Thank you all so very much for reading, reviewing, and following this atypical story for me. Thanks also for the kind and encouraging words. These next two chapters reminds me a little of what my deceased sister and I did when we were told that there was a shortage of toilet paper in March and how she had to take me to the bank to get cash just in case the stores stop taking credit cards which they do whenever we have a hurricane coming through. And how there were no grocery buggies at Publix that day when they shut our county down. We worked as a threesome and went to Dollar General too to stock up on supplies. May my beautiful sis RIP. I had a dream about her last night. And I am alright.

Standard Disclaimer: No copyrighted material used in this chapter belongs to me. This story belongs to Linda Howard with some RIB and the writers of Glee mixed in

Chapter Two

Cedes was in the local Kroger's before she realized that except for canned soup, a manual can opener, and more instant coffee, she had little idea what to get to prepare for such a long time without power. Even more disconcerting, the store wasn't particularly crowded. Surely something of this magnitude couldn't be kept secret, even though there hadn't been the official announcement that she'd expected to see on her phone or on the radio or even an emergency siren sounding on the town's loudspeakers. So whatever was going to happen—if it was going to happen—not many people knew about it yet.

She started to bypass the produce section. There was no need to buy anything perishable. But still, as she passed the bananas she grabbed a bunch. They'd get eaten in the next couple of days, and damn it, if Evans was right they might not be able to get bananas for a while. And oranges. They'd need vitamin C.

What else did one buy when faced with the end of the world as she knew it? Chocolate?

At the end of the aisle, with nothing but bananas and oranges in her cart, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and searched for "survivalist necessities." Several survival websites came up, and she picked the top one, which provided a long list of specialty items she couldn't possibly find in Kroger. The second site she chose was more practical, for her current situation.

Bleach, charcoal, lighter fluid, vitamins, meal replacement bars, kerosene, matches, water, candles . . . Okay, those were doable, and not even unusual. There were several items on the list that were more camping gear than anything she was going to find in a grocery store, but there were also some practical suggestions. She might be able to find some of the more expensive survivalist items at an outdoor goods store, but there was nothing close, and besides . . . this was just in case.

Prepare for the worst, expect the best. In this case, expect nothing.

She grabbed a year's worth of toilet paper and canned meats—Spam, salmon, chicken, beef, multiples of each. Four big jars of peanut butter wouldn't last long, so she made it six. She made a quick trip down the feminine hygiene aisle, then got some first-aid items: aspirin, antiseptic cream, bandages, Vaseline. She grabbed anything that looked like it might be useful, as she walked through the pharmacy section. While waiting for Roz's prescription refills, she made another trip up and down the aisles, got more adhesive bandages, and an Ace bandage. More adhesive bandages. Another Ace bandage. No, make that three.

By the time the prescriptions were ready, her shopping cart and basket was overfull.

She looked at the collection of stuff and blew out a big breath. She'd gotten only things they'd eventually use anyway, so she didn't feel bad about her shopping spree. Did she have enough supplies for several months? No. Was she better off than she'd been when she'd started? Absolutely.

According to the sites she'd checked out, she should have a water filtration system for safe drinking water, heirloom seeds for growing her own food next summer, and enough freeze-dried food to get her by until then. She didn't.

Evans probably did, though.

When she checked out she paid with a credit card. Nothing she'd bought was very expensive, but she wanted to conserve her cash.

If they were without power for months, would cash be any good? Perhaps. As long as people saw value in pieces of green paper, it would be. Cash would be a way to get items they needed and didn't have. She went to the bank next and withdrew a nice bunch of cash from both her personal and the store account. If nothing happened she could re-deposit the money.

Feeling like a crazed squirrel, she darted from place to place, completing one errand after another.

As she drove home just after lunch, exhausted from the stress of hurry hurry hurry, she suffered a passing second thought. If Evans had been pulling her leg, if he was crazy, or even, hell, if he'd just been given bad information . . . she was going to be so pissed, maybe even pissed enough to get in his face and tell him about it.

But if disaster did strike, she'd really be pissed because obviously anyone in the electric energy business and government should have known this was possible and taken steps to make sure it didn't happen. Yes, definitely pissed, and deeply grateful, because without the chance to prepare she would've been in no better shape than anyone else. As she drove back to her store she glanced toward Cove Mountain. "Thanks," she said aloud. "I think."

Roz rolled her eyes a bit at Cedes's haul of groceries, but helped her get everything organized. "Dang Cedes, you think you got enough canned food, especially Spam?"

"I'll remind you that you said that, if this thing happens and you run out of food. Besides, I got stuff that we can put on the store shelves if nothing happens." Cedes and Roz both knew that whatever one of them had belonged to the other, too, because family took care of family. If Cedes had Spam, then Roz had Spam.

They got the supplies divided, added things from the shelving, and Roz loaded everything into her car to take to their respective houses. Customers came and went, enough that Cedes stayed busy, and none of them looked worried or said anything about an imminent disaster. Roz returned, and went into the office to watch TV while Cedes kept herself busy when not waiting on customers. The old-fashioned clock on the walt clicked past one p.m. Surely if anything was going to happen whoever was in charge of getting out the warning would have gotten it done already.

With every passing second her doubt grew stronger, and she began feeling more and more like a gullible fool. Word should be getting out—if there was any word—around the world. Astronomers would know, NOAA would know and might even have it up on their website, in which case Twitter and all the other social media platforms would be exploding with the news . . . if there was any news. If, if, if! Maybe she should go to the NOAA site herself and see if anything was there—

The store was empty of customers and she was just reaching for her phone when it sounded a high-pitched alarm, like that for violent storms. She jumped and automatically turned to look out the window, just as she had when Evans had first mentioned an emergency, but the sky was still a beautiful September clear blue. There wasn't a cloud in sight.

Her mind raced with other possibilities. It could be an Amber Alert, or a monthly test. There were plenty of options, but her heart was suddenly pounding and she knew damn well it wasn't any of the usual emergencies that caused the alarm. From the office, where Roz was watching TV, she heard Roz's cell phone start bleating its own alert and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

She grabbed the phone from beneath the counter and there it was on the screen, the alert she had both doubted and expected. She and Roz both got their alerts via Sevier County's CodeRED system, so she knew Roz was reading the same thing: NOAA ALERT GEOMAGNETIC STORM K-INDEX 9 PREDICTED 3PM TOMORROW. PREPARE FOR EXTENDED POWER AND COMMUNICATION DISRUPTION.

Another alert, another message flashing on the screen: THIS IS NOT A TEST. REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A TEST.

Roz came out of the office, clutching her phone, her eyes wide. "Oh hell," she said loudly.

Cedes's mouth was abruptly dry and she tried to swallow. She leaned against the counter. "Hell to the No."

"I take it back about the Spam. You should have bought a boatload more. What in the hell are we going to do?"

Twenty-four hours. They had approximately twenty-four hours in which to prepare, which meant Evans had been right not only about the danger but about the timing. Good God. What could they possibly do in just twenty-four hours that would get them through an "extended power disruption"? They needed months to get ready for something like this.

"Looks like you were right to listen to Evans, but—they could be wrong, couldn't they? I mean, it could be like the hurricanes or ice storms they predict to hit that never happen. We could dodge a bullet, isn't that what the weathermen always say when they're wrong?"

"I don't think a geomagnetic storm is like Earth weather, where a system can slow down or break apart." She wished that could happen, but she wasn't going to bet her life—or Roz's and Bree's lives—on it. Her stomach clenched as she was overwhelmed by a sense of urgency, an adrenaline shock as her primitive survival instincts kicked in. Thank God, despite her doubts, she'd gone to the bank and the grocery store before everyone else knew what was going on. "Think! What else do we need to do to prepare?"

Roz just gave her a blank look. "I just asked you what we need to do. Think girl."

"We're a little better off than a lot of people, thanks to Evans. We have food. But what about wood for the fireplaces for this winter, what about oil for lamps? I meant to get kerosene and forgot. I picked up some candles, some batteries. If this goes on for a year or more—"

"A year!" Roz looked horrified. "You don't think—that isn't possible, is it?"

"I don't know. I don't think anybody knows." Except maybe Sam Evans, who was more likely to have a better idea than anyone else she knew. "He said months, possibly a year or longer." No need to specify who "he" was.

Roz sucked in a deep breath as the huge ramifications began washing over her. "Then we need ammunition. And Vodka, whiskey, and Tequilla."

"Ammunition?" Cedes gaped at her aunt, but she wasn't questioning Roz's choices; she was horrified by the realization that they'd very likely need ammunition . . . and alcohol. Society as they knew it was built on electricity. There wouldn't be any going to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. They might have to hunt for their food—except she didn't know how to hunt and felt nothing but anxiety at the possibility of having to learn. She did own a .22 rifle—she and Roz both did because she lived alone and Roz had Bree to protect—but she'd shot it only a couple of times and was not at all capable of hunting.

She felt dizzy and her ears rang a little; there was that adrenaline rush again as another realization hit her. Oh hell. Roz and Bree were her responsibility. They'd need her if things really did get bad. Roz was in her sixties, and while she was in general good health she wasn't quite as active as she'd been just a few years ago. Bree was just fifteen.

Cedes looked around the store, taking mental inventory and looking at the supplies on the shelves, thinking about what she had stored in the back. She tried to calculate what they'd need, and how much, but she couldn't make herself grasp what a year without power would mean, or decide what she should do.

Her immediate dilemma was that she could keep the store open and try to help her neighbors, or she could focus on her own family. Her shelf space was limited and she carried only basics, plus snacks; she'd be cleared out in no time, leaving nothing but the supplies she'd already set aside for their own survival.

Maybe she was selfish, but she decided t that her focus had to be her family. Family first, family always.

She needed a plan of action. Almost any action was better than none.

She stuck her phone in the back pocket of her jeans as she walked out from behind the counter. "Bree will be here soon," she said to Roz. Normally Bree hung around the store for a while after the school bus dropped her off. She'd have a soft drink, maybe a candy bar or some chips. Sometimes, if they were lucky, she'd tell them about her day. Most afternoons she sat in the office near the back door and texted her friends before heading home. "I want the two of you to take what you can carry and go home. When you're there, start loading up the ice chests with ice, so the ice maker can keep working."

"Ice?"

"We have a day, maybe a little more, to collect ice to keep what perishables we have fresh." Some of it would melt, but the more they added to the ice chests, the better it would keep.

"But you have the generator—"

"We'll need it more when winter gets here than we do now." Her generator was a small portable one, but it was strong enough to run the heat when the weather turned cold. What it wouldn't do was run a whole house; as far as that went, it wouldn't run at all when they were out of fuel for it. No matter how she looked at it, she was afraid they didn't have enough of anything.

For a few moments, Roz didn't move as she stared into the middle distance, doing the same thing Cedes had done before, trying to come to terms with the awful possibilities.

Through the store windows they watched a car speeding down the highway, a blur headed out of town. It had been quiet before that, just a handful of vehicles moving at normal speed. Was the speeder leaving because of the alert? Word was definitely out, likely on television as well as through the national weather service, maybe by radio, if anyone listened to radio anymore.

Of course. The tourists that were the lifeblood of the Smoky Mountain towns would want to get home. And if they'd left family at home, they'd want to be there. Family would come first for almost everyone, just as it did for her.

An SUV with parents seated in the front seat and two young children in the back pulled into the lot, moving too fast. The lurching vehicle pulled to one of the fuel pumps and stopped with a jerk. The man who'd been driving jumped out, swiped a credit card, and pumped ten dollars in gas before taking off again.

"Shut down the pumps," Roz said, but Cedes had already done so.

She grabbed some plastic bags and went outside to the pumps, covering the nozzles, the usual signal that there was no gasoline available. Her supply was small to start with, and if she wasn't careful it wouldn't last long. Once the power was down the gas would have to be pumped out of the tanks by hand. It wouldn't be easy, but it could be done.

Her family was the focus, she reminded herself; they were most important in any crisis, but she did care about her friends and neighbors. She wouldn't hang them out to dry. About half the generators in the valley were fueled by gasoline. Some were propane-powered, but not hers, and not her closest neighbors'. Before the power went out she'd need to go online and research how to access the gasoline in the tanks.

Evans probably would know how.

She dismissed that stray thought. Not only was he not approachable, but she needed to know for herself; she needed to stand on her own two feet. She'd learned that the hard way, after her fiance left her when her mother died and she had to take care of her father. A lesson learned hard was a lesson learned well, and now she stayed safe because taking chances with other people was a good way to get her heart stomped on.

Not a half an hour later the school bus stopped in front of the store, and a line of cars stacked up behind the bus. One driver seemed to think about passing, pulling into the other lane by a couple of feet, but then thought better of it. The bus doors swung open and Bree danced down the steps. Fifteen, blown out dark hair and a lighter complected skin like her mother's, bless her soul, she was beautiful in a way only the very young can be. She was the light of Roz's life, and an important part of Cedes's.

"Did ya'll hear? All the teachers were going batshit crazy. Well, most of them." Her phone signaled an incoming text, and she looked down. "What did they call it? A mass . . . something." She smiled at her phone as she read the text and then sent a quick and nimble-fingered response.

"Coronal mass ejection," Cedes said.

"Solar storm, Mr. Martinez said," Bree said as she walked to the cooler to grab a Coke. Then she turned around and went down the center aisle. "Hey! Where are all the chips?"

"Put away," Cedes said, watching the road. Traffic had definitely picked up. Most cars kept to a reasonable speed, but a few were moving way too fast in their rush to get out of Dodge—or in this case, the mountains. Making a quick decision, she took her keys off the hook and went to the door, locking it and flipping the Open sign to Closed. Why would she hang around here and let Roz prepare on her own? That didn't make sense. She had her own ice chests to fill, her own ice maker to put to work.

"Why are you closing up early?" Bree asked. "Are you sick?"

"We have less than twenty-four hours to get ready for the CME."

Now Bree looked confused. "Get ready, how?"

Roz said briskly, "We might be without power for months. We'll need food, a way to cook it, and maybe even a way to stay warm if everything's not up and running by the time the weather turns."

Bree didn't move for a few seconds, her eyes big and round as she pondered the impossible. Then she asked, "Are you serious? Months? Will my cell phone work?"

"Doubt it. Maybe it'll be really bad," Roz said, "and maybe it won't. We won't know until about this time tomorrow. But we're going to be ready for whatever happens. The chips are already at the house, by the way, but don't get your hopes up. We're not opening a single bag until we've eaten all the fresh and frozen food. I have a cabbage I need to cook before it goes bad, and the last of the tomatoes. We can't waste anything, not now."

"Unless they're wrong," Bree said hopefully as she joined her grandmother. "I mean, this could be a false alarm, right? The mass whatever . . ."

"CME," Cedes said as she joined her family. "Just call it a CME."

"Yeah, that," Bree said. "They could be wrong."

"Maybe," Cedes said as she ushered her aunt and her cousin to the rear door, grabbing the bags she and Roz had prepared earlier in the afternoon on her way out. "But I don't think so."

Bree, who had slung a couple of bags over her arms, was still looking at her phone. She was glued to the thing most of the time anyway, but surely she could understand that they were facing an enormous crisis and she should pay attention—

"We should unplug everything before the CME hits," Bree said, reading from her phone. "That's what some guy at NASA is saying. It'll keep them from getting destroyed by a power surge, or something."

Bree had been researching on her phone. Cedes breathed a sigh of relief, and reminded herself not to let her anxiety get the best of her. She needed to be on her game, and Roz and Bree were both stepping up to the challenge, too.

They'd be okay. They had to be.