Blackout

Caleb Rourke pulled into his driveway at 10:47 p.m., killed the engine, and sat behind the wheel for a moment enjoying the fact that nobody needed anything from him. It had been that kind of Friday. Three residential lockouts, a broken key buried to the shoulder inside a deadbolt, an apartment manager who needed cylinders changed after an eviction, and a woman who had somehow managed to lock herself out of a running Nissan with her purse, phone, and six-month-old daughter still inside. Caleb had gotten that one open in less than a minute. The woman had cried for twenty. He’d stayed with her until she stopped.

Seventeen years as a locksmith had taught Caleb that nobody called him because they were having a particularly good day. They called him angry, drunk, occasionally half-naked, and almost always eager to explain why what had happened wasn’t actually their fault. Caleb had stopped caring about fault somewhere around year three. Locks didn’t give a shit who was to blame.

He grabbed his tool bag from the passenger seat and went inside. His boots came off beside the front door, followed by his belt, which he draped over the back of a kitchen chair on his way to the refrigerator. Caleb grabbed a beer, twisted off the cap, and drank deeply enough that the bottle was half gone when he paused to breathe. He stood there for a minute, the house completely quiet, with the fridge door still open, letting the cold air roll across his legs.

Caleb lived alone and generally preferred it that way. After spending most of his day meeting people at some variation of their worst moments, solitude became a luxury. He closed the fridge door and carried the beer into the living room, lowering himself into the recliner with a grunt he would have denied making had anyone been around to hear it. His knees had recently started notifying him that nearly two decades of kneeling in front of doorknobs was probably enough. 

He found the remote between the cushions and turned on the television. A commercial was playing for a medication Caleb had never heard of, accompanied by footage of attractive old people kayaking while a cheerful voice explained that taking it could cause organ failure, internal bleeding, stroke, sudden psychosis, and death.

“Hard pass.”

Caleb took another drink and changed the channel. When the screen went black, he thought he’d hit the wrong button. Then the lamp beside him went out, the refrigerator stopped humming in the kitchen, and the ceiling fan overhead began slowing until the individual blades separated from the blur.

“Well, shit.”

He waited, hoping the power would come back on. It didn’t.

Caleb pulled out his phone. Full service. He checked for an outage notification and found nothing. He sighed as he rose from his chair and walked to the utility room. His phone’s flashlight cast a white circle across the breaker panel as he opened it. Nothing had tripped. Caleb ran his finger down the switches anyway, more out of obligation than expectation, then closed the panel and headed back to the living room.

His phone rang halfway there. Caleb looked at the screen. The number wasn’t saved.

The phone rang again.

Caleb sighed and answered. “Rourke Locksmith.”

“Oh, thank God.”

The relief in the man’s voice told Caleb everything he needed to know.

“What’d you lock yourself out of?”

“My house.”

The voice was older and had the faint rasp of someone who had either smoked for a long time or spent enough time yelling over machinery to accomplish roughly the same thing.

“Where are you?”

The man gave an address. Fifteen minutes from his house. Under normal circumstances he would have taken the call without thinking about it. Tonight, the half-finished beer next to his chair was making a compelling argument.

“Anyone else have a key?”

“My wife.”

“Can she let you in?”

“She can. I’d rather she didn’t, though.”

Caleb waited.

“She’s upstairs asleep. She’s been sick, and this is the first decent rest she’s gotten in days.” The man paused. “It’s…not looking good.”

Caleb nodded to himself. “All right. What’s your name?”

“Walter.”

“Walter what?”

“Bell.”

“Okay, Mr. Bell. Give me twenty minutes.”

Caleb ended the call. He stood in the middle of his dark living room considering the decisions that had led him to a career where an elderly stranger could summon him from a well-deserved rest at eleven o’clock on a Friday night. Then he picked up the beer and took one last drink before carrying it to the kitchen. He tipped what remained into the sink and dropped the bottle in the trash.

His boots and belt went back on, and he grabbed his tool bag. He opened the front door, closed it behind him, and stopped.

The neighborhood was completely dark. Not mostly dark, with the occasional porch light running off a generator or the distant glow of a convenience store lucky enough to be on another circuit. Every house on the street had disappeared into silhouette. The streetlights were dead. So were the shopping center beyond the subdivision, the gas station at the corner, and the billboard beside the highway that normally threw enough white light across the rooftops to make Caleb consider buying blackout curtains.

But it wasn’t the darkness that stopped him. It was everything above it.

He had lived in the house for nine years and couldn’t remember ever seeing more than a few dozen stars at once. Tonight there were thousands. They filled every corner of the sky, bright enough that the longer he looked, the more seemed to appear. A pale cloudy streak crossed overhead that Caleb recognized as the Milky Way only because he’d seen pictures of it.

“Holy shit.”

He tore his gaze away from the heavens long enough to make it to his van. Whatever had gone down, it had gone down big. Caleb started the engine. The headlights swept across his garage door before he backed into the street. He reached the entrance to the subdivision and slowed.

There was no traffic.

Caleb sat at the stop sign for several seconds, looking in both directions. The road had been backed up nearly to this intersection when he’d come home less than twenty minutes ago. Friday nights were always bad, and he’d waited through three changes of the light just to make the left into his neighborhood. Now there wasn’t a single pair of headlights in sight.

The signal at the intersection was dark. Caleb rolled forward, looked both ways again, and turned. By the time he reached the highway, his level of isolation had become impossible to ignore. Six lanes of pavement stretched beneath a sky crowded with stars, illuminated only as far as his headlights could reach. Caleb drove down the center lane with his hands resting loosely on the wheel, watching storefronts emerge from the darkness and disappear behind him.

He reached for the radio, hoping to find out how widespread the outage was. Static. He pressed the seek button. The numbers climbed steadily across the display without stopping. He tried AM with the same result.

Caleb switched it off. Whatever had knocked out the power had apparently taken every radio station in range with it, but the cell towers were still working. He didn’t know enough about either to know whether that made sense.

It was strange seeing a city this way. Places he had passed a thousand times became unfamiliar without their signs to identify them. A restaurant he’d eaten at the previous month was little more than a black rectangle behind an empty parking lot. Farther on, his headlights caught the reflective lettering of a medical office where he could have sworn there used to be an empty lot. Caleb glanced at it in the mirror after he passed. Then it was gone.

He continued toward Walter Bell’s house. He had told the old man twenty minutes, but since leaving his neighborhood, Caleb hadn’t touched the brake once.

Walter Bell lived near the end of a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood Caleb had worked in several times over the years. The houses were mostly two-story brick builds set farther apart than newer developers seemed willing to allow anymore, but little else was recognizable in the dark.

Caleb slowed to read the numbers painted along the curbs until a flashlight blinked twice from the third house on the left. He pulled into the driveway behind an old red pickup and parked. A live oak filled most of the front yard, its branches spreading over the driveway and nearly touching the roof. Caleb had to duck beneath one of them on his way to the porch.

The man waiting there looked to be in his eighties. He was tall, though age had pulled his shoulders forward, with white hair that appeared not to have seen a comb that day. He wore jeans, a golf polo, and a pair of house shoes.

“Walter?”

“That’s me.”

They shook hands.

“Sorry to call you out so late.”

“You’re paying me. Takes some of the sting out.”

Walter smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Dark circles hung beneath them, and several days of white stubble covered his face.

Caleb nodded toward the door. “What happened?”

“Trash.” Walter pointed his flashlight toward two garbage cans near the curb. “Walked them out. Door shut behind me.”

“Not deadbolted, then?”

“No.”

“Should be easy.”

Caleb set his bag on the porch and knelt in front of the door. A wooden swing hung several feet away. Walter sat while Caleb removed a tension wrench and pick from his bag. The chains groaned beneath the old man’s weight.

Caleb propped a small flashlight toward the lock and went to work. The first pin set, then the second.

“You said your wife’s sick?”

“Cancer.”

“Sorry.”

Walter nodded. “Pancreatic. Six months now.”

Caleb knew enough about cancer to understand what Walter had meant on the phone.

It’s not looking good.

Walter rocked gently on the swing while Caleb kept at it.

“She picked this thing out,” Walter said.

“The swing?”

“Begged me to put it up. Told her we’d hang it up and neither one of us would ever use the damn thing.”

The chains creaked again.

“Guess you were wrong.”

“Usually am.”

A more genuine smile touched Walter’s face as the third pin set.

“Power’s not doing her any favors,” Walter said.

“Hopefully it won’t be out long.”

Walter gave a tired laugh. “Been out five hours already. I’m not holding my breath they kick it back on tonight.”

Caleb stopped. “Five hours?”

“Something like that.”

“Mine went out maybe twenty minutes ago.”

“Must’ve been the last grid to go down.”

Walter shrugged and let his gaze drift away. Caleb shook his head, his puzzled look unseen by Walter, then got back to work.

“Radio’s out too. Couldn’t get a station the whole way here.”

“Radio?” Walter asked.

Caleb looked over at him. “In the van.”

“Oh.” Walter nodded. “Right.”

Caleb watched him for a moment.

Walter pointed toward the door with his flashlight. “You planning on opening that tonight?”

Caleb smiled and returned to the lock. “Almost there.”

The fourth pin clicked into place. Caleb adjusted the tension wrench and worked the pick deeper into the cylinder. The final pin resisted him for a moment before giving with a soft click he felt more than heard.

“There we go.”

The cylinder turned. Caleb removed his tools and twisted the knob. The door opened inward.

Walter pushed himself up from the swing. “Music to my ears.”

Caleb stepped aside as Walter approached the doorway.

“What do I owe you?”

“Hundred fifty.”

Walter looked surprised. “That’s it?”

Caleb glanced at him. “You want me to charge you more?”

“No.” Walter pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “I appreciate the discount. And there’s an extra fifty in there for you.”

Caleb wasn’t sure what discount he was talking about, but he wasn’t about to argue himself out of a tip. Walter handed him the money, and Caleb folded it once and slipped it into his pocket.

A cough came from upstairs.

Walter stopped. The sound was deep and wet, muffled by the walls but unmistakable in the silence. For several seconds he stood listening until the house went quiet again.

“Thanks for coming out,” he said.

“No problem.”

“Drive safe.”

Caleb nodded toward the empty street. “Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Walter gave him a tired smile and stepped inside. “Good night, Mr. Rourke.”

“Good night.”

Walter quietly pulled the door closed behind him.

The latch caught.

The world came roaring back, and Caleb flinched.

The porch light snapped on above Caleb’s head. Streetlights ignited down the block in both directions. Windows lit up across the neighborhood as air conditioners shuddered awake between the houses. A car horn sounded from the main road beyond the subdivision, then another. Engines passed somewhere nearby, followed by the steady rush of tires against pavement. After twenty minutes of near-total silence, the noise was overwhelming.

Caleb grabbed his bag and turned.

The red pickup was gone.

He straightened and looked at the empty stretch of driveway in front of his van. He had parked directly behind it.

Caleb turned toward the yard. The oak was still there, but the branch he had ducked beneath on his way to the porch was gone. The entire canopy was gone. What stood in its place was a young tree barely tall enough to reach the second story, its trunk a fraction of the size.

Caleb stared at it, then looked toward the porch.

The swing was gone.

“What the fuck?”

The front door opened behind him.

“Step away from the door.”

Caleb turned. A man stood in the doorway with a pistol pointed at him.

“Easy.” Caleb raised his hands.

“Back up.”

Caleb did.

The man was in his forties, barefoot and dressed in basketball shorts and a faded band T-shirt. His hair was flattened on one side from sleep.

“What are you doing to my door?”

“I’m a locksmith.”

“I didn’t call a locksmith.”

Caleb nodded toward the lock. “Somebody did.”

“I heard you fucking with it.”

“I was picking it.”

“Why?”

“Because the guy who lives here locked himself out.”

The man stared at him. “I live here.”

Caleb glanced toward the open doorway. “Where’s Walter?”

The gun lowered slightly.

“What?”

“Walter Bell.”

“How do you know my name?”

Caleb looked at him. “Your name?” Then he really looked at him.

“Yeah.”

For a moment neither spoke. Caleb lowered his hands a few inches.

“You called me here.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“About twenty minutes ago.”

“I’ve been asleep for two hours.”

Caleb reached slowly toward his pocket.

“Phone.”

The man nodded. Caleb took it out and opened his recent calls.

“There.”

The man stepped closer, no longer aiming the pistol. Caleb read the number.

“That yours?”

The man pulled a phone from his pocket.

“Yes. But I didn’t call you.”

The man opened his own call history.

Nothing.

Caleb looked at the screen.

“What exactly did I supposedly call you for?”

“You locked yourself out taking out the trash.”

The man’s eyes moved toward the curb. Caleb followed them.

The garbage cans were gone.

Caleb looked back at him. “You said your wife was upstairs asleep. You didn’t want to wake her.”

“My wife is upstairs.”

“You said she was sick.”

The man’s expression tightened. “Sick how?”

Caleb hesitated. “Pancreatic cancer.”

The gun lowered completely.

“My wife doesn’t have cancer.”

“Walter?”

A woman’s voice drifted down from upstairs. Both men looked toward the staircase.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Walter called back, his eyes still on Caleb. “I’m fine.”

A door closed upstairs.

Caleb looked toward the empty place where the swing had been.

“He sat right there while I opened the door.”

Walter followed his gaze. “Who?”

“You.”

Walter stared at him.

“An old man. Eighties. White hair. He sat on a wooden swing while I worked.”

“I don’t have a swing.”

“He said your wife picked it out.”

Something moved across Walter’s face.

“What?”

“He said she begged him to hang one. He told her neither of you would ever use it.”

Walter looked at the empty section of porch.

“She’s been asking me for one.”

Caleb’s eyes moved toward the oak.

Walter noticed. “What are you looking at?”

“That tree.”

“What about it?”

Caleb didn’t answer. He reached into his pocket and removed the folded bills.

“He paid me.”

Walter looked at the money.

“Two hundred dollars. Hundred fifty for the lockout. Fifty-dollar tip.”

Caleb remembered Walter’s surprise.

That’s it?

I appreciate the discount.

“You said you opened the door.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t.”

Caleb looked at him.

“I watched him walk inside.”

“I was standing on the other side. I heard somebody working the lock. Then the power came back.”

“And?”

“I opened the door.”

Neither man spoke.

Caleb had felt the cylinder turn. He had opened the door. He had watched Walter step through it and pull it closed behind him.

And the man standing in front of him had been on the other side.

Caleb looked down at his phone.

Walter followed his eyes. “What?”

Caleb opened the call log. “Let’s settle one thing.”

“How?”

“I’m calling the number.”

Walter raised the phone still in his hand.

Caleb pressed call.

They waited.

Walter’s phone remained silent. Its screen stayed dark.

Caleb frowned.

Then, very faintly, a phone began ringing inside the house.