The Blackout List

another problem. “Then you know how close we are to losing power,” he said. Lin didn’t answer. Because the sirens outside had grown louder, tighter, more frantic, as if the city’s nerves were beginning to fire in every direction at once. A sweating facilities worker burst into the hall and yelled, “Water pressure on the east side is gone.” The entire ER flared with panic. No water meant no flushing, no handwashing, no cooling, no rinsing burns, no basic hygiene, no way to keep a hospital from becoming a sealed room full of hot air and fear. In less than a day, the building would stop feeling like a hospital and start feeling like a storage unit for suffering. In the middle of the chaos, Erin’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: