Town on Fire: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Series, 25BF Season 2 (25 Bombs Fell)

by A. K. Meek

  He found Clive’s patrol near the southeastern portion of the wall that surrounded Bartel. Most of the land here consisted of uncultivated wooded areas. Pines and oaks, all covered in thorny vines, created a semi-wall of vegetation. An old billboard, faded with time, indicated this would be the future home of The Bentleys. But this apartment complex’s funding dried up before the contractor could even break ground.

  Given the abandoned expanse dotted with sparse and overgrown shrubs, Clive had determined this place as one of the most vulnerable, and so spent extra time patrolling here with his men.

  Earl, a man in his mid-thirties that no one would pay any attention to if they met him on the street, came crashing through the nearby foliage, startling Kurt. Earl cradled his rifle, an old AR-15 he picked up in Swampy Pete’s pawn shop. He had painted it red and striped it in black and white tape to resemble Eddie Van Halen’s EVH guitar. It looked ridiculous, but the bullets were still deadly.

  He came to a sudden stop and gasped in buckets of air, his non-athletic chest heaving. Wiping bubbles of spit-foam from the corners of his mouth with his forearm, he got out, “People. Over there.” He pointed with his rifle behind and to his left.

  “How many? Where?” Kurt said, unconsciously lifting the barrel of his shotgun.

  Bringing his breathing under control, Earl pointed more exactly with his rifle. “About two hundred yards out. Three or four men. Sounds like a family of hogs crashing through.”

  The moon remained hidden from view but backlit clouds were painted grey by dust and ash from distant fires and bombs. It turned the night into an odd, surreal time when anything wild and unimaginable could happen. Maybe even the dead could rise from the ground.

  Kurt wrapped the light jacket a little tighter over his shoulders as he realized he was cold, despite the summer. In the distance, the trees Earl pointed to blended together into a swirling hedge of branches and thorns. “Where’s the tripwires?”

  “About thirty yards,” Earl again pointed vaguely to his left.

  From a distance on their right, Clive emerged from the trees. He waved for his patrol, four men and two women armed with a small portion of Swampy Pete’s arsenal, and took off in the direction Earl had initially pointed. Kurt kept pace with his deputy.

  Once at the tree line, Clive made a couple of motions with his hand, and like a well-oiled machine, his people split and disappeared into the shrubs, flanking away from him. Kurt was surprised and impressed with the precision Clive’s patrol showed, especially with the small amount of time they had been working together.

  Now Kurt took the lead with Clive and Earl falling in behind him, stealthily entering the forest.

  Within a few minutes of cautious movement and slow, deep breaths, Kurt could hear rustling in front of him. Earl was correct; the group in the woods did sound like pigs crashing through underbrush, although it was apparent they were trying to remain quiet. Whispered voices rode the stagnant air. Kurt stopped and crouched down.

  At first the words were muffled in one long string of muted tones, but as they neared, vowels separated and words became obvious.

  “These thorns…” a man said, his frustration clear. “This stuff is demonic, all right. It’s snagging my sleeves, too.”

  The strangers stopped and quiet seconds passed. Kurt held his breath as he knew they should be approaching the tripwire any moment now.

  The voice started again. “I’ve driven the road a hundred times on jobs, but I can’t tell where the town is on foot. I’m lost.”

  A fizz and then a pop sounded as they hit the tripwire set up days ago as an early warning.

  A bright red flare shot high into the air above the tall pines. The attached parachute caught, and it drifted downward, illuminating the night and treetops in an eerie, flickering red.

  “Drop,” the stranger’s voice said. The scuffling that followed was loud in the quiet of the trees.

  As the flare descended, swinging from its tiny parachute, Kurt could just make out rough outlines. He couldn’t tell how many, but knew he needed to draw the hogs out of the bush, so to speak.

  He cocked his rifle, intentionally making it as loud as possible. The sound resonated in the trees. Clive and Earl followed suit.

  “Who are you?” Kurt called out.

  He held his breath, straining to hear a response, but expecting bullets. Instead, all he heard was his heartbeat in his ears.

  The flare reached the treetops and hung on a branch far above. It fizzed and spit, the light unsteady.

  He shifted from crouching to a hunched stand. Then, glancing back at Clive, he said in a low voice, “I’m going out. Be ready.” He moved forward cautiously, his rifle gripped tightly.

  A few yards ahead, he reached a small clearing where the trees weren’t as dense. There, he could make out three figures taking cover, rather poorly. He aimed his rifle with deadly, steady calm. “Are you zombies or moles?” he said.

  “Zombies?” one of the voices shouted. “Who’s a zombie?”

  “Were you outside when the bombs fell?” he elaborated. “Are you contaminated?”

  “How about lowering your weapon or whatever you’re pointing at us?”

  Kurt knew it was time to lay the cards on the table. “Okay, I’ll lower mine, but you’d be amazed at how many weapons you still have pointed at you right now,” he said firmly, hoping the others would take the hint.

  Rifles charged throughout the trees, sounding like an army awaiting his command. They got the hint.

  “We’re not contaminated,” the voice, obviously the leader of the three, said with alarm.

  “So you’re moles then?” Kurt said.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You were underground, so you’re clean.”

  “We’re not contaminated,” the voice clarified. “What do you want?”

  “What do we want?” Kurt almost laughed. “I was going to ask you. You trespassed into our town.”

  “We’re looking for Bartel and decided to go through the forest to make better time. Plus, the roads might be dangerous.”

  “We know the roads are dangerous. So are the woods. In fact, the world has become a very dangerous place. That’s why we have patrols.”

  “You’re from Bartel?” the voice sounded surprised. “This is Bartel?”

  “Yeah. The outskirts, anyway.”

  One of the three stood from his kneeling position. “I’m Henry Allen,” he said like he’d just stumbled upon a long, lost relative. “Steve, Steven Allen is my uncle. You know him?”

  “You mean Stu Allen,” Kurt said, “who lives on Sparrow Lane?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Henry laughed. “Old Stu. How is he?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you he’s dead.”

  “Dead? What?” Henry moved forward, then stopped.

  “Two weeks ago,” Kurt said, his voice taking on a somber tone. “Marauders attacked us shortly after everything went crazy. Mostly zombies, from the looks of them. We lost fifteen good people before we drove them away. They came on bicycles, carrying pistols and rifles and other weapons. Since then we’ve blocked the road and patrol the woods, as you found out.” He pointed to the flare caught in the branches, dimming with each passing moment. “You found one of our alarms.”

  Another of the trio stood and lowered his pistol. He brushed twigs from his jacket. “We’re not here to pillage. We’re from Haven looking for safety. Can I bring the rest of us here?”

  For a fleeting second, the old Kurt, the Kurt before the world fell apart, the Kurt that swore to serve humanity, wanted to welcome the refugees into town. He could hear the tiredness, the fear, the hunger, in the man’s voice. This was someone who had the sudden and crushing responsibility of having to keep others alive in a world turned violent thrust upon him.

  But it didn’t take long for him to remember. Those disgusting people that killed Shiloh.

  “Sorry, my friend,” Kurt said. “Your buddy may be Stu’s nephew, but I wouldn�
�t let y’all in even if you said you were my long-lost Siamese twin, separated at birth. No one’s getting into Bartel. Me and my boys will make sure of that.”

  “We left a burned out town and we’re tired and need a place to sleep,” the man pleaded. “Have some pity on us.”

  Kurt sighed. “I have plenty of pity for you. That’s why you don’t have thirty bullet holes in your chest. But I have a responsibility for the people, the women and children, that I protect. I put my life on the line every night. Over sixteen hours a day for the past two weeks. I have pity. Don’t lecture me on pity.”

  “Then do you have some food, medicine?” the man pleaded.

  “We have some, but not to give. We need it ourselves and I don’t think things are going to be improving any time soon.”

  “Insulin. Please, do you just have some insulin and aspirin? Some of my people need it.”

  Earl stepped from the shadows behind Kurt and whispered in his ear, “I can get some.”

  “No,” Kurt said, harshly. “This could be a trap.”

  “Do you really think so?” Earl’s empathy was what Kurt wanted to feel, but didn’t. He sighed one last time, for posterity. “Fine. Go.”

  Earl gave a smile and disappeared back into the trees. Shortly a couple doves sounded in the forest, completely out of place.

  Kurt raised his voice. “Listen,” he said, “I’ll tell you what we decided to do since you came here with no bad intentions. We can get you some insulin.”

  “Thank you,” the man said.

  The flare that had caught in the tree finally burned itself out. And with that a lantern behind Kurt lit up. Clive and Earl came to stand next to him. “By the way, my name’s Kurt,” he said to them. “This here’s Earl and Clive.” They both nodded. “Get up off the ground, you look ridiculous.”

  One of the men was still sprawled on the ground, splayed out like he couldn’t been seen, even though they were standing only feet away. Embarrassment registered on his face as he used his M-16 as a staff to lift himself. Kurt could tell by the way the man dug his barrel tip into the dirt that he probably knew nothing of rifle operation. He’d have been surprised if the guy even knew how to point it in the right direction if it came down to a firefight.

  These weren’t marauders, coming by night to pillage the town, to plunder and steal and kill. As he studied them, he could sense this wasn’t their intention at all. Over twenty years of seeing the worst in man gave him insight. The way one holds their head, whether they look in your eyes or nervously find other things to stare at. The way they handled their rifle. Those were all tells that he had become expert at picking up.

  But he couldn’t even read himself, or his wife, for that matter. There he had—

  “Kurt,” Henry said, breaking Kurt’s stray thought, his voice soft with emotion, “what happened to Stu, to Bartel?”

  “A few days ago,” Kurt said, seeing his son gunned down in vivid detail once again. He struggled to say what came next. “A group of people came to Bartel, much like you did. Marauders, murderers, whatever you wanna call them. A group of men. They came on the road and said they needed food for their wives and children.” Kurt took a deep breath. He felt sick to his stomach.

  The men stood in respectful silence as he struggled to get the words out. “We let them into Bartel,” he said, his voice quavering. “Before we knew what was going on they pulled out pistols and started firing. They started firing.” He shook his head as the vision that had haunted him came roaring back, brought to life by his words.

  “Everyone scattered.” He continued, “The ones that could still move—that weren’t shot. Finally, some of my men came with rifles. I think we shot two of them, but I’m not sure. We scared them away. But there were already a lot of dead, many wounded… They shot children.” His voice finally broke. “They shot my boy.” His body shook uncontrollably as the emotion came pouring out. The same emotion that he’d worked so hard to keep a lid on, the emotion that he believed disqualified him from duty because it showed his weakness. But now that it was here, there was no way to stop the flood it had become.

  A comforting hand touched his shoulder as he shook, trying to contain his sobs.

  After what seemed hours, Kurt’s emotions settled enough for him to clear his throat. Unfortunately, the throat clearing didn’t wipe away the spectacle he just made of himself. Despite that he continued, hoping to forget it. “A few days later another bunch came by,” he said. “Men with women and children. They were looking for safety from something they called the angel of death. They went on about some kind of toxic fog. I’m not sure what it means. They didn’t want to say any more once they knew we weren’t letting them stay. Their children were sick, dying, but I couldn’t risk losing any more of my people.”

  “The Avenger?” one of the men said. “You didn’t find out anything else about it?”

  “No. Sounds mysterious, right? We thought it was a ploy of some kind. Oh yeah, the insulin should be here in about twenty minutes or so. Earl’s little brother went to get some. Why don’t we sit for a bit until then? Maybe you can tell us what you know and we can do the same.” Kurt found a rotten stump nearby and sat down. Earl and Clive leaned against trees, rifles still held at low ready in case anything went wrong.

  The three relaxed their guard, sitting next to him.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Kurt quizzed the trio, who introduced themselves as Will and Nate in addition to Henry, on what they had seen since America fell. Once he found out that up until a few days ago they had spent the time in a fallout shelter, he lost interest in the friendly interrogation, but kept rattling on about insignificant matters such as needing a good, hot shower and wishing he could watch a Braves baseball game. He hoped the conversation didn’t veer into any more discussion about his son.

  Shortly a person came crashing through the shrubs and Earl intercepted them, just beyond the lamplight.

  “Is that the medicine?” Will said.

  Earl came forth with a small picnic basket. Just beyond the full reach of light, a female figure could be seen. Maybe Earl’s wife.

  “Better yet,” Kurt said, “I thought maybe we could have a quick bite, as a peace offering, or for pity’s sake.” He smiled at Will. If nothing else, offering this small token of normalcy made him feel like they weren’t monsters after all for not letting them into town. He knew now they were harmless, but had to stick to the plan of keeping everyone out.

  Earl set the basket by Kurt and pulled out items covered in towels. The wonderful scent of fried eggs carried on the air. Biscuits and jam joined the eggs.

  All six sat around the flickering hurricane lantern, eating breakfast.

  Kurt took the opportunity to fill them in on all the news that had passed through Bartel, which wasn’t much. He stopped short of divulging any intelligence about his town or the population beyond what they already knew. He told of what Bartel residents speculated about the end, but not much more than that.

  Telly, Earl’s younger brother, burst from the trees carrying a lantern, panting. “Here, Sheriff, here it is.” He held out a medical box. Kurt took the box, pulled out a vial and held it close to his eyes, inspecting the medicine. He put it back in, closed the lid, then handed it to Will. “The insulin. Here,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Will said, “for the medicine and food. We haven’t had good cooking for a while. We need to get back to the others.” They stood and gathered their gear. “If we had met under other circumstances, we could’ve probably hung out and had a beer or two.”

  “Yeah, but I prefer tea,” Kurt said, standing with them. “If you see others, tell them Bartel is off-limits. We’re closed. Best of luck to you and your people. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, one more present.” From his rear pocket he pulled a small black Maglite and pitched it to Will. “It’s got a red filter for night and the batteries are good. Sorry I can’t give you any more. Maybe you can find more batteries along your way.”

  Kurt and his men w
atched the trio crash back through the trees, headed back to wherever they had come. For a moment he considered Haven’s refugees. They’d be waiting out there, hidden behind trees and under rocks, waiting to see what their leaders would bring back. Food, safety, a warm place to sleep tonight?

  There was none of that for those that fled Haven. They would have to move on. All the men, women, husbands, wives. Children. There would be no safety for them here.

  Kurt thought for another minute.

  Bartel had to remain safe, even at the expense of others.

  “You gave them a flashlight,” Clive said. “We might need that.”

  “It doesn’t work. Maybe they’ll end up somewhere that it’ll work. They can get more use out of it than us.” Within minutes the sounds disappeared into the night. “Clive,” he said, “the mayor is going to hold another meeting. We’re going to discuss mandatory evacuations.”

  Clive had also been watching the trees, his rifle resting on his shoulder. “I thought that issue was settled.”

  “Not by a long shot,” Kurt said. “Leave a couple people here and bring the rest back to town. We’ve got a vote.” He started back to his horse.

  02.05

  FALLING OUT

  Electric nervousness permeated the courthouse square.

  Over the past days, the townspeople had acted like they were running on batteries, struggling to survive in an unpowered world. As the days dragged on without electricity, so did their internal resolve.

  It reminded Kurt of zombies. Of course, not real zombies, but the ones that are merely husks of what they once were, no life or will to live left in them. This new world made it easy to feel that way.

  As he considered it he realized that’s how he felt about himself since Shiloh’s death. Twice now, he had lost it. His usual stoic, professional bearing had cracked at the worst moments. The result: him being reduced into a sobbing fool. If everyone forgot that embarrassing moment in the woods, that would suit him just fine. He was too tired to keep up the façade anymore. His own batteries had run low.