THE FEW WHO DARED - Book One: Blackout

Chapter One
Lights


My name is Josh Warnock. I am, well, I’m no-one special. I’m just one man, a man among millions. I’ve started writing this journal. I don’t want to call it a diary, it sounds too frivolous, too inconsequential. This is a journal of my life, my subsequent travels and experiences. It never occurred to me to do this before, but, well, the world has changed. Everything is different now. We have changed as well. If I had jumped forward in time from five years ago, to today, I would not recognise this place, or even myself. Life was so certain back then, so completely grounded and real. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
There’s one real question I keep asking myself, now more than ever. What do I want from life? What do I need? I’m not sure I can answer anymore. What does this world still have to offer? Now that all is dark...

- Josh Warnock,

* * *

The front door opened and a cool summer draft entered the house. The occupant stepped over the threshold and into the street. All was silent and still. There were many people outside, all of them standing motionless, their heads tilted skywards, looking up without comment or reaction. They were living statues, suddenly transfixed on the spot, by the celestial event above.
He too looked up and the breath was suddenly stolen from his body. Time slowed to a crawl, until it was a forgotten factor. The lights of the street, the houses and the town beyond were not enough to dampen nature’s power. He watched without a word, no-one on the entire street was talking; they were all caught up in the spectacle above, a shared experience, a moment of true reflection.
The sky had turned from a dark, blank vista into a lightshow of incredible proportions. The entire night had become a shimmering mass of blues, greens and reds, lines of colour danced and waved as if propelled by the wind itself.
“My… God,” he said in nothing but a whisper. How long he watched, he had no idea. After a time he stopped looking, his could feel his eyes beginning to well up and chastised himself for his foolishness. It was just so beautiful, so incredible, a sight neither he, nor anyone else would ever forget. He turned to the woman next to him, a tall, slender girl not much older than him, with long, blonde hair.
“Well Josh,” she said, seeing him turn to her, “looks like God put on a show for your birthday.” Jennifer Gray smiled and Josh felt his pulse quicken yet further. It was all so magical, so perfect, that it didn’t seem real. Some hyper sense of reality overcame him and he had to remind himself that this was, in fact, really happening.

They probably stood there like that for a few hours. The party-goers, all thirty plus of them, left the house and wandered around the narrow road, drinks in their hands, talking, laughing and watching. Some of the neighbours joined them, taking offered drinks and joining in the impromptu street party. Others stood with their families, or alone. A few parents had awoken their children, carrying or leading them into the road in the night dresses and pyjamas, bleary eyed and confused, until the phenomenon above them forced the sleep from their minds.
Josh Warnock, a young man with a stocky build and a tangle of untidy, overgrown hair moved from person to person, talking to his friends and neighbours and then remembering why they were all out on the warm August night. He looked up once more, it wasn’t a dream and it was still there; the shifting colours.
“What is it exactly?” asked a neighbour, a man with a dark complexion and short cropped hair. In his hand he had a can of lager, one he had accepted from the party.
“It’s the Aurora Borealis,” said a man behind him. He and the two others he had been talking to, turned and looked at the person whom had spoken. He was short, with thick black hair and fashionable glasses.
“Aurora wassit?” the man asked.
“Aurora Borealis,” the spectacled man responded.
“What…” the man began to ask.
“He means the Northern Lights,” Josh called and joined the small group clustered around one of the parked cars.
“Yeah, I heard him. But what is it?”
“Thanes, you’re the physicist, you answer,” Josh said playfully.
“Oh, um, yeah. Well, the Earth has an electromagnetic field, which is created by the flow of magma beneath the crust. This is what makes compasses work, gives us north and south,” Thanes began, trying his best to talk in layman’s terms, “You see, the Sun emits solar radiation whenever there’s a solar flare, this is called solar wind. When it hits the Earth’s field it acts as a conductor, an electrical conductor turning the electromagnetic energy into light energy.”
“So this is always happening?” asked the neighbour, his interest peaked.
“Yes.”
“So why are we only seeing it now?”
“Oh, right. Well, it happens all the time, we usually see this phenomenon around the north and south poles, because the magnetic field turns into the Earth at the poles. It is easier for solar wind to interact with it this way.”
“So why here?” Josh asked, also heavily interested. He had known what he was looking at, but not why it was here, nor why it was so vibrant.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I could hypothesise,” Thanes said, thinking.
“Please do,” the amused neighbour said, enjoying the conversation.
“Well, the sun may undergo a very natural process every few hundred million or billion years, a process which sees it expelling a massive about of solar wind. Perhaps it has happened before, many times, its just humans weren’t around to see it.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“Um… no. I doubt it. I mean, it may disrupt the power grid, maybe satellite and radio communication. But that’s probably all. The sun has a natural cycle of eleven years, that’s when the sun spots become most common, leading to more solar flares, but maybe there’s a greater cycle, something science hasn’t discovered yet.”
“Whatever it is, it sure is beautiful,” said another neighbour who Josh had only met this very night. For a moment, they were all lost in the vista over their heads, a combined hypnotic event that Josh wished he could watch forever, to capture every single moment of its splendour. He returned to the front door of his renovated semi-detached rented property, where most of his friends were currently standing. The party had been for his twenty-first birthday and this was the beginning of his second year of University at Hull, at the Scarborough campus. People had come from all over to celebrate with him, people from Nottingham, Manchester, his hometown of Biddulph in Staffordshire and of course, Scarborough itself. Almost forty people were packed into the small home he shared with two other students, an act he had been genuinely touched by. Outside the façade of his home, he found Jennifer Grey. She stopped talking to another guest and turned towards the host as he approached.
“It’s… incredible!” she said with genuine awe.
“I know,” he smiled warmly, looking up with her, “people are going to remember this day for the rest of their lives. It will be in our social consciousness forever, and we, we witnessed it.”
Jennifer stopped looking up, and turned towards her friend, a small, contemplative smile etched on her face, “you’re right. Forever.”

At 01:26am on September 08th 2012, the electricity went out.

* * *

Lieutenant John Farrow stalked through the forest in the darkness. He came to a clearing in the trees and held up a hand, sharply. Behind him, there was no sound but the wind gently bending the branches to its will. The solider felt that the world was silent and he was the last man alive. Dressed in DMP camouflaged jacket and trousers, camouflaged paint smeared across his face, neck and hands, he stood motionless against the tree line. He gestured again and a man approached stealthily.
“Do you see this?” the man asked incredulously.
“I do. What the hell is it?” Farrow responded in a low, almost inaudible whisper. In his arms, the soldier clutched a SA80 Rifle, complete with a yellow plastic blank firing suppressor on the end of the barrel.
“I have no idea,” the second man asked, looking at the sky and removing his helmet, “it’s gorgeous though, isn’ it?”
Farrow did not reply, but watched the sky beyond the wooded glade, transfixed on its celestial beauty. Farrow’s eyes left the sky for a moment and found a separate source of light among their sea of darkness, below them, down a steep bank and across several fields stood the village of Catterick.
“Is this ex still fuckin’ happening? Or are we sitting in the dark for a reason?” the young soldier asked impatiently.
“Quiet,” Farrow said, raising his voice ever so slightly.
He allowed himself a moment longer to check his wrist watch and saw that it was close to half one in the morning and he and his men still had a few miles to cover before they reached their target. Jonathan Farrow had been on more than a few training exercises in his almost decade long military career, but none had been accompanied by a glorious light show. He sighed, took another moment and then signalled for the rest of the unit to move on. He began to move quickly, but quietly through the undergrowth. As the soldiers moved further away from Catterick, they were not there to see all of the lights in the village go out at once. The blackout had begun.

It was 01.26am as Farrow disappeared deeper into the woods, catching only momentary glimpses of the brilliant hue above. Inside the primeval forest, it seemed like all of civilisation was already gone and buried. As the electricity fizzled out, Farrow was completely unaware of the change.

* * *

The Big Man, Nathan Whitford, was late. He had been working at his job in North Manchester Greater Hospital as a porter, but his best friend from Biddulph, Staffordshire was turning twenty-one and he had promised to be there, no matter what. So Whips, as his friends had named him long ago, had finished his shift at 11.30 on a Saturday night and began the long drive from Manchester to Scarborough through the night. He was currently cruising down M62 Motorway at a respectable eighty five miles per hour. The night was clear and cool and his window was halfway lowered, a blast of chilled air ruffling his hair and clothing. His radio was tuned to his iPod which was connected to a device converting its signal to a specific radio frequency. He was currently listening to some Metallica, the volume very high to drown out the howling sound of rushing air through his open window. This was how Whips loved to drive, his window down, hair blowing in the breeze, extraordinary loud music for him to sing along to.
He had seen the light show above the car some miles back and was amazed as car after car flaunted the law by pulling over to the hard shoulder to take in the sights at a stationary vantage point. He did not stop, though he did sneak a look upwards when he was able. The view was incredible, but he believed it would still be there when he reached Scarborough. And more importantly, his friend of many years was expecting him.
At 01.26am, after watching for almost an hour, keeping his eyes on the road, everything changed. The music escaping his speakers suddenly began to crackle, causing him to flick the volume down low as quickly as he was able. Then, almost immediately afterwards, the lights on his dashboard started to flicker and finally, every light inside and outside the car died and the engine failed without even stalling. All of the cars around him, as well as the road lights also were extinguished. Whips was plunged into a pitch black world, inside a moving car, on a motorway, moving at almost ninety miles per hour.
“What the fuck!?” he shouted. His hands gripped the wheel tightly, he squinted his eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness. He fought the urge to slam on the brakes, knowing that there were dozens of drivers behind him, just waiting to plough into the back of him, but he also knew there were lots of drivers ahead who may have already crashed or come to a sudden halt. A thousand thoughts flashed through his head as he struggled to keep from panicking. His speed was slowing with his foot off of the accelerator, but not enough. The sound of the car on the road then changed and he understood he was coming off of the outside lane and was in danger of hitting the crash barrier.
“No!” he screamed into the darkness. He pulled back to the left, onto the main roadway and again reacted as a dark shape flashed past. It was a car and it had clearly just come to a screeching stop. Another car became suddenly clear to him in the mild light, its front crumbled in, its body shattered like glass, a second car, the one it had struck was still spinning away, like a child’s discarded toy.
“God!” he cried and pulled back right to avoid the accident. He ran over debris from the collision, but ignored it. His heart was pounding and he was surprised to be already covered in sweat. Less than ten seconds had passed since darkness and descended. Then he saw the last thing he wanted to. A huge, blocky form was coming right at him from the murk. It had ripped through the crash barrier and was on a course to run him down. It was a monstrous heavy goods lorry, its trailer had jack-knifed and was careering against oncoming traffic, stopped or not. Nathan pulled sharply to the right again, unafraid of whatever was obstructing him there. He also slammed his foot down on the break as hard as he could.

He hit the crash barrier at a forty-five degree angle and sixty miles per hour. The front end of the car was lifted by the impact, the seatbelt slammed Whips back against the seat, forcing his lungs free of air. The front tire ran itself along the leaning edge of the barrier, like a train on its tracks. Ahead the trailer rushed forward. He gritted his teeth. The left side of the car hit the trailer’s leading edge and the car was sent into a spin across the length of the crash barrier, which prevented it from falling back onto its four wheels. Instead it bounced off, falling onto its side and scrapping along the grass verge. All of the windows crumbled into tiny shards, showering him with sharp, minute projectiles. The front bonnet was smashed inwards. The airbag deployed and pounded Whip’s face as it did. He tasted blood. He felt gravity take effect as the car’s inevitably futile balancing act came to an end. It fell down onto its roof and scraped along for another five yards, then stopped.

Nathan Whitford regained consciousness a minute later. He found himself upside down with the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He looked around and saw only destruction. The windscreen was gone, the steering column was now missing its wheel and the dashboard had come loose, exposing its innards like spilled intestines. He saw smoke and smelled petrol and resigned himself, in spite of pain or injury, to get the hell out of the car.
He tried for the seatbelt, but his long shirt got in the way. He reached out for a large shard of glass, but it crumbled into smaller shards the second he touched it.
“Uh! Way to go, safety glass!” he grumbled weakly. Instead he discovered a random, unidentified piece of metal and began to use the sharp edge to saw through the belt.
After a minute of intensive work, with blood rushing to his head, he finally managed to release himself. He fell to the ground, or in the car’s case, the roof and hit his head hard on the edge of his sun roof.
“Fuck!” he swore loudly.
He clutched his head, felt blood and then decided to ignore it. He crawled like a worm and used the upturned seats to push and kick his way out; he finally escaped onto the hard tarmac road surface. He lay there for a moment, looking upwards at the beautiful sky.
“If this isn’t somehow your fault, I’ll be greatly surprised,” Nate said to the sky and exhaled a nervous, ridiculous laugh, one designed to stave off tears and shock.
Slowly he worked his way to his feet. It took a few minutes, but soon he discovered he had escaped with only minor injuries. He had no broken bones, no internal injuries he could feel or diagnose. He was stiff, sore and somehow exhausted.
As his eyes adjusted to the failed light he saw what he could only describe as total carnage. At least half a dozen cars were within his sight, as well as the lorry which had almost killed him. In the distance, something was burning, and well within range, came the sound of human screams and cries for help.
“Jesus Christ,” he exhaled. He began to walk towards the nearest car, which he could see had been almost crushed completely by the goods trailer. But he wanted to check for survivors anyway.

It was 01:30am and every car on the motorway had stopped working at the exact same moment.

* * *

The man sat alone in his flat, a tiny, one bedroom shell he despised. He cried silently to himself. The tears flowed down his face, but he did not make a sound. He sat in the dark, the television off, leaning against the wall, the colours from the sky dancing across the window glass and reflected across the ceiling. The radio in the nearby kitchen was on, tuned to BBC Radio Two, the DJ had stopped playing music for a while and was simply urging people to make their way outside to see the show. His voice became suddenly distorted and a rush of interference crackled loudly and was then silenced. The digital clock in the corner of the room also flickered for a moment; the time came back, 01.26am, and then died completely. Frowning, he dried his eyes with a dirty sleeve of a hooded sweatshirt and stood up slowly. He walked over to the window and watched as the lights of buildings all around began to blink off, one by one. From his high vantage point, the man watched mile after mile of London skyline go from sparkling star field to cold, black void.
This development quite suited the man. He cared nothing for anyone else around him, nor himself. All around, his home had been smashed and broken in a sustained burst of rage and pain. His belongings destroyed, his property vandalised and wrecked.
He was suddenly overtaken with an undeniable urge to go outside. He took his coat off of the peg and stepped out into the pitch black corridor which connected his floor of the tower block to all other flats. The windows and the incredible sight above filled the space with enough light and allowed him to carefully navigate his way to the stairwell. He stopped momentarily at the lifts, but then remembered that they were all suffering a power cut and took the stairs, slowly, one at a time.

Outside the night was refreshingly cool. He found a truly alien city beyond the doors to his block. People were everywhere, despite the desperate and shameful state of the neighbourhood. The darkness was incredible, despite a sky full of dancing, shimmering lights and a near full moon, his world was reduced to deep shadows and wandering, faceless silhouettes. It seemed like the whole city was alive and awake and had taken to the streets in a lonely pilgrimage to the lights above. Some were happy; laughing, singing, drinking like the event was an excuse to celebrate the celestial wonders. Others were simply soaking in the experience, craning their necks with heads pointed upwards, as if missing a moment would lead to a lifetime of regret.
After a short time of walking aimlessly, the man came to a bridge which arched over a canal of thick, black water. In a nearby park a collection of teenagers and other revellers were perched on the playground equipment like flocks of birds, watching and talking lively together. Their cries of horseplay and laughter hurt the man, who tried to ignore it, tried to pretend it wasn’t there.
A realisation had dawned on the man, a tall, handsome stranger with dark eyes and lengthy, auburn hair. He had already made the decision before he reached the bridge, now it was just all about going through with it. He pulled himself up and swung his legs over the railing and sat on the structure, looking down at the reflected Aurora in the canal sludge below. He removed his wallet carefully and opened it. He retrieved a photograph of a woman and child, smiling together and dropped it into the water where it disappeared into the dark. He also selected a credit and debit card, a library card and a few store cards and let them spill down from his perch like autumnal leaves caught on a breeze. Last, he chose his driver’s license. He looked at it closely, the ancient picture and his personal details, in the limited heavenly light. He read his name, every syllable and soaked it in. Then he dropped it too, letting the last legal proof of his identity, drift away forever. For good measure, he also slung his keys into the canal as well, hearing them make contact with a satisfactory splash.
For the rest of the night he watched the Northern Lights in silence, feeling suddenly freer than he had in years. He watched the lights until the sun began to rise and stole them from the sky.

It was 8am in the morning and the man turned north and began to walk away from his life and the city he knew.