The Weight of Blood (51)

May 27, 2014

WENDY STOOD BY Kenny’s locker, protein shake in one sweaty hand, binder stuffed with their homework in the other. She had on his favorite red dress of hers, the one that stopped right at the school-appropriate knee length (another Jules hand-me-down), and she’d spent thirty minutes straightening her hair. For a split second, she’d considered adding clip-in extensions to make it fuller.

Full like Maddy’s, she’d thought, but shoved the ridiculous comparison away.

Between prom, the blow-up with Jules, and school coming to an end, Wendy was on edge, her nerves frayed. She tried to keep this in mind before deciding to confront her boyfriend of three years.

Kenny turned down the senior hallway and spotted her by his locker. She couldn’t say for sure, but she swore she saw a brief look of annoyance in his eyes. Just her imagination, she told herself. She hadn’t slept well the night before. Too wound up on caffeine with a mouth full of questions.

“Hey. What’s up,” he sighed, pecking her cheek. She smiled, leaning into his lips, and waited for an explanation. He had to have been anxious about the lack of texts and goodnight call. She wasn’t mad, but watching him empty his book bag like he didn’t have a care in the world made her squint, mouth forming a terse line.

Unable to hold it in any longer, she blurted it out. “You went on a date with Maddy?”

Kenny froze, cocking his head to the side with a raised eyebrow as if to ask if she was serious.

“I wouldn’t call it a date,” he laughed. An uncomfortable laugh. One full of guilt. “Just got some milkshakes after school.”

Wendy remained mute. She did this whenever something bothered her but she didn’t want to express it, and rather wait for him to figure it out. It annoyed Kenny. Not that he’d ever say it, but she always caught the faces he made and eyes he rolled.

Kenny registered her silence and pursed his lips.

“What?” he snapped. “You don’t expect me to take some girl I don’t even know to prom without at least having a conversation with her. Do you?”

But they all knew Maddy. They’d known her since the day she walked into seventh grade wearing those thick glasses, frilly ankle socks, poodle skirt, and a brown sweater she still wore to this day.

Something untamed threatened to bubble up. Wendy swallowed and painted on a smile. She had to remain in control. She couldn’t let the past few weeks spin all she had worked for sideways.

“No. Of course not,” she said, her voice pitched high. “Made you a protein shake.”

“Oh, cool.” He beamed. “Thanks, babe!”

Wendy laughed at herself. She couldn’t believe that she’d even entertained the delirious thought. Of course he wasn’t interested in Maddy! He loved her. He would do anything she asked, including taking some random girl to prom. Besides, they had plans—a future. And she wasn’t about to lose him to Maddy fucking Washington.

MADDY DID IT

EPISODE 7, CONT.

Tanya: So once the power went out, was the plant in any danger of a meltdown?

Dr. Ron Englert: Well, under normal circumstances, no.

Michael [narration]: This is Dr. Ron Englert, a physicist in the nuclear power industry. He was a part of the Springville Commission, investigating issues that occurred at the power plant during Prom Night, but was terminated before the investigation concluded.

Dr. Englert: The loss of power wasn’t necessarily a problem, since there are procedures in place in which the reactors will shut down automatically. But here’s where the problem truly lies—modern nuclear reactors cannot power themselves. They need grid power. Thus, all nuclear plants have diesel backup generators. In the event of an outage, they keep the fuel cool and the spent fuel covered with water for a specified number of hours until power can be restored. For some unexplainable reason, in this situation, the backup generators became faulty, and the system refused to recognize the auto-shutdown command. So with a load rejection, plus lack of shutdown, and insufficient backup generators, the cooling system began to dissolve, and the reactor started to have a mind of its own. Once that happened, supervisors were alerted, and it was all hands on deck.

Tanya: That sounds intense. Why didn’t they evacuate the town?

Dr. Englert: The nuclear power industry defines emergencies according to four levels of increasing significance: unusual event, alert, site area emergency, and general emergency. They alerted local authorities, who were, at that point, under siege at the prom. They sounded the emergency siren and directed everyone to shelter in place via radio broadcast and social media channels to reduce any possible radiation exposure. But by that time, most of the citizens in Springville were outside watching the fires, waiting for their children to return, or in the commotion of the crash.

Tanya: So how does this relate to Maddy?

Dr. Englert: I want to speak in layman’s terms here because, well, I don’t know how else to describe what happened. But based on my findings, it appears the reactors were drawn to something . . . like by a magnet of some sort, causing the core to overheat, resulting in dangerously increasing levels. When we later had a timeline of all the events that transpired through the evening, the increasing levels directly coincided with Maddy’s location. The closer Maddy got to the plant, the more the plant wanted to get to Maddy. I checked records, and the only other times that happened in the plant’s history, on a much smaller scale, of course, were June 23, 1996, and August 7, 2008.