Blackout • NH

Chapter 2

Day 1: Thursday, May 10th: 7:56pm

"Jodie, have you seen where I left my phone?" Ellen asked.

Me being quite annoyed because she always loses her phone somehow,

"Um,no where did you put it last?"

Suddenly she screams, "Found it! It was in between the couch cushions!"

Nodding my head to myself over her constant forgetfulness, I go back to typing my report on Yellowstone National Park and the dangers the United States face if the volcano under the national park was to erupt.

I needed to get this paper typed before 11:59pm Sunday night. I needed to get an A on this paper so I can pass this class win an A and earn a 4.0 GPA for the semester.

I have about 5 pages down, all I have left is to cite my 12 sources and put them in. Suddenly the power goes off.

"Are you fucking kidding me?! I have to re-type the last page and all of my damn sources again?!" I yell, quite furious. "God fucking dammit, I am seriously going to shove my face into a door!"

I couldn't believe I didn't save the sources and last page of this paper. How could I be so stupid?

Angrily I shut my laptop and got up when suddenly my sister comes into my room and says, "Hey Jodie, what happened? I was in the middle of playing a video game."

"The power went out. I don't understand why, I just paid the electric bill 3 days ago. Let me go outside and ask some of the neighbors."

I open the door and walk out onto the outdoor walkway to see literally the entire apartment complex outside. I go up to Marc, our next door neighbor who was in the military with dad, to see what was going on.

"Hey Marc, what happened? The power is out? And it's broad daylight, we usually lose power when we get storms and we rarely get storms here in Los Angeles. And it's also broad daylight."

Marc looks at me kinda confused, "I'm not sure, my mother called me from Seattle saying her power was out as well. I'm just as confused as you are."

I look up at Marc concerned, "Seattle? So the whole west coast is out of power?"

"It seems like it. I wouldn't worry though, it's probably a transformer at a major power plant that blew out and they need to replace it."

"Oh, okay then you're probably right." Thinking nothing of it, I walk back into my apartment.

"Did anyone know what happened?" Ellen asks.

"I talked to Marc and he said the entire west coast is out of power, he said it was probably a transformer that blew out at a major power plant or something.

We shouldn't worry too much about it, they will have it fixed soon hopefully."

"I hope so, I was wanting to take a shower tonight."

I roll my eyes and decide to just go to bed since there's nothing we can do.

4 hours later...

"Jodie wake up!" Ellen says in a panicked voice.

"What is it! Can't you see I was sleeping?" I said in a very annoyed voice.

"Jodie, something is wrong. There's a crowd of people outside, there has to be close to 200 people out there!"

"What do you mean?!" I get up and run to the window and sure enough there is a huge group of people out there yelling. "Ellen did you go out there?" I ask worried.

"No, I locked the doors and windows." She replies.

I unlock the window I was near and cracked it enough to hear what was going on outside.

"Did you hear what happened?" One voice said.

"No! Nobody's phone is working and can't call or text!" Another voice replied.

The first voice replied again and said "I was driving my truck and I over heard on my CB radio that the entire United States is out of power!"

That comment right there set off a red flag. Something was wrong. My dad always told me that if something major were to ever go down, that we were to leave the city and head to a place where there is less civilization.

Something terrible was about to erupt and nobody, not even the most elite forces out there could stop it.