Chapter 8: Frank freaks

We walked back up to the porch and sat back down; life was much calmer without the power on for some reason. I had Kristy tune in to any available local news station so we could get some information. We started listening to news station out of LA; apparently they had backup power of some type. The power problem was caused by an overload; apparently people were removing their electric meters, bypassing them. The electric company had a system in place to shutdown the air conditioners, but the people bypassed them too. Several of the relay stations were also down due to the relay rooms getting too hot. The news guy went on and on all the time telling people to turn off everything possible. I had to laugh; what a mess.

It was starting to get dark so I decided a campfire was a good idea; I made a fire pit from some rocks and threw in some wood. I told Gloria we could roast hotdogs for dinner, it's been a while for me. That evening we all had hot dogs for dinner and sat by the campfire. After the fire started to die out, Pat and I went in to get some sleep.

Frank dreamt:

I woke up in morning with a splitting headache, you know, one of those where it hurts so bad, you just know you're going to puke. I jumped and ran to the bathroom — thankfully I made it — but I spent most of the next few hours in there, being as sick as a dog. I had the strangest dream last night; it seemed so real but yet I know it was a dream. It had to be a dream; after all, I was home in Malibu, not in some desert city watching the planet die. But the people ... I remember them all. Mike Monahan of the California Highway Patrol; it seems I knew the guy for years.

Suddenly I had an idea. I jumped up, almost falling on my ass from the pressure in my head as I ran out of the bathroom and called information. I asked for the CHP office that covered the Victorville area and got the number.

I dialed the number and was asked, "California Highway Patrol; how may I help you?"

"Yes, can I speak to Officer Mike Monahan please?" I asked.

"Officer Monahan is out for training and will be back next week; would you like to leave a message?"

I couldn't speak, shocked that he really existed; I said 'no thanks' and I would call back later, and then I hung up. I don't understand how this can be possible, dreaming of someone that I have never met before. That's when it hit me — the accident on PCH that happened on Wednesday, that's tomorrow. Then I remembered my dad; I got on the phone again and called mom.

"Mom, it's Frank; is dad all right?" I asked.

"Frank! How did you know? We just had him picked up by the ambulance. They said it seemed like a mild heart attack, but I'm so worried," mom said.

I did my best to reassure her, telling her, "I have it on good authority he will be fine mom, please don't worry about it; he has many healthy years in front of him."

The conversation went on for another hour; mom still didn't understand how I knew about dad. I just got her to promise me that when the day came and I asked a favor from them, they would do it no questions asked. She didn't understand but she agreed anyway, and then we ended our conversation. I quickly took a shower and got dressed, booted up my laptop and put down as much of the dream as I remembered into a document. This file, I thought, could possibly be worth billions! If the market data is accurate, life will shortly be very good to me. But what do I do with the rest of this knowledge? I was sure nobody would believe me. Well I needed to check out that accident for tomorrow and see what happens.

That's when I realized the power was out again. What the heck now I thought? These dang heat waves always cause power problems...

Dreaming end

I woke up the next morning; the power was still off. Yep, this will get someone's attention I thought. I lit a candle and took a quick shower; well it would have been quick, till Pat joined me.

After the shower we got dressed and headed to the kitchen, but nobody was there. Hearing voices from out front, so we headed that way and found Gloria and Jenny had a skillet and were cooking eggs and bacon on the fire. I busted up laughing; it was a funny sight.

"Look, it's an original old west cookout," I said. "Hey, we need an old fashioned spit roast for lunch. What do you think?"

"Actually that would be cool," Pat said.

"Ya it would, we will take care of it," Gloria said.

I had just grabbed my plate and sat down when my com beeped. I looked at it and started laughing so hard I almost dropped my plate.

"Well everyone, seems the Governor has just declared an emergency; he also outlawed the use of air conditioners until further notice. They are dismantling parts of the power grid to get electricity to those places that need it - like hospitals," I said.

"So that means it's not going back on," Jessica said.

"Not for a while it looks like."

"Things are going to get bad fast if that's the case," Jessica said.

"Well people may actually leave their homes and go to a place that has power," I replied.

"You don't imagine the government would let the power be cut in places like this, places that would be safe from the heat," Jessica said with disgust.

"Yes you would think, unless they want everyone to leave the area? Maybe they want to move other people up here?" Leroy said.

"Well now that would be interesting; and difficult to cover up too. I guess we wait and see," I said.

By the time lunch rolled around, Gloria and Jenny had everything ready and the roast smelled great! We all had more than our share as we listened to the news some more. Well the power was back on in places now, but not here yet, and the nation as a whole still had no idea what was going on. I wondered how Frank was doing in the stock market, if it was up or down, but I figured it wouldn't matter he knew which was it was going to go. I told everyone I was going for a run and went inside to change. When I came back outside, my regulars joined me and we took off. We took the time to make six laps today but it was tough; when we were done I ran straight down to the pool, took of my shirt and shoes, and jumped straight in. Eventually others joined me and I stayed in the pool the rest of the day; I didn't even bother with dinner. I got up and went to bed a little later, wondering what was in store for me tonight in Frank's dream.

Frank dreamt:

That Wednesday I headed out early and stopped for breakfast before heading down to PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). I stopped at the site of the accident; in my mind I went through the options of what I could do to prevent this. I knew this happened after lunch; I could drive back and try to stop the van or the drunk. I'm not sure how I would explain myself though; I decided I couldn't stop the van's accident. However I was going to try to stop the drunk driver from hitting the van; assuming the van did indeed get into an accident. I drove down to the burger joint to grab some lunch, after which I drove back to the accident site and ate. After eating my burger, I backed my car up to the mountain side; I was going to try and hit the drunk driver after he came around the corner, and before he hit the van.

But as life usually goes it didn't end up that way.

I was watching as the van came around the corner and slid into the dirt, trying to avoid some fallen rocks. The driver of the van over-corrected and ended up back on the street, tipped over on its side. Well the van is exactly how I remembered it, so far. It was about forty-five seconds later that I heard the squeal of tires that I could not forget. I punched the gas intending to hit the vehicle in the side and prevent him from hitting the van, but I was too early. The drunk driver ended up hitting me in the driver's side door.

Some time later, I heard some voices every now and then, but that was about it for a while.

"He is out of surgery; it looks like he will make it."

"Well he made out better than the drunk, his car ended up going off the cliff into the ocean."

"How are the people in the van doing?"

"They were fine; a few scratches but the kids were all restrained so they made it ok."

"I guess they have a lot to be thankful for. If this guy hadn't of been there, who knows what would have happened."

"Yeah, I don't want to think about it; not with the drunken guy going as fast as he was."

Dreaming end

The next morning I woke up thinking of Frank; what a way to make an impression. I snuggled next to Patricia for a while that was when I noticed the power was back on.

"Kristy, when did the power come back?"

"Three hours ago, but it has already been on and off a few times. There have also been a number of surges."

I held Patricia for a while until she woke up; I told her the power was on, but it wasn't reliable. I also told her about Frank's accident and the family he saved. I got up and dressed and headed for the living room and turned on the news; this should be interesting I thought. It was pretty much all news on every channel; the power company was getting ripped apart, the callers were slaughtering the governor and his actions. Power had been reserved to serve hospitals, airports and government offices first; the list went down from there. Anyone running an air conditioner could now be arrested; even wasting electricity could get you cited. "I guess I won't be leaving the lights on," I thought to myself. They were also ranting about a number of fires that were thought to have been caused by power surges.

I got up and went to the kitchen for some coffee and to see if I could find a donut. I walked in and found everyone was eating, so I joined them.

"You know, with everything that's going on, I don't know if the world will last long enough to get blasted into the Stone Age," I said.

"Maybe Jessica and I should take a drive into town and see how things are?" Leroy asked.

"Sure, that's ok with me, but see if anyone needs anything before you go," I suggested.

We finished up our meal and Gloria gave Jessica a list of things to pick up; Jessica, Leroy and his wife Susan left after that. We sat at the table for the next few minutes chatting and drinking coffee and I finally had my donut. After breakfast I grabbed Pat and we tested out our new electric quads. They turned out to be pretty good, just limited in range. The fact that they were quiet was uneasy for sure, but I got used to it. We were out for a few hours and got back in time for lunch; we washed up and headed to the kitchen. Jessica and friends returned shortly after lunch with the few items Gloria requested.

"Well there were lots of people about but not too many cars; we think everyone is stockpiling gas for generators. The local gas stations are pretty much out; even during the outage they were hand cranking the gas into tanks and cans," Jessica said.

"Are we going to have any problems getting the Hummers delivered?" I asked.

"No, the gas situation is not so bad down the hill," Leroy said.

"Well, any other problems?"

"There were a few fires, probably related to the power being out. There were some upset people at the mayor's office, and the sheriffs looked like they needed a vacation," Jessica said.

"Well we can only look forward to it ... getting worse," I said as the power went out.

"Damn! Here we go again," Patricia said.

"Ok people, once our guests get here we need to get to work before everything goes to hell. We have plenty of water and rations. However we need meat and other stuff Kristy cannot produce. We need a shopping list. Assume we will need enough food for a hundred people for three years. Forget about the emergency rations for now, we will only use them if we need to. What else would we need?" I asked.

"If the 'EMP' wipes out everything, the entire internet will be gone. What about everything else that is kept on a computer, records of any type or general knowledge?" Jenny asked.

"That's right. Kristy what capacity do you have for storing data?" I asked

"In you terms, I have many thousands of terabytes," she said.

"Kristy, I want you to go on the net and start downloading all the online libraries and knowledge bases for every university and any sites on survival, health, farming, animals, veterinarians or doctors. Archive everything we could possibly use in the future, and I want it all linked through a search engine."

"Will we be able to fix anything affected by the 'EMP'?" Leroy asked.

"We won't know for sure till it happens; we're not even sure this is an 'EMP' device, just that it causes the same problem. To be safe, we should plan on not being able to use anything electronic outside of this property after the attack," I said.

"Well then, we need everything electronic especially communication equipment and what about home electronics for the houses and apartments?" Jessica asked.

"Well Kristy can make certain items; for example, she can make a monitor like the ones we use and she tapped into a satellite to get us a picture. However, after the attack there will be no more pictures so we will need something like a DVD player to play movies. I don't believe the aliens ever used a DVD player, so she would not be able to produce one. She can, however, produce communication gear because they have used that in the past, their past," I said.

"Since Kristy is so good on the internet, can't she log onto those pay movie sites and download all the movies, then we can watch them whenever we want. She must also know a way to store them on some type of media," Jenny said.

"Jenny, that is a great idea. There are lots of those sites out there, we can add them to her list," I said.

"What about animals?" Jenny asked.

"I don't know. I can't think of a way to go around and collect that many animals; we can only hope some survive and we can bring them up later."

"What about weapons? We have some, but we could always use more," Jessica said.

"I totally agree Jessica. If you can find a way to get us more without attracting attention, do it, get us everything you can. The government will soon have too many problems on its hands to worry about us."

We spent the next three hours going over our list of what we needed; Gloria made dinner as we were working and assigning priorities. Pharmaceuticals were not a problem — Kristy could take care of that — and thanks to me Kristy had our medical designs and needs. We were just finishing up dinner when the power came back on, so I got up and turned on the TV to watch the news before going to bed.

The next morning I got up, kissed Pat, put on my trunks, went to the pool, and dove in. I swam some laps instead of running; I was still swimming when Kristy showed up and sat by the pool.

"Good morning Kristy, how is the internet surfing going?" I asked.

"Very good, I should have all the data requested in another week or so; your internet is very slow."

"Good, that will be plenty of time. I'm really worried that the planet won't survive; if all the animals die, I don't think it will."

"It's quite possible. Some of the animals do need to survive in order to keep the ecosystem going."

"Well let's just hope enough survive then. So did you have something you wanted, or you just wanted to spend time by the pool?"

"Just thought you might need company," she said, adding, "You should know, the drone is scanning again, the Victorville area this time."

"No specific subject?"