Last Light

  “What’s a semiconductor?” someone shouted from the crowd.

  “It’s a material that conducts electricity less than a conductor, like metal, and more than an insulator, like rubber. You’ve heard of chips—silicon chips, computer chips . . . Well, they’re all made of flakes of silicon, and they’re in almost everything. Since this outage isn’t just electricity-related but is affecting cars and planes and who-knows-what all else, that must be what’s damaged.”

  Deni couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “But why? What happened to them?”

  Brad shrugged. “Sounds like an EMP to me. And whatever radiation is causing it is still in the atmosphere. Even brand-new equipment is dying the minute it’s turned on.”

  “Then how long before it passes?”

  Brad shook his head and looked at Doug. Finally, her father spoke. “Semiconductors are fragile. If they’ve been damaged, it’s probably irreversible.”

  There was a collective moan around the group. Amber Rowe, sitting with two of her children in a stroller and the other on her lap, asked, “What does that mean?”

  Doug looked as if he hated to spell it out. “It’s not like a power outage where the electric company repairs its lines and the lights come back on. This is much more severe.”

  Deni couldn’t breathe. The news couldn’t have been worse if he’d told them they were at war! Her eyes widened. Maybe they were. What a way to defeat the country. Knock out their technology and leave them helpless. No one even had to die.

  They’d just wish they were dead.

  Deni glanced back at Amber and saw that she was crying. She wasn’t the only one.

  “Then we won’t make it!” a woman yelled. “We don’t have enough food to last indefinitely. Nothing’s open, even the banks. What are we going to do?”

  “We’ll have to share with each other,” Doug said. “Help those who need help.”

  “With what?” someone shouted out.

  “With whatever we might have extra.”

  Ralph Whitson, who’d run for county supervisor last year, stood up. “Why should we provide for families who weren’t prepared? I knew something like this might happen one day. I’ve been stockpiling stuff since Y2K, and I have no intention of sharing it. Not my fault if others were stupid.”

  Brad fixed the man with a hard look. “No one knew this could happen. And it’s certainly up to you. You don’t have to share. We would just like it if each of you would consider it. We’re gonna need to pitch in as a neighborhood to help everyone through this. This outage is going to bring a lot of challenges.”

  “Yeah, like murder.” A retired man from the back of the group came forward to be heard. “Doug, what can you tell us about the killings? Was it a robbery, or does it look like some other motive?”

  “Definitely a robbery,” Doug said. “They took their television and jewelry and silver and just about everything they could carry out of that house without backing a truck up to it. Looks like the outage was just an opportunity. The sheriff thinks it might be the same thieves responsible for the other two break-ins this month. A lot of people weren’t home last night. Maybe the crooks thought the Abernathys weren’t home, then killed them when they surprised them.”

  “What are the cops doing to find the killer?” an old man asked.

  “They’ve been talking to neighbors. Some of you probably got interviewed today. A lot was going on last night, with people trying to get home and all, but if any of you happened to see someone carrying a television or something, you might get in touch with the sheriff’s department. We all have to defend ourselves. Maybe it would benefit us to create some kind of neighborhood watch program.”

  Stella Huckabee got up. “So you think we need to set up guards in the neighborhood?”

  Brad nodded. “Wouldn’t hurt. We don’t know for sure whether we’re at war or not. But we do know there’s an enemy among us.”

  “Whoever the enemy is,” Doug said, “we could have some kind of neighborhood watch of men willing to patrol our streets during the night, to make sure people aren’t roaming around creating mischief. After the meeting, Brad would like to meet with all the men who could help with this. And I urge you to not let your guard down. It’s hot in our houses, and we want to sleep with windows and doors open to get the air circulating. But that might not be the best move.”

  Deni’s eyes strayed back to Amber Rowe. She’d never seen a more helpless look on anyone’s face. This wasn’t going to help her rattled neighbor sleep tonight.

  “If the sheriff catches the killer, can he even lock him up?” someone asked.

  “Yes. The locks on the jail still work.”

  Deni’s mind reeled as she listened to the rumblings around her about who the killers were. Some suggested it was the reclusive Mr. Miller, who lived in the run-down house that had brought down the value of the neighboring property. Others suggested it was a family rumored to be drug dealers, since a steady stream of seedy characters always came and went from that house. Others named a family of men. The mother had died a few years earlier of cancer, and the boys had run wild ever since, following in their father’s immoral footsteps.

  Everyone had a theory.

  Deni figured she’d just steer clear of all of the suspects.

  As her eyes swept over the crowd, she shivered despite the heat. Any one of them could be the killer.

  Just as any of them could be the next victim.

  seventeen

  Doug was in over his head. The crowd was growing hostile, as if he alone were responsible for the outage and the murders.

  Merilee Garrison, the golf pro at the local country club, looked downright annoyed. “Doug, how long are we looking at here? Days? Weeks? Months?”

  “I wish I knew,” Doug said. “I think I can safely say it won’t be just days. I could be wrong. Maybe the power companies have some alternative way of getting power to us, without all their computers and electronics, but I doubt it.”

  An older man raised his hand. Doug had seen him many times before working in his yard, but he didn’t know the man’s name. “I’m Max Keegan,” he said in a phlegmy voice. “Doris and I do a little gardening in our spare time.”

  Oh, yes, Doug remembered the brouhaha that had occurred sometime last year, when the Keegan’s neighbors complained about them turning much of their backyard into a vegetable garden. They’d sued to get them to put up a privacy fence so they wouldn’t have to look at it. Unless Doug had missed the resolution, it was still in litigation.

  “We have a good bit of food canned and put away. We can share some okra, squash, tomatoes, butter beans, and peas. If we could get some of the ladies to help us, we could get more done and have a good amount to spare.”

  There now, that was what Doug had hoped for. “I appreciate that very much, Mr. Keegan. Looks like that garden of yours might turn out to be a big asset to the neighborhood.” He caught the eye of the Keegans’ neighbors who’d sued. They were whispering viciously.

  “Wal-Mart has a sign up that it’s opening tomorrow,” someone shouted. “They don’t have much left to sell, but they said they’d stay open until they ran out of stock.”

  Doug glanced at Kay, knowing she was making note of that. It would be a stampede. He hoped they had some kind of control in the place. “Since it’s going to be a madhouse in there, maybe a little organization would be in order. Maybe several families could go in together to get the things they need. There are people who are desperate for diapers and matches and candles—”

  “It’s every family for itself,” Whitson said. “We have to look out for our own families. We can’t worry about everybody else.”

  Doug started to argue, until he realized that he felt the same way. It was every family for itself, and if he could get his own family through the Wal-Mart doors tomorrow, the last thing he’d be worrying about was shopping for someone else.

  Later, when the group finally broke up, Doug waited for men to approach Brad about the neighborh
ood watch, but no one did. He supposed everyone wanted to stay at home and look after their own families. He certainly couldn’t blame them. It was why he hadn’t volunteered. He had hoped the meeting and the exchange of information would make things easier, more hopeful. Instead, he felt the oppressive weight of dread, growing heavier by the minute.

  And he wondered if it had only made things worse.

  eighteen

  Though the meeting was over, business still went on among families who stayed after to talk and trade. Darkness began to fall, and mosquitoes had a field day with the pungent neighbors. That was all they needed, Deni thought. West Nile virus on top of everything else.

  She caught sight of her little sister sitting on the pier. Beth looked so pale, and she hugged her skinny knees. Her distant gaze flitted from face to face, as if searching for her teacher’s killer.

  Anger stirred in Deni again. The events of the day seemed so surreal, like a montage of worst-case scenarios. She was ready for it to be over.

  She’d just go home and curl up on her bed, and write another letter to Craig.

  Help me, Craig. I’m drowning here. Why did I ever come home in the first place? I could be with you.

  Even if the outage did stretch from here to the Atlantic, tolerating it would be so much easier if she were with Craig. He and Senator Crawford would know of the resources the country had for such an event. They would fix things, and D.C. would be the first place back up and running again.

  “Deni, guess what?”

  Chris came toward her after working the crowd. She had that high school look of excitement on her face, the same one she’d had when Carl Stevens asked her to the prom.

  Deni was so beyond high school.

  Chris leaned over and whispered, “I found somebody who’ll let us use his pool if we don’t invite anybody else.”

  “Really?” It would be heaven to dive into the cool water, to wash off some of the sweat. “Who?”

  “Mark Green’s dad.” Chris pointed to the man sitting in his lawn chair, leaned back on two legs. He reminded Deni of Dean Martin in those old movies her grandparents loved—with black hair and a leathery golf tan.

  “That’s not Mark’s dad. I saw his dad today at the Abernathys’.”

  “That would’ve been his stepfather. Mark lives with his mom. His dad lives in that big blue Victorian house over on Mercer. He seems really nice.”

  He looked up and caught their eyes, waved and winked.

  “Why doesn’t he want us to invite anybody else?”

  “He said two of his sons and their families are over using their pool, and he doesn’t want a whole crowd. But he heard me asking someone else, and he volunteered.”

  “Will Mark be there?”

  “He didn’t say, but it doesn’t matter to me. Do you want to come or not?”

  Deni found her father in the crowd, then looked for her mother. Chances were, they’d balk at her going to swim in some strange man’s pool. But it wasn’t like he was a complete stranger. She knew his son, after all. Mark was a nice guy, so his dad couldn’t be that bad. Besides, she was over twenty-one and almost married. She didn’t need her parents’ permission.

  Chris was waiting. “Come on, Deni. I don’t want to go by myself, but I’m dying to swim. He even said we could use a bucket to wash our hair if we wanted.”

  That did it. “Okay, I’ll come. Let me go home and get into my bathing suit, and I’ll meet you at your house.”

  Chris almost danced with delight. “Great!”

  Deni’s gaze drifted to Mr. Green again as he folded up his chair and gathered his things.

  “He’s about to head home now,” Chris said. “I’ll go tell him we’re coming.”

  Deni watched the girl scurry across the grass, weaving between the people. Chris still looked as cute as she had in high school. If she’d put on the Freshman Fifteen, she’d taken it off in the subsequent three years. She wondered if she’d had to work as hard as Deni to do it. Probably not. Chris had always been pretty, with her shoulder-length silky blonde hair that had the slightest wave. The two of them attracted different kinds of guys. Chris, with her delicate build and her innocent-looking features, always attracted the protectors. Athletes and Eagle Scouts vied for her attention. Deni used to call her a serial dater, because she never committed to anyone.

  Deni, on the other hand, attracted the thinkers. The more cerebral guys with brighter futures. Men like Craig. Chris’s goal in college had been to get her MRS degree. The girl would probably wind up married to some has-been high school football star who worked in his daddy’s business, and as long as she had manicure money, she’d be happy as a clam.

  Night was just beginning to blacken the sky as Deni walked home. Her suitcase still lay half-packed on her bed, so she riffled through it and found her swimsuit. She put it on, and pulled a pair of shorts and a T-shirt over it. Then she stuffed her twenty-buck-a-bottle shampoo and conditioner into her purse, and got on her bike to ride over to Chris’s house.

  The purse dangled over the handlebars as she rode. How absurd that she was relegated to riding a bicycle like some ten-year-old. She felt ridiculous and self-conscious, and that made her angry.

  Her friend was sitting on her front lawn, waiting with a towel hanging over her arm. “Just like old times, huh? Remember when we used to have swimming parties at John Frazier’s house? Too bad he moved.”

  Deni sighed. “This isn’t a party. I just want to get clean.”

  “Oh, I know, but it could be fun.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying all this.” Deni knew she was being a jerk, but she wasn’t in the mood to temper her words.

  Chris’s smile faded. “You’re bummed about not being able to talk to your boyfriend, huh?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my fiancé.”

  Chris stood there for a moment, looking hurt, as if Deni had just insulted her somehow. It was just like Chris to make this all about her.

  “Where can I put my bike?” Deni asked. “I don’t want to park it at Mr. Green’s, because someone might steal it. As much as I hate riding it, I guess I need the stupid thing.”

  “Here, put it in my garage.” Chris slid the door up, waited for Deni to park it, then closed it again. “Boy, you’re really in a mood, aren’t you?” Her voice softened. “Guess I can’t blame you, after you found the Abernathys. It must have been awful.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. Then we can talk about your fiancé. Craig, isn’t it?”

  Deni’s mood lifted somewhat as she launched into a description of her beloved. As they walked the few houses down to Vic Green’s, she made sure Chris understood what an important man Craig was.

  Chris seemed duly impressed. “He sounds like a catch. I dated a medical student for six months last year. I thought he might be the one. But then he got his residency at Johns Hopkins, and had to move away. It just seemed impossible to keep up a long-distance relationship with him under that kind of stress, so we kind of parted ways.”

  Deni hadn’t expected that. Chris dating a doctor at Johns Hopkins? “Do you still talk?”

  “Not much. I’ve kind of moved on. I had a really strong feeling that it wasn’t God’s will for us to be together. He wasn’t a Christian, but he was a really great guy.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “I worked with him at University Hospital.”

  She turned to Chris and gave her a puzzled look. “You worked at a hospital?”

  Chris laughed. “Of course I did. Didn’t you know I graduated from nursing school?”

  If Deni had known that, she’d forgotten. “No, I had no idea.”

  “Yeah. I’m about to start a new job, too, at Children’s Hospital next month. I decided to take a month off to find a place to live and get settled.”

  “So you’re staying in the Birmingham area?” Deni asked. “I don’t know how you can stand it.”

  “It’s home. I love it here.
”

  “I don’t. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  They were quiet the rest of the way, and Deni wondered if she’d insulted her friend again. She supposed she should be more careful to keep her thoughts to herself.

  They reached the blue Victorian down the street. Vic Green was waiting with the front door open, a little brown Yorkie barking at his heels. “Hello there, young ladies.” His deep voice would have made for a great radio career. “Welcome to the Copa Cabana.”