The Beginning of the End

The stinging cold on my face jolted me out of my sleep. I sat up in bed and could see my breath. I wondered to myself, why hadn't the heater come on? I glanced over to the night stand and could not see the digital face of the alarm clock. Fumbling for the light switch only reinforced the fact there was no power on in the house. I got out of bed and walked to the window. Snow was piling up outside and did not appear to be letting up anytime soon. I thought for a moment, the heavy snow storm must have knocked out power somewhere. I put on my bathrobe and walked through the house collecting candles and preparing to settle in for a cold day at home. I wondered how long the power would be out and thought maybe I should at least call the power company to report the outage at my house.

After lighting a couple of candles, I picked up the cell phone. The cell phone would not come on. I thought for a moment, how can this be?

Panic started to set in. The cell phone was charged the night before and should still have plenty of battery power. Why is there no power to the house, and the cell phone is dead? I began talking to myself out loud while I rushed through the house, looking for a way to find some news. The laptop computer would not power on, nothing is working. I remembered a friend had given me a small emergency radio with a hand crank that I used to take with me on fishing trips to monitor the weather. I continued to fumble through dark closets and cabinets and located the radio. I spun the crank frantically, hoping it would at least power on and provide some sort of explanation for the disruption of my modern comforts.

The radio lit up and channel after channel produced nothing but static. But then, a faint message could be heard. There was still a lot of static but I could make out some of the words. "Everyone... dead! One week to... Need.... go North! Please!".

The radio shut down, and I cranked the spindle again trying to get the radio to come back on. It was no use. The transmission was gone, and no matter how many channels I tried, nothing but static was coming through. Frustrated, and scared, I hung my head, not knowing what else to do. I kept playing the words over and over again in my head. Why is everyone dead? Where was the voice on the radio trasnmitting from? One week for what? Go North, how far North? I could not make sense of any of it, except the fact that someplace, people were dying and the only potential salvation was in a Northerly direction. Maybe I only had a week to live, or maybe this will all be over in a week. My mind continued to race. I sat the radio down near a candle I had lit. I thought to myself, I needed to try to better my current situation before worrying about what I heard on the radio.

I quickly dressed in warm clothing, and went outside to start the car. Knowing that my home is somewhat isolated, maybe my neighbors down the road would have more news. I trudged out into the driveway and quickly wiped the snow off of the driver side door with my arm. The car sputtered and whined, but would not start. I kept trying but after cursing and continuously cranking the key, the car was dead. I went back in the house. The house seemed to be getting colder. I thought how I put off installing a wood burning stove, and now I wished I had made that a priority. I tried to think of any other way to warm the house without electricity. I went back outside to look for an old camp stove I had in the shed. Once I was on the porch, I stopped for a moment. I tried to slow my breathing and listened beyond the falling snow. There was no noise. No airplane noise, no distant highway noise, nothing but the sound of snow falling and my heart beating. The realization instantly covered me with a chill, colder than the weather I was experiencing. Something very big, very serious, is happening. If I can not find a way to survive, I would be in real trouble in the coming days.