Lights
My name is Hagan Brandt and this is my story.
It had been six months since the world had gone dark. A meteor had crashed into the earth in Africa, taking out the whole continent in one blast.
The resulting tsunami’s’ and earthquakes had wiped out most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and west coasts of all other countries.
Lights appeared in most of the skies around the world; and just like that we were in the dark from the EMP blast.
Nations trembled and the religious said that it was the end of the world. People went to their churches looking for salvation, but there was none to be found. Mass suicides occurred each day.
We were down to about one billion left alive. Just like me.
Before the blast I was a stock broker in N.Y. I was one of the lucky (or unlucky) left alive.
My wife and children had been in the Midwest visiting our relatives in Kansas, one of the few places with the lights still on due to gas generators on the family farms.
Cars still worked with what little gas anyone could find. The police tried to calm everyone, but they had families of their own and chaos soon took over.
My neighbors and myself in our small community, in western N.Y. banned together, pooled our resources and made the best of a horrible situation.
As our supplies dwindled it seemed that mankind was on its last gasp; it was every man for themselves.
I decided to head as far west as my gas would take me and walk from there. I was desperate to find my family.
The day I headed out my neighbor John asked me. “Do you have room for one more? My son lives in Kansas City and I need to find him. He is the only family I have left.”
“Sure. Is there anyone else that wants to go? I can take three more in the SUV.”
“I’ll go with you.” said Ryan. A young boy who we had been looking after since his parents had been killed in the blast. “Let me get my dog and we will be right back.”
“Ryan, I don’t know if we have room for Princess.” Ryan looked at me with a heartbroken look. Princess was the only family he had left.
“Go get her we will make room.” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. I guess the more the merrier I thought me myself.
“I can take one more.”
No one spoke up and as soon as we have loaded what food and water we had, and we the small band of survivors and Princess headed west.
We stopped in W.V. for the night at an abandoned hotel on the outskirts of Charleston.
We passed bands of people all huddled around campfires. We moved off as fast as we could. We saw no other cars on the road.
“Surely we cannot have the only running car left in America.” Ryan exclaimed.
I did not want to worry him that we running low on fuel. We stopped at a convenience store that was still open. We went inside and asked the man behind the counter if the gas pumps worked. He looked us over and said.
“They still work for the right person.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Do you have room for one more in your car?” he asked.
“All my family is gone and I had asked everyone who has stopped here if they could take me with them and they said no.” the old man replied.
“As it happens we have room for just one more old-timer.” I replied.
“Well son, pull your car up to the gas pumps and let’s get this show on the road.”
The old man told me after the SUV was filled up to being it around the back. There sat a trailer filled up with food, water and gas.
“I have been saving this up for the right people to come along and you are it.” the man said.
“How long have you hidden all this?” John asked.
“Since the first day of darkness.” he replied
“As we are to be traveling companions, my name is Horace West.”
We headed out and with the worry of gas stops made good time into western Tennessee.
It looked like the state had been abandoned. I was surprised that more of the people had not survived in the mid-west.
As we traveled on we ran into bands of people heading west. We dared not stop. We were afraid that they would try to take the car and supplies.
On the 10th day of our travels we headed down the road to my wife’s family home. As we got closer we could see several people in the front yard.
A voice I never thought to hear yelled,
“Daddy.” my youngest daughter cried.
“Mommy told us you would come, but we were so afraid when we couldn’t call you.”
“Dad,” said a voice from the porch. Is it really you? Mrs. Brandt said you would come since we had been neighbors since I was small, but I never thought to see you again.” John’s son Randy said with tears running down his face.
Father and son greeted each other with much crying and back slapping. Randy introduced his father to all the neighbors and strays that Mrs. Brandt’s family had taken in.
“I afraid I can’t offer you much in the way of food. We are just waiting to harvest the last of the summer stock.” Mrs. Brandt’s father said.
Hagen told him. “We come bearing gifts. We have a whole trailer filled with food and water.”
It will be a long time before any lights come back on. But lights are not always found in the sky. There are lights that come into your life unexpectedly. Ryan, Princess, John and Horace came into my life when I was afraid. We helped each other to see that when it is the darkest there is always light to be found.