“What happened?”
“I think my arm is broken. I used it to keep the wheel from turning with the wave. No lectures, please.”
She looked at Cliff Island and turned to him. “I’ll give you a pass this time. Where’s the dinghy?”
Alex scanned the water behind them, quickly turning his attention back to the open water ahead of the boat.
“Shit. I didn’t notice it was missing. I was a little preoccupied.”
Kate reached over the stern safety rail and pulled on the orange line tied to the stern cleat. The line flopped onto the swim deck, frayed at the end.
“I hope the pier is still intact back at the club,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“I have a feeling we’re in for a little swim,” Alex said. “Maybe sooner than later. Our stern hit those rocks. We need to check for leaks.”
“I’ll inspect the aft berth for damage. We still have a foot of standing water in the cabin. The bilge pump light is on, so I assume it’s working,” she said and waded through the knee-level water in the cockpit.
Alex leaned back and examined the stern. He saw a steady stream of water pump from the hull into the bay. “I see water coming out of the discharge. If we don’t have any serious leaks, the cabin should be dry in a few minutes.”
He didn’t know the specific output capacity of his bilge pump, but based on talk around the club, he figured the boat had been equipped with a pump that could remove up to twelve hundred gallons per hour. A sizeable hull breach could easily overtake that capacity. All they needed to do was keep the boat afloat for another ninety minutes. They had buckets and a few handheld pumps if the situation became dire. Kate reached the hatchway and turned her head to face him.
“Nobody fucks with the Katelyn Ann?” she said.
“Nobody,” he said to the boat’s namesake.
Chapter 9
EVENT +01:10 Hours
The Walker Residence
Scarborough, Maine
Ed Walker poured a cup of freshly brewed coffee and turned his head to look at the clock on the microwave, confirming the same thought he’d expressed minutes earlier, when he started to pull the toaster out of the cabinet next to the stove.
I’m an idiot.
A sudden, massive blast of wind had knocked out the power, along with most of the neighborhood’s south-facing windows, roughly an hour ago. This hadn’t stopped him from repeatedly flipping light switches and trying to activate every electronic device in the house.
His wife, Samantha, had salvaged their two-burner propane camping stove and aluminum coffee set from the garage after they had finished cleaning up the glass. The microburst had shattered every backyard-facing window in their house. They spent at least thirty minutes picking up the visible pieces, relying on flashlights and the rising sun to identify the most noticeable shards. Without the use of their central vacuum system, they would have to wear shoes.
They still had no idea what had happened. The sky was clear, except for the odd reddish glow that had persisted over the southwestern horizon for twenty minutes. Sarah Quinn insisted that she and her husband had seen a brilliant flash while stretching out on the deck for their daily run. By the time they had walked around the house to investigate, the glow had vanished. She thought it had come from the south, but her husband, George, contended that the light had shone from the east. Ed more or less thought they were full of shit. Who knew? He did know that Sarah and George had gotten lucky. Whatever they saw had delayed the start of their run, keeping them sheltered behind their house when the gust hit.
Ed lifted the mug and took a sip of hot coffee, his eyes spotting something shiny among the apples piled into a bowl on the table. They would have to be really careful around the house. He walked to the sliding patio door, noting its absence. The screen door had been severely warped by the blast, but it remained intact like most of the screens in the house. At least they would be spared the mosquitos. A cool breeze poured through the opening, providing a brief respite from the miserable day that lay ahead. Samantha walked into the kitchen from the mudroom.
“No cell phone signal yet. I’m worried about Chloe. The same thing might have hit Boston,” she said.
“This was some kind of microburst. They’re usually very localized. Probably knocked out power to the cell towers,” said Ed.
“I thought the towers had their own backup generators?”
“Most of them should,” he admitted. “If we can’t reach her by eight, we’ll leave the kids with Charlie and head to Boston. We can bring her back if there’s a problem down there.”
Ed had a sinking feeling that there was more to the morning’s power outage than strange weather. He’d retrieved their emergency radio from a box of camping supplies in the garage and taken it out on the deck, hoping to gain some basic information regarding the wind gust. Instead of the choppy, digital NOAA broadcast, he heard static. He anxiously cycled through the AM and FM bands, still unable to located a signal. Ed checked and rechecked the radio, cranking the hand-power generator for at least a minute before trying again. The radio’s LED burned brilliantly green throughout the process, telling him what he already suspected. The radio wasn’t the problem.
A sharp knock at the front door caused him to jump, spilling coffee on his hand.
“Damn it. Who the hell…?” he mumbled, setting the mug on the table.
He opened the door to find Charlie Thornton panting on his stoop. Charlie glanced over his shoulder twice, looking at the sky.
“They EMP’d our asses. Both of my cars are dead, and nothing works in my house. We’re sitting ducks,” said Charlie.
“Who EMP’d us?”
“The Chinese! Who else? They’ll probably start landing paratroopers within the hour, like Red Dawn!”
Ed regarded his neighbor for a moment, hesitating to invite him inside. Charlie stood there barefoot, dressed in faded jeans and an oversized white Red Sox T-shirt. He clung nervously to a black, AR-style rifle fitted with some kind of scope. Ed wasn’t keen on letting him inside, especially given the fact that Charlie had chosen a rifle over shoes.
“You gonna let me in or what? It won’t be long before we’re under direct attack,” he said, looking past Ed. “My guess is we’ll be hit by drones first.”
“Is the safety engaged on that thing?” Ed asked.
“Do I look like some kind of idiot?”
Ed glanced down at his bare feet and gave him a pained look.
“The safety’s on, for shit’s sake,” grunted Charlie.
Ed let Charlie in, closed the door and followed him to the kitchen.
“What did you mean about the cars?” he asked.
“Oh hey, Samantha,” Charlie said. “Sorry to barge in on you like this. Damn. Still glass everywhere,” he said, lifting a small piece off the kitchen island.
“The cars, Charlie?” Ed prompted.
“Oh yeah. Both of them are dead. The batteries turn over, but the engine won’t start. EMP fried the electronics. Have you tried yo—”
“What EMP?” interrupted Samantha.
“There’s no EMP, honey. I’m sure the cars are fine,” Ed said.
“You need to check them now,” Charlie insisted.
“I’m not running out there to—”
Charlie grabbed Ed’s T-shirt, pulling him toward the garage, but something caught his attention through the kitchen window.