Lights Out

The bustle of the city was muted by the thick walls and windows of the Ping Net Cafe. This was a great place get some work done. As most the other patrons were also work-at-homers, out for a change of scenery, and college students writing papers, the buzz was usually kept to a minimum.

At mid-afternoon there were only a handful of other people in the café. Larry had just ordered another double shot expresso and was returning to his laptop to go over some figures when his screen went black, followed a moment later by the lights. Remembering that he just saved his work to a flash drive before he got up, he started to let out of sigh of relief but was cut short by the sound of a distant boom and a heave of the ground underfoot.

The violent tremor caused Larry to stumbled into his table, spilling his expresso, a young lady two tables away fell off her chair and sobbed, one middle aged man started cursing, the young man behind the counter looked panicked and ran into the back room. A sudden and brief silence overwhelmed him, as Larry realized that there was no hum. All the electronics stopped, there was no backup generator, and even the few cars visible outside the tinted windows were not moving, but then like a slap in the face, he realized people were screaming outside.

Larry steadied himself against the tremors and stumbled through the doorway to the street. The first thing to cross his mind was, ‘why is it dark out here?’ It’s only two in the afternoon. The city’s people were all in chaos. Some were running aimlessly, while some stood frozen, just staring in horror and awe. Larry turned to look through the haze, only to see a giant black cloud spreading from the direction of the naval base…