened. "I'm sorry, sir—I really am. But there's no one here that could help you. Look,” he said with a glance over his shoulder at his partner. “The FAA grounded all flights nationwide—no one is flying anywhere right now."

  Jay took a deep breath to calm himself but choked on the smell of diesel that swirled around the big army truck. "Were there any accidents?" he blurted. "She would have been on flight 3684 out of Los Angeles—"

  The soldier shook his head. "I don't know, sir. I heard of a few cra—uh, accidents—out west, but I don't know any details." He looked over his shoulder again and straightened up as the other soldier approached. He continued in a louder voice.

  "I do know this place is closed and there's no one here except a guy from the FAA and a team from Homeland Security. They sent home all the air traffic controllers and airport employees hours ago."

  “But…”

  “You cool, Johnson?” called the other soldier.

  Crashes. He said there were more than one…oh, my God.

  “All good, Sarge.” The soldier turned back to Jay. “Look, those guys in there couldn't find their asses if they sat on them. Everyone’s in the dark on this, sir. You should have seen the looks on their faces when they rolled up. They're scared.”

  “So am I.”

  The soldier grimaced. “Right there with you, sir.”

  "There's…no one else here?"

  "Just me and my supervisor over there," the soldier replied, pointing at his partner.

  “Wrap it up, Johnson, we got another one coming.”

  Johnson nodded and turned back to Jay. "I'm sorry, sir—I wish you luck in finding your wife but I'm going to have to ask that you turn around and go home. The governor declared a state of emergency and wants all private vehicles off the roads to make it easier for emergency responders to get around."

  "What emergency responders?" asked Jay. "I've been driving for 20 minutes and didn't see anyone on the road."

  This can't be happening.

  “Well, sounds like they’re doing what they’re supposed to.”

  The other soldier moved up next to the car. "Where'd you come from?" he asked.

  "West. Uh, just the other side of 55," Jay replied woodenly. His throat felt dry as sand.

  The first soldier whistled. "Well, you might want to head back that way. What we're hearing is everything north of here is going crazy. There's lots of accidents.”

  Jay stared open-mouthed at the sergeant. A little older than Johnson, the sergeant’s lips remained compressed in a tight line. “We had two people die from exposure, stuck outside all night in their cars. It's a real mess."

  “But…my car works…”

  Johnson looked at Jay. “Accidents, sir. People run off the road lookin’ at…looking up.”

  "Nothing like what Chicago’s gonna be like in another day or so,” added Sarge. "I'm happy we're stuck out here, actually."

  "Thank you," said Jay, ignoring another round of apologies. He rolled up the window as the soldiers waved and moved back into position by their tan truck. He executed a slow three point turn and slowly rolled away from the airport and any chance of finding out what might have happened to Kate.

  Sometime later, Jay emerged from his thoughts and found himself on a lonely field road that led through the south side of town. A family owned grocery store appeared on his left behind a copse of snow-dusted pines and without thinking, he pulled into the parking lot.

  He needed to get out and stretch, he needed to run, to scream, to…he just had to get out of the car. The smell of diesel from the airport hung thick and heavy inside the car, bringing with it the acidic bile of mind-consuming fear.

  She's not dead.

  He threw open the door as soon as he'd parked and fell to his knees on the icy ground. He took one long breath and threw up. Leaning back against the idling car, he put his shaking hands to his face and choked back a scream.

  She's not dead.

  "If you're thinking to get in there and find some medicine, save yourself the trouble, friend. Just go on home," said a voice made of old age and cigar smoke.

  Jay moved his right hand from his face and glanced up at an old man with a sad, wrinkled face, bundled up in a flannel hunting jacket and resting on a cane.

  "Excuse me?" Jay asked.

  The old man grunted. "Fillhouse is shuttin' his doors. Not opening today, he says." He pulled the stogie from his mouth and blue a puff of blue smoke drifted up into the air.

  "Can't blame him." He looked up at the sky. "At least the sun's up and them crayon colors went away."

  "Who's Fillhouse?"

  "Robert Fillhouse—he runs the store. You from around here, son?"

  Jay struggled to his feet and watched a small but vocal crowd he hadn't noticed before at the store's entrance. More than a few shouted, their indignant voices echoing across the parking lo
t on the cold breeze.

  "He's not opening?" Jay repeated on autopilot. He heard the words but didn't know he spoke.

  "Nope," said the old timer. He turned, a laborious movement, to stare at the grocery store. "Been shopping here since I was a boy. John Fillhouse—that would be young Robbie’s grandfather—never closed, not even during the War."

  "Which war?" asked Jay. It seemed like his head was full of cotton. His thoughts came to him as if they floated down a tunnel.

  “The last one that mattered.” The old man sighed. "Well, who knows? Maybe young Robbie’s right.” He took a drag on the cigar and looked down, blowing smoke at his feet.

  “It’s…I think it's serious,” Jay added without much conviction.

  “Maybe this is more serious than just a power outage. Either way, I would have liked to have gotten my hands on some more vittles, you know?" He shrugged again, talking to himself as he shuffled off.

  Alone again with his jumbled thoughts, Jay sat in his car and stared at the store. Half the crowd had streamed back to their cars, casting desultory looks over their shoulders.

  "What about cash? I got cash!" someone shouted.

  Jay couldn't hear the response, but he heard the collective groan and knew the manager had turned down the offer. Eventually the crowd broke up and left, leaving Jay alone in the parking lot except for a few cars he assumed belonged to the manager and his employees.

  Exhausted, Jay didn't know where to go or what to do. He lowered his seat and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Jay woke to the sound of his stomach growling insolently for food. He rubbed his eyes and grimaced at his hands, caked in dried vomit. Groaning, he raised his seat and put his hands on the wheel. A glance at the dashboard clock told him he'd been asleep for three hours.

  "Noon," he muttered, his throat dry and raw. He wiped the condensation off his window with a squeak of skin on glass. A dusting of snow covered the bushes and trees and a few spots in the parking lot. He sniffed and started his car.