by Steven Smith
He knew he had been lucky so far. It had happened in the morning, giving him a start to get home to his family. It had happened at a good location. Just a few blocks to the west, north or east would have been in areas where street robberies and drive-bys were common, and a guy like him on a bike would be a prime target. Joe's was right on the edge where going to the south put him on a route through some of the most affluent and peaceful suburbs in the city. Plus, he'd found a rideable bicycle, even if the seat was torn and already uncomfortable. All-in-all, things were going fairly well in a bad situation.
As Wyatt followed the tree covered Mission Road through the bedroom communities of Fairway, Mission Hills and Prairie Village, he saw people out in their front yards talking to their neighbors, all of whom stared and some of whom waved at him as he rode by. He knew he must look a bit strange to them.
Vehicles were stalled along the road, with their drivers and occupants either waiting in them or walking along the sides of the road, and it took him a while before he realized he was able to hear much of their conversations because the air was devoid of mechanical sounds. No cars. No air conditioners. Nothing. Occasionally, kids on bikes would ride by in small groups, their yells and laughter testifying to the fact that they thought this was all great fun, an interesting break in an otherwise boring day. Seeing a Prairie Village police car at the side of the road gave him an idea and he headed toward the police station.
Several minutes of uphill pedaling, heavy breathing and disgust at himself for getting out of shape brought him to the combination police station and city hall. He rode into the parking lot and took the bike up the steps and into the building with him. He wasn't about to risk losing it with another twenty or more miles to go.
Inside, groups of people stood around in the dark hallways, some talking in hushed tones, others talking louder and obviously anxious. Wyatt walked over to a calm group, which included a police captain, an older sergeant, a young patrolman and what appeared to be several public works employees.
“Howdy,” Wyatt said as he approached the group, pushing the bicycle. “Any idea what's going on?”
The men quit talking, looked at him and then at each other. Finally, the captain answered. “Who are you?”
“I was just riding home after my car died and figured you all might know more than most of the people wandering around.”
The captain looked at him, trying to decide how to answer. 'We're not sure yet. Obviously, we have a power outage, though we don't yet know how wide spread it is.”
“Are your radios working?” Wyatt asked.
The captain looked at the officers and back at Wyatt. “No.”
“Emergency radios? HAM?”
The captain looked hard at Wyatt, obviously irritated at being questioned by a civilian. “That's classified information.”
Wyatt nodded. “That means no, right?”
“That means it's classified information is what it means,” snapped the captain. “And like I said, who are you?”
Wyatt looked back at the captain. He'd had his run-ins with officious ranking officers while he was on the job, and this one had all the markings. Shorter than average with an immaculate uniform that had probably never been dirty. Lots of patches and shiny badges and bars. He had never liked these guys, though he had sometimes found them humorous, and he liked them even less since he had left law enforcement and seen them through civilian eyes. Most of them were little martinets with limited field experience and large egos resulting from years of bureaucratic and clerical power. “I'm a citizen, captain,” he answered evenly. “A citizen asking a question.”
The captain took a step closer to Wyatt and pointed his finger at Wyatt's chest. “Like you said, you're a civilian and you don’t need to be here or to be questioning me.” He looked at the bulges under Wyatt's shirt. “Are you carrying a gun?”
Wyatt thought for a moment about saying no, he was carrying two, but he just met the captain's glare and said “Yep.”
“I'm going to need you to surrender it. Now.”
Wyatt smiled and shook his head, glancing at the other officers, who looked like they would rather be somewhere else. He looked back at the captain. “It's fine where it is, captain.”
He looked at the man who appeared to be the senior public works employee. “What do you figure?”
The captain angrily cut off the man's answer. “You're under arrest.” Then, to the sergeant and patrolman, “Disarm him and put him in a holding cell.”
Wyatt looked at the two officers, who made no move toward him, then looked back at the captain. “Kansas is a constitutional carry state, captain. Unless the Constitution has been revoked, I'll keep my gun.”
“This is an emergency!” snapped the captain, his face beginning to flush. “I have the authority to disarm any citizen I feel is a threat to the safety of this community. You will surrender your weapon or these officers will disarm you and put you in a cell!”
Wyatt controlled the irritation he felt building within him at the thought of this sawed-off office boy trying to lock him up and keep him from getting home to his family. He slowed his breathing, noted the positions of the others, and squared on the captain. “I was on the job back in the days when even captains were cops. I figure you for one of those who made their rank writing tickets and kissing ass. You've got an attitude that's about to get you into trouble, and if you try to push this, you're not going to like what happens.”
He watched the captain turn red and the sergeant try to suppress a smile, then waited to see if anyone was going to make a move. No one did. Turning back to the public works man, he asked “So, what do you think?”
The man pushed back his ball cap and scratched the top of his head before replacing it. “Well, like you said, we've got no power, no communication. Most of the vehicles won't start, though we have a tractor and a couple of four wheelers that will run.” He paused, looking at the others, not wanting to go on, but knowing he should. “Guess I’d figure an EMP, though I know that sounds crazy”
Wyatt nodded slowly. “That's what I figured. Do you have an emergency plan for this?”
Both the public works guy and the sergeant shook their heads. “We had a conference coming up next month with DHS about it, but we're pretty much in the dark right now,” said the sergeant. Then, realizing what he had said, “Yeah, really in the dark, but it's not so funny I guess.”
Wyatt looked around, thinking about how much to say. Deciding, he looked back at the sergeant and public works supervisor. “You've got no power, no communications, no outside help coming, an inner city of almost half a million people who are going to start spreading out in a couple of days when they run out of food, and a small department that's about to get smaller when your people either don't show up for their shifts or head home to take care of their own families. What are you planning to do?”
The sergeant and the public works supervisor looked at each other. “Well, that's what we were talking about,” said the sergeant. “What we were trying to figure out.” He shook his head. “I just don't know. You seem to know a bit about this. You got any ideas?”
Wyatt looked at the captain, who continued to glower at him, then back at the others. “If this really is an EMP, this city is going to start to explode within a couple of days, maybe sooner. You all won't be able to stop it or even help much.”
He saw their disappointment but acceptance of that truth and continued. “Your first responsibility is to your families if you can get to them. Then to your neighbors and communities, in that order. Don't sacrifice yourselves and the help you can give your family by trying to be a hero here. It won't help and it will only hurt your family's chance of survival.”
He paused and saw that they were all listening to him, even the captain. “There are a couple of grocery stores nearby,” he continued, “and a number of smaller convenience stores and restaurants. These are going to be swamped and then overrun in a day or two if order hasn't been maintained. I woul
d suggest that if you can get to them you do so, and organize some kind of security and distribution system for those who come. That way, as many as possible can be helped without the strongest taking advantage of the weakest. Then, take what food you can carry and get home to your families. What you do from there on depends on how prepared you are and what options you think you have. That's up to you. Also, I'd take whatever weapons, ammo, medical supplies and anything else you think you could use from here. If things get back to normal, you can bring it back. If it turns out to be a long-term situation, you're going to need everything you can get.”
All the men were silent. Then the sergeant spoke. “You really think it's going to be that bad?”
Wyatt looked at him and nodded. “Yeah.”
The sergeant seemed to slump in resignation. “Yeah, me too. What are you going to do?”
“I'm headed home.”
The men looked at each other for a moment, then the sergeant spoke to the young patrolman. “Jacob, the rest of us live fairly close, but you're quite a ways from your family. I don't think anybody would object if you took one of the ATVs and headed home.” He looked around and saw everyone agreed.
Wyatt looked at the patrolman. “Where do you have to go?”
The patrolman was shaken, but answered, “Garden City, on the Missouri side. It takes me about an hour. But my family's going to be okay till I get home. I think I ought to stay here and help for a while.”
Wyatt shook his head. “The longer you wait to head home the worse it's going to get. Gangs could start spreading out in a day or two, as soon as they see there's no organized police presence, and even good people stuck on the highways will start to turn ugly soon. Riding or driving any working vehicle after a day or so will make you a target, and there will be a lot of them out there ready to take a shot at you.”
The patrolman looked from Wyatt to the sergeant and nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. Just seems like I ought to try to help a bit while I'm here, before I go running off.”
The sergeant shook his head. “You're not running off, Jacob, you're going to help your family. To protect and provide for them like you should. You're not going to make much difference here, but you can make all the difference in the world there. It's the right choice. They need you.” He turned to the captain. “You have any problem with Jacob taking one of the four wheelers with a couple of weapons and some ammo?”
Wyatt noticed the sergeant had not prefaced the question by calling the captain by his rank.
The captain looked as if he had lost his place in things, but finally stammered, “No, no … no problem.”
Wyatt spoke to the patrolman. “If you leave now, you might make it with no trouble. If you stick around for a while, you're asking for trouble on your way home. I’d get going, if I were you.”
The patrolman nodded slowly. “Okay, thanks.”
Wyatt turned the bike around and nodded to the men. “I'm headed home. Good luck to you. I think we're all going to need it.”
The sergeant nodded. “Yep.”
As Wyatt exited the building he noticed a small crowd forming, apparently from stranded motorists and neighbors who lived nearby. Swinging a leg back over the bike, he dug a barbecue sandwich out of the front pack and pushed off.
The next leg on Mission Road was mostly downhill, making up for the mostly uphill grind of the previous hour. It had been thirty years since he had been on a bicycle, and his legs were feeling it, not to mention every other muscle in his body.
As he coasted past neighborhoods and small shopping centers, he slowly ate the sandwich and watched the people he passed, seeing pretty much the same thing he had seen since leaving Joe's. This was an affluent area, and people tended to think themselves through problems rather than reacting emotionally to them. He knew that most of them would be slow to accept the possibility that help would not come soon, and would, as a result, become victims of the thousands that would undoubtedly pour out of the city in the next week or two. He wished he could stop and explain it to them, but he knew that most of them would not believe him and it would just slow him down. The knowledge that he was looking at people who would most likely be dead within several months saddened him, but he pushed the thought from his mind and kept riding.
As he followed the descending Mission Road to his turn onto Indian Creek Parkway, he thought about what he would need to do when he got home. Kelly would probably be there with the kids, waiting for him. The kids wouldn't be worried yet, but Kelly would know something was wrong and would be preparing for a night without electricity. She would undoubtedly be tightening up security at the house, preparing some food for the night and having the kids get out lanterns and flashlights. The dogs provided good outside security, and they had built the house with security in mind. He would just build on the preparations they had already made and fill in the cracks as he found them.
Turning south for a mile and then west, he looked with pleasure as the homes became larger and the landscaping more expensive. He and Kelly had worked hard and been smart with their money. As a result, they had been able to first buy a house in this area, then finally move out of the suburbs to sixty acres of beautifully rolling hills outside the exurban ring. A mixture of pasture and tillable land with a fringe of forest, their property sat atop a hill that overlooked the surrounding area, with two stocked ponds and a natural spring that fed into a year-round rock bottom creek on the west side.
They had built their dream house of natural stone and timber, much of it with their own hands, on top of the hill to enjoy the views it gave them on every side, but also with an eye on defensibility. They hadn't mentioned that part except to a few trusted friends with whom they shared the same social concerns, but he knew that the coming weeks and months would show the wisdom of that decision.
Turning south again, Wyatt was glad to have another long downhill stretch as the road reached miles into the outer suburbs, through the exurbs, and finally to a mixture of acreages and farmland. Here, the peddling got harder because the wide street had turned into a two-lane blacktop, but he was energized by the knowledge that he was close to home and he doubled his effort as he rode the miles, trying to take his mind off the burning in his legs and lungs by thinking about Kelly, the kids and the barbecue in his pack.
The residential lots had given way to larger acreages, and he watched the cows, horses and other animals go about their business in the surrounding fields, blissfully ignorant of the concerns of mankind.
After what seemed like an eternity, he finally found himself pedaling up the long hill to the gate of the place they had named “Stonemont” from the many stones that dominated the dome of the hill and from which the first floor of the house had been built. At first, the name had been kind of a joke, a small jab at pretentious estate names, but it had caught on and soon became the name by which their place was locally known. Eventually, Wyatt had even placed plaques bearing the name in the stone gate pillars.
He stopped at the iron gate and opened it, pushed the bike through, then closed the gate behind him. Pushing the bike up the long driveway, he felt himself start to relax, even though his legs felt like putty that might not get him to the house. The place had always felt like a haven to him, a place where the outside world could not intrude, and now it felt even more so. As he reached the side veranda and propped the bike against the wall, Kelly came out of the side kitchen door with their three kids spilling out around her.
“Daddy, the TV doesn't work!” exclaimed their six-year-old, Brody.
Their four-year-old daughter Morgan smiled shyly from behind Kelly's leg and nine-year-old Aedan ran up with an excited smile. “Hi daddy! We've got a bunch of solar lights and the LED lanterns ready in case the lights don't come on before dark.”
Wyatt tousled Aedan's hair. “Good thinking, buddy. We sure might need them.”
“Hi Babe,” he said to Kelly, grabbing her around the waist. “Glad to see you're home.”
Kelly returned the hug and l
aughed at the squeeze he gave her on the side the kids couldn't see. “I'm glad you're home too. I was getting a little worried.” She looked toward the bicycle. “Nice bike.”
Wyatt started shrugging off the packs as he entered the house, with Kelly and the kids trailing along behind. “Yeah, I was clear up at Joe's Kansas City when everything went off. Got it at the thrift shop up there. Good thing, too. I'd still be a long ways away without it.”
He set his main pack by the door and carried the tactical pack to the large kitchen table. “How's everything around here?”
“Fine. I was in the middle of giving Morgie a bath when everything went off. I was going to run to the store, but the car won't start. And none of the phones are working. How widespread do you think it is?”
Wyatt looked at his wife and liked what he saw. He'd first noticed her because of her looks, but had soon come to appreciate her many other virtues. “Hard to know. Did you try to start the truck?”
She shook her head. “No. When nothing would work, I thought I'd wait till you got home.” She looked at him closely. “What do you think? EMP?”
He nodded his head and smiled. “I knew I married you for your smarts.” He grabbed her, kissing her and squeezing her again. “That’s what it looks like to me. I'm going to go try the truck.”
Letting her go, Wyatt went into the garage and got into his Ford Excursion. Saying a silent prayer, he put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine roared to life.
He let it run for a minute then turned it off. There had been an ongoing discussion in the preparedness circles as to which vehicles would run after an EMP and which would not. Some felt that garaged vehicles might have a chance, but he had gone the extra mile and lined his four-car garage with steel mesh, grounding it with steel rods driven twelve feet into the earth, creating a large Faraday cage.
At the time, he had questioned the expense and the amount of work involved. Unlike most of his other preps, this was not something they would really have a use for except in case of an EMP. Now, he was glad he had done it. Several motorcycles, two ATVs and an older F-150 crew cab also started, as did his beloved compact John Deere tractor.