After Sundown Read online

  According to the sites she’d checked out, she should have a water filtration system for safe drinking water, heirloom seeds for growing her own food next summer, and enough freeze-dried food to get her by until then. She didn’t.

  Jernigan probably did, though.

  When she checked out she paid with a credit card. Nothing she’d bought was very expensive, but she wanted to conserve her cash.

  If they were without power for months, would cash be any good? Perhaps. As long as people saw value in pieces of green paper, it would be. Cash would be a way to get items they needed and didn’t have. The bank was on her mental list of places she needed to go. She’d withdraw a nice bunch of cash from both her personal and the store account. If nothing happened she could re-deposit the money in a couple of days.

  Feeling like a crazed squirrel, she darted from place to place, completing one errand after another.

  As she drove home just after lunch, exhausted from the stress of hurry hurry hurry, she suffered a passing second thought. If Jernigan had been pulling her leg, if he was crazy, or even, hell, if he’d just been given bad information . . . she was going to be so pissed, maybe even pissed enough to get in his face and tell him about it, though confrontation wasn’t her style at all.

  But if disaster did strike, she’d really be pissed because obviously anyone in the electric energy business should have known this was possible and taken steps to make sure it didn’t happen. Yes, definitely pissed, and deeply grateful, because without the chance to prepare she would’ve been in no better shape than anyone else. As she drove back into Wears Valley she glanced toward Cove Mountain. “Thanks,” she said aloud. “I think.”

  Carol rolled her eyes a bit at Sela’s haul of groceries, but helped her get everything organized. “You think you got enough Spam?” She busied herself stacking the oblong cans, her lips twitching in a smile.

  “I’ll remind you that you said that, if this thing happens and you run out of food. Besides, I got stuff that we can put on the store shelves if nothing happens.” Sela and Carol both knew that whatever one of them had belonged to the other, too, because family took care of family. If Sela had Spam, then Carol had Spam.

  They got the supplies divided, added things from the shelving, and Carol loaded everything into her car to take to their respective houses. Customers came and went, enough that Sela stayed busy, and none of them looked worried or said anything about an imminent disaster. Carol returned, and went into the office to watch TV while Sela puttered around cleaning, straightening, waiting on customers. The old-fashioned Kitty-Cat clock on the wall, which she kept because she liked the swinging tail, clicked past one p.m. Surely if anything was going to happen whoever was in charge of getting out the warning would have gotten it done already.

  With every passing second her doubt grew stronger, and she began feeling more and more like a gullible fool. Word should be getting out—if there was any word—around the world. Astronomers would know, NOAA would know and might even have it up on their website, in which case Twitter and all the other social media platforms should be exploding with the news . . . if there was any news. If, if, if! Maybe she should go to the NOAA site herself and see if anything was there—

  The store was empty of customers and she was just reaching for her phone when it sounded a high-pitched alarm, like that for violent storms. She jumped and automatically turned to look out the window, just as she had when Jernigan had first mentioned an emergency, but the sky was still a beautiful September clear blue. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

  Her mind raced with other possibilities. It could be an Amber Alert, or a monthly test. There were plenty of options, but her heart was suddenly pounding and she knew damn well it wasn’t any of the usual emergencies that caused the alarm. From the office, where Carol was watching TV, she heard Carol’s cell phone start bleating its own alert and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

  She grabbed the phone from beneath the counter and there it was on the screen, the alert she had both doubted and expected. She and Carol both got their alerts via Sevier County’s CodeRED system, so she knew Carol was reading the same thing: NOAA ALERT GEOMAGNETIC STORM K-INDEX 9 PREDICTED 3PM TOMORROW. PREPARE FOR EXTENDED POWER AND COMMUNICATION DISRUPTION.

  Another alert, another message flashing on the screen: THIS IS NOT A TEST. REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A TEST.

  Carol came out of the office, clutching her phone, her eyes wide. “Shit,” she said softly.

  Sela’s mouth was abruptly dry and she tried to swallow. She leaned against the counter. “Double shit.”

  “I take it back about the Spam.”

  Twenty-four hours. They had approximately twenty-four hours in which to prepare, which meant Jernigan had been right not only about the danger but about the timing. Good God. What could they possibly do in just twenty-four hours that would get them through an “extended power disruption”? They needed months to get ready for something like this.

  “Looks like you were right to listen to Jernigan,” Carol added. Her eyes looked a little wild, and her face had lost color. “Holy moly. But—they could be wrong, couldn’t they? I mean, it could be like the big thunderstorms or ice storms they predict that never happen. We could dodge a bullet, isn’t that what the weathermen always say when they’re wrong?”

  “I don’t think a geomagnetic storm is like Earth weather, where a system can slow down or break apart.” She wished that could happen, but she wasn’t going to bet her life—or Carol’s and Olivia’s lives—on it. Her stomach clenched as she was overwhelmed by a sense of urgency, an adrenaline shock as her primitive survival instincts kicked in. Thank God, despite her doubts, she’d gone to the bank and the grocery store before everyone else knew what was going on. “Think! What else do we need to do to prepare?”

  Carol just gave her a blank look. “I thought we were already prepared.”

  “We’re a little better off than a lot of people, thanks to Jernigan. We have food. But what about wood for the fireplaces for this winter, what about oil for lamps? I meant to get oil and forgot. I picked up some candles, some batteries. If this goes on for a year or more—”

  “A year!” Carol looked horrified. “You don’t think—that isn’t possible, is it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows.” Except maybe Ben Jernigan, who was more likely to have a better idea than anyone else she knew. “He said months, possibly a year or longer.” No need to specify who “he” was.

  Carol sucked in a deep breath as the huge ramifications began washing over her. “Then we need ammunition. And whiskey.”

  “Ammunition?” Sela gaped at her aunt, but she wasn’t questioning Carol’s choices; she was horrified by the realization that they’d very likely need ammunition . . . and whiskey. Society as they knew it was built on electricity. There wouldn’t be any going to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. They might have to do what their mountain ancestors had done and hunt their food—except she didn’t know how to hunt and felt nothing but anxiety at the possibility of having to learn. She did own a .22 rifle—she and Carol both did because she lived alone and Carol had Olivia to protect—but she’d shot it only a couple of times and was a long way from being capable of hunting.

  She felt dizzy and her ears rang a little; there was that adrenaline rush again as another realization hit her. Shit. Carol and Olivia were her responsibility. They’d need her if things really did get bad. Carol was in her late sixties, and while she was in general good health she wasn’t quite as active as she’d been just a few years ago. Olivia was fifteen. Enough said there.

  Sela looked around the store, taking mental inventory and looking at the supplies on the shelves, thought about what she had stored in back. She tried to calculate what they’d need, and how much, but she couldn’t make herself grasp what a year without power would mean, or decide what she should do.

  Her immediate dilemma was that she could keep the store open and try to help her neighbors
, or she could focus on her own family. Her shelf space was limited and she carried only basics, plus snacks; she’d be cleared out in no time, leaving nothing but the supplies she’d already set aside for their own survival.

  Maybe she was a complete shit, but she decided with only a few seconds’ thought that her focus had to be her family. Family first, family always.

  She needed a plan of action. Almost any action was better than none.

  She stuck her phone in the back pocket of her jeans as she walked out from behind the counter. “Olivia will be here soon,” she said to Carol. Normally Olivia hung around the store for a while after the school bus dropped her off. She’d have a soft drink, maybe a candy bar or some chips. Sometimes, if they were lucky, she’d tell them about her day. Most afternoons she sat in the office near the back door and texted her friends before heading home. “I want the two of you to take what you can carry and go home. When you’re there, start loading up the ice chests with ice, so the ice maker can keep working.”

  “Ice?”

  “We have a day, maybe a little more, to collect ice to keep what perishables we have fresh.” Some of it would melt, but the more they added to the ice chests, the better it would keep.

  “You have the generator—”

  “We’ll need it more when winter gets here than we do now.” Her generator was a small portable one, but it was strong enough to run the heat when the weather turned cold. What it wouldn’t do was run a whole house; as far as that went, it wouldn’t run at all when they were out of fuel for it. No matter how she looked at it, she was afraid they didn’t have enough of anything.

  For a few moments, Carol didn’t move as she stared into the middle distance, doing the same thing Sela had done before, trying to come to terms with the awful possibilities.

  Through the store windows they watched a car speeding down the highway, a blur headed out of town. It had been quiet before that, just a handful of vehicles moving at normal speed. Was the speeder leaving because of the alert? Word was definitely out, likely on television as well as through the national weather service, maybe by radio, if anyone listened to radio anymore.

  Of course. The tourists that were the lifeblood of the Smoky Mountain towns would want to get home. In a rental cabin they’d have no long-term provisions, no way to hunker down for more than a few days.

  And if they’d left family at home, they’d want to be there. Family would come first for almost everyone, just as it did for her.

  An SUV with parents seated in the front seat and two young children in the back pulled into the lot, moving too fast. The lurching vehicle pulled to one of the fuel pumps and stopped with a jerk. The man who’d been driving jumped out, swiped a credit card, and pumped ten dollars in gas before taking off again.

  “Shut down the pumps,” Carol said, rousing herself, but Sela had already done so.

  She grabbed some plastic bags and went outside to the pumps, covering the nozzles, the usual signal that there was no gasoline available. Her supply was small to start with, and if she wasn’t careful it wouldn’t last long. Once the power was down the gas would have to be pumped out of the tanks by hand. It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done.

  Her family was the focus, she reminded herself; they were most important in any crisis, but she did care about her friends and neighbors. She wouldn’t hang them out to dry. About half the generators in the valley were fueled by gasoline. Some were propane-powered, but not hers, and not her closest neighbors’. Before the power went out she’d need to go online and research how to access the gasoline in the tanks.

  Jernigan would know how.

  She dismissed that stray thought. Not only was he not approachable, but she needed to know for herself; she needed to stand on her own two feet. She’d learned that the hard way, after her ex-husband walked out. A lesson learned hard was a lesson learned well, and now she stayed safe because taking chances with other people was a good way to get her life stomped on.

  Fifteen minutes later the school bus stopped in front of the store, and a line of cars stacked up behind the bus. One driver seemed to think about passing, pulling into the other lane by a couple of feet, but then thought better of it. The bus doors swung open and Olivia danced down the steps. Fifteen, tall and lanky with wavy light brown hair like her father’s, rest his soul, she was beautiful in a way only the very young can be. She was the light of Carol’s life, and an important part of Sela’s.

  Olivia blew inside, her eyes wide. “Did you hear? All the teachers were going b.s. crazy. Well, some of them.” Her phone signaled an incoming text, and she looked down. “What did they call it? A mass . . . something.” She smiled at her phone as she read the text and then sent a quick and nimble-fingered response.

  “Coronal mass ejection,” Sela said.

  “Solar storm, Mr. Hendricks said,” Olivia said as she walked to the cooler to grab a Dr Pepper. Then she turned around and went down the center aisle. “Hey! Where are all the chips?”

  “Put away,” Sela said, watching the road. Traffic had definitely picked up. Most cars kept to a reasonable speed, but a few were moving way too fast in their rush to get out of Dodge—or in this case, the mountains. Making a quick decision, she took her keys off the hook and went to the door, locking it and flipping the Open sign to Closed. Why would she hang around here and let Carol prepare on her own? That didn’t make sense. She had her own ice chests to fill, her own ice maker to put to work.

  “Why are you closing up early?” Olivia asked. “Are you sick?”

  “We have less than twenty-four hours to get ready for the CME.”

  Now Olivia looked confused. “Get ready how?”

  Carol said briskly, “We might be without power for months. We’ll need food, a way to cook it, and maybe even a way to stay warm if everything’s not up and running by the time the weather turns.”

  Olivia didn’t move for a few seconds, her eyes big and round as she pondered the impossible. Then she asked, “Are you serious? Months? Will my cell phone work?”

  “Doubt it. Maybe it’ll be bad,” Carol said, “and maybe it won’t. We won’t know until about this time tomorrow. But we’re going to be ready for whatever happens. The chips are already at the house, by the way, but don’t get your hopes up. We’re not opening a single bag until we’ve eaten all the fresh and frozen food. I have a cabbage I need to use before it goes bad, and the last of the tomatoes. We can’t waste anything, not now.”

  “Unless they’re wrong,” Olivia said hopefully as she joined her grandmother. “I mean, this could be a false alarm, right? The mass whatever . . .”

  “CME,” Sela said as she joined the other women. “Just call it a CME.”

  “Yeah, that,” Olivia said. “They could be wrong.”

  “Maybe,” Sela said as she ushered her aunt and the teenager to the rear door, grabbing the bags she and Carol had prepped earlier in the afternoon on her way out. “But I don’t think so.”

  Olivia, who had slung a couple of bags over her arms, was still looking at her phone. She was glued to the damn thing most of the time anyway, but surely she could understand that they were facing an enormous crisis and pay attention—

  “We should unplug everything before the CME hits,” Olivia said, reading from her phone. “That’s what some guy at NASA is saying. It’ll keep them from getting destroyed by a power surge, or something.”

  Olivia had been researching on her phone. Sela breathed a sigh of relief, and reminded herself not to let her anxiety get the best of her. She needed to be on her game, and Carol and Olivia were both stepping up to the challenge, too.

  They’d be okay. They had to be.

  Chapter Three

  Carol’s house was a small two-story yellow clapboard with the luxury of an enclosed garage. It sat almost precisely in the middle of their small neighborhood, which consisted of Myra Road—barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other—and the three narrow, short roads that connected to it. Mature spruces and
flowering shrubbery decorated the half-acre yard. In back was a small vegetable garden that Carol tended during the summer, but the plants had already ceased production and were brown and drooping.

  Sela’s house, tucked at the rear of the neighborhood and more private because of groups, either strategic or lucky, of spruce and fir trees that blocked most of the view of her neighbor to the left—and she had no neighbor to the right, because she was at the end of the road—was smaller and didn’t have a garage. She did, however, have a much larger screened-in porch, one she used a lot, often having her breakfast out there where she could see Cove Mountain looming over the valley. With the way the road curved, her house was close to the store and in fact she sometimes walked there and back, using a path that was wide enough for an ATV, rather than driving; walking it was not quite half a mile, while driving meant turning back toward the highway, and added a couple of miles. The back way, as they called it, was a favorite cut-through of kids and grown-ups alike, bypassing the highway and offering a good place to ride bikes and generally be a kid. There were large shade trees, a lazy stream or two in which to cool off, picnic beside, or try to catch frogs and darting little fish. She loved walking the trail in winter, especially in the snow when everything was so silent and pristine, the only sound that of her boots crunching in the snow, the only movement that of the occasional bird. The back way skirted properties, dipped and curved, and gave an occasional glimpse of a house. She was more wary during the warm months because of the bears, as were all the locals. The Smokies and black bears went hand in hand.

  They lived in the middle of a gorgeous, peaceful scene, which made the impending catastrophe seem like a tall tale one of the local old men might spin while sitting in one of the service stations, telling yarns with his buddies.