Last Call

Last Call

JD Painter

Civilization ended on a routine Tuesday evening.

Around 9 o’clock, I was on the phone with my friends Bango and Zoey (they live in Oregon). After the COVID-19 pandemic started, we agreed to call every two weeks to assure each other we were still alive and healthy. While we talked, we used the internet to play racing video games against each other. We never started without a little pre-race trash talk.

“Hey, you two Nimrods ready to have your butts kicked?” I challenged with counterfeit bravado. I’d lost 17 out of the last 20 races.

Bango laughed. His real name is Eldon, but I’ve known him as “Bango” ever since our college days. That’s where the three of us met. Zoey and I worked on the staff of the student newspaper. Bango was one of my housemates. I introduced him to Zoey. The rest, as they say, is history. They now have two grown sons.

“Of all the times we’ve played this game, how often have you won?” Bango chided. “I have nothing to worry about from you, Dingus. But Zoey gets lucky sometimes, so she’s the one I’ll have my eye on.”

Now Zoey laughed. “I’m gonna wipe the track with both your sorry asses.”

“Don’t start yet,” I said. “I’ve gotta set my phone down so I can get a better grip on the controller.”

“Okay, let me know when you’re ready.” Zoey was the one who always set up the game parameters, so she had control of the start button.

I put my phone on speaker mode and placed it on my coffee table five feet from my 65-inch TV screen. As I scrolled through the vehicle options for my avatar, Zoltix, to drive, I made the usual small talk of people hunkering down in a pandemic. “Everybody okay out your way? Any COVID in the family?”

“One of our boys tested positive last week, but he said he only had a slight cough,” Zoey said. “He called us a while ago and said he’s feeling better now.”

“That’s good,” I said, distracted by my wide choice of digital cars offering various combinations of speed, acceleration, and weight. I picked one at random and said, “Okay, I’m ready to rumble.”

Zoltix revved his engine as the clock ticked down to the start of the race: 3—2—1. I smashed my thumb to the accelerator button on my controller. Zoltix bolted from the start. I led the pack but had trouble making the first turn.

I skidded off the track. “Dammit!” I screamed as I lost half a second of my lead.

Bango’s avatar, whom he’d named LT Bullspit for some reason, closed in on Zoltix. He kept on my tail throughout the course.

With one more lap till the finish line, I started to taste the sweet nectar of victory.

The checkered flag loomed ahead. At the last second, LT Bullspit threw a bomb at Zoltix.

The TV screen went blank.

The lights went out.

The air conditioner quit humming, a worrisome development when you live in the Sonoran Desert.

“Hey, guys, I think we lost our power,” I said to my phone.

No response.

“Guys? You there?”

I put the controller down and picked up the phone. The only thing on the black screen was a reflection of my own frustrated face.

“Did we lose power?” my wife, Hanna, called from upstairs. “I was on a call with my sister when my phone died, and the lights went out.”

“Yeah,” I yelled back. “Everything seems to be out. My phone shut off, too.”

“That’s odd,” she said. “Cell phones don’t operate on electricity, do they?”

That is odd, I thought.

I went outside and looked down the street toward the normally busy intersection about a quarter-mile away. I couldn’t hear any engines or see any headlights. Vehicles seemed to be parked haphazardly in the traffic lanes. Confused drivers stood by open doors looking around.

Cars, too? My stomach lurched.

I hurried back inside.

“Hanna, if this is what I think it is . . . I need to get a better look. Let’s go up on the deck.”

We stepped out onto the second-floor deck off our bedroom. Even though our neighborhood is only a mile and a half from Interstate 10, I couldn’t hear any cars—only barking dogs.

I can’t remember the last time I saw the Milky Way spread across the night sky. Maybe when I was a child. But there it was, over Phoenix, a city normally plagued by light pollution. At 9:30 p.m., the only lights I could see were the stars.

Hanna stood close. “Look,” I said, and pointed at a spot in the sky.

She gasped. “Oh, God! It’s going to crash!”

Silhouetted against the stars, a black blob spiraled toward the ground. Seconds later, an enormous ball of orange flame blossomed a few miles to the south of us.

“I wonder how many people were on board,” was all I could think to say.

Moments later, another blazing flower sprouted a few miles to the west of the first. Then another. All the planes approaching Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport were falling from the sky like explosive raindrops.

“What’s happening?” Hanna’s voice quivered.

“I have a theory,” I said, but I knew my hunch could offer her no reassurance. “EMP.”

“EMP? What’s that?” Hanna asked.

“Electromagnetic pulse high in the atmosphere. It could be natural—caused by some sort of solar discharge—or it could be an attack by one of the superpowers. Either way, we’ve just been plunged into the Stone Age. Everything that depends on electronics of any kind has just been shut off—permanently. Our lives are about to change drastically. No more cars, phones, TV, electricity. People are going to start dying soon because, without transportation of any kind, all food and medical supply lines will be shut down. And there’s no more law.”

“Are you sure?” Hanna asked.

“Not 100 percent, but it seems like the only logical explanation for what’s happening—the electricity, the phones, the cars, the planes. I’ve read about what to expect after an EMP attack.” I pulled Hanna close, wrapped my arms around her. A woman screamed in the distance.

 “We need to start making weapons,” I whispered.