“We’re stuck on the stairs, but there is a way out,” Phil said, his mind racing at a million miles an hour. He’d always been able to thrive in situations of extreme pressure. “The stairwell windows, smash ‘em!”
“We can’t jump from this height!” Alice protested. “We’ll break our legs at best, and likely die!”
“We’re not going to jump,” Phil said. “Remember, nothing electrical is live anymore.” He pointed at the dead lights above them in the stairwell. “We’re going to climb down.”
“We can’t. I left the rope in the apartment!” Alice said.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea,” Phil said. “Wyatt, get me up on your shoulders, quick!”
Wyatt dropped down to his knees so Phil could get up onto them. When Wyatt stood, Phil was easily able to reach the ceiling. He pulled his knife out of his belt, pried the light fitting out and then ripped it out of the ceiling. “Lift me up a little higher,” Phil said. Wyatt extended himself to his full height, and Phil was able to get his head inside the hole where the light fitting had been.
He was barely able to see anything, but it didn’t take too much groping around to find a relatively thick electrical cable. He grabbed it and yanked it, ripping it out of its fittings, and he kept pulling until he encountered resistance. Then he pulled some more, until eventually, he couldn’t pull any more of it out. “Let me back down!” he yelled to Wyatt, gripping the cable.
While Wyatt lowered him down to the ground, Phil kept a grip on the cable. “Help me pull all of this out!” he said once he was back on the ground.
Both men gripped the cable as if it were a rope in a tug-of-war, and they pulled as much of it out of the ceiling as they could. When they had a good length of it, Phil sawed through it with his knife, since there was no danger of being electrocuted. “Wyatt, tie one end around the banister,” he instructed.
While Wyatt was tying one end of the cable into a sturdy knot around the steel banister, Phil smashed out the window with the butt of the shotgun and knocked out any remaining shards of glass until it was clear.
“Get your gloves on!” he said to David and Alice.
Alice had leather gloves in her bug-out bag, and she took these out and put them on.
“Davey, you go first. Remember how we do it when we abseil? Just like that son, just like that.”
David nodded, trying to look confident in front of his father.
“Is the cable ready, Wyatt?” Phil asked.
Wyatt gave a quick, hard tug on the cable to test his knot. He was satisfied that it would hold, so he tossed the rest of the cable out of the window. It easily reached the ground and was more than thick enough to support the weight of even a very heavy man. “All ready,” Wyatt said.
“Come on, Davey, time to go,” Phil said. He and Wyatt helped David out of the window, and then David began lowering himself down the side of the building, gripping the cable and rappelling down to the ground, which was a good couple of yards down. The family had been abseiling for fun a number of times before, so everyone was familiar with the technique.
“Alice, you’re next,” Wyatt said, keeping an eye on David’s progress. “All right, he’s almost down. Come on, let’s get you out the window.”
Phil and Wyatt assisted Alice out the window, and then she too began to make her way down. Phil turned to Wyatt when Alice was near the ground. “You’re next, buddy,” he said. “I’ll help you out the window.”
“You should go,” Wyatt said. “Your family needs you.”
“The captain should always be last off the sinking ship, brother. No more arguing, you need to go.”
Wyatt realized it was pointless to fight, so once Alice was almost on the ground, he climbed out of the window and started scrambling down the side of the building. The flames had engulfed the second floor now, and Phil was finding it hard to breathe, even with the mask on. Also, the steel banister was heating up from the nearby flames, and Phil was worried that if it got too hot, the cable housing would melt, weakening it significantly. “Come on, buddy, come on,” he muttered, watching Wyatt descend and feeling his own anxiety rise as the flames and smoke grew in intensity and proximity.
Finally, just as the flames began gushing up the stairs alarmingly close to Phil, Wyatt got close enough to the ground to jump. Phil didn’t waste another second, and he slung the shotgun over his shoulder with its strap and scrambled out of the window and scampered down the side of the building as fast as he could. The descent was hair-raising because halfway down, the flames started billowing out of the window Phil had climbed out of, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before the cable melted and snapped. When he got close enough to the ground to jump, he did. He landed heavily and rolled to cushion the impact.
“You good, Phil?” Wyatt asked, helping him up.
“I’m good,” he said. “Any sign of the bastard who tried to kill us?”
“That maniac probably ended up trapping himself in there with all those bombs he was tossing around,” Wyatt muttered. “He couldn’t have gotten out. He’s probably burning to death as we speak. Anyway, he’s not out here.”
“We need to go,” Alice said. She was very shaken-up but doing her best to be level-headed.
The whole building was aflame now, consumed by a massive inferno.
“Agreed,” Phil said, dusting himself off. He got the shotgun back in his hands, and then led them out of the alley into the burning city, over which darkness was beginning to fall.
15
The group moved quickly through the streets, stopping only when they were a few blocks away from the burning buildings. They took shelter in the back room of an empty laundromat, rested and ate some of the food that Alice and David had taken from the apartment and rehydrated themselves with sports drinks. Wyatt and Phil took turns standing guard at the front of the laundromat while the others rested and ate. Aside from the glowing reds and oranges of the buildings on fire, there was almost no light in the city. Gas lamps could be seen burning in a number of windows, but the streets themselves were pitch black. The sounds of distant—and not-so-distant—gunfire continued to echo through the streets, as well as the odd explosion or two. No aircraft, military or civilian, was seen in the skies, and the group had still not seen any sign of law enforcement or the army.
“Where do we go from here?” Alice asked as she, Phil, and David sat around the candlelit table, eating beans and sausages they’d heated up on the portable gas stove.
“My dad’s truck is across the river, near the edge of the northern suburbs,” Phil answered. “It’ll be a long walk to get to it, four and a half, maybe five hours, depending on how quickly we can move through the streets, and how many obstacles are in our path.”
“I can’t do anything too strenuous,” Alice said. She lifted up her blouse to show Phil the dressing on her abdomen.
“What happened?” he gasped, shocked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m all right,” she said. “An explosion went off near me, and a piece of metal hit me. It was real close, and my ears are still ringing from it. I was wearing a stab-proof vest under my top, though. It saved my life. I managed to stitch up the wound myself, and I’ll be okay as long as I don’t do anything too difficult that’ll bust the stitches open. I almost thought they’d break while I was scaling down the building, but thankfully they’ve held.”
“I’m so glad you and Davey are okay,” Phil said, putting his fork down and reaching across the table to hold Alice’s hand with his right, and David’s with his left. “I don’t know what I would have done if either of you two had been hurt bad…or worse.”
“We’re all okay, and that’s what counts,” Alice said, squeezing Phil’s hand tightly.
“Thanks for coming to get us, Dad,” David said. “When those guys blew open the door, I thought it was all over.”
“I’m just thankful I got to you guys in time,” Phil said. Everyone sat in emotion-drenched silence for a few moments, each of them feeling imm
ensely grateful that they were safe and together, even if there were still a great amount of peril they still had to get through.
“What’s our next move?” Alice said. “Are you sure we should move through the city in darkness? Maybe we should just wait out the night in here and move at first light.”
Phil chewed on a spoonful of beans and shook his head. “No, we can’t wait. Things have gotten way worse, way faster than I imagined they would just over the course of a day. People have already realized that no help will be coming from the government, the cops, or the army—at least not any time soon. It’s going to make them even more desperate than they already are. After a night without food or water—which will be the reality of this situation for a lot of people—they’ll turn this place into an even worse warzone than it already is. And as scary as it’ll be moving around out there in the dark, it’ll be a lot safer for us; nobody is going to be able to see us like they would in daylight. There’ll be some dangerous people out; I know that for sure. But there’ll be way more dangerous people prowling around, looking for victims in the light tomorrow.”
“I guess you’re right,” Alice said. “I really don’t like the thought of heading out there into the pitch black, but I know that as scary as it is, yeah, it’ll be safer than moving around tomorrow during the day.”
“I’m gonna go swap places with Wyatt so he can sit down and eat,” Phil said. “After that, we need to get moving.”
“You sure you’ve had enough, honey?” Alice said. “You need to have your energy levels up if you’re gonna lead us safely out of here.”
Phil took two bananas out of his bag. “I’m good, Alice. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got plenty of energy for the trip ahead. Make sure Wyatt eats his fill when he sits down; I’ll feel better knowing that he’s working at his best too.”
“I’ll do that,” Alice said.
Phil got up, picked up his shotgun, and walked over to the door to speak to Wyatt. “Hey brother, I’ll take over the watch from here. You go sit down and eat.”
“I’ll do that.” Wyatt’s voice dropped in volume as he continued, and he glanced over his shoulder at David and Alice to check if they were listening in. “Hey, listen, I’m a little worried about something.”
“Go on.”
“Getting back across the river might be a challenge,” Wyatt said. “I don’t know who these sons of bitches are who are sowing all this chaos, but I think a lot of ‘em are a lot more organized than we think. Something about this whole thing smells like a coordinated attack. Yeah, there are plenty of opportunistic looters, like those punks who tried to rape that girl earlier, but the ones we shot outside your wife’s apartment, they looked like they were prepared and ready to attack people.”
“I hear what you’re saying, and a lot of this does feel like a terrorist attack,” Phil said. “But how does that tie in with being worried about crossing the river?”
“If this is some sort of large-scale terrorist attack and they’re doing their best to slaughter people and take over this city, they’ll have blocked off all the bridges. They won’t want people coming in, and they sure as hell won’t be letting people out. Look, it’s just a theory, and I don’t know if it’s the case; maybe those assholes were just opportunistic criminal scum, but we should consider the possibility that they’re a lot more organized.”
“I agree. Look, you go fill yourself up with some good, hot food. I’ll have a think about an alternative means of getting across the river.”
“You do that,” Wyatt said, and he headed into the room to go eat with the others.
The most obvious means of getting across the river and out of the city was the rubber dinghy but going to where they’d left it would be a far less direct route than heading straight toward the northern suburbs, adding extra miles of walking and more hours to their journey. Plus, it was a gamble; chances were high that someone else had taken the dinghy by now. If they got there and found it gone, they would have made a long and dangerous journey for nothing.
“There has to be a better, more direct way,” Phil murmured to himself, staring out at the firelit city skyline and the patches of impenetrable darkness between the areas lit by burning buildings. “A raft,” he said after a while. “Yes…a raft, that’ll do. But what materials?”
He thought about this for a while and then chuckled. The answer was simple and nearby. It wouldn’t be a rugged or glamorous raft, but it would be enough to get them from one side of the river to the other quietly and away from any bridges.
The others got up from their meal after some time and made preparations to leave.
“What’s the plan, Phil?” Wyatt asked. “You figured out how to get us across the river?”
“I have, yeah,” Phil answered. “We need to make a quick stop at that sporting goods store where you picked up that baseball bat.”
“All right,” Wyatt said. “That ain’t too far away. Let’s go.”
“You guys okay to go?” Phil said to David and Alice.
Alice drew in a deep breath. “We’re ready,” she said.
David simply nodded, trying to look more confident than he felt.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Phil said. He led them out into the pitch-black street.
Behind them, the flames from Alice’s building, which was completely engulfed by fire now, lit up the whole block. She stared sadly at it, and Phil reached over to her and gently gripped her hand. “The ranch will be okay, and that’s our home,” he said softly. “I know we’ve lost a lot today, but we’ve still got each other and our home. We just have to get back there.”
“Tread carefully,” Wyatt said. “There’s debris and broken stuff all over the place, and the last thing we need is someone with a sprained ankle or broken wrist from a fall that could have been prevented.”
“Yeah,” Phil added. “Keep your eyes open for danger but pay close attention to what’s on the ground in front of you too.”
They had to go back a block to get back to the sporting goods store, but getting there was easy enough because of the illumination from the burning building. Everyone kept their eyes peeled for danger, but the streets around here seemed completely deserted. Phil guessed that people had probably fled from the nearby buildings, fearing that the inferno would spread—which it likely would, soon enough.
“You guys wait outside,” Phil said. “I’ll just head in, grab what I need and come straight back out.”
“You don’t need any help in there?” Wyatt asked.
“I’ll be two minutes,” Phil said. “You guys keep an eye on the street and holler if you see any dangerous-looking people nearby.”
“Will do,” Wyatt said, his trusty .357 in his hand.
Phil, with his shotgun slung over his shoulder, headed into the store, which was easy enough; looters had long since smashed out the glass storefront. It was dark inside the store, but Phil took an emergency glow stick out of his backpack and activated it. He didn’t want to use the gas lamps outside in the street for fear of attracting unwanted attention, but he figured it would be okay to use them in here. The eerie green glow from the glow stick lit up the inside of the store enough for Phil to see what he was doing and where he was going.
He made a beeline for the camping section, which was near the back of the store. He got there and started hurriedly browsing the shelves for what he needed…and that was when he heard the click of a pistol hammer being cocked close behind him. Before he could whip his shotgun up, a raspy voice spoke behind him.
“Drop the gun and get down on your knees, asshole. Do exactly what I say, right now, or I’ll spray your goddamn brains all over those shelves.”
16
Phil knew he had to act fast. The man behind him, whoever he was, didn’t have any source of light himself and had presumably only been able to sneak up on him after he’d lit up the glow stick. With his heart pounding in his chest, he acted. In one movement, he flung the glow stick across the store to his left while diving to
the ground to his right. He hit the ground and rolled as darkness swallowed him, and he scrambled to get behind a shelf.
The man behind him cursed with rage but didn’t shoot. “Fuckin’ asshole!” he roared. “You think you can come in here and just steal my stuff, you dirty thief! Yeah, go ahead, you crawl around like the worm you are. I’ll find you! I can hear you over there, and I’m gonna start shootin’ in five seconds unless you throw your gun over this way!”
“I’m no thief!” Phil called out. He now had his shotgun in his hands and was crouched behind a shelf, aiming the firearm in the direction of the man, who seemed to be the owner of the store.
“What the hell are you doing in here if you ain’t a thief?!” the man demanded. “It ain’t like you were dropping in to say hi, you scumbag!”
“Okay, you’re right, I need some stuff. But I’ll pay for it, all right?” Phil answered, hoping he could negotiate his way out of this situation rather than having to shoot his way out.
“Phil, what’s going on in there?!” Wyatt yelled from outside. He’d heard the commotion and had seen the glow stick being flung across the store.
“It’s okay, Wyatt!” Phil called out. “Nothing’s wrong. There’s no problem here!” He then lowered his voice and spoke to the store owner. “We don’t have a problem here, do we? My friend outside has a .357 in one hand and a .45 in the other, and my wife and son are also armed. We don’t have to do this the hard way. I’m happy to pay for what I need.”
“If anyone inside has a gun to my friend’s head, I’m gonna make you seriously regret it!” Wyatt roared from outside.
The store owner knew he was outgunned and was no fighter anyway. “Okay, okay,” he muttered. “No guns. I won’t shoot.”
“Throw your gun down,” Phil said. “I swear I won’t rob you. I’ll pay for what I need.”
“You throw yours down, and I’ll throw mine down.”
EMP Survival In A Powerless World | Book 19 | EMP Ranch Page 8