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

by Walker, Robert J.

  “Zip tie their legs to the chairs, boy,” the old man said. “And you two, don’t try to kick my boy or headbutt him or do nothing stupid like that, coz I’ll blow your goddamn brains out if you do.”

  The younger man tucked the .45 into his belt and nervously approached Wyatt and David, picking up a bunch of thick cable-ties from the large desk in the room as he did. It was amazing how precisely he could orient himself using only sound, and he didn’t have to do much fumbling despite his disability. “Don’t try nothing,” he said, trying to sound threatening and intimidating, but failing rather miserably.

  The older man was jumpy and twitchy, and from the way he held the gun, Wyatt knew he was not familiar with firearms and was likely no fighter, but also feared that he might squeeze the trigger by mistake if he got a fright. Wyatt didn’t want to get anyone accidentally killed here—least of all himself—so he allowed the younger man to zip tie his ankles to the legs of the chair. David did so as well.

  “Done, Dad,” the young, blind man said after a bit of fumbling and feeling around.

  “Good. Let’s go get them other two. Remember the plan.”

  “Yeah.”

  The young man took out the .45, and then both of them walked out of the office and closed the door. After they’d closed it, Wyatt and David heard a key turn, after which came the sound of the click of a lock, and they realized that they’d been locked in, on top of being tied to the chairs.

  “What are we gonna do?” David asked, his voice cracking with fear.

  “Just relax, kid,” Wyatt said. “They didn’t get all of our guns.”

  “Yeah, they did!”

  “I can feel the little .32 in my boot,” Wyatt said. “They didn’t know that one was there.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” David said, his head drooping onto his chest. “We’re all tied up. You can’t even get it out.”

  Wyatt chuckled. “Gimme about twenty seconds, kid. These chumps are amateurs.” He leaned forward in the chair, clenched all of the muscles of his upper body and arms, and then raised his arms as high as they could go before bringing them down hard and fast, as if he was trying to reverse-hammer-punch his butt. He did this a few times, and on his third try, the zip tie around his wrist snapped.

  “Whoa,” David said, impressed.

  “They taught us that in the army,” Wyatt said.

  “Quick, cut me loose too!” David said.

  Wyatt hastily looked around the office. The janitor and his son had taken all their weapons, but he found a pair of large scissors easily enough. He cut the zip ties off David’s wrists and ankles but put his hand on David’s shoulder to prevent him from standing. “Hold up there, kid. You need to pretend to still be zip tied so they don’t suspect anything when they come back in. Keep these behind your back…hopefully, you won’t need to use ‘em.”

  “What are you gonna do?” David asked.

  “Wait behind the door and jam the muzzle of this .32 into the back of that janitor’s skull as soon as he steps into the room. He won’t see my chair is empty until he’s inside the room…by which time it’ll be too late for him. If you can jump up and grab the gun outta the blind kid’s hand and get those scissors pressed up against his throat, we’ll have ‘em beat. You gotta move real fast, though, okay? Real explosive. Only do it after I’ve acted, okay?”

  “Um, okay, okay, I’ll do it,” David said, doing his best to sound confident.

  “Remember, act like you’re still tied up until the time comes to act.”

  “Yeah.”

  Wyatt took the .32 ACP out of his boot, where it had been wedged since he had left the ranch, and pressed himself up against the wall to wait for the janitor’s return. After around five minutes, the janitor and his son returned, but they weren’t alone. The door opened, and Wyatt held his breath and tensed his muscles, ready to explode into action, but it wasn’t the janitor or his son who stepped into the room first. Instead, it was Phil, whose hands had been zip-tied behind his back, followed by Alice, whose wrists were also tied. Right behind them came the janitor, and behind him was his son.

  Wyatt had to change his plan a little, going for the young man instead of the janitor, but he acted swiftly and effectively, slipping out from behind the door as soon as the young man entered. In one smooth and brutally efficient maneuver, he yanked the young man’s arm behind his back, causing him to drop his gun, and pressed the .32 into the back of his skull. The young man yelped with surprise but didn’t attempt to fight back; he was too shocked and frightened.

  “What the hell?” the janitor yelled, swinging around, but before he could even attempt to fight back, David moved with the explosiveness of a mountain lion, bursting up from the chair and aiming a rapid karate kick at the janitor’s wrist. His kick hit home with perfect accuracy and vicious force, and the .357 went flying. The janitor cried out in pain and stumbled forward, but before he could reach for any of the other guns he’d taken from them, David had the scissors pressed up against the side of his neck.

  “You messed with the wrong people,” Wyatt growled, shoving the .32 more forcefully into the back of the young man’s skull. “Get your asses onto those chairs, both of you! Now!”

  There was now a complete reversal of the janitor’s attitude. He looked as if he was about to burst into tears. “Don’t hurt my boy, please, please, don’t hurt him. He’s all I got in this world,” he pleaded.

  “Sit down!” Wyatt roared.

  “Okay, okay,” the janitor whimpered.

  David kept the scissors pressed against the janitor’s neck until the man and his son had sat down.

  “Zip tie their hands and ankles,” Wyatt said to David, keeping his gun aimed at the janitor’s face as he spoke.

  David put the scissors down on the desk, took a bunch of the zip ties, and tied up the janitor and his son. Once he’d done this, he freed his mother and father from the zip ties around their wrists.

  “They ambushed us right outside the nurse’s room,” Phil said, shaking out his aching wrists. “The moment I stepped out of the door, this guy pressed a gun against my head,” he continued, pointing at the janitor.

  “Yeah, they whacked Davey and me over the head with something heavy up by the vending machine, after this kid ran past to freak us out,” Wyatt muttered, rubbing the painful bump on his head where they’d knocked him out.

  “Please, please don’t hurt us,” the janitor pleaded. “Take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt us.”

  “We’re not criminals, you idiot!” Wyatt grumbled. “I’ve been trying to explain this the whole damn time.”

  “My wife desperately needed medical attention,” Phil said to the janitor. “And she’s a trauma nurse. Show him, Alice.”

  Alice lifted up her blouse, showing the janitor the fresh dressing she’d just put on her wound after stitching it back up.

  “Well, but, uh, these two, they was breaking into the- the vending machine!” the janitor protested.

  “Look at her face, asshole,” Wyatt growled. “Can’t you see how weak she is? We still have a long walk ahead, and the only way she’s gonna get to where we’re going is with the help of some sugar and caffeine. And in case you haven’t noticed, the vending machines, like everything else electronic, are dead and will be dead pretty much forever. But here, take this if you’re so damn concerned about a few missing Red Bulls and candy bars.” He took ten dollars out of his pocket and threw it down on the table.

  “We’re going to leave now,” Phil said. “All we needed here was to get my wife’s wound stitched up and get a bit of caffeine and sugar in her to help her get to where we need to go.”

  “You can’t just, l- leave us here like this!” the janitor said.

  “Davey, get all the guns and the rest of our stuff back,” Phil said. “After that, we’ll cut you two loose.”

  David gathered all the weapons and backpacks and handed them back to their rightful owners. Once they were ready to go, Phil gave David the go-ahead to
cut the janitor and his son free. Phil, Alice, and Wyatt kept their guns trained on the men the whole time, and David stepped quickly away from them once he’d cut them free, wary of them trying to grab him and reverse the situation. He didn’t need to be too cautious, though; the janitor and his son had had all the fight taken out of them.

  “We’re gonna go bust that lock off the vending machine now,” Wyatt growled, “and you two are gonna come with us, so I can make sure you don’t try any other shit.”

  “You don’t need to break into it,” the janitor said. “I’ve got the keys. I’ll open it up for you.” He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a huge bundle of keys.

  “Thank you. We’d appreciate that,” Phil said. “No hard feelings, right?”

  The janitor nodded reluctantly. “No hard feelings.”

  Phil nodded to the others; they could lower their guns now. He could see that the janitor was a broken, defeated man, and would not try anything else. His son was looking glum and defeated too.

  They headed back up to the vending machine, and the janitor opened it up for them. Alice downed a Red Bull on the spot and ate a candy bar, and immediately felt a boost of energy invigorating her. “We’d better move fast,” she said to Phil. “When this temporary boost wears off, I’m gonna crash hard.”

  “I’ll let you out the back door,” the janitor said.

  “Thank you, friend,” Phil said gently.

  Wyatt scowled, rubbing the bump on his head, but said nothing. The janitor and his son, looking sheepish, led them through the school and let them out of the back door.

  “Good luck,” the janitor said to them as they left. “I hope you make it to where you’re trying to go.”

  “Good luck to you, too,” Phil said. “In the days ahead, you’re gonna need it, believe me.”

  24

  The walk to the truck, half through the quieter backroads of the northern suburbs and half through the woods, was mostly uneventful, for which all the members of the group were grateful. Alice’s stitches held, and although the temporary energy boost from the sugar and caffeine started wearing off quite rapidly once they got into the woods, it was enough to get her to the truck.

  Phil, Wyatt, and David got to work getting the branches and foliage off the truck while Alice rested. She was crashing hard and knew that she would pass out any second. Still, she didn’t believe her life was in danger. She’d need a lot of rest and good-quality nutrition over the next few days, but as long as she was able to get these things, she was sure she’d be fine.

  “We’re ready to go, honey,” Phil said to her. “Come on. We’re about to start the truck. You ride up front with Wyatt and me, Davey can go in the back.”

  Alice nodded and mumbled a barely intelligible reply. She couldn’t get up, so Phil helped her and carried her over to the truck. He got her into the passenger seat, tightened the seatbelt around her so she wouldn’t be jostled around too much while the truck was moving. He then squeezed between her and Wyatt, who was in the driver’s seat again, while David climbed into the bed of the truck. David rapped on the back window, signaling that he was ready to go.

  “Take it easy on the way back,” Phil said to Wyatt. “We’re in much less of a rush now. Obviously, we want to get back before the sky starts getting light, but there’s no need for any of that rally-style driving, buddy.”

  Wyatt flashed him a grin in the dark. “Don’t worry. I’ll make this ride real smooth. It’ll be like gliding on air, brother!”

  They both chuckled, feeling a lot better now that they were all in the truck. Everything they’d been through felt like some sort of horrendous nightmare they’d just woken up from…but both of them knew that it wasn’t over yet, not until the truck was back at the ranch and the gates locked behind them.

  Wyatt kept up a brisk pace but was by no means racing. They got to the river without incident, but Wyatt stopped at the water’s edge. Crossing the water would be a lot more difficult in the dark, but there was another problem too.

  “We’ve got over two hundred pounds of extra weight with your wife and son,” Wyatt said. “And the truck was barely able to get across the river with just you and me in it. We’re not gonna make it fully loaded.”

  “That’s okay,” Phil said. “We’ve still got those air mattresses we took from the sporting goods store. Davey and I will get across on those. And if push comes to shove, he and I could swim across, but that’ll make for a freezing ride back if we’re soaked to the bone in icy water.”

  “All right,” Wyatt said. “With just Alice in here with me, the truck’ll be lighter than when you and I crossed, so we should make it without any problems.”

  “There’s some rope in the back,” Phil said. “I’ll get the mattresses inflated, and tie ‘em to the back of the truck, so you can pull us across.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Phil jumped out and told David about his plan. They got the air mattresses out and inflated them, and then Phil tied both of them up to the rear of the truck. “All right, son,” he said to David, “just try to stay on top of the mattress. I’m sure you don’t wanna ride the rest of the way back dripping wet and freezing cold, right?”

  “Hell no,” David said, staring warily at the rushing black water.

  “Lie on your stomach and spread out like a starfish so you can distribute your weight as evenly as possible across the mattress,” Phil said. “Wyatt will cross the river real slow, so I think we’ll be okay on the mattresses, they won’t flip or anything as long as we keep our weight properly distributed.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  When the mattresses were inflated and securely tied to the truck, Phil gave Wyatt the go-ahead to enter the river. He drove in cautiously, dragging the mattresses over the rocks until they were both floating in the shallows. When the mattresses were afloat, Phil called out to Wyatt to stop. Wyatt waited until Phil and David were safely on the mattresses, and then he set off, driving slowly and cautiously across the river.

  The water level had dropped a little, and this, combined with the fact that the truck was lighter, made Wyatt’s second crossing of the river easier than the first. Phil and David, spread-eagled on the air mattresses, were pulled gently across, and while a few small waves from the rushing current splashed over the edges of the mattresses, the two of them were mostly dry by the time they got to the other side.

  “What should we do with the mattresses, dad?” David asked when he was on the riverbank.

  “Let’s keep ‘em, son. I told my workers that if anyone needed to come and stay at the ranch, they could, so we might have more guests than we have beds for in the coming days and weeks. These’ll come in handy, I think. Deflate yours and toss it into the truck.”

  While they were deflating their mattresses, David finally got the chance, after everything they’d been through since the EMP attack, to ask his father some of the questions that had been troubling him since that fateful moment. “Dad, what’s gonna happen now?”

  “Well, we’re gonna go back to the ranch, make sure your mother is okay, and then get some well-earned sleep.”

  “No, I mean…in the future. I’m talking about everything, our whole lives. Nothing’s ever gonna be like it was before, is it? The world’s changed, like, completely and irreversibly, hasn’t it?”

  Phil sighed. “It has, son. But I don’t know if this is a statewide thing, a countrywide problem, or even an international one. For all we know, this could be a small, localized event just affecting this state, or only this county. Then again, this could be the start of World War Three…or the end of it; it may have lasted all of two minutes. I wish I could give you clearer answers, Davey, but for the moment, I really can’t.”

  “Will we be okay on the ranch?”

  Phil smiled reassuringly and leaned over to ruffle David’s hair as if he were still a little boy. “We’ll be just fine, son. You know how well-prepared your mother and I are, and how we’ve been putting together contingency plans for som
ething just like this for years. Remember, when our ancestors came to this land hundreds of years ago, they survived just fine without electricity, motor vehicles, oil, running water, computers, all that stuff. Now on the ranch, even with all the electronic stuff that’s dead forever, we’ve still got way more advanced stuff than our pioneer ancestors had. And you know how hard I’ve worked all these years to make the ranch completely self-sustaining. We’ve got purified water from the river, plenty of food, livestock, guns, and ammo in case of trouble…we’ll be just fine.”

  David nodded, seemingly satisfied with this answer, and continued deflating his mattress. After he’d packed it into the truck, though, he looked up at Phil and asked him one more question. “Will I ever get to go to school again?”

  Phil smiled sadly; he’d loved his own school days, and he could feel his son’s pain and worry over the prospect of never being able to experience those life-defining moments like graduation, senior prom, and everything else David would be missing out on now that normalcy had been yanked like a rug from under their feet. “I don’t know son, I’m sorry, but I really don’t. I hope you’ll be able to…but I just don’t know. Come on, let’s get moving, we need to get home. Try not to think too much about that stuff.”

  Phil climbed into the front of the truck, where Wyatt, stoic and grim, was waiting behind the wheel and Alice was passed out. David climbed into the bed of the truck. They headed off into the night, each silently lost in their own troubled thoughts and worries about the dark and uncertain future.

  25

  When Wyatt finally pulled up to the familiar main gate of the ranch, the sky was growing light on the eastern horizon with the coming dawn. Having been awake for almost twenty-four hours now, and with much of that time having been spent in situations of extreme stress and danger, everyone in the truck was beyond exhausted. There was nothing they wanted to do more than dive onto the nearest bed and fall asleep, but Phil knew he had to take care of a few things first.