State of Emergency

“I don’t know. I don’t understand…” the stranger replies, fear in his eyes.

I concentrate on walking, avoiding eye contact, just one thing on my mind: Get home. Get home and find dad.

Home is about three miles from here. I can make it if I move quickly. When emergency vehicles get here the streets will be blocked and locked for hours. I need to squeeze through now.

“Oh, my god!” A woman in a beanie exclaims. “It’s another one!”

I turn around, watching as another airplane descends dangerously low over the city. The same screeching, ripping sound fills the air. Despite my ringing eardrums I can feel it. I break out into a dead run.

A few beats later another airplane strikes the ground. The impact isn’t as intense as the first one because it’s further away. It still shakes the ground and sends a shockwave across the city. I stagger a little bit, feeling like a seasick sailor stumbling around on the deck of a ship.

“Come on…” I mutter, looking at my cell phone again. It’s still dead, and every Google-ready solution to turning on a dead phone isn’t working. I stuff it back in my pocket, delving onto a side street off the main boulevard. People are coming out of their apartments, restaurants and nail salons. The air is crisp and cold, burning my throat with every breath.

And every block it’s the same. Lights are off, cars are frozen on the streets, people are forming into crowds, looking to the skies as another plane passes over the city. Streets are becoming gridlocked, panicked people who don’t know how to escape whatever’s happening.

I just avoid them. Avoid the busier streets, the gridlocks, the people starting to panic. I manage to turn over a three-mile walk in less than an hour despite the crowds.

By the time I reach my neighborhood the entire city is bathed in white noise: The sound of people yelling, calling for help and things blowing up. My street is totally dark. Usually I can see the cheery facades of the old houses lit up from the inside by residents that have been here since the 1950s. Not tonight. Tonight everything is dark.

I start jogging until I reach our house. It’s blue and white with a little garden of flowers in the front yard. I take the keys out of my purse with shaking hands, jam it into the lock and open the front door. I slam it shut behind me.

“Candles, candles,” I say aloud, feeling my way into the kitchen. I open the cupboard under the sink and pull out some emergency candles. I light the wicks with some matches hidden the utensil drawer, illuminating the dull yellow paint on the walls. I flick the light switches, try the TV, mess with the radio. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Okay, what do I do? The power is out. The cellphones are dead. The cars are busted. The airplanes are falling out of the sky. Things aren’t exactly looking rosy.

I stop and sit on the couch, holding my head in my hands in the dark.

“Breathe in, breathe out,” I say. “Don’t panic.”

I think about all the conversations I’ve had with my dad about emergency protocol. As a cop, he’s seen plenty of people in high-stress situations. It always pays to be ready, he told me. Most people are unprepared for an emergency, so they get scared and start raiding grocery stores for food and water when a crisis hits. They’ll start breaking into houses and acting like wild savages.

One minute, civilized. The next? A bunch of psycho rioters.

I get up, common sense hitting me in the head like a hammer. I take a candle to my bedroom and open up the closet. I have a go-bag inside, compliments of my father’s insistence that I have an emergency plan in the event of a nuclear attack. Or in this case, a random power outage and malfunctioning technology.

I grab the backpack and run around the room like hyper dog, grabbing things like a photo album, a stuffed animal from when I was nine, and a warmer coat. I drag the stuff into the living room and throw open the hall closet.

Boom.

A powerful impact shakes the house. I grab the wall to keep from falling over, horrified as a blast of orange light ignites about three miles away from my house. Another airplane. They’re falling faster, now.

I can’t stay here. I can’t wait for dad. I have to get out.

Calm, calm, calm, I repeat internally. Don’t panic. I got this.

I pull a smaller bag from the closet and throw it on the couch, unzipping it as fast as I can. There are two weapons inside. A semi-automatic and my grandpa’s cowboy pistol. I take the semi-auto and strap the holster around my waist, hiding it under my jacket. I know my father is already armed wherever he is, so I put Grandpa’s pistol into my backpack and dump all of the ammo into the side pocket.

Don’t panic, don’t panic.

That’s my mantra.

I zip everything up, toss in some candles and lace up my combat-style boots. I bought them this year because I thought they’d look trendy. Now I’m glad I have them because they’re going to be practical.

The radio!

I suddenly remember our emergency radio. I slide into the kitchen and open one of the shallow drawers. In the back there is a small, metallic box. I pop it open and take the radio out. A satisfied smile crosses my face for a brief moment.  The box is made out of ferrite, a type of metal resistant to technological attacks, or as my dad would say, “e-bombs.”

 I wind up the radio for a few minutes and turn it on. At first there is no sound, only static. And then I turn it to another station, and another, and another. Because every single one is all saying the same thing.

“If you can hear this, this is not a drill. Stay inside and seek shelter. If you are not in your homes, find shelter immediately…”

My blood runs ice cold as I shut the stupid thing off and shove it into my coat pocket. The only piece of technology is the house that’s working is the radio: The one thing that was protected in the ferrite case. I grab the backpack, take one last look at the house and head towards the back door.

Once outside, I pause and listen. Usually right now is about the time you would hear sirens or helicopters or bullhorns telling people to shut up and let the emergency workers do their job.

Instead I’m still just hearing the sound of unorganized panic.

Shuddering, I head to towards the alley, where my dad and I built a little garage. I open it up and step inside, using the flashlight to navigate through the piles of tools and machinery.

And I look at my escape vehicle.

It’s a 78 Mustang dad and I worked on together. While I’m not an automobile expert by any stretch, I do know that this baby should run as long as I have gasoline in the tank. My dad and I installed ferrite cores, a protective cage made out of the same metal that was keeping the radio safe in the kitchen drawer. Its main purpose is to guard a piece of technology from an electromagnetic pulse — which is what I think just wiped out every piece of computer-based technology in Los Angeles. Because that’s what an EMP does. It kills computers.My Mustang doesn’t use a computer chip to start up, unlike most of the cars on the road. It should be unaffected.

To think that my dad’s casual hobby of emergency prepping would come in handy. How did that happen?

I throw my backpack in the passenger seat and check the trunk. There are a few sealed canisters of gasoline, a box of tools with replacement parts for the truck and three cases of bottled water.

Always be prepared, my dad used to say.

Why do parents always have to know everything?

I slam the trunk shut and get in the driver’s seat.

“Please start,” I pray. “Please, please, please…”

I turn the key in the ignition. It feels like a million years go by before the engine turns over and it rumbles to life, smelling like gas.