The high-pitched tone from the television drilled into the silence of the kitchen. It was a clean, sharp sound, devoid of meaning but full of menace. No one moved. Sarah stood frozen, a dishtowel clutched in her hand. Mark's face was a mask of disbelief. From the doorway of the living room, Lily and Tom watched, their cartoon forgotten, their small faces pale and confused by the sudden tension in the room.
Then, with a soft pop from the hallway, the kitchen lights flickered once and died. The tone from the television vanished at the same instant, plunging the room into the gray morning light and an even deeper silence.
"Circuit breaker," Mark said immediately. His voice was a little too loud in the quiet. He pushed himself off the counter, his movements jerky and uncertain. "Must have blown a fuse with all the… whatever is going on."
He disappeared down the hallway that led to the garage and the main electrical panel. Sarah instinctively reached for the light switch by the door and flipped it up and down several times. Nothing happened. The plastic click echoed in the dead air.
Quinn did not move. It was not a fuse. He knew it with a certainty that made his stomach clench into a tight, cold knot. He glanced at his phone again. The signal bars were gone. The Wi-Fi symbol had vanished. They were dark. They were cut off.
"Mom, the internet's out," Tom said from the doorway. His voice trembled slightly. He held up his tablet, the screen showing a page with a "No Connection" error. "I was trying to look up what's happening at Blackwood."
"It's okay, sweetie," Sarah said, her voice strained as she tried to project a calm she did not feel. "The power's just out. It will come back on."
Mark returned from the garage, shaking his head. "It's not the breakers. I flipped them all off and on again. Nothing." He looked around the room, at the blank, silent face of the microwave clock, the dark television screen. The reality of the situation was beginning to break through his denial. "The whole grid must be down."
Suddenly, the screen of Tom's tablet flickered to life. For a few seconds, it had found a stray, dying signal from a distant tower. A social media page loaded, a chaotic feed of short, auto-playing videos. The connection was poor, the images grainy and broken, pixelating and freezing.
But it was enough.
One video showed a street downtown, near the Institute. A car was on its side, black smoke pouring from its engine block. But it was the people that made Quinn's breath catch in his throat. One figure ran across the screen, their movements unnaturally fast and jerky, not like a person running in panic, but like a puppet with its strings pulled too tight. Another person stood over a fallen shape on the sidewalk, their movements frantic and violent. It was not a riot. It was something more primal. The video froze on a single, terrible frame of a woman's face, her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes wide with a terror that was not human. Then the screen went blank, displaying the "No Connection" error once more. The signal was gone for good.
Tom let out a small, choked gasp and dropped the tablet onto the carpet.
That was the trigger. The time for waiting, for observing, was over.
A switch flipped in Quinn's mind. The persistent, low-grade unease he always carried with him, the quiet dread that had been building all morning, was gone. In its place was a cold, sharp focus. His training surfaced, not as a collection of memories, but as pure instinct. Years of discipline, of threat assessment, of survival drills in the Marines, took control.
"Sarah. Mark," he said. His voice was different. It was calm, low, and held an authority they had never heard from him before. It was the voice of a man who had seen bad things and knew what had to be done. "Listen to me very carefully. We need to prepare. Right now."
Mark stared at him, his face a mixture of confusion and fear. "Prepare for what? Quinn, it's a power outage. Maybe a bad riot. The police will handle it."
"Did you see those police cars?" Quinn countered, his gaze unwavering. "They were running. They weren't responding to a crisis; they were fleeing from one. What you saw on the road wasn't a riot. What Tom just saw on that tablet wasn't a protest."
The distant sounds from outside were changing. The uniform wail of sirens was being replaced by something more sporadic and terrifying. Individual screams, sharp and clear. The distinct, percussive sound of breaking glass. A dog barking in a high, panicked frenzy that was abruptly cut short.
Sarah looked from her husband's confused face to her brother's grimly determined one. She saw the truth in Quinn's eyes. He knew something. He had known something like this was coming. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow.
"What do we do?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
The trust in her voice was a heavy weight on his shoulders, but it also strengthened his resolve. He hated what he was about to do, hated bringing this structured terror into their home, but the alternative was unthinkable.
"Mark, go to every window and every door on the ground floor. Make sure they are locked. Close all the blinds and curtains. Do not look outside. Just do it now," Quinn commanded. Mark hesitated for a second, a final moment of disbelief warring with the mounting evidence of his senses. He looked at Sarah, who gave him a sharp, desperate nod. He moved.
"Sarah," Quinn continued, turning his full attention to his sister. "The water might be next. The pumps that supply the pressure require electricity. We need to fill everything we have. The bathtubs. Every pot, pan, and empty bottle in this house. Go."
She hurried to the sink without a word, her hands shaking as she turned on the tap. Water gushed out. A small, profound relief. They still had pressure.
A police car screamed past on their street, its siren blaring erratically. It was followed a few seconds later by an ambulance, going even faster. They did not slow down. They were not stopping to help anyone. They were simply getting out.
Quinn moved through the house with a swift, economic purpose. He was no longer their quiet, restless uncle and brother. He was a soldier securing a position. He followed Mark, checking his work, ensuring every lock was solid, every curtain drawn tight, plunging the house into a gloomy twilight. The only light came from the upstairs windows.
He went to the hall closet and found a heavy, four-cell Maglite. He clicked the button. The beam was strong and bright. He hefted it in his hand. It had good weight. It was a tool and a weapon. He moved to the garage, his eyes scanning for anything useful. He passed over the gardening tools—a rake and a shovel were too unwieldy for close quarters. His eyes landed on Tom's old aluminum baseball bat, leaning in a corner, covered in dust. He took it. It felt solid, balanced. Better than nothing.
Back in the kitchen, Sarah was frantically filling pots and placing them on the counter and the floor. The sound of running water was the only sound in the house. Mark had returned, his face pale and slick with sweat. The sounds from outside were closer now. A distinct, sharp scream from what sounded like a neighbor's yard made them all freeze. Lily began to cry, a low, frightened whimper. Sarah rushed to her, pulling her into a tight hug, burying the child's face in her shoulder.
"It's okay, baby, it's okay," she soothed, her own fear making the words sound hollow and fragile.
Quinn went to the knife block on the counter. He selected the two largest knives—the chef's knife and the butcher's knife. He laid them on the counter next to the first-aid kit he'd pulled from under the sink. He arranged them neatly, a grim display of preparation.
Mark stared at the knives, then at the bat in Quinn's hand. The last vestiges of his normal world view were crumbling. "My God, Quinn. What is happening?"
Before Quinn could answer, the dead television screen in the kitchen lit up. It was not a picture. The screen was a solid, bright red, with bold white letters at the top.
EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM
A computerized, monotone voice, devoid of any human inflection or emotion, filled the room. It spoke over a harsh, repeating alert tone that was both grating and impossible to ignore.
"A Code Red has been issued for this county and all surrounding areas. This is not a test. Remain indoors. Lock all doors and windows. Do not, under any circumstances, leave your shelter."
The voice paused for two pulses of the alert tone. The sound seemed to vibrate in their bones. Then, the final, chilling instruction.
"Power and communications grids are compromised. Emergency services are no longer operational in your sector. Stay away from windows and doors. Do not approach anyone acting erratically. I repeat, do not approach anyone, even if they appear to be known to you."
The screen went black. The voice stopped. The alert tone cut out.
The silence that followed was absolute. The five of them stood frozen in the dim, artificially lit kitchen. The distant chaos outside no longer felt distant. It felt like it was pressing against the walls of the house, waiting just on the other side of their locked front door. Every last trace of Mark's skepticism was gone, replaced by the same stark terror that was reflected in Sarah's eyes. They all looked at Quinn, their only source of calm in a world that had just officially, irrevocably, ended.