Last Light (ViceRylle)

Last Light 3

"OH, NO! TELL ME THIS ISN'T HAPPENING." A BRAND-NEW CAR wasn't supposed to die in rush hour traffic. But one minute Ms. Zsa Zsa was sitting in line at the red light, cranking up the air conditioner so her kids would stop complaining, and the next minute the engine had cut off and stubbornly refused ro start again.
Panicked, she turned the key, but nothing happened. Soon the light would change, and people lined up for miles behind her would start honking their horns if she didn't get out of the way.
"Come on, Mom!" Anne, her Twenty-five year old jock who'd just pitched a no-hitter, banged on the dashboard. "I've got a date tonight and I have to get a shower!"
"Calm down." Ms Zsa Zsa tried to think. Maybe the air conditioner and radio were putting too much strain on the battery. She cut them all off.
The car still wouldn't start.
"I didn't even want to come to this stupid game," Coleen, her twenty-year-old, cried. "Dad and Karylle are going to behome before we are. Why did you even make me come?"
Ms. Zsa Zsa ground her teeth. "Because it's your brother's game, and we support each other in this family!"
"Don't do me any favors, Coleen," Anne said. " I didn't need you there , pouting like a four-year-old."
"Why don't you shut up?" Coleen snapped.
"Mom, I told you to buy the Tahoe," Anne went on, unscathed.
"But no, you had to have the Expidition."
I'm dying of thirst." This whimper came from the backseat, as Ms. Zsa Zsa nine-year-old atood up and leaned over the seat in front of him. "It's hot. Can't you turn the air conditioner on?"
"No, Ryan, I can't."
"The car's dead," Coleen said."As in, no power." As the spoke, she grabbed the Game Boy that he'd laid on the seat.
"Give that back!" he shouted. "Mom!"
Ms. Zsa Zsa gave up trying to start the car. She popped the hood and opened her door to get out.
"What are you doing?" Anne asked.
"Looking under the hood.
He started to laugh. " For what? Do you even know what you're looking for?"
"No, but if you do, why don't you get out and help me?" "That's right, genius," Ryan snapped. "Go help her."
Ms. Zsa Zsa looked at the line behind her, hoping they'd be patient with her. Maybe someone who knew cars would come to her aid.
But no one was focused on her. Others were getting out of their own cars, popping their own hoods. An eerie silence hovered over them---- no engines running, no horns beeping, no radios playing. Just the sound of the hot breeze sweeping through the trees. And she smelled something burning, but there was no sign of a fire or smoke anywhere.
"What is this?" Ms. Zsa Zsa whispered.
Anne got out and looked around, his eyes as big as quarters. "Way cool. They're all dead. Everybody's car died at the same time."
Coleen got out of the car, and Ryan climbed up to the front. "Everybody's?" he said. "Why?"
Ms. Zsa Zsa shook her head. "I have no idea, but I'm calling your father."
She grabbed her cell phone out of the car, flipped it open . . . But it was dead, too. "It's not working, either."
"What?" Anne took her phone. "Let me see."
Ms. Zsa Zsa went to the man standing at the pickup in front of her. He, too, was trying his cell phone.
"Excuse me, do you have any idea what's going on?"
"None," he said. "The cars are dead, my cell phone doesn't work, my PDA won't vome on, even my watch has stopped."
Ms. Zsa Zsa looked down at her own watch. The digital readout was blank. "What in the world would knock out our cars and out watches?"
Anne came around the car. "There's a store at the Exxon station on the next block. Why don't we walk there and see what we can find out?"
Ms. Zsa Zsa turned back to her Expedition. "I can't abandon the car here. I have to move it when it starts again."
"Then I"ll go by myself."
Ms. ZsaZsa couldn't explain the feeling of uneasiness weighing on her.
"Okey, but be careful."
"Why?" Anne chuckled. "Not like I'm gonna get hit by a car."
"Use the pay phone to call your dad. He and Karylle should have landed by now. Maybe he knows something."
She watched as Anne trudged off in his baseball uniform and dirty cleats.
"Mom, it's hot!
"Then get out of the car, Ryan."
"It's hotter out there."
Ms. Zsa Zsa was already starting to sweat. "What would you like me to do?"
"I don't know."
"Unless you have a solution, stop whining." She looked down the street at all the cars stalled in rush hour traffic and told herself to calm down. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. Something had happened to cause it, and soon they would know what is was and how to fix it.
People came out of the insurance office next to them, and a woman hurried toward her. "What's going on with the cars?"
"They're all dead." Ms. Zsa Zsa said. "No reason. They just stopped running at the same time."
The woman looked stunned. "And all our power went out."
"Really?"
"Has to be an electromagnetic pulse." The man from in front of her seemed to be thinking aloud. "That would knock out everything electronic."
"But what would cause something like that?"
"An e-bomb, maybe."
"A bomb?" Ms. ZsaZsa caught her breath and looked out over the sky.
"Then we could be under attack?" She searched for a sign of smoke indicating a bomb and hit somewhere. The sky was a radiant blue, and there was no sign that anything catastrophic had happened. She looked back at her Expedition, and saw Coleen walking up the street to talk to a friend three cara up.
"Coleen, come back!"
Her daughter turned around.
"Don't go anywhere. Stay right here with me."
"Why?"
She couldn't tell her that she feared something worse might be about to happen, that there could be radiation in the air, or toxins, or bombs about to drop . . . "Just do what I tell you."
Ryan picked that moment to come out of the car. She grabbed his arm and shoved him back in. "Get back in the car!"
"But you said to get out! It's hot in there!"
"Do it!" she shouted. "Now!"
Both kids muttered as they got back in. Ms. ZsaZsa stood there a moment trying to get a grip on herself. Why was she yelling at them? It didn't make any sense.
None of this did. All she knew waa that she was scared. She just didn't know of what.

------ ------- ------- -------- ------ ------

Hooo! Grabe 1186 na words ang kinapy right ko hehehe! Thank you sa nag basa nito! at tsaka hintay-hintay lang po kayo kay Viceral malapitlapit na siya sa story nato! ✌ at pasenya na din kung matagal akong mag update.