Collected Short Fiction, page 186
“I’ll keep fiddling with the radio,” he said. “Think you can make it to the front door, see if anything’s going on outside?”
“Sure.” The power would come back on any second now. The world would become continuous again.
She got up and inched toward the front door, hands out, until her fingers found a surface. She pressed her palms against the door, found the doorknob, and pulled the door open.
She stepped outside; the darkness took her, starless, cold. She wrapped her arms around herself. As she turned to go back inside, she glimpsed a faint glow to her right. The glow became two globes of light; there was the sound of a motor. A car was coming down the small hill at the end of the cul-de-sac, and it seemed to be moving very slowly, maybe no more than five miles an hour.
She retreated inside, closed the door, and shuffled back to the sofa. “It’s still just as dark,” she said, “but somebody was driving down the hill at the end of our street. The headlights – they were doing the same thing as our flashlight. I mean, I could see them, but I don’t know how the driver could see the road or anything else.” They wouldn’t be able to drive out of here, with no way to see where they were going.
“Nothing,” Matt said, and she knew that he was referring to the radio. “Everything’s out.”
She sat down. Maybe they should get out of here, whatever the risks. Anything would be better than sitting helplessly, passive victims of whatever was going on outside. Maybe the blackout, or whatever it was, had taken out the whole country this time. Maybe all of North America was dark and cold. Maybe terrorists had finally managed to knock out the entire grid. Maybe somebody had finally started a nuclear war. Thoughts of terrorists and nuclear war didn’t frighten her as much as they might have. At least they were familiar possible causes of potential disasters.
“Hey!” That was a woman’s voice, and very faint. “Hey!”
“Did you hear that?” Matt asked.
“Yes.” Lydia was already up, shuffling toward the door. She pulled the door open and leaned outside. “Hello?”
“I’m here,” the voice said. Lydia guessed that the woman had to be somewhere near the edge of their lawn. “In my car.”
“I’m Lydia Polgrave,” Lydia said. “My husband Matt and I live in the two-story brick house next to the white Colonial at the bottom of the hill.” It suddenly seemed ludicrous to be introducing herself to someone she could not see.
“I know the house. My name’s Gretchen Duhamel, and I live in that gray shingled job with the screened-in porch at the end of the road.” The alto voice was strong, almost reassuring. Lydia tried to visualize this woman she had never seen. She sounded like a tall woman, maybe somewhat overweight, with a short, no-nonsense haircut. “Can’t see a darned thing, so it probably isn’t a good idea to keep driving. Only trouble is, I don’t know if I could even find my way home now, in the car or on foot.”
Lydia thought of asking her inside. Under the circumstances, Matt was unlikely to object, and might even welcome the company. Even the presence of a stranger would be better than sitting there stewing by themselves. “You could stay with us for a while,” she said. “Think you can find your way to our door?”
“I should be able to get that far,” Gretchen Duhamel replied. There was the sharp chunk of a car door being slammed shut. “Aren’t you the house with those flagstones on your front lawn, kind of like a pathway to your front steps?”
“That’s us.”
“For a minute there, I couldn’t remember if it was the brick house or the Colonial with the flagstones, and I’ve lived in this neighborhood for over ten years, must have driven past your house a million times. Funny what you can’t remember when you can’t see anything.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Keep talking,” Gretchen Duhamel said. “All I’ve got to go on is the sound of your voice.”
Lydia tried to think of what to say. “Uh, we moved in about four months back. I’ve got a job in Findlay, at the downtown branch of the public library.”
“The library?” Gretchen Duhamel sounded closer.
“I’m a reference librarian there. My husband runs his own consulting business from home.”
“Then I take it he’s the guy I’ve seen mowing your lawn. The tall skinny guy in the Red Sox cap.”
“That’s Matt.”
“I’m retired, but I used to teach introduction to physics at the community college. You know, I’ve been trying to get National Access on my cell phone the whole way here. Can’t get through.” The woman sounded really close now.
“Be careful. It’s four steps up to the door.”
“I’m being careful,” Gretchen Duhamel said. Lydia heard footfalls on the steps, and then something brushed against her. “Sorry.”
“You’re almost there. Just keep coming.”
By the time Gretchen Duhamel was settled in the easy chair next to the sofa, Lydia had learned that she was a widow and that her late husband had died five years ago. The woman went on to mention a son who lived in Seattle and her two cats, Bartholomew and Percy, whom she had left behind in the fenced-in backyard of her house.
“They’re indoor cats,” the woman continued, “but I’ve got one of those kitty doors in the back, so they can get in and out of the house, but they can’t get out of the yard.” She went on at length about the felines’ favorite foods, their luxuriant black and white fur, and the way they loved to chase their favorite toy, a ball of aluminum foil. Normally such a conversation would have bored Lydia mightily, but now she welcomed the distraction, the feeling that things would soon return to normal. The lights would come back on, and Gretchen Duhamel would go home to her cats and toss them their balls of aluminum foil.
“I’ve lived with those cats for almost four years now,” Gretchen went on, “so they’re almost like my kids. You don’t have any kids, do you?”
“No,” Matt replied.
“Not yet,” Lydia added.
“People around here aren’t having so many kids these days,” Gretchen Duhamel said, “and they’re older when they do. It’s like they can’t count on a stable, normal life any more, doing what they’re supposed to do and having things work out. Nothing’s that predictable any more. The couple that used to live in your house must have been over forty when they had their first.”
“I think that big blond guy across the street has three kids,” Matt said.
“Olaf Janssen?” the woman said. “Don’t know where you got that idea. He and Vicky just have the one boy, Lars.”
“I’ve seen three kids over there.”
“You must be thinking of Josh and Becca, the Bloom kids. They’re over there all the time. They and Lars Janssen are as thick as thieves.”
Gretchen Duhamel fell silent. Lydia waited for the woman to say something more, anything to distract them from the darkness and the cold.
“Wish I hadn’t left my cats,” Gretchen murmured.
The power had to be restored soon. The light would restore everything to its previous state. Lydia was getting herself worked up over nothing, only imagining that the air was even thicker and colder around her. It was the waiting that got to her, the feeling that there was nothing she could do except wait there in the dark.
There was a sharp tap on the front door, then a flurry of knocks.
“Who could that be?” Gretchen asked.
“Has to be one of our neighbors,” Matt said.
“Not necessarily,” Gretchen said. “Might be looters or burglars and such. And we can’t even call the police.”
Matt said, “I’ll see who it is.” He let out what sounded to Lydia like a forced laugh. “I’ll find out who it is.” She felt him get up from the sofa. The floor creaked slightly as he moved toward the door. “Who’s there?” he shouted.
“Olaf,” a muffled voice replied, and Lydia heard the door whoosh open.
Olaf had found a long length of rope in his garage and had tied one end of it to his front door knob, reasoning that if he got lost crossing the street, he would at least be able to find his way back to his house. As she listened to him, Lydia found herself admiring his resourcefulness and wishing that she had thought of such an idea herself or else that Matt had.
“Good thinking, young man,” Gretchen said when Olaf fell silent.
“That you, Miz Duhamel?” Olaf asked.
“Sure is. Anyway, it’s good thinking on your part assuming this is just a power failure and not something a whole lot weirder. You know what it’s like? It’s almost like the light’s going out, everything’s slowing down, and space is filling up.”
Lydia froze. She had been thinking almost exactly the same thing.
“My wife and my boy are still back at our house,” Olaf said after a long pause, “but I’ve been thinking there’s no point in just sitting around.”
“I tried to drive out,” Gretchen said, “but you can’t see a blessed thing, not even with the headlights on.”
“I thought of driving out myself,” Olaf said, “but no way. This just isn’t normal, this kind of dark. You know what I saw just before the lights went out? For a second, everything looked kind of like these gray shadowy things in the dark, like I was seeing in the infrared or something. Vicky’s face was like this pale blob with black pits instead of eyes.” He was silent for a bit. “We could still try to walk out of here.”
He outlined his plan. They would tie whatever lengths of rope Matt happened to have in his house to Olaf’s rope. They could use the rope like a belay, going on to the next house, picking up more rope, and continuing on that way until –
“Until what?” Matt interrupted.
“Until we get to someplace where we can find out what’s going on or until the lights come back on, but if you want my opinion, I don’t think they’re coming back on any time soon. And if anybody doesn’t have any rope, we can use sheets or something else, tie them to the rope. We can just keep going, and if anybody changes their mind, they can belay themselves back home.”
A giggle escaped Lydia. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but could not stop laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Olaf asked.
“You’re getting hysterical,” Matt said; Lydia felt his breath on her face.
Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.” She cleared her throat. “We’d look awfully silly if everything suddenly went back to normal, standing around out there in a line hanging on to a rope.”
“I don’t know about you,” Olaf said, “but I’d rather do something instead of just sit around waiting for National Access to get its shit together. Anyway, this feels like a whole lot more than just National Access.”
“Oh, it’s definitely more than that,” Gretchen added. “National recess,” she muttered.
“Light that doesn’t show you anything,” Olaf said, “everything so black you can’t see a damn thing, and I’ve never heard it so quiet outside. It’s like we’re . . . like we’re. . . .” He seemed to be struggling for words.
“It’s like we’re completely cut off from certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum,” Matt said, “among other things.”
“Yeah, like that.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking anyway,” Matt said. Lydia heard the fear in his voice as he shifted his weight on the sofa. “Cell phones not working, radios not picking up anything, the cold, the thing with lights –” His voice trailed off. Lydia thought of the match she had struck in the kitchen.
“Whatever it is,” Olaf said, “I figure we can go back to my house, get my wife and son, and belay down to the Blooms’ house.”
“What about your next door neighbors?” Gretchen asked.
“The Murrays? They flew out yesterday to visit his mother in Atlanta. Lucky for them, I guess.”
“Unless this is affecting everybody,” Matt said. “Everywhere.”
Lydia let that sink in. A worldwide catastrophe, she thought. What if they were trapped in this darkness forever? She swallowed hard. They could get out of here with Olaf. If something had really gone wrong, they would be better off in a group. She was pretty sure they had some rope in the garage to tie to Olaf’s, and she could throw in a couple of old sheets she had been meaning to tear up for rags.
“Well, what about it?” Olaf said. “I gotta get back to Vicky and Lars. Vicky has a thing about the dark.”
“I’ll go with you,” Gretchen said. “Can’t give you more rope, though. There isn’t any rope in my car.”
“What about you?” Olaf said, and Lydia knew that he was referring to her and Matt.
“Think I’ve got some rope in the garage,” Matt said.
“Think you can find it?” Olaf asked.
“Yeah. Just have to go through our kitchen and the laundry room, and it should be right next to the door.” Matt brushed against her as he stood up. “It’ll just take a minute.”
“Don’t get lost,” Olaf said.
“Don’t worry,” Matt replied, his voice farther away. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
“This blackout,” Gretchen said in a low voice. “It’s giving me the willies.”
“You can say that again,” Olaf said, also keeping his voice low. “I gotta tell you, before I came over, Vicky tried to light a candle, just so we could have a little bit of light, and –” Somebody emitted a loud sniff. “It wasn’t working.”
Lydia said, “The same thing happened to me.” She tried to repress the fear uncoiling inside her. “Your wife struck a match, but all she got was a small flame, a bit of light that didn’t illuminate anything else. I lit a match earlier, in the kitchen, and it didn’t give off any light at all except for this tiny flame.”
“Know what I’m thinking?” Gretchen said. “I’m thinking of something Ernst Mach once said.”
“Who?” Olaf said.
“He was a physicist,” Lydia murmured. “I’m a reference librarian,” she continued by way of explanation. “That’s how I know things like that.”
“Ernst Mach once said that gravity might be our experience of some large motion of the universe as a whole.” Gretchen paused. “So in that case, light might be affected if there was any change in that motion.”
Lydia said, “Maybe the change is in us.”
“What do you mean?” Gretchen asked.
“Paul Valéry once speculated that our universe is the plan of a deep symmetry, one that’s somehow present in the inner structure of our minds.”
“Who the hell is Paul Valéry?” Olaf asked.
“He was a French poet and philosopher,” Lydia replied. “Wrote that in his Cahiers – uh, his notebooks.” That was yet another piece of knowledge she had acquired that now had no function except to feed her fears.
Gretchen and Olaf were silent. Lydia strained to hear something in the silence, but the darkness seemed to have muffled sound as effectively as it had doused light. The air seemed thicker, too, as if a fog had formed around her.
Space was not empty. Their human senses deluded them into thinking space was empty when in fact it was full. Space and time were constructs of the human mind, and now their minds were failing them. Everything outside them was as it had always been; it was just that they could no longer impose their mental constructs on it.
She was imagining things again, being too suggestible. She pressed her hands together, trying to warm her fingers against the cold.
“Thought he said he’d be back in a second,” Olaf said. The words came from him slowly, and the pitch of his voice was even lower.
Lydia longed to call out to Matt, but restrained herself. She suddenly feared that if she opened her mouth to say anything, she would start screaming. She sat back, struggling to calm herself. Whatever was happening, there had to be somebody, somewhere, who was already trying to get help to anyone trapped in this darkness.
“Found the rope.” She could barely hear Matt’s voice. “And a couple of long cords, too.” He had to be talking about the electrical cords he used with his clippers when he pruned the hedge. “Must be at least thirty or forty feet in all.” He sounded closer now. “But –”
Lydia took a breath. The air had taken on substance; she felt as though she were inhaling a soft, cool mist.
“But what?” Olaf said, his voice now a bass.
“I’m not . . . going with . . . you,” Matt replied in a baritone.
Another long silence ensued. “You’re not . . . going with me?”
“We’re . . . staying . . . here,” Matt said.
That was like Matt, speaking for her as well as himself. Lydia wanted to object, but there was no point in arguing with him, and also no reason why she could not leave with the others and without him.
“You . . . sure?” Olaf asked.
Lydia stretched out her arms and hit an obstacle. “Matt?” she said. “Is that you?”
“Yeah.”
She felt around and touched something that felt like coiled cord. “Give me the rope.”
“What?”
“Give me the rope.” A long moment passed before the coil was thrust into her hands. She got up, working hard to stand, struggling with the weight of the rope. “Olaf?”
“Over here.” By the sound of his voice, he was still near the door. She moved toward him, bumped into the coffee table, stepped back, then crept toward the entrance. Something suddenly slammed against her arm. “Sorry,” Olaf said.
“Here’s the rope.” She held out the coil; the invisible man relieved her of its weight.
“Thanks,” Olaf said in an even deeper bass voice. “Now I’m heading outside. Got the end of my rope tied to the railing around your front steps.”
“I’m right behind you,” Gretchen’s voice, nearly as deep as Olaf’s, was closer. There was the sound of the door opening. Lydia stood still, uncertain, searching the darkness for some sign of light.
“Lydia,” Matt called out.
“Are you coming?” Olaf asked. She hesitated. “Well?”
“I can’t leave Matt,” she said at last.
“You there, Miz Duhamel?”
