Digital Winter (24 page)

The sky came alive again with more EMP bursts.

Falling skies.

Blood moon.

“Blessed Jesus, what have we done?”

“Can't sleep?”

“No.” Royce Elton lay beside her husband, staring through the dark of their room. Her eyes tried to focus but had no object to capture their gaze.

“It's almost dawn. You should sleep.” Stanley rolled to his side. She could feel his gaze even though she knew he couldn't see her.

“So should you.”

“It's different with me. I'm a man.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

He chuckled. “I have no idea. I'm too sleepy to be coherent, but I can't do more than nod off for a few moments.”

“Since you're a man, maybe you can tell me what's going to happen next.”

“Beats me, hon.” He pushed up in the bed. “I don't understand any of this. Everything is out everywhere.”

“Not here.” She sounded more desperate than she wanted, but her usual emotional shields had weakened. “I've been thinking about that since we went to bed. I think we're the only unit in the complex with power.”

She felt her husband rise from the bed. The descending moon cast a red hue through the windows. Royce had stood at that window before coming to bed, and all she could see were the dim shapes of the skyline. Every streetlamp in San Diego was out. No boats sailed the bay. Dark upon dark. Layers of black. Royce had an uneasy feeling that the darkness was oozing through her pores and polluting her soul.

He pushed back the curtains. Every curtain in the condo had been closed, and Stanley limited the lights being used. He said he didn't want to invite unwanted questions. It made sense to Royce. She had more than enough unwanted questions swirling in her mind already.

“I'm a pretty smart guy, don't you think?” Stanley stood with his back to her. “I mean, I'm no genius, but I'm no mental lightweight.”

“I've always thought you were brilliant.”

“Then why can't I figure this out?” He turned. “I mean…Look, this is impossible. I've been lying awake in that bed all night, wondering how we could be the only people in the city with power. I checked the other units on this floor and the two floors below us. I can see the courtyard and most of the other buildings in the complex. The Navy yard has generators, but there isn't a single light. It's…”

“It's what?”

“Never mind. I'm just a little creeped out.”

“Everyone is. What were you going to say?”

He returned to the bed. “My imagination is getting the best of me.”

“Say it.”

He sighed. “I was going to say something stupid. I was going to say that it feels—unholy.”

Royce didn't respond. She felt the same thing.

A soft sound came from the living room. Royce tipped her head to direct an ear toward the door. Nothing. “I thought I heard something. Maybe Rosa is up. I know she starts her day early.”

“We might as well join her. I'm tired of lying in bed.” He slipped on his robe, looking like a three-dimensional silhouette. “I could use some coffee, and since we're the only one in the building who can brew anything, we owe it to ourselves. Coming?”

“Yes. I want to check on Donny anyway.”

She pulled on a silk robe, tied it close, and wiggled her toes into a pair of slippers. Stanley preferred to prance around in bare feet, but Royce's feet demanded some protection. The habit began in childhood and stayed with her through the following decades.

As usual, Stanley let her go through the door first. Always the gentleman, even before sunrise. Royce's slippers padded quietly across the carpeted floor and on the wood flooring of the living room.

Royce stopped midstep, gasped, and put a hand to her mouth.

“Watch it—” Stanley cut off his comment. He had seen what caught her attention. Royce took a step back and reached for Stanley, grasping the lapel of his robe.

Windows ran the length of the space from floor to ceiling, so the living room was slightly lighter than the bedroom but cast in the same reddish light. On the sofa, Rosa snored lightly. Near the windows rested Donny's wheelchair. It was empty.

Donny stood by the window, his nose only inches from the glass.

On the other side of the glass, ten stories above the ground, was a dim figure. All black. A shadow, lacking substance and definitive shape.

The shadow face turned their direction. Royce was certain she saw a smile. And then it was gone.

Stanley was beside Donny before Royce could take two steps. The sound of his bare feet pounding the floor woke Rosa. “What's wrong?” She saw Donny standing and gasped.

Their son was capable of standing, walking, and even running, but aside from leaving his chair to slip into bed or sit on the toilet, he almost never did.

“Son, are you okay? What are you doing out here?”

Donny didn't say anything.

Royce moved to her son's side. “Baby, what's wrong?” Her heart slammed her sternum like a wrecking ball. She gazed at the ground, half expecting to see a body lying there. She saw nothing.

She looked to Stanley. “Did you…I mean…”

“I saw it. I wish I hadn't.”

Donny stared through the glass at something only he could see. “Shadow, shadow on my right. Shadow, shadow on my left. Shadow, shadow everywhere. Shadow has all the might.”

For the first time since he had been a toddler, Royce saw her son cry.

They were everywhere. Black wisps. They floated in the air, drifting on unseen currents. They walked black streets. They sat on lampposts and stood on the hoods of parked cars. They skipped across the water of the bay, their feet not breaking the surface. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Each moment brought more. Empty eye sockets. Tongueless mouths.

Donny could see them, smell them, hear them.

“Shadow, shadow in the air. Shadow, shadow on the ground. Shadow, shadow on me…in me…around me…”

In a single motion, the army of shadow beings turned and faced him. Donny could see the blank faces of even the most distant. Countless empty eyes, countless soulless things that haunted him. Things that knew his name…and knew where he slept.

Jeremy hadn't slept much since arriving at the underground facility. A strange bed in a strange place in very strange world conspired against him. Added to that were his concern for Roni and the constant pressure to nail down the source of the digital worm that had brought so much trouble. He had other duties as well—helping with rebuilding communications and adding his two cents to the military challenges facing the president and his handful of advisors. He hoped more leaders would arrive. Being part of the two-officer Joint Chiefs of Staff was ludicrous, but he knew the president's goal was to have as full a government as possible in the situation regardless of how ridiculous it might appear on paper.

One other thing kept him awake this night. At 0900, he was to lead a short memorial service for a man he didn't know. Jeremy reminded himself that he was no minister. He was a man of faith, a churchgoer, a student of the Bible…but to stand in front of a group and offer words of comfort frightened him.

He found a Bible in a room used as a library. The people who designed Mount Weather had thought of everything. The book room was filled with novels and history books. He found several translations of the Bible and religious books covering every major belief system. It made sense. The place was meant to hold members of congress and perhaps other dignitaries, people who would hold a wide spectrum of beliefs.

He thumbed through the New Testament, looking for verses to use as a text and making notes on a legal pad. He recalled some verses used by ministers at funerals he had attended. Psalm 23 would be read. It was familiar even to nonchurchgoers and contained perhaps the most comforting words in the Bible—at least in this context.

He found verses in 1 Corinthians 15 about the resurrection of the saints. Was Secretary Baker a saint? A believer of any kind? He didn't know. He had seen the man on the evening news but had never exchanged a word with him. As a colonel in the Air Force, Jeremy carried some weight with the lower ranks, but he was just one of hundreds of colonels. Even his newly minted rank of general was a contrivance. His specialty wasn't in an area that brought a lot of attention. To most he was just a computer jockey.

He thought of other funerals he had attended, and he realized he didn't usually pay much attention to the officiants' words. This didn't surprise him. People who mourned were likely to think of their loss. Somber moments tended to shut the ears and open the heart. He wondered if anyone would remember what he said.

Sometime after 0200, Jeremy crawled into his bed and prayed that God would help him say the right things.

Then the guilt came.

The world was inverted. People were suffering and would suffer more in the days ahead. He was safe, warm, fed…and yet he worried about not stumbling over himself.

Jeremy decided to pray for the family of Secretary of State Baker instead. It seemed a more noble prayer.

At 0900, Jeremy stepped to a thin metal lectern in the common area of the underground facility and gazed at fewer than fifty people who formed the congregation. Some were FEMA people assigned to the building above, others were military, and a few others were part of the team that kept Mount Weather at the ready.