One Second After

“Ok, sorry, Jim. Just I don’t want the kids getting frightened any more than they already are. So do us all a favor, and don’t talk about this Mayan stuff for right now. Got it.”

“Sure, my man, got it.”

“Now just go around and tell people you were joking, calm them down,” John interjected, “it’d help a lot.”

“Got it.”

Jim made a show of turning back to face those who had been watching them.

“Just having some fun, that’s all,” Jim announced. “Some fun,” came a bitter reply. “We want to know what the hell is going on.”

“That’s what we’re working on right now,” Charlie announced, so just stay calm.”

“You two, we gotta talk.” Coming out of the station was Tom Barker, the chief of police.

“Shit,” Jim muttered. “Here comes the man.”

“Tom, how you doing?” John said quietly.

“Like a legless dog that’s covered in fleas and can’t scratch,” Tom replied, and John smiled a bit at yet another of Tom’s colorful southernisms.

“Charlie, a question for you,” John said. “Absolutely no communication whatsoever and all vehicles dead except for my car and Jim’s here?”

“Yeah, that’s about it. Also the old Jeep down at Butler’s Garage still runs, though. We’ve got a couple of older mopeds and motorcycles, and Maury Hurt’s antique World War Two jeep. We’ve got that out on the highway now, checking on some emergency cases that people reported.”

“Not good,” John said softly.

“I think we’re on the same wavelength,” Charlie replied softly. “Where’s Orville Gardner?”

John knew that Orville worked downtown in Asheville, as assistant director for the county’s emergency preparedness office. “Not a word from him. Guess he’s stuck in Asheville.”

“Tom, Charlie, can we go inside and talk?”

“Why?” Tom asked. “I’d like to know why you two have cars and the rest of us don’t.”

“Because nothing can kill a Volkswagen, man,” Jim said with a grin. John stepped between Jim and Tom.

“I really think we should go inside, gentlemen,” John said. Though most of his career in the military had been spent behind books or up front in a classroom, he had led troops in the field and still did remember a bit about command voice, and he used it now.

Tom bristled slightly, but Charlie smiled.

“Sure, let’s go. The mayor’s inside; let’s go to her office.”

The three went in, Jim trailing along, and though John hated to insult the man, he turned and looked at him with a smile.

“Hey, look. You know you’re a hair up Tom’s butt.”

Jim smiled.

“He’s out in my back lot every year prowling for weed and never caught me once.”

“Maybe you should skip this meeting. Keep an eye on the cars. Help keep people calm and no more of this stuff about prophecies. Ok?”

“Sure, my man,” and Jim gave him a friendly salute.

John walked into Mayor Kate Lindsey’s office and she looked up from behind her desk, bleary-eyed. They were old friends. Kate and Mary had grown up together.

“You look beat, Kate.”

“I am. Never should have run for a third term. Damn thankless job at the best of times, and now this. Did Tom tell you that someone came down from the nursing home? They’ve got three dead up there.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“One of them was the Wilson boy.”

John sighed and shook his head. The boy had been a freshman at the college. Car accident three years ago, the usual story, a drunk who walked away from it, had left the boy in a vegetative state, kept alive by a respirator, his parents clinging to hope.… Well, that was finished.

“I thought the law required all nursing homes to have emergency generation. Those folks up there are going to be facing one helluva lawsuit,” Kate snapped.

“What about the highway?” John asked. “Any problems there? I had a bit of a confrontation with a drunk last night.”

“I got four drunks in the lockup right now,” Tom said. “Your boy’s most likely one of them. You want to press charges or anything?”

“Naw, no bother.”

“Someone came riding in on a bike a few hours ago from the North Fork, said a trailer burned there and old Granny Thomas burned to death in it.

“Damn,” John whispered.

Kate looked out the window and then back to John. “So why are your car and Jim’s running?”

John looked around for a chair and sat down without being asked, then handed over the report he had pulled down from his shelf the night before and tossed it on Kate’s desk.

“Something from my war college days.”

“‘Potentials of Asymmetrical Strikes on the Continental United States,’” Kate read the cover.

“Some of us working at the war college put it together for a series of lectures. No one listened, of course, other than the officers taking our classes. I kept a copy as a reference. What you want is chapter four on EMP.”

“EMP,” Charlie said quietly. “Exactly what I thought when I saw all the stalled cars on the highway. Glad you came in, in fact was hoping you might know something.”

“All right, not to sound like the dumb female in the crowd here,” Kate said sharply, “but what the hell are you guys talking about?”

John couldn’t resist looking over at Tom.