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

by Walker, Robert J.

  Phil sucked in a deep breath and chewed on his lip for a few moments. He didn’t want to relinquish his firearm, but he decided that it would be a worthwhile show of goodwill to the store owner to do so. He tossed the shotgun in the man’s direction. When the store owner heard the gun hit the ground, he threw his own gun down.

  “All right,” the man said, somewhat nervously. “There’s it’s done, I’m unarmed. What do you want?”

  “I just need a few inflatable camping mattresses and a pump,” Phil said. “That’s all. I’ve got two hundred dollars on me, which you can take as payment. I’m sorry for coming in here like that, but…as you must have noticed, these are desperate times.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend sleeping on the street tonight,” the man said gruffly. “Why don’t you go break into a hotel room or something, at least sleep on a real bed?”

  “We don’t need them for sleeping,” Phil answered. “We’re from out of town, and we need to get across the river. I don’t want to try to cross any bridges because whoever has attacked us is probably guarding them. I’m planning to raft across a quiet spot on the mattresses.”

  The store owner sighed, and when he spoke again, he sounded like a broken man. “The whole world’s gone to hell, just in the space of one day,” he said, his voice cracking. “None of this feels real. It’s like, it’s like some insane nightmare I can’t wake up from. My wife and kid are in the upstairs apartment, scared out of their goddamn minds. So many looters have come in here and stolen things, mostly baseball bats and shit they can use as weapons, but also plenty of camping goods and stuff. I’m just scared that once they’ve cleaned out my shelves, they’ll come for my home upstairs.”

  Phil stood up; it was clear now that the danger had passed, and that there would, thankfully, be no fighting. “Do you have any light up there?” he asked. “Food, water, the essentials?”

  “I’ve taken all the camping supplies, snacks, sports drinks, and stuff from the store and kept ‘em upstairs. We’ve got gas stoves and everything up there, so I ain’t worried about that. It’s people coming to take that stuff by force I’m worried about, when they figure out we’re up there.”

  “You’ll need to make sure you barricade the entrance to your apartment well,” Phil said. “But the best thing to do is not let anyone know you’re up there. Don’t use lights at night, or if you do, make sure they can’t be seen from outside. I don’t know how long this is going to go on for, but I suspect it’ll be a long time. Weeks, months, possibly longer. I’d offer you some of our food, but it sounds like you’ve got enough of that.”

  “Thanks,” the man said. “All right, well, go get your light, figure out what you want, and then you’d best be on your way. Moving around in here with a light is gonna attract attention.”

  “I’ll do that,” Phil said. He got up and groped his way through the darkness until he got to an area illuminated by his discarded glow stick. He picked it up, headed back to the camping section, and there he finally saw the man he’d been talking to. The store owner was a middle-aged, balding man with a worry-worn face, and Phil felt quite sorry for him. He wished there was more he could do to help the man and his family but realized he was powerless to assist him in any meaningful way.

  He took three double-sized inflatable camping mattresses off the shelf, as well as a hand pump, and then took two hundred-dollar bills out of his wallet and handed them to the man.

  “Again, I’m sorry for coming in like this,” Phil said. “And I hope you and your family are able to stay safe during these difficult times.”

  The man nodded, quietly taking the money from Phil and stuffing it into his pocket. The look of fear and worry in his eyes was immense and haunting. “Thanks,” the store owner murmured. “Good luck to you and your family. I hope y’all get home safely.”

  He and Phil picked up their respective firearms, and then looked at each other for a few more moments before Phil gave him a nod and then turned and walked out. He stuffed the glow stick into his backpack and turned around to look one final time at the store owner before he stepped out into the street…but the man had already been swallowed up by the darkness.

  “What the hell happened in there?” Wyatt asked. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Phil said sadly, the haunting look on the man’s face burned into his mind. “He’s stuck in this place. I hope he and his family will be okay…but I don’t think they will be. I don’t think anyone in this city will be. Come on,” he said, as emotion welled up inside him. “We’d better move.”

  17

  The group kept to the shadows, moving fast, talking as little as they could, and avoiding any signs of life, or any areas where fires and burning buildings lit up the streets. The darkness was almost impenetrable, but their eyes soon grew accustomed to it. While visibility was by no means clear, each of them was at least able to see far enough ahead that they wouldn’t trip over obstacles or debris.

  Phil led them through the deserted streets, going on as direct a route as he could toward the main bridge that led out of the city into the northern suburbs. For the most part, the city was eerily silent, but this silence was often broken by the sound of gunfire, the odd explosion, glass and other items being smashed, as well as screams of terror and yells of aggression and violence. From somewhere on the south side of the city was the distant roar, like faraway ocean waves, of what sounded like a large crowd rioting. There certainly appeared to be a lot more fires on the south side of the city, and things seemed to grow quieter and darker the farther north they traveled, but Phil did not allow himself to slip into any sort of complacency. He knew danger could spring out from anywhere, especially when least expected, and he made sure his senses were on full alert for the entirety of the journey.

  The four of them stopped after around an hour of walking, stepping into an inky-black alley to have some snacks and water and take a quick break before moving on. After Phil and Wyatt had done a quick sweep of the alley and made sure that nobody was hiding in it, Phil finally gave the go-ahead to the others to sit down and speak. They gathered some discarded crates from the alley and sat down to rest their weary legs.

  “How much longer, Dad?” David asked. “I don’t recognize this part of the city…not that I can see much in this darkness anyway.” He reached into his pocket, almost subconsciously, and fingered his phone. Even though he knew the device would never work again, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to throw it away, and old habits were hard to break.

  “We’ve got about another forty minutes of walking before we’re at the river,” Phil said. “This is the industrial section of the city we’re heading into. Warehouses, packing plants, manufacturing workshops, auto mechanics, and other such places. I don’t expect we’ll run into too many people around here, but don’t let your guard down—that goes for all of you.”

  “Here,” Alice said, handing out snacks and sports drinks from her backpack to everyone. “We have to keep up our energy. Eat up.”

  “Thanks, honey,” Phil said, taking a chocolate bar and a pack of nuts from her. “How’s your wound feeling?”

  “The dressing’s still in place, and the stitches are holding up, so I’m good, as long as I don’t have to do anything too strenuous.”

  “Touch wood, it’ll just be a very long walk,” Phil said. “The only mildly strenuous thing we’ll have to do is raft across the river, but you and Davey can go on one mattress, and he can do the hard work, right son?”

  “Sure, Dad,” David said, trying his best to sound confident.

  “How are we gonna get these mattresses across the water?” Wyatt asked. “You didn’t pick up any paddles to go with ‘em.”

  “I didn’t want to have to lug paddles across the city,” Phil said, “seeing as we’re already carrying enough stuff. We can pick up some two by fours or discarded poles nearer the river. There are plenty of broader sections where the current isn’t particularly strong, and we don’t have to get a
cross in a perfectly straight line anyway. As long as we can get from one side of the river to the other, that’s all we need to accomplish, and some makeshift paddles will allow us to do that.”

  Before anyone else could ask any questions, a distant but very recognizable sound cut through the night—a sound that none of them had expected to hear—dirt bikes. In the gloom, all four of them stared at each other with wide eyes and expressions of surprise on their faces.

  “I thought all the cars and bikes and stuff were dead, Dad!” David exclaimed.

  “They are, son, I promise you that,” Phil said, “except for one important exception: cars and motorcycles made prior to the mid-seventies, especially those with simpler electrical mechanisms and motors, like two-stroke dirt bikes. Like your old Yamaha on the ranch.”

  “It’s still going strong,” Wyatt said to David. “I took it for a ride earlier.”

  “Is that why you insisted on keeping that old bike around instead of getting me a new one?” David asked, an expression of understanding and realization coming across his face.

  “That’s it, son,” Phil said. “And aren’t you glad you still have a working Yamaha, old seventies model that it is, instead of a new KTM or something that’s dead and will never work again?”

  “I guess I am. I won’t ever complain about the old bike again, Dad.”

  “Never mind all that,” Alice said, cutting in. She had a look of worry drawn across her face. “Who’s riding dirt bikes through this city now, in the middle of the night? And why are there so many of them? I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”

  Now that the sound was becoming louder and clearer, they could hear that there were indeed a number of dirt bikes. It sounded as if there were a whole pack of them, a dozen or even more. Worryingly, accompanying the buzzing and whining chorus of two-stroke motors was the sound of automatic gunfire, coming from approximately the same direction as the moving bikes.

  “If it were one man on a single vintage bike,” Phil said, looking grave, “I could pass it off as someone desperate looking for supplies or lost family members, but a whole gang of guys who all happen to have early seventies or sixties model bikes? Hell no. There’s something really worrying about this whole thing.”

  “Terrorists,” Wyatt grunted. “They’ve gotta be. Whoever launched this whole attack was well prepared for the aftermath. Only reason a large group of guys would have the kind of bikes that would survive an EMP attack is that they were prepared for it and planning something. And the sound of automatic weapons firing tells me that whatever they were planning sure as hell ain’t good.”

  “Come on,” Phil said, standing up. “We’d better move. Those bikers are still far away, but whatever they’re doing, we don’t want to give ‘em any opportunity to get close to us. We need to get the hell out of here as fast as possible and get across that river.”

  Everyone got up, packed their things, and got moving. Phil led them swiftly but carefully through the darkness, his senses on full alert. David and Alice followed closely behind him while Wyatt brought up the rear, watching their backs.

  They came across one or two burning warehouses and saw signs that others had been broken into and looted, but for the most part, they saw no other people, at least not close up. The gang of bikers seemed to be getting steadily closer, and the increasingly loud and clear sounds of their motors put speed into the group’s steps and got their hearts pounding with rising anxiety.

  “We’re almost there,” Phil said, doing his best to reassure everyone. “Just a few more blocks and we’ll be at the river.”

  They emerged from an alley onto a large, broad street. There were a number of abandoned vehicles on the street—like there were on all of the other city streets—but there were by no means so many that the entire street was clogged, as was the case in most of the city. These streets around the warehouse and packing districts were very wide and open to allow heavy-goods vehicles to move around. This worried Phil; if the bikers got to this section, they would be able to ride around with a lot more speed and ease than in the rest of the city, where they were no doubt having to weave between abandoned cars and ride on the sidewalks.

  Also worrying was the fact that there were a number of big-box stores in this area, which would no doubt be prime targets for raiders. Unfortunately for the group, there were no more alleys here, and to get to the river, they would have to travel along some of the larger streets for a few blocks.

  “Everyone, keep your eyes wide open,” Phil said to the others before they all stepped out onto the street. “We’re going to have to be moving around in the open here. It’s dark, yeah, but it’s still a risk. We’re going to stick to the middle of the street while we move.”

  “The middle?” Wyatt asked. “What for?”

  “Cover,” Phil answered. “We moved from car to car; they’re the only cover we’ve got here. If those bikers come along, we hide under the nearest car until they’re gone. Judging by what I can hear, there are a lot more of them than there are of us. We’re outnumbered and outgunned, if most of ‘em have automatic weapons, which it sure sounds like.”

  “Got it,” Wyatt said.

  They stepped out onto the street, wary and ready for whatever may come their way. At least two of the warehouses along the long, straight road were on fire. This was bad news for the group, not only because it indicated the presence of raiders and looters, but also because of the light the raging blazes threw onto the street. When they passed the burning warehouses, they would be fully visible to unfriendly eyes, and there was nothing they could do about it.

  “Move fast, everyone,” Phil said, setting off at a jog. “Alice, if this is too strenuous, let me know.”

  “Keep it to a slow jog, and I’ll be okay,” she said.

  They jogged along the empty street, passing empty cars as well as large eighteen-wheelers, left abandoned along with their full loads. Outside one big-box store, a group of six or seven armed men was keeping watch, and they had set up fires burning in steel oil drums all around the perimeter of their warehouse. Phil kept the abandoned vehicles between them and the armed men, who watched them pass in grim, terse silence.

  “Don’t look at ‘em, just keep moving,” Phil said in a low voice to his group. “They’re just protecting their property.”

  They hurried past the big-box store, and finally, they saw a most welcome vista, illuminated by a burning building on its edge: the river, the broad swathe of water glistening with thousands of sparkles of orange, yell and red from the nearby inferno.

  “Almost there,” Phil said. “A few hundred yards, guys. Quickly.”

  Then, however, terror flooded through their veins, driving out the surge of hope that the sight of the water had provided. Blasting out of a side street onto the street they were on, and driving a wedge between them and the river, came the biker gang.

  18

  Phil acted immediately. “Wyatt, under the truck ahead of us, David and Alice, under this SUV just behind us, move it!”

  The bikers had bright LED headlamps on their helmets. This was another indication to Phil that, whoever they were, they had been prepared for this situation—they had to have protected these headlamps in Faraday cages during the EMP strike. He briefly wondered what other technology they had protected, but he didn’t have too much time to ponder this, for the blazing white beams from their headlamps seared through the darkness, flooding the long, dark street in front of them with light.

  Phil and his group were in a patch of darkness, having gone past the oil drum fires of the big-box store, but this darkness wouldn’t remain in place for very long, for the bikers were already accelerating down the street.

  “Go, go, move, quickly!” Phil urged, helping Alice get under the large SUV they’d just passed.

  David was already under the vehicle, his heart pounding and his eyes wide.

  As soon as Alice was under the truck, Phil dashed a few yards ahead to the truck where Wyatt was hiding, k
eeping his body crouched and his head low. He discarded his backpack and dived to the ground and scrambled under the truck just as the white glow of the first of the bikers’ headlamps swept across the vehicle.

  With his heart hammering in his chest and his shotgun gripped tight in his hands, Phil lay on the street under the truck. The first of the motorcycles raced past to the right of the truck, followed quickly by the next, this one racing past the left of the vehicle. The other bikes zipped past, too, all speeding past in rapid succession. Phil and Wyatt held their breath, as did Alice and David, nobody daring to make the slightest move. All of them were praying that none of the bikers had seen them scurrying under the vehicles. As the final few bikes sped past the truck and the SUV, hope swelled within each member of the group; it seemed that they hadn’t been spotted.

  Phil heard the first of the bikes gearing down and coming to a stop near what seemed to be the big-box store and guessed that the bikers had come here to raid it. As bad as he felt for the men guarding their store, he knew that the conflict that was no doubt about to erupt would provide enough of a distraction for him and his family to slip away unnoticed by the bikers and escape.

  Whatever hope he had of remaining undiscovered, though, was dashed when the final two motorcycles skidded to a stop alongside the truck, one on each side of it.

  The bikers left the motors running and kicked out their bikes’ kickstands and dismounted. Phil stared at the closest biker’s boots, mere inches away from him, and slipped his finger onto the trigger of the shotgun, slowly and silently aiming at the man’s ankles. To Phil’s side, Wyatt was doing the same with his revolver.

  “We saw someone go under this truck,” the one biker said. “Whoever you are under there, come out, c’mon, we just wanna talk.”

  Wyatt glanced across at Phil, who met his gaze and quietly shook his head. The men remained silent.

  “Listen, assholes,” the other said, his voice gruff and harsh, “we know you’re under there. Come out now or we toss a fucking grenade under the truck.”