Dark Tide

Kim steers Prometheus toward the hole, a rocky gullet several yards across.

Across the world babies wake screaming. Many will never sleep again. Others lie quiet and grow cold.

————————

Daniel returns from the head. He feels a sharp sense of unease. The corridor to the operations room seems to stretch away from him. His footfalls make no sound.

A black thread links the Persephone to the heart of darkness seven miles below.

Daniel reaches the comms room door. He doesn’t have to knock, but he pauses, he raises his hand.

“Kim?” His voice sounds too loud.

He reaches out to touch the door, tentative, as if he expects a static shock.

“Kim?” He can’t do it, he can’t bring himself to touch the door.

One by one the corridor lights go out.
****
“The fuse has gone,” Alan said It seemed a likely explanation.

“You kids OK?” he called out loud enough for them to hear him in their bedrooms.

“The Nintendo isn’t working, Dad!” Sarah shouted back.

“I’m getting the flashlight,” Ben hollered.

“No!” Jane from the kitchen. “Stay exactly where you are and let Daddy fix the lights. I don’t want to be cleaning up the mess after you blunder into everything.”

Alan felt his way along the hall wall. The kids should have been asleep, not playing video games. “Shit!” He banged his knee on the phone table.

“You alright, dear?” Jane sounded closer. Not following her own advice.

Alan’s fingers found the catch on the basement door. “I had a fight with the table,” he said.

He opened the door. The smell of damp earth hit him. They’d had the basement fully finished five years before, plastered walls and a concrete floor, but it still stank like a root cellar. The flashlight above the door came on with a feeble glow that died away within seconds.

“Damned batteries.”

The wooden stairs creaked as he went down. It seemed to get colder with each step. He found the fuse cupboard by touch, on the wall at the bottom of the steps. He counted along the switches. If it wasn’t the damn fuses he’d have to get an electrician in, and he wouldn’t be seeing much change from $200 just to get one of those guys across the doormat.

The last switch was down. Alan flicked it up. Nothing happened.

“Shit.”

He’d spent three years at the University of Boston studying earth sciences, and his college education took him as far as flicking a switch. After that he was fresh out of ideas.

“Thanks Dear.” Jane’s voice from up above. “I’m going up to bed now.”

He noticed the glow illuminating the first few steps up by the door. He patted the wall beside him for the basement light switch.

Click. “Let there be light.” If one switch fails . . . try two.

Alan scanned the crowded basement, cardboard boxes left over from the move six years back, some yet to be fully excavated, the shelves against the far wall. He needed some batteries for the flashlight.

He shivered. It didn’t feel like autumn upstairs, but down here it felt like time to fire up the furnace. He checked the toolbox under the fuse cupboard. Sometimes he left spare batteries there. He spiked his finger on a loose staple.