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

by A. K. Meek

  Another explosion, this time louder. Their chests shook and overpressure tugged at their ears.

  The blasts were similar to when Haven had been bombed weeks ago. Bartel was now receiving the brunt of a brutal attack.

  Two more explosions.

  Dust shook loose from the drywall ceiling, sprinkling white puffs onto desks and floor. Gunfire began again in earnest.

  Kurt checked the shotgun to make sure it was loaded and set it down next to him.

  What else could the Dog Pound throw at them? What else could they take?

  He thought of his family, of his wife, his nieces, and whether they were safe. He needed to get to them. Now it was too late. What Aubrey asked a few minutes ago was turning out to be true. This town was lost. The bombing reiterated this point.

  At that moment Clive came diving through the shattered window. He made a lousy attempt of a tuck and roll, hitting the linoleum hard and sliding across broken glass. He laid on his back, face covered with cuts, like someone went toe-to-toe with a broken bathroom mirror. And lost. Sweat and dirt covered his clothes and on his left side blood had soaked through his brown deputy shirt to mingle with dirt, producing a gory rust color. He looked like crap.

  Once he came out of his stupor, he clutched his M-16 and worked to clear a jam from the breach. He reset his magazine, slapping it in place then popping the chamber closed again. Then he fell back onto the floor, gasping deeply.

  Aubrey slid over to him and produced some bandage from her wrapped arm and started wiping blood and chunks of glass off his face. She hit a sore spot and he winced in pain. “Hold on a second,” she said and lightened her touch, “you got a piece of glass deep in your cheek.” He grimaced as she used a portion of the bandage to grab hold of the razor shard and discard it.

  “Out there,” Clive gasped as he was sucking in air. “There’s something out there.”

  “There’s a lot of things out there,” Kurt said. “It looks like the whole Dog Pound is here.”

  Clive shook his head, rejecting Kurt’s statement. “No. There’s more than that. Something big out there. I was over by First. We were pushing them back. There were some soldiers, in some sort of camouflage uniforms. I couldn’t recognize them.”

  “Soldiers? You mean like our military?” Aubrey asked.

  Clive shook his head. “Not our military. Some other military. I couldn’t tell what they were but they were wearing camouflage uniforms. But that’s not it. There’s something bigger out there. Some type of machine.”

  “Machine,” Kurt repeated.

  Clive nodded. “Some kind of mechanical tank. A large walking tank with guns and missiles.

  “We were pushing the Dog Pound back, holding our own. Then this, this, machine came out of the woods. Tall, forty or fifty feet. It started firing rockets, hitting vehicles. Everything started exploding. It had missiles. How can we fight missiles?” he asked.

  Kurt thought back to when the bombs first fell, when he and Clive went looking for his missing deputies. They found Kyle and pulled him from the wrecked cruiser. At that time he had said those same words, that he’d seen some kind of machine, some kind of tank out there.

  The damage the machine did was evident on the highway. Cars with basketball-sized holes through them. Burned out vehicles. He could only imagine what type of weaponry the machine had.

  How could they face that? Sitting in his destroyed sheriff’s office, only a few rounds of small caliber ammo and a shotgun left. How could they face this machine?

  He’d lost the town. Bartel was lost.

  And him with a front row seat to the destruction of the town he had spent decades taking care of. Falling apart before his eyes, crumbling beach sand through his fingers.

  He knew it from the moment the dogs came running into town. That was just the beginning. But deep down, at some level, even before the dogs came, he knew this was it.

  Maybe even when he decided, rather impulsively, to attack the Dog Pound. No good was going to come out of that. But he couldn’t live with himself knowing people were being kidnapped. Or was it because of Johnny?

  Either way, the repercussions were here, on his doorstep. He didn’t want to believe it, but he knew it. “We’ve lost the town,” he said, giving his thoughts voice. In some way, in some place inside him, he felt a sense of relief in that simple statement. Because he said it, that made it final.

  Aubrey sat there, taking in what he said. She didn’t cry out, she didn’t shake her head and try to argue why there was still a chance to redeem her town. She knew what he said was true. Her jaw was set firm, she didn’t look at him, but kept tending to Clive’s various scrapes and cuts. “Yes, it is,” she said.

  Kurt smiled grimly as the weight of protecting a whole town was lifted. And this gave him a new clarity. It was now simply a matter of giving everyone a chance to escape. “Clive,” he called out.

  The deputy that had been with him the longest came shuffling over to him, bloodied but still determined to do his duty. “Yeah boss,” he said.

  “We need to get the word out for everybody to run. To leave the city. Get their families and get away from here.”

  For a moment Clive gaped at his sheriff. “We’re giving up?” he asked.

  “No,” Kurt said. Then he thought about it. “No!” He repeated, his voice strong. The voice was of twenty-five years ago, when he swore an oath to protect the citizens. “No, we’re not giving up this easy. We’re giving everyone an opportunity to get away, to fight another day. But we can still make them pay.” With that he jumped to his feet. His injured leg wanted to give out and he stamped his foot on the ground. Shockwaves of pain rippled up his leg to his brain causing flashes. He gritted his teeth in determination.

  He went down the hallway, standard issue shoes softly scrunching echoes down the now silent space. Reaching the lockup area, he grabbed the ring of keys off their hook and went to detention cell number four. He unlocked the door and swung it outward then lifted his shotgun so he held it at waist level.

  Inside, Ted was standing on his bolted down cot. He was stretching on tiptoes, trying to see out the tiny barred window. Hearing the door open he spun around and leaped down. “So, you’re not going to leave me here,” he said, thankfulness in his voice.

  Ignoring him, Kurt lifted his shotgun so that it was chest level. “When you planted the bomb you almost killed Aubrey.” His voice was hard.

  Ted looked from the gun barrel to Kurt’s face, and when he didn’t see any emotion—or even recognition—register, a warm feeling of fear rode up from his neck, causing beads of sweat to form. “I’m innocent until proven guilty by my peers. I will not answer any questions without representation. There’s due process.”

  Kurt pumped the shotgun. “Here’s your representation,” he said. “Tell me you planted the bomb.” He took a step forward and stopped only when the barrel was a couple inches from Ted’s head. Ted backed up until he hit the cinderblock wall and couldn’t move any more.

  “Now come on, Kurt,” he goaded. “How long have we known each other? At least fifteen years. Probably more.”

  Kurt aimed the shotgun at the small window above the bed and squeezed the trigger. Inside the featureless cinderblock room, the blast was deafening. Ted dropped to his knees clutching his ears.

  “This is all the due process there is now,” Kurt reiterated in a cold voice. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re at war. The world ended weeks ago. So did due process. Now are you going to tell me about the bomb?”

  “If the world ended, what does it matter now?” Ted replied. He poked a finger in his left ear, like he needed to jump-start his hearing. He shook his head and tilted it to the side. “I think I’m deaf.”

  “You should be glad you’re not dead. But you will be, soon. Now tell me, did you plant the bomb?”

  Ted considered the words, still fidgeting with his ears. Finally, his shoulders slumped and he nodded.

  Kurt asked for clarification. “You did?”


  “Yes,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “So you have more?”

  Ted gave him a curious look. “More?”

  “Bombs.”

  Again, Ted nodded. “But they’re useless. I need an igniter: fire or electric detonator.”

  Kurt thought a moment. “Can you get to them?”

  Ted shrugged, then nodded again. “Yeah, I suppose. They’re under my toolshed. I doubt your deputies found them.”

  With that Kurt turned, unblocking the doorway. He motioned with his rifle barrel. “Come on.”

  He led Ted out of the detention cell back into the main office. When Aubrey saw him, color drained from her already pallid cheeks. Kurt waved to indicate she needn’t worry one bit. “It’s all right,” he said. “Clive, are you fit to fight?”

  At his boss’ inquiry, Clive popped up, brushed off his clothes to show he was, in fact, ready to continue the fight. “I’m good, boss. Just needed a little breather.”

  “I want you to take Ted to his house. He needs to retrieve something. Something important. If we’re going down it’ll be with a bang.”

  “Sure, boss. But what could be so important that I have to escort him? He tried to kill the mayor.”

  “Clive! It’s important. Trust me. Be careful. They’re crawling everywhere.”

  Clive slung his M-16 over his shoulder and pulled his service revolver. He motioned for Ted to lead the way, headed toward the back door, in the general direction of the man’s home.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Kurt added. “If he tries to run, shoot him for what he did to Aubrey.” Without missing a beat Clive checked the bullets in his revolver and slapped it closed.

  Once they disappeared from sight, Kurt dropped heavily next to Aubrey. He stared at the wall opposite. This was a gamble on a thread of an idea. It was half-baked, unformed, incomplete. He had doubt any of it would work. But what was left?

  They sat next to each other in silence, occasionally punctuated by ricochets, firecracker rounds, or the screaming arc of some type of mortar crashing to the ground.

  “Going out with a bang,” Aubrey finally said, almost too quiet to hear.

  A chuckle escaped from Kurt’s mouth. “Something like that. My last hurrah is going to be a distraction so everyone can get away. So you can escape.”

  “What about your family?”

  He had been thinking about his wife, about his nieces, Aubrey, and the town. And Johnny. “I’m doing it for her. I’m doing it for Bartel. My last act as Sheriff.”

  She patted his leg with a hand covered in drying blood and grime. “It was a good run. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to be sheriff. You did just fine.” She went quiet, sitting next to him in the odd calm of the midst of a war zone.

  “My last act,” Kurt whispered to himself.

  05.03

  MARCH TO GLORY

  Johnny sat in the cramped back seat of the Z28, just one person in a convoy of many persons leaving the Dog Pound. Ahead of them, the semi barreled down the dirt road that under normal conditions would’ve been used by farmers moving tractors and combines from field to field. The livestock trailer hitched to the semi bounced precariously over ruts and dead, fallen branches.

  Even over the engine noises, Johnny could hear the dogs inside the trailer. They were supposed to be the first wave of the war Bob declared against Bartel.

  Before hitting the road, all of Bob’s dogs had loaded up every scrap of ammo left inside the pound. They strapped every brand and length of hunting knife to their hips. It was all or nothing. Bob was leaving nothing on the table.

  Johnny drank as much as his pickled liver could take as others readied for war. That was the only way he could make it through this day. He was part of a group of murderers heading to destroy his hometown.

  The semi slowed, pulled off the dirt road at predetermined a staging area, two miles from the outskirts of Bartel.

  Bob’s plan was explained to them in the simplest of terms and made complete sense; hit them hard, hit them with everything, head on. It wasn’t a brilliant strategy laying siege to a city, but was solely intended to do one thing and one thing only: kill everyone in town.

  As the pound made preparations through the early morning, Johnny remembered the daughters he’d pawned off on Marcia. He mentioned to Roscoe his reservations at the slaughter-everyone-mentality that was through the Dog Pound like an infection. But his old co-worker assured him that it was just talk. Maybe.

  Johnny had a chance to get to know these people, and he wasn’t so sure that was the case. He didn’t know what he was anymore, if he was as cold-blooded as the rest. He’d killed LaTonya in a fit of rage. Maybe he was more like them than he wanted to be.

  He hoped he could make it over to his brother’s house and rescue them. Bob surely didn’t mean children, too. His girls were his only link to Lisa, his dead wife, after all.

  It had been forever since he thought of her. At some point along the way he replaced her with everything else. With partying, drinking, and yes, even killing and Janelle. He dispelled the thoughts that condemned him to guilt and climbed out of the backseat of the car.

  The overcast morning kept a tight lid on the Southern humidity. Heat was already prickling up Johnny’s back and his shirt and pants were become sticky with perspiration. With each movement of his arms, his shirt stuck to him like plastic wrap. And he was feeling the dehydration from the alcohol.

  Bob stood near the trailer, hands on hips, barking orders to his men. They raced around, securing weapons, getting ready to head to the locations they had predetermined in order to ambush the unsuspecting town.

  Several of his men, the dog handlers, worked feverishly at the trailer, disengaging it from the semi and leveling it. They moved to the back of the trailer and unlocked the rear door. The lift dropped and they climbed inside.

  In about ten minutes the dog handlers started emerging. An unimaginable number of dogs were attached to the leads.

  The handlers held shock collar controls and anytime a dog would stall or wander off course, a shock and a dose of pain to the animal’s nervous system would get them back in line. All the dogs could do was growl and bark in frustration.

  The dog trainers had ingeniously imagined—and constructed—a network of rope and chains that would allow mass maneuvering of dogs with minimal manpower. It was strategic and inspiring. And morbid. The dog handlers led the beasts down the ramp and began their march to the city, an Iditarod team of hellhounds.

  The rest of the assault fell in behind the dogs, the second wave to come crashing on the town. As they were getting ready to move, Bob kept looking behind him, expectantly, scanning the tree lines in the distance. With a gleam in his eye, he had been talking all along that there was a special surprise arranged for Bartel. As if the dogs and the men with weapons weren’t enough.

  They marched behind the dogs, a mercenary army, until they were close enough to Bartel, a half mile away, for now obscured by trees.

  From a vantage point closer to the town, scouts took fifteen minutes of surveying to make sure there were no surprise patrols along the edges of the rudimentary wall.

  Gump, formerly Linebacker and also a volunteer scout, motioned with his big arm from behind a mound of dirt. Seeing the sign, the dog handlers moved forward.

  They mashed the hockey pucks, shocking the dogs, agitating them, preparing them for war. According to Bob, the first wave would be the dogs that had been trained in the fighting rings. They had been conditioned to not attack other dogs, but people. At some point in Bob’s warped mind he imagined the need for dogs trained in this manner, just for this kind of occasion.

  Moving forward, the handlers led the mass forward and within minutes they disappeared beyond the fringes of the city.

  Many minutes passed with little chatter. People stood idle, swatting irritating gnats circling eyes and lips. Mosquitoes buzzed by ears. Johnny smacked his neck, always pulling his hand back to find tiny blood smears of blo
od. The mosquitoes were bleeding him dry.

  Him mind drifted to his girls, of pictures they’d bring home and he’d proudly hang on the icebox. In rare moments such as that he actually felt like a father. But those memories were too few and far between. And especially now we didn’t want to think of them. It would all be over soon.

  Gunfire cracked in the distance. The dogs made it to town.

  His mind shifted, imagining what Bartel would be like. People standing around, and all of a sudden, rabid, ferocious dogs overwhelming them. Ripping them to shreds.

  His body involuntarily shuddered as he thought about people being caught in ferocious jaws. It made him sick to his stomach but then he wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the heat. He loosened the grip on the 9 mm in his hand, rubbed the sweat off his hands onto his pants.

  Gunfire intensified, the barking intensified, and every now and again a distant scream or yelp could be heard rising above the battle din. The distant action rose to a horrid crescendo.

  Anticipation at the thought of death and blood washed over the group as they waited. Some were afraid of what was going on, many more were eager to participate.

  From behind Johnny, the semi roared to life again, Squash behind the wheel. The truck rattled as it approached the men waiting to go to battle. It came to a slow stop, the air brakes hissing, and Bob climbed down from the passenger seat to stand on the running boards.

  “Now’s the time,” he yelled to the group from his vantage point. Like some Blackbeard captain having climbed his ship’s mast to rally his pirates. “Today we get revenge on the town that decided to attack us. We left them alone, let them exist peacefully, but now, I claim this town. This will be our town.”

  Bob’s dogs cheered at the proposition of absolute lawlessness and the promise of killing. He hopped off the truck to the dirt and motioned to Squash. The kid put the truck in gear and squashed the accelerator. It shuddered as it sprung to life and made a beeline for the town.

  Pistol in hand, with one last look behind him, Bob followed in the dust trail kicked up by the raging semi. The rest of the Dog Pound checked their weapons and marched.