he’d awakened there was no going back to sleep. And why should he? Through his windows he could see the dancing curtains of light; why miss the celestial show? Restlessness gnawed at him, telling him he should be doing something, so he’d gotten dressed, slid his Mossberg shotgun into a scabbard across his back, and started walking the dark, narrow road down the mountain.
Silence enveloped him. Normally the night was alive with animal sounds, but not tonight. Even the insects were quiet, as if the world around them had changed and they sensed it.
As he drew closer to the valley he saw and heard—and smelled—what appeared to be a big cookout in a clearing off the main road. There were a few lights shining dimly, but not too many. He heard the hum of a generator in the distance. Whoever was manning the smokers and grills kept their voices and lights low. It was a smart move, cooking up the meat they had on hand.
He gave the area a wide berth, preferring to continue on alone and unnoticed. Soon enough they were behind him, and the silence—and dark—turned deep again.
The eerie sky glowed and danced over the dark, looming mountains. The Smokies were old mountains and had undoubtedly seen skies like this before, but he sure as hell hadn’t. Holy shit, that was one heck of an aurora. It was the color of blood, immense and unnatural. The atmosphere had to be highly charged for the sky to turn that shade of red—any shade of red, come to that.
He’d seen the lights before. Auroras were supposed to be blues and purples and greens across a quiet night sky, not this ominous crimson. Still, it was damn impressive, this testament to the power of a smallish star about ninety-three million miles away. If it had been ninety-two million miles away, likely life on Earth wouldn’t exist, because even at the current distance heat from the smallish star could bubble asphalt. He had to give it to nature, to the universe: it kicked ass.
If he had to spend the night walking the damn valley, at least he was getting to watch something that was damn amazing.
The valley was dark. So many nights and early mornings he’d sat on his porch and looked down at a blanket of lights; he could see the service stations, the houses with outside security lights, the lamps of night owls who were up late or very early larks who had already started their day. No matter the time, there had always been an occasional vehicle threading through the valley roads or running down the highway, headlights stabbing forward. Not now; now there was silence and darkness, no vehicles, no lamps. It was as if Earth and civilization had been turned back two hundred years—and civilization had, in most of the industrialized world.
The government bodies had contingency plans, and would function on a deeply reduced basis. The military would be as prepared as possible, and had portable nuclear reactors that would keep the bases functioning as well as likely providing the key points from which recovery would begin. Some small electrical company somewhere, maybe several of them, would have hardened its grid, taken precautions, had backups in place, and would likely come back online well before the major players. Those small bright spots would be overwhelmed with refugees, though, and might deliberately stay offline until recovery was well underway.
Regular people were pretty much fucked. They’d have to get by as best they could.
And he’d walk night patrol in his tiny corner of the world.
His well-worn boots crunched softly on gravel as he turned down one of the smaller side lanes. With the red glow above lighting the dark earth almost like a red lens on a flashlight, he could make out the name on the sign: Myra Road. That was where Mike Kilgore had said he lived—and that Sela Gordon lived on the same road. His steps slowed, and he almost turned back. He didn’t want to know where she lived, what her house looked like; he didn’t want to be able to imagine her going about life in her neighborhood, know the roads she would walk, speculate about which room was her bedroom. Yeah—that. Feeding his already uncomfortable interest in her wasn’t smart. He should turn around, literally not go down this road.
He didn’t turn around. He kept walking.
It was a nice little neighborhood. None of the houses were new, but they all looked well tended, at