Absolute Darkness - A CME Survival Thriller Read online

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Sam sat back down. “I can tell you’re blaming yourself. You need to stop.”

  “I shouldn’t have talked about it,” I said. “This was a mistake.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I wish you would have told me sooner,” Sam said, scootching closer. “You know, my cousin knows someone that knows someone that could have taken care of him.”

  “Yeah, because that would have made me feel better,” I said, sarcasm dripping from each word.

  Sam shrugged. “Would have made me feel better.”

  “Can we not talk about it?” I asked. “The whole thing still gives me nightmares.”

  “Of course,” Sam said, standing again. “You did the right thing leaving him. It’s just too bad you hadn’t done it sooner.”

  I clasped my hands together tightly and stared at her. Sam zipped her lips shut, locked them, and threw the pretend key across the room.

  “Let’s find something to eat,” Sam said.

  “Well, that zipper and key didn’t work very well, did it?” I teased.

  After we ate cold soup, rain started to fall. The light coming through the windows slowly started to dissipate.

  Sam looked around, noticing the change in lighting. “Think your mom has candles somewhere?”

  10

  Inside the lower kitchen cabinets, we’d found a box of candles. There had been a quarter-inch of dust covering them, but there were so many we wouldn’t need candles any time soon.

  My mom had apparently collected them, but there were a lot of things she’d collected. Luckily the candles that were all different shapes, sizes, and scents would come in handy.

  “Pine or rose?” Sam asked.

  “Rose,” I said as rain tapped the windows. “Just hurry and light them before it gets too dark that you can’t see what you’re doing.”

  “Happy to oblige,” Sam said, tilting her head. “I just need one thing.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

  “A lighter? Matches?”

  My mom had kept a stack of matches in an unused ashtray for as long as I could remember. She could have gotten rid of it in recent years, but something told me it would be in the same exact spot.

  I dug through a tall stack of old, yellowed newspaper, and at the bottom was the ashtray. I grabbed a pack of matches and tossed it to her.

  Sam lit two pink candles from the box. She placed one on the edge of the kitchen table, as far away from the stacked items as she could and the other on the coffee table in the living room.

  I started to clean items off the kitchen table while Sam poked around at her broken laptop. It wasn’t long before I gave up. It felt like I was just moving items from one location to another when there was nowhere to properly dispose of items.

  If the solar storm hadn’t happened, a dumpster would have been delivered. Without it, cleaning the house would be difficult.

  “How am I going to get back to her, Mel?” Sam asked, staring at her laptop’s dead screen.

  Lightning cracked, and the entire house shook. Sam’s eyes darted up to the ceiling, watching as if she were afraid it was going to collapse.

  “I wish I knew,” I said, sitting down next to her.

  “She’s probably so scared,” Sam said, resting her head on my shoulder.

  “I’m sure Jameson is taking good care of her. He’s a good dad.”

  Lightning flickered, and thunder rumbled the earth. Sam sniffed hard.

  “He is, but I still need to get back to her. She needs me just as much as I need her,” Sam said.

  “I know. We’ll figure something out.” My eyes shifted toward the window. “Maybe that woman in town was right. Maybe help will come.”

  Sam turned and slowly shook her head. “I don’t think anyone is coming, and even if they do, getting me back to Massachusetts isn’t going to be their priority. They are going to need to help all these people with food and water and shelter, and God knows what else.”

  “Medical care.”

  Sam buried her face in her hands. “We’re going to have to figure something out. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d walk if I had to. Nothing will stop me.”

  “I know,” I said, biting down on my cheek, stopping when the metallic taste of blood touched my tongue. “And I’ll be right at your side.”

  We sat there listening to the storm for a long time. I couldn’t even guess what time of day it was, thanks to the encapsulating darkness.

  Sam was probably trying to come up with ways to get home. Or thinking about her daughter. Sam had planned to video chat with her daughter at least once a day, but now she wouldn’t be able to. She was mostly holding it together, but when we reached the point when we should be heading back home, I worried it was going to get even harder for her.

  “What does your mom have in the way of medications?” Sam asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’m tired.”

  “I’ll check, but I’m sure everything she has is expired,” I said, taking the candle from the table as I walked into the kitchen.

  The cabinet nearest the sink was where she’d kept all the prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs she’d gotten over the years. She’d also kept all the papers and receipts that came with them. Perhaps if Sam was curious, I’d be able to look up the side effects for anything I found.

  I took out the bottles one by one, holding the label up to the flickering flame. It wasn’t long before I found a strong pain reliever.

  “How about this one,” I said, tossing her the bottle with five remaining pills. “It’s from six years ago. I think it was probably from when I sprained my ankle.”

  “This is perfect,” Sam said, tapping the top of the bottle. “Could you get me some water?”

  “Sure,” I said, offering her a comforting smile.

  I grabbed a glass and blew into it, even though it had been placed upside down on the shelf. I turned on the water, watching as the stream of water came out at half of what it should.

  “Oh, crap,” I whispered.

  “Did you say something?” Sam asked from the other room.

  “No,” I lied.

  She didn’t need to worry about the water right now. I wasn’t even entirely sure what was happening.

  It would be okay, though. We’d be able to boil water from the bay, and my mom likely had tons of containers we could store it in. It just wasn’t something I wanted Sam to concern herself with during the thunderstorm.

  I filled the glass halfway and brought it to her. She popped two pills into her mouth and swallowed them down with one big gulp.

  “Are you going to want to sleep out here or the bedroom?” I asked.

  “I really think I need a bed,” Sam said, stretching her arms over her head. “My mind and body need proper sleep so I can think clearly.”

  “Need help getting set up?” I asked.

  Sam shook her head and gave me a quick hug before taking the candle. She looked around the room and met my eyes.

  “You’ll be okay?” she asked.

  “Of course. I grew up here. In a way, it feels like home.”

  It was true, except even when I lived here, the place felt more like a home to the junk than to me. Still, it was the place I felt the safest when I was young.

  “Good night,” Sam called over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway.

  She didn’t even make it to the bedroom before she let out an ear-piercing scream.

  11

  Sam was hopping from foot to foot back down the hallway. Her eyes were glowing orbs reflecting the candlelight.

  “What happened?” I asked as she bolted past me and stood on the kitchen chair.

  “There was something on the ground,” she said. “It was moving!”

  “Oh,” I said, biting my lip. I never liked them, but I knew what happened. “They sometimes find a way in when it’s raining or in winter.”

  Sam’s eyes burned with anger
. “They?”

  “It was probably just a mouse.”

  “Oh. Just a mouse.” Sam balled her hands into tight fists. “Mice is something you should have warned me about.”

  I laughed. “Are you kidding me? You were the one that wanted to come. I warned you about a lot of things.”

  “But not rodents. You didn’t once warn me about rodents.”

  “I forgot. It’s not like it’s a common occurrence,” I said. “We can find the traps in the morning.”

  Sam’s nose crinkled. “I might sleep in the SUV after all. Where are the keys?”

  “They don’t jump up onto beds,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Fine,” Sam said, covering her yawn. “If I wasn’t so tired and didn’t want to get soaked, I’d go out there, though.” She fluttered her eyelids. “Come with me to the bedroom?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Sam wouldn’t let me leave the room until she was on the bed. I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do if we saw the little mouse again, assuming that’s what it even was.

  There was little doubt that Sam’s scream had sufficiently scared the poor thing off. It was probably hiding in a corner, waiting until she was gone.

  I never liked seeing them in the house either, but I was used to it. There were things that were far more scary to me than mice, such as bad people. Getting locked up. Fearing for your life.

  I laid down on the couch, pulling one of the old afghans over me. My head rested on a flattened square pillow with a faded floral pattern.

  I watched the flashes of light until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  When morning came, I sat for a long time staring at the floor. Every five minutes or so, Sam would snore and rustle for a bit.

  I wasn’t mad that she wasn’t getting up… I was mad that I wasn’t sleeping too. The pale light coming through the window made the room too bright, even though I could tell it was a cloudy day.

  The storms had ended at some point, but it had left a dreary day behind it. I got up and started working on clearing the table.

  The garage was stacked with junk, but I’d take what I could out back and burn it. It wasn’t like I would get in trouble.

  As I worked, our situation started to sink in. What if we were trapped on the peninsula for the unforeseeable future? What if help didn’t come?

  My mom had cans and boxes of food, but I couldn’t even guess how long it would last. We had shelter, but there were bugs and mice. And, of course, there was the whole problem that Sam needed to get to her daughter.

  Things in the middle of nowhere were probably better than they were in the city. Were people looting? Rioting? Fighting each other for supplies?

  I laughed at the thought. That kind of thing was for movies and television shows.

  Then again, what would Sam and I do to get more food? There were edible things in the surrounding forests, but it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe Erik would have to teach us how to fish.

  I’d managed to clean the entire kitchen table off by the time Sam got out of bed. Her flaming red hair was a messy pile on the top of her head.

  “Wow,” she said, combing her fingers through the snarled mess. “Where did you put everything?”

  “Out back,” I said, as the wind blew through the screen, pushing the curtain against one of the chairs.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  I lifted my brows. “I’m going to set it all on fire.”

  “You still have that fire extinguisher, right?” Sam asked, seriousness dripping from her words.

  I rolled my eyes but held it up. “Maybe we should have a fire tonight and crack into one of the bottles of wine you brought.”

  “Sounds good,” Sam said.

  “I should tell you something, though.”

  “Oh, oh,” Sam said as her eyebrows lifted.

  I placed my hands on my hips and exhaled. “We’re going to need to find containers and boil water from the bay.”

  “There are probably parasites in that water!”

  “That’s why you boil it,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip.

  “What is wrong with the faucet?” Sam asked.

  I shook my head. “Guess electricity is needed for that too? I noticed last night there was like no water pressure.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You were tired.”

  “You’re going to need to tell me stuff, Mel,” Sam said, glaring at me. “We’re in this together, right?”

  My head bobbed.

  “Then don’t keep me in the dark. There is already enough darkness now, don’t you think?” Sam snapped.

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” I said, looking away as I twisted my fingers together.

  Sam exhaled. “All right then.”

  We searched the house and garage for anything we could use to store water. There were several options, including two large five-gallon jugs that still had water inside.

  I started to dig a pit in the backyard far from the house. Sam helped by lining it with rocks.

  We filled it with wood and newspapers from the house. The fire started easily.

  Sam placed down a metal grate we’d found in the garage. She placed her hands on her hips.

  “Benefits to getting stranded here, I guess.”

  “Lots of random items,” I said, clapping my hands and rubbing them together. “We need to clean these jugs out with boiled water before storing anything in them.”

  “Agreed.”

  I looked back toward the house. “We’ll use a pot, boil the water, clean out the jugs, dump it, and start again.”

  “That sounds like a lot of work.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” I asked with a raised brow.

  “Wish I did, but I don’t,” Sam said, slapping her thighs. “Let’s get started.”

  Keeping busy helped us to pass the time without stressing out about our situation. It was too bad that Dott wasn’t with us because that would have solved a lot of our problems.

  Walking back and forth from the bay was exhausting. We only cleaned about half of the containers we’d found before we needed to stop for the day. The surrounding trees blocked a lot of the sunlight, making night fall quicker.

  I cooked two cans of cream of mushroom soup in our water pot while Sam sat on an old plastic outdoor chair. She stared at the dancing flame with her arms crossed over her chest. I ladled the thick soup into paper bowls and handed her one.

  “Thanks,” Sam said, swirling the white plastic spoon around in the bowl. “Mel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is serious, isn’t it?”

  I looked down at my soup. “I think so.”

  “I’m not ever going to see Dott again, am I?”

  “Oh, Sam!” I said, setting down my soup. I knelt down next to her, placing my hand on her knee as her tears fell into her soup. “Of course, you will see her again.”

  Sam looked to the sky, bouncing her leg. “Be real with me. It’s just not realistic to get to her. There are no planes or cars, and walking there would take the rest of my life.”

  “I don’t care if it’s realistic or not,” I said. “We’ll find a way. There has to be a way.”

  “I wonder what Jameson will tell her about me,” Sam said.

  My hand slid back and forth over her knee as I searched for the right words. Something that would help her feel better.

  The words wouldn’t come to me. Not because I wasn’t thinking hard enough, but because there weren’t any. There wasn’t anything I could say that would help Sam miss her daughter any less.

  “We’re going to run out of food,” Sam said, her eyes blazing with fear.

  I opened my mouth but snapped it shut when her eyes widened, and her jaw clenched.

  “We can’t live on fish alone. We need fruits and vegetables. Vitamins,” Sam said, throwing her arm out at her side. “There aren’t any fruits or vegetables here.”

  I didn’t want to say it, at least not at the mo
ment, but there was a good chance there were packets of seeds in the garage. Hell, probably inside the house too.

  That wasn’t Sam’s point. If we were going to try to get to Dott, it didn’t matter how many fruits or vegetables were growing.

  “I won’t blame you if you don’t want to go back with me,” Sam said, swirling her spoon in her soup again. “It won’t be easy, and there isn’t any reason for you to go back.”

  “Olivia is a reason. And I love Dott too,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Let’s also not forget you’re my best friend. You helped save me from Elijah, and I want to help you too. That’s what friends do.”

  Sam pressed her lips together as her shoulders dropped. “Friends want to keep each other safe. That’s why you’ll need to stay here. You saw what it was like in that little town. Can you even imagine the chaos that must be happening back home?”

  “I try not to,” I said.

  “It’s just really starting to sink in, and I’m not sure I can handle it,” Sam said.

  “We have no idea how big this whole thing is,” I said. “For now, we just need to take it one day at a time.”

  Sam snorted. “Right. Anyway, I should try to get some sleep. Even with those pills, getting restful sleep was challenging.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t do great either,” I said. “Go on in. I’ll clean up.”

  Sam took her bowl and dragged her feet as she headed back to the house. I couldn’t see her, but I could see the flickering of the candle she lit. It disappeared from the kitchen and reappeared at the far end of the house in my old bedroom.

  I tossed dirt on the fire and finished my soup while I waited to make sure it was out. It was cold and nearly pitch black by the time I made my way back into the house.

  I managed to light a candle with the limited amount of light coming in through the patio door.

  After sitting on the sofa for a few minutes, I worried if it had been a mistake to leave our water containers outside. It wasn’t like where my mom’s house was located got a lot of foot traffic, but things had changed.

  I got up off the couch and walked toward the back door. It wouldn’t take long to carry everything into the dining room, and there was enough light from the moon that I could see the way without too much trouble.