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

by Walker, Robert J.

  First up was Alice. Phil needed to get Doc Robertson to look her over and make sure she didn’t need a blood transfusion after all the blood she’d lost. Then he’d need to take care of all the early-morning ranch jobs that simply had to be done every day. He wondered if any of his workers would show up at the ranch to help out with any of this. Considering the events of the last twenty-four hours, he wasn’t so sure and figured that he’d have to get Wyatt and David to help him with most of it.

  Wyatt stopped the truck right alongside the front porch of the farmhouse. He helped Phil get Alice out of the truck, and she opened her eyes, looking around in bleary confusion.

  “Where are we? What’s going on?” she croaked.

  That fact that she had woken up was good, Phil thought, but he needed her to rest and get back to sleep. “Don’t worry, honey,” he said in a soothing voice, gently stroking her hair, “you’re home now, and you’re safe. I’m gonna put you to bed, and you’re gonna get some rest.”

  Phil planned on taking one of the dirt bikes and racing over to Doc Robertson’s house—which was a mere two or three miles away, thankfully—to bring him over the instant he’d put Alice to bed. When he carried her through the living room, however, he found Doc Robertson curled up on the sofa with a blanket, snoring. While whispered a silent prayer of thanks, took Alice up to the room and put her to bed, and then went downstairs and woke up the old veterinarian.

  “Boy, am I glad to see you, Phil McCabe,” Doc Robertson said, rubbing his eyes. I wasn’t sure anyone was coming back to the ranch at all, with you all being gone all night.” He lifted up the blanket, and Phil saw that the old man had been sleeping with a shotgun next to him. “Figured I’d stay here and protect the ranch, just in case,” Doc Robertson continued, patting the shotgun, and then stretching and groaning as he got up.

  “Thank you, Doc,” Phil said. “I really appreciate that. Look, Alice got herself injured pretty bad in the city. She stitched up her wound, but she lost a lot of blood. Can you look her over and make sure she’s okay and see if you think she’ll need a blood transfusion?”

  “Well, I’m just a vet, Phil, but I’ll see what I can do. Get my medical bag for me, will ya? It’s in my car. I’m parked around back.”

  Phil retrieved the medical bag, and Doc Robertson headed up to the main bedroom and checked over Alice. He made a more detailed inspection once Phil had handed him the bag. When this was done, he gave Phil a satisfied nod. “She’s weak, but not in any real danger. I’ll hook up an IV drip to keep her hydrated, but I think a blood transfusion would be overkill. With good rest and nutrition, she’ll recover in a few days. The wound’s clean, and she did a great job of dressing it. I don’t think there’s any danger of infection there either.”

  “I’m very relieved to hear that, Doc. Thank you.”

  “No problem. You look like you could use some rest yourself, Phil. I suggest you get some. Let me take care of Alice. I’ve had a good night’s sleep, and I’m full of beans now.”

  “I can’t just yet, Doc. There’s still a lot I have to take care of.”

  Phil went downstairs to the kitchen, where Wyatt had brewed up a pot of strong coffee.

  “Figured you could use some concentrated caffeine,” Wyatt grunted. “I know I sure as hell could after the shitstorm of the last twenty-four hours.”

  “Thanks, Wyatt,” Phil said, taking a cup of coffee from his faithful right-hand man. “Let’s just get through what needs to be done as quickly as efficiently as possible, and then we can hit the hay for the rest of the morning.”

  “Damn straight.”

  They went about their tasks, with David and Doc Robertson helping out, too, and managed to get everything done by mid-morning, which was impressive given how much needed to be done.

  Phil was utterly drained by the end of it, so once he’d completed the final task of the morning—leading his horses to one of the pastures to graze—he staggered into the farmhouse, his head spinning, almost on the verge of hallucinating from all the stress, exertion, and lack of sleep, and collapsed onto the large sofa in the living room. He didn’t even have the energy to get upstairs to his bedroom. The moment he laid his head on one of the cushions and closed his eyes, he drifted into a deep and restful slumber.

  It felt as if he’d only just closed his eyes when urgent hands shook him awake.

  “Dad, Dad, wake up, wake up, quick!”

  Phil groaned and opened his eyes and saw David standing over him. His son’s eyes were wide with fright, and in the background, Phil could hear people yelling, and someone crying, while someone else appeared to be moaning in agony. Despite how disoriented and weary Phil still felt, he scrambled to his feet. “What’s going on? What time is it?” he demanded.

  “You gotta come quick, Dad. Debbie’s been shot!” David exclaimed frantically.

  “Debbie? Shit, where? How?”

  “Just come, Dad, hurry!” David turned around and ran out of the house.

  Phil followed closely behind him, rubbing his eyes and trying to push the groggy fuzziness out of his weary head.

  Anthony and Debbie were a middle-aged married couple who worked on the ranch. The previous day they’d used some of Phil’s spare bicycles to get to their home, which was over ten miles from the ranch and near the closer of the two small towns. When Phil rushed out onto his porch, he saw Doc Robertson and Wyatt kneeling over Debbie, who was lying on the ground, groaning with pain, only half-conscious. Anthony was pacing up and down the length of the porch, his haggard face a mess of anxiety and worry. An old woman who Phil had never seen before was sitting on the porch steps, weeping, and a Ford truck from the late 60s, which Phil had also never seen, was parked in front of his house.

  “What’s going on here? What happened?” Phil asked, hurrying over to Doc Robertson and Debbie.

  “Dammit, I wish Alice was strong enough to help me,” Doc Robertson muttered. His blood-covered hands were pressed up against Debbie’s abdomen. Her white T-shirt was mostly dark red, clinging to her plump form and drenched with blood. “I don’t know if I can do this on my own.”

  “She’s been shot,” Wyatt said grimly. “That old lady there, she’s Debbie’s mother. She drove her and Anthony over here; it was just dumb luck that she’d insisted on driving that old Ford for all these years. The only working vehicle for miles, outside of what we’ve got on this ranch anyway.”

  Now Phil understood why the old woman was weeping so plaintively. He couldn’t imagine how awful he’d be feeling if it were David lying on the ground with a gaping gunshot wound in his abdomen. “What does she need, Doc?” he asked. “Just tell me what you need to save her, and I’ll get it.”

  “First up, I need an operating table,” Doc Robertson said. “And whatever surgical supplies y’all have. I know Alice has a lot. Get ‘em all out. Debbie’s gonna need a blood transfusion at the very least. I’ve done it plenty times on animals, but never on a person. I’m sure I can get it right, though. What blood type is she?”

  “Anthony, what blood type is Debbie?” Phil asked Anthony.

  Anthony didn’t answer; instead, he simply kept pacing up and down the porch, looking as if he’d seen a ghost. Phil wondered if he could even hear him.

  “She’s B-positive,” the old woman sobbed. “My little girl is B-positive.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Phil said, walking over to the elderly woman and sitting down next to her. He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze and smiled as reassuringly and sympathetically as he could. “Your daughter’s gonna be okay. Doc Robertson knows what he’s doing, trust me. He’s gonna take good care of your daughter. Doc!” he called out. “What blood type can she receive if she’s B positive?”

  “O-positive—” Doc Robertson began, but David cut him off right away.

  “I’m O-positive,” David said. “I’ll do it. I’ll donate my blood.”

  Phil flashed his son a broad, warm smile. He felt immensely proud of him at this moment. “That’s
my boy,” he said. “That’s the spirit, Davey! Doc, is that okay?”

  “Okay?” Doc Robertson asked. “It’s perfect! David’s young and strong, and I couldn’t ask for a better donor. But hurry, we have to get that blood in her fast. And then I’m gonna have to try to get the bullet out and stitch up the wound.”

  “Got it,” Phil said. “Will the kitchen table do?”

  “Sanitize it and put a fresh sheet over it, and it’ll be fine,” Doc Robertson said. “But you have to hurry.”

  Phil hastily delegated a number of tasks to the people around him, ensuring that a makeshift operating table could be set up as quickly as possible. While everyone got busy with what he’d told them to do, he then went to gather all the medical equipment he and Alice had accumulated and set aside for an emergency just like this, not to mention the livestock on the ranch. He went and checked on her and was relieved to see she was sleeping soundly. He wished he could get her up and take her downstairs to help out Doc Robertson, but then he’d be putting her life at risk in addition to Debbie’s.

  He grabbed as much of the medical equipment as he could carry and took it to the kitchen, where the long table had been cleared and turned into a makeshift operating table.

  “Get a camping cot or easy chair in here for David here, please,” Doc Robertson said. “He’s going to need to be comfortable while we do the transfusion.”

  “I’m on it,” Wyatt said. He went over to the living room and began dragging Phil’s favorite easy chair toward the kitchen.

  Phil, meanwhile, got a bottle of whiskey out of his liquor cabinet and poured a glass for Anthony. He needed to calm the man’s nerves before talking to him because he was worried about how and where Debbie had gotten shot and what this attack could mean for the safety of his friends and family on the ranch. He poured two shots into the glass and handed it to Anthony. “Here, buddy, this’ll make you feel a little better,” he said gently.

  Anthony downed the liquor right away, and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which Phil noticed was shaking violently.

  “You want a little more?” Phil asked.

  White-faced, Anthony nodded, so Phil poured in another two shots, which Anthony downed just as fast. After this, his hands stopped trembling so terribly, and he became visibly calmer. Phil put his arm around Anthony’s shoulder and led him outside, where they could talk in relative quiet. He only noticed now that the sun was getting low in the sky. It was already late afternoon.

  “Are you able to tell me what happened, Anthony?” Phil asked.

  “Everything was such a mess yesterday, with all the panic and craziness,” Anthony said, “and we didn’t do much after going home yesterday but hole up and read books and stuff by candlelight. We clean forgot about Debbie’s insulin for her diabetes, and only realized this morning she’d forgotten to go to the drugstore yesterday to pick up her prescription. She can’t do without the insulin, as ya know, Phil, so we had to go into town to try to get it. Well, I guess I didn’t really think things would get so crazy so quickly. I mean, sure, we saw the smoke on the horizon from the city, but we didn’t think the madness would have spread to these small towns here in the mountains. I’ve only got a nine-mil pistol at home but didn’t even think to take it into town. I keep it in my bedside drawer, and mostly just forget it’s even there. Anyway, around lunchtime, we took those bicycles you loaned us into town, praying that somehow the drugstore would be open. It wasn’t, of course. Nothing was open…but there were plenty of people in town. It was chaos. Half the stores were boarded up. A few had already had their windows and doors busted and had been looted. Debbie had to get that insulin, though, so we tried to get through the chaos. That was when these assholes held us up.”

  “Held you up? They robbed you?” Phil asked.

  “Yeah. City people, I think. I never seen ‘em in town before, and I know most faces in that town well. Guys with masks and guns—they wanted our bikes. I tried to fight ‘em off; without those bicycles, Debbie would have been trapped in town. Without her insulin and a bike, there’s no way she would have made it back home. While we were struggling, one of the bastards sh-sh-shot her.” Anthony’s voice cracked with emotion, and his lower lip started quivering. A tear rolled out of his left eye, and Phil put his hand on Anthony’s shoulder.

  “You don’t have to tell me any more,” Phil said gently. “Just one more thing, though. Did you end up getting any insulin for Debbie?”

  Anthony put his face in his hands and started weeping as he shook his head. “None, Phil, we didn’t get none at all,” he sobbed. “So even if she makes it through the surgery alive, she’s gonna die anyway. My wife is gonna die…”

  Phil wrapped his arms around Anthony and hugged him tightly. “Not on my watch, she ain’t, my friend,” he said determinedly. “Not on my watch, she ain’t.” He comforted Anthony for a while longer, and then left him and took Wyatt aside.

  “What’s going on?” Wyatt asked.

  “Load up your guns, brother,” Phil said grimly. “We have to head into town…”

  26

  “How’s she doing, Doc?” Phil asked.

  Doc Robertson had just finished sewing up Debbie’s wound. He’d successfully extracted the bullet and had completed the blood transfusion too. “She’s stable,” he said to Phil, “but without insulin, she’ll be in bad trouble real fast.”

  “Wyatt and I are about to leave for town now. Is there anything else you think we’ll need from the drugstore? You’ve seen our current store medical supplies.”

  Doc Robertson chuckled darkly. “I’d be happiest if you could bring back every damn item in that drugstore,” he said. “Lord knows how long this state of affairs is gonna last, and while you can grow plenty of food on this ranch, you can’t grow medication.”

  “I know, Doc. We’ve done our best to prepare for that, though,” Phil said.

  “I can see that, and I’m impressed!” Doc Robertson said. “Nonetheless, there are a couple of things you may not have enough of and some other stuff I think we might need in the months to come. I’ll write it all down on a list for you. Get as much of what’s on this list as you possibly can; this’ll probably be the last chance y’all will have to get medication and medical supplies…if the whole drugstore hasn’t been cleaned out already.”

  “I’ll do, that Doc. Get the list ready. Wyatt and I will be leaving in five minutes.”

  “Will do.”

  Phil headed outside to talk to Wyatt, who had stocked up with more ammunition from Phil’s bunker. Phil had also instructed him to bring out some extra equipment: tactical belts, bulletproof vests, flares, smoke grenades, and other items. He’d also brought out the modified AR-15 rifles. They no longer needed to look like ordinary, unarmed people; the time for that had passed. Stealth, however, would still need to play a major role in how they operated, and Phil was praying that they could pull this mission off without having to fire a single shot.

  “Are we taking dirt bikes or the truck, or the Humvee?” Wyatt asked.

  “None of those,” Phil answered. “We’ll go on horseback. We can move quietly through the woods on horses, stay off the roads, and get right up to the outskirts of town. It’ll be dead quiet out there without any machinery or any of the usual sounds of civilization, and the truck and the bikes will draw unnecessary attention. We wanna do this as quietly as possible.”

  “Understood,” Wyatt said. “I’ll go saddle up two horses.”

  “Great. I’ll meet you at the stables in five minutes. Throw some saddlebags on the horses too. We have to try to get as much medication and supplies as we can carry.”

  “And lights?”

  “We’ll use the same ones we took from those bikers. I’ve got a bunch of LED lights and other electronic items in a Faraday cage, but I wanna keep ‘em here on the ranch.”

  “Got it,” Wyatt grunted, stony-faced.

  Before Phil left, he went to check on Alice. She was sound asleep, and he didn’t want
to wake her; she needed as much rest as she could get. He knew he was heading into a perilous territory and didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. He kissed her softly on her cheek and lips and ran his fingers through her hair. “Sleep well, honey,” he whispered. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  She stirred in her sleep but didn’t open her eyes. Even so, Phil felt as if she knew he was there. He took one more look at her and then headed across to David’s room. David had just climbed into bed, where he was eating a big meal and drinking a tall glass of juice, on the recommendation of Doc Robertson.

  “How are you feeling, son?”

  David smiled, proud of what he’d done. His face was pale. He’d given a lot of blood, and he was exhausted from the last twenty-four hours on top of that. Even so, vitality sparkled in his eyes. “Real tired, Dad,” he said, taking a swig of juice. “But, I’m glad I got to help Debbie.”

  “And I’m real proud of you for doing that,” Phil said. “You need to get some rest now, y’hear?”

  “Sure thing, Dad. I could do with a good, long sleep.”

  “I’m sure you could,” Phil said. “Now listen, Davey, Wyatt, and I, we have to go into town to get some medication.”

  David immediately set the glass of juice down and made as if to get out of bed. Phil stepped over to him and put his hand on his son’s shoulder, keeping him in bed, and shook his head.

  “I appreciate your wanting to come with us, Davey,” he said, “but you need rest, son. Besides, I need someone to be in charge while I’m gone. Can you do that? Can you look after the place until I get back? It’s a really important job.”

  “I…yeah, I can do that, Dad.” David looked disappointed at not being able to come along, even though he desperately needed sleep. Even so, he was happy that Phil had asked him to be the man of the house in his absence.

  “Good. You get some rest. Then when you’re feeling better, you make sure everything gets done as it should, okay? You know all the jobs that need doing, so make sure the people who are here do ‘em right.”