When Darkness Falls (Prologue - Ch. 3)

When Darkness Falls…

Prologue

We were warned long ago that something like this might happen, but we didn’t listen then and no one is listening now. Prophets are rarely listened to, whether they herald a coming messiah or the end of the world as we know it. We always have great excuses for not believing them when what they predict comes to pass. The visionaries in this case had a rather appalling lack of credibility when they warned us all those years ago. This was made worse by the fact that they later discounted their own statements as just the foolish thinking of children. Some of us listened then, or came to the same conclusions on our own, and we are ready for what comes next; but we are so few. We fear what will happen when the darkness falls.

Chapter One

Sharyn was in her kitchen preparing dinner the first time it happened. First, the lights flickered, then dimmed, then went out completely. She figured that everyone’s air conditioners had overloaded the circuits in her building; the super would have it fixed in no time. Twenty minutes passed with no power, then an hour. Her flashlight flared and then died and the darkness closed in. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her every move from some hidden corner of the room. She knew it wasn’t possible, he didn’t know she was there, but her demons wouldn’t be silenced. Near panic, she yanked open the door to the balcony, slid noiselessly out and curled up in a wicker chair. When she had calmed herself, she glanced out at the neighborhood. The total darkness captured her attention and she examined every window for light. She could see a few faces peering out windows; some were confused, others looked down right terrified, but not the barest hint of light showed anywhere. The light from another flashlight showed that the balcony of the apartment two down and three over from hers was also occupied. It wasn’t so much the occupant, an elderly gentleman, as the expression on his face that caught her attention. The shadows from his flashlight had turned his smug little grin into something almost ghoulish. She shouted down to him.
“What’s so funny?”
He hollered back, “It’s beginning…” the rest of his words were lost in the din of an ambulance siren as the vehicle passed through the streets below.
“What’s beginning? I missed the end of what you said.”
“You’ll have to wait and see like everyone else that didn’t listen when we warned you. If you get truly curious, come and see me some time soon.”
With that, he ducked back into his apartment and slammed the door. She pondered the little she’d heard for a while and then he slipped from her mind as the lights returned. The macaroni and cheese she had on the stove was crusty and disgusting by that time so she threw it out and microwaved herself a TV dinner. She flicked on the television to see if they had anything about the sudden blackout but the news never mentioned it.
It was late the next afternoon before she thought of the little old man again. She was discussing the blackouts of the previous evening with her officemate, Mikel, when his words popped back into her head. Mikel said that the vast number of air conditioners that were on all over the city probably caused them. His section of the city blacked out temporarily shortly after the power returned to Sharyn’s neighborhood. A lifelong resident of the city he cited many other times such blackouts had occurred during the summer. That was when she remembered the strange comments she’d heard from the man on the balcony the previous night. Mikel assured her that he’d heard many such stories over the years. His family had told him all about the small group of people living in the city who cried out every year that the power outages were a sign of things to come. People had long since stopped believing them because nothing had ever come of the summer blackouts. Sure that he knew what he was talking about, Sharyn dropped the subject.
At lunch that day, their entire office building lost power. After twenty minutes, Sharyn needed some air so she walked down the twenty flights of stairs to get outside. She began walking east hoping to find where the power outage stopped. Six blocks east, she saw that the buildings opposite the intersection had power so she turned south. Two blocks south, the buildings opposite her again had power so backtracked those two blocks, considered heading north but fatigue got the best of her, and she headed back to the office. Her entire excursion took about an hour and when she returned to the building still had no power. After another hour, her boss sent everyone home because it was getting too hot for anyone to stay inside. The lack of power meant that the trains weren’t running either, so Sharyn caught a ride home with Mikel’s friend Thomis. She was surprised that he asked for gas money, considering he had offered her the ride, so she asked him why he needed the money.
         “Gas prices have risen by more than a dollar in the last two months. It used to cost me twenty dollars to fill the tank on this car and now it costs me thirty-four. It’s driving me nuts and blowing my budget to hell.”
         “I’m kind of new to the City; do gas prices usually get this high in the summer?”
         “They rise quite a bit every summer, but never before have they been this bad. Hey, is this your neighborhood?”
         “Yes, my building is right up here on the left. Would you like to come up for a bite to eat since you were nice enough to drive me home?”
         “That would be nice, I was supposed to have lunch with Mike, but he said that he was picking up Neena, his girlfriend, because her office and their apartment both have no power. Is there somewhere I can park my car?”
         “Here, use my pass and parking space under the building, I don’t have a car, but everyone gets a space anyway.”
Sharyn was a little nervous, letting this guy she barely knew into her apartment, but she really wanted to talk to him some more about the weird goings on in the city. Mikel had assured her that Thomis was safe, a nice trustworthy guy; and she hoped she could believe him. They took the elevator up to her floor and she swiped her key in her lock and let them in.
         “This is a nice apartment, Sharyn.”
         “Thank you, why don’t you sit out on the balcony while I fix us lunch?”
She watched him settle into one of the white wicker chairs and then turned her attentions to the contents of the refrigerator. She settled on grilled chicken sandwiches with toppings on the side. A quick check with Thomis had her grabbing a bottle of white wine from the wine fridge under the counter. With the chicken grilling in a clamshell grill on the counter, she set to slicing some Swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato. Twenty minutes later, they were sitting at her balcony table topping their sandwiches. After they had eaten, Sharyn brought up the conversation they’d been having in the car.
         “Do you think that the rise in gas prices has something to do with the blackouts?”
{indent]“I’m not sure. I remember my mother talking about something like that happening in California when she was young, but I don’t know how many of our power plants run on gas. You said blackouts, I wasn’t aware of any before today’s. Did you know of others?”
         “This whole neighborhood was blacked out for two hours last night and Mikel said that his neighborhood was also blacked out for a while last night. When I talked to him this morning he implied that such losses of power were regular occurrences during summers in the city. He laughed when I told him what the guy who lives several floors down said about the blackout being the beginning of something. I assumed that he knew since he’d lived here all his life.”
         “We’ve had brownouts before, but seldom blackouts that shut down the trains. Those have only happened a few times and it was always the entire city the blacked out. It scares me a little to think of the subways not running. All my life the trains have run reliably. They’re kind of like the lifeblood of the city and if they stop, it’s as if the city has had a heart attack and is dying. This city is larger than life and the thought of it dying shakes me to my very core. You must have a similar attachment to your hometown.”
         “I don’t know if Star, Idaho has lifeblood. If it does, it doesn’t move very fast because the town has long since slipped into a peaceful coma. The same families run the same stores as did twenty, thirty, or even fifty years ago. Nothing moves or changes. I was one of the few to leave and even I came back after college for quite a while. Then, one day I couldn’t take it any more and I moved to the city.”
         “What did you do in Idaho? I can’t imagine there is much office work to do in a small town.”
         “I was a nurse at the local clinic, but my license didn’t transfer to New York so I had to find something to do while I was taking the necessary classes to get a license here. I enjoy working with you guys but I really miss working with patients.”
         “What drew you to New York? It’s a very long way from Idaho.”
         “Precisely. I wanted to start over somewhere totally different and there are so many interesting things to do and learn here that I didn’t have access to in Idaho. Also New York City is so large, it is impossible for everyone to know you.”
He wondered why the size of the city was so important, but he didn’t feel that he knew her well enough to ask. He changed the topic back to the blackouts.
“If we’re having blackouts here, what do you think is going on in Idaho?”
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with my mother, but she isn’t online and I just get a message from the phone company telling me that Star, Idaho is unreachable right now. I talked with my cousin who lives in South Dakota last night after the power came back on. She said that I was very lucky to get her because they only have power a few days a month.”
“Really, is this a new thing?”
“I asked the same thing, and she said that it’s been getting steadily worse for the last three months. Do you know anyone who doesn’t live in the City or surrounding area?”
“I have some friends from college that are scattered around the country. Why?”
“I was thinking that we could maybe figure out how much of the country is affected by getting in touch with friends and seeing if they’ve been affected then we could get a better handle on what’s going on.”
“Are you looking for big cities or rural areas?”
“Both. When you talk to them, ask about gas prices too. I hope I’m just being paranoid that these things are connected. I just think it’s weird that no mention has been made of the blackouts on the news. Something is up.”
“I agree with you on that. The question is what?”
“I have no idea, but I don’t think that it is anything good. I think that this is probably enough discussion on this topic for tonight. It is going to take a while before we have anything besides suspicions to discuss anyway. I assume that since it is Friday you have plans for tonight?”
“I do indeed, a bunch of us from work are getting together. You’re welcome to join us.”
“Maybe another time.”

Chapter 2

Saturday morning, Sharyn made her weekly trip across town. Hannah, her best friend from childhood, lived in Queens and Sharyn did her best visit regularly to play with her godchildren, Shayla, Ceera, and Zander. This Saturday though, she wanted a few hours to discuss the previous week with Hannah before the kids invaded. She was relieved that her subway ride was fast and uneventful. Hannah wasn’t terribly interested in the blackouts, but Sharyn inviting Thomis up to her apartment did intrigue her. She knew how scared Sharyn was and why. What she didn’t know was why Sharyn though she could trust Thomis. That frantic, late night, cross country flight nearly a year before flickered through Hannah’s mind. Sharyn refused to discuss Thomis, preferring to stick to her main concern, the power outages. She’d cruised the internet the night before and got a few hits on widespread power outages from places worldwide. Most of the information was from the fringe, and lacked credibility, but concerned citizens maintained several sites dealing with their lack of reliable power. She’d chatted with a woman in Siberia who was powering her house system with a wood-fired generator all but two days a month. Several of the websites proposed theories as to the cause of the blackouts. Most of the theories were totally bizarre but she felt that a few deserved additional research. Hitting the bottom of the world’s oil wells was her personal favorite and she wondered how and if it was possible. As she told Hannah all of this, she watched the expression on her friend’s face. By the end of her story, Hannah was staring at her as though she had sprouted a second head and she knew that despite the fact that Hannah was her best friend, she was uncomfortable with the whole idea. So she changed the subject and made a mental note not to discuss it again. In the weeks to come, Hannah’s was to become her place to get away from the world’s problems.
Later that evening, Sharyn sat on a blanket in Hannah’s backyard watching the kids chase lightning bugs. They were vaguely disappointed that she wasn’t joining in like usual but they played on without her. She watched them, an almost pained smile on her face, as she thought about what it would be like to be watching her own kids have fun. It was a dream she entertained from time to time, a family of her own. Now that she felt the times becoming more uncertain, having a family seemed more important. Like many others at various times throughout history, she wondered if, even if she had the opportunity, it would be a good thing to bring a child into a world with an uncertain future. For her the question was purely theoretical but she imagined that there were many couples trying to come up with a real life answer to it. She envied them the opportunity.
Zander roused her from her thoughts as he plopped down into her lap, exhausted. She stood him back up so that she could get off the ground, picked him up and called for the girls to come pick up the stuff. Then she herded them in and told their mother they were ready for bed. Before Hannah hurried off to give them their baths, Sharyn made her goodbyes and left to catch the subway back to her apartment.
The message light on her terminal was blinking when she returned to her apartment and for a second her heart leapt into her throat, but it was just a message from Thomis asking if she’d like a ride to work Monday morning, because he was driving almost right past her apartment. More afraid of being stuck in the dark on a train full of strangers than letting this man get close to her, she called him back and accepted. He was so very easy for her to talk to that they spent nearly an hour on the phone discussing their respective Saturdays.
Thursday came and Thomis was on his way to Sharyn’s apartment. He pondered the information he’d dug up. His mother would be proud; his journalism degree was again paying off. A few well-worded searches had turned up more information than he could possibly deal with in a week. He’d stored most of it, he reached into his jacket pocket to feel the data cube, so that he and Sharyn could pour over it together. He used the car tag she’d loaned him to park beneath her building. Riding the elevator up to her apartment, he spun the cube between his fingers, he could hardly wait to see the look on her face when he showed her what he’d found. He knew something was wrong the moment he stepped out on her floor. Her door, two down from the elevator, was ajar. Sharyn didn’t strike him as the kind of person to forget to close her door. He pocketed the cube and went to knock on her door. As he approached the door, he heard a soft wailing coming from within the apartment. Afraid Sharyn had been hurt, he didn’t stop to knock instead he walked right in. He found her curled up in the corner of her kitchen, groceries piled on the counter, and a text message up on the screen of her system. He knelt in front of her and placed a hand on her arm. She shrank away from him.
“Sharyn, what’s going on?”
At the sound of his voice, she snapped back to reality and realized she was looking directly into Thomis’s eyes. Oh God, it was Thursday and they were supposed to get together to discuss the information they’d found.
“How’d you get in here?”
“You left the door open. What’s wrong? Did someone hurt you?”
The content of the message she found waiting on her system rushed back. The impossible had happened. She unconsciously voiced her thoughts aloud.
“He found me. It’s happened. He’s found me and now I need to leave before he finds this apartment.”
She got up from the kitchen floor and drifted across her apartment, a confused Thomis trailing in her wake.
“Who’s found you? Why do you need to leave? Sharyn, who’s got you so scared?”
She didn’t answer his questions; she just floated into the bedroom, opened her suitcase, swept her clothes out of the closet and tossed them in. He watched her for a while as she carefully removed the hangers and gently folded each item. After fifteen minutes of watching her pack as though she was saying farewell to life, he could take it no longer. He slammed the top of the suitcase down onto the pile of clothes and placed himself square in front of her.
“Damn it, Sharyn, talk to me. I want to help you.”
She didn’t just shrink away that time she cowered. Her reaction shocked him; she was normally so confident and comfortable with him, now she was afraid of him. It was as though she didn’t know him. He knew that she’d recognized him when he’d found her but that spark of recognition had quickly died. He knelt before her again to catch her eye and spoke in soft, soothing tones. He had to bring her back to reality.
“Sharyn, please look at me. I won’t hurt you. Tell me what’s wrong. I want to help you.”
He must have repeated himself more than a dozen times before she met his eye. Still, she didn’t talk. He was afraid to question her again; afraid she would retreat again, so he sat on the floor in front of her and wrapped his hands around her trembling ones. It seemed to be an eternity before she spoke.
“Thomis, I have to leave. He will find me here. I know you want to help, but if he finds us together…”
“Just tell me who he is.”
“He is the reason I came to New York City.”
“But who is he?”
“Ron.”
The strangled way she said that name kept him from pressing the issue. He looked into her eyes and felt as though he was drowning in a deep green ocean of pain and fear. He paused while he tried to figure out what to do next. She figured that he was looking for a gracious way to make his exit so she braced herself for the next words out of his mouth, but he still caught her by surprise.
“Why don’t you stay in my guest room for a few days until we can find you a new place? I have a few friends who might be able to help.”
She stared at him; surely he was joking or else trying to take advantage of a bad situation. He seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.
“I made several very useful friends back when I was a reporter and besides my system is routed a dozen different ways so it’s untraceable. You’re not the only person who doesn’t want to be found by someone. If you want to stay at my place, I promise to give you plenty of space and you can even lock your door if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the words so she just grabbed her suitcase and together they walked towards the door. It took all of her self-control not to bolt as they made it to the parking garage. Thomis helped her stuff her suitcase into the trunk of his sleek subcompact and then they headed cross-town to his apartment. She was soon lost in her own thoughts again and Thomis didn’t press the issue of conversation. When they reached the apartment, he showed her to the guest room and on his way out, he said,
“I almost forgot. I have a data cube full of the information you wanted on blackouts and stuff. If you’re feeling up to it maybe, we could look it over when you’ve unpacked. I’ll be in the living room if you want to see it.”
She almost dismissed the idea out of hand, but then she thought that it might be a good idea to have something else to think about besides that disturbing message. She unpacked a few changes of clothes and some pajamas and then she tentatively made her way to the living room.
Thomis was at one end of a large, over-stuffed, black pleather sofa and he motioned for her to take a seat on it as well. She sat way to the other end. She was a bit confused when he picked up a small keyboard and turned on the TV. Seeing her confusion, he said,
“My house system is routed through the TV so that I can view a large number of files simultaneously. It makes research and analysis easier.”
She just looked at him. In an attempt to cover the uncomfortable silence, he opened the first file. It contained a list of dates and places.
“This is the most complete list of blackouts I could compile. It took a lot of digging and I’m not sure how accurate they are.”
“Do you have a map of the world?”
“Yes, why?”
“Can we plot the frequency of the blackouts for at least the US? I want to see if there is some kind of pattern.”
“Sure, let me just set it up then we can look at some of the other data while the computer is plotting. There, now here we have a list of rising prices world wide.”
“Wow. I’m sure some of this is normal but look at how much the price of gas has risen in the last two months. Hey, synthetic textiles are on the rise too.”
“I noticed that. So are pharmaceuticals, paints, cars, and pretty much everything else that is manufactured. I’m sure that some of it can be explained by the rising price of gasoline raising the cost of shipping.”
“I wonder how many of those fields use petroleum products in the manufacturing process, because I’m beginning to think that that might be the common thread in all of this data. I find it hard to imagine running out of fossil fuels though.”
“I think it could probably happen but I can’t get access to any of the networks run by OPEC. It’s going to take a lot more time to get the information we need to draw any sort of conclusions.”
“What we need are more people to get involved in trying to figure out what’s going on. A lot of the people I’ve talked to seem to be in denial and the ones that are willing to accept that there is a problem are not always the ones that anyone would take seriously.”
“I think that the best we can do is keep digging and hope that some more concrete information comes up. I believe I owe you a meal from last week how about some dinner?”
“I guess I’m kind of hungry. What did you have in mind?”
“I thought I’d order in a pizza. What kind of toppings do you like?”
“I love pizza with pineapple and mushrooms, but most people think that it’s too weird a combination to eat.”
“How weird is that mushrooms and pineapple are my favorite toppings too.”
A few keystrokes on his computer and the deliveryman was calling to be buzzed up in less than ten minutes. Thomis grabbed plates, glasses and napkins on his way back to the couch. After their first slices, Sharyn slid a little closer to him to better reach the pizza. She laughed when he bit into his third slice and all of the cheese came off with the first bite. When she finished her last piece of pizza, he noticed a bit of sauce on her cheek, and it was as though his hand was drawn to it. He reached up and gently wiped the sauce off with his thumb and his hand just stayed there on her cheek. Her eyes were drawn to his and for just a second they peered into the depths of the other’s soul. Then she looked away, grabbed the plates and glasses and hustled them into the sink before bolting for her room and closing the door. Thomis just sat on the couch unsure of exactly what had happened. Some part of him desperately wanted to follow her, to make it right, and to kiss her. The larger part of him knew that she was scared and he needed to give her time. This Ron she was afraid of had hurt her very badly and no matter what he wanted or felt he needed to tread carefully and cautiously or she would run and he would never see her again.
Sharyn sat on the bed dazed by what had transpired. A part of her felt betrayed and wanted to run, not three hours before he had promised her that nothing would happen while she lived with him and he’d already broken that promise. Some deeper part of her had thrilled at his touch and hoped for more. She hoped that her bolting off the couch had not upset him. She’d been so afraid that his hand would have slid into her hair or down her neck. She reached up to feel the still slightly tender scars hidden within her hair and then traveled down to the ones running down her neck and disappearing into the neckline of her shirt. She wasn’t quite ready to explain them yet. A tiny part of her thought that Thomis deserved the whole story about Ron but she wasn’t sure she was ready to tell it. She did need to talk to him though, so she headed back to the living room but Thomis wasn’t there. His coat was still on the hook and the door to what must be his room was closed so she tentatively knocked. The door slowly opened.
“Thomis, can we talk? I feel I owe you an explanation for my behavior.”
“I’m ready to hear anything you’re ready to tell me. Let’s go sit back on the couch.”
They sat facing each other but she made sure she was just out of reach. She took a slow, shaky deep breath and began,
“I’m not sure how much of this story I can tell you, but after everything that’s happened you deserve to know something about why I behaved the way I did just now and before at my apartment. Let me start by telling you that Ron is my ex-husband. We grew up on the same street and I think I probably had a crush on him from the time I was six or seven. When he asked me to the junior prom, I almost dropped right through the floor I was so excited. We started dating right after that and continued going together all through our senior year. He had football scholarship to University of Nebraska so that was where I decided to go to nursing school. It was like living in fairy tale. At the end of our sophomore year, he proposed and I accepted but I told him I wanted to wait until we graduated to get married and he was okay with that. Then over the summer, he got in a bar fight and got arrested. The school revoked his scholarship and he couldn’t go back to school. He wanted me to drop out too and marry him right then. The night I told him I was going back, he got so angry I was terrified of him and I almost broke off the engagement, but right before I left for school he came over and begged me not to, he swore that he would never hurt me. So, when I graduated I moved home and married him. Looking back the verbal abuse started even before we were married but I thought we were just having normal everyday fights all the way up through our first anniversary.”
She paused then to collect herself and Thomis half wanted to tell her to stop. He was pretty sure he knew what was coming next but some look in her eyes told him that she need to tell him what had happened. He waited for her to begin again and in a few seconds, the rest of the story came pouring out.
“On our first anniversary, I was held up at the clinic and it was really late when I made it home. Ron met me at the door and I expected him to sweep me up in his arms so we could celebrate. Instead, he launched into a tirade about my being late and us missing our reservations. He pulled me harshly into the living room and shoved me against the wall. Then he proceeded to smack me around. He was very careful to hit me only in places that didn’t show when I had scrubs on. For the next four years, we followed a classic pattern of abuse, but I knew that I couldn’t leave or press charges because his brothers were all deputy sheriffs. A year ago Hannah told me I could probably disappear if I moved here so I told Ron I was leaving and he tried to ensure that I wouldn’t have to.”
By this point, tears were streaming down her face and she had her arms crossed in front of her. She was rubbing her arms as if she was freezing and she looked like she wanted to run. Thomis slid close to her. He took a chance and folded her into his embrace. She dropped the walls around her emotions, crumpled against his chest and sobbed. They didn’t talk anymore about Ron that night. When she finished crying, he kissed her gently on the forehead and they parted to sleep in their separate bedrooms.
The next morning Thomis let the office know he would work from home and Sharyn called in sick. She asked if it would be all right if she cooked dinner that night and he agreed to it so she left the apartment to get some ingredients. The local market was crowded but that wasn’t what surprised Sharyn. The talk of the market was the dairy case. Everyone was grumbling about some notice so she made the extra effort to pass by it even though she had no need for milk. A large sign was posted over the case and a stack of fliers had been placed in a holder on the edge of the case. As she drew closer to the case, she could more clearly see the sign and she was shocked by what it said.
“Attention shoppers, beginning July 1, milk will no longer be sold by the carton or jug. Milk will be dispensed only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from eight to ten in the morning. Shoppers must provide their own containers and the cost of the milk will be determined by weight. Prices will be determined on the dates of delivery. Thank you for your time.”
She’d never heard of such a thing. She took a flier to show Thomis and wondered if it was connected to the power outages. A sick feeling welled up within her that this was only the beginning of their food problems. She rushed home to talk to Thomis.
Thomis was surprised when Sharyn burst into the apartment. What could possibly have been that exciting about a trip to the market? She was waving some kind of flier around and it took him a few minutes to get the story. As he scanned the flier, he too got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. It felt as though the world was spinning out of control and everything was coming crashing down. Slowly the daily conveniences of modern life were disappearing and yet no explanation was being given. He wondered what was going to happen next and the possibilities frightened him.
“Thomis, are you okay? You just got this weird look in your eyes”
Sharyn sat next to him on the couch looking at him with a very concerned expression.
“Yeah, I guess. I was just thinking about what could go wrong next and it’s kind of scary.”
“A little I guess. The question I have is who’s going to be in line Monday morning to get milk? Let’s worry about that right now and leave the future alone for a while.”
“I have to go into the office Monday, I have a meeting and I don’t think you can call in sick that day too. So where does that leave us?”
“I was thinking of quitting my job any way.”
“What! Why?”
“My nursing license came through yesterday along with an offer of a job at a clinic. I wasn’t sure about the job but it is close by so I could walk and it has a more flexible schedule and better pay. That would solve the milk problem and make it easier to do research on the problems.”
“That’s great. Which clinic is it?”
She named one close by known for its use of herbal and alternative medicine.
“Sounds interesting.”
“It reminded me of the kind of medicine I was accustomed to as a child.”
“Really, I’m surprised that alternative medicine would have caught on way out in Idaho.”
“Don’t make it sound like some provincial backwater. My mother’s family was practicing what you city people refer to as alternative medicine centuries before you ever came to this city.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I spoke. Please accept my apologies.”
“I guess I’m a little touchy about my heritage especially since I didn’t really fit into either culture growing up. My grandmother got into a lot of trouble for teaching me herbal lore and letting me come with her when she went to visit her patients, but she felt I had a right to learn about my history.”
“It must have been tough. I can’t even begin to sympathize because I have no idea what it’s like. Now please tell me I’m forgiven.”
“Of course, Thomis. It feels so stiff, me calling you Thomis, you calling me Sharyn all the time. You can call me anything but Sal, which was my nickname growing up.”
“I think…Ryn. It seems so much more you that Sharyn. As far as nicknames go, I was never Tommy or Tom. The guys in college called me Fish or TK but neither of them would sound right coming from you.”
“What does the K stand for?”
“Kaleb.”
“How about…Kal? That would give us both fresh new names with no past.”
“Okay, Ryn. I need to get back to work now. You can use the terminal in your room if you want it has a separate ID. Maybe you could hunt down some info on this whole milk thing.”
“Sure. It’s nice hearing you call me Ryn, Kal.”
She ran her hand lightly across his shoulder on her way out of the room. He barely noticed because it seemed so natural.

Chapter 3

Several weeks later, the first problems with the new milk distribution system became apparent. Sharyn went one Wednesday to pick up the two quarts of milk they would need for the week. She arrived an hour before distribution was set to begin and was surprised to find people camped out in the parking lot. She went up to the women at the end of the line to ask how long she’d been there. The woman had arrived the night before because she’d been at the end of the line on Monday and there had been no milk left. It was then that Sharyn noticed the infant sleeping in the chest carrier the woman wore. She wondered how many other infants had spent the night in parking lots around the city so that their mothers could get milk. What ever was going on with the food supplies it was beginning to seriously impact daily life. She had noticed that the tankers got smaller every week and the price of the milk got more expensive. That day she paid nearly two dollars a pound or about eight dollars for the two quarts she got. It didn’t make sense that milk was becoming rarer. She hadn’t heard about any mass die offs of dairy herds or any cattle sickness so where was all of the milk going. Shipping costs had to be getting pretty high. The price of gas had risen another dollar fifty a gallon in the last two months and was closing in on the ten dollar a gallon mark. She knew that the increasing number of blackouts had to be affecting the ability of dairies to refrigerate the milk. Maybe it was a combination of all of these factors. She had a feeling that the food situation was going to get much worse soon.
That day when Sharyn got to work, her boss issued her a small two-way radio. He explained that with the increasing number of power outages they were having difficulty keeping in contact with the staff and calling extra personnel into the clinic when necessary. This radio had solar rechargeable batteries so it would work for weeks without being plugged into a wall outlet provided it got two hours of daylight exposure every day. It seemed like a good idea to her but she thought that the radio waves in the city were going to get crowded soon. She had a feeling that she was going to be grateful for the radio. She wondered if her boss shared her suspicions about what was going on but she couldn’t find a good way to broach the subject without sounding like a nutcase.
With the rising price of gas, Thomis had switched to taking the subway to work. He knew it was risky with the unreliable state of power in the city but fifty dollars a tank was more than his budget could stand. His utilities were going through the roof and he was glad that Sharyn had decided to stay with him because he needed her income as well as her company. His luck with the subway ran out about five minutes after he got on the train to head home that night. The train slowed, the lights flickered, and then went out as the train lurched to a stop. He reached in his briefcase for his flashlight and as he turned it on, he noticed that about half of his car had done the same and the car was almost as bright as with the power going. It was his first time, but it was obvious that many of his fellow passengers had been through this before. Two large men pried open the doors and began to encourage people to get out into the tunnel. Thomis wasn’t sure if it was safe but the last outage on his side of town had lasted almost a day and he had no desire to be stuck underground that long. It was so orderly, people with flashlights spaced themselves so that no one was walking in the dark. As the line filed away, Thomis glanced back at the train and thought he saw some movement in the front car. He shone his light into the window and saw a young woman cradling an infant in her arms and crying. As the rest of the people headed away from the train, Thomis slid back in the doors.
The young woman’s name was Aleeya and she and her son, Jazen, were trying to get across town to her mother’s. They’d had to move out of their apartment because of the rising cost of utilities. She couldn’t possibly walk that far carrying Jazen. Without thinking, Thomis offered her temporary shelter at his apartment, which was much closer than her mother’s was. He helped her get her chest carrier back on and to get Jazen settled in. They made their way out of the tunnel and stepped into the sunlight about twenty minutes behind the rest of the crowd. The first thing Thomis did was whip out his mobile and get a hold of Sharyn who was just finishing up at the clinic.
“Ryn, the power’s out here so I’m going to be walking home.”
“Okay, Kal, who’s that standing with you?”
“This is Aleeya and her son, Jazen. They were trying to get across town on the train. I offered them some space with us until they can get to her mother’s because she didn’t think she could walk all the way across town.”
“Okay”
*I’m worried she won’t make it to our place. Fifteen blocks is a long walk. She looks pretty tired already*, Sharyn texted to him.
*I was hoping to catch a train further down. Is the power out where you are?*
*No but the last patient I saw said the trains aren’t running. Something about the power being off at the main switching station.*
*We’ll take it slow and hopefully be just fine*
“See you in a bit. I’ll have dinner waiting.”
“Thanks, Ryn. See you.”
He could see by the look on Aleeya’s face she wanted to ask about Sharyn but he just picked up the diaper bag she was carrying and they started towards his apartment.
An hour later, they were about three-quarters of the way there and Aleeya was starting to fall behind. Thomis had stopped several times so that she could sit and rest. He’d taken Jazen and the chest carrier from her at the last stop in hopes that without any extra weight she would be able to walk faster. This time when they stopped, he bought her a soda and a hotdog. When they started again, he kept her in front of him to better keep an eye on her. This made their progress much slower. Sharyn met them a block from the building.
“Ryn, what are you doing here?”
“I got worried. You look beat, Kal, let me take something.”
“Here, take Jazen.”
He helped her get the carrier on. When he was brushing her hair aside to fasten the straps he saw her scars for the first time, but he was too tired to say anything right then. They put Aleeya between them and soon they were back in the building.
When they got into the apartment, she all but collapsed. Thomis steered her towards the sofa and laid her down. He flopped down into the nearest chair. Sharyn returned Jazen to his mother and got drinks for everyone. Aleeya downed several glasses of iced tea before she began to perk up a little. Sharyn served dinner in the living room because they both looked too tired to move. After dinner, she offered Aleeya the use of the guest room until she could get to her mother’s place. Aleeya was worried about being an imposition. Jazen didn’t always sleep through the night and she was still on maternity leave so she couldn’t pay them anything. They assured her that it wouldn’t be a problem. Both of them had concerns about how their sleeping arrangements were going to work but they wouldn’t bring them up in front of a near stranger. Sharyn showed Aleeya where the guest room was and despite the fact that it was still early, she and Jazen went to bed. Sharyn began to make up the sofa as a bed.
         “Who’s sleeping there, Ryn?”
         “Me,” she said as she continued to tuck the sheets in around the cushions.
         “You take my bed. I’ll sleep out here.”
         “No. You’ll be sore enough in the morning without sleeping on the couch tonight. I’ll sleep here tonight. If the trains still aren’t running tomorrow then you can sleep on the couch.”
         “Where did you put your stuff?”
         “In your room.”
         “Then why not sleep there? There is room enough for both of us.”
         “Because …”the look on her face spoke volumes. Even after sharing his apartment for a month, she was still a little afraid of him. Her look drove straight through his soul and even though he was exhausted, he crossed the room to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, and his fingers found the scars he had seen earlier. He brushed her blue-black hair away and saw how fresh they were, the rough reddish lines standing out sharply against her golden brown skin. She tried to shy away from his touch but he kept her there needing to say what was on his mind.
         “Ryn, look at me. I know he did this to you and a part of me wishes I could get my hands on him for the pain he caused you. You need to know that I would never, could never, do something like that to you or anyone. No matter how mad I am, I will never touch you in anger. Please say you believe me.”
She just nodded her head and a wisp of her hair fell across her face. He reached up and brushed it a way, her hand kept his resting on her cheek and then with neither of them sure who initiated the kiss, their lips met.
When they drew apart, she looked him in the eye,
         “This changes nothing. I’m still sleeping on the couch.”
         “I bet I could change your mind.”
         “You probably could, but we both have work in the morning and you can barely keep your eyes open.”
         “Tuck me in at least.”
         “Um…let me think about this. No.”
Chuckling softly to himself, he headed to his room and was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.