The World's End Series Book One: Dymond's World (9 page)

The sun had started to go down.  Hoppie lit the patio heater as Sarabeth brought her a beer.  They sat on the deck and watched the lights of Sun Valley, Idaho wink into existence several hundred feet below them.  Most were white lights, twinkling in the unsettled, cool air.  But a fair number were blue and green.  In four days, it would be Christmas.

Hoppie leaned back in her deck chair and put her feet on the railing.  She was wearing red socks.  "God, SeeBee, I don't think it could be any more beautiful."

They'd arrived just that afternoon so this was their first sunset in the mountains.  "You got that right, Hop.  It's like something you'd see in a movie or something."  She looked at her friend and smiled, "A Christmas movie!  I can't believe I'm here - and I'm so glad to be here with you.  I missed you."

They'd both graduated in the spring and were now in grad school - but at different universities.  They'd kept in touch by texting and Facebook, but it wasn't the same.  Sarabeth missed having a girl roommate to talk to and pal around with.  Her boyfriend was fine, but he was a guy.  It was just different.

They were silent for a while.  Sarabeth felt warm and safe and comfortable with her best friend nearby.  There was no need for constant chatter.  The stars started to appear overhead, at first one by one, and then by the thousands.  The clear mountain air and dark skies let them see the cosmos in a way neither of them had ever experienced.  Sarabeth was surprised to realize it made her feel small.

***

They finished their first beer and Hoppie went to get them another.  When she returned, she handed Sarabeth hers and then burped.  They both laughed.  Sarabeth moved over to invite Hoppie to sit beside her.  The heater did a good job, but it was still chilly.

"Hop, you never did tell me exactly what happened with Ben.  You guys had been - you know, a team or whatever - for a long time and then boom, you had this new guy."

Hoppie stared into the distance, remembering.  "I feel sorry for Ben, I really do.  It's the economy; it's all they talk about in grad school, how things are so unsettled, how our MBAs might not be worth shit.  One day the market is through the roof and the next there's almost a crash.  Some of the professors sound a little scared to me.  Look at what happened today - the markets were shut down again - some computer problem.  They don't seem to be able to figure it out and it's getting worse."

Sarabeth had heard the news.  She still kept up with events and the news seemed almost always to be bad.

"Ben's company went under like a bunch of others.  After that, he couldn't afford a Sugar Baby.  He was the best a girl could have though - always paid right on time for over two years.  I think that's kind of a record.  Most guys like to trade in the old model for a new one every few months."

Sarabeth frowned her disapproval, but she didn't say anything.  They'd had this kind of discussion before.  "And this new guy?  How'd you find him?"

"It took almost three months, and I think I was lucky to hook up so quickly.  The Sugar Daddy crop is kind of thin right now and they can be real picky.  I had a date with one guy who told me he was looking for a blond, so when I met him I was blond.  He loved everything about me, but when he saw the evidence that I wasn't exactly a natural blond, that was it."

Sarabeth couldn't help herself; she laughed out loud

"But with Huang, it was love at first sight - him loving me, I mean.  The first time I talked to him on the phone, I could tell he was Asian.  He turned out to be really short - a few inches shorter than me so his eyes are always on my boobs.  He's also kind of old, so I think a lot of girls would pass on him.

"I started to let him down easy, but I had a tuition payment due, so I took a chance.  He's been fine, a little strange though.  He always wants me to undress him - one piece at a time, slowly, while he's standing there like some statue."

Sarabeth cut in, "Hop, I don't think I need to hear . . ."

"And Huang isn't hung at all - his penis is tiny, like a little worm.  Sometimes, I can barely feel it in me.  I got him some Viagra and that helped."

Sarabeth just stared into the distance, trying to keep that image out of her mind.  Once Hoppie got on a roll, there was no stopping her.

"Anyway, he'd planned on bringing me up here for a Christmas vacation when he got called back home to Taiwan - some kind of family problem.  That's when I had the idea of inviting you."

"I can't believe he even paid for my ticket," said Sarabeth.

Hoppie turned to her and took her hand.  "I made him.  He said I could use the place, but he didn't want to pay for your ticket.  I got a big pouty face on and said, 'Oh please, Daddy, pretty please!  Hoppie needs to see her girlfriend.  Please Daddy!  Give Hoppie what she wants.'  He can't resist when I call him Daddy.  So here you are."

"Hop, you shouldn't have done that.  I'd have found a way to get the ticket.  I'm working and Kevin would have lent me some cash."

Sarabeth realized she was receiving payment from a Sugar Daddy without even having to perform any duties.  She wondered if that made her some sort of Junior Sugar Baby.

She didn't wonder long though.  She embraced Hoppie and gently kissed her.  It had been a long time.

***

As Hoppie returned the kiss, Sarabeth thought back to their first time.  They'd both been thirteen and were having a sleepover at Hoppie's house.  Her parents were sound asleep, but the kids were busy watching porn on the Internet.  Hoppie's dad had put some kind of block on her system, but she bypassed it easily.

They both watched intently as two women made love.  Ever since the Internet became really ubiquitous, just about every thirteen year old girl knew more about sex than their mother’s did on their wedding day.  Plus, the schools were anxious to teach them, showing off condoms and using cucumbers to demonstrate their use.  The kids snickered and put into practice what they were taught.

As they watched the porn, Hoppie reached over and helped Sarabeth undress.  Soon, they were mimicking the actors.  They laughed and touched and kissed.  It wasn't really very sexual, but Sarabeth remembered it was fun.

When they were sixteen, Sarabeth asked Hoppie if they were lesbians.

"Do you like boys?" she asked in reply.

Sarabeth answered that one without hesitation.  "Sure."  She'd lost her virginity just last month.  She and her boyfriend snuck out together every chance they got.  She got a lot of practice putting on condoms.

"And have you slept with other girls?"

Sarabeth smiled at her friend, "You know I haven't."

"Then you're not gay and neither am I.  We're straight - except with each other."

That was crazy, but it described them perfectly.  When they were roommates, they didn't sleep together all the time or even often.  But if one of them had a bad day or suffered some sort of setback, they'd end up together.  The touching and rubbing and kissing helped.  They would tell each other exactly what to do and what it felt like.  It was almost like masturbating using someone else's hands. Sarabeth knew their relationship was strange, but she didn't care then and she didn't care now.

She rose and held her hand out for Hoppie.  "Ready?"

"Anytime," said Hoppie with her widest smile.

***

As they rose, a new star appeared in the east.  Both their eyes were drawn to it.  It was bright, but not much more than a bright moon.  Objects nearby suddenly threw off faint shadows.

The new star only lasted a couple of seconds and then everything returned to normal.  Hoppie opened her mouth to comment when they saw the lights below them go out.  It was as if the whole town had an on/off switch that someone decided to flip.

"What the hell?" said Hoppie.  Instinctively, she walked to a light switch on the deck and flipped it.

Nothing happened.

Next she pulled out her phone and pushed things on it.  "My phone's dead, SeeBee.  It won't even turn on."

Sarabeth looked at hers.  It was lit up normally, with all her familiar icons on the home screen.  She touched the Facebook app and waited.  Nothing happened.  She looked at the data strength indicator and was surprised to find no signal.  There wasn't even a signal for voice calls.  "Mine’s on, but there's no signal at all.  Must be because of the power outage."

"I still don't know why my phone won't even power up.  Maybe it needs to be charged, but with no power, I can't even do that.  I hate being without my phone - makes me feel naked."

Sarabeth put her phone away and smiled, holding out her hand.  "The power will come back on soon, but without it, we'll get cold.  And if you're feeling naked, maybe we'd better share our warmth."

Hoppie smiled and followed Sarabeth into the bedroom.  "A girl's got to do, what a girl's got to do," she said.

***

They awoke the next morning to find a gentle snow falling.  The ground was beginning to be covered.  Everything looked fresh and clean.

It was also cold in house.  The power was still off and without it the furnace didn't come on.

"Damn Hop, I'm freezing," complained Sarabeth.

"Find us something to eat, will you?  I'll build a fire in the fireplace.  I saw a stack of wood outside."

Sarabeth looked in the fridge.  They hadn't bought groceries yesterday afternoon and there was nothing in it.  Next, she went to the pantry - there was a box of spaghetti and a jar of tomato sauce along with a few other canned goods.  She reached for a can of peaches and then realized the electric can opener wouldn't work.

"Well, this blows!" she said when Hoppie returned.  "There's no food here except for some cans and we can't even open them with the damn electricity being off."

Hoppie smiled at her friend. Sarabeth tended to get grumpy when she was hungry.  She opened her suitcase and removed a handful of power bars.  She tossed one to Sarabeth and crumpled up some paper to start the fire.

Sarabeth looked around the kitchen for napkins and spotted a radio and some canisters on the counter.  They were all marked as to their ingredient - salt, sugar, flour.  All were empty.  Her phone was still not getting any signal; the radio would have to do - if its batteries were any good.

She thumbed the power switch and was rewarded with the hiss sound of a working radio that was tuned between stations.  She moved the tuning knob so that the pointer went from one end of the dial to the other.  There was nothing on FM; no music, no news, no nothing.

She found the band switch and changed to SW.  There was nothing there either.  Next she tried AM.  She never listened to AM, but her boyfriend told her it could pick up stations from a long distance away.  Again, she tuned and again, there was nothing until right at the very edge of the dial.

A voice was on the air.  It was weak and faded in and out, but it was hearable.

". . . is station KZOT broadcasting from our backup transmitter.  It, and our gas generator, are in the old metal building we used to use a long time ago.  That may have saved us.  If you are in the Bozeman area and have news, please bring it to the transmitter and I'll get it out if I can.  We're at the end of Gentle Springs Road, up in the foothills.  I've had several people by today, those that have working cars.  Some seem to work and some don't.  I will summarize the news as I know it at the top of the hour - at 9 a.m.  I have a ham radio here and am in touch with some other hams whose stations are still working - mostly those that run on old vacuum tubes.  I don't want to waste gas for the generator, so I'll sign off until then.  See you at nine and God help us all."

The radio went quiet.  Sarabeth turned it off.  "Hoppie, I think something is wrong.  Something bad."

Mary put in the last few two stitches to close the cut on a middle aged man's forearm.  His name was Gideon and he drove a truck.  That's all she knew about him because things were nuts in the hospital.

She put a dressing on the wound and gave him two more to take with him.  "Change it every twelve hours and then you should be fine.  Keep it clean though."

"Thank you ma'am.  It was the strangest thing.  I was heading into town when it happened.  All of a sudden, the lights on my dash lit up like a Christmas tree.  Then the woman in front of me slammed on her brakes.  I couldn't stop and I hit her pretty hard.  Thank God she was okay - the airbags, you know.  I didn't even realize I had a cut until she told me I was bleeding."

There had been a number of accidents; thankfully they were mostly minor things.  The hospital's backup generator was working so they had light and heat in most sections, but a lot of their high tech equipment was on the fritz.

"How can I pay you ma'am?"

It was normally a simple question, but not today.  Their computer systems were totally down.  They couldn't look up or add to any patient records or bill any insurance company.  The front office sent word that they couldn't even accept credit cards and that they should take the names and addresses of anyone they treated.

Mary had an idea.  "We're offering a special today.  No charge.  What were you hauling in your truck?"

"It was frozen foods.  All kinds of stuff.  Lucky the refrigeration in the truck still works so the stuff will stay frozen until they get the lights back on."

Mary nodded.  So far, people were more in shock than anything.  She didn't detect any signs of panic; people were busy dealing with the aftermath of whatever had happened.  She didn't think that would last more than another day or two.  She hadn't seen it, but Vic saw the bright flash in the night sky last night.  When the power went out almost immediately, he knew what it was - an EMP burst.  It must have been really high to turn out the lights way out here in flyover country, so Mary suspected the population centers on the east and west coasts were in the dark too.  She was pretty sure the lights wouldn't be coming on any time soon - if they ever did.

Vic tried to talk her out of going in to the hospital, but she was certain she could do some good before things got ugly. Plus, their plan had always been that he wouldn't leave until morning if it happened after dark.  She had done some good, but it had been a long night.  She gave thanks that it was almost over.

"Let me make a suggestion, Gideon.  When you leave the hospital, turn right and you'll find the police station down the block.  They're probably swamped, but tell them about your truck.  Ask them to help guard it."

He looked at her with alarm on his face.  "Is it as bad as that?"

"I think it will be."

He nodded and rose to leave.  As he did, he coughed.  "Thank you, ma'am.  I guess I'll do just what you suggest."

It was time for her to go home and watch the kids.

Victor had to go get Samantha.

***

Victor finished feeding the kids their breakfast and sent them outside to play.  Now that he was alone, he could admit he was angry.  He was angry at Mary for driving to St. Patrick's last night.  He told her that they didn't know what condition the roads were in, but she got that stubborn look on her face and there was no stopping her.  He'd talked to her on their little portable two meter radios until she was out of range - which was less than halfway to Missoula.  She told him that there were a few disabled cars on the side of the road, but she saw a couple of cops that still had working cars and so she felt confident she could get into the hospital.  He hadn't heard from her after that and the worry just added to his anger.

He kept the two meter radio on their frequency hoping that she'd check in as she got closer to home.  It was silent, but he did hear a steady stream of reports from CB and ham radio operators on his AOR with the long wire antenna.  It was identical to the one up in the bug out house.  Route 93 seemed to be perfectly passable all the way to Missoula.

The damage done by the EMP appeared to be classic.  Everything
big
- the power grid, cell phone towers, computer networks - all that was toast.  With smaller stuff, the damage was less certain.  Some cars were working; electronic watches, phones and other small stuff might or might not be affected - though without cell towers the phones were useless as communications devices.  It depended on exactly where the items were during the blast - how they were oriented and what might have been shielding them.

Victor had his house and garage built with metal roofs, so his electronics items were protected, but his power was off like everyone else.  He had a generator, both here and at the bug out place, but he hadn't turned them on yet.

So he was angry because he was worried about Mary and his anger only intensified as he thought of his trip to get Samantha.  The University of Montana was right in Missoula and was a perfectly adequate school.  But no, Samantha had to go to Washington State.  He'd warned her this could happen.  He could hear her now, "Just chill, Vic.  I'll be fine.  But regardless, I'm not going to stop living my life because of what might happen.  I want to be on my own - to see what I can do without you and Mary or anyone following me around and watching to make sure I don't make any mistakes.  I WANT to make mistakes.  I want to live, Vic, and I want to do it on my own - just me."

Mary took her side, of course, so now she was two hundred fifty miles away.  He pictured her in her dorm room, her bug out bag ready.  He'd insisted she keep it with her.  It held a two meter radio so they could talk when he got nearby.  It also held food - and a pistol.

Samantha knew he was coming for her.  She would have no doubt of that.

***

The radio finally sprung to life.  "Vic, copy?"

It was Mary.  Victor felt his head swim in relief.  "Copy, hon.  How are conditions?"

"Roads are clear right now.  Not much traffic at all.  People are just waiting, I think.  I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Roger.  I'm ready when you get here."

He didn't use any call signs or give any indication of where they were or that he was about to leave.  You never knew who could was listening.  Not identifying yourself was a cardinal sin in the ham radio world, but that world no longer existed.

He looked at the kids to make sure they were playing and not fighting, and then he pressed the buttons on the AOR that caused it to scan for AM broadcast stations.  He'd been doing this every hour, hoping some would come back online.

At 9 a.m., he hit pay dirt.  The signal was weak, but it was there.

"This is station KZOT.  We are located in the Bozeman, Montana area.  My name is Emril Perkins.  I'm a maintenance man, not a broadcaster, but our regular people are back at the station, so I guess I'll have to do.

"What I'm going to report is based on a few things. First, I can tell you what I've seen.  Next, I can tell you what other local folks have driven out to tell me, and third, I can report some things I've heard on my ham radio.  I had a portable model in my truck and, amazingly, it still works.

"Okay, let's get started.  Last night at around 11 p.m., the power went out.  You know that already.  I can confirm that's its out just about everywhere.  I heard hams from several parts of the country who are running on generator or battery power - everything is out.

"Now this is speculation - but most of them believe that the cause was an EMP event.  That stands for electromagnetic pulse.  The government has worked on such things for years and we can guess the Russians and Chinese have too.  It's basically a nuclear bomb that is detonated way up in the space - as much as two hundred miles up.  It explodes; but at that height, the explosion itself doesn't do any direct damage.  However, this electromagnetic pulse travels down to earth and goes into wires and basically just fries everything.

"So, as of now, we have no power.  Phone services are totally down too, as is the Internet.  The roads are, however, in reasonably good shape, at least around here.  I've had reports of some accidents, but not all cars were damaged by the pulse.  Some that were being driven just cut off, but on some it didn't seem to have any affect.  It looks like most of the people who were driving cars that stopped running were able to limp off the roadway safely.

"I had a person come by who was traveling from Boise.  He said a cop told him that the Governor had called out the National Guard.  I expect that'll be happening in all the states.  I think we'll need them because, without power, we can't really get food where it's needed in large quantities.  So until they arrive, we need to share what we have.

"One ham I heard was outside of St. Louis.  He said there was heavy smoke coming from the city and there were a large number of vehicles leaving it.  Another reported that a plane had crashed on the edge of his property.  He thought it looked like a big passenger plane, but he wasn't totally sure - it was torn to bits by the crash."

While he listened, Victor checked his bug out bag.  It was in order.  He packed some extra ammo for the pistol inside.  He already had several hundred rounds for the rifle and shotgun that were under the seat in his truck.

"That's about all I know about what's happening in the country.  Locally, the police chief says everyone appears to be calm and that we need to work together and share what we have.  We might have to live for a week or even two without power, so we should be prepared for that.  That's all I have for now.  I'll come back on the air at noon for another report."

Just then, Victor saw Mary pull into the driveway.  The two kids ran and leapt into her arms.  He could hear Zoe's almost supersonic squeal of glee from inside the house.  Mary walked to the door, a child holding each hand.

When she got inside, she dropped her coat on the floor and hugged Vic.  She felt good.  "How was it last night?" he asked.

"The docs had a couple of babies being born and three heart attacks.  I had a few cuts and scrapes.  Two people were burned trying to cook outside.  One guy almost burned down his house."  She paused, remembering.  "And there were two suicides - one overdose and one gunshot, both older people."

He nodded his understanding, "You look tired."

"I am, Vic.  It was strange.  We prepared for this for so long, and now that it's happened, things aren't really all that different.  I still went to the hospital, and people are actually pretty calm."  She kissed him gently, "It won't last, will it?"

"Not for long.  As soon as the shelves start to empty at Good Food, things will change."

***

The truck was loaded; the tank full, including the axillary tank in the back.  The forty nine gallons of diesel fuel would take him over six hundred fifty miles - a hundred fifty more than he needed. It was cutting things a bit close, but he had no choice.  Vic regretted not welding on a bigger axillary tank.

Zack and Zoe stood together, facing him.  "Can I go, Daddy?" she said.

Her voice was so sweet, so full of innocence.  Vic felt his heart break with sadness at the world she would grow up in.

"No, Sweetie, not this time.  I need for you and Zack to go with Mommy up to the cabin.  I won't be gone long.  You do just what she says, okay?"

"I will Daddy," she said as her lip trembled.  She always hated for her Daddy to leave her.

"Zack, you help Mom, understand?"

Zack was only ten, but Vic knew he would do what Mary asked to the best of his ability.  The boy was always saying he wanted to be like his Dad - he wanted to be a Ranger.  To him, that meant he would be strong and capable.  "I'll be a Ranger, Dad.  You can count on me."

He walked to door of the Dodge Ram.  Mary called out, "You bring her home, Vic.  Bring her home."