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  That’s not to say that Conrad was a complete hermit. In fact, today he was about to head out for some important business.

  Conrad tapped the doorframe on the open door with his knuckle. The storeroom of Almeida’s was a mess of boxes and crates. Conrad looked for some familiar faces, but all he found was Carlos Almeida, the store’s owner, and someone he hadn’t seen in a few months, Frank Thompson. The two men couldn’t have looked more different, with the forty-something Almeida sporting a worn white T-shirt and jeans while Thompson, a clean-cut man in his late fifties, was garbed in a dark blue business suit. At the moment, both men were fixated at the TV monitor hanging off the wall.

  Once Conrad knocked, Almeida turned his attention to the open doorway at the end of the storeroom. “Hey, Conrad! Sorry man, you’re too late, I blew all my money here on Frank!” He laughed. “Just kidding, come in, come in.”

  Conrad kneeled and picked up the box waiting for him at the doorstep. “Now you are in for hell of a treat. These eggs come courtesy of my ladies, Janey, Lacey, Diana and George.” He set the box down on the table under the television.

  “George is not a female’s name!” Almeida said with laughter.

  Conrad winked at him. “Ever heard of ‘Georgetta?’”

  Almeida grinned. “Georgetta, huh? Ah, you’ve gotten the best of me again.” He fingered the tape that held the box shut. “So, carrots, lettuce, beets, apples, peaches, hell, pretty much the same as last time except for the eggs.”

  Conrad nodded as he turned to look at the television. Frank Thompson still was staring at it. The TV was tuned to a cable news channel, with a news host reporting on the current crisis of the day. As Conrad had a great interest in tracking world events, he was already familiar with current developments, so he was more intrigued to see how Thompson was reacting.

  The news host was saying, “…and it’s not clear at this time if the six nations will come back to the table. North Korea continues to deny responsibility for the presence of the nuclear warheads in Somalia, but a set of leaked cables confirms that both British and American intelligence suspect the Kim government was responsible for transporting the material to Al-Nori’s government. The crisis seems certain to continue—”

  “God.” Thompson turned towards Conrad. “I guess you listen to that bullshit every day.”

  “Helps to keep an eye on the world, Frank.” Conrad stepped forward to offer his hand.

  Thompson gave Conrad a gentle pat on the shoulder. Not unexpected. Once upon a time, Frank and Conrad used to hug. As time passed, however, they just shook hands, and now it had come down to a simple smile and a shoulder pat. It was hard to call them friends much anymore.

  “Nothing wrong with keeping up on the news. It’s just not something you should take too far.” Thompson gave Conrad that familiar pained look. The years had added some deeper lines in his face each time he grew concerned, coupled with the whitening of his once brown hair. “The world’s always coming to the brink before it jumps back.”

  Conrad hoped this talk wouldn’t veer into the same old territory again, so he decided to jump into a different subject. “So, how’s Mary Ann?”

  Thompson’s expression brightened. “Oh, wonderful. Turning three this September. I’m hoping Alice will give me a second grandchild, but Jane may beat her to the punch.” Thompson then took a quick glance at the box Conrad had delivered. “So, who’s ‘Lacey’ and ‘George?’”

  “My chickens,” Conrad replied, “They produce the best eggs this side of Nebraska.”

  Thompson chuckled. “They’re not the only women in your life, I hope.”

  Conrad narrowed one eye. “I’d say I’m doing alright.”

  “Callista?” Thompson asked.

  “Like I said, I’m doing fine,” Conrad said, hoping to end this line of talk. But he figured Thompson wouldn’t let it go.

  “You know, there’s a fair in Redmond in about three weeks.” Thompson looked off to the side, as if in thought. “My family will be there. John, some of the old team’s invited, too. You would be welcome.”

  Conrad sighed. “Yeah, I’m sure I would be.”

  Thompson lowered his voice. “I know you got bad memories there. I just thought by now you could leave that behind.” His blue eyes focused on Conrad. “Every now and then you come up. John keeps saying you’ve grown a six-foot-long beard and hidden up in a tall mountain somewhere dispensing fortune cookie advice.”

  Conrad smiled a little. He had to admit, that was definitely something John would say.

  Thompson sighed. “I’m just saying, give it some thought. There may even be somebody for you out there, somebody who can live with you on that ranch.” The man’s features hardened. “We’re not spring chickens anymore. It’s going to be sooner than later when someone’s shoveling dirt on our coffins. I hate what she did to you, but you can’t let that turn you into some kind of recluse.”

  Conrad swallowed slowly. This wasn’t the first time he had heard something like this from Frank, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. “Let me…” he began. “Let me file that away in here.” He pointed to his forehead with his forefinger. “I’ll give it some thought. Really.”

  Thompson looked at him with some deserved skepticism. It wouldn’t be the first time Conrad Drake pushed aside an offer to visit the world he had left behind.

  Conrad increased the volume on his smartphone. Lodged on his belt, it was tuned into the same AM station he had been listening to for almost thirty years. The nightly host hadn’t changed since then either. It still amazed Conrad that a phone also could act as a radio, or a camera, or even sometimes a computer.

  He looked in his workshop. He had an old ham radio and a portable AM/FM radio resting inside a faraday cage. He hadn’t touched those in months. It seemed in the hi-tech world in which Conrad had found himself, such things weren’t needed.

  Unfortunately, he got the feeling things wouldn’t last for very long.

  “You almost feel as though you’re due for something to happen,” said a guest on the radio station’s talk show. “It’s as though the whole planet is Pompeii, and we’re sitting next to the equivalent of Mount Vesuvius. I think we should be very concerned when this many astronomers are observing strange activity on the sun.”

  The host replied to his guest by saying, “Now, are you saying they know the angle this thing could hit the Earth?”

  “Well, they’re not entirely sure. Space is huge. If it’s off slightly, it can miss us by miles. But enough of them do think the storm could crash through the Earth’s magnetic field, and the scary part is they don’t think the chance is less than fifty-fifty.”

  Upon reaching his bedroom, Conrad set his phone down on the dresser. He began unbuttoning his red flannel shirt. He had time for a quick bath before he crashed. However, as he got his shirt off, exposing his white undershirt, he spotted a glowing light in the window through his mirror reflection.

  I thought it was evening, Conrad thought. He turned around and checked out the view out the window. He had to crane his neck to look high up into the sky, but yes, he could see a glowing display high in the sky. It reminded Conrad of pictures of the aurora borealis.

  “Son of a gun,” he said. He grabbed his phone. This wasn’t a display that came along every night. In fact, Conrad never had seen such a beautiful sight in the night sky before. He had to capture it for posterity.

  Conrad hurried to his side door and snapped pictures, then turned on the video recorder. A minute or two of this should be enough. He just had finished recording and turned back to the house when suddenly the whole sky blinked a bright flash of light. It so startled Conrad that he nearly fell over.

  “What the hell?” Conrad shook all over. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It had taken a moment to gather his wits.

  When he got back inside his home, he was greeted by darkness. Strange, he thought. Did I turn off the lights before I went outside?

  He yawned. The night sky had d
istracted him for too long, and now he was exhausted. He simply returned to his room and went to bed.

  Conrad ran a hand over his face. Sweat covered it. He was hot all over. He looked down. He had stripped himself to his boxers and was lying across the top of his covers. Either he did it last night before going to bed, or did so during the night and had forgotten all about it.

  Sunlight poured through his window. His alarm hadn’t woken him up. Conrad turned to his side—and found his alarm clock was out. No digits. Nothing. He got out of bed and flicked on the light switch. It didn’t work. Up or down, his switch didn’t do anything. Conrad then realized how quiet it had become. His air conditioner wasn’t humming.

  The damn power must be out, he thought. He picked up his smartphone. But to his surprise, that was dead as well. He pushed the power button, but the phone refused to turn on.

  Wait a minute. If portable stuff isn’t working, that could mean…

  He didn’t own many electronics, but he had one or two more portable devices he could check. He had a small laptop that he used to download podcasts and access survival prep websites before he bought his smartphone. A quick check of it revealed the computer no longer functioned. Both his laptop and phone had enough power that they still should work into this morning, even if the power had gone out.

  Then, he thought back to the blinding light of last night. For the past few weeks, his favorite AM station had been talking about solar storms. Conrad knew the drill. A sunspot could erupt, shooting out particles into space that, if they hit the Earth, could penetrate the planet’s magnetic field and take out some, if perhaps not all, of the world’s electromagnetic systems. The charged particles from the sun would send a pulse that would fry electronic transformers, shutting down the power grid. It also would also fry electronic chips and wiring, rendering much of man’s modern machinery nothing more than junk. If it wasn’t shielded from the EMP, it wouldn’t turn on.

  A chill ran through Conrad’s body despite the surrounding heat. If that was true, that meant the power wasn’t coming back on, ever. And if the solar storm was as bad as Conrad feared, the whole country would be shut down.

  Chapter Three

  The rest of the day, ironically, wasn’t all that different than usual. He tended to his livestock, drew water from his well, and examined his crops. It was just the inside of his homestead that had changed. With the home’s air conditioning system out of commission, there was nothing humming in the background. The house now was eerily quiet.

  Conrad was not caught off-guard. Part of his preparations including making his house ready for indefinite loss of electric-powered lights. He had been building up his supply of lanterns, portable lights, and candles for nighttime use. Handling daytime was fairly simple. All he had to do was open the blinds and the sunlight poured in.

  That night, he enjoyed a meal by candlelight. The food was drawn from his own ranch, so once again, that wasn’t a change.

  He began to truly feel things were different when he reached for his phone to listen to his favorite radio station, only to find the phone couldn’t be turned on at all. He realized he likely never would be able to listen to all the podcasts he had downloaded again. They were lost forever.

  But again, Conrad had spent decades listening to and memorizing survival information. He even had printed out pictures and documents, in addition to all the books and manuals he had stored in his workshop and throughout his home. So, what did he have to worry about?

  As he gripped the back of his chair to get up, his arm shook. All of his prepping hadn’t quieted his own fears. Preparing for the end of the world was one thing, but he soon realized being at peace with it was another.

  Conrad rolled his mountain bicycle out to the front of his home. The frame of the bike was a smooth, sparkling red with no dents in the paint. The bike was fairly new, purchased at a good price. Conrad smiled. He practically lived on a bike as a child. He grew up in a time when there was television, but not a lot of channels, and certainly no video games to keep one’s posterior parked indoors. For Conrad, this bike harkened back to a simpler, more peaceful time in his life.

  However, he had taken his attention off bike riding once he got into high school. No, he had his eye on a good car. Blue paint, glistening chrome, and a great radio was what he was after.

  He had to settle for red, but close enough.

  The past few days had been unnerving. He had continued on with life as it had been. No one had come around to disturb him. There were no police cars, no army trucks, nothing from any governing authority to come by and tell him what was going on, if power was going to be restored, if there was a breakdown in order that he had to be ready for.

  But then again, he had bought a homestead off the main road out in a sparsely populated county. The whole damned idea was to live apart from the masses.

  He got on his bike. He should have done this earlier. Perhaps he had been too afraid to go out there and find answers. But at this point, not knowing was a hell he couldn’t live with any longer.

  It had taken half a day to pedal into town. The road into the community was quiet, but then again, it always seemed quiet. He couldn’t draw any conclusions yet from the fact that no cars passed by.

  Conrad wore a backpack with a bag of produce in it. If things had gone as bad as he feared, he might need to help some poor person out with food—or perhaps would need it to bargain with.

  Once he got into town, he found more concrete evidence that things had gone upside down. All the traffic lights were dark, as were all the electronically lit “open” signs on the shops. In fact, anything that relied on electricity was out. Occasionally, Conrad would pass by a stalled car or truck in the road.

  As he turned onto Applewood Street, he finally encountered some activity. A pair of older men was filing out of Almeida’s with a handful of vegetables.

  Conrad parked his bike next to a street sign pole and then chained it tight. No one would take his ride if he had anything to say about it. Otherwise, it’d be a long hike back to his homestead.

  He stepped inside. The lights were out, but by now that was no surprise. Every window was open, exposing light to rows of barren shelves.

  “Who’s up there?” asked Almeida from up ahead.

  “Conrad,” Conrad called back as he approached the register. Carlos Almeida stepped into view from behind the counter. He was wearing a dirty apron. More notably, he sported a belt with a holster—and a loaded gun inside it.

  “I figured you would disappear from sight completely,” Almeida said with a slight smile.

  “It seems as though everyone else has.” Conrad put his bag of produce on the counter.

  Almeida looked at it, then chuckled. “You expect me to pay for that with money?”

  Conrad frowned. “If it’s as bad as I fear it is, I guess money isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

  Almeida nodded. “They say the whole world’s gone out. No power, nothing. Everyone came in and took my inventory. Might as well. Who’s going to restock me? No trucks are coming back.” Almeida laughed.

  “Besides you, of course. But then again, where are my customers? The town’s dead. So many of them fled. They’re going to find their families. Of course, most of their cars don’t work, but why let that stop you?” He tapped the counter nervously. “My mother’s still in Honduras. Good luck getting back there. Where’s the next plane going to Central America, right?”

  Conrad bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Carlos.”

  Laughing again, Almeida took out a twenty-dollar bill. “My last bit of money.” Then he fished from under the counter and took out a match. He struck it, lighting the matchhead with a small flame. Almeida then lit up the bill and let it burn in his hand.

  “Take that, Uncle Sam! That was your tax bill!” Laughing, he slapped the burning bill down and then stomped out the fire with his credit card reader.

  Conrad’s throat clenched. This poor bastard’s having a breakdown, he thou
ght. But who could blame him?

  “Hey, how about we take a vacation here,” Conrad said gently. “Close up the store. Go home and relax. It’s still been a few days. We don’t know shit about what’s happened. And even if our electronics are toasted, maybe not all the country got zapped. Help may parachute in any day now.”

  Almeida smirked. “If you believe that, I have twenty dollars to give you.”

  Conrad eyed the credit card reader over the pile of burnt ash. “Look, the food’s on me,” he said to the shop owner. “If you need, I can give you regular supplies from my ranch.”

  Almeida shook his head. “No, no. Sabato is still at his farm. He’s offered me a shack to sleep in to work his field. A couple of others are going there, too.” Almeida shook his head. “I probably won’t come back here again.”

  It was a short while before Almeida spoke up again. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

  Conrad looked at the man. Tears welled up in Almeida’s eyes. The question was like an accusation. In a sense, Conrad felt guilty. He had spent decades preparing for a disaster such as this. He might have been scared out of his wits, but at least he could face this aftermath. Almeida and millions like him, however, were caught completely off-guard. How the hell could they handle what was to come?

  “No,” Conrad said, “I feared what might happen, but I don’t think there’s a man alive who could have predicted this to the day and the hour.”

  Almeida looked away. “Thank you,” he said, and then repeated it a few times more.

  Conrad put his HAM radio onto the counter of his work room. The faraday cage had shielded it well. Internet, commercial AM/FM radio, cable, and satellite television had all gone the way of the dodo. This was the only thing Conrad had left to access the outside world.

  He switched it on and began searching frequencies. He already had set up the microphone. If Conrad didn’t hear anyone, he’d start talking. He kept a notepad of the various call signs available. A radio operator would drop a call sign that identified their country of origin. The United States was N2ASD. Not that Conrad wouldn’t welcome information from outside the country, but he wanted to get local information quickly, and start from there. Not only had he shielded his radio, but he invested in a tall transmitter on the top of his home and wrapped it with hard metals to block a strike from an electromagnetic pulse. So, his reception should reach a long way.