Silence in the City

“I can’t get a signal.”

Her voice seems so loud in the electronic silence of our apartment. My twelve-year-old daughter turned off her phone as soon as the power went out. She’s gotten used to doing that during the rolling blackouts, so we can use it if mine dies. So she explains why she broke that rule.

“I wanted to call Mom.”

This will be our third night without power. It’s time to be straight with her. “I quit getting reception when the lights went out. No internet, either.”

Betrayal drips from her voice. “You said you were saving your battery, when I asked you for news, when I asked if Mom was okay.”

“I thought I’d be able to tell you later…”

She’s a smart kid, smart enough to be scared. “So, this could be happening everywhere?”

I nod. “Your mom was right. We probably should have joined that cult with her.”

“Sustainable living community… it’s not a cult.”

Tanya went there with her mother last August, but when Alicia decided to stay, I insisted Tanya should come home and go to school.  Now she turns her back on me and I follow her into the kitchen, where she opens the refrigerator door wide and stares at the little food inside.

I slam it shut, nearly getting her fingers. “You know better.”

We’ve developed a system with the rolling blackouts. We keep two gallon jugs of water in the freezer and, as soon as the power goes out, put one in the refrigerator. Then we leave the refrigerator and freezer shut until the power goes on. Usually there’s still some ice in the jugs and the food’s okay. We use anything that spoils easily, anything that started to thaw in the freezer.

Only there’s still no power, no way to cook or make smoothies.

“Dad. It’s like at least a hundred degrees in here. No way there’s any ice left in the jugs. Some of the food’s probably already ruined. Besides, there’s nothing else to eat.”

I run my hand through my hair and nod. Alicia would have had enough canned goods to last for weeks. Not me. We’ve eaten every bit. Tanya put the pasta we had in a pot of water in the sun on the patio. It didn’t really cook, but it softened up enough to eat with a can of tomato sauce.

She’s right. The jugs of ice are nothing but water and everything’s warm to the touch. She empties everything out onto the shelf. The lettuce is rotting and the face she makes when she sniffs the milk tells me it’s sour. We should have used it this morning. Or yesterday. It may not be a hundred degrees in the apartment, but it’s probably close. There’s no way to be sure – the thermostat’s electric too. But the weather outside has been in triple digits off and on for weeks, and it’s not even summer yet.

Why didn’t I listen to Alicia? I laughed at her when she got a Sun Oven to use on the patio. She took it with her.

We eat what’s safe from the refrigerator and I cart the rest to the garbage can out in the apartment complex parking lot. The cars don’t work, either. I tried to go to work the first morning and it was dead, not so much as a click of life. Same thing was happening to half a dozen other commuters. I went back inside and told Tanya she could stay home from school and I’d play hooky from work so we could play board games all day. Her Harry Potter Clue wasn’t as much fun with just two of us, but she loved beating me at cribbage and backgammon. As the apartment heated up, I tried to wet washcloths for our heads, but the water wasn’t running, either.

“That’s okay,” Tanya chirped. “I filled the tub last night like Mom always did for blackouts.”

My twelve-year-old is handling this better than me.

The garbage can is overflowing with bags that can’t contain the rancid smell of rotting food. I go by my car for one more try. I’m surprised Tanya hasn’t already suggested going to her mother’s community – I have to start thinking of it that way, so I don’t call it a cult again. Still nothing – the car may as well be a rock for all the good it will do us. I sit back against the seat and one tear slides past my blinking eyes and down my cheek. I have to pull it together for Tanya.

My ears throb with the absolute silence in the city. No traffic, no motors, no air conditioners, no electric hum of thousands of different pieces of civilization. But the faint stench of burning rubber reaches through my musing to clarify my resolve. We have to get out of the city.

It’s sixty miles to Alicia’s community. If we had bikes we could do it in a long day, but they didn’t seem to be a safe idea in the city. So we’ll walk, wear our running shoes with good socks. Take the bare minimum. It’s hot during the day and we may have trouble getting enough water, so we should probably leave now, walk through the night. I think Tanya can do that. We slept some this afternoon when the heat made us too drowsy to play games.

Maybe by the time we get there, the power will be back on and I’ll feel like a fool. It’s only been two and a half days. Snowstorms and hurricanes knock out power a lot longer than that. Usually they say shelter in place.

But the apartment, the city with all that pavement, is too hot. And we’ve run out of food. I’d have to find an open store, if they haven’t all been looted.

It was such a relief when Alicia moved out and no one was nagging me to buy a chest freezer, or a dehydrator, or… Well, she ordered the solar cooker herself, without consulting me. She used it a few times before she took it and left. It worked pretty good. It just seemed silly when there was a perfectly good oven in the apartment and AC to keep the place cool.

I’m sure her doomsday friends will have explanations for all of this – government plots or aliens or both – all kinds of whacky conspiracy-theory nonsense. When the power does come back on, they’ll be suspicious of that, too. I don’t want Tanya getting sucked into their paranoia.

But the way the internet and cell reception crashed right along with the electric – that was rather unsettling. Some kind of magnetic force? Would that do it? There’s been some talk of the poles reversing. But wouldn’t that have given all of us a jerk?

I’m still sitting in the car, trying to decide what to do, when I hear them. I’ve left the door open because of the heat – the battery’s dead so there’s no light and no way to lower the power windows. The voices are quiet, soft murmurs. A baby’s cry quickly hushed. It’s a group of people walking down the middle of the street, making their way in the dark. Headed for the freeway ramp, I’d bet. Getting out of the city before murder and mayhem become the order of the day.

That’s what we need to do, too.

I get off my duff and head for the apartment, thinking of ways to present this plan to Tanya, but she’s already packing – sensibly, of course. Alicia prepared her for this, taught her the difference between essential and superfluous. I remember her telling Tanya, “Pick one small, light item that’s just to make you feel good, to connect you with what you’re leaving. That connection is essential, too. It will help you remember who you are, what kind of person.”

She’s chosen a printed photo of the three of us on a ride at Universal Studios, a year and a lifetime ago, just before Alicia decided to check out that sustainable living center. I had to get back to work, so she went with Tanya, saying it would be a good education. When I insisted, she brought Tanya back and left with her solar cooker.

There’s a crack like a firework, or a gunshot. I have no clue how to tell the difference. Maybe we should wait to go later, or in daylight.

Tanya sees my indecision and channels her mother. “We’ve got soft-soled shoes. We just need to stay in the shadows – if there are any places that aren’t in shadow – and not talk at all. We’re headed to Mom, right?”

I nod. She’s packed a bag for me, too.

“I put most of the spices in your bag,” she says. “If this really is worldwide, they’ll be valuable for trading.”

“I suppose my bank books may as well stay here.”

She shrugs.

One of my accounts gave me a printed checkbook. I bring it and all the plastic, in case they’re of any value going forward. In the drawer with my bank books are passports for all three of us – we’d planned to spend Christmas at a cabin in Canada, a place run by an old friend of mine. Instead Tanya split the day between me and her mother. I slip them into my bag. Who knows?

I lock the apartment on our way out. I have to believe we may be able to come home, back to our real lives. I have to believe this is just a hiccup.

© Sheri McGuinn

Audio version at sherimcguinn.substack.com/small-traditional-publishers

beach Party - first kiss

Sometimes it's fun to write in a different style. The Furious Fiction challenge demands more description than I usually give. When the prompt placed the story on a beach (with specific words used), I took a scene from All for One - Love, War, & Ghosts, changed names, the point of view, some of the action, and my writing style to create Beach Party - First Kiss.

Teenagers gathered around the crackling driftwood fire in small groups, drinking, their chat punctuated by rolling belches followed by laughter. The fire’s smoke was sweetened by coconut-perfumed skin. The autumn day had been warm enough to sunbathe. Now Sue zipped her denim jacket, wishing she’d worn jeans instead of shorts, feeling out of place.

Trying to be less of a nerd, Sue had let Mary drag her along with her buddies to this, Sue’s first teenage party. Now Mary was nowhere to be seen and Andy and George were drinking with some other boys. And Mike? He was the driver, the popular one. Surely he hadn’t gone home.

The receding tide had left firm, flat sand between the rocky beach and the water. There she saw a circle around a bottle – most squatting, a shivering few sitting on jackets. Mike was there. Sue held her breath a moment, then dared to join them by sitting on her feet, letting the wet sand grind against her bare knees.

They took turns spinning the bottle, laughing at themselves for playing the old-fashioned game. Most of the matched couples exchanged awkward, closed-mouth pecks – sometimes not even on the mouth. When Mike spun the bottle, Sue curled her fingers out of sight and crossed the tips against the sand, but Melissa got his dramatic, screen-worthy kiss. When at last it was Sue’s turn she held the sandy glass of the bottle, gauging its weight, hoping to spin it just fast enough to stop as it pointed to Mike. Instead, a pimply-faced boy she barely knew gave her a slobbery smack on the lips. Sue pulled away as if bitten.

The boy laughed. “What, was that your first kiss?”

She wiped her hand across her mouth and shook it as if to get rid of excessive slobber. Sue gave the boy a withering look, got up, and brushed off her knees. She held herself like a queen as she strode away from the gathering. Inside, she worried the giggles behind her meant they knew it was her first kiss.

When all she could hear was the waves, Sue realized she was walking away from the car, into the dark, toward the point that reached out into the ocean, ending the beach. An almost-full moon gave enough light to walk, as long as she stayed on the flat sand. The whisper of the waves was soothing. If she walked to the point, maybe no one would notice her when she went back. She could stay by the fire, away from that silly game.

A warm hand slid across Sue’s palm and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. She gasped and turned to lock eyes with Mike. He smiled and tilted his head toward the point. They walked hand in hand all the way to the end of the sand. There, he pulled her to face him. They stared into each other’s eyes for long moments, then he leaned forward to kiss her, gently exploring her lips and mouth with the tip of his tongue until Sue responded in kind – her first real kiss.

© Sheri McGuinn

Audio version

https://sherimcguinn.substack.com/p/research-how-much-to-include

The Greeting Committee

Rob and Virginia walk through the wall into the old lobby, with little Annie trailing behind. No one notices them – not the porters, nor the desk clerk, nor any of the hotel patrons passing through. Not even the two children playing on their phones while they wait for their parents to finish checking in. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

Virginia looks around wistfully. Her midriff is bare between the rope belt of her baggie white clam diggers and the patchwork-patterned shirt with its tails tied. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail and the only makeup she seems to sport is bright red lipstick.

“I heard that new manager saying they might do away with this entire building, if they get that preservation grant.”

“They won’t, Virginia,” says Rob. He’s a clean-shaven man in formal dinner attire as worn at the turn of the century – the turn that went into the twentieth, that is. His posture is erect and his manner as formal as his clothing. “They may stop using it for a hotel, but it’s a preservation grant, to preserve the history.”

“Good,” declares Annie, a pre-pubescent girl with slip-on sneakers, cutoffs, and a T-shirt with a picture of the old Stormcove on it. “I don’t like it at The Suites.”

“Of course not, Dear, not with that man there, even if he is contained.” Virginia shivers.

Annie shrugs and drifts over to the living children. Rob and Virginia are unperturbed when a bellhop rolls a luggage cart through her. Annie doesn’t seem to notice at all.

“I never would have advertised the Stormcove on undergarments – and people wear them without a proper shirt as cover!” Rob hadn’t been in charge of the hotel for more than a century. A chicken bone finished him off at the New Year’s Eve banquet, 1900, when he stepped outside to gag in private rather than disturb the guests.

Virginia looks around the lobby. “We were late. You don’t suppose they wandered off?”

“No. There are four of them, Virginia, swept off the rocks by a rogue wave early this morning.” Rob scolds her impatience with his most formal tone. “You know how long Intake takes these days.”

“Lucky for us the others survived.” She looks at the still-empty doorway. “I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to stay, Rob. He should have been here by now. It may be time for me to start a new life.”

Rob sighs. “You’ve been a good friend and I will miss you, but you need to do whatever is best for you.”

Annie is still by the children, trying to get them to become aware of her presence. She blows on the boy’s ear and he doesn’t notice. She blows again, hard enough to move his hair and he absently brushes at it, as if at a fly, never taking his eyes off the game he is playing on his phone. She tries similar ploys with the girl and finally gives up. She returns to Rob and Virginia.

“I couldn’t get them to sense me, not one little bit!” she complains. “I hate those things they play with all the time. My dad didn’t like how much time I spent watching television, but at least I didn’t carry one around with me, if that’s what they are.”

Before either adult can respond, two of the new residents enter the hotel, through the open doorway, awkward and uncertain of their new form – a man with silvered temples holding the elbow of a distracted young woman whose bearing and grace assert her elevated class.

Virginia leads the way to them and takes the woman’s hand. “I’m Virginia and this is Rob and Annie. We’re the Greeting Committee. Welcome.”

The older man stiffens. “They’ve put us in the old building?”

“This is where we greet people,” says Rob. “You’re welcome in both buildings, though most choose one or the other as their primary location for the duration of their stay.”

“Oh!” the young woman yelps as a new family walks through them on their way to the hotel desk. Her eyes are wide. “Is that what he was talking about?”

“Who, Dear?” asks Virginia. “Your intake worker?”

“Yes. I didn’t understand anything he said.” The young woman composes herself with a breath. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been rude. I’m Sarah Van Kirk. It wasn’t his fault, I wasn’t expecting to die today and I’m still a bit stunned.”

“That may be, but that idiot didn’t make any sense at all.” The older man holds his hand out to Rob. “George Hastings.”

Rob shakes his hand, “Rob Wilson. Who was your intake worker?”

George looks at his hand, puzzled by the ambiguous nature of the contact. “That will take some getting used to…” He shrugs it off. “It was Jeremy something.”

“Oh.” Virginia shakes her head. “No wonder.”

“We’ve reported other complaints,” says Rob. “It hasn’t done any good.”

“It’s really simple,” explains Annie. “You come here first, to get used to not being alive anymore. You know, like people don’t see you and can walk through you without it hurting, and you can walk through walls, that sort of thing. And how touch doesn’t feel the same.”

“There’s no heaven or hell, then?” demands George.

“Oh, yes, definitely, both,” says Virginia. “Those bound for hell go straight to it, or their personal version of it.”

“What about us?” asks Sarah.

Virginia continues the explanation. “Some move on as soon as they come to terms with their change of state – either to another life or their vision of heaven. Some choose to stay where they are, where they passed.”

“Why on earth would anyone do that!” huffs George.

With the utmost dignity, Rob explains, “I worked at the Stormcove from the time I was a boy and was manager for two decades. There’s nowhere I would rather be. Virginia, well, this may be her heaven.”

“I’m not quite sure yet,” interjects Virginia with a sad smile.

“I sure don’t want to have a return life!” declares Annie. “My last one was rotten, and look at them!” She waves at the children still sitting absorbed by their screens. “They don’t have any real life, just their private fantasies. I’d rather stay here, like this.”

Rob nods and sighs. “It used to be that children were usually sensitive to us.”

A loud crash of thunder doesn’t stir the living children at all.

At that moment, another new resident arrives. He looks like a young beach bum with his scruffy hair and plastic sandals. “Hi,” he says.

“I’ve seen you before!” says Annie. “You’re one of the free guests.”

“Yup. I’ve been living here for several months,” he says with a charming smile. “It’s okay for me to mingle now?”

As Rob nods assent, George barks “What?” and curls his lip as he takes in the young man’s cutoffs and ragged Stormcove Tee.

Holding himself formally erect, Rob informs the older man, “Stormcove has always offered free lodging to select needy people.”

“I worked for every penny that makes it possible for me to stay in places like this, and I don’t appreciate knowing tramps are given the same for free!”

“I’m not a tramp.” The young man lifts his chin. “I’m James Galt, writer.”

Sarah introduces herself. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Galt. The Van Kirks have always been patrons of the arts. You’ll have to forgive Mr. Hastings. His ignorance comes from being nouveau riche.” She shoots a withering glance at Hastings, then returns her gracious gaze to James. “What have you been working on during your stay here?”

“I’ve been researching and writing a creative non-fiction book, about a young girl who died here on July 4, 1970.”

“That’s me!” cries Annie. “Annie Smythe!”

“You’re Annie?” James bounds up to her and takes her hands. The lack of substance in the contact doesn’t dampen his excitement. “I should have recognized you! Your sister gave me photos when she asked me to find out the truth. She never believed it was a simple drowning.”

“She knew! We went for a walk when we got here and she saw how frightened I was by the waves. I wouldn’t climb on the rocks with her. She knew I’d never have gone near the water by myself. But no one listened to her. She was only seven.”

“And you were ten.” James squeezes her hands gently. “We were right, then? It was murder?”

The others are drawn in, listening to this conversation – even George, though he leans back as if to deny the pull of interest.

“Yes,” says Annie. “He tossed my body off the dock, long after everyone was asleep.”

“Mary suspected a man who had asked to take your photograph earlier.”

“Yes, yes! She was right!”

“I was hitting a wall, trying to discover who that might have been. There was no professional photographer here at the time. Then there were two other girls who drowned late at night, both about ten years old, but the deaths were a few years apart. We were suspicious, but there was no way to link one man to all of them.”

“Oh, it was him. And there were more than that. But his last victim got away. The other girls and I had managed to make her uneasy enough, she was more alert than we’d been.” Annie pauses for effect. “The girl ran and told her father. He took care of it personally.”

“Good!” cries James. “I was afraid the killer had moved on and continued.”

“The only bad part is, that man has been here ever since, but he’s kept contained, over in the Suites.” Annie sighs. “I usually don’t go over there, but if you’d like, I’ll show you where he is. I won’t be afraid with you.”

“We still have another resident coming,” Virginia reminds her.

“It could be a while,” says James. “He’s eighty-four. He was stuck up on the rock wall – that’s where I met him. He told me he should have known better at his age. I was helping him down when that wave came and washed us both out to sea. He’s still pretty shaken up and moving slow. We’d have time to go over to the new building and get back before he gets here.”

“Be that as it may, we’ll all wait,” says Rob. “That’s how it’s done.”

“And there’s no hurry to see that man,” adds Virginia. “He’s part of the lobby wall. Literally.”

Sara looks confused. “Shouldn’t he have gone to hell?”

“That is his hell,” explains Rob. “He sees children come through every day and cannot make any movement toward them at all. And several of his victims from other places found their way here and tormented him before they moved on. It was part of their process.”

“So he’s here forever?” asks James. “Isn’t that torturous for Annie? That’s not fair.”

“He’s stuck in the wall until I move on, then he’d go to the fire and brimstone hell,” says Annie. “But I’d rather stay here.”

James and Sarah look at Virginia with doubt in their faces.

Virginia shrugs. “I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“You’ve been here longer than me,” Annie tells her.

“But I had a long life before that,” says Virginia. “There are so many things you never experienced.”

“Virginia looks younger than me, Annie. Trust me, you would like growing up,” says Sarah.

Annie giggles. “Are you going to tell her?”

“Tell me what?” Sarah asks, looking at Virginia. “What were you when you passed? Twenty? Twenty-one?”

“Seventy,” smiles Virginia. “This is my heaven, where I spent the best summer of my life. I passed in a hospice in Tucson thirteen years ago.”

“And you went back to the age you were that summer?” Silver-haired George is enthused by this revelation. “I can go back to my younger self?”

Virginia smiles broadly. “Yes, if that’s what you decide to do.”

“Why can’t I just be younger now?” George demands.

“You’re still in transition,” explains Rob. “You have to choose your heaven first, then once you’re there, the change will come. You’ll go back to your best age in that place. I’ve seen it happen a few times. This was a happy place for many people, not just Virginia.”

Virginia’s smile fades. Her eyes are sad. “But choose wisely. The place will have changed and you may not find the people you wanted to see. And you only get to choose your heaven once. I’ve been thinking of returning for a new life, myself.”

A brilliant flash of light fills the lobby, followed by thunder that shakes the building. The skies open and rain pours down as the last new resident totters in. His eyes meet Virginia’s and he smiles. As he crosses the room toward them, his step springs, his body straightens, and his face smooths to its youthful state. He stops in front of Virginia, then they embrace, both tearful.

Sarah is first to break her gaze from the reunited couple. “Shall we move on then?”

Rob turns to Sarah and nods stiffly. “Yes.” He turns to the others. “Come along, let’s give them some privacy.”

They head to the other building, leaving Virginia and her long-lost love alone together, oblivious to the people coming and going around and through them.

“I was afraid you would never come,” says Virginia. “Or that you’d gotten here first and given up on me, like you did before.”

“Leaving you here was the worst mistake of my life,” he answers. “I came back and you’d left, and I didn’t know how to find you. I want to stay with you here forever.”

Virginia smiles.

Annie looks back at them, then up at Sarah. “Maybe it would be nice to have a life where I grow up. . .” 

© Sheri McGuinn

Audio version at

https://sherimcguinn.substack.com/p/rainn-day-speculative-fiction-review