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

by A. K. Meek

  He could try to hide behind Bartel’s made up rules all day long, but in the end, they were to protect people. That’s what he was supposed to do—protect people. Not feel sorry for himself. He’d been so caught up in his own misery he forgot, lost sight of his purpose.

  It wasn’t about him at all.

  It was about everyone else.

  He placed his shotgun on the ground, and slowly, like he would hold up a newborn, slid one arm underneath her and used his other to lift her from the ground. “It’s okay, you’re safe.” He led her to Calliope.

  She didn’t fight him, but neither did she lose her vacant stare.

  He helped her onto his horse. Then taking the reins, he led Calliope and the traumatized girl back to Bartel.

  Calliope carried the distraught woman to the outskirts of the wall. She remained so still and lifeless that on a couple of occasions Kurt stopped to see if she was still alive. She was in bad shape, though he could see no trauma to her body, except for her neck.

  Even on her dark skin, the welts were noticeable. Blisters and peeling skin circled her neck completely. Kurt came to the horrible conclusion someone tried to hang her. That would explain what looked like rope burns.

  Unfortunately, he’d had to investigate two suicide hangings over his career. And in his memory, their necks looked similar to hers. It would also explain her state of shock.

  By the time they reached town it was about midday. Heat blazed on the back of his neck. Sweat dripped into his eyes and gnats stuck to his cheeks.

  “Hold it!”

  Kurt recognized his deputy’s shrill command. “Come on Clive, you know it’s me.” He continued guiding Calliope toward the wall, which in this area consisted of three cars staggered to form a metal barricade, unraveled spools of barbed wire filling in the gaps between.

  “I said stop!” Clive’s head poked up from behind a Mercedes. He rested his M-16 on the hood, barrel pointed to kill. “Right there. Not another step.” Two more deputies stayed tucked behind obstacles, out of sight. They had become a more efficient paramilitary as the days wore on. Normally Kurt would’ve been proud, but not now.

  “Who’s that with you?” Clive demanded.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Kurt was tired, sweating, and he needed to get the girl to help. He didn’t have time for this. “You know it’s me.”

  “I know you, but I don’t know your passenger. Who is that? What if you’re in duress, being forced to bring this person in?”

  Kurt’s last nerve was long gone. “Right now, you’re the only one causing me duress. She needs help.”

  “I’m just following your rules, boss,” Clive said. His voice had less of an edge, like all the bravado had been spent in this one encounter.

  “Want me to shoot her?” Kurt asked sarcastically. “I can drag her off Calliope if you want and blow her head off, if that’ll make you feel better.” He swung his shotgun off his shoulder and cocked the double barrels for effect.

  Clive’s rigid ready-to-fight position relaxed. His M-16 slid off the car. “Well, no, I don’t want you to kill her. But, but…”

  “I’m taking her to the clinic,” Kurt said. “Make a hole.”

  Clive motioned to his hidden posse and they emerged to pull away a section of the barbed wire that functioned as a rudimentary door.

  Carefully, so as not to catch Calliope’s haunches on any stray barb, Kurt guided her and the woman through the wall.

  “You understand I’m just trying to take care of the people, right, boss? Everyone’s on edge,” Clive said as Kurt filed past.

  “That’s all I’m trying to do, too. Take care of people.” Kurt led Calliope onto the street that would take them to the clinic. “You’re doing a good job, deputy,” he said over his shoulder before he was out of earshot.

  Four blocks later and he pulled the unknown woman off his horse. She slid off Calliope’s back into his weary arms. He didn’t realize how tired he was until he almost dropped her to the ground. Mustering his strength, he carried her inside. “Where’s Helen?”

  A technician, a twenty-something black man who’d refused to move over to West Bartel with Farah, intercepted him. “What’s the matter? What in the…”

  “Where’s Helen?” Kurt repeated. “She needs help.”

  “Just a second,” the tech said and scurried back down the hallway, around a corner.

  Kurt found a room with an examination table available, white unrolled paper draped across the top. He laid the woman on the table just as Helen entered the room.

  “Oh my heavens!” she said. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I found her outside the wall. I think she’s in shock.”

  The young technician entered the room with a box of medical supplies. Immediately Helen went to work, assessing her airway, breathing, and circulation.

  “We need to get you better, girl.” Helen said in a low voice, like she was talking to the woman and what she was saying was for her alone. “Don’t you worry, honey. We’re going to fix you right up. You just wait and see.”

  Kurt leaned against the wall, taking a moment to catch his breath. He watched Helen work for another minute. If anybody could bring the woman back, it would be her. When she and her tech looked to have everything under control he decided to step out of the room.

  The hallway in the medical clinic was quiet at the moment. Over the past weeks it’d been filled with illnesses and sicknesses and injuries.

  He found himself meandering down the hallway to the section of the building that housed eight inpatient beds. Since the world ended those beds had been used very regularly, if not overflowing capacity. But there was one room in particular he headed toward before he even realized he was heading there.

  Someone used a grease pencil to scribble on a little plastic placard attached to the door: Mayor. Sandy, a newly sworn deputy, stood next to the door with a pistol in her holster, an AK-47 warm in her hands, and a grim jaw. Seeing the sheriff, she nodded to him, but kept her stoic face. He gave the door a couple of courtesy knocks before opening it.

  Aubrey’s eyes were closed. Her hair was tousled, which she obviously didn’t know, because she never would’ve allowed it to get to this state. Beside her hair and the cuts and abrasions on her face and arms, she looked all right.

  Her eyes fluttered open at his presence. A thin smile crept across her face. “Hey you,” she said, her throat croaky and dry.

  Kurt took the water jug next to her bed and poured some into a plastic cup. He moved it to her mouth. “How’re you doing? Thirsty?”

  She began to drink, but her thin smile turned into a frown. “Kurt, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me about LaTonya?”

  Kurt sighed. “I didn’t want to worry you. You’ve got enough to worry about.”

  “I may be banged up, but I’m still the mayor,” Aubrey said. “So, what happened?”

  “Near as I can tell,” Kurt began, his face clouding as he remembered seeing his deputy, his friend for the past ten years, with her head bashed in like a watermelon. He knew he’d never forget that image. “Someone broke into the office and wanted to steal guns. They must’ve taken her by surprise. She wouldn’t have gone down that easy. Her weapon was still in its holster.”

  “They surprised her,” she speculated. “Or it was someone she knew.”

  Kurt hadn’t considered that before, but it made perfect sense. Someone she knew.

  He wanted to make it about some criminal—perhaps Ted—especially after the bombing incident. He’d figured the bombing was a diversion to steal weapons. But Ted wouldn’t need weapons, would he? His rush to blame Ted had given him tunnel vision.

  He never considered it was somebody LaTonya knew. The thought of somebody that knew her being able to do something so horrendous horrified him even more.

  “Sheriff!” A voice from the hallway called. Kurt spun around to the door to see the young tech pop his head in. “She’s awake.”

  With
a quick nod to Aubrey, Kurt trailed after the tech into the examination room.

  The woman fought t Helen, who was doing her best to keep her on the table. The tech rushed over to help restrain her.

  The woman’s eyes were wide with fear as she struggled, mouthing the words, “Run, run…”

  Kurt lent a hand to secure her. Undeterred by the woman’s flailing, Helen continued to stroke her matted hair away from her face, the way a mother would dote over a child who just fell off a swing. “Okay, Janelle, it’s all right now. Everything will be all right. Just like I told you.”

  “You know her?” Kurt asked.

  Helen nodded. Janelle, the hysterical woman, relaxed back onto the examination table, but you could feel the tension in her body and see it in her eyes. “I know her, but not too well. She volunteered here a few months ago. I didn’t know it was her under the dirt. She was applying for an internship with an online nursing program. This is Janelle Smith.”

  “A resident of Bartel?”

  “Yes, her and her husband. And their dog of course.”

  Just then Kurt understood Janelle was the person who went missing. LaTonya’s friend. The ones that owned the dog little Susie. The same dog that refused to leave the spot where they found LaTonya in the sheriff’s office. He had tried to take the dog home to his wife and nieces, but the dog refused to budge.

  “Poor dear’s in shock,” Helen whispered so she wouldn’t startle Janelle any more than necessary. “She doesn’t know me, doesn’t know anything.”

  “I think I may have something to help,” Kurt said. “Give me a minute.”

  He shot from the clinic and ran to his office with renewed energy. When he burst inside, a group of deputies who had been joking about something suddenly became serious and full of business. He ignored them and called, “Come here, Susie.” Right outside the armory door, on a pillow piled with blankets and a chew toy Susie ignored Kurt. He scooped her up in his arms before she could even bare her teeth then zipped back out the door, leaving the deputies gawking in wonder.

  His heart beat with excitement as he fast-walked down the corridor to the examination room where he’d left Janelle. This was sure to be a great reunion.

  Entering, Kurt held out the little rat-dog in the hopes of bringing her owner around.

  Susie barked loudly in a piercing shrill once she saw her owner. Except the reunion didn’t go as Kurt planned.

  Janelle shrieked in terror and flung her arms, knocking the bedside table over, metal clattering across the linoleum. Her thrashing sent Helen stumbling away. The tech had to almost jump on top of her to keep her from leaping from the bed.

  “No dogs!” Janelle screeched. “No dogs!” her voice cracked and she sobbed loudly.

  “Get her out of here,” Helen yelled.

  Kurt tucked Susie under his arm like a football and left. Looking for a place to leave her, he found a janitor’s closet and put Susie in there despite the dog’s protests. He shot back into the room.

  Helen, sitting on the edge of the bed, had her arms wrapped around Janelle. Likewise, she had her thin, dirty, black arms wrapped around Helen. Janelle’s head was tucked into her shoulder, sobbing wildly.

  “That didn’t turn out to be a good idea,” the tech said.

  Kurt threw him a hot glance, but the tech didn’t see because he had already begun to pick up the scattered medical supplies off the floor.

  “No dogs,” Janelle repeated, her voice shaky.

  “Yes dear, no more dogs,” Helen said, brushing hair from Janelle’s eyes.

  “What in the world happened to this girl?” Kurt said.

  04.02

  BAND OF FOUR

  A band of four weaved their way across the Georgia landscape by night, not sure what to expect, not sure what they’d run into. But Kurt and his men—plus one woman—headed into the unknown. The Dog Pound.

  When Janelle had become coherent enough—two days later—to hold a somewhat rational conversation, she described her ordeal, which played like a low budget horror movie.

  The dreadful time began when her husband Kevin investigated a sound at the front door only to have intruders kick it in. Two men bum-rushed him and held a gun to his head. Then they were bound with duct tape, heads covered with burlap, and carted out into the night.

  The scene played out like Kurt had imagined when he investigated their house. A kidnapping. Then he remembered when Johnny tried to tell him about what he’d seen, the abduction of another citizen. But Kurt was too upset—no, upset was too nice a word, angry fit better—at Johnny’s drinking. That overshadowed listening to anything his drunken brother might have to say.

  As Kurt’s band moved through the countryside, low-slung clouds threatened to release the heavens in a downpour. The air had finally become too wet, too saturated, to contain the Georgia heat and humidity. As evening fell, sporadic drops patted dry grass and leaves. A sign of things to come.

  They stopped at a barn. The two-story colonial next door had burned to the ground weeks ago; the smell of smoke still lingered. This farm had a freshwater well identified by emergency management early on. The posse’s three horses, including Calliope, would be left here. This would be their staging point. The Dog Pound was still a ways off, but since they didn’t know how far out scouts would be, they decided to play it safe. Plus, they could top off their canteens and take a breather.

  As Kurt and his band saw to the horsed, he recited the words Dog Pound to himself, picturing the cruel things that went on there.

  Janelle had recognized the location as the new Middle Georgia Paws of Love animal shelter. A few months earlier, she and her husband had visited there looking for a pet. It’s where they found little Susie. But she said the shelter didn’t look like Paws of Love anymore.

  Bad men had taken it over.

  With their horses safely tucked away inside the barn, Kurt and his deputies set out on foot.

  Next to him, Clive wouldn’t countenance the idea of being left behind. They were the only duly sworn officers of the law on this foray. The other two weren’t officers at all and had no formal training. Telly, Earl’s younger brother, and Sandy, a cashier at the Piggly Wiggly, were citizens just willing to help.

  None of them had ever imagined being Bartel’s citizen militia. They didn’t know what they were up against, but they had heart. Kurt hoped that was enough to outweigh lack of law enforcement training. They were in this together, good or bad.

  Even though he didn’t force anyone to come, the possibility he was leading them to slaughter frightened him. From Janelle’s story, there were plenty of guns and men and the willingness to kill in the Dog Pound.

  They wound their way through trees, dark and foreboding, under twisting knobby pecan branches reaching overhead. The trees threw off a malevolent vibe, but Kurt understood it wasn’t the trees at all, but apprehension that had begun deep inside as he listened to Janelle.

  Another mile of trudging through orchards and unkempt fields and crossing dirt roads, they paused to get drinks from the canteens. None of them spoke.

  Kurt sipped not from thirst but to wash down the fear rising in his throat. It felt like they were walking to their own funerals. He didn’t want this any more than the others. But the horrors couldn’t go unchecked. And for him, there was more to it than just the barbarism.

  There was Johnny.

  He shook his head fighting to regain focus. “Everyone ready? Let’s go.”

  They moved on into the night, which Kurt equated to walking in soup. Hot, mosquito-infested soup. Which tasted like sweat and Spray Away insect repellant, which seemed to only lure in more bugs.

  He had visited the pound on a handful of occasions. As sheriff, there weren’t many places he hadn’t gone in the community and surrounding area. Most of the roads in the county he knew as well as the nighttime path to his bathroom. The way to the pound was a little different on foot, though.

  In the distance, breaking on the dark horizon, a faint glow could
be seen. Like a million burn barrels had been lit in one location. That was an end of the world way of thinking about it, he reasoned. Before the end, before power was mysteriously taken away, he would’ve said the glow was from city lights.

  But Janelle had mentioned the power. She said somehow the Dog Pound had electricity. She didn’t know how they pulled it off, but they did.

  That must be what he was seeing now.

  Another mile and they’d closed the distance. On the outskirts, sporadically placed utility poles cast dirty yellow light in the parking lot. They painted an unholy illumination over the edges of buildings. Or maybe that was just Kurt’s runaway imagination.

  The revulsion deep inside him from Janelle’s experience grew with each step he took. A morbid fascination. The thread of rightness and law-upholding that had woven through his whole being screamed for this injustice to be stamped out like a cockroach.

  He was by no means perfect—just ask his wife—but he tried. It was the eternal battle all humans faced. This theme echoed in the earliest Bible stories he’d remembered from his childhood. Cain and Able. A good brother versus a bad brother. That always stuck with him. Could he even kill his brother if it came down to it? Would it be out of anger, like with Cain? Or mercy?

  They hunkered down behind an exceptionally thick line of shrubs clustered just off the shoulder of the main road leading to the pound. “What do you see?” he asked, hoping someone with less tired eyes would see something of significance. Janelle couldn’t tell them much about security, just that everyone had guns. And there were a lot of everyones.

  Dogs could be heard in the distance, baying or barking at some unseen foe. The memory of Janelle telling him of what the dogs were allowed to do to some of the people that got out of hand made him sick to his stomach. He didn’t blame her for being terrified of barking.

  Occasionally, fragments of conversations, laughing or yelling, drifted on the wind to them, too faint to make out the words.