Constant Danger (Book 1): Fight The Darkness

by Westfield, Ryan

  What had he gotten himself into?

  And, what was more, what was with this power outage, the dead cell phones, and the hissing radio? He’d left the radio on low by mistake. In the commotion, he’d tuned out the sound. Now, in the silence in the truck cab, he could hear the static clearly.

  And the static sounded ominous.

  Instinctively, as the cop strode toward him, James’s hand went to the radio dial, adjusting it without even realizing what he was doing.

  But, whatever station he tuned to, there was nothing but static.

  What was going on?

  And what was going to happen with this officer?

  7

  Meg

  “Everyone listen up!” came a man’s voice, bellowing over the crowd.

  The voice came after the gunshots. Several of them.

  The crowd had frozen. Gone completely silent.

  Apparently the gunshots had been to get everyone’s attention, to shut everyone up.

  It had worked.

  Meg’s heart was still racing. Her blood still felt icy cold as the adrenaline pumped through her. For some reason, flashes of the man who’d attacked her came rushing into her mind’s eye.

  “Who is that?” whispered the nurse nearby. She was still in the Tacoma truck cab, but she’d turned around.

  “No idea,” said Meg.

  People around her had started whispering, but no one dared to raise their voice too loud.

  Someone, from somewhere, had gotten a flashlight and switched it on. They shone the beam now, aiming it at the man who’d bellowed out.

  He was a tall man. A bit of a gut, but wide shoulders. He stood there, feet spread a little more than shoulder-width apart, with one arm high up in the air.

  A handgun was clearly visible in his hand.

  The sight didn’t scare Meg. But it did make her wish she had her gun, not to mention her permit.

  “All right,” shouted the man. “There’s been too much chaos here ... not enough order.” Slowly, as he spoke, he lowered his arm. A crowd was forming around him, gathering slowly, and someone blocked part of Meg’s view. She couldn’t see what the man was doing with the gun, which he’d used like a starter pistol.

  She had a flash of a memory, all of a sudden. Long ago, she’d heard of someone getting hit by a falling bullet on New Year’s Eve, after some midnight revelers had shot their handguns into the air on a crowded city street. After all, what went up had to come down.

  But luckily, it seemed that no one here had been struck.

  “We don’t know what’s happening,” said the man, still not identifying himself. “We don’t know if we’ve been attacked ... but what we do know is that the power is out ... and not only that, but we must have suffered some type of electromagnetic pulse attack.... all of our communication networks are down, so we don’t know if other hospitals in the area are experiencing similar problems.... we haven’t had any contact from local law enforcement yet, but we expect someone to show up shortly.”

  Meg was starting to think that the man must be some type of hospital administrator, if not the president of the whole thing.

  Maybe he could help her dad with dialysis.

  Maybe there was some kind of emergency generator that would run a dialysis machine.

  But, then again, the emergency generators weren’t powering the lights. How could they power a dialysis machine?

  Meg glanced over at the nurse, who she saw was back to attending her dad. She was doing something with a needle.

  Meg figured the nurse knew what to do and could be left on her own. So, ever so slowly, Meg started inching her way forward.

  It was tough to see and tough to maneuver through the crowd that was still gathering.

  But, Meg figured that the closer she got to this man, the closer she was to asking him for some type of special favor.

  “Now we’re doing the best we can,” the man was saying, shouting, his voice becoming hoarse. “This is a strange situation ... the strangest we’ve been in...practically none of our medical devices work except what isn’t in any way electronic, so I ask everyone to bear with us while we do our best to resolve this issue... hopefully soon we’ll have some more news.... now what I need from everyone is to help me maintain order here.... we can’t have everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off.... I ask that all nurses and medical personnel report immediately to the main hall.... we’ll be taking roll call the old-fashioned way ... with pen and paper. Now for those of you whose loved ones are in precarious situations ... rest assured that we’re doing all that we can...”

  Meg wasn’t listening now. She was just doing everything she could to try to make her way through the crowd. It had gotten very dense.

  But she kept pushing. She wasn’t giving up. Not this easily.

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” she kept saying, but her motions weren’t nearly as polite.

  She wasn’t going to trample anyone, but she wasn’t being a pushover either.

  The man had finished talking and was walking away, headed back toward the hospital.

  Various flashlights had been switched on, shining in various directions. The diffuse light from their beams provided just enough ambient light.

  The crowd seemed to be trying to organize itself. Several people seemed to have taken charge of their own accord, trying to act out the last instructions of the hospital director, the instructions that Meg herself had missed.

  “Over here. All right, sir. Over here, please. Form a line with the rest.”

  Various orders were barked. Some people obeyed them. Others didn’t. Meg didn’t pay them any attention. She had her eyes fixed on the back of the man who’d shouted.

  What was that man doing? He’d been so enthusiastic, so powerful, shooting that gun into the sky, shouting at the crowds. And now? Now he was just retreating back into his hospital.

  Why wasn’t he out there, getting everyone organized?

  It seemed that the real chaos was inside the hospital. This was just an introduction to the serious problems.

  “Sir, sir! Excuse me, sir!” Meg called out, finally catching up with him after nearly losing him to the crowds.

  He didn’t turn around. He didn’t seem to hear her.

  She grabbed at him, reaching out, seizing his arm.

  He spun around, anger on his face.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Sir, I’m sorry,” she stammered. “It’s...” she struggled to get the words out. The memories of the last hour or so were so intense ... the attack ... her dad about to die ... but she got it together. “My father needs dialysis.... can you help him?”

  “I’m sorry, lady.”

  “But, sir, can’t you help him? He’s not going to make it. He was in a bad accident.”

  “Look, lady, there’s nothing I can do. My hands are tied.”

  “But...”

  He was raising his voice now. There were others around him, tugging at his jacket, all speaking at the same time. She’d gotten to him first and he addressed her at first, but now he was addressing them all.

  “Look, I want to help you all. Believe me, I do. That’s why I got into this business. But we’ve got no power. And not only that, nothing is working. Some flashlights work but that’s about it ... even if there was a way to power the dialysis machine, there’s no way it’d work.... we don’t know what’s going on... and this goes for all the medical devices.... I’m sorry.”

  He turned brusquely, pulling away from the hands that were on him and began jogging into the hospital lobby, where he quickly disappeared into the next crowd.

  Shit.

  It hadn’t worked.

  On the way back to her truck, Meg noticed the crowds were quickly filing into lines.

  Various people, acting like strict middle school gym coaches, seemed to be enjoying shouting orders.

  What was that all going to accomplish?

  Meg had never been the type to follow orders.

&
nbsp; “Hey!”

  It was the nurse.

  The nurse that was supposed to be helping her dad. But instead of being in the Toyota, she was scurrying across the pavement, headed back to the hospital.

  Meg wasn’t having it. She reached out, seizing the nurse with both hands.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Shock and terror appeared on the nurse’s face. Then recognition appeared.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “It’s you.”

  “Yeah,” snapped Meg. “It’s me. What are you doing? I thought you were helping my...”

  “He’s awake! I revived him!”

  “You did?”

  She felt hope for the first time since the crash. She felt it in her chest, like it was a balloon that was expanding.

  But then she remembered the dialysis.

  “What about the dialysis?”

  The nurse’s face turned serious. “If I were you,” she said. “I’d try taking him over to Weston.”

  “Weston? That’s an hour away.”

  “Maybe a little more.”

  “Why can’t you do it here?”

  “Our generators aren’t even working, there’s just no way ... and you can see the chaos.... there are going to be too many in front of you.”

  “You’re telling everyone to head to Weston, aren’t you?”

  “No, I swear...”

  Meg thought about it for a moment and Weston didn’t seem like a bad idea. So long as they had power, that was.

  In the time she thought about it, the nurse had twisted out of her grip, which had grown looser, and disappeared into the crowd.

  Anxious to see her father, Meg made it back to her truck quickly.

  “Dad?”

  “Meg. So glad you’re here. Didn’t know what the hell was going on!”

  He spoke gruffly as he always did.

  It was terrific to hear his voice. It made her smile.

  “What do you remember?”

  “We were driving down the road.... you were taking me to dialysis and next thing I know some lady is sticking me in the arm with something.... she must have given me a hell of an injection, look.”

  His arm was all black and blue.

  “That doesn’t look good.”

  He shrugged it off. “It’s fine,” he said.

  She briefly explained the situation and said they needed to go to Weston.

  “Wait,” her dad said. “You’re saying that the backup generators don’t work?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “And all kinds of other things don’t work... and look, a good percentage of the cars don’t work either. They’re just dead in the road.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” said her dad. “If it was just a power outage, then...”

  “I know, I know,” she said, cutting him off. “It doesn’t make sense. But look, we’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got to get you to dialysis in Weston. We skipped the last appointment, remember?”

  “I can skip another session,” said her dad.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’d remember better than you would, wouldn’t I?”

  “I guess so, but are you sure? Sometimes you tend to let things get a little lax when it comes to your health.”

  “Right now,” said her dad. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than my dialysis. And, trust me, Weston isn’t going to be able to give me dialysis either.”

  “Why not? How do you know?”

  “Look,” he said. “All the signs point to an EMP attack.”

  “An EMP? What?”

  “Don’t you ever listen to me? Electromagnetic pulse. A strong enough pulse will destroy most electronics. Some, if they’re shielded, or perhaps by other peculiarities, might survive, but.... and vehicles, well, there’s quite a bit of disagreement when it comes to that.... I’d be surprised if your truck starts again.”

  “Starts again? It’s already on.”

  “The starter might have been fried. The engine wouldn’t cut off immediately, but it’d fail to start the next time.”

  “It stalled out after the accident,” she said, filling him in on all the details of the accident, including the attack. She didn’t want to horrify him too much however, given his weakened state, and left out the specifically terrible nature of the attack. “And it started up just fine after that.”

  “It did? Well, that’s lucky. I bet some of these other vehicles aren’t going to be so lucky.... could have something to do with their electronics systems. No idea, really.”

  “So wait, this EMP, what would have caused it?”

  “Lots of things. Foreign powers. Terrorist attacks. Natural solar flares.”

  “You know, they were saying something on the radio about some kind of attack.... do you remember it? It happened just before the crash.”

  “My memory is all foggy,” her dad said. “But here’s what I do know. All signs point to an EMP of some sort. And that means shit just got serious.”

  “Serious? What are you talking about?”

  “First thing’s first. Let’s get out of here. I’ll tell you on the drive home.”

  “But...”

  “Meg,” he said, his voice stern. “I’m serious. We don’t want to be here.”

  At first, she didn’t really know what he meant. But then she thought of the gunshots fired in the sky, of the crowds pushing and shoving her, and of the panic she’d felt being among such a large crowd.

  “All right,” she said, pushing in the clutch and shifting into reverse. “I’ll get us home. But you’re telling me on the way what’s going on.” She was getting curious. And worried.

  But the sense of dread had long since passed her. Now that her dad was awake and conscious, she felt like she had stepped back from the brink. It had been a terrifying prospect to not have him there and every minute he’d been unconscious, it had gotten more terrifying. Since her mom’s death, his loss had been something she’d dreaded for a long, long time and she was relieved she’d been spared that, for now.

  But she didn’t feel relaxed. There was something in her dad’s voice, some sort of stern urgency, that made her feel like they really did need to get out of there and that, although she didn’t quite know in what way, things were perhaps more serious than they seemed on the surface.

  Meg started to back up, letting out the clutch a little and hitting the accelerator. But, as she did so, she saw in her mirror that there was a car right behind her, blocking her in.

  “Shit,” she muttered, looking ahead to see various cars caught in her headlights.

  In her absence, more vehicles had arrived. Or perhaps the ones that had been there had repositioned themselves, crowding around her truck.

  Some of the cars were on and some weren’t. Some sat there dead and dark and silent.

  “I doubt they’ll all start,” said her dad. “This is going to be a rough one. We may have to resort to some unusual tactics.”

  “Unusual tactics? What are you talking about?”

  Whatever his answer, it was drowned out by Meg slamming on the horn.

  Hopefully, if she blew the horn loud and long enough, the car behind her would give her some space.

  If she could just back up a little, she could reposition everything so that she’d be able to squeeze by to the left of the car in front of her, whose rear bumper was right against her front bumper.

  “If they’d just give me a little space...”

  But they weren’t moving, so Meg kept leaning on the horn.

  “Enough!” her dad finally shouted, grabbing her arm with his hand.

  He began rolling down his window, exposing them once again to the bitter chill that seemed to sink right into her bones.

  “Hey!” he shouted, leaning his head out the window. “Move your car! Move it!”

  It was typical New England politeness.

  And in turn, it was responded to in typical New England fashion. The driver rolled his own window dow
n and hurled a string of curses out into the night that would have made a dozen sailors blush, as Meg’s dad used to say from time to time.

  “That jerk,” said Meg, throwing a series of her own curses, ones that she’d learned from her father, as well as her late mother.

  “Come on, Meg,” said her dad. “That’s not going to solve anything.”

  “But that’s what you’re doing!”

  “If I were feeling better, I’d get out and show them what’s what.”

  “Yeah, you keep yourself in such good shape,” she said sarcastically.

  “If it weren’t for this dialysis, I’d be out there swinging. Don’t say I don’t still have it.”

  “As Mom would say, I’m not sure you ever did.”

  That made her dad laugh. And the laughter made him cough.

  “You okay, dad?”

  “Fine,” he said, eventually recovering his voice. “I’m not joking about this being serious. It’s going to take a while to explain it all, but if we’ve really suffered some kind of EMP attack, and the signs point in that direction, then we don’t have long before things come crashing down around us. Society isn’t as stable as we’d like to think. We’ve got to get home and we’ve got to make plans.”

  Something about the tone of his voice and the evenness and calmness that he employed in order to make sure that each word was completely understood, made her take it all the more seriously. Her dad had, for a long time, talked of serious scenarios, and of course he was always discussing things like the nature of conflict, the nature of war, and the true human nature. She’d never really brushed it off entirely before, but she’d certainly never taken it seriously.

  But now?

  Now possibilities were starting to seem more real to her.

  She’d felt real danger. She’d felt it in her bones.

  She’d seen the way the relatively small crowd had behaved.

  She knew they had to get out of there. She knew it like she knew her name.

  “Hey, buddy,” she called out, lowering her own window, rolling it down as fast as she could. “Get the hell out of the way, would you?”

  “Hey, lady! Up yours! I ain’t movin’ for nobody. Who do you think you are to tell me where the hell I’m parking and where I’m not parking?”