EMP Part 1

I spent the better part of this week fighting off a bought of food poisoning along with the dehydration that always seems to come with any stomach issues I have. While lying in bed yesterday dreading having to move around, I thought of this little story. I don’t know when and where I will use it, but I needed to get it out of my head.

As normal, this is a rough draft and I haven’t done anything to it but type it up. Ignore the mistakes, or better yet tell me about them so I can clean them out. Here’s the first part. Probably will be another part over the weekend and the final part of the story may come in next month’s newsletter. If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter – use the box on the right and sign up today so you will be able to get the end of the story. Remember, the key here is food poisoning.

Owen had just sat down and opened is laptop when the lights started blinking. “What the hell? Honey! Are the lights blinking in your office?”

“Yes,” Sera said just as they blinked once last time and went out.

“Dammit! What the hell is going on?” he said as he got up from his chair. “I don’t need this shit tonight. I’m already behind on emails.”

“Did you forget to pay the bill?” Sera yelled out.

“Ha. Ha,” Owen replied. “Like I would forget to pay the damn bill.” He looked out the windows of his office. “All the street lights are off and so are the neighbors. It’s not just us.”

Sera rummaged through her desk and found a small flashlight she kept in there. Turning it on, she got up and started walking out of her office to join Owen. “I’ll call and see how long they think it will take to get the power back on. Funny it went out tonight. There’s no storms around.”

“Maybe someone ran into a pole or something. Blew out a transformer or something.”

“Maybe,” she replied as she picked up her cell. “Funny, my cell is dead. It’s plugged in and should be charged. Try yours.”

“Mine’s in my office. I plugged it in a few hours ago, so it should be charged.”

Sera left and went into Owen’s office. “Yours dead as well.”

“What? God dammit. If some power surge burned out our phones I’m going to jump all over someone at TexPower. I need that phone tomorrow for my conference call.”

“Not much we can do about it tonight. Why don’t I check on the kids and we go to bed early tonight. Maybe we can make use of this outage and be in bed before then for the first time in decades.”

“There’s no way I can go to sleep this early,” he said as Sera looked at him with a smile on her face.

“Nobody said anything about sleeping.”

Owen smiled. “Right, I’ll meet you there.”

The next morning, Owen opened his eyes with a smile on his face. He actually enjoyed their little blackout last night and had gotten more sleep than he had in years. He turned his eyes at the clock, “Damn. It’s still out.”

“What?” Sera said as she rolled over and opened her eyes.

“Power is still out,” he replied as he wondered into the bath. “Water’s out as well.”

“Don’t flush then. We can hit the gym on the way in and take showers there.”

“Ok. I’ll get a bottle out of the fridge so we can brush out teeth and wipe down the kids before talking them to school.”

The morning routine was somewhat different than normal, but the Millers managed to get Cheyenne and Dakota ready for school and RJ ready for day care.”

Owen walked into the garage and hit the button to open the doors before smacking himself on the forehead. “Dummy,” he said to himself as grabbed the flashlight from the counter near the door. He pointed the weak light at the ceiling to look for the little tug ropes which would allow him to open garage doors manually. Setting the light on the hood of his car, he pulled the rope overhead. Light flooded the garage as the doors slowly opened. He walked over and pulled the second rope as Sera came through the door.

“Come on girls, it looks like we’re late.”

“Do you even know what time it is?” Owen asked.

“No. I couldn’t find that watch I used to wear and the digital one you had wasn’t working. I guess the battery went dead a long time ago.”

Owen grabbed RJ’s carrier and fished out his keys. He pushed the button to unlock his car, but didn’t hear the usual chirp it made as it unlocked the doors. He grabbed the handle, but the door remained locked. He pushed the button several more times without success.

“What the hell? My remote is dead.”

“Mine too,” Sera replied. “This is weird.”

“Take RJ.” Owen handed the baby carrier to Sera and unlocked the door to his car with his key. Sitting down in the seat, he put in the key and turned it. Nothing. The car was dead. No door chime, no dash lights. Nothing.

He gave Sera a worried look before getting out of his car and heading to hers. The results were the same. Both cars where dead.

“What’s going on? Why would both our cars be dead?” Sera asked with a little bit of fear in her eyes.

“I don’t know.” Owen got out of Sera’s car and turned around to walk outside. He could see cars lined up in the driveways down the street with their hoods up and his neighbors trying to figure out why their cars wouldn’t start either.

“Look at this sweetie. No one’s cars will start.”

Sera scanned the street. “What could cause this? Are we under attack or something?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get the kids back in the house and see if anything is working. Maybe we can find one of those old radios we took with us camping a few years ago. I’ll look for those if you find some batteries.”

“Ok.” Sera ushered the girls back into the house and put RJ into his playpen. She told the girls to color while she helped daddy.

Owen looked around at his neighbors for a few more minutes before trying to remember where he would have put the camping gear. He knew the box was somewhere in the pile next to the water heater, but couldn’t remember exactly which one held the radios.

“Hey neighbor,” he heard as he dug through one of the boxes.

“Hey, Phil. Strange day, huh?”

“Yea. Your cars dead?”

“Everything’s dad. How about you?”

“Same at my place. Trying to figure out what happened. Didn’t hear an explosion or anything last night. Not sure what could cause this. It’s like every piece of electrical equipment we have has gone dead overnight.”

“Same here. Sera’s was just asking what could cause this. I don’t have a clue. You wouldn’t know would you?”

“Nope. I thought I would wonder around the neighborhood some and see if anyone knows anything.”

“I’m trying to find some old radios to see if we can get some news. If you find out anything, stop back by and let me know. I hate being cut off like this.”

“Will do. If you get a radio working, come outside so the rest of us can hear it.”

“I’ll do that.”

Owen finally found the right box and retrieve the old radio. He was about to walk back into the house when he remembered that there was another radio stashed away in his dad’s old metal tackle box. He opened the metal chest his dad’s stuff was in and dug out the tackle box. He opened it and found the very old radio. Leaving everything on the floor of the garage next to the water heater, Owen went back into the house to see if Sera had found any batteries.”

“Any luck?”

“I found a few in the kitchen drawers and figured we could steal from the kid’s toys if we need to. Half their stuff runs on batteries. How about you?”

“I found two. Our old one and the old one my dad took with him fishing. Hopefully, one of them still works. Phil stopped by and said they were in the same boat. Nothing works at their house either. He’s going around the neighborhood to see if anyone knows what happens. I’ve never heard of anything that could knock out every piece of electrical equipment in an entire neighborhood before.”

“Hopefully, we can get one of these things working. At least maybe some radio station can tell us how long it will be before the fire department or help arrives. I’m going to go pack some clothes and things in case we can get a ride to a hotel. You work on the radios.”

“Ok,” Owen replied. He didn’t have luck with their radio and after scavenging a 9-volt battery from one of Dakota’s toys, he was able to get his dad’s old piece to work.

“Honey, dad’s radio is working, but I’m not getting anything on it. Just static.”

“Come up here and help me with the suitcases and let me try.”

Owen walked up the stairs and handed the radio to Sera as he started grabbing the suitcases Sera had packed. “Hey, try an AM station. He used to listen to those all the time and I think there is an emergency signal on one of them.”

“How do I do that?” she asked before seeing a little button that changed the radio from FM to AM. “Still nothing. Either this thing is not really working or there’s not any stations still broadcasting.”

“Probably not working. Hard to believe every station would be off the air. Don’t they have backup generators or something?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll just have to wait around for the next few hours until help arrives.”

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