Dark and Silent

When the music stops...

Nick hadn't been driving very long. She had stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts for a coffee and was just about to pull back onto Folly Road to catch the James Island Expressway into Charleston. She turned up her radio as one of her favorite songs came on.

All of a sudden, everything just stopped.

She looked around and saw that all the lights around her were out too. Not one single light was on. No stoplights, no neon signs, nothing. Her car was dead. Stopped in the driveway of the donut shop. It was dead, it wasn't ticking as if it had a dead battery. It acted as if it had no battery at all. Now, dead batteries would not be a surprise for Nic. She had to jump Jonah (Yes, she named her car. Don't judge.) at least once a month. Dad had refused to allow her to take it to Charleston with her when she started school saying unreliable transportation was worse than no transportation. But despite his general unreliability, Jonah had never just died like this before.

She dropped her head back in disappointment. She reached for her phone (a second-hand flip phone that still worked thank you very much) and it was dead.

That was funny. It had a full charge when she was talking to Toni. Groaning in aggravation Nic climbed out of her car and began walking back towards the coffee shop. Maybe the guy working the counter had a working cell.

The guy in question stumbled out of the store before she could reach the door.

"Hey!" He called out as a girl about their age followed him out. "Have you got a working phone? Ours are dead."

"Mine too. I was hoping to call a tow. My car just died."

"Damn," the guy groaned looking around, "Nothing is on." A few people from the Bojangles next door wandered out looking around as well.

"Hey, Mike! Are your lights out or is it just us?" a young man jogged over to talk to the barista.

"Us, too."

"Well, hell," Nic swore. It was not going to be a quick thing. It might take all night and if she ended up having to walk? Better to get started. Nic walked back to her car and dropped it in neutral before getting out to push it back into a spot. The two young men seeing her plan hustled over to help her.

"Whatcha do that for?" one of the girls asked her.

"I have no idea when services will be restored. I can't just leave my car in the middle of the driveway," Nic answered giving the girl a 'you are an idiot' look.

"Don't worry about it," Mike nodded. "When we get services back you can get towed; it'll be safe enough here until then."

"Thanks," she shot Mike a grateful smile. Nic then opened her trunk. There were a few useless odds and ends and there, shoved to the back of the trunk, was her dad's old duffle bag. Pulling it out she closed the trunk and opened the back seat. She had one overnight bag, a toiletries bag, Owen, and her box. Shoving the contents of the overnight bag and the toiletries bag to the bottom of the duffle, Nic tore the tape off the box. Time to make some hard decisions. Owen was going. Period. The picture of her with her parents from last Christmas, well-worn copies of Anne of Green Gables and Little Town on the Prairie, her parents' wedding picture, and a small wooden jewelry box one of the historians from "The Year" had carved for her went into the bag before she shoved Owen and the quilt she kept in her car into the top of the duffle that stood almost three feet tall.

The others had lost interest in the stranded tourist and were talking among themselves about whether they should lock up and go home.

Nic put on her coat, scarf, and hat (and dear God was the hat hideous. But she'd never leave it behind it had been one of Her mom's early attempts at knitting), shoved her gloves in her pockets and grabbed her coffee before locking up her car and starting down the road. She waved to Mike as she left.