EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 19 | EMP Ranch

by Walker, Robert J.

  “Take as many as you can safely conceal,” Phil said. “I’d take a combat shotgun, but we have to be stealthy and low-key about this.”

  Wyatt took a modded AR-15 off one of the racks and examined it with the detailed eye of a weaponry expert. “I’d take one of these, but low-key she isn’t,” he said, putting the rifle back. “As many as I can carry, huh?”

  “Safely and stealthily, yes,” Phil answered. He’d taken off his plaid shirt and was strapping a shoulder holster onto his left side.

  With a nod, Wyatt picked up a .45 pistol, a 9mm pistol, a diminutive .32 ACP pocket pistol, and a .357 revolver.

  “Ammo’s in those drawers to your left,” Phil said.

  Wyatt loaded all of the firearms, while Phil did the same with the two .45 pistols he’d taken.

  “Locked and loaded,” Wyatt said, after tucking the final firearm and the .32 into one of his cowboy boots, which had a fair amount of room around the outer calf area.

  “Thank you for doing this,” Phil said, taking a moment to look Wyatt in the eye and convey his gratitude. “There’s nobody I’d rather have by my side in a situation like this.”

  “You’re as much a brother to me as Al,” Wyatt said, referring to his older brother, who now lived in Texas. “Let’s do this…and pray that we don’t have to use these things today.”

  “I hope we don’t have to take the guns out,” Phil said, “but I have a bad feeling that we’re going to have to do more than just take ‘em out. Come on, let’s move.”

  4

  “Why are we going back to the car?” David asked. “You said every vehicle is dead; surely ours will be too?”

  “It’s as dead as every other car, yes,” Alice answered, “but there’s something important I need to get out of it.”

  “Man, this is crazy,” David murmured, trailing behind his mother and staring around him in awe at the surreal sight, “it’s like The Walking Dead or something, but uh, without the zombies.” He kept fidgeting with his phone, more out of habit than anything else. He’d resigned himself to the fact that the device would never work again, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away.

  Alice and David were now walking on one of the main streets, heading for the multi-story parking garage where her sedan, a late model Ford, was parked. The long, straight street, lined with high-rise office buildings and businesses, was eerily silent. Usually, this street would resound with the racket of thousands of running motors, horns blaring, and people yelling over the noise. Rows of cars extended as far as the eye could see, packed in haphazard jumbles as if some gigantic toddler had tired of playing with them and had simply dumped them in a mess. Crowds of people were milling around in confusion. Many of them had collided, but aside from the motorcycle accident near the bank, Alice and David hadn’t seen any bad wrecks or serious injuries.

  Almost all of the stores along the strip had shut and locked their doors. People knew that this was more than just a power outage, but Alice suspected that very few of them knew that it was an EMP attack. Most people, she guessed, wouldn’t even know what that was even if she told them.

  Thus far, she hadn’t seen any signs of police. She wondered what the government response would be and how soon it would be before the national guard or even the army would be called in…if they were called in. Nobody was rioting or looting stores just yet. It was too soon for such behavior, but Alice knew that it wouldn’t take desperate people—who already had little food and other supplies—very long to figure out that the police had little power to stop them from simply taking what they wanted. With starvation imminent, law and order and the rules of a civilized society would quickly go out the window, and she didn’t want to be anywhere near this city when that happened.

  “Mom, I think that guy’s hurt pretty bad.”

  David’s words snapped Alice out of the trance of thoughts she’d been in, and she stopped to follow her son’s pointing forefinger. Across the street, a group of people, all looking concerned, were gathered around an elderly man who was lying on the ground, groaning. A few feet away from him were two crumpled cars, which appeared to have smashed into each other at speed.

  Alice was focused on getting to her car as quickly as possible, but she couldn’t ignore an old man in pain. She took David’s hand. “Come on. I’ll see if there’s anything I can do for him.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

  They hurried across the street and made her way through the group of people gathered around the injured man, a thin, white-haired fellow in his seventies.

  “Everyone, I’m a trauma nurse, and I need you all to stand back and give me some space, please,” she said.

  The crowd, uncertain of how to help the man, did as she said and moved back. With a sinking heart, Alice realized that the old man was actually one of the lucky ones. Many more people would be injured on these streets in the days and weeks to come, but there would be nobody to help them. The thought that innocent people may well die in protracted agony on the streets made her want to break down into a fit of uncontrollable weeping, but she fought back the tears and let her nurse’s instincts and training take over.

  “Where’s the pain, sir?” she asked the old man as she knelt down next to him and checked his pulse, which was strong and even, a good sign. “Davey, fish that little flashlight out my bag, please.”

  “My, my sh-shoulder and r-ribs,” he groaned.

  Alice quickly checked over the old man’s limbs to make sure there were no fractures. David handed her the flashlight, and she used it to check the man’s pupils. He was mostly fine; she was relieved to find. His shoulder, however, was dislocated, and his ribs on his left side possibly cracked. He would live, though…although for how long if he couldn’t get out of this city, she couldn’t say.

  “Sir,” she said gently, “you’re going to be okay. You don’t have any major fractures, but your ribs might be cracked from the seatbelt and the impact. Your shoulder is dislocated too. I’ll pop it back into place for you, but I must warn you, it’s going to hurt. Once it’s done, though, you’ll feel a lot better. Davey, can you help me here a second? Just press down on his chest here, hold him in place.” She looked up at the crowd. “Does anyone have something he can bite down on for a second?”

  A young businessman took off his tie and handed it to her. “Will this do?”

  “Thank you,” she said, folding up the tie. “Sir, you’re going to need to bite down on this while I pop your shoulder back in. My son’s going to hold you down too. Like I said, it’ll hurt bad for a second or two, but it’ll be over fast, and you’ll soon feel better. Are you ready?”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he groaned and nodded, opening his mouth so she could stick the folded-up tie into it. He bit down on it and closed his eyes.

  “Davey, hold him here and here,” Alice said, pointing to two spots on the man’s chest, “push down hard so he can’t move.”

  David knelt down and put his weight on the man’s chest, while Alice positioned the man’s arm, gripping it tightly.

  “Okay, sir, on three. One, two, three!” She jerked the man’s arm swiftly, and his eyes bulged with agony as he screamed into the tie, biting down on it with all his force.

  As quickly as the searing pain had blasted through his shoulder, though, it began to fade, and he let out a long, slow sigh of relief. Alice took the tie out of his mouth, and then she and David helped him to his feet, and then assisted him over to his car, where they helped him get onto the back seat.

  “Th-thank you, ma’am,” he stammered. “My shoulder’s already starting to feel a little better.”

  “Get some rest here for a while,” she said. “Then go straight home, you hear? Things are going to get…pretty crazy.”

  “I’ll do that, thank you again.”

  Alice gave him one more nod and a sad smile; she’d done what she could for him, but she had no idea if he would be okay, and if he’d be able to get home—wherever that was—before the madne
ss began. He wouldn’t stand a chance if he got caught up in all of it. She prayed that it wouldn’t erupt for at least another few hours, and hopefully, the old man would be able to get out of the city before nightfall. She knew there would be a full moon tonight, but even so, the city would be a terrifying place without any lights, and the darkness that would engulf the place would only aid and abet any criminal elements in whatever nefarious activities they would no doubt get up to.

  “Come on, Davey,” she said, taking her son’s hand, “we gotta move.”

  They were almost at the parking garage, but another three or four miles lay between the car and the dubious safety of Alice’s apartment where she and David would await rescue from Phil. They hurried across the street and rounded the corner, and Alice sucked in a sharp breath of relief when she saw the parking garage a hundred yards ahead of them. “Okay, in and out, then straight to the apartment,” she said, more to herself than David.

  Just as they got into the garage, though, a thunderous boom crashed through the streets, the earsplitting echoes of it ricocheting off the skyscrapers.

  “What the hell was that?” David gasped.

  Before Alice could answer, sharp cracks and chattering crackles of gunfire rang out, and they saw an ominous plume of black smoke rising into the sky, coming from a mere few blocks away. From a distance came screams and shouts from what sounded like hundreds of people.

  “It’s starting,” Alice murmured. “Quickly, Davey, let’s go, hurry!”

  5

  Phil and Wyatt saw the towers of black smoke rising from the city before they’d even driven through the two small towns that were en route.

  “Shit, things are getting bad sooner than I’d hoped,” Phil muttered.

  Wyatt, who was driving, stomped on the gas pedal, and the truck surged forward. Grim-faced, he swerved around a sedan abandoned in the middle of the road, and then, when they came across a minor car pileup on the outskirts of the first town, he veered off the blacktop, plowing through the long grass on the side of the road. Phil had raised and upgraded the vintage vehicle’s suspension and put some off-road tires on it so detours off the beaten track could be undertaken with ease.

  People in the town had seen the pillars of smoke rising from the distant city, and they were gathered in groups on the streets, staring with fear and confusion at the black plumes on the horizon. The sound of a functioning vehicle immediately drew their attention away from distant smoke, though, and they stared at the truck as it hurtled past them. A few of them tried to wave down the truck, but Wyatt kept the accelerator floored and his eyes on the road.

  “That’s it, brother, keep on going,” Phil said grimly. Pangs of guilt shot through him as he averted his eyes from the people trying to flag him down. He longed to help them but knew there was nothing he could do for them. And now, with the city on fire, he knew he couldn’t afford even a second’s delay if he wanted to make sure his wife and son got out of there alive.

  Coming back through these towns would be a lot more dangerous, especially if darkness had fallen. People would be more desperate, and therefore, more aggressive by that stage, and Phil was certain that they would do more than simply attempt to wave down his truck. He would cross that bridge when he got to it, though. His hand slid down to the .45 holstered at his side, and his fingers curled around the pistol’s grip. He prayed that he wouldn’t have to use it, but he realized that the odds of getting in and out of the city without firing a shot in anger were growing slimmer by the minute.

  They roared out of the first town and raced on toward the next. Wyatt hurled the truck through the mountain road curves, his jaw set and his hands white-knuckled on the wheel. He dealt with every obstacle with grim determination and razor-sharp focus; he was an expert driver who, after his stint in the military, had dabbled in rally racing for a while. The skills he’d learned there were paying off in this madcap race to get to the city.

  They passed a few more abandoned cars and a motorcycle or two on the winding road, but when they got within sight of the next town, coming over a rise that looked over it, Phil caught a worrying glimpse of an obstacle up ahead. A makeshift roadblock had been thrown up, with abandoned vehicles, garbage dumpsters, and other large items completely blocking the road through town.

  “Pull over, quick, pull over,” Phil said to Wyatt, who grunted out a wordless reply and pulled the truck to the side of the road but kept the motor running. They’d gone down a dip in the road, and they wouldn’t be visible to anyone manning the barrier—if anyone were manning the roadblock—unless they carried on driving for a few dozen yards. “Wait here, and keep her in gear,” Phil instructed, jumping out of the car. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

  He jogged up the road, moving between the trees to stay concealed from any unfriendly eyes that might be watching, and headed back up the rise to get a closer look at the roadblock. Once he was high enough to get a view of it again, he took a pair of binoculars out of his backpack and peered in closely.

  Two men with rifles were manning the roadblock. From the way they were dressed, it looked like they were civilians rather than police or military. Phil didn’t know whether they’d set the roadblock up to keep looters out or whether it was for a more sinister purpose, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. He put away the binoculars, jogged back to the truck, and climbed in.

  “There are guys with rifles at that roadblock ahead,” he said. “We can’t go this way. There’s the old forestry track a mile back that’ll allow us to skirt this town and get within a half-mile of one of the main arteries leading into the city.”

  “Will the old girl be able to handle the river crossing?” Wyatt asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  “She’s no tank, but she’ll handle a couple of feet of water without complaint.”

  “The current will be stronger than usual after last week’s heavy rains,” Wyatt said, still sounding a little uncertain.

  “I’d rather take my chances with the river than with men with guns,” Phil said. “And even with the stronger current, I’m confident we’ll get across.”

  “Forest track it is then.” Wyatt turned the truck around, raced back up the road, and then veered off the blacktop onto the old dirt track that wound through the woods. The track was beyond merely bumpy and rough; it was heavily rutted, with rocks and boulders up to a foot in height jutting out of it in places. A regular sedan would have had its undercarriage smashed up and possibly an axel broken after a few hundred yards, and even trucks and 4x4s would have had a difficult time on the track. Thanks to both Wyatt’s skills behind the wheel and to the work Phil had done on his dad’s truck, preparing it for just this sort of terrain, the old vehicle handled the rutted track well enough.

  When the track disappeared into the river, Wyatt pulled the truck up to a stop. While he was impressed at the vehicle’s off-road capabilities, he still wasn’t entirely certain it could handle a deep river crossing, especially with the exceptionally current. “You sure about this?” he asked.

  “I know what this truck is capable of,” Phil said, determined and resolute. “I factored a possible river crossing into my calculations. Let’s do this.”

  Knowing that Phil had factored a situation like this into his truck’s design gave Wyatt the confidence boost he needed to shift into first and edge the vehicle cautiously into the river. Both of them had crossed the river at this ford on horseback a number of times, so they knew it well enough…but that was when the river was lower and the current weaker, and even then, the water covered the horses’ legs completely, coming up to their bellies.

  “Easy does it,” Wyatt muttered under his breath, creeping forward and already feeling the force of the current pushing with relentless urgency against the vehicle before the water was even two feet in depth.

  All four wheels were in the water now, and Wyatt kept his pace slow and steady. After a few more tentative yards, the water was up against the lower sections of the doors. Nothing was coming in, t
hough. Phil had made sure every square inch of the vehicle was completely watertight. The unrelenting force of the current was nonetheless unsettling, though; it felt as if the truck were being battered by hurricane winds. Phil glanced across at his friend. While Wyatt’s face was as stony as it always was, he could see how tightly he was gripping the wheel, and he noticed that beads of perspiration were glistening on his forehead. He was clearly nervous about this. Speed didn’t worry Wyatt in the least, but water made him nervous; it always had, ever since a near-drowning incident as a young boy.

  “You’re doing well, brother, just keep her steady. You’re doing well. Twenty more yards and we’ll be out,” Phil said, doing his best to bolster his friend’s confidence.

  Wyatt plunged the truck into the deepest part of the river, and for a heart-stopping moment a surge of the current lifted two of the wheels, with the truck tilting dangerously and almost flipping over. Wyatt gave it steady throttle, though, and one of the tires found some grip against a boulder on the riverbed, and the truck lurched forward and slammed back down onto four wheels. Wyatt released a long, slow sigh and whispered a silent prayer of thanks.

  Phil, who had been something of an adrenalin junkie in his younger years, whooped with glee and laughed. “This was the fun route, right?” he said, grinning.

  In response, Wyatt scowled and shook his head; he wasn’t ready to chuckle about almost being swept away just yet. He pushed the truck onward and gunned the throttle when the front wheels finally emerged from the water onto the opposite bank. “Thank God,” he muttered.

  Now that they were back on the forest track, the brief moment of levity that had come from successfully fording the river crumbled, and a sense of dire urgency settled upon both men. While racing along the winding forest track, lurching and skidding through mud and obstacles, they caught sight of the open sky through a gap in the trees and saw that the plumes of black smoke from the city had grown taller and thicker.