Hilstone General

She wouldn’t have noticed the popping in her ears but just then the lights… died. They didn’t flicker, they didn’t hum, they just turned theirselves off. One minute she was trying to find out about a John Doe they had in the operating room, fresh from a car wreck, and then her computer went black. The nurse next to her hung up her phone and tried picking it up again.

“That’s so weird… Linda, there’s not even a dial tone.”

“The back up generator should have kicked in by now…”

Shouting, screaming, yelling…

The nurses and doctors all leapt into action. This was a large hospital and so many CO-VID cases were on ventilators. The patients on life support… Staff found theirselves panicking, forgetting any trace of training and common sense. Certain doors, guarded by electric locks, wouldn’t open, trapping doctors inside, unable to help anyone, simply viewing from the pane of wired glass, the chaos taking place in the halls.

There were codes and calls for anything battery operated. Maintenance shoved their way through the sterile halls, knowing they had to get the back up generators going, otherwise a lot of people were going to die.

As the Linda stood numbly, at the events unfolding in front of her eyes, she thought… a lot of people were already dying.

I-45, Hilstone, Exit 12

“YOU’RE LISTENING TO WLSX, HILSTONE’S TOP HITS!”

One of those irritating pop songs started blaring from the radio but Jeremy found that he just couldn’t help himself from singing along quietly. His fiancé was waiting for him, their rehearsal dinner halfway across town. His hands were sweaty against the soft leather of the wheel as he curved to take his exit.

“–we weren’t perfect but I’ve never felt this waaayyy for no one! And I just can’t imagine how you could be so okaaayyy nooowww–!“

Then he was left singing to himself as the song quit. The song wasn’t the only thing. The street lights left him, as did any control over his vehicle. It suddenly turned off, gravity and momentum pulling it down the hill.

The road curved… the car did not. His electric brakes no longer worked, turning the wheel only served to send the car swerving. It soared into the corpse of trees, the front fender wrapped around the trunk of a pine, it’s unbuckled occupant sent flying through the trees… it would be days before they found him.

Hilstone, Old Town District

Amber’s phone turned itself off. With an irritated sigh, she got up and looked for her phone charger.

‘FLICK!’

When the lights go her room didn’t come on the first time, her solution was of course, turn it off and on again. It always worked for the TV.

‘FLICK! FLICK!”

Nothing… she knew the phone charger was at her bed and she could easily navigate the dark room without the lights. She yanked it out of the wall and brought it to the living room.

As she plugged it up, some corner of her mind waited for that chime from her phone, to signal it was charging. It never came. She left the wall socket and just then something pulled her attention out the window. It was dark. Darker than she thought it would be. It was night coming, yes, the world held in that eerie grey light, but the window should have been lit from the street lamp that always shined to brightly into their apartment. The lamp was not on… neither was the one beside it. The hum of the ancient refrigerator didn’t fill the void of silence. Instead yelling filled the black space of the apartment.

Amber hesitated to unlock the door but… she knew everyone in this apartment building, they wouldn’t hurt her… right? So she eased the door open with caution and at the end of the hall, elevator doors open just a crack, but frozen between landings. Someone was stuck in the elevator! More people were leaving out of their apartments to see the distress of the trapped woman.

“Mrs.Hannaday!”

Amber bit her lip and was crouched at the stuck doors. Mrs.Hannaday’s face was red, pupils small, like a frightened goat,obviously panicked at being trapped in an elevator, in the dark.

“Does anyone have a flashlight?”

She yelled above the murmuring tenets. Just then someone else came running forward. A boy about her age, Derek.

“MOM!”

Amber was beginning to realize just how much she wanted her mom…