Blackout (5 page)

11

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.

“I wonder what comes next?” I said pretty much under my breath, but Iris heard me.

“Either they pack up and go away or they step things up,” she said.

I watched with her for some time, knowing she was right. The tension inside me had not lessened; it was worse, if anything. The waiting, the wondering, it was eating at us but there was nothing to do but let things play out. The lot of us were so juiced up, you could have plugged us into the wall. Just as I was about to leave and go back to the couch, Iris made a funny sound in her throat like a sudden intake of breath.

I didn’t need to ask what caused it, I saw just fine.

That weird blue orb that I had seen downtown was now drifting in our direction. I watched it hover lazily over distant rooftops, seeming to sweep back and forth like the eye of Polyphemus seeking out Odysseus and his men. I didn’t know what it was, but the sight of it filled me with terror because I knew without a doubt it was looking for us. Maybe it wasn’t an eye exactly, but I had a pretty good idea it served roughly the same purpose. It moved off to the east and disappeared and I started breathing again.

“Like a searchlight,” Iris said.

“Yes.”

“What are you two blathering on about over there?” Billy asked us.

Did I tell him the truth? One look at Iris and I knew the answer to that. They were all better off not knowing. No sense in increasing their anxiety, which I figured had to be approaching dangerous levels. I went and sat back on the couch, pulling from my beer, which seemed to have absolutely no flavor. I watched the others, trying to gauge what was going on in their minds.

Over by the window, Iris was grim and determined. Despite her age, she was watching not only the world outside but the world inside. We were her flock and she was mothering over us. It was the only thing she really could do and she did it obsessively.

Ray was coming apart at the seams and I knew it. Gone was the public speaker and politico, the great debater of forgotten causes, the perpetual thorn in the foot of the city council. The last time I’d even seen the old Ray was when he and David Ebler had picked apart the story Bonnie and I told of the cables. He waited over there in the corner, chewing his nails, his eyes wide and glassy. It was unnerving.

Billy was just Billy. He drank his beer and made with the small talk, bitched about the world in general and told stories of a workingman’s life. It was business as usual with him. He was just one of those guys you couldn’t shake. At least outwardly. Inside, I suspected he was just as scared as the rest of us but he was too practical, too blue collar, and too tough to show it.

And Bonnie? What did one say about Bonnie? Nervous? Yes. Scared? Yes. She kept tapping her long nails on the end table. Her eyes were bright and wet in the darkness. She was complex. Around the neighborhood she was known as a flirt, but like all women who acted that way there was a deep inner reason, some trauma or fear that cried out in pain from her depths. She was a very attractive woman and had used her looks to get attention her entire life. My rejection of her in the basement had thrown her for a loop. She had probably never been rejected by a man and she was having trouble handling it. She kept staring at me as if she had no idea what to make of me.

And me? I was just scared and confused. I didn’t know what to think about anything. I had these very unpleasant images in my head of us still hiding like this six months from now. That was the most terrifying prospect of all, that there was no end in sight, that this nightmare would just keep going on and on like the plot of a crappy postapocalyptic novel.

Anyway, that was our group.

Good, bad, or indifferent, it was all we had.

The five of us. It made me think of that terrible old 1950s B-movie,
The Last Woman on Earth.
Two guys and one woman survive the end of the world and, of course, the men fight over her. I wondered if Ray and I would be fighting over Bonnie in six months. I doubted it. Billy could have easily kicked both our asses. Besides, Ray was no lover boy. He was divorced and had no time in his life for anything but politics. And I would have a hell of a time getting over Kathy.

So there we waited.

12

“This is crazy,” Ray said, startling us all. “What’s the point of us being bottled up like this?”

“I think it has something to do with dying,” Billy told him, smart-assed as always.

Apparently, Ray had snapped out of his fugue. No one was more surprised than I was.

“My point is,” he said, “this is getting us nowhere. We need to come up with some kind of plan. The rest of the world is out there even if we can’t contact them. What we need to be thinking is how we’re going to get word to them about what’s going on here.”

“If they haven’t figured it out by now,” Iris said, “then they’re either blind, stupid, or dead.”

Bonnie nodded. “It’s probably going on everywhere. Even our cells are down and there’s no Internet. I checked. Nobody out there can help us any more than they can help themselves. We need to face that.”

“So we should just give up?” Ray put to her.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you implied.”

“Just shut up, Ray. Okay?”

“Frightened little pill bugs that roll up when they’re scared,” he said, meaning all of us. “I expected better. Maybe not from you, Bonnie, but from the rest of you people.”

Bonnie was getting pissed and I could sense it. “Tell you what, Ray,” she said, almost too calmly. “Why don’t you just crawl back into your corner and shut the fuck up?”

Ray shuddered. I could hear him grinding his teeth. “You don’t talk to me like that! Maybe your husband isn’t man enough to slap your little whoring mouth but I sure as hell am and I sure as hell will!”

Billy set his beer down. “Nobody’s going to be slapping anybody’s mouth, Ray. Not even Bonnie’s whoring mouth. I’m going to give you a pass on this because you’re stressed-out and my wife has a way of blurting out the first stupid thing she can think of. But if you threaten her again, I’ll have to knock your teeth down your throat. I won’t enjoy it, but I sure as fuck will do it.”

There was something about Billy’s smooth, easy manner that was frightening. He never lost his temper, never went into theatrics shouting and stomping his feet, but when he said he would hit you, you could be sure he would. It shut Ray up. Bonnie said something else I didn’t catch and Billy told her to quit while she was still ahead.

Christ. If this went on for six months, it was going to be ugly…and bloody. There was no doubt about that. Six
days
would be pushing it.

After a few moments, Ray said, “We can’t just sit here.”

I heard Billy sigh. “All right, all right. If you’re so unhappy, then feel free to go out there and marshal the troops.”

“Yes,” Iris said. “Go out there. It’s sheer stupidity, but nothing would surprise me with you, Ray Wetmore.”

I decided it was time to intervene. “All right, everybody settle down. Nobody’s going out there.”

But by then Ray had his back up. “I’ll go out there if I please.”

“You heard him, Jon. Don’t try and stop a real man in action,” Bonnie said with a little titter under her words.

Billy laughed. “Sure, I want to see this. Ray’s got balls. He’s a 100% red-blooded American male. Nothing can stand in his way. He’d not afraid of those cables. Show ’em, Ray. Show ’em just what you’re made of.”

Ray ignored them and went to the window, scoping things out. He was really planning on leaving. Maybe the others didn’t see that, but I did. Maybe they thought picking on him would put him in his place and needling him would shut him up, but they should have known better. Ray did not back down. I knew it and the city council knew it. He was nothing if not driven.

“Don’t, Ray,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. Wait for daylight at least.”

“I would, Jon, but having to occupy a house with these idiots is more than I can tolerate.” When Bonnie made a derisive snort, he turned and glared at her, which stopped the words from reaching her lips. Then he looked at all of us. “I’ve busted my ass for years trying to hold our elected officials responsible for the shitstorms they create. I was the first one to lead the charge and I was always on the front line fighting against graft and corruption. Nobody can deny that. I was involved. Goddammit,
I was involved!
Maybe I didn’t get elected, but I tried and I never gave up. But you know what? I give up now. All those years I did it because I wanted to represent the
real
people, the working-class people. What a waste of fucking time that was—”

“Ray, c’mon,” I said.

“—you people don’t deserve representation! You’re all goddamn idiots just like the politicians think! Fucking lambs to be led to slaughter! You deserve what you get! Each and every one of you
deserve
it because you’re all too fucking stupid to question your government! You won’t take the time to get off your cell phones or shut off your stupid reality shows or quit playing with your guns long enough to pay attention to the puppet masters who manipulate you! Fine and fucking dandy! You’re all going to get what you deserve now. And I couldn’t be goddamned happier.”

He started laughing, slowly making his way over to Bonnie, who was shaking now. She was scared and Billy, I think, was scared, too. Ray was on the verge of a breakdown or a psychotic episode. I don’t think even Billy would have wanted a piece of him.

“You people can all go to hell as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “That goes for you, too, Jon. You’re no goddamn better. Now…I’m going to walk out of this fucking house and I really hope one of you will try and stop me. I really do. I’m getting out of here and going back to my house and fuck the lot of you. If God is merciful, none of you fucking idiots will come out of this alive. I only hope you’re the first, Bonnie.”

With that he turned on his heel and went right up to the front door. He unlocked it and stepped out onto the porch. Down the steps he went with nothing but a little penlight in his hand, head held high and shoulders square.

“Well, I guess he told you,” Billy said to his wife.

Bonnie giggled.

“Foolish little man,” Iris said. “He’ll choke on his own hot air.”

I wasn’t really happy with any of them, Iris included. Yes, Ray was a pain in the ass, but everything he said was pretty much true. If everyone was involved in the political process, I suppose the good old U.S. really would have been a country by the people and for the people and not for the entitled and by the entitled. Well, anyway, that was my grand soapbox moment of the day.

Ray had gone about five steps from the porch when he stopped.

He cocked his head as if he were listening. Something out there had him either puzzled…or scared. I pushed in closer to the window so I could see what he was seeing and maybe to call him back. He stood there shining his little penlight around. Against the enclosing blackness, the beam was white as sugar, very bright. It cut through the darkness like a laser. It almost looked like he had a white sword in his hand. I noticed something then I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe it was the angle of the light or the reflection or refraction…but the darkness was not just the absence of illumination, it was something more. I could see it moving around Ray like a mist of coal dust. I saw it thicken and expand until he became a filmy shape.

And then I saw something move out there, something huge.

Ray made a sort of choking sound and maybe I did, too. Before I could so much as call to him to get back inside, that weird blue orb appeared, hovering about ten feet or so above him. It looked like a radiant platter, perfectly circular, a phosphorescent eye of blue-green-white light that was so intense I had to look away.

But Ray didn’t look away.

He stood there, frozen, staring up at it as if he were hypnotized. Maybe he was. That monstrous glowing eye had him and he wasn’t getting away. He didn’t even make an attempt to. The eye, or whatever it might have been, was set in the face of some massive black amorphous shape that moved ever closer to him. Then it took him. It happened very quickly. I saw a multitude of black whipping tendrils like the tentacles of a squid seem to explode out of the darkness. They were made of that same glossy black material as the cables. There were literally dozens of them in motion, undulating and coiling and reaching out with amazing speed. No squid or octopus in existence had that many arms. They took hold of Ray easily, winding him up, seeming to cocoon him.

He screamed.

We all heard him scream.

Iris fell back from her walker and I caught her. I heard her voice saying,
“Dear God, dear God, dear God,”
again and again. By then, Bonnie and Billy were there, seeing what we were seeing and struck speechless by it.

“Get her out of here,” I told Bonnie and she stumbled away, supporting Iris, taking her through the living room and into the kitchen. She did this blindly, without question.

Ray was a dead man and I knew it, but my mind kept racing in those few precious seconds after the tendrils grabbed him. It was looking for a plan of action, trying to come up with something, but there was nothing. There wasn’t a damn thing I or anyone else could have done. Billy and I stood there helplessly, both trembling, both breathing hard, both filled with a combination of terror, revulsion, and wonder.

We both saw what happened next.

Mere seconds after the thing seized Ray, he let out one last scream and the thing crushed him. There was a sound like a dog crunching through bone and Ray jerked and some fleshy white mass was forced from his mouth. I think it was his stomach. The creature moved off into the darkness and its orb blinked out and there was only that same impenetrable blackness out there pushing up against the window.

I just stood there shaking from head to toe.

Billy kept making a swallowing sound like he couldn’t get any good spit down his throat. “What the fuck?” he finally said and there was a sobbing quality to his voice. “What the fuck just happened?”

But I didn’t know and had I known, I doubted whether I could have unlocked my jaw long enough to tell him. I felt like I was carved from wood. My body was completely inflexible. The tone of Billy’s voice was confused and desperate and god-awful scared. It was the voice of a little boy who’d just seen his puppy get run down in the road. He was looking to me to tell him how such a thing could be, how it could have happened in a sane and ordered universe. He wanted me to make sense of it, to put it into some kind of logical perspective, but I couldn’t and my inability almost hurt me.

I got myself moving and I took Billy by the arm. “We better get the hell away from this window. It knows where we are and I don’t think it’s just going to go away.”

He looked at me. His eyes were wide, his mouth pulled into a crooked line, and his face was beaded with sweat. In the pale lantern light, he looked like one of those characters Johnny Craig used to draw for
Vault of Horror
: sweaty, staring, broken by fear, on the verge of some shocking truth or dark revelation that would twist his mind completely out of shape. He reached out a hand and touched me as if he was trying to confirm my reality.

“C’mon,” I said.

We had reached the couch when that luminous orb clicked back on just outside the living room window as if someone had flicked on a spotlight. It leered in at us like the eye of a cyclops, filling the room with cool blue light. Billy and I just stopped where we were like frogs captured in a strong flashlight beam. I think it was instinctive. If you freeze up, what’s after you won’t be able to find you. But in that situation, it wasn’t applicable. That thing out there knew where we were and I had a pretty good idea that we could have hid in a closet and it still would have seen us.

Bonnie said something from the kitchen, but I never heard what it was because the picture window blew in. Dozens of tentacles—I’ll call them that—exploded into the room in a shower of glass, looping and twisting and thrashing like downed high-tension lines jumping with deadly electricity. It happened quickly, with lethal speed. If anything, it was like watching a time-lapse of a tree growing roots at hyperspeed—the tentacles seemed to
grow
into the room until it was filled with them. They were bigger around than my thigh where they fed out of the darkness, tapering to needle-thin points. They were wild and destructive, upending the sofa and tossing the rocking chair through the air. Two of them smashed the coffee table with their weight and others shattered the wide-screen TV and tore ceiling tiles free. The wiry tips of them were like razors. They slit open the sofa and cut deep grooves in the walls.

Billy and I scrambled away and one of them, as if hearing us, came after us like a gigantic python. Its tip slashed at me, missed, and sliced a lampshade cleanly in two. We made it into the kitchen and I kicked the door shut just as the tentacles hit the other side like rustling, writhing vines in a windstorm. They beat against it and I could hear their sharp tips gouging into the wood.
Whap! Whap! Whap!
Without even having to ask, Billy grabbed one end of the kitchen table and I grabbed the other, wedging it up against the door.

“What’s going on?” Bonnie demanded.
“What in the hell is going on?”

“Shut up!” Billy snapped at her, pulling the flashlight from her hand with such force I thought he had yanked her arm out of its socket.

The tentacles were still beating against the door, sliding against it with a smooth slithering sort of sound. I could see the blinding blue light coming under it and seeping around the edges. The doorknob jiggled again and again. Whether that was from the tentacles brushing against it or one of them investigating it, I didn’t know, but I had this crazy image in my head of the creature attempting to turn the knob and let itself in. The jiggling was rather gentle, insistent but gentle…then there was a loud cracking and the knob and its housing was ripped free from the other side.

Bonnie, who was crouched there on the floor by the stove holding Iris, who looked stricken mad, said, “Billy…do something! For godsake, do something!”

Billy looked from his wife to me with utter helplessness. His mouth kept opening and closing like he wanted to say something but nothing came out. He looked like a salmon gasping for air.