"David L. Kuzminski - Bullets and Lasers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuzminski David L)

Chapter 1



The tenth of May seemed bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky. The people of Conway didn't
have a care in the world. Their world was nearly perfect and peaceful all the time. The last murder in
town had happened nearly three decades earlier. Generally, the most excitement was a brawl between
two neighbors. Then "the cloud" appeared and settled in the heart of the small town. Upon first seeing the
cloud, everyone within it thought it was merely fog.

***

Police Sergeant Steve Talbot noticed the change almost immediately when his dispatch radio went
silent. It wasn't the dead silence of occasional static. It was as if it wasn't turned on. When he heard the
sudden silence, he also noticed that the station was becoming dark inside as the sunlight was blocked
from the windows.

"Hey, Paul, you want to hit that light switch? Looks like fog rolling in outside."

Paul crossed over to the switch and flipped it several times without response. The room remained
dark. "Must be a power failure," Paul said.

"Someone must have hit a transformer. You'd think that people would slow down on seeing fog,"
Steve said.

"Don't we have an emergency backup system?"

Steve stared at Paul for a moment as he wondered why the backup system wasn't coming on. He was
about to say something when the radio came alive with static once more. "I guess the generator's on a
timer. Try the lights now."

Paul flipped the switch. One light came on in the center of the room, burning dimly.

"Well, that's better than nothing," Steve said, "I'll see if I can raise someone on the radio. You try the
phone. Call the power company."

Paul went over to a phone and picked it up while Steve began calling out on the radio. After trying
several phones, he said, "The phones are all dead."

"I'm not getting any answer from any of our cars, either. I hope they're on top of the situation without
us. I'm going to check on our prisoner. Listen for any radio calls."

Steve ambled into the back of the station where only one more light bulb burned to show the way, not
that he needed it. He'd been with the force long enough to know the layout of the station even in total
darkness. Steve looked at their prisoner, a vagrant who'd been caught stealing. The man seemed happy
enough to be in his cell if only because it meant that he'd be fed regularly. Steve felt that was the case as
the vagrant hadn't even tried to escape when he was spotted stealing eggs from a henhouse.

The prisoner asked, "Something wrong?"
 "Not really. Just a power outage. Probably caused by some driver hitting a transformer in the fog.