With a minimum of damage to shins, elbows and drywall, the group
stumbled through the dark hallways, following Alice’s flashlight like a
beacon until they finally found the right exit and tumbled out into the
night. All but Jenny and Tina, who had grown up in small rural towns,
found the darkness intimidating. For the rest, growing up in the city,
it is never truly darkthere is always the distant reflection of
streetlights and neon against overcast sky, a backwash of light from
passing cars, neighbors’ windows that spills across lawns, over fences,
through shuttered blinds.

They all stood still in the parking lot, letting their eyes adjust,
until they realized that even now, it wasn’t completely dark. The moon
was full and beyond its careful watching eye, the night sky was flung
with a million stars and more. Distant lamplights winking down on them,
perhaps with wry amusement, perhaps in sympathy, perhaps in utter
indifference to the sudden helplessness of human beings stripped of the
surety in their own ability to change the natural way of things.

In a few moments, most were able to find their cars, SUVs and truck and
begin to forage for whatever was at hand that would enable them to make
their way down the curved blackened streets to Helena’s house where,
she promised them, she had enough candles to light up the entire
neighborhood AND, even better, a gas stove (‘you simply cannot cook
food properly without real fire’, she had explained)that meant coffee,
tea, perhaps a late night mealassuming that anyone had an appetite for
food by the time they arrived.

And there would also be hot water. That meant showers. It wasn’t
beastly hot now that the sun was down, and there was a faint breeze
stirring, one that carried both sound and fragrances over long
distances, but they would still sweat. The angry voices, and occasional
loud pops of what was surely gunfire, was enough to ensure that they
would be sweating fear and exertion all the way. They would be hot and
sticky by the time they arrived.

Across the parking lot, the click and slam sounds of doors and trunks
and glove compartments being opened and closed marked their search
missions like a clock. With Carmen hovering close by, Shane pulled a
large flashlight from her glove compartment, turned it on to check the
batteriesa hot searing light blazed forth, giving her the first sense
of relief she’d felt since the blackout rolled over them. She walked
around to the back, dropped the tailgate and began rummaging until she
found what she was looking for. A tire iron. She hefted it in her hand,
answering Carmen’s questioning look with a stern one of her own. That’s
when the real sense of peril closed in on the Latinathere was actual
danger in this trek. Shane knew, or at least believed, they would need
weapons of some sort. Just in case.