“I found the door knob!” shouted Tom.
But she couldn’t even see him emerge from the bathroom. She did, however, hear the old wooden door squeaking on its hinges.
Jessica reached into her right pocket and wrapped her hand around the holster, without taking the Glock or the holster out. The feel of it sent a wave of reassurance through her.
“Can’t you guys help me up?” shouted Bruce.
“My phone doesn’t work!” shouted Tom.
“I knew I shouldn’t have tinted those front windows,” shouted Bruce.
“Hold on, Bruce, I’m coming for you,” shouted Tom.
Jessica decided to leave the two of them to sort it out. She started making her way slowly towards the back of the store.
She bumped into a couple bikes, but she could picture the layout of the back of the store well enough in her head to finally reach the back door.
It was heavy and made of steel. She pushed against the door.
Outside, it was silent. The normal sounds of an occasional passing car were strangely absent.
What the hell was going on?
She had a bad feeling about all this.
Why weren’t the cell phones working? This went beyond just a power outage.
In the back of her mind, something started to float to the surface. She’d been scrolling through the news on the internet before coming into work. There’d been a headline that her sleepy eyes had passed right over. Something to do with the sun. A solar flare? Knocking out electronics?
Could that be what was going on?
Jessica felt the panic starting to rise within her. She felt her mind going back to that night in the alley.
She wasn’t quite sure why, but she didn’t want to head back inside. Instead, she grabbed her bike from the bike rack out back.
She hadn’t brought anything to work with her, so there was nothing to get from inside the shop. She normally bought her lunch from a small deli across the street, and today she’d been planning to do the same.
Not wanting to deal with the obnoxious Tom, or her boss, who would probably want her to continue working on the mountain bike, she grabbed the handlebars of her bike and got onto the saddle.
She patted the Glock in her pocket once again.
She had her foot on the pedal when the door swung open.
It was Bruce, with his slicked back hair and his overly short shorts.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“Home.”
“What about the bike? He’s coming today. What’s the matter with you?”
She didn’t answer.
“If you take off now, that’s it, you’re done. You’ve been a good worker, but you’re too independent. I’ve kept my mouth shut for the most part about it. But this is really the last straw. You can’t just leave because the power goes out. Especially without telling me. Couldn’t you come up with an excuse or something?”
Jessica said nothing.
Something wasn’t right and she wanted to get out of there.
But she was torn. She needed the job. She needed the money.
“Get back in the shop now, Jess,” said Bruce.
His eyes were narrowed in anger.
Jessica said nothing. She didn’t even bother correcting him on her name.
She just pressed down on the pedal, got her balance, and rode down the alley. She didn’t look back.
The street was a strange sight. The streetlights were all out, and there were no lights on in any of the buildings.
She was in downtown Rochester, and while the city’s economic situation didn’t exactly make it a bustling center of commerce, there was still usually at least some traffic.
But no cars moved.
There were some here and there, stopped dead in their tracks on the road. People were standing next to their cars with their doors open, looking around as if in a daze.
Jessica turned her head around as she rode, thinking that the drivers were all looking at something.
But she could see nothing. Nothing unusual except the effects of the power outage and the stopped cars.
Jessica slowed down, applying the brakes, and rode up to a woman about her own age. The woman was standing next to a late model BMW. She was probably a rich kid in college.
“What’s going on?” said Jessica.
The woman snapped her head around to look at her. Her face was heavily made up and she a white t-shirt that had three Greek letters on it. Probably a member of a sorority.
“No one knows.”
“Why are you all stopped in the middle of the road?”
“I don’t know about everyone else, but my car won’t work.”
“It won’t work?”
“Yeah, didn’t you hear me? I was driving and suddenly the engine turned off. I thought I was going to crash into the car in front of me, since my car just kept moving.”
“It kept moving?”
“Yeah, didn’t you hear me?” The woman spoke in an obnoxious tone that was getting on Jessica’s nerves. She was the sort of person Jessica normally tried to avoid. “If it wasn’t for my good driving, I would have had a crash.”
Jessica just sort of nodded at her and got back on her bike, continuing down the road.
This was a lot to process.
So the cars had all suddenly stopped working? Right in the middle of driving?
Jessica had never heard anything like that happening. She had heard stories before of things going wrong in the electronics of newer cars. But those stories had been different. And they’d never involved all the cars on a single street having the same effect.
They were all made by different manufacturers.
It didn’t make sense.
Jessica didn’t know what to make of it. But it increased her resolve to get home back to her apartment.
She lived not far from here. Only about five blocks away.
Her apartment was a small one bedroom unit situated above a pizza shop. She liked it there. The pizza shop wasn’t popular, so it was quiet. And most importantly, it was her own space.
She’d feel safe there.
Jessica leaned in, and took the turn at Second Street.
It felt good to be on the bike. The air was blowing in her face and on her bare arms. It was cool, but she’d heat up soon enough, given the force she was putting into the pedals.
She rode a nice road bike from the late nineties. She’d found the frame in a dumpster and redone everything herself, working late at the shop. It was cheaper than a car, which she couldn’t have afforded.
Single speed bikes and fixed gear bikes were still all the rage, at least among people who worked at bike shops. But Jessica didn’t care about trends. She wanted a practical bike above all else. And especially more than a trendy bike.
On Second Street, the lights in the buildings were all off.
Again, cars were stopped in the middle of the street.
There was one accident up ahead. It looked like an SUV had gone adrift and crashed, jumped the curb, and smashed into a telephone pole. No one seemed to be hurt. The driver was standing nearby, staring at a cell phone.
In some ways, it was a bicyclist’s dream come true.
On her short commute, Jessica was often harassed horribly by the Rochester drivers, who weren’t used to bicycle commuters. Really, she couldn’t blame them. But she also gave it back to them as good as they gave.
Now, there were no cars moving. Jessica’s heart was still beating with anxiety, but she took delight in swerving between the stopped cars and the confused drivers.
She pedaled harder and harder. She shifted gears, getting onto the big ring.
She was going fast now.
She was almost home.
The road was silent. Strangely silent. She only heard the sound of the rushing wind and her own pounding heart.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, she heard a new noise.
It sounded like an engine. A loud one. Like a car speeding along.