Aftermath (2 page)

And Shelby did. Something was definitely going on.

The girls approached an intersection, when Paige noticed the traffic light. It was dangling loosely on its cable, flickering from green, to red, then yellow, then back.

“Woah, Shelbs, stop!” Paige said.

“What?” Shelby asked, skidding to a stop next to Paige.

Paige nodded at the light.

Suddenly a car skidded past them across the intersection, colliding with another car that also had a green light.

“Ho-ly smokes,” exclaimed Shelby. That was about as much of a swear as you were going to get from her.

“We should get off this street,” suggested Paige.

Shelby just nodded, staring at the wreck.

***

The quiet drive wound up the side of the steep mountains overlooking the San Fernando Valley. In stark contrast to the concrete jungle surrounding it, this area was wooded, and mountainous, with sharp, winding turns curving past steep slopes.

It was as out of place in this urban sprawl, as Paige was in her private school.

The girls pedaled up a section of the drive where luxurious homes and thick woods lined one side, and a steep slope plunged down into the valley on the other.

From here, Paige had a bird’s eye view of everything. The city, its lights, the studios, the traffic, and the maze of streets and freeways winding through it all. It was just too big, Paige often thought.

The girls panted hard, as they pedaled the last dozen yards towards Paige’s home. It was a fancy two-storied craftsman, nestled at the back of a circular drive. She had her dad to thank for that.

Following a distinguished career in the Army, her dad and several of his Ranger pals had started a construction company, which had grown to be one of the largest developers of shopping malls in the State. It had kept her family in nice houses and cars, and Paige and her brother in private schools.

And more importantly, to Paige’s delight, it kept her parents away on business trips, and vacations. Which was where they were at right then. And which was also why Paige was able to make her little excursion into the city that day.

The girls pedaled up the driveway, parking their bikes next to a sports car out front.

“Wait here,” signaled Paige, as she crept over to the large front window of the house. She crouched just beneath it, sneaking a peek inside. Then she hurried back to Shelby.

“Brad’s in there with his buddies. We’ll go around back,” she said, hurrying off around the side of the house.

***

The bedroom was a disaster. Posters, clip art, and drawings layered over each other across the walls. A desk was barely recognizable beneath scattered papers, a laptop, books, and food wrappers. There was also a bed, with the sheets and blankets on the floor, along with a mountain of clothes and magazines.

This was Paige’s bedroom, and despite the disarray, she knew where everything was. And she liked it that way.

The window against the back wall squeaked open. Paige poked one leg through, then ducked as she pulled the rest of her body through. She came down on a magazine.

“What are you doing?” The voice came from across the room. Paige spun around, and there stood her brother, Brad, watching her from the doorway. This was the guy everyone loved. Two years older than Paige, and a world apart in behavior. He was the honor student, student body president, wide receiver on the football team, and already had acceptance letters from a dozen colleges for next Fall.

“Geez, man. What are you doing in my room?” Paige growled.

“What were you doing outside?” Brad demanded.

“Nothing,” she responded, trying to compose herself.

Shelby, who’d just finished squeezing through the window behind her, looked up at Brad with a shy smile. “Hey, Brad.”

“Shelby,” Brad acknowledged her, before turning back to his sister. “You’re supposed to be grounded.”

“So what are you, playing dad now?”

“No. But he called while you were out.”

Paige froze. Oh crap. She had been grounded for ditching class, and from the sound of things, that was about to be extended. Again.

“What did you tell him?” Paige finally got up the courage to ask.

Brad let her sweat a few seconds, before finally adding. “I told him you were in the shower.”

Paige just stared. Did she hear right? “You did?”

Brad nodded, before adding, “you’re welcome.”

Paige looked at him, then down at the ground. She was actually regretting the way she acted. She finally managed to look him in the eye, giving him a sincere, “thanks.”

Brad nodded. This sibling bickering had become more frequent since Paige had started high school last year. He knew he cast a pretty big shadow, and had overheard some of the complaints directed at her about why couldn’t she be more like him. But despite the bickering, she was his sister, and he would always have her back.

“Can you come downstairs and give us a hand with the TV,” he asked.

***

Paige and Shelby followed Brad downstairs, and into the living room. Across the room, two boys had the large flat screen TV pulled out from the wall, and were fiddling around behind it. The screen showed a scrambled mess of static.

“Oh, geez, you let them try to fix it,” Paige remarked.

One of the boys turned, shooting her a grin. “Look who decided to show up for her own grounding,” he cracked. This was Chad Harding, her brother’s best friend since they were kids. Lean and athletic, with surfer good looks, washboard abs, and a killer smile. Every one of Paige’s friends crushed on him; that is, when they weren’t crushing on her brother.

“Bite me, Harding,” she shot back. It was all part of the playful banter they’d always had between them. “What’d you guys do to the TV?”

The other boy leaned back from behind the TV. “Nothing, dumb ass” he said, “we’re trying to fix it.” This was Jeff, the linebacker on the school’s football team. Where Chad had class and tact, Jeff had loud and obnoxious. He was that guy at parties who shoved his way to the front of the keg line. And if a freshman was found taped to the goal posts, it was a safe bet Jeff was behind it.

“What happened to it?” Paige asked.

“The game just cut out,” Chad replied, flipping through channels.

Jeff jiggled something behind the TV. “Check it now.”

“Nope,” Chad replied, still staring at a static screen.

“Did you guys try unplugging the cable box, and letting it reboot?” Paige suggested.

Chad and Jeff exchanged a look, then Jeff leaned back behind the set, pulling the plug from the outlet, then plugging it back in.

“Who’s the dumb ass now,” Paige grinned.

“The verdict’s still out,” Jeff remarked, moving back in front of the set. Slowly an image flickered onto the screen. Jeff looked back at Paige. “Maybe you’re not as dumb as you look,” he smirked.

“And maybe you are,” she smirked back.

The image flickered on to a news report. It showed a reporter standing on a long stretch of beach, with hundreds of dolphins washed up on the shore. “And we’re just learning that reports of similar occurrences are coming in from all over the world,” the reporter said to the camera, “and authorities are cautioning people to stay inside, and away from windows.”

“Check the other channels,” said Paige, as they all took seats on the couch and chairs.

Chad flipped to another channel. There, a meteorologist stood in front of a large green screen map of the U.S. “…areas are reporting wide spread power outages from these massive electrical storms sweeping across the globe.”

Suddenly the image was replaced by an EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM warning. Three loud beeps sounded, followed by a high pitched tone. As the tone blared, the words “THIS IS NOT A TEST” scrolled across the screen.

And then there was a blinding flash!

Day One

Paige’s eyes squinted open. It took her several seconds to get them fully open, and even longer to realize where she was. Yes, that was the arm of the couch pressed against her cheek.

She sat up, looking around. The sun was still pouring in the living room window. She remembered that part. Everything else was a blur.

She scanned the living room. Everyone was there - Shelby, Brad, Chad, and Jeff. All passed out in the last spots she remembered seeing them in. Wow, she thought, what the hell happened?

She sat there for almost a minute, just trying to piece everything together. She felt like it was there, tucked away somewhere in her memory, but she just couldn’t pull it in.

She finally climbed to her feet, steadying herself, as a brief sensation of vertigo swept over her. Then it was gone. She headed off down the hallway, and into the kitchen.

The vertigo was back. She steadied herself for a moment, gripping the refrigerator handle. And then it passed. She opened the refrigerator door, and the first thing she noticed was there was no light. Then she noticed there was no sound from the motor.

She looked behind the refrigerator, checking the plug. It was in the outlet. She walked over to the light switch, flicked it on. The lights weren’t working either. Then it dawned on her. Those idiots must have blown a circuit while they were monkeying around with the TV. She shook her head.

Then something pinched behind her ear. Ow, she grimaced. Whatever it was, it stung. She reached behind her ear, probing her finger around. There was some kind of bump, about the size of a zit. You gotta be kidding me, she thought to herself, as she headed to the bathroom.

The lights in the bathroom were also out. Those idiots had probably blown the circuits for the entire house. She was definitely going to give them crap when they woke up.

Paige fumbled through a drawer in the counter, and pulled out a small mirror. She propped herself on the counter, back against the large bathroom mirror, then angled the small mirror so she could see behind her ear. There it was, pink and swollen. She pinched it between her nails, trying to pop it.

Ow! She exclaimed. That thing hurt. She clenched her teeth, and tried one more time to pop it. A trickle of blood came out, but the bump was still there. Screw this, she thought, pulling her hair back over her ear. She’d pick up something at the store.

Then came a loud blast from outside. It sounded far off in the distance. Paige hopped down from the counter, and headed back down the hallway, and across the kitchen. Their large Arcadia door looked out over their pool deck. Paige twisted her head, looking out across the pool deck. And then her face froze in shock.

***

Paige staggered out onto the deck, and across the wood planks. Somehow she managed to miss landing in the swimming pool. The edge of the patio deck dropped sharply down the hillside. From her view, Paige could see the entire San Fernando Valley basin. It was massive, ringed in by mountains in the distance. A mecca of millions of homes, buildings, parks, streets… and it was all completely destroyed.

Aftermath

Time seemed to stop, as Paige stared at the devastation. Buildings had crumbled into ruins, and giant chasms and fissures split across entire neighborhoods and streets. Something that looked like lava boiled up from some of the fissures.

There were craters where shopping malls had been, and fires raged through what had been apartment complexes. This devastation continued as far as her eyes could see, spanning from one end of the horizon to the other.

In her history classes, her teachers had shown her news reel footage of Dresden following the allied bombing campaign during World War II. The intensity of those bombing raids had created a firestorm, decimating entire portions of the city. Buildings, bridges, and streets had been nearly incinerated, leaving nothing but jagged concrete shells dotting the city.

That was how Los Angeles now looked.

***

Paige raced into the living room, finding everyone still crashed out in the same spots. “Wake up, you guys!” she hollered. And nothing. Nobody even stirred. She went over to Brad, shook him. “Brad, wake up!”

Brad’s eyes squinted open.

“Come on, Brad, get up!” she hollered, then turned to the others. “You guys, wake up!” she went past each of them, shaking them until their eyes opened. “You guys, come on!”

“What the hell?” Jeff muttered, rubbing his hand across his face.

“LA’s gone, you guys,” she shouted frantically, standing in the middle of the floor. “Everything. It’s been blown up.”

Finally she was getting some reaction, although it was mostly in confused looks.

“Just come on,” she said, heading for the hallway. “You gotta see this.”

***

Intermittent explosions continued to erupt throughout the city. Most likely gas mains erupting, Paige guessed. She’d finally assembled everyone on the deck, and they were gazing out over the destruction. Just the sheer magnitude of it was beyond anything Paige could have imagined.