My old wind-up alarm clock was magnetised [1] like everything else and refused to work, so I woke up when Fancy-Pants the rooster decided to start crowing his head off. I could usually sleep through his racket on most days, but without the hum of air-conditioning he was my new alarm clock.

Shaking off the covers, I took care of business in the bathroom. Quick shower and a shave by kerosene [2] lantern, pop in the dental bridge to fill in my gap-toothed smile, and then fry up the last of the bacon and some fresh eggs on the propane stove. I missed my electric kettle. And toaster. And microwave. And cellphone. I had reached for it a dozen times in the last hour. It was an addiction. Communication is freedom. If there’s no telephone, radio, or internet, we’d have to go back to carrier pigeons and the Pony Express. I ruminated on that like a cow on a cud, chewing over how to rebuild a primitive long distance communications network.

Winter is only three months away and I had bupkis in the way of supplies or firewood or anything remotely resembling enough food to get us through the cold months ahead. Not that Louisiana had “cold” months, but the temps would often drop into the 40s and 30s for a couple of weeks before rising. We were going to need to scavenge for awhile, trade if possible, plant in the spring.

…If the situation was really as bad as my monkey-brain keeps screaming at me. I’m just panicking. Goosfraba. Everything is fine. …I should probably bring some trade goods with me just in case. The 1 gram silver and gold coin blanks [3] I have in the safe should work, currently valued at about $1 and $50 respectively, but I’ll bring some paper cash just in case.

Sparky, and Astrid’s horse Miguel were loaded up and complaining with snorts and chuffs by the time the sun had risen and the aurora overhead faded into thin ribbons. I kept thinking I was forgetting something, double and triple checking everything trying to calm my jitters. It was time to move out and find my family, and I was just putting it off because sometimes ignorance is more comforting than certainty.

The city of Covington was 20 miles away, and I’d pass through the small town of Plainview about halfway there. That would give me a feel for the situation and what I should expect closer to “civilisation”.

I swung up into the saddle and pushed Sparky into a trot, Miguel following behind on his lead.

The graves at the end of the drive were already starting to grow grass, dark green shoots were pushing up from the soil and covered in dew. A mile down the road I turned off and ambled up to the Caldwell place. It was newer than my fifty year old farm house, but not by much, and not built near as sturdy or with the modern amenities I had later installed. The two storey structure was well maintained and featured a wrap around porch for sitting and relaxing on warm southern evenings. I guided Sparky up to the steps.

“Hello in the house!” I called out in the typical parlance of these rural folk, giving notice that someone was approaching. I expected it to be empty, with Mrs Caldwell tending her husband in town and their son Robert living here after his divorce.

The front door flew open and a wild haired woman dressed in a flowery muumuu rushed onto the porch.

“Oh, thank God,” Mrs Caldwell said, wringing her hands. “Emmett, have you seen Robert? He went to check on the neighbours after all the fireworks but hasn’t come home.”

I lowered my eyes and fingered the envelope in my shirt pocket where I’d scribbled down what happened and where I’d buried Robert. I’d not expected her to be home.

“I have bad news, Mrs Caldwell,” I cleared my throat. Just rip off the band-aid, there’s no way to make it better. “Robert was struck by lightning and killed.”

She fell to her knees like a limp rag, a flowery discarded dish cloth.

“I’ve buried him and his horse up at my place.” I continued.

A keening wail tore loose from her throat, an animalistic cry of loss. “Nooo. No no no. Not my Robby. Not…” she broke into incoherent sobs, her body jerking under the force of her grief.

I watched from atop Sparky, uncomfortable with the display. Should I get down and comfort her? I’m not the best with people, as my ex’s will attest. Overly emotional displays make me feel awkward, I don’t know how to deal with them, don’t know what to say or do. Hell, I just push my emotions down into the pit of my stomach and carry on. My shrink said that was unhealthy, but what does he know? He’s divorced too.

I watched her aura shift colours like a rainbow, rippling in a thousand hues of yellow and orange.

Mrs Caldwell sobbed for a small eternity, maybe a minute or two while I watched mutely, then scrubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands and ran thin fingers through her scraggly silver hair. This was something I recognised, the suppression. She was pushing things down, compartmentalising the grief so she could deal with the reality of the present. Her aura shifted to a deep depressing blue.

“I’m heading into town to find the sheriff,” I lied, although if I did run into him I would mention this. “And then heading to Springfield to bring my daughter back home. I’ll be gone maybe a week.”

I grimaced internally, then did the right thing while hating myself for it and hating myself for feeling guilty. “Are you okay here? Would you like to ride into town with me? Do you have family there?”

Too many questions. I should have given her just two options.

She pulled herself to her feet, scrubbing at the tears still sliding down her cheeks.

“I have family in town,” she said after a moment. “But I haven’t ridden a horse since I was a girl. Let me get dressed and pack.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll wait for you out here.” I said, kicking myself mentally. Helping people isn’t a bad thing. It shouldn’t make you feel bad. So why am I so upset?

I strapped two small suitcases to Miguel an hour later and boosted a sniffling Mrs Caldwell into his saddle. She had changed into something appropriate for riding and wore a large floppy sunhat. She was wearing a face mask that matched her peach blouse and I idly wondered if she had sewn it herself.

“My sister lives on avenue G in Plainview. I’ll stay with her a few days until they get everything fixed.”

I bit my tongue, unwilling to voice the doubts in my mind. It would probably be a decade before things were fixed. “That’ll probably be for the best. You being out here alone would probably make them worry.”

Her voice was low, but it carried to my overly sensitive ears. “I wasn’t alone. I had my Robby with me.”

We continued up to the main highway and I stopped for a moment to tie a strip of cloth to the street sign, putting two knots in it.

“What’s that for?” Mrs Caldwell asked.

“My boys will probably be heading to the farm. This let’s them know that there may be danger ahead.”

I could see her chewing on some questions, so I gave her the short version. “My father was a prepper, before he died. He believed that the Russians were going to bomb the US, the Blacks were going to start a revolution, the Chinese were trying to take over the world, and crazy stuff like that. It rubbed off on me a bit, I suppose. I never believed anything really bad would happen, but after hurricane Katrina I learned that it’s better to be prepared than to wait on help to arrive. I taught my kids the same thing. Hopefully they remember enough to stay alive.”

She seemed satisfied with my answer and gripped the pommel as I lead Sparky and Miguel south along the highway. It was two miles to the Village.

The Village was a little cluster of buildings around the only petrol station for 10 miles in either direction. The tiny community had an official name, Vernon, but the locals called it the Village. Back in the 80s and 90s it featured a video store with a selection of VHS tapes and DVDs. [4] It had evolved over the years, with the video store phased out, replaced by a RedBox machine, a small grocery, and a kitchen in the rear. They fried up some of the tastiest chicken I’ve had the pleasure of eating, and I make some tasty damn chicken if I say so myself.

Shit. Did I forget to feed my chickens?

There was a crowd of twenty or thirty people picking through the burned remains, searching the debris for anything useful. Most were unmasked and I frowned behind my bandana, watching one cough his head off. A couple of the men looked up as we passed, then everyone stopped their casual looting and stared at us. The auras surrounding them rippled into a deep suspicious orange. It gave me the creeps.

One of the men started walking towards us, his aura shifting from orange to green, and I placed a hand on the Mossberg, drawing his attention to the shotgun.

“Just passing by,” I said. “Don’t mind us.”

He stopped and wiped sooty hands on his jeans. “You got any news?”

I eased Sparky to a halt, noting that his aura had shifted to a light yellow. “Nope. Damn near everything burned to the ground,” I lied. “I’m heading into town.”

I wondered if I can use this new vision of mine as some sort of lie detector. Just what do the colours mean?

One of the women in the back spoke up. “My little boy got his hands burned real bad when his video game caught fire. I need some cream and bandages, I done used up what we have.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t have any,” I lied again. I have a first aid kit in the saddlebags, but I’m not sharing. I have myself and my own kids to worry about. If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else. “Do you have an aloe vera plant? That’s almost as good.”

Mrs Caldwell spoke up. “I have some aloe vera at my place, we could…”

I interrupted. “I’m sure she doesn’t want to walk miles up the road and miles back. If she doesn’t have a plant, I’m sure one of her neighbours has one.”

I sighed, mentally. These people were my neighbours. I didn’t know them all personally, but I had seen their faces and spoken pleasantries and refused the perpetual invites to church on Sunday. And Wednesday. And the Men’s Gathering on Mondays.I was acting like a paranoid hermit. If I was going to come back and live among them, it was best to at least act neighbourly.

“Ma’am,” I said, addressing the young mother. “I would feel real uncomfortable taking your boy into town not knowing what’s going on there. I got these horses a few years ago from old man Pigott, who lives a few miles from here at Pigott’s crossing. He has a wagon there, and I’m certain he wouldn’t mind taking any injured people to town.”

God damn this sense of responsibility.

“I wasn’t planning on going that way, but I’ll swing by his place and let him know you’re here.” I said, smiling behind my bandana, feeling the crow’s feet around my eyes pull tight. “And make sure to wear your masks, he’s an old man and you don’t want to give him the virus.”

“My husband is in the hospital because of the virus,” Mrs Caldwell interjected. “It’s not a hoax.”

A few in the crowd had the decency to look ashamed while casting glances at the coughing man.

I scanned the crowd, making eye contact with each of them. “If you have any sense, you’ll be clearing and planting gardens or you’ll be hungry come winter.”

“You think it’s that bad?” one of the men asked, his aura flickering yellow.

“Is the engine in your truck burnt up?” I responded, pointing up at the faint aurora overhead. “So’s mine. It’s bad.”

“It’s the apocalypse,” someone muttered.

“You better hope not,” I snapped. “Because that means the Rapture has already happened and you and your children have been judged unworthy and left behind, doomed to Hell for all eternity. This is just a natural event, like a hurricane or a tornado. We’ll get through this if we stick together and help each other just like we did with Katrina and Ida.” [5]

“Let’s go,” I slapped Sparky with the reins and sent him walking down the highway, then turned around and headed back towards East 1st street. “We need to detour to old man Pigott’s first.” I announced to no one in particular.

Footnotes:

1. All pre-aurora metals are magnetised to a greater or lesser degree. Such magnetism can be eliminated in a forge. This magnetism defies the known physics of the previous era.

2. Kerosene. A petrochemical, a hydrocarbon burned as a fuel. Pre-Aurora hydrocarbons decay into corrupt, black, mana. They are sought after because they yield silver mana when purified. The most volatile petrochemical is “raw crude oil” which is highly mutagenic, but yields over 1000 silver mana per quart when purified.

3. Stamped coins from the Reconstruction era are highly prized. They often contain an ‘Easter egg’ that can be triggered when charged with mana.

4. Similar to Skill Stones or Knowledge Stones, except used to convey entertainment.

5. Hurricanes that were especially devastating to Louisiana (New Arcadia).

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