Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers (163 page)

“Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that,” Griff had said.

Making fire in case they needed it for cooking food, sterilizing water and other possibilities was discussed next. Without heat the next few days, they’d be in a world of hurt unless they wore a lot of clothing all the time.

Evening came and Griff, Cassie and Penny carried flashlights with them everywhere. Penny stayed at the front desk in case the three individuals who remained paying guests returned to the hotel. A few of the guests who’d left earlier in the day hadn’t paid when they’d rushed away in panic. Cassie had already moved into his room. She held on to her phone in case her parents called. They hadn’t. Every time she tried to contact them, she’d received a busy signal. Griff managed to get an email through to his office telling them he’d be at the hotel beyond his normal vacation time to help out local law enforcement if he was needed.

As she stood at the front door of the hotel, she didn’t hear one sound except for trees rustling in the wind. Very little traffic moved on the street. The world had gone a bit quiet. Waiting. Waiting for things to change.

She took a deep breath and tried to calm her stomach. This wasn’t the same thing as the tsunami. Then there had been no warning. But as she was disappointed in herself. She’d battled that week in Thailand when she’d wondered if she’d ever leave the country alive. She’d survived, and now this disaster was coming. In Thailand she’d escaped the water, but this time she couldn’t escape the solar flare. No one could.

In the background that damned television rattled on about the end of the world. She hated it, but she didn’t feel right telling Penny to turn it off. If any useful information came from the news media it would be unusual. Even when the world already fell into panic mode, they couldn’t seem to stick to the facts and help people. They still tried to get ratings when soon they might not even be on the air again.

“There should have been a way to foresee this,” Penny said.

Cassie started and turned around. Penny drifted Cassie’s way.

Cassie wasn’t sure she’d heard the woman correctly. “What?”

“The authorities. They could have thought of something to stop this.”

Cassie’s mouth popped open. Even though she’d heard Penny say few odd things, this statement gave Cassie pause. “How could they have done that? It’s the sun.”

Penny placed her hands on her hips and put on a stubborn look. “The government had to know this was coming beforehand.”

Cassie didn’t want to deal with irrationality, and her ability to feel compassion for oddity was running low. “Our technology gives us a little time to know this is coming but not much. But we can’t control what the sun does. The sun does what it wants when it wants.”

“The government is there to protect us. To make sure something horrible like this is taken care of.”

Cassie’s eyebrows went up as she tried to remind herself the woman might be cracking a little under the strain. “The government couldn’t tell that far ahead when this would happen. Like they said, it could be three days. At least that’s given us some time.”

Cassie thought about explaining to Penny that things could be worse, but Penny continued her doom-laden scenario.

“Mr. Dranage from the fire department was here earlier talking to Griff. Griff seemed to know more about surviving Armageddon than Mr. Dranage. Why do you suppose that is?” Penny asked.

Cassie wondered at the woman’s odd line of questioning but answered anyway. “Griff was a marine and he’s law enforcement. They learn a lot about that sort of thing.”

Penny’s frown grew deeper. “I suppose.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I brought it up. You seem angry.”

Cassie turned back to the star-filled sky. “I’m just a bit on edge. We all are.”

Penny stood next to her and watched the night sky as well. “Me, too.”

“You haven’t heard from your son?”

“Not a word.” Penny stuffed her hands into the pockets of her khaki pants. “I’m trying not to worry but it’s hard.” Penny’s face lightened up considerably. “Griff was so nice making that report for me to the sheriff’s department. I mean, I know he couldn’t make it official and Benson could turn up any time. Griff is just so nice.”

Penny’s shit-eating grin surprised Cassie a little. Although she’d flirted with Griff lightly a couple of times, Penny now seemed intent on lobbing heavy ordnance at him.

All Cassie could do was agree. “Yes, he is.”

Penny stepped just outside the entryway into the cold breeze. “When I got pregnant at sixteen I thought the world had come to an end. Well, little did I know a lot of years later this would happen. I have something to really complain about now.”

Cassie hoped to reassure her. “Tell me about your son.”

Penny continued to stare at the star filled sky. “He’s a good boy. Well, he’s twenty-four. So he’s not a boy anymore. And he wasn’t always good. The people who adopted him were friends of my parents. They told me they couldn’t wait for him to move out when he was eighteen. They called him devil spawn.”

Cassie blinked. “Really?”

“He joined the navy at eighteen. He was in trouble with juvenile court more than once before he joined.”

“And the navy has straightened him up?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why isn’t he still in the navy?”

“He had one enlistment and then didn’t rejoin. Said he hated the regimental lifestyle.” Penny turned her attention back to the sky. “He’s a strange child. He’s of my body but sometimes there’s this look in his eyes…oh, my gosh. Would you look at that?”

Cassie exited the hotel to stand on the steps with Penny. To the north, just visible over buildings across the street from the resort, was a luminescent red glow.

“What is that?” Penny asked. “A fire?”

A cold shiver drifted over Cassie’s skin at the thought, then she looked closer. “No. It looks geomagnetic.”

“Geomagnetic?” Penny frowned at her.

“Northern lights.”

“This far south? I thought northern lights had colors in them.”

“I saw this before once while visiting a friend in Arizona. Depends on how big the event is and which way it comes in toward earth.”

All doubt left as the sky grew more animate. Colors danced and shimmered over the mountain tops. Yellow, green, red. Northern lights far more intense than any Cassie had seen decorated the night. They made a silent symphony both beautiful and terrifying.

They’d shut off all the appliances and unplugged them earlier in the day, with the exception of that television. There was less chance of a fire starting that way if there was an EMP. Either way, the event they’d worried about for hours appeared to come true in an instant.

Before they could say another word, all the lights in town went dead. Nearby a huge crack split the air, and Cassie gasped in surprise. Penny let out a tiny scream.

“Oh, crap. What was that?” Penny asked.

“Sounded like a transformer.” Cassie glanced around the darkness illuminated now only by the wild colors in the sky. “Maybe more than one.”

“They said on television a few hours ago that they planned to shut down several grids before the EMP got here.”

Cassie zipped up her coat. “I hope they already did it. God, I hope they already did.”

Blackout: Chapter Eight

Griff was taking the stairs down to the lobby when the lights cut out.

“Fuck.” He clasped the hand rail in the old stairwell.

He’d made a vow not to step in the elevator when news of the CME was announced. Good thing, too. Still, he almost stumbled in the blackness as he halted on one step. He clicked on the flashlight and descended the stairs slowly. Once in the lobby, he heard two distinct female voices. Cassie and Penny. Light from two flashlights spread across the lobby.

“Griff?” Cassie walked up to him, and instinct and need demanded he draw her against his side.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Peachy. Did you see the Northern lights?”

“No.” He headed out the front door with the women in tow, and what he saw blew his mind.

Not only did a myriad of colors dance across the northern sky, they began to spread until the lights covered from horizon to horizon.

“Shit. Oh dear,” Penny said. “Is it supposed to cover the sky?”

Griff drew Cassie close to him. Having her against him, her warm body plastered to his side, gave him comfort. While he’d been upstairs refreshing his memory on survival, part of him had worried the weirdoes would come out by now. Every place, even one as small as Bowmount, harbored the nut jobs that crawled from the woodwork when shit hit the proverbial fan.

“Come on, let’s get inside.” He steered the ladies back into the hotel. “Penny, lock the doors. We have to make sure every exit is locked. Do you have another set of keys you can give us?”

“What?” Penny said as he herded them into the building. “Yes. Why? I can’t lock all the doors. There are emergency exists required to remain unlocked by the fire department.”

“Right. But there are other exits where an alarm wouldn’t go off if people just tried to come inside, right?” he asked. “As long as the locks don’t prevent us from getting out we’re golden.”

He couldn’t see Penny’s face in the semi-darkness, but fear colored her voice. “Yes.”

“If you have another set of keys give them to us.”

Penny didn’t say a word, and he wondered if she’d be stubborn. He didn’t want to get into the nasty reasons why it might make sense for someone else to have a set.

“Sure.” Penny hurried to the front desk and quickly unlocked a drawer under the counter. She handed him a big key ring. “Now why do you want this?”

Cassie asked out of the darkness. “Yes, why do we want a set of hotel keys?”

“Penny doesn’t have anyone else to here from the staff to help her. That’s the only reason,.” he lied.

“Okay.” He heard the doubt in the woman’s voice.

“We’ll help you lock up tonight,” Cassie said.

Penny sighed. “All right. I’m going to stay in the lobby. On the couch. Just in case those other patrons come back.”

Griff looked at his watch and noted it read ten o’clock at night. Cassie yawned loudly.

After they’d helped Penny with the lock up, Griff and Cassie headed upstairs. Maybe he’d gone beyond stupid suggesting they stay in a room together. Yet he didn’t want her out of his sight. He’d try to convince her one more time. If anything happened to her—

No. He couldn’t think like that and function.
Do your job, Griff. Protect and serve.

“What about your Charger and those parts we got from Mr. Tracy?” she asked.

“I’ll see if they work tomorrow.”

When she went to use the key card on the lock to her room, she said, “Let’s see if this works now that the power is out.”

The light on the door didn’t turn red or green, but when she tried the handle, the door opened easily. “Goodnight, Griff.”

“Wait,” he said. “Come to my room and try my cell phone. It’s been in the Faraday cage. You were trying to reach your parents, right?”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “That’s right I was.”

They went into his room and he closed the door.

For just a moment he savoured watching her as she set her backpack on his table. The thick veil of her almost black hair cascaded over her shoulders and hung to mid back. Today it was parted to the side. She wore little to no makeup. Maybe a hint of rose color on her eyelids and lips. She’d never tried to hide those freckles across her nose, and he liked that she didn’t. Her slim body moved with grace as she went to the center of the room. When she turned toward him, he saw a hundred questions in her beautiful eyes. God, he wished he did have all the answers for her.

She yawned and put her had to her mouth. “Oh, God. I’m so tired. I don’t know if I can sleep.”

“Ditto.”

He went to the small desk where he’d constructed a Faraday cage for his phone. Now that the EMP had reached Earth, he knew it was safe to take the phone out. He handed it to her. She powered it on and tried her parents.

Her eyes clouded as she handed the phone back to him. “There’s not even a busy signal now.”

He placed the phone back on the desk and turned toward her. “I’m sure your parents are all right. They have friends?”

“Of course.”

“Then they’ll band together and they’ll be all right.”

“I can’t help but worry about them.”

“Of course. That’s only natural.”

A pause lingered between them before she said, “Is there anything else we need to do for tonight? Wait. I can’t believe I forgot to ask. What did the sheriff say when you went to the station?”

That had been a joke. “The sheriff is a nice guy and he has quite a few deputies. But he’s not ready for an event like this. I told him what I knew about protecting his electronics but I think he only half believed me.”

She sighed. “Welcome to Bowmount.” She rubbed one hand over her eyes. “This is the weirdest vacation I’ve ever had.”

She saw something she hadn’t before sitting on the coffee table. “A radio? Where did you get this?”

“It’s a crank radio. It can be charged up just by cranking it. I turned it on before I came downstairs.”

Curiosity lit her face. “And? Did you get anything?”

He didn’t want to tell her this. “Yes and no. There was a lot of chatter going on from the different stations. Satellites had started to go off, though.”

A small crease formed between her eyebrows. Her long sweep of beautiful hair fell over her shoulders as she stared at the floor, then she looked back up at him. “Aren’t you afraid to sleep tonight?”

He shrugged. “No point in being scared. I’ll probably go downstairs in a little bit and do a recon. Just to make sure everything is secure. We’ll need to watch out for fires in the neighbourhood in case some people didn’t prepare right.”

She brushed her hair away from her shoulders and tossed her head back with a sigh. “You know someone didn’t.”

Cassie stood and paced, and he saw the agitation growing within her. Even if she didn’t see it, she was frazzled at both ends and holding on too tight. He’d seen marines act this way in the field and had a feeling if he told her to calm down or that things would be all right, that she’d deck him.