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  Running at full speed in the dark, I made it back to my apartment building in five minutes. At least one of my prayers was answered when I saw the sidewalk door that led to the parking deck propped open. The other prayer wasn’t answered when I saw the garage gate still closed. Figuring out a way to get it open is what added the forty-five minutes to the time I was away from Sam.

  The gate was made of cast iron that retracted into the wall on a system of rollers. I tried lifting it off of the rail, hoping it would fall over; the damn thing didn’t budge. When I gave up trying to lift it, I tried pulling it away from the wall on the other side. It rolled back six inches and then stopped after hitting a locking pin I couldn’t reach.

  Grabbing the jack out of my trunk, I turned it sideways in the six inch gap and started cranking. I was proud of my ingenuity when I heard the loud ping of the locking bolt being sheared. Pushing the gate open, I tore out of the parking garage, looking forward to being Sam’s knight in shining armor.

  Forty-five minutes; I was gone for only forty-five fucking minutes.

  I saw the three men – who were never caught – walking away from the pub with armloads of liquor and cases of beer. As soon as my headlights illuminated the street, they dropped most of their loot and started running.

  I parked on the curb by the front stairs and went inside. I found the old woman first. She was in the same spot as when I left. The bartender was five feet away, staring at me with dead eyes. His throat was cut from ear to ear. I found the young woman naked in a pool of her own blood, lying across the buffet table. Sam was beside her. That’s all I have to say about that.

  The three men did a perfect job of not leaving any witnesses alive. It was a story repeated seventy-eight times in the city before dawn. I knew the record number of murders in one night was about to be shattered.

  From the first blackout forward I’d been preparing. I refused to be helpless again; I refused to stumble in the dark, hoping luck would keep me safe; I refused to be a victim of opportunity by the mass of cowards who took to the streets to do harm. And if those cowards wanted to take from me, may God have mercy on their souls, because I wouldn’t.

  Chapter 3

  Steak Night

  Sam wasn’t the reason why I carried a gun. She was the reason why I carried two.

  Concealed under my steering column was a compact pistol. In my emergency bag locked in my trunk, I had a larger handgun that held more rounds and is more accurate at greater distances. Both are Glocks, and both use the same .40 caliber ammunition.

  After the carnage of the first blackout – and the four that followed – gun sales quadrupled and self-defense classes sprang up at every gym in town. I suspected most of the disabled vehicles around me had guns in them similar to mine. I doubt many of them ever got fired more than a few times. I was at the range every week for three years.

  Even with the hardware and the shooting skill, I knew I couldn’t legally carry a gun everywhere I went. If I had stayed with Sam the night she died, I would’ve been lying in a pool of blood next to her. (At first, that didn’t seem like such a bad idea.) Always carrying a knife was more practical. Using the same logic as I did with handguns, I not only carried it, I learned how to fight with it.

  Planning my first flight out of town, I realized the only weapon close to me was my toothpaste. Packed like sardines in my introductory self-defense class – with damn near every woman in Atlanta – I started my hand-to-hand combat training. After mastering the art of gouging eyes, punching throats, and kicking balls, I needed something more advanced. I decided to enroll in a mixed martial arts class. After one session, I was addicted.

  At thirty-seven years old I was in the best shape of my life. I kept a disciplined schedule of shooting, fighting, working out, and thinking about Sam dying alone on a buffet table while being raped by cowards. I was scared shitless when my car died and bodies started dropping out of the sky. But grabbing my bag out of the trunk, starting my long walk to my apartment, I didn’t feel helpless.

  “Hey!” said the man with the yellow dress under his car. “You can’t leave. You’re a witness. You gotta stay and tell the cops she just…just landed there. You gotta tell them I didn’t kill her.”

  It was one of the few times I stopped walking. “Take a look around you,” I said. “The cops aren’t coming. Nobody is coming. You need to think about getting home.”

  “What?”

  “Listen to me,” I said, getting his attention. “How far away do you live?”

  “About six miles back,” he answered, beginning to notice the chaos around him. “What’s happening?”

  “Mister, I have no idea. How long have you lived there?”

  “Ten years.”

  “Then you know what’s coming,” I said. “Get home as fast as you can.”

  I turned, abandoned my car and left the trunk open. As if I were the Pied Piper, trunks popped, bags were grabbed, and people started walking behind me. As I passed car after car, some drivers were still sitting with wide eyes and white knuckles on their steering wheels. The first guy got my speech. I didn’t have time to give it to everyone else.

  It wasn’t the first time I had to abandon my car. Last March a freak ice storm paralyzed the city. I was at work when the temperature dropped from forty-five degrees to minus three in a matter of hours. (As usual the meteorologists never saw it coming.) Heavy rain turned from sleet to snow to ice before I could get home through bumper-to-bumper traffic.

  Like everyone else I sat in my car for hours, trying to figure out what to do next. By the time I made a decision, the sun was setting and the temperature had dropped even farther. Hoofing it five miles, I made it home, shivering but alive. I can’t say the same for the twenty-seven people who froze to death that night, so it wasn’t the first time I had to abandon my car, but it was the first time I didn’t care.

  My apartment wasn’t far. Scanning from side to side as I walked, I reached the top of the ramp that would get me off the highway and closer to home. During the journey I didn’t cloud my mind with theories about what happened to the power. I was too busy scanning faces, hoping I wouldn’t come across the eyes of an opportunist so early into the event. It would be the last time I enjoyed such comfort.

  There were fewer serious accidents – and no bodies – on the streets in Midtown. Everything was quiet except for the conversations people were having over the tops of their cars and on the corners of the intersections. There were no obvious signs of looting as I passed by a strip mall. But that’s always been how these things start; they always start dead quiet.

  Feeling a presence behind me, I turned to assess if it was a threat. When I stopped so did several people with military precision. I recognized one of them from the interstate. Were they really following me? I stood in silence for a moment, hoping they would resume, going somewhere else.

  “What are you doing?” I asked the man I recognized. He looked behind him as if I were asking someone else.

  “You, I’m asking you. Are you following me?”

  “Well, yes,” said the man when nobody else answered. “You just looked like you knew where to go.”

  I’ll be damned. They were following me. “I’m going home,” I said. “You need to do the same.”

  “I live in Chattanooga,” answered the man. “I can’t walk to Tennessee.”

  “Well, you’re not coming home with me.”

  “I know that,” said the man, dropping his head. “I’m not trying to bother you. I’m just a little scared. Nothing works. My car, my radio, my cellphone…nothing.”

  Wiping the sweat off my brow, I looked around for an answer to his problem. It hit me as I recognized the next street. “At the intersection turn left. There’s a police station three blocks down on your right. I’m sure they’ll be able to help you more than I can.”

  “But I heard you tell that guy the cops couldn’t help.”

  “No, I told him they weren’t coming to help,” I said. “Trus
t me, there’s going be plenty of them there. It’s the safest place to be right now.”

  “Then why aren’t you going there?”

  “Left, and then three blocks down on your right,” I repeated, avoiding his question.

  When I was sure they weren’t following me, I turned to see the new leader of the group rounding the corner and heading for the station. I stopped walking and watched as the last person in line disappeared down the street.

  I felt bad for having to be short with him. I remember what it felt like to be scared and helpless. But I also knew I needed to get home – alone – as fast as I could. They may have had no idea what was coming, but I did.

  The quickest route to my building would mean passing by the pub. It was something I hadn’t done since Sam died. It seemed even more ridiculous, moving one street over, since the pub never reopened after the murders.

  When I saw my building, I resisted the urge to run the last block. This time I wasn’t worried about how I was going to get inside. I was at the leasing office every Monday morning until they removed the electronic locks on the access doors, replacing them with deadbolts. Opening the door, I felt like a runner sliding into home plate.

  There was enough light for me to make my way to the stairwell with ease. A skylight at the top offered good visibility heading up to the sixth floor, but with each step the temperature rose as well. Leaving the stairwell was like leaving an oven.

  As if somebody pulled a plug, the tension drained out of me when I opened my apartment door. I was safe. Well, at least safer.

  After locking both deadbolts I grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen and headed for the balcony. I didn’t open the back doors to get a breeze flowing. I opened them for the unobstructed view of Downtown Atlanta. When I stepped out, it was awesomely terrifying.

  At street level it was hard to see the scope of the destruction. Six stories above it was easy. I had to assume that at least two more large aircraft went down near the first. Atlanta was once again on fire. The three massive pillars of thick, black smoke ascended thousands of feet before catching the jet stream, pushing east. It didn’t thin out until it reached the horizon. The lack of sirens – anywhere – helped with my realization that the majestic city would soon be burned to the ground.

  Atlanta wasn’t alone in its silent death. Fingers of smoke were rising in every direction, joining the dark convoy to the sea. I sat in my chair finishing my water and watching the show as if I were a spectator and not a participant. I didn’t sit there long. Thinking about what to do meant I wasn’t doing anything.

  My little bag served its purpose; it got me home. It was time to ready the big bag in the event staying home was no longer an option. Even in an ice storm scenario, driving out of the city was part of the plan. (My logic being that ice eventually melts.) Having no means of transportation threw a monkey wrench in all of my escape scenarios. Heading out on foot was not only a huge drain on supplies and energy; it was the most dangerous way to travel.

  Regardless of the mode, I knew there was a high probability my apartment wouldn’t be a safe haven for long. They always find a way inside to take what they want. I can put up one hell of a fight, but I can’t fight them all.

  Reaching into my closet, I pulled out my backpack and threw it on the bed. There were heavy items inside that were worthless. Anything that held a battery or I could plug into an outlet would be left behind. What baffled me is what happened after I pulled out an emergency radio and flashlight that created their own power.

  Each item had a small hand crank that sat flush against the housing. Extend the handle, crank it for thirty seconds, and it produced five minutes of power. I cranked the flashlight for several minutes; nothing. I did the same to the radio; again, nothing.

  I sat there rubbing my wrist, thinking about the improbability of both devices being defective. I knew I had used them with no problems during a brief power outage five weeks earlier. Two defective devices was improbable. Three was impossible.

  I went into the hall closet, pulling out a larger hand-cranked unit that combined a radio, flashlight, and adapter to charge my cellphone; nothing. I surrendered to the immediate fact that they were useless. Whatever knocked out all the power and drained everything with a charge was still happening. How long it would stay that way was a question I couldn’t answer. And answering questions wasn’t my priority.

  One positive aspect of removing everything from my pack that used, stored, or created power was that it gave me more room for food, water, and ammunition. If I had to leave my home in haste, I wasn’t sure which of those items I’d be using first. That would depend on who I came across.

  After my bag was packed I put it beside the front door. I looked at it for a moment, took a deep breath, and walked into the kitchen. I grabbed two steaks out of the freezer and put them on the counter. I wondered how long I had before one of the longest nights of my life was going to start. Looking at my watch, I started laughing.

  8:13.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Til Death Do They Part

  I woke up in that strange place between dreams and reality. I guess a full stomach, a long walk, and a mentally exhausting morning was more than my body could take. It took a few moments for me to remember how the day started. Looking down in my lap at the odd coupling of a dinner plate and a shotgun helped. I then remembered eating a steak, watching the sun go down. I knew I hadn’t slept the entire night. I then remembered I shouldn’t be seeing anything at all.

  Thinking sleep would be impossible, I didn’t light any candles before I sat down to eat. I watched in amazement as my white dinner plate faded from green to orange and then back to green again. My apartment was flooded with a kaleidoscope of colors. I cleared my lap and walked to the balcony.

  The orange glow was easy enough to explain; Atlanta was burning bright. I looked up for the source of the other colors. Waves of green light were rolling across the night sky like an upside down beach. When they broke, the foam was a rainbow of colors. I stood on my balcony, mesmerized.

  When a large green wave burst into a brilliant purple and red cloud, I heard clapping from below. I looked down to see hundreds of people in the streets. It was as if they were watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.

  I think we all felt it coming. It started as a slight vibration in my chest. I put my hand over my heart when the resonance inside me intensified. I became queasy, dropping down to my knee to stabilize myself. Glass rained down on the spectators after a sonic blast shattered hundreds of windows.

  During the event, a blinding flash of white light burned our eyes. With my hands covering my ears and my eyes shut tight, I heard the clapping being replaced with screams from the injured. It took a few moments for my senses to readjust. The orange glow from the city was the only light that remained. The green sea above us disappeared. It was as if Mother Nature had taken our power, but she was showing us that she still had all of hers.

  I rose to my feet and peered down into the darkness. I didn’t need to see the panic below, I could hear it. People were running through the broken glass, looking for shelter from the deadly shards that were still separating from the panes.

  As I stumbled back into my apartment looking for the candles, obstacles were illuminated by another green hue. The light show was starting again, but the people below had learned their lesson. Nobody was in the street when the second sonic boom and explosion of light rocked the city.

  The bizarre storm lasted for hours. As if to show mercy, Mother Nature sent a cooling breeze after the finale. The euphoria of the first light show had been replaced with fear.

  I thought the imminent danger would be from the looters and cowards that would take to the streets at sundown. I wouldn’t have guessed the first victims of the night would be taken by falling glass. There were more ways to die than survive.

  Lighting the candles in my living room, I heard a knock at my door. I grabbed a pistol and looked through the peephole. I recognized the
face as one of my neighbors from down the hall. He was holding a gas lantern up to his face so I could identify him. For a few seconds I stood motionless and silent, hoping he would go away. I surprised myself by opening the door.

  “You okay, Mr. Allen?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine. You?”

  “I’m good.”

  “It seems my apartment has turned into a gathering spot for some of the residents,” said Mr. Allen. “I figured I’d make the rounds on our floor and invite everyone over.”

  “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Allen, but I think I’ll stick close to home tonight.”

  “Please, call me Frank. Mr. Allen makes me sound old. And I live two doors down. That’s pretty close to home, kid.”

  Frank was in his early seventies and one of the most pleasant people I’ve ever met. Most of the other tenants were college students or young couples saving for their first house. Many of them looked at Frank and his wife as surrogate parents. It wasn’t odd that they were gathering around them.

  “I can offer you fresh coffee and good conversation,” said Frank. “Most of the folks are scared to death and would feel more comfortable with you there.”

  “What makes you think I’m not scared?”

  “I know people, son. I can see it in their eyes. There’s no fear in yours. Never has been.”

  “I’m not sure how to take that,” I said, smiling.

  “Take it as an old man who would appreciate your company for a few minutes. Share a cup of coffee with me, give my wife a hug, and then I’ll leave you be.”

  “Ah, using that sweet lady against me,” I said. “You’re good. Let me grab a few things and lock up.”

  “That’s the spirit.”